As the TV schedules did not hold much interest for me the evening before last, I turned my attention to a podcast on YouTube by the two outstanding British journalists, Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel who call their broadcast ‘The News Agents’ Their analysis was startling and, to some extent, counter-intuitive but they asked the simple question ‘Who is winning the Iran war?’ Although America is bombing every facility they can discern flat to the ground and treating the whole war as though it were a huge video game, it is possible to argue that Iran will emerge as the eventual ‘winner’ This is because despite their military prowess and overwhelming superiority, the Americans cannot keep open the Straits of Hormuz and hence the supply  of oil and other raw materials from the Middle East. So the price of oil has broken through the symbolic $100 a barrel pricing point and already even American consumers are having to pay the price at the petrol pumps. This factor alone is likely to make the Americans declare a ‘victory’ even though it may turn out to be a Pyrrhic one. The Americans could no doubt deploy minesweepers to act as a convoy but this would make them vulnerable to attack by missile or drone and significant damage to an American ship would undoubtedly inflict massive psychological damage to the American military. After all, it only takes one or two little fishing dhows to drop a handful of mines overboard to make shipowners frightened they might lose their ship and their cargo and therefore the risk is not worth taking. So via the oil price and the ability to keep the Straits of Hormuz closed, the Iranians possess a huge natural advantage over the Americans over which the might of America is powerless. Those of us with long memories can remember that the VietCong hiding in holes in the ground and using bicycles eventually defeated the might of America in the Vietnam war and the Americans are not very good at learning from history. There are already  clear indications that Trump is particularly sensitive to the price of oil and he has declared that the war will end ‘soon’ but the longer the war persists with the oil price  high and the Straits of Hormuz effectively closed, then the Iranians have everything to gain by playing for time, even though their country is being flattened around them. Later on in the morning, I have my regular Tai Chi class to look forward to and I do appreciate the cup of coffee and chats that I enjoy afterwards. The domestic political agenda is also proving to be interesting with Keir Starmer experiencing a political reverse with the release of the information concerning the Peter Mandelson appointment on the one hand. But on the other, Kemi Badenoch has had to revise her initial stance of complete support for the Americans from the start of the conflict and has been forced, as Keir Starmer has delighted in saying in ‘the mother of all U-turns’

Later in the morning, I picked up the copy of my daily newspaper and then proceeded to my Tai Chi class where I was pleased to see that the old lady whose acquaintance I made the other day turned up and gamely participated even at the age of 95. Afterwards we had quite an extended coffee break involving my banker friend, the old lady who had recently moved back to the UK from Spain, the married couple who have been married for 64 years and are still going  strong and we were joined by one or two others. We had a pretty jolly time amusing ourselves with reminiscences from our younger days and then it was time to go home for lunch.  On my way home, I bumped into my Italian friend from down the road who is scheduled to go and live nearer to her daughter. She was shortly to view a much larger house in which she and her daughter might live sharing the accommodation between them.  I thought I would carry on with the tradition of a lifetime by making myself a curry – as the number of ingredients make this quite a high volume meal, I cut down on the carbohydrate count that rice would convey by crumbling two water biscuits to act as a rice substitute as the carbohydrate count is very low. I am trying hard to have a slight change of eating regime such that my last meal is taken by 6.30pm and I hope not to eat again until at least 9.30am the following day which give my gut an 15 hour gap between  meals. A food gap of 12–15 hours is a form of intermittent fasting, specifically known as time-restricted eating (TRE), where you consume all your daily calories within a 9–12 hour window and fast for the remaining time. This practice is generally considered safe, sustainable, and beneficial for metabolic health and weight management by allowing the body to enter a fasted state and tap into fat stores. After about 10–12 hours without food, the body exhausts its glucose stores and begins to burn stored fat (fatty acids) for energy, a process that can aid in weight loss. While 12 hours is the minimum to see benefits, 14–16 hours is often considered the ‘sweet spot’ for more significant weight loss, improved insulin sensitivity, and cellular repair (autophagy). Regular 12-14 hour overnight fasts can lead to weight loss, lower blood pressure, and improved body composition. It may help reduce insulin resistance, lower cholesterol, and manage blood sugar levels, reducing the risk of chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes. Short periods of fasting allow for ‘housekeeping’ of damaged cells, reducing chronic inflammation, and promoting a healthier gut barrier. A 10-hour eating window (14-hour fast) has been associated with higher energy levels and lower hunger. So there is quite a lot of evidence that the potential health gains (or avoidance of illnesses) is quite attainable so long as one consistently tries to follow this Time Related eating pattern. Later on this evening, I shall probably follow my usual pattern of getting into warm bed to watch the 10.00 pm evening news after which there will be the normal weekly edition of ‘Question Time’ The first question or so which relates to an important political talking point of the day and normally succeeds in arousing a sustained discussion after which I do not mind if I actually drift off to sleep before the end of the programme.

The night before last, I watched the Katya Adler program on divisions in modern European states and was absolutely fascinated by what I leaned about Germany. The support for the right wing party (AfD which translates to ‘Alternative for Germany’) is very highly concentrated in what used to be East Germany and AfD is the now the largest Opposition party. Adler does not really try to give an explanation for this so I hunted on the internet and discovered the following post. Who this piece was written by I do not know but it seems a very well-informed and concise  summary of the political makeup of Germany at the moment. The writer thinks many explanations for the rise of the far right discount the accountability that was missing at the west’s side during integration. You can say ‘right wing bad’ all day but you have to understand that people don’t go to these extremes unless they themselves are disadvantaged by the system and therefore seek radical change. Germany spent a ton of money on its social welfare systems to help immigrants, but we see no active push to help Germans who are living in areas with declining industries in the east. On top of that the privatisation of the East after the wall came down happened in a way that massively benefited west German companies but paid little respect to industry workers in the East resulting in mass unemployment and declining economy while the West boomed. Now what is interesting about this explanation is the way that it maps over onto the support that the declining and ‘left behind’ areas of the UK give most support to Nigel Farage’s Reform party and may well be part of a much more common geographical and socio-political pattern affecting many European societies. I am reminded of the ways in which the Victorians in their limited ways by instituting clean water supplies for all of the population (and not just the ‘deprived’ areas) and providing universal education may have helped to stave off revolutionary papers that might otherwise have developed. And to bring the argument back to Germany again, we should not forget that Bismarck’s social reforms in the 1880s introduced the world’s first modern welfare state to Germany, aiming to undercut the appeal of socialism and secure worker loyalty to the monarchy. Key initiatives included mandatory health insurance (1883), accident insurance (1884), and old-age/disability pensions (1889). Key details of Bismarck’s social policies included reforms, known as ‘State Socialism,’ were designed to reduce the political influence of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) by providing benefits that made socialist revolution less appealing to the working class. When Meg and I went on a river cruise from Berlin to Prague going through many of the territories of what was formerly East Germany,  we had the benefit of many lectures on modern Germany and learned that those living in what was the prosperous West Germany were subject to a tax to attempt to bring the East of Germany up to the same living standards of the West. A story that was told at the time was that many factory workers from the East were unused to the rigours of a full 8 hour factory shift because their outdated industrial infrastructure meant that machinery often broke down and workers had to be sent home (short of a full day’s shift work) until it was repaired or patched up. So I found all of this programme fascinating and will look forward to next part, concluding a tour of Spain and turning again to modern day France.

I visited the Methodist centre in town and engaged in a conversation with a Mancunian who happens to be in my Tai Chi class tomorrow. She had brought her husband along (a retired builder) and we shall probably meet again for coffee after or class tomorrow. Although our times in Manchester we exchanged some reminiscences of places that we knew- particularly the domestic science college known as ‘Domski’ which had an architecture suggesting a toast rack with a fried egg paced along side it. Indeed this particular building was known to all of us as the ‘Toastrack’. opposite which were a block of terraced houses, some of them overlooking Platt Fields park and one of which Meg and I bought and stayed in for three years. Before I  went home, I went to a local hardware store to purchase some cleaning materials not available in my local supermarket. After I came home, I made myself a salad lunch which, to be completely honest, I did not enjoy that much and perhaps some of the ingredients did not quite ‘blend’ I knew that I had an ENT appointment in the local hospital so I allowed myself 20 minutes to get there and another 20 minutes to park. But I was fortunate as I secured a place when someone else was just leaving. I was seen by high grade medical technician/audiologist who gave me as much time and attention as was required which turned out to be about three quarters of an hour. The intermittent tinnitus that I have experienced since Meg’s death could well be a sort of post traumatic stress syndrome after the months and years of caring for Meg when I was under immense strain but the audiologist was gong to add me to her tinnitus clinic which she thought might be beneficial to me but I was quite at liberty to stop attendance if I thought that no real benefits were being derived. We actually spent quite a lot of time talking about some scientific issues. One of these was the book entitled ‘The Grieving Brain’ written by a neuroscientist who explores the biochemical changes that occur within the brain when a long standing relationship (such as a marriage, or death of a parent) comes to an end. I also told her about the Hanna Fry series on Artificial Intelligence and we discussed, at some length actually, the ways in which AI was impacting upon the education of the younger generation of doctors and the implications that this may have for the development (or non development) of traditional clinical skills

After my hospital appointment,  I drove back  to Bromsgrove and then conducted my weekly shop which, as it turned out, was quite a light week this week. Then it was a case of getting the shopping unpacked not forgetting that the wheelie bins have to be dragged out to the end of the drive ready for collection in the morning. There appears to be nothing that grabs my attention on the TV this evening, but I dare say that a good trawl of the BBC iPlayer might reveal something that I had missed. Meanwhile, attention is turning in the Iran war to the effective closure of the Strait of Hornuz which represents a real ‘choke point’ for world shipping. It is not just oil which is affected here but also a massive array of raw materials such as helium and sulphur which will have an impact on a wide array of manufactured goods, not least the chemical fertilisers needed in agriculture. So inflationary pressures across the world will soon be given a huge upwards twist unless the war ends quickly.

I watched the second of the Hannah Fry programmes on the subject of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and this edition was particularly scary. It focused on the ways in which the insurance companies in the private American healthcare system used AI to predict the days and even hours of treatment that they would fund after which time you were on your own as it were. Left to the mercy of the algorithm, seriously ill patients were bundled out of hospitals and transported home. Of course, this was all profit (or minimisation of cost) driven and eventually it was revealed that all kinds of assumptions were built into the algorithm the net effects were discriminatory. One such factor was the amount spent by individuals on their own healthcare and this reflected economic hierarchies in which white patients could afford, and did, spend more on their health than ethnic minority  patients resulting in thousands of black patients receiving sub-optimal funding. AI is being introduced into the British healthcare system but, it is said, more cautiously but I wonder if it is only a matter of time before AI is used to calculate treatment times and discharge rates even in the UK healthcare system. Yesterday, as I was walking down into town, I was speculating to myself what could be done about the increasingly self evident lack of democracy in the American political system. My attention had been directed to this matter by watching some of the ways in which prominent members of the American government are not actually held to account in hearings before Congress whereby they can lie, prevaricate or refuse to answer questions without any sanction from an incredibly partisan chairman of the committee. I started to wonder about the power of the electorate in these circumstances given a backdrop in which there is a massive division in American politics and congressional seats do not often change hands. I started to wonder about the number of electors for each Congressional seat and discovered that when the American constitution was written this was of the order of 50,000 per seat but is now 750,000 per seat or fifteen times larger. I suspect (but would have to be more research on the matter) that who wins or loses a seat is as much dependent on demographic factors (people joining or leaving the electorate) or migration factors (people moving jobs or houses) than it is of people who actually change their minds and perform the switch from Republican to Democrat or vice versa. So, to my mind, the extremely tribal nature of American politics  makes one despair whether the idea that America is a democracy is increasingly open to question. It is being said that Trump will almost certainly lose his majority in the Congress come the mid-term elections in November but already there are indications that Trump may try to subvert the result, perhaps by cancelling the elections altogether (as he has speculated that he might) As I keep on reminding people, Hitler came to power using the tools of democracy and then used every lever of power to sustain himself in office. 

Later in the morning, my son called around and as this coincides anyway with the weekly visit of my domestic help,  we tend to have a jolly half hour with each other. My son reminded me of the running conversation he used to have with colleagues at work whether  all fathers, when they got to a similar age, developed the same set of habits such as always collecting odd screws together in any glass jars and keeping them ‘in case they might come in useful’ which is something I always do. I decided to delay my visit into town today but then I set off and called in at Waitrose to buy a birthday card for my daughter-in-law as well as picking up the (last) copy of the newspaper. My Pilates class went off as normal and I think I might have felt a little  better after it, so perhaps I was in. need of exercise. Wen I returned home,  I made myself a dinner of mackerel fillets on some toasted sourdough bread, augmented with a side dressing of tomato and beetroot. As it is practically 3.00 pm when I return home, I prefer to have a quickly prepared lunch in any case. During some of the afternoon, I engaged in the rather pleasant ask of reconstructing the spreadsheet I utilise to keep track of my finances.  Now that I do not have a mortgage to make a great hole in my finances each month, I am in the happy position to make some savings for things that require a once-off yearly expenditure (as I was in the habit of doing in past years) These calls on large expenditures tend to come into three categories of car-related expenditure, vacations and house maintenance but by keeping all of my savings in one pot as it were, I can always  transfer money from sub heading to another if necessary. Tomorrow  is going to be quite a busy day because as well as the weekly shop, I have a routine  hospital appointment in the afternoon so I may try and have an early night tonight. Later in the evening, there is going to be the second in a series of programmes on European identities presented by Katya Adler, who has a renowned expertise as a foreign correspondent. Last week she looked at regional identities in Italy and in France whereas this week she is going to concentrate on Germany and on Spain. In many if not most, European  societies the population will very strongly identify first and foremost with a region and its cultural identity and central government is often seen as remote and lacking in relevance. My wife and I used to see this a lot when we travelled to various parts of Spain where people would proudly identify as being an Andaluz, a Gallego or a Catalan for example and only after this would they identify themselves as Spanish. Of course, in Spain there are a variety of languages apart from Castellano the principal ones being Euskara, the language of the Basque country, Catala and Gallego as well as variations of these spoken on some of the islands such as Valenciana. So with federal or semi-federalised political systems, it comes as no surprise that we see the rise of the right wing parties that often an expression of regional identities as well as the response to the economic uncertainties such as globalisation and migration. These regional identities were often forged in opposition to fascist dictator of which the prime example is the bitter struggle between Franco and the Catalans (around Barcelona) in Spain.

The evening before last, I caught up with the Hannah Fry series on Artificial  Intelligence and viewed the first one which focused on the way in which AI could recreate the  speech patterns of a departed loved one in such a way that the surviving partner could carry on what might be a ‘real’ conversation with the departed one. To illustrate this, the creator of a powerful piece of software created the voice pattern of Hannah Fry’s recently deceased father which the presenter found shocking and disturbing, The trouble is that once this technology has been invented, it cannot be put back into the box but I feel that this particular use of the technology opens up a road down which many of us would be well advised not to travel. I am unconvinced that hearing and communicating with the simulated voice of a departed one makes for what one might term a ‘healthy’ grieving process. It is true that this technology might provide short term comfort and relief for the lonely and depressed but in the end it is replacing what should be social relationships with technological ones and we have enough of this already in our commercial life. Nonetheless, I shall continue to catch up the remainder of the series which will, no doubt, provide much food for thought. The point here is that the technology tends to creep up on one and is introduced without  much discussion or pubic debate as has happened with the almost universal adoption of social media. We have an interesting elision of domestic political and international news with the call by Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, for the forthcoming visit of the King to the United States to be cancelled. The King is due to visit the US next month to commemorate 250 years since the country’s independence. But there have been calls for the monarch to postpone the visit in the wake of the escalating row between Washington and London. President Donald Trump has repeatedly lashed out at Sir Keir over the UK’s refusal to allow the US to launch its initial attacks on Iran from British bases. Sir Ed called on the prime minister to cancel the king’s trip due to the ‘illegal’ war launched more than a week ago that has seen retaliatory airstrikes across the Middle East. The Lib Dem leader said on Sunday: ‘Keir Starmer should advise the King that the state visit to the US scheduled for April should be called off’. Personally, I can well understand the reason for such a call and the timing  of the visit is unfortunate, to put it mildly. But I think the point that must be made is the spat that we are having at the moment is with the American president and not with the American people. To call ff the visit now could make a bad situation even worse ad I think there are ways in which our displeasure can be communicated, short of a full scale cancellation. So far, the public seems fully behind the stance that Keir Starmer has taken and we have two examples of similar situations. Firstly, those of us with long political memories are reminded that Harold Wilson the British PM successfully ensured that the UK did not get entangled by the war in Vietnam. But much more recently, the war against Iraq and the subsequent finding of the Chilcott enquiry that the whole war against Iraq was at least ‘ill advised’ shows the evident danger of following maverick American presidents when they engage in madcap interventions in the Middle East. There is a now strongly held view that by not restraining the activities of Israel who have been itching for any excuse to have a go against the Iranian regime, the Americans have been bounced into the whole conflict. Could there be a more clear illustration of a tail wagging a dog?
 
Conscious of the fact that I have not been walking up and down the hill as is consistent with maintaining my health, I made myself undertake a walk this morning. When I reached Waitrose, I picked up my newspaper and had a ‘free’ coffee whilst also buying some bran buds which  is very often out of stock. I also tried to investigate some of their superior olive oils but did not get very far. Although olive oil and the Mediterranean diet are often recommended, this is by no means the full story. To convey health benefits, the olive oil as to be high in polyphenols but these are not stated on the label so one has to recourse to the internet to discover which brands they are and, not to my great surprise, it is hard to find these superior oils on the supermarket shelves. So if I wish to pursue this line of purchase, I need to do sone internet searches and then source a supply from a more specialist retailer.  After I got home, I made myself a meal of beef slices in onion gravy, potatoes parboiled and finished off in a little oil and some sugar snap peas. Although I had to force myself to do it, I also gave the car a quick wash as it was  still covered  in a fine Saharan sand but  tried to keep my time outside to the barest minimum and, as it was pretty unpleasant outside, I will leave the interior of the car and the windows to another occasion. As is usually do, I perused the columns of the newspaper to ascertain what my TV viewing is to be this evening. It seems like quite a full night with a Panorama programme discussing the origins of the present Iranian conflict. I wonder if the programme will present some infamous parts of British history  as the way United Kingdom played a critical role in destabilising Iran in the early 1950s, culminating in the joint Anglo-American overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in August 1953. The destabilisation was primarily driven by the British desire to regain control over Iranian oil resources after Mosaddegh nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), which is now BP. The TV viewing continues with another in the Hannah Fry series and a final dose of comedy to round off the evening. I am attempting to get to bed just before 10.00pm these days but if I drift off to sleep, I  generally wake up an hour or so later and generally watch a bit of TV before settling down for good. All the health programmes stress the importance of a good sleep pattern but this is easier to talk about  than to attain these days.

The sentiment that we are entering  ‘World War 3’ is probably  over-used by journalists but it is quite true that the conflict is in danger of becoming just that. Donald Trump’s war with Iran is rapidly becoming global, with more than a dozen other countries in the firing line, or mobilising their armed forces, as Tehran fights back. The UK, France and Spain are among the nations sending warships, jets and troops to the region to bolster their defences and protect their allies, while states across the Middle East, as well as Cyprus, Turkey and Azerbaijan, have been affected by Iranian drones and missiles. The US is also not restricting its strikes against the Islamic regime to any geographical boundary, with an American submarine sinking an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka. The Russians and the Chinese are starting to get involved, at least to the extent that it looks as though clandestine supply chains of munitions are being formed, even if there is no overt involvement. What is making this war so unique is that there is no evident end-point – the Americans in particular  seem to be particularly prone to entering a conflict without a clear exit strategy or even clear ideas of what constitutes ‘success’ The American liberal political media are falling over themselves with exasperated video clips of the various reasons that Trump has proffered in his public statements for entering the war. One of the most ridiculous is the claim that Ira was only two weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon whereas more sober and intelligent analysis contradicts this. While Iran was close to having the enriched uranium to the level needed for bomb-making, experts said it would take months to two years to build a nuclear bomb. How quickly Iran could possess a nuclear weapon was used as the basis for Israel and the U.S. to strike. Iran did not yet have a bomb ready to launch, said Michael Singh, managing director at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an organisation that promotes understanding of American interests in the Middle East. What is being confused here is possessing the raw material for a weapon (enriched uranium) is one thing but getting these manufactured into a nuclear weapon and having a delivery system are completely different entities and these acts are being deliberately conflated to serve as justifications for the American invasion. What we do know is that invasion with bombs is easy but withdrawal from these conflicts is long and drawn out, complicated and messy. In the meanwhile, we are still dealing with Ukrainian conflict on our doorstep and that is quite enough to be getting on with. Meanwhile, I am entering  my Sunday morning routine which now involves an early start to the day, getting to church just after 8.00am for the 8.30 service followed by tea and biscuits in the adjoining parish hall. What I think I enjoy about such activities is there a good cross section of the population in terms of men and women quite equally distributed across the age groups as well as a smattering of young children who have  been brought along with the parents and grandparents. When I go along to meetings at the Methodist Centre as I did the day before for a group social session, I am confronted with an absolute sea of grey haired older women and hardly any men at  all – so having associated with young colleagues and students all of my working life, I find this to be a shock to the system and nearly always gravitate towards conversations with much younger  age groups with whom I feel, rightly or wrongly, that  have much more in common.  And so yesterday,  I engaged in my normal routine chatting with one or two people around the coffee table and then left to engage in my other round of routines which is to top up the car with petrol, collect my Sunday newspaper and call in at an ATM to get my supplies of cash for the forthcoming week. I find that Sunday mornings are quite useful in tis respect as the roads are fairly quiet and I am not stuck in the middle of traffic jams as happens during the week.

After I returned home, I made myself a treat of a breakfast which is a couple of fried eggs on some toasted sourdough bread. After a read of Sunday newspapers and a view of some of the latest political news, I prepared the sort of lunch which I normally have to accompany my half of a beef joint, cooked and frozen some months beforehand. I diced some carrots and ‘wonky’ parsnips to make for a carrot-and-parsnip mash which I eventually consumed with the beef heated up in an onion gravy and the remains of the sprouts.  Although the veg preparation is quite time consuming for this type of meal, I find that I can save half of the prepared veg which I pop in a plastic bag in the freezer and have halfway through next week. I did have in mind to give the car a wash later on today as, like many other cars in the area, it has been covered by a fine Saharan dust which as risen far into the atmosphere, been transported high across the high world and finally dumped on us here in the UK, a phenomenon which  happens from time to time. As there was no rugby match to entertain this  afternoon, this might be a good opportunity to catch up some of the Hannah Fry programs on Artificial Intelligence  which have been highly praised but which I have not yet got round to viewing, But yesterday was a landmark of sorts because, according to my specialist little calendar, the official ‘sun down’ time has just passed the 6.00pm threshold only the weather at the moment is pretty cold with a high of 11° and a cold, biting wind. In the days when I was a teacher in higher education, I recall the conversations I used to have over a Friday lunch-time beer with an accountancy colleague. He and I were, at the time, great Radio 4 listeners and my colleague used to listen to a programme broadcast after the weekend news at about 2.00pm called ‘Gardener’s Question Time’ When this program concluded, my colleague confided in me that his heart and spirits sank as he now realised that his weekend was effectively over as material had to be prepared for his class starting at 9.00am the next day. So it is as a common pattern for colleagues, myself included, to devote most evenings and some of the weekend as well to preparation and  the inevitable marking of students’ work.

The evening before last was devoted to rugby and I watched the Ireland vs. Wales match without a great deal of expectation as the Welsh team have been having a run of really bad form. Having said that, the match turned out to be entertaining and at half time the Welsh team were within a couple of points of the Irish with plenty to play for in the second half. Eventually, the Irish team ran out as winners but the Welsh had acquitted themselves very well despite them occupying the place of being bottom of the table. The really intriguing question which will be answered this evening is how the newly refreshed and quite young England team will perform against Italy when they meet in the final fixture of the weekend. Meanwhile the news from the Iran war seems more disturbing by the day. It is very hard to ascertain what the American objectives happen to be in this war as their stated war aims seem to alter day by day and one suspects that they aim to destroy as much of the Iranian infrastructure as they can now that they have complete control of the airspace over Iran and can bomb at will. Meanwhile, the Israelis seem to be taking every opportunity to destroy as many of their traditional enemies as they can and are already undertaking a ground invasion of Lebanon in order to eliminate the remains of the Hezbollah. Based on reports from early March 2026, Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated that the current, coordinated US-Israeli military actions against Iran represent the culmination of a 40-year goal to confront and ‘crush’ the Iranian regime. The economic consequences of the conflict are starting to unfold and extending beyond the cessation of gas supplies from Qatar. Oil prices have risen to their highest level in more than two years, after Qatar’s energy minister warned he expects all oil and gas exporters in the Gulf to stop production within days. Saad al-Kaabi told the Financial Times the conflict in the Middle East – a region which plays a key role in global energy supplies and shipping routes – could ‘bring down the economies of the world’. Brent crude oil rose more than 9% on Friday, topping $93 a barrel – the highest level since autumn 2023. Rising oil prices can have wide-reaching effects, not only on how much it costs to fill up your vehicle but also on the cost of some heating, food and imported goods. The Gulf also supplies the world with products such as sulphuric acid (used in the manufacture of explosives) and helium (used in scanners and in quantum computers) so the delicate eco-system of world trade is already being affected. The only smidgeon of comfort is the fact that we are coming towards the end of the winter when our national consumption of gas to heat our houses will naturally lessen during the summer months. The UK economy had just seemed to be turning a corner but now inflation will be given a further twist upwards and our economic recovery delayed even further. It is at times tat this when one would wish that the UK had invested in gas/oil storage facilities to build up a strategic buffer (as has Germany) but we are woefully deficient in this respect.

Yesterday morning, I made sure that I was in plenty of time for the twice monthly meeting of the ‘Carousel’ club which is a meeting of the elderly who meet in the Methodist Centre. Today we had a video made by a former member of the group of life about Herefordshire villages which was moderately interesting. But the main focus of the day is evidently social interaction and I made contact again with one of the parishioners from my own church who occasionally  volunteers for work in the kitchen. I also met again my acquaintance of a few days ago who has just moved into the Bromsgrove area and is finding her feet in the local community. Quite by chance, I also met another member of the group, about 50 of us, who is signed up for the same coach trip of Scotland for which I am committed in early April. Then I got home and cooked a fish meal liberated from the freezer before settling down to watch a pulsating France vs. Scotland Six Nations rugby. The Scots completely outplayed the French being fast and incisive and causing France to commit several errors in their frustration. The Scots were at one point leading the French by 7 tries to 4 but when the game was well and truly won France scored a couple of late tries. The Scots ran out as winners 50:40 and are jointly leading France at the top of the min-league table. The England vs. Italy match is being played in Rome and we will watch with bated breath to see if the young and refreshed England team prove their worth. As it turned out, England had a narrow lead over Italy of 2 points and there was an expectation that the Italian team would fade in the second half. But this did not happen and, for a brief period, England had two men n the ‘sin-bin’ (sent off for 10 minutes) with what seemed to me to be rather technical offences. The Italians were lifted by their home crowd and secured their first ever victory over England although the actual outcome of the game was undecided until the last minute or so when England came near to scoring a try which would have drawn the game whilst a successful conversion would have won the match. But rugby matches, particularly in the  Six Nations  competition, are often won or lost by the finest of margins and the very last kick of the game which was practically the case today.

A further twelve documents have been released by the FBI and in at least one of these documents a 13 year old girl has claimed abuse by Epstein, Trump and other Epstein associates in about 1984. The FBI maintains that some documents will contain fake or unverified stories and it appears that the claims of the 13 year old girl (name redacted) were never investigated. We have known of the existence of these files for some time now but the war in Iran has had the effect of successfully burying such stories. Of course we are now 40 years after the alleged events and even if a private prosecution were to take place after Trump leaves the presidency (if he ever does) then a court would have no evidence to support the allegation and would almost certainly dismiss the legal action.

I was just on my way to bed the evening before last when the news broke on the liberal American media podcasts that Trump had finally lost patience and sacked his outspoken chief of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem. You would have thought that she might have been sacked for labelling the woman shot dead by ICE agents in Minneapolis a ‘domestic terrorist’ a few minutes  after the shooting and before any proper investigations had taken place. But it was disastrous appearance before a Congressional Committee which finally proved too much for Trump. Noem has spent $220 million (nearly a quarter of a billion dollars!) on a video supposedly encouraging illegal migrants to leave the US but actually largely devoted to her own self-glorification. Pressed by Republican senators whether Trump had approved of this level of expenditure, Noem at first said that the President was ‘aware’ of the funding but finally lied to the effect that Trump had approved the campaign whereas Trump himself denied all knowledge  of it. But even worse revelations were to come as the contract for the claim was awarded with no competition by an entity run by her lover (the husband of one of her associates) created only 11 days beforehand and with no track record of any dealings with the US government, which is about as evidently corrupt as it is possible to be. Other stories about her incompetence abounded, one of which was she sacked the pilot of a private jet who had forgotten to bring along her favourite blanket but then had to re-hire him again as there was no one else to fly the plane for the next leg of the journey. She did not deny having a sexual relationship with her associate (even though her own husband was sitting behind her to give her support during the Congressional hearings).She allowed her lover to sit at her desk and approve various contracts and fulfil many of the duties that were part of her job description. All of this proved to much for usually loyal Republican senators who tore her apart during  the Congressional hearings after which Donald Trump moved her to a sinecure elsewhere within government which was, in effect, a sacking as Trump himself must have known that the ICE excesses, which Noem supervised, was actually badly damaging to his own standing in the opinion polls. But there are other spokespeople for the administration such as Pam Bondi and the White House press secretary who lie just as much in public but they do this with complete impunity knowing that a cowed press will not call them out and Trump, a liar himself, is not unhappy when others lie on his behalf. British observers such as myself watch this open-mouthed as this level of venality would not be tolerated within our own committee hearings in the UK parliament where, in theory, evident mistruths can be rewarded by a spell in the Tower of London prison (but this has never actually happened) Many might think that this level of lying would eventually be exposed and sanctioned if the Democrats were to return to power but the members of the Trump administration  are well aware that Trump can, and will, grant pardons to all of them even as an outgoing president when the time comes.

Later in the morning, I popped down into town by car and was amazed how much colder the weather had become since only yesterday. Having picked up my newspaper, I made my way to my favourite Friday morning watering hole where I chat with the one regular member of staff and one other regular customer. I needed to get home in time to have a quick chat with my son who was calling in to see me just before departing for a trip down to the in-laws which he happened to be combining with a rail tour with one of his oldest friends. I lunched on mackerel, mashed potato and sugar snap peas and then settled down for some leisurely afternoon activities. Quite by chance when I tuned into YouTube, I was offered the opportunity to view a video by a British doctor who was explaining  the 15 steps to be taken to avoid a high HbA1c (high blood sugar levels) which  is an indicator of the presence or likelihood  of developing diabetes. This was very interesting and confirmed quite a lot of what I already knew but I learnt some interesting facts such as the importance of keeping protein levels high. So  decided to take notes of the video which I did and I will type these up to have an electronic record handy. At the same time, I decided to do a quick trawl of the high glycaemic index foods to avoid or to eat in moderation and will adjust my diet a little in the future. I think I am hovering just below the borderline level of 48 but will make an appointment to have this checked out to make sure I have not crept over the limit in the last few months. Whilst I was having a ‘domestic’ afternoon, I decided to commission a spare strip calendar that I have with U3A (University of the 3rd Age) activities. I have recently joined a Classical Music Appreciation group (meeting in a member’s house) as well as a Conversational Spanish course. I did ask to join a Curry Club and a ‘Historic Local Churches’ group but have not heard back from these latter so perhaps the groups are full. In the past, and decades ago, Meg and I enjoyed several continental coach tour holidays run by a Leeds-based firm called ‘Wallace Arnold’ but I gather this firm merged some time ago with another company called Shearings. The Wallace Arnold holidays were real value and of high quality so I thought I would investigate what was currently on offer. I am a little tempted by a visit to Versaille/Monet’s Garden/Rouen in late September so  have some feelers out with the firm to work out whether this would be a short but stress-free late summer holiday. I am irritated by a heavy single person supplement but am not in a position to avoid this and the rest of the holiday seems good value. I imagine that if I were to avail myself of this holiday, the rest of the coach party would prove to be quite an interesting crowd given the whole title and description of the holiday.

To underline the depth of the crisis in the Middle East, one estimate of the numbers of UK citizens currently abroad in that region of the world is 300,000 which would take about 900 flights to bring them all home the next day. I imagine that many will just ‘sit tight’ for the next few days although the Trump regime himself is mentioning 100 days as the likely length of the conflict. The US Senate have just voted to reject a resolution that would have limited Trump’s war venture by a margin of 53:47 with one senator each side voting not along party lines, thus neutralising each other. Since the war is plainly illegal in international law (not to mention US domestic law) this all rather underlines the extremely partisan nature of the divide in US politics at this time. Here at home, we are having a burst of spring-like weather and I notice with a great deal of pleasure that some of the earliest of the Japanese flowering cherry trees which can be found in gardens along the Kidderminster Road are starting to burst into bloom and this is always a sight for sore eyes. The day before yesterday,I made a trip to the Methodist Centre and had one or two chats before going off to do my weekly shopping – later in the day, my son and daughter-in-law called around and we started to go through some of the boxes of photographs recently rescued from under the eaves of the house. Most of these were ‘holiday snaps’ and were jettisoned but we retained a few which showed family members and even one or two of my mother’s garden in Leeds which I shall pass on to other members of my family when I next pay them a visit. Next weekend, my son and daughter-in-law are going off to see my daughter-in-law’s side of the family but I have some Six Nations rugby to keep me diverted.  England are due to play Italy the result of which would normally be a foregone conclusion but after two recent defeats, no one can be quite so sure any more. The England coach is making twelve changes to the England team, nine personnel and 3 positional and the whole half-back lime has been replaced so this seems like an unprecedented change. The commentators are saying this either a master stroke or a sign of desperation and we shall just have to see whether the gamble has paid off or not. The forward line is largely preserved intact but the rest of the team has been chosen largely to import a degree of urgency into the England team who are facing a much-improved Italian team. We are now at the stage in the year when traditionally my thoughts turn to gardening matters but the first mowing of the season is still some three weeks away and we may yet have the last flourish of winter with which to contend. However for the last year or so, the back garden has been largely neglected whilst caring for Meg in her final months of life but I need to get a regime in place where I deploy some help in the garden and also try to do a regular bit each day to gradually get things trimmed back and being to look more presentable.

Later in the day, I attended my Tai Chi class and for inexplicable reasons (perhaps the fine weather) attendance was markedly down and there were only seven of us which is about one half of the usual number. This meant that the numbers for coffee were remarkably down as well but I chatted with one of the older regulars who is always there on the day of my Tai Chi class because it is his job to open up the Centre on that day. But, quite unexpectedly, we were joined by an elderly lady who was fairly new to Bromsgrove and to the centre. I told her all about the ‘Carousel’ gathering that meets twice each month and our paths will probably cross again in a couple of day’s time. It turns there were quite a few points of coincidence in our lives – for example we had both worked in establishments that were quite close to each other in Oxford Road, Manchester (and she came from Eccles which is adjacent to Trafford Park in Manchester) She had lived in Spain until quite recently and, in her youth, had  been quite a keen walker of the Lake District mountains and fells.  She had worked as a teacher of Pitman’s shorthand in a technical college in Coventry so this was a good cue to reminisce about my mother’s skills in Pitman’s shorthand and typing. So in the course of not a very long conversation, we had established several points of contacts between us – she had out-survived two husbands (and had a gammy leg from multiple fractures, sustained I suspect whilst fell walking). Anther sort of ‘window’ has just opened up for me because the U3A (University of the 3rd Age) group are recruiting members for a conversational Spanish course for which I have signed up immediately.  I am just hoping that there will be enough members because how these things work is that there have to be enough members so that the small fee payable on each visit will pay for the hire of the meeting room (I suppose it is a sad fact of life that precious little is cost-free these days).

On the recommendation of my domestic help (and a life-long friend), I am always on the lookout for tasty snacks. Not only did she recommend a new Italian cracker which is very low in sugar and salt but a snack which I have enjoyed for the first time this afternoon. It was slices of apple dipped into crunchy peanut butter and I suspect it is going to be a firm favourite in the afternoons. There is some TV viewing that I wish to catch up on and this is the Hannah Fry series of programmes on AI (Artificial Intelligence) and I noticed that one was being broadcast yesterday evening. But I think will watch the whole series on the BBC iPlayer and I will probably watch that in the early evening where there is a documentary as well as  the weekly edition of ‘Question Time’ This last programme can be an interesting ‘pulse of the nation’ so long as the audience has not been hijacked by a local campaign group or faction of a political party which used to happen in the ‘Brexit’ days.

I spent some of the time first thing yesterday morning completing the documentation for the various HTML scripts for the display of Meg’s photos. This task is now completed and means that if I have in future a little project in view (e.g. a holiday) then I have everything in place to make a complete slide record of it. I used to do this before Meg became very ill but evidently had to stop doing this in the last few years of her life, not least because  we had no holidays to document. But now I have put the 4-5 scripts and the documentation into their own little table so that a viewer could select which they preferred to watch and even use themselves. I calculate that each script and its associated photos takes about 50Mb but I have some 25Gb free in my webspace so plenty of room for expansion (for example, 500 more scripts and associated photos, although this is only a theoretical calculation). I consulted ‘Sky News’ quickly for the latest news of the war and came across an interesting calculation. Whilst missiles are being thrown about all over the Middle East, it has been calculated that the UAE, for example has successfully shot down over 90% of incoming missiles but at a cost some 25 times more than it costs to launch. So one calculation is that the Middle East countries will beg Trump to curtail his war, not least because they will run out of missiles/money to defend themselves if the war continues unabated. By this calculation, the long-term mathematical odds are on the side of Iran. In America itself, the focus of the debate is whether Congress will approve or fail to approve authorisation for Trump’s adventures. But even if a resolution were passed denying Trump the funding, Trump could override this with a presidential veto which is a chilling thought. What is troubling the Americans is the absence of any clear plan what to do about a post-war Iran and the fact that America might be embroiled for years and the turbulence created in the Middle East may take years to subside. But what is crystal clear at the moment is that the campaign so far is both illegal and unconstitutional but when allies such as the UK point this out to the American administration, they are lambasted. However, at the point of time when it just appeared that the UK economy had at least turned a corner, we now have the destabilising effect of rising energy prices, a rise in inflation and military action into which we are sucked and cannot avoid, all of which was not predicted. Trump is saying that the war will last for months but although Trump has used the word ‘war’ there are some on the American right who are arguing that this is not, actually a war and as such, the opinion of the Congress is irrelevant. I wonder though whether the Americans might actually take to the streets in millions to try to force an end to the conflict and this fact alone may change the mindset of some Republicans who hold the key (and the votes) to alter the progress of the conflict.

After a chat with some fellow coffee drinkers in the Methodist Centre, I went off to do my weekly shopping which I have now started to do a day earlier in the week. My son and daughter-in-law were due to come round in the afternoon to assist in the clearance of several items we had rescued from the eaves of the house. Our principal task today was to go through a box which contained packets of old photographs dating mainly from the 1970’s and 1980’s. In those days, you took your film to an agent such as Boots who developed the film for you and actually gave you back the reel of film should you wish to have more copies. Most of the photographs were in the nature of ‘holiday snaps’ so we jettisoned these quickly retaining only those containing images of family members which we duly duly labelled up, dated and retained. We did discover some photos of my mother’s garden in Leeds which I will pass on to other family members in Yorkshire when next I see them. In my little trip down into the town, it is rather a sight for sore eyes to observe the flowering of the Japanese cherry trees which adorn some of the front gardens in the houses along the Kidderminster Road. This is a reminder to me as well that spring is in the air and that grass mowing activities will start in about three weeks time. Our garden has got somewhat overgrown since I devoted all of my attention to looking after Meg in her final months and did little gardening apart from a regular mowing of the grass. One of the carers that used to look after Meg has a partner who does not mind turning his hand to what I call (not perjoratively) ‘rough gardening’ which is basically taking an over-grown garden and getting it back into reasonable shape. As the weather improves, I need to get into the habit of about 30 minutes a day of regular gardening and I probably need to engage a proper gardener as well. At the same time, I need to get into a good de-cluttering mode – when one moves house, then a lot of stuff gets junked into a skip and in Hampshire I think that we filled at least three before we left. But I have now lived in this house for more than 18 years and retired as well so the house has gradually accumulated more and more ‘things’ that need a degree of rationalisation. At the time of COVD, when we were confined to houses, we thought this would be a good time to go through the house room by room decluttering but it never actually happened, despite our good intentions. However, with the help of my son and daughter-in-law, we have made a start in throwing away or recycling some of the materials we had stored. We did find a suitcase with some rather fine curtains inside and my domestic help and I are going to decide whether some of them would be useful to her or it could be that we can bring them into use in this house. But we have to examine them for the ‘drop’ sizes before we can come to a decision on that.

The evening before last, my daughter-in-law treated me, at our local Arts Centre,to a special showing, direct from the National Theatre of ‘The Audience’ originally shown as a play in 2013. The Audience is centred on the weekly audiences given by Queen Elizabeth II to prime ministers from her accession in 1952 until her death. Three Prime Ministers are omitted from the play as Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home and Edward Heath are not featured. Tony Blair originally did not feature in the play, but was added when the play transferred to Broadway, replacing James Callaghan, who was excluded from subsequent productions. Advice regarding the political and historical content of the weekly audiences was provided by Professor Vernon Bogdanor (Emeritus Professor of Government at Oxford University), the former tutor of David Cameron, Prime Minister from 2010 until 2016.The play takes place in the Queen’s audience room at Buckingham Palace. This whole production was hugely enjoyable but the audience was quite small, being of the order of about 50 or so. There was a moment in the play which made members of the audience catch its breath because it featured a British Prime Minister, in close liaison with Israel, who intended to launch a clandestine and illegal attack on a neighbouring country without  any thought of reference to the United Nations or thought for the long term political consequences. This was reflecting the Suez canal debacle in which Antony Eden, the British Prime Minister abetted by the French, tried to wrest back the Suez canal from the Egyptians with disastrous consequences both in military and in diplomatic terms. Most of the script could have been written in the last day reflecting the American invasion of Iran (rather than the British invasion of Egypt) but the events closely paralleled each other with a common factor being the role of Israel intending to carry out a regional war against neighbouring hostile states. So my daughter-in-law enjoyed the performance of Helen Mirren who played the part of Queen Elizabeth in ‘The Queen’ and the dialogue between the Queen and her Prime Ministers reflected little tit-bits which has become part of the public domain of politics enhanced with some amusing written dialogue. To return to contemporary political affairs, there has been a recent opinion poll in the United states in which only 28% of these sampled supported Trump’s invasion of Iran, the remainder of the sample presumably being either opposed or with no strong opinion. There are some within the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement who feel utterly betrayed by a President who vowed to remove America from ‘forever’ wars and who promised to release the whole of the files relating to the Epstein paedophile regime. We have been informed  that Trump is mentioned 2,800 times in the Epstein files but in the half so far released, Trump’s name has been systematically removed or redacted. Only the American Congress can authorise a war through a piece of legislation known as a ‘War Powers’ Act but the Congress have yet to debate the issue. How this will play out is yet to be seen but it will be interesting to see if some of the MAGA Republicans might not support Trump in any Congressional vote meaning that Trump cannot get the authorising ‘War Powers’ legislation through the Congress. Those votes which require congressional approval for military action against Iran, which were already set for midweek, will amount to a major test of loyalty for some of the GOP’s far-right flank, who have for years championed Trump’s promise of keeping America out of foreign wars. Those Republicans will be forced to take a public stance after months of simmering consternation over Trump’s legal authority as he has dramatically expanded powers abroad with Congress on the sidelines. Multiple GOP sources told CNN they believe those three Republicans — Massie, Paul and Rep. Warren Davidson, who has also publicly condemned the attack without authorisation — are likely to be an island in their own party. Even so, Democrats believe it might be enough to deliver the rebukes. ‘I do think this has a real chance of passing. And it is going to be seen like the Iraq war vote,’ Khanna added, referring to the historic 2002 vote in Congress that authorised the US invasion of Iraq. Even if the measure passes, it is subject to a presidential veto, and a two-thirds vote to override could be a challenge to reach. So while it would be unlikely to change the president’s actions, it would be seen as a stunning rebuke of the administration. The Americans are being particularly critical of the UK in refusing to give the Americans the unlimited right to launch attacks from bases not only in this country but also in Diego Garcia. Keir Starmer has made clear to the evident wrath of the American administration that support for an American war must be both legal and must be supported by a clear plan of follow-on action. To this  extent, we have learned the lessons of the Iraq conflict despite the calls from the political  right on the UK to give unequivocal support to Trump. It does look as though the ‘special relationship’ between the UK and the USA is now dead in political terms but some commentators observe that behind the scenes, the professionals involved  in intelligence gathering, are collaborating as they always have done leaving the politicians to squabble over their heads. Janes O’Brien on LBC was incandescent with rage that anything in the British political system should give any thought to giving any kind of support to an evidently deranged Donald Trump and he based his podcast around two pieces of paper on one of which was written ‘Iraq’ and on the other ‘Trump’.

The first thing I did yesterday morning and before I attended my Pilates class was to give a final ‘tweak’ to the HTML code which is the final and most comprehensive of my photo slide display scripts. I felt the need to have a general title running across the top and I have a found a way of doing this using the top line which is used to display the photo slide number. The default colour for this is white but this is sometimes made invisible in some photographs where there is a very light background (such as wall or sky) and, in these cases, I have worked out a way of utilising a black font colour thus making the slide number  and the general title visible rather than invisible. So I am very pleased with my final tweak which just involved copying one line of code into each file ‘division’ and all I have to do now is to fully document the techniques I have just utilised into the document I have written documenting the procedures I have used. This can be useful for reference as to how I managed to achieve my results and which I can consult the next time I am engaged in a similar venture.