Democracy?

 Leonard Cohen sang about democracy coming to the USA:

It's coming to America first 

The cradle of the best and of the worst. 

It's here they got the range 

And the machinery for change 

And it's here they got the spiritual thirst

He also sang that 

The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor 

And there's a mighty Judgement comin', but I may be wrong

You need a lot of money to stand for election. The rich don’t just have their channels in the bedrooms of the poor but in the decision-making that goes on in government … everywhere it seems. And during the election campaign there was Elon Musk handing out money to people to persuade them to register to vote. Then there are suggestions that the dirty tricks department got going in other ways:

“A political action committee (Pac) linked to Elon Musk is accused of targeting Jewish and Arab American voters in swing states with dramatically different messages about Kamala Harris’s position on Gaza, a strategy by Trump allies aimed at peeling off Democratic support for the vice-president.

Texts, mailers, social media ads and billboards targeting heavily Arab American areas in metro Detroit paint Harris as a staunch ally of Israel who will continue supplying arms to the country. Meanwhile, residents in metro Detroit or areas of Pennsylvania with higher Jewish populations have been receiving messaging that underscores her alleged support for the Palestinian cause.

Those aimed at Arab American populations claim Harris will “ALWAYS stand with Israel” and “stand up against Hamas and radical terrorists in Gaza”. Another notes that she has a Jewish husband, and describes the pair as “America’s pro-Israel power couple”.

And now it seems that Donald Trump is to be president again. Kier Starmer has already congratulated him on his “historic election victory” and said that “as the closest of allies, we stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of our shared values of freedom, democracy and enterprise”. There you go! 

Eight years ago, Michelle Obama said this:

“In our hearts, we all know that if we let Hillary’s opponent win his election, then we are sending a clear message to our kids that everything they’re seeing and hearing is perfectly ok. We are validating it. We are endorsing it. We’re telling our sons its OK to humiliate women. We’re telling our daughters that this is how they deserve to be treated. We’re telling all our kids that bigotry and bullying are perfectly acceptable in he leader of their country.”

Our UK democratically elected representatives have been involved too. The Campaign to Rejoin the EU posted this just the other day

"In Pennsylvania on Monday was Nigel Farage, who was sporting a teal-colored MAGA hat at a Trump rally. The Reform leader even got a shout-out from Trump during the rally as he claimed (again) that Farage was “the big winner” of the last U.K. election and that he was a “rebel.” 

Farage is now a serving British MP and the U.K. parliament is sitting this week. Today he’s missing the main debate on the budget plus a Westminster Hall debate on the future of the U.K. fishing industry — a subject once close to his heart. Still, the cheesesteak in Philly is meant to be really good"

Later I read that Nigel Farage had suggested that if Donald Trump lost the election he should just go and play golf. It seems that won’t be necessary after all. 

We probably don’t need to wait for confirmation. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone! 

A bit of nostalgia and a rant about reading.

 I remember the names of all my primary school teachers, well, the junior school teachers but not the infant school teachers, apart from Miss Foreshaw in top infants (now called Year 2). The teachers in my first two years clearly made little impression on me. I also remember clearly what we did in knitting and sewing in the junior years, apart from the second year. My class combined with the next class down (we were quite strictly streamed according to perceived ability) and then divided according to gender, the boys doing woodwork and metalwork while the girls did sewing and knitting. 

In first year juniors (now Year 3) we knitted little shoulder bags and lined them with fabric. What we did in second year juniors escapes me completely. Was this because my form teacher was a man, Mr Dalley? No idea! In third year juniors we did embroidery, making tray cloths, an object which nobody ever uses nowadays, as far as I am aware. In the fourth year, top juniors (now Year 6), we made dirndl skirts, most of us hand-stitching the seams, which Miss Cunningham would cruelly unpick and make us re-do them if they were not straight. A few trusted souls were allowed to use the one sewing machine in the classroom. How did she decide who was sufficiently advanced in sewing skills to be allowed to do this? 

Making a skirt is quite advanced. Do children still learn these skills in primary schools? Is there room in the National Curriculum for such things? I must check with my primary school teacher daughter but I suspect the answer to both those questions is no. Granddaughter Number One and I have been teaching Granddaughter Number Four to knit. Initially quite enthusiastic, she grows impatient with the slow progress. Maybe she will persevere; Granddaughter Number One seems to find it quite therapeutic. Like Granddaughter Number Four, she was taught to knit as a small child but never made use of the skill until a few years ago when she re-taught herself from youtube videos. She has proudly made a couple of jumpers but her big thing is knitting socks! I suspect we shall all receive handmade socks again for Christmas this year. 

This bit of nostalgia was promoted by this article about children reading, or, rather, not reading as much as they used to. This prompted a memory of my top juniors (current Year 6) teacher reading “King Solomon’s Mines” to the class, a memorable and sometimes frightening experience. During these sessions we were allowed to relax from our normal sitting-up-straight regime and even put our heads down on the desks, only to be jerked into more upright posture by the terrifying bits of the tale. Children love to be read to, especially if the reader does it with expression. As a young teacher I was given a first year secondary English class, despite my having been employed as a Modern Foreign Languages teacher; eleven and twelve year olds still enjoyed being read to. 

And being read to must surely encourage children to seek out books to read for themselves. Yet it seems that reading frequency is at a historic low, with 20.5% of eight- to 18-year-olds reporting reading daily in their free time, compared with 28% last year. This is a great loss, in my opinion. Experts agree about the benefits of reading: “We know that children who read for pleasure, and children who are read to, gain all kinds of benefits, from increased vocabulary to vastly improved mental wellbeing”, said children’s laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce. “But today’s survey shows that too often as a nation we are withholding those benefits from our children.” He described the benefits as an “invisible privilege”.

Unsurprisingly the National Literacy Trust found that twice as many children who said they enjoy reading in their spare time have above average reading skills (34.2%) compared with those who don’t enjoy it (15.7%). That seems logical! 

Somehow we need to find time to encourage reading. Parents need to be encouraged to read to their children but they also need to be seen to read for pleasure themselves. If children don’t see their significant adults enjoying books, and if books are not easily available, then children will not see reading as natural, usual pastime. 

We are fortunate. Our smallest grandchildren enjoy a bedtime story and enjoy visits to the library. Grandson Number Two, five years old, isn’t yet an independent reader but knows his favourite stories by heart. Granddaughter Number Four, eight years old, has made the quantum leap to independent reading. Their cousin, ten year old Granddaughter Number Three, who lives down south, has become an avid reader, progressing now to young teen fiction. Granddaughter Number Two, now twenty-one, never goes anywhere without a book. Granddaughter Number One, twenty-seven, tells me she reads regularly. As far as I know, the exception is Grandson Number One, nineteen, who has always preferred non-fiction, seems to spend more time playing computer games than reading. So it goes! 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Some thoughts on gambling, addiction and advertising. Nostalgia. Dangers. Owning the moon,

I’ve never placed a bet in my life, unless you count the sweepstakes organised by various places where I’ve worked, which don’t really count as all the staff took part and we were allocated names of horses or football teams or whatever completely at random. Mine never won! Maybe that’s why I was never tempted and why I never became addicted. And according to this article gambling is addictive and should be addressed by the government. 

I had a friend who used to disappear regularly as he walked down the street with us, only to catch up a little late. He’d ducked into a betting shop to place a bet. He never won a great deal either. Nowadays it’s no longer matter of ducking onto a betting shop; your mobile phone will suffice. Grandson Number One, suddenly flush with money from his first ever job dabbled in online gambling, encouraged by a couple of work colleagues. However, just as we were getting worried about him he lost a substantial amount of money, the amount not revealed to any of us but enough to scare him, and overnight went cold turkey. 

His workmates tease him and he is surrounded by advertising, but so far he’s not backsliding. Instead he seems to be spending money on expensive clothing, but that’s a different matter altogether. 

I find the advertising quite disturbing - physically because it’s always very loud and brash and mentally because its ubiquitous. As the article I linked to earlier suggests, the government needs to take a stand. After all, they banned tobacco advertising! Enough said!

Every so often social media throws up a photo of “Old Saddleworth”, like this one that features the pub next door to our house. 

Sometimes it’s not  a photo but a sort of news report. A recent one was about a place in nearby Greenfield (I think) where they made flags and bunting, a place that employed largely women. Making flags is women’s work. Apparently it was unusual for such a workshop to be located in an inland place. As a rule they were located in places by the sea; the men went out in the fishing boats and the women made flags and bunting - and presumably helped mend the nets as necessary. Division of labour!

Something we never have around here, being a good hour’s drive from the sea, are shark attacks. I read that a man surfing in Hawaii had his leg bitten off just the other day. The report said that shark attacks are relatively rare across the world but attract a disproportionate amount of news media attention. And then there are films like “Jaws” which just fuel the myth. In fact people are a much greater danger to sharks than sharks are to people. It’s a bit like plane crashes: rare but shocking and frightening when they happen. Your car is more dangerous than planes … and sharks for that matter! 

To finish off for today, here’s a little something borrowed from Michael Rosen: 

'Tutor,' said the King, 'do you think that one day, we'll go to the moon?'

'Yes,' said the tutor, 'after all, God created it for us.'

'Did he?' said the King.

'Yes,' said the tutor, 'He created the large light and the small light. It's in Genesis.'

'Ah yes, of course,' said the King, 'so when we go there, it'll be ours.'

'Exactly,' said the tutor.

'But isn't there a man in the moon?' said the King. 

'Well, people say there is,' said the tutor, 'but I don't think we need to bother about him.'

'But he is there,' said the King, 'so we'll have to negotiate with him, won't we?'

'Not really,' said the tutor, 'he's just a myth. Something that people say. He's just the 'Man in the Moon'. He could be anywhere and go anywhere: the Man on Mars. Or the Man on the Milky Way.' 

'So when we go to the moon, it really will be ours?'

'Yes, indeed, sir,' said the tutor, 'there's no need to keep worrying about it. It's in the books: God created it and gave it to us.'

'Well that's very reassuring,' said the King.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Celebrating magic. The advantages of being king.

When I saw this headline to an article in the Guardian online, “Away with the fairies: magic and mystery at a unique festival”, I assumed it was something to do with the general witchery-and-magic-in-the-air feel that gets generated in the time just before and after Hallowe’en. But when I looked into it I found that the “3 Wishes Fairy Festival” actually takes place in August. So it’s more of a midsummer magic thing than anything else, although it’s actually a bit late to count as midsummer. But then, at midsummer children in the UK are still in school and anyone wanting to take their children along (under 7s go free apparently) would find it rather difficult. 

Mind you, they say it’s not aimed specifically at children, but rather at people who believe in magic, a “gathering of the Celtic faerie clans”. karen Kay, the founder, claims to be “half fairy, half mermaid and half human”, which makes her into one and a half people but that’s by the by. Good magic is quite a serious business, with sound therapy, crystals with a wide range of powers, and water blessed with special spells. There are no rules other than “be nice”. “It’s about spreading love, light and joy into the world,” explains Karen Kay.

Of course it all takes place in Glastonbury, where lay lines meet and intersect. And presumably some people take it all, quite seriously. But it’s also a kind of three day fancy dress party for grown-ups. And most of us like to dress up. We do it every day when we decide what we are going to wear. Most of us vary our outfits to match the day’s activities but also to match our mood, not just to match the weather conditions. I suspect that most women have more clothes than most men, or at any rate more variety of types of clothing, but I may well be wrong. It’s just that some people make a bigger thing of it, concentrating on the power of the various crystals. Anyway, the Fairy Festival seems to be mostly harmless, and certainly not much odder than arranging your furniture and plants according to feng shui, (sometimes called Chinese geomancy, a traditional form of geomancy that originated in Ancient China and claims to use energy forces to harmonize individuals with their surrounding environment), or, indeed, praying to saints to intercede on your behalf and sort your life out. 

(Aside: by the way, geomancy translates literally to "earth divination," and the term was originally used to mean methods of divination that interpret geographic features, markings on the ground, or the patterns formed by soil, rocks, or sand. Its definition has expanded over time, to include any spiritual, metaphysical, or pseudoscientific practice that is related to the Earth. There you go!)

Girls who want to be mermaids (and you can learn to swim with a mermaid tail if you so wish - it’s supposed to be very satisfying) are no stranger than men who dress up in outfits made of bark and declare themselves to be King of the Fairies or King of the Pixies.

There’s something attractive about being king. Tom Petty sings about the advantages:

It's good to be king and have your own world 

It helps to make friends, it's good to meet girls 

A sweet little queen who can't run away 

It's good to be king, whatever it pays.

Which brings me to our own King, and the Prince of Wales for that matter. According to this article, the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall make a lot of money by leasing properties to charities and organisation such as the NHS and prisons. I read recently about Prince William’s project to help the homeless: 

“It’s a sad reality that in 2023 homelessness still exists. That is why Prince William and The Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales have launched Homewards: a transformative five-year, locally led programme that will aim to demonstrate that together it’s possible to end homelessness – making it rare, brief and unrepeated.”

A lovely initiative, I’m sure; but perhaps he and his father could help some of our institutions by waiving the fee to use some of their land and properties. Just a thought! Do they even know that their estates work this way? How hands-on is their management in the midst of all their other duties? 

Magic and tradition in the modern world! 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

A dull day in Delph. Morning parties for children. Ways to mess up the world.

It’s been another gloomy day here, but not raining and not particularly cold. I got up and ran round the village fist thing, stopping to chat with someone sweeping up leaves in his front garden. It seems I am an inspiration to him as he sees me run past his house most morning. Goodness! I have become a role model. Or maybe I’m just that mad woman who runs round the village.

Later I got myself organised and went off to the local small Tesco, to purchase odds and ends that I wouldn’t be able to buy at our village co-op store. Besides, the co-op is about to close for a month for refurbishment and as a result they’ve been running down supplies and their shelves have been getting emptier and emptier. While I was in the Tesco store my daughter phoned me; it turned put she was at my house drinking coffee. Did I want her or her partner to pick me up with my shopping? Well, yes! So I bought a few things I might not otherwise have bought as I was not going to have to carry it home on the bus.

My daughter and family had been to a birthday party, a triple party shared by three small children, the parent’s sharing the cost of hiring the indoor play centre. A good idea for the parents of the birthday children but, as my daughter said, it meant buying three birthday presents at one go. And what a way to start the weekend: 10.30 am in an indoor play centre with lots of over-excited children! Parenthood is not quite what it used to be.

In the mid-afternoon we went for a walk round the village, pretty much following my running route in reverse. Fortunately the small people seem to enjoy stomping round our bridle paths, looking for interesting dtuff in the woody areas. 

I checked in with my Spanish sister yesterday evening, to see how things are in the area around Cádiz where she lives. She tells me they have had quite heavy rain but her town has not had the flooding that other parts of southern Spain have suffered. Here’s something from a news report on the ongoing clean-up operations:

“If past experience is any guide, the world’s reaction to the floods in Spain last week will be similar to that of motorway drivers at a crash scene: slow down, take in the horror, outwardly express sympathy, inwardly give thanks that fate picked someone else – and foot on the accelerator.

That is the pattern in our climate-disrupted era when extreme-weather catastrophes have become so commonplace that they risk being normalised. Instead of outrage and determination to reduce the dangers, there is an insidious sense of complacency: these things happen. Someone else is responsible. Somebody else will fix it.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The unnatural disaster in Spain – Europe’s deadliest flash floods in at least half a century – is evidence of two undeniable truths: the human-caused climate crisis is just starting to pick up ferocity, and we need to quickly kill the fossil fuel industry before it kills us.”

We can’t keep,hiding our head in the sand and hoping it all goes awa. Rather than locking up Just Stop Oil activists, we need to listen to what they have to say.

Then there is this:

““The situation unfolding in north Gaza is apocalyptic,” said a joint statement by UN agency heads, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“The area has been under siege for almost a month, denied basic aid and life-saving supplies while bombardment and other attacks continue,” the heads of the humanitarian, health and other agencies said.

The entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence.”

Witnesses told AFP that Israeli warplanes twice hit Beit Lahia, adjacent to Jabalia, overnight.

Israel’s military on Saturday said dozens of militants were killed around Jabalia “in aerial and ground activity”.”

And this, which popped up somewhere on my social media:

“The Taliban’s new 'Vice and Virtue Order' has silenced Afghan women even more 🚫 banning them from speaking, singing, or even reciting the Quran in public. Women are being forced into complete invisibility. “

One way and another, we are messing up the world!

In an article about photos of US presidents, I came across this fact about Kennedy on the day he was assassinated:

“Kennedy was on his way to deliver a speech on political extremism, with lines Logevall believes to be prescient. “America’s leadership must be guided by learning and reason, or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain popular ascendancy, with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.” “

They’ve not yet those swift and simple solutions.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

All Hallows, pumpkins, Trick or Treatery, celebrating witchcraft. Preserving old institutions. Places from bible stories under fire.

Today is All Saints Day, Dìa de los Muertos in Mexico, the day when traditionally in many countries, such as Spain and Italy, you go and tidy up the family graves. Here we begin the season of rotting pumpkin lanterns. It takes some people rather a long time to remove the pumpkin carcasses from their doorsteps and garden walls. And warnings go out not to leave them where hedgehogs might try to eat them as they make our prickly friends ill and they are rapidly becoming an endangered species. It’s bad enough that we have already messed up their natural habitat; we should try not to make the situation worse by poisoning them into the bargain. 

Granddaughter Number One was getting ridiculously excited and happy last night because she had lots of Trick-or-Treaters knocking on her door. Since she moved to a new house earlier this year she has befriended the neighbouring children and introduced some of them to her various animals. So they brought their little friends round, knocked on the door and said hello to the cat as well as receiving lots of sugary treats. It’s a good job it’s half term as those children would not be ready to go to sleep on their sugar-high last night.

In Salem, Massachusetts, hundreds of “practising witches” from around the world got together to celebrate Hallowe’en and to give a “woman of power” award to Stormy Daniels who, by the way, has the perfectly good name of Stephanie A Gregory. One of the organisers of the event, Christian Day, a local warlock despite being called Christian, said, “A lot of people know Stormy for being a porn star and fighting against Trump in court. But a lot of people don’t know that she is a practicing witch, and that she is someone who stands out as a woman of power.”

Apparently they have a whole a whole month of events in Salem throughout October, the “Festival of the Dead”. They’ll put you in touch with your dearly departed, tell your fortune, teach you about magic and spells, and there’s even the Official Salem Witches’ Hallowe’en Ball: “Salem's most magical Halloween event! Celebrate the afterlife with food, dancing, ritual, live music, free psychic readings, and prizes where the dead cavort with the living and powerful spells are cast for the Witches’ new year!” 

Someone’s undoubtedly making quite a lot of money out of witchcraft and magic!

When I worked in Salford, I would sometimes hear about the Salford Lads and Girls Club, originally called the Salford Lads Club but in this modern age of equality now admitting girls as well. Founded in 1903 as a place where Salford boys could meet and socialise, it’s in danger of having to close as grant funding has been cut. 

The club is in a Grade Ii-listed building and needs to raise £250,000 by the end of November in order to stay open for another year. They’ve reached £216,000, thanks to a recent £10,000 donation from Graham Nash and now a £50,000 donation from Morrissey, both of them Salford lads themselves. It’s good to see some famous folk putting money back into the community of their youth. If they reach their target this year, will they have to do another push for funding next year and the years to come? 

We need to protect listed buildings, ideally keeping them in use as well as making museum pieces of them. 

One of the consequences of war is the destruction of culturally important places. It is quite disturbing listening to reports of Israeli forces attacking places whose names I remember from Sunday School classes. Suddenly they are real places with modern lives going on there, places we can locate on a map. Some fine old buildings have been destroyed in Gaza and now places in Lebanon are also in danger such as the Roman triumphal arch at the Al Bas necropolis Unesco World Heritage Site in Tyre. 

Of course, it seems insignificant compared with the loss of life but it is still another important factor. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!