In the last few days, I have been saying in this blog that when MPs return to Westminster after the Jubilee celebrations at the weekend, then politics would return with a vengeance. It seems, though, that many MPs have had their ears bent by members of their constituency parties as they have been with them since last Wednesday evening, ready for the two Bank Holidays. It now seems that a clutch of MPs have sent in letters but ‘post-dated” as it were, to allow for the Queen’s celebrations to take place without the intrusion of politics. We now know that by last night, Sir Graham Brady the Chair of the Tory backbenchers 1922 committee had enough letters to cross the threshold of 54 MPs, being 15% of the parliamentary party. Incidentally, if you ignore the ‘payroll’ vote of ministers of all ranks who cannot make a profession on disloyalty without losing their jobs, then the 15% becomes about 30% of Tory MPs who are not office holders. This is getting on for a third of the ‘genuine’ back benchers and is quite a sizable chunk when viewed in this light. We woke up this morning to hear that the Chairman of the 1922 committee and the PM had been in touch last night, and there was agreement that now the 15% threshhold had been breached,  a vote on Johnson’s leadership would take place from 6.00pm-8.00pm tonight in a secret ballet with the result announced at about 9.00pm. Boris Johnson needs to retain the support of 180 MPs but as 160-170 MPs form the payroll vote (ministers of various ranks, parliamentary private secretaries, trade envoys and an unknown number of party vice-chairs), he only needs 10-20 of the remaining 190 odd MPs to retain his position. It is widely anticipated that Boris Johnson will certainly get the 180 votes that are needed but the critical question is the size of the rebellion against him. To use an analogy popular with the grouse-sheeting fraternity, it is probable that the PM will be ‘winged’ but not brought down. However, the historical precedents of Margaret Thatcher and John Major suggest that even though a Prime Minister easily survives a vote of this nature, they are mortally wounded and their demise might only be weeks or months away. Certainly, the prospects of Boris Johnson leading the Tories into the next general election in about two year’s time will be much diminished – and the greater the vote against him, the less likely he is to be at the helm when the next general election comes. In two and a half week’s time, there are the two critical by-elections in Wakefield and in Tiverton and Honiton. In Wakefield, the Tories may already have written this off as the Labour lead appears to 20% according to an opinion poll but I have not seen any opinion polls on the situation in Tiverton as yet.  

When I showered this morning, the water pressure from the shower head seemed rather weak and then I discovered that there was a leak near the shower head and therefore a new shower cable was indicated. So we decided to go and collect our newspaper by car and then made our way to the local hardware centre to get a new shower cable. I chose one from a selection of cables that was hanging up, checked with the assistant it was probably what I needed and then popped into Waitrose to get some de-caff tea which I needed. Then in view of the political situation and the poor weather, it being quite cold, we decided to go home avoiding the park for the day and have our elevenses in front of the TV in view of the rapidly developing political situation. After lunch, I set to work fitting the new shower cable and was then faced with the reluctant conclusion that the cable I had not bought did not have the correct fittings at one end. So I took the old cable with me down to the hardware shop and got what I had purchased this morning with was properly packaged up and sold as a ‘shower cable’ The moral to all of this is that I should have taken off the old part and showed it to them in the store before I purchased the new one. I was pleased to see that the new cable seemed to go on quite easily with no dribbles or leaks which can occur if the cable and/or associated washers are of a lower quality that is necessary.  Whilst I was out, some neighbours called round wanting to seek clarification about what work the BT team were going to do to install our fast broadband cable and that a blockage had been identified adjacent to their property. I managed to reassure them that the guys who popped round to see them from BT were genuine and not some kind of con artists. At the same time, I managed to show them the markings on the kerbstones adjacent to their property and the point at which a civil engineering team would call around to repair the portion of the BT cable that was blocked.

Last night their was a massive concert staged in front of Buckingham Palace for the 3rd day of the Queens Jubilee weekend celebrations. But what stole the show was a 2½ minute video clip of Paddington Bear having tea with the Queen. Paddington, when invited to have a drink of tea, drank a whole teapot full directly from the spout of the teapot, leaving only a few drops for the Queen. Then followed some antics in which the teapot itself was juggled and an equerry got spattered with cream. Finally, Paddington offered the Queen some of his trademark marmalade sandwiches whilst the Queen revealed that she always kept some marmalade sandwiches in her handbag ‘for later’ The clip ended with the Queen and Paddington accompanying the band playing outside  by chinking their teaspons on their cups. This was a delightfully and skilfully played sketch in which the Queen displayed her own sense of humour. Parallels were inevitably drawn with the way in which the Queen participated in another comic sketch at the time of the opening of the Olympic Games in London when it appeared that the Qeen was being whisked by helicopter to the Olympic stadium and was then parachuting down in order to open the games. In order to play the clip again to Meg, rather frustratingly many sources cut the clip from 2½ minutes down to 1 or 1½ minutes but I think I found the whole thing on Twitter rather than YouTube. One cannot just imagine other national leaders having the self-confidence of participating in a huge national joke like this.  

As it had rained throughout the night and seemed to be still smattering with rain this morning, Meg and I went down to the park by car. There we were pleased to join our University of Birmingham friend and after a short interval we were also joined by Seasoned World Traveller. We discussed our reactions to the Jubilee party last night, which I rather enjoyed and then inevitably some politics. Some of our discussion centred upon the micture of boos and cheers (far more boos than cheers) than greeted the Prime Minister and his wife when they attended the service at St. Paul’s yesterday. It is interesting to see what effect the whole of this adverse crowd reaction from committed royalists might have had upon wavering Tory MPs when it comes to ‘normal’ politics which will no doubt resume tomorrow morning. There is a joke circulating around the web at the moment which I must say I really enjoyed so here it is.

“Grandad, how did you spend the Platinum Jubilee weekend?”  “I watched the video of Boris Johnson being booed 2100 times.”

Today, we feel rather ‘Jubileed out’ as we watched the whole of the fantastical Jubilee pageant that took place in London from about 1.30 until 5.00pm. More than 10,000 people – including the military, performers and key workers – took part, while politicians and members of the Royal Family watched from stands outside Buckingham Palace. The variety, versatility and sheer ‘quirkiness’ of some of the floats almost defied imagination and illustrates the fact that the British are rather good at pageantry and displays, although one suspects that quite a deal of money had been thrown in the direction of the performers. Various community groups had no doubt prepared for months but obviously rehearsals were limited and it had to all come right on the day. Given that an event like this is a one in 70 years occurrence, it was well worth watching. The Jubilee has given the broadcasters the opportunity to use a lot of their archived material – and not just images of the Queen over the decades.The opportunity has been taken, and this was well exemplified in today’s pageant, to record the cultural and musical highlights of the last seventy years. So, for example, the pageant today had a series of open top buses each of which contain celebrities from the appropriate decade together with the music and images of the decade. This is a good way of providing something for everyone because all of us have memories of past decades which it is interesting to remember.

Politics with a vengeance will return at Westminster tomorrow morning. MP’s will have spent several days in their constituencies and will have been told in no uncertain terms what their local electorates think. The so-called ‘Red Wall’ seats are that traditionally used to return Labour MPs but which the Tories captured at the last election under the slogan ‘Get Brexit Done’.  One of these seats is Wakefield and there will be a by-election there on June 23rd. An opinion poll has put the Labour party 20 points in the lead over the Tories  and if turns out to be the case in all of the ‘Red Wall’ seats then the Conservatives are destined to lose power unless they change the leader who is causing so much voter dissatisfaction. The answer lies in the hands of Tory MPs themselves of whom exactly a half (180) would need to vote against Boris Johnson for him to lose power, even if an election for a new party leader to be called.

Today started off in rather a gloomy manner and we suspected that whatever day we were going to have would be rain bespattered. I walked off down into town firstly to get my trusty black leather hat – my constant companion – picked up after its repair and also to have the battery replaced in my car’s remote control. Whilst near the High Street in Bromsgrove, I allowed myself to be tempted by a shirt I had seen in one of the charity shops which I then tried on the minute I got home. It was one of those items that looks better on than off and was absolutely the right size for me. Afterwards, I picked up our (fat) Saturday newspaper and then walked home for breakfast. Meg and I decided to brave the weather and, having got dressed in slightly warmer clothes, we then made for the park. Whilst there, we had to endure a bit of gentle rain but we soon shook it off. Then, on our way out of the park, we ran across our University of Birmingham friend and exchanged notes about what we had been doing or were about to do in the next few days. As we passed our long-established Irish friends wer were hailed inside and were then given an impromtu lunch of soup followed by strawberries and cream. We had a wonderful chat for well over an hour and then made for home when, fortunately, the rain clouds had swept away.

Saturday afternoons are always rather quiet affairs as Meg and I know that we are going to leave the house  in the early evening to attend the Saturday evening church service. However, I made one important telephone call during the afternoon and I was glad that I had. When our domestic help called round in the last few days, she told us the sorry tale of the person who used to come along about once a month to do the kind of gardening for which I normally do not have the time nor the inclination. Several months we received the message that he collapsed in a garden (whether his own or a client’s I cannot say) and then had a long period of illness in hospital having to receive several blood transfusions. Evidently, this put paid to his gardening activities and to be honest, I did not know whether he was in the land of the living or not. Our domestic help informed us that she had seen our gardener in the streets of Bromsgrove and was told a story of a whole series of domestic tragedies which had befallen him and which made feel that the whole of his world had collapsed. I made the telephone call to invite our gardening friend to the house just for a cup of tea, a chat and a shouldier to cry upon. He was tremendously grateful to receive my call and we have arranged one day in the afternoon next week when we can have tea in the garden.

In the late afternoon, I took some of the excess vegetables from the last time I made one of my special soups (courtesy of the soup maker) This was a blend of carrot, parsnip, swede and celery put upon a base of fried onions and then supplemented with some coconut milk, an onion gravy stock and a touch of balti sauce to make a really delicious but somewhat spicy vegetable soup. I got the soup prepared and put some into a container for our friends that we we knew we were going to see at church later that evening. Then when we returned, we had our portion of the soup  which we really enjoyed. If it had been a failure, then I would have owned up to that but I have tried this combination of root vegetables before so I know it is pretty reliable. When we got back from church, we looked at ‘Today at the Test’ which is the highlights of the day’s play in the cricket Test of England versus New Zealand. Today’s play had everything you could wish for and suffice it to say that the day started with England facing a potential defeat but ended with England in sight of victory if they continue to play as well as tomorrow as they did today. Tonight, there is a special ‘Platinum Party at the Palace’ being performed on a specially constructed stage in front of Buckingham Palace. Although popular music is not really ‘my scene’, I have to admit that from what I have seen this evening the atmosphere seems to be electric and the excitement practically contagious. It must have cost millions to stage and I wonder (cynically) if the government is funding it all  on the ‘bread and circuses’ principle. Those who know their Roman history will know that when the Romans were faced with incipient revolts from the population, they bought them off with a free suppy of bread (help with gas bills?) and a free show in the ampitheatre – hence bread and circuses. Nothing changes!

Today was scheduled to be quite a heavy gardening day because we knew that the weather was going to be fine and a Jubilee bank holiday meant that nobody was going to work. There were two tasks scheduled for today and my son and daughter-in-law had very kindly volunteered to get stuck into what you might call ‘once in a year’ tasks. My son had volunteered to clear out the gutters on our dormer bungalow as the east facing side of the house always seems to generate a lot of moss much of which detaches and finds its way into the gutters. Without periodic clearning this would create problems for when we have heavy rainfall which is, of course, quite common at this time of year. So whilst my son busied himself clearing out the gutters, my daughter-in-law had brought along her battery operated hedge trimmers to trim the hedge that we had planted around the BioDisk some fourteen years ago now. The hedge is probably about 20 metres around but is a metre and a half high and the same width. We had it massively pruned back about  a year or so ago but consequently, it has gone really thick and bushy evidently relishing being pruned. Whilst the cutting job is arduous enough, the real work is in the clearing up. One garden wheelie bin was vey quickly filled up and we then used our garden rakes to fill about half a dozen large, heavy duty plastic sacks to take the rest. However, armed with copious cups of tea and a really fine morning, we got the job completed relatively quickly so now to have to choose an opportunity to dispose of the clippings. It might be worth a trip to the domestic tip even though it is some 5-6 miles distant but otherwise we will see if we persuade other neighbours to accept some of our excess when the gardening wheelie bins get collected in another ten day’s time. After a salad lunch, it was time to do the routine lawn cutting which is a job generally reserved for Fridays. At about half past two, there was a most tremendous roar overhead so I rushed out into the open to see if I could spot what aircraft was going overhead. It was pretty cloudy when I heard the sound so I did not manage to spot anything. I have done a quick search on the web which details a lot of the flypasts that are taking place this Jubilee weekend. Yesterday, though, I think I missed a Lancaster and possibly a Hurricane and a Spitfire  which were on their way to a Midland airshow yesterday afternoon – the flypast was when I was walking down to Bromsgrove and I did not notice anything yesterday.

I must say that having two Bank Holidays on a Thursday and a Friday before a weekend rather plays havoc with one’s sense of time. I had the feeling all day that today is a Saturday and not a Friday. Thinking how the present Jubilee celebrations have been planned for quite some time now, I wonder whether anything is being planned for the 70th anniversary of the Coronation in 2023 i.e. next year. Of course, too much advance planning might be difficult as the Queen may not survive that long. But her mother lived to be 101 so perhaps genetics is on her side. As a child, I seem to remember painting in lots of illustrations of the Coronation coach which is how they used to entertain us in primary schools in 1953 and make us anticipate the event.

There is a sort of moratorium on political activity this weekend as I suspect that politicians themselved want to engage with their local communities and overt politicking might seem to be counterproductive. No doubt, on Monday morning or whenever the Commons resume, politics will resume with a vengeance. Some commentators believe that the challenge to Boris Johnson may come in the next week whilst others think many MP’s will stay their hand until the results of the two by-elections to be held on Thursday, June 23rd (Wakefield, Tiverton and Honiton). But when Boris Johnson and his wife arrived at St.Pauls today, then Sky News reports that the PM was greeted with a mixture of ‘boos and cheers’. But if you listen to the clip on Sky News, then it appears that there was probably four to one in favour of the boos. The only other PM I can recall being booed in this way was Tony Blair addressing the Women’s Institute, mis-cuing the tone of what needed to be said and then faced with a completely hostile audience and a slow hand clap. Tony Blair should have made his speech totally non-political but he viewed this as a potential platform for a relaunch of Labour’s policies with disastrous consequences.

Rather late in the day, some accounts are now emerging of the violence inflicted at the ill-fated final in Paris between Real Madrid and Liverpool. UEFA have now issued a formal apology to both clubs as it has emerged that there appeared to be groups of 30 men, running around in big packs. Some of them had weapons: machetes, knives, bars and bats. People were being pinned to the floor and having their watches taken.

Today being a Thursday it is my routine shopping day so I set my alarm to get up a little earlier tham usual. Then I made for my local supermarket but as I was several minutes early, I managed to get some money out of an ATM and also fill-up with petrol at an adjacent supermarket. Then it was a case of getting home, having a ‘quickie’ breakfast and an unpacking before I prepared our coffee and ‘small-eats’ ready for our trip down to the park. It was beautiful day down in the park and we assumed that it would be teeming with children. But there seemed to be no more children that we anticipate in a normal weekend and we were diverted by some of the local dogs trying hard (and failing) to catch a squirrel that scampered amonst them and then made an escape up one of the trees in the park, much to the frustration of the local dogs who could not follow. On the way down to the park, we spent a few minutes in discussion with our Italian friend and she explained to us how typically a fiesta would take place in Italy. What made these things special for her in her home town is that her father was a talented musician and was always heavily involved  in both both organising and participating in local concerts whenever it was fiesta time.

After lunch, I knew that I needed to go into town to collect my repaired leather hat from the local cobblers. This morning, though, when I got into the car to go shopping, a strange symbol appeared as a warning message in my car’s notification area. I had no idea what is meant to symbolise so I needed to consult the car manual and after wading through masses of information symbols, I discovered that it meant that the battery in my key fob (used for opening/shutting the car) was running low. So knowing that my cobbler changes batteries in car key fobs, this was an additional incentive to walk down to town and to get the battery renewed once I was picking up my repaired hat. On my way down into town, I bumped into a Teaching Assistant neighbour who we know fairly well, living on the main Kidderminster Road. Her husband/partner had been incredibly ill some three or four years ago but is making. long, slow recovery. So we exchanged some notes about caring functions and it may well be that we invite each around to each other’s houses for a cup of tea and a chat.

When I got to the shop it was shut even though yesterday, they had said to me ‘See you tomorrow’ Eventually, I walked the entire length of the High Street hoping I could find a jeweller or similar shop who would change the battery for me. I know that I have been caught out with these kinds of dilemmas before – typically on Good Friday, despite  the Bank Holiday status, one half of the shops are likely to be open and the other half shut. At the end of the High Street, my local Waitrose store was open so I managed to get some (but not all) of the things I need to buy in Waitrose as the Aldi in which I do my main shopping does not stock them.

There is wall-to-wall coverage of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations today and tonight as you might expect. I will be quite interested to see how the media covers the lighting of the beacons across the country and whether you will see the beacons gradually being lit if the media capture this event with modern technology at their disposal. Of course, in the past these beacons were spread at strategic locations across the country such that one beacon was visible from another. Hence in days of great national danger (for example, the Armada in 1588), the beacons were a way of quickly disseminating a message across the whole if the country. Evidently, as soon as we had modern communications, this function became redundant  but over time, the lighting of beacons across the country is deployed at times of national celebration and this contunues to this day. When we lived in Leicester, the highest point of the county in the north of the county was called ‘Beacon Hill’ for evident reasons and I am sure that there are similarly named high points across the country.

No doubt thousands of words will be written about the Depp/Heard libel trial but theee particular features stand out. Firstly, Johnny Depp lost a similar case in the UK but won it (against the odds) in the USA. Secondly, the social media massively swung behind Depp for whatever reason. And finally, as strategy was deployed in the USA court case in which the accused becomes the accuser and vice versa. “Lawyers and judges tend not to fall for it, but it’s very, very effective against juries” one american lawyer has argued.

We were a bit delayed this morning for a variety of reasons, not least sleeping in a little longer than usual. Then when we did get going, our domestic help turned up as she has switched her day from Friday to Wednesday for the next few weeks ahead. Answering a ring on the doorbell, two large BT Openreach vans had turned up intending to do a survey (from the outside) on our property to ascertain whether it would be feasible to supply us with BT Fast Fibre broadband which is being organised for us by our current broadband supplier. The two youngish operatives set to work identifying the location of the ducting that would bring the fibre optic cable into our house and then got stuck. It transpired that there was a blockage outside one of our neighbours houses. The BT personnel indicated that this happened quite often – typically fencing posts when driven in damaged the BT cables. So we informed that a civil engineering team would work on the blockage and repair the damaged section – fortunately, the BT staff had secured the permission of the relevant neighbour to work on their property boundary so we shall just sit tight and wait for this to happen, with the bill being picked up by BT. Once the BT staff have established a clear run, then we shall some cable put into place stopping short of our access point but waiting for the installation to be completed together with a new router inside the house. The BT staff were pretty confident that they would be overcome the slight difficulties that they had encountered and which they reckoned were commonplace. Having been delayed by all of this, we decided to go into town by car to collect our newspaper and to take the car to the park for our daily walk. We swung by the café to see Seasoned World Traveller but he was a bit preoccupied evidently waiting for a telephone call. So we left him in piece and tracked up to our normal bench to have our coffee. Then on the way back down, we managed to have a brief conversation with our friend in the cafe but the expected telephone call came through so we took our leave. Then it was a case of getting home and putting together a quick kind of lunch where we had promised our domestic help a taster of a specialist type of fish risotto I was preparing. Our hairdresser turned up just before we dished up our meal but our domestic help and I ate the meal off our knees in the living room whilst the hairdresser worked on Meg in the kitchen (where we normally eat our meals). The meal lived up to all our expectations I am pleased to say and then after a brief rest, it was time to go into town.

I walked into town primarily to visit our local cobblers who offer a wide range of services. Firstly I had a couple of new (and spare) keys cut which I felt were needed and to be kept in a secure place in case I ever lost the front door key I use every day. Then, I needed some new and fairly long bootlaces of the correct type to go into the boots that I purchased yesterday. As they were one size too large, I had fitted some insoles into them and put on an extra pair of socks and then walked into town in my newly acquired boots to ‘break them in’ if necessary. But in the event, they turned out to be supremely comfortable.  Whilst I was the cobblers, I took in our portable stool and had three new rubber ferrules fitted which have been needed for some time now but I was waiting until I needed to go into the cobblers to get this job done. Finally, I handed in my trusted leather hat which I wear every day as it has a leather band glued above the rim but over time, the glue dries out and it needs to be replaced. These particular cobblers, well known throughout Bromsgrove do all kinds of leather work repairs so they take this in their stride and have done it for me me, albeit some two and half years ago now in the pre-pandemic days.

Tomorrow the Jubilee clebrations are going to kick off with a vengeance and consequently all political activity will be stayed for a few days until the MPs return from their constituencies after the various junketings. The number of MPs voicing their dissatisfaction with Boris Johnson has now reached 28 and experienced commentators say that this figure can be multiplied by 1.5 to ‘guesstimate’ the number of letters actually submitted to the Chairman of the 1922 Committee which may now number 42 – approaching the 54 letters needed to trigger an election. Again, some commentators are saying that many in the party may see the result of the bye-elections to be held in three weeks time to guage precisely the extent of dissatisfaction with the Tories in general and Boris Johnson in particular.

Today we are on a half-term week and evidently, the count down to the Jubilee celebrations due to take place from Thursday onwards. Today, although there were quite frequent showers, we decided to go down to the Waitrose café by car because we wanted to bump into some of our pre-pandemic friends. They were a little bit earlier than their normal routine and consequently we were quite fortunate to coincide with them in the foyer of Waitrose just as they were leaving. We had a chat about some matters of mutual interest and promised each other that we would have a longer chat next Tuesday, all being well. The day started off quite well as we received news from one of Meg’s Uncle Ken’s oldest friends that he moved from a care home near to his son-in-law (and incidentally where his sister is a resident) and is now in a care home in Conway where he has a deep association. At one time, Uncle Ken and his wife had been on the management committee when this fairly new care home had been set up by the Methodists and Ken always wanted that home to be his final resting place. Now he seems by all of the news that he is very happy there and many of his former friends and neighbours can now visit him more easily. Now that we have some very good news, Meg and I have got ourselves booked into a hotel that we have stayed in several times before. This particular Holiday Inn is actually very convenient for us as we can make rapid transit along the A55 expressway into Colywn when we wish to visit Uncle Ken and his relatives. In a fortnight’s time. we intend to travel up the day before, have a really good meal in a country club we know well some three miles down the road from the hotel. Then we can see Uncle Ken and some other relatives on the following day and Friday is left free for us to have a day wandering around Chester that we know quite well by now and is on a very compact and ‘human’ scale. So all in all, we will be having a mini-holiday even though we are visiting past haunts – at least the know the good places to eat and drink (and the places to avoid) and we always enjoy a little pilgrimage around the cathedral which is not over-full of the kind of military impedimenta which I think is not always an adornment to Anglican cathedrals.

At midday, I walked down into town where I met with the Health Care assistant who I had seen a few days ago. Although she has indicated on her documentation that one particular blood test had been ordered, this did not appear to have been conducted and so I gave another sample to be sent off so that the Nurse Practitioner would have a full set of results when we come to a review in a couple of week’s time. After I had left the surgery, I went onto the High Street and banked a cheque, being a returned deposit from an Italian holiday that never came off. Then I wandered into one of the many charity shops and bought a shirt which is identical in design and size to a ‘Next‘ shirt I had bought a few weeks previously. Whilst I was at it, I impulse bought a pair of workplace boots to be used as gardening boots. When I got them home, I discovered they were a ‘Screwfix’ line, very well regarded by the online reviews that I had and one seventh of the price that I would have paid if I had bought them brand new. To extend their life, I have given them a cleanup (not that they needed much) and a good reconditioning with some black shoe polish and I will leave them for another day or so for the polish to work its way in before I give them one more treatment and then bring them into use.

The political news is getting more and interesting. The trickle of letters going into the Chairman of the Conservative 1922 committee is still flowing and now we are getting some more heavy weight MP’s showing their hand, such as Andea Leadsom ex-leader of the House of Commons. As some MPs will have submitted letters without announcing the fact, it may well be that we are already near the total of 54 letters needed to trigger an election for Tory leader. Aficionados of political history may well recall that Jeremy Thorpe, an ex-Liberal party leader, was involved in an enormous scandal in which a Great Dane dog called ‘Rinka’ , belonging to his gay lover (Normal Scott) got shot. As there is a precedent for a big dog being shot, and Boris Johnson had called his own operations to save his political skin ‘Operation Save Big Dog‘, then the anti-Johnson MPs are calling their actions ‘Operation Rinka‘ 

Today started a little gloomily and there were a few spatters of rain early on. But this soon gave rise to some sunshine and what turned out to be quite a pleasant day. As we needed to do a little running around today, we decided to take the car into town so that we could retreat reasonably quickly if we were caught in a sudden downpour. So having collected our newspaper, I then called in at Waitrose to get one or two things that we needed. I then called in at our local Health Centre (a newish building housing two of the largest GP practices in the town) to drop in a sample and to make a further appointment for a blood test that seems to have been overlooked.We then drove to the park and had a short walk to our normal bench where we communed with dog walkers which is quite normal for us. The skies started to darken so we were pleased that we had got the car with us as a real downpour threatened but did not actually materialise. Once we got home, we had an easily prepared lunch and, as the weather had brightened,  started to think of some little jobs to be done outside. I wanted to apply some Danish Oil to a couple of new outside brooms that I have so that they will be weather resistant i.e. will not rot if I were to leave them outside. Danish Oil is a miexture of linseed oil and Tung Oil and, once applied, it has great resistant to water and other liquids. Danish oil works as a waterproof coating on your woodwork. The reason for building this kind of strong water-resistant layer is that the particles that are contained in danish oil react with atmospheric oxygen for a highly polymerized strong solid structure. Moisture cannot penetrate through this surface. This makes danish oil great for outdoor furniture. As it turned out, the oil was incredibly easy to brush on but I had diluted it with 20% white spirit to help it penetrate brand new timber (as it suggested on the tin). Altogether, I am going to put about three coats on so I will put a second and third coat in the next day or so. Whilst I was in the middle of my painting job, I received a telephone call from the surgery and it seemed that there was some doubt as to whether one of my scheduled blood tests has actually been performed although the nursing assistant with whom I spoke can remember requesting it on the form but the results don’t seem to have come back. So I am going into the surgery at midday tomorrow so that, if the blood test has not been done, I can get another one into the system ready for a chat with a nurse in my appointment in a couple of week’s time. As I finished my painting job quite quickly, I spent a bit of time clearing a gully of holly leaves that I thought was going to be quite an unpleasant task. But slugs and snails do not like crawling over holly leaves, so armed with some industrial style gloves, I need to build this into a fortnightly routine i.e. in the day before our garden waste bin is due to be emptied on a fortnightly basis.

One of the The Times regular columnists, Clare Foges, has floated a very interesting idea in today’s edition. She floats the suggestion, first formulated by a Conservative peer, that we establish an Office for Demographic Change analagous to the Office for Budget Responsibility. Given the toxic nature of immigration in British politics and the enormous role that it played in our EU referendum campaign, perhaps this is one in which, as a society, we could work out how much immigration we need  and of what type and how we can accurately measure both the costs and benefits of whatever level of immigration we collectively desire.  I wonder whether this suggestion will be taken up by any of the political parties.

‘Partygate’ continues to rumble on and the number of MP’s who have now written a leter to the Chairman of the 1922 Committee (requesting an election for a new PM) now numbers 27. One of the MPs who  declared today is Jeremy Wright who is a former attorney general. He has also published a long statement on his personal website indicating the sources of his dissatisfaction with the PM. So we are now at the ‘half way’ point of MPs calling for Johnson to go (the critical number of letters that need to be sent in being 54).  I suspect that the numbers may grow slowly as MPs have a chance to chat with their constituencies over the next week but the critical event is going to be the two bye-elections in about 3-4 weeks time which will be a good indication of far the electorate as a whole are prepared to withdraw support from the government.

Today being Sunday I walked down early to collect our newspaper and then got back to have a bit of breakfast in front of the TV whilst watching the Sunday (politics) programme. The show today was hosted by Clive Myrie and also included was a fairly lengthy extract of an interview that he had conducted with the Russian ambassador. Clive Myrie, in my view, did an absolutely excellent job in presenting the Russian ambassador with evidence of war crimes (which the Russians say is all ‘faked’ evidence). He had a quiet, polite but very insistent style of interviewing. One suspeccts that he acually made more headway than a more aggressive style of interviewing. Wishing to confirm my impressions, I did a quick Google search and came up with the following: ‘Clive Myrie was brilliant, there is no other word for it. There were some close ups of The Ambassador’s face and looking at his eyes I felt that not only was he lying he was afraid, probably of saying the wrong thing and incurring Putin’s wrath.’ I am sure that in professional terms, Clive Myrie has done himself no harm at all and he must have shot up in the estimation of his bosses at the BBC. After breakfast, Meg and I walked to the park and decided to vary our route slightly – quite by accident, we bumped into Seasoned World Traveller and our University of Birmingham friend and whilst they made room for Meg on the benches, I sat on our portable, three-legged portable stool facing them so that we could have a face-to-face conversation. We had quite a long chat on politics and a certain amount of confessional times in which in our lifetime careers we were in danger of getting sacked, largely because we stood our ground in the face of managements who wished to go down rather a circuitous, not to say devious, route. After a fairly long chat, we made for home and ran across one of Irish friends who was busy gardening, until we interrupted him. Having got home, it was time to cook Sunday lunch and this is always a slightly a longer procedure as we have slow cookers to clean up, onion gravy to make and so on. However, it makes subsequent meals during the week so much quicker and easier to prepare and we also take the opportunity to divide whatever meat we have cooked in two as one half gets labelled up and then frozen for future weeks.

I enjoyed reading some of the detailed accounts of the ways in Downing Street, despite all protestations, tried and may have succeeded in influencing the final draft of the Sue Gray report. The Sunday Times lets us know that Carrie Johnson may well have had another party (illegally) besides the infamous ‘Abba’ party, the initial draft referred to loud music emanating from here but this was excised from the final report, the numbers of named people was reduced from 30 to 15 and the reports of a couple having sex whilst ‘at work’ or even partying did not make it to the final draft (because of absence of proof which is not surprising) I have a feeling that little revelations will keep dribbling out and whilst 10 Downing Street wants us to ‘move on’ I suspect that this is a pious hope. The Labour Party, for example, in one of the days when they can choose the subject for debate will undoubtedly spend the whole debate discussing the Sue Gray report and will challenge any Tory MPs present in the chamber to defend Boris Johnson in public.

After lunch, I did a little bit of gardening. Principally, this was a quick flash with my edging tool up and down the ‘long edge’ of our communal grassed area, pulling out some of the bracken fronds which can appear and make tremendous growth if not pulled out immediately and finally  a cleaning and tidy up of some of my hand tools which had been left in a state of some disarray when the patio and associated paths down the side of the house were cleared before the cleaning job we had performed upon it.

The Champions Leage Final between Liverpool and Real Madrid in Paris turned into a debacle last night with the start of the match delayed for more than half an hour and several thousand Liverpool fans not being able to get into the ground until half-time. Sky News have unearthed some video evidence that shows a broad access way was blocked by 3-4 police vans parked across one of the accessways causing a bottleneck which was the start of all the problems. UEFA themselves claim that many of the Liverpool fabs had forged tickets which may, or may not be true. Given the powerful vested interests at work, I suspect that a completely independent investigation of ‘what went wrong’ may never actually take place. I would not like to have paid a huge price for a ticket and then travel to Paris only to see one half of the match and one’s own team beaten.

A beautiful day dawned and it was a delight for us, on a Saturday morning, to look out over the front and back lawns freshly mown as of yesterday. After we had got up and showered and I had made a lightning visit into town by car to pick up the newspaper, Meg started to undertake our daily walk down into the park. We drank our coffee and ate our comestibles in comparative isolation, after which we strolled down the hill in search of companions. We soon bumped into Seasoned World Traveller and after we had decided to buy a coffee from the park’s own café, we were shortly joined by our University of Birmingham friend. His slight tendon injury which had left him not being able to play tennis during the last week seemed to have healed so he was looking forward to a normal round of tennis matches. Seasoned World Traveller and I exchanged some observations of a medical nature, as well as talking politics and then we made our way home for a Saturday lunch. I had prepared some Quorn mince which I tarted up a little with some fried onions, peas, onion gravy and some brown sauce which I often utilise to impart a bit of flavour. So we had a total vegetarian dinner but it felt like a ‘meat and two veg’ if you know what I mean.

I had a little project upon which I was intent in the afternoon. I wanted to stake up a Weigela which I want to grow up as tall as possible to provide a bit of screen from our next door neighbour’s garden. I had already purchased a stout piece of timber and I put a point on it with a saw and a spot of Danish Oil to help to prevent the stake rotting in a year or so. In the event, though, I found the hornbeam I had planted about a year back had actually grown a really stout ‘bole’ (the technical name for a tree’s trunk) and so instead of sinking a stake, all I had to do was to utilise some rope to lash the Weigela into a somewhat more upright position. This particular Weigela has beatiful ruby red flowers and I am hoping that it will grow to its full height of 2.5m within a year or so. Having got this job done, I then gave the communal green area a quick edging (as it quickly grows over its natural borders at this time of year) and then Meg and I spent some happy minutes having a chat with our next door neighbour who had just returned from a week’s holiday. We love discussing politics and have a sort of macabre fascination for the machinations of Boris Johnson so we are speculating how the whole of partygate will play out in the longer term.

As is normal on a Saturday, we attended church in the early evening. One of the parishioners who is ‘sport mad’ asked us if we were going to watch the European cup match between Liverpool and Real Madrid which he assured me was on terrestrial TV. Once we got home and had some soup, we realised that this was somewhat duff information so we had to content ourself with the normal Saturday night fare for a Saturday.

There has been a dripfeed of Tory MP’s who now realise that they cannot continue to support Boris Johnaon any more and are consequently writing letters to that effect to the Tory MP who chairs the 1922 (= Tory backbencher’s) committee. The magic number is 54 ‘letters’ but Sky News is keeping a tally of those Tory MP’s who have called upon Johnson to go and think that the tally might be 24 i.e. less than one half. However, I suspect that two events may prove to be significant. Parliament is now in recess until after the Queen’s Jubilee junketings which start on Thursday and I suspect that many Tory MP’s might be having their ears bent by their constituency party chairmen and committee members when they are in their constitutency for several days. I suspect that the numbers of ‘malcontents’ may be larger when MPs return back to Westminster in about 10 days time. There is another theory about the days ahead which is interesting. There are two bye-elections next month and one in Tiverton is interesting. There the majority is 25,000 but if the Lib-Dems, most of the Labour voters and discontented Tories join forces this could be a stunning Lib Dem victory. Even if Lib Dems fail to take the seat but reduce the Tory majority from 25,000 to say 1,000, then this would put scores of seats across Southern England in danger. Ex-Tory voters might be more willing to vote Lib Dem if by so doing they are not allowing a Corbyn-led Labour Party into power, being able to tolerate a Starmer-led government for some years. We shall have to wait 3-4 weeks until the bye-elections are held to see what will transpire.