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!

Fires - wild and uncivilised! Michael Rosen. Out and about. The possibility of rain.

 They are evacuating people from the suburbs of Bordeaux, Spain has declared a state of emergency as fires rage around Madrid, the Cairngorms are of fire, in various places in England fires are still raging. Meanwhile I have seen this post on social media. 

Here’s a bit of Michael Rosen’

“The steady daily killing and brutalising of Palestinians in the West Bank has nothing to do with 'fighting terrorism' or 'security' and everything to do with grabbing land by killing and scaring the people living on that land.

One way to do a massacre of a people is to do it slowly, one day at a time, so it doesn’t hit the headlines, doesn’t shock the world, doesn’t force other countries to do anything and just feeds denials. 

What massacre? they say.

There’s no massacre here, they say.”

We’ve been out for a morning walk under a very cloudy sky and had drizzle fall on us. Maybe it’s going to rain today and try to put out some of the wildfires. We saw fairly interesting flora and fauna and architecture.

Here’s a cartoon about daily walks that made me smile. 

We’ll be doing a more adventurous outing later.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Trying to catch up with the Tour de France. Fires in France. A bit of tourism.

 Last night, in the late evening, we managed to log on to a re-run of one of the summaries of a day’s activity in the Tour de France. For some reason it was the summary from the day before yesterday, the one we’d been unable to watch because our home television was not receiving the signal from Channel 5. So  ow we were But the system wouldn’t let us find yesterday’s summary. No doubt we’ll find that tonight but probably not today’s summary. We”re just a little behind. Adam Yates was having some kind of stomach trouble and one of yesterday’s newspapers reported that some kind of sickness was affecting other riders too. I wonder what’s going on.

In other parts of France, wildfires are still causing havoc.

Out walking first thing this morning we saw swans. And rabbits. And very small birds which so far we have not identified.

We’re on a family weekend away in a rented holiday home by a marina near Carnforth in Lancashire. That might explain our having found a replay of the Tour summaries, just being in a different location.

Last night the sunset was quite fine.

Today it has been cloudy and windy, warm when the sun broke through.

After breakfast and a good deal of messing around we went on an excursion Arnside, a picturesque place. We walked miles along the seafront but the se was miles away.

Here are some photos.

The local crochet group had been busy.

The pubs have interesting names.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone! 

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!