Trouble hits big time - and it hurts

Just to put it out there, I'm in something of a fix right now. Rather nasty accident last Tues - tripped over on road outside, broke left arm, smashed most of front teeth, leg and hand injuries........and happening just round the corner from my home, 200 yards away, returning from (of all things!) a visit to the doctor's. My worst accident and injuries ever! - and all just a handful of days from my 78th - not that I was going to do anything special anyway.  Left arm been in plaster since the 'event'. I find out tomorrow morn if an operation is needed. It may not be, which I'm hoping is the case (but of course), but more likely than not it is going to be advised. Not only have I never had any operation before, I've never had any hospital stay in my life. My biggest concern is, possibly unsurprisingly, feeding and caring for my two cats. But one thing at a time.

So, this is just so as you all know. If any of you care to comment, though using this laptop in my present condition ain't easy, I will read them all and try to acknowledge when and if I can.

Stoppit.........PLEASE!!!!

 

I've just about had enough! Why, oh WHY are the British TV networks, (including the BBC, of all bodies!) so darned obsessed with the projected reunion of group 'Oasis' to undertake a world tour, now 15 years after their break-up following the estrangement, now apparently reconciled, of brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher? It's even been second news item on some channels for three days! Is it that flaming important to the world, I ask you? Who cares, and I can't honestly think that there are that many who do, certainly not enough to merit such a high place of 'importance' on our news programmes? I definitely don't! Strewth! STOP IT. Just STOP IT NOW!!! 

(Now, if the Beatles had re-united around, say 1984, - okay, since writing this I realise that by then Lennon wasn't with us - now that would have been something to really make a song and dance about).

Broken-heart time, half of world-famous gay penguin couple dies.

 

Sphen (here left), the elder at 11 years, has died at their home in Sydney Sea Life Aquarium. His partner, Magic, younger by three years - and this will surely touch you, as it's brought myself to the edge of tears - was shown Sphen's body to help him know that his best friend will not return - at which he started 'singing' and was joined by other penguins in the colony. I'm now weeping!  Oh, cruel world!

Our latest 'bogeyman' - Charlotte Dujardin (bogeywoman/person?)

 

This makes me sick just to write about it. Shortly before travelling to compete in the Paris Olympics as part of the British equestrian team, Ms Dujardin C.B.E., set to become our country's most-gold-medals-ever-won female champion, has pulled out following the release of a video showing her training a horse to 'dance' in dressage, the dismounted 'she' using a whip on it its legs twenty four times as she follows the frightened creature around the indoor arena making it buck in obvious pain - minutes long. She now says she's "ashamed" but the video is four years old, and it was an "error of judgment"! Yeah, well done for such penetrating insight! Cripes! So are we seriously to believe that when this video was secretly filmed it just happened to be the only time she'd ever used this 'technique' and has never done it since? If she used that method to clinch the gold for dressage in Tokyo 2020 - and it having been 'successful' - why would she not have continued with that animal torture right up to these Paris Games? The only thing she's sorry about is that she's been exposed for the monster she is, rather than have another chance to grin ear-to-ear, mounted triumphantly on her tortured, 'dancing' beast. (Various animal welfare titles and charities have now been stripped from her). It, of course, remains in serious question whether any other members of our team now on their way to Paris had been aware of her antics - and, even worse, were any of them themselves guilty of following her 'successful' practices, perhaps trying to emulate her results with so much at stake? 

There are also issues as to why the video has only now being released, four years later - possibly a Dutch attempt to sabotage our team's chances in this event, it's been suggested. We don't know for sure yet. Whatever, I found watching it so unbearable - shown in full several times on both BBC and ITV channels - that I've had to change to a different, any channel.

This woman, already decorated as a 'Commander of the British Empire' (hate that title!) was on the road to being created a 'Dame' (as in Dames Judi Dench & Maggie Smith) by His Majesty King Chuck himself (our lovely Queen Camilla by his royal side), for crying out loud! - and she most certainly would have been made so if she'd won another gold, her formerly prospective elevated title now being shelved, at least for the foreseeable future - unless she's 'exonerated' of course. (Ha ha!)

Now although this issue had been headlines on all our news channels, yesterday alone we also had reports of a twelve-times stabbing in Kent (next-door county to me) of an army officer who is now still struggling to stay alive, as well as an incident at Manchester airport where a man resisting arrest and on the floor, was kicked in the face by a policeman who then stamped on his head. These human horror stories are certainly serious enough, hardly imaginable both, and some would maintain, perhaps not unfairly, that these are far more important than the report of a horse being mistreated, albeit severely. But animal sufferings cut especially deep down into me, and ones like this - which didn't have to happen - really make me mad.

Anyway, having got that off my chest (no, it's still there!) I can't wait for tomorrow when the Games really begin. I just love, love, LOVE the Olympics every single time they take place!!! - athletics events above all! - and this time the clocks of our country and that of the Games' host are a mere one hour apart so a whole lotta live TV coverage to watch. Lovely. Bring 'em on!

British General Election over and done with, thank goodness.

 

So - after little more than one month of campaigning we now have in Keir Starmer a new Prime Minister - and a Socialist to boot (which some evangelicals, of whom we have negligibly few here, may class as 'Communist', which is just risible!) though he's actually more likely to be socialist in name rather than in practice. Nevertheless, I'm reasonably content (so far) with the result. More delight felt at having had the Conservatives chucked out with their worst result in history than Labour's stonking triumph with their own best ever result in terms of seats won.

The direction I come from is having voted Green in every election for 27 years - at least whenever there was a Green candidate option. If there wasn't a Green I'd go Liberal Democrat (mainly because of their very pro-European Union stance) though without an equivalent enthusiasm.

The Greens managed to quadruple their number of seats won.... to four! - out of a total House of Commons membership of 650. I'm happy at that. Though still minuscule, if these four are anything like as vocal, measured and effective as the last sole member was, she having stood down this time after 10 years dutiful service, it should raise the profile of Green issues, which I rate as the single most grave threat (even certainty?) facing the world - before everyone is either drowned or burnt to cinders in the final conflagration. This won't happen in my own remaining time but I feel ever more sure that it's now pretty well past any hope of avoiding dire, horrible fates to come. I can only fervently hope that I'm wrong, but even so I cannot comprehend how anyone having children for whom they have regard - and especially grandchildren - can possibly be a climate-change denier in the face of the ever-accumulating evidence while the small percentage of scientist deniers dwindles yet further. Of course many of us are madly exasperated at China's uncaring, reckless behaviour above all, though I'll have to write at length on that subject another time.

So we've kicked out our first Hindu P.M., Rishi Sunak - hardly the worst ever though, frankly, not far from it. He was our first non-Christian, non-Jewish, non-atheist (openly), political leader - and, frankly, none the worse for having been of his faith, towards which I had quite agreeable feelings. Although Premier for a little over just 21 months, Sunak was the richest P.M we've ever had. His wife being a billionaire (through inheritance), he himself reputedly has more money than our King Charles himself!

Now Sir Keir (rhymes with 'near') Starmer will have to prove himself. Under our crazy first-past-the-post electoral system he's won two-thirds of the seats available with just one-third of the votes cast, with a thumping majority of 174 seats over all 13 other parties combined. It's actually turned out to be the most disproportionate General Election result ever in terms of relation between total votes cast and seats won. (Liberal Democrats won 71 seats - their best result in over 100 years, yet the Reform Party, although receiving over half a million votes more than the Lib Dems, won just 5 seats. That's got to be hopelessly unfair!) Starmer managed to get significantly more seats than even Tony Blair won in 1997, even though his Party's share of the national vote was 8% less than then. 

Incidentally, the newish far-right Reform Party was a major factor in the final result, deflecting perhaps as much as some few millions of votes from the Conservatives who, they considered, weren't quite as adamantly anti-(illegal only?) immigrant as much as Reform wanted. It's led by one Nigel Farage, a very familiar name here at home though maybe not so well known overseas. A blindly passionate supporter of Tr*mp, he's even spoken in America at some of the BLOTUS rallies. Attention-grabber, this dangerous and colourful Farage has now at last won a parliamentary seat at his 8th attempt! Should be....erm....'interesting'.

So, overall a strange and unique result, positive or not depending where one's sympathies lie, but which I'd rate as 'fairly promising, though by no means overwhelmingly so'. However, Starmer already gets a big  thumbs-up, even two, for having appointed, in his first few hours, the most ever number of female Cabinet members, more than a few of them taking some of the most senior offices including Angela Rayner as Deputy Prime Minister - and not before time! Rather oddly, Labour is the only one of our larger parties - as well as some smaller ones - never to have had a female leader. Even the Conservatives have had no less than three female Prime Ministers to date, even if one of them had been the totally calamitous Liz Truss, P.M. in 2022 for all of 45 days!  (Btw: Mrs Thatcher famously never allowed any other women at all to join her Cabinet during her 11-year premiership - as well as placing a bar against men with beards!)

So then, what will coming years bring? Can only wait and see - but here's hoping!

Eurovision last night - results and my verdict

 

Switzerland won. I've no complaints. This weird body-balancing act would have been my third choice. Good to have a third-time winner (last time 1988) from a non-obvious country without political issues muddying the waters. 

Singer 'Nemo' is, it's said, the first 'non-binary' winner to take the title. (I had to look up that term for its meaning. I just can't keep up with the lingo!) 

Second came my own vote, Croatia, an act and song as daft as any, but I liked it on first hearing.........

In third place, a song (part-ballad, half rap) which didn't appeal to me at all, Ukraine, two females of, well, disparate size, shall we say......

At number 4 came France with one of two solo male 'power' ballads' with no frills, no backing distractions - just the song simply and here powerfully delivered, and which I thought passable (just) - though with the singer in a perplexing semi-diaphanous outfit, and wearing underneath it what seemed to be just a nappy/diaper........

and

And in 5th place, the contentious Israeli entry (but of course!). We were told there was some boos from the 70,000 audience but I didn't hear any. I thought the song indifferent. Incidentally, it seems that the British public voted to give its maximum points for this entry. Why? Out of 'sympathy' for having to face demonstrations?........

Poorish showing (yet again!) for the U.K., coming 18th out of 25, which is actually much better than most of our recent entries........

I still think our act, visually, was the best out of the lot, though the song itself was no great shakes. In the final viewers' vote (now taken from the more than 100 countries globally who take the transmission live!) we were the only participant to receive zero points from the public, our final not-last placing being due entirely to the individual participating countries' appointed juries, which have equal weight with the public vote. (Work that one out!) 

And then there was Spain, with its gloriously outrageous act, which ended up, most sadly of all, in 22nd place. Oh well. C'est la vie!.........

............and, btw, you can't see it here, but those boots the guys are wearing are high-heel stilettos. How they managed to stay upright with all their twisting, writhing and stuff beats me! 

The presenters, Petra Mede (Swede) and Malin Akerma (Swedish-American) did an efficient job. There was, this time, just one occurrence of the dreaded yell of "Are you READY?????"......

Just one further maddening thought on the voting. Like last year, just as the presenters were saying to us that we could vote as many times as we wanted (which I assume meant voting for as many countries, other than one's own), commentator Graham Naughton chimes in on the voting procedure saying that we couldn't vote for the U.K. but must vote for the countrY (resolutely in the singular!) we wanted to win. No mention of voting more than once! This is exactly what had happened a year ago. Why can't they sort the darned thing out, for heaven's sake? And to further cloud the voting issue, after casting my vote, about 15 mins later I wondered what would happen if I tried to vote for Croatia again - so I did, and the same recording of Norton's voice comes on "Thank you. You have voted for Croatia". So was my vote for the same country counted twice? - or is there some mechanism for filtering out multi-votes for the same country? And if I'd tried to vote for our own U.K., would that have gone through? What a shambles! Get it sorted, people!!!!

Oh, yes - and Austria's Conchita Wurst turned up in the interval to briefly join as part of a trio to sing 'Waterloo', a 50th anniversary tribute to, of course, ABBA who won in Brighton (just 12 miles from me sitting here) in 1974........

So, another year gone. All in all, despite the protests against the Netanyahu government as well as the elimination of the Dutch act - of which we still don't know the details - it was a pretty good contest this year, and I'm reasonably satisfied with the result, which itself is a rare thing.

So next year where? Zurich? But somewhere fresh and Alpine for sure in any case. See ya there! 

Eurovision tonight - gayest ever by far, but controversies.

 

In Malmo, Sweden (last year's winner) - Israel's participation, exacerbated by its winning a place in tonight's final has, as at now, clouded the event which promises (-ed?) such up-front 'gayish' fun like never before. However, though Russia has not been allowed in for the last two competitions following its invasion of Ukraine, one can hardly maintain that the Israel's government's recent acts have been any less egregious than that of President Putrid. Very large demonstrations in Malmo itself as well as around Europe and, indeed, the world, protesting against Israel's involvement in this show. Current betting odds puts Israel second-favourite to win, though I'd give the song a score of only 2/5). 

So, I'm conflicted - should I do an individual personal boycott and not watch the show? Shhhhhhh!.....but no! Sorry. Can't help it!

Added to which, now this morning there's a question over the Dutch act, which was/is (rightly, in my view) one of the most touted to win - a crazy earworm of a song with even crazier act. The singer has variously been reported as having had a physical confrontation with a photographer, with police involved - or having too aggressively addressed Israel's female singer on her country's participation. They might be linked. But this Dutch entry was excluded from yesterday's final dress rehearsal, a video of the song being relayed instead. At this time of writing we don't know what's going to happen. (Latest bulletin: Netherlands has now been disqualified from tonight's final - first time this has happened for any country in Eurovision's 68-year history. We still don't know the details of what had happened to bring this about but if it had be so, there it is. I can reveal now that the song/act would have been my number two choice of them all).

I've now three times heard all 26 songs in tonight's final and am pretty sure who'll get my vote. Excluded by having received inadequate votes in the heats were two openly gay participants, Denmark and Belgium among the eleven 'losers', but there's plenty more well worth watching out for among those left in the final. I just must point out Spain above all the others (8th in running order) where, if you're looking at the female singer performing, halfway through I guarantee that your attention will definitely turn to her two male backing dancers, both bearded. Talk about flaunting it in-yer-face - and I just love, love, LOVE it! Song's not at all bad too!

Apart from the preponderance of men in backing roles (dancing, some singing) for many of the acts - with clear gay 'signals' in some - several of the acts have eye-popping special effects, some trick camera-work but also some startlingly acrobatic in actual performance. Right up there and possibly best of all in that respect is the U.K. entry by one Olly Alexander who wanted to make his rendition "as gay as possible". Well. he's almost achieved it though I'd rate his song as only middling, maybe just slightly above.

So, with only 12 hours to go and, though I always watch the show, I've not for a long time felt such keen anticipation for the result. Go, go........but who?  Ah, that would be telling! Which I'll do tomorrow. 😃