Perverts, Tories, and Glaciation

Wake around seven fifteen, the sun is just below the horizon and there is either a very heavy dew, or a frost, on the long grass in the field beyond the garden. I carry Norman outside to see the sun rising, blood red, to the south and east, he feigns indifference and when I set him down in the garden the grass is wet with dew. So no frost last night then. As I serve our breakfast, somehow I manage to up end my new frying pan and deposit breakfast all over the floor. Fortunately most of it is recoverable and the little that remains is soon meticulously cleared away by Normy. After breakfast, I sit and drink coffee in the garden room and watch the morning unfold whilst I listen to the news. Jimmy Saville's family have had his gravestone removed from Woodlands cemetery in Scarborough after the revelations about his alleged sexual abuse of young girls. I have often walked through that cemetery, as it connects with Peasholm Park and provides a lovely walk from Columbus Ravine down to the sea. His gravestone has only been up for a couple of months and so I have never seen it. Louis Theroux made a program about Saville several years ago and he came across as very secretive and very narcissistic. A paradigm of post modern media culture, famous only for being famous, and seeking only fame. It seems he was incapable of any close personal relationship and his use of the title, the Duchess, for his mother is probably very telling. A very sad and lonely man. We pick up the other dogs and arrive on the Westwood for a quarter to ten, the high pressure is holding, for now at least, and it is another lovely day. We see Jan Morrison and her Dachshund, Toffee, in Newbegin Pits and a few other regular dog walkers, as we make our way up to Black Mill. I was still bringing up lots of phlegm after breakfast and so decided against swimming for a few more days. We extend our walk again, as far as the hedge that forms the western boundary of the common. Here we turn north and follow its length across the Newbald Road all the way to Burton Bushes, where we skirt round the edge of the wood until we arrive at the path that leads past the racecourse and back to the car. On our way back to Cherry we call at Walkington Manor Farm shop and buy a dozen free range eggs. I intend to christen my new omelette pan later. After dropping Dolly and Teddy at Two Riggs, Norman and I drive straight home, we are both very thirsty after our fry up and the long walk. I give him a bowl of water and some biscuits and I make a pot of tea and suddenly I am reminded of Grandma Oldroyd and her love for dripping bread with sprinkled with salt. I don't have the dripping from a joint, but the fat from the fry up is just as good, so I make three slices of whole meal dripping bread and eat it with my tea, sitting in the garden. Wherever you are, God Bless you Grandma Oldroyd. I do another puzzle while I let my lunch go down and let my legs recover from the walk, then meditate for an hour. The car needs a good clean, so I spend a while vacuuming it out and then cleaning the windows and leather upholstery. The combination of transporting Louis and the dogs takes its toll, but to be fair, I do have a fleece throw that completely covers the back seat. The car also needs filling up with diesel, so I drive to Morrison's petrol station and then spend a fiver on a hand car wash at a place just round the corner, that also used to be a filling station. The supermarkets have put nearly all the independant fuel retailers out of business and they now manipulate petrol prices for their own ends. Morrison's offer large discounts on fuel if you buy their gift tokens. It is time the supermarkets oligopoly of fuel was investigated and hopefully broken up. I text Andrew while the car is being cleaned to see if he wants to go to the cinema, but he has to prepare for a board meeting tomorrow and can't spare the time. I drive back to Tickton in my clean car, calling at the pharmacy adjacent to the doctors to collect my prescription. They have left off the anti inflammatory tablets I asked for, but the surgery is jam packed so I will leave it until tomorrow before I reorder. Norman is waiting for his dinner when I get in, so I feed him and then take him for his walk down to the bridge. The sun is setting and without its warmth it is starting to become quite cold in the evenings, so I have put on my scarf and gloves. We are ten to fifteen minutes earlier tonight than yesterday and the pipistrelles have yet to come out. The extra exercise is having a beneficial effect on Norman and I can see the extra muscle and condition in his coat. When we get in I put the oven on to heat up, make a tossed salad, put some oven chips on a baking tray and then whisk up four eggs for my omelette. It was, perhaps, one large egg too many for the small omelette pan and I break the omelette whilst folding it over before serving. Nevertheless it tasted fine and despite requests from Norman, I ate the lot. David Cameron has made a speech in the style of Margaret Thatcher, saying he isn't for turning either and saying the Tory party are still a one nation party. However when you look at the policies, it's the same old nasty party. Tax cuts for the rich, benefit cuts for the poor and relentless assaults on workers rights. It's a shame we have to wait until 2015 to vote the buggers out! After dinner I follow up on something Leslie and I were discussing when I visited him in hospital. Malenkovich's theories on glaciation, how the earth has repeatedly tipped into ice ages over the last several million years. Interglacial warm periods last for between ten to fifteen thousand years and it is now over twelve thousand years since the last glaciation. In other words a new ice age is imminent in geological timescales. Neither Leslie or I could recall having heard or read anything about the economic and social consequences of another glaciation, nor had we read anywhere that global warming might be a positive thing, at least in so much as it delays or prevents another ice age. A quick search on Google brought up a few interesting articles, one by the late Fred Hoyle and his Indian collaborator from 1999 advocating more greenhouse gases to prevent glaciation, but also a more recent article in the National Geographic, repeated on the BBC science website, stating that the next glaciation would occur within the next fifteen hundred years but global warming, through greenhouse gases, has probably deferred this by several thousand years. The consensus view seemed to be that sea levels would rise significantly due to global warming in the short to medium term, (50 to 100 years), and that another glaciation would occur once carbon dioxide levels subside after all the fossil fuel is exhausted. There were relatively few hits on the subject of global warming vs glaciation, but millions on global warming. It appears that public discussion has become heavily politicised and any heterodox views seem to cast their authors into the same category as holocaust deniers. This is hardly helpful or scientific. The advice that flows from this is that in the medium term live on high ground and in the long term head south! Later I iron the last of my winter shirts, I have some really good shirts still unironed, but they require cuff links, and as I only ever wear suits for funerals these days, they are going into a box in the garage. Rain is forecast for tomorrow, but with luck, I may get the dogs out before it starts. I will need to get up early, to bed at eleven fifteen.