Defeat

"Democrats probably could have found a more saleable candidate — one distanced from Biden who had built a national base by winning votes in primaries. But the 81-year-old president stubbornly refused to acknowledge his physical and cognitive decline and didn’t bow out of the race until it was too late for the party to conduct a healthy replacement process." - George Skelton "The Los Angeles Times" November 3rd 2024

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When Joe Biden eventually resigned from the presidential race on July 21st, it was far too late for The Democratic Party to go through the usual procedures to choose a new candidate. Instead, for expediency, it had to be the Vice President who had been Mr Biden's personal pick ahead of the 2020 election. 

In spite of achieving her candidacy by default, Kamala Harris came across as capable, articulate, unifying and trustworthy. She fought a good fight. It is a shame that we shall never know how her presidency might have been. She was always going to be associated with the incumbent's record even though she had simply been his loyal lieutenant.

In the eyes of thousands of centre and right of centre white Americans there were three other things that undoubtedly counted against her - she was a Californian woman of colour. Though liberally minded citizens might have been ready for such a president, the traditional centre and centre right were demonstrably not.

Now we have to endure that boorish, spiteful, aging egotist back in The White House with his cartoonish view of the world. What further damage will he cause? And I don't know if you agree with me or not but a big chunk of the blame for what has happened lies with the fellow at the top of this post and possibly the woman below. Witnessing his decline firsthand, did she urge her husband to quit the race months earlier? We may never know.

Jill Biden

Cigarettes

These cigarette ads from yesteryear are shocking. Perhaps one day our descendants will be equally shocked when they look at present day ads for betting and gambling organisations. I hope so.

Imagine sending your loved ones packs of cigarettes for Christmas! That's like sending them time bombs or vials of deadly viruses. But of course back then they didn't know better did they?

Actually, "they" - the tobacco companies did know better - but they suppressed the health information as they wanted to keep the money rolling in. Often, through different forms of bribery, they were secretly in league with leading politicians.

I confess that I smoked cigarettes from 1974 to 1988 - fourteen years and for most of those years it was twenty a day. Looking back, I can hardly believe how stupid I was to take up that disgusting habit. However, I haven't smoked a single cigarette in the last thirty six years and that makes me feel rather better about myself.

This is how I managed to give up. It was the summer of 1988 and our second baby was on her way. I had failed to give up in 1984 - the year that our Ian was born but this time I was utterly determined.

I took my newly purchased golden pack of "Benson and Hedges" out to our dustbin and I broke up all the cigarettes inside - crushing them to bits then I ripped up the golden box and tossed that in the bin too. I rubbed my hands and all the tobacco was gone. Then I went inside and washed my hands in the kitchen sink.

In that instant I had become a non-smoker once again.  I was not playing around, not pretending, not playing mind games with myself.  It was over and as I say, I have not had a puff  on a cigarette since. In fact, I have grown to be revolted by the foul stench of cigarette smoke. Horrible!

Unfinished

Checking out "Posts" in this blog's admin and management area, I discovered that I had seventy draft posts to sort through. None of them were complete blogposts and most were just early versions of successfully published posts. However, I also stumbled across the beginnings of a story. It has the feel of a spooky tale.

Soon after I retired from full time teaching, I joined a project that saw me visiting three challenging Sheffield secondary schools - working with individual pupils to boost their English skills.  Unsurprisingly, it was called The One-to-One Project.

One of children I worked with was a thirteen year old boy called Colby. Led by his ideas and word choices, we began to craft a scary story together. For some technical reason that I don't recall, we used a "new post" page from this blog to save the writing during development. 

Working in tandem, he was stimulated by the process but the story itself was never finished. It was slow going and he was absent from school on two or three occasions. Today, Colby will be twenty seven years old and of course I have no idea how his life is now nor how he did in his GCSE exams.

I remember that the title he suggested was "The Lost Schoolgirl". Here with a few amendments is what we wrote and because it is incomplete, I just might bring it to some sort of conclusion this week. Any ideas?

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"I think it's next right", said Annalise, studying the satnav on her smartphone..

"Okay, you mean just here?" asked Liam, turning the steering wheel of their silver Porsche.

Up ahead, beyond soaring sycamores, they could see the old school. It had been empty for over twenty years.

Liam parked up next to the wrought iron gateway. They both got out and checked the external appearance of what they planned would become their new home. It would be their first place together.

"All I can see in my head is the beautiful house that this will be become," beamed Annalise.

They unlocked the main front door. It was a heavy oak door with a black iron ring for a handle. The old hinges creaked as they walked in. Immediately, they noticed how cold it was.

"Don't worry darling, we will buy the best central heating that money will buy," smiled Liam, putting his arm around his new wife. "And there will be a log burner in the lounge just as you dreamed."

Annalise smiled right into his eyes just as she had done at their wedding ceremony in  Healing.

Five weeks later, Liam and Annalise came back to the house to check how their decorators were doing. The lounge had been painted dark purple and there were only a few finishing touches left. The recommended central heating installers from Grimsby had been and gone. And as promised there was now a good-sized log burner in the lounge fireplace

"Wow! It's nearly ready for us to move in darling!" grinned Annalise, hugging her husband.

Indeed, the following week, Liam and Annalise moved in. She instructed the removal men where to put things. As two of these burly fellows were carrying a large, beech-framed mirror upstairs, one of them stumbled and the hefty mirror somersaulted down the stairs, shattering only when it reached the bottom. Annalise was mortified but Liam promised to buy her another even though one might ask - how can you replace a  a family heirloom?

"I'm really sorry!" said the head removal man. "We never usually break  owt!"

After the removal men had gone, Liam and Annalise locked up and drove to the closest supermarket. They bought loads of food to fill their new fridge freezer, spending over £300. By the time they got back to the old school, it was dusk. A flock of crows descended on the bare sycamores near the house and cawed at each other.

Liam and Annalise lugged the supermarket bags into the house and half-filled the pantry and fridge freezer with their provisions. They were both kind of tired after their long day and Liam's back was aching. 

After microwave meals and a helping of television, they decided to enjoy an early night. In the morning, they would get on with the unpacking and try to find homes for everything.

Songtime

"My Back Pages" was written by Bob Dylan and first appeared on his 1964 "Another Side of Bob Dylan"  album. It has often been said that the song is about Dylan waving goodbye to his former self  - a minstrel who preached and supported protest movements. Now a different artist is emerging - wiser and less naive - not interested in changing the world. I find the song rather obtuse and there's a sense in which Dylan is playing with words and images, enjoying the way they collide rather than setting out a clear agenda. Here the song is performed by The Byrds who recorded at least twenty Dylan songs. Only two of the original five members of that legendary band are still alive today - Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman...

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin' high and mighty traps
Countless with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
We'll meet on edges, soon, said I
Proud 'neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
Rip down all hate, I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
Sisters fled by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now

Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now

My guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now

Messages

As a girl, Mum was a dancer 

This morning, I was sorting through my cache of hotmail e-mails that go back seventeen years. I came across this  message that I sent to my brother Paul on September 2nd, 2007. At that time, our mother Doreen was residing in a residential home in Beverley and reaching the end of her life.  She died just eleven days later at the age of eighty six.

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Dear Paul,

We all went over to see mum in Beverley today - me, Shirley, Ian and Frances. We had Sunday lunch in "The Rose and Crown" - it scored a measly five out of ten on my edibility gauge.

Mum was asleep when we got to her room - lying on her new bed which has sides and electronic vibration through a super-duper hospital mattress. This is for her painful bed sores and especially her painful feet. She's probably drugged up too. I doubt that she is ever out of that bed now and wonder if she will ever make it to her chair again. Her "Sunday Express" was unread like Saturday's "Daily Express". She lives in a kind of slumber - fading away with only occasional flashes of her old spirit.

As on previous visits she asked me how old she is. She had no recollection of Katie's visit in mid-August and was surprised that Shirley and I had been to France. We bought her a little souvenir in Lourdes but getting it out of the little paper bag seemed like a test in the Krypton Factor. In the end we had to get it out for her and she stared for a moment at the back of it as if not realising where the front of it was. I put a new picture on her wall of some bluebell woods and rather sweetly she said it reminded her of her childhood in Rawmarsh when she would walk to her bluebell wood past the "fever hospital".

I asked her about "When you have passed away" and she confirmed - no religion - just a simple ceremony at the crematorium. I think I am going to get in touch with the British Humanist Society who will conduct funeral ceremonies now. Maybe one of their reps might visit mum in Westwood Park and get to know her a little before the inevitable end.

She was very thirsty when we were there and seemed to appreciate the non-alcoholic drinks we plied her with. I don't think the staff have time to persuade and cajole residents to eat and drink. 

It's very nearly twenty eight years since Dad died - Sept 14th 1979. If there were a heaven I would think that Mum will be meeting up with him again before this month is out. She's so weak and thin and sleepy.

Neil

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On the day that she died I was at work and what happened that day still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Apparently, the residential home phoned the school where I worked at ten in the morning. They urgently wanted to tell me that Mum was fading fast and perhaps I might like to get over to Beverley to be with her. Beverley is about an hour and twenty minutes by car from Sheffield. Mum died at around two thirty that day. However, I never got the phone message until four o'clock when I just happened to be at the school reception desk.

Judith, the lead receptionist told me she had received the phone message  but I did not pick up my classroom phone when she tried my number. I said, "I am not always in my classroom. I may have been elsewhere! Why didn't you send someone to find me?"  Judith apologised most profusely but it was far too late. Mum was already dead.

Afterwards, I thought of all the times I had "gone the extra mile" for that school and  this seemed to be  my  reward - denied the opportunity to be at my mother's bedside when  she died. The manager of Westwood Park  residential home  later told me that she had stressed to Judith that it was an important call and wondered why I hadn't phoned back.

One

Sweet little Margot will be one year old tomorrow morning. I took this picture of her on Wednesday of this week. She is sitting in our hallway with her coat on and her cute little cow slippers. She was ready to go out.

For the past four months, Shirley and I have looked after Margot every Wednesday. She arrives at around eight thirty and we take her home around five o'clock. It has been a privilege to care for her and to witness her steady development. She is a gorgeous child and as I hold her in my arms, I often find myself saying to her, "You're so lovely!"

She now crawls like an Olympic champion and in the last couple of weeks she has learnt how to pull herself up at the coffee table or the sofa or the  first two steps of the staircase. She sparkles proudly each time.

To be honest, Shirley takes the lead when we care for the little girl. I am just the second in command, like a reserve force. Shirley is a brilliant carer, well-organised and on top of basic things like feeding and laundry. It reminds me of what a good mother she was back in the eighties when our own children were born.

Of course, Margot has everything she needs but for her birthday, we have bought her  this cuddly monkey made entirely from recycled materials:-

Plus a musical book called "If You're Happy and You Know It" and a "Baby Einstein" Guitar  with buttons she can press to make music.

Just this morning, her other grandparents returned to England from a six week sojourn in Western Australia. They will be back in Sheffield tomorrow afternoon to celebrate Margot's first birthday. Let us hope that they have not bought her an identical monkey, a musical book and a "Baby Einstein" guitar.

Quiztime

 

Is it an island or is it a continent? Today's quiz is all about Australia. As per usual, the answers may be found in the comments section.

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1) In which Australian state is Brisbane located?

2) Name this famous Australian singer - not the green fellow on the right!

3) Once known as Ayers Rock, what is this big rock in the middle of Australia now called?

(a) Didgeridoo (b) Kangaroo Rock

(c) Coochicoo  (d) Uluru

4) Please name this famous Australian film actor.

5) What is the current population of Australia?

(a) 5,855,102 (b) 11,945,666 (c) 26,799,251 (d) 52,140,386

6) There are over 330 different marsupials in Australia but what is this one?

7) "Waltzing Matilda" is an iconic Australian song. This is the first line with one word missing: "Once a jolly ............... camped by a billabong" What is that missing word? 

(a) squatter (b) swagman (c) pommie (d) jumbuck

8) Viewed from above, what is this very famous Australian sight?

9) Annually, which city hosts the Australian Open tennis tournament every January?

10) Australia is a very big country but in terms of land area how much bigger is it than California?

(a) Twice as big (b) Six times as big 

(c) Sixteen times as big (d) Thirty six times as big

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That's it. How did you do?