Each month during 2025 we’re offering two tiny changes which may help improve your life. This month …
We have only a short list of quotes encountered this month …
I reflected, not for the first time, how mistaken it is to suppose there exists some “ordinary” world into which it is possible at will to wander. All human beings, driven as they are at different speeds by the same Furies, are at close range equally extraordinary.
[Anthony Powell; The Acceptance World]
Most “bad” people are actually good people lacking in skills to appropriately get what they legitimately need.
[Dr Chris Stevens]
Capitalism has invented something called “Cost of Living” where your very existence is an ever-inflating expense that you must overcome just to survive.
[unknown]
At all stages of life, people will gladly offer you unsolicited lists of things you “must” do, be, or have. Most of the time you can nod your head, walk away, and ignore them.
[unknown]
If you can imagine something, then someone in history has carved, drawn, painted, etched, handwritten, collaged and sewn it into pornography.
[Hannah Rose Woods]
And finally remember …
Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Here are the answers to this month’s six quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.
Biology
Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2024.
The Rolling English Road
GK Chesterton
Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.
I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.
His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.
My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.
Find this poem online at Poetry Foundation
This year our Ten Things column each month is alternating between composers and artists a century at a time from pre-1500 to 20th century. As always, there’s no guarantee you will have heard of them all!
Ten Composers Born in 18th Century
The difference between pornography and erotica is lighting.
Gloria Leonard
As well as everything else, each month I offer you something to think about and get the brain working. This month …
Do twins ever realise that one of them is unplanned?
Each month we’re posing six pub quiz style questions, with a different subject each month. As always, they’re designed to be difficult, but it is unlikely everyone will know all the answers – so have a bit of fun.
Biology
Answers will be posted in 2 weeks time.
Our look at some of the significant happenings 100 years ago this month.
1. Died. Erik Satie, 59, French composer
18. Adolf Hitler published Volume 1 of his autobiographical manifesto Mein Kampf.
20. An annular solar eclipse, visible across the south Pacific.
20. Born. Jacques Delors, French economist; in Paris (d.2023)
21. English racing motorist Malcolm Campbeli becomes the first man to exceed 150 mph (241 km/h) on land; at Pendine Sands, Wales he drives a Sunbeam 350HP automobiie at a two-way average speed of 150.33 mph (242 km/h)
29. Born. Mikis Theodorakis, Greek songwriter; in Chios (d.2021)
Being some things what I done, or what happened, during the month of June.
Monday 2
Had to unblock the pond pump again today as it is choked with mats of algae, in less than a week.
Tuesday 3
Dear God! It’s relentless. I’m still trying to catch up with everything I didn’t manage to do on Sunday. It mostly revolves around the 25th Anniversary Lunch for AP Soc on Friday – and I’m not even organising it! But the money is flowing through me, so it’s continual questions. Plus I’m expected to take all sorts of stuff like merchandise with me! I seem to have done nothing else for the last week. Heaven alone knows what they’ll do when I’m not here!
Friday 6
Blimey that was a tiring, but worthwhile, day. Celebration lunch for the 25th anniversary of the AP Soc at National Liberal Club. 65 attending, I think, including some well known names as well as some of AP’s extended family. Great to see everyone again, not having done so since before Covid.
Saturday 7
It’s surprising how much better one feels for a really good night’s sleep. I was so shattered after yesterday that I went out like a light, and although I woke up twice in the night I slept through to a few minutes before the alarm. For the first time in ages I woke up not feeling stressed and depressed, but awake and rested. More please!
Monday 9
If it’s happening, I don’t know anything about it. I’m still trying to catch up after Friday and its prologue. So I’ve been paying little attention to the world and its mess.
Tuesday 10
That made an interesting change, and a childhood memory of weekend tea. For a quick light tea this evening, when N got back from the hospital, I had sardines on toast. It’s nutritionally good, and seems very down market until one follows it with strawberries and thick double cream. Of course Queen Cat got a share of both sardines and cream!
Thursday 12
I do not understand couriers. Today I had two boxes of the literary society’s latest book delivered from the printer. Two identical boxes; labelled “1 of 2” and “2 of 2”. They arrived on two different couriers about 30 minutes apart. Mad.
Friday 13
When I sat down to lunch today I felt absolutely fine. By the time I stood up at the end of lunch I had a full-blown attack of vertigo and had to spend the rest of the day horizontal.
Saturday 14
Horizontal.
Sunday 15
Still horizontal.
Monday 16
Vaguely vertical.
Tuesday 17
Finally feeling almost back to normal – or at least I would if I’d actually had a decent night’s sleep. It didn’t help that I had to be up early and spend the morning at the doctors: meeting with Practice Manager, blood test and see my GP. GP agreed there’s not a lot one can do about the vertigo, although she did give me a link to information about the Brandt-Daroff exercises which are supposed to help remove crystals from the semi-circular canals. And the Practice Nurse who took my blood did say that vertigo always takes around 5 days to resolve – which is my experience.
Wednesday 18
Well it’s a medical week. Today I had a pre-op phone call with a nurse at our local private hospital, where in two weeks time I’m having surgery to remove my finally expired molar. I thought, OK this will be a 20 minute check in call. Not a bit of it. She spend nearer an hour and 20 minutes diving down every conceivable rabbit hole – although she didn’t quite get to demanding what my grandmother liked for breakfast. To cap it all she tells me that tomorrow I have to go to the hospital for blood tests and an ECG. Oh joy!
Thursday 19
OK, I know it’s private healthcare but well under an hour to go to the hospital (just a mile up the road), get blood tests and an ECG and get home. Just as well because it was meltingly hot out.
Saturday 21
Spent almost all day sans shirt, although I had to don a t-shirt for a literary society Zoom social call just after lunch. After less than 90 minutes I could have wrung the sweat out of the t-shirt!
Sunday 22
Why does doing simple tasks like putting things in envelopes for the post take so long. OK, I admit I had quite a bit to do to catch up on, but I ended up spending the whole day sorting our literary society stuff: mailing books; website updates; emails … and all the fallout therefrom.
Monday 23
It never rains but there’s a fucking hailstorm. Today, Boy to the V-E-T because his tail is drooping – which can be serious for cats. His tail is normally upright and waving around as if he was a foxhound; but since Friday evening his tail was drooping and he couldn’t hold it above horizontal. The vet found a puncture wound a the base of his tail (top and bottom); probably inflicted by another cat rather than the fox. So antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory for several days.
Tuesday 24
Gone 19:00 and I’m about to have tea when I pick up a phone call. It turns out to be the anaesthetist who’s on the team for my op next week. A 20 minutes discussion results in him saying he’ll do the op with sedation and local anaesthetic. If they can pull it off, that’s a definite result, because if I had a general anaesthetic (as originally planned) they will keep me in overnight; but with sedation they won’t. Not only much nicer but also a lot more convenient.
Thursday 26
Another result today. Had to go to Audiology at the local hospital to (a) have wax vacuumed out of my ears, and (b) take one hearing aid in for repair. The young lady who manages the centre, and does the ear vacuuming, was incredibly helpful. Having cleared my ears, she said “Oh I’ll repair your hearing aid now; it’ll take only five minutes”. In fact she actually replaced the hearing aid as the volume control had died. Job done and I’m out before the end of my appointment slot; with no need for another trip to collect the repaired device. A definite win.
Saturday 28
Something worth recording, although a bit out of sequence … I’ve had two rather nice raptor sightings recently, both new for me. First, several times over recent weeks I’ve seen a very swift-like raptor (but noticeably bigger than swift) jinking across the gardens. It has to be a hobby. I know they used to be around because local bird-watchers have told me about them. Secondly, on Thursday sitting outside Ealing Hospital one of their peregrines was flying around: practicing doing circuits; before disappearing behind the top of the building. It could have been one of this year’s young, although they should long have fledged. We know the peregrines nest there (and have done for several years) but I’ve never spotted one before.
Sunday 29
This afternoon I unloaded all the images from my trail cameras from the last three weeks – all 6500 of them – eeekkk! Well 20-30% were complete rubbish; just foliage waving in the breeze! Another 50% were the usual boring stuff: cats and foxes trotting hither and yon. But there were a couple of surprises. First one early morning at the birdbath there was a collared dove; no it’s a juvenile woodpigeon; oh no it isn’t it really is a collared dove. I thought I’d heard one around; but I’ve never before seen one here. Then a few days ago, again early morning, lucky Mr Fox is seen trotting off down the garden with a woodpigeon in his jaws; I saw not the catching, so I can only think the stupid bird hopped into his jaws.
Monday 30
Bugger! Had to cancel my dental op on Wednesday. Just don’t ask.
Sorry, no photos this month as everything has just been too manic.