Still no rain to speak of. Still chaos in Gaza. And something on women’s rights.

 It’s August. So it’s time for another photo of my favourite tree, a beautifully shaped horse-chestnut on my running route.

We’re still without significant rainfall, just the occasional overnight shower. I gave in and watered the plant-pots yesterday evening as the forget-me-not plants were looking decidedly droopy. 

They’re still working on totally extinguishing the moorland fires around here. Someone posted before and after pictures of our major beauty spot, Dovestone reservoir, named for a rock formation that someone decided looked like a dove, or at least a bird. Here’s what it usually looks like:

And here’s its present state after so much burning.

Flora and fauna have been destroyed but at least no people have lost their homes.

Here’s something from Norman Finkelstein, commenting on much worse events in Gaza:

“A few days ago, the Zionist enemy allowed a truckload of medicine for kidney patients in Gaza to enter, specifically the "Dialysate" solution used in dialysis centers and peritoneal dialysis machines to purify the blood of toxins.

At that time, all international media outlets documented the extent of this entity's humanity, and the news spread throughout the world: "Humanitarian Israel supports the people of Gaza with medicine, especially kidney patients."

Two days after the entry of this equipment, the enemy directly targeted the warehouse where the supplies were stored. It completely disappeared; the enemy didn't leave a single liter of the solution.

They are lying to you, my dear reader and listener. The important question now is: Did this warehouse deserve a missile of that size? It created a crater with a diameter of more than 50 meters and a depth of 5 meters. Did it deserve that?

May God be with you, kidney patients.”

There is still a lot of trickery and cruelty going on.

Here’s a link to an article about the drinking culture in the Houses of Parliament. Hannah Spencer, the Green party MP elected at the Gorton and Denton byelection in February, has expressed her amazement, shock, disapproval at discovering that so much alcohol was consumed in her new place of work. Now, I wonder why such a culture exists. Might it be a throwback to a time when the only people (the only men) who could afford to be parliamentarians tended to come from moneyed families and a situation where it was perfectly acceptable and normal to have a drink as you signed a deal, all very civilised! I can’t think of any other work situation where it’s normal to take and alcohol break. In my student days I had friends who worked in biscuit factories and sweet factories.  They could buy bags of misshapen chocolates and biscuits but were not permitted to eat them during the working day - health and safety rules for the working people!

I came across an item looking back to the late 1950s, when we all felt very modern and emancipated. In Ireland, in the late 1960s, a young mother named May McGee had four children in less than two years — two sons, then twin daughters. That alone is enough to attract attention.  Her doctor warned that having more babies would put  her life in danger and prescribed contraceptives, illegal in Ireland at the time, under a law dating back to 1935. When she and her husband tried to buy some from abroad, the contraceptives were seized by customs officials and a court case ensued. 

When asked in court how he felt about his wife using contraception, her husband didn't hesitate: "I'd prefer to see her using contraceptives than be placing flowers on her grave.". The judge agreed and eventually in 1979 the law was changed and contraception became legal.

By then here in the UK women had been feeling emancipated by the pill for some time. And the first in vitro fertilisation had taken place and the first “test tube baby” had been born.I suppose to some younger people that seems like long ago but really it’s recent history.

We need to keep fighting for those women’s rights.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well,everyone.

Playing or not playing games. Crossing borders. One person’s decision to go back.

Whenever we go on a chess holiday (a tournament for Phil to play in and somewhere for me to explore) someone inevitably asks me if I play. To which the answer is that I know how the pieces move but, no, I don’t play. I know a lot of chess jargon and chess philosophy even but, no, I don’t play. I once drove Grandson Number One crazy because I moved so slowly. I also drove him crazy when we played a FIFA game on the computer as I kept kicking the ball in the wrong direction, unintentionally, of course. I’m just not very good at games but provided the game is not too complex I will join in, unlike the writer of this article, who believes that games should be banned for anyone over the age of 12. I think she exaggerates somewhat.

A couple of days ago some 60,000 Moroccans crossed the border into Ceuta, Spanish territory in North Africa. It seems Morocco may have helped to open the border, not so much to reclaim Ceuta as to disrupt Spain. Spain seems to have things sort of under control though,  and a lot of them have now gone back to Morocco. 

Donald Trump is reported to have told a cabinet meeting: “I saw Spain yesterday, and I watched the catastrophe that took place. It looks like an invasion of a country. 

“Hundreds of thousands of people. And that same thing’s going to happen to us if the Republicans don’t get elected, except worse, much bigger, much easier to get into.”

As with so many things to do with Trump, the numbers were rather larger than life. And the US department of state is placing the blame on the socialist administration of Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez.

“This unacceptable incident is the direct result of the Spanish Government’s deliberate efforts to enable and facilitate mass illegal migration into Europe,” they said. 

And Giorgia Meloni says Italy is suspending the EU's border-free Schengen arrangements with Spain, and has agreed to strengthen controls along the Franco-Italian land border to try to prevent any undocumented migrants ⁠from crossing. Panic all round.

However, Spain's interior ministry says the majority of those who entered the Spanish territory in North Africa have already returned to Morocco

One young Moroccan, Abdulah Buji, told reporters he was inspired by the thought that this collective crossing could somehow unlock his dream of reaching Spain and starting a new life in Europe. "Spain gives you the chance to make your future, not like Morocco," said Buji, a 21-year-old who is studying to be a teacher. "I am a talented boy. I just want a chance."

He swam round the border fence to reach Ceuta and lost his belongings and his money in the process. But at least he didn’t lose his life like some swimmers did.

When he realized that he would likely face legal limbo and detention, he turned around and headed back.

"I've spent perhaps 14 years studying, but there's nothing at home, and I'd have to work 12-hour shifts for a meager wage," Buji said. “That's why I came here, but I haven't found any opportunities here either, so I have to go back."

That’s one young man’s story

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Losing Thursday again. Restoring whips. Taking the huff. Gaza comment and education comment.

Well, Thursday was kidnapped by grandchildren who arrived in time for breakfast and stayed until suppertime. Craft activities ensued, we had a picnic in the park, fun and games were had by all. But I never got round to writing, let alone posting, my blog. I barely got round to reading the news headlines. 

This morning I read that Diane Abbott has been readmitted as Labour MPs. A move to reestablish harmony in the party? There has been a lot of pressure to restore the whip to Diane Abbott, who was, after all, probably a member of the Labour Party before the current leader was born. 

Zack Polanski has come in for criticism for posting a picture on Instagram of a man with a t-shirt featuring a guillotine and the words ‘We’re only planning for Nigel” or something similar. Nigel Farage has been a bit cross about it. Here is Ben Jennings’ cartoon.on Nigel Farage’s anger at Zack Polanski’s Instagram:

I read also that something else upsetting Nigel Farage is the fact that Andy Burnham has asked Kemi Badenoch and Ed Davey to discuss spcial care with him but hasn’t invited Mr Farage, whp seems to have forgotten that he is no longer actually an MP.

Here’s a little comment on Gaza.

And here’s something from Michael Rosen about children and books and testing.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Drought but not officially here in the NW. Wedding and fashion silliness. Annoying language. And some serious stuff about justice.

The Environment Agency says that half of England is officially in drought, with July set to be the driest on record after winter floods: East Anglia, Hertfordshire and the whole of London, Thames Valley, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Devon and Cornwall, the West Midlands, and Wessex (covering Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire, and south Gloucestershire). 

So we can continue to water our plants here in the NorthWest. But our peat moors are still smouldering away and my water barrel is still almost empty., but the blackberries are beginning to ripen.

Skimming through an article about weddings I gleaned this bit of information: 

“former rugby player Danny Cipriani and his fiancee, the actor Annalynne McCord, launched a “tacky and distasteful” (as one source had it) crowdfunding page asking guests to help pay for their wedding. The total amount they are asking for is £10,660. It seems fair to say that their combined earnings considerably outstrip those of your average newlyweds.”

I can understand crowdfunding to pay for special medical treatment but for an overpriced wedding it is rather over the top. And surely there are better things to spend £10,660 on. 

The writer, who declares herself to be fairly traditional Irish Catholic, speculated about what her own wedding might be like and declared “the idea of being married in a humanist service by someone wearing, say, skinny jeans and a black T-shirt gives me willies.” 

Oh dear, I hate it when people get expressions slightly wrong; that should be “gives me THE willies”! It’s not quite as bad as all the Americans who say “I could care less” i stead of I could’t care less”, but even so …. Even the spellcheck tries to correct could to couldn’t! up!

 

Here’s some more silliness: extremely wide and extremely long trousers! A fashion trend by all accounts. Together with ridiculously high heeled shoes, they are causing women to end up at A&E with damaged knees and other injuries.the moral is: don’t wear anything that can trip you 

Now for some more serious stuff. More that fifty years ago the chilean folksinger and political activist, Victor Jara, was murdered in the coup that brought down Allende’s government. One of the soldiers responsible for his death, someone who has been ln the run, has now been imprisoned. 

The Víctor Jara Foundation, set up by his widow, the British dancer and activist Joan Jara, said in statement: “We learned that retired Colonel Nelson Haase Mazzei, who had been a fugitive from justice since 2023, was found and imprisoned. We welcome this news.

“However, it is important for us to emphasize that, half a century after the murders of Víctor Jara and Littré Quiroga, it is difficult to see this as this justice.” Here’s a link to an article about it.

Life goes ln. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Doing lots of steps. My crazy Fitbit. And thinking about air conditioning.

According to my Fitbit, now getting rather old and unreliable in the battery department, I have taken 22,461 steps! Amazingly even when it’s telling me it has a flat battery, it keeps on counting my steps. It won’t speak to my phone app any longer. Weeks ago there was some kind of change in the system and for some reason the app thought I was a new Fitbit user. I gave up trying to connect properly. And then when it really did run out of battery I recharged it and now for some reason it tells the time 7 hours and about 10 minutes behind the actual time. It’s quite amusing really. And besides I now wear a plain old fashioned wristwatch as well.

Anyway, it seems I have 22,461 steps today. I jogged slowly round the village in the cool of the earlyish morning. Later our daughter and various offspring turned up with some stitching that needed doing. (She often brings repairs to our house for me to deal with!) This led to us going on a family stomp along the Donkey Line bridle path to the Lime Kiln cafe where refreshments were consumed. Our return journey was interrupted by a visit to the local garden centre where some of our number wanted to buy a small tree but was persuaded that we could not carry such a thing. 

This was followed by a stop at a playground. At that point Granddaughter Number Two and I decided to hop ln a bus that conveniently came along, leaving Granddaughter Number Four and Grandson Number Two playing in the park and then walking home. granddaughter Number Two and I made coffee ready for the arrival of the others.

At some point after coffee, and after I had done the aforementioned stitching, Phil suggested a walk round the millponds, as ha had not been out to stretch his legs. And off we went. Tht’s how I managed 22,461 steps.

Even though it was quite late in the afternoon, almost early evening, it was surprisingly hot. Is this the start of the next heatwave.

Here, by the way, is a Ben Jennings cartoon on southern Europe’s wildfires.

Here’s a link to an article about the Liberal Democrats stating that new homes being built now should all be equipped with air conditioning. British homes are not equipped for hot weather. Neither are we really prepared for the sort of life-style where people sit around outside in squares and on street corners socialising and trying to catch whatever cool breezes are around. I read recently that London is particularly badly prepared for hot weather - too much concrete and not enough trees! We are quite lucky, personally, to have an old house with a cool basement. And we have a relatively shady garden too. I”m pretty sure that building air conditioning into every new home - and adding air conditioning to existing houses - is not really going to help with the climate crisis. But something must be done, as our daughter keeps assuring me. And she should know as she spent the last few weeks of the summer term in an overheated classroom with insufficient ventilation while the heatwave continued outside. Expecting children to learn in overheated schools is counterproductive. As well as tackling the climate crisis, we need to adapt our way of life.

Between wildfires, fire-clouds, earthquakes and tsunamis, it seems that the world is protesting and punishing us for not looking after it better.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Tour winners. Fire clouds. What exactly is a terrorist? The importance of suits.

Well, the Tour de France is over for another year, ending as usual with a ride over the cobbles of Paris.

As expected Tadej Pogacar won. Only if he had fallen off his bike was there any possibility of his not winning. 

And so  he joins Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Induráin as a five times winner of the Tour! Here’s a picture of Miguel Indurain, back in the days when they didn’t wear helmets - crazy cyclists who protested when helmets became obligatory! 

Tadej Pogacar did not win the final stage of the Tour though. The honour of winning the Paris stage went to Mathieu van de Poel. Tagej Pogacar came in second along with Isaac del Toro, who won the young riders’white jersey. 

Isaac del Toro beat France’s young hopeful, Paul Seixas, to the white jersey. But hey!  19-year old Paul Seixas came fourth overall, which is very impressive for his first time riding the Tour. Richard Carapaz was impressive as King of the Mountains, winning the polka dot jersey. And Mads Pederson won the sprinters’ green jersey. In fact, from early in this year’s Tour the competition for the green, white and polka dot jerseys was more interesting than the competition for yellow. So it goes! 

The headline for an article about holidays this morning was something like “The best places to visit in the shoulder season”. What is the “shoulder season? I wondered. So I looked it up and found this:-

“Shoulder season is the travel period between a destination's peak and off-seasons, offering fewer crowds, lower prices, and mild weather. It typically falls in spring (March–May) and fall (September–October) in many Northern Hemisphere destinations.”

I wonder who invented the name.

Yesterday’s rain didn’t do much to fill up our garden water barrel, so I don’t think it will have replenished the reservoirs very much either. I read this morning about “fire clouds”, aka pyrocumulonimbus, or “pyroCb” clouds. Wildfires form dense clouds of their own, creating a sort of mini weather system if they are sufficiently dense, with the possibility of lightning, and the risk of them causing further fires to break out some distance from the original fire. They’ve had these fire clouds in Australia since the start of this century and they formed in California in 2022. And now they are forming in France, the first time the’ve occurred in Europe. This is, of course, another frightening development in the climate crisis. We might enjoy the sunshine but things are getting worse! 

 

Another thing that is getting worse is sentencing of Palestine activists. Brendon O’Hagan, 28; Amanda Kelly, 31; Hmeera Atiqnisar, 31; Mohammed Malik, 28; and Alma Yaniv, 70, were found guilty of causing £212,000 of damage during a direct action protest in Burnley in August 2024. They targeted the bank because it held shares in the Israeli weapons firm Elbit Systems. This was before Palestine Action was deemed to be a banned terrorist group. At the time of the trial their action was not assessed by the home secretary nor officials to be a terrorism incident. However,  the CPS is calling for them to be sentenced as terrorists. I wonder how far back retrospective judging can go!

Here’s a photo of Andy Burnham in a suit, something which I think was not often seen in the past. More of an informal dresser.

But, according to this article, New York mayor Zohran Mamdani always wears a suit because ‘it’s the de facto uniform, after all, of those seeking to project seriousness and solemnity’! So maybe that explains Andy Burnham’s sartorial switching!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Rain … much needed but is it enough? Getting our priorities right. International cooperation. Number 10.

Today it has rained sporadically. We returned home from our amily mini-holiday, dodging from our accommodation to the car avoiding showers. After we arrived home I had to choose my moment to walk into the village to replenish basic supplies from the local co-op store. I suppose I could have asked my daughter - our driver of the trip - to stop briefly in the village on our way home but we’d already had spent some fraught time loading the car - too many people with too much luggage - so we opted for her to simply drop us off at home. 

Before we went away I had asked our milkman not to make a delivery on Friday. I was quite relieved to find he had remembered that request; part of me was afraid we might return to find two bottles sour milk on the doorstep. And I had taken our supply of fresh fruit away with us, so  I needed to do some basic shopping. 

It rained on me as I walked back from the village. There has been enough rain to refill the various puddles on the path that runs through the industrial estate. I have not yet checked whether it has gone any way towards refilling our garden water barrel. So rain has been falling. Hopefully it will  help to completely extinguish our local wildfires!

As they’re still talking about the possibility of having to evacuate the whole of Bordeaux and as Madrid is still surrounded by fire, and as race organisers have shortened the finale of the Tour de France in Paris today, after security forces were redeployed away from the capital to help battle wildfires near Bordeaux, maybe it’s time we spent more on preventing wildfires than on worrying about Russia attacking Europe! 

In Cuba they’re still experiencing almost constant power cuts, adversely affecting so many aspects of life there, including water supply to homes. Here in the UK we take our electricity and water supply for granted most of the time, erupting into indignant outcry if something prevents it happening. Here’s a link to an article about life in Cuba, where people are having to go and fill containers with water. This is the 21st century!

However, there are reports of China providing and installing  solar panels to provide sources of power. But, of course, such power supplies need the right kind of infrastructure. Just another complication to overcome. But an example of cooperation and another reason for Mr Trump to rage against China.

It seems that our new Prime Minister wants to establish alternative government offices in Manchester, dividing his time between the North and the South of the country. Here’s a little cartoon reflecting on that possibility.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!