Stormy Weather

-

 


 

At last the Atlantic squall that's hammered us over the last couple of days has passed over, some respite from the battering, at least till the next one, which arrives tomorrow. I took the opportunity to get up on the studio roof and patch up the apex with the few remaining bits of roofing-felt I had lying around. Whether this will temporarily stem the leaks I don't know, but I think that at least it will mitigate the worst: anyway, I'll certainly know by tomorrow night. It's a big roof and catches a lot of water.

I need to get the place fairly dry and secure so that I can get on with using it for its intended purpose as a studio workshop/store/recreation space; rather than simply an enormous dumping ground for stuff being moved, in endless rotation, from either the house, the cottage or the garden shed. This place is a logistical nightmare. Add in the autumn storms we seem to be inheriting from across the water pretty much every year now and it can be a right royal pain trying to organise stuff.

Living in California would be an option, I suppose, but I don't really think that's viable on many levels; the present political reality being the most pressing. A friend of Jane's who lives in San Francisco has expressed feelings of bewilderment/panic/upset; nominate practically any negative emotional response, occasioned by the current administration and its leader's antics. I guess all they can do is exercise their democratic right: to vote and hope.

If they're mail-voting  however, it would appear that not only have they got the prospect of Trump refusing to believe the entire thing isn't rigged against him after the fact; they have the electoral system itself to contend with. The way mail votes are verified is by ballot inspectors having to decide if the signature on the vote is genuine or not. Not exactly a scientifically precise methodology and surely open to widespread error, let alone fraud.

The best that can be hoped for is a landslide for Biden and the Democrats, which will close down any argument once and for all. If it's a close call, then we're in for another 'hanging chads' style of fiasco, as in 2000. And look where that left the United States and indeed the rest of the world: DOOFUS as POTUS. Re-elect the current doofus and it will validate every right-wing, populist narcissist either currently in power or close to gaining it. Not a future to look forward to. Think Spain, Greece, Portugal, Chile; the very recent past. It's avoidable. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des...
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [...
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more