It was fine when I ran round the village this morning. It must be said that the air felt heavy, the way it does before a thinderstorm. Then while I was showering, the rain started. It continued until at least midday. So much for August!
I took a look at the news headlines.
The Wagner mercenary military group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plane crashed or was blown up or was shot down outside Moscow. Yevgeny Progozhin’s name was on the list of people on board and so it is presumed he and other top Wagner people are dead. News media are blaming Putin, saying he had the plane shot down, which seems an odd way to get rid of a nuisance! I’m just amazed at how some people presume to know exactly what happened in such circumstances. Of course, it remains a mystery whether he was really on the plane. Is there another kind of cover-up plot going on?
Also still in the news is Luis Rubiales, the president of the Spanish football federation. Television viewers saw him kiss the Spanish women’s team forward, Jenni Hermoso, on the lips after the Spanish women won the World Cup. I wasn’t surprised. Lots of kissing goes on in Spain (and other Southern European countries), some of it more a case of brushing cheeks that actual kissing. And a fairly casual kiss on the lips can take place without it developing into full-blown “snogging”, which you’d think he was being accused of, judging by the fuss.
Much has been made of the fact that Jenni Hermoso said on a live stream afterwards that she “didn’t like it”. What is getting less reporting is the fact that in .comments later provided to media she appeared to clarify her position, saying it was a “natural gesture of affection”.
“It was a totally spontaneous mutual gesture because of the immense joy that winning a World Cup brings,” said Hermoso, in comments given to AFP by the Spanish federation. “The president and I have a great relationship, his behaviour with all of us has been outstanding and it was a natural gesture of affection and gratitude.”
And now, as was to expected, other accusations of sexist behaviour on Señor Rubiales part are popping up. I have no idea whether any of these are true but I always wonder about people jumping on the abuse bandwagon.
Granddaughter Number One tells me that her housemate was shopping in a local Aldi store when security men had to restrain a man with a knife. The housemate did not actually witness anything as she was too busy choosing which cheese to buy, which is probably just as well since it means she has not been traumatised. It’s rather worrying though that such events are taking place a little too close to home. This is the second such incident in our neck of the woods. I recently went out on a Sunday morning to discover a house not far from ours surrounded in police tape because of a violent incident - as I discovered a week or so later.
On the radio news just now they have been talking about the creation of synthetic embryos. The scientists hastened to reassure us that they are not creating real babies and that this is not fact catching up with fiction - Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never let me go” tells of actual people produced by in vitro fertilisation in a laboratory purely so that their organs can be ‘harvested’ for transplant purposes. Frightening stuff! But the real-life development will apparently give insight into how embryos develop. There we go.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.
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