The temperature was a comfortable 18C overnight, pleasant for relaxed sleeping. By mid morning under a cloudless sky it was 27C rising to 33C, one of the hottest places in the UK for a change. In the early hours a message from Jasmine stated that she and Louie were boarding a flight arriving at Heathrow around one o'clock, hopefully arriving at Sophia Gardens by coach around half past five. At last, patience rewarded!
Netanyahu has been in talks with Trump in Washington for the past couple of days, promising a cease-fire deal, but announcing nothing in conclusion. Meanwhile people are killed daily at emergency aid points by soldiers and militiamen alleging they are controlling crowds or hunting Hamas fighters, no longer an army but a collection of insurgents. Killings reported seem indiscriminate and far more victims are women and children than can be considered random accidents. Too little is being said by international leaders backing either Israeli or Palestinian sides about this genocidal anarchy, as that would be an admission of inability to influence events or Netanyahu.
Most Israelis appear to want the war to end and a deal made to return hostages and resume delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Apart from the Zionist fanatics who hold the balance of power in the Netanyahu government. Zionist fanatics who hold the balance of power in the government resist decisive action. Is Netanyahu delaying action until the government goes into summer recess, to impose a deal while there's not enough time for the minority to obstruct it? It would be a gamble. It would break the coalition, but any popular surge of support might re-make the coalition with a less extremist balance of power. Meanwhile each day more Gazans die, shot bombed or starved to death, while the world watches unable to intervene without the risk of destabilising the situation further and triggering a third world war.
Irvine Welsh was interviewed on this morning BBC Today programme about his new book, a sequel to his seminal 'Trainspotting' novel of thirty years ago, with the same characters growing older in a radically changing world. He made an incisive comment about the influence of the internet, especially social media and the emergence of AI. Things which may have developed as an information service have concentrated power in the hands of transnational corporations and operate with their own profitable interests in mind. If you search to inform your answer to a question you have in mind, it is more likely to tell you only what's in its interests to tell you, not precisely what you want to know, undermining our ability and desire to think for ourselves.
Welsh identifies something I have noticed. I know all the information I need about transport timetabling is out there. I can ask a specific question about when the next 61 bus to town arrives at the nearest stop. In some instances Google search will list a few of the nearest match times, in others it will tell me how to search the required timetables, something I already know and can't be bothered with, as it's too fiddly and time consuming. It wants to drive me to one or more websites, or install an app to obtain the information I need. In each case, those devices will most likely pitch me advertisements distracting me from finding out the simple fact I need. It's not in my interests but it generates ad income and information about my search a third party will use to pitch me more ads I don't need to see.
I finally got around to setting up my new Moto G24, an onerous fiddly job. The tricky task of extracting and inserting the SIM and SD cards was relatively easy this time around, but with half a dozen different accounts and apps needing to be signed into and security notifications responded to, plus endless sets of terms and conditions to be agreed to at every move, on top of the hit and miss wholesale transfer of data between phones, it took a couple of hours. Hit and miss, as the process was interrupted by two separate incoming emails. The only annoyance was Google Wallet, insisting that I set up digital payment card details with an immovable demand filling half the screen space. No point in asking Google how to get rid of this. It didn't understand the question. Fitbit behaved itself however, but the Church in Wales lectionary app didn't transfer and had to be reinstalled. Anyway, the morning was over by the time I finished and it was time to cook lunch. Two big hake fillets poached in olive oil and lemon, plus usual veg.
After we'd eaten, I cleared up and had a line of washing to hang in fierce afternoon heat, then another hour completing set-up of new Dell laptop, with a Microsoft account passkey, recommended these days for enhanced security. I then started unpacking and setting up the Mesh 1200 wireless network extender pack I bought at the same time as the laptop. The instruction leaflet contained no writing at all, just pictures of each stage in the process which took ages to decode without knowledge or accompanying explanation. I attached the hard wired extender unit and got this to attach to the internet, but completely failed with the other two wi-fi extension units. Google's written set-up instructions were plain and straightforward enough but didn't attach to the router or to each other. Most frustrating, contradicting assertions that set-up was a simple straightforward process.
Despite a late departure Jasmine's flight arrived on time. Their coach arrived late, due to Friday rush hour traffic, but also due to city centre road closures for tonight's Stereophonics concert. The bus station was also closed, as I discovered when I arrived more or less on time to meet Jasmine and Louie. Incoming coaches parked in the town-side bus lane at the bottom of Cathedral Road. After a ten minute wait their coach arrived, and they stepped off it looking dazed and drained. The air conditioning on the coach was broken, so the temperature was thirty degrees or more in direct sunlight. We walked back slowly, grateful for the shade of tall trees most of the way. Clare fed them with omelette and chips, and by ten they were ready to start adjusting to the time zone change, catching up on a lost night's sleep. I pottered around with the Mesh set-up for another hour, then called it a day.
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