Fish shopping

I woke early and posted the link for today's Morning Prayer to WhatsApp before getting breakfast ready. On the way to the Eucharist at John's early, I shopped for food bank items at Tesco's in order to leave them at church for collection. There were just seven of us today. Linda has kindly agreed to drive me to St Joseph's after the service on Thursday three weeks hence when I have my cataract operation. Over coffee we talked about opening St John's for a 'warm church' morning on a day when there are other community activities during the day and the church heating needs to be on. With churches paying business rates for energy it's hard to see how any heating is going to be affordable. We must hope that the Lord provides!

I cooked rice and veg with mussels for our lunch. After a siesta we walked into town to buy our monthly consignment of fresh fish for freezing. We omitted to bring a freezer bag with us, but bought one from the fishmonger's stock. It's a good sized bag branded stylishly with E. Ashton's Ltd, Fishmonger (est.1800) on the side and top. Normally I hate any design which carries product branding, but this is an exception as it's a Cardiff institution to which we have regular recourse for supplies.

We then went to John Lewis for a cuppa before returning home on a 61 bus. Unfortunately the young man who served us at Ashton's had put ice in with the fish in the freezer bag, but not contained it in a plastic bag of its own. By the time we were on the bus, some of the ice had started to melt and left a trail of water on the floor. It didn't smell fishy, as everything inside the bag was neatly wrapped up, but the sight of a fishmonger's bag leaking was embarrassing, suggesting a smell without producing one.

After supper, I watched the second episode of Michael Portillo's travelogue through the Pyrenees, and then the first two episodes of 'The Capture' series two. A cleverly devised political thriller about deep fake video technology, able to work in real time without lag or distortion. It's science fiction, but may be possible sooner than we think. The bad guys in this story are, or seem to be so far the Chinese, and it probes assumptions, stereotypes, and disinformation as a weapon of war, much as the recent thriller on Channel Four about cyber warfare expounded Russian efforts of a similar kind. It's a bit like twentieth century war time propaganda drama about 'fifth columnists', designed to alert the public to the enemy in our midst. Except that now the very technologies on which modern life relies so heavily are weaponised and used against us. Disturbing stuff. What have we done to ourselves?