Yesterday, Meg and I slept in a little later than intended. This might have been due to the darker mornings and to the fact that the previous late afternoon, we had a breath of fresh air whilst I got the back lawn cut whilst Meg (and Miggles, our adopted cat) supervised operations. I was very relieved that the mower seemed to be behaving itself as on a previous occasion I felt that it misfired occasionally but the mowing proved unproblematic so perhaps a jet had cleared itself or there had been some moisture in the petrol.
After we had returned from our Tuesday meet-up with our friends in the Waitrose cafeteria, it was practically time for the carer to call for Meg's late morning call. But an unforeseen emergency prevented one of the carers to be able to call so, as is quite common these days, I assisted the one carer who did manage to attend. Afterwards, this young carer was due to stay on as it was Meg's 'sit' call which releases me to go out on the road and do some much needed shopping. It transpired that this young carer had got a GCSE A star for in music so she was quite happy to listen to the Fauré which is one of our perpetual favourites on YouTube when Meg would appreciate some soothing music. I needed to go and fill the car with petrol and this was absolutely straight forward and then I planned to visit an adjacent Halfords to purchase some motor oil for the mower. The last occasion I did this in the spring, I popped into the store, saw what I wanted, purchased it and was in and out of the store in two minutes. But today was a bit of a nightmare. I could not find the lawn mower and garden machinery oil despite scouring the shelves with every kind of motor oil imaginable. Not being able to find it, I enlisted the assistance of one young store assistant who was putting together a bike. He could not find the oil and neither could two other assistants who had to be approached in the search for this very standard product. Eventually, the computer was consulted and not only could the assistants not find the motor mower oil but also they claimed that it was not available in their regional warehouse either. This was a very standard product and is like going into a supermarket and not being able to buy any butter. Eventually, on returning home, I went onto the internet and am going to have delivered in a day or so what I had hoped to pick up easily locally today. As there was a beautifully sunny afternoon on Tuesday and the mower seemed to be performing satisfactorily, I managed to get the big communal grassed area in front of the house mown whilst Meg watched from her wheelchair. Then after going inside for a spot of afternoon tea, Meg and managed to watch the first. of a two part biography of Mozart which was first broadcast on Monday evening but was easily available on BBC iPlayer on Tuesday. The second part will be broadcast next week so this is another thing to which we can look forward.
In the US, Donald Trump has escaped from a second assassination attempt as someone was about to take a pot shot at him whilst he was playing golf on his own gold course in Florida. This has made me wonder about the fates of several presidents and prominent politicians and to the best of my knowledge, there seems to be quite a remarkable difference in outcome according to whether one is a Republican or a Democrat. The three most prominent and noteworthy assassinations of Democrats were of course President John Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, all of whom were shot dead almost immediately. The Republicans with whom I am familiar start with George Wallace who was a declared racist governor of Alabama and after he was shot, he was confined to a wheelchair. Ronald Reagan survived an assassination attempt and might have died were it not for prompt treatment in the local hospital to which he was rushed. Now we have Donald Trump who had a close shave (almost literally when a bullet grazed his ear)and has now been in the sights of a gunman even if not actually shot at. So the rather facetious question that I ask myself is why prominent Democrats get killed outright but prominent Republicans seem to evade death? It could be that those of a Republican persuasion 'en masse' own more guns, have more practice and are better shots than Democrats but it is an interesting question nonetheless. It is perhaps interesting that a cursory Google search reveals nothing on this topic which might tell us something about how the algorithms that are utilised by the principal search engines are constructed. I can remember my frustrations when I was trying to research the internet for arguments against TQM (Total Quality Management) but every time I tried a search term such as 'arguments against Total Quality Management' the vast majority of what was thrown up in searched were arguments in favour of TQM or sometimes an article that would read that arguments against TQM are misplaced).Returning to the assassination attempt (which seems to have been carried out by an individual without fixed views who has voted both Democrat and Republican) I have a horrible foreboding that this may actually help to bolster up the Trump campaign. Harris may have a slight lead in the polls overall but there is no point in piling up votes in places of California that are always going to vote Democrat anyway. In the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania, it could be that the candidates are neck and neck. But the portion of the electorate that has to be persuaded to abandon Trump are the white male non educated rural voters and it could well be that in this particular demographic, a sympathy vote for Donald Trump may appear now that he seems to have survived two assassination attempts. The nightmare mare scenario for the United states remains quite a likely option that Harris wins the elections by the narrowest of margins which the Republicans refuse to accept and then we have the groundwork for a civil war in America (at the worst) or months of political stalemate whilst courts argue out individual results (at best). If the latter were to happen, appeals would eventually be made to the Supreme Court which as it now has several Trump appointed nominees appointed to it (for life) would probably gift the disputed elections to the Republicans.
© Mike Hart [2024]