Last day of August thoughts.

It’s the last day in August. Various female columnists are writing about their relief at the prospect of their children going back to school, banging on about how hard it has been to have their children around all day, every day. In some cases they have been able, maybe obliged, to reduce their working hours over the summer to accommodate the children. If they are fortunate enough to be able to afford to do that, they should be making the most of that time and enjoying spending it with their children. For those children will not be children forever. Enjoy them while you can. SOme people don’t have that luxury.

Here’s Lucy Mangan on that subject. She also has stuff to say about the queen and the prorogation business. Here is what Craig Murray has to say about that.

Before prorogation Sajid Javid apparently tweeted this: “You don’t deliver democracy by trashing democracy. You can’t just shut down Parliament”.

It would seem that he changed his mind. Are we surprised at this?

I did plan to go into Manchester today to join in a Stop the Coup demonstration but the morning ran away with me.

So here I am, baking a cake. This was sort of commissioned by my small granddaughter:

 “Shall I bake a cake for your birthday?“
 “Yes, I would like a princess cake. And it’s Rapunzel. So she has ginger hair.”

There you go. A bit of art work with the food colouring is called for, I think.

Gaby Hinsliff in the Guardian  is urging us to shop less and live more. Does buying food colouring count? Who knows. She tells is that Oxfam has launched a Second Hand September challenge to buy no new clothes for a month. Presumably buying no new clothes does not include buying “new to you” from the Oxfam shop.

Ms Hinsliff also urges us to shop locally instead of online, if we must shop, thus helping to slow down the decline of high street shops. And she advises spending on experiences rather than things. That sound okay.

Experiences usually get recorded too, one way or another! There has been some correspondence in the weekend Guardian about the use of cameras in art galleries. People, one shocked letter-writer tells us, ignore the “no photos” and “no flash” signs all around the Mona Lisa in the Louvre and, what’s more, are in turn ignored by the museum staff, who surely should be keeping an eye put for such things.

I was once tapped on the shoulder by such a museum employee in a museum of Roman stuff in the south of Spain and reminded that I could not take photos. It was too late. The photos were already in my camera.

I confess to taking photos frequently of pictures that really impress me, although I also like to buy postcards and prints. Here are two letters that amused me:

•  “I spotted a person taking the perfect photo of L’Étoile by Degas on a fridge magnet in a Paris gift shop. Surely the ultimate simulacrum?” 
•  “Overheard in the Uffizi gallery; ‘oh, for God’s sake, George! If you’re going to stop and look at everything, we’ll never get round!’” 

 Which just goes to show that there is experiencing stuff and ticking off experiences on your to-do list. There’s a difference!