As we go into the international break, Spurs are sitting pretty at the top of the Premiership with a 100% record and Arsenal are holding up the table, bottom with a 0% record. This situation will remain unchanged until at least 11 September when league fixtures are back.
Andy H - as you can imagine - is not best pleased.
Retired General Dan Bolger, author of Why We Lost: A General’s Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, joins The Realignment’s season premiere to discuss the rise and fall of America’s post-9/11 military interventions.
YouTube recommended this to me yesterday and I listened to it as I was pottering about and I, in turn am recommending it to you. A critique of the USA's military hubris taking in everything from the fall of Saigon to the current Kabul fiasco is all the more compelling for being delivered by a patriot with unimpeachable credentials.
Oh, did I mention that Why We Lost: A General's Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars was published in 2015? It is not like he is cutting his coat according to his cloth in August 2021.
Find The Realignment wherever you listen to your podcasts: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3mZB6me... iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-th... Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/huds... Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0...
Just before our love got lost you said,I am as constant as a northern starAnd I said, "Constantly in the darkness,Where's that at?If you want me I'll be in the bar."
Here is my schedule for the first part of the Bank Holiday weekend.
8:30 Hot Yoga
10: 30 Weekly Skype video call with Mum and siblings
12:30 Man City v Arsenal down the Standard.
Unimprovable.
Man charged with contaminating supermarket goods
A man has been charged after a police investigation into the contamination of supermarket products in west London.
Leoaai Elghareeb, 37, from Fulham, will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Friday.
The Met Police said he had been charged with contaminating or interfering with goods with intent.
The case relates to incidents at a Sainsbury's Local, Tesco Express and Little Waitrose on Fulham Palace Road, Fulham, on Wednesday evening.
My Sunday morning shopping trip with PG, starts at that very Little Waitrose and also takes in the nearby Sainsbury's Local (if anything he wants is out of stock in Waitrose) before finishing at the independent grocers opposite.
I'm gonna keep this arrest news under my hat, he can be anxious enough at the best of times. Does that make me a bad person?
We went to see Salomé at the Southwark Playhouse last night. Salomé was a bloke and it was terrible. Perhaps I should watch Al Pacino's documentary to try and understand it. Online at Amazon.
Ooh, a storm is threateningMy very life todayIf I don't get some shelterOoh yeah I'm gonna fade awayWar, childrenIt's just a shot away
It isn't out in the cinemas until September 3rd, but reviews of Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings have appeared in the UK press and they are all saying good things about it.
I have tweaked the playback of the teaser trailer above to plunge you straight into the maelstrom as our titular hero disposes of two foes simultaneously with a spectacular double kick that looks like doing the splits with intent after leaping six feet in the air.
It spoke to me because Ben used to practice something similar when he was a little boy. One day I asked him why. "In case two burglars come in here together."
"OK, but what will you do after you have kicked them?"
"Put them up in the tree outside and wait for the police to come and take them away to a baddie hospital."
I think our first post-COVID trip to the Wimbledon Odeon followed by Wahaca should be on the cards for early next month.
E10 is cleared for use in all petrol driven Ford models sold in Europe since 1992 excluding:
- Ford Mondeo 1.8 SCI from 2003 to 2007.This model and Ford models sold before 1992 should continue to use E5.
Personal imports not approved by Ford of Europe are not included in the above statements.
Before I was driving back up the M4 from seeing Mum in Cardiff yesterday, I had never previously heard of E10 petrol.
During summer 2021, the standard (95 octane) petrol grade in Great Britain will become E10. In Northern Ireland, this will happen in early 2022.
The change in fuel applies to petrol only. Diesel fuel will not be changing.
Almost all (95%) petrol-powered vehicles on the road today can use E10 petrol and all cars built since 2011 are compatible.
If your petrol vehicle or equipment is not compatible with E10 fuel, you will still be able to use E5 by purchasing the ‘super’ grade (97+ octane) petrol from most filling stations.
Petrol pumps will clearly label petrol as either E10 or E5.
So now you know.
Vince got me a programme when he went to see I am McKellen's age-blend Hamlet in Windsor on Thursday, so I will give it to PG today.
I remember praising Rhys Ifans' Fool in Glenda Jackson's Lear while not quite being able to remember the actor's name. For me, he will now always be "Something Rhys? Rhys something? You know, whatsisname who was in that Sherman audio thing with Bethany.
Just in case you were wondering what our much ballyhooed aircraft carrier is up to now. Not even this government would try and deploy the navy to landlocked Afghanistan ......... would they?Rainbows on the aft-island! 🚦🌈
— HMS Queen Elizabeth🇬🇧 (@HMSQNLZ) August 21, 2021
This unique light show on the flight deck marks a series of inclusion events held this week as part of Deployment #Pride. @RNCompass @RoyalNavy 📸 pic.twitter.com/d5KJsINiJx
cutting bell peppers and adding googly eyes is bound to heal your soul a little, give it a try pic.twitter.com/E8DWRY2D8S
— Rob N Roll (@thegallowboob) August 19, 2021
Eleven and a half years after I was asked to help out the Disaster Emergency Committee with their Haiti work (see Icons passim), the country is suffering after another earthquake.
I learned a lot on that campaign. First, how well off we are over here. I remember just getting out of the shower before I set off to the offices. I was toweling myself off, feeling fresh and good when it occurred to me hardly anyone on the island could even aspire to a day revolving around that fragrant and comfortable set point.
DEC comprises ActionAid, Action Against Hunger, British Red Cross, CAFOD, CARE International, Christian Aid, Concern, Age UK, Islamic Relief, Oxfam, Plan UK, Save the Children, Tearfund and World Vision.
There is power, efficiency and wisdom in that collegiate structure as opposed to a top-down approach. Age UK knew people with the same specialization in Haiti, ditto Save the Children. Help was targeted via these networks in a way that simply wouldn't happen with a broad brush (slap dash?) approach.
Thursdays are traditionally "poetry night" in the city of Herat when men, women and children gather and recite both ancient and modern poems.
I'm still working through the Arabian Nights at the rate of one night per day. Night 289 finishes with a girl reciting a poem at a dinner party.
How long will this separation and this hatred last
Until the joy that has passed returns to me again?
We lived together in the same country;
In our enjoyment we thought the envious paid no heed.
But time betrayed us, forcing us to part;
Leaving our dwellings like a barren waste.
You censure me; do you want me to be consoled?
My heart, I see, will not obey your voice.
Abandon blame and leave me with my love.
For love is not yet emptied from my heart.
You broke your oath and chose another love,
But, though you are away, my heart will not forget.
Poignant doesn't begin to cover it, the day after Kabul fell.
We went to see Bach & Sons last night. The Bridge Theatre is a nice venue that is new to me, but the play itself is an affront to good writing.
What a start to the season!! Another one🏆💙🔥 pic.twitter.com/xYMbcyNrdw
— Callum Hudson-Odoi (@Calteck10) August 11, 2021
My brother John's not too far away today interviewing a client so he will visit this evening, we'll go for a drink then a curry and he'll drive back in the morning.
Both my diary and these spindrift pages say the last time this happened was at the beginning of March 2020, all but a year and a half ago. Chalk up (or is it down?) another withering on the vine to the malign COVID blow back.
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
The NHS has sent me a bowel cancer screening test kit. Considering Paul is due an operation for it and Neil has actually I had one, I suppose I had better do it.
It is probably wishful thinking to assume that reading Improved Detection of Elusive Polyps via Machine Learning form the Google AI Blog has covered me already.
PG bought me A Stinging Delight: A Memoir by David Storey for my birthday. (A hardback mind you!)
I am "creeping like snail, unwillingly to school" though it. Not because it isn't good, it is great. I am almost unendurably moved. A clause in a sentence can send me off into an introspective reverie.
John Patrick Anthony Browne (born 8 March 1933) and David Malcolm Storey (born 13 July 1933) were contemporaries. Perhaps that has something to do with the resonance.
"I will finish it eventually" is high and sincere praise. Unlikely to appear in the blurb on the back of the paperback though.
I woke up this morning to learn from the Today programme that a Barbie of Oxford Covid vaccine designer Dame Sarah Gilbert has been created.
Perhaps by coincidence, my latest Audible book selection is Vaxxers: The Inside Story of the Oxford AstraZeneca Vaccine and the Race Against the Virus by Sarah Gilbert and Catherine Green. So far it is really remarkably good.
It is Mum's 84th birthday today, Who do I talk to about getting a Bernice Browne Barbie doll?
Afghanistan: Street fighting rages as Taliban attack key city
Ferocious fighting is taking place in a major Afghan city, amid fears it could be the first provincial capital to fall to the Taliban.
Lashkar Gah in southern Helmand province is under heavy assault from the militants, despite persistent US and Afghan air strikes.
https://nickbrowne.coraider.com/search?q=helmand will show you what I have written over the years.
Read the heartbreaking Dead Men Risen: The Welsh Guards and the Real Story of Britain's War in Afghanistan about Helmand. What did those boys give their lives for?
John Reid, Secretary of State for Defense, committed 3,300 troops to Helmand province, Afghanistan in January 2006. Speaking to the media Reid said "We would be perfectly happy to leave in three years and without firing one shot because our job is to protect the reconstruction." In the first year about 4 million bullets and 25,000 artillery rounds were fired by the British armed forces.
John Reid is was and ever shall be a sanctimonious prick, as widows and orphans can attest.
Rurouni Kenshin: The Beginning has dropped on Netflix so Ben is coming round this evening to watch it with me. Perhaps confusingly for a series of five films "The Beginning" is a prequel.
I can see from my Amazon orders that I bought the first film on December 18th last year, so this has been a seven and a half month saga for the two of us.
I have linked my Fire TV with the Echo that sits below it, so according to Amazon, I should be able to start the movie by announcing "Alexa, play Rorouni Kenshin."
I tried it this morning.
The reply, "playing songs by Ronan Keating, " came back in a flash!
A feature that still needs work, I suggest.
The Maytals at the Jazz Cafe has been cancelled, so I have had to arrange something else for September. Kurt Elling at Ronnie Scott's on the eighteenth has stepped into the breach.
Andy M is coming. I can remember going with him to see Arturo Sandoval at Ronnie's because his brother Phil was in the support. Andy thinks this was about twenty years ago. I have done some research and I think it is more like thirty five.
Breaks down like this: I know I met Andy in 1985 when we were both working on a project at the . Grangemouth Oil refinery. I am sure about this because I know I was back in London in February 1986 to start my MBA at the City University Business School.
There's an album Arturo Sandoval — No Problem - Recorded Live At Ronnie Scott's Club released in 1987 but recorded in August 1986. Today is August 2021. I think I must be right about this.
