I woke feeling rather unsettled and restless for absolutely no reason that I could work out. I made toast, turned on my lap-top and peered into the Internet as I do most mornings. The situation in Ukraine is bad for the people who live there, and in a typical sign of our times everyone and his wife were expressing solidarity wit the underdogs by sticking a Ukrainian flag on their Facebook profile picture.
As the situation in the Ukraine continues to deteriorate I can’t help but find myself wondering about what’s been going on in the world in the last thirty-odd years. I can remember the failed coup in the old USSR in 1991. I was at an Open University summer school at the time, and we thought it was a resounding victory for the West. The Cold War had been going on for as long as I could remember. I’d spent nearly thirty years in the shadow of nuclear Armageddon, and the Russian threat was finally receding. From that failed coup the USSR started to falter, and eventually fell apart… and then what happened in the meantime?
Whilst we in the west learned to become offended at pretty much everything and anything and started to re-write history to expunge anything that is not politically correct, and to exponentially increase the amount of genders that there may or may not be, the Russians licked their wounds and re-built their army. And here we are again facing the threat that the world faced when I was a lad, sadly this time having nothing with which to actually face it.
The Russian invasion of the Ukraine will continue. And then where will he invade next? Who is going to stop him? With total control of much of Europe’s gas supply, and facing a generation whose greatest asset is to take offence, what is to stop Mr Putin achieving that which his predecessors dreamt about.
There was also talk about some trivia on an episode of “Star Trek: Discovery” that was on telly last night. Mind you when I say “on telly” I mean “on some obscure pay-per-view channel that very few people are aware of, let alone pay for”. Back in the day everyone loved “Star Trek”; these days the makers sell the show to the channel that bids the highest, and hardly anyone sees it anymore.
I had a look at my emails. NHS Jobs has randomly decided to start sending me notifications of vacancies that might interest me. It was only when they arrived today that I realised I’d not had any of those for years. It would seem that there are still vacancies for blood testers all over the place; if anything the shortage has increased.
I also had a suggestion from LinkedIn that I might like to congratulate someone I’d never heard of on her promotion to “Senior Bimbo” or some other meaningless title. I have no idea who this person is… much like most of the people on my LinkedIn contact list.
Not wanting to take the dogs out during the rush hour I had a go on “Sweardle” and got it right on the third attempt with “turd” but struggled with “Lewdle” where the answer was “thicc”. “Sweardle” is a bit of fun, but I am convinced that “Lewdle” makes its own words up.
Seeing a bright day outside I got the dogs into the car and we set off. I listened to thirty seconds of “Desert Islands Discs” in which some mad woman was going on about never turning up the opportunity to commune with goats (!) before turning to my wonderful choice in music. We drove past the petrol station in Brookfield Road where the queue for panic-buying of petrol was starting to build up, and we drove on up to Kings Wood where we had a very good walk. From the car park we followed the paths until we were a mile and a half from the car as the crow flies (according to my OS app), and then followed other paths back. Again we saw quite a few dogs on leads over a mile from the nearest roads. Do they *all* have recall problems? My two didn’t react at any of the other dogs; I was so pleased with them.
We also saw quite a few birds of prey too. If the predators are out in force, then the prey must be doing well too.
We came home past Sainsburys where the panic-buying queue wasn’t as long as it has been in the past.
With walk walked some of us had a quick bath, and then I ran round the garden with the lawn mower. The ground was a tad soft, but the lawn needed mowing. And by then it was mid-day. I popped up the road for a sandwich but seeing the kebab shop open I came back with meat and chips to share with the dogs.
I had intended to carry on in the garden but finding myself underneath a pile of sleeping dogs I just watched the telly for a bit. “The Gentleman” was a rather good film about gangsters which passed a couple of hours as the kebab meat digested, then after a little sleep I hung out washing and watched “Trailer Park Boys” which is always fun.
I watched quite a lot of “Trailer Park Boys” today…
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