Talking about food, or maybe not

Probably a bit crass to blog about food right after I’ve blogged about hungry children, but I’ve had one of those weeks when everything else has gone wrong so why not my sensitivity and PR nous?

But before the food, the week.

Still feeling a bit crabby for firing off a, er, crabby email when I shouldn’t have done (another story), I was faced early Thursday morning with receipt of an (unrelated) email that made me think that if I didn’t resign from this particular organisation tout de suite (I should really say sofort as I’m learning German at the mo, not French) I’d be party to being negligent and reckless. Let me give you a hint: if a safety organisation said Do This, would you Do That instead, because it was much much cheaper? Course you wouldn’t, but this lot did and I wasn’t consulted first, so off went the resignation e-mail before I’d had my second strong coffee.

Want to feed children?

Had another letter published in the Bucks Herald this week:

Want to feed children? Local is the best way

I support our local MPs, Greg Smith and Rob Butler, for voting against the proposed food vouchers during the school holidays. 

Earlier this year, provision of such vouchers was far from universally successful, being slow to deliver, expensive to administer, and target recipients were missed more often than an English soccer penalty. As a more viable alternative, in many communities local foodbanks instantaneously materialised, and established foodbanks stepped up a notch. The result was that more kids were fed more quickly locally than nationally.

Cousin Johnny – lest we forget after 80 years

We sat down this morning in Mum’s sitting room to watch on TV the Remembrance Day service at the Cenotaph in Whitehall.

Just as it started she asked, “Where are my uncles?”

I went into the dining room and opened the display cabinet where a picture of her four uncles, who had served in WWI, had pride of place. I removed the photo and took it over to her, where she held it on her lap throughout the programme, occasionally stroking it.

I'm not vain, honest

It was the constant fogging up of my glasses while wearing a mask, and not vanity, honest, that prompted me to visit my optician to switch to contact lenses.

I’d ruled them out over the years because I’d still need to wear reading glasses, and/or sun glasses, they’re planet-unfriendly – all that plastic(?) – and who wants to poke your fingers in your eyeballs when you’re hungover?

Boris is playing God

Maybe if one or more of my loved ones had succumbed to Covid-19 or were suffering with it in intensive care, I too would want a national lockdown. But they’re not, so I can think coolly, rationally and unemotionally, albeit after two strong coffees.

According to the Daily Mail (yeah, I know), the PM was told that if he didn’t lockdown us all then he would be forcing “doctors to choose between saving Covid sufferers and those with other illnesses.” 

So Boris has made the decision himself to favour Covid patients. 

Excuse me, but I would rather doctors take such decisions on a case-by-case basis, not politicians in a panicked pronouncement.

John Lewis really has lost its way

The go-to store of the British middle class can’t blame Covid or deserted High Streets or Russian hackers for their current woes. I came to that conclusion after 54 minutes trying to buy something very ordinary.

It all started earlier today, at 9:31am, while delivering the Stewkley Grapevine, our brilliant-if-I-say-so-myself village newsletter. Since the lockdown in spring, as opposed to the lockdown coming up, or the mandatory quarantine currently experienced by my sister in Barnsley (Barnsley. Yes. I know) because one of her work colleagues tested positive, I’ve taken a black plastic sack with me and litter-picked the verges and hedgerows. If I were Prime Minister (which is the title of a future blog), I would bring back capital punishment for litter louts. As fast as I clean everything up, more yobs, slags and low-lifes desecrate the countryside rather than take their detritus back to the cesspits they call home.

Glückliche Tage sind hier wieder!

Translation: Happy days are here again!

My German classes have re-started, albeit by Zoom and not in a sparse church room in Linslade. Nevertheless I’m celebrating, because my OCD-inclined brain did miss its weekly workout during lockdown and the summer hols.

Strictly speaking the blog title should be Die glücklichen Tage sind zurück, literally “The happy days are returned”, and that’s why I love German (as opposed to Germans, Germany or anything EU-related, being born near Workington and educated around Wakefield; EU-rebellion is in my genes).

Clouding the Consommé

This is my Blog. Instigated for me to let off steam. Therapeutic. I don’t really mind if no one else reads it. Sometimes I refer to my Blog on LinkedIn, and my email signature includes the Blog address, but only because I’m curious to see if anyone does read something they violently dislike, will they fire back? That would be fun. I might actually get trolled today …..

Educating Lifers - why should we?

About ten years ago, I was discussing with my Dad his time as Chief Education Officer at a top security prison. He had taken up the post just before the Open University was formed (late 1960s), their degree courses in prisons were introduced, and Dad was delighted to be an explorer in this uncharted territory.

He explained that the prison teaching staff were “… working without precedents. It was one great big experiment. The Home Office was quite generous with supplies such as books and civilian support staff. Somehow rooms were found. The tutors worked with a combination of instinct and experience. There was no link between the various prisons, so there was no uniformity. Many tutors came down from the local further education college and became involved with a far higher level of education than their day jobs; so when it came to their future career considerations, they had an advantage.”

“I remember our first degree-success,” he continued. He [the offender] was summoned to attend the daily get-together of the Governor and senior civilian and officer representatives. They sat on one side of the table and our new graduate sat solo on the other side, so spic-and-span that it hurt, speaking only when spoken to, accepting the various congratulations quietly with a poker face. He was quite successful in giving the opinion that he was far better than anyone else there.” 

Thrii Chiirs for thu Inglish Langwidge

According to the National Literacy Trust, 16.4% of adults in England, that’s over seven million people, have very poor literacy skills. And another study in 2010 concluded that English-speaking children may take twice as long to learn to read and write as speakers of more ‘regular’ languages, because English spellings are so variable. One such variability, cited in a BBC-online article, is "through" and "trough", written similarly but consonants and vowels pronounced differently.

This has prompted something called the English Spelling Society to join forces with the ominous-sounding American Literacy Council to shortlist six alternative spelling systems. They are now asking people to vote for their favourite, which will be promoted as an alternative to traditional English spelling. The objective is to “help people to master English spelling more quickly and without the teacher's red pen".

Wen ay red abowt this projekt, may furst thort woz that kids hoo lurnt tu reed and rayt this new sistum wud strugel to riid enithing ritten tradishunali.

BBC Personalities – an oxymoron

The thing that gets me about the salaries paid to BBC “personalities” is not the exorbitant amounts, nor the gender pay gap, but the fact that these giant egos are paid at all. Many of them should be fired on the spot because most of them are USELESS with a capital U S E L E S S.

Take Fiona Bruce for example. Please take her. Away. Anywhere. As long as I don’t have to see or hear her on the telly. Her diction is appalling. If she’s not rushing words, she’s slurring or swallowing them. She says “Tharsands” not “Thousands” and her intense, brow-furrowing, chin-thrusting delivery makes me wanna not shout but puke. She’s false. She’s unprofessional. She’s trying to refocus the issue away from the news or the question or the Ming vase on to her.

Forgiveness? Not gonna happen

Went to church with Mum today. Pity. Lovely Indian summer day. Could have spent it in the garden or walking across the fields. But I had promised her on Thursday that I’d take her and, like a good Christian, except I’m an atheist, I keep my promises. Unless it’s a really huge inconvenience, then tough.

The theme of today’s service was ‘forgiveness’, and how even if the perpetrator doesn’t apologise / repent / make amends or wotnot, a Christian should still forgive them unconditionally, or God won’t forgive the Christian their own transgressions when the time comes. 

The Oldest Profession

I think I’ve just read an article penned by the most selfish person ever. In fact, I’m going to stick my neck out and say she’s so selfish she has a narcissistic personality disorder, defined as being self-involved and having a prolonged, inflated sense of self.

Take a bow Lottie Gross, who’s supposed to be a travel writer and whose piece of garbage spluttered from the Daily Mail online while I slurped my morning coffee. The journey she was on today, however, was not of the geographical variety, but the emotional and moral. She doesn’t want children, never has never will. Contraception has side-effects for her so she really really really must be sterilised. It’s not fair that no one will help her. Oh woe is me. 

It’s Supply AND, not OR, Demand

Boris Johnson’s prime ‘primeministerial’ mission is to ‘level up’ the UK economy. By that, he means improving the lot of the ‘left-behind’ areas. Can’t argue with him there. A secondary, but not-too-far-behind, mission is to build more homes and make them more affordable. He’s not alone in wanting to see that happen.

Specifically, he wants to build more homes in areas where people want to live. Very considerate of him, but how does he know where people want to live? Has he undertaken a nationwide survey to ask them? Course not. He’s using an algorithm. Oh no – the dreaded “A” word!

Time to legislate against freedom?

If Britain today were a cheesy Hollywood movie, the protagonist would be preparing to rally the good guys with one heck of a motivational speech for defeating the bad guys, taming the cataclysm, finding the missing, fixing the broken, stopping the rain and marrying the love interest.

Would such a call to arms be a table-thumper or a dignified delivery?

Certainly British Prime Ministers, at least over the past 40 years, prefer the dignified option upon first taking office before repairing a damaged country / political system / economy / society / environment / anything they think they can achieve before the next election campaign.

Margaret Thatcher in 1979 quoted from The Prayer of St Francis: “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.” 

The Lost Generation

No, I’m not talking about the generation that came of age during the Great War; or the young lives that ended prematurely during either of the two World Wars; or the Yazidi girls abused so heinously by ISIS; or the Bosniak massacred by the Bosnian Serb Army; or the generations suffering ongoing inhumanity in any number of troubled nations, Yemen, Syria, Sudan, to name just three; or the A-level students whose 'lives have been ruined' by a flawed algorithm.

Why Would You?

(With a little help from my friends)

1.    Move to a farming area then complain about the farms (The number one Why Would You for all of us)

2.    Dress provocatively then complain when you provoke

3.    Marry into the Royal Family then complain when they ask you to behave like a Royal

4.    Keep a pet tarantula

Oh! The Ruin of Mandalay

It’s not often I’m relieved that my Dad is no longer around. This morning, however, is different. Yer see, Rudyard Kipling was his favourite poet, and my Dad knew poetry, having published his first when he was just 14 years old. It was a poem from the pen of an average-ish student who, if he was lucky, would one day take over his father’s music shop. But as a result of the poem being read by his teacher and his father, his true talents were realised and nurtured.

Several years later, he was awarded a scholarship to Oxford University, where he read English Literature under the tutelage of C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien. It doesn’t get much better than that. Except in Dad’s eyes it did, in the form of Kipling.

Downright Disgusting or Pure Poetry

Every now and again, I toddle on down the lane with a long-handled grabber in one hand and a bin liner in the other, collecting the detritus that others have either dropped while out walking, thrown out of their cars while driving, or that has been dropped elsewhere and blown in the wind – Sorry, Bob Dylan, but that is definitely NOT the answer.

People who litter are themselves detritus. Trash. Rubbish. Garbage. Ugly. If you litter, do not pass Go; do not collect £200; go straight to jail and rot.

From 9/11 to PC Andrew Harper

There is something to be said for the renowned stoicism of we Brits. Don’t talk about your feelings. Don’t show emotion. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again … penned and sung by Americans so maybe a more appropriate British cliché is to keep a stiff upper lip. Such a lip used to be considered a sign of strength and dignity. I believe it still is.

It has become fashionable to talk to anyone who will listen, and even to those of us who really don’t want to, about one’s mental health. The Cambridges and Sussexes are to blame. Is everyone trying to curry royal favour and get an invite to a Buck House garden party by opening up, being true to themselves, and “sharing”? If I hear one more footballer / actress / student / thief / yummy mummy / Influencer (whatever that is) or Royal claim “My mental health has suffered,” I swear that MY mental health will suffer.