Photos from a traveller. The Tour. Going cashless. Dystopia.

This morning my brother-in-law sent a photo message from Montreal. He’s gone to Canada to see Marillion, a group he has been following all over the place in the last few weeks. LC? he asked me. I had to zoom in on the photo to understand his question. One very tall building has a mural of Leonard Cohen on its side. Well, I suppose Montreal was his city. And maybe that’s the “Tower of Song”, occupied by Hank Williams, according to LC himself. I expect other occupants might be Roy Orbison, John Lennon, George Harrison and Tom Petty, to mention but a few. 

Yesterday the Tour de France set off from Copenhagen. I always find it very confusing that they start the race in a country other than France but that is the tradition. Eight years ago my son, his wife, their small baby and I watched the Tour ride past Holmfirth, not far from here. Very exciting stuff. Today, by the way, I have found the ideal card for my son, whose birthday is on Wednesday; it shows cyclists toiling up a hill presumably somewhere in France. Getting back to yesterday’s exploits, it seems that Welshman Geraint Thomas, a possible winner once again, got himself confused about clothing. In the warm-up for the time trial he wore some kind of gilet on top of his aerodynamic cycling suit and forgot to remove it before he rode out to do the time trial. His team didn’t notice either - how remiss! Whether or not this affected his pedal-power, he didn’t win the stage! We’ll see how it goes. I need to find a channel that does a daily summary for me to keep up to date. 

We’re in festival season at the moment. Posters are going up around here for our own “Party in the Park”, more correctly “Party on the Cricket Ground”, which will take place in September. We don’t have any big names but some of the local people will recognise the names on the poster - not me though! And here’s a link to Tim Dowling writing about playing in “the band he is in”, as he usually describes it, at a cashless festival. To purchase drinks and so on he had to arrange for money to be “added” to his wristband, and asked “Why does it feel like a dystopian future?”. 

I must say I have largely grown used to not paying cash. I fill my basket or trolley with goods, whizz out a bank card and Bob’s-your-uncle! Just occasionally it reminds me that I have been using it quite a lot and I need to put in my pin number. I draw the line at paying cashless for very small purchases though. I have not yet got around to doing all my food shopping online. I still prefer to choose the items myself. However, thinking about this recently, I remember my mother having a regular “delivery” of certain staples from the local co-op store. I don’t remember her having items substituted though.

Today I came across this photo in an article about the problems in the USA regarding Roe V Wade being overturned:-

“Is the dystopian future envisioned in The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s novel turned TV show about a theocratic regime that strips women of their basic freedoms, already here? In recent years, the red cloaks and white bonnets worn by the handmaids of Gilead have become a familiar feature at protests on women’s issues around the world. The group of women standing outside the US Capitol in this image from 2017 were demonstrating against a bill that sought to defund the sexual healthcare provider Planned Parenthood.”

So it goes!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!