So Tuesday has dawned which is the day for our regular weekly visit to the Waitrose coffee bar, where we hope to bump into some of our regulars. No sooner had we got ourselves in place and enjoying a repast of muffins and coffee, one of our pre-pandemic Waitrose friends turned up and we started chatting again about musical topics as in a previous conversation, she had revealed to us that she used to sing regularly in a choir and that her son had been a music editor with Decca records. I know from another friend, not with us today, that our friend actually had her 89th birthday last week so I am going to note down the actual date of her birthday so that hopefully, I can remember it next year and, as it a ‘big’ birthday, reward her with a cake or something similar. Our friend indicated to us that she had been invited back to sing in the choir now that the Covid restrictions are no longer in force. When I asked her if she knew what the choir was going to practice in their next session and did you need any sheet music to participate, she informed me that she knew the piece already as it was Brahm’s requiem. It also emerged in the conversation that she had sung Mozart’s Requiem and was very familiar with Handel’s Messiah having, in the past, sung some of the solo mezzo/contralto cantatas. We must have known our friend for some three years now and she has the demeanour of a quiet and unassuming person, so I was amazed to discover that she was so talented. The popular expresson, not much heard these days, is not to ‘hide ones light under a bushel’ which seems rather a strange expression until you go back to its origins in the New Testament (Matthew 5:15): ‘Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick.’ which is drawn, I suspect from the King James Bible.

After the experiment of last night in which some sections of the population were attempting to save all available power between 5.00pm and 6.00pm, I got onto my account with my energy supplier to see if, in these days of SmartMeters and accounts that can be calculated by the minute, I could tell how much energy I had saved (or points accumulated). I was a bit disappointed to be thanked for my participation and then informed that it would take them ‘some days’ to calculate the actual contribution I had made, which was disappointing. Then came the news that the National Grid was going to repeat the experiment his evening but over a longer period of time – not an hour this time but an hour and a half from 4.30pm until 6.00pm. I decided to try a somewhat different strategy this evening, in view of the longer time period. So I decided to turn off all of our major consumers of which the greatest at this time is a Baxi electric fire which supplements the central heating on really cold days. But I did leave on a really low energy lamp in our living room and the TV itself and I did dig out a blanket which I threw over Meg and for myself, I put on a extra thick jumper. Apart from the electric fire, it is actually quite difficult to save energy whereas for other people, it just a case of rescheduling activities. For example, in the TV reports of how this experiment was proceeding, the case was given of a nurse who typically came home and threw her uniform (and other family washing) into the washing machine when she got home at 5.00pm and I would imagine that this particular family could save quite a lot of energy in the relevant time slot by just using the washing machine an hour later than was her custom. It will be interesting to see if the experiment will run for several more days and whether, in fact, the combined efforts of many of us will have succeeded in averting the use of either or both of the two coal-fired power stations that are standby in case they are needed. Perhaps a large advertising campaign that just encourages people to move activities away from the pressured 5.00pm-6.00pm slot would be a good way forward.

In my walk back from my Pilates session, I took particular care to look at some of the trees and shrubs in the gardens that I pass on my walk back home. I noticed about three trees/shrubs where, if you looked carefully, you could just about discern some buds that are waiting for the advent of spring. Although no biologist, I get the impression that some plants do an initial budding from deep within their stems and then put the process into abeyance once the cold weather starts. But then, when we get some spring like weather, the trees and shrubs can get off to a flying start. It is also possible that we shall have another high pressure/cold weather snap in February which is not unusual in the winter months. Meanwhile the temperature had been up to 16 degrees in some parts of Scotland whereas the cold artic air means that Oxfordshire has experienced -9 degrees last night.

Today dawned a little less cold although the high pressure/cold snap is persisting a little longer than the weather forecasters initially predicted. This morning, though, we treated ourselves to a good bowl of porridge which, as all of the health experts tell us, is full of good, slow release carbohydrates and sets one up for the day. This morning, after we had breakfasted we had picked up our copy of the newspaper and we trundled along the High Street making our way towards a card shop. There we located the section for ‘In sympathy’ cards but, as I suspected, they were both hard to find and stuck at the end of a carousel and very few in number compared with the yards of space devoted to birthday cards suitable for practically any age. This task having been completed, we made our way past our local Poundland where we popped in to see whether any of our favourite little plastic containers (that are exactly the right size for storing 20+ CDs) were in stock – and they had a goodly number in stock. We purchased three of them which ought to be enough for our needs and also bought the little felt ‘feet’ that we stick on the bottom so that they do not scratch surfaces. Finally, we visited our local Waitrose where I wanted to buy a little something as a little bereavement present for our next door neighbour who has just lost her brother. Our neighbours are now in that twilight period where they are waiting for the funeral in about 10-12 days time after which, no doubt, they can start to adjust to life without their relative. As I write, we are playing a CD of a compilation of Mozart tracks and the one playing at the moment is the aria ‘Soave sia il vento’ (‘Softly blows the wind’) which I always associate with my mother’s funeral. This is because on the night before the funeral when the coffin was present in the church all night and we had just arrived in the church car park, this aria was playing -it represesents a sort of ‘goodbye’ when the two young girls in the opera are waving goodbye to their lovers. As a sort of spooky coincidence, when we were visiting Harrogate about a year later and went past the road leading to the cemetory where my mother was buried, this track was being played on ClassicFM.

This afternooon, after we had our post-prandial cup of tea, we popped around to our neighbours with the little gift and the condolence card. She was bearing up quite well but I am sure must be feeling the loss of her brother quite keenly. I busied myself in the afternoon looking up at the stocks of CDs that we have in various places to try to pull together the various bits of both Hayden and Handel that we have as I think I will now keep them altogether and much more accessible. I rediscovered part of Hayden’s ‘The Creation’ which I had in for some time and was particularly delighted that my favourite cantata (‘The heavans are teling the glory of the Lord’) was on this particular CD but as the various parts were given their German titles, I had not immediately recognised it. By today’s post came the John Eliot Gardiner rendition of arias and choruses from Bach’s ‘St John Passion’ which we particularly enjoyed playing whilst we are having a relaxing read during the afternoon. I have relocated the Panasonic ‘BoomBox’ which I purchased incredibly cheaply a few weeks ago in a more proximate location in our living room so that we can enjoy afternoon concerts whenever we want. As I am writing this, Meg and I are engaging in an interesting type of social experiment which I think is being tried across the country. If you have signed up for this experiment as Meg and I have through our utility supplier, then you are encouraged to turn off as much power as is possible to save a certain degree of energy during a period of what may well be maximum demand. With the introduction of smart meters, it is possible to calculate exactly how much less than normal your power consumption is for this particular hour (from 5pm-6pm) and then your utility company will reimburse you some money (of the order of £2-£3). In this way, the National Grid (who may well be the ultimate funder of the scheme) may be able to tunnel through this period of maximum demand without having to rely upon some coal-fired power stations that are being kept on standby in case power supplies dip below the normally accepted safe levels. Although we can import power from continental Europe, they may not be able to supply it as their own domestic customers will evidently take some priority. A few hours later when all of the sums have been computed, I am hoping that my utility provider (‘Octopus’) will manage to compute for me how much power I have actually saved and how much money I have ‘earned’ It does feel quite exciting to engage in a national project like this, the first of its kind I think, and I will report in future how successful it has been.

The weather was supposed to be getting a trifle less cold this morning but it seemed to maintain the pattern of the past few days. I got up early as I typically do on a Sunday and then walked down into town. I was greeted by the most magnificent of layered sunrises, so much so that I succumbed to the temptation to take a photo and a video of the panoramic sky. But whether the full beauty of the different layers of colour can be appreciated in a photo, I cannot tell. The cold morning was punctuated by four ambulances, one jogger and one intrepid dogwalker, after which I was glad to get home to watch the Laura Kuennsberg (Politics) programme. For once, I thought that Laura Kuennsberg was relatively penetrating and persistent in her questionning of James Cleverley, the Foreign Secretary, who had been despatched across the airwaves knowing that much of the questionning was going to be on the subject of Nadhim Zahawi, the Conservative party chairman. The story of Zahawi’s tax affairs goes back quite a long way and there have long been persistent rumours that he was under investagtion by HMRC for a large underpayment of tax. The latest facts, insofar as they can be ascertained, is that Zahawi owed a tax bill of £3 million and paid a penalty of over 30% making a total payment to HMRC of practically £5 million. The story of this tax avoidance (which is what it appears to be) is tangled but it involves the distribution of shares between Nadhim Zahawi and his father, the subsequent appearance of £99,000 and and an off-shore account in Gibraltar. The MSM (Main Street Media) have restricted themselves to the reporting of facts as admitted by Zahawi himself but the contributors to Twitter have no such inhibitions and several other facets of the affair have received a good airing. According to these accounts, Zahawi should have paid tax on a total of £17 million. When other journalists and commentators have tried to pursue this story, Zahawi’s lawyers have threatened them by the issue of a libel writ (a favourite device used by the rich and powerful when they are trying to prevent full disclosure of their affairs) Another rumour is that Zahawi was on line for a knighthood but the Cabinet Office advised against this because of the ongoing rumours about his tax affairs. From the viewpoint of the members of the public, we have a situation in which the Chancellor of the Exchequeur, ‘de facto’ head of HMRC (His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) is investigating a department of which he is the titular head. But another financial type scandal has also broken in the last day. It appears that the person appointed as head of the BBC also acted as a ‘contact’ person to help arrange of loan to Boris Johnson of some £800,000 when Johnson was running into financial difficulties. Although it is being mooted that the Chairman of the BBC was the best applicant for the job at the time, the proximity of helping to arrange a huge financial loan to the Prime Minister and shortly afterwards being appointed Chairman of the BBC is noteworthy. The shadow culture secretary, Lucy Powell, has written to the Commissioner for Public Appointments, William Shawcross CVO, asking him to investigate the appointment process. Meanwhile for us bystanders there is an enormous air of sleaze hanging over the present Conservative party and one wonders whether Zahawi, for one, will survive as long as Wednesday which is the day for Prime Minister’s Questions. Of course, the whole premiership of Rishi Sunak himself which pledged high ethical standards and a professional deportment from his ministers is seen to be so much empty rhetoric as these scandals swirl around him.

Today has been a quiet day for Meg and I. We were not particularly tempted to go for a constitutional walk today as a freezing fog was still in some evidence. In addition, our University of Birmingham friend sent me a message to the effect that he had a heavy cold and did not want to inflict it upon us. So we stayed in and had a leisurely lunch of some unsmoked gammon which had cooked for several hours in the slow cooker this morning. The afternoon was devoted to a leisurely reading of the Sunday newspapers and a viewing of ‘Endeavour’ on ITVX (the new name for the ITV hub). Tomorrow morning, I suspect that Meg and I need to make a little foray along the High Street in search of a condolence card for our next door neighbours. They have recently had a bereavement of a brother and this comes hard on the heels of another family member who died about a fortnight ago. This remnded me of a terrible year which we had some years ago in which there were about eight bereavements in almost a few months but these were people unrelated to each other and in various parts of the country. Our close friends from down the Kidderminster Road were also setting forth today for a funeral tomorrow down in London so it is one just wishes that all of these individuals has a relatively peaceful end (and for which in my teenage years we used to pray for a ‘good end’ without fully appeciating what was meant by the phrase).

Today being a Saturday, we are always in a bit of different routine. Meg and I slept in a little this morning but we got our act together once we actually got up, had breakfast and then repaired to our Waitrose cafe hoping to see some of our regulars. We made contact with one of our pre-pandemic Waitrose regulars and spent an interesting half hour chatting with each other, mainly talking about the health needs of our respective partners and we how we were both managing to meet them one way or another. When we got home, I read my emails and we had received one from one of the sons of an eminent professor of publc administration in Spain, who died about two years ago. His name was Mariano Baena and he actually helped to frame the modern Spanish constitution after the death of Franco. As the Professor of Public Administration at the Complutense University in Spain (roughly equivalent to our Cambridge) he made contact with us at Leicester Polytechnic and, cutting a lot of history short, helped to form an exchange relationship under the then Erasmus scheme, designed to facilitate students (and staff) to spend a certain portion of their study in a partner university. We sent several students to Spain once we had given them a crash course in Spanish and received several back, some of whom are now amongst our oldest and closest friends. I spent a term teaching Information Technology to Spanish public administration students and Mariano Baena was immensely kind to me, generally offering me a trip at the weekends to other Spanish cities such as Avila and Burgos, usually centering upon monasteries. I have one abiding memory of one trip out which we made with some of his trusted, postgraduate students. We were parked in a very tight space and even though our own car was small, it would prove difficult to get it out of the tight space. Mariano Baena’s solution was to edge his own car forwards and bump the car in front about a foot. He then adopted the reverse procedure and bumped the car behind him a similar distance. And so this proceeded until it was judged that we had space enough to get out of the parking space without more ado. All that I can remember about this particular incident is that the postgraduate students and myself were absolutely helpless with laughter. I have to add that Mariano Baena was a distinguished academic and an equally esteemed High Court judge who, at one stage, required round the clock protection lest he get assassinated by ETA, the Basque terrorist group, who had a penchant for killing High Court judges when the occasion arose.

Late on this morning, the postman delivered nearly the last of my acquisition of classical CDs, bought through eBay. I must say that I could not resist a boxed set of all 9 Beethoven symphonies on six CDs with Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic recorded by Deutche Grammaphon. This is about as perfect a combination as it is possible to get for which I paid £5.60 and so again, like my other recent acquisitions, hours of listening pleasure remain. I tend to give Meg and myself a breakfast time concert as we are preparing, eating and then washing up after breakfast – and ditto at lunchtimes. Although I haven’t done a count, I suspect that I now have a collection of about 120 classical CDs so that it certainly enough to keep us entertained and relaxed over the weeks ahead. Saturday afternoon is always a fairly relaxed affair as we attend church late on in the afternoon and when we return, we already have the good tin of soup organised for when we return, as well as scoping out the TV we intend to watch for the rest of the evening.

Politically, the big story today is how Nadhim Zahawi, a one time Chancellor of the Exchequer of the many we have had recently, has reportedly paid a tax bill of at least £5 million if not more. He says that the tax error was found to be ‘careless and not deliberate’ after calls for his sacking by the Opposition parties. But it is evident that he has paid a penalty of some 30% of the overdue tax so there is an evident lack of transparency, not least to officials of the Inland Revenue, in the past. Zahawi has repeatedly indicated that he had nothing to hide when enquiries have been made of him by journalists but it now looks as though events are overtaking him. How long he can survive as Chairman of the Conservative party remains unclear because although he has the reputation of being a good communicator, every public appearance from now on will be dominated by questions about his tax affairs. This means that he either keeps quiet on futue occasions (thus rather making a mockery of his present role) or he has to face persistent and potentially embarrassing questions. If questions about his tax affairs persist for more a week, then I suspect that like other Tory politicians who have been found out, he will soon become toast (as Alastair Campbell, ex Labour party spokesman was wont to say about other long lasting scandals)

This morning I leapt out of bed sufficiently early for me to get myself washed, dressed and ready to enter the supermarket as soon as it opened. Although we had a frost last night, the car was not as iced up as it was a few days ago so it was relatively easy to get onto the open road and the traffic was generally quite light as well. Before I went out, my son kindly donated to me a Pure Radio which is almost an exact replacement for one that I already have except that it is ‘stuck’ on one station (which happens to be Classic FM) and is therefore almost non-functional. The Pure DAB radios are really easy both to tune and to save favourite stations to presets and also has the feature of displaying the time in a bright, digital display so I am glad to have a nice functional unit in place once again. Last night, I received a special delivery from Amazon which was a copy on the actual publication day of my great niece’s first novel. This seems to be rather a ‘dark’ oevre but reading the dedications and acknowledgements to family and friends was interesting and as far as I have got at the moment. My great niece has always shown a great talent both for acting and also for creative writing – it is said that many novels have a degree of autobiography about them and I feel that this is probably true in this case as well. Once I had got back from shopping a largish prcel had arrived which was the collection of 46 classical CDs for which I had placed a successful on eBay a few days ago. Unpacking and carefully organised the CDs into some special plastic containers (already judiciously purchased from Poundland) was a pleasure that had to await our return from our visit to the Waitrose cafe where we met one of our regulars who even at her age is still a keen bowler during the winter months. I knew almost exactly what the collection of CDs would contain and, no doubt, the pleasure that they will give will unwind during the days ahead. Whilst we were having lunch, Meg and I treated ourselves to some famous Bach choruses sung by The Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists under the baton of John Eliot Gardiner which must rate as as definitive a performance as it is possible to get. In fact, I was so delighted with the collection that I wrote a special note to the chappie on eBay who had sold them, explaining how these CDs were ones that were very consistent with our own musical tastes and how the CDs had gone to a ‘good’ home. Although a seller just wants to complete a transaction, the whole collection had evidently been been carefully thought about and assembled by a real aficianado so I felt he/she deserved to learn of their ultimate fate.

Quite a chilly air is still very much in evidence and despite the wearing of two sweaters, both Meg and I felt as though we could do with something a little hotter than our seabass served on a bed of lettuce. The dilemma was solved by serving the fish on one of those low-carb packets (sweet potato in this case)and the result was both delicious and warming.In fact, this combination reminded me of the days when at Leicester Polytechnic, the then Medical Officer of Health (who is the local government official charged with public health responsibilities)used to give a talk once a year to Health Visitors and Field Work Teachers. One, in particular, was concerned even in the 1980’s about the importance of good diet and the avoidance of obesity and junk-food generated disease patterns. His standard line of argument always used to be that we needed here in the affluent West to adopt the ‘poor man’s diet’ of fish and rice which seemed somewhat ‘way out’ when he was giving his advice but somewhat less so now that we are one or two decades down the track. Last night in the evening, Meg and I settled down to watch some back episodes of ‘Happy Valley’ on the BBC i-player in which we have become completely engrossed. I was psychologically prepared to leap up every 30-40 minutes to overcome the buffering problems that have plagued our FireStick since we have started to use it much more to catch up on past episodes. As I was poised in readiness, the technology performed flawlessly for an hour of the repeated programme – which I suppose is a sort of Sod’s Law in operation. Half way through the afternoon, our next door neighbour called around to tell us that her brother has died last night in a hospital in Wales. This was not at all unexpected but of course, it is always a bit of a shock when it occurs however prepared one feels one is. We gave what words of comfort we can and resolved to have the neighbours round for a cup of tea and a chat once the immediate turmoils are behind them. When a relative dies, there is always quite a lot to be done but her employers are expecting her back at work on the dot first thing tomorrow morning.

Today we decided to break with our normal routine somewhat and delay our weekly supermarket shopping for a day, assuming that the weather might have improved a bit by tomorrow morning. We decided to go instead to Droitwich which is just ‘down the road’ and have a toddle around our normal haunts. So we picked up our newspaper, filled up with petrol and then made our way to Droitwich to begin our peregrinations. We start off by going to one of the most popular coffee bars in the town which happens to be our favourite because the coffee is good as well as being hot and they serve a magnificent (buttered) teacake which we share between us. After we had eaten and drunk our fill, we stagger next door which is a Cancer Relief charity shop with generally a good range of clothing inside. There seemed to be an interesting pricing policy going on in this particular store because I normally take a 15½ size of shirt but if you moved up to a size 16 the price dropped by a half. I bought myself a ‘Brookes Brothers’ shirt which normally retails at anything from £50 upwards so this moving half a size upwards might be an interesting experiment for me. We generally look for a skirt for Meg but these to be in very short supply as there stores are generally overflowing with tops but very light in the skirt department (as so many women now wear trousers rather than skirts I imagine) We were also tempted into buying a small barometer/hygrometer/thermometer hanging unit which seemed neat and relatively inobtrusive. When I got this home, I gave it a clean-cum-reconditioning with some furniture polish and it is now hanging from a spare picture hook which is in our newly refurbished ‘music room’. Then we progressed onto my favourite hardware/toiletries store which is ‘Wilko‘ and from here we replenished some of our stationery supplies and did a quick tour to see if anything else happened to catch our eye which it did not. Then we got back into the car and reparked it so that it was nearer to the eating place at which we had booked lunch but made a trip to the TV and white goods store which had sold us our television setup a few years ago now. I asked them for some help with the buffering problems to which our Firestick is subject and they told me things that I already know i.e. have I checked the WiFi access speed and so on. Last night, when we are accessing some of the previous series of a programme we are watching on the BBC iPlayer, the Firestick ran into a buffering problem and froze within 20 minutes. I then performed my now, usual trick of disconnecting and then re-connecting the Firestick and this made it perform without problems for the next 1 hour and 40 minutes. So long as I have a quick and ready solution to the buffering problem, I can live with this but I am wary of spending on WiFi extenders which may not be necessary and which might not cure the problem anyway.

We finally got to our appointed lunch slot (in a kind of ‘Olde Worlde Teashoppe’ type cafe) where they do an enormous roast each Thursday and got there at 1.00pm. We waited for 30 minutes for our lunch but the cafe clientele are generally regulars who know each other so there is a fair amount of general chat and banter flying backwards and forwards. Once our dinner arrived, it was absolutely enormous slices of lamb and piled up with vegetables – the sort of ‘Christmas dinner’ type meal that you think you are never going to finish. But Meg and I ploughed onto the end but as it was a much bigger meal than that to which we are accustomed, we may well eat very light meals for the next day or so to rebalance ourselves. After that, it was a case of getting home, unpacking our shopping and collapsing in front of a warm fire and with a warming cup of tea. The shopping trip which should have taken place today is now postponed until first thing tomorrow morning but the weather should be several degrees warmer by then.

In the political world, the ‘levelling up’ agenda is having some interesting developmemts. Apparently, the phrase ‘levelling up’ is to be officially dicouraged. According to ‘The Times‘, terms such as ‘stepping up’ or ‘enhancing communities’ is now the official terminology. But even more cynically, some so-called levelling up funds are now being directed to the South East rather than the North East. The Tory West Midland mayor is furious at the process for allocating levelling up funds, calling for an end to Whitehall’s ‘broken begging bowl culture’. In an angry statement, Andy Street said he wanted ministers to justify why ‘the majority’ of bids in his region had been rejected.The West Midlands received £155m from a £2.1bn pot of levelling up funds whilst the PM’s constituency (Richmond in North Yorkshire) as received a large allocation of money of £19 million whilst £151m is going to London, the North East gets £108m and the Humber is getting £120m.

Today has been an interesting day. On Wednesdays, our domestic help calls around and we are always pleased to see her and exchange news with her. Last night, we had listened quite carefully to the weather forecast and although the weather was still freezing, it looked as though there was going to be quite a gusty wind which, at this time of year, equates to an icy blast. So we decided to give the park a miss for today and perhaps wait for the weather to improve a little. As it turned out, our domestic help had walked to our house (to make sure she had plenty of exercise) and informed us that it was quite a beautiful day to walk so we revised our plans and then determined to go for a walk around the lake in the park but not engage in a sojourn on a park bench. After our walk we make straight for home and warm up on some soup. Meg and I dived into the chest where we keep scarves, gloves and similar items and discovered a beautiful warm scarf for Meg. At the same time, I located my University of Manchester scarf at the bottom of the pile which I had not worn for about 20 years but today was surely a good time to press it back into service again together with a good pair of gloves which are also sorely needed. So Meg and I had quite a pleasant little walk in the park and muffled up to the eyebrows, we did not allow the cold to penetrate too far. We got back in time for the Wednesday ritual of Prime Minister’s Questions which was full of the usual knockabout stuff and one gets the feeling that both the PM and the Leader of the Opposition have their attack lines well rehearsed and it shows. After the initial exchanges, there is always the cringeworthy spectacle of government MPs asking self-congratulatory questions which are not really questions at all but very often contain an invitation for the PM to visit their constituency which request is always granted (but I wonder how often honoured) Just before we went out, we had a delivery from the postman which was meant to be the complete Mozart Piano Sonatas that I had bought for 99p + postage but what turned up was very different. It turned out to be a complete box set in 10 CDs of Mozart’s 50 symphonies which was actually a surprise to me as the last one he wrote is No. 42. However, I did see an explanation on the web to the effect that Mozart actually wrote 41 symphonies but No. 17 was written by his father, No. 18 by another composer and a third was one to which Mozart only added a few bars to a Michael Haydn symphony. This makes 38 but if we add in 14 early sinfonias this brings the total to 52. In any case, this was evidently a mistake by the well-known firm who specialise in selling off ‘job lots’ so I have accepted the complete box set with a degree of pleasure.

We are contemplating where to go tomorrow for a little trip out. We have been recommended a magnificent local restaurant which sounds good for a special occasion but we are still deciding whether to splash out on it or not. We may well go to our usual haunt in Droitwich where I can can call in the TV shop that sold us our TV kit a few years ago so ask some advice on the Firestick buffering problems we have been experiencing (which, incidentally, our son has also experienced but our domestic help has not)

Today in the Hpouse of Commons, Keir Starmer pressed the PM on waiting times for ambulances, starting off with a hypothetical question (looking at the Commons clock, if a person had heart attack symptoms now, how long would they have to wait for an ambulance at various locations throughout the UK?) The PM response was to attack Keir Starmer for not supporting the Government’s attempts to force Minimum Service Level agreements – the legislation for which has only just started its journey through the Commons and the Lords and may take months to come into force. Then Keir Starmer followed up his attack by mentioning the case of a 26 year old cancer sufferer who died before she could be transported to the hospital which was only a few miles away. The House of Commons heard this in complete silence and I wonder how much the clip will be replayed on the news bulletins later on today. Whilst the Government appears to be desperately playing for time, public sympathy is still with the striking nurses and ambulance drivers so the stalemate may well continue right throughout February and March. On 1st February, teachers will strike to be joined by other public sector unions. But today, a junior transport minister has admitted that settling the rail dispute would have cost less than the costs to the society of the strike. Having admitted this, I wonder how long the Rail minister, Huw Merriman, will keep his job as it seems true that the strike is being prolonged just for the government to ‘hold the line’ on pay.

Last night was the culmination of the waiting period for a job lot of 46 classical CDs that were being sold on eBay and in which I was particularly interested. Firstly, these CDs almost exactly mirror my own (classical) musical tastes and preferences which is remarkable in itself. But secondly, this was not just an assembly of CDs but were very evidently the work of a very discerning collector as all of the performers were absolutely top rate and many of the performances could be regarded as definitive in their genre. The starting bid was £15 for all 46 but I tried to be a little streetwise but did not submit my bid until about 3-4 minutes before the ending time for the auction. The eBay auction system works by automatically upping your bid in about £1 increments until you emerge as the winner of the auction (or have been outbid). In my case, there was one other bidder and evidently his top limit must have been lower than mine otherwise he would have won the auction. The system normally tells you when you have won but last night I got a rather strange message to say that ‘eBay was trying to determine who had won the auction’ followed by an invitation to pay, from which I concluded that I had won the auction for only a little over the initial starting price. Needless to say, I paid on the spot and now await the results of my successful bid in a few days time. I have already worked out the storage area because I have in the past spotted some little plastic baskets with a carrying handle on the side (rather as though it were actually a jug rather than a basket) in which some 22-23 CDs fit absolutely beautifully. So when the CDs arrive, I have a home already prepared for them but today, on the way down to my Pilates class, I popped into our neighbourhood Poundland to see if I could replenish the couple I already had in stock. I was in luck and also managed to secure some of those little felt ‘feet’ that you pop onto the bottom of items to make them effectively scratchproof.

Today the temperatures were well below freezing at about -4 degrees and before we could get the car out, we needed to resort to our ‘warm water in a watering can’ treatment to de-ice the car before we got on our way. It looks as though the cold snap will be with us for a few days yet, as well. Of course, this little system of ours has worked OK but we still have the ice on the inside of the car windscreen to cope with which we did successfully. When we got to Waitrose which is normal every Tuesday morning, none of our usual friends were there and we suspect the bad weather might have deterred some of them from venturing out. But as we were on the point of departure, one of our friends turned up and we spent an interesting half hour, discussing amongst other things the kinds of strategies in which has to engage when either moving or clearing a house. One typically has to take the decision to either keep, throw away or donate items either to friends and relatives or, in some cases, donate to the local charity shop. I recall with a certain amount of horror when we moved house some 15 years ago and, in those days, old credit card statements were paper versions not online) and often contained full details of name, address and credit card number and therefore could only be junked at one’s peril. Hence every single piece of paper had to be read to ensure that no personal information should fall into the wrong hands and the sifting process is time consuming in the extreme. When we were due to leave, our friend was having a little difficuly rising from her chair (as she has mobility difficulties) but two of the staff rushed to her aid and helped to get her onto her feet and hence on her way. Our friend is extremely independent and generally self sufficient but there are always times in which one needs a little bit of help. So incredible service from the Waitrose staff but, of course, we are all known to the staff as regulars and our particular Waitrose does have an incredible service ethic.

The major political story today is about the conflict between the Westminster and the Scottish parliaments over the Gender Recognition issues upon which the Scots have recently voted – and which the Westminster parliament will not pass through for final signature by the monarch. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the particular legislation which will be fought out in a variety of courts over the next year or so, perhaps a massive tactical mistake is being made by the Westminster Parliament. When the public opinion in favour of a second referendum is on a knife-edge in Scotland, a dispute between the Scottish and English parliaments can only reinforce the case that the SNP are making for a fully independent Scotland.

Everything got off to rather a delayed start today. Our next door neighbour called round to explain that a large van was due to be delivering some furniture to him today and whilst the van was in place, it would block the exit of our car. This did delay us for about half an hour but we did eventually get underway and made our trip to the park. Today we christened a new coffee flask as our old and battered one has been in almost constant and daily use for the past three or four years and was quietly giving up the ghost. Some of the internal insulation was evidently breaking down as the exterior was getting warm (which it should not) and I also felt that the contents seemed to taste a bit strange. I have had a spare in stock for a long time now so it was a case of ‘out with the old and in with the new’ The new flask performed flawlessly and the coffee seemed to taste good as well so the replacement proved timely. Although the sky was fairly clear, the temperature had plummeted a fair deal and it was 3 degrees when we left the house. Sitting on the park bench subjected us to the occasional icy blast so we drank our coffee quickly and made for home. The park was deserted apart from a few, brave dog walkers but Monday is normally a pretty quiet day even in the best of weathers. Although Meg and I were wrapped up fairly warmly, we had not availed ourselves of any woolly scarves of which I am sure we have enough but we have not got into the habit of wearing them whilst the weather has not been particularly cold. But we are having a sharp ‘snap’ for the next day or so, so we are resolved to wrap up normally when next we need to.

So it was case of getting home and getting some warm soup inside us as soon as we could. Then we finished off the chicken legs that we started yesterday. I did a bit of an experimentation today and it worked out fine. After searing the chicken, I popped it into the oven for a good hour and a half doused in a tin of chicken soup, supplemented by some white lasagne style sauce. Then towards the end of the cooking process, I removed the meat from the thighs, leaving behind the skin and bones and then doused the meat with a goodly dollop of honey and mustard sauce that I espied in the supermarket when I last went shopping. This was then finished off in the oven and served with some Cavolo Nero and a baked potato. I think I must chalk this up as one of my success stories and I almost certainly will try this recipe again the next time we have chicken on the menu. This afternoon was a quiet afternoon in which I was engaged in getting my household accounts up-to-date. This fairly tedious task was accomplished with no undue problems and as always, I resolve to attempt to do my regular ‘book-keeping’ every few days instead of leaving it for a month.

Meg and I have started watching operas on YouTube, ‘Endeavour’ on the IT hub and some series on the BBC I-player. However, we are finding that we are having quite a lot of buffering problems after an hour or so which could be due to a host of factors or could be a case of ‘throttling’ to prevent overuse. However, a little search of the web has found a website called ‘FireStickTricks’ and the first thing they recommended was a simple ‘restart’ of the Firestick which I have tried and I will see if that cures any of the problems we have been experiencing (which needless to say, are frustrating in the extreme when you are half way through a long program) There are other suggestions which involve the use of a VPN (Virtual Private Network) but I will not go to the expense and trouble of doing this unless I absolutely have to.

The teachers have today voted for strike action – some 90% of teachers voted for the strike and they exceeded the 50% turnout equired by law for a ballot to come into force. The teachers have voted to go on strike on 1st February and thereafter one day per fortnight for the next month or so. But the headteachers’ ballot only achieved 42% threshold and therefore their ballot does not count. However, the union representing headteachers may well rerun their ballot as the initial one may well have been adversely affected by the postal disputes just before Christmas – and, of course, the mood is worsening all the time. Both teachers and nurses seem to have very similar complaints apart from the real cut in their standard of living now inflation has reached 10% and that is a toxic mix of low pay and excessive workloads. One imagines that the government may be more worried by the impact of striking teachers which is bound to affect more members of the public than a train strike or a border staff walk out.

Today being a Sunday, I got up reasonably early and ready for my walk alone down into town to collect our Sunday newspaper. But I had a special reason for looking forward to this morning as I was going to test out out the CD player for which I had constructed a special little carrying case attached to a spare belt. So I put in the two AA batteries that are needed to make it truly portable and set off on my journey. The reviews that I had read of this particular piece of kit ranged all the way from ‘Brilliant’ to ‘The worst thing I have ever bought’ but with many more favourable than unfavourable reviews. One of the more negative reviews opined that the volume of the player did not drown out the noise of passing cars and this quite a bad fault. But with my rather limited experience of listening to music on the go, the very last thing that a sensible pedestrian needs to have is a unit that drowns out sounds of an approaching car and I would have thought that this is a recipe for a disaster in the making if pedestrians were to cross road oblivious to the sound of an oncoming car. Anyway, I found that the player worked beautifully and its claims to be ‘jog proof’ were fully justified as it dod not skip or miss a beat. I thoroughly enjoyed Brahm’s ‘A German Requiem‘ which is not really similar to the traditional requiem which follows the format of the liturgical mass for the dead. In the case of ‘A German Requiem‘, the text is written in German and draws from texts from a Lutheran Bible and does not follow the more usual format of a requiem at all. In the main, though, I shall deploy this unit by by bedside attached to a DC power supply and loaded with a favourite CD for when I need it. This morning we did have a plan to meet up again with our University of Birmingham friend in Waitrose, but we got a text before we set off saying that he could not make it this morning. So being all prepared to go somewhere, we made for the Lickey Visitors centre to avail ourselves of a little walk. This was not a bad idea in itself but being a fine day at about 11.00am on a Sunday, the car parks were full to bursting and we only manged to get parked, afer some peregrinations, when another car conveniently left a space for us. So we decided that this would be a reasonably place to visit (and the large cafe adjacent to it) but only on a nice quiet day.

We lunched on some chicken thighs which I had previously seared in some hot oil and then cooked in the oven supplemnted with a tin of chicken soup and some white sauce. When we have a meal of chicken thighs like this, we always cook them ‘whole’ but then remove the leg bone and the fatty skin before we dish it up. Although the skin can be delicious, I prefer to keep our meal relatively fat-free and today, the meat seemed full of flavour so I will do the remainder of them tomorrow. I had also bought some sprouts but after a parboil, I popped them into the oven with a drizzle of cooking oil and some poured-over honey to make them a little less ‘sprout like’ and these, too, fulfilled their potential. Tomorrow I intend to experiment with a bottle of some honey mustard which I bought on spec to tart up a chicken meal somewhat.

Although not receiving a great deal of publicity, I was intrigued to come across the following. A former Conservative minister has quit the party and thrown her support behind Sir Keir Starmer’s ‘competent political leadership’. Claire Perry O’Neill, who was part of Theresa May’s cabinet and an MP between 2010-2019, said the Tories are too ‘beholden by ideology and self-obsession’ to deliver the change the country needs. I suppose the story has not received much publicity as it did not come from a serving cabinet member or even an MP. But is is an interesting reflection of the fact that the Labour Party has a large lead in the opinion polls and many Tories are now resigned to the fact that there is no way in which the government can ever claw its way back sufficiently to win the next election which must take place within the next 18-24 months. I find her comments interesting in that the Conservative party has not, until recently, been an especially ideological party and you could say had at their heart a type of pragmatic managerialism. But with various sensible MPs being driven out of the party by Boris Johnson and their place being taken by those of a proven Brexit purity, the present Conservative government seems to be a UKIP party in all but name, having adopted the hardest of all hard Brexits. Research by the Centre for European Reform, a think tank, estimates that over the 18 months to June 2022, UK goods trade is 7% lower than it would have been had Britain remained in the European Union. Investment is 11% weaker and GDP is 5.5% smaller than it would have been, costing the economy £40 billion ($48.4 billion) in tax revenues annually.