One of those days.

It has been one of those days when you do a load of washing and hang it out to dry in the sunshine and, even better, discover that it is dry only a couple of hours later. It has been a day for going for long walks in the sunshine (both is us), for digging dandelions out of the grass (me - and what long roots they have!) and for mowing the grass (Phil - who hesitates, quite correctly, to call our grass a lawn). One of the results of having such a completely changeable climate as ours is that you have to grab the opportunities as they come along. How boring it must be to know that the sun will shine in exactly the same way every day. But how nice it would be to have that option for a while at least. 

All sorts of action groups are springing up all over the place here. A young friend has added my name to a closed group on Facebook, "Save our NHS Greater Manchester Coalition". He just assumed I would be in agreement - which I am - and perhaps his having known me all his life (he is, after all, the son of a good friend) gives him some right to make such assumptions. A cafe owner has followed the example of the garden centre chap who put up a notice asking for customers who voted conservative to own up so they can be charged a 10% Tory tax. Is this becoming a new kind of political movement? A minister from the United Reform Church in Manchester has published an open letter to David Cameron asking him to consider the human cost of austerity. 

By far the best thing I have come across, though, is the suggestion that the North of England should secede from the rest of the country and go off and become part of Scotland. Some 5000 people are reported to have signed a petition to that effect. Imagine a wobbly line drawn across the country from Liverpool to Hull and that's the idea for a new geography of Great Britain. Interesting! 

Buzzfeed is an American Internet news media which releases stories about all sorts of things. One of their latest releases is a video recording of a 32 year old Hillary Clinton, then still calling herself Rodham, interviewed for television in Arkansas when her husband, whose name she didn't use, had recently become the governor of the state. Apparently she spoke with a real southern drawl at the time and over the years since then her voice has changed, in line with her career progress, some might say. Another person whose voice has changed over the years is our very own queen, no longer quite so unremittingly posh as she once was. Kristen Scott Thomas, in the role of the queen in a play in which the monarch is seen talking to different prime ministers over the years, said in a radio interview that she has had to vary the voice according to the year in which different prime ministers went to request permission to form a parliament. I suppose we all do it to some extent. Fortunately most of us do not have to face video evidence of our former and younger, usually much younger, selves. We reserve that experience for old family photographs. 

 Another American First Lady in the news at the moment is Michelle Obama who has been criticised for the Commencement Speech she made at the University of Tuskegee in Alabama, one of the top black universities in the U.S. She talked about the racism she has faced personally, including since she became First Lady, and pointed out that the students she was addressing would not always have an easy path through life. Some people, right wingers I presume, criticised her "playing the race card". Maybe she is just being realistic, however, and feels that she can now say whatever she likes as her husband isn't standing for election. 

Quite a refreshing change! Let's hope she keeps it up!