I don’t know if the attached piece of film footage will reproduce. I most sincerely hope so, because it’s pretty shocking. It shows Johnson as the intellectually convincing advocate for allowing Turkey, the land of his ancestors, to join the European Union and how shocking and small-minded it would be to keep the Turks out. Of course, someone should be allowed to change their mind, but it is hard to believe that Johnson, the great pro-European advocate for Turkey, has changed his mind so completely. Or does he really just say whatever suits him ?

Only four days to go. Every morning at 8.06 precisely I get a cheery message from Track-and-Trace telling me what to do today. Enjoy my hobbies ! Get a breath of fresh air ! Spend time in the garden if you have one ! Actually, although I half-mock, the advice is sensible and I am spending as much time as possible out in the garden looking at the distant tree:-

Every so often – actually, not often enough – I read something which makes sense of our current situation. The attached piece by John Harris in today’s Guardian is one of them, using post-modern theory for once to illuminate rather than obfuscate: the distinction between cause and effect; the absence of any consistent morality; using messages to cause a short-term sensation rather than worrying about their long-term consequences; the pleasure in disruption; the glorification of the message not the action. At last, it makes me understand Baudrillard, as well as Dominic Cummings.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/13/tories-new-unscrupulous-politics-misinformation?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

The New York Times was a bit muted in relating the current horrendous outbreak of fires in northern California and Oregon to climate change. I note that the LA Times is much more apocalyptic in the attached very clear op-ed piece:-

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-09-12/climate-change-wildfires-california-oregon-heat?_amp=true&__twitter_impression=true

I came downstairs this morning to make a cup of tea wearing rubber gloves and discovered a very beautiful display of Romilly’s new work in the dining room in preparation for an exhibition to be held in Make in Bruton in November.

What really caught my eye was a piece of agate in the window, called The Fall because of its markings which resemble autumn leaves:-

Self-isolation has given me time to reflect on the importance of Terence Conran and how his influence has changed and developed over time. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was Habitat: food bricks, duvets and woks. There was a branch near us outside Didcot and we arranged our wedding list there in 1979. In the early 1980s, it was the Boilerhouse Project, now perhaps not as well remembered as it deserves to be – a catalyst of changing attitudes to design and modernism in the basement of the V&A, funded by the Conran Foundation. In 1989, it was the Design Museum in Butler’s Wharf – more formal, perhaps a bit less adventurous than the Boilerhouse. In the early 1990s, it was the move into restaurants – Pont de la Tour and the Blueprint Café. Always important in influencing public taste, not least Cool Britannia, which was hatched in Pont de la Tour and celebrated in Canary Wharf with catering supplied by Conran. Nor should one forget the Conran Shop. A figure of immense importance in moulding public taste, including mine.

Only a week to go.

The days stretch out, curiously shapeless, as I look out of the window at the sun and at my bicycle unused in the garden. I was due to go on a trip to Woolwich today which has had to be cancelled. I communicate with Romilly by telephone or email or by shouting outside her office window. There must be hundreds of us, if not millions, receiving daily bulletins from the test-and-trace machine telling us how much our self-isolation is valued, encouraging us to act responsibly in the collective interest. I wish this had been the message throughout. But a machine seems more easily able to state it than the Prime Minister because he does not believe in the collective interest, nor show evidence of acting responsibly.

I have been sent a link to a useful article in today’s New York Times about the terrible fires in California, following my post about them yesterday. So, the answer is that they occur as a result of human error and negligence and climate change is only one amongst a number of contributory factors. But they are still devastating to those who have to live with them and they seem, as in Australia, to be happening more often:-

https://www.nytimes.com/article/wildfires-california-oregon-washington.html?action=click&algo=bandit-all-surfaces&block=more_in_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=340457413&impression_id=9e392ac3-f402-11ea-ac41-09d4e5655ee8&index=4&pgtype=Article&region=footer&req_id=776189977&surface=more-in-us-news

We have been following with the utmost alarm what has been happening in California – houses burnt down, forest fires close to San Francisco, photographs of fires near the national park at Point Reyes, friends on stand-by to vacate their houses: it’s beginning to look like the end of the world. No doubt climate change deniers will claim as in Australia that it’s just a normal occurrence and the way that nature renews itself, but it doesn’t look that way:-

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/10/us-west-fire-season-california-oregon-climate-action?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other