This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023 Every six-ish days, I've been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I've found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia. A month when I don't appear to have travelled outside Belgium. A work trip to Barcelona was cancelled at the last ...
Not much change today - still horizontal, still on tea and painkillers, still not much appetite (or sense of taste or smell). But a couple of things to cheer me up. First off, we got an oximeter from the local pharmacy, and it's very reassuring to have a device you can stick your finger in to find out if you are just sick or Very Sick. Belgian advice is that you seek further medical help if the oxidation number is consistently at or below 93%. I'm just above that, consistently at around 94%. Which is not great, but could be ...
Earlier this Autumn, I had the privilege of talking with three women who had been trying to bring awareness to the dire situation developing in Afghanistan. Sitting outside the Palace of Westminster day after day, these dedicated women were not only inviting people to discuss the NATO withdrawal, but were also participating in a hunger strike to demonstrate their disdain towards the new Taliban regime. Since our initial meeting, I have met with these women multiple times, and I have begun to understand more deeply the feelings held by those in Afghanistan. Afghan people are scared, the women tell me, ...
Mon, 12:56: RT @katesang: Well Angus is on 🔥 https://t.co/hEjku3HCuf Mon, 13:19: Craving steak tartare (américain as they call it here) and tinned grapefruit. Probably just as well that we don't have either in stock. Mon, 14:58: COVID, day 5 https://t.co/rSpbYGZsbK Mon, 15:44: RT @jonlis1: It's almost as if he doesn't know what he's saying or doing https://t.co/CjO9yWpDOq Mon, 16:05: Dani Laidley finally got a fair go on Friday https://t.co/pes0NAui9E Gender identity and Australian football. Mon, 17:11: RT @David_K_Clark: Much anguished talk from unionists in recent days about how Scottish politics has become trapped by the national questio... Mon, 17:45: ...
Full Council in Gateshead last week and, as usual, Labour were blaming the Lib Dems for everything that was bad. Labour's approach is to blame others and regard history as starting in 2010. Labour deputy leader Catherine Donovan blamed the Lib Dems for the bedroom tax, claiming that it was invented by the Lib Dems in the coalition government. What she forgot to mention was that the bedroom tax
Dog one is how politicians wish the public reacted to their speeches. Dog two is the reality. Sorry, politicians.
There is a famous scene in Dr Who, when David Tennant, playing the eponymous time traveller, brings down British Prime Minister, Harriet Jones with six words. "Don't you think she looks tired?" he suggests to an aide, thus planting the seed to question if Harriet is fit to continue being Prime Minister, or if she is 'too tired'. Judging by his performance over the last few weeks, tiredness is the least of Boris Johnson's worries, and yet it took an ITV reporter to plant the seed, the 'Doctor seed' we shall call it, when he asked the Prime Minister to ...
From Dundee Pensioners' Forum : Our West End Blethers cafe, at The Friary on Tullideph Road on Thursdays, has been extended until Thursday 23rd December. It is aimed at older people in the West End - and takes place between 12 noon and 2 pm every Thursday between now and then. We have some funding for transport - so if you need transport, get in touch - details on poster. Our final event, on 23rd December will have a Christmas theme. It's a great project - encouraging older people to get out of the house for a wee while to ...
Three weeks before he was defeated at the Battle of Hastings, Harold Godwinson - the last Anglo-Saxon king of England - had defeated Harald Hardrada, the king of Norway, at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. That's Stamford Bridge the town to the east of York, not Stamford Bridge the football stadium, though fixture congestion was obviously a thing in the 11th century too. Reading Cat Jarman's River Kings - one thing being a carer has done is give me time to read - I learnt something extraordinary: as a young man Hardrada had spent around 15 years in Constantinople and ...
