I think that yesterday could fairly be described as a day of recovery after, as they say, ‘burning the candle at both ends’ When the alarm woke me at 7.00am this morning, I promptly turned over and went back to sleep for another hour and a half only finally getting up at 8.30am which is almost unprecedently late for me these days. I suppose my body must have needed the extra sleep and there is nothing urgent to occupy myself this morning in an case. The day before yesterday had been my day in Winchester to meet up with former colleagues and life-long friends and I am mighty glad that I did it , even though storm ‘Claudia’ was causing havoc on the railways. I had needed to het up early in order to catch my 8.00am train and, after a long day and a wearisome journey on the way back whereby sleep was impossible it was still way after midnight before I actually settled down for the night. As soon as I got home, I made myself some instant hot food (half a tin of spaghetti on toast with a fried egg, done in a little ‘frying pan for one I find invaluable o such occasions.) I then engaged in a series of texts with families and close friends, receiving a lot of news all round. In particular, I was anxious to get the latest news from my University of Winchester friend whose very poorly wife had been transferred into a hospital. But she seemed to be now responding to antibiotics and oxygen and my friend sent me a wonderful photograph of the way in which she had given her husband the most magnificent smile of relief when she was actually reunited with her husband, from whom she had been parted as a result of the severe flue infection which had occasioned her stay in hospital. Now all of this had got me thinking about the role of the smile in human communication because I remember exremely vividly how Meg in her declining weeks and days could only manage a flash of smile towards her carers which they appreciated immensely and made them feel very good. So I looked at the classic photograph that I have of Meg (with a smile) and then looked at other photos of friends all displaying a smile and this got me wondering whether smiles stay lodged in our term memory more so than actual words spoken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The news in the morning is that Donald Trump has announced his intention to sue the BBC for the inappropriate edit which the BBC allowed through its quality assurance protocols in the making of a Panorama programme about Trump. The general view amongst journalists is that the BBC had no option but to issue an apology for the inappropriate edit which they have indeed done but that they ought to fiercely resist the threats of legal action y Trump and to stand by their own journalists. This is exactly what the BBC has done and so Trump finds himself in a situation where he cannot sue in the UK courts (as the action is way out of time after much more than a year) but will probably take action in a Florida court. Bit even here with a very partisan American jury, rump ma be acing an uphill battle and may well not succeed in his case so he may have ‘bittgen ff more than he can chew’ The programme in question was not ]transmitted or even viewable in the US and was way over a year ago. So, Trump is going to have to prove that a programme that Americans could not see had irrevocably ruined his reputation and caused him immense damage which is, as they say, stretching credulity to its limits. On this side of the Atlantic the view is that Trump’s reptation is so low after his convictions and proven record of a multitude of lies about practically eery subject on earth that he had no reputation capable of being damaged further. But of course an American jury will be much more well disposed towards Trump but, at the end of the day, a clever defense by the lawyers to be appointed by the BBC in defending the action might mean that Trump will lose his action and there will be a tremendous loss of face. And we must remind ourselves that Trump is famous for using the courts to go after his opponents in the media bit often this is a tactic which is not pursued to the bitter end and an out-of-court settlement is reached. It could be that minimal damages might be paid by the BBC but the actual amount kept a secret of this is possible in the Florida courts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It took me some time to get going this morning because I needed both to exercise (Pilates style), then to shower and finally to breakfast and all on top of having got up late in the morning. By the day’s post, a new debit card had arrived so I resolved to go on the High Street and get it activated in my local branch. But the actual branch was itself shut but the ATM outside gave me a message that ‘Processing of my card was not possible’ because we all know that Banks do not work at the weekend (!) But my Droitwich friend was coming over to spend the afternoon and evening with me starting at 2.00pm so after she had arrived and we had chatted extensively we made ourselves a light lunch of Scottish Mussels in a white wine sauce that we ate with salad and some other dips. Once we had recovered from tis meal, we went to buy some superior lamb chops from a very reputable local butcher and then we put some preparations in lace for the evening meal. I went to our local church service at 5.30 and returned just before 7.00am and then we sat down to enjoy our lamb cooked in the Indian way with a lot of spices. During my absence from the house, my friend had carried on the reorganisation of the kitchen store cupboards so that we are now in a position to find what we want more easily as well as revealing the duplication of some items. After we had completed our leisurely meal we had a restful evening and then a fairly early night, which we both felt that we needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I think that yesterday could fairly be described as a day of recovery after, as they say, ‘burning the candle at both ends’ When the alarm woke me at 7.00am this morning, I promptly turned over and went back to sleep for another hour and a half only finally getting up at 8.30am which is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7832,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7831\/revisions\/7832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}