A strange man grabbed my butt

‘Strange man’ as in I didn’t know him, rather than ‘strange’ as in weird. Somehow I don’t think that makes it any better.

A couple of weekends ago, I did something that was more stupid than strange. I paid good money to investigate ancient limestone caves in the Forest of Dean (that’s in Gloucestershire, for those who are geographically challenged and even fail to negotiate Milton Keynes’ roundabouts). They had been mined for iron and ochre (clay deposits containing ferric oxide) for centuries if not millennia. Small amounts of coal continue to be mined locally – don’t tell the eco-nuts or they’ll glue themselves to the mine shafts … actually, DO tell the eco-nuts and leave them there.

Beware racists in liberal clothing

I recently read the most racist, divisive, insulting execration that I have ever seen in a mainstream newspaper. I’m no fan of the Guardian, but I’ve always felt that its content was civilised and intriguing, not barbaric and upsetting. Even the Daily Mail would raise an eyebrow before publishing anything as racist as this ‘opinion piece’ (here), the villainous writer of which is someone called Pankaj Mishra. He needs a mega-dose of Christian love before being allowed near a keyboard again. (He doesn’t deserve the courtesy of my going to the trouble of finding out what his actual religion is.)

Another Guardian commentary here by Nesrine Malik appeared on Halloween, aptly enough, which was equally as eye-rolling but at least the language was more measured. In the interests of (comparative) brevity, I'll focus my ire on Mishra, although both writers are undermining the goal of social cohesion for the sake of a punitive, regressive ideology.

Ah yes, I remember it well

It’s Not Unusual (how many song titles can I cram into one blog?) to remember the first time you did something, saw something or felt something. Recently, I’ve been reminiscing about the first time I didn’t do, see or feel things. Not, as in, didn’t do this but instead did that; no, I mean didn’t do / see / feel anything at all.

Philosophers, and maybe psychologists, would have fun with the idea of doing / seeing / feeling / reminiscing about nothing. Nothing is nothing. Nothing is a strange concept ‘personified’ by, if I can anthropomorphise it, the time before the Big-Bang, which is an oxymoron because time didn’t exist before the Big Bang. Pre-Big-Bang itself didn’t exist. No existence, no time (almost rhymes with No Woman, No Cry).

Bonfire of the Profanities

You know when someone writes something outrageously horrid, and you start to fire off a stern riposte. Or maybe you’ve never done that – you’ve probably got a life – so you’ll just have to take my word for it. 

Where was I? Oh, yes, you’ve read something outrageously, stupidly horrid, and are typing away like fury when, suddenly, you think that what you’ve just read is too outrageously, stupidly, can’t-believe-anyone-would-think-like-that horrid, and they must be joking. You delete what you’ve just written, stand up to go make a cuppa but immediately sit back down and read it all again, just to be sure they weren’t being serious, because, well they couldn’t be, could they?

Arson and Ashes

The business is finished. The deed is done. The curtain has closed. 

Almost.

Mum is back home with Dad and her parents, not without a couple of rants from me of which they would have approved.

The Bud Jet

I was going to title this one The Budget, but then I decided I wanted ‘The’ to be read ‘Thu’ as in Thud but with a silent ‘d’, and all three syllables to have equal weight, i.e. Thu Bud Jet. That’s because it sounds heavy and clumsy and odd and unbelievable, like Kwarteng’s debut (deh bew?) budget à la Trussonomics and the reactions to it.

My War on Woke

My phone rang recently. It was one of my many gentlemen-friends (don’t tell Hubby) to whom I shall refer as ‘G’.

I really enjoy our phone conversations. They follow a familiar pattern. G asks if I have anything to add to the agenda of a forthcoming meeting, or if I can help him with the minutes of the previous meeting because he can’t read his handwriting, that sort of thing. After these committee-niceties, he changes the dynamic with a searching question, along the lines of:
• Can you see a way out of the cladding crisis?
• Do you think we should have another lockdown?
• Sunak or Truss?

Regarding the last one (yes, I know it was more topical a while ago but my blog-brain works in mysterious ways) I explained that I wasn’t wild about either of them but at least Truss was loyal to our democratically elected PM to the end, while Fishy Rishi Sunak was busy planning his own coronation (Ha!) when he should have been steering the economy through choppy waters.

That was the weekend of our discontent

Actually, it was Wednesday to Friday, but the “weekend” meter works better than the alternatives, and I just had to use this Shakespeare-inspired heading because:

a) It was our 37th wedding anniversary

b) We went to Stratford-upon-Avon to see Richard III
d) The trip was not without its hitches

c) What with striking Stalinsts and brain-dead eco-terrorists bringing the country to its knees, we’re in for a 1970s’-style winter (of discontent).

The measure of weights

Not long ago, a post popped into my LinkedIn feed decrying the Government’s consultation on the privatisation of Channel 4 as a travesty of democracy, or some such hyperbole. I easily knocked that one on the head and moved on with my life.

Last weekend, another post appeared denigrating the Government’s consultation. on giving businesses and consumers more choice in selling and buying goods in imperial as well as metric units. According to the post’s author and various commentators, the consultation was a waste of time, a distraction from more pressing issues, and the questions were fiendishly biased. In fact, it sounded like the worst consultation ever. 

For facts’ sake!

Do you know how difficult it is to find the truth? It seems that for every fact, there’s another one that says the opposite. Even when a set of facts can be agreed upon, there’s probably 101 different interpretations and ensuing arguments that lead to 1,001 sundry conclusions.

As if that wasn’t infuriating enough, being presented with a limited selection of all available facts could sway a conclusion by a million miles either way. The Guardian is expert at such ‘economies with the truth’, but they’re not alone. Last month the Times reported that, “United Utilities, which serves northwest England, paid £296 million in dividends in the past year, the most paid by any water company.”

Yet another funeral

No. Not THAT one. I’m talking about the funeral yesterday of my uncle-in-law, Hubby’s dad’s brother, who was also his Godfather. 

We were at the wake after the service when a friend texted me to say that doctors were concerned for Lilibet’s health. I thought my sister might have more information for various reasons, so I texted her, to which she responded: “She’s at the departure gate waiting for the final call.” Gee thanks, Sis, for the aviation analogy!

Truss(t) in democracy

Just a quickie and apologies that I’m being rather prolific at the moment, but this topic is too time-critical to leave it until the weekend.

Am I pleased Truss won?  I’m more relieved that Fishy lost, actually. He was plotting to bring down Boris and planning his own election campaign when he should’ve been doing his job as Chancellor and managing the British economy. Truss on the other hand was loyal to Boris to the end and did her job, regardless of whether she did it brilliantly, putting her ambitions for the country ahead of her ambitions to be PM, as evidenced by her lack of preparedness when the leadership race kicked off.

My family and other dissolute, idle bear-baiters

Some years ago, Dad’s sister showed me how far she’d got with our family tree. She’d done brilliantly as it was all pre-Ancesty.com. She’d delved into church records, archived newspapers, and local record offices until she was permanently covered in dust. She got one branch back to 1745, when John Brooks (my maiden name is Brooks) married in a tiny village on the Somerset-Dorset border. I later found a local ‘census’ that revealed he was born in about 1715. 

Other than ‘John Brooks’, all names have been changed to respect the extended family’s privacy.

I took over the research and was having fun doing all the detective work and patting myself on the back because of the progress I was making, until a friend of mine said she was also doing her family tree and had found a possible connection to Bonnie Prince Charlie’s private physician, and another to one of the key figures in the Salem witch trials. 

Striking while the economy’s cool

This blog’s longer than my usual, so make sure you’re sitting comfortably before you begin.

I’ve gone on record since before I was weaned that it’s not right for workers to strike. My opposition is rooted in their impact on the general public – the health hazards of uncollected waste spring to mind. In particular, I remember the 1970s’ strikes and the Labour government awarding huge public-sector pay deals that helped to fuel inflation to over 25 per cent (the rocketing oil price was also a factor). Those hardest hit were already the poorest, and the average couple ended up taking home less money in real terms than they had before inflation took off, so the strikes were counter-productive.

The piano tuner, the monk and a ghost

(Sorry – the blog about strikes is still parked. I’m having difficulty justifying anyone’s right to strike, ever.)

Hubby went off to France yesterday afternoon for a week-long MAMIL-fest (Middle Aged Men In Lycra). There might be some MAFILs there as well. As long as they’re Middle Aged and not Young Females, I’m cool with that. Then again, whether they’re younger, prettier and slimmer than me or not, I reckon my nails are sharper and I can still emulate Norman-bites-your-legs-Hunter better than anyone. What if there’s a MATIL? (You really don’t need it spelled out.) Then Hubby has strict instructions to take notes for a future blog.

In a perfectly comfortable ‘been married a long time so don’t read anything into this’ kind of way, I was looking forward to a week on my own: a clean and tidy house; no meal-prep twice a day every day; no sport on the Telly; snore-less nights (not me; him!); a fully stocked wine fridge (well, at the beginning of the week); and oodles of time to catch up with various projects.

Individuals trump ‘society’

I was working on a blog about trade unions and strikes, but parked it when I read about nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel. She was shot dead while standing behind mum Cheryl, who was injured, in their terraced home in Kingsheath Avenue in the Dovecot area of Liverpool. Residents say that Kingsheath is a close-knit community where children play together on the street. They describe Olivia and Cheryl as quiet, respectable people.

My very own Silent Spring in summer

Hubby and I have just come home from a mini-break somewhere in Warwickshire. I didn’t enjoy some aspects of it as much as I thought I would. The reason for some disappointments – rudeness –was obvious, but others it took me until I got home to realise why.

We went ‘up-north’ as Hubby called it (he’s a ruddy geographer for crying our loud, but I reckon his Southern upbringing trumps that) for a special cycle event with his mates and dinner on the Saturday night.

Not knowing his cycling buddies, not knowing anything about cycling, not wanting to know anything about cycling, and not really being attracted to the county, I was wondering why I agreed to go … Because I’m a dutiful wife, that’s why! If I’m not defending his honour against the likes of Fearful Sharkey and his Snivelling Sycophants, or the Gobby Guardian and its Regurgitating Rabble, I’m by Hubby’s side, smiling sweetly (well...) and making polite (well...) conversation.

The incredible lightness of being

The title of the 1984 novel by Milan Kundera was actually The unbearable lightness of being, but I prefer my version, which I hope will be self-explanatory later. I’ve wanted to use such a title for one of my blogs for ages, and I’ve just found the excuse or hook, even if it’s a little contrived.

The story centres on two women, two men and a dog in the late 1960s and early 1970s, incorporating the1968 'Prague Spring' when Czechoslovakia was invaded by Russia … These guys just can’t break the habit! The central character is Tomáš, a womanizer who “considers sex and love to be distinct entities: he has sex with many women but loves only his wife, Tereza. He sees no contradiction between these two positions”, (per Wiki).

With rights come responsibilities

While I try not to repeat myself when I write, I am partial to a few mantras that seem so apt so often and are so irreplaceable that I trot them out with perhaps too much regularity.

Those who can, engage with the issues; those who can’t, resort to insults is one I use whenever anyone who ever had any objection to any development for any reason is dispensed with as a Nimby. It works for other topics too. Most recently I fired it off on LinkedIn and was confronted with an aggressive barrage of every criticism ever aimed at any person who ever deigned to hold non-lefty views. One moron culminated his diatribe with something like, “I don’t want you polluting my feed so I’ve blocked you. Ha!”

I wonder what his employer or clients would have to say about his lack of professionalism or even basic decency when they see how he responds to a polite (if pompous, I admit), mainstream comment. He’s done himself far more harm than he’s done me who, after a few glasses, imagines a potential lucrative new client telling him he’s a wazzock and has lost the contract. Ha!

Four Yorkshiremen of the Apocalypse

Who doesn’t love a good Monty Python sketch? And those pre-Python sketches can be even better. In case you haven’t guessed by now, I’m referring to the "Four Yorkshiremen" classic from the 1967 TV show At Last the 1948 Show, starring Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman. Click here to laugh at four monied Yorkshiremen reminiscing about their childhoods, each trying to ‘out-destitute’ the other and getting increasingly ridiculous.

I was reminded of this sketch the other evening while sharing a (one? surely not) bottle of red with my like-minded neighbour, whom I shall call N to spare her blushes. We were sitting in my garden, despairing at my dead lawn, dead shrubs, dead pots and how quickly the wine was evaporating. To wind me up, N said the forthcoming hosepipe bans were all the fault of the water companies (remind yourself of this blog to see why I think the water companies are given an unfair wrap these days). I countered with a story on the news this week about a chap who was complaining about the brown colour of his water that his local supplier was blaming on “unprecedented demand”, but that the water was still ok to drink. The chap carried on complaining, saying he first noticed the discolouration after filling the kids’ paddling pool.