Talk about choosing a title for some weekly scribbles with the opportunity to range far and wide! Maybe I should simply focus on personal issues like, for instance: ‘Do you insist on the loo seat being left down?’ OK! Immediately we are divided between those of you who call the ‘water closet’ the loo and those who call it the toilet! Or you might be confused and use the term ‘lavatory’ which, if I was being pedantic, is ‘a fixed basin with running water’ but can be used to refer to the whole room with a toilet (aka loo) and basin. We had a lunch party last week and the loo seat and lid were left up, left down, just the lid up ….. despite us having one of those soft closure lids! (Note 1) I hope our guests smiled when they saw that we buy our loo paper from ‘Who Gives a Crap’!
Doesn’t matter, does it, what you call it? And sitting down with friends for lunch, it doesn’t matter whether you call the piece of material to protect your clothes a napkin or a serviette, does it? Providing it’s material not paper!
It doesn’t matter how you perform a yoga posture – we are all different mentally and physically and no one should make any judgments. It simply does not matter – until the ego taps you on the shoulder and asks why you haven’t…..! And if you believe that the practice of yoga, hot or not, could be ego-free, try it yourself. You might even encounter a group ego!
Recently there have been television crime dramas based in Bristol and Belfast, hot on the tails of one about Brighton’s police force and how they cope with the mayhem that others see as ‘having a night out’! The latest Belfast series covers migration in Northern Ireland, overlaying the still-simmering religious divide.
It reminded me of the current ‘stand-off’ between Northern Ireland’s Orange Order (Note 2) and the people of Drumcree. As Max Hastings, writing in The Times, says: ‘The Orange Order wants to demonstrate its claimed legal entitlement to stage a sectarian march through an overwhelmingly nationalist housing estate in Drumcree.’ It mattered in 1857 when a government report stated: ‘The Orange system celebrates its festivals …. which lead to violence, outrage, religious animosities, hatred between classes and, too often, bloodshed and loss of life.’ Nothing seems to have changed in over a century and to those of us who live in Great Britain it’s anachronistic in the extreme. Surely time to abandon such wilful provocations as the Drumcree march and realise how much this would matter for the greater good?
Last month one of my postcards was titled ‘Communication’ and this month we have had another example of poor communication …… and it matters. The British Museum in London is exhibiting the Bayeux tapestry for the first time since it left these shores for France in 1080 …. and the 70m long display has attracted thousands of people wishing to view it. The exhibition has presumably been years in the planning, but no one seemed to anticipate the potential number of visitors. Long queues developed, not helped by people staying too long in front of the exhibit – clearly not allowed or imagined! They could have installed a moving walkway which would have helped.
But the lack of communication was obvious when early this month they had to close the exhibit to the public as they were hosting some corporate event. These things don’t happen overnight ….. so why didn’t they block out entrance to the public months ago? Some people travelled a long distance only to be told they would get a refund of the ticket – but no recognition that the British Museum’s poor organisation and communication had led to other nugatory travel and hotel expenses. Reminded me of the Hotel Fasano in Rio de Janeiro. There had been no warning that, during our short stay, the roof-top swimming pool would be closed for a corporate event. We the poor public are second best to corporate money. But timely communication would have helped.
I did come across a new item some months ago and thought ‘good for you’. Having been through the difficulties and agony of divorce, I was interested in the story about a woman whose second divorce cost both her and her husband £80k. It prompted her to start offering divorcing couples a cheaper option than the adversarial one that lines the pockets of solicitors and lawyers. She had clearance from SRA, but lawyers with a vested interest in the current system complained and she was up before a judge for offering unqualified advice; she could have gone to prison! Financial reductions in the state-funded Legal Aid budget have reduced the number of cases it can support from 180,000 to 10,000. The judge recognised there had to be a better way for Joe & Jill Public to access affordable legal advice and suggested she continue. A victory for common sense.
And, of course, it matters when you buy a bunch of fresh Basil and two days later it looks like the flopped ears of a hare. Last week I thought there must be a better way of keeping it fresh. The solution is to place it in a container with a little water, and a plastic bag over the top, essentially creating a little moist greenhouse. The last leaf was as fresh as the first.
And in the wider context of life, nothing really matters, however much we agonise about this and that.
Richard 9th October 2026
Hove
Note 1 I hadn’t intended to mention this, but I scribbled about loo paper in August 2015 (PC 47) and followed that postcard with one about ‘The Loo’, with the famous Mr Crapper, in November that year (PC 54). I could email these to you as they are time-expired on WordPress.
Note 2 After King William of Orange (King William III) who invaded and secured Ireland for the Protestant crown by defeating the Catholic King James II in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
