art

by

Compassionate, caring Tories? Not with this Cabinet.

Balls patiently waiting for levers.

We supported Liz Truss winning the previous Whose Gonna Be The Next Prime Minister competition because we predicted she would sink the Conservative Party. She amply demonstrated her lack of understanding of conventional economics in the leadership debates and correctly anticipated that Conservative party members innate racism and credulity would see her through. The party members duly disengaged their brains and didn’t vote for the right winger who wasn’t promising tax cuts and also had the disadvantage of having a brown skin. The fact that he was reasonably competent and economically literate failed to be a pertinent issue.

With Liz Truss’s demise, Tory MPs acted quickly to neuter a second crazy decision by party members and rapidly voted for Rishi Sunak despite a last ditch attempt by showman and chancer Boris Johnson to regain office.

Now Sunak, as Prime Minister, is appointing his cabinet and revealing his true Tory credentials. Shockingly he has reappointed Suella Braverman as Home Secretary and Therese Coffey has become Environment secretary. Braverman, at a fringe meeting of the recent Conservative Party conference, laughingly commented that her dream was to see a headline Telegraph picture of a jet carrying immigrants and asylum seekers to Rwanda for out of country processing and decision making. Therese Coffey in her former role of Health Secretary made a mockery of her position by openly smoking, revealing she shared her own unwanted antibiotics with friends and suggested nurses could leave the profession if they weren’t happy with their pay rise. She also asserted the UK could recruit nurses from abroad. Oh yeah? What havoc will she reap on the environment? Gavin Williamson has been appointed Minister Without Portfolio, or, in other words, cabinet teaboy.

Sunak himself, this year, cheerfully stated that he thought there was nothing wrong with transferring money away from poorer areas to more well off areas.

Steven Baker becomes Health Secretary. Another right winger with a record of voting for underfunding, and setting unachievable targets for, the NHS.

Twelve years of Tory rule, partisan class politics and tepid economic growth. We are again faced with another swingeing round of cuts and austerity on top of a cost of living crisis. Tory economic policy has failed disastrously. They should call an election immediately.

I went for a 5k run yesterday after I decided to cut my bisoprolol from 7.5mgs to 5mgs a few days earlier. It had tripled to 7.5mgs following onset of atrial fibrillation but I felt I was more breathless on exertion and more tired with the increase recently. The run felt less of an effort and I feel I have a little extra energy. I’m taking my blood pressure several times a day and it remains within healthy limits. I probably would do parkrun again if I had more motivation. Part of the problem is that Milton Country Park did not bring parkrun back after the covid lockdown and the other runs are some distance away. It shouldn’t be a problem but for the present I seem to have lost my running mojo.

by

Johnson’s Tories still banjax Great Britain. Local elections could help to change balance of power if our cognitively impaired electorate wake up.

Music courtesy of Philip Glass

Yes, rotating wooden balls fixed to metal rods. And why not? It’s relaxing, quirky and has a retro feel. You know where you are with a wooden sphere. It’s entirely complete and uncomplicated. But are a cascade of moving, swivelling balls art? Of course. Art encompasses great technical skill, possessed by relatively few people, who execute a visually realistic interpretation or an advanced creative depiction that few people would seek to question as a high art form. But art can equally encompass non traditional forms which appear low on the spectrum of high art but include elements which pose questions and challenge preconceptions or express dissent or shock. Is there a line that needs to be drawn when you talk about art? Who gets on their high horse and why? Why do art installations appear to polarise opinion? Do left and right leaning people like radically different creative styles? If you are over seventy, are you much less likely to enjoy or appreciate abstract and modern art? These aren’t original questions and what constitutes art encapsulates myriad discussions and nuanced argument. Do I care? Not really. I accept art is all things to all people What’s more interesting is the vehemence, prejudice and passive-aggression with which views are expressed. Or the absence of active interest in art or creative activity. Poor, unbalanced people!

Music courtesy of Philip Glass

More musical balls.

I last posted in February, two weeks or so before the Cambridge half marathon. This went well, in the main. No surprises, a steady pace and a bit slower than the last Cambridge half in October 2021. I also did the nearby Cambourne 10k in April and met up with some old running pals. I used to see them regularly when parkrun was on at Milton Country Park but with the demise of that venue {gnashing of teeth} contact is intermittent. Still, I’m continuing to run 30-35k a week so I’m doing okay. This includes running with my Cottenham pal ,Rob, in an adjacent village.

Boris Johnson’s luck has yet to run out which, with a bit of reflection, isn’t surprising. Has has no moral compass and he has surrounded himself with supporters that either can’t tell right from wrong or don’t care or have no qualms lying through their teeth. Whether its blithely denying participation in illegal lockdown parties, explaining why they sent thousands of elderly patients from hospital back to their care homes, untested for covid, and causing tens of thousands of preventable deaths, pretending they a have any sympathy or understanding for the ordinary working man or devising schemes to transport refugees/migrants to Rwanda permanently (out of sight, out of mind, cost undisclosed, plaudits from xenophobes, racists and fascists everywhere), you can always depend on the Tories to convincingly defend the indefensible and without a hint of shame or remorse.