This damnable cough! It is nearly two weeks since I caught this cold and still I’m feeling the after effects. Not all bad though as I was able to get out at dawn the other day for a very refreshing and surprisingly cold as dawn brook. This was a week ago and I don’t feel that much better!
A public holiday and a bit of sun…what is the world coming to? It wasn’t like that in my youth. Or was it? I don’t know and usually anyone who bangs on about how things were better in the past doesn’t either.
The garden continues to give and is worth every single penny we have spent on it over the years. At the moment there is a sweat scent given off by the flowering Wisteria as everyday new plants start to flower. Hopefully we have planned things so that the flowering continues throughout the coming summer only time will tell whether that is the case.
So I seem to have caught whatever the bug that is doing the rounds. So a couple of days of coughing and mopping and generally feeling sorry for myself. Luckily my long suffering wife is used to this and she is able to deal with my reversion to a five year old. Still I did feel up to a walk around the garden this evening which was a pick me up.
Hubris is a great political teacher. Yesterday my great friend and I spent the day consuming art and talking politics. We discussed many subjects dealing with matters of the day from the forthcoming UK general election to inevitably ‘the Donald‘. We even touched on Scotland and what impact it might have on the new government after the UK general election. We never once thought that the UK general election would be after the Scottish parliamentary election as there is over a year or so to go before the next Scottish election is due. 24 hours later that doesn’t look so sure (the ghost of The Lord Wilson of Rievaulx will be smiling) – shows how much we know.
Whether Humza Yousaf survives the next week or so the winner is no other than Alex Salmond who has many faults but is no one’s fool when it comes to the dirty game of politics. Technically he doesn’t have a say in the forthcoming confidence vote into Yousaf’s First Minstership, (after all he isn’t even an MSP) but technicalities have never stopped Salmond so expect his well round features to dominate the news cycles over the next few weeks.
Welcome back The Right Honourable Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond, a political survivor (I’m sure if he were to read this blog – that if is doing a whole lot of lifting – he would point out he has never been away). If only the incumbent First Minister and Prime Minister had just 1% of his dark political skills then Keir Starmer might not be looking at a record breaking Parliamentary majority in the UK Parliament and Scottish Labour wouldn’t have a reasonable chance of retaking the Scottish Government – maybe as early as the Summer.
Forget a week, 24 hours nowadays is an eternity in today’s politics.
I don’t know why but I just have been making some silly images just recently! Plus I got the colour space a bit wrong with the middle image – I did sort it out in Photoshop but then forgot to change things. Very much user error.
A bit better but still not quite right but it’ll have to do.
When will this damp cold spring end? Certainly not yesterday at Belton House, Lincolnshire that is for sure!
As with all cameras the iPhone 15 Pro camera isn’t perfect. The ability to capture large RAW files is really its saving grace. Although this is a dual edged sword as it means family snaps or reference shots are also large RAW files. Now I know you can switch this on and off but in the early days I found I that hadn’t selected RAW which I found frustrating. So I have to live with this very very first world problem.
Other than this I have nothing more to report as I upgraded the phone to have access to the large RAW files and the phone delivers on that front. Pretty poor review but then again I never claimed to be a product reviewer or anything else for that matter.
So after a couple of days of nice warmish spring days we’re back to April showers. Only I woke up this morning to thunder and hail – not quite April showers! The rest of the day has been on and off rain.
Still needs must and after watching the latest Dune movie on download it was out in the garden capturing what I could.
So very idyllic. So very….? Whatever you might think it is or it isn’t we had an enjoyable time walking through the local Botanic Gardens which, like so many things in British life, at the moment is looking in need of a bit of T.L.C.. Perhaps this is a deliberate policy – more wilder the better? As with most things in life I can answer with ‘I don’t know…”.
Whatever the case it was a nice place to walk around in the early Spring sun and just recharge you batteries. In this world that appears to be heading ever more to some crazy place a few moments of peace and reflection is something to savour.
So the Conservative Party has got a great victory – Greater Manchester Police are going to look into whether the Angela Rayner, Labour Deputy Leader, failed to pay circa £1500 in capital gains tax on a house sale back in 2007. However, I suspect this might start to look more and more pyrrhic over the next weeks and months for the following very simple reason: this puts tax evasion front and centre and the Tory track record on this is very shaky indeed.
Perhaps Raynor should have paid the Capital Gains Tax – I haven’t a clue but if she is being investigated what about Nadhim Zahawi who somehow didn’t pay millions of pounds of Capital Gains Tax? I suspect this might lead to questions to be asked why he wasn’t investigated by the police. Double standards? Or what about all the Non Dom status people who have been able to take advantage of billions of pounds of avoidance – one of whom just happens to be the Prime Minister’s wife.
I’m sure Rishi Sunak won’t like her tax affairs being dragged once more into the public domain – unfortunately his own party has just done that – no matter how unfair this might or might not be. You get the picture.
Raising tax evasion as an issue is always a bad idea for the Tories as this never ends well for them.
For the record if she has evaded the tax then Angela Raynor should be dealt with as any other tax evader. She should also consider her position within the Labour Party. It will be for the voters of Ashton under Lyne as to whether she remains their MP. I suspect she would.
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