Monday, 9th December, 2024

[Day 1729]

As I was going through my early morning routines, I turned to Sky News and discovered that only a few minutes before, Damascus, the capital of Syria, had fallen to the Syrian rebels. The various opposition groups in Syria were united in their hatred of the Bashar Assad routine which had been in power for about two decades. Damascus had fallen with 'barely a whimper' and as sometimes happens when this happens, the government troops realised the game was up and tore off their uniforms and ran away or abandoned their military bases. So far, the disparate elements of the new Syrian regime heavily dependent upon Islamic elements seem to have made all of the right noises, indicating that former government offices were not to be overrun, that the armed forces of the previous regime should be allowed to flee without any recriminations or settling of scores. One of the first acts of the victorious forces was to open up the prisons so that all of those imprisoned by the previous regime could be released. Assad's former Ally, Russia. now has some real problems because it will be eager to protect the two ports that it has and the Russians may make overtures of peace to the new regime. The states bordering Syria are Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, Turkey, and Jordan. Syria has a coastline measuring 120 miles in length and borders the Mediterranean Sea on its western side. So the implications of the fall of the Assad regime throughout the whole of the Middle Easy are immense. The Americans have so far been largely silent with an expression that whatever happens in Syria is nothing to do with the USA but the USA does have strategic concerns in the area and so policy might emerge from the Trump regime when it takes power. The geopolitics of a key ally of Russia being swept away and the fact that Syria borders Lebanon makes the situation one of almost complete unpredictability. One argument which is just about surfacing tis that the Americans may, if they so choose, have an opportunity to dislodge Russia from the region and thereby gain an advantage over them. But of course, the most thing that must happen is for a relatively stable Syrian government to be formed, unlike what happened in Iraq when the whole society descended into hostile and opposing groups after the fall of Sadam ussein. There are video images, which we might expect, of some of the population looting the former presidential palace and helping themselves without hindrance to some ill-gotten gains. News emerged late in the afternoon that Assad sought refuge in Moscow where, presumably, he will stay for the rest of his natural days and one has to wonder if he can only be an embarrassment to the Russians from this point of time onwards. Some very rapid footwork is now called for in the liberal Western democracies. At least one military analyst has opined that the rebels in Syria bore more of the hallmarks of a liberationist force rather than a terrorist organisation which is still the official designation of the Syrian rebel forces. It may take some time for the UK government to recognise the new regime but, in many ways, the sooner the better. Incidentally, what are American forces doing in Syria giving some indirect support to the former Assad regime?

We watched some of the political programmes this morning, as we generally do. But I had consulted the TV schedules and discovered that the James Martin cookery and magazine programme into which we tuned the day before on ITV was repeated a day later on ITV4. I was quite keen to see his tips on how to take the stress of preparing the vegetables on Christmas day to make a stress free Christmas day and so managed to watch the whole of this item. Insofar as I can summarise it, it seems that one boils the vegetables (or parboils) them vigorously and then plunge them into ice-cold water (melting ice and water) to keep the colour and texture the following day. Then it is quite easy to bring them to the boil and serve them straight away. According to James Martin, this is a chef's trick deployed up and down the country to have plenty of vegetables to serve for Sunday dinners for example so I might give this a go this way - or even try a little experiment first. After our TV viewing, we telephoned our University of Birmingham friend and then made our way down the hill for our customary Sunday morning chat. Whilst we were in the store, we had a look at the range of soft drinks, thinking about the party we will have been throwing in about a fortnight's time. I notice that Gordons, the gin manufacturers, were selling something in their own shape and colour of bottle which was non-alcoholic and was probably best described as non-alcoholic gin. So I bought a bottle of this 'on spec' and will have a little taste later on to see if this lives up to its promise. Waitrose also had a range of some quite exotic non-alcoholic drinks so I may purchase some of these bit by bit to build up our stocks before the big day. One of the lunchtime carers asked of she could bring her 9-year old daughter to the party to which I readily assented as I thought that the little girl and Meg might be able to read children's stories to each other from our supply of books. Thinking about the party, I had earlier in the day repurposed and decorated a spare little blank hardback notepad which I already had so that visitors to the party can sign in their names and leave a little Christmas message which I can then read and re-read to Meg as the occasion demands.

The weather was tolerable on the way down but turned into a rather nasty icy blast on the way back home. As is by now customary when we have both got a little chilled, we regaled our selves with a cup full of soup upon our return and then started to think about Sunday lunch. This was easy to prepare today because we had retrieved the other half of a pre-cooked beef joint so we just had to make some onion gravy and then ate the beef with some fine beans and a baked potato.In the mid-afternoon, we were very pleasantly surprised to received an unexpected gift of flowers from one of my nieces with a delightful message inside so I must acknowledge their safe receipt as soon as I can. The afternoon concluded by watching a further episode of the Hardy 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' where developments come a-plenty as the novel draws to its conclusion.