Yesterday dawned as a fine bright day but the day did not get off to the best of starts. The care agency that looks after Meg sent me a text indicating that the call this morning would at 8.30 and then be cut down to 30 mins. So I got up rather more slowly this morning only to be greeted by two care workers at about 8.10 saying that their rota had been altered yet again. So I had to do a certain amount of running around in my pyjamas which was not the best start to the day. However, as Friday is now the day that our domestic help calls around and we always look forward to seeing her again this morning and to exchange news - she helps to keep Meg on an even keel in the mornings as she goes about her tasks. She was inducted into the translation of our Harry Potter blanket with the Latin slogan and then I showed her the cotton weave blanket, John Lewis quality, which I had previously washed and had airing in our airing cupboard. Our domestic help managed to find a very similar article using the John Lewis website where it sold for over £60 so we were pleased to get one for less than £5 and she indicated that if she had seen it in our local favourite AgeUK suburban outlet, she would have bought it herself. After we had had our coffee with our University of Birmingham friend down the hill, we just about got back in time for the late morning carers and then after they had completed their visit, we started to think about our lunch. I decided to make some risotto again this morning using a recipe which I know works very well (starting with some fried onions, then adding the arborio rice for a minute to fry, then adding the chicken stock, one half of the mackerel fillets and finally topped up with a good dollop of yoghurt and some grated cheese) We made enough for our domestic help to take some risotto home for herself and her husband and Meg and I really enjoyed the meal that we had this lunchtime. In the afternoon, I started to prepare for a long and protracted telephone call with EE to query my bill and to demand the removal of a service which they had inserted which I did not want or need and certainly did not wish to be charged for. But when I was preparing for my telephone call with EE, I consulted the latest bill to find it was at about normal levels and the next bill showed me as about 38p in credit rather than the large amount that they were threatening to take. Quite frankly, it was difficult to ascertain exactly what was going on but it could be that when I bought the new phone over two weeks ago, a bill was prepared which was then amended in the light of the comments I made to the EE staff in the shop at the time but might have taken several days to work their way through the system. To resolve this issue, I am going to wait until Meg is sound asleep this evening and then spend some time going through my accounts to see exactly for what I have been charged over the last week or so. In the meantime, I have another issue that the EE staff might be able to resolve in that the old SIM was transferred to my new phone and a new TescoMobile PAYG SIM inserted into my old phone, only to discover that when I receive a call, I seem to get it on the 'new' and the 'old#' phone simultaneously even though the numbers are evidently different. However, one of tech savvy care staff who also has an iPhone managed to solve the problem for me (which involved the tweak of some settings as I suspected).After breakfast, we got a call from our University of Birmingham friend and were absolutely delighted to see him in Waitrose as we often do on a Friday.
The recent assassination of the Hamas leader by the Israelis (which by all accounts was a sheer stroke of luck as a routine Israeli parol ran across some victims of a recent a strike) has led to much tougher language from the UK and other European governments. Keir Starmer has said: 'What is needed now is a ceasefire in Gaza, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, immediate access to humanitarian aid and return to the path towards the two-state solution. That is the only way to deliver long term peace and security; the humanitarian situation cannot continue. And I say once again to Israel, the world will not tolerate any more excuses on humanitarian assistance. Civilians in northern Gaza need food now.' To use a phrase such as 'will not tolerate any more excuses' indicates a degree of exasperation with the Israeli leadership which is almost unprecedented for a staunch ally. This sentiment is probably shared in the USA as well but, of course, the contenders for the presidency dare not say anything that seems to indicate that the USA tolerance for the Israeli prosecution of the war is decreasing. Biden went as far as he dare giving the Israelis some 30 days to open up more supply routes of aid and medical supplies into the stricken areas. But this only seems like a slap on the wrist and, in any case, a period of thirty days covers the period both before and after the American presidential elections. The very stark truth is that far from being a complete client state of the USA, the Israelis are 'de fact' being given a free hand to pursue whatever policies they desire. It is now self evident to most commentators that the most right wing government that Israel has ever known will tolerate nothing else except what they define as the complete elimination of Hezbullah and Hamas. But even of they were to succeed in these war aims, Israel still have a range of neighbouring states ranged against them, including Iran, Syria and the Yemen. Even if peace were to be declared tomorrow, the question tat is increasingly raised is 'What happens on the first day after the war has ended?' There are two massive questions of which the first is such as what type of government will emerge in Gaza and, secondly, who is going to pay for the enormous amount of reconstruction of an urban society where most of the private and public buildings end in ruins. The same question was asked, of course, after the conflict in both Syria and Iraq and it was plain that no forward thought, let alone planning, had been conducted about should happen when hostilities came to an end. At this stage, all that is left to contemplate is a whole series of refugee camps which may well exist for decades and must be locations where political radicalism and hostilities to the Israeli state will only fester and increase.