Bleak October days. “Natural” disasters. Brave journalists. Guilty conscience poetry.

 It’s a rather bleak end-of-October day, perhaps ideal for Hallowe’en. But it’s not rained on me … yet! 

Our daughter is sending us pictures of Lancashire windmills and seemingly endless boardwalks. 

She and the children are undaunted by the gloomy weather and enjoying the seaside anyway. 

And according to weather reports, it seems that our son and family on holiday in Baiona have escaped the weather chaos affecting so much of Spain. 

In other parts of Spain they are still looking for missing people. I look at photos like this one of cars 

piled up in the street with other debris after flash floods hit the Sedaví area of Valencia. Pic in my photos. and wonder how you even begin to clear that up. 

Here is a photo of a mural in London, depicting a Palestinian journalist, Wael al-Dahdouh.

He was going to be a doctor but before he could go away to study at the age of 17 he was arrested, “charged with what he calls “the usual activities of the intifada” – throwing stones, burning car tyres, and confrontations with armed forces” and imprisoned for 7 years. This was back in 1987. “Israeli authorities demolished his family’s home. “House demolitions were regular during this time,” Zaanoun told me. “Sometimes they would half-demolish a house as a warning.” One or two rooms would be left for the residents to shelter in. If the warning wasn’t heeded, forces would return and demolish it all.”

Unable to become a doctor he studied journalism and was working for Al Jazeera when in October of last year when his wife and some of his children were  killed as reprisals for the October 10th attack got under way. “It was as he knelt down by (his 15 year old son) Mahmoud’s bloodied body that he let out his first cry, then uttered a phrase that would reverberate around the Arab world: “They took revenge on us through our children.”

And just over a year on, we still see the children being punished. Here is a link to the details of his story.

And here, in contrast, is The King and his Tutor again:

‘Do you think we represent civilisation?' said the King.

'Most certainly,' said the tutor, 'we have the civilised values of thousands of years behind us.'

'O that's good,' said the King, 'and are we recognised as such?'

'That's an interesting point,' said the tutor, 'because ironically, for thousands of years, we were regarded as the devil incarnate, outcast god-killers.'

'And then we became the opposite?' said the King.

'Indeed we did,' said the tutor, 'in a matter of years we have become the banner-bearers for all that's good about civilisation, particularly in this part of the world.'

'That's a relief,' said the King.

'And of course, we have taken on the job of fighting for civilisation,' said the tutor.

'Yes,' said the King, 'I like that, and we do it in civilised ways, don't we tutor?'

'Again and again and again,' said the tutor, 'we are spreading civilisation all the time, thoroughly and vigorously.'

'Do people appreciate this?' said the King.

'Surprisingly, some don't,' said the tutor, 'they berate us for being so thorough and vigorous.'

'What do you say to that?' said the King.

'I remind them that they are reverting to the times when they regarded us as the devil incarnate,' said the tutor. 

'You're very good at this, aren't you?' said the King.

'I like to think I am,' said the tutor.

Thank you, Michael Rosen.

And I sit here, safely writing this blog post, looking at photos of the family having fun. A friend of mine sent me this relevant poem:

MY PHONE IS FULL OF CUTE CATS AND DEAD CHILDREN.

It’s all I can do to keep from scrolling away

in favor of a kitten lolling in a sunbeam

or doing tricks for a piece of bacon; it’s all

I can do to watch to the end of the clip

of the boy in Gaza harvesting inedible leaves

insisting they are ‘cheeseweed’, he fills a bag

and will not believe the journalist who tells him

‘no habibi you cannot eat them’. He is starving.

Outside the sun is shining. I could take a walk

or eat an apple from the fridge, while else-

where, bombs are falling, snipers drop poets

and doctors in the streets. We watch it all

unfolding between our thumbs,  is it

doomscrolling or truthporn or bearing witness

and are Romans, watching and screaming

as the arena fills with blood. 

E.D. Watson. October 2024.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone. 

Floods and crazy weather patterns. What to do with clothes labels. Expressing concern.

 The topsy-turvy world weather is currently wreaking havoc in South East Spain. The news shows film footage of cars swept away down streets, people being rescued from cars which are trapped in deep flood water, huge areas of land under water. People are warned not to travel close to riversides and ravines, places where a flash flood could sweep you away. Climate change deniers might try to persuade  us that this is a totally natural phenomenon but personally I’m not convinced. Even accepting that there are cycles of weather, cycles of global heating and cooling, we’ve done a lot of things to exacerbate matters. 

It’s quite frightening how much damage water can do. And even if you live in a high rise block of flats, it’s quite likely that your car is parked in an underground garage - just the sort of place the floodwaters will get to. Even though have the technology to predict at least some of the extreme weather, it seems we still can’t always prepare for it.  

Our son and family have gone to Baiona in Galicia, near the Portuguese border, for the half term holiday. Their daughter has just passed the eleven plus examination, so this sun-seeking is by way of a celebration. Had she failed it would have been a commiseration holiday. In contrast to places like Valencia, Baiona seems to have sunshine and clear skies, at least according to the weather app on my iPad. And it should remain fine for the rest of their week there. They have struck lucky. 

We, meanwhile, just have dull and grey and cloudy, but apparently no actual rain forecast at the moment. So it goes!

When Granddaughter Number Two was small, we used to have to remove labels from clothes as they made her extremely uncomfortable.  Failure to do so led to an absolute refusal to continue wearing said items of clothing. Now she’s old enough to remove for herself any labels that she cannot tolerate. She’s not alone in this, it seems, but nowadays, according to this article, there are easy-to-remove labels. I remain amazed that someone has gone to the trouble of writing a whole article about clothes labels, how to remove them, how to store them along with spare buttons once removed, and the possibility of labels going digital. As more and more places now like to email receipts rather than printing them, maybe clothes shops will add washing instructions and such like information to those emails. This is 21st century living.

That’s the trivia dealt with. Now for some more serious stuff again. 

I truly despise headlines like this one that I saw yesterday: 

“US says it is concerned by 'horrifying incident' where 'two dozen children killed' in Israeli strike in north Gaza residential block

The US is “deeply concerned by the loss of civilian life” in an Israeli strike on a residential building in northern Gaza that killed at least 93 people, including a large number of children, a US state department spokesperson has said.”

These are empty, hollow words, like the “apologies” that say “I’m sorry if you offended” rather than “I’m sorry I upset you”.  What is the point in expressing horror at events that you have facilitated by supplying arms? And why is the US suddenly concerned now, as if this has not been going on for a year? 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

A spendthrift grandson. Chuggers. Aid and aggression. The right to protest.

 Grandson Number One, 19 years old, has a good job, maybe not well-paid enough to pay rent on a flat of his own but enough to contribute to his mother’s household expenses and to be able tomput money away for the day when he decides to become completely independent. He’s feeling quite wealthy. When I last saw him, he proudly showed me the watch he had just purchased, £250, reduced from something even more extortionate to wear on his wrist! Then there were his trainers £300 reduced from £500. Goodness! Were they lined with gold? I wanted to know. I’d be afraid to walk down the road for fear of being mugged for my footwear. And he’s buying hoodies from Australia - expensive but free shipping, he told me. Are there no decent hoodies sold locally? Suddenly he’s developed expensive tastes. But I suppose it’s one way of asserting his independent adult status.

I have learnt a new word, or set of words: chuggers chugging chuggees. 

Chuggers are those (usually young) people who stop you on the street and try to persuade you to sign up for a direct debit payment to whichever charity on whose behalf they are chugging you - a kind of charity mugging. The people accosted in this way are chuggees. According to Zoe Williams, writing in the Guardian, the chuggers are seriously exploited, paid very little, set impossible targets, and dismissed quite arbitrarily when they fail to meet those targets. Here’s a link to her article. 

On the radio news they are talking about the Israeli government ruling that UNWRA is banned from operating in Israel and the occupied territories. The whole business with Israel and Palestine is a huge socio-political oxymoron: on the one hand Israel has long been responsible for making sure the occupied territories receive the humanitarian aid they need; on the other hand they bomb and shell the goodness-knows-what out of them! A crazy situation that has been going for decades but which has made a quantum leap in the last year!  And there is no way that effective peace talks can take place while the bombing and shelling continues.

We let it begin to happen decades ago, we’ve turned a blind eye to the situation over all that time, and now it’s come to this. 

Here’s a Michael Rosen ‘King and his Tutor’ post on the international situation:

'What actually is the Emperor's job?' said the King to his tutor.

'Good question,' said the tutor, 'and I'll try to answer it. The Emperor's job is to make sure that the Emperor's power and control carries on.'

'Fair enough,' said the King, 'and how does he do it?'

'Yes,' said the tutor, 'let's get down to basics. First thing he does is try to make sure that as many countries as is possible have Kings who think that he's a good and kind Emperor.'

'Just as we do,' said the King.

'Exactly,' said the tutor, 'and then, the Emperor backs people.'

'What's that?' said the King.

'Well,' said the tutor, 'if the Emperor thinks that this or that leader or group is going to help the Emperor's power and control to carry on, the Emperor sends them money and spears.'

'That's good,' said the King.

'Well, yes,' said the tutor, 'it is good, but the snag is that sometimes, that leader or group is not the leader or group that the Emperor likes anymore.'

'Oh dear,' said the King, 'what then?'

'The Emperor backs someone else to get rid of that leader or group,' said the tutor.

'You mean that the leader or group he was backing, is now the leader or group that he tries to get rid of?' said the tutor.

'Exactly,' said the tutor.

'But don't people point this out and say that the Emperor is being inconsistent or hypocritical?' said the King.

'They do,' said the tutor.

'What then?' said the King.

'We call people who say those things about the Emperor, traitors and subversives,' said the tutor.

'And that deals with them?' said the King.

'Mostly, yes,' said the tutor.

'Marvellous,' said the King, 'but what about the scribes?'

'Ah the scribes,' said the tutor, 'no problem there. The scribes say, "We are realists!" and that all things considered the Emperor is probably right.'

'And that the traitors are traitors?' said the King.

'Of course,' said the tutor.

'And life goes on,' said the King.

'Indeed it does,' said the tutor.

Closer to home, we have problems with the right to protest:

“Hundreds of health workers have called on the General Medical Council to stop suspending doctors imprisoned for peaceful climate activism ahead of a trial which could see the first jailing of a working GP for a non-violent climate protest in the UK.

Two retired GPs have been suspended by GMC-convened tribunals this year after receiving short sentences for non-violent offences during Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain protests in 2021 and 2022. The medical regulator did not express concerns about the doctors’ clinical capabilities but said their actions undermined public confidence in the profession.”

Those two were retired GPs but apparently it’s still a threat which hangs over doctors who are still in practice. We have a shortage of doctors, so surely we should not be suspending them for matters unrelated to their professional competence. But doctors and health workers, like teachers are not supposed to express opinions, let alone go on demonstrations!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Messing about with the clocks. A bit of grammar police commentary.,

Yesterday we put the clocks back an hour. This gave me an extra hour in bed. A friend who used to work for the fire brigade was commiserating with former colleagues who might be working the night shift. If you are on the night shift you work through the moment when the clocks automatically change (well, the electronic devices such as mobile phones and iPads) but you still work until it is officially your finishing time. So if you began work at 8.00pm and you are due to go off duty at 8.00am, for example, instead of working 12 hours you will have worked 13 hours, because in “old money” it’s 9.00am. This is fine if management recognises his and adjusts the pay accordingly, but in practice this does not happen. The people affected are largely firemen, ambulance drivers, policemen, nurses and doctors - public service workers! 

Presumably at the other end of the year, when we put the clocks forwards an hour, a 12 hour shift becomes an 11 hour shift. Does that mean that the workers get paid for 12 hours when only working 11? And how do you check that it is the same workers? 

The fact remains that the days are shorter and it now goes dark at about 5.00 pm. This is particularly depressing as the rain seems to have returned. 

Seamus O’Reilly was writing about his son in his column, as he often does. This time he was lamenting the fact that the now six year old boy no longer regards him as “the font of all knowledge” but is likely to turn to Alexa for information. So it goes! But maybe the child will soon tell him that the correct expression is “fount of all knowledge”. Even though “font” and “fount” both come from the same Latin root, “fount” means a source, while a “font’ in the stone basin in church containing holy water. 

You have to get these things right, especially if you are a bit of a grammar policewoman like me.

Running through the village I noticed this sign, with careless punctuation, the sort you see all over the place, I am sorry to say:

A friend of mine suggested that maybe it meant that only one office office was available, as in ‘Office is to rent”. Hmm! I’m still not impressed!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Sunshine. Some political nostalgia. And a bit of poetry.

We started off with another fine day this morning. 

It clouded over later but not at all bad for autumn.

Here’s an interesting bit of nostalgia about the Labour Party: 

“Labour’s historic mission has been to ensure a good standard of living through decent wages, access to health services and education not dependent on what you could pay, and housing you could afford. But above all else Labour pledged to build a society where poverty would no longer exist by creating a safety net to ensure the most vulnerable, children and unemployed, sick, elderly or disabled people, were no longer at risk.

To achieve all this, the postwar Labour government introduced the most progressive, civilising innovation in our country’s history, the welfare state, funded by a redistributive system of taxation. Any budget under a Labour government since then should be measured on its contribution to achieving this mission.”

Someone needs to remind our current politicians about this. 

And here, courtesy of Michael Rosen is a reminder of what used to be and what might be again: 

“The rent collector or 'House Jobber' could be a dreaded reminder of the lack of funds and imminent homelessness. This depiction in 1883 shows the desperation that many poor families lived in.”

And since I seem to be borrowing stuff from the estimable Mr Rosen, here’s some of his poetry:

Palestinians don't count.

Palestinians don't have names

Palestinians aren't Palestinian.

Palestine isn't Palestine.

Palestine wasn't Palestine.

There is no such word as Palestine.

There is no such word as Palestinian.

The land, (that the people who say they are Palestinian call Palestinian land), is not Palestinian land

The house (that a person who says they're Palestinian, is a Palestinian house),  

is not a Palestinian house.

In fact, the house is not a house. 

In fact, the person is not a person.

Palestinians don't count.

I think that says it all.

Fortunately, I am able to provide for my family - cooking a Sunday dinner is what I am about to return to - and don’t have to fear that they will be thrown out or blown up.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!