Watching or not watching the Tour. Crashes. Fires and rain. Hosepipe bans. Flooding?

 Well, we didn’t get to watch the round up of yesterday’s stage of the Tour de France, despite having set the television to record all the summaries. For some reason Channel Five was not available in our area. Very annoying!

But here are a couple of Tour photos. This one I like for nostalgic reasons as my first car was a Citroen 2CV but mine was not green but red - the best colour!

And this one shows that traditions are maintained. The red devil still chases the Tour.

On Tuesday Florian Lipowitz crashed out of the Tour during the individual time trial. He took a corner badly and slammed at frightening speed into the barrier at the roadside. Another suspected fractured collarbone, like Jonas Vingegaard. It scares me stiff to see them descend at top speed and take those bends so daringly.

There’s a bit of controversy going on with the anti-doping authorities. They are accused of favouring the young French rider, Paul Seixas, who is just about the only one of the Grand Classification contenders not to have been woken for a doping test in the middle of the night. Tut, tut! 

Here’s a photo of Dovestone reservoir from a few weeks ago, before fire devastated so much of its beauty. No doubt it will be restored … eventually! Meanwhile people are still thoughtlessly lighting bonfires and barbecues.

There is a remote possibility of rain this weekend, probably because we are going for a family weekend away!so we’ll take waterproofs with us just in case. In other parts of the country hosepipe bans have been introduced, but not here so far. In some cases, people are finding ingenious ways of getting round the hosepipe ban. Does using a watering can really not contravene the ruling about not watering your garden? And, according to this article, the ban is setting neighbours against each other, with threats of reporting hosepipe users to the authorities! Goodness!

So now we are short of water, but according to this article, the UK could face serious flooding from rising sea levels. We’ve messed up the planet!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Art. Technology. Planes.

 I read something about a sculptor called Ray Emsworth who made sculptures all his life but only ever had one exhibition. Most of his work he stored in sheds in his Cornish home. Even his wife had to be invited in to see them, although since his death, she still goes into the sheds frequently – because, she says, “there is a strong feeling of Ray’s presence in each”. A photographer called Jem Southam has published a book of photos of his work. According to  the photographer Ray Emsworh’s father was a highly skilled but not well paid sandcaster, who would also make toys for his sons during the war. “Ray got his marvel at the skill and craft of making things from his father,” Southam says.

“Sandcaster” sounds like an interesting profession. I am reminded of the people who make fantastic sand sculptures on beaches, not just amazing castles but dragons and mermaids and occasionally religious objects. Indeed, I seem to remember that there are organised competitions dog sandsculpting.

When I looked ‘sandcaster’ up on the internet I found this:

“A sandcaster is a defensive weapon system for spacecraft that fires a cloud of particles to disrupt incoming attacks, including deflecting and damaging kinetic projectiles and disrupting beams from directed-energy weapons.”

What is it with these weapons people that they take rather romantic-sounding names and make them aggressive? 

Similarly there is Palantir Technologies, named after the crystal balls used for communication in The Lord of the Rings, a company that develops data integration and analytics software. Palantir Texhnologies says, “With good data and the right technology, people and institutions today can still solve hard problems and change the world for the better.” Palantir's customer base includes federal agencies, state and local governments, international organizations, and also private companies. Enough said.

The word Palantir, by the way,  comes from Tolkein’s invented language Quenya, palan 'far', and tir 'watch over'. The stones were used for communication and to see events in other places or in the past. Like so much technology it was perverted into something to harm people!

So it goes.

Here are some pictures of a “flying taxi” .

“British flying taxi startup Vertical Aerospace has said the UK government has expressed interest in buying a military variant of its aircraft as it races to gain approval for flights with paying passengers.

Vertical also welcomed another £10m grant from the government, taking its total UK state funding to &48m.

The company demonstrated its prototype model of the flying taxi on Monday at the Farnborough international airshow, an industry event at an airfield west of London.

The aircraft is one of several electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft which manufacturers are hoping will revolutionise urban transport by landing quietly – relative to a helicopter – in built-up areas with no direct emissions.”

On the subject of aircraft technology, here’s a link to an article about Airbus planning to test folding wings for their next generation planes. It’s all happening!

On the subject of travelling, at the moment Odysseus and his Odyssey seem to be ubiquitous. There are advertisements all over the place for the latest film of the Odyssey. There has been a series television examining the geography of the journey and the likelihood of it having been a real event! It’s quite unlikely that people were really turned into swine!

Incidentally, we have just watched a documentary about a concert made up of songs from the Coen Brother’s film based on the Odyssey, Oh Brother Where Art Thou? Well worth watching! Some very good songs! 

Life does on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

End of term. Nostalgia for Wakes Holidays. More sports commentary.

 Most schools have broken up for the summer holidays by now. Travelling into Oldham this morning  by bus to go to the dentist’s for a check-up I noticed a fair number of grandmothers with grandchildren in tow. This is what happens in the summer holidays. 

Here’s an ‘end of term’ cartoon:

Our youngest grandchildren don’t finish school for the summer until the day after tomorrow. This is because they had two weeks for the half term holiday which may have been to accommodate the Whit Friday band contest fun and games. Their mother, whose school closed for summer last Thursday, has been taking advantage of having free time while the children are in school to catch up with some of the household organising tasks that you never have time for under normal circumstances.

In the dentist’s waiting room a fellow patient was reminiscing about the days when Oldham used to have “Wakes” holidays. This was traditionally two weeks at the end of June when the cotton mills closed down for machine maintenance and all the workers had time off. Other cotton mill towns had different weeks. Seaside places like Blackpool and Southport knew when to expect holidaymakers from different towns. When I started working in Oldham the Wakes holiday tradition was still going, which was oddly inconvenient as my husband worked at a school neighbouring Chadderton which did NOT have Wakes Holidays. This was the case at least until reorganisation brought us all under one umbrella organisation.

The lady in then dentist’s waiting room remembered Wakes Holiday weather as always being fine and sunny but never too hot. That’s nostalgia working again!

A friend of mine in Galicia, NW Spain, posted this, reminding us that Spain has become world champion in men’s football and women’s football in the same year, the first country ever to do so.

When Spain was set to play France in the World Cup, Spanish politician Rajoy commented that the French team is not really French as so many players come from immigrant families. He was roundly criticised for racism. Spain’s young star, Lamine Yamal, child of Moroccan and Equatorial Guinean immigrants told him: “Francia y nosotros somos ejemplos de imtegración” - Framce and Spain, we are examples of integration! 

He went on: “El fútbol si sirve para algo es para integrar la sociedad y no hay mejor que Francia y nosotros, que somos ejemplo de la integración” - if football is useful for anything it is integrate society and there is no better example tha France and us. Well said, young man!

 

Here’s a link to an article by a Spaniard, commenting on the importance of Spain’s victory. Here’s some of what she had to say:

“The contrast between football’s power to promote integration, which this team seems to fully understand, with the constant partisan battles dominating public life in Spain couldn’t be sharper.

The message repeated most often by the coach, Luis de la Fuente, and his players is simple and powerful: “We are a team. We embrace diversity while working together towards a common goal.” Spain’s greatest strength on the pitch lies not in individual brilliance but in a cohesiveness that becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Ironically, that sense of shared purpose and collective responsibility is perhaps what Spanish public life is missing the most.

Yet even if the impact of football seems fleeting and insignificant, especially in these challenging times, its extraordinary appeal can inspire a shared spirit. At its best, it fosters solidarity and camaraderie. At its worst, it can fuel violence and disrespect, as Argentina’s team sadly showed before, during and after the match.”

They’ve been playing serious gold at the Royal Birkdale. There’s a suggestion that maybe Trump might become an arbiter for all sports. i don’t know much about golf but it seems that a player called Bryson DeChambreau trod down some long grass close to his ball , thus improving his swing, and was penalised for it. He got cross, returned to the tournament scoring area and reportedly threatened to call Trump. Here’s a link to an article about it. 

You couldn’t make it up!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

A bit of sports commentary!

 As a rule I don’t take much interest in football but last night, after we’d finally got around to watching the day’s activity in the Tour de France, and after a bit of channel-hopping, we found ourselves watching the last stages of the World Cup final between Spain and Argentina. 

As I said already, I don’t take a great deal of interest; when Phil watches Match of the Day on Saturdays and Sundays during the season I find something else to occupy, only noting what’s going on when he gets excited about something on the pitch. But this was the Cup Final: Spain versus Argentina, so far goalless and onto extra time. And it somehow became for Spain - disapproved of by Trump for supporting Palestine and for various other reasons - to defeat Argentina - a far-right country approved of by Trump. politics is not supposed to enter into it but the Argentinians had already used the football pitch as a platform to tell everyone watching that the Falkland Islands belong to Argentina and are really called Las Mallvinas.

It was all very tense. Then Spain scored but the goal was disallowed because the player was offside, only just offside but there it was. The ball went up and down the pitch. Both sides had unsuccessful shots at goal. Then Ferrán Torres scored a goal for Spain and we had to endure the tense remaining minutes until the final whistle blew and it could be acknowledged that Spain had won!

“Argentina’s reaction in defeat was shameful. They turned their backs on the Spain players as the trophy was presented, preferring to keep their eyes on the fans behind one of the goals. Donald Trump, who did not want to leave the stage as the Spain captain, Rodri, got his hands on those six kilograms of solid gold bliss, was not the only person to make a spectacle of himself.”

I’m quite surprised Mr Trump hasn’t claimed that he invented football!

Much praise rained down on Spain’s 19 year-old Lamine Yamal, just 19 a couple of weeks ago.and some tears were likely shed for Lionel Miessi with his team losing what will almost certainly be his last world cup match. He’ll have to change from football legend into football pundit!

We have been recording Channel Five’s daily summary of each day’s stage of the Tour de France. Yesterday it was the middle fo the evening when we got around to it as we had had a big family dinner and sat chatting for ages. And in that summary we saw Jonas Vingegaard, until now second behind Tadej Pga af, acrash out of this year’s competition. It seems he may have hit cobbles on a bend, came off his bike and broke his collarbone. Interviewed before the stage began he had said thatch had had a bad night, being woken by a knock at his door at 2.00 am - a random drugs test.

The wearer of the yellow jersey is tested at the end f every stage. Other riders are apparently tested at random. The middle of the night seems cruel. Tadej Pogacar suggested that being woken in the small hours may have been a factor in the crash. “If Jonas, if he was tested at 2am in the morning, he probably slept less than four hours, or his deep sleep was ruined. It ruined the night,” he said. Remco Evenepoel, now in second place, also commented, saying: “It's pretty disrespectful. To be honest, [if] I had it, I would send my team to wake them [doping control officials] up to feel how it is.

“It's something inhuman, it's something that we should not accept as athletes. Everyone knows sleep is the only recovery moment we have, and if that gets disturbed... This is the hardest and the biggest race in the world. This is a shame that this happened, and I hope it doesn't happen any more in the future.”

It’s a hard life being an athlete, but they must feel rather privileged to be able to make a living doing something they love.

Today is a rest day for the riders, but no doubt they’ll still be out there training in the heat.

Life goes n. Stay safe and well, everyone!

England wins! Approaching autumn? Things that don’t seem to change.

 So, England defeated France in the football last night. Small consolation for the football fans who really thought England might win the World Cup. So it goes!

And soon the whole thing will be over and done with. Will it be Spain or Argentina? And will Mr Trump give advice to one or other of the teams. After all, he us said to have found fault with Tuchel’s management of the England team. He must be an expert in everything.

Before we know it we’ll be back with the regular football season again. It may still only be July but we’ve passed the longest day and there are already signs of autumn, such as the rowan trees showing ripening berries a little earlier than I think they should be.

Summer seems to be continuing for the moment though, if a little cloudier than yesterday.

Other things around the world continue also. 

There are now reports of forest fires near Zaragoza in northern Spain: another bit of the world on fire.

ICE agents are still going about their nasty business in the USA. Here’s a link to an article about two recent occasions when ICE agents have shot people in their cars, only to discover later that they were not actually the illegal immigrants they suspected them of being.

“Many of the immigration arrests in recent months have been conducted by police, sheriffs and members of other state and local law enforcement agencies deputized by the federal government to conduct immigration sweeps. In many locales, it has become unclear to bystanders whether drivers are being pulled over due to a genuine traffic violation, or because an officer was interested in checking their immigration status.”

It must be reaching  point where those with the “wrong” kind of face and complexions are afraid to go out in their cars.

Are we handling it any better in the UK? Hmm! There’s this

“Labour has increased immigration raids to historic numbers since entering government two years ago as the party comes under pressure from voters and Reform UK to take a harder line on the issue.

The Home Office said in January there had been a 77% increase in the number of raids on businesses such as nail bars, car washes, barbers and takeaways since the 2024 election, with an 83% rise in arrests.”

That’s from an article about a London borough plNning to ban its officials from cooperating with immigration raids.

In the Middle East Israel is making plans to take control of ancient water reservoirs, making them part of Israeli-seized territory. The second Oslo accord placed these reservoirs, the Solomon Pools, under Palestinian civil and police control. Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, regards this as a “terrible mistake. “We are working hard to repair the terrible damage caused by the Oslo Accords disaster,” he said. I suppose it’s one way of looking at it. Here’s a link to an article about it.

Now, Phil and I have been getting emails from Andy Burnham and Lucy Powell, Deputy Leader, urging us to join the Labour Party. That should read ‘rejoin’ as we left a good while ago, disillusioned with the party. I presume they have a database with names and email addresses of people like us who have defected. I wonder if they have also emailed Jeremy Corbyn! And of course, Diane Abbott.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Fires. Football. Facial recognition. Farage.

 Here are some pictures of the fires, and the firefighters, at our local beauty spot, Dovestone Reservoir.

Our milkman told me about a farmer he knows who had to evacuate the two hundred sheep he usually keeps on land up there. Another victim of the strange times we live in. 

According to this article, the situation with wildfires all over the world is only going to get worse. Surely this has been going on long enough for us to have worked out some kind of system of prevention. When we lived in Galicia in the 2010s it was a regular thing in the summer to see firefighter planes swoop down over the sea, scoop up water and then drop it on the affected area, similar to what’s going on in this photo. 

And of course, everywhere it remains true that not all the fires are truly wild: some have been deliberately set to clear an area of forest and thus make it possible for the classification of that piece of land to change so that developers can build houses there. The profit motive rules! But so does plain stupidity and carelessness! 

Today is significantly cooler and cloudy but no rain seems to be forecast. A good few days’ downpour is probably what is needed to properly extinguish the fires. What a strange situation: England hoping for rain! 

I naively thought England’s involvement in the World Cup was over and done with but it seems our squad has to play la sélection française to decide whether France or England gets third place. It must be quite dispiriting for both teams concerned to have to go through the motions for minor glory. But then, that’s what footballers are paid for. 

I hear that  Mr Trump is going to be present at the cup final, presumably to cheer on Argentina as he doesn’t really like Spain very much. And here is cartoonist Cold War Steve’s version of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza coming to save the World Cup, the fifth in a special series of World Cup 2026-themed collages made for the Guardian.

As more and more places seem to have facial recognition systems, which incidentally are reported to misrecognise black faces more frequently than white faces, some clothing manufacturers are producing ‘adversarial clothing’, clothes with designs intended to confuse facial recognition systems - T-shirts featuring faces for example. Here’s a link to an article about it. 

I thought that the Clacton by-election was going to be fought between Nigel Farage and Count Binface but this article tells me that there are 34 candidates in total. The whole thing becomes a farce.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!