Quiztime

One of the downsides to becoming a famous political leader  is that you get to be mocked. The internet is awash with  fun images of  politicians. I say "fun" but many of those images are quite bitter. Some American visitors to this blog refuse to refer to the current Republican candidate for the US presidency by his proper name and I am happy to go along with that. Below there are ten images and all you have to do is guess which creature is representing  the orange fellow. As usual, answers will be given in the Comments section. Good luck!

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1. He says "Quack!" and a lot of the time this feathered creature paddles around in the water

 2. Slimy - it munches through greenery - preferring tender, new plants

3. This creature can be a bit of a nuisance in North America often feeding from garbage cans and suchlike. The city with the largest population of these animals is believed to be Toronto.

4. This cute little creature is a well-known farm animal.

5. This is a hard one. Obviously it's a bird but which one? To make it easier there are four possibilities

(a) a hummingbird (b) a seagull that fell into a vat of tikka massala sauce 

(c) an Australian budgerigar (d) an owl

6.  A large African ape that grows big and strong on a mostly vegan diet

7. This bird is very symbolic for the people of the USA. Of course it is an eagle but what kind of eagle? (see options below)

(a) lesser spotted eagle  (b) golden eagle

(c) bald eagle (d) sharp beaked eagle

8. This slithery creature is a type of reptile but which one?

9. We normally associate this animal with The Democrats of America. What is it?

10. Below - a very common domestic animal that says Woof! and poops on the pavement (American: sidewalk).

(a) hamster  (b) cat

(c) ferret  (d) dog

How did you do?

Hypocrisy

France prides itself on being a secular  state  and apparently that is why it brought in regulations to outlaw the wearing of  religious garb in public places including schools and universities.

In France, the prohibition on Muslim women from wearing any form of religious headgear extends far beyond the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Bans on hijabs are in place in several sports including football, basketball and volleyball, at both professional and amateur levels.

Around 10% of French citizens describe themselves as "Muslim" which is around 5.7 million people. As with Muslims in Great Britain, there appears to have been a fashion trend in France whereby an increasing number of men and women seek to opt for the kind of  conservative clothing that is widespread in Islamic states.

As I have indicated in this blog before, I  actively scorn all types of religion so I think I am in a good position to point out that for centuries, French nuns have worn wimples that are similar to hijabs in that they partly  conceal the wearer's vanity and impose a certain god-fearing modesty.

In my way of thinking, if the authorities choose to ban the hijab  then they should  also ban the wimple. It is a symbol of the Catholic faith just as the hijab and the abaya are symbols of Islam. As I see it, it is utterly hypocritical to ban one but not the other.

Self-criticism

Mistakes we made. The wrong words spoken. Bad choices.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could go back in time and erase bad episodes? Replace them with better, more preferable alternatives that are not tainted with regret or still subject to self-flagellation.

Sadly, no such facility is available and we all have to live with the consequences of our actions and what we said or didn't say.

I guess there are some sunny people out there who can just brush away the negative stuff and rejoice in their happy times, their moments of fulfilment and proud achievement. But I am not one of those. I just cannot help myself. Frequently, I replay scenes or moments from my past that I still beat myself up about years later. I curse at myself and shake my head, occasionally muttering expressions under my breath like: "You stupid bastard!" or "Why? Why the hell did you say that?"

Am I alone in this? Is it just me?

Up at last night's pub quiz in "The Hammer and Pincers", I was saying to my friend Mick that for the most part people cannot help who they are.  Your nature may be loud and outgoing or you might be quiet and introspective. You may be boastful or shy. You might value education and books or you might shun all of that.

In a similar way, I cannot call a halt to my endless self-criticism. Mostly it is a private, internal thing that I do not share with others. And remarking upon it via this blogpost is I think very much out of character for me.

To repeat, that possibility of replacement - of revising the past - is merely a chimera - an illusion or un-realizable dream. The truth of it is that you just have to soldier on being who you are.

Denby

Highland cow at Marehay - a former coal mining village

Today was a lovely summer's day here in northern England. I was up early to fire up my South Korean travelling companion - Clint. "Where are we off to day mighty sire?"  he asked.

"Denby village in Derbyshire," I replied.

It took longer to get there than I had anticipated because of a major road closure. Even so, I had my boots on and I was striding out into the countryside before ten thirty.

There, north of Derby and east of Belper, you are outside The Peak District National Park and so some of the paths shown in official maps are little trodden and badly signposted. I got rather lost near the large pond at beautifully named Bottom Dumbles and it took me more than half an hour to sort myself out. I still don't quite understand where I went wrong.

Anyway, I made it back to Clint by 2pm. Three and a half hours of solid exercise under a summer sun. My seventy year old body has not had a workout like that in a while. And it felt good to be dog-tired with new images in my camera. 

I dedicate the top picture to the lovely Mary Moon in Lloyd, Florida who turned seventy today. She is a blogger extraordinaire and I send her my very best birthday wishes.

Accidental art in a  horse riding paddock at Denby

St Mary's Church at Denby

At "The Village Inn", Marehay

Barley field near Codnor Breach

Seminar

"Too heavy! Too heavy!" shouts the little demon who sits on my shoulder monitoring  my performance. No doubt he's referring to the philosophical nature of my last two posts - on "Life" and "Death". Time to lighten up.

During my first two years at university in Scotland, I had the opportunity to sign up for two or three subsidiary subjects. The ones I picked were Sociology, Religious Studies and Swedish. These were on top of my two major subjects - English Studies and Education.

For Sociology there was reading to do and a couple of hour long lectures to attend each week. In addition, we had to attend weekly seminars with assigned lecturers. I was assigned to a group that was chaired by Dr Sheila Mitchell who had been at the university from its inception in the mid-sixties.

Each week, we had to read academic papers on particular aspects of sociology and then return to the seminars to discuss them. The reading was quite challenging and some of the others students in my seminar group soon gave up and just sat there like lemons. I was one of the few who soldiered on with the process and tried hard to participate in the connected discussions.

It was easy to see that Dr Mitchell was becoming frustrated with the seminar group. Sometimes she would pose questions related to the paper of the week and get no response. After a couple of months, she became so exasperated that she cried - as if she had been personally slighted. I recall her blurting out something like, "Why can't you get involved and answer my questions?".

It was as if she had completely failed to grasp that the elephant in the room was those academic papers. They were just too damned hard. None of us actively disliked Dr Mitchell. She was a nice woman and her command of sociological language and  ideas was impressive.

After her tearful outburst, the students tried to up their game and rally round her. More effort  was made to read the homework paper. In the following week's seminar, Dr Mitchell read out a couple of paragraphs. One of the other students in the group was a sweet young woman from Edinburgh named Morag. Very politely, Morag asked, "Excuse me Dr Mitchell but what is the precise difference between 'subjective' and 'objective'?"

You could have knocked me down with a feather and the look on Sheila Mitchell's face was priceless. I mean, there she was trying to encourage talk about higher level sociological notions and findings and here in the seminar room was a student who did not have a clue about subjectivity and objectivity. Basic terms that you might expect every university student to have grasped long ago. I sincerely hope that Dr Mitchell was enlightened in that moment but I am by no means sure that she was.

It is a memory that was made around fifty years ago and for some reason it has always stuck in my head. It wasn't Morag's fault. At least she was brave enough to pipe up with her question. The problem was the inappropriate nature of the core material. It just did not "fit" the clients.

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!