Reality and / or Fiction?

A cloudy start to the day, but the sky soon cleared as the sun rose into the sky. An early breakfast, and then a drive to UHW with Clare for her post-op checkup. Finding a space was easier today, despite the flow of cars entering the car park. I joined Clare in the waiting room, which was already filling up with patients for early day appointments. I had to stand outside after a while, along with others accompanying patients. Three quarters of an hour later she emerged, and we made our way to the car park. It was twenty past ten when we reached home, not quite enough time to walk to Mass at St Catherine's, so I drove there feeling guilty about not walking, but I simply hate to be late for worship. I drove home afterwards, then walked to Chapter to collect this week's veggie bag. Then I cooked curried lentils with sweetcorn on the cob plus veg for lunch.

A second appointment for Clare at UHW mid afternoon for another bone density scan, our third trip to UHW in 30 hours. I had enough time in hand before leaving to watch the finale of 'Nightsleeper', gripping right to the end. In addition to being a first rate thriller written in six episodes corresponding to the journey time of the night sleeper train from Glasgow to London, it portrayed the activity of the National Cyber Security in full operational cyber warfare more in all its presumably fictional jargon filled complexity, near Victoria Station in London (in real life) where a high speed runaway train is programmed to arrive and precipitate a major disaster on the station and its neighbourhood. 

A dozen people are trapped on the train, each with their own background stories. As the hours pass and a grisly fate seems to await them all, their masks drop to reveal the truth of the real person beneath the lies. The truth behind the motives of the crime fighters at HQ is also revealed, and it's revealed that malware they have previously created for stress testing systems prone to cyber attack is being used against them. Several alternative ways of preventing a catastrophe are discussed, with perilous consequences. It seems that political and security leaders will sacrifice the few to save the many, a 'less worse' expedient solution. This also seems to be what compels the train trapped individuals to hide behind their masks, with tragic consequences for some. 

There is however, an uncompromising heroine who succeeds against the odds in finding an innovative solution that forestalls catastrophe, just. It's worth watching for dialogue revealing the best and worst of intentions, and highest moral values. It's an engaging philosophical essay in the guise of a spy thriller. My only complaint is that the background music resembled closely the frenetic genre of music behind the 'Call of Duty' series, 'The Capture' and several others.

Thinking of 'less worse' the Israelis presumably launched a devastating hi-tech attack on Hizbollah in Lebanon, conning their militia into using a large batch of paging devices containing embedded military grade explosives. Nine dead and a couple of thousand people maimed. Following this, a similar attack on  digital comms handsets today. There have been fears that Israel would experience even more attacks from Hizbolla's army in Lebanon which have intensified since the war on Gaza. The large scale undermining of its secure communications ability weakens its ability to wage war, but at what cost? So many people will be put out of action, if not disabled. There's bound to be a risk that Hizbolla's allies and proxy forces will launch damaging revenge attacks on Israel, escalating the conflict, with what consequence? Reality and fiction seem even closer today than 36 hours ago.

Having delivered Clare to UHW in good time for her appointment, I waited for her with an Americano and a slice of fruit cake in the main concourse area of the hospital. We were home again by five, and after another slice of cake and a drink, I went out for a walk in the park. The pair of chairs fly-tipped late last night had migrated from next to the waste bin where they were dumped to the woodland edge of the field, for no apparent reason. There are a few spaces within the surrounding trees and undergrowth which are used from time to time by youngsters as a secret place to hang out, and maybe also by homeless people camping wild. They are in good condition. I wonder where they came from?

After supper, I spent time writing, and recorded next week's Reflection and Morning Prayer before turning in for the night.

Inaugural honesty in a pandemic of swindling as well as covid

A lot of rain overnight. Clare walked down to the Taff before I got up this morning, and remarked how high the water was, I went down to the river before lunch. The water had risen even further, overflowing on to the footpath by the bridge. It's as bad as it was last February, although I think there may have been an overflow a few weeks ago. We've never seen such extreme weather.

I went to our local HSBC branch to bank a cheque after lunch, wondering if it's one of 82 local branches set to close in the latest cost saving round of reduction of local services. It's disturbing to think banking bosses are willing to disregard the needs of people who cannot travel to larger branches and queue to be seen because they don't want to bank on-line or by telephone. The idea is that such clients can use services provided instead by their local Post Office, to bank cheques, make payments, deposit or withdraw cash. 

It seems some sort of deal has been done with the Bank of Ireland which I believe operates a franchise to offer financial services to the Post Office. I wonder if this will lead to clients deciding to transfer accounts to the Bank of Ireland via the Post Office? Certainly in Switzerland and EU countries Post Offices offer a range of banking services including debit and credit cards. Maybe it'll develop like that here too.  

Earlier in the week I received a text message purporting to be from HSBC recognisably a phishing scam. I enquired of the bank if any agency within the HSBC security network was keeping a record of fake phone numbers used for phishing scams. Apparently not. Only if emails purporting to come from HSBC can be forwarded to them, so they their provenance can be tracked. Voice calls and text messages are too many to be logged, and fake identities change very rapidly, so it's impossible to retrieve useful information that enables the source to be tracked. Bank staff have to deal with a growing number of client subjected to fraudulentl solicitations. Some people suspect and need reassurance, others are duped. We get half a dozen spam calls a week at least, sometimes twice a day. A swindling epidemic.

This afternoon, an hour of sheer delight listening on BBC Sounds catch-up to Choral Vespers in Latin from the London Oratory. A lovely gift for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. By the time it was over the US Presidential inauguration ceremony had started, so I switched channels and listened to Joe Biden's speech on catch-up. It was a moving powerful appeal for American unity in facing the challenge posed by the pandemic and its economic impact. He was open in declaring himself to be a man of faith, appealing to the heart of faith in others. It was a powerful secular sermon, delivered by an active Catholic. No religious piety displayed, but a deep commitment to truth, justice, equality and reconciliation. 

He was an inspiring contrast to the divisive self centred rhetoric of Trump. His parting speech wasn't inflammatory, simply a rehearsal of what he considered to be his achievements, couched in vague references to the improvement in 'numbers' on his watch. Now Trump has gone to Florida, with no intention of retiring or staying out of public life, who knows what will happen next?

This evening, Clare and I watched 'Staged', the entire first series of comedy shorts about rehearsing a play via Zoom under lock-down, starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen, with a cameo appearance in the sixth episode of Dame Judi Dench, sending herself up, as did David and Michael throughout. We laughed out loud throughout  from start to finish. A refreshing inspired contemporary on-line drama production.