Yesterday, I awoke after quite a decent night’s sleep to a day that although cold and a little windy seemed reasonably bright and so I thought would provide no challenges for a walk down into town in the morning. The evening before, I had hunted around on the TV schedules and eventually saw the last episode in the paleo-archaeology series entitled ‘Humans’ When the program had ended, the iPlayer automatically started to load a similar programme which I decided not to watch but to save for later. This series is called ‘The Origins of Us’ and Professor Alice Roberts (one of my favourite documentary presenters) is presenting a series of three and in the series, entitled respectively ‘Bones’, ‘Guts’ and finally ‘Brains’ I think these are the kinds of programmes not only that I enjoy but help in the passage of the long dark winter afternoons until Christmas comes and passes and the days start to lengthen again. I was particularly pleased to have got the last weekend negotiated because it just happened that both my son and my three closest friends were all away so I was potentially bereft of any kind of social contact but I made the best of a bad job under the circumstances. There are no particular events this week to which I can look forward but after some of my friends have returned from their various social activities I can have a consultation with them and start to think about making some bookings for my Christmas trip to my relatives in Yorkshire. On the domestic political front, the opposition parties have been given a Christmas-present style wrapped gift in the case of the sex offender recently released by mistake from gaol but since recaptured. Although the roots of the problem lie in our under-funded prison service administering gaols awash with drone-supplied drugs, bursting with inmates and chronically understaffed, the government are receiving all of the flack. It is being said that the problem arose under the watch of the present Labour government and just fuels the feeling, rife in the population. that absolutely nothing works in the country any more. The recently revealed fact that the mistaken release was not a one off but there have been over 260 cases of mistaken release over the past year only reinforces the point. Although a huge manhunt was in place for the wrongly released prisoner, even the police did not actually find him but a member of the public telephoned the police to indicate his whereabouts which led to his recapture. To hide their embarrassment, the government are going to deport the individual within a couple of days but an interesting legal question is whether a confused, wrongly released prisoner is actually committing an additional offence? Senior government sources admit that not only was this saga incredibly embarrassing for government, but it also feeds a narrative that Britain is not working and the state cannot fulfil basic functions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This morning after I had scoured the pile of newspapers for articles that I wished to retain, I walked down the hill to collect my newspaper. As I was passing the home of my Italian friend, I could not fail to notice that the Highways Department were scaling a large tree and lopping off branches. From my vantage point, I could not work out if the work team were just removing large branches that were in danger of fouling some overhead power lines or whether the lopping of off branches was just a precursor to the felling of the whole tree. I knocked on the door to have a word with my friend about what I was just witnessing but she appeared to be in a state of some distress, not related to the problem of the adjacent tree. It was unclear what was causing my friend some distress but I departed leaving her n rather an unhappy state and I could only speculate as to the cause of her problems. When I returned home having had my coffee, I was relieved to see that the tree was largely intact and the highways team had left the area. I made myself some lunch which today was a portion of oven-warmed quiche accompanied by what I can only describe as a melange of vegetables (tomatoes, onions, carrots and green beans) with enough left over for another day. Looking at Sky News<\/em> after lunch, I noted that Nigel Farage was having a press conference to capitalise upon the government’s discomfiture over the fact that five victims of sexual abuse have withdrawn from the enquiry. He had given one of their number a platform to speak at a ‘Reform’ press conference were she repeated allegations that the victims had been lied to, belittled and their concerns not expressed as directly as they would all have wished. This may or not be true but once witnesses to an enquiry are invited to speak at a press conference organised by a political party, then a toxic atmosphere is being maintained. Nigel Farage has said that later in the day he is going to request of the Speaker of the House of Commons that an enquiry into the ‘grooming’ scandal be conducted by a Select Committee of the House of Commons. Farage is saying that this would be relatively speedy, and as well as being cross-party would have the advantage of compelling with witnesses to attend and to give evidence under oath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now that the colder weather is approaching, I am paying particular attention to the quality of footwear if only because wet leaves can be as slippery as ice if you have large leaves made wet by the rain. In the past, two members of my family and one of my students have been laid low by rushing about in the Autumn and slipping on wet leaves, so this is not a hazard lightly to be discounted. I have started wearing some desert-style boots which have Vibram-like soles and a good ankle support and I think that as one gets older, good footwear becomes and more important. On the High street, our domestic help directed me to a charity shop which always seems to stock some good quality men’s shirts. I have bought two of these recently and they are the Marks and Spencer ‘Easy Care’ range which I think means that after a careful wash and drying, they do not really need ironing. The three I have bought recently have all washed and dried excellently and I am getting to the point where some of my shirts with frayed collar and cuffs have to be relegated to gardening level or recycled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday, I awoke after quite a decent night’s sleep to a day that although cold and a little windy seemed reasonably bright and so I thought would provide no challenges for a walk down into town in the morning. 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