The evening before last, I attended a concert in the local large church down the road which serves as a kind of parish church for the town as a whole and was the last of the concerts in the season for the Bromsgrove festival. The person who acted as a Eucharistic minister whilst Meg was alive is a cellist and was playing in the orchestra which offered us an exciting offering of Mendelssohn, Schubert and Brahms and I managed to park quite easily near to the church and remembering to take a cushion with me. During the interval, I bumped into one of my U3A fellow members ad also had the briefest of encounters with a member of the Philosophy  group that I had vaguely thought about joining. As they meet on the last Friday of each month, I may be able to stitch that into my weekly/monthly diary so I have sent off a brief email enquiring about membership and await a reply with some interest. If I join this group, it will be the 4th group as well as the monthly excursions and this is probably enough for me. When I returned home from the concert, I knew that tt was going to be the England vs. France football match for the ‘honour’ of 3rd place  in the competition as a whole. It turned out to be one of the most extraordinary and interesting of all the matches in the World Cup. For a start, England played brilliantly and with great panache were actually leading France by 4:0 at half time which is an extraordinary state of affairs. In the second  half, France came alive and Mbappe scored a brace of goals to make him the leading goal scorer in World Cup history. So at one stage England were leading France 4:3 but they did not retreat into their shell but continued with adventurous forward play. Sakar scored a hat trick including a penalty and Jude Bellingham was brought on to  score a goal in the dying seconds of the game. So the match finished with England winning 6:4 and one got the impression that both teams finished happy. It was England’s best performance since the 1966 victory and the finest on foreign soil. Although France were abysmal in the first half of the game, they must have been happy to have put four goals past England and could even have scored several more with some near misses in front of goal. So England finishes up officially 3rd in the FIFA rankings and, although I may be mistaken about this, I do not think there was a single VAR review in the whole of the match which helped the game to flow from end to end. Today I ought to see my American friend calling around so that we can cook lunch together after which we will no doubt have a walk in  the park for the good of our health and then settle down to watch the World up Final  together. After attending my normal church service, I was a little disconcerted to find that the tea-and-coffee refreshments which are generally available to us at the end of the service are suspended. So I find that two of my usual haunts are being ended until September during the duration of the school holidays. The opportunity  is being taken to redecorate the parish hall in any case. So I collected my Sunday newspaper and gave the car its weekly wash as it seemed particularly dirty after a deposit of fine dust which  sometimes happens in these atmospheric conditions. When  I got home, I prepared the  chicken meal I was going to share with my American friend and subsequently we had an enjoyable meal in each other’s company. After we had let our dimmer digest and asked Alexa (smart speaker) to play some favourite tracks, we journeyed to the park to do about three circuits of the lake as part of our constitutional.

The World Cup Final is being played out this evening and at half time, the score was 0:0 with Spain having had more shots at goal. However the normal 15 interval is being extended on this occasion to 30 minutes to allow for some American style entertainment in the middle of the game. This is part of the Americanisation of the whole of World Cup and evidently the interests of the money makers has predominated over the interests of the players whose muscles will have cooled down and stiffened up over a 30 minute interval. This is not the only Americanisation that is evident as the hydration breaks taken half way through each half have ‘de facto’ divided the game into 4 quarters like an American sporting event. So this extended break, the hydration breaks taken for commercial reasons and the extensive use (some would say over-use) of VAR has altered the nature of the World Cup final. So the World Cup went to extra time and then the Spanish scored a well-deserved winning goal in the first or second minute of the second period of extra time. The rest of the game turned into a tense and rather an ugly affair and even at the end of the game it appeared that an Argentinian player made a swing at a Spanish sub who had come onto the field to celebrate. The Spanish were well deserved winners but they had to work very hard for their victory whilst the Argentinians scarcely had a shot at goal in the whole of the game. I am quite sure that several inquests are still to be held and the enduring question is how lightly the Argentinians seemed to be penalised compared with many other nations. One telling statistic is that for the majority of rounds of competition not a single VA review went against Argentina which is perhaps an indication of some sub conscious bias in favour of who are now the ex-world champions. Now that the World Cup is well and truly  out of the way, attention will turn to the incoming new prime Minister, Andy Burnham, who will take over the premiership at the start of the week. A lot of interest will focus on who he chooses to be members of his cabinet and, in particular, Chancellor of the Exchequeur as well as what policies he will adopt to ‘hit the ground running’ No doubt all kinds of expectations have been raised but I fear that a lot of disappointment will be apparent when nothing changes for much of the population.

After I had ‘recovered’ from the attempted scam raid on my bank account the day before, I turned to the YouTube media contributions of the day and discovered some fascinating videos. Some were detailed and well illustrated diagrammatic accounts of how the England manager made such a catastrophic strategic error in the critical semi-final football match that England made against Argentina when England were defeated in the World Cup. Among several prominent critics was the former Spanish footballer Ces Fabregas, the renowned Spanish professional football manager and former central mid fielder. Known for his exceptional vision, passing range, and assist record, Fàbregas is the fastest player in Premier League history to record 100 assists. Following a glittering playing career that spanned clubs like Monaco and Como, he retired in 2023 and transitioned into coaching. He is the manager of Italian Serie A club Como. In short, his opinion is not to be disregarded lightly and he was of the view that when managers  tried to hang onto a lead by adopting a purely defensive posture by pulling all of the team back, including the strikers, to resolutely defend these efforts ended in failure some 80%-90% of the time. There were also some excellent videos examining the role that VAR played in the critical moments of several matches. Nobody is arguing that FIFA ‘fixed’ matches for Argentina to win but the role of VAR was to take little incidents and to magnify their significance out of all proportion and, indirectly subverting the principals of the game. A case in point is the well known offside rule in which an attacking player should not be in a position where he is behind the last defender in a game and this be in a position to receive a pass and then to score with only the goalkeeper to beat. But in one particular incident, VAR had decided that a player’s toe had strayed over the imagined line of the last defending player and therefore the attacker was ruled offside. But in no way can it be said that the attacking player could gain an advantage by being an inch over the imaginary, computer generated line  and hence the technology assumes an importance by being applied so rigidly. A non football example may help to illustrate this point. If I were to park my car so that a millimetre of the bumper were to infringe on the yellow line ‘space’, then technically an offence is committed and I would become liable to a parking fine. But there is a well known legal maxim in English law which in Latin is ‘De Minimus non curat lex’ which means that the law does not concern itself with really trivial cases. Were I to be issued with a parking fine for the infringement by a millimetre, then I could probably successfully appeal.  You can appeal a yellow line parking ticket GOV.UK Appeal a Penalty Charge Notice using the de minimis legal principle—meaning the law does not concern itself with trifles. If only a tiny fraction of your vehicle (like a bumper overhang) crossed the line, you may argue the infringement was too minor to warrant a fine. Now to return to football and the utilisation of VAR , it appears that VAR is making decisions that are technically correct but where the offending incident is completely insignificant compared with the effect of applying VAR so rigidly that a goal that can determine the outcome of a closely contested match is disallowed. In short, the ‘de minimus’ principle is not being applied by referees who should be able to overrule VAR with ‘common sense’ judgements (but who would not date to overrule a VAR judgement) I am not a passionate football aficionado and I can see the point of VAR in some sports – for example in rugby, has the ball been grounded for a try or in cricket did a batsman snick a ball before being caught. But the situation differs in football where VAR is being used to decide the validity  of penalties or goals and the consequences are huge compared with, say, the non-grounding of a ball for a try in Rugby Union. In short, perhaps a massive re-think of the role of technology  in football is called for and these arguments may take place when the World Cup is over.

Once I had breakfasted, I went into town to collect a copy of the Saturday newspaper which is always heavy with supplements and hence tends to sell out early on. The weather was just a tad cooler today but I came back home and had a quiet morning, watching some more match analysis of the Argentina-England match ad also replying to an email of one of my closest Spanish friends. I decided to use up some bits and pieces in a kind of stir-fry for my lunch today as I was getting a little fed up of nothing but salads. In the afternoon, I indulged myself by watching most of the Fiji-Scotland rugby match which was quite entertaining and, by half time, the Fijians were ahead  but the Scots got their act a bit more together in the second  half of the match and then managed to overhaul the Fijians fairly comfortably. Although some English attention will be focused uopn the Bronze match play-off between France and England, the actual kick off is not until 10.00 pm so this might be a case of getting into bed and watching the match from the comfort of the bedroom. But there is another match starting at 8.00pm which might excite some and that is England vs. Argentina in the so-called Nations (Rugby) Cup (normally a northern hemisphere team vs one from the southern hemisphere.)  I would imagine that even the rugby players would have watched the England vs. Argentina world cup match and I can only just wonder what effect this has one the mindset of both sets of players before the rugby game this evening. Consulting my emails, I see that the next U3A coach trip is a visit to Shrewsbury prison. I read that Shrewsbury Prison is one of the largest and most complete surviving Victorian prisons in Britain, operational until 2013 and preserved at scale and a guided tour is the most immersive way to explore this extraordinary prison. After this ‘experience’ we are going to visit the older parts of Shrewsbury itself so this will be an entertaining way to spend what would otherwise have been my 59th wedding anniversary of September 12th. I have seen the inside of a prison because I was a tutor to some Open University students in Gartree maximum security prison in Leicestershire and actually taught a truncated summer school in there as well. The prison is infamous for a daring helicopter escape in 1987. The breakout remains the only one of its type to have been carried out in the United Kingdom. On 10 December 1987 at 3.15 pm, John Kendall and Sydney Draper were sprung from Gartree’s exercise yard with the aid of a hijacked Bell 206 JetRanger helicopter. 

Before I went to bed the evening before last, there was a trail that Donald Trump was about to make an urgent address to the nation which he urged every American to watch. It was indicated that the subject of his address was likely to be about elections and I immediately thought that Trump might be about to announce that the mid-term elections (which he is predicted to lose heavily) were being cancelled or postponed. Although my worst fears were not actually realised, Trump was evidently trying to de-stabilise the whole of the election process in which, under the American constitution and federal system, electoral issues are firmly under the jurisdiction of the individual states and not the central government. Donald Trump has been accused of using an address to the nation to make totally bogus claims of interference in the 2020 US election. The US president used a 25-minute speech on Thursday night to contradict assessments from America’s own intelligence agencies, alleging China had carried out the largest compromise of election data in history He said he was declassifying sensitive information that showed Beijing had illicitly acquired 220 million voter files, including names, addresses and other data used to register to vote. He claimed members of the US intelligence community deliberately suppressed what Beijing had done. Many of the documents released alongside the speech, however, are redacted. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington said China has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections of the US. An assessment conducted in 2021 under then US director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe, who is now the CIA director, found no evidence of foreign interference in the 2020 election, which Mr Trump lost to Joe Biden. Mr Trump did not present any evidence in the speech that any ballots were tampered with or that foreign interference altered voting systems or changed the outcome of the election. The heavily redacted documents appear to be consistent with the Trump policy, seen in the Epstein file releases, of flooding the political arena with a mass of documents, even if heavily redacted, with which to bamboozle the public. Once the World Cup is over and both America and Europe enter holiday seasons, this might be seen as the initial shots in a campaign to mitigate the effect of what might prove to be disastrous elections for Trump and if the Democrats make striking gains then Trump’s freedom of manoeuvre may be severely restricted for the rest of is presidency. Meanwhile, we have the accession of Andy Burnham to which to look forward and I think that most of the nation will be watching how power is going to be devolved to the regions, a National Care system established, defence expenditure raised and the NHS adequately resources in an era when frankly ‘there is no money’ There are hints of a wealth tax but even this would not raise large amounts of money quickly. Thinking what I would do if I were to be Prime Minister, I think I would search for new avenues in which to raise money (taxing parcels, going after the internet giants) and then after some fierce opposition from the Treasury have hypothecated taxes with the issue of Defence Savings Bonds (to fund military expenditure) and a chunk of National Insurance devoted to the NHS. I would guess that many in the population would not resent some slight raises in taxation if they could ascertain exactly where the raised money was to be spent. But there again, I am not Prime Minister or likely to be! 

An incident occurred yesterday morning, the likes of which I would not like to ever see repeated. As I was in the middle of exercising, I got a call on my landline on the unit which I keep in the bedroom and it was the Fraud Department of my bank indicating that a couple of Amazon payments had been detected, one small but the other of the order of several hundred pounds and would I like these to be payments, detected by the bank’s Fraud department, to be refused. I was directed to get onto my account online in my main computer which I did and was then directed to log off and to consult a validation program on the web. This I did but when I was passed from one female foreign-sounding voice to a male manager to help make my account secure, I started to wonder. I was given information that my account may well have been compromised by a dishonest member of staff working in my local branch and I was asked when I last visited  it, was I given a reference code and how far away was my local branch. At this point, my suspicions were well and truly aroused so I immediately terminated the telephone call, had a rice cake by way of breakfast and made my way straight away to the branch of my local branch where fortunately they still have a presence. There I was fortunate to see an experienced middle-aged member of staff who quickly confirmed  to me that  the whole episode was a sophisticated scam. She was able to access my account and to assure me that it was absolutely safe and secure, which fact I checked for myself the minute I arrived back home. For what it is worth, I was given some very good advice from the female manager who informed me that if my account had been compromised, the fraud department would block it first and then invite me to telephone them so that an investigation could take place and any necessary unblocking of my account be effected. My suspicions were aroused  by one or two little odd quirks in the conversation and I was correct to be suspicious as it turned out but it shows how careful one needs to be.  The scammers had indicated that it was ‘Amazon’ attempting to take a payment  and, apparently, they can rely upon so many people having an Amazon account that this all sounds quite plausible. Whilst I was in the High Street, I visited my local horse sanctuary cafe and had a nice chat with the volunteer on duty there and then visited a local supermarket to buy a few salad things I thought  would need in the next  day or so as the weather will be fine for a few days. I telephoned my American friend who had just returned home from a hospital appointment and we have agreed to meet this evening in the cool of the park so that we can share the news of the day with each other. As we have not met for a few days now, we actually have quite a lot to communicate to each other and, of course, a walk in the relative cool of the evening with a good companion is always a pleasure.

As might be imagined, the whole of the British media is dominated by England’s failure to get past Argentina in the semi-finals of the World Cup. Almost universally, the observations are the same that the England manager made a critical error in asking his team to play for 30 minutes in a purely defensive mode to defend a 1:0 lead that England had taken. There is a well-known maxim that ‘the best form of defence is attack’ and the truth of this maxim was well illustrated today as England held out for 25 minutes but could not prevent the equaliser from Argentina five mintues before the end or the eventual winner one minute into injury time. So now we look forward to a Spain vs. Argentina  final on Sunday and then it will be all over (apart from the recriminations). It has been announced overnight that the UK have nationalised the remnants of the British Steel industry. The UK government took control of British Steel operations in Scunthorpe last year, though it has since remained under the ownership of the Chinese firm Jingye Group. Jingye has said it has begun the process of seeking compensation for nationalisation, having previously said the business was losing £700,000 a day. However, the UK government has said it could limit or refuse compensation. One would imagine that even a Conservative government would have taken the same decision and one wonders what the actual cost, and ongoing costs of nationalisation will prove to be. But it is unimaginable that a country like the UK could be left without any native steel making industry of its own so I expect the decision to nationalise will be greeted with a grudging acceptance of the inevitable. As we approach the second half of July, we are entering the prospect of another heatwave but one of less intensity of the past few weeks. But the prospects of rain seem  far distant and restrictions on water supplies will soon be forthcoming throughout the whole of the country and must be on the cards. The political world will be dominated by the shape of the new administration associated with Andy Burnham from next week onwards and there is fierce speculation as to who will eventually be appointed as Chancellor of the Exchequer as Ed Miliband, the presumed incumbent, is said to frighten off the international investors on whom Britain depends will tolerate. What I find to be a bitter irony is the slogan beloved of Brexiteers, ‘Take Back Control’  takes no account of the fact that Britain’s ability to control economic and political affairs is so clearly circumscribed in whatever direction one looks. There is no evident source of taxation to tap in the short term and even a skilfully designed wealth tax will surely be evaded by the economic elites who have the ability to move their assets around. But there is a point that taxes on income are now probably at a maximum and that wealth, as such, is relatively undertaxed. But I personally I have long felt that tax on wealth which one has accumulated oneself by one’s own savings out of an already taxed income never seems to be justifiable but that tax on wealth that one has inherited or acquired through  no efforts of one own are more so. But how does how one distinguishes between the two forms of wealth is a conundrum that has evaded our decision makers (with the exception of inheritance tax which can prove to be problematic as the Labour government found when it attempted to impose greater inheritance taxes ran foul of problems such as the transmission of small farms from one generation of a family to the next)

Yesterday turned out to be quite a full day. In the morning, I attended my Tai Chi class where the instructor was the daughter of our regular instructor and I think I quite enjoyed the somewhat different routines. Afterwards we repaired to the coffee bar for coffee and were greeted with the news that this facility would be closing until September to take into account the school holidays, although we do not know how this impacts on the elderly volunteers who staff the coffee bar. So we were all inclined to linger and to chat for longer than normally be the case as the opportunities will be denied to us for some weeks. I left the Methodist Centre and re-parked the car as I had an optician appointment. I think I have been attended to by this particular optician for at least 15 years and probably several yeasr beyond that and, of course, he used to examine Meg as well. We always have a tremendous amount to chat about and I was glad to learn that all of my readings including the puff-of-air pressure test all showed exactly the same results as last year so my eyes do not seem to have deteriorated in the last year which is excellent news. Then I got home and made myself  a mini stir fry for lunch. Then I got a group text in which one of my Spanish club members was apologising for being a few minutes late and I had forgotten about this class so I had to race t get there but I arrived 14 minutes late in an hour and a half class so I had only missed part of a video. Then I got home and had some refreshments and then realised that with being out yesterday and my appointments today the weekly shopping had not yet been done. Instead of leaving it until the end of the week I decided to go shopping immediately after I had ad a bit of tea.So I got the shopping done and unpacked and this blog completed before I settle down to a documentary on Sky News exposing he story of the way in which the Americans bombed a school on the first day or so of the Iran war killing over 100 schoolchildren and, horrendously, blaming the Iranians for bombing their own school. There are sequelae to the World Cup match because some of the Argentinian players in clear contravention of FIFA rules displayed a banner before the English fans bearing the message that the Falklands (Malvinas) belong to them. The violation of the ban on political expression was so flagrant but FIFA will not want to disturb the equilibrium so will probably give the Iranians a slap on the wrist in the form of a fine and, in any case, not before the Cup Final itself next Sunday.

I did not sleep particularly  well the night before last, perhaps because my American friend and I had made a visit to the John Lewis store in Solihull and had some difficulties negotiating our exit and then once I got to bed following the Spain v. France football match I had to set the alarm early for the following morning. I started off the day by ordering some more medication online and this is delivered  by post a few days after ordering, it removes some of the strain  of having to take prescription requests from doctor to chemist and the occasional hiccups that sometimes occur. Yesterday threatened to be a long day as is the long anticipated day of our U3A trip to Port Sunlight which is accessed mainly via the M6 and this motorway, as well as the M5, is notorious for delays but we shall have to see. Meanwhile, a massive talking point is how France, the favourites to win the World Cup, could have played so badly and to be beaten so comprehensively. The answer may lie in Spain’s superb defence and general teamwork but it hard to be definitive. One commentator captured the sense of shock and despair among the France players on a day when their World Cup dream died, in a 2-0 defeat to Spain that was as emphatic as the scoreline suggests. ‘It is an immense disappointment. We lost against ourselves. We didn’t lose against the referee, we didn’t lose against Spain, we lost against ourselves. You all know that everyone was scared of us. The only team who were capable of eliminating us was ourselves.’ Today is terrible. Asked what France lacked in their performance, the commentator replied ‘Everything. We were beaten technically, we were beaten tactically, we were beaten in the duels.’ It was a scathing assessment. France, the World Cup favourites, were outplayed, outfought and outthought, which is a compliment to their opponents first and foremost. Not for the first time, Spain demonstrated that their controlled brand of football — a mix of patience, precision and penetration — is too much for France. The French team have played delightful football  but perhaps this is the first time that have met opponents who were their equal and it showed. I thought that it was impossible for England to beat the French and this is even more true were England to beat Argentina and find themselves in the final. Meanwhile, domestic politics is due to an interesting time in the week or so ahead. t looks as though Andy Burnham will become Prime Minister after next weekend but before that, there are interesting political developments. The so-called Hillsborough law has been passed enforcing a degree of candour on public officials so that the cover-ups we have experienced in recent times may become less likely. After the death of Ann Widdecombe, it looks as though MPs may need extra degrees of protection as the anti-terrorist authorities have some suspicions that the murdered Ann Widdecombe may have been the object of a targeted assassination. Furthermore, some of the latest COVID post-mortems have indicated the scale of the waste in the PPE procurement scandal associated with the last Conservative government but does not acknowledge the cronyism that was all too evident to the rest of the political class as close associates of the Tory party were awarded contracts at inflated prices for sub-standard protective equipment that did not work and much of which had to be jettisoned at tremendous cost. Baroness Heather Hallett criticised the ‘vast” waste in pandemic procurement, amounting to two-thirds of the £14.9bn total the UK and devolved governments spent on PPE. The combination of the World Cup and the imminent accession of Andy Burnham to the premiership have rather pushed this huge political story off the front pages but the scale of both the waste and the fraud can be said to be eye-watering.

So yesterday was my day trip out to Port Sunlight on the Wirral and a thoroughly enjoyable day it was as well. Port Sunlight is a model industrial village in the Wirral, Merseyside, built in 1888 by soap magnate William Lever to house his Lever Brothers factory workers. Spanning 130 acres, it features over 900 Grade II listed Arts and Crafts-style houses, parkland, as well as an art gallery and a museum. The day started off by my daughter-in-law giving me a lift down to the coach pick up point after which we headed up the M5/M6 and had a coffee stop at Sandbach services. An hour later, we had arrived in the village itself and we had an official guide who came on board the coach in which we toured the village which was excellent as owing to its size it would have been too much on foot. The quality and varied styles in the housing, as well as the facilities provided (churches, schools, a hospital, social facilities) makes one wonder whether society has progressed since the 1880’s.  After the official tour, I made for the little restaurant and enjoyed a meal of genuine ‘scouse’ which was delicious, sharing my dinner time table with trip participants who had been on an earlier trip who I remembered spent their early youth in Leicester. After lunch, I did a tour of the art gallery and enjoyed some pre-Raphaelite painting and then made a tour of the typical workman’s house which was remarkably advanced for the time period in which it was built. Then we set off for home at about 3.30pm and arrived back in Bromsgrove where my son collected me. At 8.00pm we had the England vs Argentina football match in which the first half was a tetchy affair with masses of fouls on both sides. Some i5 minutes into the second half England scored a goal but from then on tried to hang on repulsing wave after wave of Argentine attacks. The Argentine team are well used to coming back practically from the dead towards the end of the match where they scored first an equaliser and then a winning goal. England had made some substitutions where they just tried to defend the goal for 30 minutes and whilst that strategy might have worked against many inferior teams, it would not and did not work against Argentina who now go on to play Spain in the final. England and France will play for the 3rd place (the ‘Bronze’ match) on Saturday and, in truth, I do not think the England team as players could have done more. Whether the strategy of all-out defence for the last 30 minutes of a game is sensible is ultimately down to the manager and not to the individual players.

This morning, I got up a little on the late side and was soon entertained by both my son who had popped around after his early morning swim and also by my domestic help who I had not seen for a couple of weeks now as she was not with us last week. We had a lot of entertaining conversations and I showed our domestic help, with a degree of pride, the pair of shorts that I had bought in Droitwich yesterday with a waist size that was absolutely right for me but may have been a trifle on the long side. After I had put these shorts on for the benefit of my domestic help, she burst out laughing and said that this was the funniest sight she had seem since the comedy program  ‘It ain’t half hot, Mum’. Our domestic help indicated that my appearance reminded her of Don Estelle who was a British actor and singer best known for playing the diminutive Gunner, Lofty Sugden in the classic BBC sitcom. Alongside his booming tenor voice, he is fondly remembered for the 1975 novelty UK number-one hit ‘Whispering Grass,’ recorded in character with co-star Windsor Davies. Estelle served in the Royal Air Force before building a successful career in variety theatre and television. His portrayal of the pint-sized, oversized pith helmet-wearing Gunner Sugden made him a household name during the show’s run from 1974 to 1981. For those who cannot remember the character played by Don Estelle, his shorts were evidently too big and hung below his knees and re-defined the concept of bagginess. Our domestic help volunteered, in all seriousness to take the shorts I had only bought the day before and to donate them to a charity shop she was due to visit later on the day. I said that I would wear them for one week more when she could photograph me in these shorts (for her own amusement) and I thought I would wait and see the reaction was the same amongst my fellow Pilates class members next week after which I well have to abandon them. I made a quick visit to the High Street to pick up a copy of my daily newspaper and whilst on the High street I encountered two acquaintances who used to see Meg and myself in our frequent excursions to the Waitrose coffee shop. They knew of Meg’s demise and offered their sympathies and then carrying on my way, I also met two of my church friends who I may see again if I attend a concert in which one of them is playing next Saturday. I managed to change my optician appointment to a more suitable date and then made my way to the High Street branch of my bank which is fortunately still open for customers. I got out some living money from the in-branch ATM and as the one assistant in the branch was free managed to check with her both how much money I could withdraw in branch on any one day and had it increased by 50% which pleased me greatly.

After my Plates class, I met up with my American friend because we had decided to go to John Lewis in Solihull  to have a final look at TVs and to make some final decisions whether to to delay our purchase until a further sales time. After we had partaken of some refreshment, we made our way to the TV department where we had to wait for at least half an hour if not more before we had to ask to receive the attentions of a sales assistant. We were eventually fortunate to receive some very useful advice for a very personable and efficient young American sales assistant who was excellent in every way. We had originally one make of TV and model in mind but found that there was a very good model of a LG (Lucky GoldStar) display model that was available and discounted by over a third from its original selling price but now one half of the price of the model that we thought might be purchased. So to cut a long story short, my friend and I decided to buy this display model and it will be delivered and installed next Tuesday but will still attract the legendary John Lewis 5 year warranty (slightly amended as it was a display model to have it completely repaired or the whole of our buying price refunded) Then we had a  bit of a nightmare term locating our car in the John Lewis carpark. We knew that we had entered on the ground level and then gone up one level from the ground level but we had not fully appreciated that the car park actually had two levels below the level at which we had entered. Thus we were searching for a car park level that was actually four levels up rather than the two levels up which we had imagined but we eventually got it located in the end after some anxious moments.

We got home and relaxed a little and then I delivered my friend home and we started watching the football in our respective houses. France were playing Spain and many of us expected that this would be the type of game that should have graced the finals rather than the semi finals. In the event, Spain completely and unexpectedly completely dominated the match by winning the match 2:0 and so, deservedly, go to the finals to meet either England or Argentina. Amazingly, France only had about three shots on goal in the entire game whilst every single Spanish player appeared to give an exceptional performance, both as a team and also as a set of individual ball players. One would go as far to say that on this form, Spain looks unbeatable and whole of France will be licking their wounds and wondering why the French players all played so vey badly as if they had hardly turned up for the match. I am pleased that the football did not occupy too much of our attention this evening as I have an early start tomorrow morning to go on the Port Sunlight U3A coach trip. Whilst our attention has been diverted by footballing matters, there is quite a startling development in the Ann Widdecombe murder case. Ann Widdecombe was the victim of a targeted attack, says Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, head of counter terrorism policing saying police are working to understand the planning, preparation and motivation behind the attack. Officers have conducted extensive searches in connection with the investigation and police have a further warrant to detain the suspect, a 28-year-old white male, for up to seven days under the Terrorism Act. The suspect is being held on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, as well as on suspicion of murder.

We all have our little  routines with which to start the day and similar to millions of others in the UK, I start with a cup of tea. But I take the opportunity to ask my ‘Smart Speaker’ about the weather forecast for the day and today the weather is predicted to have a high of about 26° which is certainly quite tolerable. We now have an authoritative study of the number of deaths directly attributable to the heatwaves experienced in both May and June and the quoted figure is 2,700 with 40% calculated to be due to climate-change increases. We could perhaps project  this figure forwards to include July as we are only half way through the month and that raise the figure to 4.000 deaths. This sounds dramatic and is calculated to exceed the number of excess deaths that occur during the winter months and is a sombre reminder that climate change can no longer be denied. Incidentally, I would like  to see the media track down the prominent climate change deniers and asked to explain themselves but the media does not really work in this way. Both my American friend and I are reminding ourselves that our recently lost loved ones could well have had their deaths accelerated during this heatwave and we are both thankful that we have not lost our loved ones under these circumstances. The day is due to have an early start as my American friend is die to have her car into the garage a 8.15 or 8.30 to have it serviced and I am going to accompany her so that whilst the car is in the garage we can go off and have an extended stroll and/or coffee nearby. Wondering when the weather pattern is finally going to break, the BBC weather forecast is indicating that a shift in the weather pattern is expected by Thursday, bringing more unsettled and changeable conditions and we expect an increasing chance of heavy, sometimes thundery, showers rolling into the following weekend. This is fine by me just so long as the midweek of this week  is to be fine as the U3A coach trip to Port Sunlight will take place then. Much of the country are wondering and anticipating the semi-final that England will play against Argentina and whilst the England team show considerable fallibilities in defence, the Argentina team do not have the stars of old (apart from the ageing Messi) and, as the Swiss showed the other day, may well be very beatable. Every time that Messi takes to the field, he must have the feeling that the current match in which he is laying could well be last World Cup match in what is a remarkable record. Meanwhile, the England team have to psych themselves up  for another ‘do or die’ effort of which the best example recently was when they beat Mexico on their home turf as it were. As soon as July is ‘out of the way’ the schools will break up and we will enter the holiday  season proper. I would imagine that with difficulties in the airports and heatwave conditions in the UK that ‘stay-at-home’ holidays may well soar this summer. Although I would love a few days in the Lake District, I would imagine that without some pre-booking the prices will be sky high. 

The morning turned out to be quite entertaining, one way or another. For a start., my friend and I were going  to have her car serviced by a garage on an  industrial estate near to Bromsgrove but taking a short cut to get onto the correct road, we turned off a road too early and finished up in a new housing estate absolutely chock-a-bloc with dead ends and roads leading nowhere. When we had extricated ourselves from this lot, we had a similar wild goose chase around the huge industrial estate until  we discovered the location of the garage. Having dropped off the car, we decided to spend the morning at least in Droitwich but the very interesting but really quirky coffee shop n an incredibly old building in an ancient part of Droitwich so we had to make plans. We visited various charity shops and then finally made our way to a hotel we had passed which had opened a coffee shop downstairs in the last year or so,. This was tastefully furnished and we enjoyed some really excellent mocha coffee there, supplemented by a shared cinnamon bun. Then we met a bunch of wonderful Norwegians enjoying a  coffee in a pavement cafe and my American friend, knowing some words of Swedish, managed to have a few words with them in a Scandinavian language. Evidently we discussed football with them but they were a really jolly crowd of two men and their wives and my American friend never passes by the opportunity to converse with people from different cultures. They told us that the Norwegian media were convinced that the Norwegians had been denied a goal as a ball that was booted high ino the air actually hit the ‘spider camera’ hoisted above the pitch and came down at a strange, deflected angle from which  the England then scored. FIFA deny the incident completely (as they would) whist the English press have downplayed the import of the whole incident, doubting whether the episode  had actually occurred. Then we popped into an adjacent hotel where we had a meal of ‘mini’ fish and chips in a delightful courtyard round at the back, also having a wonderful and informative conversation with someone who had lived in Droitwich all their lives and was an absolute fount of knowledge. Then we did another spot of charity shop shopping where we both bought some summer apparel and thence to home where we sent the afternoon until it was time for us to pick up the car after its service. I bought a shirt in the right size and also some shorts to complement my other pair whilst my friend bought some white cotton trousers and a top. Tonight, I have a dilemma whether to watch a program on Sky Arts about the life of Mozart or to watch the start of a BBC series on Evolution fronted by the naturalist, Chris Packham. I chose the Mozart on the grounds that I had to watch this as it is actually being transmitted whereas the BBC program can actually be got on the BBC iPlayer.

There will be two items of news gripping the nation as we awoke yesterday morning. The first of these are the developments following the murder of the prominent right wing politician, Ann Widdecombe. The latest news is that a 28 year old white male has been arrested in South Yorkshire, an initial white male suspect having been released the day before. It appears that Ann Widdecombe hd been murdered at least 24 hours before the discovery of a body which followed her non appearance for  a TV interview.   No doubt, the police will give out further information as and when they see fit but in the meantime, prominent members of the Reform Party are being given round-the-clock police protection as a precautionary measure. The huge question arises whether this was a political assassination or just an opportunistic murder and no doubt the political airwaves will be full of speculation until more information is supplied to us. The second  huge story is, of course, Englands progression in the World Cup as England progress towards the semi-finals having beaten Norway 2:1. The match was quite a tense affair and one has to say was not filled with the ‘beautiful’ football that we associated with France and Spain who are drawn against each other in the first of the semi-finals. Both England and Norway had potential goals disallowed after VAR reviews so a kind of parity was in evidence. England probably made more attacks on their opponent’s goal but without the normal killer touches we associate with a top team. Norway scored their goal  after the normal terrible England defensive lapse where our back line went to sleep and were not aware of the potential danger of a counter attack which is a common pattern these days. But the hero of the day was undoubtedly Jude Bellingham who scored both of the England goals, the second  being an opportunistic rebound after the Norway goalkeeper had failed to clear a shot on goal. In the post match interview, the England manager was of the view that England were to some extent lucky and had not played very well, which view was contradicted by the players themselves. England will now meet Argentina who prevailed against Switzerland in the other quarter final, having beaten them 3:1 after extra time. For the third successive match, Argentina earned a chaotic win with an underwhelming performance despite starting the match as clear favourites. After taking the lead early on, they went nearly 90 minutes without another shot on target between Mac Allister’s opener and an acrobatic Lisandro Martinez effort deep into second half injury time that was well saved low by Kobel. Switzerland were playing with 10 men for some of the second half as one of the their players received a second yellow card following an incident in which was adjudged to have dived. So two yellow cards equate to one red one and so the offending player was sent off, reducing Switzerland to ten men. According to some match reports, Switzerland proved to be the better team for much of the match but Argentina seem to have a knack of always scraping through in the end. I doubt many people in the country stayed up to watch the Argentina match after the excitement and extra time of the England match. In some ways, as sometimes happens, the semi-finalists of France and Spain will meet each other, and these two teams would have provided the best football were they both to be in the final. My predictions for the rest of the World Cup are for a final between France and Argentina with France actually winning the World Cup but, as always, the games will be decided on incredibly fine margins and, perhaps, some refereeing/VAR decisions. There is a definite change in the weather pattern today as it is both cloudier and more windy than of late but I think that most of the country would really welcome a few dramatic thunderstorms and downpours from this point onward.

In the morning, I deliberately took it very easy as I had a late night the evening beforehand as the football had delayed things so much. The political news is still dominated by the Ann Widdecombe murder case and although few details have emerged so date, we know that a white male as been arrested in South Yorkshire and the police has gone so far as to say there is no evident terrorist or even overtly political motivation in evidence. This must be a sort of good news because anything resembling a political assassination might have all kind of unpredictable consequences. In the late afternoon, my American friend and I  went off to a (free) recorder concert in the local parish church as part of the Bromsgrove festival. This went on slightly too long for our tastes at about an hour and a quarter so we were relieved to have taken along some cushions with us to alleviate some of the hardness of the wooden pews. We returned home to make a salad tea together and to reflect that this was the first night for as long as we could remember when there wasn’t a football match to occupy and divert us. My son and daughter-in-law made contact after their brief holiday  in the Lake District and we discussed some possible  dates when we might meet up with our distant cousins in late July. The week ahead is going to be quite a busy one what with one thing or another the highlight being a day trip out to the Port Sunlight industrial heritage site on Wednesday. It looks as though the weather is becoming slightly more tolerable for us in the few days ahead but a massive fire has started in the North Wales area near the Conway valley which Meg and I used to visit when her aunt and uncle were still alive and living in that area. The weather has been so hot and dry for so long that the whole country must be like a tinder box and it is only to be hoped that fires do not break out in several parts of the country. It will not be long now before Andy Burnham takes over the leadership of the Labour Party and we know that one of his long term ambitions has been to establish a National Care Service to parallel the National Health Service. But the age-old question remains of how, as a society we are to fund such a much needed venture – politicians  of all political stripes have kicked this particular can down the road for decades because of the enormous costs involved.

The day before yesterday dawned without a cloud in the sky and I wondered whether this presaged the start of another really hot day. But the local weather forecast is predicting a high of 31° and perhaps some slight breezes which will make the weather a bit more bearable. For the record, though, when I visited town the day before and then returned to my car which had been in the sunny part of the car park for some two hours, the internal temperature of the car registered at 50° and the steering wheel, despite being a sort of rigid foam, was too hot to handle. The news was ominated throughout the day with the reports of the very right wing politician, Anne Widdicombe, who was reported to have died at the age of 78 after her retirement to a village on the edge of Dartmoor. But the news of her death was soon replaced by the news that she had had actually been murdered and the police were looking for a 26 year white male suspect. This news was given out by the local police in a news conference and the ‘white male’ had been apprehended and arrested not many miles from the scene of the murder. But in the morning came the news that, after questioning, the police had released this suspect and he was no longer under any investigation. So the manhunt continues for the actual killer or killers and no doubt the media will be be in a frenzy on this subject throughout the day. Ann Widdicombe was what might be considered as an extreme conviction politician and her hard right views meant she left the Conservative party and, via UKIP, and the Brexit party ended up in Reform even becoming a Reform MEP before the country left the EC. One story that is told about her and is widely believed is that she condoned the use of shackles on pregnant women in gaol to prevent their escape and condoned the use of these shackles on female prisoners. But the Daily Mirror published a fulsome apology indicating that they were wrong in publishing a story about Widdicombe’s advocacy of shackles whilst women were giving birth but the story is still widely believed, although it is probably apocryphal. She converted to Catholicism (to the dismay of most liberal Catholics) and fiercely denounced any part of the liberal consensus such as gay rights or any extension to the abortion laws. The tributes have poured in for her from across the political spectrum and she now joins the list of politicians who have been murdered in recent years (Jo Cox from Labour, David Amess from the Conservatives). The massive question that remains for the police is to determine whether the murder is a ‘normal’ one (an old lady robbed for her presumed possessions) of whether her murder is for political motives. The past murder of politicians seems to have been associated by individuals with a mental illness or personality disorder but of course, in this case, we shall just have to wait and see. Now that a suspect as been apprehended and then released, a lot of valuable time may well have been lost allowing any potential suspect to travel a long way away or even change their appearance. Yesterday was carnival day in Bromsgrove which is a day to which I do not look forward. The evening before  my American friend were thwarted in our attempts to have a quiet walk in the park as the entrance and access roads were all coned off but my friend and I had a walk in the cool of the nearby cemetery which has plenty of tall trees to keep us cool. We have decided to spend the day together keeping cool and preparing our meals together – in fact anything to avoid the crowds of carnival day and the persistent heat. Later in the day, there is the much anticipated England vs. Norway football match which we will watch together having already seen Spain defeat Belgium 2:0 in their quarter finals match. 

In the late morning my American friend called around and we found a cool spot at the back of the house where we could enjoy some cool drinks. I had rescued a couple of so-called directors’ chairs from the inner reaches of our garage and then taken them into the garden for a brush down. Then we started to think about preparing some lunch together and whilst I cooked the salmon in a special ridged grilling pan that I have (the ridges prevent burning and sticking) my friend prepared the salad elements of the meal. Whilst I was on the road yesterday, I had purchased  a special little green bottle which proved ideal for making a French dressing from balsamic Vinegar and a high grade olive oil. The meal turned out to be delicious and the salmon was some of the best I have ever tasted but we deployed a little honey and mustard on part of the salmon and Thousand Island dressing on other part. The whole meal was complemented with a bottle of Asti Spumante and it was an almost perfect accompaniment to the rest of the meal. I read on Sky News during the day that day will briefly turn into night for parts of Europe next month as the continent experiences its first solar eclipse in nearly three decades. The rare celestial event on Wednesday 12 August will see the moon pass directly between the Earth and the sun, briefly plunging people in parts of Greenland, Iceland, northern Russia, Spain and a small corner of Portugal into darkness, according to NASA. The UK will only experience a partial solar eclipse, but it is still set to cover the vast majority of our view of the sun. It is going to be the first total solar eclipse visible from Europe since 1999, when one could be seen from most of Cornwall and Devon. This time the UK and Ireland will lose sight of around 90% of the sun rather than all of it. So this event is about one month away and will be well worth a witnessing of it. This has to be done indirectly and NASA are giving the advice to use indirect viewing methods, such as projecting the sun’s image through a pinhole camera, a colander, or the gaps between tree leaves, without ever looking at the sun directly. I am not quite sure how you view an eclipse through a colander but presumably when the event draws near, we shall receive much more relevant and practical advice but, of course, one never has to look at the sun directly. A 90% partial solar eclipse is not equivalent to night-time darkness but the ambient light will dim to resemble a slightly overcast day or the lighting about 30 minutes before sunset. The sky will still be bright, but you will notice a strange silvery twilight, crisper shadows, and potentially a slight drop in temperature. Even with 90% of the Sun covered, the remaining 10% is still thousands of times brighter than a full moon, making the change much less dramatic than a total eclipse. The whole nation seems to be counting down the hours until 10.00pm which is the scheduled start time for the England vs. Norway quarter final which I am pretty convinced the Norwegians will win.

The day before yesterday turned out to be a particularly hot one and not the kind of day one one would normally think of eating a curry. Nonetheless, it was the day designated for the latest venture of the U3A Curry Club and so about 18 of turned up to a curry house (inside a hotel) in a venue I Droitwich which none of us had visited before. We had a very enjoyable meal although we had to wait for the best part of an hour whilst our food was being prepared for us but, in the event, the food was well worth the wait and my butter chicken was in a delicious sauce. The long table was split into  two groups and I was fortunate enough to be in the lively and story telling part of the table so it made for a very enjoyable evening all round. I knew some of the participants from the Classical Music group  as well as my local church so all of tis helps to make the event feel a little less ‘cliquey’ than is sometimes possible. When I returned home, I watched the second half of the France vs. Morocco football match which France won quite convincingly with two stunning goals from the French strikers, one of whom was Mbappe. The match this evening is to be Belgium  vs. Spain the result of which  is a lot less predictable- Spain may prevail but they have had a slow start to this tournament.  Soon the whole of the World Cup will be over and a more normal life can resume.  Last night was so hot in my bedroom despite a fan so I spent the first half of the night sleeping downstairs on the sofa in the cooler lounge before retreating to bed in the middle of the night. One of the things that brightens up this part of the summer is the Bromsgrove festival in which several concerts and other events take place. As you might expect, I tend to gravitate towards the ones that are provided in our local church and only a contribution towards expenses solicited. As the weather has been so warm, I have noticed that there is a marked diminution in the footfall I the local High Street and the local shops are bound to suffer. But in the Autumn, a whole new development is taking place which is a mixture of high grade office accommodation and some communal space. The building  has been constructed before our very eyes so it will be interesting to see if it does provide an asset for the town. Local opinion is quite divided as to the merits of the semi-circular building arising before our eyes, not enhanced by a colour of cladding which bears a strong resemblance to rust. After it opens, no doubt to a great fanfare and flurry, it will be interesting to see if a coffee-cum-meeting place is established and how successful (or over-priced!) it is likely to be. The most prominent growth industry along our local High Street has been the opening of charity shops supplemented by a few vape outlets but I dare say this can be replicated across many of the High Streets in the UK. In a month or so’s time, we may be able to assess whether this hot spell has actually enhanced or diminished our GDP but I would not be surprised if the overall effect were not to be negative for the British economy.

The morning turned out very hot but I needed to make my along the High Street in order to secure an optician’s appointment with the optician who has testing me for about the past 15 years or so, if not longer and we always end up having a long chat with each other. Having made the appointment, I made my way to my favourite horse-sanctuary charity that I try and visit each week. They missed me last week but I explained to them the fact that my friend and I were making our way to Worcester Royal Infirmary for some scans and was then caught in the horrendous 5-hour traffic jam on the way home. Then as I was walking back along the High Street, I bumped into one of the  members of my Tai Chi class who, as it happened, occupied a very senior position at the University of Birmingham so we had quite a lot in common with each other given our experience of the higher education sector. We discussed at length the ways in which we were attempting to look after ourselves, health-wise, and also discussed  an issue common to many of us where my fellow class member was facing the problem of the most appropriate health and care needs for her elderly parents who were still both alive. When I returned to my own house, I was confronted with a scene of pure mayhem. My neighbours were evidently having a big party celebration and there were cars parked everywhere, including on the green area in front of our house which is strictly forbidden to motor vehicles as there are drainage pipes below the surface that could be damaged by vehicles. To compound matters, my access road was completely blocked by a large delivery vehicle which had probably lost its way and come down our drive. I had to reverse all of the way out onto the main road whereupon a huge delivery lorry bound for the building site down the road confronted me as I was reversing. Once these obstacles had been negotiated, I needed to go and explain to my neighbour that her relative needed to move the car off the communal green area so that she did not occasion any damage and this having been done, I could then get into my own house, somewhat delayed. then I needed to think about some lunch conscious of the fact that I need to keep my protein levels high so I settled on a prawn omelette with a few salad items of garnish. I often play ClassicFM in odd moments and as I type they are playing J S Bach’s ‘Jesu, Joy of Mans desiring’ which was played at our wedding in 1967 as well as Meg’s funeral. In fact hardly a day passes when a piece of music intimately associated with Meg’s life is not played on this channel so this piece of music evoked some bitter-sweet memories. Naturally, after a day like today I am looking forward to my evening walk in the park followed by the exciting football match of Spain vs. Belgium.