Scrapbook: Week 28

July 6-12, 2024

SATURDAY 6 Anne Applebaum has a thorough summary of Keir Starmer and his new government that will act as a useful reference point in the future when the political landscape has moved. She points up the differences between Starmer and other politicians, and his determination to be quite dull. Not for Starmer the snappy soundbites and one liners but the persistent, very ordinary statement of plain words such as “service”, “change” and “working people”.

SUNDAY 7 Our local allotment group the Golden Baggers took a coach load of residents out east to the rolling fields of rural Essex and a free visit to the Royal Horticultural Society garden at Hyde Hall. An unseasonal outbreak of mercurial meteorology (raining one minute, sunshine the next) punctuated the day as we strolled from Cottage Garden to Rose Garden via my favourite, the Dry Garden, which featured gothic sculptures depicting animals from Aesop’s Fables.

📌 Andrew Rawnsley has a telling sentence in his assessment of what’s in store for Keir Starmer and his new government.

While the victory looks commanding, the mandate feels brittle.

MONDAY 8 My wife told me that she woke up in the early hours, went downstairs and “waved a stick at a couple of pigeons”.

📌 Finished my first DS Cross audiobook, The Teacher, and can’t wait to start a new one. Cross, being very autistic, is one of the most fascinating fictional cops I’ve come across. His autism turns out to be his superpower and the way his colleagues in the Bristol Major Crime Unit negotiate and adapt to his “difficult” behaviour embraces some quite deep questions about neurodiversity and workplace cultures.

TUESDAY 9 Sent a message of congratulations to Sarah on her appointment as Headway’s new CEO. I’m looking forward to supporting her even though I ranted endlessly throughout the recruitment process that Headway didn’t need an off-the-shelf CEO, just a team captain with a big heart.

📌 The Euro24 competition finally came alive for me tonight with a firecracker of a semi-final game between France and Spain that turned into a Tale Of Two Talents. Spain won 2-1, their first goal a scintillating curling left-foot shot from 16-year-old Lamine Yamal. It was a sublime moment, which contrasted sharply with the failure of the French star player Kylian Mbappé, 25, to hit an easy target late in the game. As his wayward shot  sailed way over the crossbar and deep into the crowd, the French fans must have known their cause was lost, as must have Mbappé himself.

WEDNESDAY 10 I have two small stitchworks going into Open Studio next month, but before she went on holiday Michelle asked me to do one of Tony’s painted sayings in stitch. Tony never sells his artworks (he says they are his way of remembering) but is happy for the studio to sell reproductions. His crazy colourful typework is a stitchers gift.

📌 England sneaking past the Netherlands was a surprise.

THURSDAY 11 Deep down in today’s Sensemaker is an article on something called Revival Trusts. These are places rich people hide money for when their cryogenically frozen dead bodies are brought back to life at some future date. It brings to mind the old gag that there are “no pockets in a shroud”. Obviously there are, but the existence of Revival Trusts raises a few philosophical questions about life and death…

If you’re revived, are you the same person? Who holds onto the money? Can you reverse a death certificate? Much like cryogenics itself, the structure of these trusts are a leap of faith.

📌 My submission to the Headway writers’ group was a micro story I wrote years ago that seemed to fit the title Heidi & Martin: The Origins from a few weeks ago. It reminded me that my tiny stories back then were much better than the tedious stuff I’m doing nowadays.

They sat politely distant. Heidi took her sandwich from a supermarket bag. Martin took his from a nylon rucksack. Behind them, on the wall of the park shelter, were inscriptions printed on ceramic tiles telling the stories of those who had lost their lives saving others.

When half of Martin’s sandwich hit the shale slab, Heidi wanted to laugh. Instead, she offered him half of hers. “It’s M&S… tuna mayo.” He said no, thank you, but that’s very kind, ate his crisps and made to leave: “Thank you again.”

If he sees her tomorrow, he won’t tell her he prefers to make his own mayonnaise. Plenty of time for that.

FRIDAY 12 In the middle of the night I heard an interview on BBC World Service in which Joe Biden referred to Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “President Putin”. In another clip he named Kamala Harris as “Vice-president Trump”. There’s a lot of noise urging him to stand down, but not from Howard Jacobson in his Streetwalking Substack. Jacobson wants us to cherish old people forgetting their words and tripping up, even if they are President of the United States. And if anyone is to blame for Biden’s predicament it is the Democratic Party, says James Ball in the New European, who knew a long time ago that voters wanted a younger candidate yet rather than supply one they took off on a ludicrous journey of bitching and blame-gaming, leaving Biden to totter along in his slippers.

📌 One of our neighbours, writing on the community WhatsApp, offered some frozen coley, bought for their cat, which sadly died before the fish could be defrosted and consumed. Another neighbour replied thanks but no thanks, adding that their two cats prefer “grain-free dried reindeer”.

Read all of my scrapbook diaries…

PLEASE MESSAGE WITH ANY CORRECTIONS, BIG OR SMALL.

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