Springtime

All over the northern hemisphere, we are noting the tell tale signs of Spring ousting the dark days of Winter. The southern hemisphere stole away our light, our colour and our joy but now we are retrieving what was lost as their early autumn heralds their winter.

Today I did not wear a coat as I ventured into the city centre to visit two bookshops. I was looking for any novel by James Kelman having enjoyed "Dirt Road" so much. Though this mission was unsuccessful I did manage to buy four other books - "Cuddy" by Benjamin Myers, "The Stone Diaries" by Carol Shields, "Walking the Rivelin" by Sue Shaw and Keith Kendall and "BOSH! More Plants" by my only born son and his old school friend Henry Firth.

Two books were liberated from the Oxfam book shop on Glossop Road and two from the Orchard Square branch of "Waterstones".

How lovely it was to be out there in the sunshine and people's hearts seemed to be lifted. You could sense it in the air.

As I am always looking out for striking photo opportunities, I regret not stopping on Surrey Street to pull my camera out of my backpack. There was a street musician sitting in the sunshine with The Central Library behind him. He was playing his shiny saxophone with his eyes closed, lost in the music, lost in the springtime air. Silly old me.

Yesterday I had an appointment at The Royal Hallamshire Hospital - to be precise the Dermatology Department. I met three lovely women - Kelly the receptionist, Nina the nurse and Indira the consultant. What I have got on my left temple is a benign keratinous growth that looks exactly like a Kellogg's rice krispie. At least that is what I have told Little Miss Curious - our Phoebe. The krispie will be "scraped" away under local anaesthetic soon after we return from our holiday in Egypt.

After the appointment, I walked down to Ecclesall Road via The Botanical Gardens. On this particular passing visit, I noticed that the dormant crocuses had now burst through. Some people were sitting on the grass, talking or reading or just enjoying being outside under a blue sky. I think this activity is called "chillaxing".

It is a nice way to greet the springtime. All pictures shown here are from yesterday.

The same reader

Churchill

Because the British prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, did not dance perfectly  to Trump's tune with regard to the current and rather frightening  military activity in Iran, Trump said that Sir Keir was no Winston Churchill, alluding to this country's famous wartime leader.

Well I doubt that Trump is reading this blogpost because he doesn't read anything  but if I am mistaken Mr T, I have got news for you. You are no Abraham Lincoln! In fact you are no Barack Obama, no Martin Luther King Jr, no Franklin D, Roosevelt, no George S. Patton! In fact you are no James Buchanan, no Andrew Johnson and what is more you are no Warner Brothers' Porky Pig! Apologies to Porky.

It is exceedingly difficult for any other political leaders in the western world to manage healthy relationships with Trump because he is a playground bully without discretion  or a recognisable moral compass. Thus far, other leaders have been obliged to kowtow to Trump because of America's economic and military power. However, it is obvious that they all detest him and privately mock him.

You have to draw the line somewhere and that is what Sir Keir Starmer did. After all, the joint Israeli and American onslaught upon Iran was not agreed with other nations and it is in clear breach of international law. Why should other western leaders be expected to just tag along like obedient puppies?

Many commentators believe that the lead puppeteer is Netanyahu here and he is looking to devastate and degrade Iran with zero concern for the Iranian people. Is that the way to a lasting peace? More likely Netanyahu and Orange Blob are creating a legacy of death and destruction that will return to haunt their countries in the decades ahead. Bullets and bombs are not the way. Discussions, economic sanctions, patience, intelligence and persistence - that's always the way you do it in the end.

And anyway, let's get back to this Winston Churchill fellow. He was by no means perfect either. There were views he held and things  he  did that  were really quite appalling and ironically rather Trumpian.

He was a racist and an Islamaphobe. He called Indians "beastly" and opposed Indian independence in the late 1940s. He used troops to crush legitimate strike action by coal miners and in 1915 he championed the disastrous World War I Gallipoli campaign that resulted in huge casualty numbers. There are many other mistakes and character failings I could highlight including his dependence upon alcohol, his sexism and his upper class arrogance.

Although he proved himself to be a good wartime leader, he was decisively voted out of office by the British people as soon as World War II ended.

Of course Trump does not know Churchill's flipside because he never reads anything. He prefers a view of world history that is cartoonish. Personally, I prefer the dignity and decency of a man like Sir Keir Starmer and yes, Trump is thankfully right that Sir Keir is no Winston Churchill. In plenty of respects, he is better than that and obviously better than Trump too.

Murdo

I loved "Dirt Road" by James Kelman. It is a quirky novel, crafted with a rare understanding of the human condition. There are no murders, no detectives, no particular mysteries. Just a Scottish widower called Tom and his teenage son - Murdo.

They are in The Deep south of America to catch up with Uncle John and Auntie Maureen who reside in rural Alabama. Tom and Murdo arrived there by bus after a mix up that saw them stopping off in Allentown, Mississippi.

We see everything from Murdo's point of view. It is as if we are in his head, living his confusion and self-doubt with him. He is a gentle soul, not academically gifted but he has a talent for playing the accordion and in Allentown he experiences the Zydeco playing of Queen Monzee-ay and is enchanted:

What a sound! That was special. That was so special. And the girl scrubbed it along facing the old lady who nodded her head on that two-three beat rhythm, glancing around at the folk watching, smiling a little but only in the music ... This lady kept on looking, seeing the people watching, keeping her eye on them. Murdo liked that. This was her playing, she was playing. She had her way and there she was.

James Kelman's text is like a stream of consciousness and Murdo's voice has a distinctly Scottish twang but it is never inaccessible. I don't think the word "you" is ever used. Instead, it's always "ye" to suggest a working class Scottish accent.

Murdo simply has to get to Lafayette in Louisiana to meet up with Queen Monzee-ay again. He also fancies her granddaughter Sarah who seems rather sweet on Murdo too. There is a festival  and Murdo needs to play with the Zydeco legend.

In some ways this is a "coming of age" novel from a writer who does something more uplifting with his writing  than just angry bleating about the plight of the downtrodden. There is affection and understanding here and celebration too.

It was one of those books where you reach the last page and you feel kind of sorry that it's over. But maybe it would not be the same for you. After all, one person's meat is another's poison.

After I closed the book, I did a bit of googling and discovered that back  in 2018 a film heavily based on the novel  had been created called "Dirt Road To Lafayette". It is available on Amazon Prime so I watched it tonight.

It was a nice film but of course it totally failed to do what the writing had done - putting me inside Murdo's head as though wrapped in his uncertainties and his sense of loss.  Not only had his mother died of cancer but he had lost his sister Eilidh as well. The trip to The Deep South became a kind of healing with the prospect of better tomorrows and joy.

Drawing

 

It's nice to watch art videos in which talented people reveal their skills. I find the process very therapeutic and for a little while those videos take you away from the exigencies of everyday life and the jarring noise of current affairs.  Through art videos, we may remind ourselves how brilliant human beings can be - making wonderful images with the aid of simple tools and remarkable patience.

Above you can see the German illustrator Axel Scheffler revealing the way he goes about his artwork. For many years he has worked with the English children's author Julia Donaldson. Together they have made wonderful books and there cannot be many British family homes in which their work will not be found. Phoebe and Margot have both loved those books and parents and grandparents generally love reading the aloud when many other children's books can prove tedious.

Below, an artist shows us how to create an image of the sea at night using pencils,  graphite, charcoal and rubbers (American: erasers).  There is something rather magical about watching the scene emerge and it is certainly interesting to observe the artist's techniques

Occasionally in this blog I have revealed that I am not without artistic talent myself. At Beverley Grammar School,  in my GCE A level exams in 1972, I achieved a Grade A in Art when I was eighteen as well as receiving  the school Art Prize. I am well aware that through the succeeding years I have not nurtured and progressed  my innate talent as much I could and perhaps should have done. And now the time is running away like sand in an hour glass.

TDS

 

A serious new health condition has been identified in America. It is known as TDS and there are fears that it might spread. Symptoms include the following:-

• obsessive notions of grandeur
• badly swollen ankles
• mysterious bruising on the backs of the hands
• incontinence
• inability to speak truthfully
• lusting after one's daughter
• grifting (i.e. profiteering or swindling)
• obsessive interest in golf
• refusal to read important documents
• exaggeration
• obsessive interest in gilded decoration
• repetition of false claims without evidence
• extreme narcissism
• obesity
• total absence of a sense of humour
• vindictiveness
• inability to ever say "sorry" or admit any errors
• strange perfectionism in knotting neckties
• orange "oompa loompa" skin
• hiding or redacting The Epstein Files

There are several other symptoms too but these are the main ones. Fortunately, at present, there is only one known sufferer of the disease. He occasionally resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington D.C.. Oh by the way,  in case you had not guessed, TDS stands for Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Views

Early this afternoon, I sat in Frances and Stewart's house to watch my team on Sky Sports TV. Though we probably did not merit the victory down on the south coast, my beloved Hull City beat Portsmouth by one goal to nil. Frances, Stewart and the girls are away for two nights with old friends and all their relatively new children - down in Northamptonshire.

After the game, I took my camera upstairs to get a few shots from Phoebe's bedroom. It enjoys great views to the east. The top picture shows The Royal Hallamshire Hospital that was opened by Prince Charles - now King Charles III - in 1978, soon after I came to live in Sheffield. More importantly Shirley was working there when I met her - in The Accident and Emergency Department. The hospital has figured in our lives in other ways too as you can well imagine. 

Directly across from Phoebe's window you look out on a cliffside below Psalter Lane. You can see a cross and a light green roof. That is St William's Catholic Church. The rising terraced houses right of there are on Ecclesall Road - one of the main southern thoroughfares out of the city. The cliffside has not always been thus. It was the result of historic stone quarrying.

Turn the camera to the left and you are looking towards the bowl of Sheffield city centre. The tall building in the centre is St Paul's Tower. It is an apartment block that was opened in 2010. The houses in the foreground are in the suburb of Greystones reaching down to Hunter's Bar.

That view over the city centre is forever changing - in different light and weather conditions and in different seasons. Phoebe loved looking out on the night of November 5th last year when fireworks burst in the sky in memory of Guy Fawkes and The Gunpowder Plot which was foiled in 1605. As you might imagine that plot was all tied up with religious differences and the future governance of England and Wales.

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The word "view" is an odd word when you come to think about it. It can describe what we see when we look out in physical reality as evidenced above. But it can also be used in a more abstract sense - to describe attitudes and thoughts about particular matters.

Our son Ian has plenty of views about nutrition, healthy eating and veganism but he is not evangelical about it Last week he appeared on the Jeremy Vine Show on Channel 5 promoting his new book: "BOSH! More Plants". I blogged about it here. Yesterday, he and his work partner Henry featured in "The Yorkshire Post" newspaper - even appearing on the front of the Friday edition. See below...

Quiztime

The other day, a visitor reminded me that a new "Quiztime" post was long overdue so here we are. Today's quiz simply requires you to look at ten pictures of well-known women and then refer to the multiple choice options that follow, As usual, the answers will be given in the comments section. Good luck!

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1.

(a) Melanija Knavs (b) Valentina Tereshkova 
(c) Anna Pavlova (d) Maria Sharapova

2.

(a) Rita Coolidge (b) Janis Ian

(c)  Shania Twain  (d) Janis Joplin

3.

(a) Princess Mary (b) Princess Jennifer

(c) Princess Meike (d) Princess Margaret

4.

(a) Coco Chanel  (b) Vivienne Westwood

(c) Estee Lauder  (d) Donatella Versace

5.

(a) Emily Maitlis  (b) Emily Dickinson

(c) Emily Bronte (d) Emily Deschanel

6.

(a) Indira Ghandi (b) Benazir Bhutto

(c) Mother Teresa  (d) Shabana Mahmood

7.

(a) Eva Braun  (b) Margaret Thatcher

(c)  Mata Hari (d) Mamie Eisenhower

8.

(a) Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (b) Marion Jones 

 (c) Florence Griffith Joyner (d) Gail Devers

9.

(a) Rosa Tralee  (b) Rosa Bush

(c) Rosa Parks (d) Rosa Wine

10.

(a) Wilma Flintstone (b) Lois Griffin

(c) Betty Boop (d) Betty Rubble

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Okay. That's all folks! How did you do?