Marmite

Feeling lazy / tired / dispirited / blah, ready to curl up with the cat in front of the woodburning stove (Oh, the carbon emissions!), I can’t be bothered to compose my own masterpiece so instead will cobble together others’ nuggets. Not elegant, but functional.

After supper with Sis of burger, chips and red wine at a Gordon Ramsay place in London, I settled down in my armchair to blog. I was too tired to PhuD or prep for next week’s meetings, and disinclined to change a light bulb, vacuum the rug or straighten a wonky picture on the wall. In any event, it suited being wonky. It’s a vividly colourised and abstractly contrasted reflection of part of a boat on the water. Cleverly conceived and beautifully executed, it would never win the Turner Prize, no matter how wonkily presented.

Sometimes you have to block things out and soldier on as if nothing bad has happened.

There’s been a plethora of ‘fallen women’ in the news recently. Together with the others I’ve complained about over the years, they snap in half the scratched record that we need more women ‘at the top’ (as opposed to ‘on top’) to better reflect society (not that there is such a thing, according to one woman who so deserved to be at the top, and by that I mean at the right hand of God). The other argument for positive discrimination is that women bring something to the executive echelon that men can’t. They sure do, but I don’t think the following roll of dishonour is what was anticipated.

One of my favourite mantras is: Those who can, debate the issues; those who can’t, insult. Remoaners insulting Leave voters as Little Englanders, is a prime example. Developers dismissing rural communities as Nimbys, is another.

This is one of my ‘start typing and see where I end up’ blogs. It ain’t pretty but it does the business. I’ll start with one of those, ‘has anyone else thought of that’ moments. Hubby and I were walking round and about in the crisp autumnal air yesterday morning, most of the autumnal leaves having dropped to the ground, revealing loads-a autumnal red berries still clinging to the branches. The birds don’t need to be fed by us, I mused. Look at all these berries, literally ripe for their picking. Hubby was pretty sure the birds would be following their instincts and only eat what was best for them. I disagreed. At this time of year, on a cold and frosty morning, Mother Nature intended them to gorge on vitamins. The nuts and seeds in our feeders were tastier, more filling, but full of protein, of which Mother Nature, in her wisdom, was depriving them. Therefore, by making protein available, we were messing with the birdies’ natural diets, most probably to their detriment somehow. You don...

I went to see a friend today, probably for the last time. I wasn’t the only one. Three more people arrived as I was leaving. “They’re all coming to say goodbye, you see,” explained his remarkable and remarkably calm wife. So had I.

No prizes for guessing what this refers to. No, not the BBC; that’s just a cow. I’m talking about the NHS. If it’s not the elderly being discharged prematurely from hospital, it’s bereaved parents being lied to, sepsis sufferers being told to take paracetamol, paperwork filed incorrectly leading to precipitous prognoses, or the vulnerable being butchered on the perverted altar of transgenderism. Whatever happened to First, Do No Harm? The NHS mantra is now: First, Cover Our Arse; or even First, Woke Our Outcomes.

C is for Covid, of Course. There’s also a C in the ongoing Public InCwirey. There are two C’s in Cowardly Cain and another in Mithering MaCnamara, the two uncivil servants who are blaming poor planning for and handling of the pandemic on something called macho-culture, diversity boxes not being ticked, BoJo being hospitalised and, yes folks you read it here first, BoJo Cracking jokes. They’re wailing that BoJo was too jovial. Ahem – some people rely on humour as a Coping strategy when the going gets tough. I should know because I do the same … why Cry when you can laugh?

Here we go again: an incredibly complex, multi-faceted, more-than-one-way-to-skin-a-cat Government decision is reduced to a smidgeon of its bare essentials by the Biased Broadcasting Cadaver. The BBC's report has in turn been seized on by the increasingly tiresome eco/ego-fringe as proof-positive that it’s the wrong decision. This time, it’s Defra’s announcement that reintroducing wildlife species is not a priority, which has attracted catcalls of ‘pathetic’ from the rude and simple-minded. As with the nutrient neutrality debate of a few weeks ago, the Government stance sounded bad the way it had been reported but, once I'd looked into it, the proposed revised policies were reasonable. And, given that Fishy & Co are desperate for support anywhere they can find it, why would they alienate voters with a crass statement? I mean, what’s stopping them from saying now they intend to do something, then just not do it once / if they get re-elected? I decided to delete the BBC (if o...

It’s well documented that I’m a technophobe. I clung on to my retro-Nokia until it literally fell apart in my hand; I think the cloud is a fluffy white thing in the sky; a Trojan Horse is something do with ancient Greece; a virus isn’t cured with antibiotics; and Power Point is a sports drink. My first fortnight as a mature student was therefore a nightmare. At one point I said to one of my supervisors, “I did not register for a PhD in IT!” The first thing I had to overcome was accessing my student email account. The nice little man loaded the required software and set up the required protocols, whatever they are, patted me on the head and told me I was all set. But he hadn’t actually told me how to access the account.  Once that was sorted, I couldn’t get onto the university wi-fi, even though it had worked fine the previous day. Instead I had to rely on the fluffy white thing, which was slow and unstable. I eventually found an FAQ on the IT help site: “After you change your email...

Kevin Keeghan got into trouble recently, for admitting that he didn’t like women commentating on men’s football; he explained why, and his reasons were valid, if debatable. For that he was denounced as sexist or misogynistic or some such. Well guess what. With very few exceptions, e.g. Sue Barker, I don’t like women commentating on most sports, even ladies’ sports. They’re shrill, tense, intense and false. I know that other girlies share this view. Kev has a point. Let him say what he thinks. Hang the thought-police, not Kev.

I honestly think there is no such thing as the human race. There are at least two: the one I belong to, and the one occupied by the likes of ISIS, The Wagner Group, paedophiles and groomers, Hamas, and their apologists and celebrants, including the Labour Party fringe. How can anyone perpetrate such horrors, support them or not condemn them?

After the first day at one’s new job, college, course, whatever, when one arrives home, shell-shocked, exhausted, hyper, one expects to be asked by one’s Hubby how one got on. Alternative niceties are, “Did you have fun,” or maybe, “Did you meet some nice people?” Not in this house. After my first day as a PhuDder (that’s PhD student to you), Hubby asked, “Did you behave yourself?”

Many of the world’s religions and mythologies have a Tree of Life, but I want to just mention the Christian tree, given that Britain is and has been a Christian country for about 2,000 years (I like round figures – just look at my rear). In the interests of multiculturalism, diversity, equity, inclusion, wokeism and mob-appeasers, perhaps I should say something about the Tree in Judaism (of which I’m also very fond), Sikhism (I’ve known many good eggs over the years), Hinduism (ditto) and Islam. But I’m not going to, because I want to redress the balance after the ‘Indignant from Islington’ reactions to Brave Braverman’s recent speech.

Here’s a blog to jumpstart the old brain cells, or kick them into touch. A paradigm shift is a fundamental change in how we think about and understand life, the universe and everything. The replacement of Ptolemy’s earth-centred universe with Copernicus’ sun-centred system is one example; Newtonian mechanics given the heave-ho by Einstein’s relativity is another. If you prefer, it’s when the ultimate answer is no longer 42; it’s 51.

I don’t like Russell Brand. I find him crude, creepy and cretinous. Well, he is a fan of Jeremy Corbyn.

One year ago, her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II died. One day ago, my friend H asked me to write a blog about Britain’s disappearing, or disappeared, work ethic. The late Queen’s work ethic was unparalleled. She never retired. She studied her briefs. She was an example to everyone. The Daily Mail marked the anniversary of her death with accounts of the day, as told by senior guardsmen at the heart of the preparations for her funeral.

In my last blog ( Jelly on a Plate ) I decided that I didn’t “feel sufficiently confident to decide for definite or comment publicly on just how bad the relaxation of the Nutrient Neutrality rules is.” The last couple of days, I’ve read the exchange of letters between the Government and the Office for Environmental Protection (OfEP), extracts from the Levelling up and Regeneration Bill (comically dubbed ‘LURB’) and scanned countless commentaries and soundbites from ‘environmentalists’ that collectively compete with a parrots' enclave. Honestly, I nodded off over my nutrient-loaded, roast (British) beef sandwich. Yes. Beef. Half of the critics of the Government’s environmental policies would cancel Britain’s beef industry and rewild thousands of acres of sweeping pastures with totally inappropriate habitats misinformed by a simplistic ideology that flies in the face of science, history, systems' thinking and pragmatism. 

I had a wobble the other day. A sanity one that is. I went for my usual walk, or at least that’s what I intended to do. Down the lane, round the road, up and down another lane, up and back down a road then retrace my steps home. All on tarmac, albeit Bucks’ tarmac – pockmarked worse than a teenager’s worst nightmare. Not this time. I started off down the lane but, instead of walking past a field opening, I swivelled right and yomped along a farm track, then along a field margin, a few of those actually, until I realised I didn’t know where I was or where I was going. And neither did anyone else.