Politicians on politicians. Some thoughts about this being Earth Day. And it’s Wednesday.

Politician Ken Clarke has been on the radio commenting that from his great age (?!) of 79 he looks at the current government who all, he says, look very young and inexperienced, plunged into crisis management at an early stage in their political careers. He agrees that the prime minister cannot be said to be at an early stage of his political career, but most of the rest of them are very new to the business. It must have been a steep learning curve; okay I can accept that but it doesn’t explain or excuse the ignoring of advice from experts or slowness in taking up offers of help from companies that could produce PPE or offer help of one kind or another.

We seem to be hearing a lot more every day about the exit strategy. We shall see how that goes. In the meantime there are apparently homeless people camping out at Heathrow airport because accommodation has not been found for them by their local councils. “I first started sleeping at the airport last October when I lost my accommodation,” said one of them. “There were 10-15 of us then. Now we have grown to about 30. We try to support each other by sharing food and things. We have approached different councils asking them to give us accommodation, just until the pandemic is over, but they have refused so we’re still sleeping at the airport.”

Here in our area, the local council is slowly getting back to a mode of rubbish collection which incorporates recycling. So I was right to continue to put my glass and plastic waste in my brown recycling bin instead of the grey general rubbish bin. It’s almost full and I was beginning to resign myself to putting all my empty bottles of one kind and another into the grey bin. But from next week they will be back to something like the old pattern of collection. Quite an appropriate bit of news for me to get today, as it is World Earth Day!

According to their website:

“Earth Day was a unified response to an environment in crisis — oil spills, smog, rivers so polluted they literally caught fire. On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans — 10% of the U.S. population at the time — took to the streets, college campuses and hundreds of cities to protest environmental ignorance and demand a new way forward for our planet.
The first Earth Day is credited with launching the modern environmental movement, and is now recognized as the planet’s largest civic event.”

This year’s theme, which presumably was decided on quite some time ago, is climate action. The website tells us that “Climate change represents the biggest challenge to the future of humanity and the life-support systems that make our world habitable.” Maybe we have gone someway to helping by simply being at home in the pandemic. The air in big cities has improved considerably as we use our cars and are not whizzing around the globe by plane - unless we are very rich!

I’m listening on the radio to an item about Frank Mills, a small boy with spina bifida, seven years old I think, who has been inspired by Captain Tom’s marathon walk to raise money for the NHS. The little boy has decided to have a go himself at raising money by walking about and has so far raised a large amount of money. Hooray! say I.

On the other hand, I have heard that the organisation Just Giving, used by people like Captain Tom to collect contributions from the public, is claiming a £2,000,000 cut from the money raised. I imagine they usually take a percentage of whatever money is raised by contributions in this way but it’s not usually a percentage of such a large amount. Of course Just Giving has come in for a lot of criticism. Yes, the company is in this business to make money but under the present circumstances you might think they would at least reduce the fee, just as a gesture to let the public know that they are not completely selfish and that maybe after all we are all in this together! Just an idea!

But maybe that is too naively optimistic, in light of the fact that people with lots of money, such as Richard Branson, are applying for government grants to help keep their companies afloat. The excuse they give is that their much talked about great wealth is not immediately available in cash form but is tied up in other companies. Oh, my heart bleeds for them!

Anyway, it’s Wednesday again. Another bright and sunny day. So I have once again tramped to the market, which is still operating in its reduced form. Shopping is a slow business when you need to stand in a social distancing queue and enter a shop or approach a market stall one person at a time. So it goes.

I mentioned having bought tinned tomatoes yesterday. The shortage continues it seems. So here is a link to recipes for pasta sauces that don’t need tinned tomatoes.

On the menu here today is a ham and mushroom omelette with a a mix of recycled stir-fried veg, with some salad, of course, and possibly a lemon yoghurt cake for dessert - assuming I get around to making it.

My oldest granddaughter has been phoning me for recipes and advice on how to cook various things. I have suddenly become the family elder!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.