Yesterday was a most remarkable day in many ways – but then Boxing Days are often unusual. The carers were due at 8.00pm and I had actually got up at 5.30 in the morning not wishing to oversleep my normal getting up time of 6.00am. But we waited and waited and nobody turned up and Meg was showing some signs of agitation after the long wait. So I fed her some banana and some yogurt in anticipation of the breakfast I would cook her once the carers had departed. In practice they both turned up at 9.00am as their schedules had been changed but one way or another the agency had neglected to tell me about it. So the two carers did a great job despite last night being a little unsatisfactory and then one of them was scheduled to stay on as Meg’s sit so that I could do some shopping – not that any shopping needed doing on this occasion. So I decided that after breakfast, it would be a good idea that Meg and I and the carer would make a trip down the hill, have a coffee in Waitrose and then return – this way, Meg could get some of the fresh air she had been denied over the last day or so. When we got to the bottom of the hill, we discovered that Waitrose was closed so pressed on to reach the High Street and we made our way for our second favourite cafe being ‘The Lemon Tree‘ But this too was closed so we headed back into one of the few coffee shops open on the High Street that seemed to be teeming as a consequence. It was a bit of a cold and drizzly day and Meg was not feeling at her best so we all had some hot chocolate but would have done if we had not waited so long for it to be prepared. So we requested some ‘take out’ cups and made our way back up the hill again, by which time our ‘sit’ carer needed to depart. Whilst Meg drank her re-heated hot chocolate back in the comfort of our Music Lounge, I popped some of the leftovers from yesterday into the oven for lunch, parboiled some purple sprouting broccoli before this too was destined for the oven and put some of the slices of beef from yesterday into the gravy. As this was cooking, the two carers for Meg’s midday visit arrived and after they had checked Meg over, I took the opportunity to dash out in the car to collect a copy of ‘The Times’ which is published on Boxing Days. One of the carers who was Polish looked absolutely exhausted and she explained that she and eight children had been up until 1.00am in the morning, singing karaoke. She also mentioned that the Poles celebrated Christmas Eve in great style and I know that in Poland and other Eastern European societies there is a tradition of eating a fish such as carp in a huge meal on Christmas Eve. Whether our Polish carer had eaten carp or another fish, I was not able to discern but she mention that she was fed up to the eyeballs with dumplings and red cabbage which, no doubt, is traditional Polish fare. After the carers had departed, Meg and I settled down to watch ‘Paddington’ (i.e. the very first) whilst we were eating our Boxing Day lunch. I have always maintained that Paddington has some elements and themes that appeal to adults whilst probably being lost on a child audience. These include such issues as how British people (especially Londoners) treat newly arrived immigrants, respect for other cultures and so on. As soon as Paddington was concluded, I swapped over channels and viewed the last half or so of the film of ‘Dad’s Army’ which I have seen several times before but is always worth another viewing.

Today is the 20th anniversary of the greatest tsunami that the modern world may ever have known with 230,000 victims in total. The tsunami affected 12 countries along bordering on the Indian ocean with the Aceh Province of Indonesia bearing the brunt of the event. The newsreels have been full of communities visiting the sea and other memorials by laying floral tributes and other forms of commemoration and, of course, we have a lot of video footage of the actual event that the media are not hesitating to show us. Meanwhile, back at home it appears that the Boxing sales are disappointing and the reports seem to indicate a lower footfall than expected. But host of factors are at work here, not least that the amount of real, disposable income is so reduced over the years coupled with the rise of on-line shopping and perhaps an appreciation that the sales are not as genuine as might be thought as returned and rather sub-standard items are especially bought in for the sales which are not as ‘genuine’ as might be though

Last night after Meg was finally put asleep, I scanned the TV channels to see what was worth viewing. Eventually, I settled upon Lehar’s ‘Merry Widow’ which I suppose can be labelled as operetta or light opera rather than the classical repetoire of what is sometimes called ‘grand’ opera. Nonetheless, the singing was of a high order and the costume department, being a Glyndebourne production, must have worked overtime. The singers seemed to be really enjoying themselves which is one index of success I suppose. Whilst the opera was playing in the background, I engaged in a little task I have never actually done systematically before. From our definitive Christmas card list, I marked off those who had sent us a card if only to discern who had not sent us a card this year. As two of then very close friends and one of them our son’s godfather, this is a source of concern to us as I know that neither of the two couples are in the best of health, I am left wondering if either of them have passed away and there is no way that we had been told. One of our best friends in Leicestershire who was a very good neighbour to us died but it was only the non receipt of a Christmas card that alerted us to the fact. Although this might sound a bit macabre, once you reach a certain age you want to know that your contemporaries are still around.

Today is the 20th anniversary of the greatest tsunami that the modern world may ever have known with 230,000 victims in total.Today is the 20th anniversary of the greatest tsunami that the modern world may ever have known with 230,000 victims in total.The tsunami affected 12 countries along bordering on the Indian ocean with the Aceh Province of Indonesia bearing the brunt of the event. The newsreels have been full of communities visiting the sea and other memorials by laying floral tributes and other forms of commemoration and, of course, we have a lot of video footage of the actual event that the media are not hesitating to show us. Meanwhile, back at home it appears that the Boxing sales are disappointing and the reports seem to indicate a lower footfall than expected. But host of factors are at work here, not least that the amount of real, disposable income is so reduced over the years coupled with the rise of on-line shopping and perhaps an appreciation that the sales are not as genuine as might be thought as returned and rather sub-standard items are especially bought in for the sales which are not as ‘genuine’ as might be thought.

Yesterday being Christmas Day, we were still due our full package of four carer visits for the day but instead of the normal starting call of 8.00am this had been retimed to 7.00am which seems very early for us. But there was an organisational reason for this as the care agency had tried to arrange its packages of care in such a way that the Christmas duties were spread around the staff and their work organised into ‘windows’ so that it did not impact too adversely on Christmas activities with their own families. All of this I perfectly understood but was not sorry when the workers arrived (complete with Miggles, the cat of course) about ten minutes late. There is always a certain amount of running around to do and preparations before the carers arrive so I was not sorry for them being late today. Making conversations with the two care workers this morning, I am not sure how we arrived at the topic of my connections with the world of popular culture but I did recount a story from my youth. As a part time job whilst I was a student at Manchester University, I was employed as a barman in a nightclub called ‘Tiffanys’ which was part of the Mecca group. The two girl singers in the resident band we always thought were rather good, as indeed they were, because a few years later they detached themselves and formed the female part of a band called ‘The New Seekers’. This band achieved some fame by coming second in the Eurovision Song Contest and even the story here is quite interesting. The band recorded ‘I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing’ in 1971 and it became an enormous hit selling 12 million copies. The success of the song led to the band representing the UK at the 1972 Eurovision Song Contest, which took place at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh. Monaco could not afford to host the competition after victory in 1971. The song was eventually adopted by Coca Cola with the lyrics ‘I’d like to buy the World a Coke’ and became exceptionally well known and embedded in popular culture. But the lead singer, Eve Graham, has always maintained that the band were completely ripped off by Coca Cola and never received the royalties that they truly deserved. Having explained all of this to the carers, I thought that one of them with several boys ranging in age from 5 to 15 could say that she cared for a person whose husband once knew and worked with singers who became ‘The New Seekers’ The morning followed a predictable Christmas morning pattern with present opening following our normal style breakfast. We then entertained ourselves with repeats of some of the Christmastime animated cartoon, including some Wallace and Gromit. Incidentally, for those of you who assiduously follow all of the credits following these films, I am particularly to be credited as an assistant puppet maker for the animated cartoon ‘A Good Day Out’ and wealso watched the last few minutes of ‘The Snowman’ followed by ‘Mog’s Christmas’. These had just nicely finished when it was time for two of the younger carers to call around for Meg’s lunchtime call. Being Christmas, I gave them each a (very) small drink of a Pellegrino orange flavoured spring water topped up by a little Prosecco and Meg and I actually drank the same combination as well. Christmas lunch followed fairly swiftly because I had cooked our beef in the slow cooker the night before ad prepped some of the vegetables, Then I parboiled the sprouts and carrots and finished them by roasting in the oven, complementing the sprouts with a little bag of chestnuts and finishing off with some Yorkshire pudding. After lunch, we watched the closing stages of ‘Swan Lake’ and eventually turned our attention to the sequel to the Railway Children which I could only watch sporadically because I was busy doing the washing up after lunch (which was not too stressful I am pleased to say) Our carer for the afternoon came along bearing an afternoon gift of some Lindt chocolates which was very thoughtful of him. In many ways, I think that Christmas Day has to be carefully managed as none of the normal rules of living living apply.

The end of the day did not end particularly well for either of us. The schedule for Christmas Day said that the ‘putting to bed’ carer was to be single handed and this particular carer, whilst her heart is in the right place, is inclined to rush and bustle to get the job done which does not bode well. The originally scheduled time was 7.20pm but this was changed at the last moment to 7.00pm but the carer turned up 10 minutes early because she wanted to leave early. Now it is fairly crucial that the workers turn out up at the appointed time and not too early as there are various routines (such as giving Meg her pills the right time before bedtime, the washing materials to be put in place, my bed to be made up) and so on. So Meg was particularly grumpy and truculent in the hands of the carer and I was obliged to use much gentler and more coaxing methods to get Meg to cooperate in getting her undressed and ready for bed. In addition, of course, I had to act as the second carer and our day had already started an hour earlier this morning than it should. So all in all, it was not a very happy end to the day and rather put a dampner on what should have been a happy and relaxing day. On some ways Boxing Day is a more normal day even though part of the holiday season and does not have the same emotional pull as Christmas Day itself. The big department stores used to start their Boxing Day sales on Boxing Day itself and, no doubt, many still do but the patterns of the retail trade are changing fast before our very eyes

Yesterday was evidently Christmas Eve and there was still a certain degree of clearing up to do after our very successful little party for the carers yesterday. The two carers turned up this morning a little late but I really did not mind as I was running a little behind myself. One I had not seen for several months and so there was a certain amount of catching up to do. After we had breakfasted, we were looking forward to seeing our friends down the hill as we generally do each Tuesday and we thought that we try to make it today even on Christmas Eve. When we got there, we did make contact with one of our friends who was especially pleased to see us but not the other two who had warned us that they might be able to make it. After we returned home, we awaited the ‘sit’ call from a carer of whom we are particularly fond – as she is a liberal Muslim, we enjoyed chatting over the kinds of ways that we spend Christmas and the similarities and differences with their parallel celebrations of Eid. She offered to hoover the hall area for me, which offer I gladly accepted as this is the part of the house that has to bear the traffic of the wheelchair itself as well as couple of carers four times a day so regular vacuuming is indeed required. I prepared a lunch in which I poached some mackerel fillets in milk, using the remainder of the milk once the fish had been cooked to make a parsley sauce. This was accompanied by some purple sprouting broccoli and a baked potato and was very enjoyable. As we had so many soft drinks left over from yesterday and the carer had not managed to make the party, I encouraged her to take as many of the spare cans as she needed so that she and her family could enjoy them as a sort of Christmas present tomorrow.

In my ‘computing’ life, I often find that one thing leads to another and so it has proved in the last few days. I found that I could (and did) quite easily install Microsoft’s Outlook on my newly acquired tablet – the only ‘grown up’ software available for the tablet in the opinion of one reviewer. Fortunately, I had links to Outlook on the laptops both in the Main Lounge and also in the Music Lounge so I trying a slightly different way of working (and writing this blog) Outlook can let you use a font called ‘Comic Sans MS’ which is rather like a handwriting script but without the joined up letters. Now there is quite a body of IT professionals who hate this font and think it should be banned or its use officially discouraged as it appears so frivolous and non-serious. But the very first time I saw the font was when the Vice Principal of what was to become the University of Winchester used to use it to write friendly and informative emails to members of staff and it certainly made a favourable impression upon me at the time. I decided to consult the wider internet with the question ‘Am I the only person in the world who likes Comic Sans MS’ and I found an amazing diversity of opinion. There seemed to be quite a number of individuals who thought (like myself) that in its place, Comic Sans MS was suitable for informal documents and anything that, for example, might be used for materials for young school children. I can understand why the computer professionals dislike this font but I think it is ‘horses for courses’ i.e. a formal document should be written in a conventional font but for informal, and one might say trivial, purposes Comic sans MS has its place. Personally, I quite like writing in this font and will continue to use it for drafts and the like but not for other purposes. There seemed to be quite a number of individuals who thought (like myself) that in its place, Comic Sans MS was suitable for informal documents and anything that, for example, might be used for materials for young school children. Personally, I quite like writing in this font and will continue to use it for drafts and the like but not for other purposes.

Christmas Eve afternoons used to follow a traditional pattern in that at 3.00pm the traditional Festival and Carol service is broadcast to the world from King’s College, Cambridge and I generally start to prepare the vegetables for the following day (spouts, parsnips and potatoes generally) But today, I had a mountain of washing up to do, some of it a hangover from yesterday but the rest being from this morning and lunchtime. However, I asked Alexa (the smart speaker system) to play J S Bach’s Christmas music and got a wonderful selection, some of it was drawn from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio as well as old favourites such as the chorale ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’. This last chorale has a particular significance for me. Firstly, it was sung or us at our wedding by a very close friend of mine who I knew in London and who was training to be an opera singer. This was sung from the organ loft and really resonated throughout the church. The second occasion was the morning after I had gained my PhD and I turned on my computer and played a Bach CD and when heard this chorale, I just burst into (happy) tears of relief that I succeeded in gaining my PhD after only 2-3 intensive years of writing. The final occasion was the celebration of our 50th wedding anniversary where a friend of ours who had played the trumpet since his youth (being brought up as a Salvationist where a trumpet was thrust into his hands) played this chorale for us on his trumpet at our celebratory meal. So I found this music a wonderful alternative to my usual fare on a Christmas Eve.

Yesterday was the day of the long anticipated Christmas party but we had to get going a little in the morning before the festivities in the afternoon. After breakfast, we walked down the hill with weather which just a tad less cold than the day before and picked up our copy of ‘The Times‘ Then we started to make our way up the hill and, very fortunately, bumped into our Irish friends when we were just outside their house. For a reason best left to the psychoanalysts, the following image I think would make a memorable Christmas card/cartoon. If I were anything like a decent artist, I would draw Rudolph the reindeer with a lot of Christmas bling wrapped round his nether regions and particularly his testicles singing his heart out. Then I would have Santa on the sled complaining into his mobile phone :’Its no good, I have told Rudolph scores of times that the song is meant to be Jingle BELLS – but you just cannot get the staff these days!’Towards the top of the hill and progressing at a fair rate of knots, I was approached by a gentleman who I very vaguely know by sight and he informed me that he had often witnessed my pushing Meg up the hill. He insisted that he take over and push Meg the last 100-150 yards towards the top of the hill. I then showed him where we live and invited the kind gentleman and his wife to pop in for a Christmas drink any afternoon in the forthcoming festive season. Soon after we got home, the midday carer arrived and as soon as she had departed shortly after 12.00pm, I started to think about the preparations for the party itself.

I decided that I would arrange all of the drinks (some alcoholic) but the vast majority soft drinks – down one side of the kitchen, together with an assortment of glasses, bottle openers and corkscrews. Then all of the food, which was mainly different varieties of mince pies, I arranged on the other side of the kitchen. I had intended to out everything into dishes but in the event, merely opened the boxes so that people could make an informed choice. The youngsters had very kindly clubbed together and brought along a large and tasty cake with some Viennese whirls biscuits and then the system was that having been greeted, the carers could just go and help themselves. This little system seemed to work out fine except that i think I had bought far too much stuff not knowing how many people were going to turn up, how long they were going to stay and how many drinks they intended to consume. I started Meg off with a fairly large glass of fino sherry and then she and I proceeded to drink some prosecco which I suspect that Meg really enjoyed (not having had any alcohol for as long as I can remember)Then we all jollied ourselves, using Alexa on our Toshiba TV to sing some silly Christmas songs as well as more serious ones. I might point out that I had donned a Father Christmas outfit in red flannel on top of my normal clothes and it was enormously hot but I knew it would be like that from previous experiences and I did not feel like removing my normal trousers. I had taken the trouble to obtain some mistletoe (all the way from an apple orchard in Kent as it seemed almost impossible to get locally) This I then split into three, hanging up two portions in our Music Lounge and a further one in the hall. In the event, though, nobody bothered to kiss under the mistletoe so I wondered if this tradition is dying out. The carer who hailed from Cyprus was totally mystified by the whole notion of mistletoe and it evidently only grows in temperate and not in Mediterranean type climates. At one stage we had about eight of the caring staff in attendance including a couple of the managers but we did have to restrain people from talking about work the whole time which I suppose is inevitable. As always happens in every kind of party, there was a natural gravitation towards the kitchen but that after all is where the food and drink was laid out. In the late afternoon, people started to drift away but I think a good time was had by all. I had already prepared some Christmas cards for every one attending and to make sure that there was no discrimination of any kind, each carer received the same card which was a Picaso like ‘Dove of Peace’ and a message of thanks to everyone for their care and attention throughout the year. For my part, I had prepared a little blank booklet with a Christmassy type front cover and then I invited everyone at the party to write a few words in it of whatever they wanted to say. When all of the care workers had left, Meg and I were very touched by reading the messages written inside.

The previous evening, and before I came to bed, I was thinking about the email client that could be installed into the little tablet which is a sort of advance Christmas present. I already had a subscription to Microsoft’s Outlook so I cleared out the junk that accumulates when you do not use an email client very often. I was a bit disturbed to find a couple of emails thanking me for a subscription to some sort of video downloads and thanking me for the last payment made and the next one anticipated. This sent me scurrying towards my online bank statements where I was relieved to discover that no money had left my account. So I sent off an email to the company, indicating that their email client list was scrambled or malfunctioning and could they sort it for me as soon as possible. Later on, I did get an email from the support department indicating that their customer who had a name almost identical with mine but with a different middle name had probably made an error and quoting the incorrect (i.e. my email address) to the company. But at least the mistake has now been rectified and I can breathe a bit more easily. The thing that I rather like about Outlook despite its apparent complexity at first glance was that it was very easy to set up a forwarding service to ensure that any emails received by Outlook were immediately transmitted to my principal email client. Another feature is the provision of five aliases which are incredibly useful if you need to supply an email address to an organisation but are fearful about your principal email address being used for spam or other nefarious purposes.

So Meg and I were woken at 6.00am a little earlier than we would normally like but it was the opportunity to get some jobs done before the carers called around. They were scheduled about an hour later than normal but the agency seemed to be beset with staff problems as people phoned in as sick and this means that the work rotas are subject to a constant churning. Nonetheless, we breakfasted and then received a telephone call from our good University of Birmingham friend and we agreed that we would meet for coffee at about 10.45. The weather was somewhat windy and a little unpleasant but we made quite fast progress down the hill and actually arrived just before our appointed time, as it were. We soon made contact with our friend and I spoke with him excitedly about my latest little venture into IT, about which more anon. We were within a few minutes of leaving when we were approached by someone from our local church who I know fairly well as we were on a Church committee together. I shall call my friend, Fergus for the time being but I was extraordinarily pleased to see him. Fergus is a very devout Catholic and played a very full part in our services, often reading some of the lessons. He is a very chirpy Dubliner who always seems to have a smile on his face and to be enjoying his life to the full. But the last we bumped into each other in the Waitrose carpark, he informed me that he had been diagnosed with an inoperable oesophageal cancer but did not seem particularly perturbed by the fact that he had only been given a month or so to live. I suppose that for a man of his very strong faith, the imminent meeting with one’s Creator is a cause of celebration and joy, not of despair. We exchanged some jokes often of an Irish bent as we are wont to do and then Fergus insisted that our University of Birmingham friend take a photograph ‘for the record’ of Meg, Fergus and myself. This photo was taken on Fergus’s iphone and then we made sure that he had my details in his ‘Contacts’ list and very shortly, we had in our WhatsApp, the photograph itself and a link to some extra funny Irish videoclips. We then had to dash up the hill because we were in danger of not getting home before the next scheduled visit of the carers. The journey up the hill was unpleasant in the extreme and we had a fairly icy blast in her faces with temperatures hovering around freezing. I must say that these are some of the most unpleasant journeys that Meg and I have had to make up the hill but as I went as fast as my limbs would allow and Meg, for her part, bore the really unpleasant conditions with a great deal of fortitude.

In the late morning, I received a telephone call from my son who was due to call around in the early afternoon but in the event had decided in view of the inclement weather (a threat of snow where he lived)to postpone his visit. But then the icy rain cloud was swept away and there was a brief burst of sunshine so my son decided to call around after all. Naturally, I was more than pleased to see him and we discussed the piece of IT kit which I had bought with some Christmas present money (from him) We had a mince pie together and then he needed to depart and he and his wife are no doubt getting some last minute jobs done before they both go off to their favourite hotel in Stratford at which they normally enjoy spending Christmas. So we shall not see him until a few days after Christmas now but I trust that after the pretty horrific year that he and his wife had had, they get some decent rest (as well as pleasant company)

As I have mentioned before, the force of habit means that I tend to buy the ‘Radio Times’ once a year and that is the bumper edition that covers both Christmas and the New Year period. So this year, I forked out nearly £6.00 but was somewhat disappointed with what I got. Over the years, I have been used to a list of films (sometimes as many as 10O)and then one can plan ahead. But this feature was not apparent this year so the utility of the whole was diminished for me. Then quite by chance when I was near the counter in Waitrose my eye fell across a publication called ‘What’s on TV’ and this, too, was dedicated to the listings over the fortnight of the festive period but at a sale price of £1.70 which is less than a third of what I paid for the ‘Radio Times’. On getting it home and perusing its contents, I was very pleasantly surprised. Each day had a four page spread of two pages (i.e. 8 pages in all) with a beautiful colour coding and the day’s best offerings given a highlighting and some special treatment in case you were to miss them. So I ended up being as impressed by the recently discovered periodical as well as being under whelmed by the Radio Times.

Sky News is reporting late on Sunday that Labour are on track for their worst end to the year in opinion polls since the Second World War. Sir Keir Starmer’s party is now averaging just 26.6%, despite winning one of the largest-ever majorities five months ago. Analysis of nearly 1,000 polls across 75 years found Labour are now 1% behind their previous end-of-year low in 2016, when Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure was dogged by an antisemitism row and leadership challenges. The only other years to rival their current low were 1981, when the new SDP-Liberal Alliance upended politics, and after a decade of power in 2009, when the party was reeling from the recession and expenses scandal. Labour are still leading the polls, but are now just 0.5% ahead of the Conservatives – well down on their 19% lead in January. Kemi Badenoch’s party has been practically stagnant for some time. It now sits on 26.1%, barely 2% above when Liz Truss resigned. Perhaps none of this should be a great surprise to us at the end of the year. It was evident during the election campaign that there was no real enthusiasm for the Labour Party but the feeling to get rid of the Conservative party overwhelmed the lack of enthusiasm for the Labour Party. Since taking office, they seem to quite maladroit in their handling of some problem issues and there have already been one or two scandals which encourages the electorate in the belief that ‘they are all the same’.

Today our two carers turned up on time and this always gets us off to a good start in the day. After breakfast, we knew that we were going to journey down the hill, although to be fair the weather seemed a little threatening. Once down in Waitrose, we met up with two of our three friends and had a jolly time as we were looking forward to Christmas with the most of the major tasks such as Christmas shopping behind us. For lunch today, I was not absolutely sure what we were going to have so I raided the freezer and discovered something unlabelled but it appeared to me to be a salmon risotto. Anyway, that got rescued and then heated up and supplemented by some curly kale which in truth was not very nice. We do eat kale but the superb variety which has especially bred (‘Cavolo Nero’)is delicious with a slightly nutty flavour and I actually bought some in my Friday shop. After lunch, we watched quite a bit of an André Rieu concert. I can quite see how classically trained musicians turn their noses up at these kinds of performances with the audience members and performers in flamboyant attire and much dancing in the aisles. But one has to say that if you were actually present in one of these concerts, you would find the atmosphere infectious and would probably end up having a really good time. It might be the judicious use of camera shots but the impression generated is that people really enjoy this kind of concert experience. After this, we started to watch a Wallace & Grommit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit which is evidently a kid’s style of entertainment. I am not sure whether Meg followed all of the twists but in this story but towards the end we were interrupted by the doorbell. It turned out to be the Asian neighbour who lives in the house opposite the greened area in our little community. She had popped across with a Christmas card and a Christmas gift for Meg and myself which was very welcome and left underneath the tree. The neighbour and I exchanged some thoughts about the Christian story both in our religion and also in Hinduism and Islam. Our neighbour told us that one occasion, she decided to read some of the New Testament story. Something that made us both smile was the fact that whereas in the Christian bible we have the story of the magic multiplication of a few loaves and fishes sufficient for the ‘Feeding of the 5000’ a similar story has found its way into the holy writings of some of the Asian religions. But what made us both giggle was the fact that in the Asian stories the loaves and fishes have been replaced by chapatis!

The government is planning to bring back the family doctor by giving GPs an extra £889m to spend time with patients in a bid to end a dispute. Under proposals for the new GP contract for 2025/26, which is being consulted upon now, GPs would be incentivised to ensure patients most in need see the same doctor every time. The government said it will provide an extra £889m on top of the existing GP budget to help slash red tape so doctors can do their jobs. Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said the plan is also to reduce the number of ‘outdated performance targets’ from 76 to 44 so GPs can spend more time with patients. GPs who are members of the British Medical Association (BMA) are currently in a period of ‘collective action’, voted on in August, as they say their annual budget increases over the past five years have fallen well below inflation – making it difficult for doctors to meet the rising costs of operating practices – and driving hundreds of surgeries to close. One would have thought that this government move would be very much in line with the expectations and wishes of patients who have often expressed the desire to see one ‘family doctor’. But I can foresee lots of difficulties in implementing these ideas. The concept of the family doctor probably dates from the 1950’s where doctors worked as single handed practitioners or sometimes in pairs. But today, doctors are often in a group practice with as many as 10 doctors, not to mention ‘physician associates’ If patients were to be given a choice, they would always choose the most experienced and/or the doctor perceived as the most competent and sympathetic and under these circumstances, some doctors would sought after by many of the patients and some not chosen by many (or indeed any) So how is this going to be managed? Allocating patients to a doctor not of their own choosing could well be a recipe for disaster and be another source of dissatisfaction. As a parallel argument, when I was a teacher in higher education, each student was allocated to a tutor who was meant to be their personal tutor and the academic to whom the student would turn if there were problems of a non-academic nature that needed some resolution. But these systems never worked and in practice, students sought out those tutors with whom they felt they could share a confidence and tutors acquiesced in this. A practical problem which could well arise, for example, is that a female student experiencing any gynaecological issues of any kind would probably not feel comfortable talking to a male (particularly unmarried) tutor about this and would seek out a female tutor and one can quite understand why. So returning to the ‘family doctor’ idea, I wonder how this is going to be put into practice and I have the feeling that whatever scheme is introduced will fall some way short of patient expectations.

Now that Christmas is almost upon us, I am very struck by the stress that Christmas can induce (and there is a parallel argument for summer holidays as well) The amount of running around (shopping, gift exchanges, cards, visiting relatives and so on) may be entirely disproportionate to the eventual amount of pleasure derived. I am also very conscious that it is the women of the household to whom the strain and the extra preparations for Christmas is the greatest. Without wishing to sound too curmudgeonly about all of this, whilst we all need a mid winter break, I can understand why the enforced jollity and celebrations over Christmas can prove too much for many. I would exclude families with young children from these strictures because the Santa myth lives on and with good reason.

Today we knew was going to be the start of a busy day but we both had a good night’s sleep last night so were ready to face the day. After the carers had got Meg up and we had breakfasted, we had a good chat and exchange of some Christmas presents and cards with our domestic help before anticipating the call of our ‘sit’ carer who was due later in the morning. Then the Eucharistic minister called around and we held our little service, made a little more poignant because she, too, had lost her brother-in-law within the last week. Then I knew it was time for me to face the multitudes whilst the Christmas shopping needed to be done, postponed since yesterday. But just before I went out, our domestic help and I amused each other by getting Alexa to sing some silly Christmas songs. The one which I had not heard before was ‘I want a hippopotamus for Christmas’ whilst, for my part, I remembered ‘All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth’ But more seriously, I remembered that my sister and I had jointly bought a record of a modern Christmas carol called ‘Mary’s Boy Child’ which was written by Jester Hairston in 1956. The Christmas song is, due to its religious lyrics, also considered as a Christmas carol. But the version that my sister and I bought in about 1960 was by the Cuban/American Harry Belafonte. He lived to the ripe old age of 96 and only died last year in 2023. Harry Belafonte was a legendary singer and actor who broke racial barriers in the US and campaigned for black civil rights. He was also a friend and ally of Martin Luther King, and organised the charity single ‘We Are the World’. So eventually I hit the road to do our Christmas shopping, fearful of what was going to meet me. Ads I expected, I needed to circulate around the car park three or four times to get a parking space but, in the event, the store did not seem too crowded inside and the whole ‘Christmas’ shop was not quite as stress-filled or as expensive as I thought it might be. I finished up buying several varieties of mince pies not only with our own consumption in mind but also thinking ahead to the nibbles to be put out for people to enjoy in the Christmas party which the carers will hopefully enjoy next Monday.

When I got back home with my six bags of shopping, Meg had been cared for both by the ‘sit’ carer who was complemented by the midday carer who makes sure that Meg is comfortable. Then I started to unpack the voluminous shopping but stopped halfway to make some lunch. We were running somewhat late by this time so I cut some corners by doing a sort of stir-fry using onions, peppers, fragments of ham and some tomatoes. I then made a sort of Spanish omelette by beating up four eggs and making a sort of mixture. In the afternoon, I hunted out a program first broadcast yesterday on the life of Caroline Aherne (aka ‘Mrs Merton’) who died at the tragically young age of 52. After this biopic was broadcast so too was one of the Mrs Merton shows so this provided some interesting entertainment in the afternoon. To get a little more in the Christmassy mood, I have started to play Handel’s ‘Messiah’ on my smart speakers and am enjoying a performance by ‘The Sixteen’. I always associated ‘The Messiah’ with the Huddersfield Choral Society who must have made some of the definitive recordings. As the carers come and go, I need to ascertain if I am due to see them again before Christmas day. If not, then I give them one of the collection of Christmas cards but most will get them next Monday on ‘party’ day. I feel that I have just about variety of soft drinks to suit almost everybody – paradoxically, alcohol is no problem but hardly any of the carers will be drinking it. But I have stocked up on about four different varieties of mince pies as well as stollen and some crisps so should have enough to eat. Two of the younger carers are coming along, perhaps in their party gear, to help me to prepare things on Monday and I do know that they secretly love coming here and feel at home here (as we are almost like kindly grandparents to them)

There are real shenanigans occurring in the US where some hard line Republicans are threatening to effectively shut down the government. The US government could shut down in a matter of hours unless politicians agree on a spending deal.A compromise put forward by Republicans and Democrats collapsed on Wednesday after billionaire Elon Musk publicly hit out at the proposal. The tech tycoon’s stance was backed by president-elect Donald Trump, who wants to increase the debt ceiling, which caps the amount the federal government can borrow. But his revamped plan to suspend the cap for two years lost in a vote on Thursday. If a deal is not reached by midnight – 5am on Saturday UK time – the government will shut down, meaning federal employees and military personnel will not be paid. Several Republicans had said they were not interested in getting rid of the debt ceiling if they did not also cut spending.The outcome is a massive setback for Mr Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk, who has been tasked by the incoming president with pruning the federal budget. This is not the first time that we have a scenario like this and the issue is nearly always the same – either agree to increase borrowing to finance necessary state spending or effectively shut down the government. But some commentators are saying that Elon Musk, an entirely unelected private citizen, is practically acting as a co-President by intervening in governmental decision making and all of this before inauguration day. We are used in this country to extraordinarily fast transfers of powers when a general election is won or lost with the defeated Prime Minister exiting within hours and the newly elected Prime Minister moving in that day. The removal vans are typically sent to the back of Downing Street to restore a bit of dignity to the proceedings. But the American system has this long gap between election day and inauguration day so that newly appointed officials can be briefed on their new role by the outgoing administration.

Today has been rather a strange day if only because our by now established routines have been disrupted somewhat. Thursdays are the days when I normally get my shopping done but today we had no ‘sit’ carer allocated to is because it was the agency’s Christmas ‘do’ and all of the staff were expected to attend. Our sit function has now been moved to Friday when I am sure the supermarket will be heaving but at least we are getting a sit services from the agency. After breakfast, I pushed Meg down the hill and the weather was cold but not too unpleasant. Once inside Waitrose, I needed to buy two separate kinds of milk and I also treated ourselves to some more ‘stollen’ which to my mind is much nicer than Christmas cake. Meg and I quickly consumed the stollen I bought last week and we hope to replenish supplies tomorrow, Then it was up the hill but there was a cold and icy blast which made the journey really unpleasant. Then we regaled ourselves with some soup and eventually, after watching some news programmes, thought about lunch was quite a specialised quiche which I cooked with some spaghetti hoops and green beans. I had my lunch just before the carers paid the midday visit to Meg, after which she had her portion. In the afternoon, we took the entire collection of Christmas cards that we had received and went through them carefully one by one.

We are not too far off the shortest day – and the longest night of the year. Normally, I look forward very much to getting 21st December behind us because I can then tell myself that it is getting lighter and lighter by a tiny smidgeon each day. But the coldest night of the year is often in late January or even mid-February. This afternoon, after Meg and I repaired to our main (traditional) sitting room, we watched a ‘Private Eye’ review of the year 2024 which was quite entertaining. ‘Private Eye’ is an interesting periodical not least because it survives by employing hardly any staff or journalists at all. What happens is that investigative reporters come back to their newspapers with stories of juicy scandals but often the sub-editors are wary of running a story lest it run foul of the legal process. Having uncovered a scandal and then discovering that the story had been ‘spiked’ (literally out on a spike in newspaper offices which is what happens to stories that cannot be published) the journalists in frustration telephone Private Eye who then publish the story willy-nilly. Of course, Private Eye used to be sued regularly but they could rely upon the generosity of the public and sometimes other wealthy donors to pay the fines. Very occasionally, the ‘Eye’ does win a libel case but it expects to lose these cases quire regularly and devotes about a quarter of its revenues to pay the fines handed out by the courts.

One of the greatest reform to how Parliament works have been the Select Committee, often staffed by very knowledgable MPs who can grill witness, civil servants and ministers. About twice a year, the Prime Minister is asked to appear before a Liaison Committee which I think is staffed by the chairs of other committees and is consequently quite a high powered body. Defiant and across the detail, but uninspiring and a little spiky at times, is how the PM navigated his first Liaison Committee appearance. The 90 minutes of intense questioning by committee chairs was not a source of much festive cheer as Keir Starmer joylessly ploughed through the session – taking on topics from temporary housing to global stability. From Number 10’s perspective it will be considered a success, with hours of preparation meaning he avoided any nightmare moments before Christmas. From the MPs perspective, some appeared frustrated at Sir Keir’s refusal to admit mistakes and his defence of unpopular policies. Another theme was his government’s ambitious targets and the lack of obvious roadmap to achieving them – primarily on growth, defence spending and immigration. His answer was always to blame what he inherited from the Conservatives and to insist that he would meet his goals given time. A particularly illuminating moment came at the end, when he was asked three times by committee chair Meg Hillier if he had any regrets looking back on his time in office so far. The reply, after some pressing, was ‘no’ – displaying a level of stubbornness and inflexibly that will either drive or ultimately destroy his premiership. This is an interesting observation to make. Evidently, no Prime Minister would want to see themselves portrayed as constantly vacillating, changing their minds on policy and thereby appearing weak and indecisive. But Keir Starmer seems to have got himself into a position (with withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance to pensioners, the row over inheritance with farmers and finally the ‘Waspi’ women) where there is a very clear case to be made for at least looking again at issues to try to defuse them. Starmer’s categorical refusal to examine the cases on their merits but to stick rigidly to their first position does not, to me, look like the hallmark of a strong Prime Minister. Admittedly, there are tremendous political difficulties in even half admitting that one might have got things wrong but the politics is fundamentally an art rather than a science and there are ways in which can refine a policy whilst maintaining the principle involved. I have the feeling, though, that these three issues are going to stick in the minds of many people for a long time to come and it is probably the case that the political cost of sticking to one’s original position gets higher and higher. One can almost see the next Tory manifesto being written and there are important elections looming ahead in the Spring on 1st May, 2025. Some 2,240 councillors across 1,968 wards will be elected in 32 Councils, including all 21 County Councils, 10 Unitary Authorities, and 1 Metropolitan Borough and these will be the biggest test of public opinion since the general election held earlier this year. One of the great unknowns at this stage is whether ‘Reform’ armed with a war chest of money from Elon Musk could help to give the Tories the bloodiest of bloody noses. But this oddities of cash heading towards our shores will probably be declared ‘legal’ if it comes from a subsidiary branch of a British company. But a clear case of buying political power and influence and subverting the democratic process seems to be unfolding before our eyes.

Both sets of care workers arrived on time today which is something of a record these days. The company has been adversely affected by lots of workers calling in ‘sick’ at the last moment and I wonder whether all of this is a product of the ‘zero hours’ contracts that are in place. The first workers were scheduled to be 35 minutes later than usual so this meant that we had a somewhat delayed breakfast time. Our domestic help normally calls around on a Wednesday but she was feeling pretty exhausted so is delaying her visit to us until Friday. Friday will turn out to be quite a busy day because we are expecting our Eucharistic minister on that day (despite a death within the family) and then we have a delayed ‘sit’ call whilst I can off and do our Christmas shopping. I expect Friday will be rather a hellish day at the supermarket but at least we now have a ‘sit’ organised for that day. Meg and I went down the hill to collect our newspaper in pretty mild weather so the journey there and back was uneventful. For lunch, I thought I had better finish off the two remaining chicken thighs so I seared them well and then popped them in the oven with the last third of a bottle of lasagne type sauce. Some time ago, I purchased (in a charity shop) one of those old fashioned but heavy oval oven dish. I find it is excellent not only for cooking but also things do not seem to burn in it and it washes fairly easily despite long bake times in the oven. In the afternoon it is necessary to remember to put the right bins out for the refuse collection vehicle which calls very early on a Thursday morning. I like to get this job done in the light – and of course we are soon approaching the shortest day. Miggle, our adopted cat, heard the back door open and hastened towards me, expecting titbits no doubt (he already knows how to identify the carers and their cars and sits patently on the doorstep until the front door opens). Today, whilst wheeling the dustbins along our access road, the cat accompanied me to a half way point whereupon he sat down, perhaps sensing dangers on the actual distributor road. Then having delivered the dustbin to its correct collection point, the cat trotted alongside me until we got to the back door where he was no doubt expecting some more treats. I was reminded of the mediaeval stories of a black cat accompanying older women who had them as pets although to the mediaeval mind, they were known as a particular i.e. the devil or devils in disguise.

Our culinary discussions carried on apace when the two care workers arrived for Meg’s teatime call. One of them had undertaken all three levels of (presumably) BTEC or NVQ qualifications in cheffing and might indeed have worked in a kitchen. So we carried on our discussions of rice preparation and cooking and what he had to impart generally reinforced what I now know about cooking rice. In the middle of the day, Meg and I watched PMQ (Questions to the Prime Minister) and as usual the Commons on this occasion was full of a certain degree of bonhomie before the barbs were out. The case of the ‘Waspi’ women caught in the pensions shortfall because of some mal-administration in the past is annoying the left wing of the Labour Party. The Tories, for their part, are rubbing their hands in glee crying at every opportunity that the Labour would say anything to be elected and then reneges on promises (or at least half promises) once elected. On the UK front, there will now be a period when Parliament is having its winter break when nothing appears to happen but there is still time for a crisis to occur or a scandal to emerge.

Denis Healey (later Lord Healey) the veteran Labour politician used to say that ‘in war, the first casualty is truth’ Reports from the battle field probably fall into this category with one party to the conflict over-claiming and the other remaining silent. Nonetheless, there are reports about the deployment of a contingent of North Korean troops on the front line in the Ukraine. It is reported that North Koreans do not understand what is happening on the battlefield and that North Korea has suffered ‘several hundred casualties while fighting alongside Russian forces in the Kursk region’.A senior US military official speaking on condition of anonymity, said the figure included everything from ‘light wounds up to being KIA (killed in action)’, with soldiers of all ranks among the casualties. Yesterday, Ukraine’s special forces said 50 North Korean soldiers had died in three days of fighting in the border region. Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said as many as 10,000-12,000 troops from Pyongyang had been sent to fight in Ukraine. Kyiv’s forces have been able to distinguish North Korean troops from Russian forces on the battlefield due to them moving in large groups, a Ukrainian drone commander told The Washington Post. ‘The North Koreans are running across the fields, and there are so many of them. They do not understand what is happening. I do not know if they do not understand what is going on or if the Russians are deliberately sending them like that. I cannot say.’ he said. He added that Ukrainian drones, artillery and other weaponry easily found their targets ‘because they were moving in the open field.. We were very surprised, we had never seen anything like it — 40 to 50 people running across a field. That is a perfect target for artillery and Mavic (drone) operators. Russians never ran like that’. This would not be the first time that soldiers had been caught up in a conflict without the soldiers being at all aware of where they were, who they were fighting or even why. One report from the early days of the conflict said that the Ukrainians rounded up the largely young, frightened and inexperienced conscripts amongst the Russian troops that they captured, put a cup of tea in their hands and then a mobile phone with the instruction ‘Phone up your mothers and tell them where you are, that you have been captured and how you are being treated’ If this story has any truth to it, it is interesting because it was certainly true that in the early days of the conflict, the only really significant opposition to Putin was provided by the mothers of dead, missing or injured young conscript soldiers.

The previous evening when Meg was well and truly asleep, I ran off a little message onto 20 address labels and then ran off a series to paste into the cards I am preparing for my carers. I have put the same message into the same card (a ‘Peace’ card) for each of the twenty possible carers and then I will make sure that everyone receives one by one route or another before Christmas Day itself. Tuesday is the day when we meet up with our Waitrose friends so we popped down the hill in quite pleasant weather. As we got to Waitrose just about on time to meet up with our friends, Meg was feeling a little agitated and anxious. However, after we had had a chat and a laugh Meg’s mood lightened considerably so this tells you something about the power of social contact vs. medications. We had a fairly fruitless trip along the High Street and then walked home in a rather unpleasant cold and biting drizzle that just seemed to have arisen since we had walked into town. Nonetheless, when we hot home the carer was waiting for us – we were a little late as was she so we coincided in the porch of our house. Getting Meg indoors is a bit of a performance because it involves cleaning off debris from the wheels of the wheelchair, first outdoors with an ‘outdoor’ brush and then once again inside with a sponge. We then have to divest Meg of her ‘going out’ outfit with lots of outdoor clothing and heavy blankets involved. I was feeling pretty tired so Meg and I exchanged stories about our lives with the carer who is fairly new to the agency but is rapidly gaining experience. The client to whom they had been administering extraordinary mounts of care had been taken into hospital shortly after their last ministrations and had then died within a day or so which sounds dramatic but she was in her 90’s and extremely ill with cancer. After the ‘sitting’ carer had departed and the lunchtime carers had come and gone, I set about preparing lunch for us which was mackerel fillets poached in milk, green beans and a baked potato. Although lunch had been somewhat delayed, it did not take long to throw together and was actually very tasty as well as being nutritious. After lunch, we thought we would watch the (ITV) catchup of Maggie Smith’s life. But the transmission kept freezing with an internet connection error so we turned to the BBC catchup and started watching the life of Leonardo da Vinci. Although this was very interesting, I promptly fell asleep in front of it and was awoken by the sound of the front doorbell as the afternoon teatime carers came along. It was the two jolly lads with whom we always get along well (in fact they call Meg ‘Queen Meg’ once she is ensconced in her favourite armchair/throne) Then we listened to J S Bach’s ‘A Christmas Oratorio’ which we enjoy all the more so as Back recycled bits of Matthew Passion into it.

There was a throw away line by Sky News political correspondent that Musk absolutely hates Keir Starmer and I was intrigued to try to find out why. This is what I found out on a social media platform. Like most social media spats, it seems to have escalated by degrees. Elon Musk tweeted something about Britain being a violent Muslim country. Keir Starmer tweeted a rebuttal. So Elon escalated. So Keir Starmer dis-invited him from some public shindig for tech giants in the UK. So Elon escalated again. Honestly, it is just like two teenagers fighting over social media, but with bigger stakes and bigger audiences. Another contributor shared his view that Elon Musk’s ego was so big that he hated being contradicted and was doing everything he could to spread his extreme right wing views on Twitter/X and anywhere else. The fact that Trump has given him an important position theoretically in charge of eliminating waste from American public services but in practice with a much wider remit must make all of us shudder. Nigel Farage has pictured with Elon Musk at the Trump mansion in Florida and, by all accounts, is cozying up to the multi-billionaire hoping to extract a donation for the Reform party that is rumoured by some to £85m. Whether this will come to pass is interesting but it adds to the pressure on the Tory party back in the UK.

All war is terrible and the loss of human life is always to be deprecated. But the latest news from Moscow gives one pause for thought. The Ukrainians have successfully targeted a Russian general by detonating a bomb hidden within a scooter that was detonated as the general and an aide were emerging from a Russian apartment block. The act that this assassination was successful in the heart of Moscow and only a kilometre or so from the Kremlin must be a wake up call for Muscovites to whom the war in Ukraine (or ‘Special Military Operation’ as the Russians insist on calling it) might seem distant. The war is going against them in Ukraine but this must be a massive psychological boost for the Ukrainians. The Russian general was targeted because he was the general with oversight of nuclear (i.e. radiation), biological and chemical weapons. If these weapons have been used (and they probably have in Syria, at the behest of the Russians) the this must be in contravention of the several international treaties banning the use of such weapons in modern warfare.

The government has said it will be compensating women hit by changes to the state pension age, despite years of a campaigning and a watchdog recommending payouts for those affected. It has sparked backlash across the political divide, including from Labour MPs. The story is a tangled one but basically, in the efforts to equalise the retirement ages of men and women, there were a particular group of women who were disadvantaged by this change, some having retired earlier to take on a caring role for aged parents and therefore lacked the ability to plan ahead for any shortfalls. Some of these women may have to work for extra years if they had not already retired or suffer the indignity of a much reduced pension. This again is one of those instances that could not be too difficult to fix but whilst the Labour Party supported their claim when they were in opposition, now in government trey are repeating the mantra (much used by the Tories, incidentally) that they had to be fair to all other taxpayers in resisting the claim.