Local birdlife. Mr Trump and prizes and guns. Drinking in Manchester.

The other day I saw swifts or swallows - I wasn’t close enough to see clearly and, besides, I’m not sure I’d know the difference - massed on a telephone wire. Were they waiting to migrate to wherever they go for the winter?

Then I frightened a pheasant and caused it to fly up onto someone’s roof.

Today it was the turn of the heron, in the ford near one of the millponds, an unusual place to see him. 

As I approached for a closer photo he took off, demonstrating his huge wingspan for me. 

Right, that’s the bird-spotting done for today.

Here’s a Ben Jennings cartoon about Mr Trump and his claims to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

The progress towards peace in Gaza still seems to take staggering steps forward, only to be knocked backwards by one or other party disagreeing with details or simply not being fully involved in discussions. 

Maybe Mr Trump should turn his attention inwards in the USA and do something about guns. Here’s a report of a shooting in a Mormon church in Michigan. Of course, we’ll never find out what the shooter had against the Mormons as he was shot dead by the police.

Here’s a little item about Manchester city centre pubs, not necessarily the cheapest places to go drinking but often picturesque:- 

 “Manchester is packed full of some of the oldest pubs in the UK, and whilst there’s nothing we love more than a pint, a Guinness is even better. Luckily for us, there are plenty of amazing Irish pubs offering the black stuff, and one is The Shamrock in Ancoats – which has been officially given a new name.

As work now begins on a  £1.8 million refurbishment of The Shamrock, it will now be called ‘The Spinners Rest‘, after owners Joseph Holt invited locals to make the choice. The name was selected through a public vote and pays tribute to the mill workers who once lived and worked in the area.”

I wonder how long people will continue to call it The Shamrock though.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Coffee. Crowds at sports events. The loss of restraint. Can you support Reform and not be racist?

As I drank my second cup of breakfast coffee this morning I skimmed an article where columnist Emma Beddington bemoaned the fact that people pay £6.50 for a cup of coffee, something my Italian friend also finds incomprehensible. Indeed British coffee culture is a mystery to her and she misses being able to order an espresso for a probable maximum €2 and drink it standing at the bar. The columnist declared her desire to return to instant coffee as she can’t stand the snobbery around the different types of coffee people prefer (what level/method of roasting and which country of origin, which hints of ‘interesting flavour’ they discern) and even the complication of the coffee machine she has in her kitchen.

For a while we had a complicated coffee machine. I think we gave it away in the end and reverted to our Italian style coffee maker, the sort that apparently almost every Italian household uses. Although how long that will be the case if Starbucks manage to invade Italy. (We have several sizes of this useful but simple device.)

We’ve not travelled as much in the last year as we usually do but when we have I have noticed that in airports such as Oporto there has been a creeping invasion by chains such as Costa and Caffe Nero, with the usual range of oddly flavoured coffee. Personally I don’t want my coffee to be flavoured (adulterated) with caramel, vanilla, fruits flavours or anything else. 

But, sorry Emma Beddington, I couldn’t go back to instant coffee. I’ve become a coffee snob. 

I’ve never been a fan of golf. It’s often seemed like an unnecessarily complicated way of going for a walk with a load of equipment you need to carry around - or have someone else carry around for you. But whenever I have seen news reports of golf tournaments they have always seemed very polite affairs, with spectators standing politely, rather in awe of the skill of the professional at getting that little ball to go where they choose to send it. Like tennis it has always seemed like a ‘refined’ kind if sporting activity - and one where you probably need enough money to pay for the equipment and the membership of the clubs where the sport is played. I think of Wimbledon and in my head I hear the umpire calling out “Quiet please” as the first serve of a match is played. And the crowd goes silent!

Football crowds sing and shout in support of their teams but somehow we expect golf and tennis crowds to be more restrained. So what has been going on at the Ryder Cup in New York this week? Spectators shouting abuse at the UK team, presumably because they were defeating the USA team, which they eventually did. Rory McIlroy says his wife was struck by a flying beer bottle! “I don’t think we should ever accept that in golf,” said McIlroy. “I think golf should be held to a higher standard than what was seen out there this week. Golf has the ability to unite people. Golf teaches you very good life lessons. It teaches you etiquette. It teaches you how to play by the rules. It teaches you how to respect people. Sometimes this week we didn’t see that.”

Quite so! 

Maybe it’s indicative of the odd state the modern world has got into. Not only are people quick to criticise, and abuse, on social media but there seems a greater willingness to get into actual verbal and physical abuse in real life situations. 

Have we lost our British politeness and restraint?

I keep hearing reports of people afraid to walk through the streets in some big city areas. Is that because of a kind of licence to be rude and aggressive! I’m glad we live in a quieter place!

Despite Reform UK having few MPs there is a growing fear that they could not only win more seats but even become powerful in parliament, some say even become the leaders. Even Rachel Reeves seems quite understanding about people being persuaded to support Reform UK. And she believes that you do ‘t have to be a racist to support Reform’s racist ideas and policies. Here’s the report of an interview with broadcaster Nicolo Ferrari:

“Reeves says people can support racist policy without being racist, in reference to PM's comment about Reform UK

Ferrari asks about what Keir Starmer said yesterday about Reform UK’s plan to end indefinite leave to remain being racist.

Q: Does supporting that policy make someone racist?

No, says Reeves.

Q: So you can support a racist policy but not be racist.

Reeves says it is a racist policy.

Q: But how can you support a racist policy and not be racist?

Reeves says people support Reform UK for all sorts of reasons.

Ferrari says he does not see how you can support a racist policy and not be racist.

Reeves says she is not sure lots of people do support this policy. She says:

I think there are lots of people who back Reform would be horrified by the thought that people who came to this country legally, are working and contributing, will be deported from this country. And we had to call out Reform for their policies. And this is a racist policy, and it’s a bad for our country, and we need to call that out.”

It’s time to provide an acceptable alternative.

To finish off, here is a Tom Gould cartoon about banning books: 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Music festivals. Music misused. Music misreported. And selling gold and other valuable.

Yesterday they held the annual Party in the Park at the cricket and bowling club up the road from our house. Party in the Park is a kind of music festival, organised I think by the Wake Up Delph Committee, with a bunch of tribute bands. This year they had a Dolly Parton, among other acts. Gates opened at 3.00pm but already at 9.00am there was music playing loudly as they erected stands and got themselves sorted. I have no idea where the Party Goers parked; there were parking restrictions in force already first thing in the morning.

In the afternoon, as I pruned rose bushes, cut back ferns and pulled up pampas grass (I think that’s what it is) that has been spreading like wildfire in our front garden, wits and wags on their way to the Party, laden with folding chairs, made jokes about offering to help! Offers that were never fulfilled! 

When we went out for a walk round the village later, the music was going strong. An almost friend (one of those people you stop and talk to casually on a regular basis while out and about but never find out what their names are) was out tending her flower beds. She told us she had been about to give up and go indoors but she was enjoying the music and so invented further gardening excuses to remain outdoors.

Fortunately for the Party People the rain held off until late into the evening! I’m not sure whether they managed the closing fireworks before or after the rain arrived but the rain certainly arrived with a vengeance.

On the subject of music, I hear that Labi Siffre has issued a cease and desist order on Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) for using his anti-apartheid song (Something inside) So Strong at the recent “unite the kingdom” rally in central London. “Anybody who knows me and knows my work since 1970 will know the joke of them using the work of a positive atheist, homosexual black artist as apparently representative of their movement,” 80 year old Labi Siffre said in an interview with the Guardian.

Robinson is not the first to misuse songs at political event. Trump has tried to make use of Bruce Springsteen and Theresa May is still remembered for ‘dancing’ onto the stage at her party conference to Abba’s Dancing Queen! 

And apparently the Daily Mail has been saying the Fleetwood Mac plan to reunite to play at J K Rowling’s sixtieth birthday party. That would be rather difficult, not to say impossible.

Yesterday a flier was pushed through our letter box, inviting us to take our gold and silver to a local community centre and possibly sell it. Strange!

I am also intrigued by advertisements on the television for Vinted, I think it is, an organisation to which you can send your various valuable knickknacks, in return for which they will send you money. In one of these advertisements a smiling woman sits in a room cluttered with expensive-looking ornaments and suchlike stuff.

Who are these people who have been hoarding gold and silver and watches and ornaments of value? 

We have clearly missed that boat! Our clutter is not of great value! 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Subtitles. Statues. Posts. The power of books.,

 We watch a lot of foreign language films and TV series, usually with subtitles, even when it’s a language we’re familiar with. It reinforces your knowledge of the foreign language in question. Sometimes it’s possible to watch some of the foreign language stuff with subtitles in the original language. From the language-learning point of view this is more effective but it’s not always possible. 

We also find that we often need to put subtitles on when we watch American films and series. Despite their supposedly speaking the same language as we do it’s not always possible to make out exactly what the actors say. This is not deafness but a question of accent and sometimes of the expression used.

One of the most confusing experiences recently has been watching a Canadian TV series. Canadian French is not quite the same as French French. I knew this already, having had a French Canadian student spend a couple of years in the sixth form college where I worked. Listening to her speak French was interesting and informative. There seem to be a lot of southern French vowel sounds; maybe a lot of the original settles were from the Midi.  

I was also aware, having done a bit of research into the differences, that French Canadian uses a lot of borrowed or adopted/adapted words from English, a consequence of proximity to the United States. I have long been amused by the use of verbs such as “shopper” - to shop and adjectives such as “quiute” - cute. Listening to the French speakers in this TV series though reveals more than just a smattering of English words but a kind of wholesale mixing of the two languages. Some “borrowings” are decidedly odd. For example, someone who works as a porter / general dogsbody in a hotel is “un groom”. There you go.

Now, according to this article, most of Gen Z, up to 80%, watch television with the subtitles on. One reason for this, apparently, is speed of download of information. If you speed read the subtitles you have more time to look at your phone - reading and replying to messages, checking email, maybe even watching another TV programme - before looking back to television set. Not so much multi-tasking as multiscreening!

In recent years we have seen statues toppled and dropped into the sea. Now a group called ‘The Secret Handshake’ did the opposite and erected a statue in Washington - a statue of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein holding hands, vaguely reminiscent of Morecambe and Wise. 

There was a plaque which said the statue was erected in honor of friendship month. “We celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald J Trump and his ‘closest friend’ Jeffrey Epstein,” the accompanying text stated. The group said they had obtained the necessary permit to put up the statue, a permit which would allow the statue to remain in place until tomorrow ( Sunday) but it has been removed. The National Park Service, the federal agency that oversees the area, removed the statue because “it was not compliant with the permit issued”, Elizabeth Peace, a spokesperson for Department of the Interior, said to CNN.

Well, well!

Here’s a recent post by Michael Rosen:

“What do you think is the tweet that I've tweeted recently that has caused the most stir in terms of hostile comments in reply? It's posting the front cover of the book, 'Palestine, a four thousand year history' by Nur Masalha, published by IB Tauris.

I've had scores and scores of bots, trolls and anonymous tweeters mocking, leering, sneering, or aggressively calling for wiping out the Palestinians (even though their claim is that the Palestinians don't exist.) 

Fascinating how a book cover can have that kind of reaction.”

Dangerous and subversive things, books!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Witchcraft, ID cards, Tony Blair and Gaza, Dreamers, ICE and other such skullduggery!

I hear that the UK’s oldest witch has just died at the age of 92. She really should have hung on a few more weeks and coincided with Hallowe’en. I didn’t know we had any kind of register of witches to tell us who is the oldest. Surely there are other old crones out there unheard of by the mass media, just working away at their spells. Anyway, Patricia Crowther was known as a “high priestess” and in the 1970s she and her husband, Arnold Crowther, co-created A Spell of Witchcraft, a BBC Radio Sheffield series that is credited with introducing modern witchcraft to a wider audience. Goodness! 

She was a follower of the Wicca pagan religion, developed by Gerald Gardner, who in the 1950s took over a witchcraft museum on the Isle of Man and is credited with rescuing the practice from obscurity. How strange that someone felt the need to ‘rescue’ witchcraft! 

Before she was a properly established witch, she was a professional entertainer and dancer working in theatre. She also performed a puppet and magic show for children. Would a witch have been allowed to continue working around children in the modern hyper safety-conscious modern world? It’s debatable. And witchcraft was always there in her background it seems. Interviewed in the 1990s she said her husband had taken part in “operation cone of power”, a ritual to stop Britain being invaded. “Hitler was expected on our shores at any time,” she said. “They did not throw white powder but worked in the New Forest, chanting: ‘You cannot cross the sea / Not able to come,’ repeated over and over and raising the power through the dance.”

How reassuring it is to know that the witches were on our side!

Maybe we don’t have a national register of witches; it’s not really the kind of thing you put down as your profession on job applications and other such forms. But we have all been registered in different ways and now there is talk of introducing digital ID cards. Here’s some information from Wikipedia about ID cards: 

“The National Registration Act 1939 was an Act of parliament in the United Kingdom. The initial National Registration Bill was introduced to Parliament as an emergency measure at the start of the Second World War. The act provided for the establishment of a constantly-maintained national register of the civilian population of the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man, and for the issuance of identity cards based on data held in the register, and required civilians to present their identity cards on demand to police officers and other authorised persons.

On 21 February 1952, it ceased to be necessary to carry an identity card, and the Act itself formally expired on 22 May 1952. The last person prosecuted under the Act was Harry Willcock who had refused to produce his identity card for a police officer in December 1950. Even after the National Registration system was abandoned in 1952, the National Registration number persisted, being used within the National Health Service, for voter registration, and for the National Insurance system.”

And now a whole lot of debate is going on about the pros and cons of ID cards in general (quite a good idea in my opinion) and digital ID cards in particular in this age of hackers, stolen data, and THE STATE knowing all your secrets! We shall see!

Tony Blair wanted to reintroduce ID cards when he was prime minister but the idea was abandoned. Now it is being suggested that the very same Tony Blair:

“The White House is backing a plan that would see Tony Blair head a temporary administration of the Gaza Strip – initially without the direct involvement of the Palestinian Authority (PA), according to Israeli media reports.

Under the proposal, Blair would lead a body called the Gaza International Transitional Authority (Gita) that would have a mandate to be Gaza’s “supreme political and legal authority” for as long as five years.”

Once again, we shall see!

Acronyms are strange and interesting. Was the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act so called because it could become the Dream Act, a name linking the idea of immigration to the old one of the American Dream? The internet tells me that it was a legislative proposal that would grant temporary conditional residency, with the right to work, for illegal immigrants who entered the United States as minors — and, if they later satisfy further qualifications, they would attain permanent residency. 

I get the impression that ICE is putting an end to that idea. Dreamers, as the minors referred to are known as, are being arrested and detained just like other immigrants. And some of them are dying in custody:

“Deaths occurring in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have reached at least 16 since January amid increasing mass detention across the country and growing concerns over conditions.

On Sunday, Ismael Ayala-Uribe, a 39-year-old Mexican national and former “Dreamer” – those given protections after being brought to the US as undocumented children in the past - died after being held at an Ice facility in Adelanto, California, according to a statement from the federal agency.

Ayala-Uribe’s death marked the 15th detention death officially reported by Ice, part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January.”

I don’t think any of this is the work of good witches! 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!