On Saturday in the late afternoon, we watched the England-Ireland rugby match which was one of the first in the series when the outcome could not be predicted with any certainty. The England team made a roaring start, almost playing the Irish at their own game with lightning-fast tackles and a ferocious efforts in the breakdowns. By half time, England had a lead of 10-5 which they sustained in the early part of the second half. But the Irish gradually got their act together and eventually overhauled England with a fairly convincing victory. So, on present form, the two teams that will slug it out for the head of the table will be Ireland and France and England, despite a promising start, will probably end up in the middle of the table. I think there are more games next weekend and then a fortnight's break, probably to lick wounds and to recover from injuries. Naturally the press is seizing upon every word of analysis of the horrendous air crash in Washington and the other night there was a press conference held b the National Transportation and Safety Board who have the responsibility to investigate the cash for probably causes. An anomaly has come to light which is, as yet, unexplained and that is the altitudes at which the two aircraft collided. the 'black box' recovered from the airliner shows that the airliner was travelling at a height of 325 feet, plus or minus 25feet. But preliminary data in the air traffic control tower showed the Black Hawk helicopter at 200ft at the time and the discrepancy has yet to be explained. Any explanation must be speculative at this time, but a possibility is that either one or even both of the recording instruments was incorrectly calibrated and perhaps giving false pictures for years. Having said that, one assumes that the airliner's data has to be the most accurate but if I had to make a guess at this stage it is that the airport's own radar navigational aid giving a reading of 200 feet is erroneous. This story will run and run and no doubt will dominate the media all day long.
After I had breakfasted Meg this morning on her customary porridge, I was pleased to have found a slightly different way of getting fluid into Meg which is so problematic these days. Some time ago when Meg and I used to roam the charity shops I picked up a dinky little coffee cup which was only 6cm tall and 6 cm wide at the top. This was adorned as a 'Present from San Francisco' but I picked i t up form 50p and have tended to use it, for example, to convey pills from to place or to give her a little yogurt, I have found that if I fill up Meg's feeder cup, I then use it as a 'source' cop for the tiny little one which, as it so small and fine, Meg finds easier. Using this, I managed to get some soup into Meg this morning and later on some fruit juice. Shortly after 10.00am, I popped down in the car to pick up a copy of the Sunday newspaper and in the course of my journey get a phone call from our University of Birmingham friend. He popped around in half an hour and we spent a very happy hour and a half talking over our favourite subjects which includes statistics, cosmology and various scientific subjects in between that happen to take our fancy. Then it was time for the carer to call so our friend took his leave, and I assisted the carer (her 'double up' having gone home sick) Then it was a case of cooking dinner, and I had some chicken legs to prepare but I was a bit short of time. So, I resurrected some pork mince from the freezer, fried this with some onions and added an onion gravy enhanced by brown fruity sauce and I was delighted that I managed to get the whole of Meg's portion into her. Immediately after lunch, Meg and I watched a sort of travelogue about a couple traversing the Yorkshire Dales and looking at the traditional industries in some of the Dales villages (such as rope ,manufacturer and curd making) Then Meg and I started to watch again the Austen production os 'Sense and Sensibility' which was punctuated by the rugby yesterday and during which I managed to sleep a good portion. When Meg was in bed last night, I notices a little advertised film version of 'Emma' which I have seen before but for which I have a particular feeling (not always favourable) as it is the play I studied for my GCE in English Literature from 1960-1961.
Since Donald Trump has instituted trade sanctions against both Canada and Mexico, both have responded with trade sanctions of their own. The conventional wisdom amongst economists is that one sanctions have been exchanged on a tit-for-tat basis, then all parties to the sanctions end up being the poorer. Whether this will be so in this case will take some months to resolve but for the moment, the UK seems to have escaped the wrath of Donald Trump. Also on the economic sphere, we are now at the fifth anniversary of Brexit and what opinion polls have been collected seem to indicate that the majority of Britons now regret the decision to leave but are unsure what any new and more sophisticated with Europe is likely to be. Keir Starmer is very nervous about the public reaction if the UK were to enter into any closer association with Europe, but closer ties are now being explored such as the possibility of some student exchanges. But the current Labour government will not endorse any move that could be interpreted (by the right-wing press, naturally) as a betrayal of Brexit and the reintroduction of the mobility of labour provisions. It is a particular irony, though, that since the implementation of Brexit, many of the migrant workers who have returned to Europe are white (Poland, Latvia etc,) whereas the majority of the newly arrived and quite legal immigrants who are staffing our care services are from countries such as Nigeria. Is this what the xenophobes who fuelled the Brexit debate actually had in mind?