Today was the day when we knew that the report on the Committee of Privileges into Boris Johnson was due to report and, despite logistical difficulties in getting it printed, it hit the airways at about 9.00am this morning. Never can a report be as damning as this one. Johnson was subject to a 90 day suspension from the Commons were he still to have been an MP in the meanwhile. The suspension was going to be of the order of 10 days but two additional factors led the committee to increase the suspension period. Firstly, the evidence that he gave to the Committee itself, televised at the time, was taken as further evidence of having lied to the House of Commons as well as across the floor of the House of Commons. But a further factor was Johnson’s reaction to the initial draft of the report in which he tried to traduce the work of the Committee using language such as ‘kangaroo court’ and ‘witchhunt’ and this further compounded the offences he had originally committed. I think it is true to say that the penalty of 90 days was a complete surprise to the commentariat and the overall judgement of the report. Beth Rigby, a superb political commentator for Sky News gave a pithy summary ‘In the end, it was excoriating, damning and unanimous: Boris Johnson was found not only to have deliberately misled the House of Commons over events in Number 10 during COVID lockdowns, but had attacked the fabric of our democracy itself by seeking to undermine the committee and investigation’. I think that the fact that Johnson has misled the House not on one occasion but on several occasions revealed a cavalier attitude to the truth. As his housemaster in Eton wrote to his father ‘the conclusion was that thinking he should be free of the network of obligation that binds everyone’. I think that if you wanted to be as scrupulously fair to Johnson as it is possible to be and one ignores the often inferential evidence against Johnson in the Committee’s report, it must be said that Johnson has exhibited a consistent pattern of lying to employers for which he was sacked both by Michael Howard and by Max Hastings. Therefore the Committee must have concluded that any smidgeon of doubt that could be exercised in Johnson’s favour could be set aside given a track record of decades and decades of mendacious behavior. I think that people have forgotten long before Johnson was even thought of as a Prime Mnister, there was a large campaign group in the Commons which called them selves the ‘ABB’ group – anybody but Boris as they argued (with considerable foresight) that Johnson would make the most disastrous of Prime Ministers and so it proved. If I were a cartoonist, I would display Johnson as a firework in the shape of a volcano set apart from the rest of the Bonfire Night party and being allowed to fizz off with nobody noticing or being of interest. I read that the Twittersphere is even more vituperative but I did read one tweet to the effect that they had run out of Kleenex tissues with with to mop up the tears of joy that flowed down their face after the report was published.

Today was my shopping day but I after collecting my money from an ATM, I popped into a Morrison’s store to get some herbs and other ingredients for the meal I am going to prepare for Meg’s cousins on Sunday. It was one of those days where I found everything I wanted extraordinarily quickly and a kind member of staff even located some cornflower for me whilst I was perusing the packeted herbs section. So now I have all of the ingredients that I need for Sunday but I am relying upon our domestic help who calls around tomorrow to give me some final instructions how to prepare some special starters. Once I had got the shopping home, we had to unpack quickly the items that needed the freezer because Meg and I had a double appointent at the dentists mid-morning. Normally, we are in a pattern where we see the hygienist every six months and the dentist every six months but we ‘interdigitate’ the two such that we see the hygienist and then the dentist three months later. But the post COVID rush and scarcity of appointments meant that we saw the hygienist and the dentist on the same day, being today, and were both pleased to have emerged with a full scale bill of health for both of us although our bank balance received the nomal bashing. After that, we were pleased to get home and glue outselves to the TV to see the reactions to the Johnson report which is evidently dominating the airwaves today.

It was another roasting day today and Meg and I needed to make sure we were keeping ourselves both cool and hydrated. In the shopping this morning, I indulged ourselves by buying some choc ices and Meg and I treated ourselves to sitting out on our front bench to enjoy them. But we quickly had to retreat to the back garden and I was delighted to show the Meg the completely self-sown foxgloves (three purple but one pure white) that have sprung up in our back garden.

We knew that today would be quite a busy day for us. As soon as Meg and I had breakfasted, I took to my word processor to pen a letter to a consultant opthamologist, whose clinic Meg is due to attend next Monday. We have a series of quite important questions to ask him so I carefully composed the letter indicating that I wished to see him personally to answer our queries rather than one of his assistants. Whether this letter will generate the desired results or not, I cannot say but at least the letter is composed and on its way. Having picked up our newspaper, we then made our way to Finstall which is a delightful little village which is now a ‘de facto’ suburb of Bromsgrove and in the village hall, Age Concern Worcester run a club once a month on each second Wednesday. We arrived early but we were joined by a couple we know who only live a bit over half a mile from us and who we met at our very first meeting. On today’s agenda, the meeting was themed to be ‘Holiday Snaps and Memories’. However well intentioned the organisers were, this did not really work as intended if only because so many of us now hold our snaps digitally on phones and ipads and so not so easily passed around. Nonetheless, we had some pleasant chats and the two personnel who run the club are very friendly and approachable. Actually, I did have quite a long chat with one of them who promised me some help in navigating my way through the labrynthine coils of the welfare system because I have a feeling that Adult Social Services in Worcestershire may be able to unlock some channels that might be useful to us. This helper took some copious notes which she was going to discuss with her manager and we were very grateful for the enquiries that she was going to make on our behalf.

This afternoon, we got home fairly late but nonetheless wanting to have a quickly prepared lunch as I was keen to get going on the weekly lawn mowing whilst I could. So what I did was to make a fairly large confection of some iceceam, a tin of peaches, some yogurt and finally some dried peaches, walnuts and a drizzle of honey. This was not only delicious but was quickly prepared and just the job when we were pretty hot anyway. So this went down a treat and I was able to start the mowing just after 2.00pm and get it all done within the hour. Then, after a rest, it was a case of unloading the washing line where things had been baking since about 10am this morning but I follow this up with another light tub load of washing comprised of the underwear I bought for Meg recently. This is out on the line as I blog but I am pretty sure it should be dry-ish by about 8.00pm.

This afternoon, there have been live scenes from Nottingham where staff and students were participating in a vigil for the two university students (and a third man, a school caretaker) who were stabbed to death by someone who appears to be mentally deranged in the small hours of Tuesday morning. The live TV clips were emotionally compelling although I only witness them in passing. When this sort of apparently random killing occurs, I always ask myself the question of what this a case of ‘Care in the Community‘ or what the more cynical amongst us might call ‘Neglect in the Community‘ which is a popular regime as the medical authorities are loathe to admit people into mental health wards given their scarcity. I often wonder whether such indivuals are properly taking their medication and whether they are being adequately supervised. When the full account of what actually happened in this incident will ever be released into the public domain is hard to say but I would not be surprised if the answer to both of the questions that I posed above tends out to be a ‘No’

One of my Wednesday afternopon jobs is to roll out the dustbins to locare them near the roadside ready for empting first thing in the morning. Very often, I take my neighbour’s bin(s) out as well as our own and he, in return, brings them back for both of us. But today, we coincided and so took a chat about things musical and musicological. I was telling him about our recent venture in buying and practising upon a Casio keyboard and my ambition for the future. Our neighbour is extremely knowledgeable about most pf the personnel and the groups in popular masic probably since the 60’s so we never pass by the opportuniy to discuss items of joint musical interest. Today we were thinking about the classic recordings of ‘Scarborough Fair‘ about which I was blogging recently. My neighbour collects the old juke boxes, some of which have the most amazingly mellifluous sound and naturally, he has a huge collection of 45 rpms which these machines play. He is a very dab hand in this technology and knows how to buy and restore these items when they come onto the market which I do not suppose is that often nowadays.

Tuesday has dawned on my Pilates day but first of all, we paid our customary visit to Waitrose where we met two of our regulars. Our third friend was away on holiday with her family in mid-Wales (somewhere beginning Llan…which must narrow it down a lot) After our customary chat we raided the shelves of the supermarket, buying some cordial, a decent bottle of Rioja and one or two other ingredients thinking about the things I need to have to hand before I start to prepare the meal on Sunday for Meg’s cousins. In Waitrose, we were greeted by our Irish friend who had just returned from a fortnight’s holiday in Ireland. I joked with her whether the Irish had needed to throw her out for drunken and debauched behaviour but she assured me that this was not actually the case. We promised to meet up with each other in the days ahead. After getting home and changing into my Pilates gear, I left for the class giving myself an extra five minutes so that I could make a detour into the ‘Age Concern‘ second hand furniture shop which has a presence on Bromsgrove High Street. In there, I knew what I was looking for which was a stool which would serve as a second ‘piano stool’ to accompany the one I purchased the other day and I happened to see almost exactly what I was looking for. This was an adjustable stool clad in a serviceable leatherette. As it was only £2.95 I was quite happy to purchase this and, as I was just around the corner from my Pilates class, I carried this into the studio, explaining why I was turning up to a Pilates class complete with stool. One of my fellow class members made me a quite unprompted offer to take it home for me and drop it inside our front porch. This was an incredibly kind offer and although I hesitated for a moment, I was happy to accept as otherwise I would have needed to carry it a mile home, uphill and in some blazing sunshine. Needless to say, I was delighted to see it in the porch when I arrived home several minutes later on foot but I made my priority getting on with the lightning speed lunch of fishcakes which is part of our Tuesday routine. After lunch, I gave the stool a ritual clean (not that it needed much) and an examination that all was well. Although it was adjustable it seemed somewhat on the stiff side but it was exactly the height, almost to the millimetre, of the bench I collected last Sunday so now I have the two stools sitting side by side. The idea here is than when, and if, I get Meg to sit by my side whilst I teach her some keyboard skills, it will be faciliated by us sitting side by side and on stools of the same height.

After we had our lunch and customary post-prandial drink, Meg expressed the desire to get out and experience some fresh air. We decided to visit the large Webb’s garden centre which is just down the road but which has a wonderful little meandering series of paths that eventually lead you onto the banks of the River Salwarpe which flows through the Webb’s gardens. Before the pandemic, we used to do this little walk on a fairly regular basis but we have got out of the habit once the gardens were closed during the pandemic and were then subject to some upgrading. So it must have four years since we last walked these gardens and, four years ago, Meg’s health was much better than it is today. So today, it was a bit of a struggle for Meg to traverse the paths and to make our way to the river. We just about managed to make this trip but it was proving to be quite a struggle for Meg to manage even this little journey. As I was walking back to the car, Meg was making some rather slow progress, having to stop for breath on occasions when we actually received the offer of assistance to get Meg back to the car. This offer of help (from a retired nurse) was gratefully received but in the event, declined as we were we were only about 150 yards from the car and I felt this was manageable on our own. Still, it does give me pause for thought as to the kind of trips that Meg can manage these days so I may need to keep plans under constant review.

For the last day or so, we have had the same weather pattern in that in the early evening, the rain clouds build up and then there is a sudden rumble of thunder, a flash of lighning and a downpour. But tonight, we have a brilliantly sunny evening so this pattern of daily rainstorms seems to be passing. When my son spent a pre-university year in Mexico, he used to tell us how it rained regularly between about 2-3 in the afternoon which was just the time when Mexicans traditionally took their main meal of the day. This was then typically followed by a walk when the day had cooled a little and the air was wonderful,crisp and clear after the rain.

We had not a great deal on today so decided to capitalise upon the fact that we have a ‘free’ day. After I collected the newspaper this morning, Meg and I had a quick refreshment of some elevenses at home before we set off for Marks and Spencer in Longbridge, some eight miles distant. There we wanted to buy a birthday M&S voucher for our domestic help as it is her birthday in just over a week’s time and I had discussed with her recently that this is what she would like as a birthday gift. At the same time, we took the opportunity to buy Meg some underwear and fortunately we managed to locate the ‘Lingerie’ section fairly quickly although I have to confess, as a mere male, the options and choices are bewildering in the extreme and, as usual, the actual garment you require is always hard to locate. Anyway, we got our business done, navigated the new self-service tills (with a little bit of assistance from staff who always seem to be a bit thin on the ground) and then struck for home. After that, it was quite instructive to watch the mid-day BBC2 Politics program which we tend to do quite often just often 12.00pm on a weekday. Here we witnessed Jake Berry, an ex-Tory party chairman, simultaneously trying to rubbish the work of the Privileges Committee by implying that it was similar to a judge announcing his sentence to a court and then allowing the case to proceed. But when challenged, Jake Berry would not go through with the import of his analysis by saying that he did not impugn the integrity of the committee. This is just as well because, in theory, that would make his own utterances liable to sanction by the Privileges Committee under the rubric of bringing the work of the House of Commons into disrepute.

Whilst I have not had much time to practice on my new Casio keyboard, I have consulted the web to see if there are easy classical pieces that can be played with one hand (for the present). I have located on the Amazon web site the offerings of a piano teacher who has published a series of booklets aimed at beginners. Most of these are offerings to which I can easily give a miss (such as the booklets on hymns, nursery rhymes, Christmas carols) but I have purchased the one on simple Classical pieces.This has now been delivered and it is possible to visit the author’s website and download some additional pieces at no additional cost. So I have now augmented the twenty classical pieces in the purchased booklet with another ten evidently making thirty in total. Each piece is only of the order of 15-20 bars long and has been simplified in that the author has transposed the original into a simpler key i.e. without a proliferation of sharps and flats and with any grace notes removed, thus preserving the essence of the piece but simplifying it for learners. I imagine most learners would be between the ages of 8-14 rather than in their late 70’s (in my own case). As well as classical pieces, I am not averse to the occasional well-known tune from the world of popular music but as one might expect, most of this is still subject to copyright and a purchase fee. But I have managed to locate a copy of ‘Scarborough Fair‘, the origin of which can be traced back as far as 1670 but is best known to us today via the recording made by Simon and Garfunkel. I am pretty sure that given the tune’s simplicity and universal appeal, this is part of the repertory of most folk singers as well.

It has been the convention that ex-Prime Ministers do not enter into overt criticism of their successors. But today, Boris Johnson, no respector of any constitutional proprieties as we know full well, has laid into Rishi Sunak and vice versa. Rishi Sunak is arging that Boris Johnson asked him to overturn and to ignore the advice of HOLAC (the House of Lords Appointments Commission) over the Boris Johnsom nominations for honours and peerages. Rishi Sunak refused this request point blank and Johnson has replied indicating bad faith or broken promises. This public row is unprecedented and only serves to reinforce the impression in the electorate’s mind that the Tories are fighting like rats in a sack. There will now be three by-elections probably before the end of July and the Tories may well lose at last two of them and possibly all three. On the other side of the Atlantic, Donald Trump is turning up to a court house in Miami to be formally charged with some three dozen offences over his storage of official government documents in his own house. Both supporters (many of them actually armed) and opponents of Trump are due to turn up tomorrow and the local police may well struggle to keep the two opposing factions apart. The Trump faction is indicating that they are staunch members of the National Rifle Assocoation (subtext being – come armed to the teeth) so we may have the equivalent of a bloodbath outside the courtroom tomorrow, in full view of the wold’s media of course.

This Sunday started off in a fairly predictable way in that Meg and I ensured that we were all up and ready in time for the first of the politics programs on the TV starting at 8.30. As we have come to expect, the same Tory spokesperson is always on both channels and seems to repeat word-for-word on the Lorna Kuennsberg programme what they have just uttered on the Sophie Ridge program on Sky. Having said that, I am beginnning to think that Sophie Ridge has the slight edge on her BBC counterpart who is arguably better known. Grant Shapps is well known as a ‘smooth’ talker and I thought that he manifested these skills this morning where he managed to disavow some of the wilder Boris Johnson’s accusations (a witchhunt, a campaign by the Establishment to exact revenge on Johnson for the Brexit venture) whilst using quite emollient language. After these programmes, we prepared our elevenses and then picked up our weighty Sunday newspapers, filled the car up with petrol and then made for the park. I must say that it was pretty hot there this morning and whilst I was protected with my leather bush hat, Meg was not so I made a mental note that if the fine weather persists, I need to dig out a sunhat for Meg tomorrow. When we got home, I was keen to get the inside story of Johnson throwing in the towel. Actually, there are two intertwined stories here. The most evident one is the draft report from the Committee on Privileges but even the Johnson allies are very circumspect about this because, after all, it has not even been published yet and will probably take a few days to get through the system. But another intertwined story upon which the Johnson allies are seizing is the strange case of the Johnson ‘leaving Prime Ministers’ recommendations for Honours. There were two or three nomimations on the list one of whom was Johnson’s own father, Stanley Johnson (now a French citizen, incidentally) and another of whom was Nadine Dorries, an adorer of Johnson. The Sunak team argue that the list went to HOLAC (House of Lords Appointments Commission) and it was they who made the ruling, probably following precedent, that you could not be nominated for a peerge if still a member of the Commons. One needs to have resigned some months ago for a peerage nomination to be accepted. Anyway, the Johnson camp is claiming lots of dirty work behind the scene to remove various people from the list before it went to HOLAC – for its part, the Sunak team are saying that they presented a list to HOLAC and then followed the HOLAC recommnendations. The truth behind all of this may never come out but ardent Brexiteers such as Isabel Hardman who was on the Lorna Kuennsberg programme this morning are crying ‘Foul’ at the top of their voices and this is being added to the complex mixture of motives that led Johnson to resign. A fascinating piece was provided in the Sunday Times by Anthony Seldon who has written the most recent account of Johnson’s life, concentrating upon his tenure at 10 Downing Street who entitled his piece ‘He has caused damage beyond measure. But his vanity will not let him see it’ This is probably as accurate and succinct judgement of the case against Johnson that one is likely to get.

This afternoon, there is going to be a slight indulgence whilst I watched ‘Paddington 2’ as a sequel to the original. I think I prefer the first film to the second but it is a marginal call. Later on this afternoon, Meg and I had a trip out to Worcester in order to pick up a keyboard bench which is height adjustable and especially designed to be used with keyboards. I thought this was going to be a shorter trip than the other day but it turned out that the address was in deepest Worcestershire although the initial seller’s contact details indicated Worcester. Nonetheless, it was a 40 minute trip with the M5 motorway providing some ‘fast miles’ and I was slightly anxious that we might caught in a torrential downpour. The house from which we were due to collect was slightly hard to find – why do people buy nice looking houses in modern developments but then not bother to put a house number on the side of their houses, I ask myself. We got home quickly enough and treated ourselves to an icecream supper and as we were finishing this the skies seemed to darken so I would not be surprised if were to have a downpour later on tonight as we did last night. Tonight, we are going to treat ourselves to ‘Cardiff Singer of the World’ which is a competition that builds up over the next few days. Altogether there will be sixteen singers over four rounds with the main final next Sunday night. These competitions are always quite fascinating to watch as sometimes one can see a real star of the future performing as they are the way up. I think that Bryn Terfel came up through this route and certainly sang in many of the regional as well as the national Eisteddfod in Wales.

This morning dawned as another bright day but Meg and I had no particular commitments on today apart from our weekly visit to church in the early evening. As soon as breakfast was over, I hunted out a little spray container that I found in the garage, filled it with some ‘strong’ vinegar plus a little washing up liquid and decided to utilise it to spray on some little weeds that we have in some of our paving at the front of the house. I was relying upon the theory that the combination of acetic acid and hot sun would dessicate the weeds in pretty short order and then they could be removed in about a day’s time. This seemed to work absolutely as intended because after a few hours, the weed tops were completely brown and my patent treatment works so much faster than the proprietary prodcts that can take days to work. Meg and I collected our newspaper and made for the park where in the hot weather the population was desporting itself in a variety of suntops but this cannot last a great length of time because some thunderstorms are forecast to hit us in the Midlands quite soon now.

Late last night, I rang off a copy of the ‘Largo‘ from Dvorak’s ‘New World’ Symphony which is very well known as ‘Going Home’ but which also looks quite easy to play. Now that I am getting the notes in the score allocated in my mind to the actual keys on the keyboard, I am very gradually improving my keyboard skills but I have only been practising for a day and, at my age, I tell myself it might take a smidgeon longer than if I were sixty five years younger. There was a section on the score that threw me a little because the notes were scored in what I now know as the bass clef rather than the treble clef and I have never sight read from this clef before. But a quick Google search has told me mnenomics by which to remember the staves and intervening spaces (‘Green Buses Drive Fast Always’.and ‘All Cows Eat Grass’) so now I know. This whole section of score that I located on the web and ran off is 30 bars long so all I have to do is to practise the various sections and then stitch them all together once each part has been learnt) Just after lunch, Meg and I had a little play around on the keyboard by trying the same tune to a variety of instruments, some of which work very well and give a good sound but others are invariably a little naff but I suppose we will gradually learn what is a good combination and what is not.

The news yesterday evening and today has been dominated by the shock resignation of Boris Johnson as an MP. He had been given an advance copy of the report by the Committee of Privileges into the allegations that he misled Parliament in his accounts of partygate within Downing Street by either deliberate or by reckless behaviour. In theory, there was a fortnight in which Johnson and his advisers in the shape of a bevy of well paid lawyers could have perused the report and presumably challenged matters of factual accuracy. But the report appears to have been so damning that it appears (but we will not know until it is published in full) that Johnson was found to have misled the House of Commons and the penalty might have been exclusion from the House for 10 days or more. Under existing legislation, if an MP is so suspended, then the electorate have the right to request a ‘recall election’ and Johnson would almost certainly have lost his seat in the present political climate. Seeing the ignomy of literally being thrown out of the House of Commons and then being spurned by he electorate was evidently far too much for a narcissist like Johnson to bear so he decided to be in control of his own destiny and narrative, announcing to the world that he was only leaving ‘for now’ The BBC pulled its punches by arguing that Johnson could never be underestimated and his political career was far from over. But Sky News is far more forthright than the BBC and has lost no time in announcing that they think that Johnson is a ‘busted flush’ He has also been followed by some camp followers, one of whom (Nadine Dorries) was hanging on in the Commons desperately hoping for a peerage but her name was excised by the House of Lords scrutiny committee leaving her with absolutely nothing (apart from her adoration of Boris Johnson) Johnson is very much doing a ‘Trump’ by claiming a witchhunt against him and a biased judicial process and has resigned with a vituperative letter casting doubt upon the integrity of the Committee of Privileges and the whole of the Sunak government to boot. An interesting quirk in all of this is the the Committee of Privileges is going to meet on Monday and is already regarding the comments made upon its integrity as an actionable matter. Over the next few days, we will no doubt see the whole of the report when it eventually sees the light of day but I imagine, now that Johnson has already resigned, that the critical parts of the report will find its way into the columns of the Sunday newspapers.

Today was a day dominated by the fact that this morning, I was due to go to the doctor’s surgery to get the results of my monitoring review and blood test taken a fortnight ago. The news was generally good apart from one issue where the practice nurse and the supervising doctor thought I needed to increase my dosage of one particular piece of medication (which I had been a little remiss in taking in the first place, I must say) Nothing is perfect but I was more pleased than displeased with the results of my review. I was particularly impressed by the nurse conducting my review who I had not seen before. We had a pretty grown up conversation including some discussion of the science behind some of my results and this is quite refreshing these days. I asked her, though, if I could have a printout of my bloodtests (given that they test about 20 things in a full blood assay) and she did not know how to interrogate the computer system to achieve what I wanted, and have had before. I asked the reception staff on the front desk and they, too, struggled a little to generate the printout I required expeditiously. I can only conclude that they are not asked for this very often as it seems a bit of a kerfuffle to provide data which, after all, is about ones self. Then Meg and I popped into Waitrose for a coffee but none of our regulars were in evidence so we drank our coffee in relative peace. Then it was a case of getting home and enjoying our fish pie which we generally consume each Friday.

Yesterday, when I wrote about a trip to the Worcestershire countryside, I was a little disengenuous becase I did not want to reveal too much until the time was ripe. We were actually on a pre-arranged trip to pick up a Casio keyboard which was a very big seller several years ago. I put in an offer for the keyboard which included both the specialised stand and also the power supply (sometimes, these are omitted from the listings when this product is offered on eBay). The seller and I agreed a price and the item was sold on a ‘collection only’ basis which I did not mind in this case as Meg and I could enjoy quite a pleasant trip to the address in a little village near Malvern. Having got this home and installed (not there there was anything to install) I am more delighted. Now that I have practised the ‘Old Hundredth’ hymn tune using on online keyboard, I could then try it for real and an pleased to say it was almost note perfect on the first rendition. What is so innovative about these Casio keyboards is that the keys look very similar to those of a normal piano i.e. not toy like. But there are several incredible features about tbis piece of technology which is evidently aimed at those teaching themselves the piano. Firstly, there are 100 built in ‘tunes’ of which over one third are classical excerpts. A second feature is the instruments that can be emulated and there are 100 of these. So far, I have favourites of ‘Church Organ’ (surprise, surprise) but I am also quite impressed by the offerings of a Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Tenor Sax and so on. To complement this there is a list of 100 rhythms which I do not envisage using very much at all. To assist learners, there is an assumption that many of the songs have a ‘left hand’ (background) component and a ‘right hand’ (melody) component. To help one practice, you can only play the melody part by turning off the left hand and supplying this oneself. Similarly, one can turn off the melody part and supply this over the background. There are also a series of preprogrammed chords in all of the major chords but I have not had the time to exeriment with this. However, whilst I have had this unit for less than day I am still quite busy hunting out little bits of simple classical music which I can just play with the right hand (Pachobel’s Canon springs to mind) and then I want to see if I can master about one simplified (i.e. right hand only) piece per week so that my skill set can gradually improve. I am hopeful that as Meg learnt the piano in her youth, some of these skills can be retrieved from deep memory if only ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’. Incidentally, whilst browsing on eBay for electronic keyboard, I saw a Yamaha which is a similar unit to the Casio entered into an auction starting at about £20. I watched the bidding in the final stages and there must have been an auction frenzy as the price shot up at the last moment to £81 but, there again, I suppose a Yamaha must have the edge over a Casio. But it was fascinating to watch – and had the effect of making me even happier with my own much more modest purchase. I am going to ask around friends and family to see if anyone has some simple old piano tutorial books lying around in an old piano stool that I can cadge or to which I can at least guarantee a good home.

Today is my normal grocery shopping day so I collected some money from the ATM amd got myself positioned outside my local supermarket just before 8.00am. There was quite a chill wind blowing around this morning but we all seem to be aware of the same weather forecast to the effect that things would get a lot warmer by this afternoon, which proved to be the case. Once I had got home and the breakfast cooked, we were ready to set forth for the park wondering who we might meet today. As is always the case, whilst Meg and I were sitting on our normal park bench we get inspected first by dogs (often hunting for titbits) and then by their owners. This morning we starting off having a chat with a whippet owner which was a wonderful silvery shade often called ‘blue’ Shortly afterwards we got into conversation with another dog owner who owned a dog called a Hungarian Vizsla. I must admit that I had never even heard of this breed before but I looked it up on the net when I got home and this confirms the impression that we gained that these are friendly but quite vivacious dogs who evidently like playing with other dogs whenever they got the opportunity. So we live and learn in our walks in the park. We finally had a chat with a lady we have seen a few times before and we started chatting about countryside matters, both of us having had long and therefore large gardens in the past. She let us know that baby’s talcum powder is a very good antidote against ants which evidently thrive along the borders of paths and lawns, particularly if the conditions are both hot and humid. The ant season is almost upon us if not already here so we must try out this practical remedy when the occasion demands it. I shared my tip of an ecologically sound but cheap weedkiller. This is basically vinegar with a dose of washing-up liquid put into a simple spray bottle such as you can find in ‘Poundland’. The point about the washing up liquid is that it reduces the surface tension of the fluid thus making it ‘wetter’ so to speak. The acetic acid will basically draw moisture from the plant and if put onto offending weeds at the start of what is going to be a hot day, then by midday the weeds should have basically shrivelled up. The roots still remain of course but to all purposes, the weed is effectively killed. I use this remedy for small, hard to get at weeds rather than the bigger variety that can just be gently pulled out so that on gets the roots out as well as the rest of the plant. We have not had rain for so long now I suddenly realised that some of the plants in pots outside our kitchen at the back of the house are starting to droop with the absence of moisture so I must get into the habit of throwing some water over them until such time as the rains arrive which they surely will in seasonable thunder storms as the temperatures rise in the next few days.

Lunch today was our final meal, finishing of our chicken legs. We tend to buy chicken thighs as they are more flavoursome than the breasts and we cook them with the skin on and bones in before discarding these at dishing up time. The trouble with chicken meals is that they tend to go on and on and after several days, one gets a bit fed up with it. This does not happen with other joints of meat because we tend to buy the smallest joints we can buy, then cook the lot but immediately divide it into half before freezing it for future use. So each ‘half’ joint as it were tends to last for two or three days but not four days which is what happens with our chicken meals.

This afternoon, Meg had a little round trip planned for the Worcestershire countryside. It was a glorious afternoon and we drove to near the Malvern hills but on a future occasion we think it is possible to drive three quarters of the way up the hills and then launch off for a walk towards the summit. We have not done that yet although our son and one of his bosom mates did it not too long ago but as Meg’s health has deteriorated somewhat, then really strenuous hill walks à la Lake District feels are now beyond us. However, it looks as though we might have quite a decent summer and one does hear tales of friends and others who have gone onto continental Europe and experienced a lot of rain whereas we have been basking in Mediteranean type temperatures. In a similar vein, there was news this morning that London Airport was likely to be inflicted by strikes on every weekend throughout the summer which might deter some of us taking holidays abroad for a bit.

I have acquired a new skill over the last day or so. It is possible to find on the web a ‘virtual piano’ and using one of these websites and with a little bit of practice, I have learnt how to play the very simple hymn tune called the ‘Old Hundredth’ aka ‘All People That On Earth Do Dwell’ I might entend this to very simple classical music melodies if I hear them on ClassicFM and can find the music score for them.

Today was a fairly uneventful day with not a great deal to report. Our domestic help had called around today rather than Friday which is her usual day. She had very kindly brought around some items of kitchen equipment for me to utilise when we entertain Meg’s cousins in about ten days time. We needed to purchase a condolence card for the son of the elderly relative of Meg who died recently two weeks short of his 100th birthday and our domestic help also wanted me to buy some cleaning products for her to utilise this morning. Then we returned home and I started to think about the lunch preparation which I needed to get done in plenty of time. I seared off a couple of the remaining chicken thighs and then got them going for a thorough cook in the oven so that we could eat fairly promptly. Wednesdays are now the days when I get the lawns cut but I must say that with the absence of rain, their growth had moderated slightly. I started getting the lawns cut promptly after lunch and was pleased to get them all done by mid afternoon. Then it was a case of getting a treat of some ice cream as it had been quite a hot afternoon after which I did a couple of outdoor jobs and prepared for a restful evening.

Today, I have re-started a little savings process which I used to deploy some years ago but I had got out of the habit. I found £2 coins quite hard to come by these days and I suspect that I know the reason why. As part of my little savings program together, I suspect, with similar minded savers throughout the country, every time I get a £2 coin in my normal change it goes into a little ‘savings owl’ that I am utilising for the purpose. I keep track of how much my owl contains and when I get to a total such £10 or even £20, then I withdraw so much less from my normal shopping money for the week. My savings are now effectively banked and this being the case allocate it into which ever particular savings pot I want. This has the effect of making that savings pot receive ‘interest’ which greatly exceeds the paltry rate that the banks and building societies pay to savers. Of course, since quantatitive easing (aka the government throwing money at the banks to ‘stimulate’ the economy) financial institutions do not have to try to attract savings from customers which is part of the traditional financial orthodoxy and which is why until the recent rise in interest rates, they managed to get by with only rates such as 0.1% a year. Of course, I know that I am paying myself interest with my ‘own’ money but I find this little savings regime psychologically satisfying and a bit of thrift is not a habit to be ditched lightly.

As part of a commentary on social and cultural lives in the UK, a new approach has recently been undertaken to acertain where to draw the line between north and south in contemporary Britain. This approach looks at the distribution of fast food stores and notes where ‘Pret a Manger’ gives way to ‘Greggs‘, the latter being judged to be much more proletarian and hence ‘northern’ A similar analysis has also been done but this time using the distribution of ‘Waitrose‘ versus ‘Morrisons‘ supermarkets as a cultural marker.
But more importantly than all of this is a report that has been prepared by the TUC as part of its submission to the COVID enquiry. The report details how the years of austerity made major cuts to each of the necessary parts of the social fabric and hence, when COVID did strike, the necessary social infrastructure was ill-prepared to cope with it all. George Osborne and David Cameron as the relevant Prime Minister and Chancellor at the time who implemented the years of austerity are going to be asked to give evidence to the COVID enquiry. I am not sure at this stage whether they will be subject to a stringent barrister-led investigation of their role but this might be quite an interesting ‘calling to account’ that will be worth listening to when it eventually happens, probably in the Autumn. I also heard a rumour recently that the timetable for the subjects that the COVID enquiry is due to undertake so that ‘lessons can be learnt’ has been adjusted so that the ‘success’ of the pandemic such as the developmemnt of effective vaccines will be discussed first but the preparedness of the NHS and the Care sector in residential homes for the elderly might not now be heard until after the next election. On the face of it, this seems like drawing the teeth of the enquiry before it has even started its work. We are still unsure who will win the tussle between the Chairman of the enquiry and the government over the release of un-redacted WhatsApp nessages. A much wider question remains, of course, what the government was doing allowing the background to critical decisions being conducted using the medium of WhatsApp in the first place rather than using more bespoke secure government systems.

So Tuesday has rolled around again and this is the day to which we look forward because we generally meet up with old friends in the Waitrose cafe. Our regular ‘veteran singer’ was in evidence again – this is my sobriquet for her as she was recently part of a choir that sang Brahm’s requiem when she is approaching her ninetieth year and we often find that we can have a chat about things musical. For reasons that will become apparent shortly, I have recently come to the realisation that a full piano keyboard is 88 keys which is the equivalent of 7.25 octaves whereas most modern electronic equivalents make do with a 61 key keyboard which is 5 octaves. The octave are the 7 ‘white’ notes and the five ‘black’ notes making 12 keys per octave – 12 times 5 is 60 with the extra top ‘C’ added to the top to make 61. For many learners five octaves (or 61 keys) are sufficient and I did not know until today that most baroque music and the early Mozart and Beethoven can to all extent and purposes be played on a 61-key keyboard. By the middle of the 19th century, pianos typically had 85 keys. By the end of the century, pianos began to emerge with the now standard 88 keys. It was not really until the late 1880s when 88 keys became standard on pianos. So a beginner ought to be able to make quite a lot of progress on a 61 key piano until he/she meets composers from the mid 19th century onwards. A bit of Googling has revealed that the reason Mozart can be played on 61 keys is because, during his time, there are only 5 octaves (61 keys) on the keyboard instruments of that era. Thus, most of Mozart’s piano pieces are composed using 61 keys. Nowadays, Mozart’s pieces are transcribed to be played on the modern piano keyboard. A bit more research revealed that Mozart did not play on the 88 key piano we have today. The 88 key piano was created by Beethoven when he started writing pieces for the 88 key piano that had yet to be created by the piano manufacturers of his day. Beethoven was such a rock star that the aristocracy pressured the manufacturers into changing the design of the piano so that they could hear the pieces that Beethoven had written. Mozart was born in 1756, 24 years before Beethoven was born and so Mozart played on the 66 key Fortepiano. The keys are thinner and closer together and therefore are more difficult to play. Meanwhile, our friend is off on holiday with her family to mid-Wales so we shall miss her company next week. We discovered, incidentally, that both Meg’s mother and her own mother were excellent seamstresses and so made all of the clothes that their children needed.

So Meg and I made our way home and I then progressed down to participate in my normal Pilates session. There were only three of us this week, supplemented by one extra person on ‘Zoom’ which sometimes happens. Our Pilates teacher is very good and experienced and if any one of us has a niggle which can happen then alternative exercises are suggested to help that sufferer participate fully in the lesson. I suppose that would not be possible if we were part of a group some 20 strong which is what some classes happen to be.

Every so often a news item occurs which tickles the imagination. On the news today was the story of the Aston Martin ‘Bulldog’ designed to reach a speed of 200mph. Only one was ever produced as a sort of prototype and an attempt to run the car ended in disaster when the engine blew up on an initial run in the 1980s. However, today the engine has been restored and a test run performed on a remote Scottish air landing strip. I suspect that the test driver must have been incredibly brave (or foolhardy) to attempt this feat but today the target was achieved with a speed of 205 mph.

In the Ukraine war, the world must surely be shocked with the breach of the Nova Kakhovka dam. It is being reported that some 80 villages and communities and some 22,000 population below the dam have had to be evacuated in the light of the flood waters released by the breached dam. Even more serious is the nearby Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station for which the reservoir cools reactors and nuclear waste stored at the nuclear power plant. Pumps will stop working if the water level dips below 12.7 metres, an expert has said. The situtaion is said to be ‘stable’ at the moment but the ecological disaster is evident. The Americans are leaning towards blaming the Russians but tonight both the Russians and the Ukrainians are blaming each other.

Meanwhile the tug of way between the COVID enquiry chair and the government is continuing. The COVID inquiry chair insists it is for her to decide what material is ‘relevant’ in the row over Johnson WhatsApps and there are broad hints that she will resign rather than accede to the government’s desire to redact (presumably embarrassing) material. If this case ever gets to the Courts, the government is almost certain to lose the case anyway.