Sunday, 3rd November, 2024
Grey, grey, grey, grey. Warm but grey into the near future. There are a few chinks of light but they are few and far between. This from the beach last night gives a glimpse of the glory to come.
Quite chilly walking by the sea this morning but I’m still in shorts and tee shirt. Quite a few of the older walkers in coats and boots give me astonished looks and are clearly surprised. I don’t like to tell them that, when you’ve lived in Lancashire, this is like mid-Summer.
Fifteen years ago, we were still living in Yorkshire. We were driving to Greece each year and wanted to be nearer the Channel Tunnel. We were living in a perfectly nice place but it was a big house with five bedrooms which we just didn’t need for only 6 months of the year. We wanted to move South to be nearer to The Tunnel. I wanted to go down to Kent for exactly that reason. We set off for a tour to look around the Ashford, Folkestone, Dover, Sandwich, Canterbury areas followed by looking around the Rochester, Gillingham, Chatham area.
We ended up with a half way house by buying in Surrey. It was very profitable but I wasn’t happy there and it wasn’t by the sea. The Sussex coast is a real delight after that.
Of course all, serious eyes are on the USA this weekend. After Labour’s demolition of the Tories 3 months ago, what the world needs desperately is a Democrat government over the Atlantic Ocean. The Americans are absolutely bonkers. Their religiosity is bonkers. Their worship of the gun is bonkers. They scream about not allowing abortion but desperately insist on their right to carry guns to kill people. Their insularity is bonkers. So many Americans don’t even have passports and know little and care less about the world beyond their own continent. How can people live that way? It’s a nervous time.
Monday, 4th November, 2024
Went out for a local walk early this morning. The main event of the day is a trip to Worthing Hospital. Not really sure what to expect other than a fight for a car parking space ……..
…… Well, the car park turned out to be the best part of the experience. The hospital part was something of an anticlimax. Still, there will be more to come. The hospital is building a huge, new wing for emergency admissions and cannibalising the carparking for the space. Sounds trivial but it is essential to sort that out.
You will probably already be familiar with Thomas Malthus, Dear Reader. His theory – An Essay on the Principle of Population was published in 1798. It was a seminal work of political economy in which he posited the theory that population growth is potentially exponential while the growth of the food supply and other resources is linear. According to this theory, poverty and inequality will increase as the price of assets and scarce commodities goes up due to fierce competition for these dwindling resources. This increased level of poverty eventually causes depopulation by decreasing birth rates.
Modern caveats to Malthusianism reference Birth Control and Abortion as mitigating factors but, even now, the basic principle survives. Yesterday, I found an interesting article in The Times which referred to Britain’s Tumbling Birthrate and centred on Brighton just down the road from us.
Of course, having gone through a cost of living crisis – some would say many are still going through it – and real terms inflationary pressure, young couples are disincentivised against having a family. With home ownership being pushed back into middle age and many 30 year olds still living with their parents, when are they going to find the time, space and freedom to create babies?
The sky high price of housing in our region is clearly proving an insurmountable barrier to many young people and the knock on effect, to coin a phrase, is a lower birthrate. We will all need to do our bit.
Tuesday, 5th November, 2024
Everything is grey. The light that informs the scenery is grey. We just have to keep making an effort and believing that things will brighten.
It looks like Winter but it is really warm. Walking, walking, walking back to full health and fitness. I am managing 7 miles a day now so only 3 short of where I was before the cancer treatment. Reasonably pleased with that. It seems to be a better balance in terms of the time it takes up.
There is always something interesting to see on the walk despite the light. Here I can introduce you to my new, best friend. Harbinger of Death, Colin the Crow seems to have a copy of my Will already.
I try to learn new things all the time. It is important to keep pushing your mind as much as your body. This morning, I received a news flash from the Manchester Evening News as I do a number of times each day, every day. It was a simple, local incident in Rochdale where police had closed a street called Oberlin Street off Manchester Road. I wanted to know what this name derived from and a casual search brought up an Oberlin Street in Oldham as well. There had be something more to this.
As a student of Labour History, I was well aware of the influence of Robert Owen – 18th/19th century textile manufacturer, philanthropist and social reformer, and a founder of Utopian Socialism and the Co-operative movement. What I didn’t know was that J. F. Oberlin, a contemporary of Owen and a pastor from Alsace, was separately espousing the tenets of Christian Socialism. There were clearly Oberlin Philosophy missions in the working class districts of the North West but there is still a huge Oberlin College in Ohio, U.S. which lists the Rochdale Co-Operative principles as informing its foundation.
Let’s hope the spirit of Rochdale social co-operation permeates out from the Oberlin College, Ohio into the nation as a whole and brings victory to Kamala Harris. What a wonderful symbol of social and intellectual mobility that would be. Utopian Socialism. One can always dream ….
Wednesday, 6th November, 2024
Well that really is depressing. I woke at 5.45 am to the news that the American madness has returned. It is a difficult thing to hear and makes me draw in upon myself, insulate myself, hunker down and wait for it to pass.
Even so, I fear for Europe in general and Ukraine in particular. I fear for the protectionism of the USA and its effects on the World economy. It’s not my job to fear for the American people who have taken that decision but an insular Presidency can only mean trouble for World security in terms of standing up to despots but also in terms of Climate action.
Out on my walk this morning, the greyness reflected the mood. It may be warm still but it is depressingly bland. It is amazing what a difference sun can bring to the world. I must get some!
We have four years of a convict dominating the Western World, sucking all the oxygen out of Liberal Democracies and pandering to the basest instincts. There is always music for the occasion and this sums it up.
Well Dear Reader, I wonder if it depresses you as much as me. Probably not. Perhaps I take it all too seriously. I know there are intelligent people out there who understand my plight and all offers of consolation will be welcome. Here, I am trying to take comfort in my dieting and fitness campaign. I have been on it for 10 weeks now. That means no alcohol for 70 days so far. I calculate that has saved me around £1000.00 over that time. We have taken out a savings plan to capitalise on and reinforce it. In fact, my weight is coming down in inverse proportion to the way my savings accounts are going up. We have to take comfort in small, localised wins.
Thursday, 7th November, 2024
It is one of those days when I am delighted to find it is grey and dull. Today, I have to go to the Eye Hospital for a diabetic eye check. I have always been particularly careful with my eyes because I only have ever had sight in my right one. Most people who know me are not really aware of that. It has never held me back having suffered it since birth.
This morning, I am going to be tested by a piece of kit sexily known as a Slit-Lamp Biomicroscope. Slit-lamp biomicroscopy involves two-photon imaging of the cornea using femtosecond laser microscopes and tomographs.
It’s a lot of words but essentially it means a slit-lamp, which is a specialised magnifying microscope, which is used to examine the structures of the eye, including the cornea, iris, vitreous, and retina, and produces a three-dimensional image of the internal structures.
In order to scan the eyes, I will have to have them enlarged temporarily and about 15 mins before the scan I have drops put in to dilate the pupils and stop them becoming smaller when lights are shone into them. As a result, walking out into daylight afterwards, sunlight is agony for a couple of hours. So, welcome to a grey, dull morning.
It’s over and I am pleased to say that the verdict is good. It appears that I have a cataract developing ….. in my blind eye but not in my good one. It would be pointless to operate. Apparently, half of all 80 year olds have cataracts. I’ve always been terrified of a cataract operation on my one good eye because of the risks. Not much I can do about it but it is a concern. However, for now, all is well.
Going out to start the exercise for the day. Weight is falling quite fast at the moment. Pauline is worried that hers is going too far. She will continue to exercise but stop dieting so hard. I will continue with both for the next 6 months.
À propos of absolutely nothing, thought you might like this. It was sent to me this morning – a picture of serenity. Littlehampton Marina at night time.
Friday, 8th November, 2024
The warm and grey goes on. This morning my entire life will be thrown into confusion as my broadband feed is switched from BT to EE. Internet will be disrupted – hopefully for no more than a couple of hours – and I am painfully aware how many taken-for-granted services will be suspended. The new internet feed will provide additional bandwith or extra channels and our household definitely needs it.
The demands are comparatively huge. We have 7 TVs & Sky Q-Boxes going out to the Gym where we also have wifi heating controls. Our main central heating is wifi controlled. The car outside is also as are our our landline phones and our home security cameras. The radios in bedrooms are wifi fed and our mobiles use wifi for best signals inside the house. Laptops, iPads, smart_watches all will stop for a while. It is hard to imagine all these services going down even for two hours but …. they will.
Talking about things going down: in coming to terms with the relative brevity of life, I have had this image in my head for a long time that seems to sum the inevitability of it up. My wife refuses to admit it will ever happen to either of us but …. people from our experience and age bracket are disappearing.
Today I read of an old, Greek friend who had died within weeks of his wife dying on the island. Of course, in typically sentimental and flowery language it is reported in the Greek newspaper – Apostolos Diaremes “left” for the long journey. The island is getting poorer and poorer. Certainly, Apostolos was a lovely man. He was our taxi driver and our friend. He would appear at our gate with a box of tomatoes, peppers & courgettes from his garden for two mad English people – immigrants to his island. I’m not sure how old he was – a little bit older than us – but inevitability is mixed with sadness and regret.
Saturday, 9th November, 2024
Grey and a little colder this morning. I have a feeling that I may well be coming to the end of shorts and tee shirt on the beach for the season. I’ve done it this morning but I was definitely one of the few. This treasure hunter definitely didn’t need sun cream this morning.
Well, the broadband installation went well. The next project is to get the Home Security team in to look at our current CCTV camera provision and to install a video doorbell. This is preparation work in readiness for a big, travelling year in 2025. This weekend, I’m going to be looking again at an Australia trip for a couple of months next Winter. We really have to do that.
I’ve been researching it myself, of course and the whole thing seems fraught with difficulties. It isn’t just a matter of which doorbell but whether I want it to physically chime in the house as well as alert our smart phones. Then there is the problem of saving video and the ongoing cost of storage in the cloud. I’m looking at installing my own, Home Cloud storage to avoid ongoing charges.
I’ve written before about the effect music has on me. I really don’t know why but I absolutely dissolve as it washes over me. I was searching for this piece last night. It is commonly known as Handel’s Largo. Actually, it is the opening Aria from Handel’s opera, Xerxes. I only know all that because my Grandfather gave us an old, wind-up 78 speed gramaphone and some discs that he had treasured. A lot of it was ‘popular’ 1930s trivia but this piece immediately grabbed me and twisted my heart strings. It has stayed with me for the past 60 years.
As I wiped my eyes, the YouTube site I was on listed this which I found a few years ago and I find it hard to believe anyone could feel unmoved by listening to it. I have no religion. I think the idea of a god is absolutely bonkers. This 16th Century piece composed by Italian Catholic priest, Allegri – Miserere mei, Deus translates as Have mercy on me, O God.
If there were a god, it couldn’t failed to be moved by such a beautifully plaintif cry. I find it cuts through me to my core. My Mother would be amazed and immediately hopeful of her project being successful after all these years. Don’t get your hopes up. There is no chance!
And after that, Dear Reader, you may be surprised by this contribution by that well known atheist – Amy Wadge. Keeping Faith accompanied a BBC TV Drama by that name. Irrespective of the drama, this speaks to me with devastating resonance and leaves me a jibbering wreck.