Northern

Another night, another song. Yesterday I was moved by Michael's posting of a video that showed  a choir singing  their strangely uplifting version of "Life in a Northern Town" by The Dream Academy. It made number 7 on the US Billboard chart back in 1986 and number 15 in Great Britain.

It is a strangely haunting number but the lyrics seem peculiarly throwaway and carelessly crafted - yet that does not appear to matter. The song did its job and now, many years later  - the members of The Dream Academy -  Nick Laird-Clowes, Kate St John, and Gilbert Gabriel are all in their late sixties but still making music.

I give you "Life in a Northern Town" with lyrics:-

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I must apologise for another absence. Shirley and I are heading for the North Yorkshire market town of Malton on Monday morning. We will be staying in "The Talbot" hotel (see top picture) . I have paid for this two night stay with a gift voucher that my two children generously  presented to me in 2023 to mark my seventieth birthday.

Malton holds a special place in my heart because it is where my father was born and raised and it is where my paternal grandparents are both buried - though strangely, I have never slept there before. So it will be a break but also a little bit of a pilgrimage too.

I will be back at this keyboard on Wednesday night. Adios! or as we say in in Yorkshire, "See thi!"

Hammer

We have all heard the song, "If I Had A Hammer". It is a protest song and it was written in 1949 by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays of the folk group, The Weavers. It ruffled the American establishment somewhat for initially it was performed to raise funds for victimised members of The Communist Party of the United States.

The simple song did not disappear. It endured and in 1963, Peter Paul and Mary performed it at the end of the famous People's March on Washington before Martin Luther King Jr delivered his famous "I have a dream" speech. Here they are...

The song has been widely performed and recorded - even making its way into churches and school assemblies. It can be sung jauntily or sweetly but I prefer to hear it when it has been injected with a healthy dose of righteous anger when the singer fully realises just what this iconic song proposes. In the final analysis, it is a war cry...

If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning

I'd hammer in the evening all over this land

I'd hammer out danger, I'd hammer out a warning

I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters

All over this land, ooh

If I had a bell, I'd ring it in the morning

I'd ring it in the evening all over this land

I'd ring out danger, I'd ring out a warning

I'd ring out love between my brothers and my sisters

All over this land, ooh

If I had a song, I'd sing it in the morning

I'd sing it in the evening all over this land

I'd sing out danger, I'd sing out a warning

I'd sing out love between my brothers and my sisters

All over this land, ooh

Well, I got a hammer, and I got a bell

I've got a song to sing all over this land

It's the hammer of justice, it's the bell of freedom

It's a song about love between my brothers and my sisters

All over this land

It's the hammer of justice

It's the bell of freedom

It's a song about love between my brothers and my sisters

All over this land

Peace

Mr Tumble - British Children's TV star

In the event, Putin was not rugby tackled on the red carpet before being clapped in irons and whisked off to Guantanamo Bay. On the contrary, Trump applauded the mass murderer, warmly shook hands with him and offered him a ride in the presidential limo known as The Beast. Even as I write this, the two "great leaders" are involved in talks about Ukraine that go something like this... "If you slap my back, I will slap yours".

Much more important than all of that, we have got Phoebe here tonight - having another sleep-over. It took quite a bit of patient diplomacy to get her to settle down for the night but at least we did not have to go to Alaska. There was "Paw Patrol",  three boxed games, a warm bath and stories from both Grandma and Grandpa before she drifted off to slumberland.

Earlier, on this very computer chair I had Margot on one knee and Phoebe on the other as we watched Mr Tumble's versions of a dozen nursery rhymes. The wheels on the bus went round and round ad infinitum and The Grand Old Duke of York's men were surely sick of being marched up and down that goddamn hill. But I was in heaven - a bona fide grandpa with a granddaughter on each knee. Can life be better than that?

Earlier still, I was trimming a long hedge and on the other side pruning our rampant holly bushes. Plenty of garden waste to deal with - now sitting in two big builders' bags awaiting transport to the so-called recycling centre run by the city council over at Gleadless. We used to call it the tip. You have to time your visits there carefully to avoid long queues. They open at 9.30am on Saturday but I might leave it till Monday morning.

Over in Alaska, the legend "Pursuing Peace" is written on the wall behind the two lecterns where Vladimir Trump and Donald Putin are about to speak after three hours of talks.  It's like the title of a poem. If you pursue it, will it co-operate and where might you find it? Crouching in undergrowth like a fox or evaporating into the summer air? Belligerent, spiteful, felonious and self-obsessed Trump  turned into Trump The Peacemaker - like Ozzy Osbourne becoming an opera singer.

Meanwhile, Putin appears to talk in the voice of a skilled female interpreter. It suits him fine. Still, he has not been arrested and frogmarched the hell out of there.

"Next time in Moscow," smirks the tyrant.

Snare!

The whole world knows that Trump is about to meet Putin for discussions about the war in Ukraine. Previously, Trump has shown breathtaking  naivete about this conflict - even cornering and berating President Zelensky in The White House - as if he was somehow culpable.

Trump has surrounded himself with shallow and inexperienced right wing sycophants, throwing out intelligent time-served strategists who understand how diplomacy works. Trump himself may know a thing or two about making deals in relation to real estate and construction but such experience is hardly applicable in the serious business of effectively ending conflicts between nations.

Many think that the meeting in Alaska should not be happening because not only will President Zelensky be excluded but Trump appears to have done very little to gen up on Ukraine's recent history. He's a shoot-from-the-hip kind of guy, relying on his "very stable genius" to push on through. The simple fact that Putin was the aggressor, the invader and the occupier of vast swathes of Ukrainian territory does not appear to have registered in Trump's "high IQ" brain.

Before writing this blogpost, I tried to find out out how many people had been killed in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. How many Russian and Ukrainian citizens, how many Ukrainian fighters and Russian soldiers. Unfortunately, reliable answers were elusive but there is no doubt that thousands have died and thousands more have been wounded. Many thousands of Ukrainians have fled their country - seeking sanctuary elsewhere.

And who is to blame for all this misery? Who is really culpable?  The answer is Vladimir Putin of course. There may be no blood on his smart suits and waxy complexion as he struts around vast marbled rooms far from the front line but it is him all right. He is to blame.

And so we come to my main proposition that Putin should be snared and arrested in Alaska. He is a warmonger and mass murderer. How can it be right that he should visit Alaska for diplomatic talks without facing the consequences of his brutality? Arrest him I say! 

Would we have entertained Hitler for chummy peace talks in 1944 when World War II was still raging and concentration camps were in full operation? No! So bundle Putin in a police vehicle and stick  him in an orange jump suit with manacles on his ankles and wrists and send him to Guantanamo Bay to eat lizards. That's how to end the war in Ukraine.

Quiztime

 

It is symptomatic of patriarchal societies  that far more men make names for themselves than women do. Historically, the vast majority of women have shunned the limelight, often beavering away in the background and of course, rather than pursuing fame, a lot of them focus on their families and homes.  That being said, thousands of women have found fame and this quiz gives you ten of them but who are they? With each picture there's  a helpful clue. Answers given in Comments.

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1. Her real name is Stefani Germanotta

2. British sculptress who died in  1975

(a) Barbara Bach (b) Barbara Bush

(c) Barbara Elvecrog (d) Barbara Hepworth

3. 40th prime minister of New Zealand

4. American writer and civil rights activist

who died in 2014

5. Exceptional German tennis player

6. Assassinated in New Delhi in 1984

7. First woman in space

(a) Natasha Rostova (b) Sally Ride  

(c) Valentina Tereshkova (d) Helen Sharman

8. French politician still operating.

9. Imprisoned Burmese politician

(a) Aung San Suu Kyi (b) Kyi Suu San Aung
(c) Sue San Suu (d) Cordelia McDonald

  10. Australian film actress

That's it folks! How did you do?

Wisdom

Charles Dow

What is wisdom and who possesses it? Can wisdom be acquired? For example, can you take courses aimed at making attendees wise? When I was at university in the seventies, I am sure that courses in wisdom were not available.

I have several other thoughts about wisdom. For example, are wise people those who stand by and judge from the sidelines rather than people who get involved in the hurly burly of life? I would also ask - if you are in possession of wisdom do you have to  be wise all the time or can you sometimes take your wise hat off and be playful or silly? Is wisdom always connected with seriousness?

Do those who possess wisdom habitually weigh up  the things they do before they do them? Do wise people reflect intelligently upon current affairs and the activities of their friends and families?

Do wise people avoid unhealthy foods and alcoholic beverages? Do they play word games on their smartphones? Do they even have smartphones? Are wise people ultra-careful with money - investing it in sensible places and do wise people support charities?

When you are wise, I guess that sometimes you will bristle when you encounter stupidity or foolishness. However, is that bristling a wise reaction? Wouldn't it be better to smile sagely, unruffled by daftness and walk away?

Do you need to be old to be wise or can younger people also possess wisdom? Is wisdom something that can only really be gained through experience of life? Or are you somehow genetically blessed with wisdom?

Dowism is an anagram of wisdom but who the hell was Dow? Perhaps Charles Dow - shown at the top - who died in 1902 and was the founder of Dow Jones. He was also the co-founder of "The Wall Street Journal".  Maybe he was wise or maybe he wasn't. Was it wise to have so much facial hair that he could not locate his mouth?

This blogpost probably confirms what some of  you already knew - that I am just a wise guy!

Magic

Up our garden we have an ancient hydrangea bush that in most summers is heavy with large blue blossoms. This year there appear to be no blossoms emerging and I think that that is because of how harshly I pruned the plant back in February. However, it remains a healthy and well-established shrub and I have little doubt that next year it will come again. It won't do it any harm to have a rest year.

Doing a little googling about hydrangeas, I realise that I ought to fertilise ours some time because it has been neglected in that regard for years. Previously, I have just let Nature do its job without extra nutrients. You can buy special fertiliser for hydrangeas - to bring out the best in them. I must remember to buy some next time I visit our B&Q superstore.

Above is the common reason why plants like hydrangeas might wilt. Simply - not enough turgor pressure. The plant's cells are deflated but they can soon be re-inflated through watering - bringing rigidity back to the entire structure.

I gave our hydrangea a good watering after spotting its sagging condition this morning - as shown in the top picture. I believe I gave it eight bucketfuls. By this evening, the plant had really perked up. Its turgor pressure greatly lifted but there is a sense in which what had happened was quite simply magic!