Snow. The cost of decorating. And the cost of not being vaccinated.

Today we woke up to snow! It was forecast but still it’s always a bit of a surprise. Some places know exactly when to expect snow, when to expect sunshine, and so on, but here the weather is always a bit of a surprise. I decided not to run in the snow. Slithering around is not my favourite occupation. I went out later to go to the supermarket as there seemed to be a lull in the weather and, besides, tomorrow is supposed to be very wet and cold. It was not as cold out today as I expected but the cloud cover has cleared as the day has progressed and it could well get colder tonight. There’s plenty of slushy stuff around just waiting to freeze! 

Much of last night’s news programmes still seemed full of the Johnson flat refurbishment or, rather, about how it was funded. How do you spend £100,000 on getting your flat refurbished? That’s what I want to know. Here are a few Michael Rosen asides on that topic!

“Dearest Lulu

Forgive me for having to drag you through this. The interior decor police demanded I open the books! It’s the Wallpaper Stasi. Let’s hope the exposure brings you in some biz: everyone knows you cleaned up Mother Theresa’s tip.

Liberti terminatus

Boris”

“Carrie, 

We made it! Like Catullus at the Battle of Marathon. Lord Gout has ok’d the 100 grand refurb because he didn’t want to say he boobed the first time. When everyone’s guilty, we’re all innocent! 

Corruptio permanentus 

Boris”

“Dear Brownlow

V. sozz, had to spill beans on Great Exhib proj. We had a good thing going: you pay for refurb, I get you audience with Oliver Dowdy, you top up party coffers. Now Ange, the single parent is all over it. We’ll get through this, amigo!

Lucre et lucre et lucre

Boris”

There you go. I even looked up the style consultant on the Internet. I can’t say I was impressed. Maybe my tastes are too economical. 

The other big topic on the news seemed to be Novak Djokovic. His mum has been getting very outraged at her son being locked up in a quarantine hotel. 

Newsthump has this to say: “Novak Djokovic's latest room service order includes a large poster of Rita Hayworth and a small rock hammer.”

Australia’s home affairs minister has dismissed any suggestion that the tennis player is being held “captive” in a Melbourne hotel, declaring the world No 1 is free to leave the country whenever he chooses.

In Serbia, however, there are protests going on. His father has promised that a rally will be held every day until Djokovic is released.

And Australia’s ambassador in Belgrade, Daniel Emery, was summoned to the foreign ministry and urged to make personal efforts to assist Djokovic. The ministry said Australia had acted in bad faith towards the tennis star.

“The Serbian public has a strong impression that Djokovic is a victim of a political game against his will and that he was lured to travel to Australia in order to be humiliated,” it said in a statement.

Oh dear! Maybe it’s time to start calling him the “Tennis Playing One” or the “Sports Star One”, if it weren’t for the fact that he doesn’t seem to being treated significantly differently to other sports people trying to get into  Australia.

On a more serious note, it’s now one year since the storming of the Capitol in the USA. Watching footage of it on news reports last night I was struck by how many of those storming the building were filming the whole proceedings on their mobile phones. What a strange world we live in!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Covid. Brexit. Eavesdropping. Weather. And more Brexit.

 Here’s a bit of Mr Rosen to start the day.

“Dear Sajid, 

Cases up, cases down. My head's spinning. What if the cases go down because people can't get hold of the bloomin' tests? Where's that Dido when we need her?  I think we ought to give her another chance. Think of Cleopatra and the geese. 

Equestriana heroica 

Boris”

And here’s something else I found on social media:

Imagine there’s no Brexit

It isn’t hard to do

Nothing to lie or cheat for

And no corruption too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace

You, you may say I’m a Remainer

But I’m not the only one

I hope someday you will join us

And Europe will be as one.

Overheard in the co-op: “Why are we stopping tests for people coming into the country when we’re already overrun with cases of covid.”

Also overheard in the co-op: “If this latest one had happened three years ago we’d have said it was just a bad cold. I wonder what the next variant will be.”

The crisp cold weather has given way to cold soggy weather, with something that is almost snow. We have had the smallest grandson with is this morning. At one point he said to me, “(C)ome on (gr)anma. (G)et in (pr)am. (G)o for walk.” He’s not good at initial consonants. So, as the drizzly wet snow had eased, we went for a walk round the village, seeking cornflakes from the co-op. Hence my eavesdropping. Of course, when we were half way round it started to snow quite seriously. By then the small boy was falling asleep!

Getting back to Brexit, regulations are starting to bite now. Here’s another little something on that subject:

'Like the gift that keeps on giving, Brexit has only just started. Yes, it has been five years since the referendum and a full year since the UK left the European Union, but we are yet to feel the full effect.

That’s not only because the economic and reputational hits are not going to stop but because the Brexit we have enjoyed so far is only the first wave. 

The UK government, despite having had five long years to prepare and insisting that the deal just had to be done, was strangely enough not ready for Brexit and so kicked many of its provisions down the road. But these are about to be introduced throughout 2022, meaning that all the damage of the first year will be just a taster for what’s to come. '

Meanwhile, many of my friends are holding their hands up in dismay as Starmer talks of his wish to “get Brexit done”. That sounds familiar. I wait to see where this leads.

And here’s something on the origin of the name “Tory”: 

“I think we should stop referring to the Conservative and Unionist party as the tory party and start referring to them using the original Irish word tóraidhe.

A tóraidhe is an outlaw, a bandit, an Irishman turned out of his house and his living by English overlords, who then had to turn to theft and banditry to keep his family alive.

I think that the Irish conferred the title tory on the party because they, truly, are the outlaws, the bandits, the thieves, the robbers, the overlords.

Despise them with all of your soul.

Never, ever trust a tóraidhe.”

Wikipedia confirms this, with a slight spelling difference:

“The word Tory originates from the Irish language. The Irish word toruighe is suggested as the origin for the term Tory, with toruighe being used in the 16th century to describe "an outlaw papist" or a "robber that is noted for outrages and cruelty". However, because later Conservative and anti-revolutionary parties assumed the term Tory, it has also been suggested that the word originated from the Irish word toir, meaning to give, grant and bestow; or toirbhearl, meaning efficiency, bounty or munificence.

The word Tory had entered the English language by the 17th century, with the term first being used to refer to dispossessed Irish Catholics in the 1640s.

A petition calling for Tony Blair to have his knighthood rescinded has now been signed by more than 500,000 people - even more since I first wrote that down. The former prime minister was appointed Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter in the New Year’s Honours list. Bestowed by the Queen, it is the oldest and most senior honour in the British system, with just 21 people currently holding it. Of course, it won’t work as that would mean those in authority accepting that he led us wrongly into war.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

The end of Christmas.

My Spanish niece has been posting photos of her children with the Reyes Magos, aka the three kings, in just the same way as people in the UK post photos of their children with Santa Claus. Traditionally Spanish children should be going to bed early tonight to be sure that the kings can leave presents for them. Do Spanish children ever really go to bed early? Everything is relative. 

In some cases Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar will leave presents on balconies, something which has always struck me as quite logical. Otherwise, like Santa, they have a magic key that allows them to enter every home. Hmmm! Are they ever tempted to do a bit of wealth distribution while they’re at it, taking from the rich and giving to the poor, Robin Hood style? I wonder.

In Italy a similar thing will be going on, this time waiting for La Befana, a sort of good witch. Here’s one version of her story:

“The legend of La Befana - An origin story as old as Christmas

There’s a specific tale with mostly subtle variations relating to Befana’s connection to the Three Kings of the Epiphany, which actually explains the broom. 

According to the legend, Befana was in her cottage sweeping the floor when she glanced out of the window and saw a bright light in the night sky. She paused to behold it but then returned to her work as she was devoted to being a good housekeeper. Soon after the star appeared, she was paid a visit by the Three Kings, which, as you can imagine, took her quite by surprise! It seems they had wandered far from their path toward the humble stable in Bethlehem. They asked Befana for directions, told her they were following the star at the advice of royal astrologers and were intent on bringing gifts to honor the babe. 

Befana declined their invitation to join them on their journey as she was too reluctant to leave her work unfinished. She did provide the kings with shelter for the night. After they set out the next day, she had a change of heart. She ran after them with her broom and her basket of small gifts for the holy child but failed to catch up with their entourage.”

And that will be that: Christmas will be officially over for another year. Time to take the tree down, pack the lights away, and decide what to do  all the Christmas cards. Some people have done so already. The across the road neighbours took their tree down at the weekend and at some point on Monday they dodged rain showers and removed the multitude of baubles that were adorning just about every bush in their garden. Mind you they put all the decorations up really early so I suppose they must be fed up of vacuuming up pine needles.

I described my fun and games with bread rolls in the microwave the other day. Well, it could have been worse. It could have been Christmas Day. Guardian columnist Zoe Williams describes how an exploding beer keg sprayed over their Christmas meal. My adventure with the microwave pales into insignificance!

“We had one domestic accident, at the signature Christmas meal, when the table was set for 15, which meant 15 crackers, and – you won’t believe it, but it’s true – 30 glasses, and everything else. Mr Z decided that he wanted beer instead of a regular Christmas drink, but none of the perfectly serviceable bottles of beer would do. Instead, he tried this mini-keg that we’ve had under a table lamp since July, and it exploded. Most of the beer, he claims, ended up in his trousers, but that doesn’t explain how we came to be mopping the ceiling, or that every glass contained a tablespoon of beer, as if I’d laid the table for tiny Vikings, or how the crackers lost their bang, or why the room still smells like a pub a week later which, actually, I don’t mind. All I could think was, oh my, that could have been so much worse. “

If the weather stays as it is now the Reyes Magos and the Befana will have good delivery conditions tonight. It’s blue sky and sunshine again here but very cold. Any nocturnal delivery people need to wrap up warm! 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

The importance of ventilation. Back to school. And other matters.

Covid-related advice and guidance tells us it’s a good idea to ventilate your house after you have had visitors, who may, after all, have inadvertently brought some coronavirus germs in with them. We do our best to follow this advice, running round opening windows after the visitors, who have almost always been family members since this pandemic started, depart. It’s harder to do when the weather is cold and damp and gloomy and on Sunday after our daughter and offspring left we forgot about until it was really too late in the evening. 

At some point yesterday we remembered but still put off the task of running round opening windows. And then, as I was getting our evening meal ready, I decided to revive a couple of rather sad and soggy bread rolls from the previous day by popping them in the microwave. Whether I set the microwave with my eyes shut or something similar I really cannot say. What is certain is that the setting was clearly far too high and suddenly the kitchen was full of smoke. (Note to self: time to buy new smoke alarms as the ones currently in place did not react at all!) 

I fought my way through a veritable fog to reach the backdoor and fumble around for the lock to open it as wide as possible. I retrieved and threw away two charred bread rolls from the microwave. We opened windows throughout the house as the smell of smoke permeated everywhere. We repeated the performance this morning as the kitchen mostly but also the living room faintly still smelt rather like to aftermath of a house on fire.

This has been rather a drastic way to go about it but we can now be certain that we have a well ventilated house. 

Our smaller grandchildren go back to school and nursery this week. The two little girls in primary school seem very happy at the prospect of being with their friends again. This is especially so for our son’s little girl who has been unable to have small friends visiting for the last week as Daddy tested positive for Covid. Fortunately this mostly took the form of a heavy cold accompanied by a bad headache - more annoying than anything else according to our suffering son! The rest of the family tested negative but the advice and guidance does say all the family should isolate! 

Throughout the country it seems that schools are having problems re-opening though. The head of one large secondary said he has tested positive and can’t be there for the start of term and that 26 of his staff are in the same position. He doesn’t see how the school can operate!

Secondary school pupils are going to have to wear masks during lessons. That’s going to make for uncomfortable classrooms. One young man interviewed for a news programme seemed to find mask wearing acceptable but declared that what he dislikes most is having to stay in one room all day and have subject teachers come to that room, rather than pupils moving from subject area to subject area. He missed the social interaction of moving around school. Everything happens on the corridors apparently!

I had not thought about that aspect of creating safe class bubbles. In my experience subject teachers become territorial. Your classroom is YOUR territory, decorated with YOUR subject-related displays and visual aids. Making such displays is part of your job. Who is responsible for displays in a multi-subject classroom? And then there’s equipment and teaching materials. Teachers must need trolleys to carry their stuff rom room to room. I don’t think I’ll be volunteering to come out of retirement to go and help out any day soon. 

Is our government truly aware of how much more difficult life has become for teachers? And everyone else, of course. 

So, to cheer us up, here are a couple more of Michael Rosen’s “asides”:

 “Dear Sajid, 

What are we doing? Be buggered if I know. I think it's time we did a press co and put up a graph. The GBP love a graph. I could point to it and say, 'We're led by the science.' That's always fun. 

Principia mathematica panicattaccica 

Boris”

“Dear Mogg,

 I note that  the old  and new year round-ups are singularly lacking in paeans to me. Could you pen a tribute and lean on media wimps to put it out?     ‘Utterly trustworthy...tremendously hard-working...great decision-maker...’ that sort of stuff. 

Inebrio necessitate

Boris”

And still Michael Rosen but in a different mode:

“Worrying pattern emerging on social media: people posting pictures of famous people hanging out with Epstein. If this goes on, people will stop respecting our betters.”

And finally, here’s a little something which, as the wife of a chess player, I just felt I had to include. 

My chessplayer says it’s fake news, by the way; young Samuel did not lose every game! 

Here’s a link to more info. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone. 

Rainbows … or not? Bank holiday. Being less efficient than planned!

Today began with a rainbow. Well, the tail end of a rainbow on the hillside as I looked out of the attic window. Actually, it was probably the tail end of a vapour trail doing a bit of rainbow effect reflecting the light of the sun popping up over the hill opposite. Think of those Physics lessons with prisms! However, it seems rather more romantic to say it was a rainbow - a harbinger of better times ahead!

And, goodness knows! we need some of those better times. The doom and gloom merchants are predicting that Brexit changes will only really, truly begin to bite this year. 

My granddaughter, who does all her grocery shopping on line was this morning bemoaning the fact that in the order that ASDA was delivering to her today 10 products are unavailable and 19 have been substituted. (Substitutions might be a way to discover new and interesting items you might not otherwise have tried … or maybe not … maybe just giving you an old familiar item that you don’t really need at the moment.) Her mother responding by commenting that in the various stores that she has been to during the last week there have been quite a lot of empty shelves. Of course, some of that might have been the result of people bulk buying in preparation for not being able to shop on New Year’s Day or, indeed, today which is a Bank Holiday to compensate  for New Year’s Day falling on a Saturday. 

When I went out running first thing this morning I had forgotten that today is a Bank Holiday. My Spanish nephew has his birthday on the 7th - an arrangement that must have been a bit poor when he was  small child, having the Kings come with presents on the 6th and then his birthday immediately after. No doubt some people would have combined the two presents into one. From the presents point of view it is much better to have your birthday in July or August. So I noted my Spanish relatives’ address on a slip  of paper in my purse and took a pen with me, with the idea of buying a card at the post office, writing and addressing it there and then, and posting it straight away. But the post office was closed, naturally, because it’s a bank holiday today. 

So much for efficiency! I should really have done this on Thursday or  Friday if I seriously hoped the card would arrive in time for his birthday. But I have to confess I was not thinking that far ahead. My nephew will have to accept belated birthday greetings, although as he is now at least somewhere close to 30, of not in fact already 30, I don’t suppose having cards to open on your birthday matters quite so much as it did when you were 5. 

Besides, there is no guarantee that a card posted today would have reached the south of Spain by Friday. Someone posted this on the Campaign to rejoin the EU social media site: 

“Friends here are some Brexit news relating to sending cards letters etc to the EU.  I send my friends and family in the Netherlands and Germany an Xmas card and a calendar for the year 2022 in white jiffy envelopes at the beginning of the second week in December -as I usually do at this particular time of the year.  I have just found out that none of my family and friend in the EU have received their XMas card and/or calendar.  However, it was good to note that friends in the USA and Mauritius had theirs well before the XMas event.   This people, is only going to get worse as time goes on, but it's good to know that if you send things far enough away from the UK it will get there in good time.”

Maybe I’ll just have to send him virtual card instead. 

Here’s a bit of Italian irony to finish with: 

 

 

 

Roughly translated: A new year in on its way in.  What symptoms does it have?

 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

How to improve life!

It’s that time of year when people make plans for improving their lives, laughingly called “resolutions”. I’ve always found them more annoying than useful but here’s a link to some advice on improving your life. 

Number 8  advises: Send a voice note instead of a text; they sound like personal mini podcasts.

I would like my friends to ignore that one as I usually get so annoyed trying to access voicemail that I give up on it.  

And number 12 oddly advises: Sharpen your knives.

I can only hope that is for use in the kitchen and not out and about on the streets. 

Number 66 says: Don’t save things for “best”. Wear them – enjoy them.

I had just decided that there was no point having clothes in the wardrobe “to go out in”; you might as well wear them to stay at home in if you’re hard.y going anywhere. Cheer your life up!

Then there’s matter of the exercise. According to a chap called Max Sharp who runs a gym

“Just before the first lockdown gym membership across the country was at about 15%. That’s the highest it’s ever been. Then Lockdown One happened and there was a wave of enthusiasm with everyone running around, doing exercise videos at home, and getting outside for that one precious walk a day we were allowed. In Lockdown Two that exercise effect was less pronounced, but it was still there. Then Lockdown Three happened and everyone seemed to just give up. Sitting at home eating crisps and drinking beer was our top choice.”

We’re starting to ignore instructions on a very unBritish way. I’ve just been on a bus. There weren’t many people but even so, I was the only one wearing a mask.  

Here’s Michael Rosen, of course, on that very topic:

“Dear Mogg, you're super good at holding the line on behaviour. I've got a New Year worry that the GB public are a tad less respectful these days and the Maxwell case hasn't bloody helped. Can you work up a bit of oratory on respect for Britain's leaders? 

Taurus excrementus

Boris”

I was on the bus because my daughter I had had a plan to meet at my granddaughter’s house, make her go for a walk with her dog and then all come back to my house for tea. All good in theory! It was a beautiful late morning weatherwise. In practice, the bus from here to my granddaughter’s failed to show and I set off walking, planning to catch a later bus from Uppermill. Just as I arrived in Uppermill the heavens opened … with a vengeance. Suddenly Uppermill was full of people scurrying for shelter! I consulted my daughter and decided to catch next bus home. She will collect the aforementioned granddaughter and everyone will come to my house for tea. 

My daughter comes across some quite deprived children in her school. Here’s an article about children in Leeds living in poverty. I don’t think she’s come across anything quite like some of these cases.

The teacher in that article found she had sleepy children in her class because they hadn’t been able to sleep properly as they had no bed in their house. So she set about improving the situation and now runs a charity dealing with he situation. One family she visited loved in an unfurnished house. All they had was plastic chairs. Their clothes were in bin bags. The single mother was happy to be in the house because they had previously been crammed into one room at a shelter! As her situation improved further , she gave the teacher money to help other families. 

That shouldn’t be happening in 2022!

But …

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone! 

21 to 22. So it goes!

 HAPPY NEW YEAR

2021 ended with a covid test for me as I have spent the last few days sneezing and snuffling. I tested negative so now I can think about starting 2022 in a healthy fashion. It might have been more dramatic to say I was starting this new year with covid but on the whole I prefer the result I had. 

2021 began noisily. One of our near neighbours was letting off very loud fireworks. We couldn’t see much. Maybe if we’d gone out into the garden we might have seen a fine display. As it was, we simply heard a series of very loud explosions. What the neighbours with dogs and cats thought about it I can only imagine! I do know that my granddaughter, a few miles away in Mossley was complaining about noisy fireworks where she lives. She ended up with a very nervous dog and an equally nervous cat. 

I first remember fireworks like that for Millennium Eve. If my memory serves me well, we only ever had fireworks for November 5th before then. A friend of ours celebrated his 50th birthday on Millennium Eve. A group of us gathered at his house to help him celebrate and to see in the new year. His house, at one of the high points of the area, gave us a splendid view of fireworks going off all over the area - frighteningly reminiscent of a war zone! 

That celebration started a tradition. The same group met every New Year’s Eve to eat and drink and make merry. He would have been 72 this time but he died almost 8 years ago now. We kept up the tradition in his memory until Covid came along and messed up everything!

When I woke this morning, the sky was blue with occasional wispy clouds here and there. The world was bright. By the time I had donned my running gear the blue sky was a thing of past. Still, at least it’s not raining! Yet!

Just up the road, one family has clearly decided Christmas is over. Their Christmas tree is standing forlornly next to their dustbin. Now I imagine them taking all the cards and decorations down and rubbing the dust of celebration off their hands: New Year - new tidy regime!

Goodness! I’ve only just stopped wearing Christmas earrings and reverted to normal ones!

The New Year’s Honours list has been announced. Here are a couple of Michael Rosen comments on that matter:-

speaking as himself: -

“Tony Blair: knighthood? Must be for services to peace, surely.”

and as his alter-ego:-

“Dear Mogg, Every time I have to dish out these gongs, my mind drifts towards that moment in the future when  I shall claim my honour. What title? Baron Boris sounds bloody good to me. You’ll get one too, Moggy: services to being loyal to me. 

Nomenclatura dementia 

Boris”.

In other areas, Boris Johnson has named returning the crown stamps to pint glasses and scrapping a ban on selling goods in pounds and ounces on his list of the “key successes” of Brexit this year. It rather smacks of clutching at straws!

Let’s see what this year brings.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!