The Human Factor by Graham Greene

Following on from the reading posts of a few weeks ago, the Santa Montefiore book in a series on an Irish family of Deverills  turned out to be a decent read by very predictable from the outset.  (I haven't got the title now because I no longer have the book and can't remember it).   Within the first five pages I could see what was going to unfold.   There was a reading of a will and a letter that was not to be opened until one member of the family had been to Ireland from where the deceased woman originated (we are now in the US where she has spent her entire adult life) and then all would be revealed that there is to be a mystery legatee.  It didn't take a lot to work out about what had happened to the woman in 1950s Ireland which caused her to be put on a ship to the US and banished.   I finished the book but I did not particularly enjoy it and I read it very quickly skipping my way through it. 

The next one was Three Apples Fell From The Sky by Narine Abharan.  I got two pages in and didn't like it.  A girl planning her own death, a suicide. I found it depressing to say the least.   I tried again and got about 20  pages in and that was it.  The book was not for me.  It was hard going and miserable.  It went back to the charity shop quickly. 

The most successful read of all was Graham Greene's The Human Factor which was a well written, well crafted story, concise, easy to follow and acutely observant of life in the 1950s, with the office life, home life,  spying in the Cold War very reminiscent of Burgess and McClean and a life in MI6 that Greene knew from his own experience. Briefly the story is of a leak in MI6 which sparked off security checks, tensions and suspicions.  Maurice Castle is the main character where one soon conjures up the image of a kind of middle ranking member of the team in a brown suit, never late for work and a creature of habit and daily routine, the least suspicious man in the office.  However, married to a black woman he had worked with in S Africa, unusual in 1950s London, a mixed marriage brought some suspicion and questioning by his superiors and yet still he seemed like the unassuming clerk and they did not suspect him of any wrongdoing.   Not my usual kind of book but it was so well written with the balance of secrecy of MI6 and the normalcy of domestic life threaded together it was a book that I looked forward to every night.  We don't have many fine writers like Graham Greene today and if there are any they do not turn up on station bookstands unless they lurk in the crime writers which dominate the display and sadly not my genre. 

 

Saturday

 I am enjoying the heatwaves. I know from the small blog circle I follow that not many people do.  I cannot think of one who does.   I act in a sensible way and stay indoors out of the heat and I do not try to do otherwise.   I go out as early as I can for my newspaper, depending on what time I have the energy to get up. 

I met my friend C for our Saturday rendezvous.  It was especially good today as I went over the garden party of last Saturday.  She knows all the people involved but as you know she was absent.  It took over an hour of discussion. 

We eventually got back to our week's activities, human conditions, and then we got on to the current political situation.  All in all our analyses took almost three hours. 

I wore shorts and a tee shirt.  This is acceptable for the supermarket café.  

When I returned home I immediately began rearranging furniture.  I am not pregnant.  I seem to recall that major events like furniture rearranging can relate to pregnancy and nesting but I could be wrong.  Maybe it is just change in life.  C messaged me to say she was cleaning the fridge.  We energised one another. 

I have just turned a corner in the Long Covid and Thursday appeared to be that day.  I am hoping.  I cleaned for the first time in three months, other than cursory clean of the toilet seat during that time. 

I rearranged the furniture in the breakfast room, swept first, mopped and cleaned the room and every inch of the toilet.  I have not been able to do this since May 22nd when I returned from Azerbaijan, two days after which I went down with Covid.  For the next 10 weeks I have been unable to lift my arms or stir my porridge. A seat has appeared in the otherwise barren kitchen to save me when on the verge of collapse.  I took the Turkish rug outside and it is on the lawn.  I thrashed it and beat it. 

 Last Thursday I felt better all of a sudden. The troll will be checking this on his Apple Watch to see if three month long covid is by definition possible. 

I don't care about that, I am pleased to feel better and I can walk between rooms without pausing for breath. 

I have a hula hoop that has been delivered from Amazon.  That is the next thing to do and then I take up hula hooping and see if I can do it.  I was whizz at it as a teenager.   The hula hoop comes as a kit and I have to join it up to form a hoop. 

I have taken two days to tell you about the recovery and I probably should have waited longer but it is exciting to be able to walk through the house without near collapse and be free of  not knowing how I will feel when I wake up, whether the heart will pulse fast and whether I will sweat so much I cannot walk and whether I will have the energy to stand out of the bed.  I am keeping fingers crossed that this is not a false dawn and that I have recovered.   

Cro has suggested that the troll may be a AI robot.  If only that were true.  Sadly I know this is not the case.   He has been stalking me for 10 years.   He is definitely a he and not a she and he loves to fact check and run his own ChatGPT. His latest bit of enjoyment for himself via his techy watch.    It's a bit like the handover from Malaysian air traffic control to Vietnam on flight number MH370 that never actually happened.  I wish he would leave me alone but as the great and the good say "I can't be bothered with you" so I gain strength from that message of other bloggers and friends.   Never doubt yourself. 

Britain Remembered

 I added a few bits to the paragraph on "Professor" Arday because I had omitted the brain tumour he had whilst writing his PhD.   Seeing that he also taught at Durham is making me take university education less and less seriously and save your money.

Changing the subject, in a recent trial of a man who battered his mother to death after smoking cannabis, and having been a cannabis user for many years, the BBC in their report left out the cannabis issue altogether which was discussed in court and led to the trial judge issuing a warning to those who want to legalise the drug stating that cannabis was a drug that caused and exacerbated mental health issues.  The BBC said they make decisions on court reporting in line with editorial priorities and guidelines.  Clearly the BBC would not wish to be party to quoting the line of the judge warning those who want to legalise the drug to think again.  It would not fit in with the ideology of the left to not let everybody literally go to pot.  Jeremy Bentham said that it doesn't work, natural human rights are nonsense upon stilts.  I wrote a poem about it in the form of a letter from Bentham to Blair.   Khan wants to legalise pot smoking.  What does a little up-start like him know, what right does he have to say this as a mayor?  Shouldn't he be concentrating on street furniture and double yellow lines?   When we cannot turn on a water cannon to control mobs, we cannot put a flag up, speak of a boat of illegal migrants to be stopped without being called racist, want to have an uncrowded island of the people we are who eat shepherds pies, drink beer, go to church on a Sunday, eat tripe and onions, go to girls and boys schools separately if we choose to, have fee paying schools if we choose to, it isn't much to ask is it  really to be Britain as we enjoy it, and then you have a little Muslim leader with a majority in Tower Hamlets and Brick Lane and Walthamstowe and Tooting  to tell us that we should legalise cannabis when we live in the rest of Britain with something that is left of Britain and have a voice that does not say legalise cannabis because we like peace without drugs.

As the left try to take over our thoughts, the music industry is also caught up in the ideology.  Boy George,  who is still singing and writing songs, has had to pull out of a West End musical and leave his record label because he is pro-Israel. It is not clear whether he was sacked, asked to leave, or went of his own volition after it was made clear he was not wanted.   Other festival performers have pulled out of summer festivals when organisers demand adherence to Free Palestine.  Boy George's song, We Will Dance Again, says the song is for his many Jewish friends.  The lyrics he sings are about the Nova music festival massacre.  He sings "I stand with the Jews" and the chorus is "We will dance again".   He will no longer be in Jesus Christ Superstar at the London Palladium.   Madonna supports Israel and condemns Hamas.   Bono refuses to denounce Israel.  In London it is not so easy.  If you don't side with Palestine, wave a Palestinian flag on the streets, march and chant on a Sunday,  and you sympathise with Israel you are out as far as London and Britain is concerned condemned by those who do not speak for the majority but those who are big headed enough to call everybody a racist without knowledge or common sense or a head to see what is wrong with Britain and  who will never take in a refugee themselves, who will be a nimby to the end and will never stop being self-righteous and smug and welfare supporters who will grow the band of the young "who needs a job when welfare will pay it all forever" and see the country go down the drain and banter will end in the pub and become an offence if Rayner's last bits of the Employment Rights Act go through. Let  off steam in the pub after work about the boss or the jobsworth and thou shalt be arrested.  Return to the 1970s, a joke if Burnham wants to return to the 1970s he needs to read up on his history, IMF, inflation, strikes, green godesses, union bosses Red Robbo more strikes, more inflation, Jack Jones, Hugh Scanlon.  I wonder what the names will be this time and how Labour will sort it out.  Not hard to guess who will pay and the boats will still come and the cannabis will be smoked in the living rooms and the kids will run gangs from their phones and the 16 year olds will take over. No you don't want blogs with politics but you don't have to read it.

News

Jason Arday has resigned.  This is the story of the Cambridge University professor, their youngest ever black professor, who came from nowhere, couldn't read or write until he was 18 and then made these stunning accomplishments, university degrees, doctorate, charity work  and ended up Professor of Sociology at Cambridge University.  Claimed to have raised £5M in charity money, run in marathons where he was never seen, visited Water Aid charities in Africa although Water Aid say they never invite anybody anywhere and have never heard of him, gave donations to charities which were never seen, wrote a PhD thesis which was quoted over and over by his contemporaries and scholars as a work of  plagiarism.   All ignored by Cambridge University until now. 

Cambridge University at last announced a full investigation this week and Arday resigned yesterday.   He resigned saying he thought it time to draw a line under the events.   Yes, quite. 

Oh yes, I forgot to mention, he had a brain tumour whilst writing his PhD.  He completed his PhD in two and a half years in spite of the brain tumour.  He also had a post at Durham University as an associate professor.  Durham are now playing this down.  

At 18 he hadn't yet mastered how to read and write and by 22 he was taking a Masters degree.  

Norwegian, teenager paid £21,000 to travel from Norway to Yorkshire on a mission to kill on behalf of Iranian terrorists.  His target victim is unnamed but is likely to have been an Israeli in Britain.  18 year old Norwegian gets excited about finding organisation on the internet where he can get to kill and be paid for it.  He sets out from Stavanger which you will remember from geography is in southern Norway on the coast of islands and sea.  He finds the idea of killing appeals to him.  Foxtrot recruited him and the senior recruiter is aged 22.   He and Foxtrot have a deal with Iran to kill enemies of the Iranian regime living abroad.  The teenager told his friends what he was excited about, killing.  He told so many people he was coming here to be an assassin and would get all this money that his friends became more than suspicious and  very worried.  He flew into Manchester, got instructions to go to a wood in Huddersfield and pick up his guns and ammunition.   Oslo police and British police were on to him and he was arrested.  He stood trial at the Old Bailey last week and is awaiting sentence.  Meanwhile the 22 year old Iranian agent has been arrested in Iraq.    

The Foxtrot group, led by an Iraqi in Sweden, are linked to attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe.  They recruit young teens like the Norwegian to carry out the attacks.   The young Norwegian is set to spend some time in prison and his mother said she is totally baffled by his involvement in this organisation, had no idea about it and is devastated. 

Fact is often stranger than fiction. 

Eyes and Bowels

 Yesterday I was out in the heat of the city because I had my six monthly contact lens eye examination.  This goes with the territory of wearing contact lenses.   

I found the city hot and unpleasant and arrived at the opticians 30 minutes early in order to sit in the cool of their premises and knowing that if it was possible my contact lens man would see me early if he was able to.  Whilst waiting, with others doing the same incidentally, I tried on frames. (We were all hot and the temperature was 32C outside the shop.  The shop had air con).     I found a pair of amazing golden coloured frames which had I needed new glasses would have been my selection on the day but as I was not there for glasses I had to leave and ignore.   I kept looking at them though. 

We discussed my holiday and his, his being off to Bulgaria today to see his son rowing in Plovdiv.

Bulgaria is a place I have looked at for next year if I go on holiday although I am still drawn to the rail journey from London to Stockholm.  It will be a little later on when I will decide what I am doing, if anything.   It all depends on health.   My goal for this year is to lose a bit of weight.  

Incidentally talking of weight loss, a woman in Norfolk died on the mounjaro jabs and the inquest is currently on.  She had a faecal bind in the bowel which caused a leak in the bowel wall.  Be aware that you need good bowels to take this stuff that gives the weight loss by slowing the movement and digestion in general.  Can this be the right thing to do?   Knowing how important the bowel movement is should man be interfering with enzymes that hopefully cause us to do the right thing?   The jury is still out on this particular unfortunate woman and the inquest continues.  

My weight loss will come with eating less chocolate and biscuits. 

 

More News from Yorkshire

 Carrying on with my news stories from Yorkshire the latest is the funeral director Robert Bush who has been locked up for 20 years for failure to run a funeral parlour in a correct and proper manner. He was charged with fraud, prevention of proper and decent burial, fraudulent trading and theft.   He was a Hull resident and the funeral parlour was in Hull, East Yorkshire.   He was aged 48.  

Bush was raided by the police after other funeral directors became suspicious and when Bush was away on holiday they took the opportunity to take a peep inside.  35 rotting bodies were found and up to a 100 lots of ashes.  He was known to lie to funeral celebrants and this was what led to the suspicions from other funeral directors in the end. 

 Now it may not be known by all but the funeral parlour had been owned by another dodgy funeral director before Bush and he was being investigated by the police but died before the investigations were completed and the case against him was dropped.  In walks Bush to acquire the business, not connected with the first owner, but picks up where he left off. 

Bereaved families were handed any old ashes when they went to collect their loved ones ashes and it is thought that Bush found the "old stock" of the previous owner very useful for this and rebagged  and boxed them.  Meanwhile bodies remained in the fridge that didn't work, also bought in situ when he acquired the premises.  Rotting bodies were found, including a baby which was thought at first to be an animal in a bag.

Bush also offered funeral plans where you pay up-front for your own funeral in advance so that everything is taken care of before you die to save your relatives worry in the future.  Bush used most of this money for his own holidays and luxuries.  Beware.  There are a lot of adverts directed at us now to plan ahead in this way, the cinema ads are full of it although I guess the Co-op is reliable but who knows, I suppose the Daily Mirror and BHS employees thought their pensions were safe once upon a time. 

Money that was donated for identified charities by bereaved families in memory of their loved ones was also taken by Bush for himself. 

The Bush family were said to be intelligent and outwardly ordinary and good people.  His wife is standing by him.  His daughter worked with him in the funeral parlour and was said to have been embalming since she was 14.  No charges were brought against her or her mother.  I would say they were lucky to escape charges.    Underneath it all Bush hid this East Yorkshire funeral parlour of evil for his own selfish ends and kept a good front of house appearance.  

More stories from Yorkshire include a machete wielding Asian gang arriving at a house in the middle of the night in Huddersfield in an attempted kidnapping and the recruitment of a young Norwegian boy by Iran to carry out a murder in West Yorkshire.   The organisation recruit young teenagers to carry out targeted murders in Europe of those against the Iranian regime.  The boy was found guilty  at the Old Bailey last week of conspiracy to murder.  He will be sentenced in October. 

Garden Party in the Afternoon

 Yesterday I went to the Adult Education group's summer garden party which was held at the house of the Chairman.  As you will recall I resigned from the committee a year ago due to the dissertation writing which was followed by a bout of ill health.  In fact I had become disillusioned with the running of the group and I was at a rather low point at the time and needed little to push me over the edge to step away. 

A year has gone by and encouraged by my friend C who still goes to the group I decided to re-kindle my contact with them.   

I was made very welcome and saw old friends and made some new ones.  I was welcomed by the chairman and met the committee member who replaced me.  I spoke to old committee members and found that things continue as before confirming my decision to step away to be the right one. 

The afternoon was well organised with a jazz band to entertain, fresh cakes and sandwiches and lemonade and orange squash.  I was expecting that there might have been some Pims but no but it is good to see that a fine time can be had by all without the need for alcohol.  

On the day my friend C decided not to go.   She had been coming with me.   It was a very hot and sweaty day and she worried about being outside in the garden all afternoon.  We had left it flexible as to whether we went or not and either one of us we knew might back out.   As it was there was plenty of seating in the shade and cool areas.  The garden was a mass of shrubs in one area, low maintenance and cool and plenty of garden seats amongst the pathways and canopies had been provided in the open area where the jazz band played. 

I took one photo whilst the band set up which does not really do the setting of the house and garden justice.  The house is large with an added extension to the rear and is otherwise of Tudor brickwork to the front roadside.  The house immediately next door is 17th Century thatch.   The house had effectively two separate gardens which I would guess were the result of the extension.

By the end of the afternoon I was exhausted by the heat and basically doing nothing.  It is surprising how talking and listening and sunshine, sitting down and a few sandwiches can be so tiring!

I sat down when I got home and rejigged my day.  What I had planned for Saturday tea I no longer needed because I had eaten sandwiches mid afternoon.  I ended up with a late supper and read the papers and an early night.   I have just penned a thank you "note" email to the chairman for a splendid afternoon.