The Gift of the Magi

 Very often on my Sunday-morning way round to Hammersmith to take Peter on his weekly grocery shop, I have to call at Helen's around the corner to pick up some nicknack or other for him. I didn't think I would have to yesterday, because she had visited him on Friday, but when I messaged to double check she told me she had some daffodils that needed delivering "for St David's Day."

He was already outside waiting for me when I turned up so I didn't get a chance to give them to him as he jumped straight in the car. When we were in Waitrose, he bought three bunches of yellow flowers whose labels read "narcissi," and when we got back he told me one was for him, one was for a neighbour and one was for Helen.

In the pub later watching the Carabao Cup final, Ollie told me that narcissus is another name for daffodil; news to me.

Strictly in terms of time and motion studies and in the cause of efficiency, and what with supply chains being under stress, they could have kept their own flowers rather than have me take one bunch of daffodils out and bring a very similar one back.

But as I am all over the stories of O Henry (Icons passim) at the moment:

The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children ....... But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

http://webhome.auburn.edu/~vestmon/Gift_of_the_Magi.html

quite cured of seeking pleasure in society

 My niece, who is at Central, took me to see Wuthering Heights in the National Theatre last night and mentioned is passing that Katy Owen who was in the cast had taught her at Royal Welsh. I googled her this morning and IMDB told me that she is also in the Dinklage Cyrano movie (passim), that I want to see this week.

I got a message from Lee early in the afternoon saying there was a spare ticket for AFC Wimbledon if I fancied it. I told him I was grateful but couldn't make it as I was committed to seeing as much of the England Wales six nations match as I could before striking out for the South Bank. He asked me what I was going to see at the NT, as he had been there the night before at Small Island.

Small Island? Small world.

Johnny Fontane will never get that movie!

 Two movies I want to catch are out. The 50th anniversary edition of the Godfather (passim) and Peter Dinklage in Cyrano (passim).

Clapham Common on the Northern line is only seven minutes from Colliers Wood and the Clapham Picturehouse is only a two minute walk from the station. In terms of the journey's elapsed time that may be nearer than the Curzon or Odeon. The trip will be free as well of course with my travel card.

I took a look at https://www.picturehouses.com/cinema/clapham-picturehouse.

The Godfather isn't playing there.

Transnistria

 According to Radio 4 this morning, Poland is preparing for "up to a million" refugees from Ukraine. I don't know where they get these numbers (plucked from the air I imagine to be honest) but the issue seems real enough.

A long time ago, maybe as early as 1984, I was working with a young Australian guy called Geoff Cooper for Wimpey in Flyover  House. He was taking a break from seeing the world but would still disappear for long weekends Once he went to Poland and told me he had seen the preparations for a parade celebrating the "friendship" of the Poles and the Soviet Union. A street was lined with crossed flags symbolising the relationship, but before the event could start the Polish kids had run up and down the road plucking out the Soviet flags and throwing them away. An image that has stayed with me ever since.

In other developments, Transnistria, officially the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR), is an unrecognised breakaway state located in the narrow strip of land between the river Dniester and the Moldovan–Ukrainian border that is internationally recognised as part of Moldova. There are Russian troops stationed there. I had never heard of it before reports (yet to be confirmed I believe) of forces landing in Odessa.

Night 464

 I woke as usual to Tweet of the Day on Radio 4 at 5:58 am. It was about Eiders, northern sea-ducks perhaps most famous for the soft breast feathers with which they line their nests. 

It was therefore, as you can imagine, quite a juxtaposition when the Today programme started immediately afterwards at six with Ukraine-Russia crisis: Vladimir Putin launches full-scale invasion with explosions heard near Kyiv.

It felt odd after that to go on to my next regular morning appointment, reading the latest story from Malcolm Lyons' translation of The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights and posting a precis to the WhatsApp group where we are working through them.

 The angel of death takes a powerful Israelite king to hell despite his protestations.

Alexander the Great passes by a people so poor they own no worldly goods at all. He summons their king, but his call is refused so Alexander visits the king himself. Impressed by the his modesty and wisdom Alexander offers to  share his empire with the king if he serves as his vizier. ‘Never, never!’ exclaimed the king. ‘I have no desire for this.’ ‘Why is that?’ asked Alexander. ‘Because all mankind are your enemies, thanks to the wealth and the kingdom that you have been given,’ replied the king, ‘whereas for me they are all true friends because I am content with my poverty. I have no kingdom; there is nothing that I want or seek in the world. I have no ambition here and set store by nothing except contentment.’

Finally, the wise King Anushirwan feigns illness, but only as a ruse to double check is realm is well governed.

Three parables about variously wicked, amitious, modest and wise kings and their fates. Actually Night 464 could have been written specifically for today.

All Seven

 The seven Welsh restaurants awarded Michelin stars for the 2022 Guide was a Wales Online headline that took me by surprise yesterday.

Let's dig out the runners and riders, maybe scare up a website or two and see which might be in range next time I am back in Cardiff visiting mum. (That said I haven't seen her in the flesh since before Christmas as assorted COVID regulations, alarms and infections have conspired to exclude me from the home. This can't go on for much longer though, surely.)

Ynyshir - Machynlleth, Powys - two Michelin stars but too far away

Home by James Sommerin - Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan - one Michelin star https://homeatpenarth.co.uk/ is very possible.

SY23 - Aberystwyth, Ceredigion - one Michelin star too far

Walnut Tree - Llanddewi Skirrid, Monmouthshire - one Michelin star I remember going there once with the family years ago.

Sosban and the Old Butchers - Menai Bridge, Anglesey - one Michelin star too far

Beach House - Oxwich Bay, Swansea - one Michelin star possible if we used Margam as a base I guess.

The Whitebrook - Monmouthshire - one Michelin star possible I guess, but a bit of a trek.

The winner then is Home by James Sommerin. It would be good to combine their surprise tasting menu with a visit to mum once Ty Enfys decide to let me in again.

The Handbook of Hymen (Phnarr)

 This month's Audible voucher has gone on the O. Henry: Complete Short Stories Collection in memory of the old man, just as last month's The Little World of Don Camillo (passim) did.

"Homer K. M" from The Handbook of Hymen, was a not infrequent quote of his, but I am buggered if I can work out how to get to a particular story in the online collection. The lack of any sort of content or index system in spoken word audio is a recurring bugbear, though we never have the same problem with songs.

Damon Runyon is now the gaping hole in my collection of stories I imagine JPB smiling at in heaven. There's plenty of Damon Runyon Theatre content and I might dip my toe in these old radio shows but I really want the unmistakable vim of original text's narrator.

Winter On Fire

I watched this movie on Netflix yesterday. (Fill your boots at https://www.netflix.com/title/80031666.) It is undeniably moving though I find its goodies versus baddies premise naive. See it yourself though and make up your own mind.

I've written before (passim) of Rod telling me about Luhansk being twinned with Cardiff. 'Panic, Total Panic': People Fleeing Occupied Luhansk Describe Growing Fear, Confusion Radio Free Europe yesterday.

There's a word bathos defined as "an effect of anticlimax created by an unintentional lapse in mood from the sublime to the trivial or ridiculous." Anyway, according to Wales Online, and you have to be from Cardiff truly to understand this, Frank Hennessey performed in Luhansk in 1986. I sincerely take my hat off to him, but it is quite a juxtaposition with the news this morning.

‘I’m Luhansk born and Luhansk bred, and when I dies, I’ll be Luhansk dead’.

Quite.

Nice to see you, to see Bernice

I mentioned to mum on Skype yesterday morning that  Shauna Guinn was going to be on Saturday Kitchen and found to my delight that she did remember meeting her in Penylan Pantry all that time ago (see Icons passim).

That was before my brothers joined the call. When they came on they had both seen an article on our cousin Danny (mum's brother Nigel's son) on the BBC Sports website. Here it is Cardiff Met University: Inside the 'rugby breeding ground' producing stars for England and Wales. Danny is the director of rugby there, England's Six Nations squad features three Cardiff Met graduates - Alex Dombrandt, Luke Northmore and Tom Pearson - while another, Aaron Wainwright, is in the Wales set-up.

This is all good for mum, and helps to keep her engaged. Memories of Uncle Nigel winning the victor ludorum at De La Salle and Daniel playing at outside half for Cardiff schools followed.

I checked Saturday Kitchen after our chat. Excitement about San and Shauna cooking for Dave Grohl, the Foo Fighters frontman, turned out to be premature as he was forced to cancel  after getting stuck in Hollywood following Storm Eunice.

Idly channel hopping, I came across Simply Raymond Blanc on ITV and found myself diverted by roast butternut squash with chorizo, chickpeas and tahini dressing.

We can watch it on the link I have put on the show name above, but what I recall is:

• Ingredients: Butternut squash (peeled! Feck off), olive oil, salt, black pepper, paprika, chickpeas and Chorizo.
• Sauce: Tahini paste, yoghurt , pinch of salt, honey, lemon juice, water, fresh parsley and fresh coriander.
• To serve: chopped fresh parsley, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds.

That should be on the menu chez moi this week.

Nice to see you, to see Eunice

 I lost a couple of fence panels to Storm Eunice yesterday. I will ask Alex D if he can repair them. The fence with concrete supports that he put up on the other side of the garden this time last year sailed through the storm with flying colours.

Small potatoes. The great storm of 1987; now that was a  was a violent extratropical cyclone for you. I remember staring it down in Wainwright Grove before dressing for dinner as the family's winning combination of insouciance and tradition demanded.

"Languid, thoroughbred, nonchalant with a certain innate recklessness under the impassive calm of habit." Baroness Orczy (from memory). A quote I remember from the stack of Readers Digests in the upstairs loo at 57 Heol Lewis growing up. Dear old dad still casts a long shadow over my extravagant turns of phrase.

Struttin' with some barbecue

I am always pleased to see Hang Fire getting on in the world, so I will catch it on Saturday though if the live segment clashes with our weekly family Skype call it will have to be on the iPlayer.

I wonder if mum can be prompted into remembering the time (Icons passim) that we met Shauna Guinn at the Penylan Pantry even though it was nearly seven years ago?

For me, the memory of that day is bitter-sweet because it was the first time I noticed that dad had no interest at all in what was going on around him. I can remember mum being engaged as Shauna responded to, genuinely interested, questions from me and John with examples and anecdotes from their BBQ pilgrimage around the USA, while he was utterly inert. Anhedonia is the posh word for it; a word I wish we didn't need.

While we are on the subject of food, I had chickpea pancaked with pomegranate molasses for breakfast yesterday. Normally it is a meal I skip but I had to stay home for the morning as the guys were coming round to install the new heating pump, for all that I hadn't realised they were when I wrote here. Sorry 'bout that. Nice to be cosy, nice to be nice, this morning.

When you've been in the business as long as I have, Mr. Spiggott

round up the usual suspects

My heating has been on the blink since Sunday, though I didn't notice until Monday because - despite the Arctic conditions - I am well hard and my life is a giddy social whirl.

I couldn't get anyone round to look at it on Tuesday as I had to go to Brian's funeral so I booked up an engineer from British Gas's Local Heroes to come yesterday morning.

Thee are no words to express how proud I was when he confirmed my own deduction that the problem lay with the Grundfos Alpha2 domestic circulator pump. I hugged myself in my mind as I marveled at my perspicacity.

Unfortunately this morning there are still no words; but today it is  to express how frustrated I am not to have received a quote and timetable for replacing the bleedin' thing.

So shines a good deed in a weary world.

 I was out yesterday afternoon and evening at Brian's funeral. The service was at Putney Vale Cemetery and there was a reception afterwards at Warren House.

Towards the end of the reception, I could see - out of the corner of my eye - that his wife of 63 years  appeared a little tired and distracted. A couple of minutes later I noticed that she had moved on but left a wine glass on a table, and wondered if she had abandoned it deliberately or forgotten it.

The next time I turned round though, I realised I wasn't the only tracker in the room. Spike, her grandson, had materialised and was sitting next to her chatting in front of a screen showing old family photos. She visibly bloomed in his company. Simultaneously and independently Sophie, her granddaughter, picked up the forgotten glass and brought it over. Moments later they were all smiling together.

If I ever need a Close Protection Team, I am going to get those two some weapons and martial arts training and employ them. Their peripheral awareness, plus ability to perceive and defuse risks are already off the charts.

Pay attention, 007

 It seems that I was wrong yesterday (Icons passim), and the Ukrainian ambassador was running off at the mouth when he said his country might be willing to sacrifice its aspirations to join NATO.

Protesters fighting government forces on Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv on 18 February 2014.

With all the loose talk and grandstanding, not least from our government, I sometimes feel as if I am the only person who remembers what happened in Ukraine 8 years ago this month. It was the moment I became a premature Brexiteer. The Maidan revolution took place in Ukraine in February 2014 when a series of violent events involving protesters, riot police, and unknown shooters in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv culminated in the ousting of elected president Viktor Yanukovych, and the overthrow of the Ukrainian government.

It was a coup, essentially, after Yanukovych's refused to sign a political association and free trade agreement with the European Union at a meeting of the Eastern Partnership in Vilnius, Lithuania, and I remain convinced that the EU, plus various American useful idiots, were complicit in it.

Well, you can Crimea river, Crimea river

🗣️"We are trying to find the best way out."

Ukraine's ambassador to the UK Vadym Prystaiko has told @StephenNolan his country might agree not to join @NATO if it would avert war with Russia.

It would mean the country abandoning a goal written into its constitution.

🎧⬇️

— BBC Radio 5 Live (@bbc5live) February 13, 2022

Ukraine's UK ambassador has told the BBC that his government may commit itself to spurn NATO, and it is NOT all over the news today. What is going on that I don't understand? Surely this is an extraordinary development. It is difficult to imagine a senior diplomat just saying this off the cuff without it being cleared right from the top. Isn't it?

There Is Nothing For You Here

 The magical elves that Google keep in cages studying my history and recommending YouTube videos came up with Intelligence Squared's Standoff in Ukraine: How we reached crisis with Fiona Hill yesterday.

Interesting person Fiona Hill (here's her Wikipedia page). I am somewhat surprised that I had never even heard of her before. Here's part of the blurb from her latest book on Amazon.

A celebrated foreign-policy expert and key impeachment witness reveals how declining opportunity has set America on the grim path of modern Russia - and draws on her personal journey out of poverty, and her unique perspectives as a historian and policy maker, to show how we can return hope to our forgotten places.

Fiona Hill grew up in a world of terminal decay. The last of the local mines had closed, businesses were shuttering, and despair was etched in the faces around her. Her father urged her to get out of their blighted corner of Northern England: “There is nothing for you here, pet,” he said.  

The coal-miner’s daughter managed to go further than he ever could have dreamed. She studied in Moscow and at Harvard, became an American citizen, and served three US presidents. But in the heartlands of both Russia and the United States, she saw troubling reflections of her hometown and similar populist impulses. By the time she offered her brave testimony in the first impeachment inquiry of President Trump, Hill knew that the desperation of forgotten people was driving American politics over the brink - and that we were running out of time to save ourselves from Russia’s fate. In this powerful, deeply personal account, she shares what she has learned and shows why expanding opportunity is the only long-term hope for our democracy.

She reads it on Audible. That may well be where my next credit is spent when it turns up a week from today.

I know this much is true

Got a message from Rod today, asking me why I hadn't posted my regular, granular daily blog post. I told him I was waiting to see if Callum Hudson-Odoi would win the World Club Championship with Chelsea. He did. They did. 'Nuff said.

A Welsh Born Icon: Search results for callum (coraider.com)

Ziggy played for "time gentlemen please, ain't you got no 'omes to go to?'

time & leisure

10 February marks the 50th anniversary of a musical milestone when David Bowie introduced the world to his Ziggy Stardust persona at the Toby Jug pub in Tolworth.

Let's just take five minutes out of our busy lives to wonder at that marvelous sentence (written no doubt next door, time and leisure being in the office adjacent to mine).

The juxtaposition of Ziggy Stardust and Tolworth fifty years ago last night is particularly satisfying. Tolworth is about six miles from here, down the A3. When Ben was playing junior rugby every away game seemed to be down the A3.

The Toby Jug gives me a mental image of a pre-fame Bowie turning up out of the blue in full Ziggy rig to play the Standard in the 'Wood. What I wouldn't give to see Trevor's reaction to that.

Belfast and Cardiff

Kenneth Branagh's Belfast has received seven nominations for this year's Oscars. When he founded the Renaissance Theatre Company in 1987, their first production was his own play Public Enemy. Like his film, this was set during the troubles. I am surprised that I haven't read any references to it in reviews of the movie. It played at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith so I popped around after work one day to check it out. I can see that I wrote about it in the blog years later in 2005 (Icons passim).

The next thing Renaissance did was John Sessions’ The Life of Napoleon, a one man show directed by Branagh as I recall. I saw that as well as it was also in Hammersmith at the Riverside Studios. I have a vague memory of talking to Sessions with a glass in my hand after the show. I wonder how that happened, maybe it was the first night? My memories of 35 years ago are hazier than they might be.

Also a Cardiff-based couple have picked up an Oscar nomination in the Best Animated Short Film category. Fingers crossed for the big night.

Metaphysical Animals

Yet another book about Elizabeth Anscombe, Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley and Philippa Foot was reviewed in the Grauniard yesterday. I only recently finished Benjamin Lipscomb's The Women Are Up to Something (Icons passim). "Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come" eh?

If you decide to read the review (over by here), you can wonder - as I do - that the sentence "If you want to know what colour of silk cushions and bedspread Foot had in her rooms near Somerville College, then this is the book to read." has been published in the Guardian in 2022! God knows I will pass for a knuckle-dragging misogynist until a real one comes along, but that is a bit rich even for my blood.

Further (and I agree with the comment that says "Anscombe, Foot, Midgley, and Murdoch were not principally targeting the views of A.J.Ayer, who by the way was a Fellow of Wadham at the end of WW2, and held a chair in Oxford from 1959 to 1978. Their main targets were Austin, Hare, and Ryle.") though I cannot abide AJ Ayer, our heroines' supposed bete noir, I would have loved to have gone out for a drink with "Freddie" Ayer the friendly charming bonvivant who lived in the same body.

Stop sniggering at the back! This is actually interesting Blenkinsop, and the essay I have set you - Wittgenstein and Sheffield Wednesday - is still due tomorrow.

Comparative illusion

 Wikipedia

In linguistics, comparative illusions (CIs) or Escher sentences are certain comparative sentences which initially seem to be acceptable but upon closer reflection have no well-formed meaning. The typical example sentence used to typify this phenomenon is More people have been to Russia than I have.

c.f. Frank Sullivan's wolf sentences:

• This is the best salad I ever put in my whole mouth.
• It was a heck of a party, everyone in the room was there.
• I've got more money than I can afford.

As I consider them whole new vistas are opening up behind me*.

* My first attempt at one of my own.

just simple lines intertwining

be as careless with your own heart

as you are careful of everyone else's

love and lose and learn

tread lightly on the earth

but try and put more into the pot

than you take out

Those are lines of mine above. Much to my astonishment, my yoga teacher quoted the first two during Saturday's class.

We must not be frightened nor cajoled

into accepting evil as deliverance from evil.

We must go on struggling to be human,

though monsters of abstraction

police and threaten us.

More good stuff, from an American poet called Robert Hayden with whom I was unfamiliar until yesterday. I got it, of all places, from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, when Dua Lipa asked him how his faith and his comedy overlapped.

https://youtu.be/pUaWDqDOWPk?t=176

I'm Wales' rugby gnome and you can't cwtch me

 

Less said about yesterday's loss to Ireland the better. Gareth the rugby gnome (Icons passim) was back on the roll-ups after swearing off them.

We went along to Get Up Stand Up in the evening. A fact I am recording so that there is a reference under the Bunburying tag that records my theatre trips.

Not doing things by half

 It will be busy today. I am off to yoga at half past eight. The weekly Skype call with mum is booked for half past ten. I will get the Standard early in the afternoon to make sure we have got a good table for the Six Nations; Ireland v Wales kicks off at quarter past two. Thence to Corleone to eat. From there via tube to the West End to see Get Up, Stand Up.

Art imitating life

The lobster telephone is part of West Dean's collection (Icons passim) and the trolley problem really arises from a 1967 philosophy paper by Phillipa Foot (Icons passim),

It is almost as if I had a plan.

Bona PPE

For  my sins, I was watching Boris Johnson on PMQs at lunchtime and I was particularly intrigued when the passive aggressive narcissist said - as if it was some sort of definitive put down - he had found a letter from the shadow chancellor from April 2020 suggesting that PPE could be "secured from a theatrical costumier" as if this was a ridiculous idea. I wish I could see the letter because it is not a ridiculous idea, it is a good idea.

PG spent his life in the theatre, and I distinctly remember him telling me early in this national calamity that there was a world class industry in this country that could potentially make an enormous contribution to supplying PPE. Guess what it was? The men and women, the talent, the skill, the infrastructure and the experience of supplying what actors and actresses "wear" in films, on television and in the theatre (an industry worth billions remember). At first I thought he was off his head, but gradually he convinced me. "How many medical grade masks a day do you think the Star Wars crew at Pinewood could pump out", he said "if they can dress hundreds of stormtroopers in full body armour."

I think Rachel Reeves' letter, very far from deserving BoJo's scorn, might have been prescient and practical. Though obviously responding to the Prime Minister's cheap shot shouldn't be a priority I hope the opposition won't let it lie. In general, who would you rather have run something Dido Harding or Cameron Mackintosh? Who would be most likely to deliver when the chips are down?

Counseluh, you are the engine that drives this foim

Thoity-six objections sustained, tree overruled; fawteen summary judgements sought, toiteen ranite, eighteen movments to voice fuh Respondent's prejudice, eighteen ranite which is a hunnut pissent, Twelve cawt days on the Rexrawt case alone; tree hunut'n twenty billable hours paralegal soivicies; four hunnut'n two billable associate counsel and consultative; six hunnut'n eighty billable at full attorney rate and eighty five lunches charged. Counseluh, you are the engine that drives this foim.

Though I adopted Miles Massey's fixed grin as my brother was talking to me about work last night, the scene above is what was playing through my mind. Sophie love, there's more to life than paralegal soivicies you can still think again!

Man says him a ting, then him a ting

I sat down over a lemonade with Megan and her mum and dad on Friday or Saturday.  She is back from college for a week. Much to my delight she started reminiscing over the burritos I used to make and bring along to their family barbecues, wrapped in foil and asked me to bring one along on Saturday. She is not driving back until after the Ireland Wales game.

I have promised to make a batch so she can make take some with her and stick them in the fridge or freezer at her digs as well. 

Luckily I have found the recipe on these spindrift pages at https://nickbrowne.coraider.com/2015/04/the-flying-burrito-brothers.html. If is from 2005. 2005!

I remember when her brother Jonnie was 16 (he is 21 now) and told his mum that want he wanted for his birthday party was the paella I had cooked when we were away on a camping trip. I was thrilled from the soles of my feet to the top of my head and turned up about an hour early, with a new pan as his present, and got cooking in it over a low-cranked grill in the garden, happy as the clams I was to add as a last few minutes' finishing touch.

My niece Bethany stayed with me for week in October 2019 when she was doing something with the National Youth Theatre. When my brother John picked her up to take her back to Wales I fed the both of them chicken tinga. "Nobody's perfect," said Beth to JC in the car, "but Uncle Nick can cook. I will say that for him."

"But enough about me, let's talk about you.... what do you think of me?"

International Man of Mystery

 It struck me in the week, that my old friend Rod worked as an OSCE monitor in Eastern Ukraine (Icons Passim) back in 2014 so I dropped him an email to get his take on the current Russian stand off and we talked for an hour on Skype yesterday. To my astonishment he was in Jordan with his lady friend. You just can't keep that boy down.

In a typically generous though ambiguous gesture he invited me to visit his house on a Greek island even though (because?) he isn't there! Passive aggressive doesn't even begin to cover his range of tactics for pulling my leg. He once invited me to Luhansk for Christmas "because it is twinned with Cardiff" (Icons passim).

Looking back through these pages, in 2018 he was in Mali (Icons passim) with the EU.

2010: Political Advisor to the Force Commander for the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Icons passim), also - same year - bought my son a Christmas present (Sighs passim).

I will never forget being in the theatre (Icons passim) with Melvyn Bragg on my left and Rod on my right. I had to pull the hairs at the top of my thigh through my trouser pocket to stop from corpsing with laughter as Rod's sotto voce Melvyn impersonation delivered a running commentary on the play.

Did I mention he also worked in an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan?

I also remember hair rasing stories from his stints in Georgia and Serbia, though they don't appear on these pages all those above do which makes me glad I write here every day.

Chris Howell and I first met Rod and our other future friend John Ashton in Bilbao. We were all on our way to run the bulls in Pamplona. John and Rod asked us to watch over their bags while they argued with the police .........

"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," as Rick said in Casablanca.

“He looked like my uncle Louie,”

I googled Corleone yesterday as I wanted to book a table at this local restaurant so we could eat after the Six Nations game next weekend and came across the striking images of Marlon Brando's transformation into Don Corleone in the Godfather above. I always knew Brando was younger than the character but I had never realised quite how much.

It made me think again of Keisha Banya, the Hair, Wigs and Makeup Supervisor on 'A Number,' also being teacher of Mia's at Central. New respect from me for her job now. I never gave it a thought before. 

I will definitely be going to the restored 50th anniversary version of The Godfather in a well equipped cinema when it is released next month.

Offies

I was a bit surprised yesterday when I was posting about "A Number" and using my Bunburying label to check up on my theatre going as the pandemic fades, to find that I hadn't officially recorded going to see Bart in Thrill Me. It was good to introduce Bethany to him. We went on January 13th. Let's address that now by noting the production's OFFIES nominations.

Prodnose: What a relief!

A Number

 

Off to the Old Vic, last night to see Paapa in "A Number." Let's run the COVIDITRON over this. (The conviditron is an imaginary scientific instrument that measures the impact of the virus on our lives.) The last time I saw Paapa on the stage was in Pass Over at the Kiln in February 2020.  We bought last night's tickets in May last year. The last time I was in the Old Vic was to see Lungs in October 2019. Blimey, the coviditron's needle is in the the red zone. "She cannae take any more, Cap'n! She's gonna blow!"

As for the play, production and performances; I thought they were all brilliant. Proving once again the advantages of being a misanthrope. I am thrilled and amazed, when anything actually turns out to be good.

Frankie had to drop out on the day, so Mia came along straight from Central along with Saskia her flatmate who is on the same course. She said that when her phone vibrated as the message from me inviting her arrived she was in a class being conducted by Keisha Banya, who actually worked on the show. Synchronicity! I looked her up in the programme.

Also mad props to the guy running the door and queue. He suggested we message the ticket graphics to M&S rather than wait outside. Good call we were cozy in the warm over G&Ts when they arrived rather than resentfully shivering in the street. Ditto the young lady on the Old Vic staff who gave me a mask on the way out after I had lost mine. It meant I could just walk onto the tube rather than trying to find some where to buy a new one. Shout out also to OSEYO – Korean Food and Culture Hub which we passed on the way back to Waterloo. Kimchi is in the gaff again and life is good.

Ethiopia

I watched An Online Pilgrimage through Ethiopia last night. 

Christianity in Ethiopia is a fascinating topic of which I know nothing.

Nothing that is to say, apart from what an Ethiopian lady Uber drive told me as she was ferrying me back from Whitton to Colliers Wood pre-lockdown.

Much to learn. Much to learn.

Koshka Duff

BBC

The Metropolitan Police has apologised to a woman for the "sexist, derogatory and unacceptable language used" while she was being strip-searched.

Dr Koshka Duff was detained in 2013 after offering a legal advice card to a black teenager during his stop-and-search.

On CCTV footage, officers can be heard laughing about her hair, clothes and talking about her underwear.

The force said it had settled her claim and "sincerely apologised".

Dr Duff, who is now an assistant professor at the University of Nottingham, was trying to give the "know your rights" card to a 15-year-old boy in London.

The officers accused her of obstruction and arrested her.

She told the BBC she decided to act in the spirit of "passive resistance", and went limp rather than walking to the police van willingly.

Wikipedia

On the evening of 3 March 2021, Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, was kidnapped in South London, England, as she was walking home to the Brixton Hill area from a friend's house near Clapham Common. Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens falsely arrested her under the pretence of having breached COVID-19 regulations and drove her to near Dover where he raped and strangled her, before burning her body and disposing of her remains in a nearby pond.

QED

It seems to me indisputable that if Koshka Duff was walking past when Wayne Couzens was falsely arresting Sarah Everard, and attempted to give her a "know you rights" card then Sarah Everard would be alive today. A thumbs up to Ms Duff from the Welsh jury.

P.S.

Dr Koshka Duff was detained in 2013. The BBC reported the police apology yesterday; nine years later. There is no reference to the apology on the Met Police website. Thumbs down from the Welsh jury.

Party All The Time

Daily Mail

Is Boris's birthday the 'killer blow'? MPs expect MORE party revelations as calls grow for PM to quit now - saying the latest bash with 30 guests, Union Jack cake, M&S nibbles and a BBQ 'changes things a lot' and could mean a LOST confidence vote.

Boris Johnson's  birthday part on June 19 2020; 30 guests in the Cabinet Room chimed with me because on June 22nd 12 of us sat socially distanced in Wandle Park to celebrate mine. The pubs didn't even re-open until July 4th https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pubs-restaurants-and-hairdressers-to-reopen-from-4-july

Here is (are?) the one thing I wrote every day in these spindrift pages in June 2020 - https://nickbrowne.coraider.com/2020/06/

It has also reminded me of a BBC article from June 28th "Two illegal street parties in London closed down by police." 

Dispersal zones were put in place in Clapham Common and Tooting Bec Common to clear crowds causing "significant disruptions" on Saturday night. (Tooting Bec is two stops away from me at Colliers Wood on the Northern Line and Clapham Common is only five.)

Home Secretary Priti Patel has called on people not to attend street parties, protests or mass celebrations.

Speaking on BBC One's The Andrew Marr Show, she said: "As much as people do want to be out right now - the weather is amazing - stick to the rules, follow the guidance."

'Simply unacceptable'

She said the rise of mass gatherings held in recent days was "unacceptable" and that it risked a second wave of Covid-19 which would devastate the UK economy.

Quite. Saturday June 27th was 8 days after the party in the Cabinet Room.

7 Changes in 11 Days

 The Welsh Government's Coronavirus (COVID-19) guidance is on https://gov.wales/coronavirus

I have posted the link above so I can find it easily in future. I don't think it should change. Unlike the guidance itself. Living in London with family in Wales.

The English guidance is on https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus. It looks like I won't need a COVID pass at the theatre on Thursday, though I had better check as January 27th is the actual day the regulations change. It is such a pain in the neck keeping up with all of this.

I still can't visit Mum though as far as I can tell, as the home is only allowing Essential Visitors and my sister has got the nomination for that. That at least was the situation on the nineteenth.

650

 I went to my 650th yoga class yesterday up. No Ben as he wanted to lie in and catch up on his shut eye after a long week's work followed our West Dean trip last weekend. Come to think of it I have also seen off Donna and Kevin over the years, which is a pity as I am incapable of getting up and out for a 6:30 am weekday class unless I am picking someone up in the car or they are collecting me.

Kevin quit when the bulk of the Bikram classes were reduced to an hour down from 90 minutes. I agree with him. It was a retrograde step but I still think an hour is better than nothing.

Here's the history - https://nickbrowne.coraider.com/search/label/Yoga

The Little World

• The Little World of Don Camillo

• Don Camillo Series, Book 1
• By: Giovanni Guareschi
• Narrated by: Piers Dudgeon
• Series: Don Camillo, Book 1
• Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
• Unabridged Audiobook
• Release date: 14-05-18
• Language: English
• Publisher: Pilot Productions
•     
   4.3 out of 5 stars4.3 (43 ratings)

Added to my Audible library today in memory of Dad.

DakhaBrakha

 Global music quartet DakhaBrakha perform Ukrainian folk music with an air of theatricality.

Performing an unexpected and riotous clash of roots and rhythms, DakhaBrakha (meaning ‘give/take’ in old Ukrainian) merge their folklore stylings with the transnational sounds of Indian, Arabic and African instrumentation.

Originating as an avant-garde theatre project, the band appear on stage in traditional dress, which combined with their astonishingly powerful and uncompromising vocal range, creates a dramatic spectacle. As they play a multitude of instruments, their eerie, edgy harmonies blend with cello, concertina and percussive rhythms.

That's what I saw in the Barbican last night and it was great.

I had completely forgotten I was even going when I found it in my diary the other week. DakhaBrakha looked like a typo. 

It's a family thing. My brother John once bought eight tickets (8!) for Bratislavan folk dance in Swansea's Brangwyn Hall that he promptly forgot. "It seemed a good idea at the time." We both need PCs that have USB breathalyzers attached or disable e-commerce after 11 pm.

Oh Danny Boy

 'Look in the bars of Cardiff Met' — Eddie Jones tells other clubs where to find new rugby players after unearthing England duo

Eddie Jones has quipped that every rugby team will now be looking at Cardiff Metropolitan University to try to sign players after naming two former students in his England Six Nations squad.

Harlequins duo Alex Dombrandt and new England find Luke Northmore - former Cardiff Met RFC players - were included in Jones' 36-man party on Tuesday.

Quins No. 8 Dombrandt, 24, will be looking to add to his four international caps while 24-year-old centre Northmore is one of six uncapped players in the squad.

Their call-ups have shone a light on the impressive rugby credentials of their university, with both players representing the Archers just a few years ago in the BUCS - the highest level of university rugby in the UK.

Our cousin Danny Milton is the director of rugby at Cardiff Met. From art to sport, the family continues to storm the barricades. Amazing really.

Brian

 Kevin G's father Brian passed away last night peacefully at home listening to jazz.

I wrote before (see Icons passim) about the mad story he told me about seeing Orson Welles' bonkers stage version of Moby Dick in the fifties, and that is how I will remember him. I thought, until he proved otherwise, that he was, in a good way, absolutely barking.

March 31st 2018 was the day I spent the most time with him. We went to see Paapa in his RSC Hamlet at the Hackney Empire; a Sat Mat. Brian and Mrs Brian not being in the first flush of youth we got a cab all the way (all the way!) from the 'Wood to Hackney so as to avoid stairs and escalators.

Plenty time to talk and grow comfy in each others' company. All good.

When we arrived, we went for lunch in the pub around the corner from the theatre. More accurately, the Goddings went for lunch, I just got plumbed in.

This had implications for my bladder once the show began. Luckily, I had seen the production before so I knew its rhythms. I selected a hiatus not long before the interval when I wouldn't disturb anyone and hurried off from my aisle seat to the loo. 

Business conducted, I was leaning at the balcony at the back of the stalls when I chanced to look down to my left. Mimi Ndiweni (Ophelia) was crouching there hiding. (Exeunt Act III?)

"Hello," I murmured. She smiled shyly and gave me a little wave. Most surreal moment for me ever in a theatre.

No really a story about Brian, but it happened on my Brian day.

1922 and All That

It’s your second two part series of the week on The Rest is History, as we look back 100 years to 1922.

Today we kick off with everything from Bolshevism to the significance of Ulysses, so listen below ⬇️ https://t.co/0RXXrHxnvEhttps://t.co/9kOKJDcmMlhttps://t.co/xMvpxGeHwB pic.twitter.com/AGIKkoEH8y

— The Rest Is History (@TheRestHistory) January 13, 2022

Following on from yesterday’s first part, today we take on more aspects from 1922 - the Birth of the Modern World.

From the Irish Civil War to the BBC to Just William, this one’s pretty stacked!https://t.co/0plbD4LMx8https://t.co/ToOHADFrKrhttps://t.co/vpvZgpZay8 pic.twitter.com/HVQu0UV3fm

— The Rest Is History (@TheRestHistory) January 14, 2022

I kinda sorta follow the other Tom Holland since I read his book Dominion. This podcast, The Rest is History, that he does with  Dominic Sandbrook is all over the 1922: Year of Destiny meme as well. Never activated a neuron with me in all of my life before yesterday.

1922: The Birth of Now

Like all right thinking people, Ben and I listen to Radio 4 when we are in the car on a longish road trip (there only being so much Showaddywaddy a man can take).  As we were driving back from West Dean yesterday there was an episode of Open Book about Ulysses, by James Joyce, which was first published in full a hundred years ago.

Apparently there is a school of thought that suggests 1922 was an artistic annus mirabilis; the year that changed everything. After the Joyce show there was a plug for 1922: The Birth of Now: Matthew Sweet investigates objects and events from 1922, the crucial year for modernism, that have an impact today.

Crikey! Kicks off next Monday and runs five days a week for a fortnight at a quarter to two in the afternoon.

1. The Shabolovka Tower and the Gherkin
2. The Criterion, which published The Waste Land
3. The True Story of Ah Q, by Lu Xun
4. Bertolt Brecht's play Drums in the Night
5. Louis Armstrong leaves New Orleans for Chicago
6. The Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun, and Egyptomania
7. Nosferatu and Modernist Horror
8. Hōshō, the First Aircraft Carrier, and HMS Queen Elizabeth 11
9. Pirandello's Henry IV and the Idea of Truth
10. Einstein, relativity, time, and indigenous Australian modernism

One cannot help but admire the chutzpah; each episode being a mere quarter of an hour long.

Up the stairs and turn left

Ben and I will be leaving West Dean today when his "Sacred Geometry" short course finishes. We have been staying in room 52.There is a virtual tour of the Front Entry, Oak Hall and Tapestry Corridor at https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=yJS1tQXy6VL. If you follow it up the main stairs, turn left and follow the Tapestry Corridor down to the last door on the right you will be on the route to where we have been put up; not too shabby.

|I took a photo of one of the hangings in the Tapestry Corridor, because it put my in mind of the Arabian Nights which I am still reading at the rate of one story a day.

It depicts a scene form Torquato Tasso's epic poem "Jerusalem delivered (1557), which tells of the First Crusade in 1099 and was produced in 1736 in Rome by Pietro Ferloni. Godfrey of Bouloigne, the figure in the blue cloak with plumed helmet and gold tunic, is depicted in the final duel in which he slew the commander of the Arab army and won Jerusalem for the Christian army.

It's all related

As a birthday present, John my brother has got us a pair of Sat Mat tickets for The Seagull, at the Harold Pinter Theatre on July 9th.

Let's take The Seagull for a walk. I remember seeing Peter Hall's production at the Old Vic in 1997. It starred Felicity Kendall as Madame Arkadina.

My niece Mia, John's daughter, is in her second year at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She played Madame Arkadina for her assessment (my italics as I don't know exactly what that word means in that context). Act 3 with Trigorin as I recall.

The last time I went to the theatre with Mia we caught "Anything Goes" at the Barbican. Peter Gill couldn't make it, so I gave Saskia his ticket.

Adrian Noble directed a translation on The Seagull that the RSC commissioned from Peter in 2000.

Felicity Kendall was in "Anything Goes" coming up for a quarter of a century, after I saw her in The Seagull.

"Round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows."

Pit Chat?

A statement from Buckingham Palace regarding The Duke of York: pic.twitter.com/OCeSqzCP38

— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) January 13, 2022

I remember us launching the Royal Family's twitter account. The details on it say, 'Joined April 2009.' I would never have guessed it was that long ago. We certainly were't anticipating tweets like the one above in those halcyon days.

When we started it I persuaded them not to follow anyone. Today I see that they are following 459 including https://twitter.com/Oprah and https://twitter.com/pitchatpalace. May I suggest that is a list that needs more active pruning, ma'am?

One a Month in the Bank

 I could be accused of playing fast and loose with booking one gig or show per month well in advance, but them's the breaks. We've got Ava: The Secret Conversations tickets but due to scheduling coordination and conflicts the seats are booked for March 31st rather than April, the month to which I , with BoJo levels of hubris, intend to assign them.

I haven't paid out yet but Harris & Baker's Backstage Pass at the Wimbledon Theatre on Sunday 1st looks like getting the nod for May.

June - as you already know - is To Kill a Mockingbird.

John's going to get a Sat Mat for The Seagull  at the Harold Pinter. My birthday is in June but he is aiming for August, June and July being all but sold out. I imagine that his because Emilia Clarke is in it. It was due to be staged a year or so ago but got Covid cancelled, I guess a lot of early tickets probably went straight out to people who paid for the earlier run.

What will I see in July though? I am haunted by the gaping hole in my schedule. Worrying about it in January though I suggest confirms the worth of the one-a-month discipline.

Show and tell

The details of the photo on the right, charming as it is, are inconsequential in this context. What stands out to me is an Echo Show next to the phone behind Aunt Philo and her first great grandson Ted.

It is coming up for three years (see Icons passim) since I speculated about getting one for my mum. I also noticed on a house visit that my old school friend Sean's mother has got one as well.

Here is what Philo's daughter - my cousin - said when I asked her about it.

It is an Echo Show, well spotted. We got Ma one during lockdown so that we could see as well as speak to her, Kate was in her bubble but the rest of us only had phone contact. This way, Vanny, Georgia and I could at least have daily face time without her having to do anything apart from instruct the echo to answer our calls. She now rings us too and gets weather and news updates and plays all her favourite old timers too.

Lily in Ty Enfys (who I respect enormously) is unconvinced by Alexa and older people and I take that on board but I wonder if Ria's slow burn might work for us. What if I get mum a show that is used initially as nothing more than a rotating photo album? After a month or two we could show her how she could listen to her favourite music on it. Later we could start "dropping in " on her and saying hello.

The jury is still out but it is not impossible.

White Truffle

PG gave me this White Truffle Extra Virgin Olive Oil on Sunday.

I got the impression that perhaps someone had given him a gift pack of posh oil and vinegar bottles for Christmas, and that - while he was comfortable with the others - he couldn't quite work out what to do with this one.

I've had a look in the larder, so I think tonight I am going to drizzle it into a sweetcorn chowder served up with an Italian meatball panini. Tomorrow it will be used to season a mushroom risotto.

After that I should know if I like it or not. Here is a link to its home page for the likely future date when I have finished it and thrown out the empty bottle only to realise I can't live without it and have forgotten the brand.

When The Whip Comes Down (Live)

𝐀𝐧𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐚 🍦?

The whip courtesy of @Calteck10 🧐#EmiratesFACup pic.twitter.com/HmZNbpYThy

— Emirates FA Cup (@EmiratesFACup) January 8, 2022

Here's Callum's FA Cup goal from Saturday. I thought it was worth embedding as the tweet seems to be from the legitimate official Emirates FA Cup account to it is unlikely to disappear.

As I type it has struck me, now the African Cup of Nations is on, that nothing came of the rumours he might give up England for. Ghana.  IF he was going to make the move surely he would have done it for this event. Then again, what do I know?

33 Love Lane

 There is a free advanced search on the 1921 census digital version hosted by Find My Past at 1921 Census of England & Wales | findmypast.co.uk

As I know my great grandparents lived in Love Lane in Cardiff I have been able to search it by surname and street-name.

Here is the 33 Love Lane household.

• Catherine Browne born 1896 Cardiff, Glamorganshire, Wales
• Ellen Browne born 1862 Cardiff, Glamorganshire, Wales
• Margaret Mary Browne born 1901 Cardiff, Glamorganshire, Wales
• Stephen Browne born 1900 Cardiff, Glamorganshire, Wales
• William Browne born 1917 Cardiff, Glamorganshire, Wales
• William Ida Browne born 1898 Cardiff, Glamorganshire, Wales

Ellen (née McDonnel) is my great grandmother. Margaret Mary is PG's mother and little visiting three year old William Browne was his godfather.

I remember Dad lived in Adam Street.

• Honora Browne born 1899 Cardiff, Glamorganshire, Wales
• James Browne born 1890 Cardiff, Glamorganshire, Wales
• Mary Browne 1921 Cardiff, Glamorganshire, Wales

My grandmother, grandfather and aunt; Mary was the only one I ever met, the grandparents having died before I was born.

T EFFLuent

 I was rather surprised to find yesterday when I went through my diary that I am going to a theatre four times in the next four weeks.

It gave me enough of a jolt finally to get round to applying for my 60+ London Oyster photocard so I can get in and out of the West End free of an evening.

The confirmation email says:

Your photo will be checked and approved if it meets our guidelines. Your photocard will be delivered within 5-7 days.

If your photo doesn't meet our guidelines we can't approve it. We'll email and ask you to upload a new photo

I hope the guidelines don't exclude jowly grumpiness

Words and Music

 I got a message from John yesterday saying he will be driving up early in the morning on the 15th with Lorraine, Jasmine, Emily and Sophie. Mia will already be in London as she is coming back to Central this weekend, though I won't be as I am staying at West Dean with Ben.

They are going to see a couple of matinees, Dear Evan Hansen on Saturday and Hamilton on Sunday, before driving back again. I like to get out to a gig or a show at least once a month, and this reminded me that what with Omicrom cancellations and my own self isolation I didn't see anything in December. Looking through my diary though I can see that there is quite a lot in the pipeline, much of which had slipped my mind, so here is a list as an aide-mémoire.

13 Jan Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story at the Jermyn Street Theatre.  (My cousin's boy Bart is in it.)

20 Jan DakhaBrakha at the Barbican ("Ukrainian folk music with an air of theatricality." I had completely forgotten about this. Note to self: travel route will take thought because of closures on the City branch of the Northern Line.)

27 Jan A Number at the Old Vic (Paapa on stage for the first time in a while. Helen may not be able to make it as Mat is due to be away skiing. If that happens I will give Bethany her ticket.

5 Feb  Get Up Stand Up! The Bob Marley Musical (loads of us going mob-handed)

10 March Ego Ella May at Lafalyette (Ms May was known as small oat cappuccino at Coffee in the Wood)

19 March John is up for a To Kill A Mockingbird matinée (I could get a ticket for something else in Shaftsbury Avenue at the same time and meet them before and afterwards.)

20 June my tickets for To Kill A Mockingbird. What about April and May? I hear you cry. Some sort of combination of Jerusalem, Ava at the Riverside, and The Corn Is Green at the National is my best guess. Maybe try and book Jeruslem first as tickets are likely to be scarce for a limited run and work around that,

Twelfth Night

 When Ben calls in on the way home from work, he generally gets to the 'Wood at about five, so we have taken to meeting in the Standard opposite the tube station rather than having to coordinate whether he should come to the office or the house, or what do do if I am in transit between them. It is also close to both Corleone and the Istanbul Meze Mangal for an early dinner as they both open at five making them handy.

Today is Twelfth Night if you are a Catholic. It was yesterday for Anglicans.  Christmas decorations come down, so I pointed my phone's camera to preserve what we all refer to as the Standard's "Nazi Santas"

Goose Stepping Santas

Heil Hitler Santa

I realise that the resemblance is accidental, and I am displaying poor taste, but I can't help but laugh every time I see them again for a couple of weeks each side of the turn of the year.

Do you have any apples in that basket?

When I was talking to John the evening before last he said he had been out for a drive along the coast. This is very un-Browne like, the cabin fever must really be biting. Like me he listens to Radio 4 a lot in the car, so he recommended two shows her heard on the trip to me: the Food Programme: #FoodTok: Mastering the Art of Cooking in Three Minutes and a Faith in Music episode about Ralph Vaughan Williams.

I haven't listened to either yet, but I did put Williams on Spotify when I was working yesterday: plangent, introspective, numinous stuff. It did me the power of good. Intrigued I looked him up on Wikipedia which told me that when he was at Trinity College Cambridge, he became friendly with the philosophers G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell. This struck a chord as I am also working through Frances Wilson's "Burning Man: The Ascent of D H Lawrence" and learned in that of Lawrence being invited for dinner at High Table at Trinity College, Cambridge by Bertrand Russell. He sat between Russell and Moore as I recall. (Also, during a visit to the rooms of John Maynard Keynes, Lawrence became aware of the economist’s homosexuality and was horrified.)

The Bloomsbury Group, Freeman Dyson, Ernest Rutherford, Wittgenstein etc. the list of people who went through Trinity between, say, the late 19th and mid 20th century and must in general largely must have been acquainted with each other is astonishing. Someone should write some sort of accessible social and intellectual history of it. (It someone already has and I am just unaware of it I apologise.)

Icons Passim: Beyond the Fringe.

Carry On at your Convenience

 I went out in the car for the for the first time yesterday since my ten days self isolation; first over to PG in Hammersmith, then to deliver Christmas presents to the son and heir in Morden (which shows you how long I have been out of circulation) then briefly to the office, thence to the gym.

Nobody else was in the Apprentice Shop (our office's building) so I finally managed to get a photo of the notice that has been on the door of the Ladies' toilet since the beginning of pandemic precautions. I have been laughing at the image conjured by "PLEASE USE THE DESIGNATED  CUBICLE FOR YOUR OFFICE" for months and months now but I've never managed to get a picture of it before. Not even I could explain away being caught pointing my phone's camera at that door as some poor woman came out, or was walking up behind me to go in.

Talking Rubbish

My Merton rubbish collection is on Tuesday as usual this week, even though it is a Bank Holiday today. I checked it at Find your collection days (merton.gov.uk).

"Fascinating!" I hear you cry.

The story gets worse. Last week, institutionalized by day after day of self isolation, I got up on the morning I imagined the collection would be made and started typing a WhatsApp message to Joe who lives opposite asking him if he knew the Christmas week arrangements. 

Until, that is, I had the brilliant idea of looking out of the window to see if any of the neighbours had put their bins out. The idea just came to me as some sort of mad inspiration; a kind of sixth sense if you like. An atavistic throwback to a gentler more holistic time, at peace with itself and society's natural rhythms.

I suggest a reboot

 I don't have any New Year's Resolutions myself, but I have got some pointers for Sir Keir Starmer. Granted it can't have been easy becoming the Leader of Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition in April 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but his response to the virus has been strategically naive.

To my mind, the primary constitutional function of the Opposition is to expose the policies and actions of the Government to scrutiny. I would go further, it is NOT, except in the run up to an election. to propose detailed alternative policies.

Lack of appreciation of this has been Starmer's Achilles heel. He is forever painting himself into a corner, by adopting a rhetorical stance that commits him to saying that Labour would have cracked down harder and faster with regards to COVID always and everywhere. This is not exposing the policies and actions of the Government to scrutiny. This is, to all intents and purposes, giving Johnson and Co. a free hand to impose any gimcrack, back-of-the-envelope load of old cobblers they just dreamed up without any debate.

Concentrate, Keir my old son, on making these crash test dummies justify themselves to us, the public. When they claim to be "following the science," ask "what specific science?" You are dealing with people so monumentally deluded, stupid and incompetent that they think something as flippant as"'Captain Hindsight is rising rapidly up the ranks and has become General Indecision' is a legitimate response in the serious business of the House.

All By Myself (Eric Carmen)

It's New Year and my final day of COVID self-isolation. I hope that the butterfly that will emerge tomorrow from the cocoon in which I have been confined for the last ten days will care more for enjoying the world than scolding it. But that's tomorrow. Today I will scold.

Next week it will be eleven years (Icons passim) since I lambasted David Cameron's Behavioural Insight Team. It is difficult to believe I know, but my warning wasn't heeded.

Cameron's lunatic innovation lives on in the Independent Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B).

On 22 March 2020, this shower came up with Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures.

It quite clearly says:

A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened... The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent.

This is advice to bully and intimidate the public. It was plainly taken on board, but it is not a legitimate function of government. They work for us. We don't work for them.

On 13 May 1940, in his first speech since becoming prime minister, Winston Churchill said:

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat". We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.

An adult addressing adults.

When the government no longer trusts the people the inevitable result is that the people will lose trust in the government. I still trust the people. Friends and neighbours have delivered, often unbidden though always gratefully received, everything I could possibly need and more while I have been locked up. From national and local government I got exactly nothing.