Home from my Travels

 I have been to Azerbaijan and am back today.  I have been in London for a night at the airport as it was a late night flight. 

The tour was very good and I documented it on Instagram which many of you followed.   I found it easy and delightful and no trolls.  

I wrote quite a bit while I was travelling.  The poetry came back especially after we had been to the tomb of Nizami the most revered poet and philosopher of Azerbaijan/Persia.   I read some of his poems while I was in my room in the evening and started to write again. 

I was with five people,  Mark a lovely man from Sheffield, Annie and Ian from Lytham, Jean from North London and Margaret from Peterborough.   I gave Margaret the nickname of Miss Perfect, others gave her the name of Sheila Hancock because she looked liked her;  Margaret was well travelled and the oldest in the group at 76, the fastest walker and the least accommodating to the needs of others. 

Jean was a nutty accounts clerk still working in her late 60s and appeared to be have problems understanding  instructions which upset Miss Perfect greatly.  

Annie and Ian caused some problems with missing passports and were unable to board the train when we arrived at the station for a cross country journey so four of us went on the train without them and they had to get a taxi.  We were unable to board the train without id.  I don't know if this was because we were foreigners as we were not crossing any borders so id requirement seemed  odd to me.  They later found their passports and were at odds between the two of them who was to blame.  

There was a big row between Jean and Miss Perfect  one morning when Jean was late.  

I kept  out of all upsets and trouble.  

Troubles would come and drift away with shrugs and Jean and Miss Perfect avoided each other after the row. 

We all sang from the same political hymn sheet which was good for calmness where there could have been storms.  Mark from Sheffield was as middle of the road as they come.  No calling for death or horrors to befall politicians, no hate for anyone past or present, just political facts current and on-going, home and abroad.   We left  England the day after we had voted in our local elections so some political chat was inevitable.  

It was odd to be with people everyday for almost a fortnight when I am used to being alone at home for days on end.  I am finding my house incredibly quiet at the moment and strange to have nobody to talk  to.  

I spent some time on my own or with the driver and had different experiences to the rest of the group because I did not always want to spend all day walking because my body just couldn't take it especially in the heat of Azerbaijan.  It was always at least 27C

Azerbaijan lived up to all my expectations and did not disappoint.  I saw oil rigs, textiles, fruit, vegetables, wheat and barley.  I saw wonderful modern architecture in Baku and some very ancient architecture elsewhere.   I saw clean streets everywhere with ladies and men sweeping and weeding always, even miles from anywhere, always cleaning and sweeping.  No graffiti anywhere.  The food was lamb and chicken kebabs and stews with rice and salads and many cheeses.  Drinks were always fruit juices, particularly cherry juice.    I photographed farms and tractors, cars, markets and mosques.  There was much evidence all around of former Soviet Azerbaijan with blocks of apartments, cars and the sweepers.  The people were friendly and loved to talk about football.  There wasn't a great deal of English spoken but football and the English Premier league were frequently a topic of conversation from Baku to isolated villages miles from anywhere and crossed the language barrier without a problem.

The cats were well behaved while I was away and look pampered and content and happy to see me. 

 

Friday

 I am heading this Friday because it may help readers who are arriving late because of non-up-dating by Blogger.  This is the longest of no up-dating of posts on reading and blog lists that I have known in almost 20 years of blogging.  Now that my blog is hardly followed in any case I am noticing it a lot more than I have in the past I suppose.  I started following my own blog so that I can see if I up-date.  I know I am not as the reading list is still showing Polanski as my latest post.  So annoying.  

Yesterday, Thursday, I went to see The Devil Wears Prada 2.   I liked it but didn't love it.  I thought it  a bit disjointed in flow in a odd way of slick movie making capabilities.  I can't really explain it.  Stanley Tucci had the best lines with the best deliveries, the dry humour and observations.  I liked him.  I thought the Andy romance with the Aussi property man should have ended up on the cutting room floor and remained there.  I couldn't see the point of it, like it was thrown in to fill in some time.   Apart from that it was ok.  A kind of curate's egg of a movie. 

I re-packed my bag last night, watched a documentary on Jane Fonda which took all evening and is the last in my documentary watching series,  which interrupted Evil Lives Here,  and was preceded by Mel Brooks, Steven Spielberg, and Robin Williams on previous evenings this week, all very interesting. I think I have also missed one out but I can't remember. 

I voted on the way home from the film in the afternoon.   There was a steady flow of voters at around 4pm and I chatted to a local farmer in the car park who I have known since I was about 5.  She was lamenting the state of farming and her son who is farming alone on the land now and she at almost 90 is still tending the yard animals and flock.  She said she would be speaking to my brother as she needed him for a quiz night.  Life in the rural backwaters.  Quizes for young farmers and old alike.  

I am off to London later when I can get my act together to go for a train.  I firstly need to leave the house in a bit of fit state for the neighbour to feed the cats and to gather my thoughts and brace myself to get going.   Decision decisions decisions on how to leave the house.  My ex had his good points, when he was here  - I never had to think about how I would be leaving things, they just carried on with him.    At least the sun is shining which means I can go without thinking about wearing a jumper, one less thing to carry around unnecessarily later. 

I slept well which means I can put one foot in front of the other today.  Always a good thing to be able to do that but it doesn't always happen. 

It looks like Reform are doing well in the local elections.  Fear not, this is not a sign of "we love you, Reform" it is the fickle British voter who is telling Labour it doesn't like them and possibly more like "we don't love Starmer" than anything else.    Stupid fools.  Anyone for Angela Rayner or Andy Burnham or Ed Miliband Chancellor?  No thanks. 

Football and Other Things

 Yesterday I had my hair colour which coincidentally came up this week and well timed for travel.  A good cut and colour and thinning for hot travel.  My hair is thick and needs thinning regularly.  I am fortunate in this way.  Hannah and I talked a lot about football and films.  Hannah is a top female footballer, was scouted in her younger days by London clubs but never went,  and is on the verge of retirement but then she has been telling me this for two years now.  We discussed the Arsenal Athletico Champions League match of the night before.  

I cried at the end of the match.  It was almost like a final in itself.  Arsenal have not reached the final since 2006 and Lehmann was sent off.  My ex came in while I was watching the game and asked me to make him a cheese sandwich and the game went downhill. (He took no interest in football and had no understanding of the emotions experienced by the supporters).   As soon as I went into the kitchen the game turned.  I forever blamed him for Arsenal losing that night in 2006.  I was an art student at the time and used to draw footballers, cartoons about football, and discuss football with my Arsenal supporting tutor Simon who commuted from London each day to teach at Norwich.  I had a good relationship with Simon and when I got a 1st people said I must have slept with him.  I hadn't.    

I have supported Arsenal since I was 17 and met an Arsenal supporter on the London Underground when I was living in London in a bedsit.  He took me to Highbury and my first match was a Fairs Cup game.  The Fairs Cup was the equivalent to the Europa League now.  It finished in 1971.  It was over-whelming and I can still remember that moment when I entered the stand and saw all the supporters.  I had only been to Carrow Road to see Norwich City previous to that. I fell in love with Arsenal and Highbury.   We went to all home games and the turnstile price was 12/6d.  This was pre-decimal days.   I went on to live with him for six months in a couple of bedsits, one with only a cold tap and a shared toilet between three floors and no bathroom,  but he became controlling and mentally abusive to me and my mother eventually had to rescue me from a very nasty situation.  He went to prison while I was with him and I passed cigarettes to him through the bars of Tottenham Police station cells. I learnt a lot about life with him in spite of the abuse and control and they are experiences I will never forget.  They are part of the rich tapestry of life I have led. Throughout all this I had a job and never missed a day of work and never told anybody what was going on.  

I watched Arsenal v Athletico on Prime and was able to tune out Alan Shearer and watch with my own thoughts, the crowd and no commentators.  This is my preferred way to watch football.  

Arsenal will meet PSG (Paris) in the final in Budapest on May 30th. Kickoff 5pm.

As Clarence  Seedorf said at the end of the Arsenal match, when you get to this point in the competition who you meet in the final is irrelevant and of course that is how it is.  PSG are the current cup holders.  May the best team win.  Seedorf is a very intelligent football pundit.   

This week I had a massage with the lady who has been training with me as the guinea pig.  She is in charge this week as my usual lady is away working in London.  On her own the new lady (new only to the clinic because she has actually been a masseuse for years in Thailand) was confident and gave me a very tough, hard deep tissue massage.  She spoke some English but we did not speak during the massage which is the way it should be I think.  I felt like I was walking better when I left and I hope that is able to stay with me for the duration of my holiday. 

Today I will go and see The Devil Wears Prada 2.  I only saw the first one six months ago and was pleasantly surprised and thought it was a great movie.  I am hoping to enjoy this one too.   

Sadly Blogger is still not up-dating correctly.  My blog post will be read by very few. 

Zach Polanski

 If you don't study PPE at university the next best thing for the budding politician must be drama mustn't it?  Polanski studied drama at Aberystwyth.  He is a charlatan in politics.  A would be Liberal when he thought he would enter politics.  He isn't actually an MP.

Born as David Paulten but changed his name back to a/the family name of Polanski because he wanted to be Jewish as his mother.  He also didn't want to be called David anymore because he didn't like it. .  Zach was found as a good name.  

I have never heard his voice but I have seen a blogger write that he speaks so nicely.  Well I suppose if he is an actor then he would do wouldn't he? Never mind what he wants to say.  His political beliefs change like the wind.  

It has been said that he is not capable of running anything but he likes the sound of his own voice, likes to self promote.  A political huckster.  

 He loves drama, dancing and himself.  He has worked as a hypnotherapist.

 As a Lib Dem he supported Israel and Judaism.  As a Green he no longer supports Israel and Judaism.  His mother no longer speaks to him.  

He sought a seat in local government with the Lib Dems.  He spoke at the Lib Dem conference.  He was considered a star of the Lib Dems in 2015.  

After failure with the Lib Dems he defected to the Greens.  He no longer supports Israel but takes the exact opposite and opposes Israel and then starts the grotesque anti-semitism that has become what is the Green Party with the Corbynists who came out of the Labour Party and joined the Greens. 

 He likes to speak at Saturday anti-Israel protests.  He likes things on X all day long including the condemnation of the police who held down the Jew attacker last week.  "They might have hurt the attacker ".   He later made a weak apology for this but wants the police investigated.

On a national level if they were to win a General Election the manifesto is that all illegal immigrants would be given an amnesty, a house and no requirements to work.  

The deputy of the Greens is Muslim Mothin Ali who is suggesting that any Greens disciplined for anti-Semitism in the Party should sue their own party. Ali is a Tik Tok user who does not condemn the October 7th atrocities.   All this anti-Semitism in the Green Party is coming from the top down. 

If this were a General Election and not local election, you could be forgiven for confusion here if you are reading overseas, then it would be another vote for Muslim Britain which is on its way.  (That is not just via the Greens I might add).

On Thursday it is a local election for the dustbin collection, social services, town planning and everything that local government do for us.  However,  I will not be voting Green for more 20mph villages, impossible driving.  

I will not be voting for those who put central government issues on their campaign literature.  Refugees, social media in schools and the under 16s, net zero, are dealt with by Parliament in Westminster, not the local town hall.  Concentrate on bins and council tax spending wisely.   

I will vote for the Conservative candidate for South Norfolk. 

Strangely enough Adrian Ramsey who Polanski defeated in the Greens leadership contest is my MP.  He has been very quiet recently and there has been nothing coming from him about Polanski whatsoever or about his beloved Green Party which he must surely be seeing crumple in front of him.  Ramsey did at least study Politics and Sociology at university and is a local boy.    The fact that South Norfolk has a Green MP is in itself an illustration of the fickleness of voters and the stupidity of voting for someone as a protest vote.  He has done nothing for us in the area which was always a Conservative seat.  He votes in support of all things net zero and stopping good country pursuits.   (Waveney Valley is what South Norfolk now is although I have never seen the River Waveney or at least knowingly so). 

If you start letting Greens take control of local government it has a nasty way of getting bigger and bigger in people's minds as a party to take over.  Norwich is run by Labour and Greens. 

 Local councillors from the Greens tend to be young.  A few weeks after the election fun has died down and they have to attend meetings they don't show up, better things to do.  This is  a regular pattern reported in the local paper for us.  No show Greens in City Hall.  Do they take their duties seriously when the euphoria of winning is over?  When it boils down to it local government nitty gritty can be long boring meetings about street lights, cats eyes and planning approvals and two way driving through a built up area and a shingle bank and a driveway that is debated for three hours.  Incidentally Norwich has always been Labour, never anything else but the Green Party with all those student voters has slowly but surely been creeping in. Come on Labour Norwich, stop them.

Serious

 Reading list not totally resolved this morning, some up-dated some haven't.  I was expecting a comment from Cro on anti-semitism post but nothing.  I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and believe that his reading list has not up-dated so he never saw the post although I did notice that a comment from him on the same subject elsewhere was removed by himself after publishing.  Perhaps he fears retaliation from readers of his joyful, tantalising blog.  Comment following is very interesting; as John frequently says the comments are often more interesting than the posts.  I join him in this. 

I notice that more and more bloggers are not responding to comments, merely publishing them and leaving them high and dry.  I like to respond to the comments, it is a conversation for a lonely person like me.  Believe me, I do get lonely without anyone to talk to much as I am a loner. 

It is another day on my own here.  Bank holiday in Britain, the May Day that has sort of been accepted although many of the self-employed still treat it as a working day around here although probably less so as the years go by and men retire who once objected to it.  Michael Foot in the Labour Government 1978 brought it into existence so we would be more like the Bolshviks he desired I assume. 

I was going to write about the Green Party and David Paulden, aka Zack Polanski, former Lib Dem, former actor, former life coach, but I'll leave that for another day, perhaps, if you would like me too.  But absorb it before Thursday please even if I don't write about it because those Jew hating Green Party canvassers in Norfolk saying the vilest things possible about Israel and October 7 are getting it from the top down, that's Zach Polanski whose mother no longer speaks to him. Green Party Britain means Islam Britain.  Matthew Parris is voting Labour for the first time in his life to keep the Greens out of Tower Hamlets.  He laments voting tactically but he says it is a must and if Matthew Parris says this, the man Weaver loved to read in her Times, then things are going seriously wrong in Britain. 

Of course if nobody comments I can always blame it on the Blogger reading lists.  

Saturday

 Some of you may have noticed, that's if you use blog reading lists, that blog posts are not up-dating at the moment.  I don't think it makes a great deal of difference to me as I am on only on two blog roll lists that I know of but I will be on reading lists of those who follow me.  On the one blog roll list that updates when a new post is written it is obvious that the lists are not up-dating as I am still showing as a post Grief written two days ago.  The post Antisemitism in Britain is not showing.  The Grief post has had over 300 page views, the Antisemitism shows only 160 page views.   All by-the-by really but I hope that the lack of up-dating is the only reason why nobody is interested in the Antisemitism in Britain post.  It is important.   The other blog list where I appear in Western Australia on Sarah's blog  is one that lists blogs followed but is not a time recording up-dated one.  So really I am only on one blog roll list. 

Today is another lovely day and I met my friend who likes to meet me for normalcy as she calls it.  I also like to meet her for the same reason.   

I have booked my Heathrow Express ticket and am now at the end of the things I have to do with regard to tickets and paperwork for the holiday as far as I can see.   I was undecided about how to get to Heathrow from Central London as there are various options but in the end decided to opt for the Heathrow Express and book in advance and save a considerable amount of money.  It is the most expensive Heathrow connection but the advance booking brings it down to more or less match the undergrounds.  

I had the sewing machine out yesterday and mended some jeans and did a viewing of them with my friend today, not for complimentary reasons but for the fact that, as we both know, when living alone it is very difficult to see things all around in the mirror and back views are a near impossibility so I decided to go today wearing them and ask for help. I needed to know for sure that the mend was invisible and tight without stretches when I was actually wearing them.  Whilst I could see this when sewing I could not see this when wearing.  This is something we are both well aware of living alone.  The jeans passed the test and the outfit passed with an objective eye as suitable for Baku.  My friend is familiar with Baku as she and her husband were travellers there for business reasons.   This is purely coincidental that I have a friend familiar with the city, but a good coincidence.   

I said I would be posting on Instagram.  She doesn't follow Instagram so wants me to Whatsapp her.  What a lot of techy things we do these days.  I can do that.  

I had a rather frustrating call with my mobile provider this week and the long and short of it was that the man in Mumbai did not really want to chat to me because I couldn't remember the name of my first pet.  We went through two cat names and all sorts of other things and I said I only wanted to ask a general question about data use abroad and did not want to talk about my account but he said he couldn't answer questions at all without firstly accessing my account.  I was ringing from my mobile number which is the subject of my account which you would think would have sufficed in any case. However, it appeared not to and we continued with pet name guessing.    In the end, after 10 minutes of this, I curtailed the call.  It was so frustrating and I turned to the internet and did get an answer of sorts but I would much rather have had a chat with a human about it. 

I might not be posting on the blog while I am away unless the mobile phone provider offers me a data package when I arrive which in theory it should do for a few quid which I would be willing to pay.  

But as yet I am still here.  I won't be cleaning the house very much and will leave things much as they are for the cats.    They will be fed by my neighbour. 

But I am still here.  Sorry the run up to  the holiday seems to be rather long but it is just the way it is.  

Antisemitism in Britain

 Britain has a serious antisemitism situation going on.  If you have a Jewish neighbour who has recently sent his family away to Israel it will be for safety reasons.   This is happening.    It is unsafe to be Jewish in Britain now.    Jews are vulnerable on the streets and in the synagogue.  It is an undeniable fact. 

If you are a person living in Britain and you are in any denial about this then you have your head in the sand.  

Even if the man responsble for this week's stabbings of Jews in Golders Green is of mental instability it does not mean that the attack can be shrugged off as therefore not significant to Jews in Britain. 

I believe the British Government has now declared that this is a state of emergency.   Security is to be increased.   It is a start.