Everything for this week has been vortexing around in my head in what would probably result in a confused ramble. I’m still seeing what works on this format so please bear with me as I fine tune it. I’ve been toying with the idea of a weekly list of 👍🏼 and 👎🏽. Or, as I positively loathe that stupid thumbs up pose that people pull in photos, and it seems that once you’ve choose your skin colour you can’t tweak it, maybe ✔️ and ❌ or ⬆️ and⬇️. Too twee? Let me know. There are other formats. Here we go, then:
The good things:
Training with my dog
Mr Fergus, who passed his Kennel Club Good Citizen Silver Award. He’s only 19 months old so still a baby, and just about managed to Down Stay for 2 minutes despite several distractions. Here he is proud as can be:
And later in the week I took him to do a bit of gundogging further down in Kent. He really enjoys the retrieving and scrabbling about in the undergrowth. I was never an Outdoors person before I had dogs, and autumn always seemed dismal and death-riddled to me but it’s now become my favourite time of the year with all the colours and the sense of nature drawing a line and moving along with things.
It was a beautifully sunny day after a misty start and the dogs enjoyed each others’ company immensely.
Fergus is always an 👍🏼, to be honest, because he’s lovely.
Mambo
I rediscovered Snowboy and the Latin Section to add to my driving playlist this week. I remember going to a gig of theirs at Ronnie’s 25 years ago and being blown away by their African-Cuban Salsa/Mambo/Son groove and especially by the relentless falsetto of their drummer. I was so upset at having to tear myself away from their set because babysitters. I saw them again 20 years later and they were a bit slower and the falsetto was in a lower key.
It was brillant to be reminded of their relentless, optimistic groove but I’m not sure whether my canine passenger is quite as taken with the cowbell continuo.
Jabbings
I feel very grateful to have been called for my seasonal ‘flu and Covid vaccinations. Moderna, since you ask, my 6th. Or was it my 7th? Anyway, no bad effects except for sore vaccination sites and a bit of grumpiness. No, nobody noticed.
India Knight’s list of 59 things not to waste money on
I loved this post earlier in the week and the comments almost as much. I was out and about so I didn’t comment at the time but I agreed with most of her thoughts. I don’t like polyester fleece and the mascara I use - Hourglass Caution - because it doesn’t flake and smudge on my oily lids, is expensive. Sonic Rodent Repellers already sound like they don’t work.
Call me Goldilocks but that would not be accurate
My Le creuset milk pan is just the right size for breakfast porridge making. I had always shied away from porridge because 1) it is one of those milky things with lumps in about which I am nose-curlingly circumspect; and 2) the washing up! But this pan is great because it goes in the dishwasher and comes out perfectly clean every time, just as long as I haven’t burnt the porridge. For some reason It only comes in two colours, but I like both so it’s a 👍🏼👍🏼.
The bad things
Irony of this
I was so incensed by something or other in the news a couple of weeks ago that I ordered this T shirt from the internet. The irony hit me immediately and I don’t want to wear it now.
Leaving Wordpress
As you might know I’ve been having issues with my Wordpress blog for ages to do with paying for Jetpack and then formatting issues and problems with plugins and sharing via email and all sorts. None of the expensive support people was able to help, apparently. The last straw came with the huge bill for 3 years of hosting. I mean, it would have been fine if my MsAlliance.me blog actually worked properly but it does not so I have decided not to renew my hosting and move it all here to Substack. For some reason the”easy” import/export process doesn’t seem to work so I’ll be transferring my (best) posts to this site manually. Oh well.
Tribal knobbery
Social media can be such pants, can’t it, and I say that as a fan who found my voice through it years ago. That horrible racist pile-on instigated, by a person🌹 as it happens, when I was standing for the London Assembly was a huge wake up call for me on the privilege of being able to express nasty and damaging opinions without accountability.
Since the election, things have calmed down a bit, or so one would have thought but it seems that tribalism trumps everything. There have been two occasions lately where I’ve picked up on something a Labour person was saying and agreed - we are supposed to be broadly on the progressive side, after all - and expanded a bit on the specifics of their point. And both times I’ve found that the men in question, for it was men, Dear Reader, have seen the 🔶 on my bio and decided to pick a fight with me.
One was a fairly well-known Labour-supporting journalist about suitable housing for people in need, and the other was about digital exclusion. At no point was I quibbling with them: my aim, having found their posts interesting, was to expand on them and add to their knowledge but both summarily dismissed me to pick a fight and in the process ended up both missing my point and negating their original thought. It’s quite odd how some people will reject anything if they perceive it to be from an enemy. One would expect this sort of puerile behaviour from the Tories, but from 🥀 men, it’s just weird.
That’s it for this week. I’m off to start the campaign trail this afternoon.
Until next week, have fun!
G x
Member comments