Today we seemed to be running a little bit late all day. Our domestic help had been delayed whilst she was taking her much beloved Jack Russell terrier to the vets where it appeared to have been poised between life and death for a few days. In the meanwhile, the vets seemed intent on suggesting more and more expensive treatments at what appeared to me to be outrageous prices but at least the dog has now rallied and seems to be intent on inhabiting the world of the living for a bit longer yet. We were just on our way out to the park when our domestic help arrived – as she and her husband had just enjoyed a wonderfuly sentimental journey back to Venice in which city they were married some 25 years ago, we had quite a lot to chat about. Eventually, though, we got down into town by car and treated ourselves to a coffee in Waitrose but unfortunately we did not bump into our former acquaintances in the coffee bar who, since the pandemic, have no doubt developed new haunts. Eventually, though, we made it home and enjoyed a wonderful lunch of smoked hake for which I have recently acquired a taste and which I buy at a ridiculously cheap price as part of my weekly Aldi shopping.

This afternoon was my regular lawn cutting day – and I still breathe a sigh of relief when my trusty petrol mower starts at one simple pull of the starter cord. Although it is not absolutely necessary, I tend to cut the lawn in one direction and then perform a second cut at right angles to the first as a kind of cross-cut. Where the wheels have traversed over the ground, they still leave behind a faint impression which gives the lawn overall a sort of vaguely striped appearance which adds to the overall manicured effect. The grass in the front of our house, when originally planted by the builder, evidently did not use some really fine lawn grass but it is what I call ‘meadow’ grass whose apppearance is enhanced by not having it cut incredibly short (and it is probably better as regards water retention and the like not to have the grass cut too short)  

Boris Johnson is still hoping that a degree of bluff and bluster will see him through the latest ‘crisis’. However, one analysis has pointed out that the reference yesterday of Boris Johnson’s behaviour to the Committee on Privileges will keep the issue alive for months, whereas the PM himself is desperately trying to move the agenda onto other issues. What I think is slowly sinking in is that there are now three enquiries into Boris Johnson’s behaviour. For a start, the Met have got to complete their work and this may take some weeks more. They revealed the other day that they are not going to make any more pronouncements as to who may or may not have received a fine until after the elections on May 5th – this kicks the can down the road for another two weeks. Only then can the Sue Gray report be concluded and handed in – there may even be a delay before it gets published or see the light of day. After these two enquiries have been concluded, the Committee on Privileges will start its work but, with holiday breaks and the like, the Committee may not be able to report until the autumn. This will keep the issue alive fror about the next six months, unless other things (such as election-induced resignations) intervene.

The French presidential election seems to be heading for a fairly predictable conclusion. Marine Le Pen has failed to deliver anything approaching a knock-out blow to Emmanual Macron so the French president looks set for another term. The French electorate, given the choice between the two candidates have one who has a small minority adore (Le Pen) but who does not appeal to the centre ground whilst the other (Macron) seems to generate enthusiasm from nobody but at least they are not Le Pen. A week or so ago, it looked as though the contest was going to be very much closer than seems to be the case – on Sunday, no doubt, a predicted result will appear within seconds of the polls closing and then all be over except for the counting.

One of the pleasures of having a largish garden is that you discover things in odd places that you did not expect. Whilst I was waiting for Meg the other morning, I looked down the slope towards our fence and discovered a tree about 5′ tall I never knew I had. To be honest, when I periodically tidy up this area, if I discover a small set sapling, I tend to replant it near to the fence and then forget all about it. From the shape of the leaf I think this tree is a horse chestnut but it may be a self-set maple – when the leaves get a bit bigger, I may be able to ascertain more exactly.

We are still in our period of fine weather and so we are still enjoying some spring sunshine – even the cool wind had moderated somewhat.  Today being a Thursday was our ‘food shopping’ day so I made sure that I was outside the door of the supermarket a minute or so before the doors opened at 8.00am. There were about four of us in the queue and, of course, once inside we seem to disperse very rapidly. I got all of my shopping done in just about an hour and then I went off to collect our newspaper before getting back home and unpacking the shopping. Then Meg and I strolled down to the park at a very leisurely pace and we seemed to meet a lot of our friends and acquaintances on route. For a start we met our Irish friend before we got into the park and chatted about her recent holiday. Then, as we were sitting in the park, we were passed by two prominent members of the church we attend on Saturday evenings and discussed  how the celebrations had gone in the Easter vigil last Saturday. Then we had a chat with our Italian friend who was walking in the park with her companion so all in all, we seem to have had quite a conversation-filled morning. We got home just after 1.00pm and then had a completely vegetarian lunch of quiche, carrots finished off in some hot walnut oil and with a touch of syrup to add some sweetness and finally, the remainder of some spring greens. We found the whole very tasty and then settled down, after lunch. to watch the debate in the House of Commons.

As it turned out, the Tories got themselves into a bit of a mess over the vote which was on a motion proposed by the Labour Party that the PM be referred to the Committee on Privileges (a committee which in one shape or form goes back centuries) Last night, the Tories tabled an amendment to the effect that any referral to the Committee on Privileges should be delayed until after the Met police enquiry was concluded and the Sue Gray report was both concluded but also published. This was largely seen as a ‘kicking of the can down the road’ and it becme evident to the government whips that a lot of Tory MPs would suddenly discover that they ‘had COVID’ and would absent themselves from the vote. The Labour Party had promised to plaster the constituencies of all MPs who voted to delay the further investigation and support Boris Johnson with news of their backing for the PM  and this might have spelled electoral disster for them. The government whips realised that they could not win the vote on their own amendment and withdrew it. Then they announced that Tory MPs could vote however they wanted. In the event, when the question was put to the House at the end of the debate, there was not a single ‘Noe’ in response to the Speaker’s traditional question and therefore the whole Labour motion went through ‘on the nod’ without a vote taking place. When Meg and I observed some of the debate, it was principally crowded opposition benches telling heart-rending tales of how their constitutemts were not allowed a few minutes with their dying relatives as the Tories were partyfying. The tone of the debate was set by senior Brexiteer, Steve Baker, who told the Boris Johnson to resign over the partygate saga, sayig ‘The gig is up’. In an amazing U-turn, Steve Baker had led to the de-fenestration of Teresa May in favour of Boris Johnson. Of course, Opposition MPs had prepared their speeches which they delivered to a House of Commons in which there were only about 4-5 Tories in the Chamber to be berated by the Opposition benches.  The whole point about being referred to the Committee on Privileges is that this Committee has extraordinary power to call for documents, including photographs (several of which are known to exist and are incriminating) If found to have misled the House, then Boris Johnson could be suspended from the Commons and might even be subject to the members of his constituency being allowed to have a vote of recall. In the view of all of this, the word on the street today is that the Prime Minister is already ‘toast’ One is reminded that when Margaret Thatcher was out of the country in Paris, the Tories turned against her as she failed to muster sufficient votes in a Tory leadership election. Boris Johnson is on a visit to India at the moment – was this ill-advised? It used to be said that Soviet leaders were anxious at travelling abroad lest they be deposed in their absence. According to the Channel 4 political editor, Gary Gibbon, the Speaker of the House of Coimmons gave special dispensation for the word ‘liar’ to be used with reference to Boris Johnson as normally it would be contrary to the rules of the House  and unparliamentarty language to use the word ‘liar’

Although today was a cooler day, the weather was set fair for a fine day. So having collected our newspaper, Meg and I walked down to the park. Once on our normal bench, we were joined by an acquaintance together with his cross-breed dog, Alfie, who is a labradoodle (a cross-breed beween a labrador and a poodle)  Apparently, they were first bred to have a dog that was hypoallergenic and also a good guide dog.   But now that so many breeders have got in on the act since the 1980’s, we now have a generation of labradoodles that are neither hypoallergenic or good guide dogs – and they may be prone to more health problems as well as the parents were mated as they were less than perfect specimens of their breed in the first place. The point of this story, though, is that quite by accident we suddenly had an ‘aggregation’ of labradoodles all of whom seemed to know each other and some may have been related as well. When their owners let them off the leash, they raced around full of the doggy equivalent of ‘joie de vivre’ but I was very impressed that when their owners called them, they came immediately to heel and let themselves be put back onto the leash again. So Meg and I made our way back home and started to watch the later stages of Prime Minister’s Question Time. Some of the commentators felt that Keir Starmer was really starting to needle Boris Johnson, not that he cares much anyway as he was shortly to fly off to India. There is to be a vote tomorrow to refer his conduct to the Committee of Priveliges but the Conservative prty as a whole has been whipped to vote against this. The only slight smidgeon of interest at this stage is how many Tories will abstain as an indication of their displeasure with the whole ‘partygate’ affair. The consensus view seems to be that Boris Johnson has bought himself some time (which is quite a typical story) but there are more dangers ahead in the form of further fines that may be forthcoming and, of course, the local elections in about three weeks time. But the local elections are for London, Scotland and Wales – in England, most of the seats will be contested in London – 1,817 seats across 32 boroughs – where Labour controls the vast majority of councils. Outside the capital, a wide variety of councils are up for election: 33 metropolitan borough councils covering 904 seats; 21 unitary authorities, with 627 seats; 60 district councils (1,011 seats). Six mayors will also be elected in London boroughs, and one in the South Yorkshire Combined Authority. So the upshot of all of this is that the seats that are up for election this year are not particularly representative of the country as a whole.

This afternoon I finished off the bit of gardening that I needed to do. In a rather overgrown bed bordering the back lawn, I have laid some lawn edging supplemented by heavy Victorian bricks dug out of the garden at various times. Then I cut back some of the creeping ground covering vegetation whose name I do not know and have constructed a short of ‘channel’ into which I have planted some leaf beet seeds and topped off with a covering of top soil. These plants should be quite easy to tend if/when they germinate and provided I keep the slugs off them as they grow.

On Sunday next, it will be the second final round of the French presidential election. The two candidates who came top of the poll in the first round were the existing president, Emmannuel Macron and Marine le Pen. We have the possibility when the second round of voting takes place on Sunday next that France might elect a far-right President who is on record as wanting to withdraw France from the EU. Hence this course of action has been been dubbed as ‘Frexit’ (the French counterpart of Brexit) Tonight, there will be a face-to-face stand-off between the two candidates – at the time of the last presidential election, Marine Le Pen fared extremely badly and the TV interview was judged to be one of the reasons why Le Pen lost the election. Macron’s projected lead for Sunday’s decisive second-round vote now averages eight or nine percentage points across all polls, with the latest, published on Tuesday, suggesting the gap has widened from eight to 12 points since Friday. It looks as though the Le Pen camp are claiming already that the polls are ‘rigged’ in Macron’s favour. Presumably, if Marine Le Pen was ahead in the polls her supporters would not be making these claims so there is plenty to play for this evening. We shall have to wait until the 10.00 news programmes are broadcast tonight to see who wins or loses in the presidential debate this evening and Channel 4 are promising full coverage in the few days remaining.

The weather still looked as though it was set fair this morning, but in the event things turned out to be a little cooler. I popped into town by car and also took the opportunity  to buy one or two things from Waitrose. Outside the store, I bumped into an acquaintance that we used to meet about once a week in the pre-pandemic days. She has started to frequent the store once again but we have not coincided inside the store. We exchanged news of the health conditions affecting our spouses and managed to offer sympathetic noises to each other as we had experiences in common. Once I got home with the little bits of shopping, Meg and I took the car down to the park and when we made for our usual bench, we were delighted to meet with our University of Birmingham friend who we occasionally meet on a Tuesday. Then we got joined by Seasoned World Traveller and seen got into a debate about the morality and politics behind the policy of resettling asylum seekers to Rwanda. There is quite a difference in language here as the govrnment tend not to refer to asylum seekers but rather ‘illegal immigrants’ There is quite an interesting legal point here as the Government through its ‘Nationality and Borders’ bill is seeing to make it a criminal offence to land on these shores via a dinghy or other ‘unapproved’ route. Technically speaking, an asylum seeker cannot have the epithet ‘illegal’ applied to them but that might change when the bill becomes law. I have got to say that we did not not see eye-to-eye on this, particularly as I expressed the view forcibly (and perhaps a little too forcibly) that the government was anxious to throw ‘red meat’ to some people in the country who feel threatened by immigration and many, if not most, on the Tory back benches. Perhaps the government knows that the policy is impractical and doomed to failure (probably at the hands of judges) but at least they can show that they are fulfilling many of the wishes of the electorate who want the whole problem of immigration just to go away and, if the price for this, is transporting people to a landlocked African country with an appalling humn rights record, then so be it. As an afterthought in all of this, I wonder how many Ukrainians who make it to these shores will be liable to deportation to Rwanda. I somehow feel that myself and Seasoned World Traveller are never capable of reaching even a simple compromise agreeemt on this issue.

After lunch, I went outside to finish off my creation of a new border. I laid down a series of bricks, mostly of the old Victorian variety that seem about two or three times the weight of their modern counterparts (with holes in the middle) These old Victorian bricks, dug up from the garden at regular intervals, are so heavy that they tend to ‘stay put’ which suits my purposes quite well. This afternoon, Meg and I were looking forward, if that is the right term, to seeing Boris Johnson in the House of Commons which is the first opportunity for MPs to question the PM after he had received a Fixed Penalty Notice. The performance was much as you might expect in that a few sentences of contrition gave place to s statement of the ways in the UK was giving aid and succour to the Ukrainians. In fact, moving the topic on to the subject of the Ukraine  took up some two thirds of Boris Johnson’s statement to Parliament. Tory MP’s in general took the hint and, they too, all moved on as quickly as possible to praise Boris Johnson’s aid and support to the Ukraine. One did notice, though, that the Tory benches tended to get thinner and thinner as many Tory MP’s just slid away whereas the Labour benches were full of quite predictable but heart-rending stories of how constitutents could not hold the hand of their dying spouse/parents/loved ones whilst in Downing Street they are ‘partying’ . I think it was Joanna Cherry from the SMP and a barrister made the telling point that if Boris Johnson was not lying, why did he not dispute the Fixed Penalty Notice and argue his case in court?  The Labour Party did manage to secure an emergency debate on Thursday night (which is the day after ‘Questions to the Prime Minister’ on Wednesdays) to refer the PM’s illegality to the Committee on Privileges.  As the debate is going to be ‘whipped’, then the outcome of the debate is unforuntely not in doubt. What might have been interesting, though, is to see how Tory MP’s would vote were it not to be a ‘whipped’ vote. A poll by JLPartners found that just 16 per cent of people would use positive language to describe the prime minister with more than 70 per cent characterising him in negative terms. Voters were asked to describe the prime minister, with the most frequent description being that he is a ‘liar’ – followed by ‘incompetent’ and ‘untrustworthy’.

Bank Holiday Monday dawned as quite a fair day with the promise of some nice spring sunshine. After breakfast, I popped down by car to collect our copy of the newspaper. Then, as it was such a fine day, Meg and I walked to the park, enjoying the sunshine.  The park was not at all busy considering it was a Bank Holiday – we half expected it to be teeming but perhaps the rest of the population has better things to do on a Bank Holiday. Quite unusually, we did not meet with any of our regulars apart from a snatched conversation with Seasoned World Traveller who was sitting on his own near the lake. We made for home and then I set to work cooking the chicken thighs which we should have started yesterday. What eventually emerged was something approximating to the spanish dish Polla a la Española  but minus the bacon or the chorizo. We did deploy some onions and peppers and then utilised half a jar of a lasagne type sauce before baking in the oven for over an hour. The result turned out to be very tasty – just as well, as we are going to have very similar tomorrow to finish off the chicken thighs. After lunch (and a bit of doze)  I set to work finishing off my bit of border which I was trying to put straight after yesterday. Once again, quite a simple job turned out  to be quite complicated. I needed to resurrect some large round pebble like stones that I had evidently utilised some years back but had got themselved buried in overgrown vegetation. One way or another these got resurrected and then recycled and were used to surround some plastic lawn edging ‘units’ that I had been hanging onto for some time. To be honest, anything plastic put into the garden is liable to be a bit bendy and wavy and, as usual, whenever you dig anything too deep into the soil on our back garden you are likely to meet pieces of brick as obstacles.   This is is because the land upon our house was built was not a ‘greenfield’ site but had been a small market garden with a range of outbuildings. By all accounts, these were flattened with a bulldozer (and not properly cleared away) and then soil pushed over the top of them. Hence gardening is always likely to encounter a half (or even a whole) brick and shards of glass that have a habit of working themselves to the surface. So a little job that I thought was going to be about 20-30 minutes turned out to be an hour and a half – still, it should be OK for the rest of the season and I will try my best to keep it tidy from now on.

 Meg and I have the prospect in the next day or so of following what happens in Parliament, largely as the ramifications of ‘partygate’ unfold themselves. As Parliament reassembles after the Easter break, so I think members of the opposition parties are prepared to taunt Conservative MPs who, by staying silent, are judged as condoning Boris Johnson’s illegality. The charge of the opposition parties is that the party of ‘law and order’ is remarkably silent when it comes to any transgressions committed by their own Prime Minister.  No doubt, the taunts will come thick and fast  and if Boris Johnson acquires any more Fixed Penalty Notices (which seems increasingly likely) then the continued silence on the government benches implies that Tory MPs are not condoning just one act of illegality but a whole series of them. There are some indications of fireworks in Parliament tomorrow (and even Sky News are advertising their coverage of this before the event) and perhaps even more on Wednesday which is the day for Questions to the Prime Minister. Today, the energy minister Greg Hands told Sky News: ‘The prime minister will have his say in parliament and will outline his version of events and face questions from MPs.’ Mr Hands said he strongly supported the prime minister who he said was ‘getting on with the job’, citing the COVID-19 vaccination programme and Britain’s support for Ukraine.

Meg and I are starting to wonder about holiday plans or at least short term breaks. The British airports, or at least the major ones, seem to be in a bit of mess with some travel experts arguing that the shortages bedevelling the airlines (quick to fire staff after furlough ended, but harder to re-hire as security checks and retraining need to take place) may persist for months. We are thinking that by September, things might have quietened down sufficiently for us to contemplate a trip to see our close friends in Coruña. In the meanwhile, we may well go back to Chester that we know well for a variety of reasons. The city is quite a ‘human scale’ to walk around which will suit Meg quite a lot. At the same time, we can go north to visit cousins in Lancashire and southwards to visit an aged uncle in Alsager.

Today is Easter Day and the weather has dawned bright and cheerful. Although I do not comment on things religious, last night was rather special. It was an especially long service as it was part of the rite for Easter Saturday – called the Easter Vigil. Last night’s service was especially long as it involved a group of people who, accordingly to the terminology, were ‘under instruction’ and were being formally received into the Catholic Church as part of today’s ceremony. We started by congregating outside the church around a glowing brazier from which was lit the Easter (Pascual) candle. Then each member of the congregation was equipped with a candle and we processed with our lighted candles into a darkened church. At an appropriate moment in the ceremony, the candles were held aloft, the purple coverings which by tradition cover the altar and altar pieces were removed, the sanctuary lights and candles were lit and the congregation burst into an Easter hymn. The symbolism is clear i.e. emerging from a darkened tomb into the light of an Easter Day. I believe that most of these rites are much more highly developed in the Eastern (Byzantine) church and a pale imitation has been re-introduced into the western churches. Nonetheless, even for a person who might have no religious faith of any kind, the pure aesthetics were worth the experience. Meg and I had never attended an Easter Vigil before and therefore did not really know what to expect but the sight of a congregation being symbolically reborn, as it were, was quite inspiring.

This morning Meg and I walked to the park and had our normal coffee. On the park bench, we coincided with a couple of about our own age that we sometimes chat with and exchanged various bits of news. Then it was homewards but neither of us felt particularly hungry so I threw together a sort of salad based upon a tin of corned beef that we always keep in stock. Then it was a good read of the Sunday newspapers that are still speculating about the kinds of hurdles that Boris Johnson is yet to face – the consensus view is that Tory MPs are going to sit onto their hands until after the local elections of 5th May (two and a half weeks away) and at that point will decide whether to keep Boris Johnson as their leader as not. There seems to be a view gaining ground that Boris Johnson will not lead the Tories into the next election and even people like Jeremy Hunt (who has relatively ‘clean hands’)  thought about as a potential successor. After a bit of a rest and as the weather was fine, I decided to do a little gardening. I do suspect, though, that every single job that you think of as being a simple little job turns out to be more complicated than first thought. I was renovating a border which when I constructed it some four or five years ago  was a wooden ‘stay’ bordered by some large flat pebbles.This lot had to be deconstructed and de-grassed before i put it all together again. The donkey work has been done today and I can no doubt do some refinements tomorrow.   When I came in and we had some light tea in front of the TV, we idly flipped through the channels and came across the closing momemnts of the 1956 epic of ‘The Ten Commandments’  This, by modern tastes, was so unbelievably naff that it was fascinating to watch. The highlight of this, if you can call it such, was the vision of the patriarch Moses ascending Mount Sinai in order to (eventually) receive the Ten Commmandments. When Moses beat upon a rock face and called out ‘Lord, what I have left undone‘ Meg called out ‘Your shoelaces‘ Well, the film evoked that source of response. From thence, we descended into a few moments of ‘Carry on Cleo‘ which, must again, be awarded the badge of honour  for pure naffdom.

Partygate is rumbling on and when Parliament reconvenes next Tuesday, there may be further developments. The Speaker of the House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle, is being asked to officially make a ruling whether the House of Commons has been misled by the PM now that at least one conviction (or Fixed Penalty Notice) has been issued. The word on the street in the Westminster village is that the penalty notice served upon Boris Johnson is for one of the most ‘minor’ of the transgressions and there may be more (perhaps about 6) of a more serious scale in the pipeline. In particular,  the ‘bring your own booze’ event held in the Downing Street garden on 20 May, 2020 may well have been instigated by Johnson himself. The Sunday Times is reported saying that a gathering in the Downing Street press office did not start as leaving drinks – rather, it was the ‘usual Friday evening wash-up drinks’  But Mr Johnson ‘came fumbling over, red box in tow’, and ‘gathered the staff around the press office table, which did have bottles of alcohol on it and started pouring drinks for people and drinking himself’. A photographer is said to have been present throughout and is believed to have captured pictures of the prime minister. Downing Street source does not dispute the description of the event but denies that Johnson had organised it. Watch this space!

We awoke to a beautiful spring day and the promise of fine weather all day long. After we had breakfasted, I collected the newspaper from the newsagent by car and then Meg and I decided to make the best of the beautiful weather by strolling down to the park. We met our two regular friends in the park, our University of Birmingham friend as well as Seasoned World Traveller and we spent some time talking about films that had impressed us as well as other things. Eventually, it was time for us to leave so having drunk our coffee and had a good chat, we made our way up the hill to home. On the way, we espied our Italian friend who was busy mowing her front lawn but as it was such a lovely day, she stopped and we had another chat. When we got home, we had a lunch of quiche and prepared ourselves for some gemtle gardening this afternoon. Before I actually started what I wanted to do, I ‘restored’ to good health a very useful and heavy tool which almost defies description. It has a thick triangular head and Amazon have two tools which approximate to it. One they call a ‘Root Breaker’ for fairly obvious reasons whilst the other implement is called a ‘Multi-Purpose Demolition Scraper’.  I have evidently felt the need for this tool in the past when I was laying out paving stones and similar ‘heavy’ garden jobs but I have not felt the need for it for some time. Afer a bit of rust removal, sharpening and conditioning with WD-40, it was ready to be put to work. I intend to use it to get a nice vertical ‘drop’ in the long border where the communal grassed area abuts my newly created vegetable bed. The idea behind all of this is that I can do a quick ‘whiz’ up and down the border each week and do not have to bother about any grass clippings as they can be pushed towards the bottom of the ‘V’ recently created and they will then rot down.  Whilst I was at it,  I used my sharpening tool on the new lawn edger I purchased from Wilco last week as well as my trusty side shears. Armed with these newly sharpened and oiled tools, I then put some finishing touches to the long edge I have in the front of the house. I must say I was very impressed by the Wilco tool which I bought (manufactured in India). One of the reviews I read was from a professional gardener who reckoned it was the best of its type and he has used several over the years. I was very pleased that the tool really lived up to its promise, made even sweeter by the fact that it was only about half the price of some of its competitors but with plenty of built in quality. Having done some edging and weeding around our BioDisk, I felt I had done enough for the day and retreated indoors to get a well-earned cup of tea. Perhaps it is of no surprise to learn that Miggles, our adopted cat, came along to supervise all of my activities during the afternoon to ensure that I was doing everything right. The cat has recently taken to rolling around on the newly dug soil, together with the ‘friend’ of another local cat who I have christened ‘Black Peter‘ The internet indicates that sometimes cats do his just to cool down or sometimes even to play (like children at the seaside and sand?)  

I sometimes listen to ‘Any Questions‘ on Radio 4 which is first broadcast on a Friday evening and then repeated at lunchtime on a Saturday, immediately followed by members of the public phoning in to ‘Any Answers‘ broadcast immediately afterwards. One of the questions from a member of the audience to the panel was to ask ‘What is the difference between a Ukrainian fleeing Russian persecution in the Ukraine and a Syrian refugee, fleeing Russian inspired aggression in Syria?’ The simple answer, of course, is ‘None’ but in practice, one suspects that the two cases would be treated very differently by British immigration officials. One could point out that despite the surface similarities, one refugee is European and white whereas the other is Middle Eastern and non-white. I think that a United Nations report has recently highlighted the differences in outcome between the two different cases of individuals seekingg respite from Russian aggression but the whole issue gives one pause for thought.

I also came across another quite stimulating piece of political commentary that was making the case that disillusionment with the political process (in the face of evident venality, not to say mendacity and corruption) acually worked against the left – and harmed the left as much as the right. The argument is that members of the public might feel ‘Well, the other lot would be no better’ and therefore despite the recent scandals (partygate and so on), the right are not as damaged by this as you might think (and correspondingly, nor does the left profit much from it either)

Today dawned bright and fair so this presages the start of some good weather. Once Meg and I got ourselves showered and breakfasted, we popped down into town by car, primarily because I wanted to pick up one or two things at Waitrose, which we treat rather like a corner shop when we run out of one or two things. We met up with our University of Birmingham friend and Seasoned World Traveller and we had quite a jolly time talking about the sinking of the Russian battle cruiser, the Moskva. The Ukrainians had commemorated the original act of defiance in which some Ukrainian military had shouted at the Russians ‘Russian warship, do (obscenity) yourself‘ These military had been captured but then released quite early in a prisoner exchange and were promptly awarded medals for gallantry by the Ukrainian president. The Ukrainians have subsequently issued a stamp which shows the Russian battle cruiser in the background but Ukrainian soldiers in the foreground making an obscene gesture in the direction of the warship. But of course, this stamp is already outdated because the image of a ship needs to be replaced/superimposed by the image of a sinking ship. The ‘inside’ story is starting to emerge today, courtesy of Sky News. The pride of Russia’s fearsome Black Sea fleet was taken out in one of the most cunning operations of the war. Ukrainian commanders destroyed the huge Moskva warship by using drones to distract its defence systems and allowing surface-skimming missiles to strike. The 12,500-ton cruiser’s protective sensors seemingly did not see the Neptune rockets heading its way because they were tracking Turkish TB2 drones. Providing a massive boost to morale in Kyiv, and a huge blow to Vladimir Putin’s navy, two missiles slammed into the port side of the 611ft Moskva, rocking her violently and causing a catastrophic explosion and huge fires. As flames lit up the stormy Black Sea, the ship’s 510 crewmen frantically climbed into lifeboats and fled. As a postscript to this account, the Ukrainians are now claiming that the captain of the battle cruiser was killed. American intelligence sources think that several other crew lost their lives in the fire and subsequent explosion. The Russians are admitting the fire but not the missile damage. However, as if to undermine their own story, the Russians have immediately started to bomb a Ukrainian factory near to Kyif which both manufactures and repairs anti-ship missiles. One wonders why they would do this, as the Russians would have us believe, the ‘fire’ on board their battle cruiser was accidental or not caused by a Ukrainian missile. By all accounts, though, the Russian cruiser was bristling with defensive equipment which should, in theory, have protected it. But does the failure of these systems to work point to failures in the technology itself and/or to the training of the naval personnel on board? The military significance of the loss of this ship means that any attack on Odessa might be more difficult as the Russians would have to rely upon more amphibious landings.  

We lunched on some smoked hake fillets, first purchased from Aldi some 3-4 weeks ago and then purchased again last Thursday. Like last time, these proved to be absolutely delicious – I follow  the cooking instructions to the letter wrapping them tightly in tinfoil and then baking them in a pre-heated oven for some 17 minutes. They were delicious and I have an idea they may be a regular part of our cuisine from now on. Last night, we were just setting down to watch our evening’s TV when there was a knock on the door – it was our next door neighbour with two delicious bowls of apple and rhubarb crumble complete with custard which she had just served up. We devoured these with alacrity, secure in the knowledge that now we won’t starve with a good neighbour like that next door. When today’s lunch was well and truly over, it was time for the weekly lawn mow. As it was such a pleasant afternoon, I even had to divest myself of my gardening jacket and mow in my shirt sleeves. I was three quarters finished when our next door neighbour wandered across for a chat. As well as revelling in what had happened to the Russian battle cruiser, we were discussing gardening topics and, in particular, vegetable growing. My neighbour has an allotment or even two and is growing quite a lot of his favourite vegetables this year. I showed him the section of land that had been devoted to dahlias but is now being pressed into service as a vegetable plot. In the next few days, provided it is warm, I will get to work raking the soil to get it into a fine tilth and then I can proceed to sow in the open air. Yesterday, on our day out, I popped into a hardware store that sold vegetable and flower seeds and bought his last remaining packet of sweet pea seeds so these can now be sown pretty quickly.

Today was my normal ‘shopping’ day and I got to my local supermarket in plenty of time before it opened at 8.00am. I was a little surprised to see that quite a lot of people have evidently had the same idea as myself because although I was there a few minutes before the opening time, I was still about fifth in the queue. I spent some time looking at the garden requisites that they store outside the store and noted the code numbers for two different kinds of sowing compost which I intend to buy (one for myself, one for my daughter-in-law who was on the hunt for peat-free compost) Shopping was quite a painless affair and I was pleased to see that the store was still stocking some smoked hake which we bought a couple of weeks ago and found absolutely delicious. I mentioned the code numbers of the bags of peat to the assistant as the bill was being totalised and they just got added onto the end. So this made life easier as all I had to do was to pack the shopping inside the car and then collect my two bags of peat to sit on the top. Meg and I had a leisurely breakfast followed by the unpacking, during which time Meg was getting ready. Then we went off in the car to collect our copy of the newspaper and set off for the little town of Alcester which we intend to visit on a further occasion as we had a nice time there some weeks ago. It was some time after midday when we arrived so we decided to forego the customary coffee and teacakes but instead did the rounds of some of the local charity shops which are all of an excellent quality. Meg bought herself a pair of espadrilles (or something similar to that, as they had stout soles but a very pretty fabric ‘upper’ and we probably use these as slippers or ‘house shoes’). For my part, I got tempted to buy a pair of walking boots which were a very subtle tawny colour and looked both unusual and original. These can become my ‘main’ walking boots and some of my others can now be downgraded to the status of ‘gardening’ shoes as my existing gardening shoes I have had for several years and are practically dropping to bits. Then we made our way to the local hotel which we know offers special ‘deals’ midweek to ‘Senior Citizens’ but they were quite heavily booked already for lunchtime. We accepted the offer of a later lunchtime appointment and in the meanwhile availed ourselves of their very pleasant lounge whilst Meg drank a coffee and I treated myself to a low-alcohol beer. Eventually, an early slot was found for us as there had been some ‘no shows’ so by this stage, we were pleased to get ready to eat. Once we had our meals delivered, we were not disappointed, Meg having a prawn salad and I had  a vegetable lasagne. Thee were both delicious and we treated ourselves to some homemade apple pie cake – unusual but equally delicious.

When we got home this afternoon, we had a customary cup of tea and then I started to do a little gardening job which is to mow the edges of the lawn and the ‘fiddly’ bits around the communal green area with my little hand mower. Whilst outdoors, we had a pleasant chat with our next door neighbour whose company we enjoy tremendously. We discussed the war in Ukraine amongst other things and generally put the world to rights. There is rarely anything to smile about in the Ukrainian conflict but a recently reported incident brought us some flickers of satisfaction. The flagship battle cruiser of the Russian Baltic fleet has been successfully attacked by the Ukrainians, starting a fire on board which resulted in all of the ammunition exploding. The ship had to be abandoned and was then towed back to port. This missle cruiser (the ‘Moskva‘) was not particularly state of the art and was quite ancient  but it is is being reported that this may well be the biggest naval loss in conflict since the end of the Second World War.

Meanwhile, back on the domestic front, there is a scheme unveiled today by Priti Patel to take all single male  asylum seekers who arrive in Britain across the channel and to resettle them in Rwanda, some 4,000 miles away. Whether this policy will work or not is an interesting question – other countries have tried a similar policies which have failed and the costs involved may be quite enormous. Of course, this may be a welcome distraction from ‘partygate’ and it is not unusual for the Tories to run an immigration scare story to distract attention from things happening at home. Rwanda has rather a poor human rights records so one wonders how many asylum seekers would fare.  

Today was a day slightly out of the ordinary. In the middle of the morning, Meg and I had a chiropody appointment which had had to be rearranged from a week or so ago and this all worked out as planned. Our chiropodist told us that in a few week’s time, she was due to make an attempt on the Three Peaks (Scafell Pike in England, Snowden in Wales and Ben Nevis in Scotland) and I think she was very brave to attempt such a feat. I think she was going to do one or two preparatory walks and then the logistics of the assault on the Three Peaks was handled by a company who transported people from place to place. I suppose that being a chiropodist she will know how to handle to prevent and/or treat any blisters that might ensue. She assured me that she had a good pair of boots which I suppose is a prerequisite – you do not want to be in a position to be breaking in a new pair of boots before a mammoth walk. After our appointment, I went down and collected the newspaper and we then had our elevenses at home but watching all of the shenanigans following the fining of Boris Johnson for breaking COVID regulations. We have recently received one or two Easter cards and this prompted me to think of the Easter cards which we intended to send this year. I quickly rustled up the addresses of most of the people to whom  we send Easter cards, ready for posting later in the day. Towards midday, we drove to our favourite hotel/restaurant near Kidderminster where we were booked in for a family meal with our son and daughter-in-law. There we had a pleasant meal and on our way home, I presented our daughter-in-law with a little present of some patio roses in an attractive little container which they were selling off in our local Waitrose a few days ago.  Then I popped out to the post to get our Easter cards well into the system and hoping that they get by Saturday at the latest. All post boxes have a little metal tag which should be changed daily so that you can can whether you have just caught or missed the post for the day – in our local pillar box, though, the little metal tag was missing which always leaves you with some uncertainty whether you have caught the post or not.

The seqelae of the ‘partygate’ affair rumble on today. One justice minister who is a member of the House of Lords has resigned today and one MP has broken ranks to call for the resignattion of the PM. However, one has to say that the resounding silence of practically every Tory MP speaks volumes – by their silence, are they condoning the fact that the first Prime Minister ever to have been convicted of a non-trivial offence is considered still fit to be their leader? We are not at the end of this saga by a long way. For a start, the Met police have not finished processing all of the potential ‘partygate’ transgressions so it is possible that Boris may be fined over and over again for subsequent offences. Then the Grey report will take over once the Met investigations and issuing Fixed Penalty Notices has run its course. And hanging over everything of course is the act that the local elections to be held on 5th May will be the first opportunity for the electorate as a whole to express its opinion of partygate.

The Ukrainian news tonight is that the crucial city of Mariupol may well fall in hours to the Russians.If the Russians succeed in capturing this city, which now looks overwhelmingly likely, the the Russians will link the swathes of territories in the east with those in the south, including Crimea. This may well be the ‘victory’ that Putin craves in order to declare a triumph in the big military ceremony that the Russians hold each 12th May. Assuming that the Russians do manage to ‘capture’ this territory, there will be the possibilities of ethnic conflict and ethnic tensions for decades ahead.

There is an opinion poll tonight that indicates that people in general are more worried about the cost of living crisis which is engulfing us than catching COVID-19. As the inflation rate has hit 7% today, there is even worse economic news to come as the inflation rate has hit 8% and over. The same survey reveals that some 49% said they felt in control of their mental health, compared with 54%  six months ago, with the number of people reporting symptoms of anxiety and depression at its highest level for 11 months. This probably indicates that we will have a chronic mental health crisis hanging over us and, as we know, the mental health services have always been the ‘Cinderella’ services (ie underfunded) of the NHS.