10th September
There was a bit of an argument in the queue in the COOP this morning. The couple in front were talking about – no guesses – the death. When they mentioned ‘Elizabeth the 2nd’, I simply said ‘Elizabeth the 1st of Scotland’. And the stranger behind me then said, ‘Are you one of those nationalist scum?’ To which I replied, ‘Fuck off. I’m a history teacher and she is Elizabeth the 1st of Scotland. You don’t need to be nationalist scum to recognise a fucking historical fact.’ At which point the couple in front headed to the now empty till and the stranger behind me went off to buy some cornflakes. The bastard.
Charles has been officially sworn in – not the kind of swearing from the COOP – as King Charles III. ‘Hip, hip, hooray’, as someone said, from the courtyard of St James’ Palace. Given that I am not particularly a monarchist or royalist, it’s surprising how sucked in you get by the whole thing. I did watch the edited highlights on the news. It looked and felt very Victorian, old fashioned and Gilbert & Sullivan. Britain in the 21st century. A news reporter said it was historic, first time the event had been broadcast (not difficult given how rare they are and the massive time span between this and the last one) and that it was a good example of British ‘soft-power’ broadcasting to the world. I’m sure that Putin was suitably impressed and maybe even slightly scared. Not. But at least we get a bank holiday out of the funeral. And that probably does not apply to all workers. When I was in Sainsbury’s later the till assistant said they had been told they could take unpaid leave on the day.
Is there anything else happening in the country or the world? Not a clue. We were entertained by the spectacle of Kate, William, Harry and Meghan – pretending to put their differences to one side – looking at the flowers outside Windsor castle and speaking to the masses. Does that not just make them sound like people on the street.
Out cycling – weather great – and then spent an afternoon wrestling with a change of brake pads on the e-bike. An assistant in Halfords could probably change them in under two minutes flat, but I was not going to give up. They work and the bike does eventually stop.
Nothing really worth watching on the 2 million channels on TV. Better Call Saul has finished, but I might watch the last six episodes again just to make sense of them. They are doing a remake of Quantum Leap, but what’s new, isn’t everything eventually remade. At least Sam (Scott Bakula) is still alive. Amazon is putting the cost of Amazon Prime up; renew now said the email and you will get it at the old price.
Email about tax rebate, improbable, delete.
Your Halifax account has been hacked, click here, impossible, I don’t have a Halifax account, delete.
Your BT access will be deleted if you don’t click here, fine, delete it, I don’t care, delete.
You have been issued a Sainsbury’s e-voucher on your last order, now that’s more like it.
One Pagers 