160. All the Leaves are Green and the Sky is Blue

At 11.15 on November 10th 2018, I looked out of our living room window at our garden and the fields beyond.  The sun was shining out of a cloudless sky and it looked so nice that I took this photograph:

I was sitting in my armchair the following Saturday when I had the idea to take another photograph so that I could compare it with the one I took the week before to see how autumn was progressing.  This is it:

 

In case you're wondering, yes it is always sunny in Wavendon.  The change was noticeable and consequently, I decided to take a photo of the same view at 11.15 every Saturday morning for a year.

It was a decision that caused us some problems.  With a such a commitment, it was impossible to be away at the weekend and that caused some tension.   It was with some reluctance that I agreed to a fortnight in France in August.  

Before we left, I spent an hour instructing an understanding and helpful neighbour on precisely where to stand and exactly how to frame the two shots he agreed to take for me while we were away.  He made a very good job of it and I am very grateful.

There are 52 weeks in a year and eight days ago on November 2nd, I took the fifty second photo.  Job done! 

But, it wasn’t done because yesterday, November 9th, I took one more.  I expected it to look very much like the one that started it all.  It doesn’t.

 Does it?

I Googled, “Why do leaves turn brown in autumn?” and found five different articles and they all said more or less the same thing.  

The main causal factor, apparently, is the length of daylight hours.  In autumn, the days become shorter and production of chlorophyll slows and eventually stops.  Existing chlorophyll in the leaf breaks down and the green colour fades, turning them brown.  The cooler temperatures play a part but it is daylight length that is most important.

The amount of daylight on specific dates is the same every year and so that can’t be responsible for the fact the leaves here are still very green this November.  It must be the temperature.  Was October this year warmer than last year?  Back to Google.

October 2018, Average October temperature: 11.1 °C

October 2019, Average October temperature: 10.2 °C

October this year was actually colder than last year and so it would seem that autumn should be more advanced but it isn’t.  Why?

If it isn’t the daylight hours or the temperature that has caused it, there’s only one thing it can be:

B R E X I T

154. How was your weekend? No, I'll tell you about mine.

Caroline and I went out last Saturday evening.  We agreed that we’d leave at 6.30 pm.  

At 6.30, she wasn’t ready and at 6.40, I stomped off and sat in the car.  After a few minutes, I manoeuvred the car so that when she finally did appear, we could drive off immediately.  I waited…..waited…..and waited.

Some time, a lot closer to 7.00 than 6.30, she appeared, opened the door and sat down. I said nothing.  Just as she was about to fasten her seat belt, she said, “I think I’ll need a coat.”

“No, you won’t,” I said softly, patiently, gently and calmly, “I’ll park outside the house when we get there and at most, it’s only a twenty yard walk .”

“I need a coat.  Give me the keys, please.”

The door key is on a ring with the car key.  I handed them to her and as she got out, a message appeared telling me that the key could not be detected.  When she returned a minute later, that message had gone and we set off, 55 miles down the M1 to London.

We were going to a party.  I reckon that the last party I had been to, other than a ‘dinner party’ was more than 45 years ago.

In some ways, this party was similar to those of my younger days, with people mostly standing around, talking and drinking.  

The big differences were that nobody present was smoking; nobody was being sick; nobody had come hoping to “get off” with anyone and there was no deafening music being played. 

My various health issues mean that I can’t stand for very long and I don’t drink unless I am actually thirsty.  Consequently, after about ten minutes, I found a chair and hoped that people might come and talk to me.  Fortunately, some did.  

Under normal circumstances, I would have had a really enjoyable evening, especially as I met someone whom I haven’t seen for 20 years and found him as amusing, interesting and convivial as ever.

I also met a very attractive, obviously intelligent and successful woman who, thirty seconds after introducing herself, asked my opinion on Brexit.  

Alarm bells rang.  I was in North London, talking to a white, scholarly, middle class woman and I knew, with certainty, what her position would be but I told her mine, nonetheless.

We discussed things in a civilised way for a few minutes, when she said something like this:

“I feel I’ve a lot in common with the people of Europe and I see being part of Europe as a way of recognising this.  I believe in bridges, not fences.  I’m prepared to suffer the bureaucracy, the lack of sovereignty, the petty laws, and even allow the fat cats to award themselves huge pensions and perks so long as we can all work together.”

I reckon that she raised seven issues in that declaration and I fundamentally disagree with all of them bar one. 

There is no common ground between Remainers and Leavers and therefore, in my opinion, there will never be an amicable solution to the impasse.

I wrote earlier that under normal circumstances, I would have had a really enjoyable evening.  Unfortunately, the circumstances were not normal.  

The tension between Caroline and me was almost tangible.  People must have noticed.  If they hadn’t, I may possibly have mentioned the cause just so they knew the kind of thing I have to endure.

We had arrived in Finchley at 7.50 pm and parked outside the house.  “You’ll have to lock the car,” I said.  “You’ve got the keys.  Caroline felt in the coat pockets and looked in her bag.

“I haven’t got them.  I must’ve given them to you.”

I told her she hadn’t and then, for half an hour, in pitch darkness and drizzle, we scoured every inch of the car and crawled around on our knees looking on the road and in the gutter in case the key had fallen out when the door was opened.  The key was not to be found.

Eventually, we agreed that as we were there, we would go into the party but for no longer than an hour and then we’d get a taxi home. That would mean that on Sunday morning, we would have to come back and look for the keys in daylight.

Neither of us were in the mood for a party.

At 10 pm, I started trying to find a taxi.  I was told that one of my fellow guests was a black cab driver.  He said that he couldn’t take the job himself but he knew someone who would and it would cost £175.

I phoned a reputable minicab company that we’d used a lot when we lived in London and they quoted £160 - approximately.  It could be more!  However, as it was a Saturday night, they wouldn’t have a car free for at least an hour.

Uber quoted £63 and could be with us in 4 minutes.  How can black taxis and conventional minicabs compete with that?

At 11.15 pm, we arrived home.  Both of us were feeling slightly less angry than we had been and we were almost (but not quite) able to see the funny side of it.   I retrieved the spare door key from its hiding place and opened the front door.

There, on the sideboard, directly opposite the door were the keys: 

The keys that I had used to start the car.

That Caroline had used to get the coat that she didn’t ever wear that evening.  

That had cost us a lost Sunday morning collecting the stranded car.

That had cost us more than £70.

This infuriating feature appears to be a characteristic of all keyless cars.

BMW and other manufacturers say that it’s a safety feature in that, although you can’t start the car unless the key is in range, the engine doesn't automatically switch off if the fob goes out of range.

That is to ensure that you're not suddenly stranded in the middle of the motorway if the key’s battery dies.

However, as we found out, it also means that you could drop someone off who has the key fob in their bag or pocket and then drive away and after you turn the engine off, you won't be able to start the car again.

On the BMW i3 owners’ Facebook page, I read of a driver who stopped at a service station after 200 miles and had to check into a hotel overnight to wait for his wife to come up on the train the next day with his car key that she had in her handbag.

I wandered around Wavendon on Monday, hoping to meet someone who’d ask if I had a good weekend.  

 

150. When The News is Not Enough

I’ve written before about how dreadful is "Look East", our regional news programme.  

Lately, two aspects of the BBC national news bulletins have been irritating me.  One of these issues is the compulsive need that the programme directors have to show visual puns whenever they can.  None of them cause any harm but they sometimes detract from the importance of the story.  

I was first aware of this practice more than a year ago.  An early report on negotiations with the EU ended with the words,“Brussels is waiting to negotiate. The two-year clock is ticking.”  On screen was Theresa May at her desk with a large wall clock behind her.

Theresa May’s leadership of the Conservative Party is under question.  A report on it ended with the words, “The hold on her party could soon be swept away.”  As this was said, the screen was filled with a shot of a road sweeper clearing fallen leaves from the gutter outside Number 10.

The images became less discreet.  A reporter, holding an Ireland football shirt in one hand and a Northern Ireland shirt in the other, said,  “It's the relationship between these two sides (the two sides of the Irish border) that is continuing to defy Brexit.” That visual pun was rather spoilt as both shirts were predominantly green.

An entirely positive Brexit report ended with sealed, cardboard boxes being loaded into a van as the voiceover said, “The Brexit deal is packed up and ready for delivery,” but as those cardboard boxes had virtually nothing to do with the story, it was all a bit strained.

The BBC sent a news team to Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead.  It seemed to me that the sole reason for that location was so that while the reporter said, "For more than 40 years the UK has been one of the key links in the EU supply chain,” the huge links in the chains used during the launching of ships could be shown on screen.  The report was nothing to do directly with shipbuilding.

Some images are laughably silly.  As a correspondent finished saying, “The government won’t say if EU rules will still apply after Brexit.  We’ll have to see what pops up,” a piece of toast was seen popping out of a toaster.  Well, that certainly made things clearer and I really wish I’d seen that before I voted.

Ramble 1:  The toaster was in a café where the news crew had gone to ask people in cafés what they thought about Brexit.  

I really don’t care at all about what the random, ill informed “man in the café” thinks about anything.  What that usually ignorant and inarticulate person thinks is always immaterial.

Ill-informed people, commenting on any specific topic about which they have never given any serious thought, is of no value or of any interest at all to anyone.  Why do all news channels give them airtime?  It’s boring and it’s pointless.

Sometimes, the visual puns are quite subtle.  There was a report on the conflict within the world of Rugby Union to do with the different interpretation of the laws in the northern and southern hemispheres.  It ended with a shot of an international rugby player and the words, "Right now, Rugby Union’s north-south divide seems wider than ever.”  

The player pictured was George North, the Welsh player but I suspect that most viewers wouldn’t have known that.

A somewhat subtle and understated example of a visual pun was in a report from the USA on the troubles Trump is having concerning his alleged links with Russia.  

“No one was in the least bit concerned that Team Trump might be lying about his contacts with Russian figures,” said John Sopel, the BBC North America Correspondent.  

As he said that, the screen was filled with a shot of piglets in a sty on a US farm.

Readers outside the UK need to know that in England a "porkie" is a lie because in rhyming slang, "pork pie" is a lie.  Someone might say, “Stop telling porkies.”
If someone says that they think you are telling porkies, it's an almost polite way of saying they don't believe you.

Ramble 2:  BBC News at Ten lasts for 30 minutes. Recently, there has been a tendency for five or more of those minutes to be devoted to a mini documentary that is not news.  It may be informative and important but it isn’t news.

The Radio 4 radio news bulletin at midnight, always fills 25 - 30 minutes with solid news stories but two hours earlier, the television news viewers see something like a commentary suggesting that women who experienced trauma while giving birth are often left without support.

That is important but it is not the latest national news.

Some years ago, I mentioned to a friend who spent most of her working life in front of the television camera, that many news correspondents aren’t actually where they appear to be when they make their reports.  She dismissed that suggestion out of hand.

Twice, I’ve seen news crews in action here, in Milton Keynes and just the lights that they use are enough to attract anyone’s immediate attention, never mind the possibly famous face and the attendant crew.  

Last December, I remember watching television and seeing a reporter standing in the middle of the pavement in Oxford Street addressing the camera.  

It was the last Saturday afternoon before Christmas and the pavement was teeming with pedestrians.  Scores of shoppers walked either side of this stationary figure without any of them even glancing at the camera or at him. 

I cannot believe that those crowds of shoppers could walk by, oblivious to his presence - where was he really?

I could be wrong about all that follows but look at this screenshot:

There’s a man who wants to be noticed.  Do you think he’d miss a chance to be on television? When he left home this morning, he could only dream that he would be appearing on television with a chance to promulgate his ideas.  

He appears to be walking very close to and just behind the reporter.  He’s obviously in camera shot but I don't think it's  the same camera that is covering the reporter because if it were, he would have noticed the lights and reacted to them.  He isn’t anywhere near the reporter.  

On most days, a brightly lit Norman Smith, reports for the BBC  from parliament.  I believe he’s there as the caption says but I doubt very much that he’s where he appears to be.

The man walking behind him hasn’t noticed the bright lights and amazingly, the party of school children haven’t either and we’ve all seen how children tend to react when they see a television camera. 

This Look East reporter is on the pavement outside The Old Bailey, reporting on the trial of the Peterborough MP, Fiona Onasanya, for perverting the course of justice.

The man, approaching just a couple of yards away, hasn’t noticed him and he isn’t even looking anywhere near him.  I hope he didn’t bump into him but I don’t think that he could have done because the reporter was probably 120 miles away in Norwich at the time.

I only believe that these reporters really are where they appear to be when I can see their feet.  

Of course, there is just a remote possibility that I’m wrong about all this. 

I am glad to have got all this off my chest.  It means that I’ll actually be able to listen to what’s being said in future news bulletins and not just study the pictures to confirm my theories.

What was the referendum result?

129. I am far from Gruntled

I’m very pissed off.  

I am pissed off because of the reaction I have had from certain people when they learn that I voted “leave” in the EU referendum.

Still here and prepared to read some more? 

I reckon that you are thinking one of three things.  You might be thinking:

1. “Good for you, so did I,” or,

2. “You are a stupid idiot who is going to be directly responsible for sending this country into irrevocable, terminal, economic decline,” or possibly,

3. “You’re a racist.” 

Calling Brexiteers ‘racist’ seems to be the default position of that sector of the British population who voted to remain in the EU.

My reasons for voting to leave had nothing to do with race or immigration but everything to do with a return to democratic processes, self-determination and regaining our sovereignty.  

I accept that in many parts of the north and east of England, immigration was the most important and the dominant factor in the debate but not all of those opposed to further uncontrolled immigration are necessarily racist.  

Like it or not, freedom of movement in the EU is a huge issue.  Theresa May has accepted that this is the case by declaring that curbing migration from the EU will be a “red line” in Brexit negotiations.

I am not actively engaged in politics these days. There was a time when I was, but that was when I was 17 and too young to vote.  Fired up by a fervour quite uncharacteristic of me before or since I leafletted and canvassed for the Labour Party in the run-up to the general election in October 1964.  

In the autumn of that year, I rode around Lowestoft on my Vespa scooter for three weeks before the general election, festooned from wheel to wheel with posters reading:  

RON ATKINS

LABOUR

I became quite caught up in it all.  I went to hear a speech given by Lord Carrington, the Leader of the House of Lords at the Technical College.  Then, the Sixth Form of my school was given an afternoon off school to go to Battery Green to hear the Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, standing on a rickety platform, address a sizable crowd.

I went out canvassing every evening and, having learnt policies and ideas almost by heart, informed electors about the economic planning, growth and jobs based upon changes in science and technology that the Labour Party would introduce.

Ron Atkins was beaten by Jim Prior, the sitting Conservative candidate in that election but he was successful in Preston North, two years later.  

I always voted Labour in every subsequent election until May 2015 when I realised that there was no way I could be part of a movement that was promoting Ed Miliband as Prime Minister.  

I think that I care just as much now about social inequity as I did when I was 17 but I have come to realise that any impact that I, as an individual can make, is ineffective.  The main problem that I have with hard-left politics and socialism in particular nowadays, is that it just doesn’t seem to work.  

I can’t think of any successful country that is run on socialist principles.  If socialism is so great, why have nearly 50,000 Cubans fled and entered the United States in the past year and why do many more of them attempt to migrate south to Honduras and Central America on rickety rafts?

The nearest thing we have to a serious political party espousing socialist ideals in this country (at the moment) is the Communist Party.  However, these days that party always fails electorally.  The last elected Communist politician in the UK (a local councillor on Fife Council), resigned this year.  

In the election last month to elect his successor, the Communist candidate received just 86 votes.  That was 3.1% of the votes cast and only 0.86% of the total electorate in that constituency.  

In the 1973 election for Fife Council, the Communist’s share of the vote was 91%.

My engagement in politics now is confined to the ballot box.  Until this year, I had never voted for a winning candidate or cause in any kind of election - not even for the captain of my cricket club’s first team.  Historically, a vote from me has guaranteed failure or disappointment.  I have always supported the loser.

I started to write this post a day or two after the result of the referendum was announced.  I have completely rewritten most of it. The response from a total stranger to a comment I made on Facebook, has made me realise that passions are too strong and irrational for sensible debate.

I have a Facebook “friend” who on Friday, June 24th wrote:

“Am upset with you GB but glad that 99.9% of my friends feel the same as me.”

I responded to that with:

“I must make up the 0.1% because I'm delighted.”

And then, because she is a schoolteacher and had posted her comment at 11.30 on a Friday morning when I know she should have been working, I added,

“Aren't you supposed to be at work at 11.30 on a Friday morning?  You can't copy Spanish siesta behaviour now.”

One of her other friends on Facebook, who does not know me at all, replied to my comment with this:

“I have been nice so far in this referendum.  Not being able to vote myself, I have tried to put the facts forward while not calling people from the other side "uneducated untravelled bigoted racist ignorant twats" or worse.  Well, that's something that this referendum has definitely changed. 

You are an ignorant racist bigoted twat and I'll be taking my £20K yearly contribution to the UK treasury back to France, because after 12 years continuously contributing to the economy of this country, I feel betrayed angry and my heart is sinking.  You don't want me here to pay your pension?  Then go fuck off!!”

That reaction is quite extraordinary and disturbing.  Never mind his poor punctuation, as he is French after all, but I find it somewhat ironic because the main factor that made me vote the way I did was my desire for us in the UK to return to true democratic processes, including the freedom to vote as I choose.  

However, I don’t think that the schoolteacher and her rude friend have to worry about it yet.  Even though the result was fairly conclusive, the level of hysteria being displayed by some of those who voted to stay in the EU is only going to increase.  

It won’t surprise me at all if all kinds of dirty tricks are used to thwart leaving.  

Actually, I won't be surprised if we don't leave for several years.  I don't think "they" will let it happen without a huge fight.  I’ll only believe we're out when we really are out.

I still follow events in the Cayman Islands where we lived from 2005 to 2010. Three leading churchmen there, including an Anglican Bishop, have recently announced a joint campaign to “a return to biblical values”.  A centrepiece of this campaign is to disavow “alternative lifestyles”.  That is their way of saying that same-sex marriage should never be allowed in Cayman.

Many Caymanians are very sensitive to criticism of Caymanian ways by UK nationals.  A Cayman commentator on the topic, anticipating a barrage of condemnation from the UK, wrote that we in the UK are in no position to criticise the religious leaders’ view as we in the UK are mostly hypocrites.  He pointed out that more than 17 million of us are racist, showing that we are racist by voting to leave the EU.  How dare he put forward such an opinion!

On the 18th of June, just five days before the referendum polling day, I was phoned at home by a polling organisation to ask how I intended to vote in the referendum.  

I have always distrusted opinion polls.  Asking random people their opinion about something they may never have thought about will often lead to errors.  

I told the researcher that I would certainly answer his questions but first, would he mind telling me the name of his MEP?  He couldn’t.  He didn’t know what party his MEP represented either.  I asked him to name just one MEP.  He couldn’t.

The day after that phone call, a YouGov poll told the country that 44% of the electorate would vote to leave the EU and 42% would vote to stay.  I assume that my vote contributed to those results and was among the 42%, but what the pollsters didn’t know was that I had lied to the researcher.  I had sent off my postal vote to leave some weeks earlier but I told the pollster that I would be voting to remain.  

I am a little ashamed to say (no I’m not) that misleading that polling company gave me an inordinate amount of pleasure.

123. The Right Place

In May 2013, click to see, in a post on this blog, I wrote:

I couldn’t do a nurse’s job. No words can convey the admiration that I have for those I met.  They were wonderful, patient, caring and kind.  Nurses tolerate the intolerable.  They work in impossible conditions and I think they are almost saint-like.

Let me be very clear, there are 175,000 nurses working in NHS hospitals and I think that 174,999 of them are wonderful. 

I’ll get to why I think that one of them isn’t in a minute, but did you see what I did just then?  I started the sentence with, “Let me be very clear.”  That opening is the thought-gathering prelude of choice for most of today’s politicians.  It has replaced, “Let me say this: ….” 

I heard John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor, being “very clear” in an answer to a question as to why the UK should stay in the EU. 

McDonnell’s “very clear” response to the question was that labour voters should join with big business and vote to remain in the EU so that once firmly established within the European Union, the Labour Party could plot to overthrow capitalism.  At least, I think that was what he was saying. 

If I got it wrong perhaps he wasn’t being as “very clear” as he thought.

I was at hospital yesterday to have pre-operation checks before I have surgery on my ankle.  They have to make sure that I am fit enough for a general anaesthetic.  I have been given a date for the operation and it will be on June 23^rd. 

So, while you lot are all voting to leave the EU, I will be having my ankle bones cut and screwed together to fuse the joint.  By the new year I should be walking pain free.

I think the nurse was Portuguese.  I usually manage to make nurses smile or even laugh but this one was in deadly serious mode and was obviously not in the mood for any banter.

“We will start by taking blood,” she said and then she told me that the blood was to come from the inside of my wrist.

“It is to measure the gases,” I was told, “and the blood has to come from an artery, not a vein.  It’s going to hurt a lot and it will be much more painful than when you take blood taken from inside your elbow because there are lots of nerve endings around this area of your wrist.  When you feel the pain, you mustn’t move your arm.  That’s very important.”

I couldn’t think of anything amusing to say about that and so I kept quiet.  No nurse has ever been so brutally honest before and so I sat, trying to relax my arm and wishing that she hadn’t said anything about the pain.  I stared at a clock on the wall as I never look at the needle when they take blood.

“You are going to feel a sharp scratch,” she said.

“It’s not a scratch,” I muttered, grumpily.  “It’s a prick.”

I watched the second hand move from the 7 to the 10.  Nothing had happened.

“Well that wasn’t too bad,” I said, hoping to lighten the mood with a little joke.  “I didn’t feel a thing.”

I looked at the nurse and saw that she was staring at me, stony faced. 

“What are you waiting for?” I asked.

“An apology,” she said.

“What for?” I asked, in genuine amazement.

“Your rude language,” she said.

“My what!”

 “After I said you would feel a scratch.”

“What?  Are you serious?  A scratch is a long, narrow wound.  A needle makes a prick, not a scratch.  Sleeping Beauty didn’t scratch her finger.  It was pricked.”

She continued to stare at me.  “OK, I’m sorry,” I said.  It didn’t seem the right time to have a semantic discussion on the difference between a scratch and a prick.  I felt the needle go in and it really was painful.

“Don’t move your arm!” she shouted at me.

“I couldn’t help it.  It was involuntary.”

After about a minute, I asked if she was finished and she said that no blood was coming because I had moved my arm and so it was my fault.

“My fault was it?  Could it possibly have been yours?”

“No, you moved.  Your fault.”

I told her that I couldn’t guarantee not to flinch the next time and so she decided to take blood from my ear lobe instead.  (Don’t ask me!)

Two minutes later and after four “scratches” she had filled a narrow, transparent straw with blood from my ear lobe.  She put the tube into a machine and I watched as the blood started to be sucked out.  Then it stopped.

“It’s not working,” the nurse announced.  “It is clotting too quickly.”

“I suppose that’s my fault too?” I suggested. 

“We’ll do the walking test instead,” she said.  “You walk as fast as you can for six minutes while I monitor the oxygen level in your blood.  Are you right or left handed?”

“Why do you need to know that?” I asked.  “Do left handed people walk faster or something?”

“You have a walking stick.  If you hold the stick in your right hand, I will put the monitor on your left wrist.”

“Do you really think that right handed people always hold the stick in the right hand?  You hold the stick in the hand that helps the bad leg.  My left ankle is painful and so I hold the stick in my right hand to take some of the weight off my left ankle.  It’s nothing to do with me being right handed.  I would have thought you knew that.”

The nurse was not happy.  “If you continue to be rude, I will stop these tests and discharge you back to the consultant who referred you.”

“I won’t say another word,” I said. 

I was pretty sure that she couldn’t do what she threatened but I couldn’t take the risk that an operation I’ve been needing for four years would be postponed because of a silly squabble with a nurse.

I didn’t say a word for twenty minutes during which time I blew into various tubes and had an electrocardiogram. 

Then she took out a stethoscope and held it to my chest to listen to my heart.  I didn’t say anything but I knew she was going to have a problem.

“You’ve got a pulse but you don’t seem to have a heart,” she said at last. 

“That’s a bit harsh.”

“All I can hear is gurgling and bubbling from your oesophagus and stomach.”

I wasn’t surprised but I said nothing.  A year ago a doctor tried to listen to my heart and couldn’t find it.  Eventually he did find it about seven centimetres lower in my chest cavity than it should be.  It seems to have been chucked about and moved during my liver transplant procedure. 

When I told Caroline about my misplaced heart, she thought it was hilarious. 

“No one will ever be able to defend you again by saying that at least your heart’s in the right place,” she giggled.  “Because it isn’t.”