Death

 

After "Life" comes "Death".

And so it is in this succession of blogposts.

I remember lying in bed one night when I was seven or eight years old. Suddenly, I was overtaken  by a very disturbing thought. What would my life be like if my mother and father died? They seemed so everlasting  but I realised that their deaths were eminently possible. They could disappear. And then where would I be? There were tears on my pillow that night. After that I never quite looked at my parents in the same certain way as I had before.

What is Death? Through the centuries, we have had to listen to the spouted beliefs of religious people. We have heard about Heaven and angels, Paradise and everlasting life. Those wicked young men who hijacked the four planes on September 11th 2001 were emboldened by the belief that they were securing their places in their imagined Islamic heaven. And nuns in convents surely believe that through their self-denial and Christian devotion they will secure their places in heaven.

Those of us who are atheists, agnostics or non-believers have tended to keep our thoughts about Death under wraps - perhaps reluctant to cause offence. But tonight I will share with you my thoughts about Death and sod the believers of whatever faith they happen to cling to.

When life has gone from a human being, there is absolutely nothing else. No Heaven. No Paradise. No after-life. The person in question has gone and all that is left is lifelessness, emptiness, darkness. It's like a theatrical performance has ended and the curtain has come down. There's nothing more.

In this regard we are just like roadkill. Does a squashed rabbit go to Rabbit Heaven and what about a badger, a skunk, an armadillo, a pheasant, a fox, a pet cat? I am afraid the truth is they are going nowhere. They are dead, dead, dead and there's nothing else beyond for them.

You might ask how I know for sure that my notion of Death is the right one. Well all I can say is that it is the most logical. The ending that makes most sense. I have felt it deep in my bones since I was a boy. A feeling that has been consolidated by seeing close up the corpses of my father Philip and my brothers Paul and Simon.  Their bodies were obviously just vessels. Life had left them and they were gone.

In my view, it would be arrogant, presumptuous and fantastical to imagine for one brief moment that there could be anything beyond these lives that we are currently living. Heaven is a ridiculous notion. The only Heaven we can ever know is the one that we make here in the land of the living - finding happiness with our families and friends and in the things we do.

Living honestly, without the remotest possibility of an after-life means you are obliged to make the most of the here and now because there's nothing else just round the corner. I live with this certainty and I am not afraid to die - to enter that eternal nothingness where we all must go but I am very grateful for the life I have - a random human egg and a random sperm meeting in January 1953. That's me.

Life

Life. It's a mixture of things. A pot-pourri. Existing in the here and now, we all have everyday things on our minds. Bills to pay, appointments, immediate plans. Those strands are interwoven with our personal anxieties and our memories of past times.

Anxieties may include worries about personal health, regrets about things said or done, fretting about security or family members or perhaps wider political issues. Memories may be from way back - happy times, routes not taken, places visited and the faces of people with whom we crossed paths. All that water under the bridge. Never to flow back.

Life. Don't we spend our entire lives wrestling with it, trying to fully understand what it is? Laughing and crying. Riding high or down in the doldrums. Each journey that is taken is different from the next one but there is clear commonality.

Arguably, choice is illusory. Does anyone really determine the direction their life will take? It's more about drifting along, responding to events, making the most of things. We find ourselves in situations that are never entirely of own making.

Sometimes a blogpost may be short. Like this one...

Quiztime

Welcome to "Quiztime" - with me your genial host - Norman Bates. This week, the quiz has a theme which is foreshadowed by the image above. I am sure you will soon guess what it is. As usual, there are just ten questions and also as usual, answers will be given in the Comments section. Good luck!

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1. Which country does this flag belong to?

(a) Tajikistan (b) Central African Republic (c) Canada (d) Tuvalu

2. This European flag has got a map on it. Which Mediterranean country does it belong to?

3. This is the flag of a South American country... but which one?

4. This is the flag of a famous car company but which one?

5. This is England's flag but what is it also known as?

(a) Queen Elizabeth's flag (b) The flag of St George 

(c) The flag of St  Edmund (d) The Quadrant Flag

6. How many stars are there on the flag of the USA?

7. Which country was the first to plant its flag at The South Pole?

8. This is the flag of a Pacific island nation but which one?

(a) Kiribati (b) The Philippines (c) New Zealand (d) Fiji

9. Which charity does this old flag belong to?

 

10. Below you can see some Cornish cider in a container but what is that container called?  (Clue: Think about the theme of this week's quiz)

How did you do?

Population

Blogs can be like soapboxes. From time to time, I have banged on about  population growth on this tiny spinning sphere in the vastness of this infinite universe. In the past, this topic weirdly riled my main trolls as though it was not a matter I had any authority to comment upon. Anyway, I am back to the subject this very evening - population growth.

It was in 1804 that Earth's population reached one billion for the first time. Then 123 years passed by before, in 1927, the population reached two billion. However it only took 33 more years to reach three billion which tally came about in 1960.

Onward to four billion and that happened just fourteen years later - in 1974. You can see that the pace of population growth was really picking up.

We reached five billion in 1987

We reached six billion in 1999

We reached seven billion in 2012

We reached eight billion this very year - 2024.

A decade ago, academic forecasters predicted that we would reach nine billion in 2048 but it is clearly going to happen much earlier  than that as the world's ever increasing population has just this minute reached, wait for it:-

8,123,650,251

At this rate, we will be up to nine billion by 2030, not 2048. We will almost certainly be at ten billion by then.

It is easy to see that the COVID pandemic did almost nothing to put the brakes on population growth. As the graph continued to soar upward, COVID hardly made a blip in the ascending line. Not a squeak.

I still find it odd that meetings of world leaders and climate summits  hardly ever mention our world's rampant population growth. It is as if they view it as a runaway train that cannot be halted and must inevitably plunge over the wooden bridge and down into the canyon of doom.

I am not offering any solutions, just stating the case.

Granddaughters

This morning, Mummy went to a cemetery in Hamilton, Scotland. It was to attend her young boss's funeral. You may remember me telling you about his fatal motorcycle accident in Glen Coe a month ago. Apparently there were over five hundred mourners at the funeral gathering and no doubt countless tears. 

Because Frances was up in Scotland last night, Phoebe aged 3½ had a sleep-over at Grandma and Grandpa's house. She attends a nearby nursery school for three days every week and so this morning Shirley took her there.

She is pictured up at the top of this blogpost in our garden yesterday afternoon holding her beloved Monty (a sloth) and dressed in her "Frozen" costume. Also in attendance are Beau and Peep - our famous ovine pets.

Below, Margot, aged eight months, is starting to enjoy sitting in the "Little Tikes" car but because it has no engine and no pedals she isn't going to be travelling far any time soon. She remains the most delightful baby ever. Always smiley and she hardly ever cries. However, in joy rather than complaint, she will occasionally let out an amazing high pitched scream  that could shatter crystal wine glasses.

She likes to grab grandpa's face, threatening to pull off the mask that hides his true identity. And after weeks of resistance she is getting the hang of solid foods now - though it will never be quite like filling her little belly with mother's milk.

We are so blessed.

Earworm

I found myself singing this song yesterday. It was a minor hit in 1965. Written and performed by Johnathan King, there was something quite entrancing about "Everyone's Gone To the Moon". Here are the rather mysterious lyrics:-

Streets full of people

All alone

Roads full of houses

Never home

Church full of singing

Out of tune

Everyone's gone to the moon

Eyes full of sorrow

Never wet

Hands full of money

All in debt

Sun coming out in

The middle of June

Everyone's gone to the moon

Long time ago

Life has begun

Everyone went to the sun

Cars full of motors

Painted green

Mouths full of chocolate

Covered cream

Arms that can only

Lift a spoon

Everyone's gone to the moon

Everyone's gone to the moon

Everyone's gone to the moon

It reached Number 4 in the British charts and Number 17 in the US Billboard charts.

Anyway, it turns out that Johnathan King was a cunning paedophile who molested several boys and spent two years in prison for his hideous crimes. No sense of genuine apology has ever emerged from his lips.  For this reason I have decided to post somebody else's version of "Everyone's Gone To The Moon" and not King's original. This is by Chad and Jeremy:-

Names

On Beacon Hill, Gringley-on-the-Hill this very evening

This afternoon we were at day party in Misterton, Nottinghamshire. Margaret, one of Shirley's many cousins, was celebrating fifty years of marriage with her husband Steve. Over the years, I have been to many such family gatherings regarding Shirley's kith and kin and of course the same people turn up. However, these events can sometimes be a year or two apart and I can often struggle to remember all of the names.

Driving over there,  I asked  Shirley to remind me of some of the names. I even said, "What's Tracey's husband called?" and she replied, "Nigel. It's Nigel." Of course Shirley remembers all the names.

At the party I was queuing at the bulging  buffet table when who should sidle up to me but the aforementioned Nigel. "Hi Neil, " he said. "How's it going?". "Oh hello Kevin!" I said. "I'm fine thanks." "It's Nigel," he said looking slightly crestfallen that I had forgotten his name. I was apologetic but the damage had already been done.

In past social situations, I have been introduced to hundreds of new people. As soon as I have been given these strangers' names I seem to instantly forget them. I know that I am prone to this immediate forgetfulness but that self-knowledge has never helped me to forge a strategy that makes the names stick.

In contrast, as a schoolteacher, I would never forget my pupils' names. I thought it was important to address children  by name when posing questions and besides using a child's name showed a degree of respect. Shame I have apparently been unable to transfer that skill to social situations. I am like that Roger Hargreaves creation - Mr Forgetful!

How are you when it comes to remembering names?

Vengeance

And then after the horror of 9/11 had been wrought upon the world, what next? There had to be revenge, right? Somebody had to pay for what had happened. It couldn't be the Islamist madmen who had been aboard the four aeroplanes that morning. They were dead.  So who could it be?

George W. Bush and his agencies picked Iraq and Afghanistan. They would receive the fury. They would listen to the song of vengeance and listen good!

Going back to the kamikaze actors who boarded the four planes, there were nineteen in all. Fifteen were from Saudi Arabia, two were from The United Arab Emirates. One was from Egypt and one was from Lebanon. None of the hi-jackers were from Iraq or Afghanistan.

Thousands of British citizens remain ashamed and angry that our then prime minister, Tony Blair hung on to George W. Bush's shirt tails, helping to legitimise the so-called "War on Terror" in Iraq. To this day, Blair refuses to apologise for what he did even though there never were any "weapons of mass destruction" to be found in Baghdad or elsewhere in Saddam Hussein's homeland.

What good was achieved in either Iraq or Afghanistan during the War on Terror? Many died including innocent citizens and it is calculated that 7000 members of the US military were killed along with some 8000 "contractors". Since those "wars", hundreds of US military personnel have committed suicide and many others came back  without limbs or were disabled in several other ways.

I would be interested to know how ordinary American citizens reflect upon The War on Terror. Was it worth it and was terrorism defeated? Perhaps the aggressive military response was counterproductive - stoking up terrorism instead of squashing it out of existence. Was this really the right way to respond to 9/11 which wasn't really  about nation states anyway - but crazy extremists who could have come from just about anywhere?

Maybe there was more to all of this than I could possibly comprehend but standing here on the sidelines, it always seemed to me that the quest for vengeance was an impossible task. This "enemy" was elusive and as 9/11 proved, it did not play by the usual rules of engagement.

9/11

Memorial bench above The Rivelin Valley in Sheffield

Dedicated to local man Nigel Bruce Thompson who 

died in New York City, September 11th 2001.

My last post referenced 9/11. It will soon be twenty three years since that terrible episode. I can totally understand why blogmate Steve Reed still feels uncomfortable about referencing that day for he was living in New York City at the time. Even now the very thought of it must be laced with concrete dust.

It is often said that we all remember where we were when momentous events took place. I was forty seven years old and The Head of English in a tough secondary school in North Sheffield. September 11th, 2001 was a Tuesday and after the schoolchildren had gone home I had to attend a senior leaders' meeting in the conference room on the first floor of the main block.

Of course in those days nobody had smartphones and to catch up with the latest news you would have had to turn a television or a radio on. But such actions did not happen in senior leaders' meetings. We proceeded through the heavy agenda and the meeting probably ended around 4.45pm.

It was time to head home. I descended the stairs and I remember a colleague who had not been in the meeting telling me that something terrible had happened in New York - a plane had flown into a skyscraper. It was of course all very confused at first.

It took me less than half an hour to drive home - past the Sheffield Wednesday football ground then along Penistone Road before heading up to Walkley and then further up the hill to Crookes via Greenhalgh Street. Over to Manchester Road and then down Shore Lane to Fulwood Road. Past Endcliffe Park and then up Peveril Road to Banner Cross where we still live.

When I arrived home, my family were glued to the television in the corner, watching events live from New York unfolding. A lot of confusion remained but what we were looking at seemed horrific - like a disaster blockbuster film transferred to real life. And then The South Tower collapsed, followed half an hour later by The North Tower.  Breathtaking horror in front of our eyes.

It was clearly not an accident because not one but two planes had been steered into the twin towers of The World Trade Center. It had to involve hi-jackers - probably Islamist terrorists. And I remember feeling astounded that anyone could deliberately throw their own life away like that to achieve such a terrible goal. After all - life is precious isn't it? Don't we all want to live long lives that contain as much joy and happiness as possible? Why end it that way and for what? For what? It just didn't make sense.

America had seemed impregnable while other countries repeatedly endured the pains of conflict and terrorism. But  9/11 revealed that America was also vulnerable to bitterness and revenge. It was not immune. And wasn't that also part of the shock of it all?

In the days that followed I watched a lot footage as the truth of what had really happened began to emerge from the dust. Wickedness had indeed been wrought upon New York by deranged Islamic terrorists. Were they really human? Ironically, The World Trade Center accommodated people from all over the world - the clue was in the name. So this was not just an attack on America, it was an attack on the western world as a whole.

Never such innocence again.

If you feel like responding, where were you when 9/11 happened? How did you feel?

Musical

I suspect there will be a few bloggers and blog visitors out there who have already seen the musical "Come From Away". Shirley and I saw it last evening at "The Lyceum" theatre in the centre of Sheffield. It was conceived ten years after the dreadful day that we remember as 9/11 and it was first performed in 2013.

You cannot really say that the show is about 9/11 but what happened that day provides a sinister backdrop to the story.  It is set - not in New York City but in Gander, Newfoundland, Canada.

At that time, back in September 2001, all flights in and out of New York were shut down. Around thirty eight flights were ordered to land at the remote airport in Gander and there they stayed for almost a week.

Gander is a small town with a population of around 9,000 and suddenly they had  6,500 visitors. How would they cope? In the event, the town pulled together, opening their public facilities and homes to the newcomers whose travel plans had been disrupted.

In spite of some initial puzzlement about the quality of sound and my distinct impression that the residents of Gander spoke with Irish accents, I began to warm to the show.

The actors played the parts of both the Newfoundlanders and the air passengers, switching seamlessly. The stage had a simple set in which chairs were vital props for conveying air travel and for example a bar room in Gander.

There was much joy and humour in the production as well as some riotous singing and dancing. One of the stranded passengers was concerned throughout about her son who was a fire fighter in New York City. There was to be no happy ending for her and you may recall that 343 fire fighters died as a result of the 9/11 attacks on The World Trade Center.

In the end, "Come From Away" is a celebration of what it means to be a human being - helping each other, feeling other people's pain, rising to challenges, moving on. What happened in Gander was in direct contrast to the wickedness that happened in New York  and at The Pentagon and Stonycreek PA that sunny September morning.

The show received a standing ovation last night in Sheffield. I would like to think that a portion of the applause was for the 2,996 who lost their lives.

Figure

Welcome to my world! This is the computer desk where nearly all of my blogposts have been churned out created. The moai figure is actually a plant pot. It was given to me by my lovely daughter on Father's Day,  a month ago. On his head is my old bucket hat that I bought in Malta in 2012. I treasure that faded hat simply because it fits me and I wear it on sunny days when walking out in the countryside.

I don't know if it's the same in the home countries of foreign visitors to this blog, but here in Great Britain moai figures have become common garden ornaments and there's probably no garden centre in this country that doesn't sell them.

What would the original stone masons of Easter Island have made of this  phenomenon? They carved the volcanic stone figures to represent their esteemed dead - probably chiefs and suchlike. On their stone platforms, the moai all looked inland and not out to sea. It was as if they were looking after the islanders, not longing for some far off place beyond the ocean's horizon.

There are  just under a thousand moai figures on the island though a few were purloined by European visitors. One of these is in The British Museum and in my opinion it should go back to Rapa Nui which was Easter Island's native name.

There's something rather irksome about turning the mysterious and iconic figure from a unique Pacific culture into resin plant pots and concrete  figures. It seems rather disrespectful but even so I will cherish the moai plant pot.

It's almost fifteen years since I visited Rapa Nui and walked amongst the moai. It was a dream come true. See one or two blogposts from that adventure:  here and here and here.

Quiztime

Okay these ten questions are just a random bunch that you might be asked in a pub quiz. Good luck! Answers in the comments section as usual but try not to peep!

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1. Which European country is shown in this outline map?

2. J.D.Vance is to be Donald Trump's running mate in the forthcoming presidential election but what do the initials J and D stand for?

(a) Jeremy Douglas  (b) Jonathan Duncan  (c) James David (d) Jesus Donald

3. This is the flag of a country in the southern hemisphere but which country is it?

4. Who is the current prime minister of Australia?

(a) Rolf Harris (b) Anthony Albanese (b) Paul Hogan (c) Edmund Barton

5. What is this African animal?

6. Which country is the world's top producer of cocoa beans?

(a) Ivory Coast (b) Indonesia (c) Canada (d) Cameroon

7. This man was a successful country and popular singer in the 1950s and early 1960s but who was he?

8. Sweden has a single house parliament but what is called?

(a) The  Marknadsföra (b) The Fältskog (c) The  Östersjön (d) The Riksdag

9. Please name this children's cartoon character:-

10. Which is the least populous American state of these four?

(a) North Dakota (b) New Mexico (c) Wyoming (d) Alaska

Martyr

On Saturday lunchtime while down in London, we walked from North End Road into an area of Fulham known as the Baron's Court  Estate. At the end of Fairholme Road I noticed a blue plaque on the end house and went over to investigate.

You may not know the significance of a blue plaque. They are placed on certain buildings  by an organisation called English Heritage. They recognise noteworthy people and Amongst other things - where they lived in past times.

This particular plaque recognised a woman who literally died for women's suffrage in the summer of 1913. She went to the racecourse at Epsom to ostensibly watch the English Derby being run. However, when the king's horse Anmer came round the bend where she was standing, she ran onto the track and tried to grab the horse's reins. She suffered a fatal head injury and died two days later. Her name was Emily Wilding Davison and this was the front page of "The Daily Sketch" the day after Emily's death:-

She had been an activist for almost twenty years, recognising in her bones that women had been denied the right to vote for far too long. Maybe she didn't mean to die at Epsom racecourse that day but she was undoubtedly a martyr and indeed a heroine. It was brave women like her who paved the way for women's suffrage in Great Britain and all that followed afterwards in the struggle for women's equality. It is of course a struggle that continues to this day

Emily Wilding Davison (1872-1913)

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On an entirely separate note, I wish to congratulate Spain who 

deservedly beat England by 2-1 in tonight's European Nations Cup 

Final in Berlin, Germany. Our lads fought hard but the match statistics 

prove that Spain were the better team. All England supporters will be

 feeling gutted tonight. Such opportunities don't come along very often

 but at least we made it through to another final and that's something 

to be proud about. There's always next time!

Absence

I am heading down to London this morning with my nurse - Mrs Pudding. We won't be back till Sunday evening. The main purpose of the visit is to spend time with  our grandson Zach... and his parents of course! I will also be burgling Steve Reed's apartment in West Hampstead. He is away in South America at the moment so this should be the perfect opportunity to riffle through his belongings and get what I want.

Keir Starmer invited me over to 10 Downing Street to celebrate Labour's recent election victory but I declined as that meeting would have clashed with our Sunday  lunch booking at "The Brown Cow" in Fulham. 

I should of course be back home in time to watch the European Nations Cup Final  on Sunday night - beamed live from Berlin. 

Come On England!

"Putin"

Half an hour ago, I was watching the conclusion of the NATO summit meeting live from  Washinton D.C.. President Biden had summed things up with the aid of an auto-cue and was  about to hand over to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine.

Joe Biden introduced him as "President Putin"! Breathtaking really. I mean, it's like introducing Winston Churchill as Adolf Hitler or Salavadore Allende  as Augusto Pinochet. This was the gaffe of gaffes. I mean - Putin has effectively killed thousands of Ukrainians and in Mr Zelensky's eyes he must seem like the devil incarnate.

We all make slip-ups or mis-speak but in my opinion the time has come to stop making excuses for Mr Biden. Enough is enough.  What will his mental state  be like in 2028 when he is eighty six years old?

I have no doubt that he is a good man and that if he were ten years younger he would have made a truly great president, bringing dignity and wisdom back to The Oval Office after the crazy and disturbing  years of Trump's first presidency. However, the immediate future of The United States is infinitely more important than  the  stubbornness of an old man  whose faculties are clearly in serious decline.

It is time for him to go and the pressure behind the scenes is becoming inexorable. I wish that he would resign on his own terms - jumping before he is pushed. His wife and family should be assisting with that decision - even though up to now their apparent  motto seems to have been, "whatever Joe wants".

As I come to the end of this blogpost, Joe Biden is  soon to be quizzed in a solo press conference in which  he will not be able to rely upon the crutch of an auto-cue. He will be exposed and there will be more scrutiny of his performance than the answers he gives with regard to NATO.

Especially if you are an American citizen, you might be wondering why a limey like me should even be commenting on this matter. The truth of it is that who leads America is critical to the rest of the western world. We do not want to see a narcissistic, ill-informed, lazy, draft-dodging  bully boy back in The White House. One term was quite enough. A second term would be disastrous - not just for America.

Dortmund

Dortmund is a big German city. It is situated just east of The Netherlands and has a population of around 580,000 - just like Sheffield. After World War II, Dortmund was redeveloped and is now a thrusting modern city built upon industry. It is also the home of the German National Football Museum.

At this point in the blogpost, I should own up and admit  that I  simply wanted to draw you in for past statistics have proven that any posts I have written about football  have been relatively unpopular. My opening paragraph was just a cunning ruse for tonight's post is about football! Ha-ha! Gotcha!

Earlier on this evening, a big football match was played in Dortmund. It was the second semi-final of the European Nations Cup. England were playing The Netherlands and you know what? We won!

In the first half England were dominant even though The Netherlands took the lead with a great strike from Xavi Simons. A few minutes later our captain, Harry Kane smashed home a dubious penalty. In the second half, the pace of the game diminished and became very cagey - sometimes proceeding at walking pace.

As full-time approached. our manager, Gareth Southgate, took off Kane and Phil Foden - replacing them with Aston Villa's Ollie Watkins and Chelsea's Cole Palmer and in the 91st minute, Palmer threaded the ball to Watkins in the penalty area. He swivelled and smashed the ball into the net from a tight angle in spite of the close attentions of a Dutch defender. GOOOOOAL!

Now we will play Spain in the final which will take place in Berlin on Sunday evening. Spain have played brilliantly in the tournament  so England are the underdogs - but you never know!  Sometimes the underdogs are victorious. COME ON ENGLAND!

Poem

Convolvulus

That summer…

That summer

When Harold Swann scored twelve sixes
Against Cherry Burton,
We cycled west
Where no one ever went -
Out beyond Hall Garth and St Faith’s churchyard
By hedgerows heavy with bramble blossom
And trumpeting convolvulus
All pink and pillow white like the candyfloss
At Hull Fair.
And we didn’t stop till we reached the river
Also named Hull - languid amid the reeds
As ginger cows and Friesians grazed lazily on
The other bank near Aike.
Supine under a Wedgwood blue sky,
We watched African birds cavorting,
Feasting on invisible insects.
Four miles distant

As the famed crow flies,

Beverley Minster’s towers
Wobbled  in a jellied haze.
Later, in that long ago and honeyed afternoon,
We headed back across the carr land -
Me on my maroon Hercules
You on your green Raleigh -
Reaching Goosenook Lane
Under a still sizzling five o’clock sun
That seemed to beam kindly on everyone.

Those surely were the days my friend -

In truth, we thought they'd never end.

Potato

I make our evening meals. For tonight's menu I prepared Lincolnshire sausages, a simple salad and homemade oven chips (American: fries). Nothing too fancy.

I got the sausages in  the oven and then went to find the bag of  baking potatoes that I bought in our local "Lidl" store last week. Casually, I ripped through the polythene and to my surprise discovered this very big potato inside (see above). It is possibly the biggest regular potato I have ever handled. I decided to weigh it and it came in at just over two pounds and just under one kilogram. Bloody massive it was.

I only needed that one potato for our chips and in fact I didn't use it all. Imagine asking a guest or family member if they wanted a baked potato and then presenting them with that monster!

Out of curiosity I decide to find out if my potato's size was anywhere near record-breaking. Naturally, I expected it to pale into insignificance compared with the really big boys. Indeed, there have been many much bigger potatoes. The current record holder was grown in the village of Halam, Nottinghamshire by a gentleman called Peter Glazebrook back in 2011.

His whopper weighed in at 4.99 kilograms - or just under eleven pounds in old money. In other words, it was five times bigger than ours. But to me it seems something of an aberration - quite freakish with its various nobbly bits. At least our spud was a normal-looking complete tuber.

Peter Glazebrook's record breaker (2011)

Quiztime

Hello there jolly quizzers! Today's quiz questions are all based upon the first six July 2024 blogposts here at Yorkshire Pudding. To find the answers, all you have to do is look back through the past week. As usual, you will find the answers in the comments section.

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1. When was our granddaughter Phoebe born?

2. Name the fellow who is holding a baby in the picture at the head of Tuesday's blogpost. He is now Britain's new prime minister.

3. Which ragamuffin became Britain's PM on December 13th 2019?

(a) Wurzel Gummidge (b) Freddie Flintoff

(c) Boris Johnson (d) Stan Laurel

4. Which bush in Yorkshire Pudding's garden is a useful indicator of recent rainfall or lack of it? (Clue in header picture)

5. What percentage of garden slugs are normally doing their thing underground?

6. Which national team did England beat last night to go through to the European Nations semi-finals?

(a) Mexico (b) Narnia

(c) Switzerland (d) Liechtenstein

7. Who scored England's equalising goal in normal time?

8. What is Limacus Flavus?

(a) the name of a Roman general (b) a skin disease 

(c) a South American flower (d) a yellow slug

9. What is the average temperature predicted for tomorrow, July 8th,  in this neck of the woods? (N.B. S11 is the Sheffield 11 postal district)

10. Who was the very first Labour prime minister here in Great Britain?

(a) Nobby Stiles (b) Ramsay MacDonald

(c) Ebeneezer Scrooge (d) Jethro Tull

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How did you do?

Distraction

Bukayo Saka scored England's equaliser in normal time

This evening, courtesy of live television, I watched the England men's football team beat Switzerland to reach the semi-finals of The European Nations Cup. It was an enthralling, closely fought match in which the teams were level at 1-1 after half an hour of extra time. Consequently, the game had to be decided on penalty kicks. Here England came out on top - scoring all of their five penalties while Manuel Akanji of Switzerland saw his kick saved.

Now we will be playing The Netherlands on Wednesday evening in Dortmund to decide which team will advance to the final in Berlin on Sunday 14th July. There the other finalists will be either France or Spain.

It's all very exciting and sometimes nerve-wracking.

Professional sports have become part of the entertainment industry. Many millions of people find much distraction and indeed joy through watching their chosen sports. Top players are paid a king's ransom and  for many onlookers how their team performs means much more to them than any form of religious belief.

Societies put successful sportsmen and sportswomen on pedestals but when all is said and done, sport is not really all that important. It rides upon the back of real life like all other forms of entertainment. Real life is about survival, keeping a roof over your head and putting food on the table. In real life it's all about your particular version of "the daily grind". You get up and go to work day after day, year after year. We can only dream of standing in the spotlight, entertaining our fellow citizens.

Sport has given me plenty of pleasure through the years - along with plenty of heartache. Nonetheless,  I recognise that it has all been a kind of distraction from things that really matter. Still, I will be cheering England on right to the end of The European Nations tournament and hoping that this time our team can rise to the top like cream in a milk jug. COME ON ENGLAND!

Slugfest

Let me take you to the western extremity of The Pudding Estate. There, amongst other things, you will find a green plastic water butt and four of our compost bins. All very ordinary and unremarkable you might think...

Yes, ordinary and unremarkable until you remove the lids.

Let us peer inside the water butt where approximately thirty five garden slugs reside. I have no idea how they got in there for the lid is tightly sealed and I don't know what they have been feeding on but they have created their own slug community where unmentionable things no doubt happen. It is my own miniature Mar-a-Lago:-

I don't even know for sure what species of slug this is in spite of googling. Perhaps  it is a previously undiscovered species that I shall name after Jacob Rees-Mogg, the outgoing Conservative MP for North Somerset. And I also don't know if this particular slug brings benefits to gardening and compost production. It is probably a kind of yellow slug - Limacus flavus.

Let me remove the lid from the middle bin.

Can you see them writhing around in the waste vegetable matter? There must be another fifty slugs in that particular bin but seemingly none inside the first bin you can see.

Slugs are much maligned creatures but I think they must be fascinating  for biologists to study. On average, an English garden is home to over 20,000 slugs and it is estimated that an acre of farmland can support over 250,000 slugs. However, only around 5% of the slug population is above ground at any one time, with the other 95% spending their time underground, laying eggs and feeding on roots and seedlings.

My slugs are available for purchase. They make excellent companions and require minimal care. They are competitively priced. Requests should made in the "Comments" section.

Weather

Weather affects our mental well-being. At a basic level, if it is raining you can't get outside to do the things you might have hoped to do - like hanging out the washing, mowing the lawn or going for a walk. And if you do venture outside, you  need to put on your raincoat. With rain there will invariably be grey skies that drain the colour from the world around us. Everything looks less cheery.

Last winter here in Great Britain was a mild one. Very little frost and hardly any snow but there were many grey days with a blanket of cloud - blocking out sunlight causing a kind of suffocation.

The mild winter gave way to a warm spring but it didn't really feel like that. March, April and May contained many wet days and there wasn't one sustained spell of sunny days. It was one of the wettest springs on record but also one of the warmest.

Up our garden we have a big hydrangea bush and it can act like a rainfall recorder. When there has been little rain in the spring or summer its branches and blooms will visibly sag and I know I need to get the hosepipe on it or dunk buckets of captured rainwater around its main stem. That hasn't been necessary this year. The stems and blooms haven't drooped at all thanks to all the rain.

Now we are into July and the weather forecast remains unsettled. Some days have been better than others but there is still no sign of a long period of sunny days. Grass grows vigorously and remains a vivid green. Butterflies are in short supply. Who stole our summer? 

Mind you today - July 4th - has been pleasant with no rain as we approach the end of polling for the general election. Historically, such weather has always benefited The Labour Party. It brings more people out to vote - including people who do not own cars.

Having lived in tropical climates, I have always championed temperate British weather. We tend not to experience extremes and given our maritime location on the edge of Europe we never quite know what we are going to get. Normally,  I rather like that variety and that uncertainty. After all, there's always next week - or next year. It keeps you on your toes - that's for sure.