Reactions to Sunday morning stuff.

Australia is burning. The Victoria Falls in Africa is reduced to a trickle. I just heard of loads of tourists trapped somewhere in New Zealand because a storm has caused flooding. The world is going crazy. It makes our weather here seem extremely moderate, whatever it does! That said, I had to wait for the rain to stop before going running this morning. They are predicting high winds for us now, possible the first named storm of the winter. And snow is forecast for the end of the week.

We shall see!

We need to watch the weather on Thursday. Cold and wet can prevent people turning out to vote. And here we are, only days away from the election and pollsters offering all sorts of possibilities. The politicians are running around still trying to persuade the undecided to vote for them. The son of a friend of mine is taking his nine year old daughter around with him campaigning for Labour. She’s already got a lot of the arguments sorted out and regularly cheers Mt Corbyn. In some countries they don’t allow polling or campaigning in the last days leading up to an election. I tend to agree with them.

I forgot to mention on the craziness front the state of things in France, where transport strikes are causing chaos to reign.

On the Christmas front, journalist Barbara Ellen has been writing about Peleton, the exercise bike people with the annoyingly enthusiastic advertising campaigns, putting out an advert where a man gives his wife a Peleton bike as a Christmas present. Barbara Ellen’s feeling is that the wife would be insulted at this gift which is surely hinting, in a not very subtle way, that she needs to lose some weight and get fit. “Astonishing as it may seem,” Ms Ellen writes, “women don’t fantasise about being presented with the opportunity to strive to look hotter for you.”

My Italian friend would agree with that. In her opinion, “presents are jewels, perfume, flowers, chocolate.” She would be insulted to be given, for example, a vacuum cleaner for Christmas or for her birthday. And yet, I know people who have done that as well. Surely biggish purchases like exercise machines and household equipment should be a joint decision.

Here’s a link to an article about art and Spanish exiles fleeing Franco’s Spain after the end of the Civil War. The list of those who died or suffered because of the Civil War includes the poet García Lorca, executed early in the war, another poet, Antonio Machado, who died in the French Pyrenees after fleeing Spain, the writer Arturo Barea, reduced to a nervous wreck and exiled to England, and, or course, the masses of ordinary people photographed by the jpirnalist Robert Capa as they fled. 


Probably an exhibition worth visiting Madrid again for.