After my successful installation of the Amazon Dot the other day, I was tempted to buy its cheaper cousin which is called the Amazon Pop. This has one or two features which I will never miss such as a temperature sensor and a touch control but the software driving Alexa is identical and the speakers are of comparable quality. I ordered a white model which will blend into our kitchen and it was very easy to install. I think, though, that having two devices I am enrolled in a more expensive 'Family Plan' so I found a way to cheapen this by threaten to leave whereupon the system delays your cancellation and gives you an extra three months 'gratis' to encourage you to stay on that particular subscription. But to my ears the quality of the sound playing orchestral pieces is the same although some of the cognoscenti in the more specialised reviews of the two products compared with each other feel that there may be a difference in the rendition of the bass at high volume levels which is hardly going to bother me.
Late on Friday evening and by prior arrangement, I contact into contact with my University of Winchester friend - we generally have an extended chat at least once a month and swap stories about the condition of our respective wives, which seem to parallel each other. On this occasion we used the videolink available via WhatsApp and after one or two initial glitches we spent our customary hour and a half chatting with each other. This almost most welcome and then I feel into my bed with alacrity. But this morning, when I woke up, I felt absolutely dire with classic cold and flu symptoms of feeling cold, shivering, feeling a tremendously lassitude and generally the feeling of walking through treacle. I dosed myself up on the proprietary 'Cold and Flue' relief sachets of which I always have some in stock for occasions such as this and started to feel a smidgeon less bad as a result. I made a double portion of porridge so that Meg could have one half and myself the other and then made a lightning visit to collect my copy of the Saturday newspaper which I felt I needed as it gives a guide to the week ahead. So I spent a very quiet in the armchair all this morning, whilst Meg herself seemed comfortable enough in her newly installed specialist chair into which she had placed by the carers as we were evidently not going to go anywhere with me feeling like this. About lunchtime, I got a phone call from our friend who lives down the road who used to make up all of the flowers for our local church. She still is an expert in making Christmas wreaths at a very reasonable price and she was phoning up to enquire whether I should like to have a couple this year to decorate our porch. I did immediately assent to this suggestion although, in all honesty, I am trying not to utter the dreaded Christmas word until tomorrow which happens to be 1st December.
I cooked a risotto for lunch yesterday but succeeded in cooking too much of it, even though I made efforts to keep the quantity down. But I have stored the excess in the freezer and will make a present of it to the young Asian care worker who enjoys cooking and has promised me some of the pasta he is preparing for himself. After lunch, we watched a film on Prime TV on the life of Manet and the rest of the French impressionists. After that, Prime took us into a type of American romantic comedy which I dozed almost all the way through (still feeling rough) so couldn't cast an opinion on it one way or the other. When the two young carers (whose company we really enjoy) turned up this afternoon, I showed them the book which I had accidentally stumbled across in the bookshelf in the Living Room. This was a book entitled 'The 100 - a ranking of the most influential persons in History' and the author was one Michael Hart. I managed to persuade one of them for about a second that I was the actual author of this book and the reason why it was sitting on my bookshelves is that I evidently could not resist buying it when I must have seen it in a bookshop decades earlier. Just before they left, I showed them my newly installed Amazon Echo Pop smart speaker and they, in their turn, showed mr a photo of how Miggles, our adopted cat, had taken up position on the bonnet of my car and was sitting patently for the carers to arrive in the late afternoon. Meg and I still have the second half of the Thomas Hardy 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' to view when we get around to it on BBC catchup but in the late afternoons we often have a quiet contemplative time, drinking a cup of tea and indulging in a little dark chocolate whilst listening to some good music on the Amazon Echo Dot system or YouTube. As I write I am actually enjoying the Beethoven 'Moonlight' sonata which is calming in the extreme. Then we are contemplating a specialist rice pudding for our tea and then an early night for me, once the blog is completed.
On the international scene, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has suggested to Sky News that he might consent to Russia temporarily holding on to occupied Ukrainian territory as part of a ceasefire deal. This would involve membership of NATO including the occupied parts of Ukraine but I do not think this would prove acceptable to all of the other NATO countries. As the war is going against him. I think Zelenskyy is arguing from a position of weakness rather than strength but perhaps he has a feeling that Trump may enforce this deal once he takes office in January. I suspect that Putin just has to keep making small incremental advances before the Ukrainians trade territory for peace. But there was a report that Russia had a loss of 200 soldiers in the last week so the war must be taking its toll. Tomorrow, I am sure that there will be pages of analysis of the implementation of the Assisted Dying bill which passed through the House of Commons with a majority of 55. I can foresee even more tightening up to take place at the committee stages and, of course, we still have the House of Lords and the ultimate possibility of a 'ping pong' between the Lords and the Commons. We have grown used to this over the years but an issue of this importance and magnitude and no real democratic mandate from the House of Commons (not being part of an election manifesto) then this may take the best part of a couple of years to fully resolve.
© Mike Hart [2024]