Well, the weather was forecast to turn wet and miserable but this morning began with a lot of blue sky and sunshine and some bright autumn colours everywhere.
By late morning, however, the cloud had moved in again. By midday, perhaps because I had optimistically hung washing on the line to dry, the weathermen had been proved right and the rain statted to fall. So it goes!
Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were banned from watching their team play in Birmingham, unsurprisingly after their behaviour in Amsterdam. Some people are saying this is antisemitic. It looks like anti-violence common sense to me.
Why is that football team so called? Here’s a bit of history from Wikipedia:
“The Maccabees, also spelled Machabees, were a group of Jewish rebel warriors who took control of Judea, which at the time was part of the Seleucid Empire. Its leaders, the Hasmoneans, founded the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled from 167 BCE to 37 BCE, being a fully independent kingdom from 104 to 63 BCE. They reasserted the Jewish religion, expanded the boundaries of Judea by conquest, and reduced the influence of Hellenism and Hellenistic Judaism.”
Meanwhile, things appear to be going awry with the Gaza ceasefire and expansionism continues in the West Bank.
There you go!
For the people who live their lives publicly on TikTok it seems the thing to do is to film yourself “unboxing conkers”. It must be a bit like those children who are filmed opening parcels. Here’s a but of explanation from an article in yesterday’s paper:
“Unboxing conkers? What on earth are you talking about? Oh wow, you really are out of the loop, aren’t you? Gen Zers are taking to TikTok to film themselves unpeeling conkers from their spiky capsules.
But why? Because of the sense of wonder! When you unbox a conker, you never know what you’re going to get. Will it be big? Will it be flat? How shiny will it be? It is like a mystery box every time!”
I wonder if, like the aforementioned children who receive even more parcels of free toys to open, these conker openers will receive large supplies of conkers to open.
According to the article where I found that information, King Charles sent a load of conkers from his estate to the world conker championship, presumably because he had been alerted to the shortage of good conkers this year.
Alternatively, perhaps he wanted to show his solidarity with his people and their pastimes, making up for the nefarious activities of his younger brother. The headlines told us that said younger brother was giving up his royal titles, rather reluctantly but still giving them up. However, he remains a prince (surely that’s the main “royal title”!) and is still 8th in line for the throne. Do we need some No King protests here?
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment