Merry Christmas, New Year wishes and Resolutions

It's that time of year. Unlike last year, which was truly awful, I am able to visit Son #2 and family in Kent. A joyous experience involving two riotous grandkids, a bracing beach walk in Folkestone in a howling gale, a (so far) disappointing delivery failure of a gift for my son, a trip on a steam train with mulled wine, hopefully a visit from Santa tonight (reindeer food ready and waiting) and equally hopefully a Boxing Day visit to my  co-grandparents, lateral flow tests permitting. A cornucopia of Christmas delights.

I remain unable to visit Son #1 and family in Australia. Barnaby Joyce can come to London and shop in Oxford Street but he requires me to quarantine for two weeks in one of his hotels. Sounds fair? Obviously not, although he did catch covid which rather makes the point of the Australian self-blockade. Maybe next Christmas I'll be able to enjoy my three riotous grandkids, a visit to my other co-grandparents involving blazing sun, dipping in the pool and cold weak Aussie beer. How the other half of the world lives. 

Obviously my wishes for 2022 centre around the defeat and disappearance of COVID-19. Ugh. The completion of my house renovations despite the best efforts of unresponsive and unreliable contractors, Ipswich Town not getting relegated, Arsenal getting into next season's Champions League, Boris getting impeached. Respective % likelihood: 0, 75, 50, 25, 15.

New Year resolutions? Check in next week. Don't expect anything ambitious. 

Three votes

Obviously all those political bloggers out there will be analysing the result of the UK's North Shropshire parliamentary by-election. Speculating and raising questions such as:

• Is this a typical mid term by-election where voters like to give the government of the day a good kicking and then revert to their usual loyalty in a general election?
• Is a margin of nearly 6,000 votes (Lib Dem over Conservative) much greater than the expected tight call?
• Are the Lib Dems back?
• Is Boris a gonner?
• Is Labour irrelevant in this kind of rural constituency?
• Did Reform UK and UKIP takes votes totally from the Conservatives?
• Surely the "Party Party" candidate should have won this contest hands down?

Not me.

I'm much more interested in Yolande Kenward.

Yolande, standing for election without any party affiliation, received three votes.

Putting this into perspective, to be accepted as a candidate in a parliamentary election, you need to (politically ambitious readers need to know this):

• be a British or Irish citizen, or from certain Commonwealth countries
• be over 18
• not be in the police, the military, civil service or judiciary
• not be bankrupt
• pay £500 deposit
• be nominated by 10 registered voters in the  constituency

If you get at least 5% of the votes cast - that would have been 1,901 in this by-election - you will get your £500 back.

Yolande founded the Patient Support Trust in 2000. Its aims are broadly to support the NHS as a fully publicly funded, free service with particular emphasis on the rights of patients, especially children. She has stood for election to various bodies, and in various constituencies, previously in what seems to be a concerted effort to publicise her causes.

Yolande appears not to be resident in North Shropshire - she hails from Maidstone in Kent - so the 10 nominations don't include her. So she has 10 mates, seven of whom deserted her when the actual votes were cast. Shame on you deceivers!

At £500 a pop, garnering next to no support, it seems an expensive way to use your advertising budget. You won't catch me doing it any time soon.

Not heard of Amazon, Barnaby?

End of week trivia.

Australia's esteemed PM Barnaby Joyce travelled to London, went Christmas shopping in Oxford Street, caught Covid and whinged about it. "Bloody Poms gave me the lurgy" he said. Karma. Stay Home. Use Amazon like the rest of us.

UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, fresh from joining the US (and our Aussie friends) in threatening retaliatory action against Russia should they annex the (rest of) Ukraine, claimed that Britain's troops should train to "survive and carry out surveillance in temperatures as low as 40°C." 

Russia invades Lapland, captures Santa; Royal Marines rescue nine reindeer and repatriate them to the UK, leaving behind dozens of British interpreters. You heard it here first.

The UK has said that none of its diplomats will attend the Winter Olympics in February. Noting that the temperature at that time of year is close to zero (which it would have to be obviously, otherwise no snow), a Foreign Office spokesman stated "our diplomats will be busy with post-Christmas parties after which they will be investigated and therefore unable to attend". The Chinese are reported as buying up extra bottles of champagne to celebrate.

A YouGov poll found that 68% of people polled believed Boris Johnson's denial of there being a Christmas party in 2020, against prevailing Covid regulations. 68%? What on earth are the other 32% on?

In another survey, two-thirds of readers of this blog believed that the author often includes made-up "facts" in posts. The other reader had recently travelled from Australia and was shopping in Oxford Street.

Bella Ciao

Bella Ciao is a folk song originating in World War II resistance movements in Italy. It continues to be a part of anti-fascist protests throughout the world. I came across it in the wonderful TV series Money Heist, which glorifies anti-establishment themes and in which Bella Ciao occurs as a leitmotif to characterise the robbers' anti-authoritarian instincts. Freedom for the people! Of course, they also set out to steal billions of euros' worth of currency and gold bars. The song provides moments of joyous celebration when things go well - which they don't always. Absolutely no spoilers, though, because you'll want to watch this.

You can sing along:

One morning I awakened,
oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao!
One morning I awakened
And I found the invader.

Oh partisan carry me away,
oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao
oh partisan carry me away
Because I feel death approaching.

And if I die as a partisan,
oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao
and if I die as a partisan
then you must bury me.

Bury me up in the mountain,
oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao
bury me up in the mountain
under the shade of a beautiful flower.

And all those who shall pass,
oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao
and all those who shall pass
will tell me "what a beautiful flower."

This is the flower of the partisan,
oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao
this is the flower of the partisan
who died for freedom

Looping and Ringing

It has 607 square miles and over nine million inhabitants. There are 9,197 miles of roads and 2,671 miles of rail.  There are 3000 parks and green spaces which cover 18% of its area - but its glory is two long distance paths called The Capital Ring and The London Loop.  The Ring is 78 miles and is the inner circle while the Loop is the outer circle and is 150 miles.  

Being retired has enabled me to fulfil a long held ambition to get to know the city that I’ve lived in for two thirds of my life. Every weekend, and even more in lockdown, we explored one of the sections which can be anything from four to ten miles.  The paths link as many parks and green spaces as possible and when that’s not possible they follow the more interesting parts of the built environment. Some of which follow. 

The picture at the top though is London’s heart - the Thames which, when you get to know it, is the most fascinating river in England. 

Fairly close to home is St Mary’s in Bexley where Ted Heath often played the organ.  It’s spire is shingled with two storeys and is the only example in England. 

Here for example is the grave of the founder of the Salvation Army buried in Abney Park in a cemetery reserved for Nonconformists and therefore quite simple in contrast to the florid Victorian C of E examples.  

Here’s Horsenden Hill - silver birches against a cerulean sky. 

Wet December

I always thought the notion of such ideas as a Dry January were absurd. Marketing ploys or, occasionally as with Movember, charitable endeavours. There is nothing in this world that would persuade me to grow a moustache

or commit to a whole month without alcohol - or cheese, mushrooms, pizza, whatever.

I drink little alcohol but, in the approach to Christmas, it feels like I should prepare for the festive season. It would be churlish to decline offers of champagne, a good wine and a glass of brandy, so my body needs to be ready. Hence Wet December. I'll be looking for a bottle of Armagnac tomorrow, together with some decent Rioja. No alcoholic beer though - too fattening.

UPDATE: Couldn't find any Armagnac so went for Drambuie instead. More Christmassy anyway. I used to like Tia Maria so might get some of that too. Can you get decaff Tia Maria? News to follow in due course.

Ready for Christmas

Just need to get some festive underpants. And a Santa beanie.

20 is too big a number

I watch football matches in which I have "skin in the game", as they say. "They" being I don't know who but let's move on. My interest might be in supporting one of the teams, wanting one of the teams to lose because it would benefit a team I support, maybe just expecting lots of goals. No dreary goalless draws please, let's have action!

The England womens' football team has been providing plenty of action recently. On Tuesday they beat Latvia 20-0 in a World Cup Qualifying match. Twenty! They have so far won all six of their games in group D, scoring 53 goals and conceding none. I wasn't watching because it coincided with another match in which I had that skin stuff. But would I have continued to watch such a one-sided match, once the score reached say 10-0? I'm not sure; I have no previous experience to go on.

In the mens' World Cup qualifying competition we are used to "minnows" like San Marino, Gibraltar and Liechtenstein conceding 6 or 7 and some people complain that "this is embarrassing; there should be a pre-qualifying competition to weed out the weakest nations" and others respond by asserting that these teams will learn, and eventually get better, by playing the top teams.

Overall I think the situation in that case is just about OK and I can see both sides of the argument. But twenty? What can Latvia learn by losing 20-0 to England? They already know they aren't very good, presumably, having conceded 46 goals in their five matches, but this must be horrendously demoralising. And there is a sense in which serious mis-matches undermine the integrity of sport. Had I been watching, I would almost certainly have switched off at half time with the score 8-0. No fun.

By the way, football commentators often use the "this could be a cricket score" phrase when faced with a team scoring five or six in the first half of a game, but this displays a certain ignorance of the game of cricket, where scores of two, three and four hundred are typical. Just saying.