The picture featured in the Raj Quartet featuring Queen Victoria as Empress of India
It’s now Thursday August 31st, 2023. Kia ora!
Things still aren’t great for me. I met my cousin for lunch on Monday (she picked me up); I didn’t go anywhere on Tuesday, although I had expected to. Yesterday (Wednesday) I had an appointment for a thyroid scan at Wellington Hospital. I had an injection first, which was administered by a trainee; I hope it worked all right; there was some doubt about whether it got in correctly. The scan went fine, although it was very tiring. Afterwards, JD picked me up. Sadly, Wishbone is closed; awful as it was, you miss it when it’s not there.
Beforehand, we had avocado and tomato on toast for lunch. When well-seasoned, it’s delicious.
Afterwards we did some shopping in Churton Park and bought scones for afternoon tea.
Last night we watched a rendition of King Lear on television on Youtube, filmed in 1983. It starred Laurence Olivier as Lear, Diana Rigg as Regan, John Hurt as the Fool – a wonderful performance. What a treat! Lord Olivier was a marvellous actor here, as in Brideshead Revisited. The lines from this tragedy are so magnificent, so memorable….I first studied it at Wellington Girls’ College in my upper Sixth form year. We studied Shakespeare’s use of language, and the parallel themes of Lear’s story and Gloucester’s story; good versus evil; age versus youth; human comfort and luxury versus basic existence; and of course wisdom versus folly. I feel as though I know this great play quite well. There has never been any suggestion of child abuse, or of bad parenting.
The reason I watched this performance of Lear was that I’m on an email list from Mother Jones, and one of the writers had read Lear, and been greatly affected by it, not having had much time for it at school when she was a student. She added the link to the performance, which we watched.
This afternoon we went up to the local café for lunch. Then I got a text from a friend whom I haven’t seen for ages, to meet her later on this afternoon. Both outings were very enjoyable, but goodness, I don’t feel great just yet.
It’s now Friday September 1st.
This afternoon someone from Access is due to come and do some cleaning. I’ve finally got this re-established! Of course, I’m a bit nervous; this is someone I haven’t met before, and I need to show her where everything is. But she’s lovely, and I’m very grateful to have the bathrooms cleaned and the floors mopped.
It’s now Saturday September 2nd.
It’s a beautiful fine day today. We went shopping to New World in Thorndon; it was very busy there, but we got most of what we wanted.
Last night we rewatched the first three episodes of The Jewel in the Crown, another old BBC television series filmed with great dedication. It’s hard to watch, though – you see British rule at its worst, in my view, and any brave souls who attempt to “cross the river” and have some meaningful interaction, are doomed to the scorn of the other British people. This is hard to watch, but interesting, nonetheless.
In the US, there is a chaotic number of trials and hearings as some defendants seek early trials, with or without severance from other trials; all the time things are getting worse for Trump and his co-conspirators, and they are pretty chaotic in Georgia. In Georgia, everything is different: republicans, justice and court procedures are different, the Fulton County jail is truly awful, and people die there without having been condemned to death. Mark Meadows chose to testify, and this has been deemed to be an unwise move. The Trump trial will be televised and livestreamed; in New York, AG Letitia James has determined that Trump greatly overvalued his properties for tax purposes; and so on. Conservative legal moves to say Trump is ineligible to run for President again are being taken more and more seriously. Are republicans starting to turn against Trump?
Meanwhile, both Tim Miller of the Bulwark and Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times, both respected journalists, said that Biden was the best president in their lifetime! Now that is really something.
It’s now Thursday again, September 7th.
I haven’t written for a few days. I’m still not going anywhere much, and continuing to cancel my regular activities. I am trying, though. On Monday we went into town so JD could get a blood test, and afterwards we had lunch at Picnic Café at the Rose Garden and Begonia House. I had creamy mushrooms on toast, and afterwards had a brief look at the Begonia House. I had last been there years ago when some American visitors visited there. But the Begonia House was not nearly as wonderful as I remembered it, and there were very few water lilies in the lily pond. Afterwards, we went home and I had an asthma attack and then heartburn, which I haven’t had for years.
On Wednesday we went to The Borough in Tawa for lunch, where I had Croque Monsieur, and an oat milk latté. Then we came home. This morning the group I sing with is giving a concert at a rest home in Crofton Downs; I was offered a lift there by two of my friends, but declined; I didn’t have a great night, and although I knew the songs, I didn’t want to go somewhere I hadn’t been before. These concerts are always challenging!
Overseas, there are crises: in Great Britain, the RAAC concrete crisis where schools were warned the day before they were due to resume after the long summer break, that this concrete formed a risk, and they should advise the Education Ministry if they were affected. But it seems that NHS hospitals and courts may also be affected. This is a major crisis, since the previous Labour government had a program of rebuilding schools, which was severely cut by the incoming Tory government, when Rishi Sunak was Treasurer. Oh dear, the secretary for education Jillian Keegan, was holidaying – somewhere – and because of airplane difficulties (Air Traffic Control?) she couldn’t get back before the questionnaire went out. She was later interviewed on television, and a hot mike caught her swearing, after the interview, and upset at not being told she was doing a good job. Well, that didn’t go down well at all. The Tories look absolutely tone deaf and uncaring on this issue; parents and teachers and principals of course are outraged, and complain of mice and leaks and lack of repairs on LBC radio. In New Zealand, this type of concrete was not used, apparently.
In the US, Trump’s popularity remains undimmed, in the polls. The court cases are turning into a morass, with Sidney Powell and the lawyer Kenneth Chesebro asking for early trials. A Café insider podcast called it “Musical Trials”. There is lots of evidence, which is interesting, of course; meanwhile, Trump is to pay damages to E. Jean Carroll for defaming her; the question, is how much? Meanwhile, another Mar-a-Lago employee has agreed to testify against Trump. Sidney Powell’s lawyer argues that she really had nothing to do with Trump’s attempt to hold on to power: remember all the strange people that were charged under Robert Mueller? The coffee boys? Wasn’t Sidney Powell going to be named as Special Counsel? Didn’t she appear at a press conference with Rudolf Giuliani? Didn’t she claim that Hugo Chavez, long dead, had influence the election against Trump? Wasn’t she called crazy by a Trump ally?
Oh, and Enrique Tarrio, leader of the Proud Boys, has been sentenced to 22 years in prison, the longest January 6 defendant sentence yet. Last week there were two lengthy prison sentences as well.
On television, we have been watching episodes of The Jewel in the Crown on television. This has inspired me to reread the Raj Quartet, which is very readable. It interests me how stratified societies are, both the English in India, and the Indians themselves, where the divisions between Hindu and Muslim are just the beginning. Even English people who are sympathetic to Indian people, like Miss Edwina Crane, Daphne Manners, or Sarah Layton, and would like to be friends, don’t know how to communicate without giving offence, with either English of Indian society. Everyone presents in a certain way, but they also hide a great deal. We have situations where Lady Chatterjee, whose husband, now deceased, was honoured by the English King, was not allowed to go to certain areas, of the hospital run by the English, for example. Everything is stratified, and at mission schools children are taught “There’s a Friend for Little Children, Above the bright blue sky”, implying that God cares about them, despite seemingly overwhelming evidence to the contrary; and then taught about Queen Victoria, Empress of India; it’s hard to see any problem resolution here, although it’s evident that some British people love India and its range of expressions of spirituality. I don’t doubt that God is Good, and loves and cares about us all; there are many situations that I don’t have answers to, although some governments are much more egalitarian than others in handling the many problems caused by poverty.
In Ukraine, the war continues, rather badly, I think; although Ukrainian forces are having some success, Russia continues to attack cities in Ukraine, killing and maiming citizens reach time. The Russians have planted heaps of mines, sometimes three deep. On the other hand, Ukrainian drones, made from cardboard, have damaged several expensive Russian planes. And so it goes on, brutal as ever. I think one has to agree that despite Ukrainian successes, it is very hard to get the Russians out where they have seized territory.
In the US, with reference to the various trials, things have got pretty confusing in Georgia. There was a hearing, which was televised, so we saw the backs of lawyers’ heads, and the judge. The judge seems to be doing a remarkably good job, although he’s new to being a judge, and he’s quite young. It seems that Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell both want early trials, but not together. That’s understandable. I’ll quote Benjamin Wittes, from an email newsletter:
“So, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell will be tried together on Oct. 23 in Fulton County court, assuming the racketeering case against them and Donald J. Trump and a bunch of others remains in Fulton County court and doesn’t get removed to federal court—which remains to be seen. They will be tried together, despite wanting to be tried separately, but they will be tried separately from the other 17 co-defendants—including Trump—unless, that is, District Attorney Fani Willis can convince the judge to keep them all together, which seems unlikely but isn’t yet certain.
Or something like that.”
If Ben Wittes is confused, I’ll bow to that.
It’s now Friday September 8th.
It’s beautiful fine, warm, sunny day today. My new lady from Access came to do some housework, which was much appreciated.
Last night we watched “Staying On”, a film based on the novel Staying On by Paul Scott, a follow up to his Raj Quartet. I had watched it years ago, but I hadn’t remembered how sad it was. It was written by and had different characters from the earlier, mega series, although some of the settings seemed the same.
Today I learnt that Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade adviser for a time, has been held in contempt of Congress on two counts.
As it’s Thursday in the US, the Bulwark podcast was another weekly episode of the Trump Trials series where Charlie Sykes gets to speak with Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare, and whoever Ben brings with him – perhaps Anna Bower, or Roger Parloff, who was on this morning. It’s good to hear Wittes explain legal stuff to Charlie; I have a lot of time for Ben Wittes, although the American legal stuff can be amazingly frustrating.
That’s it for now. Slava Ukraini! Ngā mihi nui.
Classic Barbarian 