Diary: 5-7 November

THURSDAY Someone on Quora asks what rights a UK citizen has if pulled over in a vehicle by police and questioned. The answer is surprisingly few.

# Twitter is putting public warnings on Donald Trump’s messages to the world.

# My carer went into a rant about the Lockdown 2.0 and the lack of social distancing.

# Weird dream last night in which I drove to Wallingford for a lunch with relatives, deposited my wife at the restaurant, went to park the car, but then totally forgot the name of the restaurant. This was before everyone had mobile phones, so I was forced to hand myself in to the police, stating pathetically that I was lost.

# There’s a good line in one of Zoe’s confessionals: “I’ve always been on an interesting divide when it comes to cops.” This is after driving through a red light.

# At the Headway Art Cafe today I finished the doggy stitchwork tote bag and started on Italy. Got an email later from Sam asking for an Australia.

# Our date-night tapas supper was nice. The red-onion and goat’s cheese tortilla went a bit flat, but the garlic mushrooms were fab.

# Can someone please press STOP on the coverage of this sodding US election.

# Numbers in headlines don’t always work, but this one is a success.

FRIDAY The council want to glam up Petticoat Lane market to make it a ‘destination’. They held a Zoom meeting with City residents to introduce a community banner-making project to focus on Petticoat Lane’s historical role in the textiles industry. The sounds, the smells and the pure theatre of the market and its characters was the dominant memory, so you end up asking yourself what fabric best calls to mind the smell of a freshly made bagel, or the fleshy whiff coming from the open door of a kosher butcher’s shop?

# Trump won’t go easily. It’s too late to start a war with China, but a new US Civil War could be his dubious legacy.

# My junk-food taste buds stood to attention by the idea of a whole Christmas Dinner in one tin.

But a second course of two mince pies after a first of scrambled egg and bacon just seemed a bit too weird.

# Football fans will be familiar with the person who becomes an arsehole when their team wins, but when their team loses they normally have the sense to keep their arseholesomeness to themselves. #uselections

SATURDAY 7am. It’s still not finished! Biden has been “inching closer” for three bloody days!

# Two very nice short pieces this morning: the Dutch blogger Zoe on her demons, of which we’re led to believe she has a healthy collection. And Shawn doing a funny interview with a vampire, who admits that the night life has lost its charm: “Give me a quiet night with wine and a veggie Pad Thai and I’m all set.”

# There was an epidemiologist on the radio saying the government should incentivise Lockdown 2.0 by giving those tested positive a month’s free subscription to Netflix and an account at the local takeaway.

# Boris is reported to be having a chat with that dignified woman from the EU this afternoon. It’s fascinating to imagine what tone he will adopt.

# The printer wouldn’t work. I changed the ink cartridges and it still didn’t work. Then my wife pointed out subtly that I’d failed to close the lid to the ink compartment. Then the printer worked.

# A recipe I looked at  recently required “pork floss”. Seems it is pork that has been stewed in soy sauce until it disintegrates, then dried, then pulverised until it looks like fluff, then sprinkled, or put in sandwiches.

# And finally, they finished counting in Pennsylvania.

# Someone in Philadelphia told Donald Trump to put his “big-boy pants on”.

# I’m not a numbers person, but the adult population of the USA is roughly 220 million. Biden and Trump both scored around 70m votes each. Which suggests the country is split 3 ways and not 2. One third of the adult population, for whatever reason, is not covered by the US voting system.

# I think the Spanish cowboy looks quite good with a black background.

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