Today started off in a fairly tranquil fashion although it did not end that way as we shall see. This morning, Meg and I got up and treated ourself to our Sunday morning ritual breakfast which was a bowl of cereal together with some diced apple seated in front of the TV for the Lorna Kuenssberg Politics show. Nothing was at all dramatic but we did have Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, who was busy denying that any of the massive holdups in the port of Dover had anything to do with Brexit at all. I have noticed this particular trait of right wing politicians that they will deny that any adverse effects ever flow from any of their actions in the past. In the case of the Dover stoppages, I have noticed a consistent trend all the way through supposedly neutral Sky News presenters through a variety of right wing politicians consistently denying that any of the delays occasioned by extra passport checks had anything to do with Brexit at all. I find it very strange that something can be denied which is plainly obvious to all of the rest of the population. Of course, it is always said that the situation is much much more complicated than this (but most events are caused by a multiplicity of factors, some being necessary conditions and some being sufficient conditions) so I think this ‘but things are more complicated than that’ excuse is a good way of denying what you do not want to admit.
By prior arrangement, we met up with our University of Birmingham friend for our Sunday morning chat. We discussed with him the Richard Dimbleby ‘Spaghetti Harvest’ which was supposedly set in in the Ticino district of southern Switzerland – which actually does exist and which he knew about. As it happens, he had seen the famous/notorious Richard Dimbleby broadcast originally broadcast on 1st April, 1957. There is a slight twist to this story, though. The BBC did receive some complaints at the time by listeners who felt that an august body like the BBC should not be engaging in ‘spoof’ news. The BBC also received a large number of enquiries from listeners who wondered where they might either see or even obtain some of these fabulous spaghetti plants. The BBC kept a straight face by informing listeners that they could obtain some spaghetti and stick some of it in a bottle of tomato sauce and then ‘sit back and see what happens’ Afterwards, we discussed with our friend some much more weighty matters. He had recently been chairing a lesson on philosophy in a U3A (University of the Third Age) group of which he is a part and had done somne background reading in order to prepare for his chairmanship. For my part, I promised that I would dig out one or two of the ‘elementary’ philosophy books that I have hiding somewhere in my collection of academic books. In my final years at the University of Winchester, I taught a course called ‘Thinking About Management‘ and the initial part of this course was a section entitled Thinking about the Thinking process. Some of this drew upon some of the elements of Aristotelian logic with which I happened to be familiar because I actually have a GCE A-level in Logic. This was a course which was completely self-taught although I did purchase some rather ancient duplicated notes from a correspondence college called Wolsey Hall, Oxford (which I knew about from my mother because she too had used their notes when she was amassing the qualifications to enter Teacher Training College in the mid 1950’s) I studied Economics in a similar way (because I was so desperately short of mony) and Logic (because it was the shortest syllbus I could find). To cut a long story short, I had absolutely no idea, not having had any tuition in either subject, whether I wuuld pass or fail but in the event scored ‘A’ in Economics and a ‘B’ in Logic which grades effected my entrance into Manchester University.
Now for the events of this afternoon. Having preoared and eaten our Sunday lunch, I prepared cups of coffee for our post-lunch drink which I took through into our sitting room. Meg had evidently also come into the room with a glass cup containing cordial but then had a stagger and a fall leaving a trail of coffee, cordial and masses of blood all over the living room carpet as the crockery had broken into a myriad of shards. I then had in short order tried to wipe off the worst of the blood from Meg’s hands (and the rest of her body), somehow get her into a chair (but this was not easy with a prone body). I then set to work attacking the blood stains which seemed to be everywhere and the coffee stains whilst, at the same time, assessing and plastering up the wounds that Meg had inflicted on herself. It seems that most of the cuts were located on the fingers of her left hand and so tomorrow I will take her along to the ‘Minor Injuries’ unit of the local hospital in order to get a more professional assessment and wound treatment that I could manage.
© Mike Hart [2023]