Shuffling the pack

 This week we are taking a brief look at polly ticks.

It was always on the cards although with Covid there wasn't a good time to to do it but the pack of cards has been reshuffled and thank goodness the hapless, muddled up Education Secretary has been removed not that whoever would of been in those shoes would not of have their work cut out  deal with Covid in schools and the Teaching Unions who tend to oppose anything.

He even got the Sixth Form of children in his own Constituency whose parents gave him a 35% majority protesting outside his constituency office about the computer predicted exam grades that made no sense!

Unlike some I don't feel Dominic Raab should of had to of gone as Foreign Secretary for being on his vacation when President Biden started the great pull out of Afghanistan and the ensuing mess.

He had a deputy and that persons job was to cover for him not that frankly by that point we could do much (and some the issues around Afghan Interpreters being still left their are more to do with the Home Offices inability to accept a simple proposition that people who helped the British Army were at grave risk from the likes of the Taliban and could of been got out earlier).

This is not being away at the start of a war or major offensive where continuity counts.

One aim of this reshuffle is to improve the representation of women in the cabinet which it has although I feel the example of Tony Blairs strongly female cabinet didn't show just being a woman made for a better person in post.

The other I suspect is to freshen thing up knowing were around two years away from a General Election.

It's a crazy world

Tis a busy life we leave.

For one thing I've been proper poorly for most of this week which I had mentioned in a few places meaning chunks had been put off simply because I did not have the energy to do them being very achy.

Between that there been following some adverse developments around the life of a close friend which are a concern in there of necessity extremely guarded nature.

I did see a bit of Wednesday's soccer which I gather was a bit disappointing with a goal draw after two huge wins while the grump was out to his club as it's reopened after being shut for you know what.

The Government Bill got through to spend additional money on post Covid catch up and tackling issues in the Care Service got through, something that had  that been known about since the last Labour Government but to which both main parties didn't deal with preferring to play silly games over.

It certainly isn't perfect but we need to start somewhere.

It's a very mad world the polly titicians live in obsessed by parliamentary terms, the elections and the need to been seen not to commit to anything that the other side can pull you up on but really not dealing with things sensibly by looking for consensus on long term plans so everybody involved to make long term plans.

Instead they either do nothing up keep undoing and changing things all the time making things worse.

You wonder why I gave up that life for being a child...

Back to school Friday

This week it must be said wasn't a great one when it comes to my health having been pretty poorly over a few days and we're only just getting back in the swing of things here.
It's also the time my head goes flying back to the past because when you're like me it's always thinking as if you are in that time so all the back to school promotions when life was rather more like this.

Yes that time you were dragged around the stationery shop for new geometry sets, pencil cases, felt tip pens for writing Carol luvs Simon in embarrassing places and notebooks although schools SHOULD supply exercise books or loose paper for folders.

You thought Minnie was bad, some of my exploits were legendary!

It was always fun to compare your mates pencil case and contents with everybody else's although while you could get a variety of pencil cases back in the day, the contents were generally unbranded and pretty boring.

These days branding gets everywhere as with this Dennis and Gnasher set, although Hello Kitty and Winnie The Pooh are super popular with it being on pencils and erasers (we used to call them Rubbers but American's use that for something very different so global brands don't use our English terms).

Then of course there was that most popular outing to the Uniform shop to try your schools official uniform on and get any alterations such as taking up hems and arm lengths arranged.

While some talk about making it cheaper personally I'd sooner up the quality so it really does last employing British workers rather than children in sweatshops in South-east Asia who work over 12 hours a  day in poor conditions even if it meant every parent was given a voucher to redeem part of the cost.

Something that is well made can easily be handed down if needed and looks smarter when worn which does matter.

Now to put mine on!

The Spirit of the Radio

 

For reasons I have from time to time spoke on on here and on the other blog, my life has tended to be punctuated with periods of hospital visits and much time spent in bed being a sickly child and these days adult but pretty much child.

I have a lot of memories I'd sooner of never experienced being either in the school sick bay frequently, off from school being at home or outside of term time being at home in bed being sick, often literally with a bucket beside me with just the odd visit from Mom for company.

So for me, the radio and the presenters were company with it put on quiet often during the day as I'd lie there praying it would all stop.

Often it would tuned to station had 'oldies' hours, dedicated 'gold' stations were a bit late in taking off so I'd hear songs from the last decade and a half typically from about 1956 to 1969 with snippets about the events of say one year and it's hits.

That concept sometimes get taken with commercial compilations like the EMI The Greatest Hits of 19xx series with the years hits and background notes of facts and figures about the year.

Thus while I grew up with first hand memories of music from the tail end of 1969 and into 1970, I heard and developed a liking for that which had gone before especially the pre-Beatles era with the likes of Bobby Vee, Del Shannon, Peter, Paul and Mary and Cliff Richard.

It was announced this Sunday Don Everly of the Everly Brothers had died aged 84 following on from Phil Everly in 2014.

The Everly's music was a mixture of Country, Appalachian Folk music and a hint of rock and roll spirit which was massive in the late 1950's until the Mid 1960's where the British Invasion lead rock sounds made everything before seem out of date even though they did record with England's The Hollies the "Two Yanks in England" album .

Songs like Cathy's Clown, All I Have To Do Is Dream and Ebony Eyes have an otherworldly feel to them that you seldom got from other artists while Wake Up Little Suzie and The Price of Love were more up beat even if some radio stations banned the former.

These songs were amongst those I learned and loved during that time having a small collection of recordings that cover the hits.

One thing that no one expected to be announced Tuesday was the death of Charlie Watts, the drummer of the Rolling Stones as many us had felt it was going to be Keith Richard who would go first given his issues with addictions in the past.

Charlie, pictured on the far right of this picture at the drum stool was the straight forward family man who had studied Art at Harrow College and got a job as a Graphic Designer before playing drums in Jazz band and encountering Brian Jones who was the founder of the Rolling Stones and Bill Wyman and walked out with a job of group drummer.

Unlike them, the rock and roll lifestyle wasn't for him preferring to spend time with his family, breeding Arabian horses, collecting classic cars and the like outside of recording and touring.

His drumming wasn't flash but it provided the beating heart of their music, more than capable of keeping up with their style as the group mixed in country and funk elements in the seventies and with clear indications of his jazz influenced technique.

Their early hits were played by my older brother and again on the radio so by the time I'd moved on from my likes of the early seventies to explore more 'mature' music their albums and the odd single were things I bought for myself.

The common denominator in all of this was The Spirit of the Radio to borrow a phrase from Rush because they all were a part of the soundtrack of my life and of no doubt of many others too which is why I already miss them so much. 

Another fine mess we're left with

 

There's only been one major topic of discussion this week and that is the collapse of the previous Afghanistan government in just under a week from the U.S. pull out of troops stationed  there since 2001 and 9/11 which still resonates strongly with us.

This was always on the cards since former U.S. President Trump signed a peace treaty with Afghanistan after mainly U.S. sponsored peace talks between various groups there including the Taliban, a extreme fundamentalist Islamist group.

From the moment that was signed any incoming President would bound to follow suit which no doubt would of had some support given the cost of that twenty year exercise but where things had gone badly wrong was the quickness of the Taliban having accused the Afghan Government of reneging on their word were able to take control seeing Government own troops defect by a third to them even.

That probably wasn't helped by them not being paid and reports senior figures pocketing the money to put in foreign bank accounts.

Thus as I sit typing this out, the Taliban are in control, yes the people who brought the effective demise of education for those just in double digits, that took women out of work and put them behind the sink looking after men and children, who blow up statutes cos they offended their beliefs and murdered gay people amongst many things.

Their spokesperson said they were going to be inclusive, that women would continue in education in an interview by a female tv anchorwoman who was told the next day no to go to work as women are not to be reporters.

Who are they kidding?

Thousands of Commonwealth soldiers lives in Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada were lost fighting these people before getting some measure of everyday freedom back.

Still others came home badly injured physically and all traumatized and as many of us are saying "For what?" and "Was it worth it?".

Across the week we have seen people not just our soldiers and staff but other terrified, desperate to leave that so remind me of the god awful end of the Vietnam War with people cling onto aircraft as they try take off.

I don't personally blame the incoming President for completing what was agreed, but for heaven's  sake why was the military intelligence so unreliable that an orderly withdraw is the least likeliest outcome? Just where did all these extra Taliban foot soldiers and weapons emerge from?

Criticizing our own Prime Minister who certainly isn't perfect rather misses the point: we had no part in the negations and no input into the timetable, just dealing with what the United States collectively did. We're just trying to get some humanitarian evacuations achieved in this mess.

When you look at the unfolding situation, the clearly increasing breaches of what was agreed around basic human rights and look back at what we had achieved for those people and the price in lives we paid I cannot say as someone whose family gladly joined the Services that were are remotely happy at the outcome.

I'm not alone in being bloody angry over this

The return of music

 

The London Symphony Orchestra are based these days at the Barbican, London, and own their own record label, LSO Live that features recordings by them and various guest as well as principal conductors.

I was looking for a decent disc of the opera, Fidelio and picked up there's that was on discount which includes the libretto which given this is sung in German, helps with following it although that makes for a bulky package.

On Friday July 30th  the Henry Wood Promenade concerts began generally held at the Royal Albert Hall, London  broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and streamed with some also being recorded for showing on BBC television at weekends.

After last year where we had a Proms season, reduced from what was planned and heavily socially distanced, at least in 2021 we can have a audience albeit one subject to a few measures watching and applauding at the end the artists after a year when like everything else  that did still continue live, we had one.

It felt more like watching a recording studio control booth from a far, lacking that element of the audience and players feeding off each other.

There are no words at can describe adequately just how elated some of us feel to have live music making back.

The pandemic effected recording not just in  terms of the ability of the superstars of the Classical world to fly in to recording sessions around the globe but also spacing where unlike some popular recording was possible by having people fly in their performances electrically, to do so in classical music removes much of the atmosphere and acoustic feel of a session which effected new releases on disc and download.

The start of a recovery

 

Well, a break's a good as a rest they say as last weeks time helped in recovering from the psychological impact of covid and the restrictions, learning to feel comfortable with interactions that were so common place we seldom thought about them  but were off limits.

Things that also helped were the Olympics that like the Euros with much you could involved with following although they were and are constrained by restrictions due to Japan's current infection rates just because you could see people who had themselves struggled with training apart from the stuff we all did give it their all and winning

Britain's Sky Brown competed in the women's skateboarding at the age of thirteen despite the challenges of a serious injury last year and won a bronze, helping to take our country to sixth on the medal standings which is a good going and something as Britons we can be proud of.

With care we can put what we've been through to one side and move towards recovery and one thing that will help to deal with the problem of disrupted education for our children was the announcement on Wednesday Children of sixteen to eighteen (in other words sixth formers and college students) and those who are vulnerable (or have vulnerable parents, grandparents in the same household).

Given in a sixth form form personal experience you have eighteen year and sometimes nineteen year olds in the same classes who in other respects are classed as adults and that their bodies are at very much the same including abilities to transmit and catch covid that makes sense.

Alterations on the guidance about who needs to self isolate also should help as in a good many instances  whole groups were and not just those who tested positive for the virus.

Across wider society the issue of the over sensitive NHS covid app 'pinging' people whose contact was so brief they were unlikely to had caught it was eventually tackled although I do feel this could of been foreseen as absolute case numbers are of less of a concern  not least for those who have been double vaccinated so an initial rise was not the worry it was.

Actually overall the the infection rate is dropping off which may mean we are past the peak of the so-called Third Wave of the virus.

Things while not quite being where they were are a bit more normal with cause for hope we can live with it rather than feeling locked in.