Today dawned bright and fair but the minute after I got and breakfasted, I needed to phone the firm that services our BioDisk (sewage treatmnt apparatus) to complain that the visit planned for yesterday had failed to materialise and, moreover, they had failed to return my call during the day. I was then informed that the engineer was on his way only to get a telephone call a few minutes later to inform me that their engineer had phoned in sick and then they would try and get somebody with me tomorrow. Later in the morning, I received a telephone call from the engineer himself who told me that he had been injured the day before at work but now promised me that he would be with me at about 9am in the morning. We shall wait and see but I am not holding my breath. Nonetheless, Meg and I collected our newspaper and then made our normal Tuesday morning trip to Waitrose café where we expected to meet up with some of our long standing acquaintances. We were not disappointed and met up with Seasoned World Traveller on the one hand and one of our pre-pandemic Waitrose friends on the other. Seasoned World Traveller left me with an interesting, but cynical, observation that ‘every man has his price’ What I did not appreciate until I did a bit of Googling is that there is a massive argument in moral and social philosophy which particularly well discussed by Kant. The origins of the expression can be traced back to Greek thought but it seems that the modern expression of this sentiment can be traced back to Sir Robert Walpole in 1734 was castigating corrupt members of Parliament, whom he called pretended patriots, and said ‘All those men have their price’. After we had made our way home, we tuned in to ‘The Politics Programme‘ on BBC2 starting at midday which I watched for a few minutes before I walked down into town for my usual Tuesday Pilates class. Then it was home and our usual meal of haddock fish cakes which are easily and quickly prepared for when I get home at just about 3.00.
This afternoon, I had a fairly pleasant surprise. I walked down the steps into the lower bit of garden which I call ‘Mog’s Den’ because I suspected that some of the apple trees I had planted down there might have come to fruition. The apple trees were hardly expensive at about £2.00 each but were planted some years ago now. But one of them was absolutely laden with apples and although I think from the greenness of the fruit they might all be cooking apples rather than eaters, we can always make them into a nice compôte which we can eat either with ice cream and/or some yogurt or custard if the weather turns out colder. I always try to keep the apples on the trees as long as possible but mid-October seems a good time to pick my crop as I am anxious that after a really stormy night it is possible for most of the crop might fall and I lose the major part of it. I quite like to go down to Asda at this time of year and ‘liberate’ one of those large shallow cardbox boxed in which the Asda fruit is often supplied. I find that this type of cardboard box disappears like snowballs in June so I need to make that a priority tomorrow.
Some interesting poll news has just been published by Sky News. A YouGov poll of Tory members found 55% would now vote for Rishi Sunak, who lost out to Lizz Truss, if they were able to vote again, while just 25% would vote for Lizz Truss. The poll found 55% of members think she should resign now, while 38% believe she should remain. So this is a fairly massive case of ‘buyers remorse’ but I am amazed by some of the ‘vox pop’ I have heard with Conservative party members when the news media have descended upon them. More than one has said that they liked and approved of Liz Truss and her policy stances which only goes to show, I suppose, that members like this are as economically naive as their chosen candidate was. I wonder, though, whether there is a growing realisation in both the Conservative and the Labour parties that putting a choice before the constituency parties means that an extreme left candidate like Corbyn or an extreme right candidate like Truss will always be voted in (as the constituency parties tend to be populated by the extreme left in the case of Labour and the libertarian right/Bexit supporting in the case of the Tories). Tomorrow will be fascinating as it is Prime Ministers Questions at midday and if Liz Truss performs poorly, then pressure to replace her will surely only increase, perhaps beyond the tipping point for the majority of Tory MPs.
© Mike Hart [2022]