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  • A visit to a garden centre is worth two in a car

    I visited a garden centre today, as part of my work, and what a lovely sight.

    The blue skies, the flowers – the food. It was all there. It was a good wander around with some people I know.

    However, there is something about country garden centres that doesn’t make sense.

    It’s all packed in – it’s there – but where is it exactly in our national mindset?

    Is it popular, still?

    Is it noted, at present, as not just a valid pursuit but a needed pastime?

    Is it still something we know we need to do?

    Here are the pictures below:

    The frontage
    The car park
    A paint-your-own studio
    An old plaque

    As you can see, it’s a delightful place.

    It isn’t however always busy and neither is gardening a thing of the present – or the past.

    It just sits there, as an option, but how many of us really take it up?

    Are we really that interested in it anymore?

  • The out of town kind of way

    The sight of an out of town retail park is an eyesore for some, and a delight for others. Why not, the latter group may ask, thinking about the opportunities it affords.

    It’s not the same for the former class of people, though, who’d rather it not be there (depending on where it is).

    It’s not to say that either are right, or either are wrong, but it’s the reaction we get, isn’t it, if the subject comes up. It is a subject, after all, what is built near us.

    There are other issues as well to do with local planning that arise. I for one take a look at planning applications every so often and take a keen interest at what I spot.

    There’s a lot that can be learned ahead of time about what is planned for a particular corner of town.

    Most of it slips my mind because I have other things to do and it isn’t time yet for the application to go through. Yet, it’s still interesting, because it makes sense to know what’s on people’s minds.

  • Art as a universal facility

    Our access to public museums and art galleries is a part of our modern way of life. To see the ‘old’ art we have a relatively novel way of doing it; it’s publicly funded.

    This isn’t exclusively the case, of course, because private benefactions pave the way for better – and greater – art and exhibitions in future. Yet it gives us all a way in.

    In previous times art was generally there, but still relatively ‘exclusive’ to the classes reserved for it. They saw it and raved over it but the lower classes were generally left out.

    Again, this wasn’t exclusively the case, but it generally went that art in its form was a higher purpose and a more leisurely form than, say, life itself. In fact, life itself was of more interest to artists than people.

    This isn’t still technically true because we are better at appreciating our lives and ourselves. We have more reason to be glad than “ungrateful” (as it may have been called), and our progress is something to be proud of.

    It’s something to marvel that we’ve come so far (but perhaps only thus far). Therefore, we also have art today, perhaps to show us the way, but also the view behind us, as well.

  • Is Rishi Sunak too unpopular?

    The Prime Minister has had a tough time of late.

    He’s survived (barely) a local elections campaign that served him a drubbing. He also had to prepare himself for a grueling task of pushing through legislation to back his own plan to send migrant cases to Rwanda.

    This isn’t the best of circumstances for a Prime Minister, who’s policies and polling surely matters beyond all else.

    This isn’t the end of it, however, as far as hard weeks go.

    According to YouGov, and their handy website (found at yougov.co.uk), his fame couldn’t reach further heights. Its stats suggest he is 98% known – or ‘famed’ – amongst the UK electorate.

    This means his name recognition is riding high.

    It means if he comes up in a conversation – or appears on television – he is more than likely to be recognized, if not respected, for his work. This is a trend that we may not have seen before.

    In times past, it was a job trying to get people to care about politics, not least their politicians.

  • Are waiters-on-wheels our way forward?

    The concept of ordering “out” has developed leaps and bounds in our lifetime.

    Take a look out and you’ll see the variety of takeaways that we can walk into, and the few restaurants offering a walk-out service.

    There’s also the plethora of delivery apps that do it for us, now. The menu is on display, the offers are good, and the food is relatively cheap. It’s just a convenient way of getting the best of fast food and takeout you want.

    The development of food ordering and delivery is something to marvel at, considering our antipathy toward any kind of innovation that changes even the way we eat food.

    I say that in a personal sense because I know that most folks I’ve eaten with have a set preference for what they like. There’s a new trend on and maybe someone will take it up – but that’ll be it for a few months (or years) following.

    There are of course lots of development out there that we’ve seen, but our personal use of them differs between us, until we reach the guy who doesn’t want anything different. It is different, depending on how we see it.

    In other words, unless you were my friend I would have no idea how you consumed food – or even if it matters to you anymore what you like. It’s our choice to be like that, and it works out for us.

    The old tussle between the waiter and the restaurant goer is not a thing of the past, as if our ways of using each others services is always straightforward. The wages aren’t good, and, sometimes, the tips aren’t much better.

    It’s the way we get on that makes a good experience, dining out, and also whatever goes in, of course.

  • Ukraine has its way with words

    An advocate for Ukraine stood outside Downing Street today to support the nation’s conflict with Russia.

    I didn’t stop to ask him questions since he was speaking yet I took a picture and moved on.

    He sounds eloquent – and defiant – in his beliefs and cause. It’s inspiring to see.

    The trouble with Ukraine is it doesn’t often get a voice, but it has President Zelensky. This is a bonus for a state that hasn’t had a voice before in any meaningful way with us.

    I’m inspired by the efforts of Ukraine to repel just an invasion and keep the conflict contained.

    It’s to Ukraine’s credit to do this, and to make sure we don’t see war, too.

    It’s a bonus that we’ve witnessed leadership like this, albeit in Ukraine and not nearer our shores.

    This is a debt we have to repay. So maybe we should get on with it and show leadership here. This is our duty, after all.

  • A sign of things to come?

    A new bar is opening near where I live but I have no intention to go there.

    It’s a great little outfit in a unit beneath some new apartments. It sits nicely on a corner looking out up and down a street rammed with night clubs and other shops.

    There’s a McDonald’s, too, and a Black Sheep Coffee outlet on another corner further up the road.

    It makes sense, then, to have a bar here and I’m sure the owners have done their due diligence in their research. It must make business sense to have a bar here that makes a splash on the scene. There’s a BrewDog pub in another part of town, and that does a roaring trade, also.

    I don’t mind going for a drink but I’m not a bar type of guy. I’ll sit in a pub a few times but mostly on my own, as I don’t like company when I’m drinking – and thinking.

    I like a chat as I walk about – and maybe a few words at work.

    I say this because a new bar is a new opportunity for many of those who like a new drinking hole to get in on.

    It makes a home out of a place that may not feel like it, sometimes, without someone talk to (it’s well known that bars are a good place for a chat).

    I looked at it today and it looks great. It appears a photographer was on site to deal with the promotional side of things, and a few members of staff hanging around (no doubt for extra training, as well).

  • Society weddings get a boost

    The Duke of Westminster – a poorly known chap – is due to get married shortly, to the woman of his choice.

    They’ve visited a church in Chester – aptly named Chester Cathedral – and plan to tie the knot in June. It looks set to be a happy affair.

    The only trouble of course is that it seems so irrelevant. I for one have been to numerous weddings of far greater importance than a Duke who’s worth is in the billions.

    I am being sarcastic, of course.

    As much as the diehards among us want to believe it’s all over (‘and it is now’, etc., etc.), it’s clearly still going ahead for society in the UK, where weddings and some funerals have passed without a hiccup of late.

    It’s a good sign that there’s faith still in its institution (even if we see through the cracks). There’s purpose in all those weddings, I assume, that happen as much as in hotel’s as fuck ups in youth hostels.

    There’s a general sense that here we still want to do things but with a little less impression attached to it.

    I mean that in saying the Duke of Westminster is known as a reserved, retiring sort of a guy. He likes to be around people but not get up to much at the same time.

    This isn’t personal knowledge per se, but it gets around what people are really like and it seems a marriage in his war chest is just another shield to hang on a wall as well. It keeps him – and his family – going fairly nicely.

    It’s the way marriages are, these days, a bit of a day and a few children to boot – then the rest is life, as it is.

  • Potholes and plaintiff’s

    Where I live potholes have been a problem for a long time, but it’s getting better.

    The repeated projects to lay new roads has worked in many areas – step by step, I mean – and this makes a difference beyond the overall ascetic.

    It’s not nice turning into a glorified trench as you visit a friend or return home (and the car doesn’t like it, either).

    There are so many things wrong with decay that we try to bring it up as many times as possible in as many conversations that centre around local politics which come up.

    Or at least, that is before it gets too boring to mention it again.

    But what else is there that is actually interesting that just local politics covers?

    Not a lot, in my view, unless it’s a problem you spotted.

    It makes it real if it’s personal so it’s worth trying again to bring it up since potholes don’t go away overnight.

  • A new leader, and a few steps back?

    The Scottish National Party – a firebrand nationalist outpost for Scottish independence – has elected its new leader in John Swinney, a relative unknown name in English politics.

    I say “unknown”, because most of the time Scottish politics has a job trying to trend in England with anything on the agenda unless it fits an agenda here.

    The election of a new leader peaks in daytime news, but its importance is left understated.

    It may also be beyond most who need to know just how far Scotland has edged toward independence.

    How does the election of John Swinney change the status quo is a question that we need to answer, because the future of the homegrown nationalist movement depends on it, and it’s answer is what we need to know.

    Yet, the general thread is that Scotland doesn’t really need to let us know anyway, does it? I mean, what would it matter if Scotland were independent tomorrow, for instance.

    Does it even ‘take place’ in England, at all?

    The issue of constitutional politics is a vast one, because it involves so many of us and all of the moving parts of state. It might be pointed out that Scotland is already there so what does it matter what it says about itself?

    It’s worth noting London is still there, as well, so it makes sense to scratch beneath the surface a lot deeper.

    I’m not familiar with his name either, but that’s not the game, is it?

    The point is that Swinney now has a chance to lead the SNP out of the doldrums and into something better than the hiring and firing which is what the SNP has done of late.

    The earlier days of the SNP with Alex Salmond at the helm having long since passed and without a face and a bit of name recognition to its credit, it struggles to make a case anymore.

  • The Muslim vote wat’ won it

    In the recent local elections, a few ‘truths’ emerged; sometimes the Tories lose badly, other times Labour actually poll fairly well.

    These are, of course, two extremely broad definitions of politics that almost defy definition, sometimes, in that they seem such a broad a church respectively that to even bother explaining them without just a sheer focus on Jesus is pointless.

    Many of us beg to differ, of course.

    We don’t see politics like that, and thanks to modern enlightenment we see things in a very different way between each other. We don’t see ‘truths’, we see ourselves.

    This leads us to an organisation called The Muslim Vote, aptly titled and so-called aside, it looks to be a very engaging if only dynamic political group online, and off.

    There has to be substance or weight to a political movement if it’s going to succeed and not just stick in our imaginations as a clever idea or some great new effort that won’t go anywhere. Take Momentum for example, and you get the point.

    The group The Muslim Vote says that this year the Muslim community politically organised in its first ever coordinated effort to influence a set of elections. These would be local elections where Muslims tend to feel that things are not reflective of the way they want to live in local areas in England.

    The import of the far-right (which is neither imported nor exported) in the UK is usually in local areas and has its effect in local neighbourhoods and around the sort of Mosque’s that don’t always invite trouble but get the addresses right if they do.

    These are the more provocative times and moments that the Press in the UK want to ignore, but they happened, and they still do, I guess.

    Yet, The Muslim Vote has trended in the same Press behind a ‘character’ in Leeds who won his seat on a local council through that old fashioned method of campaigning, and connecting with local voters through a blog about growing vegetables.

    This is how ‘truths’ come up, now, but it’s not the way realities bear down on us.

    Councillor Mothin Ali is certainly not an eccentric for wanting to grow his own food, and get a seat on a local authority, but anything else about his life may still fall into this unfortunate category.

    It’s a fact that being Muslim is still not understood unless it’s there, in person, and not the subject of debate or controversy.

    The feeling and reality of being Muslim is still not in the political mindset or public perception of what it’s like to feel and live like a Muslim. These two ways of describing the situation will never include my own thoughts unless I meet the criteria for being one.

    Hence, our way of representative democracy.

    The election of a candidate who is not you is not a cause for celebration, unless you voted for him or her, or that you missed hearing about them but their work will benefit you, anyway. It means though that there are at least a portion of the local population who definitely felt the need for someone else, rather than the preferred candidates of other residents.

    This is democracy, and this is the way it works. It’s upsetting at times but it gets the initial job done. The rest is left to Mr Ali and what he decides to do with the time allotted to him.

  • Khan is on a high, but what is the way forward?

    The election of a new mayor in London has concluded, and Sadiq Khan has secured an “historic” third term, according to news outlets here in the UK.

    His win is secured on the back of surging prices of accommodation, outdated modes of policing that have led to surging knife crime and anti-social behaviour, and an uncertainty over the future of London itself.

    It’s not clear yet what Khan will do with an “historic” third term. His legal background has so far stood him in good stead, allowing him the necessary skills to argue his way off difficult questions, and an opposition keen to take pot shots at his record in office.

    A Tony Blair-style run is obviously impressive, but it doesn’t mean the problems have or will go away.

    He needs to work hard on his legacy, because so far there is little to show for his social improvements in a city still struggling with homelessness; uncertainty over affordable accommodation; and student discontent that has spilled over into anarchy over Gaza, and many other issues.

    The most telling characteristic is silence, a sense of a need to speak about matters in a civil and more public way.

    The main characteristic of a Londoner (in my view) is what they have to say.

    Yes, it’s a painful way of rebuke, but it’s a better way to address issues than just speaking through a representative.

    Our way of democracy is by representation, but I fear this has superseded ordinary engagement that supports chambers that host debate.

    I’ve no doubt others may see this too, but a question is if the Mayor will use his latest term to make way for a more public voice to rise above the noise of the traffic.

  • Casual celebrity dining enjoys a trend in London

    It’s not unfamiliar now to hear of a famous name cooking up a storm on TV.

    In the UK, we’ve enjoyed a wide array of chefs who’ve turned their talents to television and regaled us with their culinary skills. It’s a staple feature of a television schedule to learn about a new style of cuisine we can try ourselves at home, if we want.

    This is not the extent of it, however.

    We’re encouraged to buy their books, but we can also sample their inspired dishes in one of their own branded restaurant outlets, sometimes in our local areas, but also in our capital city, London.

    I’ve walked past more than a few of these and they always inspire for their choice of cuisine, such as Jamie Oliver: Catherine St.

    The front of the restaurant
    An A-board sign outside
    The menu board to look over
    An outdoor seating area

    It’s situated just near Covent Garden, and boasts a good ambience and small outdoor seating area.

    The menu is worth a good look, too, and I saw a few suggestions for typical British fair. It looks nice, a homely selection of meats and salads (and a few other things, like starters) to wet the appetite.

    It goes without saying there are plenty of other places to eat nearby, but this is one option that stood out to me.

    I guess it’s the name recognition, and I like television star Jamie Oliver’s choice of ingredients too. It fits my palate – and my stomach!

    Why not have a look around, and see the variety of ways food is advertised in our time, such as by famous names.

    It’s not just in the look, it’s in the signature style, as well.

  • Local businesses inject their own life

    A local business is something of a local pride for many of us.

    It may be a brand that started in a street and grew to become a household name. It’s not something that we want to keep to ourselves but it stamps itself on the local area, first, and then moves to shake other quarters of an industry somewhere else.

    I like local businesses too, but I also appreciate local business in itself. I prefer to visit a supermarket where I live rather than shop on the go, or somewhere I’m working or visiting or just another location entirely.

    It’s a preference because it’s a regularity that I like and a familiarity I appreciate.

    It’s the same for those who buy their goods and wares from the same business year in and year out. There’s a charm about it, too, in that a local business owner can strike up a relationship themselves and let us know about what’s new in, or what’s due to be phased out.

    There are some good bargains on hand, too.

    This is the way of local areas. These are places that provide us with what we need and it’s the same across the country.

    It may be a day out is taken in a different place, such as a larger city or even the capital city, but where we live is really where we have all that we need.

  • What is farming worth these days?

    The sight of Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon Prime (season one, for me) is something to behold, considering what we know about farming in the UK.

    It’s not often that a positive image of a farm is found through a medium such as television. It doesn’t present well because of the mud and the grit, perhaps. We’re used to seeing that in more military surrounds, and not in the backwoods of the Cotswold’s.

    Yet, Jeremy Clarkson – a well-known television presenter and journalist in the UK – has turned his fortunes around after an ailing Top Gear stint to prove that farming is still relevant, even in rural areas.

    The sight of Diddly Squat Farm is more of a miracle, than a feature, of the English countryside.

    In that, farming shops do ok, but they’re not a booming business as much as fancy bread shops in a center of town or even the artisanal section of a supermarket.

    A farm is what it is; muddy, dirty, and tough work. It looks it. Yet, it’s also a vital part of our food provision. It’s what we need, after all, for a healthy and sustainable diet.

    I like farming culture as well. It looks fanciful for me to try it, but the attitude and the awareness farmers tend to have toward conservation – and yes, even climate change – is a noble feature of it.

    In our history, nobility often retreated to the countryside to think more sager thoughts, and it would appear we have others today who seek to do the same thing, if to make a few quid off it, as well.