A Post to Ponder Upon

 I don't know what to blog about this morning although I have one thing I would like to blog about and that is the quiet life of blogs and why I do it.  But that is a difficult topic to put into words that won't be twisted.  I like a quiet life and to have followers who have a conversation with me like I would if I was out in a social situation.  It is a conversation to be had here with people who read and may be interested, not a conversation of bitterness and hate.  It does not always come across as happiness but I am a happy person in reality and when I meet my friends of which they are quite a few it is a time of fun, not corrections and bitterness and someone waiting at the door to correct the church cleaning or the church dusting or the church administration to correct the duster and give the reprimand.  It is a time of friendship.  

It is a time to celebrate the shared love of Britain as it was with shepherds pie, runner beans and gravy.   It is the shared realisation that if we do not stand up to attacks carried out on innocent people then queers will be thrown from buildings next and women will be put in the kitchen while the men eat.    It is a shared place for the love of Britain and its culture and the cabbage and peas and roses and perms and slow buses and a scrunched gear change and a summer's day with a sun hat and a cucumber sandwich and a 99.  It is the shared venue for the summer dress and the white socks and a bicycle and sandals put into the body of the elderly sipping water from the fridge door and watching Netflix instead of the BBC.  

The culture of Britain with a tin of sardines and tea together and Blue Peter and the News and an earthquake in Skopje and knitting squares and an atlas to see where it is and Top of the Form and school next day.   It was Aberfan and prayers.  

Now it is a quietness before bed and prayers to the penance of the day's bad thoughts and repentence for the bad word that was uttered in disgust at Louise Haigh and Angela Rayner and extra prayers said that it will all go away and will help with sleep and calm before the next day and it starts all over again.  It is personal life in the head that can make or break the night. 

The blog is for me to talk and find the rights and wrongs of me without the telling or the jerking or the ticking off, mum and dad did enough of that,  they fuck you up your mum and dad, they may not mean to but they do, in the words of Philip Larkin, so leave it at that because all that has been done and I don't want any more of that now.  It is over, those days are gone. 

Today is my day to do as I wish in the heat of the day.  Within the love of Britain that has the creation of the economy and pleasure and satisfaction of work, a Mars bar between six, skinny children who weren't starving and a tennis racket and ball in the park.  

Kevin Keegan's death brought back many memories for me of the 1977 Liverpool team of Ray Clemence, Phil Neal, Joey Jones, Tommy Smith, Ray Kennedy, Emlyn Hughes, Kevin Keegan, Jimmy Case, Steve Heighway, Ian Callaghan, Terry McDermott.  I felt very nostalgic when I read those names.  I could tell you what I was doing at any moment in time in that year, where I stood, what the kitchen was like, what the bathroom was like, where I was, where I worked, who I was with, what we did, what we said.  Kevin Keegan in 1996 I could also tell you about that night as well when Alex Ferguson got the better of him and Kevin went mad.  He was a man who wore his heart on his sleeve, awarded the Ballon'd'Or twice, and had a fight with Billy Bremner at Wembley.   RIP Kevin. 

People regardless of occupation can be wrong

 In life there are people who are good at their jobs and those who are not so good at their jobs.  This does not deviate and is the same in all occupations from shop assistants to hairdressers to doctors to carpenters to plumbers, to electricians, to bus drivers, to baristas to butchers to stockbrokers to tailors to candlestick makers to politicians, clerks, secretaries, teachers, gardeners, roofers, tilers, mechanics, priests and so on.  There are no exceptions to this.   

This is an oft forgotten fact of life.  

When we find a good one we note it don't we?  We remember him/her.  We may recommend him/her to friends.   We make a note of phone number in case we need his/her help in the future. 

The first rule to bear in mind when looking for assistance is that everything said is advisory.  If you decide to take up the advice then it becomes action and implementation.  

Whether you go to the next stage after advice takes consideration and weighing up of facts,  then, just as important as facts is following your gut feeling, intuition. I believe that some people  do not have intuition or they choose to ignore it as irrelevant. 

Using your experience in a field, using past experiences in your own life or that of your family, things you may have learned from your mother or your father.  Being guided by parents  - even when they are elderly they are still worth listening to.     Or just something that your gut is telling you.  Intuition can be solid and worthy of being acted upon.  You just know that something is wrong or right.  If it is wrong you step away, you don't have to say why.

The applies across the board but it appears to be easier to implement with some we encounter than others.  We judge the painter and decorator easily acknowledging our gut reaction to his attitude to preparation, paint costs, quality above cutting corners etc.  We do not hesitate to reject if we feel he/she is not on our wavelength. 

However, where we think someone has vastly superior knowledge than we do through accepted respect for certain occupations like doctors all what I have said goes by the wayside. We dare not question or doubt.  Our subconscious says how could the doctor possibly be wrong, give me the wrong picture, not go along the right pathways, not take into account factors personal to me/us  that he/she in his/her culture is unable to appreciate, give the correct weight to, how could any of what he/says not be gospel to be followed?  Will I endanger my life if I decide to ignore?  Has he made any of this clear?  Has he talked down to me?   Should I get a second opinion?  Will he be offended?  

Doctors can be wrong, misguided, come from different cultures regardless of what the textbook learning gave them, and they need to be given the same treatment as encounters with all the other occupations I referred to.   

News from home and abroad

 The young boy thrown into the crocodile enclosure from a 15ft walkway has now had 6 operations in Addenbrokes Hospital relating to broken bones sustained in the fall and operations and skin grafts relating to the crocodile attack whilst he lay on the ground.  The man who threw the boy into the enclosure was on a summer outing and had learning difficulties. He was being looked after by attendants who, onlookers observed,  were looking at their mobile phones as they walked around with him.  This is not confirmed either way.   The parents of the boy have both taken absence from work to be with their son.  This happened in June in Cambridgeshire and the man was from a Norfolk care home.  Norfolk County Council are investigating.  Norfolk Police said the man was unfit to be charged.  It is reminiscent of the  young French boy thrown over the balcony of the Tate Modern a few years ago.  The man responsible there was mentally unstable and had threatened to kill but had not been taken seriously and was allowed out of his sheltered living accommodation under a risk assessment which deemed him safe to go out on his own in spite of him saying he wanted to kill. The boy was in hospital for many months and his life was changed by the injuries.  The perpetrator is now in prison for a minimum of 15 years and was 18 years old at time of sentence.  He will be young and fit when released. 

In Germany, Berlin, a Lebanese boy, son of a Lebanese woman, born in Germany, has been shot dead after deliberately driving a vehicle into a Pride parade.  He was hunted down and captured hiding in a garden and shot.  One person died in the the attack on the parade and many were injured, some seriously.  The Lebanese German had been known to the police and had been classed  by them as an Islamist threat and had recently tried to go to Syria to join ISIS.  He was named as Abdul Ballout by the police. 

In Regensburg a bank clerk has died of injuries sustained in a attempted bank robbery.  Hostages were thought to have been taken and the bank clerk stabbed.  He later died from his injuries. Armed police attended.    The 20 year old robber's motive is said to be unknown but it looks to have been a bank robbery that went wrong.  The bank that he chose did not have any cash on the premises being a cashless branch.  The robber was known to the police.   He has been arrested.  Further details are not known.  

Sunday

 I met my friend C for coffee and cake yesterday.  It is something to look forward to for both of us and now is a regular Saturday thing for us. We never seem to run out of things to talk about.   We are going to the adult education garden party together next Saturday.  C did not want to go on her own.  She is a little bit more shy than I am!   C and I first met at a course on film run by the education group during the early part of Covid between lockdowns.  We talked a bit at that time but didn't really get to know each other until after Covid and we were on another course and we sat next to each other.  Then we kind of got to know each other better and then the 2024 general election clinched it when I told her I had voted Conservative when we bumped into each whilst shopping!  She hugged me in Waitrose and told me about her experiences with her bookclub where she didn't dare speak of politics, and still doesn't.  What a strange nation we are these days.  It was not like this for my mother, scared or not scared of talking politics,  in fact I don't think the question of speaking of politics outside the home every arose.  It was just something at the dinner table perhaps but even then it was low key and polite. My parents had friends of all political persuasions but it didn't seem to matter to my parents or their friends, as far as I am aware.   I remember delivering a present to a school friend immediately after I had left school and going into their house for the first time and finding they had a framed picture of Ted Heath on the wall above the Aga.   I remember being transfixed looking at it and thinking that perhaps politics mattered a lot more to them than to my family and it was all a bit in your face.  I pretended not to see it but the whole time I was there I kept seeing it out of the corner of my eye. (Ted Heath was the Conservative PM in the early 1970s, a surprise choice of leader at the time and not a popular one).   I still think of the picture on the wall as strange even now over 50 years later.  Incidentally I still see that friend and she still lives in the same house.  

Yesterday continued hot and after coffee and cake I came home and cleaned some windows which is making the outlook from where I am sitting looking at the garden much more pleasant this morning.  I can see some streaks I will have to deal with though. 

Today is the last day of the Tour so no more distractions of tour writing here. It has not been the most exciting of tours with Pogacar leading all the way and the gaps quite wide but it has had its moments and after missing it all last year because of my dissertation I have enjoyed catching up with it again and remembering and learning the names, both old and new. 

PS  at 10.43 am :    How strange weather is:  although we are experiencing temperatures here of 25 to 27C  hailstones are currently bouncing down outside on the garden and banging on my window and it is almost dark. 

Stage 21 - the Last Stage

 Stage 20 in the mountains was won by Carapaz so he got his revenge on Pogacar.  Kuss led but Carapaz closed on him and when Kuss went into the side and came off his bike on the descent Carapaz went past and Kuss couldn't catch him.  Pogacar didn't try any spectacular move and stayed with Del Toro for the ride in together at 4th and 5th.  Evenepoel came in second, Kuss third.  

Stage 20

1. Carapaz  4h 59'39"

2. Evenepoel  +26"

3. Kuss + 31"

4. Pogacar +1.05"

5. Del Toro +1.05"

The GC tonight before the last stage tomorrow:

1. Pogacar 72h 53' 44"

2. Evenepoel  +6' 26"

3. Del Toro + 9' 42"

4. Seixas + 11' 56"

5. Martinez + 13' 02"

6. Skjelmose + 14' 59"

7. Ayuso + 17' 48"

8. Carapaz + 20' 00"

9. Pidcock + 29' 28"

10. Jegat +33 21"

The gaps are the biggest I have ever seen. 

The Green Jersey is already decided and won by Pedersen and not going to change in Paris tomorrow.   The polka dot jersey goes to Carapaz.

Stage 21 is the finish in Paris.  Thoiry to Paris Champs-Élysées.  This has been changed to a ceremonial start in Thoiry then the riders will bus into Paris and the stage turns into a road race in Paris.  The route has been shortened to 89km because police are redeployed to fire areas elsewhere in France.

The Montmatre section will be explosive and intense.  Pogacar will want to win it because he was beaten on Montmatre last year.  The green jersey is already decided.  The sprinters will be hot on his tail to beat him.   So there you have it.  A short stage, starting on television at 16.50 pm.   If you want to see it live in England watch it on SC4 available there and on Iplayer.   

Edit  The Last Day

The last kilometre did turn out to be quite the most exciting part of the day and Pogacar could not hold on with his battle to win between him and Van der Poel, the Flying Dutchman, who Pogacar readily admitted that he could not hold on to him and the Flying Dutchman was the better of the two on that last kilometre and Pogacar had run out of energy.  Van Der Poel at the end lay on the pavement and it looked also like he was nearly out of energy and it had nearly killed him to hand on!  

Pogacar won the Tour for the fifth time and as ever he was gracious and modest and in his words "super happy" to win.  He said that history and records and things were, at that moment at least, unimportant and he was just happy to have that feeling of being in the Yellow Jersey and winning.   The GC places did not change since I last wrote them out so I won't write them out again.   So that's the Tour over for another year. 

Saturday

 Aloha. 

Yesterday Pogacar once again gave a master class in how to win a mountain stage, doing a remarkable chase to catch up 3 minutes and overtake Carapaz and Martinez in the final kilometre doing the chase on his own.  Today we see Stage 20 Le Bourg d'Oisans to Alpe D'Huez again.  A grand finale to the mountains, the final highland stage featuring the Tour's greatest cumulative vertical gain at 5450 metres. and links some  iconic climbs in the Alpine Massif.   Will Carapaz get revenge on Pogacar?    

This is the Alps in the rain which I found when looking through my old illustrations.   Not what it will look like today but you get the drift of the climbs. 

 

 

Yesterday the chimney sweep came and was most satisfactory.  We saw soot  first and then sky which is what you want to see in that order.  A clean chimney and a clear view to the sky at the end.   He was an unusual sweep in that he was a former civil servant having become disillusioned with the British Civil Service a few years back and switched to being a self employed sweep.  He said he had no regrets.  He didn't look anything like I was expecting.  He was tall, smart and like Raold Dahl with sweeps equipment and clean in spite of already doing two chimneys before he came to me.   He got very dirty doing mine and then as if by magic in his van he cleaned up when he finished and I was busy preparing washing facilities for him.  He self cleaned in his van.  We chatted about soot and chimneys and a few issues of politics.  I didn't want him to go.  

I ordered heating oil.   I do not want to get into any panic about not having heating oil and waiting weeks for it like I did last winter.  Not something I want to go through again.  Order, pay and be done with it.  Next thing is logs.   

It was soon over plus Tour de France now added late edit

The Labour Party is having a second coming under Burnham. It is fueled by conceit, inflated by self-importance.   I no longer have the positive feelings about them that I had three days ago.  They are fueled by power.  The bad of the previous cabinet has been replaced by the worse of the new.  Phillipson goes to be replaced by Powell who is as spiteful as the one before her.  The net zero zealot is replaced by a net zero zealot even more of a zealot than the one before her.  The new cabinet members make fun of justice and the release of prisoners who have raped and murdered and adopt a joke for their cover and how they treat the importance of the running of this country.   

I am finished with my days of positivity.  The sweet pill of the elimination of the 5% Vat on energy bills  may fool a few and the return of the  cap to the £2 bus fare; detail of where this funding is coming from has not yet been released.   "Let's keep the idiots happy before we come for them and take it all away when we rob Peter to pay Paul.  Let them think how good we are before we slap 'em".  

As the families of those harmed by hammer wielding murderers, rapists  the families who now sit in fear who have been attacked by the son, brother, father, uncle, the partner, who now will walk free upon early release from prison:  fear of the  knock on the door:  remember them in your prayers and remember that those in power who laugh will face judgment. 

Stage 19 of the Tour deserves a mention today and I will add it to the post now I am up and about.  I have the chimney sweep coming, it is a short post.

This is an old illustration of mine from a Tour gone by but it fits today's stage 19 because it is up hill all the way.  Gap to Alpe d'Huez.  That's 127 km up hill, relentless.  This goes on for two days, two days of breathtaking mountain stages.   

Illness has struck Pogacar's team and precautions are obviously being taken within the team to shield Del Toro and Pogacar.  All we can do is keep fingers crossed for them.