Stories to make you think

An overcast start to a day with a warm easterly wind for a change. By lunchtime the sky cleared and the temperature rose to 22C. Wonderful weather.

We went into town mid-morning, taking the 24 bus from the edge of Llandaff Fields. The time displayed on the LCD screen in the bus shelter has not been advanced to summer time. On the new electric bus, the time on the LED screen showing route information was correct, but the LCD temperature and clock screen alongside it was an hour behind. LED screens being much newer, are receiving a signal via a 4G internet connection. Bus shelter LCD displays are part of a wired network separately maintained. The one on the bus, may need manual resetting when someone notices!

We visited the bank and had a drink in John Lewis', then caught a 17 bus from outside the HMRC building as far as Canton crossroads, as we were set on going to the Lent lunch at St John's. I popped into Tesco's and bought this week's food contribution to take to church. Due to a diary clash the lunch had to start at one thirty. There were a dozen of us for a choice of soups, and cake to follow. 

We walked home together. I was feeling like a snooze in the chair before going out for a walk in the park, but Owain called with the news that the paperwork for the formal offer of his new job, due to start in a month's time has finally arrived. He has to formally accept, and separately notify people managing his pay. An outdated convoluted process in the digital era typical of a civil service lethargic about reform.

On Pontcanna fields, a viewing stand with seats for nearly two hundred has been erected for next week's Urdd rugby sevens tournament. Small circles of young people occupied the grass of the football field opposite the tournament site. I was surprised to see a group of bikini clad women among the dozen  enjoying the sun.

I spent the evening watching episodes of two different Finnish crimmies that both happen to be new to Channel 4 Walter presents. One is about young people and gang culture portraying but also explaining for the benefit of older viewers what's happening to adolescents in a society where recreational drugs are commonplace, families are fragmented and parents too busy to give their children the attention they need.  The other is about the impact of a hi-tech' electric car company on a deeply rural area renowned for bad weather, and thus used for testing road worthiness of new products. The portrayal of the company CEO is reminiscent of Elon Musk! 

It's an interesting reflection on what happens when complex sophisticated modern business promising prosperity and development comes face to face with an ancient self sustaining rural way of life. It reminds me of Norwegian series 'Likkeland' telling the story of how the arrival of a Texan oil company transformed a North Sea coastal region where fishing had been the economic mainstay into the state oil production regional capitol over a thirty year period. A good story well told has greater power to catch the attention and imagination of people than any editorial or opinion article in print or podcast. The recent TV drama 'Adolescence' has raised overdue public discussion about young people deprived of family support, in the same way that 'Mr Bates and the Port Office' drama did a couple of years ago.

The futility of force

More blue sky and sunshine today, it really lifts my spirits. I find I don't need to sleep for quite as long and don't suffer as a result. I woke up to bad news all round however.

Hamas continues to declare resistance to Israel's unilateral cease-fire plans, continuing to favour mediated negotiations by Arab League delegates.  Areas of Palestinian land in Gaza are being annexed and occupied as 'security zones', its population forced out. The aid blockade has been going on now for a month and military activity on the ground as well as in the air intensifies. It's ethnic cleansing pure and simple. It's against international law. It's happening with American support. No good can come of this.

Trump's regime is imposing high import tariffs on foreign goods, a move sending shock waves through the global economy. It'll have a negative impact on the USA just as much as every other country, Tariffs on British goods and services are relatively low in comparison with other countries, but it's bound to affect businesses here, and wreck government budget plans that already threaten people on low incomes. If the country was in an economic mess at the start of the new Labour administration, it's worse now, and more unpredictable due to Trump's kind of leadership. 

Economic analysts are highly critical of Trump's policy, saying that has never worked and is damaging. Trying to impose change forcibly never works, but we're now in an era where those in power have abandoned persuasive discourse for political bullying. Despite election promises, we can expect higher taxes and further deterioration of living standards over the next few years, not least because of stagnation in economic growth.

Anyway, after breakfast, I worked on making the video for next week's Morning Prayer, and uploading it to YouTube. Clare started making bread and then went to the shops. By the time she returned the dough had over-risen and urgently needed knocking back and putting in baking tins just as we sat down to lunch, causing us a moment of chaos. Yeast seems to work a bit faster in mild spring weather conditions. After lunch it was my turn to go to the shops with a big rucksack for replacement stocks of different flours and plant milks. Then a walk in the park. Regrettably the sky had clouded over, though it was still 17-18C

Preparation has started for the annual Urdd seven a side rugby tournament for boys and girls teams in Pontcanna Fields next week with several tents erected in cordoned off areas, and covered paths laid out for vehicle access. I remember this event from a previous year, but don't recall such extensive arrangements being made. It's happening from 7th-11th next week, with tournaments for school years 7-13 from all over Wales. Perhaps the event has grown. We'll see.

After supper I found series three of 'Arctic Circle' a Finnish crimmie has appeared on Channel 4 Walter Presents, and spent the evening watching a couple of episodes, and then heading for bed. 

Surreal confirmation 45 years on

Another wonderful clear blue sky sunny day with gusts of chilly wind, but around  15-16 C like yesterday. I posted the YouTube link to today's Morning Prayer just before Thought for the Day, and got up to make breakfast. It took me an hour and a half to get to sleep last night, as I was so tense after my dramatic disorienting day in Derby. After breakfast, I re-visited Google Maps, not for an inquest, but to use street view to locate the snack bar van in Howden's car park Ascot Road Derby, and examine the image patiently from different angles to find the side of the van on which Sarah's kitchen displayed a mobile phone number. Then I was able to send her a thank you text message from her, and received a prompt appreciative response. 

Today's the 45th anniversary of the St Paul's riot. It's also the 45th anniversary of Amanda's confirmation, which was happening in St Agnes while police confronted rioters in streets nearby, so I sent her a message. "It was the most surreal experience I ever had." she replied, having stood after the service in her white dress with others at the top of Badminton Road watching the bank burn. Worse civil disorder has followed on occasions since then, days of rioting in disadvantaged areas of discontented Britain. So little has really changed since then.

I finished Bishop Rowan's fine book before taking it to St Catherine's to lend to Rachel as I expected to see her at the Eucharist with Seb. There were nine of us today. Seb is now crawling and sitting upright like a Buddha, full of playful smiles. Our little midweek congregation ranges in age from nine months to ninety one.

After a drink in the hall, I collected the veggie bag from Chapter, and found Clare cooking tofu burgers and roasting potatoes and root veg for lunch. Still feeling tired from yesterday's excursion, I tried to sleep in the chair but failed to doze off and eventually went walking instead. I spotted a cormorant and an egret, plus a pair of goosanders fishing in the same stretch of river. Maybe it's a spot where elvers are hatching at the moment. The egret opted out of the hunt and flew up to perch on a tree branch instead. I've not seen an egret perching above ground like that since my locum spell in Mojácar in 2017. I heard but couldn't see a green woodpecker in trees above the river's west bank. I saw at close range but couldn't take a photo of a blue tit, and watched a kingfisher speed upriver in a straight line just above the water. Best of all, a couple of photos of a speckled wood butterfly, one of several I spotted flitting about along the edge of the river. Altogether a very interesting walk today.

After the day's football matches, discarded bottles and cans scattered about, needing to be escorted to the nearest bin. I picked up half a dozen and there were more out of reach once both hands were full. I wrote until supper time, and again after supper. Before turning in for the night, I recorded next week's reflection on Boenhoffer's life and anti-nazi witness, linking it to the Passiontide theme of next week's Gospel.

Disoriented in Derby

The necessity of an early start got me in bed by eleven, but I lost an hour's sleep, waking up at six to a blue sky just before dawn. I walked to the station by seven and caught an 18 bus from Cowbridge Road to ease the effort and get me there with extra time to spare. The seven forty five train to Derby left punctually and arrived on time. Going north east, the sun was in my face throughout the journey but not unpleasantly so. The train wasn't full when we left, but filled up completely from Gloucester onwards with students and staff commuting to Birmingham University. Then it filled with another batch of commuters leaving Brum for stations up the line to its Nottingham destination. 

When I emerged from Derby station with the 20min walk to the Cathedral I had Google Maps open on my phone. I still can't work out what went wrong, but when I followed the instructions given it took me in the opposite direction. It gave me names of streets but on half of them no street name signs were visible. A townscape of industrial warehouses and five storey buildings on flat terrain made it impossible to see the Cathedral's 200 foot early sixteenth century tower on a 30 foot rise above the level of the river, at any time while I walked for half an hour. I thought I was following the prompt on the map, but evidently not, despite checking several times as I walked. 

When Google told me eventually that I had forty five minutes to walk, it meant I would arrive after Geoff's funeral had started. There were very few people on my route to ask for directions. I stopped at a refreshments van called Sarah's Kitchen parked on the forecourt of a Howden's kitchen depot to confirm the grim truth. In distress I explained to the lady in charge why I had to be at the Cathedral by noon.

"Can you afford a taxi?" she asked. "I'll call one for you." Kitchen service halted while Sarah and her work mate Ali rang several taxi firms to find one which would be free to pick get me to the Cathedral urgently. After several tries, she looked up, said "Five minutes" smiled and returned to sandwich making. Five minutes later I was on my way for the ten minute drive around the ring road and back into the city centre. After crossing the river Derwent was I able to see the Cathedral tower on the promontory above for the first time. Thankfully, I was half an hour early. Geoff's friends and associates were already arriving. We were well over a hundred in the congregation, with Bishop David Hamid presiding of the Requiem Mass for Geoff, a former colleague and good friend. His eulogy did Geoff justice. The service was beautifully conceived with the Cathedral choir singing the Kontakion for the Departed as part of the Commendatio Animae at the end.

Apart from Bishop David and Judith, former churchwarden of Nerja where Geoff's European chaplaincy ministry started, his wife Carol and his children Becky and Simon, there was nobody there I knew. After I'd greeted them all, I wasn't in the mood for looking at the city centre or trusting myself to wander around town in the extra hour I had before my bargain train ticket determined I should travel on. I returned to the station to get something to eat at the Gregg's snack bar there, looking for and not finding street name signs on the way, asking passers to check I was going in the right direction. 

At least this time the map gave me an overview that made sense but at first sight it was tricky to relate it to what I could see. I thought that routes from city centre to train station would be way-marked adequately. Vehicles yes, but pedestrian signs not as obvious. Cycling signage was fit for purpose and that saved me from taking a wrong turn. I was hungry, thirsty and stressed out by the time I reached the station. Vegan and veggie options were scarce and had to be hunted for on the lower shelves of the display rack. Strange I thought in a city with a strong second and third generation East Asian component of the population, whose kids also eat European fast foods. I got by with a vegetarian sausage roll and a curried veggie pastry slice, waiting more than an hour for the appointed train.

Delays were announced for other trains headed south west. Commuters with more flexible fares than mine piled on to the train after I'd found a seat, filling the aisles to capacity as far as Birmingham, then re-filling for the second leg to Cardiff, despite the number of students getting off at the University stop. I made the wrong choice of seat as I had the setting sun in my eyes all the way to Cardiff. The young man opposite, as well as being tall like me took up floor space between our feet with his travel bag and laptop, reluctant it seems to entrust them to the overhead rack despite the exhortation over the tannoy to do just this. It wasn't a comfortable trip, but I did listen to a couple of episodes of the weekly Archers podcast meanwhile. And there was a 61 bus home within minutes of arriving at Cardiff Central. I walked into the house as tonight's episode of The Archers was starting. 

After a light supper I went out for a short walk at sunset to de-stress myself then went to bed, tired at ten. I'm so used to navigating my way around any new place relying on what I can see in the environment as well as a map, that today's experience was distressing. Not something I want to repeat. On the positive side, I experienced the kindness of two strangers going out of their way to get me to the church on time to say goodbye to a dear friend and fellow pilgrim, from the Halesown where we met, to the Costa del Sol. May he rest in peace.

Eye test

Another sunny day with high cloud making the sky less clear. I got up early, had breakfast at eight, then walked to Thompson's Park and back to get some fresh air and brief exercise, to see what difference it would make to the day, leaving Monday housework chores until I returned. 

I had an hour long phone call with Ashley, which had us both reminiscing about the variety of traders in food and household goods that used come street to street or even door to door when were kids seventy odd years ago. All are now a thing of the past, and in this new millennium have been replaced by online trading and delivery services of quite different nature. Cooked food, groceries, clothes books, and all kinds of electronic gadgets imaginable are now bought without going into a shop and arrive at your home. While we were talking a large bunch of flowers for Clare from the children arrived at the door. The covid lock-down led to a huge expansion of services which existed beforehand but are now available on such a scale that high street shop closures have impacted greatly on the town centre economy.

After lunch, I walked over to the School of Optometry for my annual eye test. The cataract in my right eye hindered the scan of the retina, so I had to book another appointment so the test can be done with the pupil dilated. Still no idea of when I can expect a second cataract operation.

I had an email from cousin Dianne this evening giving a positive verdict on the revisions I made to grandpa's story. That means I can circulate it to family members now.

Clare went out to choir practice at six. After I'd eaten, I set to work on preparing recording next week's Wednesday Morning Prayer. As I'm going to Geoff's funeral in Derby Cathedral tomorrow, I will lose a day's work time, so it's good to get ahead. I now have increasing domestic duties to relieve the pressure on Clare whose hip joint pain has slowed her down significantly.

Bed early tonight, nervous about not waking up at half past six, wondering if I'll have enough time to have breakfast and be out of the house by seven.

Eid on Mothering Sunday

Another clear blue sky sunny day, waking up an hour earlier in effect to start the day at the usual Sunday time. It's Eid al fitr, the end of Ramadan for Muslims today, Mothering  for church goers and Mothers Day for the greeting card and flower industry. BBC's Sunday religious news programme highlighted the fiesta, and promised a live broadcast of Eid prayers from a Bradford mosque for the first time, and there's a live entertainment programme this evening. It's an interesting milestone in the history of the BBC, reflecting the fact that the number of Muslims in the population is four million. Although a third of the population describe themselves as Christian, only three and a half million attend regular worship. Christians are well represented in terms of broadcast air-time, so it's right that the BBC is making an effort to ensure Muslims are adequately represented as well.

I celebrated and preached at St German's this morning, seven months since I last did, and four months since I last sat in the congregation. I was touched to receive a warm welcome from many members of the congregation. There were forty five of us in church, including former Vicar of Tonyrefail Ruth Moverly, whom we both know from the meditation group Diana used to run in her house some time ago. I enjoyed stepping back into the familiar ritual setting, though it was a bit of an effort with an hour's less time in bed, plus it takes me half the morning to feel fully awake. I really could do with getting up early and going for a walk to oxygenate my brain before breakfast to be at my best for the rest of the day. By the end of Mass, I felt much more awake thankfully.

It was a quarter past one before I reached home for lunch. Afterwards I slept in the chair again for over an hour, which at least meant that I felt more awake when it was time to go for a walk. The park was busy with people enjoying the spring afternoon sunshine. A group of about a hundred of all ages were enjoying pizzas together, an Eid party, probably from one mosque. Men and boys played football nearby, women and children were grouped together in a circle of prams and pushchairs, elderly women and men sat in a separate circle, with another large mixed group standing chatting in between them. Quite a sight.

Clare joined me to walk together for a while. She can't walk for so long or so fast these days, but it was nice to sit on a park bench and enjoy the sunshine together. After supper I watched the rest of 'Flowers over the inferno.' In the last half hour a mystery is unravelled, somewhat confusingly as the complex back story to a series of present crimes dates pack forty years and is told far too rapidly to make sense, though I spotted the hidden perpetrator early on. There was a poorly conceived scene in the run up to the final crisis in which a spool of 35mm movie film runs out and the miraculously started re-running while the dramatic action plays out. There's another mystery too in mise en scene. The wonderful Tyrolean alpine landscape is partly covered with snow, but  large melted patches make it look like it's spring, when the big seasonal festa during which the story is enfolding is St Nicholas, 6th December. There are other scenes with snow falling, or hoar frost on the trees, but the rate of change in a succession of scenes to another is implausible as if the movie editor was taking 'artistic' liberties that didn't really make sense. This distracts from the story being told. 

The story, past and present, concerned child abuse of different kinds. The six episode series covered one novel by Ilaria Tuti, featuring Commissaria Teresa Battaglia as a criminal profiler working with a couple of male inspectors, and keeping them on their toes all the time. This seems to be a feature of the Italian crimmies. The role in the story of the supportive friendship of four ten year olds, two of whom weren't strangers to physical abuse, was well portrayed and the kids were just marvellous. They reminded me a little of the Famous Five in children's stories when I was young, except that they were just four. It seems there's another series based on another crimmie featuring Teresa Battaglia is in the pipeline, but it'll be a while before that sees the light of day I suspect.

And that was it - time for bed now.

Eclipse day

I got to bed on time last night and had a better night's sleep. It was sunny when I woke up, but the sky threatened to cloud over by the time today's partial eclipse of the sun was due mid morning. Clare cooked pancakes and I cooked garlic mushrooms for breakfast. I was nice to hear author Michael Morpurgo speak about his daily walk on Radio 4 'Saturday Live' programme. He lives on a farm in the Cornish countryside and takes the same route each day, appreciating the changes he notes as the days of the year pass by. Time to appreciate what gets taken for granted is one of the great gifts of old age he says. He's a year and a half older than me, and share the same experience.

Around half past ten, the sun was passing in and out of moving cloud. Armed with a completely black frame of celluloid film, we both took a peek at the sun with a small portion of it obscured by the moon. It was interesting later to see other people's pictures taken during the eclipse. The moon shadow seems to work its way from the top of the sun's disc around the right hand side, not straight across, as the moon's orbit is elliptical and it's coming past at a different angle to the rotation of the earth. I tried taking a few photos, holding the frame of film over the lens of my Lumix TZ95, and then with the addition of an old UV filter. I didn't have enough know-how or enough time in a hurry to override automatic settings and use a high enough ISO number for a properly exposed shot, so none of them were sharp, and the moon shadow was masked by the glare. Interesting colours after editing the images but not really portraying an amazing natural phenomenon at all. 

I cooked some veg, Clare baked a piece of frozen cod and I heated up yesterday's leftovers for lunch. Then I walked into town to buy a pan from John Lewis' to replace the one that caught fire two days ago. It was impossible to get it perfectly clean as the interior surface is very slightly pitted in places. Fragments of carbonised material are embedded in a few tiny pits, and nothing we tried would remove them. The embedded substance could leach toxins if used for cooking. I thought a new one was advisable. The pan in question was bought when we were in Switzerland over thirty years ago, so why not? Our other Swiss pans are still going strong.

This evening is the Women's rugby international match between Wales and England, so full road closures are in operation and buses re-routed until half past nine tonight. Thousands of spectators arriving early for the match mingled with the influx of shoppers. Women of all ages with confident smiles on their faces, wearing red rugby shirts walking proudly with husbands and children, or in groups. Growing interest in women's sports generally is contributing to an upbeat mood on match day, win or lose.

I walked back home through Canton, so I could buy a jar of olives in the Turkish supermarket. The shiny new pan fits perfectly on the the electric hob, the one it replaces was a centimetre smaller, so cooking with it will be a bit more energy efficient.

After supper, I continued watching 'Flowers over the inferno', then put all the clocks forward, and set out for bed an hour early.

Green woodpecker's eerie call

A bright sunny start to the day, but clouds blew over mid morning. without covering the sky. When I went to be last night, I realised it was an hour later than I thought it was. I hadn't noticed when I sat down to relax with the first episode of the new crimmie with the strange title 'Flowers over the inferno'. The rhythm of the day was broken after lunch by losing an hour on line and on the phone trying to modify my travel insurance. No wonder I didn't sleep as long as I intended. I reckon that since Christmas I've had to spend a total of six hours using online direct message chat bots to make enquiries, each of which could have been answered directly by a living person in fraction of the time.

I read an article this morning about the phenomenal growth in the application of AI for every conceivable purpose, driven by investment entrepreneurs. Promoters admit it's far from perfect, sometimes falling short of real world accuracy when it comes to complex scheduling with many variable elements. Chat bots often fail to answer a question because they've not yet learned from use, or been taught to recognise how many ways a question can be asked. The response to this criticism is to say that humans have to learn how to ask questions in a particular way. We have to adapt to AI, rather than AI succeeding in adapting to the real world. 

Already spelling and grammar checking programs highlight what it thinks are user errors, in an effort to push writers into a style not their own. It can be useful on times but irritating as well when there are words of phrases it doesn't recognise. Blogger wants me to change 'on times' to 'at times'. I write as I speak and think, why should I change? 

We went to St John's for the Lent lunch with a dozen others and sat at table with Andrew and enjoyed an interesting conversation with him about his work as a mental health counsellor at UHW. He starts training for ordination at St Padarn's in the autumn, taking with him a rich experience of lay ministry. I wonder how this will impact on his future priestly role?

After we'd eaten I went shopping for an assortment of groceries - plant milks, fruit and rye bread. It was a heavy load and I was grateful for the rucksack to carry it home on my back rather than in two shopping bags. I slept for over an hour and woke up refreshed before walking in the park. I caught sight of a buzzard riding the thermals a hundred and fifty feet above the trees near the stables, and got a couple of photos at the limit of the range of the Olympus telephoto lens, so not terribly sharp when magnified. One of them, after editing revealed its plumage pattern and colour confirming it was our local raptor. I watched it glide down into the tree cover the other side of the allotments. I think there may be a nest somewhere over there.

After supper I devoted some time to exploring an excellent website of British bird songs and bird calls, in an effort to identify a distinctive loud call which I've been hearing daily at several locations around the two parks for the past couple of months. To my surprise, I discovered that what I'm hearing is a green woodpecker. I've heard them hammering several times of late. It's good to know what kind of woodpecker it is. There's one in Thompson's Park too. We're so lucky to have such a variety of wildlife here at the heart of the city.

Then another episode of 'Flowers in the inferno'. As the story unfolds it seems to be about a mysterious man in disguise avenging children abused by their parents in a remote alpine village, as several incidents of casual if not deliberate violence towards children are portrayed, somewhat shockingly to my mind. How this fits together remains to be seen. The female commissario (chief inspector) in the story is as grumpy with her colleagues as Rocco Schiavone in another Italian crimmie set in the Alps!