Sunday, 1st February, 2026

I would like to wish you happy new month but the rain continues in biblical quantities as it washes the debris of January away. Of course, it is important to maintain optimism. Life continues and water is essential to it. Hopefully, we will have a good supply for the Summer to come. There are just 4 weeks until Spring officially arrives.

In a rapidly challenging world, it is hard to maintain optimism at times. The old order is being shaken everywhere one looks. Humanity is being attacked in so many spheres, Europe, the Middle East, China and America. It is easy to forget that the Israelis are still killing Palestinians in Gaza and Russians are still killing Ukranians in Europe. China is still subjugating the Uyghurs. The religious state machinery in Iran is killing its own people on an industrial scale. The American government is hauling its own citizens off the streets, shooting its own citizens on the streets if they protest, trying to convince its electorate that black is actually white.

The question is, what the ordinary citizen can do about it particularly if the electoral route is increasingly being challenged by the easy answers of populist parties. There are many ways we can resist and fight back but they all speak to change in climate through persuasion. I write in my Blog but also on social media and I lobby politicians daily. It is so much easier to do nowadays through email, whatsapp, twitter, etc.

Music and satire are other forms of resistance, fightback and attempt to shift the political weather. I don’t know if you have seen this family before but I really like their attempts to address political situations in Britain and the rest of world. They are an interesting group.

The parents met at Cambridge University and have clearly created bright and interesting kids with a talent for music. What they are doing is saying the political world is not something that just happens to us. It is a world we must address and try to influence. It is an intelligent response of thoughtful, caring people which I appreciate. This song has been set to the flower power song, San Francisco of Scott Mckenzie who himself was born Philip Wallach Blondheim of Scandanavian ancestors illustrating the interrelationship of the people of the world. Ultimately, national boundaries mean nothing. We all live and die under one sky.

Talking about the sky, my sky, our sky, the rain has gone, the sky has cleared, the sun has come out and all is well with my world long enough to go for a 90 mins walk through the park. Joy of joys, Dear Reader.

Monday, 2nd February, 2026

Big week amid the gloomy skies. My test results (bloods & scans) will be available and I will attend a Review with the Oncology Department at Worthing Hospital. I am fairly confident but I don’t know why. These things don’t really have any early and obvious signs and I have always worried since ending my cancer treatment that it was likely to return. I just hope it is not yet. Birthday 75 is rapidly approaching, Dear Reader, and I just want 25 years more. After that, every additional year will be up for negotiation with the devil.

You will remember Goethe’s drama where Faust is unsatisfied with his life as a scholar and becomes depressed. After an attempt to take his own life, he calls on the Devil for further knowledge and magic powers with which to indulge all the pleasure and knowledge of the world. In response, the Devil’s representative, Mephistopheles, appears. He makes a bargain with Faust: Mephistopheles will serve Faust with his magic powers for a set number of years, but at the end of the term, the Devil will claim Faust’s soul, and Faust will be eternally enslaved. That will be me.

In 1985, I met a Professor and Head of the Department of History at Huddersfield University. He had been featured in my local newspaper, the Huddersfield Examiner, talking about a new area of study he was intending to lead and support. It was a Masters Degree in The History of Ideas. It was going to be a Research Degree and would be open to mature students who could give up three or four years of their evenings and had an interest in the politics of ideas and the idea of politics.

I had spent five years doing an Honours Degree in English Literature and majoring in Modern European Poetry through the Open University. It had consumed my spare time although I was working full time as a teacher. I had funded it myself and it lifted the despair of a difficult time. It restored a sense of self-esteem that I had lost by failing to get to University in the first place.

The Masters Degree was much more demanding of my time but rewarding in so many ways not least to test myself. I must admit, I always knew I could do it if I conquered my own laziness. I was awarded the Masters in 1989 by which time my Teaching career was massively demanding. I was offered the chance to go on to PhD but it would have taken 5 more years part time research. I had spent 4 years of all my spare time reading, researching writing in the libraries at the university and around Manchester and I couldn’t see myself doing the rest. I stopped.

I have written about all this before but I rehearse it here because I have made a joyful discovery – a new podcast led by Professor David Runciman formerly Professor of Politics at Cambridge University. It is a podcast set firmly in The History of Ideas. It is called Past Present Future which, as you will know if you are a regular reader of the Blog, is my obsession. I may have to wake up early in the morning deliberately just to listen each day.

Managed a walk outside again today. Not warm in the breeze. Not sunny in the sky but just feeling alive in the air was reward enough. I managed to bring some sunshine to my wife’s life today. I can’t say that too often. She collects things everywhere we go. She has mementoes all over the place that remind her of a previous experience. For weeks now she has been mourning the loss of an old, scatchy, leather pouch which she uses to hold tissues in her bag. She bought it in Corfu in 1982. It was our second Greek trip. We hired a motorbike and toured the island. It was incredibly hot.

This was her memento of that time. She has carried it with her every day for 44 years. Suddenly, it was gone and no amount of searching would regain it. Until today. I went out to the car with a floodlight torch and, after 10 minutes going slowly around every crevice, there it was and joy was unbounded.

Tuesday, 3rd February, 2026

Another dreary, dark and damp start to the day illuminated only by my monthly check on the NS&I Premium Bond ‘prizes’/earnings. At the risk of repeating myself monthly, I had a spare pot of cash that I wanted to invest with two conditions: it had to be easy access and I wanted the earnings to be tax-free. Having used our full ISA allowance for the year, the one place both of those conditions could be met was in Government Bonds.

I have had £18,000.00 in Premium Bonds for 5 months now and have ‘won’ £375.00 or an average of £75.00 per month. It puts me on line for earnings of £900.00 over the year which is the equivalent to 5.0% tax-free earnings. I had set my baseline as 4% or £60.00 per month so I am up and I still have that tantalising prospect of winning one of the many much larger awards – from £25,000.00 – £1 million. I’ve just read that 3 people in Grt. Manchester each won £100,000.00 this month. I’m moving back!

While I worry about my Oncology Review on Friday for a cancer that is now the most common to be suffered in the country, my Brother in Law, Kevan, is suffering so much worse with both liver and bowel cancer. It is a heavy burden to carry and we wish him well. A quiet and unassuming man, he must be very scared at this time. It is a lonely place to be. Apparently almost half of us will, at some time in our lives, visit that place.

When you stop to think about it, everywhere at every time is a lonely place to be. It is the nature of existence. Some cope with it by kidding themselves there is a higher being looking over them, giving them purpose. I try to mitigate it by fuelling my head with thoughts, challenging my mind to constantly test the world through ideas and concepts, through philosophy.

I was first really introduced to Philosophy as a Discipline while at Teacher Training College. It was at a time when Education of adults was on the cusp of change and a Lecturer who I admired invited me to take a Philosophy course prior to being invited onto a new Degree course which had been around for about 5 years generally but my College was just preparing to adopt. The B.Ed Degree or PGCE became a requirement shortly afterwards and my cohort were offered voluntary but automatic conversion to the Degree status in the past 5 years rather as Oxbridge graduates can pay to have their Bachelors Degree upgraded to a Masters without the pain and suffering that I had to go through.

My History of Ideas podcast this morning centres on the philosophy of Aristotle. He was a polymath student of Plato but his central philosphical tenet was

belief in the primacy of the individual in the realm of existence is a philosophical, moral, and political doctrine that posits the individual human being as the fundamental unit of reality, value, and rights. It asserts that the individual exists independently of and takes precedence over any collective entity, such as the state, society, or community. 

I wonder who said, There is no such thing as Society. Margaret Thatcher, if you’ve forgotten. Karl Marx would beg to disagree. Of course, both stances can exist at the same time. The podcast this morning propounded the view that Philosphy attempts to understand the world from an individual’s standpoint by describing it whereas Politics takes that understanding and acts on it for social change.

Wednesday, 4th February, 2026

A much better day today – in fact, glorious sunshine from blue sky and reasonably mild at 10C/50F. Had to go out early to the surgery for an INR Blood Test as a cross check to my own which I submit to the Hospital Department every 6 weeks or so. Took the opportunity of walking on the beach before the tide came in.

Must just wish little James Happy 25th Birthday today. Made his card out of one I bought in Age UK which is where he will end up in another 75 or so years. Anyway, we wish him an enjoyable and successful day.

There is something so cleansing and rejuvenating about being on the beach, breathing in that delicious air, smelling the elemental salty ozone of the sea. Scientifically, all life began in the ocean, making the sea our ultimate birthplace. Darwin, had previously hypothesized that all life could have originated from a primordial slime as we crawled inexorably off the ocean floor and on to the land. 

A stir in the broth, a tremor in the ooze,
Where life, in its infancy, began to choose.
From chemical chaos, a membrane took hold,
A fragile beginning, courageous and bold.
No shape, no form, a quivering of gray,
Driven by forces that carved out a way.

Driving home I feel my spirits lifted and myself more optimistic which will help me face Friday’s disclosure. There was a sense of irony in the announcement of government action to identify cancers and treat them much more quickly so that in the next 5 years 75% of sufferers will be treated and potentially cured leading to a return to normal life. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have been an early recipient of that process which the Health Service down here has offered me. I am trying to be optimistic about Friday’s status report.

I wonder what it would be like to be 25 today. Would I swap my life? I can tell you that my wife would in a second. Would I? No, the answer is that I wouldn’t. I feel comfortable in my skin enjoying my wrinkles and my aches and pains. Every single day of my life I do a couple of hours of physical exercise and I really feel the effects of it when I get out of bed in the morning. My legs ache, my back takes time to straighten and my whole body says, Have I got to do this all over again? And then I commit to a new day and it just evolves around me. May it do so for many more days to come.

Thursday, 5th February, 2026

Yesterday was beautiful but turned wet in the evening and has opened dark and wet this morning. The only upside is that it is warm out there 10C/50F. No central heating needed here and only 3 weeks until the official start of Spring so, hopefully, things are looking up. You wouldn’t think that though if you listened to UK farmers.

I remember being shocked in the early 1980s hearing Thatcher say she was always awake early and listening to BBC R4′ Farming Today at 5.45 am. I was shocked because I wouldn’t have thought she and I had anything in common but I did exactly the same thing as her because I wake early and it is absolutely amazing what you can learn about life and our country through agriculture. If, like me, you have listened to a programme about Farming 6 days a week for 40 years, you would not be surprised to find that farmers are unhappy.

Farmers are always unhappy. Nothing is perfect ever for them. It is too wet or it is too dry. It is too hot or it is too cold. Their crops are rarely as abundant as the previous one so their earnings are down or it is a very abundant crop which creates a glut and the crop loses its value so their earnings are down. They were getting subsidies from the EU but many of them voted for Brexit. Their subsidies stopped but the UK government couldn’t afford to maintain them.

Tax policies have been incredibly generous to landowners and no prizes which favoured those. The Tories saw farmland prices soar as wealth people avoided paying tax by buying up huge swathes of land often claiming even more savings by planting forests. Then, of course, inheritance tax can be offset to the tune of £3 million for a couple. How many of us would like the chance to pay inheritance tax with a joint holding of over £3 million?

A cost of living crisis has seen food price inflation make life in the lower echelons of society really a struggle. The cost of fresh food is high although the farmers say they don’t benefit from it. Major supermarkets buy in bulk and squeeze the suppliers.This morning, the Head of Gousto, a supplier of meal advice and the fresh produce to produce those meals was interviewed on Farming Today. He shocked me by saying that price point at which he could entice customers in was £3.25 per person per meal. Who could survive on a meal of that cost?

I haven’t eaten a ‘ready meal’ almost since I got married although we did go through a period when we had a fantastic Chinese takeaway in our village of Helme in West Yorkshire and Friday night became Chinese night. Funnily enough, I would be sent out to collect it and I would regularly meet our Director of Education for Oldham doing exactly the same thing. We considered it our dirty, little secret which we paid for the next morning when we woke with very dry mouths as a result of all the monosodium glutamate which they used as a flavour enhancer. Now fresh fish and fresh vegetables are our staples and are not cheap. It would be hard to assemble a main evening meal under £30.00 for 2 people and that is without wine.

Friday, 6th February, 2026

A grey, grey, day compensated for by being mild and dry. At 12C/54F, it feels quite pleasant. Still, I’ve spent the first hour of the morning in my Office, sorting out my investments as I do at the beginning of every month. My tax payments have been quite erratic recently. One month I was advised they’d been increasing. The next month I got a huge repayment because of overpayment in the past. This month I hope will see stability at least until April when Pay/Pensions increase and Annual Interest is incorporated.

I’ve also been completing the monthly ONS Health Insight Survey which I’ve been doing for years. It asks me about Doctor Surgery services, Pharmacy services, Hospital services and Dental services. I have to say that all are excellent here in spite of the boom in house building and the consequently expanding demands on all of these services. I do feel very lucky to have such a wonderful medical support as I get older and inevitably have more call on them.

Today, it is my second, annual Oncology Review. It will be based on a blood test for Prostate Specific Antigen and for Hormone levels plus a full body MRI scan. I am preparing my personal shield for the bad news while leaving a bottle of champage in the wine cooler to chill for celebrations of the good news. Should I open the box or take the money. You decide. Wish me luck, Dear Reader.

Pleased to say that all has gone well. I’m sitting in my Office and toasting the Spring to come with a glass of Champagne. Just had my Oncology Review after blood tests and MRI scan. All is clear and well. Life can continue …. for now.

Saturday, 7th February, 2026

Life never stands still, Dear Reader, although looking outside this morning you would be forgiven for believing otherwise. It’s raining AGAIN. However, when I got up this morning, I immediately had a problem to fix. None of the TVs would receive anything. Had to rapidly search for an alternative source of Radio 4 over Breakfast. Alexa, Play BBC Radio4.

The Sky Q Box network that I’ve been using since I came down here is coming towards the end of its life. Before that, it was satellite dishes, then internet-fed Q Boxes with large hard drives. Now it is moving on to a purely Streaming Service without facility to record and save programmes in the old fashioned way. It is only possible to make an online list to download in the future.

My Q-Boxes had temporarily stopped communicating with my BT Hub and although I knew how to fix it, I didn’t want to be charging round room to room while enjoying my orange juice. It’s not a great start to the day.

When I examined the current position with my Q-Box service which costs me around £120.00 per month to view all channels across 5 TVs, I found that they had stopped selling it a few months ago and will stop supporting it in 3 years time. I will be forced to move on to steaming only. The Satellite Dish can be removed and the Q-Boxes junked but like so much progress, we will take a bit of time adjusting.

I was told that ‘young people’ don’t view like we do. They mainly access content through apps and don’t need hard drives to reserve their entertainment. I have to grow ‘young’ and just face it. At least the new, streaming delivery is mediated through small ‘Pucks’ as they call them and I can have 6 of them to serve an extra bedroom so I will only need Freeview in one room.

I often think younger generations bleat on about their hard life as if it isn’t hard for every preceding one. I am beginning to realise, that the Boomers have definitely had the best of things. I was listening to a Newsagents Podcast this morning and the more I listened, the angrier I became. Young person after young person who had taken out a student loan at the age of 17 – before they could legally go in a pub and could definitely not have fully understood the implications of their loan – left University with a debt of just under £50,000.00 and ten years on after paying 9% of their salaries found themselves owing around £75,000.00. This caused by an unacceptable annual increase of RPI +3%.

All this comes at a time when they should be buying a house, settling down and having children. I went on later to listen to BBC MoneyBox in which a girl talked about her joy at obtaining a £250.000 mortgage having first saved £38,000.00 as a deposit. You just have to imagine what salary she needed to be in that position. I must try to be more understanding in future.

Sunday, 25th January, 2026

On this bright and sunny Sunday, I missed church and worshipped at the altar of political discussion. I was watching Trevor Philips show on Sky as he quoted some of my favourite lines from the Irish poet, William Butler Yates writing during the First World War:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

The Second Coming – William Butler Yeats

You don’t need too interrogate those lines too closely to understand their relevance to our current world. It feels as if everything one has taken for granted in life is ceasing to hold true.

There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

― Vladimir Lenin

This morning, we have Trump (A Draft Dodger himself) rowing back on his ill informed comments on Allied troops contribution in Afghanistan. We have America going full-Fascist with ICE militias intimidating the citizens of Democrat towns, hauling them off the streets and, with impunity, shooting dead those who resist. We’ve had a Nato member threatening to invade another Nato country and take possession of it. We’ve had an American president threaten to impose tarrifs on his ‘allies’ who refuse to bend to his will.

Netanyahu in Israel is continuing to kill Palestinians in spite of a supposed ‘peace’. Putin in Russia is continuing to kill Ukranians in spite of current ‘peace talks’. And Trump is proposing to Head a Board of Peace which includes all these right wing warmongers as an alternative challenge to the United Nations.

At home, we have had Andy Burnham bidding to re-enter Parliament and to challenge the Labour Leader. We are witnessing the rise of an extreme Right Wing, Racist Party in the minds of the dispossed who see it as some way to kick the established order. Scottish Nationalism and Welsh Nationalism are on the rise. There is a groundswell in the country to reassess the Brexit debacle which has left us poorer and more isolated as we predicted. It is either the best time to be in politics or the worst time to be in politics as Keir Starmer is finding.

If you want a bit of tranquility, you couldn’t find a better place than the South Coast. I know they are quite common but I just loved the sight of this scallop shell swept up on to the sea wall and now basking in the sunshine. That’s what we should all be doing, Dear Reader, basking in the sunshine away from the world of turmoil.

There is no respite. We are just hearing at Lunchtime today, that the Mayor of Greater Manchester has been denied the chance to re-enter Parliament and challenge the Prime Minister. They think it is a way to keep the show on the road. It may be the match that lights the blue touch paper. This week should tell us.

Monday, 26th January, 2026

Dull Monday. At least it is warm and dry. I am cleaning up my databases of photographs on my computer. They are all saved in the Cloud so available on Desktop, Laptop, iPad and smartphone from anywhere I am. They are invaluable records but they can take over if you’re not careful.

I’ve always enjoyed photograhy both for itself and as an historical record. I’ve had a string of cameras from a Box Brownie in the 1950s/60s, a Polaroid Instant and a Ricoh SLR camera in the 1980s to a Digital SLR Canon in the 1990s/2000. The cameras chart the History and record the History similtaneously. I am particularly suited to it because I only have sight in my right eye although I do have a struggle with myself between recording or just enjoying the moment.

Incidentally, I wrote recently of having to visit a Consultant at theSussex Eye Hospital. I had been referred by the Diabetic Eye Screening Service where my eyes are checked twice a year. They thought I had a detached retina. I have always worried that my sight would deteriorate and stop me driving and that eye sight tests for older drivers is current in Government at the moment. The letter I received this morning from my Consultant put all those fears to bed. He reported that I had no detached retina and that I had 6/6 vision in my healthy eye which is the equivalent of the American 20/20 vision. I can read the whole chart at the opticians although I struggle a bit with the bottom line.

Anyway, this morning I found these old Polaroid shots from 1980 but they are so much more than photographs. They remind me of the early days of my marriage when we were decorating our first house. My wife wanted wallpaper everywhere and not just any old wallpaper. She had seen this Osborne & Little William Morris Willow pattern in a magazine and was desperate to have it at £50.00 a roll (in 1980!!). It was in a design magazine and also featured the ‘latest’ colour television from Philips. So, the deal was that she got her wallpaper and I got the TV. Goodness knows how I watched it at that size.

On the right, the polaroid featured the one and only Nissan (Datsun Cherry) car I have ever bought. It was brand new and only lasted about a year. It was bought to replace the mini which had been destroyed in our big accident. We picked it up and immediately drove back to Old Nathans farmhouse parking it proudly on the drive. We were both still recovering from time in hospital and recuperating at Old Nathans. The car was badly built and the wing mirror fell off as we drove it to a Honda showroom to buy something better.

You see (and I can.), there is life in cameras and photographic records. They revive the past and on a grey, empty day there aint no sunshine when your gone.

Tuesday, 27th January, 2026

Here comes the rain again
Falling on my head like a memory
Falling on my head like a new emotion 

Unless you’re down with the kids like me, you won’t get this reference but don’t worry. We can’t all be eternally young. It rained torrentially all night and continued until mid morning. It is raining all over the country and all over Europe.

On the Greek island where we lived, it has been positively biblical in its quantity. They will be rejoicing because it will refill the aquifers and supply the island with much needed resources for the coming summer.

Of course, in the Mediterranean it changes as quickly as it arrives. The residents may be still bailing out but the world has moved on and beauty has returned.

I’ve been continuing to trawl through my Polaroid memories. I’d forgotten that I used to be James Bond. It has all come as a bit of a shock. These photos come from 1980 when I was only 29 yrs old. What were you doing in 1978, Dear Reader? What ever it was, I hope you’ve stopped. It’s not good for you.

A sign of the times, I’ve just received a couple of new, Office Chairs. I spend so much time in there that the current ones are fraying a bit at the edges. As you will know, Dear Reader, we can’t afford frayed edges at our age. This will be our third set over the past decade. I should be nearly 80 yrs old by the time I need some more. Anyway, they need to be constructed this afternoon with the gas struts inserted and the leather seats and backs built around the mechanism. I have done it so many times now it is almost instictive.

Wednesday, 28th January, 2026

Lovely, sunny day although I will not really get out in it. In fact, it is a bit of concern that I am not getting enough sunshine on my skin at the moment. Exercise has been largely in the Gym. Yesterday, I was so tired after 3 hours workout in the Gym, I couldn’t face the chairs. This morning, I’ve unpacked one and laid out all the parts.

This is the plan and I’ve got two of them to construct. It is not my favourite activity, I must admit although I am better at it and more methodical now. In my youth, I always went at it like so many things as a bull in a china shop. Typical Aries. It often ended up broken rather than built. Unfortunately, I’ve got two of these to complete this morning. Then I have to book a slot at the tip to get rid of the old ones and the packaging.

I’m a writer and researcher not a builder, mechanic or scientist. I was listening to an interesting article on Radio 4 this morning about a group of UK scientists who had found signs of Dementia Onset were much earlier than formerly thought. They believe that the conventional signs of memory loss are preceded up to a decade earlier through language and writing. Dementia is often described as a condition of memory loss, but this is only part of the story. In its earliest stages, dementia can affect attention, perception and language before memory problems become obvious.

They focussed on Terry Pratchett’s writing because the author famously suffered and died of Dementia and because they believe Language offers a unique window into cognitive change. The words we choose, the variety of our vocabulary and the way we structure description are tightly linked to brain function. Even small shifts in language use may reflect underlying neurological change. Across Pratchett’s later novels, there was a clear and statistically significant decline in the diversity of adjectives he used.  It was a subtle, progressive change detectable only through detailed linguistic analysis.

My relationship with language has been a joy to me throughout my life. Having a wide vocabulary has given me a real sense of power and understanding. The further I went with my own education, the more developed my vocabulary became. I realised that understanding and concepualisation is intimately tied up with language and vocabulary. You know, it is impossible to understand a concept without the vocabulary to describe it.

My word power appears to have strengthened with age. Partly it is confidence that counts. As I get older, I am less worried about making and admitting mistakes. Who cares. I have nothing to prove. Also, I have Google at my fingertips. Something fascinating to me has happened in recent years. I do some writing and pluck a word out of the air because it seems appropriate. I look at the word having used it and think, I’m not even sure what that word means. I look it up on Google and find it means exactly what I needed it to mean. I think we all have a much bigger store of words than we realise but you have to use them to avoid losing them.

Perhaps you should keep a Blog, Dear Reader? They are all the rage. I’d read it. Maybe a podcast. Now, I’d definitely listen to that.

Chairs installed and they feel younger and firmer. That’s what we need, younger and firmer! They look good too so that is a bonus.The old ones are in the back of the car with the packaging from today and the tip is booked for 9.30 am.. And I’ve actually exposed my body to the sunshine. Been outside for a long walk this afternoon down through the park and the skeleton Silver Birches reflected in the lake. Felt good. Walking encourages conversation.

Thursday, 29th January, 2026

It is 7.00 am on a dull, lowering morning. It feels cold out there and only measures 7C/45F. I have an appointment at Phlebotomy at 8.20 am. It is prior to a Review with Oncology next week. I had my full body scan almost two months ago and have not had my review brought forward so I’m hoping that bodes well. The blood tests this morning check PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) and Hormone levels.

I can tell you at least one of them is back to normal and I’m fairly confident that the other will be alright as well. I will report next Friday. Everything for the rest of the year depends on a good result. Twelve weeks in Europe, and a week in the North of England are what we are working towards. I can’t find room for medical emergencies at this stage.

Met a lovely girl this morning in the Plebotomy Office. She told me she was Brazilian and had come to UK by mistake. Her sister won a competition when they were living in the Amazon Rain Forest. The prize was a trip for two to London. She came over with her sister. It was in their University holidays. They visited Brighton while they were here and found the University was somewhere they could complete their studies. She did exactly that and meanwhile fell in love with an English boy. She never went home. She has two kids and her 85 year old parents visited last year all the way from the Amazon Rain Forest where they still live. Oh, and she took two phials of blood from my left arm. I was in there for less than 5 minutes.

I went on to the Fish Outlet down at the beach. I bought 2 kilos of Cod Loin – quite expensive at the moment at £35.00 per kilo. That does 4 meals for two people. Still it is wonderful quality and will be served wrapped in Pancetta and roasted with asparagus.

Exercise will definitely be in the Gym today. I have been gradually ratchetting up each week over the past month the amount I do by 10 mins per day. So, from today, I have to achieve 2 hrs 20 mins each day. I will increase again for the next 2 weeks until I have achieved 2 hrs 30 mins per day. That will be enough. The job then will be to maintain it at that level through the rest of the Winter. I am watching a compulsive espionage drama involving the Whitehouse going through a cross between a Kennedy, Clinton and Trump Presidency.

Scandal is an American political thriller broadcast over 124 episodes in 7 Series on Disney+. It is centred around Washington DC and the Whitehouse and involves a ‘political fixer’ who used to work for the President and had an affair with him. There are times when I think it is a little bit light weight and then I am suddenly brought up short when I hear echoes of Trump’s first Presidency. Even the heroes are corrupt and the philosophy underlines that it is almost essential to break the rules to gain and maintain one’s grasp on the levers of power. In that sense, it could be considered quite depressing. I find the relationships compelling.

Friday, 30th January, 2026

A nice, bright sunny morning of 10C/50F. Yesterday, I took the old computer chairs to the local Recycling Tip. There is something about that process that appeals to me. Out with the old and in with the new and I feel the house breathing more comfortably. Today, having established that the new set of cooking pans are right, a number of the perfectly serviceable but superfluous to purpose older pans and roasting trays are going to Age UK along with a bag of the constant flux of my wife’s clothes.

Someone will find use for high quality cookware being sold off very cheaply. I understand these things are no longer secondhand but pre-loved and it is ‘a thing’. It is part of the reaction to my throw away culture. As we move towards 75, it is a charity worth supporting, Dear Reader. They’ll be leaving US there for sale soon. They appeared delighted with the pans.

I read a very sad post on our village’s Facebook page yesterday. It was a working couple who had been renting a house for quite a number of years but were being made homeless because their Landlord was wanting to sell the property. They were struggling to find a one bedroom flat at a rent they could afford. There is something wrong when two, working adults cannot afford a home in the area that they work. It made me sad as they pleaded they were good, reliable people. It made me feel how lucky I am to never feel that insecurity.

If you are a regular reader, you may know that I have an undimished antogonism towards organised religion – well, religion in all its forms but I am comfortable in seeing others delude themselves if that is what they need to get by. What I am not prepared to accept is the influence of organised religion – Church of England, Roman Catholicism, etc – on the state and on society. The Church of England is still formally part of the apparatus of the British state through the monarchy and the House of Lords. The claim throughout my life has always been that we are a Christian country. In reality, we haven’t been for a long time but now it is factually demonstrable and disestablishment of the church would recognise that.

Since 2018 the United Kingdom has been classified as a secularised, post-Christian society that is predominantly irreligious. Surveys since 2018 have indicated that a large majority of Britons do not believe in God, an afterlife, or regularly attend religious service. A 2020 YouGov poll found that just 27% of Britions believed in a “a god”. Churches are empty and falling down. The Catholic and Protestant organisations have been rocked with scandals which their hierarchies have sort to cover up to maintain some semblance of reputation.

Politics is a powerful influencer. Last year we were told by the Bible Society that there was a new, revival in faith and church attendance led by Gen.Z – those born between 1997 -20012 so now aged 14-29. This was hailed as the future proofing of organised religion and maintaining church buildings and clergy stipends along with political integrity. Media outlets including the BBC just parroted this belief as if it was fact. I must admit I was shocked and doubted it from the outset. It felt like wishful thinking then and now we know it was.

The National Centre for Social Research – an independent research organisation of 50 years experience – produced its annual British Social Attitudes Survey results which categorically refuted the Bible Society assertions. The long term trend of the decline in religious belief and affiliation continues at pace.

I have rarely been able to understand the need to create salvation through myth. If our intelligence tells us that it is not testable, verifiable or believable without suspending all, human scrutiny then it is not worth what is claimed for it. This is the only eternity that I recognise and need – the world in which I live and die.

Saturday, 31st January, 2026

Seeing January out with a beautifully sunny day and blue sky. It’s 10C/50F which apparently is about average for the time of year down here. Actually going outside for a walk again today to soak up the sunshine and the Vitamin D crucial for bone, teeth, and muscle health.

I was chatting over the net to my dear old friend, John, yesterday. We shared digs for a couple of years in the early 70s. I have to say that we didn’t have too much in common back then. He was/is Northern, religious, quiet and thoughtful – gentle even. Back in 1969 I got drunk for the one and only time of my life under the influence of my other digs mate, Nigel, and John was there to hold my head over the toilet while I was sick. It was my first bottle of red wine but not my last. I blame Nigel for many things.

John is an all round good person who puts me to shame. He pushed himself to achieve the Doctorate that I should have but wasn’t prepared to commit my time to. He spends a restless Retirement – speaking and raising money for good causes like this One World Welfare Mission in Pakistan. He plays in a Folk Group called The Dales Folk and has done for years.

He takes parties of tourists around his beloved Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal near his home in North Yorkshire. And just to prove he is not entirely paraochial, he travels regularly to South Korea, of all places, to visit his son who teaches out there. After 50 years, we met again for coffee in Ripon and it was a lovely reunion where I saw him in a different light through my more mature eyes. I’m looking forward to catching up with him again this year.

I must admit Folk Music was never for me. People tried to get me down to the Folk Music sessions in a local pub. Unfortunately neither the environment or the music was my sort of thing. I really don’t do pubs. I probably haven’t been in more pubs than I can count on the fingers of two hands over the past 50 years. I find them uncomfortable and not very friendly places. This music is what does it for me with a glass of red wine and some olives but then it would be a boring world if we all liked the same.

Sunday, 18th January, 2026

It’s slow Sunday again. You know the hoardes are walking smartly down the street to church …. err, No. A handful of lonely, old ladies in thick coats sniffle in a cold and echoing church inhaling the acrid smoke of a few candles which flicker in the darkness and hardly raise the temperature to bearable. Church is definitely going.

Church Going (1954) – Philip Larkin

When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

………

Only in separation – marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these – for which was built
This special shell? For, though I’ve no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

In these sorts of days I centre my time on Sunday Newspaper reading, Blog writing, Gym workout and afternoon football which I share with friends in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Great match yesterday as Man.Utd. played like Man.Utd. for the first time in years. On a high, how did I celebrate?

I helped my Housekeeper work out how to clean the ovens. They are new in the last few months and have catalytic, self-clean linings. The AEG handbook describes how to set the cleaning programme off but it was clearly written by a Swedish-German who has used Google Translate to turn it into English.

I must admit it’s the sort of technical challenge I welcome. It’s a great way to spend Saturday evening. Eventually, I got there and the oven spent an hour burning off all the grime from Roast Chicken. No chemicals are needed and it was left gleaming and brand new. Modern technological advances make life more complicated but so much better.

In 1949, my Mother refused to move in to my Dad’s house before he ripped out the black lead cooking range from the 1890s and replaced it with a ‘modern’ gas cooker and grill. How the hell she cooked for a family of 9 on even that ‘incredibly modern’ gas cooker goodness knows. She produced cakes and pastries virtually every day in that oven. Bacon and egg with toast every morning to send us off to school and work with energy. In retrospect, it was heroic.

Just perked the afternoon up by booking a couple of visits to France – one in March and one in May. They will be mainly wine buying but with the chance of visiting my old school friend in Arras as well. I don’t know if it is booking early or a sign of the times but the Return Shuttle costs were half that of last year. In March they cost me just £59.00 each way for the car and passengers and just £65.00 in May. It was almost exactly double that last year.

Monday, 19th January, 2026

A mild, damp and grey morning. It is annual service day forthe security system – the Burglar Alarm and CCTV cameras. Don’t you just love Technology, Dear Reader? No? Oh, you really are missing out. Sitting in a Greek Taverna and watching your garden grow back home. Walking round a Spanish Supermercado while checking a delivery man at your door. Laying in bed in the Canaries and checking the security lighting in my hallway. I can do that from Laptop, iPad and smartphone. At home I can do it in BIG from my TVs. Just love it!

Talking about gadgets, I’ve being looking at the recent upgrade of this TV Projector over the weekend.

I have politics, Netflix and Music playing out wherever I am in the house and garden. This gadget would mean not needing so many TV sets but is portable and just needs a wall for projection. It doesn’t even need cable connectivity because it has a rechargeable battery and connects via wifi. It allows one to project everything any TV can but across the internet. The internet is the greatest improvement in life since the Industrial Revolution and arguably greater.

Trying to get a Gym session in before the Service men arrive. Why is it always men? I can watch Keir Starmer’s address to the nation over while exercising. This is the most dangerous of times. Trump is dangerously self-obsessed and could spark conflict at any time. He makes Putin and Xi look almost rational and predictable .

On a lighter note: for some time now, we haven’t really needed to shop for food. We just have to go down to the beach and collect it for free. A Container Ship in the channel shed its load of containers which subsequently spilled their contents and gradually flooded our South Coast beaches first with bananas, then with onions and last week with ‘frozen’ chips. Every time it happens, the Local Authority has to send out rmies of workers to clean it all up. The containers themselves present a huge job in recovery. Some shipping line is going to get a massive bill.

Tuesday, 20th January, 2026

Love sunny morning and quite mild. My memory box says that it is fifteen years ago this week that we were driving down from Surrey to check on our new-build duplex apartment and organise our finances because it was the first property that we would buy with our own cash. We found a property that still wasn’t finished and we only had time to move our furniture in before we set off on our drive to Greece at the beginning of April.

At least it served a purpose while we still had two properties and our £250,000 almost doubled when we sold 5 years later when the word Duplex was out and Mews Cottage was in. What is really interesting and shocking to us is that the same properties are now selling for less than ours did 10 years ago. There is a move away from these types of properties towards separate houses – a move which was encouraged by the pandemic.

Housekeeper is worrying about the dangers of a mega Chinese Embassy in central London and the risks of spying compromising security and I am worrying about tarrif wars destabilising the world economy and our retirements in the mix. Suddenly, Housekeeper’s spirits are lifted when her long awaited Kitchen Equipment arrives all the way from Switzerland via a Wolverhampton Industrial Estate.

She has gone for some of the most expensive from Kuhn Rikon who I had never heard of because she doesn’t expect to do it again and these pans come with a Lifetime Guarantee. I should be quite old by the time that is up. Anyway, she is happy and that’s what matters.

Now, the Gym awaits. I don’t know why I’m doing it. I caught myself on the CCTV yesterday while it was being serviced and I walk like an OLD MAN! I’ve got get a grip on myself, Dear Reader. Really! What made it worse was the Service was done by the most lovely lad called Joe. He lives in Bognor Regis and had started last year as an apprentice. He is just 19 years old. He told me he went abroad for the first time last Summer with his girlfriend to Paris. I told him I wanted to see wedding plans by the time he returns next January. Can you imagine being that young? When he left, I told my wife I wanted to adopt him and she phoned his employers to put in the request. Unfortunately, we weren’t the first.

Wednesday, 21st January, 2026

Torrential rain all night and it continues this morning. I’m going to get soaked just walking across the garden to the Gym. And, even at 7.30 am, it’s dark! I was thinking how the mornings were already noticeably starting to get lighter earlier but this has reversed it. I should have gone abroad but I was mindful of the 90 day rule for Schengen.

Ten years ago this month we were well into the second month of our stay on Tenerife having spent the whole of the previous November. It was calm, relaxing and self-indulgent and that is what I don’t need at the moment.

I can’t live without my computer wherever I am in the world. I have a Desktop and a Laptop both with the same software so I can transition seamlessly beteen the two. The Laptop travels with me abroad. Of course, I can’t take my Laser Printer or my Scanner but I cope. Essential software includes:

• Microsoft Office 365 – Word, Excel Spreadsheet, Access Database, Outlook Email, etc.
• Macomedia Dreamweaver (Web Design), Fireworks (Graphic Design), Flash (Motion Design)
• Adobe Acrobat and Photoshop
• MS Money (Accounting)

Really, a computer is only as good as its software and the list above costs much more than the computer to buy. One of the annoying things is the software developers answer to piracy has been to make software ‘rentable’ rather than a one-off hard copy purchase. MS Office 365, for example, now costs me £105.00 per year. That’s why I am still using older verions of hard copies of most of the other software.

Five years ago today, I purchased my current Desktop Computer. We used to have a rule that a computer had a working life of 3 years. This one has been and continues to be fantastic. HP (Hewlett Packard) have developed an online management system that makes them confident enough to sell a 5 Year Onsite Support Warranty for just £26.40 because they know it won’t be needed. It hasn’t been. The Computer is working as well as it did when I bought it.

But this is all part of the way I view Retirement. It is a case of constantly trying to keep the plates spinning. The plates are personal health, financial health, property health all being kept up to speed. The first two seem to be going well currently but I am having to address the fact that our home is approaching 10 years old now so a review is being carried out by my Housekeeper/Site Manager of wear and tear defects that need restoration. Today, I am contacting a Sussex Firm called SnagDoctor to repair a number of surface defects. We have a small chip in a wood laminate floor, a discolouration stain on the surface of a Hall stand and a kitchen worksurface joint that is looking a bit less than perfect.

Thursday, 22nd January, 2026

Another dark and dreary day. It’s an expanded shopping day. Sainsburys, Dunelm, Tesco and we have to throw away a lot of delivery cardboard and the old bin at the Tip. The house breathed a sigh of relief. The difference between Tesco and Sainsburys clientele is really marked. It is an uncomfortable distinction.

While I was driving, I received a phone call from the oncologist with a date to talk about my annual review. It will be an uncertain time but I am optimistic.

Optimism is one of my saving graces. There are experiences in life that we either dismiss and move on or bank and pledge to find a solution to in the future. Almost all my failed experiences in life have stayed with me and I am resolved to find solutions to them. I must admit I have one which is probably unresolvable.

My family has always been a problem. My father died before he could be significant to me. My Mother was a nighmare. She was exceptionally controlling. At the time, I put it down to the death of my father and her need to assert control over her large family without a man in the home. There may have been something in that but it went far beyond that and into self centred domination.

Much of this was met with resistance from me which was characterised as teenage angst and I blamed myself but, in later life I discovered that my brothers and sisters had clearer perceptions of it than me. My Mother was never satisfied with me. She saw me as a failure. I was worth so much more. I had let her down. My brothers and sisters were so much more successful. Why couldn’t I be like them?

That is what she wanted me to think. That is what our conversations implied. I phoned her twice a week in adulthood. My individualism, my morality, my professionalism were never enough. My brothers and sisters were paragons set against my own achievements. She tried to direct my education/career to control my girlfriends/wife and I isolated myself from my over-achieving siblings from an early stage.

When we did meet up at her death, I was amazed to find their experience was not so dissimilar to my own. I found that they felt she had played us all off against each other, leading us all to feel we had failed in comparison. It was her game of life. It fixed us for life on the losing side. It was rather like the Catholicism she espoused and inculcated. We were taught that we carried original sin from birth, a stigmata that we could never resolve, never throw off. I must admit, I have never thrown it off and I have always blamed her for that. I have carried my failure and guilt. At least in late adulthood, I was able to tell her that even though she didn’t want to hear it. Like James Joyce’s Stephen Dedalus, she got to hear my Non Serviam to her chagrin.

I couldn’t care less about the Beckhams or their familial problems but it did strike a chord with me. My family was never poor. It was never unsure about its home, sustenance or warmth. We were as Middle Class as they come. We were always cared for. We were always secure. These are things I will always be thankful for but I am so sorry that I have been left with such a feeling of failure, of unworthiness, of disappointment in my life. I am so sorry that she made that happen.

Friday, 23rd January, 2026

Friday again. Dark and wet again. Another week draws to a close. Actually, as we come to the ten year anniversary of the completion of our house, we have been conducting a review. The plates are still spinning and we either move or deal with the signs of wear & tear. Actually, we have been doing it for quite a while. The ‘white goods’ have been replaced – Washing machine, Tumble Dryer, Dishwasher, Wine Cooler, Ovens. Areas of paintwork that inevitably get scratched just in the processes of living have been touched up or repainted completely by my Housekeeper.

There are some things that are less easy and catch my eye all the time to the point where I was going to have a full and costly refurbishment. The wood laminate Hall flooring has a couple of areas of damage probably from small, sharp stones brought in on trainers. One of the kitchen worksurface angle joints has slightly separated and started to wear away at the edges. Both of these could be replaced with a completely new Hall floor and a completely new kitchen worksurface but it would be very disruptive. Not least, the kitchen backsplash is not tile but continuous bonded glass which the worksurface goes under. Removal of one may mean removal of both.

For the sake of four, small defects, it would cost a few thousand pounds. Housekeeper, in a moment of inspiration, Googled ‘Surface Repairers’ and came up with three in our area who do exactly what we need. I contacted SnagDoctor with photographs and was told they were easy problems to solve at a cost of just £300.00. He is arriving at 8.00 am this morning.

Jumping ahead for the sake of the narrative. The snag doctor turns out to be something of a magician. The repairs are way beyond my expectations. For just £300.00 the results are incredible and with minimal disruption. I have his number on speed dial for future reference when Life inevitably knocks into Reality.

While the house is being repaired, I am playing with Artificial Intelligence software. I have asked it to create a logo for my Blog Site. It is a way to test drive a number of different AI clients.

I am using Microsoft CoPilot, Chat GTP and Google Gemini. I defined the Title, the colours and described its function. The AI agent did the rest. I’m not completely happy with any of them and I would go back for amendments but the MS Copilot offering which comes with my MS Office 365 is my favourite. What do you think, Dear Reader. Answers on a postcard.

Early afternoon and the worker has gone. The sun is out and the sky is blue. I’ve done my full Gym workout and the rest of the day is my own. What shall I do?

I went down to the beach. We were told it would be an exceptionally high tide over the next few days. It was certainly crashing on the shingle. There is something about the meeting of land, sea and sky that is so huge, global and scary as well as challenging, optimistic and promising.

Saturday, 24th January, 2026

Gloriously sunny morning with clear blue sky but rather an edge on the air. On the South Coast, it is only 9C/48F. In Hernando County, Florida which is 5 hrs behind us so the middle of the night as I write, it is going to reach 26C/79F. It is where little Mandy will be celebrating her 61st birthday. Quite astonishing.

I can see myself failing at hopscotch with her in Scouthead back in 1978 – a chubby, little blob. I can see her home from university with all her life ahead. Now she spreads her time between Florida and Surrey. Flying back and forth. Enjoying retirement, playing golf and coping with her husband.

All my life, I have been political even though it has taken different forms. I suppose rejection of my parents’ beliefs was an important step and was wrapped in religion and morality but inherently political for all that. It is important to admit that I am not actively political in a physical way. I did not/do not go on demonstrations, accost MPs in the constituency offices or stand on street corners making speeches. I am actively passive. I do it through words.

I am what is pejoratively referred to as a keyboard warrior. People like me are becoming more not less important to the political debate. Social Media – Facebook, Twitter (X), Threads, Bluesky, Instagram, TikTok, etc are filled with people like me. We are the guardians of the polity. These days, we are more. We inform the Mainstream Media – press, radio, tv, etc. We inform the new media like podcasts which is where so much of political debate is accessed these days.

https://www.globalplayer.com/podcasts/episodes/7DrwMZf

I would like to convert you, Dear Reader, by one, simple demonstration. If you never listen to anything else in the rest of your life, I implore you to listen to this. It is a podcast by The Newsagents member, Lewis Goodall formerly of Sky News, BBC Newsnight and LBC. It does involve you signing up to a Global Player account but it is free and you never know, you might use it again. If you can and while you are listening, bear these two things in mind:

• The idea of citizens carrying identity cards or having digital identities is current.
• One of Farage’s lieutenants said recently that all immigrants and communists should either be deported or thrown into jail.

Relate those facts to what this podcast records is happening across democratic America. Then breathe and think. I listened to it at 5.00 am this morning but you can save it for a more civilised time. Spoiler Alert: It could Activate you!

If it does or even if it just awakens some stirrings of interest, there are so many other podcasts that you can reach down from the shelf of Global Player. Here are just a few I listen to. You never know, Dear Reader, it could just change your life or persuade you to change the world.

Sunday, 11th January, 2026

Bloody Sunday! Don’t you just hate them. Silent as the grave. Dull and grey but mild. Boring. Let’s get on with the world again even though it’s a nightmare at the moment.

The world is on fire. The old order is being challenged like it hasn’t been since World War 2. Instability is the order of the day and it doesn’t feel comfortable. I have lived my life, we have lived our lives, Dear Reader, under a long period of peace. Yes, we have seen off the Cold War, the ‘Troubles in Ireland’, al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and they were significant in localised ways but Global Geopolitics have never been so fractious in my lifetime.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The Second Coming – William Butler Yeats

The lines above were written by the Irish poet in the immediate aftermath of World War 1 and at the start of Irish War of Independence. His world was much smaller then. Today, the same feeling prevails but it is difficult to be optimistic about any part of the World.

• Iran and Israel compete for dominance of the Middle East with Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and Yemen in the mix.
• Expansionist Russia currently seeks to regain Ukraine but has its sights set on the whole Baltic region and extends that in to EU Europe and out via Denmark to Greenland.
• China claims sovereignty over Tibet, Taiwan and Hong Kong based on historical precedence. It’s interest in Greenland is strategic.
• Geopolitics in South Asia is undergoing a sharp turn. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh tensions are constantly inflamed. Currently, Geopolitics in South Asia are undergoing a sharp turn. Bangladesh has increasingly viewed India as an adversary while leaning towards Pakistan, the very nation from which India helped liberate it in 1971.
• USA expands into South America, threatening Venezuela and into North America threatening Canada and into Europe threatening Denmark and Greenland. In The Middle East, it threatens Iran, Syria and Gaza.

I’m thinking of turning our Garage-cum-Gym into a drone-free bomb shelter. At least it’s got a year’s supply of red wine. I’m going out there to hide now anyway. Unfortunately, the Drama I am watching is centred on an America in the grips of its own self- aggrandisment. Art and Life are intimately intertwined, Dear Reader. Happy Sunday!

Monday, 12th January, 2026

A (relatively) warm, grey morning. Alexa defined my day at 6.00 am by announcing,

John, Today your calendar has one event. Black Bin to put out.

I have to admit, my heart sank a little. Does putting out the bin urge you to get up in the half light on a Monday morning, Dear Reader? It is only my determination and/or stupidity that forced me out into the day.

You have to see all things in perspective. When I was working, I longed for such days to be free to indulge myself. Now, it almost seems like a reproach for being old. I began to think about perspectives in life as I shaved. It is the pin pricks of time that help us see the relevance of the Now. Two, specific ones came to mind as I brushed my teeth. Yes, Dear Reader, I still have teeth. All the better to …. But then you know the children’s fable.

I have picked 1891 – just 60 years before I was born – and 1973 when I was 22 years old. There are many others but these two points explain to me at least who I am. I was born into a fairly insular, East Midlands village of Repton where my Grandfather and Father ran the family firm of Builders – Sanders & Son. I was the product of a strange union between an Atheist and a Roman Catholic; between a village boy and a city of London girl; between a fairly dour and unassuming architect and a pretentiously snobby, articulate artist.

Mum had quickly bought into the prestige of being in a long established village family of entrepreneurs with its extensive antecedents in the Methodist Chapel, Parish Council and Parochial entertainment. It was almost as if she felt grounded, established and complete. It was a union of which D.H.Lawrence would feel vindicated.

So, my first point of perspective is in my discovery of the Mill that brought my ancestors to Repton village when they bought and took over the mill in the mid-19^th century. By 1958, it was in ruins and deserted. It has always hidden in my memory but only made sense when I discovered the true extent of my family’s involvement in and contribution to the locality of my birth. I was amazed to find that my Great Grandparent’s gravestone was in the village graveyard at St Wystan’s church. My parents never mentioned them.

Richard, who had started a Carpentry & Coffin-making business and his wife, Anne, both lived to 70 years old, dying in 1891 & 1898 when my Grandfather took over the business and expanded the firm into a Building and Construction one. He built the house where I was born and referred to in this book – Repton Remembered as Nos. 81 and 83 in Repton Square.

So I was produced by a fairly monosyllabic East Midlander completely grounded in his locality and an articulate and Arty Southerner looking for establishment, acknowledgement and belonging. I have a lot of my father’s doggedness, determination and grit but even more of my Mother’s articulacy, creativity and self-awareness. Like my father, I eschewed Religion. Like my Mother I always wanted to express myself. Unlike my father, I was desperate to leave the confines of village life and move to the South of my mother.

I know this is a long – too long – post and that you will have left me long ago, Dear Reader, but for my sanity I will press on. From the first half you will easily see why the second has such relevance. In 1973, I met James Joyce and A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. It was me! He was describing ME! I couldn’t believe it. I don’t read books. I never read books other than for study or for teaching. I was teaching Advanced Level English Literature for the first time and what should be prescribed for me but This.

I was feeling quite vulnerable, empty and lost at the time. I was beginning to write – poetry mainly – but this book describes Stephen Dedalus, a boy growing up in Ireland at the end of the nineteenth century, as he gradually decides to cast off all his social, familial, and religious constraints to live a life devoted to the art of writing. I had cast off my family, my pretence at religion, my social connections and was living in a hovel in a faded Northern mill town. My father was dead as was his. His mother despairs of him and his rejection of the Catholic faith just as mine did.

One of the defining characteristics of the novel’s rising action is the pattern of following a triumph or epiphany at the end of each chapter by a deflation of that success at the beginning of the next, and this structure models the way in which Stephen’s perspective adapts over time. Of course, Stephen’s surname was not chosen acidentally. Dedalus is Daedalus – the cocky boy who flew too close to the sun and crashed and burned. The story of my life I fear.

Tuesday, 13th January, 2026

A dark morning of heavy rain. It’s going to be an indoors day. I will be in the Gym for a couple of hours but first I’ve got jobs to do. Chef is busy in her domain making soup in the kitchen and I have some Office jobs. First I have to contact my new best friend, Clarisse from St Omer in France where she did an M.A. in Cinematography. Who is Clarisse and how did I meet her?

Well, we bought our kitchen bin from Simple Human. As bins go, it is quite pleasant and cost about £120.00. We bought one 4 years ago and the 2 year warranty was just up when the mechanism broke. I ordered another one and, guess what, after just over 2 years, the bin is not working. I could have rented the bin from them at £1.00 per week and still broken even. The problem is, I recently bought 2 more years supply of their bin bags to fit so I am going to have to buy another one. I thought Simple Human should help me with that so I wrote to them.

Goodness knows why but Clarisse works for their Customer Support Department. She wrote back to me asking for a video of the bin working. The above clip is a love letter to Clarisse. I tried to impress her with my expertise. You see how sad and bored I am.

I’m listening to Chopin again. Never a good sign, Dear Reader. It makes me moody and sad. This Nocturne OP.9 reflects the scene outside and will fill the void that is a wet Tuesday in January.

I’m doing really exciting things now. Contacting the Bowel Screening Programme to request new tests which cease automatically by age 74. They are due in May and I’m 75 in April. I will probably have to pay for a colonoscopy next year at the 3 year anniversary of my last one although I will put the squeeze on my Doctor for an NHS one.

I don’t know what you think about new cars at the moment. I want one every other week never mind every year. My current car, a Honda Self charge Hybrid, is 15 months old and has done a huge 5,000 miles. I had intended to buy a Plug-in Hybrid next time but the current climate is suggesting I should wait. I love my Honda. It is delightful to drive but in an idle moment I have found myself casting round for an alternative. I’m quite taken with the Mercedes GLC all electric.

What I have found is that there are a number of major car manufacturers who are on the brink of collapse and at the head of this group is Nissan which would prove a major headache for UK plc. They tried to get Honda to take them over but Honda found the business wasn’t viable and pulled back. It looks like the writing is on the wall.

To show you how bored I am today, I leave you with a mug shot. I never drink from mugs. We don’t have any in the house by command. I know I am odd but I love cups and saucers. I went through my whole teaching career using a cup and saucer while all around me had their mugs. I found this one quite funny though. You have to give it a minute before you ear it.

Wednesday, 14th January, 2026

The sun is up. The sky is blue. I’ve got a new bin coming too. My new girlfriend, Clarisse, was so impressed with my film that she is sending me a replacement bin immediately. That’s £120.00 saved. What a lovely girl! Actually, she told me the bin had a 10 yr Warranty so I can keep replacing them every two years forever. All it takes is a little bit of effort and a hint of friendliness

I’ve had to order some new ear buds for my iPad and phone. I lost my current ones I think in the airport. I’ve been trying to get on with headphones but they are just too clumsy and uncomfortable. I like the lightness and noise cancelling of in-the-ear buds so Amazon are sending me some today which is nice of them.

My wife copes with Chopin played at high volume from the Office but I need to keep it from people in hotels or on planes and blue tooth earbuds are the best for me. I’ve got 8 flights booked for this year already and passing the time by watching downloads from Netflix is proving really helpful. Earbuds will allow me to do that.

Had to go down to the fish supplier near the beach this morning and everywhere felt like Spring – warm, sunny, windless and joyful. I paid with my phone a bill of £220.00. I don’t even think about it anymore. I never carry cash or cards. I do everything digitally through my phone. High speed broadband is available everywhere now. Even the Fishermen’s shed has it and can process a digital payment.

I, for one, am disappointed that the Digital Identity Card is not going to be universally rolled out as announced today. It will come and it won’t be long. Life is becoming too complicated without it.

Thursday, 15th January, 2026

It is warm but dark and wet – very wet – this morning. You wouldn’t want to go out unless you had to. Unfortunately, I do. I have an appointment at the Sussex Eye Hospital.

I said before that I was born with the sight in my left eye so thoroughly impaired that I can’t see anything but strong light sources. I can’t see people, or anything other than hazy shapes. I certainly couldn’t read or write or watch TV, etc with just that eye. It meant that all through my youth there was a fear that my predeliction to play Rugby and fight a lot would result in my ‘good’ eye being damaged and I would be blind.

I’ve stopped playing Rugby and fight a lot less but I still worry as soon as I get grit in my eye because it temporarily impairs my vision and shows me what it would be like if things went wrong. I had a real panic about 25 years ago when I got up one morning, opened my newspaper (That takes you back.) and I couldn’t read the text. I was sent for an eye test which revealed that a blood vessel had burst in the back of my eye. Fortunately it self repaired over a few hours but I have been monitored twice a year since then.

My check in December was absolutely clear. Excellent eye sight in the chart reading test and no sign of Diabetic Rhetinopathy. However, having happily skipped out of the Hospital, I was disappointed to receive a letter informing me that, on closer analysis of the negatives, a change at the back of the eye had been identified and I would need to attend an Opthalmic Consultant’s clinic for further assessment. That’s where I’m going with some trepidation today. Wish me luck, Dear Reader.

At least they won’t be calling me up for the military as our next fighting force is prepared for World War III. A one-eyed geriatric? No chance.

Well, I am currently sipping a glass of champagne having come home from the Eye Hospital. It is a brand new facility that I was grateful to be seen in. I was met by a Chinese Nurse who put me through a full sight test. With my right eye, I could read every line of the chart. With my left eye, I could not see the chart at all or the Nurse. I had drops put in my eyes. About ten minutes later, I was seen by a lovely chap from Napoli. He scanned my eyes while we discussed my route through Italy to Greece and food we both liked from the country.

I was passed on to the Consultant – a lovely, tiny Vietnamese man – who I took to immediately. He told me that I had been referred to him because the Diabetic Retinopathy Clinic were worried about my left eye. I immediately relaxed because that has been useless to me since birth. They thought I had a detached retina which I only know about because boxers suffer from it. It turns out that I haven’t. All is as it should be. No cataracts either.

What a lovely day. I thought I would share it with you, Dear Reader. I am so relieved. I can see clearly now even though it’s still raining.

Friday, 16th January, 2026

Lovely warm and sunny morning. Woke up thinking how lucky I was after the wonderful news about my eyes yesterday and about the delightful people who I’d met in providing the service. Only one member of NHS staff was native English and that was the Receptionist. Every one of the Medical Staff was foreign. They could not have been more pleasant and, although initially a little reticent, the moment I showed an interest in where they were from, they talked enthusiastically about their homeland. Our Health Service would collapse without them so a Reform vote could be a very dangerous thing. They would prefer us to go for an insurance-based payment system anyway.

I have a mobile contract with EE giving me 2 smartphones and 2 mobile numbers each with unlimited calls, texts and data including European roaming. The 2 yr contract currently costs me 2 x £85.00 = £170.00 per month for the 2. The smartphones are ‘free’ with the monthly payment. Over 24 months they have cost me £4,080.00 but when I get to the end of the contract they are my property and I am entitled to 2 new phones on my contract.

I have 2 Samsung S24 Ultra mobiles and I will be given an upgrade to the next model – Samsung S25 Ultra. It won’t be massively different to look at. The corners are rounded off which I prefer but the chip inside is much quicker in processing everything and the main camera goes from 8MP to 50MP Ultra Wide Camera, 200MP Wide-angle Camera and 50MP/10MP Telephoto Camera. Readers of the Blog will know that it has moved on from all (too much) text to quite a lot of (too much?) illustration. The phone camera is important to me almost as much as the ability to make and receive calls.

For months, EE have been bombarding me with suggestions of ‘free’ early upgrades. What they don’t say but what I know is that they are afraid I will leave them in February when my contract is up. They also don’t say although I know it, if I upgrade early, I have to send my current smartphones back to them in exchange. They think I’m mad. The 2 new phones would cost me 2 x £1350.00 = £2,700.00 if I had to buy them but now I can sell the old ones for around 2 x £500.00 = £1000.00 to offset my monthly bill reducing it by £41.60 a month over the life of the contract.

Things do change so much over time. Since my last mobile contract, I have got rid of my landline. I was interested to read that BT are upgrading all landlines to internet based over the next few months. I haven’t missed my line at all. I used to live with my iPad in my hand. I still have one but now it is my phone I live with in my hand. I am communicating with friends all day even though they are mainly still in the North of England.

My photo Memory Box threw up pictures from a snowy North of England on this day last year, a house in Surrey where M&K had almost destroyed two Christmas Cakes before flying back to Florida 3years ago and M with P&C in Florida just 4 years ago.

Clarisse has been true to me because she’s that type of girl. The new bin has arrived and is accompanied by a 10 year warranty. Just realised, I will be almost 85 before I have to buy another one. I’ll make a note on my on-line calendar.

Saturday, 17th January, 2026

Lovely, bright and warm morning. It’s one when Alexa has announced that I have no commitments. What am I going to do. Well, I’ve been talking to my old friend and Digs-mate, John Ridley about South Korea where he spends lots of time. Did you know that South Korea has the world’s lowest birth rate other than the Vatican City and I think that’s debatable. I keep telling myself that I should go out there and meet him but I can’t quite get up enough enthusiasm – for the country not my friend.

I am booking a couple of short trips to France – one in March and another in May. They will be mainly wine-buying trips but we can hope to fit in a few places to walk in the Spring sunshine as well. I want to get our identities established on the new, Schengen Visa for non-members. It involves face and finger print scan just like the American ESTA. When I go the first time, I will be still 74 but by the second visit, I will have reached ¾ century.

I becoming more and more obsessed with age and achieving all the things I have to do before it’s too late. I look back at my younger self and think of all the things I could and should have done better. It was a different time as all the signs illustrate but it is still close enough to try to understand.

At least United have rediscovered some old, original spirit this afternoon. Well worth waiting for.

Sunday, 4th January, 2026

A cold start to the day after a clear and starry, moonlit night which fell to -3C/27F. Strangely, very few signs of frost and the low, strong sun is already streaming through the windows.

Well, you read it here first only yesterday. The world is already at war. The post WW2 rules-based order has broken down in spectacular fashion. The Americans have invaded a foreign, country and kidnapped its Head of State without even seeking United Nations agreement. Even Bush in Iraq and Libya didn’t do that.

Overnight all newspapers recognise the significance of this action at their own level. Regime Change will be both publicly decried by the Russians and Chinese but they will also see it as tacit legitimation of their imperialistic ambitions in reclaiming Eastern European countries like Ukraine and Taiwan which China has always believed belonged to them. If Trump believes he can get away with it, his next targets are Cuba and Greenland which will force Europe’s hand.

So many of these instabilities in the old order will force Europe to choose and so force UK to choose. War anywhere can quickly spark World War. If you are under 40 years of age, prepare your excuses now if you wish to dodge the Draft. It may well be coming sooner than you think.

In the light of Global Instability, everything else I think or write will seem utterly trivial but then Life must go on. I won’t be called up. I won’t be asked to contribute even though my world and yours, Dear Reader, may well be rocked before we die. All I can do is read, think, write, talk, lobby people in Government. Other than that, I have to enjoy my life and pursue my dreams and goals.

At the beginning of December, I published the latest tally of my experimental investment of £18,000.00 in Premium Bonds. I was rather pleased with myself in reporting that in the first three months I had won five prizes.

January has not let me down even if it was reported rather late. I have won 6 prizes now. Only £50.00 this month but it brings earnings up to £300.00 so far and puts my interest rate on course for 9.4% over the year if you factor in 40% tax rate.

A girl I haven’t seen for more than 50 years posted a picture, a haunt, a memory of my past. Appropriately, it is now closed, rennovated and repurposed. Even the trees are skeletons in a Winter world but it remains beautiful in memory and reality.

And yet we, mere mortals have moved on, mellowed but deteriorated. Memory plays tricks on one’s mind. When you are 20, you feel adult and ready to make a contribution to the world. In retrospect, as this second photo of some of my contemporaries shockingly illustrates, we were still just children mascarading as adults. So much life has passed under the bridge.

However, as I wrote yesterday, these members of the Boomer Generation missed the last world war and will miss the next world war other than as observers. Actually, it will not be a war of tanks and boots on the ground but one of Cyber invasion and Drone attack. I could volunteer for that.

Monday, 5th January, 2026

A cold night and we have quite a hard frost this morning with ice glistening on the pavements. Fortunately, the morning also brought strong sunshine and all the signs of Winter were burnt off almost immediately. My cousin from her house in Bellon in the Charente sent a winter photo

A friend from Greater Manchester posted this morning shot although, I know where I would rather be cold. Actually, I bought Easyjet return flights for Tenerife in November last night and they cost me £150.00 less than this year because I booked early in the ‘Sale’. So, I’ve now got 8 flights booked for 2006 so far and looking round for the next.

Of course I could have been here this week if I hadn’t sold the house. It is the brightness of the light and colours which make it attractive and the fact is is 15C warmer than here.

There was a time when making fresh coffee was a fairly simple and cheap procedure. It certainly isn’t now. A cheap percolator jug, some ground coffee and hot water was all that was needed. The ubiquity of Coffee shops on our High Streets has given us a desire for equally good coffee and modern machines and that has meant technology.

I’m on about my fifth fresh coffee maker and it is by far the best but it is also by far the most demanding of the user. Different Hoppers for different beans. Multiple settings for the grinder and the brewing head in terms of coarsenes of the grind and intensity of the brew have to be learnt and saved. The machine allows me to make and save individualised settings for multiple users. Then there are about 10 different hot and cold coffees to choose from and coffee is fed in between layers of milk to exactly the users preference.

The milk dispenser has to be comprehensively cleaned each day and the water container has to have a new filter unit fitted 6 times a year. And then there is the descaling. I’ve just completed it and it took about an hour of multiple processes. It takes over my life. The coffee is great but how much time have I got? I had to go to the Dentist this morning to have my teeth descaled as well. That’s even worse.

Tuesday, 6th January, 2026

Another cold night but no frost this morning and the sky is deliciously blue and sunny. My friends in Yorkshire seem to be confined to the house this morning. They can watch the outdoors on Sky TV.

First on the list of jobs this morning is to renew my travel insurance. Although I get it ‘free’ through my bank account, I have to pay for additions like special, medical circumstances and now, an age-related extension. Getting older has all sorts of humiliations. You really don’t want to read headlines like this on a Monday morning.

If you read the Blog yesterday, you will see that I reported on the National (Premium) Bonds experiment. I said it had failed me this month. Actually, if you go back to yesterday, you will see I actually won again but it was reported late. Hope springs eternal.

I listen to a radio 4 programme called More or Less which is about popular statistics. I have always liked Maths and Statistics. The programme interrogates and re-evalutes the sorts of figures that public figures and particularly politicians bandy about. This morning, it was looking again at Life Expectancy.

Popular belief is that Life Expectancy can be tracked in an ever rising line on the graph only dented by major events like World War and Pandemic. Many things are predicated on that belief like Retirement Age and Pension payment, Insurance Cover and Driving Qualification, etc..

Actually, from 2011, increases in life expectancy slowed after decades of steady improvement, prompting much debate about the causes. Then, in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic was a more significant turning point, causing a sharp fall in life expectancy, the magnitude of which has not been seen since World War II. In the UK (2022-2024), life expectancy at birth is around 83.0 years for females and 79.1 years for males. 

It is likely that this is a blip in the long term trend but we cannot be sure and, if we can’t afford medical advances because we have to divert money to Defence, then it may take a long time to restart the climb.

If you want a reason to be cheerful, optimism can be found for my age group in these statistics from the ONS. If you have already staggered to the age of 74, your chances are better than for someone who is only starting out on the climb.

Wednesday, 7th January, 2026

Gorgeous morning. Dentist appointment at 8.30 am Just a routine check-up today but I’m spending too much time there. Three trips recently. Still, at least I’ve still got teeth and my dentist is a gorgeous, Persian Pricess called Fariba ( a Persian name that means ‘enticing’) so I can’t complain.

The dentist surgery is near the beach so it was a good excuse to have a walk at 8.00 am this morning. So clean and reviving – the air, the smell, the light and the sound of birds wheeling and screeching.

Back home, I’m going in the Gym for a long session. Actually, I’m really looking forward to it. I’m watching an American political thriller called Scandal which centres around a former Whitehouse ‘fixer’ who now operates with a team as a private company dedicated to making problems ‘go away’. I’m loving it and I hardly realise the pain of exercise I am so absorbed by the drama. It is exactly my sort of thing. This drama will get me through the entire winter. There are 7 Series comprising 124 Episodes.

I hope you’re following the Trump advance, Dear Reader. If you are, you will realise that I wasn’t exaggerating when I talked about World War 3 and planning for Conscription across Europe. If Europe allows the current incumbent of the Whitehouse to blunder round the world uncontrolled, first NATO will fall – one of Putin’s great dreams – and then China, Russia and America will divide the World and claim their own fiefdoms. Imperialism is on the march.

And just in case you didn’t believe me, after we heard about a Russian Oil Tanker trying to evade sanctions by going along off the UK coast and heavily laden US military aircraft landing in UK yesterday, this morning we have heard that American troops are boarding the Russian vessel which Russia is calling an act of war. Better look out your tin helmet and prepare your nuclear bunker!

Thursday, 8th January, 2026

A mild but grey morning. It’s one or the other at the moment – cold and bright or mild and grey. I look forward to combining the best of both worlds again soon. Unfortunately, I will be 75 before returning to the sunshine. My only consolation is that my Best Man, Kevin, is 75 today.

I took the chance to inform him that another Leeds resident died last night. Terry Yorath played for Leeds United for a decade but has died aged …. 75.

It all suggests that we should use every waking moment well as we get older. Don’t slow down. Speed up! I have to say, I have never been a long sleeper. I have been both a night owl and a lark. All through my working life, I went to bed at midnight and got up at 6.00 am. That pattern has changed a bit with retirement.

I try to go to bed just after 11.00 pm. but still wake up at 5.45 am. I try to remain active to encourage sleep but I am not sleeping well. This morning, after a full Gym session yesterday which exhausted me but last night’s sleep was fitful, my head is full of thoughts and I end up listening to a podcast which feeds more ideas.

Went down to the beach again this morning and it couldn’t be more different to yesterday. Damp, misty and dull. But still lovely. Evocative and emotional. A place to lose yourself in. Eternity.

Friday, 9th January, 2026

Mild but dark and damp. Depressingly uninviting. Actually, I have no need to go out at all today other than walking across the garden to the Gym. My calendar is empty for the next four days.

This day ten years ago, I was only 64 and I was flying Gatwick – Tenerife South for a month’s stay at the Blue Los Gigantes Hotel. I was the last of three months that we’d been there before moving in to our new house in April 2016.

The hotel was comfortable with two or three pools, a Gym and Spa, three Restaurants and a nice, big room to retreat to. It was after this stay, however, that we decided we didn’t want ‘managing’ any more how ever luxurious it was. We like to be in full control of our lives. Since then, we have always rented properties to do our own thing with the exception of short stays of a week or less.

Like every January, I have started off alcohol-free. In fact, last time I started on September 1st 2024 and got all the way to June 2025 before I drank again. I was almost ready to be accepted into Methodism when I panicked and let go. This time it will go on until June 2026 when I fly to Thessaloniki although a trip to France in the Spring will be a big test. Generally, if I decide to do something or really want something, I achieve it. And so it will be this time, I assure you.

Part of my ‘addiction’ is the process, the routine. So, I keep the routine but remove the alcohol instead. The table is laid just the same for Supper with the same wine glasses and a bottle of wine but it is guilt-free. What a saint I am, Dear Reader!

Saturday, 10th January, 2026

I’ve always been an emotional man and I ended yesterday feeling sad. Don’t know why but I find the sea a soothing consolation and that’s where I went this morning. It was a gorgeous place to be with strong sunshine and lots of beach revealed as the sea retreated to France.

Warm and bright, the Mediterranean colours were to drink in. Nourishment for the soul. Actually, I don’t have a soul – I had mine removed – but you know what I mean.

For years I have been flying out of Gatwick and Heathrow. If I was going for a week or less, I would drive and park. For longer, I would take a taxi, stay in an airport hotel before the flight. Recently, I found it was cheaper to drive and park than to take a return taxi ride. It is certainly more convenient for me. I prefer to travel under my own steam.

I have driven a Hybrid for some years now so this article in The Telegraph today gave me pause for thought. I was aware that long periods of idleness were bad for the battery. I even got my neighbour to drive mine every week when I left it at home. This woman’s £120,000 plug-in hybrid Land Rover – a rugged, all terrain vehicle – was parked for a fortnight in a cold carpark hit by frosts and she came back to find it totally immobilised. The battery was completely flat and the car management system which is, of course, electronic, was completely wiped out. It is something to think about.

Sunday, 28th December, 2025

Out in the garden last night at the end of December it was warm and bright. I was being over looked by this lunar – tic who was hanging around.

One shivers slightly, looking up there.
The hardness and the brightness and the plain   
Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare

Is a reminder of the strength and pain   
Of being young; that it can’t come again,   
But is for others undiminished somewhere.

Philip Larkin – Sad Steps

In poetry, a crescent moon is often used as a metaphor for a new beginning. For Larkin, it was a new beginning that can’t come again. Don’t you just love him? The harsh, dark realism of his thoughts.

Having spent Christmas Eve with young people – kids with their whole lives ahead of them, Kids who wore their dreams on their sleeves for all to wonder at, Larkin’s words are an honest dagger to the heart for those of us who are so old we can only manufacture small lights of hope ahead. We can look to viewing new places and touching old friends but all the while bounded by the sadness that is time.

Last night I completed watching a potentially harrowing film on Netflix call Goodbye June. I know you will think I am mad but it had to be done. June – the Mother played by Helen Mirren – was in her final days as she died of cancer. Her family were in constant attendance and brought all the emotional baggage of family relations with them. The whole process was wonderfully redeemed by the way this family rallied around June in her final hours with admirable strength. She passed away as they performed the Nativity for her in the hospital room. There was something incredibly uplifting about it. I still cried.

… a reminder of the strength and pain   
Of being young; that it can’t come again,   
But is for others undiminished somewhere.

Does meeting on the dark side of the moon involve living or dying? For me it is living long and dying late. Going out for a walk through the woods.

It is a grey, chilly Winter’s day. Even the birds are conserving their energy today. Ivy climbs vigorously up the trunks of dormant trees and dead leaves rustle in the undergrowth.

Nature will regenerate as the Spring warms up but there are signs of the present past as I walk down the tree-lined path. Who tied these ribbons of memory? Are they for memories of love or death or longing? And do you care, Dear Reader?

Monday, 29th December, 2025

Oh, it’s coming, Dear Reader, 2026 is almost here. Going to be a very big year, a momentous year. I can just feel it. WooHoo!

Crisp – cold even – morning with a gorgeously, inviting sky. I woke at 3.33 am and struggled to get back to sleep. Why do I always wake up on these mystical numbers? By the time, Radio 4 Today programme came on at 6.00 am, I was falling asleep. Unfortunately, the programme was gripping for that time in the morning.

Each day over Christmas, they invite someone with a particular specialism to be a Guest Editor for the day. This morning, it was Mustafa Suleyman. He is a leading light in the advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

Of course, AI is all the rage at the moment. It is hard to turn on a news programme without hearing it mentioned. It is hard to read a serious newspaper (I exclude the Daily Fail & the Daily Sexpress colour comics) without at least one item on AI being included.

AI has been with us for years but is going to be absolutely revolutionary in the 21^st Century akin to the Industrial Revolution of the 19^th Century. Then, thousands of workers left the fields where they worked in Agriculture and moved to create towns where they worked in Manufacture. The dislocation engendered dire conditions which it took decades to ameliorate and it spawned the Labour Movement.

More than 30 years ago, I was using Artificial Intelligence in its infancy with Authorware. I had a problem to solve and that is the best way to adopt and adapt new technology. I was trying to create computer-based individualised learning programmes which could be delivered to large numbers of students by small numbers of ‘teachers’. In fact, they didn’t need to be fully qualified teachers but could just be Learning Support workers who were cheaper to employ.

It involved providing teaching content integrated with testing and assessment followed by tailored extension according to previous achievement. It was all to be put through the Intranet that I had designed and launched for staff and students. I learnt fast because I needed to.

Today in Education, you will find students using AI to write their essays for them and that immediately throws up the problem. How do you push out AI across our world without it being used to force for bad. It should not be a tool to help people cheat. What will those whose jobs are lost to AI do to earn a living? Here are just a few:

• Interpreters and translators
• Proof readers
• Statistical assistants
• Telephone operators
• Sales representatives
• Legal Assistants
• Diagnostic Healthcare

Anything where the centre of the work is rote learning and replication, logical development is ideal for AI and those jobs will no longer be done by humans. Just as in the last revolution, Ford replaced thousands of workers making cars with each worker doing one task on a production line to build a car and then moved on to replacing most workers with robots so it will be for AI.

What Artificial Intelligence can’t do is be human and the speaker this morning helped me understand the difference. He boiled it down to the ability of humans to feel pain and sadness, to emapthise with others feeling those things which AI can’t do. So, for example, the job of Diagnostic Healthcare can be done by AI machine – x-raying a body to look for cancer and then looking unerringly through the scans to find it without getting tired, bored or distracted. Whereas, the human sympathy and empathy of Healthcare will still need human input.

As a retired old Blogger, my use for AI is much less urgent. So many people want words because they find them so difficult. I don’t. In fact my hackles rise when AI suggests improvements to my writing. I particularly want help with graphics. Above are three versions of the same photo. The one on left is the original. In the middle one, ChatGTP added Santa Hats and on the right Baby Piglets were the presents. The problem is that it is all so effortless.

Tuesday, 30th December, 2025

I’ve just received a video clip from a skinny, old man who is skiing in France before returning to Florida. Looks like he’s got plenty of snow.

On this day, 47 years ago, our guests were struggling across the country and across the Pennines during a gritter strike in thick snow. It is our Wedding Anniversary today and I have helped my wife celebrate by ordering her a new set of pans to replace those bought 30 years ago. What more could a girl want? Well, it seems quite a lot.

It is a gorgeous day outside but quite cold. Started the morning with Porridge. Chef is cooking Scallops Gratin for Supper and Langoustines with Focaccia and a bottle of Champagne. Went down to the Marina for a walk. The light was glorious.

We have been discussing how to mark our 50^th anniversary in 2028. It has been tentatively decided that an Australian trip would be a good idea. Been meaning to go for years so we will make a real go of it – Fly First Class Flight. Stay for at least a month. No expenses spared. It will be once in a life time.

Always wanted to see Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Opera House and Bondi Beach so that is the plan …. assuming we are still alive. Might even meet up with an old school friend of mine. Lots to look forward to, Dear Reader, down under.

Wednesday, 31st December, 2025

And so another year is on its death bed. I remember the feverish anticipation of the new millenium, the excitement and the fear. I was still in my 40s. I was starting out on the project of building a house on a Greek Island. At the same time, there was all the build up to the Millenium Bug and how it could destroy computers and the internet. Hard to believe 25 years have passed. In that same time ahead, we will be 99, Dear Reader. Hard to believe it’s going to happen.

Crystal clear morning with a touch of frost. We did go down to 2C/36F and the cars have a dusting of cold. Walking outside will mean Fleeces today because it is not going to get much warmer throughout. Going out to collect the new kitchen pans. Ordered them from ProCook yesterday and they have been delivered to a collection point nearby this morning. Fantastic service.

I’ve been having a bit of a culture binge over Christmas. Last night I completed the Peter Schaffer Mozart Biopic on Sky Atlantic. Contrary to my expectations, the almost 3hrs of drama held me from start to finish. I had forgotten how much I loved the music of Mozart and to see it in dramatic context of his life made it even more delicious. Particularly, I thought it captured the contradistinction of man and art.

The utter genius of the boy who wote his first opera aged 10 yrs, who could just pick up a music score and hear the whole arrangement in his head, who could play so many of the instruments himself that he wrote for, who could dash off the wonder that is Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovani or Cosi Fan Tuti and then his final, glorious but unfinished Requiem and then to run along side the drunken, drug-taking, whoring, Roué who parted from his utterly supportive wife as he sort new pleasures. All this and he died aged 35 yrs at the height of his creative powers.

You may know of the famous sculpter, Eric Gill whose work was aclaimed worldwide but who suddenly fell from grace when his diaries revealed that he had sexually abused his young daughters over a lengthy period of their childhood. It revisited the debate about the separation or interrelationship of art and reality, creator and creation.

In a sense, it is there in the life of Mozart but it is definitely there in the life of one of my heroes, Philip Larkin. Hero is not the right word. I don’t think I would like Larkin at all if we had met. As atheists, he and I agree on his view of the bleak hopelessness of life.

Key themes in his poetry are:

• Monotony and Boredom of Life
• Futility of Love and Relationships
• Loss of Faith and Meaning
• A focus on unhappiness, failure, and limitation
• Inevitability of Death and Extinction

What is shocking is what you realise about him in his letters and personal life. You find his out and out Racism, Misogyny, bigotry and, frankly, a degree of Fascism. His father was strongly pro-Nazi in the 1930s. Larkin himself was an isolated, insulated man with parochial tastes and used his women casually.

Does this change my view of his poetry. I must admit it has given me pause for thought in the past but, ultimately, works of art can only be appreciated as free-standing pieces and Larkin’s poetry speaks to me so strongly that I am constantly saying to myself, Why didn’t I think of that? I wish I’d written that.

Over the past few days, I have been binge listening to the Poet Laureate, the Huddersfield poet, Simon Armitage, revisiting a number of Larkin’s poems on BBC Radio Sounds. Whether you know him or not, it’s well worth a listen.

Thursday, 1st January, 2026

It’s come. Happy New Year, Dear Reader. Happy 2026. I told you, it’s going to be an exciting year of risk and danger but plenty of enjoyment as a reward.

As a regular reader you will know that I have a Memory Box which throws up what happened across the years on any given day. On the last day of 2006, I was watching the old year die behind the hills of this bleak, Pennine road. At the time, I thought it was romantic. Now it just looks empty.

Twenty years on, I walked down the beach road last night and, in spite of the lights, it was cold and equally bleak. Almost no lights out at sea as I stared into the inky blackness. Maybe a bit warmer than the Pennine Moors. To the right is the endlessly undulating sea. To the left is the newly developed and brightly lit enchanted parkland path leading to old and fading civilisation.

Of course, light and darkness are emotional states. Light in the darkness symbolises hope, enlightenment, knowledge, and goodness overcoming times of struggle, confusion, or profound sadness.

Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.   
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.   
Till then I see what’s really always there:   
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,   
Making all thought impossible but how   
And where and when I shall myself die.  

Aubade – Philip Larkin

For Larkin, Light can offer only fleeting comfort while darkness signifies loneliness or the ultimate void, existential terror and despair. Don’t you just have to love his optimism! He’s right though. He articulates completely what so many of us think.

Friday, 2nd January, 2026

And so it goes, just like you said it should be …. Coming to the week’s end and well on into January and 2026. Soon, it will feel completely normal, taken for granted, and we will be anticipating 2027. Bring on the fireworks!

I have rather over indulged myself recently like so many others. Now I have to pay for it by reigning in my instincts. The diet has been readdressed and the exercised routine tightened. Home made Museli and Home made Soups are the order of these days. More concentration in the Gym rather than walking outside is another readjustment.

I’ve decided to indulge myself in a non-calorific way instead. I’ve been listening to the wonderful, Elgar Cello Concerto – self reflective and elegiac. Written in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, it was not a success until the mid 1960s and long after his death. It was Jacqueline du Pré who brought it to public attention and it is now one of the most played classical pieces.

Talking about over indulgence, I was brought up short by a poverty report discussed in the Manchester Evening News this morning telling me that Deprivation levels are higher than ever in Oldham today. Ashton Road and the Eldon Street Estate, parts of Hathershaw, St. Mary’s, Coldhurst, Holts, and Glodwick are some of the most deprived wards in the whole UK. Many of them have occupied that position since I first went there to teach in 1972. Nothing has changed their reputations for more than 50 years. Objectively, no doubt, they are better off but Relatively not.

It is unbelievable that nothing dramatic has happened to improve the lot of Gtr. Manchester inhabitants in general and Oldhamers in particular over half a century. When I walked through Manchester and down Oxford Road to the Business School in the early 1970s, it was impossible to get there without seeing lots of beggars. It always struck me as ironic the contrast between the affluence the central tenet of the Business School raison d’etre and the utter hopelessness of those outside on the street.

And after 50 years when we have Never had it so Good, where Things can only get Better and where we are enthusiastically going to Level Up, little has improved. You only have to look at the quality of the infrastructure, the old, damp and cold housing, the lack of meaningful jobs, the poverty of ambition and absence of inspiration to see we have failed.

What also strikes me is how inurred my life is from these things. I can’t remember the last time I saw someone begging other than in Greece. It was a regular feature of Huddersfield and Manchester. Here it isn’t. There must be poverty as everywhere but it is not so dominant or obvious. Supermarkets still collect for foodbanks and adverts are placed for people wanting to rent a small home and I shudder at the thought but it isn’t a central feature. I so hope this Labour Government are given the chance to make that difference over the next 10 years.

Saturday, 3rd January, 2026

We had a clear, moonlit sky last night and a frost this morning but it was soon burnt off by strong sunshine. I slept rather fitfully and woke to listen to a podcast about predictions for the year ahead. The News Agents were predicting the resurrection of the Labour Government with much better economic news and the rise of Starmer on the back of it. They were also predicting World instability and discussing the chances of the reintroduction of Conscription. It all chimed into my dreams and waking thoughts.

Somewhere around 1958, I was exploring my world and wandered in to one of our outhouses in the garden. It was what we called the Boot House which was supposed to do what it said on the tin – somewhere to store muddy boots out of the house. Another was an outside toilet and another was a Coal House for coal and firewood. These outhouses were still used but were really relics of another age when houses had open fires and outdoor toilets as a standard. The house had been built by my Great Grandfather’s firm over a 100 years ago.

Actually, this row of outhouses had been built over the Water Well and in my early life the kitchen still contained a hand pump for bringing water up. Although we did have taps and running water installed through lead pipes, Mum insisted on using the well water hand-pumped up to wash the girls’ hair in because the water was so soft.

Just putting down these words shocks me and makes me realise how far we have come over my lifetime. It was provoked by a dream I had in the early hours of the morning. I was around 7 years old, my father had introduced me to gardening by buying me a garden tool set and a packet of turnip seeds to try out for my birthday. I went into the Boot House and uncovered this trunk. Inside there was a sinister looking thing which I now know was a gasmask. There was an army cap, a damp and mouldy suit, shoes and some curling old papers. I think there was also a stick that I now find was known as a swagger stick that officers carried. That trunk had been stored in there for almost a decade.

It was confusing and exciting. I asked my parents and they didn’t seem too keen to talk about it but knew they had to. I learnt that it was my father’s Demob Trunk and I was amazed to hear that, although he had been a Captain in the Royal Engineers serving in Palestine for most of the war, he had left the army as a Major. Major Eric Sanders returned from directing squaddies building bridges in Palestine to directing craftsmen to build houses in the east Midlands

Of course, after the war, Rationing continued until July 1954 when I was 3 years old and Conscription didn’t end until 1960 having taken a number of Dad’s apprentices who didn’t return until 1963. Shocking to realise how close I was to it all and I think this dream could have been provoked by the current view that World War III is almost unavoidable with Europe having to commit huge resources to resisting Russian and Chinese and American Imperialism.

The idea of UK Conscription being part of the planning is seriously being discussed in dark corners of the Government and Civil Service at the moment. Anyone – male or female – aged under 40 yrs old could well be called up. Ironically, the Millennial and Generation Z cohorts are the generations most rapidly losing faith in democracy. It appears many would prefer a strong, autocrat because their elected leaders don’t seem to be performing for them.

Our cohort may have been born on the fringes of war and may die on the fringes of war again without ever having to fight.

Sunday, 21st December, 2025

Today is the shortest day of the year and tonight is the longest night. Everything gets better from here, Dear Reader. Dust off your bikini. The Summer is coming!

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse ….

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below.

What a lot of nonsense. Outside it is blue sky with strong sun. The grass is growing and the birds are signalling signs of Spring. There are daffodils forcing their heads up to the sky and trees budding with sweet, new green tips.

We are well past the middle of December and 2025 is dying fast. Our neighbours are setting off on the 27th for an 11 week cruise of the Caribbean. Four other neighbour households are arranging a joint holiday on Skiathos. I have booked up 4 different trips abroad amounting to 10 weeks abroad so far. In the new year, I will be looking to organise a few days away in France – the first of at least three of those trips – and, currently, we are considering some city breaks of perhaps 4 days each in Prague and Seville.

I know very little about modern Prague but it has long been a place of significance in my head. The Prague Spring of 1968 when Alexander Dubček was elected leader of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and began a process of cultural and economic liberalisation which encouraged mass protest against Soviet domination. It was short lived and was crushed by Soviet tanks in August 1968 but it was a start of what Putin is fighting to regain now in Ukraine – an Empire. It was the time that I was beginning to take an interest in politics and world affairs with real thought for the first time. It would be interesting to visit in Spring 2026.

I know virtually nothing about Seville other than their oranges form the basis of our marmalade. Actually, I’m not even keen on that. It feels like the stuff of our parents rather than a ‘hip’ young person like me. My housekeeper’s choice of romatic destination, I had to look it up on the web. It is the capital and largest city of Andalusia, you know. It wasn’t until 1979 that Spain held its first democratic municipal elections after the end of Franco’s dictatorship. Incredible.

The most amazing thing I have found is the difference in prices between the two destinations. Easyjet flights to Seville are at least double the price for Prague. A Suite for 4 nights in a 4*/5* hotel is at least three times more expensive in Seville than in Prague although the Czech hotels look better quality. It’s going to be a fun year topped off by a week in Oldham, Dear Reader. What more could you want?

Monday, 22nd December, 2025

Wonderfully warm and sunny morning. Have to do some shopping. Thought early this morning would be the best option. If it was, I wouldn’t like to repeat it tomorrow. The roads were really busy. The carparks were horribly busy. The supermarkets were intolerably busy. Even under that pressure, people were polite and relaxed which is typical down here. It would be different in Surrey or Manchester.

I don’t do God and I don’t do Christmas. I know. I am boring. I do giving but don’t like/cope with receiving. I bought a tin of the sickliest, most appalling chocolates for my neighbour, Filippo’s kids to make them thoroughly sick on Christmas day which I consider obligatory and that is as far as I’ve gone.

I’m not keen on Marks & Spencer and we rarely shop there but we’ve been 4 times in the past month. The one redeeming feature of it is that it is opposite the beach and pier. It gives me a chance to walk, look and photograph.

“But the sun brightened—
It brightened, and Crow returned charred black ….”

Today, I made a new friend on the promenade. She didn’t say a lot but I knew what she was thinking. I thought the same.

A few years ago I heard Bob Mortimer tell a story on Would I Lie to You about being a guest of someone called Chris Rea who cracked an egg into his bath. I can’t remember why but nor had I heard of Chris Rea. I had to look him up and found he was a musician who was associated with the song, ‘Driving Home for Christmas’ which I thought I’d heard somewhere.
Anyway, I was shocked to read today that Chris Rea died this morning at the tender age of 74. There’s too much of this dying!

Certainly this Christmas we will remember people we have lost. We will remember Phyllis who died this year but we will also remember my Mother-in-Law, Jane who is so much missed. Here she is in all her cheekiness at Christmas time in Yorkshire in 2008.

Tuesday, 23rd December, 2025

Warm but grey this morning. Since returning from Tenerife three weeks ago, we really haven’t felt traditional December weather at all. The newspapers have been full of confident predictions of snow across the country. They haven’t happened and are not predicted by the Met. Office to happpen in the near future.

Having been a Climate Change denier for a long time, in recent years I have had to face the facts and accept its central tenets. Even so, it doesn’t really bother me. Warmer times will suit me fine although I know some, old ladies will struggle with it.

It certainly is quite a remarkable trend over my lifetime which I have amplified by moving to the South Coast. Having left the land of ice and snow for the coast of sea and sunshine I appreciate it even more in older age.

Sixteen years ago, I had been retired for almost a year but was still living in Yorkshire. The winter of 2009 was a harsh one yet, even then, not as bad as the 1950s & 60s.

In this week 16 years ago, I was driving through scenes like this on the A62 from Yorkshire to Lancashire. They are beautiful but once you’ve observed that, what else is there to admire about freezing cold and icey roads, putting your life at risk and salt attacking your car. Why would you volunteer for it when you could live in the sunshine?

In those days, it was either to wait for the digger to clear the A62 Moors Road or take your life in your hands in a white-out on M62 highest stretch of motorway in England.

It was our last Christmas in Quarry Court and our last Christmas with my lovely Mother-in-Law. We struggled over the Pennines to get her and struggled to take her back. The garden was out of bounds.

In our garden down here today, Geraniums are still flowering as is the Fuscia Janey named after Mum-in-Law and we are picking fresh Rosemary and Parsley for our meal. In the end, one has to acknowledge the evidence.

Filippo, our lovely neighbour from Parma, came over this morning with a bottle of wine from his homeland. He and his wife are both medical scientists who mainly work from home. They are a delightful couple who have two, young children we hardly ever see never mind hear. Within an hour, we were tasting it as an accompaniment to the most wonderful smoked salmon I have ever eaten. We bought a side of smoked salmon from our fresh fish suppliers and we are so pleased with it.

Wednesday, 24th December, 2025

Up early this morning. Driving up to Surrey. Hoping to beat the mania that is the M25 on Christmas Eve. It is madness and I wouldn’t be doing it out of choice but I know my duty. By midday, I will be trying to park in Woking multi storey carpark. Can you imagine it? Wish me well, Dear reader. See you on the other side.

Well, the drive up was wonderful, very quiet and easy. We arrived by 10.30 am. Cup of coffee and off to the Dementia Facility. Picked up C and on to Woking Crematorium where we had a short ceremony to place Phyllis’ ashes urn in a memorial stone. It was a nice but cold memorial.

On to the Theatre. That was the start of eating too much. Tables booked at the restaurant where we shared pizzas. Then in to the auditorium where we watched a clever version of Snow White with Rob Rinder and Leslie Joseph as leads. It was cleverly presented and even I enjoyed it although it lasted two hours.

On to Supper at the Maybury Inn just a few hundred yards from where we used to live a decade ago. We had a fairly average two course meal with wine which cost £375.00. It was the sort of poor quality meal that confirms me in not eating out very often.

I had a Fritto Misto starter followed by Surf & Turf – Roast Pork with Scallops – main course. I’m afraid it was only just passable ‘Pub Food’ and I wouldn’t recommend it.

Thursday, 25th December, 2025

A very happy Christmas to all readers of the Blog. It is starting off with stark, blue skies and bright sunshine but cold. For many, maybe most people, this is a time of happiness and celebration. It is my 74th Christmas and I woke up feeling sad. I was listening to an analysis of Edward Elgar at 5.00 am and that set the mood music and then I thought of missing people from my life. Alright, I am strange but it is who I am.

I first met Edward Elgar, the man responsible for Land of Hope & Glory, Pomp & Circumstance and The Dream of Gerontius, when I was at a low ebb in 1973 and delivering a course for Dutch teachers who were studying English Language and Culture. It was delivered at my old college in Ripon and we played them what was then considered to be quintessentially English music in the form of Elgar’s Enigma Variations.

I’ve always considered him an Edwardian gentleman with whom I had little in common but, when you get down to it, he was just a man as I am. He had his loves and fears, his likes and dislikes and he had the need to express himself, to communicate with the world as I do. He chose music, I choose words. This morning I learnt a lot more about him. Like me, he was brought up a Roman Catholic but, unlike me, that informed his life.

He wrote the Enigma Variations at the turn of the century and 15 years before the start of World War. It is split into 14 variations. Each one is based on a person in his life. The first is to his wife, Alice. Another is on a girlfriend of his and another on his best friend and fellow musician and so on. This one called Nimrod, legendary biblical figure from Genesis, known as a mighty hunter, was playing this morning, playing so sadly that the memories flooded back and made me weep silently.

Went down to the beach to forget. Walking on the Beach this morning was absolutely delightful. Saw a few birds and one said she was 74. I really find it hard to believe.

It is cold out there today – 9C/48F – and I am going to spend a couple of hours in the Gym. I’ve had my sun quota for the day. It will give me an excuse to watch my latest favourite Spy thriller –Deep State – on Disney+. Let’s get on to our 75th Christmas, Dear Reader. I’ve just been watching famous obituaries for 2025. It comes to us all. Happy Christmas!

Friday, 26th December, 2025

Boxing Day – another anachronism we should sweep away and then the world can go back to work and leave the Retired in peace. The boys are driving up to Manchester this morning for the match at Old Trafford this evening. After Newcastle go 3 up and the Theatre of Dreams becomes a nightmare, they have to drive all the way back to Surrey to be ready for work on Saturday morning.

I, on the other hand, will be watching from the comfort of my sofa. Might even put the central heating on. It was so cold last night – 0C/32F – that I put it on downstairs for an hour before getting up this morning. It isn’t going well for England in the cricket and I don’t hold out great hopes for United at the moment.

I am watching so much Drama at the moment that I can hardly keep up with the plots. Yesterday, I wrote that I was watching Deep State – on Disney+ in the Gym. Last night I watched two very contrasting items. I have no idea why I get drawn into it other than I am an incurable romantic but I watched Love Actually on Land TV for the umpteenth time. I really like Emma Thompson and Keira Knightley and I really want to be Prime Minister. That would solve everything!

At the end of the evening, we started watching a much more challenging but gripping Drama Directed by Kate Winslet who is also one of the daughters of Helen Mirren who is dying of cancer and her husband, Timothy Spall.

I managed just 30 mins last night but was spellbound by the siblings all falling out about what should happen to their Mother as the cancer spread and becomes terminal – imminently terminal. It is so realistic and yet so shocking. I have seen it and felt it and it feels so real. Escapism this is not.

In one guise or not, this happens to us all in our lifetimes. We all have Mothers and they all die usually before us. It is how you and they deal with it that counts. I’ve got another 45 mins to come tonight. That should be fun.

What I’m really looking forward to is the return of The Night Manager – an espionage Thriller based on the characters created by John le Carré. It starts on Thursday to kick off the New Year. All this sedentary activity has to be balanced out by walking and that’s where I’m going now into the crisp sunshine of the end of the year.

I would warn you, Dear Readers, to beware. There is a Cake fiend on the loose. He thrives on it and may be dangerous. The hats may be interchangeable but the cake is definitely his. My old friends from the Dementia Ward – Peter, Tash, Chris & Kevin – seem to have escaped again and sent this photo to greet me this morning.

I am well out of it. A bit of Bubbly and smoked salmon sandwiches for Lunch will get me through the day although I will have to supplement my walk with a bit of self-flagellation in the Gym later.

Saturday, 27th December, 2025

A crystal clear morning of piercing sunshine from a clear blue sky. Certainly one to clear the head and focus the mind. I’ve got the inevitable supermarket trip and then some Office work before going out to enjoy a walk. Christmas is past, thank goodness, and I produced a final, emotional memory for M & P.

Pauline’s last Christmas with her Mum was a wonderful one and then 12 years on, instead of cooking for them on the day as usual, during Covid restrictions we drove up to The Surrey Home for the Bewildered where staff had got a couple of inmates up and dressed in time to receive and look grateful for their pre-prepared Christmas feast.

One of the things I’ve had to do this morning is urgently get to grips with the new Schengen European entry exit system calculator. I have visions of us being turned away at the border. I’ve still got French trips to sort out and it’s looking tight but doable. Fortunately, Oldham doesn’t count.

The hooligans managed to guide an escapee from the Home for the Bewildered all the way up to Old Trafford. You can see here that he is struggling to keep hold of reality. He even bought me an xtra large shirt.

After United won at last, K will now have to fly back from Florida for every Home Game this season. What else has he got to do?

Sunday, 14th December, 2025

Warm night and a warm day for mid December. No heating needed and sitting in shorts and tee shirt writing my Blog. We are using so little gas and electricity that I am £400.00 in credit on my Dual Fuel plan. It’s the luck of the draw, I suppose, to have a warmer Winter. Our actions in moving South, of course, have also influenced it. We even won the Lottery again last night. Goodness knows how we will spend the £30.00 but the Beautician will probably be grateful for it.

I was thinking about Luck/Fate set against individual intervention in achieving things this morning. This photograph of Littlehampton Beach was posted of wartime defences against invasion. My generation have been lucky. Unlike our parents, we haven’t been asked to fight. It’s beginning to look like the current young crop may be called upon soon to do exactly that. My generation and subsequent ones have benefitted from the Peace Dividend and freedom to live our lives and make our own decisions.

Of course, some of us make bad decisions. I was struck by these kids who I taught and have really made something of themselves in different ways. One runs a thriving Beauty Business in the Oldham area and the other two have a successful Building Company in Oldham. They have come from working class stock and an impoversished environment and made their own fortunes through hard work and commitment.

Contrast with this chap who had a similar start in life but took a different path, became a leading light in a football thug gang, spent large chunks of his life in prison and died at the age of 62 in an act of pure lunacy. Some people never learn and that is what marks us out.

Depends whether you believe in the Determinist or Free Will philosophical position. Did the Union Jack death come from a predisposition to lunacy and criminality or did that lad choose his own fate? Did the kids I taught learn self reliance and determination or were they born with it? Admittedly, it is never quite as simple as that but you get the idea.

My life has been lived resisting the Determinist view, believing that my efforts are what define me. That’s why I am constantly disappointed in myself for regularly falling short of my own expectations. As I’ve got older, I have realised increasingly that my origins and background have played a significant part in who I am. Well, that’s my excuse. Anyway, going in the Gym now to punish myself for all round failure. Have a nice day, Dear Reader.

Monday, 15th December, 2025

So dark this morning. Warm but dark. Actually next Sunday is the shortest day and longest night of the year. From then on, everything gets better – theoretically. Dry, warm but grey today.

I don’t do God, as Tony Blair once famously said before converting to Catholicism. I don’t do Christmas either. I have no wish to deprive others of their joy just don’t include me. Actually, we are going up to Surrey for a commemoration of Pauline’s sister’s life. They would always meet up at Christmas so it seemed an appropriate thing to do. We are going to the chapel where her ashes are scattered, going to the Pantomime which she liked to do with her grandsons and then a meal at a restaurant nearby. It is not about me so I can fade into the background and observe. My favourite occupation.

Christmas is a time to communicate with people from our past. I approve of that. I like to do it. It helps to keep our lives in perspective. The lad who was a boyhood friend from Repton and has lived in America since 1969; the girl I knew in the late 1960s/early 70s; the teacher who left my school in 1976 and I haven’t seen since; the friends who moved to Edinburgh 45 years ago and who we have exchanged the same two Christmas cards with ever since to the point that they are so stuffed with little annual letters and bound by tape that we have to have them weighed before posting.

These are lovely, poignant, slightly painful events which attempt to retrieve those times. Some do. Some don’t but never say never. Occasionally, people fail to send a card to us but my rule is that we don’t give up. Until death is confirmed, I fullfil my obligation. More often than not, the chain is re-established next year.

When I first moved to Oldham in 1972, I couldn’t find anywhere to live and had to settle for the most dire accomodation in a down at heel street which was blackened by the previous century of industrial pollution. Oldham was the town of mills and chimneys, of smoke and of damp and blackened stone. It was a hell of a culture shock. I felt bewildered and alone. I felt miserable. I had come from a comfortable, middle class home and felt utterly out of place.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/S97Bqlj8hfA?feature=oembedOldham in the late 1960s

The weird thing is that even that experience has mellowed into poignancy which is tender to revisit. When I moved there, a huge area of old, slum housing had just been cleared and ‘smart’ new 1960s Estate housing errected. Quite a few teachers in my school had moved into the Shaw Road Estate which was clearly an improvement on the old – they even had bathrooms and indoor toilets but they only lasted 30 years and been declining for half of those.

I was eventually taken to Huddersfield to live. Actually, it was a grander, more prosperous and cleaner Northern town which I quite enjoyed living in. Nowadays, when I go back it is in severe decline. Commerce is dying on the streets. The Local Authority doesn’t appear to have the money to raise the town’s head to the light. It feels a bit depressing. I was pleased to find this report from the early 1970s comparing Huddersfield with Halifax and the rennovation of the wonderful Piece Hall. Sometimes, you have to go back to advance.

Tuesday, 16th December, 2025

Another grey but warm and dry morning. Had the joy of spending time in M&S yesterday afternoon. I felt old just standing there. All around me seemed to be old. I’m never that comfortable walking through the bra displays but that’s what you have to do to get to the Collection Point. My wife buys clothes online like there is no tomorrow. On this occasion, she bought a coat which she could pick up in store.

The coat was meant to keep her warm when walking. She looked nice in it and we brought it home where she test-walked it in quite a chilly breeze. It failed the test. It was light and comfortable but didn’t keep the cold out.

Guess where I am going this morning. I want my £100.00 back so M&S will be the first place to visit. The next few days will see some frenzied clothes site surfing. Many coats will arrive. Maybe one will be retained. The rest will be returned. You see, Dear Reader, how exciting my life is.

At least while we were at the store, I was able to cross the road on to the beach. It is just as interesting under grey skies as it is in full sunshine out of clear blue. Yesterday, it was lovely and bleak with all the sadness and softness of collective memory. Gulls cried plaintively on the wind and the pier was deserted.

Just back from the delights of M&S opposite the Worthing Pier. Workmen are renewing the groynes on the beach. Gorgeous, huge hunks of wood being driven into the shale to form a barrier slowing down the onslaught of the waves. I spoke to the men. They told me that these massive oak logs would last around 15 years of twice daily salt water beating.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Life is fragile and uncertain. My Brother in Law is currently in hospital recovering from serious surgery to cope with Bowel Cancer. For whatever reason, it was diagnosed too late. We wish him strength and a quick recovery. We know what cancer can do to one and we hope for the best.

It is a truth universally acknowledged you may recognise as the opening sentence of Jane Austen’s Pride & Predjudice. This phrase is extremely current because Jane Austen was born 250 years ago today. Can you imagine what the world of 1775 that she was born into was like? Have you read Pride & Predjudice, Dear Reader? I haven’t.

Wednesday, 17th December, 2025

The Ghosts of Christmas Past drifted through my mind in the early hours of the morning. It was sparked by Radio 4 unusually playing a snatch from:

Feliz Navidad
Próspero año y felicidad

I haven’t been following pop music since the early 1970s but in my teens, José Feliciano appealed to me for some strange reason. Over Christmas 1968/9 I was singing:

Come on, baby, light my fire
Try to set the night on fire

I was 17 years old. I don’t know what I was thinking. I loved the raw edge to the voice and just the foreign name of the singer. I can see myself singing in my bedroom alone.

The next ghost was one of the most exciting Christmases in my memory as I watched the pictures on television in 1989 of the toppling of Romania’s tyrannical communist dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena. I was absolutely gripped and I can see the pictures clearly in my mind now of Ceaușescu berating the crowds of protestors and of them storming the building as he ran and was eventually captured and lined up with his wife and shot.

Twenty years on, in 2009, my sister had just come back from a trip to Istanbul with her friends and sent me photos. She looked in her element. Today she is struggling with the stress of an ill husband.

On this day in 2009, I was retired but still driving across the Pennines to visit my Mother in Law. On this day back then I had the time to pause and photograph the moors which were bloody freezing. I recently talked to the Doctor who bought our house but has now moved to Norfolk and he said, as I do,that he didn’t miss the winters of the North of England. They may be all floating by on safety rafts at the moment after all the rain but it was the snow that got to me.

This morning, I received Christmas greetings from Nigel, a flatmate of mine from 1971 and a photo that I have absolutely no memory of being taken. Chilling to know that the girl smiling happily back left has been dead now for 5 years when I think of all the life I’ve lived over that time.

Thursday, 18th December, 2025

Warm but wet. Mmmm! A warm but wet day with brooding skies. Had to collect fish – fresh salmon, smoked salmon, hake loin – and then on to the beach.

I love the drama of the sea intermittently attacking the land. The shale roars as it is drawn back into the waves. Foam flies everywhere as it crashes back up the beach.

We could walk to the beach but I drove because it was wet and I had to collect about 5kg of fish to bring home. One of the worries of aging is mobility and driving. Almost every residential area requires it. I have spent most of my married life doing the driving even though my wife is a much better driver than me.

Society doubts one’s abilities with every older person’s accident. Actually, I am a much better driver in retirement than I was at a younger age. I am not in a hurry. I follow the speed limits. I’m not frustrated by delay. I also worry about the fact that I need to share the driving with my wife so she keeps her skills and confidence up to date.  

I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose my licence. I read about 92 year old Shiela Hancock passing the Advanced Motorist Driving Test. I believe in preparing and fighting. I am looking at enrolling my wife and I on the Advanced Driver Course. We need new challenges in retirement and this would be a useful thing to do.

This morning at 6.00 am, I managed to be in Knaresborough to talk to Peter Holgate, in Bolton to talk to David Weatherly, in Leeds to talk to Kevin and in Bridlington to talk to Nigel all in a matter of minutes. This lunchtime, I have been in Wales to talk to my old friend Dave Beaseley and, this afternoon, I am in Boston, Massachusetts talking to Jonathan. The magic carpet of the internet is wonderful!

Friday, 18th December, 2025

Glorious morning with deep, low sunshine that blinded me as I drove my Housekeeper to the Hairdresser’s. It is a journey that involves crossing a railway line and it is always a nightmare at 8.30 am. Today, it was especially busy. Unusually for well past mid-December, I will be spending the morning grass mowing and edging to smarten the street up for my neighbours for Christmas. It has been and continues to be so mild that the grass has really grown.

If you are a regular reader of the Blog or even just catch up with it occasionally, Dear Reader, you will know that I am not a secretive man. I am not reticent or worried about what people think. I don’t mediate my thoughts through political consideration. I say what I am doing, thinking and feeling in a fairly unvarnished way. Yes, I sometimes put a bit of a spin on it but mostly it is fairly stream of consciousness. I am unapologetic about its ordinariness, its mundanity. It is a catalogue of every day activities which we all do punctuated by shafts of light and shades of darkness that accompany the highs and lows of a life.

Because you could say my life is an open book, you could also characterise me as naive, emotionally unsophisticated, vulnerable, politically inept. I plead guilty to each and every one of those charges. It takes some serious stupidity to lay one’s life, hopes and fears out in a public place and not to worry about attack and ridicule. I am that seriously stupid. What it doesn’t prepare you for is where those painful humiliations arise. When I was going through a scary cancer treatment, I was shocked to find some friends ‘disappeared’ when I most needed them. Can you imagine? I could never do that although you do hear of it.

The more difficult exponents of the heartless arts follow The Prince of Darkness – no not Peter Mandelson – Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469 – 1527). He is often acknowledged as the progenitor of modern political philosophy and political science. Machiavelli’s political theory argued in Il Principe / The Prince that deceit was an important tenet of maintaining control and retaining power. Current politicians refer to these Machiavellian methods in observations like: Speak softly but carry a big stick, Smile to their face while stabbing them in the back and Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. It is an ugly calling.

Of course, ultimately, they get found out. We don’t need the Freedom of Information Act. They trip themselves up when they least expect it. We all learn and move on but life is just one more bit diminished, which is sad.

On the upside, the day is really warm and sunny. The lawns are cut and manicured. Returning neighbours say it smells like Summer again and the perfume of cut grass is evocative. I have quite enjoyed the exercise and the effect on the area. It doesn’t take much to please me. Machiavelli take note! What I will do in 2026, I’m not sure. I need a new lawnmower but I personally don’t have any real grass. Am I prepared to spend £600.00 to take care of my neighbour’s lawns? We will see! Machiavelli is already calculating the political value.

Saturday, 20th December, 2025

While God Squadders were earnestly looking for a star in the East, my little astronaut was gazing lovingly to the South where we are having spectactular displays from the International Space Station. It has been over our garden (Are they spying?) for a number of nights now.

Last night I was too lazy to go outside even though it was very warm. I took photos with my phone through the window glass – not the best method – at actual size and 100x zoom and then increased twice again on my computer. You can see the square inner shape created by the solar panels which generate the power to maintain it. Apparently, even though it shone incredibly brightly in the night sky, it was high enough to still catch the sun’s rays.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the most recently filmed dramas include lots of overhead filming. (You’ll notice it now.) because of the popularity, ease and cheapness of drone photography. Yesterday was the most gorgeous day and our area looked wonderful. I didn’t take these but a local drone photographer took these lovely shots of the Marina, River Arun and the shoreline in Littlehampton. I wish I had taken them.

And so it is just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
most of the time

Another wonderfully warm and sunny day. I’ve got a bit of grass cutting to complete while my Under Gardener cleans out the flower beds then a full Gym session accompanied by a football match on TNT Sports while Chef prepares Roast Chicken & Sage & Onion Stuffing for Supper tonight. Life’s hard but it’s not that hard!

Sunday, 7th December, 2025

What a horrible morning – dark and wet – but at least it’s warm. Didn’t fall below 12C/54F over night. Still, it doesn’t make me want to go out.

Two birthdays to celebrate this morning. The Blog is 18 today. I was only 56 when I started it. It has seen some real lows and some wonderful highs. Of course, by its very nature, it contains much that is ordinary and unremarkable.

If you stick with it, Dear Reader, it will help you sleep although I do try to amuse and to be prevocative at times. If you are a regular reader and you have my sympathies, you will feel my joy and pain, my patterns of life and inconsistencies. In short, you will see an ordinary man laying out his life before you. Hope to see you this time next year and every year until 2051.

The other birthday is that of young David. He is 28 today. Do you remember when you were 28, Dear Reader? A year of weddings and new challenges. Anyway, we wish David a happy day even though it is pouring with rain in London. It sounds like we are going to have a warm but very wet week ahead. So, that’ll be something to write about, won’t it?

At the beginning of the year, I decided that I would trial doing without our landline. We both have smartphones with unlimited calls, texts and data. It seemed over kill to have a landline which just duplicated that service. First couple of weeks felt a bit strange but this morning I realised that it wasn’t even an issue today. Like the loss of High Street Banking, Landlines are yesterday’s technology which we just need a nudge to abolish.

Our contracts with EE for smartphones are up in a couple of months and they will offer us new models. We have Samsung S24 Ultras and I will almost certainly choose S25s or S26s as an upgrade. We will be able to trade our existing phones in for about £450.00 each which will contribute to the new 18 month contracts at about £180.00 per month for the two.

What I could never abolish is this piece of music that makes me cry instantly I hear it. The opening Aria from Handel’s opera Xerxes – commonly know as Largo. It throws me back to 1973 spontaneously and a grubby flat in a grubby street in a grubby town in a grubby world. I am playing it now in my comfortable Office in a comfortable street in a comfortable town in a comfortable world but I am still crying. I have lost so much.

Monday, 8th December, 2025

The morning is dry and fairly bright. Incredibly warm for December. I’ve got an early appointment for a diabetic rhetinopathy eye scan – the last real medical testing of the year. It involves pupil expanding drops so I’m not allowed to drive. My chauffeur is only too pleased to get her hands on the wheel.

This is another fantastic service that I am offered. Every year they contact me and push me to be scanned and photographed to see if there is any change. I always go although I do worry about it because a fellow student who is the same age as me lost his driving licence when deterioration was found in his sight. Anyway, all is well. The feedback was immediate and positive so I get to drive for another year.

The problem is that the enlarged pupils because of the drops means seeing is painful for some hours to come. The sky suddenly feels electric and so painful. Plus, I can’t read or write which is a nightmare. Anyway, now all I have to be concerned about is the body scan report which won’t be until the beginning of February unless they spot an emergency.

After what seemed like an age, I was able to complete my 28th consecutive Christmas Newsletter ready for printing and placing in cards for posting. If you were getting anxious about your card, Dear Reader. Don’t worry. It will be with you soon.

Tuesday, 9th December, 2025

A grey morning but a frantic start. Gifts ordered for friends – mainly cases of wine – being delivered and delivery men are contacting me. I began to wonder why I’d bothered. Then the task was printing 50 newsletters, 65 address labels and putting stamps on 60 envelopes. Do you know how much 50 x 2nd class stamps cost these days – £43.50! It wasn’t helped by my knocking a glass of coffee over my keyboard but a little woman rushed to my rescue and I was up and typing again in hours.

Amazon may be delivering my Christmas presents to friends but I couldn’t resist sending myself some with the same service. I have written before of a friend of mine who had his car stolen from his drive this time last year. It took months for him to get back on his ….. wheels. I bought a Faraday Box from Amazon to shelter our car fobs. Today, we went one stage further with a Faraday Card Holder to protect our Financial Accounts particularly when travelling abroad. Might be overkill but you never know.

Went out to an active beach where birds were searching urgently for food. It was absolutely wonderful to be there and smell the change, hear the shoreline shift with every ebb and flow of the heavy tide. It is important that we accept that Life does not stay the same. It moves and changes constantly in a state of flux. We should be constantly looking for new beginnings, Dear Reader. Resistance is pointless.

Wednesday, 10th December, 2025

Lovely bright and very warm morning. Going out walking in the sunshine to make the most of it. Alexa read the jobs for the day to me. It included ordering fish for Christmas. Our meal will be a Fish Platter including King Scallops, Langoustines and Fish Goujons which will use Tusk Fish, a Lobster flavoured white fish from the Indian Ocean. At 5.30 am, I also listened to a podcast about the attacks on European Liberal Polity by the Trump-led, Far Right movement in America and about Trump’s increasingly autocratic attempts to control the media.

You may have heard or read of the battle for the Media outlets in America at the moment. It is happening because of the change in accessing news and entertainment over my lifetime. In the 1950s, Mum & Dad had a shiny, walnut cased radiogram sitting proudly on a shiny, walnut table in the Lounge. They listened to the BBC Home Service. It was piped through to a huge speaker on the wall in the Dining Room & Kitchen which was quite advanced for those days. They listened to the Today program that dominates my mornings now and which first came on air in 1957. They listened to The Archers in the evening and Sing Something Simple on Sunday afternoons.

In the 1960s, my brother Bob bought an old, valve radio in a jumble sale and we listened to Dick Barton, Special Agent drama and ‘pop’ music – Pick of the Pops with Alan Freeman on Sunday afternoons. It was on this tatty old box with a fraying speaker cover that I read the place names I dreamed of visiting – Prague, Strasbourg, Brussells, Lyon, Oslo, Warsaw … Oh, let me go … and where I first heard The Moody Blues, Go Now. It was an old radio that really spoke to me.

We didn’t even have a television until after I had left home although I watched Doctor Who and Dixon of Dock Green at my Grandparents’ house on Saturday evening. In those days, Television & Radio was totally linear. You either accessed them when they were broadcast or not at all. Time-shift suddenly became possible in the late 1970s when video recorders first came on the market. I had only been married a year and just bought our first colour television. I chose a Betamax Video Recorder. I have always been an early adopter of technology and sometimes suffered because of it. I loved the machine but it was soon dropped in favour of the VHS process.

We increasingly gathered more control over the process of accessing media. Sky came along having pushed out BSkyB. I had an early satellite installed and everything changed. Suddenly, we had extra channels and could choose when to watch programs. Time shift was almost built in to reception. Now, it felt like the consumer was in control and not subject to the tyranny of the scheduler. Increasingly, its capacity increased. Today I can record 6 channels while watching a 7th. I can save them and watch them whenever I want but then along comes streaming. I don’t even need to save them. They are always there to download and consume wherever I am in the world and what ever time of the day.

I can watch PMQs at 3.00 am or Gardener’s World at Lunchtime in Spain. I can download a podcast recording of the Today programme in Greece or Newspaper Review from Sky in Tenerife. The World is my Lobster, as they say. I no longer have to wait for Episode 2 of a drama to come round a week later on a Wednesday evening when I’ve already forgotten the plot of Episode 1. I can access the whole thing from BBCi Player, Netflix, Prime, ITV-X, etc when I want and binge.

Sky has huge power. Owned by Murdoch (Right Wing)and controlled along with Fox News in the States, The Times and The Sun in UK plus lots of other news outlets around the world this one family hold huge influence over how the news and politics is reported and accessed. The gullible think they are getting the facts. They are not. They are only getting the facts according to one ideology.

But now we have Trump who wants to bend the media narrative to his view of the world. We used to say the Chinese and Russian state control was Totalitarian. Trump is bidding for the same. You might laugh but this is really serious. His biggest backer, Ellison who is the 2nd richest person in the world, has a son who is trying to buy up the streaming services of Warner Bros and HBO. Trump’s son also has a stake in the industry. Trump sees a way to influence and control media output. If the Labour Government announced it was going to restrict news coverage to only what it considered appropriate, we would be up in arms. But that is what Trump is trying to acquire abroad and through that to influence other markets abroad. We should be very afraid.

Thursday, 11th December, 2025

These are strange days. Last night, when I went to bed at 11.30 pm, the sky was absolutely clear and full of the most beautiful stars. In mid-December a clear sky would mean cold temperatures and morning frosts. Throughout the night, we didn’t drop below 13C/56F. What is going on? I just don’t understand. Lovely orange sky at 7.00 am today and so the day begins.

Received news yesterday from my old friend, Kev, who had just returned from hospital after a cataract operation. Old age can be dire, can’t it Dear Reader. Oh, take my hand and help me down Cemetery Road. We all need support. I bought Kev some wine for Christmas, I’ve had to advise him to sit down to drink it if he’s still got the bandages on.

On a much more serious and devastating level, I had a message this morning from one of my sisters that my Brother-in-Law, Kevan, has fairly advanced bowel cancer and is being operated on next week. They have been dealing with it, I now understand, since the summer. I didn’t know. What I do know is that dealing with cancer is something that needs support of family and friends. In fact, it shows you those who actually care. We will be thinking of Ruth & Kevan over the next few days in their hour of need.

I am so grateful to be healthy enough to walk on the beach this morning with the salty sea spray rising in the warm breeze and the sad refrain in my head …

And so it is just like you said it should be
We’ll both forget the breeze
Most of the time

Life is so fragile and unpredictable that urgency is the key. Don’t hold back; Don’t take No for an answer; Don’t put off. Advocate for yourself and be up front with what you want out of life. This life is not a rehearsal. It is the only one we will get.

Of course, it may all be pointless if the Head of NATO – Marc Rutte is right in what he warned of this morning. To anyone from my Generation, talk of World War is very stark and very real. What it will mean is diverting money from Societal Services towards preparing for war by building up our Defences. It may be very different this time with Drones and Cyber tools being built, stocked and deployed, with less man power and hard machinery like tanks, etc, being used.

More than ever, the older generation who won’t be called on to fight may find themselves being left to struggle because the State will not have the funding for Social Care. We need to build up our Resilience both at State and Personal levels. Difficult times are coming. May be time to baton down the hatches.

Friday, 12th December, 2025

Another lovely, warm morning. I am chauffeuring a client to the Beautician’s for 9.00 am. Hard to believe what wonderful times these are. Who knows, we may get away without a Winter at all. Having said that, there is a Winter of Discontent in the international air.

Yesterday, I was writing about the NATO Chief warning about a new World War in the next 5 years. This morning a number of articles have followed up with the argument that it has already started but that we are wilfully trying to ignore it.

The power blocs are flexing their muscles – Russia in Europe, China all around the world economically but militarily in East Asia and Hong Kong and Taiwan specifically, America all around the world economically but militarily in South America and Venezuela specifically, Israel militarily in West Asia and Palestine and Iran specifically, India militarily in South Asia and Pakisatan and Afghanistan specifically. It feels like the tectonic plates are shifting and we are going to have to address them not later but NOW. The time of the Peace Dividend is over.

Russia is already showing its military intent in Europe with invasion of Ukraine now being pushed further out with drones across Poland and Rumania, Fighter planes entering Estonia, drones in Denmark and Norway, poisonings on British soil and multiple threatening of essential undersea pipelines and cables.

The world is ever more connected. Power, natural gas, oil, and of course the internet all rely on undersea infrastructure. Data centers and nuclear power plants could go the same way. A victim of future wars might be your internet connection when a cable is cut or your heating bill as a gas pipeline or electricity cable is blown up and these events might take place thousands of miles away, and hundreds of meters below sea level. 

The ludicrous contrast between these two positions – Chauffeuring a girl back from a Beauty Treatment and contemplating World War III is not lost on me and it was ever thus. WW2 was met with incredulity and denial right up to the point of declaration. We were still entertaining the idea of appeasement and desperate to believe nothing was going to happen. I was shocked to find that, in 1938, a facial treatment often took place in a beauty salons which were growing in popularity at the time and social life was booming until …. it suddenly wasn’t. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

Going out for a walk to clear my head. I can’t change the situation other than by putting forward views and casting my vote. I can really only fight for myself and my life. As I wrote yesterday, strong self advocacy is our only tool. I try to rely on no one for my health and wealth. I try to take control and argue and fight for what I want and need. The thing is to be strong and never give up. Don’t hide from signs of illness. Demand help urgently. Don’t expect State Handouts. Save, Invest and Build Financial Resilience. The world is an insecure place. The world is where we live.

Saturday, 13th December, 2025

Glorious day although a little cool start. Out walking under clear, blue skies with a long, low, strong sun. Everywhere looks painted with primary colours. The starkness of the sky set against the luscious grass below.

Delivery vans are everywhere and constantly at the moment in this affluent Development. Nobody has time to go to the shops. Even at the weekend, they are out in the garden basking in steaming hot tubs, browsing Amazon for presents. Our neighbours are cash rich and time poor. Badly paid and poorly treated delivery men drive round in demented frenzy delivering orders almost before they were ordered.

I am walking and observing and being observed as I tour the Development and then leave for the huge park outside. It is all very quiet. Nobody stiring at 10.00 am. They are all exhausted after their weeks. I, of course, am not exhausted. I want to be but have to push myself through exercise to replicate a week’s work. After a 90 mins walk outside, I will finish off in the Gym where I am watching a gripping political-espionage Drama on Disney+ of all places.

This is just my sort of interest. Espionage and Politics blended into intrigue with an intelligent plot I can lose myself in and forget the workout pain. Deep State will keep me going over Christmas with 16 hours of storyline.

Meanwhile, Chef is in the kitchen icing three Christmas Cakes, steaming a second Christmas Pudding, preparing to roast a chicken with broccoli, carrots and parsnips and making sage & onion stuffing to accompany it for Supper tonight. She is watching Strictly Come Dancing at the same time. I have no idea how that is possible. Personally, I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than even turn it on but each to their own.

The disparity in our tastes may well be a guide to our enjoyment of another drama which we are jointly watching in the Lounge in the evening. The Revenge Club is lovely, light but captivating stuff which can be found on Paramount+. It features six divorcees who are harbouring a sadness but also a grudge against their exes for the way they have been treated.

They meet at a Divorce Support Group and come to the agreement that they will collectively support each individual to seek revenge upon their former partners. Seems reasonable and is great fun. I think my wife is planning already.

I am consuming media avidly all day at the moment. Apart from the two Dramas described above, I was listening to a fascinating political podcast at 5.00 am today. It was about an obscure American populist politician called Huey Long who was Govenor and Senataor for Louisiana in the 1930s. He was a strange contradiction of a man who veered between Stalinism, and McCarthyism but was a natural politician.

The first time Huey Long campaigned in rural Catholic South Louisiana, his agent reminded him that he was from North Louisiana and he was now in the south where he had to appeal to the large Catholic vote. He acknowledged it and throughout the day, he started his campaign speeches with this story:

When I was a boy, I would get up at 6.00 am on Sunday and hitch our old horse up to the buggy and I would take my Catholic Grandparents to mass. After mass, I would bring them home and at 10.00 am, I would hitch our old horse back up to the buggy and I would take my Baptist Grandparents to church.

The effect of the anecdote on the audience was electric and on the drive back home after campaigning, his manager said to Huey, I didn’t know you had any Catholic Grandparents.
Don’t be damn fool, replied Huwey. We didn’t even have a horse.

The point of the anecdote is that it doesn’t matter how good your intentions or how intellectual your approach, politics is a craft that you either learn or you fail. Keir Starmer is a good man with intellectual strength but he lacks the guile and statecraft of a politician. If he doesn’t learn it quickly, he will be replaced.

Sunday, 30th November, 2025

It is 6.00 am and I am sitting outside with a glass of fresh orange juice and a cup of tea at a table on the patio. It is warm, humid even but the difference is that the sky is dark and there are myriad bright stars looking down on me.

Travelling home for Christmas. Well, not exactly but we are travelling home. Easyjet have contacted me to say everything is on time which is good news. Going to the Airport. Just 15 mins to Tenerife South–Reina Sofía Airport. Off toMontaña Roja VIP Lounge and then wait to be called. It will come up on my smartphone app. Then we’ve got 4 hrs 30 mins flight home. Already prepared for that with things to watch from Netflix downloaded on our iPads to melt the time away.

Yesterday we signed off this month’s visit by revisiting the property we have rented for the whole of November 2026. It is a 2 bed/2 bath apartment in a newly developed and still developing gated community higher up from the sea.

The area looks and feels nice and will be interesting to try. Hopefully, the 2nd phase will be completed by in the next 12 months and I will still be alive. We will be 75 by then. The price for a month is € 4676.00 or currently £4,100.00. We don’t pay until next October so who knows what the exchange rate will be then.

At the airport, everything went smoothly. Straight through security although my travelling comapanion was randomly tested for explosives. I wasn’t surprised! The flight was right on time and landed early.

It was dark and just 3C/37F as we drove home. We had bought pizzas and fresh milk in the M&S at the airport for Supper. I opened a bottle of Prosecco to accompany the lump of post which had appeared behind the door. I had put the heating on as we left Tenerife and the house felt warm and welcoming as we walked in.

Monday, 1st December, 2025

New day, new week, new month, new season, new country, new house, new bed. At least I’ve got there still breathing. Hope you are well too, Dear Reader. The calendar start of Winter. The first day of December 2025.

Why is it so dark, wet and cold? I was woken at 5.45 am by two alarms. I took time to realise what was happening. Abroad, my phone alarm goes off at that time. I turn it off and then make it play BBC Radio 4. At home on the South Coast, Alexa sounds the alarm at that time, announces the time to me and then automatically turns on BBC Radio 4. This morning both processes happened at the same time.

Abroad, I check my phone for what is on my calendar for the day and what the weather is outside. At home, Alexa announces what the weather is outside when asked and goes on to read out the items for the day on my calendar.

Today, there are 5 items on my Calendar – I use an online calendar which can be read on my computer, my iPad, my smartphone, my watch and picked up by Alexa to read out to me. My Housekeeper can also pick up the same calendar on her devices so she knows what tasks I have set her to complete. Unfortunately, I have had to allow her to edit and add tasks for me to complete as well. Usually, as you would imagine, the tasks are not earth shattering althogh sometimes they are important.

Today, it contains mundane things like Black Bin Day / Window Cleaner Coming but it also includes Renew Car Insurance / Renew Free Carparking Disc / Collect Prescription and Book Airport Lounge (for the next trip). I’ve got a busy week ahead which includes a trip to Worthing Urology Department for a Cystoscopy (Really looking forward to that.), a trip to the dentist to have a crown fitted (Really looking forward to paying for that.) and a trip to the Southlands Oncology Department to have a full body scan prior to my prostate review (Really looking forward to what that might find.).

One thing I have to sort out with some urgency today is a PIR lamp that is mounted above our garage and helps light up when I enter the drive as well as serve as a deterent to thieves. Almost as soon as we went away, our neighbours alerted us that it had come on and stayed on and there was nothing they could do to turn it off. It was on for a month. I have to either sort it out myself or get an electrician to help.

Of course, after a month away from home, there is also the inevitable trip to Sainsburys to restock the fridge and freezer.

Tuesday, 2nd December, 2025

Nice, bright blue sky this morning but a little chilly at just 11C/52F. Still, I’m going out for my walk in shorts. I’m warmed up by the financial largesse that has come my way today. Our bank account has received £220.00 from the government for our heating allowances and Christmas Bonuses. Absolutely bonkers but I’m not giving it back.

The latest Premium Bond winnings are confirmed this morning and we have received this month’s winnings of £125.00 to bring a total of £250.00 for the first 3 months. This means that I am on course for a tax free return of 5.6% which is fine. Of course, I am still hoping to get lucky before I end the experiment. £50,000? £100,000?? £1,000,000????? Now that would be a good return Tax Free.

If these people can do it, I can. Now, what would I do with the winnings? Don’t call me, Dear Reader. I’ll call you … probably.

One of the benefits of going away is seeing one’s own home through fresh eyes. It is so easy to take for granted the places and people and objects around one as familiarity dulls the senses. Out walking today, the area around my house was vivid and fresh, beautiful and vibrant. The grass is absolutely gorgeous – almost good eough to eat.

My car was wonderful to drive back from the airport. I love it and all its facilities and gadgets. I love its silent, smooth comfort, the smell of the leather seats and the quality of the hi-fi. It takes a month away from it to realise. I love my bathroom. The secret of a happy marriage is individual bathrooms. I love my shower. I haven’t found a better one abroad. I especially love my Office. I can’t live without it for too long.

Just to ensure I keep appreciating what I’ve got, I’ve booked lots of time away for 2026. In fact, I’m alreading thinking I must run the future bookings through the calculator of 90 days out in any 180 days. A week in Greece in June. A month in Spain June-July. A week in Greece in August. A month in Tenerife in November. Need to slot 2 or 3 short trips to France in over the year as well. So you can see the dilemma.

I am out at the hospital tomorrow for something that sounds excruciatingly unpleasant but must be faced. Hopefully, there will be no cancer found. While medics check that end of the body, my wife is obsessed with protecting the other extremity. She has bought me some more caps because she says I spend so much time outside in the sunshine walking that scalp damage could lead to a cancer up there. She says that but she has been so surprised that I look good in a cap. I think it’s a sexual thing really!

Wednesday, 3rd December, 2025

Bright and sunny start to the day but it has a looming darkness for me. This afternoon, my first Christmas present of the week – a Cystoscopy at Worthing Urology. I am going to receive a local anaesthetic apparently but I can’t decide what will be worse – having a tube shoved up a tender area or a needle in it first. I may send my wife in instead. She’s braver than me.

I’d rather cancel Christmas altogether than receive presents like this. We’ve come home to Christmas lights everywhere – on people’s houses which I will never understand and the trees of the village green which I can almost accept. The TV adverts really do illustrate the tawdry nature of the event although I have long been in love with Kiera Knightly and her Waitrose advert certainly brings some joy to the occasion.

To take my mind off this afternoon, I walked on the beach which certainly didn’t look like December. I walked on the beach in England in December in shorts and tee shirt perfectly comfortably.

Well the Cystoscopy turned out to be a breeze. Don’t know what you were all worrying about. It might be a camera on a cable up the willy but it’s simple and quick. I had experienced a scary event where I had passed loads of blood. I was terrified of this procedure but it was great in reality. I had a local anaesthetic which was a squirt of liquid and then I lay back and watched them (three girls) explore my bladder and kidneys. The viewing on the big screen was wonderful. Everything was healthy and clear. They said my bloody wee was probably the result of radiotherapy on my prostate. They did say that I had an exceptionally large bladder. No girl has ever said that to me before. I felt quite proud, Dear Reader.

Thursday, 4th December, 2025

Out early this morning to the dentist. I was having a crown fitted. Actually, I was having a crown designed, built and fitted. It was a two hour job. In the past, it would have been a two week job where the mouth was prepared, x-rayed and that sent off to a dental technician to create a porcelain crown which would be delivered back to the dentist and the patient would return and have it fitted.

Now, my dentist does everything herself with a two hour span. The mouth is prepared, x-rayed and that x-ray sent to the 3-D printer which uses diamond cutters on a porcelain block with water jets spraying to keep the process cool. It is fantastic and they were obviously proud of the process. They wanted me to watch my tooth being printed to understand their pride in it. The x-ray machine cost £160,000 and the printer a mere £57,000. It is a considerable outlay. No wonder they charge so much for the crown process. It was lots of work and then the cost of the instruments. I suddenly thought £750.00 was a reasonable charge.

It is the run up to Christmas and although I really am a Bah Humbug Cumugeon, I realise contact with distant friends and relatives is important. You may have not seen me for years, Dear Reader, but at least you’ll receive a card this Christmas. If you’re not a Blog reader, you will also get a Newsletter. There is no escape. Today I am writing to my Doctor from the 1990s. I went to see him about a bad back in 2000. He wasn’t very interested in my back but he did want to buy my house which I had put on the market. I had been in it for 16 years. It was set in an acre of land and in a Conservation area. We had loved it but it was time to move on.

One of the first people to view it was a Huddersfield Town footballer but he was soon transferred to Sheffield United and dropped out from the sale. Then came the Doctor. He and his wife have lived happily there for 25 years but now have sold and moved on. Our first Christmas card this year is from the Doctor giving us his new address in Norfolk, ironically a place where Pauline’s family have lots of connections.

Last week I was writing about the Teachers’ Pension Scheme website alerting me to changes to my tax arrangements. I was also talking about trying to move as much of our savings and investments in to the tax-free shelter of ISAs. It was rumoured that the Chancellor would reduce the amount we could shelter from £40,000.00 ( 2 x £20,000.00) to £24,000.00 (2 x £12,000.00) each year. In the event, she saw reason and kept the larger allowance for over 65s as I suggested would be reasonable.

I was also writing about the much larger tax-take we were paying because investments had been paying so much more over the past 2-3 years. We were informed that we had not paid enough tax and we were charged a considerable back-tax burden. I chose not to challenge it because our unearned income had become so pleasing.

Imagine our delight this morning to be told that we had over paid tax by quite some amount. From this month and before we even receive a pay/pension rise in April, the tax office/teachers’ pensions have informed us that our joint monthly income will increase by £1,100.00 per month or £13,200.00 per year. It beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, Dear Reader. Might have to book another couple of foreign trips for next year.

Friday, 5th December, 2025

The moon last night was huge. This December supermoon is particularly special: astronomers say a full moon this close to Earth won’t be visible again until 2042 when we will be 91 years old. We have to be there to witness.

Apparently it is known as the Cold Moon because of the season – according to the Astronomer Royal who lives with me. She is obsessed with celestial bodies which is probably why she married me. The garden was bathed in light all night and there is a trace of frost this morning. Winter really must be here.

My Chef has made three Christmas Cakes – not because we will eat three but just because she can. Two will be given to other people while the third will sit in a cake tin in our house while we diet. Today, marzipan, icing and cake decorations will be bought and her delights will start. This year the theme will be golden and I’ve just had to order these decorations from Amazon. Bah Humbug!

Tomorrow I am having a full body CAT (CT) Scan. If I had bought that Privately it would have cost me about £800.00. This week I’ve also had a Flexible Cystoscopy. If I had bought that Privately, it would have cost abround £2,200.00. Earlier in the year, I had a Colonoscopy. If I had bought that Privately, it would have cost around £3,000.00. I will also have had two PSA Tests at a cost of about £100.00 privately. So, our wonderful NHS has provided me with about £6,100.00 worth of medical care not to mention Consultation fees and it was all free at the point of delivery. And there are mad Right Wing Racists advocating American style Health Care.

Saturday, 6th December, 2025

The end of what has felt like quite a long week which started in Tenerife and has ended in a body scanner in Brighton. Had to be there for 10.00 am but the hospital is near Brighton so set off at 9.00 am in case there was a problem parking. Also, I had to drink a litre of water before the scan and I didn’t want that sitting inside me for longer than necessary.

Hospitals and Doctors’ Surgeries are totally different places since the pandemic which forced them to invoke new controls on patient flows. This morning, I arrived at the carpark at 9.30 am to find it almost empty. Charges for parking had been cancelled and I had time to drink a litre of water and listen to a political podcast.

With my belly sloshing water, I walked down to the Diagnostic and Radiology Department. I saw no one apart from two security guards as I walked through the corridors until I found the waiting area which was completely deserted. Eventually, a Chinese man called me at the Department door. He told me his name which I didn’t really catch and led me into a treatment room. It is at that point that the first of many times in the process I am asked my date of birth and first line of my address and then the cannula is fitted in my arm.

The Chinese man is immediately embarrassed because blood spurts out all over the chair and down my arm over my hand. Are you on blood thinners, he asks. He obviously hadn’t read my notes. Anyway, he cleaned me up and staunched the flow of very, very red blood. I was led into the CT Theatre and lay on the scanner bed. Chinaman once again asked my date of birth and first line of my address and then warned me that the contrast dye was being connected to the cannula and suddenly the warm wash of fluid flowed down from head to foot.

And then just three or so minutes of being shunted back and forth with a recorded voice telling me to old my breath and breath normally again and it was all over. A little Chinese girl appeared to hold my hand and help me off the bed. She asked my date of birth and first line of my address – in case I had forgotten over the past couple of minutes. They forced me to wait 10 mins in a side room in case the dye injection affected my system and that was it – all over for another 12 months. I walked out and still didn’t see another human being until I got to the carpark and a woman was just parking. It is hard to understand.

So, this long week has gone from Tenerife – Gatwick on Sunday to Cystoscopy at Worthing on Wednesday to 2 hrs of Dental work on Thursday to CT Scan today and I have just been phoned to ask me to go for my annual Diabetic Eye check on Monday. I am either a complete basket case or I’m going to be very, very healthy.

Back home, it is my job to do the paperwork – to turn my mind to Xmas Newsletter and Card List. We still can’t allow the post to go. All year, I am texting, emailing, Whatsapping, Tweeting, Blogging, etc but Xmas cards and newsletter are a tradition that I can’t quite let go of. We used to send around 70 cards each year. I think we will be down to around 50 this year. Death is very final, Dear Reader and age has meant some people not keeping up with the digital world. If you can believe it, a few people don’t read the Blog. So, I produce a newsletter and have done since at least 1997. I have copies going back that far and I wrote informal ones to individuals before that. I get lots of newsletters back and enjoy reading them.

Yesterday, out of the blue we received this huge book. It spoke to both of our interests and looked as if it was a spcifically chosen present but without any acknowlegement or message. It is fantastic with wonderful Spanish meals we will definitely cook. Who sent it? I have no idea. I do know that it would cost me £35.00 to buy on Amazon. If you sent it, let me know because I love it and would like to say thank you.