Today started off as a dull, miserable day with a smattering of rain which by now we have come to expect. Nonetheless, we knew that today was the day when we generally bump into people that we know when we pop into Waitrose, once we had picked up our newspaper. It was raining pretty heavily by the time we got to the car park but nonetheless we made our way indoors when, in no time at all, we were joined by one of our park friends and another of our pre-pandemic Waitrose friends. We spent a pleasant half an hour chatting and then saw one of our Irish friends who lives down the road and pops into Waitrose as though it were a local corner shop. We got updated about some building work that our friend was having done and true to form, the builder seems to have started his job and then shot off to attend to several other jobs that he seemed to have on the go. For some reason I have yet to discern, builders typically display this manner of working – I suppose it is sensible if you anticipate a delay in getting some much needed supplies or materials but it seems to make an apparently simple job much more drawn out than you thought it was going to be. Whilst in the Waitrose coffee bar, I received a very interesting telephone call from one of the senior doctors in our local medical practice. He quickly reassured me that there was nothing wrong but was seeking to enlist my help in the training of young medical students. Students have to be exposed to ‘real’ patients at some time in the later stages of their training and my role is to act as ‘the patient’ whilst they get a history of medical and attendant social conditions. I did this some years ago before the pandemic and, on that occasion, it was a long telephone conversation with, I think, a female medical student. Although I volunteered to do a session over the telephone or on the web, I shall actually be paying a visit to the practice premises where I will be ‘interviewed’ by one or more students. Actually, I remember the senior doctor very well because when I was recovering from an operation some years ago, he paid me a house visit and dressed the operation wound for me. I remember this well because I often think that doctors do not have a lot of these hands-on skills themselves as things like wound dressing are performed by nurses rather than doctors themselves. I remain poised to spring into action next Thursday afternoon when is the time for the scheduled session.

I have spent some time this afternoon messing about with a Pure DAB radio which seems to be playing up recently – it seems to get stuck on one station and nothing you can do will switch it to another station. Although it sounds hard to believe, the radio does not actually have an off-off switch but a Power switch (labelled ‘Bluetooth’ just to confuse the average user even more, even though the Bluetooth function which I have not tested out is actually accessed through another button ‘Source’) The Pure H4 power switch actually switches the radio into a very low power ‘Standby’ mode which displays the date and time whilst the radio part itself is switched off. By some experimentation and consulting the manual (the original having been lost but it was fairly easy to locate on the web), it now does appear that the Power Switch is not what you might think of as a normal on-off switch so I have resorted to unplugging the power lead from the back of the unit and looping around the aerial when the radio is not in use. Although as the American computer scientists might say this is a ‘kludge’, of which the official definition is ‘a software or hardware configuration that, while inelegant, inefficient, clumsy, or patched together, succeeds in solving a specific problem or performing a particular task.’ Actually, whilst being very wordy this is an exact description of what I have performed but at least it worked for a time before finally going wrong again.

Every so often, there is a news story the impact of which might turn out to be enormous. A case was being discussed today of a two-year old who had died and the coroner had stated that an important contributory cause of his death was the black mould found throughout the flat where the child lives. The TV pictures made the mould problem appear to be enormously bad but this is not an uncommon problem in badly built and madly maintained housing, some of it in the public sector. So the impact of this coroner’s report may mean that literally thousands of families throughout the land can argue much more strongly with their landlords that the mould problems that they may be experiencing really do need to be remedied and, presumably, there is now a good legal precedent to reinforce the tenant’s right to live in a mould-free house or flat.

Today was one of those horrible misty type days in which the rain seems to be constantly hanging in the air but not actively raining. My morning was brightened up, though, by the arrival of a present to myself which I could not resist, courtesy of Ebay. After I had made an offer and accepted a counter offer, I purchased a set of the complete works of J S Bach on 160 CDs for £29. In order to make sure this was not inordinately bulky, the publishers had put each CD into a simple slip sleeve and then grouped the works into boxes : Orchestral/Keyboard/Cantata 1/Cantata 2/Vocal/Organ. This then takes up 45cm of space in a storage cabinet but stored in the conventional jewel cases, it would have been so much more. Fortunately, I have managed to find quite a long review on the web which details how, and how well, the publishers went about their task. They have tried, where possible to record on period instruments or on instruments as near to a period instrument as can be found. Much of the Cantatas have been especially recorded for this collection and the orchestras and performers are generally well known and not obscure in the extreme. In a collection as large as this, there are bound to be some ‘turkeys’ but the review I have found does an extremely good job in signposting the excellent, good and just satisfactory parts of this collection. Well, the long autumn and winter evenings might seem less gloomy now that I have plenty to which to listen.

Meg and I had a bit of a run round this morning. After we had picked up our newspaper, we popped into Waitrose for some essential supplies – then it was onwards to the railway station to pick up the tickets for our journey to Winchester next Wednesday. These I have still to check but I would be surprised if they were not all OK. When we got home, we watched a little of the Politics program which is always aired on BBC2 at midday and then I went off to prepare lunch. Whilst I was preparing this, I decided to play the next CD along in the little collection I have just filed and catalogued – and, in addition, I am still glorying in the excellent quality of reproduction in the BoomBox I have just purchased. The CD that fell into my hands was a special one celebrating the 400th anniversary of the death of Palestrina and when I played it, I was transported by both the beauty and the quality of it. I remember my music master at school telling us that Palestrina was the father of modern music or at least the father of polyphony but in one’s mind’s eyes, it would have been easy to have imagined yourself inside a cathedral whilst the sound reverberated around you. This I will especially remember if I want a CD to play which is completely relaxing. We must have had this particular CD for years but I do not remember actually playing it before. Possibly it was one of a ‘job lot’ that we often buy in a charity shop which we shop in regularly when we visit Harrogate but it was an absolute find for us, in any case.

This afternoon after lunch, I started to tackle the pile of junk mail which had built up rather in the last week or so – it is certainly a good habit to throw away junk mail day by day if you get into the good habit. Quite a lot of it, I need to open if only to make sure that the pre-printed name and address inside are cut off the enclosure and then shredded and I finished off the afternoon with two piles of paper. The much smaller and leaner one is the bundle of things that definitely need to be filed whilst the larger, fortunately, is just for the outside paper bin which is due to be emptied shortly.

I cannot resist an occasional consultation with the CNN website to discover the latest election update in the US elections. Quite amazingly, the gap between Republican and Democrats is only 8 seats as the Democrats have 204 and the Republicans 212. So the Republicans are only 6 seats away from the ‘magic’ number of 218 which would give them control of the House of Representatives but I suspect that a week ago nobody would have predicted a result as close as this. Normally, there is a big swing against the governing party in the mid term elections but the ‘big swing’ has not materialised this year as it appears that voters have recoiled from the prospect of electing Republicans, avid Trump supporters, who are still denying the validity of the last Presidential election which was won fair and square by Joe Biden.

The British and French have signed an agreement that will allow British border officials into French control roooms (and, presumably, vice versa) in an attempt to reduce the impact of asylum seekers crossing the channel in a variety of dinghies. Nobody thinks that this will prove to be a ‘magic bullet’ but with the addition of more UK cash and the impact of worsening seasonal weather, the flow across the Channel might be slowed somewhat.

Today being a Sunday I got up early and walked down into town to pick up our Sunday newspaper before returning for the Laura Kuennsberg show at 9.00am. This contained an interview with Jeremy Hunt who evidently could not speak in great detail about his forthcoming budget, due to be delivered in the House of Commons on Thursday next. Meg and I took the opportunity to visit the park and the weather turned out to be beautiful – the effect of the warm sunshine was complemented by the glowing colours that the leaves are starting to exhibit just before they fall. There seemed to be a wonderful and relaxed atmosphere in the park today – I suppose that unusually clement weather was making people feel relaxed and at peace with the world. We noticed that one mother was playing with her child (who looked about 3) by getting hold of bundles of leaves and throwing them into the air so that they fell on the child like a snowstorm. After this had been repeated a number of times the child got the idea and started trying it out on their own. We generally have in our rucksack a sponge and some spare kitchen paper which we use to wipe excess moisture off the park bench before we sit down. In the spirit of bonhomie, a lady saw us wiping the bench down and offered us her own ‘Marks and Spencer’ bag which she reckoned that she typically used if the park bench was wet. Ths was a kind gesture and I wondered why I had not thought of this solution before.

The day was not very old before the Nevada result came through in the race for the US Senate. Here the Democrats held off a challenge from the Republicans as the latter had been predicted to gain the seat. In practice, although the Republicans were hanging onto a 0.1% lead with only about 3% of the vote yet to be counted, most of the to-be-counted votes came from Las Vegas and other urban areas which seemed likely to deliver their votes disproportionately in favour of the Democrats which enabled them to retain the seat. According to CNN, the Republicans anticipated that they were heading for defeat and the mood in the Republican camp turned sullen and hostile as the recriminations started. This result, together with the Arkansas result yesterday meant that the Democrats had gained control of the Senate as in the event of a tie, the (Democratic) vice president always has a casting note. If Georgia goes Democrat when they have their run-off election in early December, then the Democrats will have a 2 seat majority in the Senate which means that they may be able to block Republican generated measures. But the Republicans are currently 7 seats ahead and are inching towards a very small majority in the House of Representatives and even a majority of 1 means that they will be in a position to block any further investigation into the insurrection and invasion of the Capitol Building on January 6th, 2021. Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden will have important decisions to make in the days ahead. Donald Trump had pencilled in next Tuesday as a day for a ‘great announcement’ but whether he will decide to pull this in the face of many of his endorsed candidates performing badly is a moot point. The Democrats have equally severe problems as Joe Biden is very unpopular and many are arguing too old for a further attempt on the White House. One informed American commentator was suggesting that Joe Biden’s wife may well be a critical influence upon his decision making and she may urge him to ‘quit whilst he was ahead’ This decision would be easier if a clear successor was apparent but at this stage, the Democrats appear in some disarray. But there are two years left for a candidate to emerge and build some support, not to mention to garner the enormous amounts of money involved in a presidential bid.

Today, the English men’s cricket team were in the T20 final with Pakistan. I think that the game was due to start at about 8.00am but as this game would take several hours to complete, I did not attempt to watch it as I had the Women’s Rugby yesterday morning. England eventually won by 5 wickets and although the match in Melbourne looked set for a tight finish, Stokes hit a flurry of late boundaries, including a six, to break Pakistan’s hearts and to win the match. I assumed that some of the highlights would be shown in at least some of the news bulletins. However, the news items did eventually show a five second clip of Ben Stokes scoring some of the winning runs but most of the report was on exuberant fans both before and after the match. I suppose that there must have been TV rights involved which prohibited any showing of the match even as a news item but given that this was England’s first victory since 2010, you would have thought that we have been given more than just a snatch of it.

Our day started off early this morning because at 6.30am, there was a live broadcast of the Women’s Rugby Union final between England and New Zealand. England were coming to this match with 30 straight wins behind them but New Zealand had beaten them on four previous occasions. The England team played pretty well and their rolling maul from a lineout was superb and resulted in at least two tries. However, an English player was red-carded half way through the first half so England were generally playing with 14 rather than 15 and it showed on one or two critical occasions. England were leading by two points some nine minutes before the end of the match and then New Zealand scored a try (not converted) which put them three points in the lead. The clock turned red and England won a lineout only a few metres from the try line. All they had to do was to catch the ball, push on with another successful rolling maul at which they had excelled all during the match, score a try and victory would be theirs. But New Zealand poached the ball and therefore won the match, leaving the English players so distraught as they had been so near but in the event failed.

Meg and I collected our newspaper and coincided in the park for a minute or so with our University of Birmingham friend and Seasoned World Traveller. The former had to motor off to Lichfield on a Rugby connected event so we said ‘hello’and ‘goodbye’ but thought that we might meet in the park tomorrow. Our stay in the park was absolutely wonderful today – there were hints of autumn sun and the park was starting to look at its best. Whilst sitting on the park bench, we chatted with a near neighbour who was walking her little dog and then, on the path on the way home, we were overtaken by one of my Pilates classmates (and we think that we go back in the same class about eight years) We chatted with our friend and her husband who we had not met before. He said to me archly ‘I have head a lot about you’ which does make me wonder what possible reputation I have that has been spread abroad. They were there with their two greyhound dogs, one of whom was friendly but the other of a somewhat more nervous disposition. Not for the first time, we were immensely grateful for the pleasure that the park provides for us.

I have been following the last three states in the race for the Senate in the US elections. The three left to decide are Arkansas, Nevada and Georgia. In the course of the day, the Democrats edged sufficiently far ahead for CNN to ‘call’ the state of Arkansas which has the status of an extremely confident prediction. The situation in Nevada is much more on a knife edge – the Republicans are leading by about 0.1% and the Democrats need to find that little bit extra to win the race. It may well be that the counties yet to report are Democrat inclined and there is quite a huge postal vote to be counted – one election official has even ventured that a result might not be known for another six days at the current rate of progress. Meanwhile, Georgia has to wait for a run-off vote between Republican and Democrat in the first week of December so the nexy day or so will be an anxious one for election watchers.

This afternoon, a long awaited parcel was eventually delivered which was a reconditioned Polaroid BoomBox integrated CD/radio once my own Grundig had been consigned to the bin. I got this this at an unmissable price and quickly brought it into use. The CD function plays correctly and immediately with no errors but with outstanding sound as the speakers are so relatively large. The FM radio is subject to the normal FM background ‘hiss’ which I can live with as I shall hardly be playing the radio in any case. It has a Bluetooth function on it as well so tomorrow when I have a bit more time I will experiment with sending the output from my trusty old iPhone (with its 200+ tracks). This afternoon, I decided to do some soup and so I spent a fair amount of the afternoon chopping up parsnip, carrot, swede and celery to form a ‘winter vegetables’ soup. To this mixture in the soupmaker, I added some almond milk (in the absence of coconut milk), some tomato pasta sauce and a goodly dollop of some sauce which is called ‘Chip Shop curry’ sauce to add a little bit of spice. This ought to keep hot in the soupmaker until we get back from church at about 7.00pm this evening and we generally serve it with a good dollop of yogurt and some croutons. To cut down on my carbohydrate count, whilst Meg has a slice of toast to make her croutons, I make do with a couple of cream crackers which are very low in calories. Tomorrow we have the T20 cricket final to which to look forward and I trust we shall not lose two finals in two days.

Today dawned as a gloomy day and, indeed, it was gloomy all day but not actually raining. Meg and I got ourselves going by degrees and eventually got to the park, but a little later than we had planned. However, we were fortunate to bump into our University of Birmingham friend and Seasoned World Traveller who were just on the point of departing just as we were arriving. Nonetheless, we took the opportunity to sit down on a bench and have a natter, not talking about politics for a change. Then it was a case of getting home and cooking our normal (for us) lunch on a Friday which is sea-bass pan fried and then served on a bed of lettuce. This afternoon was quiet and I spent some time reading The Times in some depth, allowing myself a quick burst of Sudoku ( a ‘difficult’ one which proved rather too easy) and finally a computer session in which I get all of my financial accounts up-to-date.

Most of the media this afternoon has been dominated by news of the Russian withdrawal from the Ukrainian city of Kherson. Whilst there have been scenes of locals ‘liberated’ and celebrating by allowing the Ukrainian flag to fly again, the actual military are being a lot more cautious. On the one hand, they fear that the Russian withdrawal might be designed to lure them into a trap. On the other hand, there will almost certainly be mines and booby traps all over the place making the city itself quite a dangerous place to enter. Some of the journalistic accounts from the moving front line are quite illuminating but not surprising. The Russian soldiers by all accounts were tired and hungry and looted almost at will from Ukrainian households. There are accounts of Russian soldiers begging for food from the locals and indicating that were it not for their commanders they would have deserted by now. There are also reports of ‘many’ Russian soldiers drowning whilst they were attempting to retreat across the River Dnipro (the river can be as much as 1km wide in places) Meanwhile, Kherson might be quite a dangerous place in the days and weeks ahead. Firstly, Russian saboteurs trained to work behind enemy lines may be doing their worst to disrupt the life of the city getting back to normal. But now the Russians are no longer a military presence in the city, there will be a certain amount of reprisals in prospect where some of the citizenry who collaborated with the Russians meet some rough justice handed out by loyal Ukrainians. Once the Russians have retreated to the east of the River Dnipro, they will be well dug in and reasonably secure but they have the armaments to shell the parts of Kherson at will, knowing all of the coordinates of critical locations within the city. It is rumoured that Putin may be unwilling to make any foreign trips abroad lest a putsch is organised against him whilst he is out of the way.

At home, the news is that we are about to enter a recession that will last about 8 quarters (two full years) and we are being told it may be the longest recession since records began. The population as a whole are being ‘softened up’ for the budget announcements next week in which there is the prospect of tax increases for almost everybody, a massive cut back in public services (which were already cut to the bone) and general misery all round. The country as a whole is suffering from the cumulative effects of Brexit, the pandemic and paying for the furlough scheme which cost £69 billion, the energy crisis and the tremendous rises in the costs of fuel after Europe disengages from dependence on Russian oil supplies. Any one of these would be a significant cost in itself but in the case of the UK economy these various factors are almost reinforcing each other. After some years of recession it is almost possible that we become similar to the Japanese economy where the GNP has been stuck at the same level since the 1990’s. I heard a statistic this morning that the UK alone amongst the G7 nations is the only country where economic activity has failed to return to pre-pandemic levels.

There is a big sporting weekend to which to look forward. The England women’s rugby team are in a final against New Zealand and I believe that it might start at 6.00am in the morning if one wants to watch it live. This is going to be shown on ITV so I may wake up to watch the 2nd half of it. On Sunday, there will be a final of the the cricket T20 match in which England are taking on Pakistan. This too may prove to quite an exciting contest as the Pakistan bowlers (best in the world) take on the English batsmen (best in the world?) I believe this is scheduled to start at 8.00am on Sunday morning (better than 6.00am the day before) but two finals within 24 hours is quite unusual.

Thursday is my shopping day and for some reason, things seemed very quiet this morning so I got my money out of an ATM and whizzed around the supermarket in record time. After I had got home, breakfasted and unpacked, Meg and I treated ourselves to another little mini-concert on our newly resurrected CD player and then decided to make a trip to the park. The weather was a little indeterminate but we thought that a breath of fresh air would do us good, which I am sure that it did. Upon our return, I noticed that a little bundle of CDs had arrived, all courtesy of Ebay. One of these was Vladimir Askenazy set of the five most popular Mozart piano concertos which came on 2 CDs and for which I paid less than £3.00. The bigger bundle was a 12 disk set of Murray Perahia playing almost every piano concerto that Mozart ever wrote (1-27 but missing Nos. 7 and 10 for some reason) and this bundle came in at less than 40p a disk. I cannot say how much these would have cost when they were just released but, for whatever reason, they are now being sold at almost give away prices, particularly once you subtract the cost of the postage. We have played some of the Asknenazy disks and the quality seems fine but evidently it will take me many hours of listening pleasure to work my way through the entire collection to see if they are all play as they should.

The American election results continue to fascinate but some of the final votes seem to be incredibly slow to declare. This may be because postal votes are not counted until the day after the election and are counted by hand rather than by machine but the final results are better than the Democrats had dared hoped and worse than the Republicans had come to expect. The latest estimate from NBC News has the Republicans winning 222 House seats compared with the Democrats’ 213, meaning they would still take control but with much less authority. And a Democrat win is still within the margin of error. As I write, the latest estimate from NBC News has the Republicans winning 222 House seats compared with the Democrats 213, meaning they would still take control but with much less authority than the 40+ gains anticipated by some pollsters. A majority of 9 is still sufficient for the Republicans to follow much of their own agenda but in today’s climate, how many independently minded Republicans are left who may defy how the rest of the party are voting? The race for the Senate is also very much in the balance, with just three seats left to declare. Georgia’s race is set for a run-off on 6 December so we may have to wait until then for the final result. Whichever party wins two of the three outstanding contests in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada will control the Senate. With about 70 percent of the vote tallied in Arizona, incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Kelly maintains a 5-point lead over Republican challenger Blake Masters. But election officials in Democrat-heavy Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county, have said it could take until at least Friday to tally the hundreds of thousands of remaining votes. About 80 percent of the vote has been tallied in Nevada, where Republican Adam Laxalt has a slight edge over Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto. But late-arriving mail-in ballots, especially in Democratic strongholds of Clark and Washoe Counties, that have yet to be counted could still tip the scales in the incumbent’s favor. Election officials are saying that the results of these votes might not be known until Friday. The US newspapers owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch make brutal reading for Donald Trump today. Once again, the two flagship Murdoch titles – the upscale conservative-leaning Wall St Journal (WSJ), which is influential with deep pocketed Republican donors, and the tabloid New York Post – have united to tell their collective readership that it is time for Republicans to move beyond Donald Trump. New York Post columnist John Podhoretz wrote a blistering editorial, saying: ‘After three straight national tallies in which either he or his party or both were hammered by the national electorate, it is time for even his fans to accept the truth: Toxic Trump is the political equivalent of a can of Raid.’ While Republican lawmakers are so far loyal to the former president in public, the debate emerging from the Murdoch-owned press reflects the conversations Republicans are having in private.

In the Ukraine, the fact that the Russians seem to be abandoning Kherson might appear to be good news for the Ukraine but the military command is being very cautious. It may be that several ‘traps’ have been laid by the retreating troops. The fact that they are retreating to the east bank of a river means that they can still shell Kherson at will and may be difficult to attack. But it does appear that the Russians had little choice but to abandon the city as their supply lines had been so successfully disrupted by the Ukrainians seeking to liberate their own territory.

Meg and I look forward to Wednesday because it is the day when our domestic help comes round to work her magic and after a cup of tea first thing, we exchange news of each other’s week. I showed her the improvements that we had made to our little music corner and, in particular, how I had interfaced my old iphone (with about 200 tracks on it) to an external Bluetooth speaker. We knew that Prime Minister’s Questions would be especially good today after the resignation last night of Gavin Williamson (who had previously been sacked as one of the most incompetent Education Secretaries of all time) We enjoyed our coffee in the park and just got back in time, having bought some essential supplies in Waitrose, to make us all a nice cup of coffee and settled down to PMQ. In this, Keir Starmer had some excellent attack lines which he delivered in a fashion described by some as ‘brutal’. For example, Keir Starmer referred to Sir Gavin as ‘a sad middle manager getting off on intimidating those beneath him’ and a ‘cartoon bully with a pet spider’. Williamson, I think it is fair to say, was known across the House of Commons as a ‘nasty piece of work’. As an ex-Chief Whip and a record of incompetence as a defence and latterly education secretary he had practically no friends amongst fellow Conservative MPs. It could be that Sunak employed him as a type of enforcer over recalcitrant MPs but eventually the costs of keeping him far exceeded the costs of letting him go. Once the tirade of foul epithets with the Conservative chief whip became public as well as other damning remarks to a senior civil servant that he ‘should slit his own throat’ then it was only a question of time before he had to go. Indeed, Sunak did not even have to sack him because other parts of the Tory party indicated him that it was time to go and his future is bound to be oblivion (and it would not surprise me if he left politics at the next general election).

After lunch, we knew that I had to go to a routine annual monitoring after my operation of a few years ago and for this, we needed to make a trip to the local hospital some 11 miles distant. Compared with the last time I visited, I now needed to take a ticket to gain access to the car park and when we got to the outpatient clinic a wait of some 45 minutes ensured. I had taken Meg with me so that she was not left on her own for too long and when we left, having paid a £4 fee for an hour’s visit, the barriers were open so the £4 payment proved not to be necessary after all. Then it was home and a quick tea before we caught up with the news.

The Channel 4 analysis of the American election results was illuminating in the extreme. The Republicans had been predicted to do incredibly well as inflation is hitting American society hard and Trump was on the rampage. But the ‘red wave’ turned out to be a ‘red trickle’ and although the Republicans will take the House of Representatives, it should be by a much smaller margin than was predicted. This still means that the enquiry into the insurrection and invasion of the Capitol building will be called off, however, as they go after Jo Biden’s son. But the Senate race is still far too hard to call. There are three more results to be declared but one of the most critical is Georgia. In this state, there is a third candidate who will take away sufficient votes for either Republican or Democrat to cross the 50% line, so it appears that there will be a run off election between these two top candidates in the first week of December. So the ultimate result may not be known for several weeks. In the meantime. the Democrats have even taken the state of Pennsylvania from red (Republican) to blue (Democrat) But of much more significance is the fact that the especially endorsed Trump candidates seem to have fared less well than those not so endorsed- in other words, Trump’s influence has been negative. He is reportedly livid about this and is ‘throwing his toys out of his pram’ There is no great love for the Democrats but the abortion issue has harmed rather than helped the Republicans. Also the American electorate seem to have failed to have voted for the mediocrity of some of the Trump candidates. This may play into the hands of DeSantis, the Florida senator. While Republican candidates across the country met unexpectedly tight races, Mr DeSantis, 44, swept to a nearly 20-point landslide victory over Democratic challenger Charlie Crist, including a clear majority among Latino voters. Four years ago, by comparison, he won by less than half a percentage point. No doubt, there will have to much more analysis in the days ahead but it looks as though the ‘MAGA’ (Make America Great Again) brand of conservatism may just have had its day.

Tuesday morning is the day upon which we typically repair to Waitrose and meet with some of our pre-pandemic friends in the coffee bar. Today was no exception and we met with a couple of them and exchanged gossip of the day. We do not spend too long over our coffees as it is my Pilates day so we need to get home and then I change into my track suit bottoms before I walk down into town. Despite the fierce winds and rain that swept across the country in the last few hours, the weather had cleared and we were treated to some blue skies and quite mild weather, so the walk down to my class was not unpleasant. On my way down into town, I just managed to sneak into Poundland and managed to purchase one of those units used to supply power to a mobile low on power – I believe that the generic term for these is a ‘Power Bank’. When I got it home, I set it to work to charge up (although the first charge takes some hours) and am going to use it to power a little portable bluetooth speaker which I had purchased some years ago but had fallen into disuse. Being ‘Bluetooth’ means that I can play some of the 200-odd classical tracks on my old iphone through an audible speaker so this, too, is going to add to my range of music options in the days ahead.

This afternoon, I have been quite enjoying myself as the Labour party are debating a motion of their own choosing which is a motion critical of the appointment of, and actions, of the current Home Secretary, Suella Braverman. The latter had been appointed to the role of Home Secretary by Rishi Sunak six days after she had been sacked by Liz Truss for breaking the Ministerial Code for transmitting government documents using her own private email. Of course, there is a certain amount of posturing by the Labour Party and the Conservative members of the Commons are sustained by the fact that Suella Braverman’s harsh, if not draconian, treatment of asylum seekers meets with the great approval of Conservative Party members. Of course, there is also the issue of Gavin Williamson who is similarly under a shadow, not least for telling a senior civil servant that he should ‘slit his own throat’. One has to ask why Rishi Sunak appointed these two errant ministers to his government in the first place. The short answer is that in the case of Gavin Williamson, he was dependent upon him to (successfully) run his election campaign. The case of Suella Braverman is less transparent but is probably a case of keeping the darling of the Tory right wing in the ERG group more or less on side as he attempts to unite the Tory party, currently riven by many competing factions.

Today is the day of the mid-term American elections, the importance of which is almost impossible to overestimate. The results of the elections will not start to percolate through until the very late evening and probably the wee small hours of the morning. According to reports, though, Donald Trump has been dancing on stage in Ohio, all smiles and clenched fists. Trump has labelled Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, an ‘animal’. This is despite the fact that her husband was recently attacked by an intruder with a hammer inside their home. One has to wonder if there not new lows to which political discourse has fallen in the US and no wonder that all Democrats and some Republicans fear for the future of democracy in that country. But some news emerging through this afternoon is due to the tightness of the election in several states and the varied arrangements, state by state, for both the counting of votes and the possiblities of recounts, the definitive results may not be known for days or even, in extreme cases if the courts get involved, for weeks. Of course, this will only happen if the Republicans are deemed to have narrowly ‘lost’ because if they were to get their noses ahead in various states, there will be no problems of recounts or recourse to the courts.

Some sports news with which to conclude today. The regional news is informing us that ‘Perry’ the huge mechanical bull which was a symbol of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham is being ‘weather proofed’ so that he can can go on a permanent display in central Birmingham. Mowever, these games are in credit and are donating used equipment to local sorts clubs. On an international level, the Qatar football world cup is to start in a couple of weeks and I could not be less interested. The whole choice of venue was the result of a corrupt process and tonight an official amabassador to the games has been spouting forth homophobic nonsense that many feared. More positively, the England women rugby team are playing New Zealand in a final on Saturday evening so this will be a match well worth watching – I think it’s going to be shown live on ITV.

Today was rather dominated by both the weather which was showery and blustery and also by the fact that I had a dental appointment in the early afternoon. This morning after Meg and I had breakfasted, I treated her to a mini-concert which was a playing of Cecilia Bartoli singing Mozart arias played on my speaker-enhanced CD player. We must have played this CD in the past but I do not remember hearing it before and the singing was superb. It was a Decca recording, made in 1991, and with Vienna Philharmonic as the resident orchestra and so one would have expected a fine recording. Having said that, I was delighted by how my little newly configured system performed and I can forsee some hours of pleasure ahead when doing Christmas cooking or even Damson gin bottling. As the weather was evidently unpleasant and time was a little limited, Meg and I decided to forgo a drink sitting on our normal bench in the park but confined ourselves to a circuit of the park with the pool in the centre. This gave us the opportunity to have a breath of fresh air before we returned home to have our elevenses at home. Sometimes, we drive past our friends on the Kidderminster Road to see if anyone is around but today (and tomorrow) they are relaying and re-tarmacing the whole of the side road so this was denied to us. We lunched on some chicken legs which I made sure were well done and served with baked potato and green beans. And so it was off to the dentist which was scheduled to start at 2.15. I got there about 10 minutes early and was almost immediately whisked into the dentist’s chair. Our dentist is a very personable Irish lady who is evidently very skilful. Having had years since I can last remember needing a filling, today, I needed quite a lot of work doing and this resulted in three fillings plus a temporary crown fitted. I must say that the modern dental anaesthetics are brilliant because I have vivid memories of the times I used to go the dentist in the early 1950’s. There were a couple of aged dentists (who appeared to me then to be in their 80’s) who operated an old fashioned belt driven drill which they operated by pressing pedals on the floor. They refused categorically to give anyone an injection for the pain as they declared, emphatically, that if they did they could not tell if they were drilling on a nerve but without an anaesthetic, they would soon tell. A visit to the dentist was like a scene from a horror movie because as you sat in the waiting room, you heard the howls of agony from the dentist’s surgery and you knew that it was your turn next. Things have evidently improved beyond recognition and I thought my own particular dentist was very skilful because all of the procedures were completed within about twenty minutes and very expeditiously as well. I am due to return in about three weeks time to have the temporary crown replaced by a more permanent one. As the anaesthetic has worn off, I have the slightest of aches but nothing that a good night’s sleep will not put right.

This afternoon, I finally got around to booking the train tickets for Meg nd I to make a trip to Winchester in about 9 days time. This is a meeting of the ‘Old Fogies’ who are a group of colleagues who all retired some 12-15 years ago and used to meet regularly twice a year to have a lunch and a reunion. But with the pandemic, we have not managed to meet for about three years and even this year’s meeting has been thwarted on two occasions by the rail strikes. We are hopeful, though, that we are now set fair. After the meal, we may end up in a local hostelry where we can have a beer or two until it is time for our train to depart. Meg and I are going to travel from Birmingham International which saves the time of having to get into Birmingham and then out again which saves up about an hour and a half at each end of the day.

Tomorrow is the day of the American mid-term elections which are particularly important on this particular occasion. It seems likely that the Republicans will capture both houses of the Congress and there is little, if any bipartisan spirit left in the American legislature. Republican gains may well result with plans to ban abortions nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Jo Biden’s ability to push through any new laws in his remaining two years may be severely curtailed. Trump has endorsed nearly 300 candidates and a large measure of success for them would embolden Trump to push ahead with a further bid for the presidency. Finally, the enquiry into the 6th January, 2021 attack on the Capitol which was, in effect, a right wing insurrection designed to restore Trump to the presidency by force will be terminated. Any one of these outcomes would be pretty bleak but if the Republicans succeed in all of their aims then the results might mean an America so bitterly divided it is not an exaggeration to say they may be on the brink of a civil war.

I got up early this morning and walked down into town to collect my Sunday newspaper, as I normally do, treating myself to a little Mozart concert as I walked. But when I got to the shop, there was a bit of disappointment as the Sunday Times had been left off the delivery pattern to the newsagent, although there was a possibility it could be delivered later. So I walked home empty handed and listened to the Laura Kuennsberg program whilst having breakfast (and then dozing). After Meg and I had got our act together, we decided to make a trip to the park even though it was gloomy. When we started off, there was the finest of drizzle that did not bother us greatly but by the time we were sitting on the park bench, the rain had intensified quite a lot. We were just finishing off our coffee and deciding to cut our losses and get home quickly when we had a phone call from our University of Birmingham friend. It did not take us long to decide that we should all like to treat ourselves to a coffee in Waitrose so we got there as soon as we could, braving the elements as we went. After we had made a rendez-vous with our friend inside the café, Meg and I treated ourselves to a bowl of chicken and vegetable soup which was delicious. We spent the best part of two hours altogether in Waitrose as we seemed to have a lot to chat about. We were exploring regional dialects and regional accents and, in particular, whether people felt held back in their educational or occupational careers if they had a marked regional accent. Of course, sometimes regional accents seem to be in and out of fashion but we were both fascinated by the way in which accents can change over quite a short distance. For example, the distance beween Manchester and Bolton is only about 11 miles but there is a distinct change of accent to be found as one moves from the orbit of one to the other. The same thing can be found more locally as the Black country accent (for example found in Dudley) is distinct from central Birmingham, even though the distances involved are only about 8-9 miles. One suspects with greater degrees of geographical and social mobility some of these regional differences may be lessening. On the other hand, there are always those who like to play upon and possibly play up a regional accent if they think they might add to their political image – I am thinking of prticular Labour Party politicians at this point. After we had coffee in the park and soup in the café, Meg and I did not feel the need for a further cooked lunch, so we made ourelves some cheese and biscuits which we consumed with a cup of tea when we got in.

Sunday afternoons were devoted to a good read of the Sunday newspapers – in the event we had called in at our usual newsagents and a copy of the Sunday Times had been delivered to them by then. Half way through the afternoon, we received a delivery from Amazon and it was the notepad speakers I had ordered a few days ago to interface with my newly resurrected CD/DVD player. These were a small pair of German made cubes which stood about 7cm tall whilst the actual speaker diameters were about 3.5 cm. At first, I thought these were not going to work and then I remembered that they needed their own independent power supply and this could be provided by one of these ‘power brick’ chargers that you can utilise to give your phone an emergency boost of power should it run flat. I paid £8.00 only for these speakers on the grounds that I did not need anything too big and bulky and were they to fail to work, I would have not wasted a great deal of money. Once I had connected the power brick, the whole rig exceeded my expectations. Often connecting external speakers will disconnect the unit’s own internal speakers (as it does on my laptop, for example) But in the case of the CD/DVD player, the external speakers with their independently provided volume control worked in tandem with the internal speakers, making four speakers all in all. I tested my configuration by playing my recently acquired copy of Brahm’s German Requiem and it filled my kitchen with as much sound as I could possibly need without any discernible distortion when it came to the highest and lowest notes at near maximum volume. I might try it out on my son whose hearing is much more acute than mine and who used to be a bit of an audiophile in his time but at the end of the day, I am very pleased with both my purchase and the results I have achieved.

Some late breaking news is that the Argentinians have beaten narrowly beaten England at Rugby for the first time ever and by a single point. I suppose that that if this trend continues, there is a case for expanding the Six Nations rugby to the Seven Nations and this may come about in the fullness of time.