June 10-16, 2023
SATURDAY 10 “Scissoring”. Great Noun x Verb transition .
📌 The closing paragraph in a Tortoise article on Ukraine after the dam-busting appears conclusive. But it also hints at other possible outcomes.
Ukraine is in a Catch-22. Something has to give. If it isn’t the Russian army it may have to be Nato’s refusal to countenance Ukrainian membership while the conflict is ongoing. The alternative is a war that could go on for decades, and a revival of Russian dreams of empire from Moldova to the Stans.
Tortoise Sensemaker
Might Nato’s “refusal” also cause the EU to get serious about its own security alliance, one that might have been more successful in deterring Putin in the first place. Sure, he hates democracy full stop. But he hates the US more. This is another good argument for a properly United Europe.
📌 An article in the New Statesman predicts a win for the Greens in Brighton at the next general election without the pulling power of Caroline Lucas. Most of my green-leaning friends in Brighton would just like their bins emptied and the streets cleaned, a rabbit Lucas was unable to pull out of her hat.
📌 We finished the gripping Irish-Belgian detective drama Hidden Assets and I wasn’t entirely sure why I found it so intense and compelling until the penny dropped and I realised it was the spooky music supplied by composer Michel Corriveau.
SUNDAY 11 The most tantalising bit of speculation on the future of a humiliated Boris is that he will front a consortium in buying the Telegraph newspaper group, which has recently been put up for sale. The sitcom is already playing in my head.
📌 The council’s gardeners are not bothering with our lawn so it has turned into a meadow. My wife believes this deters people from using it to sunbathe and have picnics, play games etc. She is probably right, but when I told her I quite like it she said “lawns are meant to be used, not just looked at”.
📌 The gates to our allotments are flung open every year for the annual Open Gardens weekend. Hundreds of visitors arrive from all corners of the country to check out the crops we grow in our little corner of reclaimed space. My “experimental beans” (ie, I can’t remember what I planted) and my juvenile heritage tomatoes were a big hit.
MONDAY 12 The Conversation explains why we should all be bothered if China invades Taiwan. The export of microchips would grind to a halt and debilitate much of the modern technology we rely on – “cars, phones and healthcare equipment such as ultrasounds and vital sign monitors”.
📌 There is an eagerness in all of us to hear what we want to hear rather than listen to what was actually said. Boris’s resignation declaration that “it is very sad to be leaving parliament – at least for now…” has been widely interpreted as the threat of a return. And that fits with the idea of Boris as a political troublemaker. But was it the leaving or the sadness at leaving parliament that Boris claims is temporary? Cunning ambiguity is another Boris hallmark.
📌 My wife disagrees with my theory that once the Boris Show has left town Rishi will call an early general election.
📌 The BBC reports a chronic disintegration at the heart of the Russian military in Ukraine. Their mercenary partners, the Wagner Group, will not do as they’re told.
📌 Just imagine the cheers that went up at Labour HQ when Nicola Sturgeon got arrested.
📌 Silvio Berlusconi is dead at 86. His Life In Pictures really does show what a squalid individual he became.
📌 The art project on repetition I started at last week’s class is nearing completion…
📌 Found a short yarn about Franz Kafka and a child searching for a lost doll. No idea if it’s true, but I’d like to think it was.
📌 Andrew Marr’s take on Boris’s bitter departure reads like an obituary.
TUESDAY 13 When 25% of the population thinks COVID was a hoax, there has to be something very wrong with your country.
📌 RIP Cormac McCarthy, 89.
WEDNESDAY 14 In Art Class we finished our 2-week study of repetition. It’s been an enjoyable excursion and I am beginning to sense that I have a tendency to always see my subjects as characters. Every version of the Moody Girl From Amsterdam becomes a new character as the image is being made. My workbook now has a complete cast of different portrayals.
📌 After publicly stating her determination to resign as an MP, Nadine Dorries has not yet done so. This is being interpreted as her way of sticking the knife deeper into Rishi.
📌 If Boris does ever become PM again (as is his desire) it won’t be as leader of the Conservative Party.
THURSDAY 15 Just finished a strong radio re-imagination from the BBC archives of DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. In The Chatterleys a soldier, Cliff, returns from Afghanistan with disabilities that render him sexually useless. His partner Connie struggles to cope with his disabilities but eventually finds comfort in a fella called Olly (Mellors), who likes to wild swim in the cold North Sea. Cliff learns to savour the human touch of Ivy, who keeps the books at the caravan park Cliff inherited from his dead dad. The drama simmers with unstated needs and desires, as you might expect given the original source.
📌 We finished Mystery Road Origin, the first prequel to the already successful Australian TV mystery series Mystery Road. As a standalone six-part series it was a superb evocation of outback Australia and Australian life hosted by an ensemble of characters you never stopped rooting for. It was billed as Series 3 of Mystery Road and has a different set of younger actors. Confusingly, Series 4 is tipped to be a second prequel. This is like running Endeavour at the same time as Morse or Young Sheldon alongside Big Bang Theory. It’s obviously a trend.
📌 RIP Glenda Jackson, 87.
📌 At Headway I found my favourite tea cup, which I thought had disappeared forever, or to eBay.
FRIDAY 16 Now I’ve been demoted from the Emerald League back to the Ruby League in my Duolingo French studies, the taunting messages telling me how bad I was doing have stopped. I wonder if this is a new policy on bullying. Last week I messaged one of my fellow Duolingo students, SLBubbles, asking them to slow down because Duo, who is an owl, kept reminding me that Bubbles had overtaken me AGAIN!
📌 Yesterday morning our neighbour’s teenage daughter Molly came walking towards me. She wore old combat trousers and no make-up. She smiled. “She was a picture of natural, youthful beauty,” I told my wife later. In the evening we bumped into Molly’s mum. I told her I saw Molly today, etc, etc. You didn’t, Mum said, Molly is on a girlie holiday in Malta, let me show you the pictures.
📌 The Tortoise Sensemaker has a cracking summary of Silvio Berlusconi’s legacy.
📌 The fifth in a series of six stitchwork patches depicting human emotions is bouncing along towards its end. Then comes the arguments I have with myself as to what colours are appropriate for the final patch (Happiness). This is when I study the collection so far and dither.
📌 Andy Beckett has some chilling news for anyone who thought Bories was simply a bad apple…
Read all of my scrapbook diaries…
PLEASE MESSAGE WITH ANY CORRECTIONS, BIG OR SMALL.
Billy's Scrapbook 