Am I the only sane one around? Bits of craziness!

This morning we received two Christmas cards from the same person. Someone has not been keeping track of which people she has sent cards to!! And then there was a card from Phil’s old chess playing mate, Jim. Jim’s is usually the first card we receive each year. This year he was beaten to it by two other friends. Phil recognised the writing on the envelope. What’s more Jim had put his initials and his post code on the back of the envelope. All of this is good as he completely forgot to sign the card. If we were really cynical cheapskates we could re-use that card!

Here is a link to a list of the best Santas in films. Well, it’s someone’s opinion of the best Santas in films. While I find it hard to,imagine Gene Hackman as Father christmas, it has to be accepted that Richard Attenborough makes a very, very good one.

That’s enough Christmas stuff for the time being.

Political correctness continues to be crazy. It seems that vegans are objecting to our using expressions like “bringing home the bacon” and “flogging a dead horse” on the grounds that it trivialises cruelty to animals. They would like us to talk about ‘bringing hime the bagels”. As I eat neither bacons nor bagels, I wonder what I should bring home.

Then there is the case of a chap who was sacked by the League Against Cruel Sports because he disclosed that the organisation invested pension funds in firms involved in animal testing. Apparently he drew management’s attention to the fact that some of their investments were in such firms and when they did not change their investment policy, he went public. So they sacked him. And now he is claiming to have been discriminated against because he is a vegan.

He says he is an "ethical" vegan. "Some people only eat a vegan diet but they don't care about the environment or the animals, they only care about their health. I care about the animals and the environment and my health and everything. That's why I use this term 'ethical veganism' because for me veganism is a belief and affects every single aspect of my life."

And now a tribunal is to be asked to decide whether veganism is a "philosophical belief" akin to a religion. The League Against Cruel Sports denies the sacking was because of his veganism and says he was dismissed for gross misconduct.

Yesterday O2 had a big breakdown and people were left without access to social media. On a more important level, transport systems were also left without the means to announce times of travel and the like. But the social media question threw up funnier stories.

There was a man interviewed on Radio 4 news. He is a you tube star and was protesting, in a rather amusing fashion, that he had had no way to take and post photos of his breakfast. How would his fans know what he ate? There was no way to post videos of what he was doing. Another problem for communicating with his fanbase!! He wanted to go somewhere but could not send for an Uber as the app on his phone was not working. So he set off on foot but soon got lost because the google maps app was not available.

Do people really earn a living this way?

Seemingly so. Earlier this week I came across the story of a small boy who has earned millions doing reviews of toys on you tube. Basically he is filmed playing with toys and the videos are posted.

The world is full of crazy stuff that we could never have imagined fifty years ago! Or even twenty-five years ago for that matter!

Happy Saint Nick’s Day! A bit of pre-Christmas cultural commentary.

Today, December 6th, is the feast of Saint Nicholas.

Of course, here in the UK we ignore it completely, as we do all saints’ days, with the possible exception of Saint Patrick’s day, when masses of people go bonkers, dress in green and get as drunk as possible.

And we must not forget Saint Valentine’s Day, although most people don’t associate it with a saint and just call it Valentine’s Day, sometimes without the apostrophe. Nowadays the anonymous aspect of Valentine’s Day (Valentines’ Day) has largely been forgotten. Nobody sends anonymous valentines (no capital letter, as you have no doubt spotted) but lots of people expect to receive cards and expensive and romantic gifts from their acknowledged partner in life, be it boyfriend/girlfriend, fiancé(e) or spouse.

But other saints are mostly ignored, probably because of good old Henry VIII declaring us all Anglicans and therefore having no truck with papist traditions such as saints’ days.

Be that as it may, today is the Feast of Saint Nicholas. In other parts of the world the eve of Saint Nicholas’ Day is an important part of the run-up to Christmas.

In Germany, it’s traditional to leave out your slippers on the evening of the 5th December and, if you’ve been good, “der Heilige Nikolaus“ will visit and pop some treats in them for you. Some children leave boots out and receive small toys. In some parts of the country Saint Nicholas is accompanied by Krampus, a devil-like creature who decides whether or not children have been good. 

According to the Dutch, Sinterklass lives in Madrid, Spain, (probably warmer than the North Pole, although in winter I’m not so sure) and travels to the Netherlands by boat. He is accompanied by his servants, the Zwarte Pieten (Black Peters) who, like Krampus, have kept a record of children’s behaviour over the year.

Sometimes children are told that the Zwarte Pieten keep a record of all the things they have done in the past year in a big book. Good children will get presents from Sinterklaas, but bad children will be put in a sack and the Zwarte Pieten take them to Spain for a year to teach then how to behave! How to traumatise your children! Or give them an opportunity to become fluent in Spanish!

Mostly, however, it’s a matter of a parade through the town and lots of sweets being distributed. Obviously this is to punish the parents as the children will all get a sugar high and refuse to go to bed!

In France Saint Nick is accompanied le Père Fouettard, a chap with a whip who punishes bad children, or leaves them lumps of coal instead of treats. One explanatory story goes that three children wandered away and got lost. A butcher lured them into his shop where he killed them and salted them away in a large tub. According to legend, St. Nicholas revived the boys and brought them home to their families. The butcher became le Père Fouettard and now works for Saint Nick, delivering lumps of coal and occasional whippings!

There seems to be a bit of a judgemental theme here. And I thought it was the Protestants who were supposed to be puritanical!

In Greece (as well as Albania, Serbia, and Bulgaria), St. Nicholas’ day is known as Shen’Kolli i Dimnit (Saint Nicholas of Winter). In these cultures, this day is one of fasting, not gift giving. In fact, on this day, most people abstain from meat or fast completely or prepare a feast to eat just after midnight. That all sounds a lot more serious!

The real man behind the fictitious modern day Santa Claus was apparently St. Nicholas of Myra. Born in 280 A.D. in Asia Minor, he lost his parents at an early age, though they left him great wealth when they died. He was known for giving anonymous gifts to help those in need and was eventually made a bishop. And so a legend was created.

And no doubt it got all mixed up with all sorts of older traditions and possible pagan celebrations.

All of that nowadays, cynics might say, has become a great feast of consumerism!

Time to go out and buy some more presents!

Winter madness!

Today we received our first Christmas card of 2018 through the post.

The pub next door has a fine Christmas display around its fish pond : sparkling snowflakes, a couple of blobby-looking what must be polar bear cubs as they are smaller than the reindeer, and a sparkling snowman.

A couple of houses up the road are festooned with lurid blue lights, a disturbing choice for Christmas decorations but that’s the modern world for you.

And while I waited for a bus this morning somebody asked me if I have put my tree up yet.

It’s December 5th!

There are still a few weeks to go until Christmas!

I have just about got round to buying some cards and making lists of possible presents for people. And my tree never goes up this early!

I was actually hoping to recycle last year’s tree. It was a living tree in a plant pot, a bit on the small side perhaps but that is no bad thing. Those huge trees take up far too much room in an ordinary household, in my opinion.

All over the Christmas period we kept it watered. It did not shed many pine needles, which is always a good sign. After the festivities were over we put the tree in the garden, in a spot where it was quite sheltered and not likely to be blown over during whatever named storms came along.

And it seemed to thrive.

And then came summer 2018!

Need I say more?

We now have a tree skeleton. Absolutely no use to us although maybe we could sell it to Melania Trump. I hear she likes to make strange and unusual Christmas tree displays.

The upshot of it all is that I need to acquire a tree for this year.

More importantly, I probably need to acquire a new oven before Christmas is fully upon us. I have perhaps mentioned before that it has become temperamental and needs sweet-talking to switch on. I have visions of Christmas dinner ready to go into the oven and the oven pouting and folding its arms and saying: NO WAY!!

In the meantime people might be dreaming of a white Christmas but I am visualising a very wet one.

On Wednesdays I usually get up and run to the market in Uppermill. Today, however, it was pouring with rain and besides we were expecting delivery of a new laptop, or at least notification of a more precise delivery time than “between 8:00 and 18:00”. And as I am the only one in the house who can manage to get up before 8:00, there I was, having breakfast and waiting for further news.

Eventually an email arrived specifying delivery between 14:35 and 1:35. The rain had reduced from torrential to steady and so I donned a waterproof coat and set off walking. Of course, I miscalculated how much stuff I was going to buy, or at any rate how heavy the stuff was going to be. As I stood in the chemist, my final stop, I checked the time and decided I was just in time for the next bus home, due at 11:04. Sometimes my timing is immaculate.

At the stop I met a near neighbour, the one who then asked if I had put my tree up yet, who assured me that the bus had not yet come and gone. An elderly lady (i.e. rather older than I am) told us she had been waiting since 10:30!

So we waited.

And we waited!

And we waited!

Finally a bus turned up, on time as it was due at 11:34!! The poor driver was heartily sick of being asked if he knew what had happened to the bus before his. Vanished into thin air obviously!

Despite the rain, I am still seeing men in shorts on a regular basis. There were a few wandering around the market. Yesterday I saw some in central Manchester. It used to be that at this time of year you only saw postmen in shorts, their excuse being that they walk around so much they keep warm. And besides, wet legs are easier to cope with than wet trousers. But now you see ordinary non-postmen walking around in shorts. And it’s not confined to the younger generation either. I frequently see men of the baby-boomer generation showing off their calf muscles to the world. Neither are they all obviously on their way to or from the gym. They are just going about their everyday business in shorts.

Is this the latest thing macho-chic? Or is it that most of these shorts have those big side pockets, cargo-pants style? Another of life’s mysteries!

Things I am thinking about.

On this rather foggy Tuesday morning, two things strike me from reading the papers: continued inequality and the uncertainty of our future.

Firt of all, inequality.  Why do actors get paid more than actresses? Why do sportsmen get paid more than sportswomen?

Georgia Hall, a golfer who won the Women’s Open Golf Championship, said, “It’s getting better but it could do with more [equality]. On the LPGA our prize money’s going up every year but I don’t think it’ll ever be the same. What I won at the British Open is great but look at what the male winner gets. It’s roughly a million more than me.”

Women’s sport in general gets less attention than men’s. Some might say it’s because men take more interest in sport than women. This might be true. Others might say that it’s because women have better things to do than watch sport. This also might be true. Yet others might say that it’s because of the traditional role of women giving them less time to take a big interest in sport. This too might be true.

And then there is the fact that men and women do not compete against each other in sports, simply because of the difference in physical strength.

In many professions women start off with the same salary as men but when promotions and progress are taken into account the average wage for women soon falls behind.

It’s one of the facts of the still male-dominated world. Whenever George and Amal Clooney appear, much is made of his being an actor and much is made of her being beautiful but not so much about her being an International civil rights lawyer and activist. Surely that’s a more important career than acting!

Anyway, getting back to sport, you have to be pretty dedicated and have very supportive parents to get on in whatever sport it is - and probably a fair amount of luck! This is what Georgia Hall had to say:-

“I did cross-country and football and I was in the boys’ cricket team. I was the only girl. I was a pretty good batsman because I would swing my bat like a golf club. I used to really whack it. I didn’t know it at the time but it was tough for my parents. They didn’t tell me this until a few years ago. But they always had to sell some things for me to have enough money for golf lessons and tournaments. We lived quite far down south and so dad would drive me for four hours to get to a two-hour lesson and then drive me back – on top of working.

What I won at the British Open is great but look at what the male winner gets. It’s roughly a million more than me. “Golf is one of the most expensive sports you can play. You need to pay a lot to join a club, you need golf clubs, all the equipment, lessons. It was hard and I missed three majors I’d qualified for because of a lack of funds. I was in the top three in the world as an amateur but we couldn’t afford to get to me there. I could only get to the British Open.”

So it goes. But she was fortunate. Not everyone gets to make a living doing something they really love.

Meanwhile the Brexit vote creeps up on us. Debate continues about what can and cannot be done.

Today’s newspaper tells me this:-

“The UK can unilaterally abandon the article 50 process, a senior adviser to the European court of justice (ECJ) has said, in a significant boost to anti-Brexit campaigners. Campos Sánchez-Bordona, the court’s advocate general, said he believed EU law allowed a country to revoke article 50 – the provision of the Lisbon treaty invoked by the UK to give two years’ notice that it intended to leave the union – without requiring the formal agreement of the European commission or other EU member states.

In his formal opinion, Sánchez-Bordona said it was essential MPs knew they could stop the Brexit process, dismissing the UK government’s claims the issue was hypothetical. The UK government and European commission had insisted the Brexit process could be stopped only by unanimous agreement, even though EU treaties were silent on how an article 50 application could be withdrawn.”

We shall see!

Modern world stuff.

Modern solutions to modern problems throw up new problems.

In the Arctic bit of Sweden they are planning to move a whole city. The city of Kiruna largely exists because of the iron ore mine which is undermining it. Quite literally undermining it. The mine has tunnelled under the town and cracks are appearing. Sinkholes are appearing. The place is going to fall into the mine.

And so they plan to move the whole town. They are offering to buy people’s houses and rehouse them in the new place, or they will actually move the houses in some cases. Apparently modern technology makes it possible to do that and it might be cheaper than building new from scratch.

Modern solutions!

There is one problem and its name is Sami. The Sami are the indigenous people of Lapland, reindeer herders, who are opposed to the idea. They are not opposed to the idea per se but to the location of the new / relocated city. Some Sami work in the mine but The Sami’s reindeer herding is often disrupted by mining. “We have a reindeer community here, this is their moving territory. Or it was – everything changed with the city. Kiruna as a city doesn’t take much consideration about Sami people or Sami lifestyles.”

It’s an odd fact that the rich can set themselves up in communes to live a simpler lifestyle but all over the world indigenous people who want to continue with their simpler life styles come up against the modern world. Here’s a link to an article about Kiruna.

Another problem they all have is that modern mining methods, mechanisation and robotics and the like, mean that there are fewer jobs - including for those Sami who work for the mining company. So they will need to diversify, maybe launching into tourism, bringing in people to view the Northern Lights.

Here’s another modern world problem.

Driving test examiners are accused of racism. It may not be overt racism. It could be a subconscious thing but “Figures released by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) after a freedom of information request show black women had the lowest pass rates (32%) and white men the highest (56%). The figures, covering 2008-17, also show all women had a pass rate of 43% and all men 50%.”

One factor to be taken into consideration is that only 21% of examiners are women. That may have something to do with it. The DVSA said: “Ultimately, all candidates regardless of gender, disability or ethnicity are assessed to the same standard.”

Now, I have long held the belief that on the whole women are better drivers than men, possibly because there are more stupid men driving than there are stupid women driving. The figures may bear this out as female drivers were less likely to be involved in road accidents than men (they accounted for only a third of accidents in 2016).

One of the men involved in collecting the information commented, “The behaviour post-licence suggests women are safer and better drivers, so the pass rates require further explanation.”

Of course, it could just be that women are altogether superior!

Old age and decrepitude and things falling apart!

I went running in the rain this morning. I needed to pick up the newspaper and a couple of other things and so I decided that if I was going to get wet anyway I might as well go for a run. It’s fine apart from the muddy footpaths. Running shoes are definitely not waterproof!

In the co-op I ran into a former neighbour. He used to live in the house across the road from ours. Embarrassingly, he always remembers my name and I am not even sure I ever knew his. He was just that bloke from across the road. And now it’s far too late to ask him. He will remain forever what’s-‘is-name.

For years I have seen him out and about walking around the area but today was the first time in a long time I have run into him. He told me he is walking less as the footpaths are so very muddy. Well, yes! That is true! He always used to look quite sprightly but suddenly he has turned into a little old man, rather shrunken and bent, decidedly smaller than he used to be.

It happens to us all I suppose. In his “Digested Week” in Saturday’s Guardian, John Crace describes being offered a seat on a crowded train by a young man of about 30. He tried to decline the offer but, after repeated offers, eventually gave in. “I just wanted to disappear.” He wrote. “I am now officially that old person to whom the more polite offer their seats. That person I somehow never thought I would be. It’s all downhill from here.”

We can sympathise.

His reaction is almost exactly the same as Phil’s when that same thing happened to him. Somehow it is easier for us ladies of a certain age. We have grown used to being condescended to by all and sundry over all manner of things and have learnt not to turn down the offer of a seat. The poor men of our generation are just now having to accept that the young will also condescend - oops, sorry, be extra polite to them too.

Somehow it seems worse, however, or more annoying anyway, when it is not a really young person, a teenager, but a properly grown-up young man in his thirties. But, hey, I remember being thirty and people of fifty seeming absolutely ancient!

I have gone on a bit about children and child-rearing lately. So here is a bit more. The actress Nicole Kidman has two daughters, Sunday and Faith. (I suppose Faith is a name that has been around for a while but what about Sunday? And can you really call your children after the days of the week?) She says she has banned electronic devices from her home, to “create a buffer between her children and the outside world”.

By electronic devices I assume she means mobile phones and tablets and computer games. Surely not toasters and vacuum cleaners and washing machines. That would be a step too far. No, she is talking about communication and games devices. “We have a no-devices house. Their friends can’t bring devices over. The general rule is : play, hardcore and outside. We have periods where we don’t turn the Tv on and try to have a detox from it all. Like everyone, I worry about all the anger that seems to be around. What do you do? In our case, we have some land and some animals. I left home yesterday and my children were up in the tree house, with eight friends over.”

Good for Nicole Kidman. Having “some land” and quite a bit of money must make it all easier. 

Meanwhile our electronic devices are staging a rebellion. And it’s not the mobile phones and computers I’m talking about. The oven needs coaxing gently into switching on to cook anything. A real pain in the neck. And the electric shower has simply stopped working. Phil is busily googling ways to fix it while we wait for a builder/plumber friend to make his promised return visit to sort it out.

 I have had to have my first bath in years. I had seriously forgotten how time-consuming that is!

On the subject of babies!

The daughter of a friend of mine had a baby a month ago. I have been very good. I have sent congratulations and refrained from commenting on the pretentious, upwardly-mobile name the poor child has been given - the kind of name the Sackville-Bagginses would have chosen for a daughter! Truly!

I have also refrained from commenting when she asked for advice on party clothes for her tiny daughter - the approach of Christmas means every girl needs a pretty dress. Even if she will only be eight weeks old and will be just as adorable in a baby-gro and a pretty cardigan.

And I kept quiet when a picture was posted for her being one month old, with alongside her a cute toy bunny with a cute label declaring: I am one month old today. Oh, boy! The card and soft toy manufacturers really know how to cash in on sentimentality.

But yesterday she posted a picture of herself looking frankly hollow-eyed and quite knackered (but still with beautifully manicured nails!), baby on her shoulder and a comment about how she imagined her evenings - baby asleep in her crib, a calm dinner and a glass of fizz with hubby. In her dreams! The reality is a baby who screams and cries all evening, who needs carrying around by one of the doting parents while the other tries to get something to eat.

So I got into a social media dialogue reassuring her that this is quite normal, that one month old is early days for a baby to be in a settled routine. I did not question the advisability or otherwise of drinking fizz if you are breastfeeding but I did give hints on how to snatch some sleep with a tiny person around. I wasn‘t the only one. Loads of people - new mums and old - chipped in with reassurances that this stage does not usually last for ever.

New mums need reassurance so nobody gave her horror stories of babies who never settle into a routine and do not sleep through the night until they are seven years old.

That’s my good deed for the week.

On the subject of babies, I read about a phenomenon called the “gender reveal party”.

Few couples can resist discovering whether they will have a boy or a girl. And nowadays they no longer rely on dangling the wedding ring on a string over the baby-bump and seeing which way it spins. That always struck me as a bizarre thing to do. Personally, I was happy to wait for delivery day. It has always seemed a bit like opening your presents before Christmas or before your birthday. Besides, I only ever had one scan for each pregnancy. But in this day and age Mummy-to-be’s tummy is scanned at twelve weeks. Then you can send a print-out to everyone or put it on Facebook or Twitter to announce the pregnancy. And there seem to be scans at regular intervals after this so that at some point Billy or Betty Bum will be shown to be a boy or a girl - unless you look away at the relevant moment.

The thing to do when you have the gender news is to have a party to let your friends and relations know. In The UK, as we are still a fairly restrained, some would say inhibited, nation, this is usually done with cake. An iced cake is usually cut to reveal a pink or blue interior! As a rule is takes place at the “baby shower”, an American invention / social event where friends and family are obliged to provide all the stuff a baby might need - tiny items of clothing, even the car seat and baby buggy if you are really fortunate.

In Australia apparently the custom for some people is to do something weird to their car so that it emits pink or blue smoke from the exhaust. And recently in Arizona a couple set fire to 47,000 acres of land by shooting at a target full of coloured explosive as a means of announcing the gender of their forthcoming baby. Rather an expensive announcement as with firefighting and so on it cost around $8 million!

The world is truly strange!