10:00 Our neighbour Frances calls round with some green beans she
has just picked, and later Waghornes, the butcher’s shop in the village
delivers our meat and cheese order.
We put the grocery order in by phone to Budgens our local
convenience store for delivery tomorrow. We’ve asked for Magnums, Cornettos and
other ice creams and are keeping our fingers crossed. Our daughter Alison,
husband Ed and their 3 children are visiting us from Haslemere on Sunday, the
first time we have seen them since Christmas.
(left to right) Josie (now 13), Alison, Rosalind (12), Isaac (10), and Ed,
pictured last year at Wembley Stadium
11:00 The “food shopping” over and done with, Lois and I can now hunker
down – it’s going to be 91F/33C today – the hottest day of the year so far, so
we don our lightest clothing and do a bit of mild dusting before collapsing in
a heap. The temperature’s going to come crashing down starting tomorrow, so it’s
not worth doing any work today – “never do today what you can put off till
tomorrow”, as the old adage says haha.
We get loads of advice about how to avoid COVID-19 but nothing about dealing with this heatwave! What madness!
It's different in America, as this story from the influential American news web site Onion News indicates.
Emphasizing the importance of staying cool and hydrated
during the record-breaking temperatures, America’s National Weather Service
stressed Thursday that those in the path of the upcoming heat wave should crawl
towards the sparkling, cold spring shimmering at the edge of their vision.
“Should you, in a moment of thirst, suddenly hear the sound
of running water, or spot a picturesque, babbling brook in the distance, we
urge you to drop to your knees and pull yourself towards it,” said director of
the National Weather Service Dr. Louis W. Uccellini, instructing all those
affected by extreme heat to be extra vigilant should they see a shaded area, a
waterfall, or a group of naked women splashing in the water beckoning them to
come swim.
Sound practical advice! That’s what we lack in this country – our super-conservative
Met Office won’t commit to issuing any concrete measures for us Brits to adopt
today to deal with the crisis. They prefer to sit on the fence as usual!
Why not publish maps indicating the nearest shaded areas, babbling brooks, waterfalls and naked bathers? Would that be so difficult????
What’s wrong with us in Britain? What a crazy country we live in
!!!!
19:00 Our daughter Alison and her family are dining out in a local
pub garden near Haslemere tonight. Let’s hope they “keep safe”, as they’re
seeing us on Sunday – yikes!!!!
Alison and family this evening, in a pub garden just outside Haslemere
20:00 We listen to the radio, an interesting programme, first part
of 2, dealing with the current crisis in American democracy as regards voting
procedures and rules.
Presenter Ben Wheeler takes us through all the barriers to poor
and/or non-white voters which, since the American Civil War, various states have erected
over the years, chipping away at any attempts at a national level. to outlaw
such practices, such as like LBJ’s legislation in the 1960’s. Also the current
controversy about postal voting – Republicans say it leads to fraud, although
the stats show it’s negligible. And it’s not completely clear in any case which
party it will help most – good grief!
The partisanship of most of the Republicans and Democrats Wheeler
interviews is incredibly fierce, and it makes us realise how valuable the
spirit of bipartisanship is, and how it should be preserved at all costs – when
it flies out the window, fairness goes with it, and it’s the electorate that
suffers for it.
The situation as we approach the November elections is that
neither side can bring itself to contemplate the prospect of losing – so what
will happen? We look forward to part 2 of this series next week.
Yikes !!!!
20:30 We watch a bit of TV – the first episode in a new series of
ex-cabinet minister Michael Portillo’s train journeys across the continent.
For documentary-lovers like Lois and me it’s slim pickings at the
moment – a lot of repeats and rehashes and not much new, apart from the
occasional pre-COVID travel programme that the networks have still got in the
can.
Travel documentaries are not really our bag, and more and more we
see things in them we’ve seen before, in other travel documentaries: oh dear!
But it’s interesting to see tonight presenter Michael Portillo, a minister in Margaret Thatcher's government in the 1980's, looking at the file
that Franco’s authorities kept on Michael’s father, a liberal academic, in the
1930's. His father eventually escaped to England where he met Michael’s mother in
Oxford.
It’s also interesting to see Michael chatting with George Orwell’s
son, Richard Blair, who shows Michael where the Civil War battle lines were near the town of
Huesca.
George Orwell's son, Richard Blair, shows Michael
where the battle lines were near Huesca during the Civil War
George Orwell became a socialist in the 1930’s when he worked in
the British police force in Burma: he came to realise that the British Empire
came nowhere near to fulfilling the ideals it professed to be espousing.
Orwell then went to Spain, first as a journalist to cover the Civil War, and then actually taking part in the fighting on the side of the Left.
What he took away from his Spanish experience, however, was an
undying abhorrence of Communism, which he expressed most famously in his books "Animal Farm" and "1984". And “1984” has arguably been the most influential contribution
of English literature to the realisation of what totalitarianism means in
practice, whatever the propaganda says!
22:00 We go to bed – zzzzzzzzz!!!!!!
