The weather must be getting milder because I have just hung washing out in the garden for the first time in weeks. Of course, this could just be the height of optimism on my part, however, as it will only have a few hours before I bring it in again.
However, the sun is actually shining, not that it will reach my garden very much as the sun is so low in the sky, and there is a bit of wind blowing.
It is still rather cold though. The ducks are still perching on ice floes on the pond and my water barrel has a very thick circle of ice floating about on the top of it.
There was rather an icy wind blowing as I went out to collect my dustbins (brown for glass and plastic recycling and green for compostable stuff this week) from somewhere up the street where the dustbin-men deposited them. As I came back from my run earlier I noticed that the dustbin-men appear to have been equipped with bright yellow thermal-looking uniforms, including a roll-neck top - visibly keeping warm! I dodged round the dustbin lorry in one of the side streets and saw a gentleman come out of his house, look rather despairingly at his still very full brown bin, which was still in his garden up a set of steps, and obviously decide he had no chance of getting the bin down the steps and catching the bin-men before they disappeared into the wide blue yonder. A picture of resignation! It is to be hoped he does not empty too many bottles and cans over Christmas and the New Year as we now have a three week wait for the next brown bin collection.
On to more serious matters:- Rishi Sunak has said that Gary Neville should stick to football and not make comments on political matters.
This is what Gary Neville said: “We should detest low pay, we should detest poor accommodation and poor working conditions. That is something we can never, ever accept that in this region or in any region – and it is just worth mentioning we’ve got a current government in our country who are demonising rail workers, ambulance workers and – terrifyingly – nurses.
“We can’t have people being paid an absolute pittance to work, we can’t have people in accommodation which is unsavoury and disgusting.
“That shouldn’t happen here [in Qatar] with the wealth that exists. But it shouldn’t happen in our country, that our nurses are having to fight for an extra pound or an extra two pounds either.”
He said it in his football commentary on the World Cup. The prime minister said: “I think when most people are tuning in to watch Gary Neville they want to hear about the football and watch the football. They don’t want to discuss politics.”
Oh dear! Everything should be nicely compartmentalised and we should only think what we are supposed (told) to think and vote the way we are told to vote.
It’s odd that football commentators should not talk about politics, presumably because football is their speciality, and yet politicians can become ministers for education without ever having been a teacher, or for health without ever having been a medical practitioner of any kind!
So football pundits should stick to their area of punditry but game show hosts who specialise in motorised vehicles feel free to say what they like about anyone and everyone. Jeremy Clarkson expressed his views on Harry and Meghan in a newspaper column, well, mostly his feelings about Meghan. His expression of hatred and desire to see her suffer horribly led to a media outcry and he has had to apologise. In an apology tweet, he wrote: “I’ve rather put my foot in it … I’m horrified to have caused so much hurt and I shall be more careful in future.” Of course, his apology seems aimed at those who protested rather than to Meghan herself.,
Why does he “hate” her? What did she ever do to him? And why is his reaction so visceral? Why does he so much want to see her enduring horrible fates?
“Hate” is a very emotive word which we all tend to use without thinking. Quite often we “hate” some politicians and their actions. Teenagers “hate” their parents for forbidding certain activities, children “hate” their friends when they fall out, we “hate” certain foods. But this casual use is as nothing compared with actually writing it in a newspaper column. And whatever was the newspaper doing printing such nasty stuff? The mind truly boggles.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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