The thing that caught my eye amidst all of the domestic and foreign news this morning were the latest developments on the $10 billion lawsuit that Trump has brought against the BBC for a ‘misreporting’ of some of his words when the Capitol building was invaded by MAGA supporters. The BBC lawyers have demanded that Trump hand over a tranche of financial records so that Trump could ‘prove’ that he and his business interests had been damaged by the BBC revelations. This, of course, Trump will never do and Trump’s lawyers are trying to argue that handing over the financial records would be especially burdensome although a court has ruled that they should.  I suspect the BBC have made a master stroke in this  court case and after much huffing and puffing I would not be surprised if President Trump were to pull out of the case or if the whole case might be decided for a trivial but undisclosed amount. In the American political sense which I am following closely, I think we are living in the most dangerous of times. So much hangs on the mid-term elections to be held in November where Trump is destined to lose control of the House of Representatives (the Lower House) and even the Senate (Upper house) may be threatened. So time is running out for the Republicans as holiday season approaches. So Trump will be driven to make and more desperate moves to try to postpone or to ‘fix’ the electoral process by redrawing boundaries to minimise Democratic voting strength so called ‘re-districting’) Trump himself must realise that he is running out of time as the Iran war is re-igniting with a consequent knock-on effect on petrol prices at the pumps and of course his own health is visibly failing almost by the day as his evident dementia progresses. So, I suspect a really dangerous few weeks as Trump realises that his options and freedom of manoeuvre are being stacked against him and after November, he may well turn into the proverbial ‘lame duck’ president. So although the cornered and wounded animal metaphor is a little overworked, I think it is absolutely appropriate to apply in these circumstances. I am pleased that my Tai Chi classes are continuing throughout the summer but without the bonus of a pleasant chat with acquaintances in the Methodist Centre in which the tea and coffee area is closed for its summer refurbishment. In the slightly longer term, I am pleased that my application to be part of the next U3A coach trip has been accepted and in September  we will be visiting Shrewsbury prison which has been turned into a visitor experience so that we can witness the delights of a well-preserved Victorian prison which was in active use until not so very long ago. At the end of the month, I also have the first meeting of the U3A Philosophy group where I think the topic for discussion is sometime along the lines of ‘The Philosopher Michael Sandel and The Moral Limits of Markets’ (and I am aware of some of the style of Michael Sandel whose contributions have been aired and I have followed in Radio 4 programmes)

In the morning, I attended my normal Tai Chi class but in the absence of any coffee bar facilities, I went out on the High Street with two of my fellow Tai Chi group members and we had a coffee together in favourite ‘Gifts of Love’ horse sanctuary which always offers a warm welcome and a range of delicious cakes and coffee to its visitors.  Then I returned home and cooked myself an omelette which I had with some salad. The domestic agenda is dominated by the news that Andy Burnham and the newly appointed Justice Secretary are to review the early release of prisoners scheme under which people convicted of rape and even murder are released.  Prisoners eligible for early release typically include adults serving standard determinate sentences who have good behaviour and have completed one-third (33%) to 40% of their prison term, depending on the jurisdiction and specific reform measures in place (such as those in England and Wales) More serious crimes may be released after about 50% of their sentences. The public are generally appalled  by these policies, wiht the victims of rape and the near relatives of those murdered fearing that the perpetrators of the crimes may be released to roam the streets in the same areas I which the crimes were committed. The public affected by these early release schemes make the powerful but emotive point that the criminals only serve a sentence which can be less than half than that announced by the judge whereas the victims of crime are living with the consequences of these crimes for the rest of the lives – a type of life sentence in itself. The root of the problem is that after years of austerity and one of the highest prison populations in Europe, the rate at which prison places are provided is less than the rate at which prisoners are being sentenced. The government claims that many more prisons are being built but this takes both time and money and, of course, planning the location of a new prison is always problematic because nobody wants a prison to be built in their vicinity. So Andy Burnham and the new government are dealing with an inherited problem but in the short term the prison service is in crisis as the additional capacity given as  a consequence of early release will soon disappear. Apart from the tagging idea, this is an area in which it is hard to think of an easy solution and, no doubt, other solutions such as prison ships and prison barges have to be ruled out. The primary problems with prison ships—both historically and in modern attempts to revive them—include catastrophic disease outbreaks, severe overcrowding, and logistical nightmares. Because they are confined maritime spaces, they present massive safety risks, strip inmates of basic human dignity, and fail to provide the resources necessary for rehabilitation. Some societies such as Holland have experimented with ideas such as ‘weekend’ jails in which prisoners live and work with their families during the week but ave to return to jail at the weekend. But this solution might only work for those prisoners with jobs which might be very few. Other European societies may be faced with these problems and it would be interesting to see if any other modern social democracies have thought  of any solutions. As we know from the housing of asylum seekers, if any kind of penitential facility is housed near to other centres of population and the local community, aided by local and some national politicians, will vociferously object to any new penitential facilities in their area.

We awoke this morning to the news that Andy Burnham’s new government is determined to show that it is going to tackle the ‘cost of living’ crisis by some populist measures. The day before, we had the announcement of a 5% VAT cut in electricity bills on Burnham’s first day in office, which will save average households £45 a year. You would think this sounded like good news but the practical effect is to moderate the rate of increase that would otherwise have occurred so the actual political impact is likely to be very small as it will scarcely be noticed by most of us. We have also learnt of the intention to cap bus fares at £2 per journey being partly financed by raiding the budget of the Department for Energy. One can see the intention behind announcing some of these populist measures but I think that the new government is trying hard to grab some headlines but the actual impact on the household budgets of most people is so small as not to be noticed. So we have a situation in which the government is certainly spending some money or re-ordering priorities but the political impact or gain is likely to be incredibly small. The new government is hardly sad to be enjoying a honeymoon period because  many commentators are voicing the opinion that there has been a ‘vicious cull’ of ex Cabinet ministers who stayed loyal to Keir Starmer and some of them are letting their voices, and their discontent, be heard. So the display of loyalty amongst the Labour ranks appears paper thin and we are entering a summer period in which political news and events takes a back seat whilst everyone goes off on holiday and the electorate are left with the impression of a Labour party with a large Commons majority engaged in some fairly viscious back- biting. Perhaps one should not be surprised that this has broken out so soon as those used to the privileges of office including ministerial cars and the trappings of office find themselves bereft and having to face up to the new political realities. It is possible that these perturbations will die away but sometimes unpredictable crises can occur in the summer months  whilst senior ministers are away from their desks and the fort is being manned by relatively junior, and perhaps inexperienced, ministers. One wonders if there is there a revolt against ‘Manchesterism’ (as the new politics has been dubbed) but I think that Andy Burnham’s first few weeks in power are not likely to be at all smooth. On the other side of the Atlantic, we see the US Defence secretary being challenged about the 156 deaths which occurred after the US bombed a school in the early days of the conflict against Iran. All the indications are that the US was acting on the basis of out-of-date military intelligence but an investigation by Sky News indicates almost overwhelming proof of a disastrous military mistake. But an ‘investigation’ by the US military seems to be taking for ever and I suspect that the truth will never be admitted. Meanwhile Pete Hegseth, the US Defence Secretary, is being challenged about all of this by protestors when he appears before the US Senate asking for additional funds for the Iran war, but answers are there none. As the veteran ex-Labour veteran Denis Healy used to say ‘In war, the first casualty is truth’ and there are also persistent rumours in the liberal American political media that the true extent of injuries  amongst American combatants is being withheld from the American public (much in the manner in which Putin in Russia will not, or dare not admit the casualty rate in the Ukraine conflict in which those killed or injured has been authoritatively estimated as lying in the range of 1.27 – 2.0 million).

The morning was a quiet one as I knew that the Methodist centre was closed for its summer refurbishment, but I watched some intelligent political discussion between two British podcasters on YouTube, Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart who were discussing the contemporary political scene. Then I ventured out to do my weekly shopping and was pleased to have a fairly ‘light’ week, after which I returned home to have a meal of quiche with salad accompaniments. With the current spell of hot weather, I seem to cook a conventional meat + two veg meal less and less these days. After lunch, I had on a programme detailing how corrupt FIFA as been almost from its inception, Exploring this on YouTube, I discover that history shows that FIFA has a long history of aligning with authoritarian regimes, most famously when the FIFA Museum details how it allowed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to use the 1934 FIFA World Cup as a massive fascist propaganda vehicle. The organisation’s relationship with Mussolini’s Italy highlights several key historical realities. In 1932, the 1934 World Cup was granted to Italy after representatives of the fascist regime convinced FIFA that the Italian government would underwrite all financial losses, an offer the financially strapped governing body readily accepted. The tournament featured heavy integration of fascist iconography, with over 300,000 propaganda posters, special stamps, and tickets featuring the regime’s messaging. Mussolini attended every Italy match, using the matches to project international power. The tournament is widely considered one of the most controversial in history. Multiple sources, including FIFA World Cups discussions, reveal that the Italian government exerted direct pressure on referees and match logistics. The close relationship continued at the 1938 FIFA World Cup in France, where the Italian squad notoriously performed fascist salutes and was allegedly sent a telegram from Mussolini dictating they win “or die”. Another fact revealed I discovered was that that no African nations competed in the 1966 World Cup finals (in which England were successful, of course) All 15 eligible African countries withdrew from the qualifying stages in a mass boycott to protest FIFA’s decision to force Africa to compete with Asia and Oceania for just a single guaranteed tournament spot. Actually the whole history of FIFA can be written  as scandal ridden and cozying up to fascist regimes so the latest shenanigans we have observed seem to be the norm rather than the exception. I went through a pile of newspapers to see if any press cuttings needed to be retained before the wheelie bin is emptied tomorrow. I also took the opportunity to rid one of the corners of the house of some tall thistles that seem to have thrived in the heat and despite the absence of rain. I am looking forward to a walk n the park in the early evening as it has been quite hot during the day.

I went for a walk on my own in the park the evening before last to give me some fresh air and a little gentle exercise. Upon my arrival in the park, I was greeted by three police cars who were just leaving – apparently having had to deal with some unruly teenagers. They had released what were described to me as ‘fire bombs’ which are joke items often called ‘smoke bombs’ or ‘stink bombs’ and are novelty items designed for harmless pranks rather than actual destruction. They release a cloud of coloured smoke or an unpleasant odour when crushed, lit, or dropped. I suppose it is the start of the long summer vacations and bored adolescents were responsible but I did two circuits of the lake and then came home. The news media was dominated by the news of Andy Burnham’s cabinet  as posts appeared to be filled one by one. The wings of the Labour party had a candidate each (Ed Miliband and Shabana Mahmood) and by appointing either to the crucial role of Chancellor, Burnham would have risked alienating one large portion of the party another. To solve this dilemma, Burnham appointed John Healey who was the well established and well-trusted figure who had resigned as Defence Secretary when he failed to secure sufficient funding for Defence so now in charge of the nation’s finances. The boot, as they say, is now on the other foot. In the morning, I spent some time chatting with my son who called around after his swim and also with our domestic help who was recovering from a bout of sickness and then it was time for me to journey into town and to attend my Pilates class. I intended to wear the over-sized shorts bought recently n a charity shop but my domestic help promptly insisted that if  were to wear them I would be the laughing stock of the town so after the obligatory photograph had been taken, I obliged her and I changed into a more conventional pair of shorts. In my music lounge, I discovered a little pile of about six illustrated children’s books written and illustrated in such a way that a child between the age of 4-6 could have the bedtime story read to them by a parent and as the children got older, they could have course read these story books for themselves. There was one charity shop in Droitwich which always had a marvellous selection of such books and as Meg’s dementia progressed, I used to read these stories to Meg and she could look follow the illustrations as I fead. I think that these stories gave Meg quite a lot of pleasure until her cognitive powers had diminished completely and coming across the pile of books gave me some pangs of sorrow, particularly as I flicked through the pages of her favourite ones. My domestic help was more than happy  to take this collection of books where they might come into useful for the dementia sufferers in the residential home in which she works as the entertainments manager.

When I returned home, I cooked myself a portion of risotto which I rescued from the bowels of my freezer, after which  I was contacted by my American fiend who has having a new TV installed by John Lewis. The  TV set appears to be working  correctly but I am not sure that the internet connection she has (via Sky) is working very well or even at all. So I suspect that some traumas might lie ahead whilst we get the internet connection sorted out and my friend is not well informed about matters technological so it is difficult to give advice without looking at the whole setup. I am unsure how to help my friend out of this dilemma and I suspect that a joint visit to the EE shop or the our local TV retailer on the on the High Street may be the next step along although we could always trawl the net for an independent installer to diagnose and then fix my friend’s system.  In the afternoon my friend came around to give me a progress on her TV installation and afterwards we went for a walk in the park to clear our heads and to discuss TV and related issues. At the very end of our walk, we fell into conversation with a chap who was loading things into his car and at this time of night, people  are very relaxed, friendly and wiling to engage in all kinds of conversations. Initially talking about cars, we discussed the benefits of a daily walk and it transpired that the person with whom we were taking intended to undertake the Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain, probably  joining the French route. It looked as though he was going to fly to Madrid and then join a more organised group where they would walk 25-30 kilometres a day and stay in the designated hostels along the route.  I explained that my friend and I intended to visit Santiago de Compostela if our predicted holiday to Spain next February  proceeds without a hitch. Later on this evening, I am going to have a video-chat via WhatsApp with one of my University of Winchester friends whose wife, as it happens is very poorly. We typically chat about once a month and like to provide each other with some mutual help and support where we can. I was delighted that my friend and his wife had managed to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary which is a milestone that not many couples achieve. I think that the published statistics show that the percentage of couples who achieve a 50th wedding anniversary if of the order about 7% which means, of course, that 93% of couples do not as death, divorce and separation take their toll. I must admit that in the last day or so, I experienced a little twinge of sadness when  I reflected how interested and excited Meg would have been about the accession of Andy Burnham to Downing Street. Meg and I spent six very formative years of our life in Manchester as we had both been to university  there and then studied for our Masters there. I also spent a couple of years teaching in a College of Education in Manchester and it is inevitable that we should continue to have feelings of affiliation for the city in which we had met each other, been to university, bought our first house there, have our son born there and worked in vacation jobs in the Manchester factories (as well as the Tiffany’s nightclub) 

The evening before last and the first hour of yesterday morning  were rather taken over by absorbing the news of Spain’s 1:0 victory over Argentina in the World Cup and watching with so much pleasure the joyous moments when players received their medals and finally got their hands on the World Cup itself. I did notice that in the perennial victory photograph of the winning team Donald Trump managed to insert himself into the edge of the picture, not having the sense to realise that the World Cup was about the winers and not about him – I wonder if future photos of this event can be edited so that he is made to disappear from the picture? There are many innovations in this iteration of the World Cup many of which bear an ugly stance of Americanism but there is one innovation which I think is quite healthy. The next World Cup four year’s time will be hosted not by one nation but by a several adjacent nations, namely Spain, Portugal and Morocco. Evidently Spain will be very much the dominant partner in this arrangement and I will, for one, will welcome the European time zone but I do wonder whether the heat of the Iberian peninsular will be rather too hot for the staging of a World Cup? I suppose this can be mitigated by evening kick-offs but the other alternative will be adaptations to the stadia which might prove to be prohibitively expensive and can it be done in time even with four years notice? Now that the World Cup is over, we can return to a more domestic agenda and in response to my enquiry, I received a very full and welcoming email inviting me to the next meeting of the Philosophy group of U3A. This  I think I will almost certainly attend on a regular basis for a variety of reasons, not least that the venue is in the training room of one of the local supermarkets in which by definition, there is plenty of free and easily accessible parking and the group very conveniently meets on a Friday (the last of each month) and has an attendance fee of 50p a session. I informed the convenor that I had no formal training in Philosophy  (which is not a precondition) but on reflection, I think this is not entirely true. Desperate to get some GCE ‘A’levels, I actually did choose to study a course in Logic in which I attended no classes but did purchase a series of duplicated notes from a correspondence college called Wolsey Hall College, Oxford. The syllabus was reassuring very short and I did study one of those ‘Teach yourself’ books on the subject. In brief, I enjoyed this course tremendously and found the content of the course very useful in my later academic life and actually achieved a grade ‘B’ in the subject so  suppose I can say, upon reflection, that I have received  some systematic instruction in one of the constituent branches of philosophy. Also, having been in a department of Public Administration for much of my academic life, I have inevitably been exposed to some of the classic arguments of political philosophy (including, of course, Marx) and have been well immersed in the deep debates over the logical basis of scientific discovery in which I have always been deeply interested and incorporated into the courses that I taught in Research  Methods within the social sciences. So despite my telling the convenor of the group that I had no formal training in philosophy, this is true of the major branches of the subject but I have been exposed to some of its constituent parts. I need also to have a good look around in my bookshelves to see if I can locate the book called ‘Sophies’s World’ which was a cult book in the 1970’s and was written as a primer for 14 year old Norwegian schoolchildren (a project which one could never date to attempt  in the British educational system by the way). This will bring my U3A membership of groups to four on top of which there are monthly coach excursions to nearby places of interest so I think will probably stop joining more groups at this point for fear of over-committing myself.

The day has been spent quietly but I did spend a little amount  of time locating some of the philosophy books I have on my shelves, locating the one  wanted to re-read most of all (‘Sophie’s World’) and ordering a couple  of cut-price introduction to philosophy guides at the same time. We have witnessed the smooth transition of power from Keir Starmer to Andy Burnham who has become the UK’s seventh Prime Minister in 10 years. In an interview in Downing Street and before  entering No. 10 for the first time as PM, Andy Burnham announced that his first act was to put into place measures that would ensure that homeless people sleeping rough on the streets of our cities would be removed, presumably to appropriate accommodation. This sound an interesting first policy to announce and I think it has been done before. At Christmastime, there is often and concerted effort to provide accommodation to the homeless over the Christmas period, not least because  of charities such as ‘Crisis at Christmas’ Also, if my memory serves me correctly, at the outbreak of the COVID epidemic, the homeless were offered accommodation to get them off the streets and to assist the policies designed to stop the spread of infection so if we could offer accommodation to the homeless on a short-term basis, we know it should be possible to organise a scheme on a more permanent basis, whatever the cost. We are promised the publication of a ten-year plan to act as a sort of ‘political reset’ for the country and this should settle some of the policies of the newly reconstituted government. Also, of course, we should expect the announcement of the new cabinet but this may take a day or so and normally involves would-be ministers walking the length of Downing Street but saying nothing until a formal statement is issued. It does happen, of course, that would-be ministers are offered one portfolio but either turn it down or bargain for another one so the construction of a new cabinet is a little akin to the completion of a jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes, prime ministers (such  as Margaret Thatcher) use this as a technique to reward supporters and to banish opponents but Andy Burnham may be trying a balancing act to represent leanings of left and right in the Labour party as well as considering both regional representations as well as keeping Wales and Scotland on side, so this is never an easy task.

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.