What I've been reading

A Calamity of Souls
by David Baldacci

narrated by Cary Hite, Kiiri Sandy, MacLeod Andrews, Sisi Aisha Johnson

"Set in the tumultuous year of 1968 in southern Virginia, a racially-charged murder case sets a duo of white and Black lawyers against a deeply unfair system as they work to defend their wrongfully-accused Black defendants in this courtroom drama."

I can't work out why I picked this book - it's very recent and not on any of my lists. Someone must have recommended it, and I'm glad they did because it's a fantastic read. I often have trouble with remembering characters and plot in the audio format, but not with this - and I made time just to sit and listen to find out what happens next. And it has a proper ending to the trial, even if the end of the book is a little contrived.

Blackout
by Connie Willis

"Oxford, England in 2060. A trio of time travelling scholars prepare to depart for various corners of the Second World War. Their mission: to observe, from a safe vantage point, the day-to-day nature of life during this critical historical moment."

Connie Willis has written two of my all-time favourite books (To Say Nothing of the Dog and Doomsday Book) but this one is a stinker. And the worst thing about it is that it's only Part 1 of the story and there's a whole other book I now have to read to finish it, and the second worst thing is that this one is 610 pages long (that's nearly an inch and a half thick) and the second half is 793 pages (an inch and three quarters), and it's all so annoying. She seems so proud of knowing the geography of London and which tube stations are on which lines and how to get from one to another that she spends whole chapters describing how to get from Bond Street to Piccadilly Circus by changing at Oxford Circus. Sometimes I have stress dreams about not being able to get to somewhere because of a road block or a train delay or because I can't run fast enough in my dream - well, this is a whole book just about that, with scenes of the Blitz and the Dunkirk evacuation thrown in for historical context.

All Clear
by Connie Willis

"When the three time-travelling Oxford historians become unexpectedly trapped in 1940, they struggle not only to find their way home but to survive as Hitler’s bombers attempt to pummel London into submission."

She could really have done with cutting out at least half of this book and the previous one - there are so many chapters where nothing happens except one of the characters waits for the other two to get back from where they've gone, or where someone tries to go from one place to another and is repeatedly diverted. There's a really good story in there that would make a great book if it were no more than 400 pages, and this stupid saga is 1400 pages. I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed, but both of these books are moving to the charity shop shelf.

Concert

Les Arcs, February 2024

Things are going to calm right down at last, with some days coming up having only one thing in them, and Friday to Sunday having nothing at all, which is probably a record. UJ will have gone back home to Kyiv so I'm looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet, in which I intend to do some walking if the weather is fine, and watching films. There may be nothing to blog about.

Meanwhile, our concert took place, for which my practice paid off and I experienced no significant embarrassments. It was different from our usual concert because we joined up with a small orchestra called Eclectica, which seemed similar to Lola II's music group. We (Coventry Arts' flutes, saxophones and clarinets) played the first half, there was an interval with tea and cakes, then Eclectica started the second half and we all came together for three Christmas pieces at the end. 

I loved the discipline of the orchestra, which reminded me of my school days. They tuned properly at the start, nobody chatted, they paid attention to the conductor... There are all sorts of tiny annoyances within our group - people parping when others are trying to tune (on the rare occasions when we do tune), people not having their music in order, everyone having to wait while someone finds a pencil, or drops a pencil, people chatting while another section is running through something, people just not listening then asking where we're playing from... There's one woman in particular who starts talking as soon as we stop playing and then invariably doesn't know where we're starting from. But despite these little issues I do enjoy the end result, most of the time.

Playing the baritone sax is quite tiring compared to the clarinet, and I had quite a lot to play so I wasn't sure I'd manage to make it to the end of the mass items. There was always going to be scope for miming among that number of people, but because of the break in the middle I carried on playing through to the very end. It was a very successful event in a much better venue than our usual cramped and freezing church - we were in a school hall with a stage - and the audience was much bigger than ours usually is. It was even accessible by train so UJ came along together with a man she's been seeing, who seemed very nice.

Smoke and mirrors

Tate Modern, November 2024

As well as the Assisted Dying event, I spent a lovely couple of days with Lola II and Mr M. We started with an Egyptian lunch in Knightsbridge - I was a bit early so popped into Harvey Nichols out of interest. I only went up to the food department, and concluded that it isn't a shop that I belong in at all. Then we went on to the Tate Modern, specifically for an art installation which beamed shapes of light in a dark room onto screens, and filled the room with haze so the passage of the light through the room could be seen. It was quite fun to play with the installation, although I really don't understand Art, especially Modern Art. It was also pretty expensive even though one of us got in for free thanks to an Art Pass.

Next day Lola II took me to an Art café where we each painted a small canvas. Looking at mine up close I didn't think it was all that good when I finished it, and I wasn't going to take it home. But when I was washing brushes across the room Lola II told me to look back at it, and it looked much better from a distance, so it is now in Lola II's house until such time that I can collect it - I wasn't about to take it with me to the demo and then onto the train.

Back home again, I went to visit my new friend (still nameless for the purposes of this blog) who fell off his bike and ended up in hospital with a broken hip. They gave him a hip replacement and sent him home after four days, when he was already able independently to make me a cup of tea - I brought cakes. We marvelled at our amazing National Health Service while also mourning its huge deficiencies.

Great progress for mum too, where we managed to replace her 2G phone with an almost identical 4G one, and she also achieved a price reduction of £7 by insisting on paying the price displayed on the shelf rather than what came up on the till. I am much less assertive that she is in shops, although I would say that she is a little too assertive on certain facts than she should be - the Blue Badge was not in the cupboard where she said it was, so there. Not until writing this did I realise that we could have parked in the disabled bays even without a badge - I think my assertiveness needs work.

I've had a few long, full days, but have been a bit more successful than previously at building in gaps between them, to the extent of not going on my Friday morning U3A walk because Thursday and Saturday had so much in them. This was the right decision. On Saturday I volunteered to staff the Leamington LETS stall at the local Repair Café on a day so filled with wind and rain so that hardly anyone came, then went straight on to my last music group rehearsal before the concert next week. The music this term has been so challenging that I've actually had to practise both saxophone and clarinet parts, which is probably a first for this group.

On Sunday, UJ announced that she'd joined a choir, something she's been thinking of doing for a while, and their carol service was taking place that afternoon, so I went along. She seems to have joined the Parish Church choir, which is somewhat surprising (she did say there was quite a lot of talking about God). The service was sparsely attended, which was a shame because I love belting out a Christmas carol among other enthusiasts. Unfortunately the bits between the carols reminded me why I really don't get on with Christianity.

Demonstrating

Parliament Square, London, November 2024

Lola II and I planned a couple of days together to muck about in London, and then the date was announced for the Parliamentary Second Reading and vote on the "Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life)" Bill. So I extended my stay so I could attend the demo organised by 'Dignity in Dying' outside Parliament, and Lola II came with me. Just to be clear, I am very much in favour of Assisted Dying and was there to support the Bill, along with a whole lot of other people dressed in pink and carrying banners.

I've been to these gatherings before, and the weather plays a big part in the experience. It was gloriously sunny, and while this didn't help much with feet on the cold pavement it did at least mean that my torso was warm, aided by the six layers of thermals and jumpers and coats and hat and gloves. The crowd was occasionally addressed by speakers from Dignity in Dying and Humanists UK, one of Esther Rantzen's daughters, Rabbi Jonathan Romain, and some people sharing personal experience of death and dying. We were also encouraged to lend our voices to a number of chants, mostly for the benefit of the assembled Press and their cameras. I suspect this vocal activity was as alien to most of the crowd as it was to me, so we were a bit reticent to begin with: 

"WHAT DO WE WANT?" 

"Erm, do we really have to shout?" 

"COME ON EVERYONE, WHAT DO WE WANT?" 

"Assisted dying?" 

"COME ON, LOUDER, WHAT DO WE WANT?" 

"Oh really, must we?"

"WHEN DO WE WANT IT?"

"Now?"

But we all got into the swing of it eventually, and I realised that shouting is quite fun, it uses a fair bit of energy, and I hadn't really had a good shout for many a long year. Not something one does as a respectable middle aged woman who doesn't go to football matches. I thought I might have another shout just for the fun of it when I'm on my own in the house (but I probably won't).

The opponents' demonstration was across the road, much nearer to Parliament so I didn't see much of it, but it looked as though their crowd was significantly smaller than ours. We didn't get to see or hear any of the debate that was taking place inside but I watched a little bit afterwards and then read the transcript, and it seemed to be one of the most sincere and serious discussions that has taken place in many years, with almost no point-scoring, shouting or waving of order papers. 

The main (non-religious) objections were 

a) that vulnerable people may experience coercion, 

b) that it is more important to improve and extend palliative care, and

c) that the scope might be extended (the 'slippery slope') to people who are disabled, elderly or suffering without a terminal illness. 

The rebuttal of these points is 

a) that vulnerable people experience coercion at the moment but there is no legal framework to investigate this until after they have died, whereas this proposal allows for investigation of possible coercion while they are still alive

b) that it's not one or the other - palliative care can be improved and extended (as it has been in other jurisdictions where assisted dying has been made available), and in fact if this Bill were not before the House then all this talk of improving palliative care would probably not be happening, and

c) that the title of the Bill does not allow for anyone but terminally ill adults to take advantage of the opportunity of an assisted death, and it cannot be changed; also in other jurisdictions with similar legislation (e.g. Oregon [USA], Victoria [Australia] but not Canada or Netherlands which have very different scope) there has been no change or extension in 25 years.

There are many heart-rending examples of the suffering that has been endured by those for whom palliative care has not worked, and I can see no reason to deny them the option of an assisted death on any of the grounds given above. I have written to my MP a number of times about the issue in the past, and he has responded a couple of times in a non-committal way, but on the day he voted in favour and also published a statement on his website. When the result came through that the Bill had been passed by a significant majority, the respectful murmur that followed was very different from the usual cheering and jeering in the Chamber. 

There's a long way to go before this Bill becomes law - the Committee stage, the Report stage, a third reading, then off to the House of Lords, so I may be standing out in the cold with my placard a few more times in the next year or two. But it is clear that a majority of the public are in favour of assisted dying with the safeguards outlined in the Bill, and while it is not perfect I believe that the current legal situation is much worse.

Meetings

East Sussex, July 2024

There have been many meetings in my life recently, some of them containing more business than just coffee at a local place. The Buddhist team for the local group had an online meeting, so did my group of Buddhist women that I see regularly, and my study group is meeting in person until the end of the year. Continuing the Buddhist theme, we had a social event in my new favourite restaurant in Leamington (an-all vegetarian version of my previous favourite restaurant), and I've been to a couple of Buddhist events in Birmingham.

Aside from the Buddhists I attended the Folk Festival Venue Managers' meeting. It turns out that I am a Deputy Venue Manager (Communications team) along with another chap, and given that the actual Venue Manager is retiring, we are in charge next time. I am trying hard to be supportive without actually taking any responsibility, and it seems to be working so far. I won't be able to attend the next meeting in May, which will help with this plan.

I continue to fill my days with regular stuff other than the Buddhism - walks, board games, badminton, personal training and now more film than before. One of the U3A people I met through board games - the one who came to the film festival, and will probably have to be given a pseudonym before long - is interested in films, so I've been going to the Spa Centre where the afternoon performance is only £4.50 if you're 60, and a loyalty card gives you the seventh visit for free. It's probably the first loyalty card I've actually been loyal to. [Latest update - sadly my new U3A and film friend has fallen off his bike and broken his hip, so I'm on my own again for the time being.]

UJ has returned from her trip back home to Kyiv, and as has happened each time she's returned after going home, her English has deteriorated to the point that I have to make her repeat what she's saying several times e.g. to work out that she's saying 'faucet' instead of 'tap'. She will watch films at home with me, and we have several episodes of Taskmaster to catch up on. She sometimes invites me to go to the cinema with her, and often I accept, but usually regret it - the cinema is generally crowded because she can't go on a weekday afternoon, and she likes films that aren't always to my taste.