It was just a bit cold cycling to the market in Uppermill this morning. It was colder in Delph than in Uppermill though. As I got organised to haul the bike up the few steps that lead from the back garden to the side garden, I noticed that there was a quite thick layer of ice on the water barrel again. Not that far down the road I turned onto the Donkey Line, where the muddy puddles were not even remotely frozen, not even a trace of what I think of a s skim-ice, when the water is beginning to freeze and forms a kind of skin, rather like what you get when heating up milk in a saucepan. Uppermill itself was quite mild. This did not prevent my toes and fingers from feeling quite frozen by the time I returned home, despite warm socks and thickly padded cycling gloves!
A good chunk of Wednesday disappears - I get up and go to the market, maybe stop to chat to a couple of people, return home and have a late breakfast, put the shopping away, tidy up a little, in today’s case do a load of washing, and suddenly it’s past midday! How did that happen?
Over breakfast, and beyond, I also skim-read the newspaper on line - that’s where some of the time goes!
Somehow I got into an article about endometriosis, a nasty condition affecting surprising large numbers of women, and which often goes undiagnosed. Women still have a habit of downplaying plain and “putting up with it”. Hilary Mantel suffered from it. I have a young friend on social media, a former student, whose career, indeed her life, has ground to a halt as she spends so much time feeling ill, often bed-bound and occasionally hospitalised. One young woman described how she was diagnosed with the condition, having always assumed she just had much worse period pains than other women, when she took herself to ER after feeling as though she had “like a charley horse in my uterus that lasted, like, half an hour”.
I had to look up “charley horse”. It’s an American term for cramp. Explanations and definitions usually refer to the kind of cramp you get in the thigh or calf muscles after extreme exertion. I remember having to stop in the middle of a race in sixth form because my thigh muscle went into that kind of cramp. The woman who took herself to ER said it was worse than childbirth; my memory of being unable to move because of cramp would possibly confirm that. At least childbirth has a positive outcome in the end.
One site promised etymology as well as definition of the term. It comes from American sport, most probably baseball and the first known use of “charley horse” was in 1886. Otherwise the attempt at etymology said it came from the name “Charles”. Well, I could have guessed that! Where the horse comes in, apart from maybe a good, strong kick, I can’t imagine. Useless etymology, but a new expression for me.
In other matters, discussion of Gary Lineker and his tweeting rumbles along. Someone I talked to this morning told me he had never guessed that Gary Lineker was a socialist, as he always thought he was a conservative. Gary Lineker is probably not a leftie but he is a decent humanitarian. Anyway, I came across this piece by the estimable Michael Rosen, most definitely a good bloke:
“Peter Hitchens challenged people (Gary Lineker in particular) to justify why Gary had said that he thought the language being used around asylum seekers/boat people (etc) was 'not dissimilar' (Gary's words) to that of Germany in the 1930s.
Note: Gary said 'not dissimilar' ie he wasn't claiming that it was identical. And he said 1930s, which to be clear is not the 1940s.
I've assembled a short checklist:
Rhetoric around citizenship and taking citizenship away from people eg Shamima Begum and Windrush generation. 'Fremdenrecht' is a pre-Nazi idea but adopted by the Nazis to remove German citizenship from German Jews. Removal of citizenship was called ‘Ausbürgerung’.
By repeatedly declaring people 'illegal' before they've been tried, is 'not dissimilar' to 'Willensstrafrecht' . This was a punishment for criminal intent, not the crime itself. The law was called ‘Täterstrafrecht’.
'Madagaskarplan' - the plan to ship Jews to Madagascar. The idea of shipping 'unwanted' people to other another country 'not dissimilar' to the Rwanda scheme.
As an aside, the press have called shipping people to Rwanda as the 'Rwanda Plan' or the 'Rwanda Asylum Plan', unknowingly imitating 'Madagaskarplan', perhaps? Don't know if Ms SB has expressed it as that. Perhaps not.
Ms Braverman has used the phrase 'cultural Marxism' . This owes its origins to the Nazis' word 'Kulturbolschewismus' though Ms Braverman may only personally know its roots to US politics.
Ms Braverman and her colleagues are engaged in some kind of culture war(s). This is 'not dissimilar' to the 'Kulturkrieg' which started before the Nazis but was very much engaged in by the Nazis.
'60,000RM kostet dieser Erbkranke die Volksgemeinschaft auf Lebenzeit. Volksgenosse das ist auch dein Geld' = "This hereditarily ill person will cost our national community 60,000 Reichmarks over the course of his lifetime. Citizen, this is your money." This is an example of people seen as 'costing us’.
Ms Braverman's persistent labelling of migrants as criminal (and/or the 'traffickers') even though many migrants are granted asylum is 'not dissimilar' to the Nazis' adoption of 'Asoziale' (noun) ('Asocials') which created a category of perpetual criminality in people.
The Nazi word 'Fremdmoral'. 'Fremd' translates roughly as 'alien' . The Nazis believed that lesser, foreign people had worse morals. Suella Braverman says police chiefs have told her "that drug supply... is now connected to people who came here on small boats illegally".”
There you go!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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