Hot weather. Going shirtless! Gaza. And the wonderful Lemm Sissay.

It was pleasantly warm when I went out at about 8.30 this morning, already feeling as though today was going to be hot. I went out again later in the morning by which time the temperature was up to 27°, which is quite hot enough for me, thank you. It was still nice to be out and about at that point. It may be altogether too hot later.

The cyclists in the Tour de France cycled in 40° heat yesterday. They were all using icepacks stuffed down their cycling tops and drinking lots of water. I wonder how spectators cope with that kind of heat.

Here’s a photo of two shirtless tourists walking past souvenir shops in the old town in Sorrento. Shocking to some local residents. And to me as well actually.

The town now imposes hefty fines for what it describes as ‘widespread indecorous behaviour’. According to this article other places in Italy are also imposing fines. It’s happening in other parts of southern Europe too. There seems to be strange effect of being on holiday which makes (some) people lose all empathy and not consider how the local people might feel about half naked people walking round their usually quiet town. Mind you, judging by the men I occasionally see travelling bare-chested on the bus, some people just don’t have any sense of what others might think!

While World Cup fever rages on all over the place and Cristiano Ronaldo gets emotional about this being the last World  Cup he’ll play in, this popped up on my social media: 

“Today, Egypt played one of the biggest matches in its football history.

In Gaza, Mohammed Al-Waheidi had worked to bring a rare ninety minutes of distraction to displaced families by setting up large screens for people to gather and watch the match together.

He never got to see it. Before the match could even begin, an Israeli strike targeted his car, killing him.

Think about the sheer cruelty of that. While families gathered to share a rare moment of normal life with their children, the reality of the ongoing genocide violently cut it short.

In most of the world, sports are an escape. In Gaza, even trying to watch a match cannot escape the reach of Israeli targeted killings.

The people of Gaza deserve more than fleeting moments of hope. They deserve the right to live, to celebrate, and to dream without the constant threat of being assassinated in their ordinary moments.”

Here’s something to cheers us all up, or at least those of us who live in the North of England. It’s YouTube link to the poet Lemm Sissay reading his poem “The Anthem of theNorth” to graduates when he was presented with an honorary degree at the University of Lancashire in Preston. Worth listening to.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Processions. Tradition. Politicians and sport. Wildfires. Music in Gaza.

 It’s amazing what you can find out about a place where you have lived for 50 odd years.

Either yesterday or Sunday - I’m not sure which but most probably Sunday - there was a religious procession through the centre of Manchester. It was an Italian event: la Festa della Madonna del Rosario.and it is apparently one of the oldest surviving processions in the UK. Who knew? 

The Madonna Del Rosario procession, which was started by the city’s Italian community in 1888, began on George Leigh Street, once known as little Italy after the Italian immigrant community who settled there. I understand it finished in St Ann’e Square.

Although originally started as a celebration of Italian identity, the procession was joined by people from across Manchester’s Catholic churches, reflecting the city’s Irish, Polish, Indian, Philippines and African communities.

It ."celebrates the culture and traditions of families who migrated from Italy, and their contributions to the city. 

This year’s event is supposed to be especially significant with the return of the historic St Michael’s banner, a treasured piece of Manchester’s Italian heritage that has undergone a remarkable restoration by the BBC’s The Repair Shop.

More than 100 years old, the banner has been part of the community’s story for generations, carrying the traditions of Ancoats’ Little Italy through the decades. 

After months of expert conservation work, it was revealed for the first time during the weekend’s procession.

The procession brings together churches, families and communities from across Manchester, reflecting the city’s rich cultural diversity while honouring the Italian community that helped shape Ancoats. 

Participants from Irish, Polish, Indian, Filipino and African Catholic communities will join civic leaders, pipe bands and association members as they make their way through the city centre.)

And adding to the occasion, the BBC’s The Repair Shop team was supposed to be filming throughout the day as part of the banner’s restoration.

And the is has been going on for all those years and I knew nothing about it. 

World Cup fever seems to have been taking hold of our leaders. There’s Mr Trump protesting about a red card … and having it cancelled. This has provoked a number of cartoons.

And our PM did his bit of interfering:

“Keir Starmer intervened to oppose Fifa’s plan to move England kick-off time 

PM stepped in over proposal to shift World Cup match to an earlier time, amid concerns it would benefit Mexico.”

Oh dear! Someone needs to remind them that it’s just football, just sport!

The Tour de France has gone home to fierce wildfires in the South East of the country. Parts of Spain, Italy and Greece have also been also burning. Yesterday’s stage of the Tour went ahead despite the fires but spectators were not allowed at the finish. Tadej Pogacar took the yellow jersey from Jonas Vingegaard. I’ve not yet found out what has gone on today. I’ll watch the summary this evening.  

Meanwhile, here’s a little joy in a troubled world:

Gaza’s musicians reopen bomb-shattered conservatory – in tents

Even though most of their instruments have been destroyed, teachers are restarting classes, using music to give relief to traumatised people

Here’s a link to an article about it.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Birthdays. Socialising. Cycling. Yachts? Football.

 Today is a day of multiple birthdays: our son (48), Granddaughter Number One (29), my Italian friend Guido (age not revealed), and the daughter of a friend of our daughter (23 or 24 I think).  Tomorrow is Granddaughter Number One’s best friend’s birthday (28). Consequently yesterday we did a big family dinner with presents for the two of them and a shared cake. Fun and games all round! Grandson Number Two (6) got very excited and decided he had to show off, the way small boys do when they realise they are not the centre of attention.

For the first time in weeks we had a visit from Grandson Number One (21), in honour presumably of his older sister’s birthday meal. From being a very quiet person who never seemed to go anywhere apart from to the office when he was obliged to do so, suddenly he has developed a lively social life, out drinking with friends and even staying overnight at his girlfriend’s place! So much for all the theories about the younger generation being sad and lonely! 

In the middle of all the fun and games I remembered to set the TV to record the highlights of the Tour de France on Channel 5. There have been some interesting views of Barcelona, some of them repeated as yesterday’s stage finished with the riders doing a number of circuits around Montjuïc. The commentators kept going on about the competition between Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard but in the end it was Pogacar’s teammate, the young Mexican isaac del Toro, who won the stage. Pretty good for his first Tour. Did Pogacar let him win the stage as part of team morale-boosting? There”s so much plotting and scheming behind the cycling!   

I’m reserving judgement on the commentators involved in this year’s coverage of the Tour. We had grown used to hearing Phil Liggett and Gary Imlach discussing the riders that it seems strange to hear different voices. So far there has been no after-stage discussion between the present commentators. Maybe that will come when they move into France. There have been occasional contributions from the Irish former cyclist Sean Kelly. It took us a while to put a name to the Irish accent. 

In the background to some of the views of Barcelona were several cruise ships. These huge floating hotels continue to go around. Not my cup of tea! Here’s a link to something about a protest in Venice against  a visit by the billionaire US ambassador to Italy in his 117-metre superyacht, which they fear he plans to dock in the lagoon city. I’m not sure such a boat can really be called a yacht but there it is.

And England’s football team defeated Mexico’s team in the early hours of this morning. i wonder how many people were late for work or school as a result. Now they face Norway in the next stage. That will be interesting: Harry Kane against Erling Haaland.

So much sport this summer!

Life hoes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

And the Tour de France has begun. A bit of Tour mostalgia. Street food. Cycling. And Muslims and Jews.

 The Tour de France began yesterday with a TTT (team time trial) from Barcelona. We watched highlights on Channel 5 in the early evening. It looked like a very fine day in Catalonia, certainly too hot for cycling at speed up the final hill of Montjuic. Cycling technology means that they all have the most aerodynamic bikes possible, not to mention Darth Vader-style helmets. Now, I remember long ago when the Tour riders staged a protest because they were expected to wear helmets of any kind. 

Quite how the team members manage to cycle in close formation without clashing wheels always amazes me. It seems to me that Djamolidine Abdoujaparov, in the 1990s, could not have managed it with his sprinting style that involved his elbows and knees protruding in all directions, for all the world as if he had more knees and elbows than average. He was nicknamed "The Tashkent Terror" as he was so ferocious in the sprints. His unorthodox and often erratic sprinting caused a number of crashes. Those were the days!

(Incidentally, my father also rode his bike with knees sticking out but we always put that down to the fact that he improvised a child-seat on bis crossbar on which all four of us siblings rode in turn. This was before there were safety-conscious child-seats to attach to bikes!)

A lot of fuss was made about which of the favourites, Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar, would get the yellow jersey. It was Jonas Vingegaard in the end, feeling very confident and recovered from the nasty crash he has in the Basque Country a few years ago. 

In today’s Guardian, however, I saw this report:

“While yesterday’s TTT was predominantly a team effort, it was interesting to see who went up the last climb to Montjuïc fastest once shorn of helpers.

Hardly something to make headlines or draw too much from, but confirms that Pogacar is the man to beat today. Five seconds quicker than Vingegaard too, blimey…”

We shall see what today’s riding brings!

it seems that France is putting a lot of hope in a young man called Paul Seixas, 19 years old and the youngest Tour debutant since 1937. Reminded of the scale of the challenge facing him, in hoping to usurp the dominant four-time champion, Tadej Pogacar, he said calmly: “There are different ways to win a cycling race.” Someone to watch out for!

Still on cycling, here is a picture of a Japanese man photographed riding a bicycle while carrying soba noodles on his shoulder in Tokyo, Japan in 1935. It makes fast-food delivery nowadays seem very simple.

Here’s a link to an article about archaeologists discovering an ancient Byzantine city in Egypt. Amazing stuff! It is to be hoped that nobody bombs it!

And here is something posted by someone called Mohamad Safa on Facebook:

“In 1290 all Jews were driven out of England. In 1306 they were expelled from France. In 1430 exiled from Germany, followed by Spain and Portugal. Boycotted in Italy, and time after time tossed out of every major European city.

After the centuries of expulsions, in 1492, Muslims (The Ottoman Empire) opened their doors for the Jewish. in the late 17th and 18th centuries, as the Ottoman Empire became less stable, Jews were finally allowed back into England after 366 years of total banishment. 

After 1848, hundreds of thousands of Jews left Central Europe to escape rising nationalism and "pogroms" (anti-Jewish riots).

After WWI, Britain took control of Palestine from the Ottomans. From 1917 to 1939, Muslims (Palestine) opened their doors for the Jewish as usual.

In 2026, some Western politicians lecturing us (Muslims) on how to live peacefully with Jews!

Read some history.”

Life goes ln. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Fourth of July! Some Trump quotes. Swimsuits. Evictions.

 It’s the 4th of July. Independence day for the United States of America. 

Here’s a link to some interesting photos from the 250 years of independence.

Burning flags, busty blondes and bison skulls: 48 photographs that capture America at 250 | Photography | The Guardian

And here are some Trump quotes from his speech at the semiquincentennial (250 years) celebration:

“A generation after we fought and won the cold war against the menace of communism, there is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success.”

 “The communist party is made up of illegal immigrants, criminals and everybody that doesn’t want to work.”

“It’s the enemy of the constitution,” he declared. “Above all, it’s the enemy of July 4th, 1776 … Communism is the exact opposite of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It’s death, tyranny and the pursuit of evil.”

“You can be loyal to Karl Marx or you can be loyal to America. You can be a communist or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.”

“The communist party is made up of illegal immigrants, criminals and everybody that doesn’t want to work.”

No comment. But here’s a cartoon.

I was talking about holidays with Granddaughter Number Two, specifically about how nice it was to have a swimming pool at our hotel in Portugal recently when it was so hot. She declared that she needed to start swimming again, now that her latest piercing (she has multiple ear piercings, not to mention a whole lot of tattoos - she’s that sort of girl) has healed and she can go back to the swimming baths. But she needs a new swimsuit. So here’s a relevant cartoon strip for her: 

I’m taking the plunge and buying a new swimsuit: the Becky Barnicoat cartoon

I wrote recently about van dwellers in Cornwall, people priced out of accommodation by the tourist boom. Here’s a link to an article about moves by local councils to evict such van dwellers from their ‘homes’. We love in a harsh world.

And here’s something about another kind of eviction, a story that has been popping up and getting a lot of concerned comment on my social media pages:

“Much-loved attraction near seaside town closing doors after 87 years

Funding for the attraction in Churchtown has been pulled.

An aviary that has been going for nearly 90 years is set to close. 

Sefton Council said the attraction in the Botanic Gardens in Churchtown in Southport will shut in March 2027.

Connor Atherton, the small animal and avian keeper at the council-run site, said news of the closure had come "out of the blue". 

The council said every effort would be made to re-home the 170 birds and small animals at the aviary and putting them down had been "completely ruled out". 

Atherton said the council had told him it cost about £60,000 a year to fund the aviary and it had taken the "difficult decision" after reviewing animal welfare guidance, ageing infrastructure and budget pressures.

He said that sum was "a drop in the ocean" for a free attraction which served as a rescue centre and a place for children and older people.”

This is a place my family visited when I was small, a place I took my own children to, a place that became a regular destination when we had family reunion lunches in Southport - me, my daughter and her children, the Spanish branch of the family, those family members who never moved away from Southport. Everyone enjoyed provoking the parrot into greeting us. 

Another bit of nostalgia swept away! So it goes!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!