This World, This Life

  I came back in from the doctor's, satisfied with the news that the tests I had a couple of weeks ago have revealed nothing to worry about.  For an old geezer rapidly heading for his 70th birthday I'm not in bad shape (the selection of aches and pains in various leg joints, relics of my sporting days 40 and more years ago notwithstanding).  A little overweight, perhaps, and inevitably slowing up, suffering from fatigue (too much for my liking) and with vision not what it once was, but still......reasons to be cheerful. I gave My Beloved a quick call, just to let her know the worries she's been carrying since the tests can be largely discounted, but please carry on with the better diet she's insisted I follow, then settled down in my armchair for little R&R: not too long, as I had another medical appointment elsewhere, this one to help a recurring sciatica problem.  I placed my legs up comfortably on the adjacent settee, laid my head back and closed my eyes, rel...

  Somehow, I simply can't get excited, even slightly, about this year's FIFA bean-fest.  As World Cups go, it's the first one I've failed to have any enthusiasm for - and it has nothing to do with the controversial location. I understand the controversy.  I watched the draw that awarded the competition to the country live on television while working in Trinidad, way back in 2010. Like everyone else, it came as a surprise, as did the award of the 2018 competition to Russia.  In all honesty, that was more annoying to me, since England had bid for it too, and it was disappointing not to get the nod again after nearly 50 years since the glorious summer of 1966.  Although the worst excesses were still years ahead and perhaps unforeseeable, I had even then doubts about Putin, who at the time was strutting around on the world stage as it he owned it.  It seemed to me that such behaviour was out of character - way out of character! - for someone who had formerly be...

  I'm going to place a bit of a caveat on this piece, namely that I'm not a political scientist, have never held membership of any political party, and due to my non-resident status find myself politically persona non grata - more on this later. So the comments and views that follow are certainly personal, and not influenced by anything except my own experiences and a contemplation of poilitics in Britain. As I wrote in a previous blog, politics is top of my list of inventions I can do without - but has always (and still does) hold an unheallhy fascination for me. For avoidance of doubt, I started voting in the 1970s, when the voting age was cut to 18, and have always taken it as a serious public duty. I have always taken note of the policy plans announced by all the major parties (and some of the minor ones) in the run-up to an election, and tried to vote for the party that in my view seemed the best fit for what my personal and, later, family needs were. My parents ...

  Funny thing, progress. Done right, it makes all our lives easier, more productive, more rewarding - both financially and mentally - and gives the entire human development a kick forward. Done badly and it can lead to disaster and regression. It's all subjective, of course, and I have no doubt everyone has a different view about what's been good and bad for both them and the rest of us. For what it's worth, here is a little list of 8 developments that could come under the label (perhaps misleading in itself) of inventions that I could quite happily live without as in my view they are more trouble than they are worth, plus an even smaller list of similar things that I simply could not. And why.... Remember: it's all subjective and I'm guessing few people, if any, would agree with me. So - here goes: ------------------------------------------------ Inventions I could do without: Politics and Religion.   A biggy to start with, and calling it an invention is perh...

  So Putin has announced the annexation of the Eastern Ukrainian territories his troops have been occupying since 2014. This is in addition to the Crimea, annexed in a similar way earlier that year.  It should come as no surprise.  Russia did the "decent thing" (that is a joke, of course), and held a referendum in each case, and reported residents voted "overwhelmingly" in support of "joining" the Russian Federation.  Given that credible reports and testimony has emerged showing that, throughout the voting process, people were being "encouraged" by heavily armed militia (for which read Russian troops) to vote in favour, the result was never in doubt.  The votes were of course roundly condemned by the Ukrainian Presidents and Governments; branded as illegal attacks, a land grab, and in breach of its Conventions by the UN and Western leaders including messrs Cameron, Obama, Johnson, Biden, Mrs. Merkel and other EU Heads of State.  Note there were ...

  It's taken a while to write this post.   We all knew it was coming sooner or later, as it does to us all, but for all that, the news of HM Queen Elizabeth II's passing still shook me to the core.  It shouldn't have, of course.  She was 96 years old, a fine age for anyone to reach (and I hope I do) and apart from these unspecified "mobility issues" appeared in good health.  There had been rumours, rightly never commented on by Buckingham Palace, for a while, and she had started to look a little frail on her infrequent public appearances - but like most people I thought that was probably par for the course - I've never met anyone in their 90s so it's difficult for me to judge. Then suddenly, after the first announcement at lunchtime that there was "a concern", in only a few hours she was gone.  It was even quicker (at least in my memory) than Prince Phillip's end.....and am I the only person who believes that a light went out in her life that...