As we anticipated, today was wet and windy and, I suppose, we had plenty of warning that this was going to be our weather for the next few days ahead. Before we went out, I busied myself with taking an old shoe box which fortunately was narrower than most and happened to be exactly the right size, to the millimetre, to accommodate a collection of CDs. So I prettified this up by covering the sides in a grey ducktape so that it exactly matches the other cardboard box I have similarly processed. Then I went and rounded up the other Mozart CDs I have in the normal storage units and populated the new CD box I have just created. As I have about two dozen Mozart CDs, I made some little index cards dividing the whole into piano concertos/symphonies/woodwind concertos/operatic arias and I finished off with a compilations section. With the two little CD boxes sitting side by side on the kirchen unit and nicely indexed, I can rapidly put my hand on a suitable CD as the spirit takes me. We ventured out and collected our newspaper and then popped into our local Waitrose to pick up a few supplies. After that, we wondered whether to make a trip around the park but we bumped into our Irish friend so we chatted for a few minutes in the rain and then decided to go home and have our elevenses there. Then we decided to have a fairly early lunch (which was easy to prepare)and thought that when it was over and we were all washed up, we might devote putselves to the second half of the football match between England and Iran.
When we tuned in at what we thought was half-time, the first half was still in progress as the Iran goalkeeper had been injured in a clash (with one of their own players) and they had evidently tried to treat him on the pitch instead of making an immediate substitution. England were leading 3-0 at this stage and we assumed that the second half would be anything but exciting football given the half time lead. In the event, England won the match with a scoreline of 6-2 but the second Iran goal was awarded in injury time after a video review and looked doubtful to put it mildly. But politics had made its influence felt both before and during the match. The England team had wanted to wear a ‘one love’ LGBT+ armband but afer a lot of tense and fraught negotiations with FIFA, the ruling came down that the wearing of such an armband would result in a penalty to the players or at least the captain by the issue of a yellow card before the game had actually started. Then a second yellow card during the match would mean the automatic issue of a red card which would mean the offending player would be sent off and would miss the next match. In the face of this pressure the England team and probably the Welsh also decided to forego the armband but they did ‘take the knee’ without an objection from FIFA. The Iran team were even more conflicted, however, and they made the symbolic protest of not singing their own national anthem and refusing to celebrate the goals that they did score. These actions might be severely sanctioned once the World Cup is over so, I believe, the Iran players showed a lot of bravery in the stance that they took. Tonight, we have decided to break our resolution not to watch much of the football because it is Wales versus the USA and we would like to see a bit of giant-slaying take place.
Immediately after lunch, we took delivery of a piece of furniture I had espied in our local Age Concern shop and which I had noticed last Friday on my way to Pilates. This piece was rather hidden away in a corner and I suspect that if it had been given a more prominent position, it would have been snapped up very quickly. The piece was designed, I think, to accommodate a music centre or similar and inside had three shelves with two decorated glass doors which have given the whole quite a quality look. I gave the whole a good rub down with a damp sponge cloth and then finally gave it a treatment of furniture polish and it now has a pride of place in our music room. The intention is for me to store CDs and other associated audio equipment inside. The top of the unit had evidently been marked by having a music system placed on because you can still discern th marks made by the loudspeakers. But I have ameloriated this by putting a nice piece of crochet work on the top of the piece and relocating a little lamp onto the unit so that we now have aa array of occasional lighting which gives the whole music room a quiet and relaxed air. Meg and I celebrated all of this by listening to Janet Baker singing Bach cantatas (recently redicovered in the raid on my other collections of CDs)
© Mike Hart [2022]