Month: January 2026

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.