ConFerment, Car Terrorist in US, Valerian and Glass Books

Egyptian Geese on the Ouse from yesterday's A14 outing

Saturday 12th August: In the Prime minister's absence, the Conservative party continues to ferment. News bubbles that emerged late today were that Philip Hammond and Liam Fox, soft and hard Breiteers, had issued a joint statement that there would be a transitional arrangement after the UK left the EU, but that this would be of a fixed duration. Amber Rudd, a former remainer and Jacob Rees-Mogg, definitely a hard Brexiteer, have both hinted that they might possibly, in the of course highly unlikely and unwanted event that Theresa May stepped down, consider standing as candidates for Prime Minister.

Armageddon has been temporarily postponed in the news, by the death of a protester in Charlestone, Virginia, USA. Things had been ugly during the day when a planned protest march by Alt Right, Ku Klux Klan and Nazi sympathisers was surrounded by anti fascist demonstrators and erupted into a brawl. It was after the demonstrations, broken up by the police, that a car suddenly drove into the crowd killing one person and injuring others. The President took to the TV in a break from his golfing holiday to make a statement, sounding unconvincing and looking as if reading from a script, condemning violence on all sides. The word that stick in my mind was his use of 'egregious'. After Trump's recently more basic vocabulary, there was a reminder of his previous, more articulate language prior to his presidency. Even if he did not write the speech, he did not stumble over the word.

What he did not do, was describe the act of driving a car into a crowd of anti-right demonstrators a terrorist act, and this caused outcry and disquiet in the media.

Our day, in contrast, was more positive. Jane had set off to spend the day with Louise at the Quilting Exhibition in Birmingham, involving six hours travel by train and car. I had a bit of a lie in and then took the buses into town, to see the new Luc Besson sci-fi film 'Valerian'. Getting off at the station, I bought a still warm slice of Pizza and wandered over to the bridge to the Light Cinema. At 12:20, there were some others scattered in the screen as I sat down with a packet of sweet popcorn and a coke zero, the latter slightly deficient by the absence of a slice of lemon. What drove me was the fact that 'The Fifth Element' is one of my favourite films, also made by Besson, and his other recent film, Lucy, was also enjoyable. Valerian, did not disappoint in terms of the imagery and settings, I thought the story OK. The lead actors fared well, though probably the weakest part of the film.

Coming back, I noticed that the neighbours boys were tinkering with bicycles. My bike has been gathering cobwebs in the garage for a year or more, with punctures and a slightly buckled rear wheel. It is now in their hands for repairs, under the competent gaze of their father whose garage resembles a bike workshop.

I used the last remaining hours on my own to complete the final 250 pages or so of "The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters" by G W Dahlquist. I bought it on a whim on Amazon for a penny plus postage, having seen it on someone else's bookshelf amongst other sci-fi and fantasy authors that I like. I've been gripped by the Steampunk story and finished the last 60 pages after Jane had come back and gone to bed.