Yesterday morning, we awoke to a day when winds and storms had swept through the country and we hoped that the storms had well passed over the Midlands before we were due to go down into the town. We did pay a by now traditional visit to ‘The Lemon Tree‘ cafe and enjoyed a bacon butty but our friend who joined us last week, we passed on a level crossing whilst she was dashing off in the opposite direction, but we shall see her tomorrow in any case. As the cafe is quite near the AgeUk furniture and charity store, we could not resist a quick whizz around and liberated a couple of really fine looking little cushions in a kind of silvery bluey-grey colour and decorated with a good frill. I am not sure whether this colour is described as best described as ‘Eau de Nile’ and I have a seen a description of it as a lightish caste of green, blue and grey. Anyway, I like the subtlety of the colour and I use them in pairs when I can. As I am buying them, the assistant who works in the store exclaimed what beautiful cushions they were and what good value they were when sold in their store (with both of which judgements I agree) I also espied a throw in just the kind of shade I was looking for so this too became a purchase making it a productive morning for us. I popped by another recently opened charity shop and they had a collection of soft toys from which I selected a couple of small cuddly bears to add to Meg’s collection. The naming of bears always calls for a bit of imagination but the larger one we are going to call ‘Franky’ as there is an attached label saying the bear is a ‘Franklin T Bear’ made for American Airlines and presumably given away to their youngest passengers. The second bear we are going to call ‘Pru’ as there is a fair possibility that the bear is a cousin of Paddington Bear who, as we all know by now, hails from ‘darkest Peru’ and ‘Peru’ is quickly corrupted to ‘Pru’. We then returned home in time for the carers to give Meg a check over and then got on with cooking the Friday lunch of a bought haddock pie.

Quite by accident, I came across on my iPhone a clip of Michelle Obama’s conference speech to the Democrats convention in Chicago. If you were of a cynical frame of mind, you could say that the speech was all ‘motherhood and apple pie’ but I was very impressed by its content, delivery and emotional appeal. In truth, the speech was as much about herself as it was about Kerala Harris but a principal theme was the impact of both their (black) mothers in giving them an enduring set of values. This was an interesting way to underline the collectivism inherent in the Democratic message rather than the rampant individualism which pervades the speeches of Donald Trump. Michelle Obama does not regard herself as a politician but there is an irony in the fact that she easily made the best and most compelling speech in a political convention, even outshining the oratorical gifts of her husband. The speech is quite easily findable on the web so I will treat myself to a more extended listening of it – it contained some interesting lines that would well have merited an airing on UK terrestrial TV but instead the media has been obsessed for hours and hours with the seven rich folk who have lost their lives after the overwhelming of their luxury yacht near Sicily.

I suspect that I am not alone in keeping a watchful eye on my weight these days and if I have put on a couple of pounds, then I attempt to take some remedial action in the next few days to remedy the situation. Although it is a somewhat discredited measure these days, it is still common in any medical monitoring to measure one’s BMI or Body Mass Index. This is calculated by dividing one’s weight in kilograms by your height measured in metres squared. The resultant figure should fall within the range of 20-25 but the crudeness of this measure is often the subject of comment. If we were to take a Turkish weight lifter who has a very small stature but is a mass of quite heavy muscle then an extremely healthy Olympic athlete, for example, could have BMI in excess of 30. Conversely, when I used to get some of the students that I used to teach to calculate their BMIs as a computing/statistical exercise, then some of the very slight Asian female students who were absolutely healthy could have a BMI of 18. Now why I am mentioning this is because the other day when I went for a routine medical monitoring, the nursing assistant measured my height as well as my weight and since the last time I attempted to measure my height about a year, I seem to have lost about 2″.Incidentally, measuring your own height can be quite difficult as you are a different height standing up compared with lying down. When you are standing up, each of the 33 vertebrae in your spine will compress a minute amount but there could be a difference of 0.5″ or so. Now in the biological and social sciences, data often takes the shape of an ‘S’ shaped curve i.e. a straight line in the middle but which ‘flattens’ a little at the bottom end and the top end. Students of statistics will know that you should not make projections for any distance which is much below or above the trend line you may have plotted. But I am going to break this principle just to show the absurd conclusions to which it is possible to arrive. I have calculated that if I continue to lose height at the rate of 2 inches per year, then when I am aged 90+, I will basically be 1 metre in height which is approximately the size of a hobbitt. According to Tolkien’s descriptions, the average height of a Hobbit ranges from 2 to 4 feet tall (60-120 cm), with most hobbits standing around 3 to 3.5 feet tall (90-107 cm). So at just over 1 metre (100 cm) in height, I will certainly be in the ‘hobbit’ height range and I am not sure that this a future to which I am particularly looking forward. Consulting the web, I see that men, on average, lose 1.2 inches between ages 30 and 70, and a total of two inches by 80. So by subtraction, most men lose 0.8″ during their 70’s and it is a biological fact that height loss accelerates as you age.

Today, we anticipate paying a visit to our new found little cafe, ‘The Lemon Tree‘ despite the fact that local roadworks are making a visit to it a little awkward. Although it does involve a somewhat longer venture out than is our usual trip, it does have the advantage of a trip down our local High Street where we can pop into the occasional charity shop and/or buy things such as cosmetics which are not available in our local supermarket. The centre of the town is being remodelled yet again and goodness knows what is going to emerge at the end of the day. I suspect that some of the money coming to pay for improvements is part of the ‘levelling up’ process which was a policy of the outgoing Conservative administration. I think that quite a lot of money was channeled towards traditionally Conservative areas to help to keep them loyal. But one of the local roads through the town has been made one-way whilst various schemes are under way and there is quite a degree of scepticism that anything really tangible is to result. According to the local newspaper, workers will begin upgrading the paving, planting trees, installing cycle racks and benches and improving the drainage. This hardly sounds like dramatic improvements to the town centre which seems to be dominated by charity shops, coffee outlets and vape shops without very many of the traditional businesses one would want to see in a town centre. I am pretty sure that Bromsgrove town centre is not unique in the paucity of shops that it currently boasts and the prevalence of large outdoor retail parks as well as the prevalence of online shopping does nothing in particular to help the town centre. Some of the long established residents of Bromsgrove fondly remember the days when there used to be quality retail outlets in the town but it does not surprise me that many of the existing shops find it difficult to keep going. The one thing that does help to bring a bit of excitement to the shopping experience are the street markets that are held each Tuesday and Saturday – for example, I have traditionally used one stall which used to do quite a brisk trade in watches, watch batteries, and handbags and other stalls sell some interesting food products. But even here the stalls are not what they used to be. I used to use one stall that sold a whole range and variety of hardware and gardening implements and from another, there was always a good range of plants sold but these stall holders have moved off to other pitches such as Kidderminster down the road where I suspect that the weekly rents for the stalls are lower and the footfall more substantial. It must be a sign of the times but there always seems quite a brisk trade in the charity shops and I must confess that I frequent them myself where in the past I have bought cushions and the occasional kitchen bric-a-brac. But this does seem to be a fragile base for the local economy and I sometimes do wonder how much income goes across the tills on a typical weekday for many of the shops. Having said that, I am conscious of what are called ‘biased statistics’ because on Saturdays there always seems to be a flood of local people walking the High Street but as I tend to avoid the town centre on these busy days, I am probably not getting an accurate impression of the level of economic activity in the town. But shops cannot survive on their Saturday trade alone and it is hard to know what the local authority can do to stimulate more actual trade within the town.

There is the usual media interest in US presidential politics as the Democrats are meeting for their convention in Chicago (always a Democrat stronghold). Apparently one ‘Obama’ made an absolutely stunning and empowering speech at the Convention but it was not the speech from the lips of Barack Obama, the former president but his wife, Michelle. The convention was set alive and inspired by the speech that encouraged the Democrats to rekindle their hopes for a better future. There is almost no doubt that if Michelle Obama had ever been in a competition with Trump she would beaten him very easily. But even though her endorsement of Kamala Harris came somewhat late in the day, no doubt there was a lot of crude political realpolitik in recognising that a split Democratic party was no way to take on the challenge of Trump and Trumpism. One wonders what future political role might lie in store for Michelle Obama given her undoubted intellectual and political gifts. There are such jobs such as Ambassador to the United Nations or even to London as a suitable post but I am sure she is absolutely focused on getting Kamala Harris elected. Weever she visited London, Michelle Obama would make for schools generally in the East end of London with a high black population and inspired the school pupils with the message that she started off life coming from a poor black area of Chicago and there was nothing to stop them from aiming equally high. Tonight, we shall see the much anticipated keynote of Kamala Harris herself and no doubt this will be much scrutinised as I think it is fair to say that the Democrats campaign has been ‘policy light’ so far. The latest opinion polls out her about 3% ahead of Trump but a key portion of the electorate, the white working class male with minimal college education, naturally gravitate towards Trump and will take a fair bit of convincing before they will vote for a mixed heritage, female candidate.

In this country, all eyes at the moment are fixed upon Rachel Reeves, the first female Chancellor of the Exchequer who will be presenting a budget in October. Many have argued that the UK’s finances are not in a good state but the most recent data is giving rather mixed messages as economic growth seems a smidgeon higher than was predicted but the anticipated tax revenues somewhat less. Reeves may well do what George Osborne did and introduce a regime of tax rises, blaming it all on her predecessor. On the other hand, she may be playing a more skilful political game by making the population fear that tremendous economic pain is on the way but, having softened up the public, produce a budget which is not quite so painful after all.

Yesterday was the day when our domestic help calls around. As Meg had not been out for a trip to Waitrose the day before and will probably not do so on our shopping day on Thursday, we took the opportunity to visit Waitrose for our elevenses even though we did not anticipate meeting any of our friends. But we did take the opportunity to get some much needed provisions of which we had run out before we do the main shopping later on in the week. In the mid afternoon, we received a visit of a nurse from our local community hospital who act as an organising hub for our GP practice. The nurse’s visit appears to have been activated by the Admiral (specialist) nurse and she had called around to ensure that Meg had all of the necessary requisites to keep her comfortable. Naturally I had to update her regarding the possibility of a hospital ‘floor’ bed which might be arriving in a few days and she was going to make some recommendations of supplies (creams and the like) to keep Meg comfortable and, hopefully, to keep her asleep at night.

When I consulted my iPhone this morning, the BBC were giving prominence to an article written by an expert they had commissioned and the article was entitled ‘Riots show how the UK’s far right has changed’ The article is long, complex and detailed but the gist of it is as follows: ‘Right wing extremism can be thought of as a spectrum, rather than a coherent whole. It includes genocidal neo-Nazis treated as terrorists by the state… but the term is also used to describe people who stand in democratic elections, engage in public campaigns and put forward policy platforms’ The author of the article suggests that the term ‘extreme right’ should be used for the first group and ‘far right’ for the latter. To complicate this mosaic even further, some of the rioters were simply drunk whilst others were rampant opportunists who engaged in the fact that under the guise of the riot some shops could be looted. The article concludes with the observation that ‘far right narratives are now more mainstream than many would like to think. Is there now a far right culture that is more prevalent in society and which transcends the need to organise in political groups?’ The response from the government and the rest of us in what might be termed mainstream culture is not necessarily a simple one. I happen to believe that almost instant arrest, trial and fairly stiff fines and prison sentences was probably the right response in the short term and helped to quell what could have turned out to be a summer of rioting. On the other hand, we need a more measured analysis of the problem (which the article provides) and therefore more considered solutions. Without attempting to be too simplistic, i think there are two observations that are in order at this point. The first is that a succession of right wing governments that have constantly tacked to the right of the political spectrum which has helped to foster a climate in which such far right movements have grown in strength and influence. As a case in point, I used to have fairly neutral attitudes towards Teresa May when she turned out to be one of our longest serving Home Secretaries before she herself became Prime Minister. Whilst at the Home Office, a report had been commissioned on the economic costs and benefits of long run immigration into the UK. May sent the report back to its authors indicating to them that any reference to economic benefits should be discounted, minimised or removed leaving only the material on costs. There is a very powerful argument that whatever the short term costs of immigration, because migrants tend to be young and healthy they tend to contribute more in the taxes that they pay than they receive back in benefits than the indigenous population largely because the costs of old age such as old age pensions and health benefits are not immediately needed. The argument can therefore be made that migrants therefore subsidise the rest of the population at least for a few decades to come but needless to say this argument is rarely heard and does not see the light of day. Another important observation is that with the prevalence of social media, there is no need for far right political groups to mobilise and indeed incite the population. Instead, we can rely on social media particularly ‘X’ (the successor to Twitter) whose owner Elon Musk to argue that the UK is heading for an inevitable civil war and who will not take resolute and immediate action to remove fake and erroneous reports to circulate. One could argue that right wing governments have helped to create the climate of opinion into which mix the impact of social media provides ‘the spark’ as it were. A very old political expression is that ‘a lie gets half way around the world before truth has had a chance to put its boots again’. So one could argue that governments themselves, although they cannot censor social media, can actively engage in a far more direct rebuttal of evidently fake reports. For example, they could constantly reiterate the message that ‘complex problems need even more complex (and well thought through) solutions’ rather than engaging in the simplistic messages such as ‘Stop the Boats’ which fitted the right wing agenda.

Interesting news that has emerged from the other side of ‘the pond’. Donald Trump’s former White House press secretary took the stage at the Democratic National Convention Tuesday night and shared the brutal one-word message from Melania in the wake of the January 6 insurrection that caused her to quit and she is one of several Republican figures invited to the convention in Chicago to denounce the extremism of the former president and his campaign. On Tuesday night, as she endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris for president, Grisham shared the brief text exchange, which finally convinced her to leave the post. She had apparently received a word one text from Melania, ex-President’s wife, indicating that ‘while peaceful protest is the right of every American, there’s no place for lawlessness or violence’ and that she, Melania, could not endorse that action. On the face of it, this sounds quite a dramatic coup for the Democrats to persuade prominent ex-Republicans to repudiate the Trump’s actions but of course it will cut no ice with the dedicated, not to say fanatical supporters of the ex-President. I wonder how much of this will be reported on this side of the Atlantic?

Yesterday I attended our local GP’s surgery for a planned routine health monitoring appointment. I knew the nursing assistant from my dealings with her in years gone by and a range of tests were undertaken (blood samples and the like) for which the results will be available next week. Today I had needed to arrange for a special ‘sit’ session to care for Meg whilst I attended the surgery and would normally have needed to attend next week for the results. However, the nursing assistant indicated I could have these results over the phone which option I actually chose as it will help to make life a little easier for us next week. As lunchtime would have been somewhat delayed, I changed plans and cooked a quicker lunch and was quite surprised by how tasty it turned out to be even though it was odds and ends left over from the weekend joint. After we had lunched, the weather seemed to have improved considerably over this morning so we decided to have a quick walk down into the park. This was quite beneficial for the two of us in terms of getting some good fresh air into our lungs but at that time in the afternoon, there were none of the usual park friends or acquaintances with whom it would have been nice for a chat. When the care worker called in the late afternoon for Meg’s comfort call, as I know him pretty well by now I asked him to give me an estimate in round terms of how many of his clients tend to get out and about (as Meg and I do) and how many are confined to their own homes. After some thought, the care worker thought that only about 40% of the people for whom he cared managed to get out of the house (where they were capable of it) and to enjoy some of the walks to which Meg and I have become accustomed. It might be the case that Meg sleeps a bit more soundly if she had a walk in the afternoon but this is only the slightest of impressions at this stage. In the middle of the day we received a phone call from the OT (Occupational Therapist) who had called around last week and she needed to check some of the access arrangements if a new hospital-style ‘floor bed’ is to be delivered. We conjecture that this might mean that the request for a floor bed has been granted but neither of us are certain of this at this stage.

After viewing some ‘vox pop’ with some American voters, my interest has been rekindled into why there seems to be such a resurgence in populist and extreme right wing leaders (Farage in the UK, Modi in India, Erdogan in Turkey and evidently Trump in the USA) and it did not take me too long to find an interesting piece of research published in the Harvard Business Review, which was written mainly from a social psychological perspective. The authors argue that there are two paths to leadership which they term the dominance model (assertive, controlling, dominating and intimidating) and the prestige model (individuals who are respected, admired and held in high esteem) We could almost think of this as ‘traditional patrician Conservative’ (Macmillan) versus the populist (Johnson, Farage). The gist of the article is that dominant leaders achieve their appeal when the socioeconomic environment is riddled with uncertainty and people experience a lack of personal control, The argument is supported by three empirical studies, two of which relate to the US (with sample sizes of 700 and 1400) and the final one derived from the World Attitudes Survey (with a sample size of 138,000) These findings are hardly new as the roots of fascism are well known to be associated with deep economic uncertainties. Although I found the argument appealing, I also thought that it was somewhat simplistic and was in need of some refinement. I would point out that in today’s society, the role of social media cannot be ignored and in particular the techniques deployed by the extreme right to offer simplistic solutions to complex problems. We are finding this in the British political scene and, in particular the way in which connection is made with the voting public by extremely simplistic three word slogans (‘Get Brexit Done’ ‘Stop the Boats’) Perhaps it goes without saying that I personally feel that the answer to complex problems must needs be complex and not the reduction to a simplistic three word slogan.

In the American Democratic Congress, Joe Biden is handing over the reins to the next generation in the form of Kamala Harris. I heard one pithy American commentator explain ‘now we can move onto real policies and not talking about Biden’s age and Trump’s dementia’) What will be interesting is to ascertain what degree of ‘political bounce’ Kamala Harris will receive in the polls after a few days of generally favourable TV and press coverage. I suspect that one of the keys in the American presidential election will be the attitudes taken to abortion. In the USA, state after state has made access to abortion progressively much more difficult and practically impossible in some states. There is a particular irony in all of this in that the American right who are responsible for much of the shift in abortion policies across the USA are generally committed to reducing the role of government in the private lives of citizens except in the case of abortion where in effect the power of the state to dictate the outcome of women’s lives is increasing. In the meanwhile, Trump is engaging in even more bizarre personal attacks (‘I am better looking than she is’ being one of the latest outbursts)

In general, I only scan the business pages of the newspapers with hardly much attention but one issue caught my attention. Apparently two of our supermarket chains (Asda, Morrisons) are in deep trouble recently and the root cause appears to be in the role of private equity firms who have increased their stake in these two firms. As a result, customers are being asked to pay the price for the fact that the private equity firms are extracting massive profits from what they perceive to be cash cows. I am undoubtedly over simplifying the nature of the economic analysis here but we have seen the role of private equity firms before in our High Streets (for example Boots the Chemist) and I try to make my own little protest about this by not shopping in Boots if I have the choice.

Last night, Meg and I had a much better night’s sleep which was very welcome to us both after the disturbed night’s sleep that we had the night before. Today is going to be a departure from our normal Tuesday routine as I have to attend an annual medical monitoring in my local doctor’s surgery. I have had to arrange with the care agency that the normal ‘sit’ arrangement we have with Meg on a Tuesday be advanced so that I can keep my appointment. The same thing will have to be done next week when there is a follow up appointment to discuss the results. Today is rather a wet and miserable day so I am not too unhappy that we are having to change the normal rhythm of our routine. But if the weather brightens up this afternoon, there is always the park to which I can take us both so that we have a breath of fresh air in our lungs.

After the reminiscences of my childhood, I started to think about some of the activities that engaged me when I was aged about 9-11. The family had moved to a very small village in Yorkshire outside Harrogate and the village as a whole was only 200+ souls so naturally all of the children knew each other. One activity which we did together was the construction of what we called go-carts (the American version is go-Kart and was motorised) This venture was started off by going to the local municipal tip which in those days anyone could wander around. The essential component was a discarded pram from which one could wrench off the wheels, preferably with the axle intact. Once having got these home, construction could start in earnest. One started off with planks of wood that were somewhere nailed or screwed together and then one longer and narrower projected piece rather like the vertical part of a ‘T’ Onto this we affixed a cross-bar onto which were screwed one set of wheels and evidently this had to be steerable. From somewhere we acquired a bolt which had to affix the cross member to the chassis but where young boys with access to only the most rudimentary of hand tools could make a hole large enough to receive the bolt. The other village boys taught me the skills and this is what we did. First a nail was hammered in slightly and then removed – into the hole left by the nail we screwed in a small screw to be replaced by a somewhat larger one. Eventually the hole was made the right size by making the poker used to poke the coal fire red hot (this was 1955!) and then running downstairs with it to plunge it into the hole in the cross member to make it the right size. To the cross member, one attached some stout string (in fact, in the fields of a rural community one often found baling twine) and this provided the steering mechanism. If you were really fortunate in finding a fifth wheel, this could always be utilised as a real steering wheel with the twine wrapped around the wheel and held in place by a tyre. Almost finally, one persuaded one’s mother to let you have some spare remnants of carpet and this was then tacked into place to provide a degree of comfort and to save one from splinters in the wood. As a final finishing touch, in the Yorkshire village we used to visit the yard of the village pub and find some discarded crown corks that could then be tacked into place to provide for a degree of decoration. To drive one’s go-cart, one generally knelt on it using the spare leg to kick the card into motion and then finally lie flat on it, particularly if one was fortunate enough to have a degree of slope in one’s local road down which you could travel. Brakes were generally frowned upon but of course the toes of shoes often served this purpose. One achieved a degree of street credibility if having whooshed down the slope of one’s local road or pavement there was a natural ginnel or opening in which one could steer one’s craft. As I remember it, girls and younger children were allowed to sit on the go-cart as passengers but they were not generally involved in the construction process ‘per se’ Naturally, one was always falling off and crashes were frequent so there were always running repairs to be undertaken. Having had this experience when I was young, when my son was of the appropriate age and living in Leicestershire, I built a go-cart for my son built upon the tried and tested principles. The other lads and dads in the immediate vicinity thought this was a great idea so I had inadvertently started a trend. The fathers generally looked on indulgently and evidently lent their sons some hand tools (it was the age before electric screwdrivers and the like) and they generally let their sons get on with their construction jobs, probably quite happy for them to learn construction skills on their own and to teach and occasionally help each other. In case my recollections seem excessively romantic, I did go on the internet to see how far my recollections were rooted in reality. Everything I remembered was documented on the web and I think that the go-cart construction thing was a 1950’s-1960’s thing as there was less traffic on the roads/pavements, pram wheels were easier to come by and the commercial ethic of the 1970’s and 1980’s had yet to take a hold. Incidentally, what I have termed ‘go-carts’ were known by the local name of ‘trollies’ in Leicestershire and my welsh neighbour with whom I discussed this subject at one time called them ‘gambos’ which I have found out is the traditional Welsh word for a farm cart.

Ukraine has put Vladimir Putin ‘into a position he never dreamt in his worst nightmares’, former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind has told Sky News. But there is a report in the news media that the Russians were totally unprepared for the Ukrainian counter offensive and the elite Ukrainian troops were met by conscripts whose officers just ran away. This last sentiment has more than a hint of Western propaganda about it but there is probably a germ of truth in it. The move by Ukraine was a massive gamble and very risky but seems to have paid off not least in the propaganda war. The story is told in the early days of the war that the Ukrainians took their young captive conscript soldiers into custody, gave each of them a cheap mobile phone and told them to phone their mothers to tell the truth about where they were and what they were doing. This was an excellent propaganda move at the time given the misinformation that the Russian authorities were feeding their population.

Yesterday afternoon after we had lunched on ham, baked potato and some fine beans, Meg and I set ourselves to watch for probably the third time ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’ which is both a love story and a war film of which we never tire. There are superb performances by the Spanish actress, Penelope Cruz as well as Nicholas Cage who plays Captain Corelli and John Hurt as the world weary but sagacious doctor village doctor. After we had enjoyed this film, we went into the back garden for about 20-30 minutes and was the opportunity for me to cut the back lawn which had been neglected for a couple of weeks. It goes without saying that our efforts were supervised by Miggles, our adopted cat, who is fed an occasional meal of Aldi’s finest premium fish based cat food. Unfortunately, Aldi have stopped stocking this so I had to buy an alternative which turned out to be more expensive but Miggles’ taste are such that he/she rejected the salmon and just about tolerated the cod version of the food when it was offered. Last night, Meg seemed to go off to sleep fairly rapidly but then had a rather disturbed night which involved me spending at least half an hour in the middle of the night attempting to keep her comfortable. This is rather difficult as Meg is such a dead weight and because of the lost sleep, she is sleeping on this morning and I am letting her so until the carers make an appearance.

Following on the reminiscences about my ‘Uncle Jim’ and the fact that he portrayed his Geordie origins as always referring to my sister and I as ‘hinny’, I started to wonder about the localised terms of endearment that are typically used even by strangers to each other, for example in the markets or on the buses. In Nottinghamshire/Leicester, the term ‘me Duck’ is used quite regularly but there is a slight linguistic shift between Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire which I cannot quite recall. Going up the country, the love ‘love’ was used quite a lot even by male bus conductors to their male passengers, as in ‘Come on, move down the bus love’ and we have referred to ‘hinny’ that the Geordies use. By the time one gets to Edinburgh, this has become ‘hen’ and the Scots are bound to have lots more expressions. Here in the West Midlands, the term ‘Bab’ is very well known in the Black Country and one of our carers was addressed as ‘cocka’ by her future mother-in-law. Although not a regionalised expression, our family use the term ‘sunshine’ quite frequently from each other and this term was popularised by Eric Morecombe (of ‘Morecombe and Wise’ fame). What I not fully appreciated was that the term ‘sunshine’ could be used both affectionately and sarcastically. When we say it sarcastically, we’re trying to refer to someone as a bubbly and warm person when it is clear that they are not. In fact, my wife and I used to use the term ‘Little Ray of Sunshine’ to refer to Meg’s mother whilst she was alive (but not to her face) and it was certainly used sarcastically but as a shorthand code between the two of us, we appreciated it to ‘LRS’.

This morning being a Monday, we are make a longer sally forth to our new found little cafe which greets us warmly. Whether we will actually get there is a little problematic because the little square off the High Street in which it is located has a sign indicting road works so I am wondering whether access to the businesses around the square is to be allowed or not. We used to attend the Methodist Centre when we could travel by car but this is just a little stretch beyond us now that we can only travel to places accessible by wheelchair. When we got to the square, though. access to businesses were still allowed but the work was due to proceed for another twelve weeks. After our pot of tea and toasted teacake, I popped into the nearby AgeUK furniture and charity shop where I bought a throw and some cushion covers. The latter are a subtle colour which will match much of our furniture but I will have to find some suitable filling materials. We made our way up the hill and in plenty of time for the carers. After they had left, I proceeded with our lunch of ham, broccoli and some bought carrot and swede mash just to make a change. This afternoon, we anticipate watching a film on the life and times of William Wordsworth that we just happened to flash by when I was accessing YouTube this morning.

Today is the first day of the Democrats national convention in Chicago, USA. All of the major networks will be capturing this event (as indeed they did the Republican convention about a month ago now) The convention will give the Democrats a lot free publicity with which both to ‘wow’ the audience to persuade the non-committed so it would not be surprising if there a positive bounce in the polls for the Democrats. Meanwhile, there are indications that even Republican ad fairly right wing sources are now indicating that Trump may have a real fight on his hands and may well lose in November. Having said that, there are some fairly blood-curdling predictions in the American media to the effect that Trump’s supporters will not actually allow him to lose the election. Many Trump supporters have got themselves into positions such hay are supervising and/or regulating the elections in key states and therefore would be very open to the suggestion that the Democrats if they happen to be ahead are actually ‘stealing’ the election. I have a foreboding that after the November election there will be weeks if not months of Republican challenge and prevarication to ensure that if the Democrats have actually technically ‘won’ the election, the Trump storm troopers will just not allow the Democrats to take over. The Americans are a litigious nation in the best of things so I perceive that if there as a projected Democratic victory in the election, the Republicans will utilise every legal and organisational trick known to them to ensure that the Democrats do not assume office. It goes without staying that America will become the laughing stock of the world and the American desire to lead the ‘free’ world as a model of democratic probity will be completely trashed. From all of this only Putin’s Russia will benefit and the consequences for the rest of us somewhat terrible for us to witness.

This morning being a Sunday, the care workers turn up half an hour earlier than the norm so I have to ensure that everything is in place for when they come. For a start, bed-linen, clothing, towels, flannels and washing materials have to be in place before the workers arrive so it takes part of 15 minutes to ensure that everything that they might need is at hand. After that we breakfasted and it seemed no time at all until our friendly Eucharistic minister calls around from church. She and her husband are taking a much needed break after a succession of funerals which has befallen them over the last week or so they are quite keen to get a break and we shall resume contact in September. We received a phone call from our University of Birmingham friend and were absolutely delighted that he was back into the country after his little break in Switzerland which is a country he knows well. We met in Waitrose, as much to save time as anything as we had quite a lot to impart to us as he told us about the walks he and his ‘amante’ had done in Switzerland whilst I communicated the results of the exchange of photographs with my niece over the last day or so.

Yesterday turned out to be quite an emotional day for myself and my sister. After reading in ‘The Times’ a proposal in Weston-super-Mare a plan to remove the donkeys who have donkey rides on the beach and have been doing for decades. This triggered yesterday’s blog in which I spoke about our ‘Uncle Jim’ and I trawled the internet to see if the faintest trace did remain of him, even though he died in 1960. What I did find fairly quickly was his tombstone in Scarborough so I transmitted this as a message both to my sister and one of my nieces. As I was recounting the story of the one day at the seaside we used to enjoy, I had more than one tear in my eye and, as it happened, the minute my sister received the photo of the tombstone, she too burst into tears. Now my niece just happened to be visiting her mother (my sister) and she immediately located in what the family call their ‘Black Magic’ box which is an old Black Magic chocolate box stuffed full of family photos. During an extended stay with my mother, my niece and my mother had gone through some of these photos trying to identity the people in the photo and the approximate date it would have been taken. My niece located six family photos on which two were me on a donkey about six, one sitting on my Uncle Jim’s knee and the others being seaside snaps of myself, my sister, my mother and occasionally Uncle Jim himself. Now the photos were taken half a century ago and I have not seen them for decades and decades so it was a completely emotional experience for me (and the wider family) to see these images from my past. Just to recap a little from yesterday’s blog – our ‘Uncle Jim’ was the nearest thing to a father that my sister and I have ever known even though we only saw him for a few hours on one day a year. But he always seemed to be ‘there’ even though he died at almost the same time as my grandmother and before either of them knew what results I had achieved in my GCSEs (‘O’-levels) which I obtained in 1961. So the tears I shed yesterday were not really of sadness because I am taking some delight in the photos that are now in my possession, but perhaps thoughts about what might have been but never was.

Yesterday, Meg and I really enjoyed the rendition that we saw on YouTube of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 (‘Elvia Madigan’ which was, I believe a Swedish film where this formed the film score) But three things struck me about the performers and the performances and I am going to ask these questions of the Eucharistic minister who calls around each Sunday and is herself both a cellist and a pianist and still performs regularly. The first question relates to the clothing worn by the performers. Nearly all of the male performers are dressed in what looks like a black suit but I wonder if it is made of the finest silk or even a special glazed cotton so that the musicians can perform with hindrance in their garments. The second question relates to the young pianist we say yesterday for not only did he have no score in front of him but a lot of the time his eyes were either closed, semi-closed or fixed on the orchestra and therefore not on his own hands. So he question I ask myself is whether renowned pianists know exactly where each key and note are on their piano keyboards without needing to look at it. The third question relates to the ‘cadenza’ or section where a performer can show off their virtuosity playing solo without orchestral accompaniment and whilst composers such as Mozart and Beethoven probably improvised extensively, I wonder how many of these cadenzas are written down or whether each individual performer develops their own cadenza? I hope that some are all of these questions will be answered for me later on this morning.

An American columnist has written that in the US Presidential election it looks as though the personal attacks against Kamala Harris are going to get really vicious and persona. Donald Trump has said this week he thinks he is entitled to make those personal attacks after the warfare that the Democrats have waged against him in the US court system. It does not help that this week, Time magazine basically deified Kamala Harris’ candidacy by putting an illustration of her on the cover that made her look like Joan of Arc. It is always a sign of desperation when political candidates start to ‘play the man rather than the ball’ to use a sporting analogy and I am reminded of the wonderful riposte, repeated by some British politicians but first coined by an American in the 18th century about his political opponents that ‘I shall stop telling the truth about them if they stop telling lies about us’ Personal attacks on politicians is what alienates the public the most on both sides of the Atlantic from what we can tell – In British culture there is often a degree of humour involved which can be appreciated on both sides of the political divide but the American political system seems to lack that particular finesse by just engaging in frontal assaults upon each other.

This morning as Meg was being cared for by a couple of older, female workers (they even go away on holiday with each other), we decided to use the new appliance that I have just bought to wash Meg’s hair whilst she was flat on the board. This is an inflatable type of bowl with a drain hole in the bottom and a type of channel in which the patient’s neck rests. The carers had seen something similar before that so made fairly light work of the task which was great – from now on, we may well incorporate this into a routine for Meg each Saturday morning. After we had breakfasted, we made our usual trip into town and met up our three regular friends with whom we generally have a good chat each Saturday morning. We had to inform them that we might not see them next Tuesday morning as I have a doctor’s appointment which is rather getting in the way of our regular meeting but there will be further occasions in the week. In fact, we were ten minutes late returning and half way up the hill received an urgent telephone call from the care agency to the effect ‘Where are you?’ Fortunately we were only a few minutes late and so did not disrupt their schedule too badly. As we lunched we listened to a beautiful rendition of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 (‘Elvira Madigan’ is the popular name, and we never tire of this particular work.)

As I was flicking through the pages of ‘The Times’ yesterday, I noticed that in one seaside town, Weston-Super-Mare, there is a movement to try to remove one of the enduring attractions of the seaside, namely the donkey rides. There are local campaigns both for and against the removal of the donkeys but it did put me mind on my own family holidays from the ages of about 6 to 11. Our holiday consisted of one day at the seaside which was always Scarborough some 60 miles distant from Harrogate. We always hunted around in a kitchen drawer for the front door key because we had the notion that when we were on holiday, even for one day, we needed to lock the front door which was normally left unlocked (this was the 1950’s where I do not think that people usually locked their front doors) Then my mother, sister and I caught the bus to Scarborough which was exciting enough in itself. Once we arrived in Scarborough we were met by ‘Uncle Jim’ who was not an actual friend but a life-long friend of my mothers. I learnt subsequently that ‘Uncle Jim’ had actually proposed to my mother who had evidently turned him down – had she accepted, I might not have existed or would be a very different person. To give him his full name, James Trotter was a High Anglican vicar and was much loved in his parish and community – as we walked down the street, he would be stopped every few yards by friends and acquaintances for a chat. Then we got ourselves onto the beach where my sister and I were treated to a stick of rock and some candy floss (which my mother hated) Then the absolute highlight of the day was the donkey rise which cost about 6d (2.5 pence) and where we were walked on the donkey for about a one hundred yard stretch and then back again. In the late afternoon we either went for a meal of fish and chips or went to the vicarage, where we served a high tea by Eve who was Uncle Jim’s present wife. She was always rather a cold and aloof figure and I now appreciate why. They also had the most enormous cat because it was fed on a diet of a huge slab of fish (which I surmise might have given him by a friendly parishioner) Then in about 1960, my mother received a letter from Uncle Jim with some devastating news. He had an operation for bowel cancer and we were told that they removed 80% of his intestines after which he did not survive very long. ‘Uncle Jim’ was a very significant part of our childhood and as he hailed from the NorthEast he always called us ‘hinny’ which is the local vernacular term of endearment amongst Geordies. I wondered whether any trace of his existence might be available on the internet as he had died in 1960. A search term of ‘James Trotter Anglican priest Scarborough’ revealed just one trace of his life which was a tombstone in a graveyard in Scarborough where he was buried. None of the family went to his funeral and I am not sure if we were invited. But the tombstone had an inscription upon it which was a biblical text ‘I thank my God upon every remembrance of you’ This is apparently a very well known text from an epistle of St Paul to the Philippians in Northern Greece. On a literal level, it refers to the feeling that ministers have towards their congregation when a new parish is started but on a more generic level, it refers to the fellow feeling which we are encouraged to have with our fellow men. I even found on the internet an hour long sermon preached by an evangelical American preacher who had taken these words as his opening text but knowing how loving and loved was my Uncle Jim, I am sure that these words were chosen by him before his death. I have a vague remembrance that my sister and her then boyfriend might have visited our Uncle Jim before his death but I need to check with her that my memories are correct on this point. In reflection, even though he died some 64 years ago now, all I can say that our Uncle Jim was a fixed point in our lives and he loved my sister and I as though we were his own children. He and his wife Eve did not have children of their own whether by choice or accident I can only conjecture. But the same letter which conveyed to us the news of his terminal illness also contained the news that Eve had promptly left him. Somewhere, and I must ask my niece about all of this, we might have a photograph lurking somewhere of our Uncle Jim but it would have been taken on a little Brownie 127 camera and the figures will be minute. I must confess I heard not thought about him now for years but the ‘donkey story’ triggered all of these childhood memories.

Today we woke up a little early but not early enough to bother going back to sleep so we decided to make a fairly early start to the day. Meg’s carers came on time and we discussed when we might wash Meg’s hair as I have just purchased a special (plastic) bowl which is designed in such a way that people can lie flat on a bed but with their neck in a sort of channel – anyway, tomorrow we shall put it to the test with two of the more experienced (female) carers who may have utilised something like this before. It was a beautiful bright day today so we set off down the hill and I remembered today to put on my Hi_Viz vest which I am sure makes motorists slightly more liable to stop to allow us to cross the road. This morning we called in at Waitrose to pick up our newspaper and some ‘Arborio’ rice and then made our way to ‘The Lemon Tree‘ cafe. There we were absolutely delighted to meet up with our nonagenarian chorister who we normally meet in Waitrose each Tuesday and Saturday for whom this particular cafe might be a little easier for her to access. We had made an arrangement to meet at 10.30 and were only a minute or so late – Meg and I enjoyed the treat of a bacon butty which is a treat reserved for days like today. After we had had our elevenses and a pleasant chat, we each went on our various ways and Meg and I called in at the AgeUk furniture and charity shop to see what they had on offer. We did espy a wonderful blanket made up of squares knit by the crochet method. It is possible that this blanket is machine made but I have visions of a little old lady knitting the squares in a range of colours and then stitching them altogether. We already have two of these blankets and one of these we put on Meg’s downstairs bed when required and the other goes across Meg’s knees when we venture out by wheelchair. A third blanket will always be useful because these days, even blankets are liable to end up in the washing machine so to have a third on standby will always be useful. When we returned this morning, it was not long before one of the young Asian male carers turned up with a new colleague who as we found out had worked as a student nurse on a neurosurgical ward and therefore had quite a tremendous amount of relevant experience that can be transferred over.

As we now have four care visits a day, it is inevitable that we develop relationships with the carers that we see regularly and, just occasionally, can even help them with some of the vicissitudes of life. Yesterday, we were delighted when one of the young female carers who is a sixth form student received her examination results by text and I was absolutely delighted for her that she had received a Distinction in ‘Health and Social Care’ of what I think is a BTEC qualification. But she is off on holiday for a couple of weeks with her family so as she announced yesterday, we will not see her again until September. In the meanwhile, her fellow carer who is a young male carer who cares for Meg several times a week and has a wonderful manner told me that he had never tasted the Italian meal of risotto. So today, I decided to make a risotto which I used to make every single week but I have got out of the habit recently. So I needed to resurrect my memory of how to make it which is to fry off an onion until translucent, throw some arborio rice for a minute or so (which trick I leaned from a Chinese chef) and then gradually add some chicken stock. At the appropriate point, I threw in some smoked mackerel which I defrosted from the freezer, some petit pois and then the final finishing touches. These are to add a small glass of vermouth (of which I was amazed to discover I still had some remnants in our alcohol cupboard), a good dollop of yogurt and finally one or two tablespoons full of grated cheese (this last tip given to me by our Italian friend) This all turned OK and I have put some on one side for our young care worker to try. It is evidently a characteristic of the care industry but the turnover of staff seems tremendously high. In the nature of things, it always seem to be the most committed and/or senior of staff who leave to get other jobs probably with more secure pay and conditions. For example, a couple who are sisters and who have cared for Meg for months have left to work in a special school for which they are both very well qualified. So although I attempt to ensure good relationships with all of the care staff, it is a little sad when the ones with whom you have developed a relationship over the months actually leave for pastures new.

Ever since Bill Clinton campaigned on the slogan ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ it has become a truism that how well off people feel is a critical factor in how election campaigns fare and on the relative popularity/unpopularity of the government. Now there are some small in indications that the UK economy might be gradually improving as we have recently had an interest cut a quarter of a percentage point and as the growth figures for the last quarter seem somewhat more positive. As we are only a few weeks on from the general election, the Tories are claiming that it any signs of economic recovery are ‘theirs’ and this raises a more general point as to how and when a government should claim credit for changes in the economy. I suspect that most Labour figures would agree that any turn around in the economy is probably due to the actions of the previous government but, of course, one should not read too much into one set of figures as it is the trend over several months that should be the focus of our attention. Despite the rhetoric, most governments accept the changes in legislation passed by a previous government and hence we have the spectacle of a Labour government with a huge majority not overturning the cap on child benefits beyond the second child upon which I expected a huge backbench Labour opinion which did not happen. But a little historical perspective might be in order. The system of child credits took over a system of what was termed ‘Family Allowances’ in which payments were only made from the second child onwards. So parents who currently receive child credit for the first two of their three children are in the same position as parents a generation ago who had three children but Family Allowance only for the second and third child.

Yesterday when the OT (Occupational Therapist) turned up, it was a person who saw Meg about a year ago and was surprised by the changes that she saw in her – of course since then we have had the hospital visit and then the moving of a bed downstairs. She is going to make the case for a ‘floor’ bed rather than a hospital bed which lowers to a low position, thinking this might be safer for Meg in the long run. She is also investigating whether adaptations to the wheelchair might help to keep Meg in a more upright and less slumped position in the chair – we shall have to wait and see what happens. This morning, I was awoken at 5.00am in the morning as Meg was uncomfortable but I did what I could do singlehanded before the carers turned up at 8.00am. We got about half and hour’s extra sleep which is always welcome.

Today is the day when the ‘A’-level results are announced to students and is evidently a day of great anticipation for all, joy for some, disappointment for others and general tension all round. In Leicester Polytechnic, the admission of students through ‘clearing’ if students did not quite achieve the grades for their first choice of university/course was decentralised to each individual course or group of courses. It was stressful for us staff because we had to take enquiries over the phone, ascertain whether they had enough points at ‘A’-level to satisfy our own course requirements and then make a provisional offer of a place. So we had a pro-forma upon which we could take the essential data and give a provisional ‘Yes’ ‘No’ or ‘Maybe’ – all of which depended upon how the market was operating in that particular year. Typically, we needed to enter clearing to get the course up to its full complement and if we fell short, this meant that we had fewer students in the system, less resources and ultimately perhaps even staff redundancies. If we over-recruited then as a college we were penalised by the funding bodies – so it was almost as stressful for us as admitting tutors as it was for the students (and their parents with whom we were not supposed to deal) as it was for the students themselves. This is the background to one of the best practical jokes I have ever played. We ensured that absolutely on the stroke of 9.00am my son would phone in as a ‘fake’ student and by appearing to be busy we ensured that one of our fellow tutors, who I shall call Robert, would answer the phone. Then my son went his well-rehearsed script which ran as follows. Would the following collection of ‘A’-levels gain admission to a degree course in Public Administration – an ‘A’ in Classical Arabic, a ‘B’ in Equine Management and a ‘D’ in Catering Studies (these are fictitious ‘A’-levels by the way). Robert replied with some surprise at such a mix of ‘A’ levels that it appeared to meet the points total we were demanding and now for the name. So our son spelled out the letters of a surname ‘P’ ‘H’ ‘A’ ‘C’ ‘E’ and then the letters of a first name ‘U’ ‘D’ ‘I’ ‘Q’ – in order to fully appreciate what this name sounds like it has to read aloud, first name followed by Surname. So ‘Udiq’ was offered a place on our degree course until the rest of the tutors informed our colleague who and what he had accepted. My son won £5 for his part in this joke which was probably the easiest money he has earned in his life. Not to be outdone, the daughter of a colleague phoned up the same colleague at the same time of day with an application number which looked correct but was equally fictitious. When the application form with the erroneous number could not be located, the daughter went into a torrent of invective such as ‘Call yourselves a Department of Public Administration – I doubt you could organise a (party) in a brewery! Do I wish to take a place with as shambolic an administration such as this!’ and so on and so forth. The daughter earned herself £5.00 as well. I do not want to give the impression that these practical jokes were typical or frequent as trying to make sure that the course recruited with reasonable students was a stressful activity.

On a more serious note, after we had several cohorts of graduates, I decided to undertake a piece of statistical work to see if we could predict the class of degree earned from the admission profile. In statistical terms we were looking for a correlation between the points total at ‘A’-level and the overall average grade achieved at the end of the degree course. We found that the association was very low (of the order of 0.25 on a scale which rums from -1 to +1) but we did find that ‘O’ level grades (or more specifically the grades achieved from the best five ‘O’-levels taken at any one sitting) had a better predictive ability than ‘A’-levels. Then we went ahead and complemented this statistical analysis with a bit of what is called ‘qualitative analysis’ Now Meg as the tutor who organised work placements for the ‘sandwich’ element of the degree often had a detailed knowledge of personal circumstances which it was necessary to have to ensure that the ‘best’ students were put forward for the most suitable placements. Although no personal or confidential information was disclosed, Meg supplied the information that approximately 30% of the students that we recruited had suffered a severe trauma at some point in the lives between the ages of 15-18. This could be anything from an illness of self or a parent, to a change of school or a marital dissolution. So now we had some kind of explanation as to why many of our students had a reasonable profile at ‘O’level, had under performed in their ‘A’-level examinations and then realised some of their true potential when they eventually graduated with good degrees some years later. This process was known by some as ‘precious metal recovery’ but it did help us to refine our admission procedures in the light of our more detailed researches. I repeated the same type of analysis at the University of Winchester with broadly similar results. These two investigations did not leave to published papers as such but had a fair degree of ‘political’ impact (for example in Council for National Academic Awards submission documents) that we needed to prepare at regular intervals.