According to my weather app, today we have an improving weather situation, with the % chance of rain reducing rapidly by the hour. It was damp when I went out first thing but now it is considerably brighter.
This improvement has persuaded Phil to go ahead with his planned visit to an old friend, despite problems with public transport. The drivers for one of the bus companies are on strike again today. Even when they are not on strike, the buses are only every half hour. Today Phil had to opt for one which runs only once per hour and does quite a long, convoluted route to get him to the tram station in Oldham. So it goes.
Yesterday Greenpeace protestors draped Rishi Sunak’s Yorkshire mansion with oil black fabric in protest at his plans to drill further for oil and gas and generally to ignore a large number of environmental problems. Protestors have been arrested! sunak was not there. nobody was there! Parliament is in recess and Sunak and family are on holiday in California - his holiday was not going to be spoilt by people saying he shouldn’t fly.
Here is an ironic comment from social media:
“Parody Rishi Sunak
When someone said Greenpeace were on my house I said Downing Street? They said no, so I said my Kensington mews house? They said no, so I said my apartment in South Kensington? They said no, so I said not my Santa Monica penthouse? They said no …”
It must be hard to keep track of so many places of residence. I wonder which one his family really regards as “home”.
Out walking yesterday, for some reason Phil and I got to reminiscing about our schooldays, mainly about primary school, the bomb shelters that still stood in or near school grounds back in the 1950s (in the case of my primary school one was used to store PE equipment and the other was a source of stories about ghosts!), the quality of our teachers, the games children played and segregated playgrounds. Boys and girls were often directed to sit on different sides of the classroom and certainly did not share playgrounds. One thing we both remembered was the fact that we did not know Roman Catholic children. Both our primary schools had their share of Jewish children but the small Catholics went to their own schools, usually connected to the church.
And then later I came upon this article about Belfast and the power of music to bring people together. I find it astonishing that in the 21st century I can still read things like this:
“Belfast is in many ways still a deeply divided city, but last week young people from Catholic and Protestant communities – who live apart and go to religiously segregated schools – played music together at Belfast Summer School of Traditional Music, as part of the weeklong Belfast TradFest.”
According to fiddle player and summer school tutor Martin Dowling, music did not escape the schism that the Troubles caused in the city in the 1970s. “The Troubles pushed traditional music in Belfast into more hidden, segregated spaces and, although there had always been Protestants who played traditional music, a generation of urban Protestants rejected it as something that was exclusively Catholic.”
Maybe music can help: “In small ways, through music, we are contributing to building bridges between communities.”
Meanwhile, over in Mexico music is contributing to the fight against misogynist attitudes and violence, as the city of Chihuahua bans misogynist lyrics in live music venues.
And, finally, here’s an interesting Venn diagram.
It refers to the USA but I bet we could do a similar one for the Labour and Conservative in the UK.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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