Barca, burial and blitzen

What a pleasure the UEFA Champions League Final from Rome was on Wednesday night - unless of course you were Mancunian of the red variety! As a dispassionate spectator (?) I loved the skill of Barcelona against whom I thought Man U looked a blunt instrument. They didn't seem to tie them down as effectively as Chelsea had, and of course after the first early goal they seemed to lose heart. Some things impressed me though: for example there being a bann on selling takeaway alcohol around the stadium and at all metro and railway stations from Tuesday evening to Thursday morning. Can you imagine that in London?

And even more impressive was the passing mention in the commentary that Barcelona is owned by its fans and doesn't have lucrative sponsorship for the team shirts, but themselves advertise UNICEF on their shirts, and donate €millions to UNICEF.

Yesterday we buried my aunt's ashes in the 'family' grave near Salisbury. All my brothers and my cousin John were there. The sun was shining. And I enjoyed being retired and not doing the duties. Afterwards we were kindly given tea in the garden of my aunt's lovely old house by the present owners, Trevor and Hilary. I realised that we are now the senior generation of the clan. A solemn thought.

In the evening we relaxed watching 'Springwatch', and badger clan in Essex. Then I switched over to BBC1 'Tourettes, I swear I can't help it'. What a moving programme! I've mentioned Tourettes Syndrome before, the condition of violent uncontrollable tics often vocalised in swearing. The programme was very informative, and focused on a couple of 'sufferers' including John Davidson, a lovely man in his 40s. Halfway through they were talking about the problem with forming relationships, which you can understand, and he said something like, 'I’ve just found it so hard to find someone who I can trust, someone who loves me for who I am, likes me for who I am.' THAT is the point: 'loved for who I am'.

Tomorrow we go to the DLF retreat in Wales (where we went last summer), while the workmen move in to gut our kitchen. We're hoping the weather continues like now, not like Holland this week, where they had the heaviest thunderstorm for 30 years, as this great photo of Otto's shows.
Photo: Otto Veninga

Big events

At last something serious has driven expenses from the news top spot: North Korea testing a nuclear device and then two short range rockets.

On a personal level, yesterday I finished reading 'Nicholas Nickleby', all 600+ pages. Dickens certainly knew how to tell a story. I'd not read it before. Now there's a story of the potential of money for evil - and for good. Sadly, a film could never do it justice and so I imagine it's message will be lost.

I also listened to the best piece of radio I've ever heard. Even better, I think, than listening to the 1956 Ashes Test Match when Laker took (19 wickets) and Lock (1) tied the Australians up in knots and Sheppard and Richardson scored centuries in the best English team I remember. The programme was called 'Twin Sisters: Two Faiths' (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jsw51). John, my best man, had put me on to it; he knows the producers. It is such a rich picture of contemporary Britain, its tensions and its tenderness, focused round two identical twins and their mother, who has terminal cancer. It is a great programme. Do listen to it.

Oops!

What, you may well ask, is Jane doing hanging up washing on a warm Bank Holiday weekend? Good question. You'll notice it includes a duvet cover and a shirt. Picture the scene: Saturday morning, Jane's gone downstairs to let the dog (who hasn't barked for once) into the garden and make a morning drink. Meanwhile I have got on my vest and shirt, and struggled back into bed in a half recumbent position. Jane returns with drinks. Mine is halfway to my mouth, when the telephone rings. I can't help it. I jump, at least my hand does; the drink goes everywhere, over the duvet, down my shirt. At least it's not coffee.

This is just one of the annoying hazards of MND, an overreaction to sudden noises. Normally it doesn't matter, but sometimes.... There was the time when we were going to my nephew's wedding, staying overnight in Riverside Barn, a beautiful B & B. Everything was incredibly tasteful. I was in my suit etc for the wedding. We were having breakfast. I was lifting the coffee cup to my mouth - and the doorbell went, and so did the coffee, everywhere, including over the carpet, the tablecloth and my wedding shirt. Sue, the landlady, was sweetness itself; she even accepted another booking from us a year later. And we diverted on the way to the wedding to buy two new shirts (the first didn't match my tie!). And so, today, my apologies to Jane for a rather tedious chore on what's turning out a sunny holiday weekend.

Journalists and the mob

I have a cousin who's a journalist; so I won't speak ill of them as a class. But I'm not sure that quite a lot of them haven't lost a sense of perspective. It's not easy physically handling a newspaper when you have MND; so I depend chiefly on radio and television. And it sounds to me that all that's happening in the world is happening in Westminster or various sporting venues. Take Question Time, for example, the hour's programme where an audience fires questions about topical issues to a panel of politicians, journalists and public figures. Last night it was scheduled for 10.40, but for some reason (!) got moved to prime time 9 pm. Usually the questions, some of which are preselected, cover a range of topics. Last night they were monotonously predictable. Every one was about MPs' expenses, the questions were not wanting answers and after 20 to 30 minutes just repeating points. And I wondered, 'Is no one interested in the "trial" of Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma? Or Barack Obama's change of policy of military trials of Guantanamo Bay suspects? Or the Tamil Tigers defeat? Or the offensive against the Taliban in the beautiful Swat Valley? Or the refugees in Sri Lanka or Pakistan? Or Iraq? Or the Gurkhas? Or even the car scrappage scheme?'

It is as if the media want to confine public concern on one spot, like we used to do on a sunny day with a magnifying glass, and then enjoy the conflagration, regardless of the consequences. For me it had added poignancy because I'd just been chatting to someone with a terminal illness for whom just surviving was a struggle. Where is the sense of perspective? So today when I heard Nadine Dorries' blog mentioned at midday as giving a different view about the Telegraph's modus operandi, different from the rather smug account of the deputy editor, Ben Something, in QT last week, I was interested to read it. As my friends will know, I'm not a Tory by inclination, but I recommend a reading of the last few entries of her blog to balance what we've been fed for the past fortnight:http://blog.dorries.org/blog.aspx . However, looking back over my blog, I suppose I've also fallen prey to the feeding frenzy. Sorry. But praying for rather than sniping at our politicians might achieve more good.

Back to earth

Yesterday I went for my longest drive yet in my trusty electric wheelchair. Mandy and Charles had invited us to lunch at their lovely old mill house on the far side of Grove. Grove is great for wheelchairs, with a lacework of paths and tracks. So it was down to The Bay Tree and then along the brook, through the houses and out to the garage and then to the mill. Charles and Mandy have had a ramp made specially for their 'poustina', the old stable which they've converted into a small retreat by the brook. It's a beautiful peaceful space - or was until I turned up. There's something special about having a meal together with friends, isn't there? The word 'companion' comes from the Latin 'bread together', i.e. someone you share food with. I like that. We eventually sat out in the garden looking down the stream, beautiful. Before long they'll be generating electricity with a turbine in the mill race. How green is my valley! And then it was the return journey, all negotiated safely.

In the evening I found the MNDA chatroom for people with PMA and PLS for the first time. Enjoyed quite a chat with Moira whom I'd met at the Spring conference in Taunton. She's lost the use of her voice; so the internet chatroom is brilliant. We found we had a common acquaintance.

This morning, yet again, the dog began barking when the blackbirds started alarming at 5 am. She's a pain and a pest.

Actaeon

Actaeon, in Greek mythology, was a great hunter. He was grandson of Cadmus, who I seem to remember founded the city of Thebes. Anyway, the point is he was a huntsman. One day he was out hunting with his hounds in the forest, when he had the misfortune to come on a pool where Artemis, the goddess of hunting (Diana to you and me), was cooling down with her nymphs. Now for a mortal to see a god, or goddess, clothed but much less naked, is not good news. Her nymphs quickly made a scrum round her, but not soon enough for poor old Actaeon. He'd already seen her, and SHE KNEW he'd seen her, and she was not best pleased. In fact she was distinctly disgruntled, and took it out on Actaeon. Artemis and her minions took themselves off, and Actaeon was left to reflect on his fate, and reflect is the word.... He felt a bit peculiar and as he looked into the water he saw that the lovely lady had changed him into a stag, and then, uh-oh, he realised that she had given his hounds the 'tally-ho'. They came crashing through the undergrowth, saliva drooling from their jaws, and saw, oh joy! a stag at bay. They weren't the brightest of mutts. They didn't see their master anywhere, but they did see this rather juicy dinner, and so from all sides they set to. With bared teeth they tore him limb from limb. And so, rather nastily, Actaeon perished at hands, or rather teeth, of those he had cared for and fed for many years. Ovid, the Roman poet, reckoned that Artemis did it because she was jealous of Actaeon's prowess as a hunter and his pride. She felt hunting was her special province. Be that as it may, the outcome was the same.

I was put in mind of Actaeon by events this week in the House of Commons, with the Speaker, Michael Martin's two statements on Monday and Tuesday. What an unedifying spectacle it was! It reminded me of the bloody end of a hunt, with hounds tearing the cornered animal to pieces, while the hunt followers urging them on with voyeuristic excitement. On Tuesday afternoon, in the shortest of statements, Mr Martin announced that he was stepping down for the sake of the unity of the House. Afterwards Mr Punch (aka the Hon D Carswell) gave sanctimonious comments to the media, but enjoyed the limelight like a youngster blooded at his first kill. The hunt-following press were cock-a-hoop at 'this piece of history'. They loved it: another scalp, the biggest yet! But I wondered whether it was more a matter of a Glaswegian shop-steward daring to step into the realms of millionaires and the political élite. Maybe Ovid was right; it was a matter of jealousy. No doubt there was a hope that a big scalp would pacify the anger, not of the gods, but of the mob. It certainly had the feeling of a Westminster lynching.

On the way home today we listened to Prime Minister's Questions, which really had the feeling of the day after a blood-letting. Led by the Prime Minister, member after member paid tribute to Mr Martin, saying how kind he'd been to them and how faithully he'd served the Commons. Even Nick Clegg, Lib Dem leader, who yesterday had been baying for his blood, said what a grand chap he was. It was like Cassius paying tribute to Julius Caesar. The truth is however that Mr Martin's not the problem. Anyway, I must stop showing off my classical education. I'm sounding like the Tsar of London. And I'd rather think about the very pleasant 24 hours I've spent with two lovely people unspoilt by ambition. They're the sort who just quietly have a positive influence on those around them. I guarantee they've never fiddled an expenses claim in their life. There are more of their sort about than you'd think if you believed the news. Funnily enough, they have a connection with Parliament because my father-in-law taught a member of the cabinet all he knew, and may have forgotten, about geography. As you can see, they are still very happy after 61 years of marriage. Think about it.

Devonian diversion

After a bit of a fraught weekend, we’re now down in Sidmouth, at the west end of the Jurassic coast in Devon, staying for a night with Jane’s parents. They’ve just had their central heating replaced. They were married in the post-war period (rationing and all that); and so they’ve been used to making do, and they’ve made do with ‘the most antiquated system’ their gas man had seen for many a long year, made do and shivered in winter. This year he condemned the boiler as unsafe, and a couple of weeks ago they had the whole system replaced. Apart from new radiators you’d not know anything had been done. They’ve completely made good and redecorated through the house. And they’re in their 80s. Respect! So that’s where Jane’s dynamism comes from.

We came via the A303, using the route familiar to us from when we visited my Aunt Susan (the Enigma code buster). It takes you past Stonehenge. It’s an absurd sight, an assortment of rocks, with sightseers circling round at 50 yards distance, but unable to get up close and touch them. What are English Heritage or whoever worried about, I wonder? No one’s going to slip a stone in their anorak pocket and nick it, are they? Billions of sticky fingers would do less damage than the weather. Still if they do want to protect them from human contact, I think they ought to stick up fibre-glass replicas (or reconstituted stone) somewhere nearby, and let people swarm all over them, like at Lascaux where they keep the cave paintings shut up nearly all the time and have replicas open to the public. I really think people are short-changed at Stonehenge at the moment. If you want a prehistoric ‘hands-on’ experience, I recommend Avebury, just up the road.

A few yards beyond Stonehenge on the other side, there’s an encampment of pigs, lots of shelters, a couple of yurts, and pigs happily rootling around in the mud or with their snouts in the trough. Coincidentally, as we’re passing, we’re listening to Radio 5 Live, and there’s the breaking news that the Speaker of the House of Commons is going to announce his resignation at 2.30 in the afternoon. I feel sorry for Mr Martin, because it’s really not his fault that MPs have exploited the allowances’ system. He’s not perfect; so doesn’t fit all the prerequisites of a scapegoat (though come to think of it, I’m not sure he had to be without blemish). But it does seem to me part and parcel of the blame culture which we love to indulge in, to make us feel better about ourselves.

By the way, talking of expenses, when I was training to be a vicar, before we left we had a talk from a clergy tax expert, giving advice to the green curates-to-be. The only bit of his talk I remember was that travel to the supermarket was a legitimate expense, because we were bound to meet parishioners there and have ‘pastoral’ conversations!! I suppose the same could be said of going to your local pub. I never claimed for either. I fell to wondering if bishops claim for their membership of the Athenaeum Club, or members of General Synod for posh hotels and posh meals in London. Fortunately, I’ve not heard too many clergy berating MPs recently. Hopefully we’ve been too busy checking our own expenses and consciences: what’s the phrase – ‘wholly and necessarily incurred in one’s job’?

The trouble with the A303, as against the motorway, is that you can get stuck behind a tractor, which we did before Honiton. Anyhow we made it in good time and then the hardest bit of the journey lay ahead for me, the path. It looks like Great Gable to me. It may not look like it, but it's at least 1 in 3, I'd say. Round the corner there are nine steps to the front door. So in one hand I take my ergonomic walking stick, and hang on to Jane for dear life with the other, and begin the ascent. Fortunately Jane doesn't let go. I’m told I did it in five minutes today, which isn’t bad. Tomorrow, I'll come down in the wheelchair as I find coming down harder and more scary than going up.