Men

No - not men in general - just two men. And they are Sir Keir Starmer and my son Ian. As Keir was resigning as Britain's prime minister this morning, Ian was flying back to London from The Netherlands after participating in the Ironman event in Hoorn.

I liked and respected Keir Starmer. As this country's political leader he was intelligent, hard-working, caring and clean as a whistle. He gathered good Labour people around him and was making a real mark on the international stage. Keir managed to bring Labour back from the edge of oblivion. Under Jeremy Corbyn, we seemed to be heading for extinction but Keir turned the party around.

During debates before the Brexit referendum in 2016, Keir was vehemently against leaving The European Union so I think it is tragically ironic that the repercussions of that dumb choice have been like thorns in his side throughout his premiership. We have gained nothing of note from Brexit.

Also from day one, Britain's right wing media campaigned against him, carping and haranguing - never giving credit where credit was due. It was like a concerted campaign to "Get Labour!" and "Get Keir!" and it was so vitriolic that it even caused many of of those who had voted Labour into office to question themselves as well as Keir's worthiness. That besmirching campaign was as unpatriotic as it was contrived but in the end, sad to say, it worked.

Keir left office with his head held high, in a thoughtful, dignified and honest manner. His emotions threatened to get the better of him when he referred to the support that his wife and children had given him but he managed to hold himself together. Perhaps this great country did not deserve a decent man like him at the helm. Here he was this very morning in Downing Street - I hope you will be able to see this BBC clip in foreign lands...

And the other man - my son Ian. Born in August 1984, he has only recently taken up marathon running but to test himself further, he signed up for a big Ironman event in The Netherlands. This involved swimming 1.2 miles in open water, a 56 mile bike ride and a 13 mile run. Ian completed this feat in just under seven hours and I am, of course, immensely proud of him. It's just a shame that Shirley and I could not be there to cheer him on. Oh - and what a great ambassador he is for veganism...

Mona

 

They killed Mona Khalil in southern Lebanon. She had become a passionate advocate for both green and loggerhead turtles that for countless centuries have laid their eggs on beaches near the city of Tyre. She made a home on that coast so that she could better undertake her conservation work. She was 76 years old when she died of her injuries on Friday. Her home had been hit during a bombing raid. 

But for heaven's sake, surely Mona should have realised that her turtles were running a Hezbollah command and control centre down on the beach. A military spokesman for the bombers who hail from an unnamed nearby country said that they would undertake a thorough investigation into what happened but quietly added that no one would ever see the results of that "investigation".

On behalf of green turtles and right thinking humans everywhere, I say a big thank you to Mona for your work and a big sorry that your life had to end that way. Hopefully, other conservationists will pick up your baton and run with it.

Green turtle in the sea off Lebanon

Wellies

Instead of travelling to Hoorn north of Amsterdam, I went down to our local post office to order a replacement passport. The postmaster assured me that my new passport would be with me in about two weeks which is quite reassuring as we are bound for a family holiday in Majorca next month - as soon as Phoebe's school term ends.

I was Mr Sleepyhead yesterday as I had only managed a couple of hours of fretful sleep on Friday night. Shirley had managed to requisition most of the duvet and I kept playing the passport movie in my head, moaning silently with self-recrimination.

Around midday, it was time to head out to the local primary school's summer fayre. Its purpose was to raise extra money for playground equipment and maintenance.

Naturally, I headed straight for the tombola stall which seemed to be being run by a bunch of incompetents. The queue moved slower than a Costa Rican sloth up a tree. Anyway, after about fourteen hours I managed to reach the front of that line and won a pack of "Frozen" cards, two bottles of flavoured oil, a used cuddly pig and  a "Paint Your Own Garden Wellies" set - no doubt an unwanted gift. (American visitors should note that in Britain we call gum boots wellingtons or "wellies" for short).

Phoebe had some glitter applied to her face and had her hair inexpertly sprayed pink and purple. I  bought a disappointing carton of vegetable biryani from a stall run by a small bunch of Muslim women.

Soon it was time to head home and Phoebe wanted to come with us. I played swingball with her for a while and then she wanted to see the little row of radishes that she sowed five weeks ago. The radish bulbs are now forming and so she picked her first ever radish.

There she is at our kitchen door holding up said radish. I love the shadow of it on on the door panel - like some kind of cartoon monster. And see how Phoebe has grown. Far from a baby these days. She has become a proper little girl now but we love her more than ever. Filled with character and questions and a joy to be around - just like Little Margot who went to Buxton yesterday with her mama to see a theatrical performance - "In The Night Garden" with Iggle Piggle, Makka Pakka and Upsy Daisy. They missed the summer fayre.

Calamity

Calamity - there's no better word to describe it. We should be flying to The Netherlands right now but we are still in Sheffield  and I am afraid that our Ian will have to complete his Ironman event without his two most ardent supporters - his parents.

What went wrong?

Simply - I lost/mislaid/dropped/suffered pick-pocketing of/misplaced my passport! I can still hardly believe it. We searched high and low and in the end had to give up. I feel as miserable as sin about this.

We were all set to go and then - when I began to check in online - I discovered that my passport was missing from our little "Travel" drawer where our passports and foreign money etc. are always stored. I feel dumb. I feel stupid and above all I feel sorry to both Shirley and Ian. She was so much looking forward to the whirlwind trip to Hoorn. It was going to be an adventure.

I offered to take Shirley to Humberside Airport so that she could travel to The Netherlands on her own but she declined. In past travel adventures, I have always been "the leader" when it comes to making arrangements and simply leading the way in foreign places. She would be extremely anxious on her own.

Let my passport calamity serve as a lesson to all you blogmates out there. Be doubly careful with important travel documents.  Zip up. Pat. Check and double check. I wouldn't want to wish this problem on anybody. I suspect that the only saving grace in this is that nobody died, nobody was injured and in the grand scheme of things it is just a happening that you have to shrug your shoulders about and move on.

Remember the last blogpost and those daunting tower blocks where some people have to live? I was in an impoverished part of Stannington which is a western suburb of Sheffield. I had gone there to visit a designated "Pay Point" shop in order to purchase an international driving permit.

The general purpose shop is cramped and filled with stuff and the area around the till is especially tight. I might be entirely wrong about this but I suspect that I was pick-pocketed. As I was completing my transaction and talking to the friendly shopkeeper, two men came up behind me - invading my personal space. One of them had a dog on a lead. I think this could have been when one of the men put his hand in my deep coat pocket and pulled out my passport. If I am wrong I apologise most sincerely to those two gentlemen who both looked as though they had seen troubles in their lives.

Anyway - just in case - I have reported this matter to the police. There is CCTV footage of my visit but I have only seen the first part of it - not the part where the two men come up behind me with the dog and get too close. No doubt if the police do ask to see the video footage at some undetermined time in the future, the tape will have been wiped by then. That's how these things usually go.

I couldn't sleep last night. I felt so stupid and so guilty and this morning it's pretty much the same. In my sleepy-headed state maybe the pick-pocketing is a figment of my imagination. Anyway, now I've got to get myself a replacement passport before we next travel abroad - in exactly a month's time!

Oh woe is me!

Pondering

Cliffe tower block in Stannington on Tuesday morning

I have noticed that a few of my favourite bloggers have been taking  a rest from blogging. Maybe I should do the same.

I have got some things on my mind tonight. Something unpleasant happened today and it has got under my skin. I need a little time to process it and think about how to respond, hoping that the unpleasantness goes no further. I may tell you about it soon.

In other Yorkshire Pudding news, Shirley and I are heading to Amsterdam on Friday morning - thence to a town north of Amsterdam called Hoorn. We will be flying from Humberside Airport - the flight is only an hour long - across The North Sea.

I confess I am a bit anxious about driving a hire car out of busy Schipol Airport but no doubt I will manage it.

We are only staying for two nights. Back on Monday evening. I may tell you the reason for this little expedition tomorrow. 

Now back to my glass of red wine and more pondering about what happened.

Woodland tower block in Stannington on Tuesday morning

Heart

Presently, I am waiting rather nervously for England's World Cup match with Croatia to commence. Kick off in Dallas is at 9pm British Summertime. We have some brilliant players and if they stay fit and gel together my country could go far in this tournament. But this is something that optimistic England fans have said on plenty of previous occasions. Disappointment sometimes seems inevitable but you never know, maybe 2026 will be different. Come on England!

⦿

Okay, partly to get my mind off what lies ahead this evening, I will change my focus now to a novel I have just finished reading - "The Heart of It" by Barry Hines. It was first published in 1994 so I have arrived at it thirty two years later.

I found it very readable. One of those novels you want to get back to when matters of everyday life get in the way. I finished it in seven days.

I spotted it in a charity shop and of course it had a particular appeal  because in the last six months I have been in regular contact with Barry Hines's younger brother - Richard.

Barry Hines was not an especially prolific writer. He only wrote nine novels and "The Heart of It" was the only novel he published in the 1990s. I noticed the dedication: "For My Mother and Father".

Set in South Yorkshire the novel sees a prodigal son called Cal returning to his roots. His father, who was once a coal miner and ardent trade unionist, has suffered a debilitating stroke and his ageing mother Maisie is charged with looking after him. Cal's only sibling, Joe, had left the former mining village to find work in Manchester.

Cal himself lives in southern France with his French filmstar girlfriend. He is essentially a scriptwriter and has links with Hollywood. He has made  plenty of money and in that sense has been rather successful but he is shallow and rather devious. His father Harry, urges him to write something of value, something meaningful.

Cal's trip back to his roots and his South Yorkshire homeland begins to stir something in him. The Coal Strike of 1984-85 is still fresh in people's minds along with the way in  which Thatcher harnessed the police and the military to crush Britain's miners  and destroy the coal industry.  These hardworking people were undoubtedly the salt of the earth and certainly not "the enemy within" as Thatcher described them.

Sadly Harry dies and Cal finds himself drawn away from the Hollywood tinsel and all those dreadfully superficial films. He is at last ready to write about things that mattered in his community..."The Heart of It":-

The houses had been demolished. A peeling hoarding 

advertised "FACTORY UNITS TO LET", but Karl 

remembered the people who used to live there...

⦿

It's 11.15pm now and the match is over. England convincingly beat Croatia by four goals to two. What a relief! Time for a cold bottle of beer. Now on to Ghana and Panama. God Save The King! God Save Harry Kane!

IMHO

 

"Put your phone down, look with both eyes" - David Hockney

Although he was eighty eight when he died, David Hockney did not customarily shun modern technology. In many ways he embraced it and seriously explored the potential of i-pads and art software. He pushed boundaries proving that he was not some old fuddy duddy stuck in his old ways.

And yet like many of us he noted with some disdain how slavishly many people seemed glued to the little screens on their smartphones. He wanted them to look up and see the world around them - perhaps drink in different lights, different shades and the endlessly changing scenes around them. If you are forever looking at your little screen you miss so much.

Today as I was coming back from the hospital, I saw a young father pushing his baby son along Ecclesall Road. The little lad was sitting upright in his buggy, taking in the world around him. In contrast, his father was pushing the pushchair with one hand. In the other hand was his active smartphone and very sadly it appeared that whatever he was looking at on that phone seemed infinitely more interesting than the baby boy who surely deserved his father's undivided attention.

I see this kind of thing very often and as I am walking along I will often stare at these parents who are usually so absorbed in their phone's hypnotic magic that they don't even see me staring in my well-practised condemnatory fashion - using non-verbal signals that shout loud and clear, "That is wrong! Get off your bloody phone!"

Loving a small child requires full commitment. Your smiles and subtle messaging show that you are fully alert to what your youngster is doing. You are meant to be together - parent and child - so please - no Facebook scrolling, no Snapchat, no "X" posts. See your child and be with him or her - in the moment.

Constant smartphone diversion means you are sending out this message to your child: "I do kind of love you but you are rather boring and somewhat irrelevant compared with what is on my phone". In the long run thoughtless phone use when in charge of children could easily cause psychological harm.

Of course the tech companies who developed smartphones and interconnected app and software developers cynically designed their systems to be addictive, to hook users in a manner that has  many parallels with actual drug addiction. So in some respects I have sympathy with users. It is not entirely their fault but they need to be bigger, more self-critical and exercise better control over their phone habits.

In short, I am in full agreement with David Hockney: "Put down your phone and see with both eyes!" IMHO* it is a good message.

* In my honest opinion - pub quiz question at "The Hammer and Pincers" on Sunday night.