Almost always, he returns to the house happy, bright and, err… lighter.

Rarely, we encounter one of the roaring, hissing, whining, beeping refuse lorries entrusted by Tunbridge Wells Council to collect various kinds of rubbish from residents’ homes. Arrow regards these lorries with suspicion. They might be the monstrous creation of a marauding swarm of grey squirrels, (his natural prey), or some other awful as-yet unidentified enemy.

Today was such an occasion. I saw that he had stiffened into Level One Readiness as we drew near.

But as we walked briskly past, one of the men must have spotted I was clutching a poo bag. He stepped towards us.

“’Ere, mate. G’is that bag.”

Taken by surprise, I handed it over, so it could be lobbed into the maw of the giant lorry. I thought, what a kind gesture that man had made. He must have known that I’d shortly be putting it into the bin at the top of the driveway of my house. The entire transaction took but a few seconds. He needn’t have done it. I wouldn’t have thought any the less of him or his fellow bin men. We might just have nodded acknowledgement and gone our separate ways, none the worse.

But that little act of kindness buoyed my spirit. As I sit here, typing away in the early evening, I reflect that my outlook, my attitude to everything today has been more positive than usual. Ok, I’m normally a smiley sort of person, but I’ve felt extra smiley. I’ve been radiating happiness out of all proportion to my brief exchange with the bin man.

The episode reminds me that tiny acts of kindness towards others can have a multiplying positive effect upon their life. My own experience suggests that man might have felt a little mental boost as well having done his ‘Good Deed for the Day’. Perhaps one of many…

I’ve expressed here before my concern that anyone wishing to remain even slightly connected to the world risks mental assault, beaten down by the flood of bad news; bad behaviour; economic idiocy, greed and imminent climate catastrophe.

It’s too often depressing and worrying.

But there may be hope - Yay!! This too may have a solution. A programme on Radio 4 this morning contained a short piece about a technique invented by a Professor of Psychology at Leeds University. Daryl O’Connor suggests people should set aside a time slot during each day for worry. His experiments have shown that, with practice, participants can indeed restrict their periods of worry to a defined band of time. It does take a number of attempts to get it to work, he says, but if people persevere, they can once more enjoy restful sleep at night or relaxing activities with friends and family at other times.

Can this really work? I’m the grumpiest of

Grumpy Old Man among sceptics, but I have to give it a go. I’ll make a list now of all the things I worry about and schedule an appointment in my diary to start tomorrow.

But what time is best? And can I fit all those worries into, say, half an hour? What happens if someone does me a good deed during that period when I’m supposed to be worrying? Should I reschedule because I’m feeling too happy? If I’m concerned about the emerging Slug Banquet in my vegetable patch, should I devote the whole thirty minutes to that? And would it be best to do it at 8pm, just before the little b@$t@rds begin to feast? Or later?

Dammit. Now I have something else to worry about…

By now, it should be obvious to all that the flexing of American military muscle in Iran has been – how to put it? Ill judged. Any of my friends and colleagues with military knowledge respect deeply the depth and breadth of American military competence. I think it fair to say the recent campaigns have been tactically superb but strategically flawed.

Was Trump bamboozled by Netanyahu? Is it true that each President as far back as George Bush Snr was asked to attack Iran and all refused until now? I have no way of knowing, of course. It sounds believable, though, doesn’t it?

What the current US administration seems to have ignored (or not known) is anything about the character of the people who have run Iran for more than four decades. Perhaps they think that the dual mantra ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel’ is merely an encouraging exhortation - like the one football fans yell when their side enters a field of play. However, I will content myself by saying the Regime is not comprised of gentle, well-meaning individuals. Or even lagered-up louts. One has only to look back at recent treatment of protesters and females failing to obey their strict code of dress to understand that a large body of the populace have good reason to resent and to fear their government.

Bombing and killing the second Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei might have sounded like an attractive decapitation strategy. Attractive, that is, if he was in charge of everything. Those believing the Iranian government would collapse after his 28^th February assassination have been proven wrong. Within a week, his second eldest son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was selected by the Assembly of Experts to succeed his father. The regime, run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, has not been seriously diminished by the assassination, nor by killing a few of the senior individual Generals. Others have stepped up, promptly, to take their places.

Mojtaba’s world view is said to be cut from the same cloth as his father. He commenced serious religious studies in his thirties – unusually late for a cleric – so is regarded as more fervent. During the 28^th February attack which killed his father, he was badly injured and was hospitalised. His mother, Mansour; his wife, Zahra and teenaged son Mohammed Bagher were killed also. It is fair to assume that his hatred of the attackers has not waned. Rather the opposite is likely. It was the father, Ali Hosseini who ordered halting of nuclear enrichment after the July, 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was signed in Vienna. That was the agreement from which the US withdrew in 2018, because it was a ‘bad deal’.

That deal took 18 months of negotiation to put in place. The current Vice President of America, armed with a real estate developer and the President’s son-in-law, tried for little more than 18 hours to persuade the Iranians to permit free passage through the Strait of Hormuz before flying home from Pakistan. The President has decided that it is a good idea to impose a simultaneous US blockade on that Strait before the hoped-for second round of negotiations. As J.D. Vance said, ‘Two can play at that game’. Is this really so wise?

The really good thing is that there is a Cease Fire. It hasn’t been perfect, with Israel continuing to attack Iranian proxy forces in Lebanon (so killing large number of civilians in the process) and Iran and Hezbollah responding and, in addition, claiming, that the US blockade violates the Cease Fire too.

Preventing oil exports from Iran might hurt them temporarily. But other exports and imports are blocked as well. Mention has been made of the effect on shipments of fertilizer and other agricultural products. About one third of the world’s fertilizer trade passes through the strait in normal times. Some twenty percent of the world’s LNG production uses this narrow waterway, too, primarily from Qatar. Food, medicines and technological supplies imported to the Middle East cannot get through either. Those regional powers will likely be spitting blood at their predicament.

The White House asserts that having Americans pay another dollar per gallon at the pump for their petrol is a small price for ridding the world of a centre of terrorism – so-called ‘Axis of Evil’ – a phrase from George W. Bush’s January, 2002 speech, written by David Frum, referring to Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

Trump is right, if that will be the end result.

However, in geopolitical terms, that is very far from the truth. Many of America’s regional allies, like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait are suffering physical damage and significant economic damage, as mentioned above. They were aghast when Trump threatened recently to wipe the Iranian civilisation off the map – fearing a flood of displaced Shia citizens from Iran, a country of 93 million people. A tsunami of fleeing Iranians would unbalance the mainly Sunni Moslem populations of the surrounding countries. Particularly at risk would be Bahrain, where the Al Khalifa ruling family is Sunni, but at least half, perhaps more of the citizens are Shia. The ratio has been a closely held secret for scores of years.

Additionally, in economic terms, enormous damage has already been done to the US economy. America first lost its ‘AAA’ credit rating from a major agency in 2011, when Standard and Poors became nervous at the national debt rising to almost equal GDP and cited the lack of a credible plan to tackle it. The 2020 ratio spike to 132 percent of GDP didn’t alarm the other agencies unduly, because it fell quickly, but only to 115 percent. Fitch followed suit when the rise resumed in 2023 and Moodys downgraded the country in May last year for the same reason. National debt, which would thereafter be more expensive to service with the credit downgrades, doubled from $19 trillion in 2016, when Donald Trump became President to $39 trillion now. That important GDP to debt ratio was 125 percent at the beginning of 2026. Commentators predict 130 percent by year end.

Since those figures were struck, the US has been bombing and moving ships and men into the Middle East. I hear that this process continues today. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington, D.C., think tank, estimated projected spending was $11.3 billion by the sixth day of the war on munitions alone, $1.4 billion on combat loss and infrastructure damage, and $26.5 million on operations, totaling about $16.5 billion by day 12. But ‘this number increases when considering the cost to replace munitions, which could range from 50% to nearly double the initial cost’, a Harvard Kennedy School public policy lecturer said. And as a result of tariffs and supply-chain disruptions exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine war, some U.S. munitions makers have warned the price to produce ammo has increased 8% to 14% since 2024.

Right now, during a period of less than 30 days, the US has expended 2 years’ worth of Tomahawk missile production – that amounts to between a quarter and a third of their stockpile. Another 4,000 ‘expeditionary’ Marines are on their way to the region with another aircraft carrier.

For what?

To return to the status quo ante of 2015?

Let us consider the works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in particular, an essay he wrote while in detention by the Nazis in 1943. The essay was entitled, ‘After Ten Years’, but is popularly referred to as ‘On Stupidity’. His argument is that stupidity has nothing to do with intelligence. He observes that highly intelligent people can be stupid while many who lack intellect can avoid doing stupid things.

The stupid, he argues, surrender their inner independence. Because they lack the ability to think critically, they fall prey to powerful political or religious movements. In this, they become useful for evil-doers, acting as mindless fools, not understanding anything beyond their own self-satisfaction.

Evil can be identified. Good people can organise themselves to oppose it. But what can one do in the face of idiocy? It is immune to reason, resistant to counter argument and implacably opposed to anything other than the doctrinaire ideas they’ve been given.

Herr Bonhoeffer might view the architects of ‘Project 2025’ and the current occupant of the White House and his political party through the lens I have described above and reach some unhappy conclusions.

In other news, I was delighted to photograph the first of this year’s Bluebells in a nearby wood, yesterday. See? There are good things happening in the world!

The Iran/Iraq war had just started. Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Moslem, invaded his neighbour in an attempt to dominate the Gulf region and prevent Shia Moslem Revolutionary fervour spreading beyond Iran. He also wanted to secure the Shatt al-Arab waterway, Iraq’s border with Iran and only access to the sea.

Towards the end of my posting, both sides began attacking each other’s ships and other oil tankers in the Persian Gulf to disrupt their economies. Of course, this caused instability in oil and gas prices globally.

This conflict had little effect upon our lives in Bahrain. The land bridge to Saudi Arabia had not yet been finished – it opened in 1986 – an event which prompted firming of anti-alcohol laws in Bahrain. Until then, only wealthy Saudis could take an aeroplane on Thursday evenings to spend Friday carousing. Sometimes I’d find myself bumped off my reconfirmed First-Class flight from the Kingdom back home to Bahrain because someone important had turned up. Now the humblest of Saudi citizens could drive to sample this reputed wonderland of western excess for themselves.

But I digress. Bahrain has a significant population of Shia Moslem citizens. The Al Khalifa rulers are Sunnis. Official doctrine maintained that the Sunni faith was the majority, although many muttered quietly that the reverse was the case. Every so often, it would be announced in the Gulf Daily News that a cache of weapons had been discovered in the southern desert by the Bahrain Defence Force, thus foiling a potential coup. On one occasion, a Rigid Inflatable Boat full of Iranian revolutionaries was said to have attacked Bahrain by zooming into Mina Sulman, the main port area. It too was destroyed by the brave men of the B.D.F., crowed the newspapers. At an Embassy cocktail party, a British official told me his advice had been sought by His Highness, the Emir of Bahrain, Shaikh Isa. A raiding party of Iranians had been captured, he said. How many should he execute to send the appropriate message? I was not told how the official answered this awkward question.

But it all seemed relatively benign to me. I put these skirmishes down to minor ethnic or cultural squabbles – nothing more. Perhaps some had even been manufactured by the government as a mild warning to others. But I was young and naïve, not yet much exposed to the wider wickedness promulgated by those who are powerful.

The manager I referred to above was wise enough to tell us that westerners could never properly understand the layered politics of that region. We might try to mimic Persian or Arab thought patterns, but so often, my own efforts to do this were confounded by an inexplicable reaction, so I gave up trying. The man did impress upon me the need for westerners not to interfere with such complexity which we don’t understand. The danger is that many of us think we do. We say, “I know: remove the leader – then everyone will fall into line behind a new leader who will emerge from the ranks of Those Most Likely.” The source of this simplistic logic is easy to find. I mean, that’s what happens in a western democracy – we vote out our president or prime minister and his (it’s almost always a man) deputy steps in. We used to say, ‘The King is dead – Long Live the King’!

Iran may have had a Supreme Leader, but there are eighty eight clerics in the Assembly of Experts, the prime constitutional body. They will choose his successor. Another six clerics in the Guardian Council review candidates and check legislation for adherence to religious doctrine. There’s also an Interim Leadership Council which takes over during the interregnum when the Supreme Leader dies. There are plenty for the regime to choose from.

When the former Shah of Iran was deposed in 1979, the Iranian Revolutionaries formed a complex and robust administration with the idea that it should withstand attack from outside. The Revolutionary Guard, (I.R.G.C.) numbering some 130,000 active members is supported by a further 90,000 paramilitary voluntary militia, the Basij. Together with local Police, they act to enforce Islamic doctrine upon all activity in the country. We have seen over recent years that any hint of objection or dissent by the people is quashed in a brutal manner by these authorities. Tens of thousands of protesters have been machine-gunned and the injured hunted down and imprisoned.

Westerners find this abhorrent, of course. But some of us remark, sagely, that these tribal societies function best when a Strongman is in charge. Examples might include Hosni Mubarak of Egypt; Muammar Ghaddafi of Libya, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Hafez and his son, Bashar Al Assad of Syria and Zine Ben Ali of Tunisia. All were authoritarian. Their time in office was one of repression and corruption, and their peoples would complain if they dared, but usually admitted that the alternatives might be far worse. At least their country was stable and they knew where they stood. I would point out that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was not able to start ISIS until the early part of this century, when influence of the strongmen in Iraq and Syria was waning.

None of these men stepped down and handed the reins of power to a successor, retiring to live out their days in peace. Sometimes they were removed (often with western help) and opportunist tribal leaders immediately grabbed whatever they could. Libya, for instance, remains dived between rival administrations, since Ghaddafi was killed in 2011.

That manager in Bahrain, who so influenced my thinking, likened the Middle East to a wrist watch. He would say, ‘If you look at its face, there is little movement to see. Everything is calm, ordered …slow and predictable. Now turn it over and remove the back of the watch. Springs, levers, cog wheels and all sorts burst out. The workings go everywhere and you realise you’ll never put the pieces back as they were.’

Now we watch the baseball hat-wearing 47^th President of the United States squatting in his Florida basement ‘situation room’, proselytising about the righteousness of his Iranian War. He tells the Iranian people to rise up and seize their once-in-a-generation chance for self-determination. They can’t hear, though, as Starlink isn’t operative right now and such communication and liaison between insurgent groups is tricky unless supported by ‘Boots on the Ground’. MAGA would hate that… And then there’s Pete Hexface, his pumped-up Brylcreamed News Anchor pretending to be a Secretary of WAR (Sorry about the use of capital letters). He behaves at Press Conferences as though he wants to bite off the ends of the microphones to show he’s reet ‘ard, like. The politest description I can come up with is to call it ‘performative’.

There were reasons that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Emirates and others did not mount all-out assaults on Iran decades ago. The delicate balance between Israel, Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries has been like that imaginary watch. Now Netanyahu of Israel wants to stay out of jail and be re-elected for his own domestic reasons. One might say much the same about Number 47, although his chances of re-election may yet be thwarted. But these two are using each other. Their people are paying for it in treasure and the wider populace of the region is paying in blood as well.

Here in Europe, we moan about refugees fleeing persecution, crossing borders and floating up to our shores for safety and a new life. Some may be economic migrants; some may fear for their lives as well as their livelihoods. It’s worth pointing out that if significant sections of the Iranian populace of 93 million flee to the west, we’ll ‘have a problem, Houston’.

Is Number 47 going to poke the hornets’ nest and then run away, claiming victory? After all, he gave the Iranian people their only chance. It ain’t his fault if they didn’t take it…

I miss that manager. R.I.P. Mike.

It’s not as complicated as some might pretend.

Like you, I’ve watched and listened to broadcasts of European leaders and wealthy ‘Masters of the Universe’ (it was Tom Wolfe, who wrote ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’ who coined that term) huddling this week in Davos, Switzerland, fearful of what the US President might do or say in relation to Greenland – a fellow NATO member and autonomous territory belonging to the Kingdom of Denmark. No matter that he frequently muddled up Greenland and Iceland when speaking – they are only 200 miles apart, after all, albeit of vastly different sizes. His expressed desire for wanting to own the island was just that he ‘wanted’ it and was going to have it. His ‘Security’ explanation doesn’t wash – there’s a long-standing agreement for the US to build as many military bases there as it wishes. At first, he suggested he’d use any and all means to achieve this aim of owning it – military solutions included. He caused a collective frothing at the mouth; predictions of the collapse of NATO; furrowed brows among senior military forces – ‘that’s ridiculous’; ‘it’s impossible’; ‘wait – the US supplies our [insert name of weaponry]. How are we going to..?’

I cannot be alone in identifying the trigger which caused the President to climb down from this brinkmanship.

It wasn’t his meeting with the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte. Whatever was discussed, he emerged claiming they’d hashed out the ‘framework of a deal’ and ‘got everything he wanted’. Those details haven’t been made public yet. In this case, I don’t believe it was just the blandishments of the highly competent Secretary General.

Nor was it use of his well-worn approach to negotiation – open with a ridiculous demand and give way to something more workable.

Instead, I believe it was the vulnerability of the US economy to such bombastic rhetoric. Let me explain:

During the last twelve months or so, we have witnessed America’s on again/off again tariff wars – I use the word ‘war’, because that is what it is. Markets have all become sensitised to these manoeuvres. The term ‘T.A.C.O.’ was coined early on when this began. (‘Trump Always Chickens Out’). We know that the US economy is massive, but runs at a 6% deficit – there is a gap between what it spends and what it raises in taxes of more than 6% of GDP. Because Americans do not have enough savings, the US Treasury continues to issue more bonds to cover the deficit. If investors stop buying those bonds, or worse, start to sell down their positions, their existing holdings in long term dollar bond yields go up. So, the US Government has to pay more in interest, but so do all other issuers of dollar bonds – banks, companies, home buyers etc.

The Federal Reserve can pump out more short-term bonds to cover the gap, but that increases inflation. The Market notices this as a sign of weakness. It’s ‘printing money’.

Most indices fell by 2% or more on Tuesday, extinguishing their gains this year. When, yesterday, the President withdrew his threat of force to acquire Greenland, markets bounced up again. However, I notice they haven’t recovered all the ground they lost. His capricious demand has cost investors money.

Will holders of US Government bonds sell? US Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, urged everyone to ‘calm down’, ‘just relax’; it’s all going to be okay. And well he might: some holders of US debt are indeed shrinking their holdings. It is reported that several Danish pension funds have begun sales, as have some Swedish holders. Bessent’s attempt at reassurance was inept, to be polite. He told the audience that these Danish sales, like Denmark itself, were ‘irrelevant’. It is not recorded how these remarks landed.

It is true that the US economy is vast. But that deficit noted above is its Achilles heel. The President yells about ‘America First’ and nationalism, but seems not to understand that other countries could bring it to its economic knees. For example, his tariff war with Japan did not go well. This is a Bad Thing because Japan is the single largest holder of US Treasury debt. The Japanese economy is under pressure. The country has demonstrated economic and political loyalty to the US for years, but is heavily indebted itself and may need to sell some US bonds to fill the gap. Might they move closer to China? It isn’t unthinkable: if the present administration in America shows favourability to Russia, why not? If they sell, perhaps others will join in.

I pray that there are some in the Finance departments of the US Administration who understand this. But does the President?

Reasoning that it’s best to get the disappointing stuff out of the way first, my town in South East England has been subject to water shortages – intermittent supply and complete lack thereof for a couple of months now. The government sold off ten regional public water authorities to private bidders in 1989 – the first time a country’s water supply had been sold to the private sector. Since then, in our very British way, we have all complained that ‘prices keep going up’ – including our water bills – but little attention has been paid to them. Other costs rose much further and faster – energy, for example – nobody noticed the price of water. We turned on our taps and there it was. Some of us might even have sent a few pounds to charities working ‘to bring water to a village in Africa’, egged on by pictures of delighted villagers splashing beneath the output of a new village pump.

Last year was one of the UK’s wettest years on record. It prompted my occasional Substack wails about the influx of hordes of hungry slugs munching away at my garden. It was a source of bemusement, then, that South East Water should impose a ban on the use of hosepipes for our area. We were encouraged to save water by whatever means possible – their advice for toilets is memorable if a little graphic: ‘If it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down’. This began in Spring, continued through summer and into one of the wettest autumns and winters we’ve ever had. My reaction, like everyone else’s, was to express mild puzzlement to fellow dog walkers. Peering from beneath rain-proof hoods, we’d say, “Good job we have a hosepipe ban, eh?” But then shake our heads and change the subject, as the evidence trickling down our necks was at odds with the regulatory ban. It made no sense.

Just before Christmas, many tens of thousands of households in my town were suddenly without any water. The archetypal Christmas Dinner was imperilled. How do you cater for Great Aunt Maisie and your brother’s horde of Under Sixes when there’s nothing in the taps? To everyone’s relief, some service was restored in time for the Big Day. Luckily, I don’t have an Aunt Maisie or siblings to produce small persons to run around, breaking ornaments and their new toys and terrifying the dog. As a result, my Christmas Day was a wonderful, uplifting, if calorific experience – and the post-lunch Stilton and port were still available to fortify us through His Majesty’s annual 3 o’clock homily to the nation.

While we made merry and celebrated, all was not well in the reservoirs, pumping and purifying stations of South East Water. That balmy and peaceful ‘tap water-positive’ end to December devolved into a shambolic January. A complete outage for thousands of houses in my town lasted four days. Emergency supplies of bottled water were laid on in public car parks and delivered to those unable to drive to collect an allowance of the precious stuff. Pressure from horrified local officials, including our Member of Parliament, led to monetary compensation being paid to householders. We now know that we are entitled, under Law, to compensation if there is no water for a period of twenty four hours.

In addition to joining the ranks of Grumpy Old Men, in my older age, I have become deeply suspicious of peoples’ motives. Following these compensation payments, I notice we are having low pressure water delivered between the hours of nine o’clock and four or five o’clock in the afternoon. Thus there are no dry periods of sufficient length to trigger more monetary compensation. But those of us needing to go to work cannot shower before we leave, nor ‘put on a wash’ when we come home. Water is supplied at times we cannot use it, so doubling my Infuriation Index.

I stayed home this morning to enjoy a glorious shower and shave. Let me tell you, it felt wonderful. This whole episode has taught me not to take such a luxury for granted.

I wonder, how would such a scenario unfold in America? We have seen swingeing cuts to the Federal agency tasked with leaping to the rescue of disaster-hit areas. We have witnessed the astonishing withdrawing of Federal aid dollars from states in which the majority voted for the losing political party. For example, the White House rescinded $20m for clean water in pesticide-contaminated rural California in July. Earlier, the President stopped new allocations from a programme that has been a top funding source for protecting people and property from disasters since 1989. The Hazard Mitigation and Grant Programme has been used to elevate or demolish flood-prone homes, install tornado-safe rooms and strengthen buildings in hurricane or earthquake zones.

America is throttling governmental assistance, not coming to the rescue of a miss-managed private company, as here. In the scenario we have in south east Britain, would we be expected to drill our own wells and purify the water at home? Our Water Regulator does not seem to have insisted upon regular investment to update infrastructure, so we are now seeing burst pipes and processing stations breaking down.

And now to the other end of the scale.

Those among you who have read Book 3 in my Al Sharika series ‘Saved by the Gris-Gris’ may recall my protagonist’s interaction with a couple of cross-dressing men in New Orleans – and how his male boss was taken in completely, thinking he was buying drinks for a female companion. Merriment ensued… But in the last couple of decades, I have had little contact with anyone who feels genuinely they were born in the wrong body version. I am delighted to report that a recent meeting put this right. I was scheduled to meet a small group of friends; I arrived early and saw what I thought to be a new-comer waiting for us. My opening salvo of welcome had to be reeled back in, since I suddenly realised that the face in front of me was familiar. Ok, a little softer around the edges, longer hair and some make-up, but – I knew the person as a young man. Instead of John*, this was now Joanne*.

Not having seen her for many months, it was great to re-establish contact. We were alone for some minutes before everyone else trickled in. Joanne told me about the reasons for her decision – and complained because the waiting time for gender-reassignment advice and treatment is ten years! How can a person make such a fundamental decision if their access to good quality advice and information is so restricted? I came away from the meeting with a profound regard for the internal anguish suffered by such folks, stuck in what they are quite sure is the wrong body. And I have admiration for somebody who adopts a new persona and way of life in their former environment – that is, with those who knew them under their previous incarnation. It would be much less hard if they moved elsewhere and only met new people. I do think that enacting this radical life change demonstrates both the depth of torment and a reserve of determination to overcome it which will serve Joanne well in future.

Slightly to my surprise, I find it admirable. Perhaps, therefore, I’m not yet a full member of the Grumpy Old Mens’ Club. And do still have some empathy left for the human condition.

*Not her real previous or current names

There was an audience of probably a hundred and fifty lined up in rows facing each other. Much folklore tells of the part these birds play in our fates, our moods and our lives generally. The speaker knew so much about these extraordinary animals that I swear he was an owl in human form. Who knows? Perhaps he was.

A succession of owls of increasing size was brought into the hall (not a ‘parliament’, the usual collective noun, as they were introduced individually, to restrict bloodshed) and two young ladies with armoured gloves flew the birds between them. The Ringmaster spoke of each bird with affection, describing not simply their origin and preferred habitat but also their name and their diet; and he related character quirks of each owl. For example, how one tiny owl, when only six months old had spotted and attacked a rat in its aviary. It hadn’t yet got the hang of attacking only prey which it can swallow. He described his amusement at watching this owl hanging onto the rat’s hind quarters as it sped around the cage floor – an owlish version of a bucking bronco, perhaps.

There are many differences between owls and other birds which reveal their specialised hunting techniques – unusually large eyes, shaped faces to gather and amplify sounds and asymmetrical ears to locate prey more accurately. Their large wings enable slow flight, tight turns and swift ascent, while modified, fluffy feathers and serrated wing edges smooth airflow – to demonstrate how quietly owls fly, we were all encouraged to close our eyes at one point, and one of the larger owls was flown the length of the hall. Only its calls demanding food at the other end revealed its new location. A silent, scary predator – if you are a small rodent.

But this mention of rodents brings me to my latest wheeze for dealing with slugs and snails during 2026.

For sure, the little so-and-sos have been lurking since late autumn in all those crevices and hidey holes everywhere in my garden. I know they will continue to roam around throughout the winter if temperatures are mild but that’s mainly to patrol in search of tender, emerging plant shoots.

The afore-mentioned Ringmaster listed a surprising variety of foods attractive to owls. Every owl relishes rodents – the evidence is clear, he said, from digested remains which owl fanciers can break apart for inspection. (Rather you than me, love). But they also adore worms (scarfing them down ‘like spaghetti’, he joked) and …slugs.

Such invertebrates lack hair which is needed for proper pellet formation, but might be an opportunistic meal. And they move more slowly than mice…

Our leader exhorted us to allow some part of our gardens (or a field, if we are landed gentry) to grow longer and shaggier, encouraging proliferation of the owls’ food sources. No problem, I thought to myself. I have only to guide the owls to chez moi where they can stuff themselves stupid, come Spring, 2026.

Taking my dog outside for his final, evening constitutional stroll last night, I was delighted to hear a Tawny owl calling from some nearby trees. This bodes well, ladies and gents, for my proposed ‘All-You-Can-Eat’ Owl Buffet. There’s obviously a market out there.

Now… How to persuade my feathered friends to visit? Send me your ideas and hints, please.

Later, in November, my submission recorded relief at the apparent departure of the slugs for another year and my anti-Gastropod preparations for 2025. But I also noted increased activity of the neighbourhood’s population of Sciurus carolinensis (Grey Squirrels).

Much the same has taken place this year. Moreover, the little blighters have obviously been busy over the last nine months or so, since numbers are definitely up! Science suggests they can have two litters per annum, and several have obviously had a good go at beating this statistic.

A couple of years back, as a particularly harsh winter set in, I hung a bird feeder in the branches of one of the magnolias in the front garden. It was positioned so that whatever sunlight fell upon Tunbridge Wells, any avian visitors would be able to dry their feathers and warm themselves while waiting their turn at the peanuts. It took about a day before I spotted fluttering invitees availing themselves of the food. Any peanuts falling onto the flower bed below were enough for some fat wood pigeons. Inevitably, the feeder drew in yobbish terrorists, like Jays and Magpies. They would scatter any finches and sparrows which retreated to nearby bushes while the bigger birds flapped and fought each other.

But a daily top up of food was all that I had to do. For about three or four days.

I’d poured coffee for myself and stood at the kitchen sink, sipping. All was quiet in the magnolia bed. Dappled sunshine illuminated the golden leaves of a nearby birch tree. It was very restful. My thoughts roamed freely among the tasks awaiting me that day.

But then sudden, twitching movement in the lawn beyond attracted my attention. A grey streak bounded beneath the lower branches and up, into the air, to grasp the wire framework of the feeder. Using one clawed arm, the squirrel pulled nut after nut through the mesh. Some went straight into its cheek pouches, others fell to the ground. I shooed it away.

I had a distinct feeling, though, that it was hiding in a nearby tree, keeping watch. Obviously, I couldn’t stay on guard for the rest of the day. And it was no surprise at all that the feeder was utterly empty before lunch.

When refilling, I resited it, wondering if nestling the thing between the maze of smaller branches might help the birds and hinder the squirrels.

Fat chance. The next time I looked, there were three squirrels going at it with vigour. And the time after that when I checked, the feeder had gone. The whole bloody thing. Disappeared. It wasn’t on the ground beneath, hiding in the ground cover plants. It wasn’t on the lawn, either. It had gone.

I had occasion to call on some neighbours the next day and asked if I might check their front gardens quickly in case the bird feeder had ‘been blown there by the wind’.

They probably thought I was barking mad. Perhaps I am. I examined the scene of the crime more carefully. The feeder had been fastened to the branch with wire left over from assembling our gabion cages looped through a carabiner ‘D’ ring. Yet both those fastening materials had vanished too.

Wait – this means the squirrels had gnawed through climbing grade steel. And then hauled away their prize to somewhere out of sight. The wire mesh of the feeder won’t have troubled them at all. Is this my fevered imagination at play? Hmmn…

The local garden centre had a ‘Special’ on bird feeders this year. I succumbed. “Are you sure this is proof against squirrels?” I asked.

“Sure, mate. No squirrel is gonna get in there!”

Still doubtful, I paid up. And the new feeder now hangs in the magnolia bush. The birds have begun visiting. Hooray! It was below freezing last night and for most of yesterday. They need the nutrition. But the level of peanuts in the feeder has been descending at a suspiciously quick rate. Sure enough, the squirrels are back, too.

“Go figure…” you might say. Adding that the definition of insanity is repeating an action while expecting a different outcome.

But I have developed a grudging admiration for the squirrels. I still hate them, with a passion, you understand – though I couldn’t help but laugh in resigned disbelief when I saw this outside the front door.

It looks for all the world as though they’ve nicked someone else’s feeder and brought it to me for refilling. Should I seek professional help? Their behaviour is, as they say in South London, ‘Doin’ me ‘ead in’.

Most obviously, they label people who are first, second or even third generation immigrants as being different – not ‘one of us’. The most common differences might be religious affiliation, language or skin colour. The party, especially if political, attributes real or imagined economic and social woes to this group and whips up hatred among its followers for the identified outsiders. I believe this is called ‘Othering’. [I hope grammarians will forgive this lapse on my part, forcing an adjective to work as a verb]. People have always fled oppression in their own country and there have always been economic migrants. To an extent, then, ‘Suck it up, Buttercup’.

But if they try to establish a centre of their own culture in a new country, a larger cohort of residents might begin to object and view them with dislike. Generation of hatred of immigrants, by itself, is morally questionable. Turning them away can be economically damaging for the country as whole. Migrants often bring skills and a willingness to perform menial tasks which are shunned by natives. On the downside, their cultural changes aren’t always welcome.

This national tendency towards isolation is often mirrored by the smaller geographic areas making up those nations. It’s usually encouraged by the legal framework of a country. In America, it might be States, many of which have economies equivalent to a small independent country. Each has autonomy to set local taxes, some laws and they have their own security forces. Many assert these individual rights vigorously, even to the point of threatening to become independent of the federal body.

If we look at the next smallest constituent part, the city or town, then it’s true to say that mostly good-natured competition between neighbouring townships has been keen since they were first formed.

What I want to highlight are the changes being wrought to the individuals in our society by certain technological advances. They often drive isolation while pretending to do the opposite. Remember Microsoft’s ‘Where do you want to go today?’ invitation to use its browser? Am I in danger of conflating technological advancement empowering individuals with jingoism?

No longer do we have to drive over to a neighbouring town to visit the car dealership stocking the vehicle we are interested in. Numerous websites list examples of the vehicle and (for an additional fee) they can deliver it to your door. All manner of consumer goods can be obtained ‘from the comfort of your own home’, as ads often proclaim. The weekly shop can be sourced online and delivered to your door. These miracles do, indeed, empower the individual. But you don’t have to talk to anyone to achieve your aim.

As a lad, I’d make sure I could be sitting in front of the TV at a particular time on a particular evening when my desired show was to be aired. No longer! Anything can be dialled up and shown whenever I want to watch it. And the next episode. And the next… A brain-numbing hosepipe of unedifying nonsense - ‘binge-watching’. Does it make me a better person to watch three episodes of something at once?

Instead of walking to the local phone box or using a telephone on the wall in our houses, we now carry devices to talk to anyone (or their voicemail) at any time or anywhere we want. Or stream films, search for items to buy, take photographs and more. The last time I travelled by train, all the passengers were silent, heads bent over portable devices as they swiped headline feeds teasing tidbits masquerading as news information. And don’t get me started on the algorythmic curation of those feeds!

Look around the next time you go outside. I bet you see men and women, boys and girls walking along, eyes glued to their phones. Instead of looking at the environment, their behaviour radiates Fear Of Missing Out on some nonsensical media notification.

A popular science host here in the UK, Professor Alice Roberts, is a clinical anatomist by training. She has observed that evolution continues to adapt our bodies at a remarkable rate. She notes changes in the muscle attachments in the upper spines of young people and postulates that they need longer and stronger muscles to support their heads in this constantly bent position.

Please understand, I’m not against technological advances. They are truly wonderful. I’ve ranted before about self-driving motor cars which try to avoid crashes and can park themselves. I do admit that they are fiendishly clever and I admire the brains which created these amazing pieces of kit.

But when do we talk to each other, these days?

I sat at dinner last night with a bunch of old fogies, most older than me. We looked each other in the eye; we debated all manner of topics, disagreeing on occasion, but doing so respectfully, lobbing logic and reason at each other. Sometimes, just sometimes, a person would change their mind. These were not debating competitions with winners and losers – they were discussions between aged members of society, each bringing his own life experience to back his point of view. Nobody Googled supporting evidence for their assertions.

This was not a perfect and blissful scenario, however. The level of noise in the room, the faded hearing ability of most participants and, one must admit, the slurred speech of gradual intoxication after the pudding course were real hazards for us to overcome. My throat aches still from my efforts to relay across the tablecloth what I saw as important points.

However, the whole evening made me realise that conversation is rare. To converse with another human for longer than it takes to negotiate a purchase is a luxury these days. As I said my goodbyes and shook hands with my companions, their eyes all sparkled with interest, excitement and joie de vivre. Ok, perhaps it was the wine…

What do you think? Do you talk to people? Do you sit with your family or friends at mealtime and discuss things? Do you (horror of horrors) talk to others on the train or bus? Would you use a Buddy Bench? (Google it…)

Let me know!

It is a learned skill, I believe, to accept that we are ignorant of much which affects or is going to affect us quite shortly. I do not refer to wilful ignorance – blithely ignoring accumulating facts which lead to an inevitable conclusion – an obvious example might be what is happening to the world’s climate as a result of human activity. No, what I mean is that we should incorporate two courses of action in our lives: first, not to go seeking out bad news. The second is not to avoid bad news when it happens around us.

My 21^st August piece about news pouring from the radio these days centred upon the natural prurience of human beings – all our media exploit the delight we take in schadenfreude – a German word summing up the relief we feel when someone else suffers misfortune rather than us. Increasingly, I am afraid the truth is that a more accurate name for the phenomenon is ‘epicaricasy’ – literally, finding joy in evil. Or rejoicing in the evil befalling another.

Are you guilty of ‘Doom Scrolling’? You spot an article which pops up on your news feed. You consume it, ie. spend more than two seconds glancing at the headline and the clever algorithm concludes you like the article. It sends you more of the same. Before you know what has happened, you are led to the belief that this is all the news there is in the world. If I am charitable, I’ll say that very clever people designed these manipulators of behaviour in order to encourage you to buy their Cheesy Widgets or whatever they are selling. In less charitable moments (I do have some of those) I wonder if manipulation of the populous towards unsavoury political ends might underly the effort.

Is it any wonder that people feel ‘down’, pessimistic, unsatisfied? Even medically depressed? Following such mass conditioning, we are easy meat for whichever politician comes along and says, ‘Whatever ails you, I can fix it. Look over there – there is your enemy. They are the reason you feel bad.” Immigrants? Sure. Bankers? Of course – How could I forget them? The Deep State? Ah yes – that label can be applied to anyone I don’t like.

There are good things happening in the world. The media choose not to broadcast them because they don’t sell newspapers. Yet for us to have a more balanced view, we should consume good and bad news. But where to go for our Recommended Daily Allowance of good news? I’ll leave that up to you – perhaps you are clever enough to fool the algorithm into switching you into a Good News consumer. Or maybe you can take conscious pleasure in something good. Walk through the trees, breathing the same air. (The Japanese call this ‘Shinrin Yoku’ or ‘forest bathing’ - absorbing the scents of essential tree oils and phytoncides given off by the plants). You may read of a medical breakthrough. Or a local school raising funds for some worthwhile cause. Perhaps you have a fool-proof method of dealing with slugs..? In which case, let me have it!

I promise your life will be better. Better sleep, healthier gut, fewer arguments with your spouse. Gee, I’d better be careful – next I’ll be writing, ‘Vote for me and I’ll set you free’.

Next is my recommendation not to ignore bad news when it happens around you. This is trickier, because it can be overwhelming. And we are naturally disposed to look at the entirety of a situation in order to figure out the solution. Trouble arises when a person can see the resources needed extend far, far beyond what they can provide. This is the moment when you have a choice of four actions:

i) You can decide to let yourself become over-stressed, overwhelmed and, after a painful spell of this, be unable to cope with even straightforward tasks.

ii) Perhaps you reckon that, either physically or metaphorically, you can put your fingers in your ears and deliberately ignore what you see coming.

iii) Or if you are going to accept that you cannot do everything – you cannot fix a great deal in Society, in Life, by yourself. Just accept that the world will be what the world will be. Perhaps everything will be alright; perhaps it won’t. Perhaps others will fix it. Or not.

iv) Rarely, some recognise what is building and heading their way. They know they don’t have the resources to challenge it, but they set about acquiring those resources. Perhaps they make a cabin in the woods and stock it with cans of food – ‘Preppers’. Or they gather others, influence them to join together to tackle whatever is the perceived threat or challenge.

In my view, the healthiest option above is number (iii) for most folks. They remain cognisant of approaching threats (and opportunities) and also keep watch for the exceptional individual with whom they might join in order to survive. Such people are said to be natural leaders. Or charismatic. But beware the charlatan peddling snake oil! They don’t always look like slugs, but they leave a trail of slime, real or metaphorical and consume those meagre resources which you have been growing and nurturing for your family.

Ask yourself: are they padding their own resources at your expense? Perhaps manufacturing some imagined, unstoppable hazard of which you were not aware? Is their every pronouncement confirmed by independent sources? Do you even have access to independent sources of information? Most especially – are you being told what to watch, what to read, what to think? And threatened with punishment if you try to look elsewhere? Can they take a joke..?

I commend a short story to you, by Kurt Vonnegut: ‘Harrison Bergeron’. Included within his book, ‘Welcome to the Monkey House’, it is set in 2081.

QUOTE

Everyone is supposed to be the same as everyone else. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General. Some things about living still weren’t quite right, though. April for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron’s fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away. It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn’t think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn’t think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains. George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel’s cheeks, but she’d forgotten for the moment what they were about.

UNQUOTE

Extreme? In 1961, when he published it, how everyone laughed at its absurdity. I invite you to compare Mr Vonnegut’s dystopian vision of 65 years ago with the moral and societal wrongs being inflicted upon many western countries by their governments.

Hey ho. Only 56 years to go.

Scottish poet Robbie Burns wrote this poem in 1784. Verse 7 contains this well-known phrase.

“Many and sharp the num’rous ills

Inwoven with our frame!

More pointed still we make ourselves,

Regret, remorse, and shame!

And man, whose heav'n-erected face

The smiles of love adorn, -

Man's inhumanity to man

Makes countless thousands mourn!”

His words highlight how poorly humans often treat their fellows. In evolutionary terms, this would appear to be a sub-optimal strategy, unless part of competition for food resources or mating supremacy. Yet, for all our supposed large-brained superiority, Homo Sapiens displays a streak of behavioural cruelty which often sabotages overall societal achievement. It emerges in several ways.

Is this an individual showing off? Flaunting his assets to gain admiration from his tribe? Or perhaps treating a single weaker member badly, as the saying goes in French, ‘pour encourager les autres’.

By such means, a strong leader might safeguard the greater number of his tribe by sacrificing a single member very publicly to ensure everyone else behaves in a manner which he believes will enable their survival. Or at least encourage the mode of behaviour he desires.

But this is also the method by which a weak leader tries to show he is strong. In his head, in his innermost thoughts, he knows he is weak. He exercises this technique even when there is no existential urgency, to reassure himself of his leadership qualities. Quick to anger, it is his fear of being unmasked as weak which compels a disproportionate response to situations of minor importance. History suggests that repeated instances of confected ire are noted by the populous over time and recognised as weakness. We often say that bullies pick on those unable to defend themselves. And that the best defence is to stand up to the bully and show you are not about to roll over.

It works in the school yard. It is effective in the workplace. And it can work too between warring countries, albeit on a vast and slower scale.

But let us look elsewhere. Some animals release and recapture their prey before consuming it. Is this cruelty? Bullying? Or practising the skill of catching prey? Perhaps a single act of chasing is not enough to generate the necessary digestive juices. Repetition of the catching might make sure the hunter makes full use of the calories to be consumed.

And then there are animals which hunt and kill even if they are not hungry. Orcas kill and leave uneaten carcasses, as do some bears. And, of course, domestic cats, which are well-fed at home, will venture outside and hunt, driven by predatory instinct. Their larger cousins, leopards, may take advantage of an opportunity to hunt and then store the carcass for consumption later.

But these examples are usually food-related. Others might concern competition – for example, male hippos attack anything which moves, including, it is said, their own progeny.

Homo Sapiens is supposed to be the ultimate apex predator, the pinnacle of bipedal evolution. For the most part, our hunting and gathering instinct is restricted to visits to the local supermarket, or, at best, seeking out that latest darling pushed in the media, the shop selling some delicacy – perhaps a single origin coffee in recycled cups. The closest most come to actual hunting is in various physical sports – javelin throwing, target shooting, distance running and the like. But these activities do not satisfy that more destructive strain of instinctive cruelty within us. Instead, it finds outlet in the manner of our treatment of our fellows.

We highlight perceived differences between us and others. These are both linguistic and actual. Much to my personal disgust, the word ‘Other’ - an adjective or noun - is often used these days as a verb. ‘I other you’. ‘He others them‘. If the intent is to exclude people from the group believing itself to be superior, it often succeeds and sparks discord and resentment.

But there has lately been reported an example I find so …base; so destructive and insulting that it defies my available lexicon for description. Until recently, America provided aid and assistance to countries whose peoples were in need of help, especially medicine and food. But the US government have cut funding to US AID so that many of their operatives have had to return to the US. The flow of aid has been scythed back. Included in the reasoning for this, in the case of Palestine, we were told by Washington and the Israeli government, was that aid arriving there was always stolen by the terrorist group, Hamas. Instead, the US Government hired UG Solutions - a private contractor - to provide security at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, where hundreds of civilians seeking food have been killed in scenes of chaos and gunfire. Palestine, I’m sure you know, is a glorious mixture of religious affiliation, spanning Christian faiths, Moslems and yes, even Jews.

I read yesterday that the private US firm guarding distribution sites has hired members of a US biker gang with a history of hostility to Islam to run its armed security. Ten members of the Infidels Motorcycle Club work there, seven of whom in senior positions overseeing the sites. The club was set up by US military veterans of the Iraq war in 2006 and uses the Crusader Cross as their symbol. They hold an anti-Islamic view and are reported to have held a pig roast during the Moslem Holy month of Ramadan. Some members sport tattoos of the number 1095 – the year Christian Crusaders started to drive Moslems out of their lands.

Such needless provocation of an oppressed people I find among the worst examples of the instinctive streak of cruelty residing in Homo Sapiens. Why do it? Because they can..? What purpose does it serve? How can human beings providing physical succour delight in such cruelty? I include here those who hired the gang members. They must have known.

In this respect, if no other, the population of gastropods which has used the recent rain storms to return to my garden with renewed vigour (and hunger), is superior to these base examples of humanity.

I start this piece with reference to a brick wall to have an image firmly in your mind. If not a wall, exactly, then an enormous construct made from thousands, nay, millions of tiny pieces. All the pieces contribute something towards the stability of the whole. Perhaps none are truly vital – acting as the metaphorical keystone from which all others take their security and the removal of which would threaten imminent collapse.

The entity might be a house. A residence for a single family. Or perhaps a block of apartments to house many families. It could be much bigger - a commercial building – an office block. Or some vast edifice, like a castle, providing places to live and work and socialise for all who were accepted within its gate.

Stay with me here as we go further up the scale. Let’s think about a collection of houses, apartments and office blocks. A village; heck, a whole town, while we’re at it. Did I write ‘town’? Make it a city. Yeah, a big city. Like London. Or New York.

Actually, in the same way as you can gather houses together to make a town, why not gather cities in the same way to make a country? Add all the towns and villages and individual homesteads dotted between them, too. A whole country – think of that. All those bricks. All those individual pieces which together make up the whole.

But the country isn’t just physical bricks, is it? No – someone has to build it and maintain it and someone else has to grow food to feed the people doing the building. There has to be a team of doctors and nurses to attend to illness or accident. And all those workers will have children, so they’ll need to be educated. And although what I’ve switched to isn’t a collection of physical objects – nevertheless, these societal elements are the glue which holds the vast construct of the country together. A bit like mortar holds bricks together.

You may have read thrilling stories about prisoners managing to escape their cell by scraping away that mortar, day after day, night after night - until they loosen a brick and can wiggle it out. The next brick is a little easier. And the next. All the bricks have to be replaced temporarily, of course, to pass cursory inspection by the guards. And the trick is to remove only enough bricks for a person to squeeze through. If too many are taken out at once, a wall might collapse and alert the authorities. But when the time comes, the loose bricks can be removed in seconds, the prisoners make their escape and disappear into the night.

There are instances of what I’m driving at in reality as well as fictional examples in stories.

A fun party game (at which small children usually excel) is to build a tower out of 54 wooden blocks and then take turns to remove one at a time. The loser is the one causing the tower to collapse. As a side note, research tells me the game was invented by a chap named Leslie Scott. He shortened the Swahili word ‘kujenga’ (meaning ‘to build’) to call it ‘Jenga’.

Now consider that vast edifice I referred to above. Let’s take a large country, comprising buildings, industrial complexes, offices, bridges, houses of every size and type. It teems with people – some to make the country bigger, some to look after the builders. They have a monetary system, a social support system, world-beating technology in all manner of activities.

What would happen to that country if you scraped away some of the mortar? Reduced the number of builders, for example; or restricted the capability of those looking after them. Maybe took away the resources from those who were doing research at the frontiers of science and providing education to the people at all levels. It would be helpful to prevent large segments of the population receiving healthcare when they need it. How about handicapping the agricultural sector which grows food for the populace? People would be quite annoyed, wouldn’t they?

Just in case any of the annoyed people decided to make some sort of physical protest, it would be better if those in the forces of law and order are able to take preventative action. They should be beefed up. Recruit more, give them big guns and tell them to hit first and answer questions later. Objections filed in a more civilised manner, through the pathway of the law courts must be dealt with in the same way – it is essential to recruit and install judges and other officials who can block and parry attempts to stop the scraping away of mortar.

Not so much that the edifice collapses, but enough that big holes can be created in a flash when the order is given.

Consider some recent events in America:

· Healthcare for large numbers of people has been reduced or removed.

· Pregnancy terminations are now unavailable and are even illegal in some states, notwithstanding medical necessity. A young mother in South Carolina miscarried at her home and was charged with murder last year.

· Many administrative departments in the government have been denuded of experienced personnel, hampering their functioning. Political appointees were substituted for career civil servants.

· Many civil rights have been wiped from the statute books.

· The Supreme Court of the country gave the President clearance to do any act within his term of office, whether legal or illegal.

· A new head has been appointed to the Department of Education – someone with zero experience of education - with a brief to downsize as though to remove it entirely.

· The President has instituted a trade war with most of the rest of the world. His acolytes appear to have been told in advance what was going to happen so they could position their own investment portfolios accordingly. Yet the mass of population is told their country is receiving huge sums from abroad. They generally don’t understand that it is the men and women of the country who end up paying the tariffs. They also don’t understand this is inflationary.

· When the economic results of the edifice showed a downturn, the head of the department gathering that data was fired.

· When the central bank resisted calls to lower interest rates and the governor was threatened with dismissal, he refused to go. Now others there are under attack. Dropping interest rates would be inflationary at this stage too.

· Federal resources already slated for distribution to poor and rural areas and to address racial imbalances were withdrawn.

· The US Agency for Global Media, home of ‘Voice of America’ has been eviscerated. Funding for news agencies like NPR is being cut and even withdrawn – the information they broadcast to the people is ‘unhelpful’. Others are being castigated and denigrated as broadcasters of ‘fake news’ and agents of ‘the enemy’.

There are many, many such scrapings away of the mortar which binds American society. They were all laid out in a tome entitled ‘Project 2025’, published in 2023 and prepared over the last five years or so by the ‘Heritage Foundation’.

There are signs of The People noticing this removal of their rights. They are like the guards who hear scraping noises and ask if anyone else can hear that noise? The farmer whose crop is normally sold to Canada but loses his market and his immigrant workers to harvest the crops. The automobile dealer who imports cars from abroad has to pass along the price increases stemming from tariffs. The general hardware and grocery chains which import all manner of items cannot absorb all the cost increases. So everyone pays more to live, to eat, to travel. People see their pocketbooks are slimmer than ever. There is real hardship out there.

Will any of the guards do a cell inspection soon and alert the others that so much of the mortar is gone? If they don’t, when will that order be given to bring it all tumbling down?

And by whom?

For longer than I can recall, I have been glued to radio news in whichever country I have lived. I’ve fretted about its absence when living in places where world news arrives irregularly in newspapers two or three days out of date. I’m hooked. My mother, in her later years, had a transistor radio plugged into the mains electricity in nearly every room in her house. She’d go from room to room in the mornings switching them all on, so her diet of Radio 4 News wouldn’t be interrupted when moving to make coffee or fetch something from elsewhere.

When I visited, she’d express worry about the political situation in some country far away; about current interest rates and inflation, about some remote war or awful train crash which was causing dreadful suffering to people she would never know or meet. Was she well-informed about current events? Many would say she was. But well-informed generally? I’m not so sure.

I do believe that human beings are imbued with an unhealthy level of prurience – that is to say, we cannot help looking at others who are undergoing misfortune. The Police often slow or even halt the flow of traffic on a dual carriageway when there has been a crash on the other side. They know that rubber-neckers will pay more attention to the carnage in the opposing traffic than to the vehicle in front of them – which may have slowed even more to get a better look.

News editors know well that bad news sells. If they want to increase ‘engagement’, get more clicks and ‘likes’ they have only to lard their output with ‘Shock! Horror!’ Stories.

I used to have Twitting on my phone, but haven’t opened it in a long while because it fed me nothing but people being filmed as they fell over or had a fight. The phoenix replacement, Bluesky, is going the same way.

Is this some evolutionary hang over? What terrible things surrounded our hairy ancestors? Do we need to check out our fellow hominin being eaten by a sabre-toothed tiger to alert us to the danger such carnivores present? What might have been the purpose of attracting us to watch closely one person beating up another who’d taken too big a piece of mammoth off the fire?

We became inured to constant news reels of starving Biafran children as a result of the Nigerian blockade during the 1967 to 1970 civil war. Charities complained of ‘donor exhaustion’. Our natural reactions were blunted. Shocking films no longer produced a visceral Giving response. In recent years, TV and Radio news has included long segments featuring destruction and devastation, starvation and suffering in centres of population in Ukraine and Gaza. Again, agencies report falling levels of concern among western populations. ‘It ain’t my problem. They should sort themselves out’.

The current nationalistic US administration has recently gutted US Aid – a soft form of power, protectionism and foreign policy ever since it was created in 1961 – leaving humanitarian disasters to turn to other countries for succour. This unfortunate move has been welcomed by some of those other countries, having a free ride into broadening their global power base.

If the information fed to us was more balanced between good news and bad, might we be more balanced people? The truth is that we should be affected by scenes of horror, especially as those scenes draw closer in likelihood and geographically. For instance, it is reasonable to posit the present conflict in Ukraine spreading into Western nations. In which case, it will be our problem.

But can we please have the stream of bad news balanced by all of the good which is happening, despite this?

The Womens’ Rugby World Cup will take place this year. It’s been expanded gradually since 1991 to include 16 teams and will be held in various locations in England. The growing popularity of Womens’ Football (helped by the Lionesses’ second UEFA European Championship win in a row this year) has begun to prompt recognition that both genders can achieve major sporting goals. This is great news.

A colossal squid was filmed for the first time in its natural habitat. These things can grow to almost 1,000Kgs in weight. Scary! Fascinating, too.

Scientists have invented a tiny pacemaker, as small as a grain of rice, which can be injected under the skin for temporary use. A brilliant break-through.

A ten year old girl made chess history by defeating a Grandmaster earlier this month.

I grew some potatoes in my garden for the first time. During July, 134 lovely people bought the first book in my Al Sharika series.

Alright – the last couple of items are Good News for me, personally, but all the others are Good in a wider sense. They are not earth-shattering, but all are positive in some way. There is so much more, but you have to seek it out. You have to consciously blank off the dire, the depressing, the awful, lest you follow in its wake in an unending downward spiral into… What? Actually, I don’t want to know.

Today I haven’t listened to or watched any news. My blood pressure and cortisol levels have not been raised artificially by a stream of untruths emanating from Washington, D.C. My dog laid his chin on my leg as I wrote this. I feel better for it. Even though I am aware this is his pointed reminder that it is time to visit the forest and the nearby fields in search of bunnies, squirrels and maybe a deer or two. Still, it’s a valuable connection between two sentient beings who understand each other.

My linguistic abilities are expanding, too. I reckon I’m grasping the rudiments of Starling speech (see previous Substack post ‘The Slugs are Back’) and for sure the Smooth Collie Mind Meld is working. I speak Smooth Collie too. (See previous paragraph).

Do you have Good News? Tell me and share it to the world. I promise to avoid naming names to protect the innocent!

Visitors have long known that, unless they are the mains-pressure variety, British showers are pathetic compared to those in America and elsewhere. Their output is often compared to the annoying British drizzle which has plagued our tourist industry for so long. But now, the water companies offer (free of charge) special devices to insert into the shower head to reduce the flow of water even further. They assert the aeration produced by the device makes you think you get the same volume of water …but you don’t. Evidence of reduced flow from the shower head (during your regulation 4-minute session) is that soap is harder to remove. Towelling off and donning clothes becomes a sticky process. And if you wash your hair..? Ha, ha, ha, ha….. Is spikey hair in fashion again??

But I digress! It’s the story of my life…

During what has turned out to be a prolonged hot spell (ok, by British standards – alright?) I began to think that the tide of battle against the hated gastropod foe was turning in my favour. My regimen of scattering slug pellets and nightly forays around the flower beds and lawn edges, armed with a head torch, fork and jar of salted water appeared to be working. The yield of slimy enemies dropped and dropped until it reached zero for several nights on the trot.

I remained vigilant. There were flowers on the courgette plants – not many, but there were some, promising at least a modest crop this year. Hey, I could look forward to stuffing some of the flowers with ricotta and mozzarella cheese and baking them for a seasonal treat. Yum! Some had not yet flowered, though. Never mind – there was still time. I recall a year when we were subsumed in a glut of the things all at once, so to have production naturally phased like this was a boon.

Night after sticky night, (it was humid), my patrols yielded nothing. Zilch. No slimy trails, no nibbled shoots. I observed visiting starlings stalking the lawn boundaries in the early mornings, jabbing their beaks into the space between the timber siding and the pavers. Were they finding some? Hard to say, as I don’t speak ‘Starling’, but they seemed pretty pissed off to me. There was much arguing going on, almost as though one was saying, “You told us to come here, Frank. I said there would be no slugs. Now we are here, there aren’t any slugs. Didn’t I say that? Did you listen? You never listen to me. And another thing…”

And then… Big News! First one and then two more of the courgette plants turned out to be squashes of some sort. Instead of producing those lovely yellow flowers from the base, they sent out horizontal runners, as though aiming for the path to make a getaway. At the ends of the runners, there began to form small buds. What be these?

I watched. And waited.

And one morning, just as I had begun to look up recipes for baked squash with sage leaves and lots of salt and pepper, those tiny buds developed marks. Close examination suggested gnawing by …duh, duh, duuuuuh… Slugs. Dammit!

Ok – action stations. How can I summon back the starlings? Wrapping the nascent fruits in netting is the emergency measure I’ve adopted – to present some sort of physical barrier which might put off the slimy marauders. I’ve scheduled an emergency trip to the garden centre to buy fresh slug pellets.

Will these measures succeed? Perhaps if I can protect the tender growth long enough, the fruits won’t be appetising any more once they reach a certain size? Am I fooling myself? Is the autumn going to be like a film sequel – “Return of the Giant Slugs”?

It was understood that Cowboys were the Good Guys. Indians were Bad. We didn’t pause to consider if this was right. Maybe half right; maybe quite wrong. Our basic reasoning was that you needed two opposing teams, so niceties like political and cultural fairness, veracity and historical accuracy were irrelevant. We’d take turns being the Indians. Because that was fair.

The most complex element we ever introduced was that some cowboys wore light coloured hats and one or two had black hats. These were the really Bad Guys. They’d attack other cowboys without warning. At least the pretend Indians would give a blood-curdling whoop before launching themselves at an unsuspecting white-hatted cowboy.

It took me a lot of years; an embarrassing number of years, in fact, before I came to realise that there are some subtleties involved in this basic ‘Good Guys versus Bad Guys’ game. I learned that supposedly Good cowboys (and their ilk) had displaced supposedly Bad Indian and indigenous tribes from what the latter considered their tribal home lands, in search of gold or prime agricultural land. The modern day sop to long-standing tribal protest is to allocate areas to each tribe – ‘reservations‘ – and to grant significant financial breaks to the tribes. For example, in America, many now host gambling casinos and do very nicely, thank you. At least in financial terms. Culturally and morally? Not so much.

But I have at least come to realise there might be more to the story than I had perceived as a younster. The stage of ‘Conscious Incompetence’, perhaps?

The same went for my first exposure to another culture than my own. As a 21 year old, I went to live in the New Hebrides (now ‘Vanuatu’). I assumed these people who eked out a life in the South Pacific jungles must be backward in many ways. But slowly it dawned on me that their habits, their way of life – their culture - actually suited their environment perfectly. My prescriptive ideas of what worked in south east Great Britain would not help in a hut on the edge of the jungle close to a live volcano.

They say that ‘travel broadens the mind’. I guess my mind was getting broader the longer I stayed there. It broadened further when I spent years in the Middle East and then in America. By the end of my sojourn in New York, I’d had so many jolts to my initial assumptions about the way the world should work that I have become accepting of almost everything.

Almost.

Over centuries, several of the places in the world where I lived have been subject to attempts to wipe out the existing way of doing things to inflict some culture which is foreign but viewed as ‘better’ by the conquering force. If we think back to Vanuatu for a moment, voyaging Christians arrived in such ‘Godless’ places in the mid-19^th Century and did their best to convert the islanders to Christianity. Missionaries frowned upon island traditions and their ceremonies of drinking Kava and dancing to venerate their local deities. The visitors did their best to eradicate such beliefs. In fact, those local beliefs persist to this day, not in opposition to Christianity, but alongside it. Then, as the prospect of armed conflict in the South Pacific grew during the 1930s, first Japan and then America began a programme of delivering cargo and supplies to the indigenous population. This was softening then up to accept an expeditionary force from the donor nation to establish a military presence on the islands. Locals began to view the deliveries as gifts from the gods – maybe their own gods; maybe the Christian one. Did it matter?

It became a cult – a ‘cargo cult’. The American one is still referred to as the cult of ‘John Frumm’ – widely attributed to a miss-remembered conversation in pidgin English in which the New Hebridean asks how to address the American:

‘Wunem name blo’ yufella?’

To which the answer might have been, “I’m John, from [insert American state of your choice)”.

The outcome? The Americans established an airstrip and a naval port on the eastern side of the largest island in the group, Espiritu Santo, in 1942. The first was named Turtle Bay airfield. A couple of others followed shortly afterwards at Palikulo Bay and Pekoa. Further south on the main island of Efate, there was another military airfield constructed at Quoin Hill. It fell into disrepair and a civilian airport was built at Bauerfield later on.

The islands were used by the Americans as a springboard for their upcoming operations in the Solomon Islands against the Japanese fleet.

Did these actions change the native population? It seems to me that the New Hebridean (now ‘Ni-Vanuatu’) culture has survived all these intrusions by outsiders. Sure, they now have pick-up trucks and radios, TV and mobile telephones, but the essential spirit of their culture persists.

When he visited in July, 1774, Captain James Cook likened the New Hebrideans to those he had encountered in Tonga in October of the previous year. He named them the ‘Friendly Islanders’ due to the initial warm welcome he received.

To this day, they remain a gentle people, tolerant of the ways of visitors.

I have tried to take a leaf out of their book. To not become unduly exercised by the vicissitudes of others. To ‘go with the flow’ as it were. I honestly thought I was managing to increase my tolerance, my forbearance, my patience as the decades rolled past.

But now my seventh decade of life is well under way, I’m wondering if the reverence many societies claim to have for older folks is still the case. I used to believe traditional Old Age came with a span of experience which could be doled out to young ‘uns whenever they threatened to go off the rails – if they were prepared to listen. You could wag your finger and say, “I told you so” if things went wrong.

Maybe this was true when the pace of progress was modest. Advice from an old-timer still had a grounding in relevant experience. But now? In 2025?

Human beings are naturally hungry for more knowledge. The co-founder of the computer chip manufacturer, Intel (Gordon Moore) tried to describe his vision for knowledge growth in 1965. He suggested that the number of transistors on a computer chip would double every couple of years. Thought to be wildly optimistic at the time, it is now a dramatic under-estimate of the span and depth of expansion of computing power – perhaps it now applies to the rapidity of expansion of artificial intelligence autonomy!

Most of my knowledge, memories and recorded experiences are closer to artefacts than relevant help to youngsters these days. What I hope remains relevant is the over-arching tolerance and acceptance which comes with anno domini.

Although certain politicians in positions of enormous power are testing this to breaking point right now… Don’t get me started!

I admit, some of those complaints hovered at the back of my mind as I went through the process of booking the vehicle and proving my identity at the sales counter.

The American scientist Bill Nigh, (The Science Guy), who made science for kids ‘cool’, was fond of saying, ‘An ounce of experimentation is worth a pound of theory’.

So, I set out to prove for myself what I have come around to believe.

My journey was around three hundred and fifty, mostly motorway, miles. I repeated it four times – two round trips. Not much opportunity for gear changing on motorways, I thought, so expected little satisfaction. That said, there were some wiggly stretches between the motorways and (because this is Great Britain) lots of traffic to slow progress.

Road designers tell us about a phenomenon they call the ‘Worm Effect’. A motorway driver eases off his accelerator pedal. Perhaps he was going too fast and wants to drop below the speed limit. That causes the car behind to brush his brakes lightly. The third car in line sees the brake lights and brakes more firmly. The fourth driver really stands on the brake pedal – this over-reaction continues until someone brings their car to a complete halt and engages the handbrake, as though parked.

Of course, space opens in front of the stopped vehicle rapidly, so he accelerates hard. Delayed driver reactions mean the following car doesn’t start to move until he is well under way, gathering speed and disappearing into the distance.

Viewed from above, this vehicle movement pattern must resemble the stretching and compressing motion of a worm. Hence the name.

I digress. Suffice to say I had lots of opportunity to change gears – and brake and accelerate while watching my mirror like a hawk in case somebody didn’t realise I was slowing or even stationary.

I admit I was charmed by the little car. It seemed eager to do whatever I wanted – to speed up, to adjust position in the lane and, once or twice, to stop on a sixpence when disaster had to be averted.

But it wasn’t all rosy. I discovered that a ‘safety’ mechanism tries to prevent the car moving across a white line unless you are indicating.

When I was taught to drive, use of the indicator was to tell other road users what I wanted to do. It was only to be used if someone else could make use of the information. If there are no other road users who might benefit from my signal, I should not give it. This discipline demands that the driver be aware of all other road users at all times. Using mirrors and doing shoulder checks help here. ‘Roadcraft’, the manual used by British Police forces, teaches that an indicator should flash at least four times before a manoeuvre begins. How many times do you see drivers start to move out at the same time or even before their indicator flashes?

If I tried to move the little car into another lane without signalling, it fought me – its brakes were applied automatically and the steering forced me back into the original lane. The only way to change lane was to signal I wanted to do so – whether it helped anyone else or not.

In my view, Lane Assist technology encourages people to use the indicator to suppress its braking and steering correction function rather than to inform and warn others.

I found it ridiculous that I had to signal to change lanes on a deserted roadway. And I found it worrying that my car would resist an emergency avoidance manoeuvre when the last thing on my mind would be using the indicator stalk.

Perhaps this function can be turned off? If it was mine, I would search the handbook to find out how to do it.

A personal bugbear of mine is waiting behind someone’s car when they insist on pressing the foot brake instead of applying the handbrake. At night, especially when it’s raining, those bright red lights are really annoying. Yet the Juke taught me its engine would cut out (to save fuel) when I waited at traffic lights all the time I pressed the foot brake. Maybe those with automatic gearboxes don’t use hand brakes?

I sympathise with them, because the Juke’s hand brake was an electronic on/off switch rather than a proper lever. To engage it is easy. You lift the switch. But to release the handbrake, it’s tricky to balance its release against engagement of the clutch. Moreover, you have to press the footbrake to make the release effective! What..?

Bear with me, please. A skill I learned fifty years ago was hill starts involving simultaneous use of the foot brake and accelerator pedals as the clutch comes up – in case the handbrake doesn’t work well or even fails. I’ve always said I cannot dance – but in view of the necessary fancy footwork demanded of the driver of a modern manual motorcar, perhaps I just haven’t discovered the knack of dancing.

I complained in the first paragraph that designers have removed all the fun and satisfaction from driving. But I really did enjoy the three pedal dancing challenge I describe above. And took great satisfaction from mastering it. It required many hundreds of miles of practice, mind. Perhaps I was too severe in my dismissive conclusions.

Now, how can you do hand brake turns with these? Very useful when driving in snow…

In case you hadn’t heard, this stands for ‘Trump Always Chickens Out’.

Would this be another ‘TACO’ moment?

I’m not much good as a betting man, it seems. Within hours of my making this bland assurance during the pudding course, B-2 ‘Stealth’ bombers had discharged their payloads of a pair of GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOP), hitting three targets, all said to be Uranium enrichment sites.

As the range of these aircraft is only about six thousand nautical miles, they’d have been refuelled in mid-air on their way from Missouri a couple of times. This means they’d already have been in the air as I wielded my spoon and fork. My guest may never trust me again.

I mean, my advice on how to counter attacks by hordes of hungry gastropods was almost as inaccurate as my opinion on whether Donny wanted to play soldiers.

As Americans say, I should ‘stay in my lane’ – with the slugs and snails…

I gave this piece the title, ‘Here we go again’ as it seems most U.S. Presidents are faced at some point with a national-scale situation in which they must contemplate use of armed forces.

In recent times, the ones we know about (there are probably others not in the public domain) would be:

a) Carter’s attempt to rescue captured Americans from the embassy in Tehran after the Iranian revolution and his withdrawal of the SALT 2 treaty following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. He will have been presented with a suite of possible actions by his military advisers. His choices perhaps led to his defeat by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 US election.

b) Ronald Reagan was involved in several conflicts. In the Soviet / Afghan war (he supplied weapons and training to the Mujahideen fighters) and 1983, he invaded Grenada to topple the communist government and rescue Americans. He was drawn into the Iran/Iraq war too, eventually siding with Iraq. However, he fell foul of the so-called ‘Iran-Contra’ affair, selling arms secretly to Iran in exchange for releasing American prisoners.

c) George HW Bush’s Invasion of Panama in 1989 & the first Gulf War in 1990 after Saddam Hussain invaded Kuwait.

d) Bill Clinton’s intervention in the Bosnian and Kosovan war plus strikes in Iraq in 1998 because Iraq wasn’t allowing full access to international weapons inspectors.

e) George W Bush’s ‘War on Terror’, including Afghanistan (following September 11^th, 2001 World Trade Centre attacks) and Iraq, the second Gulf War in 2003 searching for Saddam Hussain’s weapons of mass destruction – which never came to light.

f) Barack Obama inherited the two conflicts above and he approved the NATO-led overthrowing of Col. Ghaddafi’s Libyan regime in 2011. He also authorised a number of individual hits, such as the assassination of Osama bin Laden, head of Al Qaeda.

g) In his first term, in 2017, Donald Trump launched a limited number of missiles to punish Bashar Al Assad in Syria for his use of chemical weapons.

h) Joe Biden supported Ukraine against the Russian invasion but refused to strike Russia directly. Equally he supported Israel in their attacks on Hamas in Gaza, but did not join in directly.

i) On the campaign trail, Donald Trump made great play of saying he would never enter what he described as ‘forever wars’ as many of his predecessors had done. I read that many Make America Great Again supporters are criticising his actions of yesterday. In doing so, he ignored the public advice of his head of intelligence (Tulsi Gabbard) that Iran was nowhere near achieving the level of enrichment of their Uranium stocks required to make a weapon. I can only speculate at the interaction between them which has prompted her to change her tune. During yesterday, she admitted that the situation might change within six to nine months.

History only records the headlines of these events. In yesterday’s case, a little scientific detail is helpful, I feel.

Naturally occurring Uranium contains only a tiny proportion of fissile isotope, U-235 (less than 1%). Boosting the proportion of this volatile isotope to between 3% and 5% is needed to sustain a nuclear reaction to create electrical power. The rest is U-238. If the material to be concentrated is placed in a centrifuge in gaseous form, the heavier U-238 migrates to the outside and can be removed. Repeated rounds of centrifuging create higher concentrations of U-235. It is said that a nuclear bomb can be made with as little as 20% concentration. But countries with long experience of making nuclear weapons know that concentrations up to 90% make for a lighter and more useful and powerful munition.

It is now being claimed that Iran had already amassed stocks of Uranium enriched to 30%. Ample, you will now understand, to make a nuclear bomb. How much? How many Kilograms? We may never know.

Importantly, did they move it out of harm’s way before the U.S. attack? Time will tell.

In 1985, a former boss (ex-Army) described the Middle East to me as resembling a wrist watch. On the surface, all is peaceful; all is calm and predictable. Things tick along quietly. But if you remove the back of the watch, springs and gears and levers fly off in an uncontrolled manner – and can never be put back into its case. He was talking about removal from power of the typical strongman head of a country – what we refer to as ‘regime change’.

What was started last night is a dangerous course of action. We hope that Iran’s enrichment capability has been removed in addition to any stocks of weapons grade material they had. The back of the watch may have been taken off again. The region will never be the same.

I admit to never trying this before.

It was a marvellous learning experience and I have taken several lessons to heart. First, I did sell some books – hooray! I also distributed a fair number of flyers. So we’ll see if internet sales pick up as a result of that.

The council selected for us an empty unit at the top of the main shopping centre in town. They warned that there was no WiFi and internet access is patchy for most mobile phones. They might also have mentioned there are few shops on that level and little reason for browsing shoppers to wander that high. To illustrate this, I counted more hopeful authors in the unit than potential punters coming through the door in the five hour period.

Helpfully, from my point of view, some of us were allowed to read our work out loud. A space had been cleared and chairs laid out on the floor below so we could entice and amuse an adoring audience.

By far the most successful part of my day followed my public reading of 'Baked Beans Revenge'. At first, that area of the shopping centre was deserted. Holding a microphone, I faced forty eight unoccupied chairs. So I took some of my twenty minute allocation to hail passers by; inviting them to put down their shopping, take the weight off their feet for a bit, give their credit cards a rest. And then began the story...

When it was done, one young woman approached and asked if she could buy the book in which this story appears. So, I had to explain it was a separate story, but set in the same time and place as ‘Saved by the Bull’. She then bought the whole set of four paperbacks - £50 worth of books! What a star – she was extremely patient when my card reader refused to link properly with my telephone – so I gave her an extra discount.

I have to try this again, elsewhere. I’m certain there are other Literary events in the South East of England. And fairs which are not necessarily associated with books. To be investigated!

Have you ever tried to sell at a fair? How did you get on?

In other news, I seem to have attracted a little band of helpers to tackle my Slug Invasion: there was an article recently noting that the number of starlings in the UK has declined rapidly since the 1980s. They are now a Red-Listed bird of high conservation concern.

Seeing a massed gathering of these birds, wheeling and turning and forming amazing shapes in the sky was a common sight when I was younger. The term for the gathering is a ‘murmuration’. It is becoming rare, but if you are lucky enough to see one, it is quite magical.

I read that starlings like shorter grass, so they can keep a wary eye out for predators but also forage effectively for their food – which happens to include my nemesis – slugs. After I had cut the grass, half a dozen starlings were crowding along one lawn edge, early yesterday morning. I believe chasing the last of the night’s slimy visitors. Go guys!

The old saying suggests an early bird catches the worm – or the slug. Perhaps starlings were the source of this aphorism

.

I started to try to gain admission to this event in late summer, 2024. I emailed lots of people and telephoned the council offices without result (often without even an answer-phone to talk to).

My anxiety mounted when, in October, the council began advertising the upcoming ‘exciting event’ to be held in May, 2025. Mention was made in their publicity of certain well-known actors and personalities, all of whom have penned ‘marvellous books’ spanning several genres. These folks would be delivered to Tunbridge Wells by limousine, then charge significant fees to people who book ahead to sit in the same room, breathing the rarified air.

I wrote again, pointing out that there are several traditionally-published writers in our town and lots of independent authors too. Please could we have a slot as well? I volunteered to give a talk; a reading, even to welcome sticky-fingered youngsters to encourage them to express themselves with the written word. Anything! I’m not proud…

Nothing. Nada. No response.

It was only when a fellow writer put me in touch with the former deputy leader of the council that the planets began to shift into alignment. Like great stones in some bureaucratic version of an Indiana Jones movie, there was grinding, creaking and sounds of rushing water before one of the named members of council staff wrote to me in response.

‘How nice to hear from you again’, she wrote in February - before handing me off to a subordinate. To be fair, the subordinate has done a lot of work to organise a space where we can gather, set up a table displaying our books and even read a short story to folks who have 20 minutes to kill. Was this their plan all along? If so, why not tell me at first enquiry?

I’ve been researching how to set up an effective stall - there are lots of YouTube videos on the topic, as you’d expect. I mean, you can teach yourself brain surgery from YouTube, so surely selling books will be a doddle..?

I’ll provide a full report next week.

Now it is getting dark. Time to find my Slug Hunting kit and venture out to capture some of the wee beasties before they gorge themselves on my sprouting seedlings. None have found the first early potatoes in tubs yet. I guess it’s only a matter of time.

And …‘surely our past winter will have killed off any which survived my attentions…’

I have watched with growing excitement as tiny tendrils of germinating seeds poke through the (high quality) mulch, their light green purity as yet unblemished. They reach for the sun, which has been unusually generous so far this year, and I urge them onwards with positive thoughts and light sprinklings of water from the hose.

Over the past winter, I have been consuming significant quantities of natural yoghourt. This is in part because I like yoghourt, so that’s as good an excuse as any. But another valid justification is that the empty containers make very good slug traps. You drill holes around the sides and put the tops back on to keep off the rain. These have been baited variously with sourdough starter, a mixture of water, sugar and yeast powder and even a splash of beer (don’t worry – it was just lager – not proper beer). Then I’ve buried them up to the holes, close to the plants I want to protect.

I chose this configuration of slug trap because the consensus on YouTube suggested it was the most reliable and effective non-poisonous method. Sure, there are nasty blue pellets available in Garden centres, but I do worry about their chemicals leaching into the veggies I’m growing.

The traps have indeed been effective in capturing tiny slugs – ‘sluglets’, if you will. Morning inspections show the various baits retaining anything from six to ten of the little blighters. But I went out after dark two nights ago and prowled around with my headtorch. I spotted several sizeable slugs (2 inch monsters) cruising along the base of the fence. One was nosing around a trap, so I let it proceed, hoping it would drop in and be unable to escape.

I did a second round thirty minutes later and went back to the trap. It was evident that the slug had gone in one side, scarfed up its fill of sourdough and was just heading out of the other side.

The uncharitable thoughts which filled my head are best not reproduced here.

Clearly, I need a new plan.

In the meantime, while I work on that, let me relate a tiny Life Lesson which I experienced during last week.

I am on generally good terms with all my neighbours. I know names of those who are nearest and am on nodding terms with the others. The truth is that I know them by their motor cars, and wouldn’t know them from Adam (or Eve) if I met them elsewhere.

My Happy Tale easily balances out that Slug Frustration.

Returning from a short lead walk with my faithful hound, who makes friends with everybody, I recognised a neighbour’s car stopped further down the hill from their house. As I drew nearer, a woman emerged and told me the battery was flat and her attempt to bump-start the car had failed. In my experience, most people haven’t a clue how to do this, anyway. But she went on to say they had sold the car and needed to drive it to the nearby industrial estate right away – the buyer had given them a time slot which was closing rapidly.

Being really close to my own house, I fetched my car, used jumper leads to boost her battery and the engine burst into life immediately.

I only noticed her husband sitting in the passenger seat as I removed the second jumper cable.

The woman waved her thanks, leaped into the driver’s seat and sped away.

I retired indoors, feeling very good about myself. This is the Life Lesson – if you can help somebody else, then it not only restores their equanimity and gets them back on track, but it floods one’s own system with all sorts of feel-good hormones.

There was an even better sequel to this happiness.

Much later that day, I was still basking in the remaining glow of accomplishment. It propelled me while pounding rocks to even out the side path of the house. The woman (whose name I now know is Deborah) found me bashing away with a lump hammer and held out a large box of high-quality chocolates.

“You saved my marriage,” she said. I simpered, awkwardly, thinking this to be a typically English dramatic and over-the-top claim to ensure I understood how grateful she was for my small assistance. But I noted her eyes had reddened rims and she scrubbed at them with the back of her hand.

“I mean it; thank you so much.”

As an Englishman, I’m uncomfortable with displays of emotion, of course. But I couldn’t remain unmoved by such honesty.

Happy Hormones gushed forth again when I bit into the chocolates with a cup of very strong coffee, later on.

I was so full of joy, I gave the slugs a pass for that evening. Knock yourselves out, Guys… Just go easy on that lager.

My motivations were primarily selfish, I admit: some capital investment now to reap inexpensive or free energy for years to come, plus the benefit of topping up the battery overnight when mains electricity is cheaper in the UK. This last benefit comes into its own during the winter months when the sun in Britain refuses to shine brightly enough even to register as ‘shining’.

As all of you will be aware, Britain does ‘rain’ really well. We have all types known to mankind: there’s a peculiarly northern version called ‘mizzle’ – a cross between mist and very fine drizzle. Then there’s a version which is best described by saying what it does. Imagine you have just unwrapped something in your kitchen and you want to throw away the wrapping. But the kitchen waste bin is full up.

‘I’ll just nip out to the dustbin – won’t be a second.’

A glance out of the window leads you to conclude that it’s barely raining at all. Not worth putting on a raincoat. So you walk briskly towards the dustbin, dump in the bin bag, look up at the sky quickly as though to confirm your earlier assessment and return indoors.

This type of rain will have managed to soak your shirt and trousers completely in just that short space of time. ‘But I didn’t think it was raining much…’ This type is sneaky. I don’t have a name for it. Perhaps you could suggest one..?

Then there are more conventional degrees of rain – we start with proper drizzle. Then pulses of rain as clouds pass overhead, sometimes turned by strong wind into horizontal needles to attack exposed flesh. Next come serious downpours (‘Raining cats and dogs’) and finally near-Biblical monsoons. These are always brief, but somehow timed to the few seconds when you want to dash from your car into a shop. The car windscreen wipers won’t have been able to cope, even on the maximum Silly Speed. You’ll have crawled along, peering through partially misted glass, hoping none of the numerous puddles hide treacherous potholes to threaten your tyres, wheel rims and suspension.

My point is that we Brits have to make the most of those precious months of sunshine.

I’d remained with the same provider of electricity since first moving in. Like everyone else, I fumed when they raised their energy prices. But what I found most egregious was that they also raised their so-called ‘standing charge’. This is the hitherto unvarying daily amount one must pay for the privilege of being connected to the Grid.

Raising the standing charge means that even if a responsible consumer cuts back their energy consumption to the minimum, they still end up paying more …for less energy! This offends my basic sense of fairness. Why did they raise the standing charge? Do they suddenly need more vans to service the network? Have the costs of provided power sky-rocketed in the last six months?

I tried telephoning their Help Desk.

You know what’s coming, I’m sure. I endured long spells listening to cheerful, faux classical muzak, interspersed with finely modulated voices assuring me that my call was important to them. However, all their colleagues were currently helping other customers. Most callers, I was interested to learn, found immediate answers to their queries by going online to access the ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ section of the provider’s website.

Now, this particular piece of automated advice I find especially irritating. For one thing, if these questions are asked so frequently, does it not occur to the company that they might want to address the problem? Secondly, none of these ‘FAQs’ relate to what I want to know. Clearly, not enough others have a problem with their standing charges rising inexorably quarter by quarter. Or it would feature as an ‘FAQ’.

Sometimes, while waiting on hold, a call would interrupt me with a work diversion. Occasionally, my body would decide that past liquid consumption dictated a ‘natural break’. Of course, Sod’s Law would come into effect and an operative at the power company would cut the muzak and ask how they might help. By the time I returned from the bathroom, the line would be dead and I’d have to start afresh.

So frustrating.

I tried writing my concerns into an online ‘chat’ facility on the website. Apparently, the company does not employ real people to respond to these enquiries. Several maddening attempts later, during one of which I confess to throwing a slipper at the computer screen, I decided I was arguing with a computer programme. And gave up.

What to do? If I cannot speak with a sensible person or have an email exchange, I can only vote with my feet.

About this time, advertisements for another provider, ‘Octopus’, popped up on one of my media feeds. A number of my friends have expressed satisfaction at their level of service and price structure, so why don’t I change? The UK’s most-read consumer magazine, ‘Which’, recommends Octopus too.

I resolved to switch my account.

In all fairness, switching the main electricity supply to the new provider was fast and near painless. Hooray!

But because my PV array sometimes generates much more electricity than I can use or the battery will hold, my wiring setup returns that excess power to the National Grid. My provider is supposed to pay me for that power.

For reasons beyond my ken, switching this element of my account is far harder. I can do it all online. This sounds like a boon: I’m not entirely computer illiterate. But the questions asked of the consumer are technical in nature and larded with all the jargon that entails.

My ‘FIT’ application needs to be accompanied by an MCS certificate, an EPC, the original invoice from the company which supplied the photovoltaic panels, a photograph of the generation meter, either a mortgage agreement or deeds to my house, my DNO handover document and I have to choose whether the generation meter is located:

“A 2a. Between the renewable installation and the battery, meaning it only measures the output from the installation.

Or

B 2b. After both the renewable installation and the battery, but is a bi-directional meter capable of measuring input and output electricity, as well as calculating and displaying a net value reading.”

I’m amazed they didn’t want my inside leg measurement as well.

Because electrickery isn’t a strong suit for me and there seem to be an awful lot of important-looking wires connecting assorted boxes on the garage wall, I resorted to asking the company which did the installation all those years ago. Their records and customer service were exemplary. I recommend The Little Green Energy Company to anybody wanting to install electricity generation equipment.

But having agreed with the Fraud warning and pressed ‘Return’ to submit my online application, another screen appeared cautioning that Octopus are overwhelmed with people doing the same thing. I may have to wait for six weeks or so. And Heaven help me if there are errors in my documentation!

AAAAAARRRRRGGGHHH!