Danskcolin: Thursday March 31st 2022

09:00 Lois and I spend most of the morning going through our wardrobes, looking for clothes we don't need - if we downsize this year, we may have, in our new house, less than half the space we currently have for storing clothes, which is a scary thought.

And it's a happy coincidence that Lois's fellow-sect-member Mari-Ann has put out an appeal for clothes for the sect's new "Persian" Christian refugee members that have arrived from London.

It seems incredible but the Home Office apparently takes these Iranians, gives them a train ticket to some town or other in the provinces, together with the address of some Government hostel, and then after that they're pretty much on their own. They get a meagre government allowance, but aren't allowed to get jobs till their request for asylum is approved.

typical Iranian Christian refugees in the West - these ones are in the US

What madness!!!! And many of these refugees have only the clothes they're stood up in - it's crazy!!!!

This morning Lois and I fill 6 black plastic sacks of clothes that can either go to these refugees or to others, e.g. Ukrainians etc. The Persians Mari-Ann knows of are almost entirely male, but there's at least one woman among them, who is said to have no underwear other than what she's wearing - unfortunately we don't know her sizes. How can this happen???!!!!!

I showcase the 6 black plastic bags of clothing

that Lois and I have so far identified as donations

12:00 We go out for our walk round the local football field. We're living in exciting times in our parish - the big £35k upgrade to the football field playground facilities has been making good progress, and we think they'll be available for use by the neighbourhood's children before too long.

Lois showcases some of the parish's new playground equipment - wow-ee !!!!

flashback to February, when Parish Councillor Hamish Beach

(crazy name, crazy hair!) announces the news to the world's press

Predictably Lois and I soon become over-excited when we see the progress on the project, and after our walk, we force ourselves to calm down with a hot chocolate and half a piece of carrot cake each, on the so-called "Pirie Bench".

we've become overexcited again, so we calm down with

a hot chocolate and half a piece of carrot cake each

on the Pirie Bench outside the Parish Council offices

13:00 We come home and have lunch. Before and after we eat I sit at the laptop and try and input our latest electricity and gas meter readings to our new energy supplier, the Eon Company. It takes me about an hour in all, because the whole of the UK and his wife are doing the same thing with their own particular companies. Energy prices are going up with a bang tomorrow, so we've got to input our latest readings so that the company doesn't charge us for the last few days of power at the new rates that start tomorrow.

What a crazy world we live in!! The website must be close to crashing with all the extra people on it, and I keep logging in and then getting thrown off. I'm close to giving up, but I persevere, and eventually I succeed. I've also taken a picture of the meter displays on my smartphone, just in case.

But what madness !!!!!

15:30 Lois and I relax on the sofa with a piece each of my birthday coffee cake and a cup of tea.

I look at my smartphone, and I see that Tünde, my Hungarian penfriend, has sent me a telex.hu story about how a lot of mail-in ballots for the Opposition parties, cast in the current general election by Hungarians in Romania, have been found discarded and partially burned, in a Romanian landfill.

It doesn't augur well, to put it mildly, for a fair outcome to the current elections in Hungary, for which the deadline for casting ballots is set for early next month. It looks like the autocratic ruling Fidesz party, led by the country's crazy Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, or at least some of its officials, are getting nervous about the prospect that they might be thrown out of power.

It's really sad that the Fidesz party (literal meaning of the name: the Young Democrats) can stoop as low as it does these days. When I first visited Hungary in the early 1990's the party was the great hope of decent-minded Hungarian democrats everywhere - Fidesz was the party that was going to throw out the Communists and establish Hungary as a democracy for all time. Somehow at some stage, it all went horribly wrong, that's for sure.

But let's hope for the best: all is not lost - not yet, at least !!!!

flashback to me on my first visit to Hungary in 1994: notice

the advert for the Fidesz party (above and behind me to the left),

at a time when Fidesz, the so-called "Young Democrats", were still "the good guys"

Yes, let's hope that the Hungarians can hang on to their democracy next month.

flashback to March 15th 1994: the picture I took of the Revolution Day

Holiday crowds in the main square of Pécs, in southern Hungary,

celebrating the 1848 revolution against the Austrian Empire

me in 1994: with my Hungarian friend István (right) and his son Marty

- happy days !!!!!

16:00 By coincidence, Steve, our American brother-in-law, has also sent me an email today, pointing out that, according to the Axios news website, the number of liberal democracies in the world keeps falling - down from 51% in 2011 to only 30% in 2021.

Of 195 nations on earth, just 34 are liberal democracies — where citizens have rights to free speech, free press, free and fair elections, and other liberties — according to a study by "Varieties of Democracy".

And if you live in a liberal democracy, not only do you and your family have the benefit of a decent, civilised society to live your lives in, and plan your future in, you also have numerous other advantages, according to the study.

Living in a stable democracy leads to a longer and more fulfilling life, the data shows:

1. Health: If you live in a democracy and are at least age 25, you're likely to live 14 years longer than people in autocracies, a University of British Columbia study found. Babies in mature democracies are 78% less likely to die in childbirth.

2. Wealth: Democratization boosts a nation's wealth 20% over 25 years.

3. Education: Democratization bumps citizens' enrolment in secondary education by 70%.

So, if you've got it where you are, make sure you hang on to it, people!!!!

18:00 We had snow flurries and a bit of sleet around lunchtime today, believe it or not. And we've got 3 nights coming where the temperature will dip below freezing. Lois has only just planted 3 shrubs at the bottom of the garden, so to keep them warm over the next 3 nights we cover them with upturned wheelbarrows insulated with some thick felt - we're so kind-hearted haha!

Brrrrrrr !!!!!!

Poor baby shrubs!!!! But we're so kind-hearted, which is lucky - we love our shrubs, that's for sure, and we don't want them to feel cold haha!

20:00 We watch some TV, an interesting new documentary centred on an exhibition of Van Gogh's self-portraits at the Courtauld Institute, London, presented by Kate Bryan.

It's the first time that Van Gogh's "selfies" have been exhibited together, which is a bit of a landmark. Van Gogh himself even would never have had the opportunity to see them all together, which is thought-provoking.

We sometimes forget how short Van Gogh's career was, as an artist - only 10 years in all. But during a 3 and a half year period when he was trying to "find himself", he painted no less than 35 self-portraits.

presenter Kate Bryan says she's got "goose-bumps", seeing this collection,

something which Van Gogh himself never had the opportunity to do.

Poor Vincent !!!!!

And who remembers that Van Gogh twice lived in London? He came here first to pursue his idea of becoming an art dealer, and tonight we see the house in central London where he lived, and from which he commuted, on foot, to his job, a so-called "proper job".

the house in London where Van Gogh lived, and the bedroom where he slept,

and from where he commuted every day on foot to his "proper job, as an art-dealer

In his letters from his London house, Van Gogh talks about going to Hyde Park, and watching people on the famous Rotten Row. He talks beautifully about the mist over Westminster Bridge when he's commuting to his art-dealer job every day. You get the impression of a really sensitive young guy, wide-eyed, trying to absorb everything he sees in London.

There's a great letter he wrote from here in 1874, where he says, with great confidence, coming to the end of his time at the house, that "I'm now a cosmopolitan, no longer a Frenchman, an Englishman or a Dutchman, but a man of the world".

the start of a confident letter Van Gogh wrote from London in 1874

We even see a photograph of Van Gogh as a young man, taken around this time - no brush strokes to be seen in that, needless to say haha!

a photo of the young Vincent, a young man with "a proper job",

just one of the many thousands of commuters walking and riding through

1870's London - and not a brush-stroke to be seen, which is nice!

And who remembers that Van Gogh once got another "proper job" here, as a schoolteacher in Ramsgate on the Kent coast, of all places? [I expect a lot of people remember that! - Ed]

location of the seaside town of Ramsgate, Kent, where Van Gogh

worked as a teacher at a boys' school

People talk a lot about Van Gogh as a tortured soul, but it's useful to remember that he never painted when he felt tortured - he always painted when he was feeling okay, or at least when he was coming out of a tortured period, as a kind of therapy.

It's interesting to compare two of his most famous portraits, painted in the south of France, the first one done when he's looking sleep-deprived, lost and a bit haggard, and the second one, painted only a week later, in which he's looking completely focussed and ready to paint his next masterpiece.

These paintings are exhibited here together for the first time.

The first picture is a "survival" picture, where you feel he's just "hanging on" after a spell in a psychiatric hospital. He seems introspective, withdrawn, and he looks pretty broken, with a quite sad expression on his face. There are harsh dots of red in the eyes, looking like he hasn't slept and hasn't eaten.

But then in the second self-portrait, painted just one week later, he's presenting himself as an artist at the height of his powers, all dressed up in his painter's "outfit" - the smock etc - and with his palette all ready. His face is more composed, and he looks altogether much healthier. It looks like he's been getting sleep, and he's got colour to his skin. He looks focussed and he's thinking about his "next masterpiece", that's for sure!

The two paintings together show the power of art to save people and put them on the road to recovery, says presenter Kate Bryan.

Included in the exhibition, even though it isn't a self-portrait, is the painting of Van Gogh's empty chair, with its bare wood and straw seat, and a pipe and a tobacco pouch on it. It's included because he said it was a symbol of himself and his beginnings, and so redolent of his peasant roots.