Author: postcardscribblesblog

PC 443 ‘ere in the ‘ope!

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PC 443 ‘ere in the ‘ope!

Almost a month has gone by since I was last in the Hope Café and it was good to be back in its familiar surroundings. As I was getting a double espresso I put a little card on the counter, with Josh’s permission of course! It read:

‘If you have a favourite quote about the ear, would you come across and tell me? Richard’

I have scribbled about teeth (see PCs 64 & 66 Molars and Wisdom March 2016) and eyes (see PC 94 Sight and Eyes April 2017) but not, surprisingly, about one’s ears. So why now, I sense you ask. After my food poisoning and virus infection, I managed to develop an inner ear problem which affected my balance big time.

The diagnosis is Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV – see note 1), which causes short periods of intense dizziness or vertigo when the head is moved in certain directions. It’s thought to be caused by tiny solid fragments in the inner ear labyrinth. Who knew?

So a quick revision. The ear:

The inner ear includes the cochlea, responsible for one’s hearing, and those ‘semi-circular canals’. These are small shell-like structures containing narrow fluid-filled channels called the labyrinth. They sit in the three planes, two horizontal and one vertical. Just like in a gyroscope, small movements send signals to the brain, essentially telling it which way is up!

“In your shell-like ear – having a quiet word with someone – but a poetic simile comparing the shape of the outside of an ear to that of a shell” Sami’s contribution

BPPV can be treated by a series of simple exercises devised by Brandt and Daroff. I assume these two are doctors specialising in the ear, but nowhere could I find out more details!

This is the first time I’ve had an ear problem, apart from the frequent removal of wax and temporary deafness caused by being near a loud noise. I spend twenty years in the Royal Artillery; being near a field gun firing a shell with a large charge can be instantaneously deafening. In my early years no one had ear-deafeners and the joke was we all had Gunner-ear (just say that out loud!).

The King, who is Captain General of the Royal Artillery, having just fired a L118 Light Gun on a visit to RSA Larkhill. Wearing Ear Defenders of course! (Photo Times)

I know I shouldn’t, but I love using a cotton bud to keep my ears wax-free. There’s something very satisfying about carefully digging around and this reminds me of something else. In my military service it was vitally important to keep one’s weapon clean. Getting rid of explosive residue in its barrel required a ‘pull-through’; a cord with a weight at one end and a little slit at the other, into which you could thread a piece of ‘four by two’, a strip of cloth 4 inches by 2 inches. Drop the weighted end into the barrel, pull it through and hey presto the barrel was spotless. Sometimes I think it would be good to insert one into one’s ear and pull it through the mush inside; a sort-of brain cleaner! Or you could use this Chinese ear vacuum cleaner?

Kay our masseuse swears by the benefits of using an ear candle to get rid of wax. In for a penny, in for a pound; I tried it. She’s very good and some wax came out. But the general consensus amongst health professionals is that you don’t need to remove it at all, as it’s beneficial!

One of my yoga teachers, Carrie, said her father often massages his ears using the QiGong technique. The Chinese believe that the ear has Qi energy connections with the whole body. I have scant knowledge of Chinese medical traditions, although had a few sessions of acupuncture a decade ago. Apparently, the outside of the ear, its ridge, connects with the spine, the lobes the liver and heart, and the inner part with the kidneys and lungs. So go on, get massaging. I also read that a study in China found that those who wore dangly earrings lived longer than others. I must try and find a suitable pair.

Most of the sayings about ‘ears’ are to do with hearing. On cue, Lisa comes over and offers: “Friends, Romans and countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caeser not to praise him.” Everybody should recognise these first lines from Mark Antony’s speech in Shakespeare’s Julius Caeser.

The statistics tell me that one in three adults in the UK have some form of hearing loss, tinnitus or are deaf. In a recent TV drama, ‘Code of Silence’, one of the main characters was played by Rose Ayling-Ellis, deaf since birth and a user of British Sign Language. Good to see those with disabilities getting major roles.

Mo, who’s sitting at a table close by, leans over with a piece of paper: ‘The War of Jenkin’s Ear’. Ah! Yes, I know about this, fought by Great Britain and Spain between 1739 and 1748. Most of the fighting took place in the Caribbean. The name derives from Robert Jenkins, a British captain whose ear was allegedly severed in April 1731by Spanish coastguards searching his ship for contraband. It’s commemorated annually on the last Saturday in May at the Wormsloe Plantation in Savannah Georgia.  

Duncan gives me three: “I’m all ears”, “In one ear, out the other” and “playing it by ear”.

Anna, who’s been listening, comes across in her wheelchair; “How about – ‘Walls have ears’? That was World War 2, but it’s not new! In 1645 a poet wrote: ‘For the halls of our masters have ears and hear, and the walls of the palace have eyes and watch.’”

And the free coffee goes to Robert, who came up with “‘ere in the ‘ope”! (Note 2). I loved his play on ‘ear’ and here!

Richard 13th June 2025

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS No mention of ‘cauliflower’ ears!

Note 1 Benign – not serious; Paroxysmal – symptoms come and go without warning; Positional – certain positions of the head trigger symptoms; Vertigo – you feel unsteady on your feet, a little like being at sea on a ship.

Note 2 ‘aitch-dropping’ is the deletion of the ‘voiceless glottal fricative’ (H-sound). It’s common in most English regions, but often seen as a sign of uneducated speech, due to its strong association with the lower class.

PC 442 Wooden Spoons

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Don’t you just love a good wooden spoon?

(Note 1)

A wooden cooking spoon is versatile and can be used for stirring soups and sauces, stirring eggs when you want them scrambled. (Note 2) They are heat resistant and don’t melt or warp – although they can burn! They can be cracked – it doesn’t’ matter; they are great for your non-stick saucepan as they won’t scratch it. And we don’t seem to worry that a little bit might come off and be ingested!

My daughter has spent five months doing everything possible to make her late grandmother’s house habitable and moved in at the end of March. The renovations aren’t complete by any stretch of the imagination, but it is dry, with working kitchen, working bathroom and downstairs loo, rewired, replumbed, with a new roof and new windows. This is the third house she’s owned with her husband Sam, so I had to scratch my head as to what to give her for a Housewarming present. I imagined she would want something that will be useful, not a pointless knick-knack; she probably threw out lots of stuff when she was packing, ‘ours not to reason why’, so it could replace something old and tired that went. There’s a tradition of giving someone in her situation a wooden spoon ….. and you can’t have enough wooden spoons in your kitchen!

Spoons have been a symbol of love all over Europe for hundreds of years. In particular in Wales, ‘love spoons’, small and carved out of wood, a material which is considered to be capable of keeping away evil, were given by a man to his girl, hoping she would accept it as a token of their engagement.

And often, like everything else in life, there is another meaning seeming at odds with love! In C19th British slang, ‘spoon’ meant simpleton, a meaning that might have been influenced by the shallowness of spoons. To be given the wooden spoon doesn’t say much about your performance as it’s given to those who finish last. The custom began in 1811 at Cambridge University when there were three classes of honours degrees awarded; the First Class winners were called Wranglers, said to have been born with golden spoons in their mouths; Second Degree winners were called Senior Optimes, born with silver spoons and the third class went to Junior Optimes, referring to lead spoons. The unfortunate who was last was called the ‘wooden spoon’ and the university adopted the custom of presenting a wooden spoon to the individual placed lowest in the Mathematical Tripos. But it was still a pass!

I went online to find a large one ….. and ordered it. It arrived and had a crack in it. Without question I was given a refund with no need to return it.

Back to square one! I was still undecided when I saw two old scaffolding-type planks on the street, leaning up against the recycling bins. I can’t abide waste so thought I could use them somehow. That’s when the idea came to me. Perhaps I could fashion a large wooden spoon out of a plank, so large that it would have to be up on the kitchen wall. I have a modicum of DIY skill, supported by some very basic tools, but more importantly a strong belief that I can do anything. Whatever I do, I accept that the end result might not be the greatest example but ….. if someone showing the cheeks of their bum can do something, I am sure I can make a passable attempt. My regular readers may remember the little brick wall I built at the back of the patio of my basement flat off Clapham Common.

It probably took me about a week, evenings and the weekend, whereas a bricklayer would have taken a day. But there’s something very satisfying in achieving something way out of one’s comfort zone.

Back to the spoon. The first thing I had to do was to determine its size. The plank was 18cms wide by 1.8m long, so I cut 50cms off it. Mapping out the head of the spoon wasn’t an exact science but soon I had an outline that I could attack with tools that cut/sawed/planed/chiselled/sanded.

Eventually I had a sanded ‘spoon’ which then, after some staining and some polish, I liked so much we kept it!!

So the other plank was used to make Jade’s!!

The first spoon in front of the other plank

I have made four so far, one for Scarlet Anderson who founded a London-based production company called Spoon Studios. I had fashioned almost all of the spoon end of one when it cracked into one third/two thirds. I had a fit, swore a little, but then thought I could glue them back together using some dowels.

Wooden dowels

For those of you unfamiliar with woodworking – and here’s me suggesting I am (not) – these little wooden pegs are ideal for fixing pieces of wood together when you don’t want to use a metal screw. Just drill a hole in each side of the pieces of wood you want to join, apply some glue, place a dowel in one side and bring them together, clamping as necessary. Sounds so easy, except that the holes in each side need to be exactly lined up.

YouTube has some helpful videos. In short, you hammer a small nail into one side, cut off the top, and bring the two pieces together. The nail will make a mark on the other piece of wood. Drill!

I am not going to start a production line, but it’s been a fun experience!

Richard 6th June 2025

Hove

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk  

Note 1 You will notice amongst the spoons a wooden spaghetti quantity measurer and some other thing used for I know not! Looks nice!

Note 2 The trick to making good scrambled egg is to turn off the heat just before they’re ready. The eggs will go on cooking a little and then they’re perfect.

PC 441 Osborne and Obesity

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PC 441 Osborne and Obesity

I have been to Osborne House, the summer palace of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on the Isle of Wight, once, a decade before I moved out of London with Celina and settled in Hove. Strangely here we are surrounded by echoes of its period, the architecture copied by two houses on Albany Villas   

and local streets named Osborne Villas and Medina Villas, the latter named after the river that flows north to the sea at Cowes. On that first visit I had admired the floor-to-ceiling mirrors in one of the state rooms and that idea came to fruition when we moved into our apartment in Amber House. Dean from The House of Shutters was startled to be asked to mirror the inside of six of the eight shutters we had ordered, but agreed they looked wonderful; and still do!

The Yellow Drawing Room at Osborne House

Osborne House (note 1) was built for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert between 1845 and 1851. In the twenty-four years between her accession to the throne in 1937 and the death of Prince Albert in 1861, The British Empire almost quintupled in size. A fascinating book that covers this period is Saul David’s ‘Victoria’s Wars – The Rise of Empire’. The importance of Osborne House to Queen Victoria following Albert’s untimely death is obvious.

On her own death on 22 January 1901 (Note 2) the royal apartments, including Queen Victoria’s bedroom, were turned into a private museum accessible only to the royal family. A wrought iron gate was fixed across the corridor, barring anyone else! On his coronation Edward VII gave the estate to the nation. Queen Elizabeth II never visited, preferring to use Sandringham as her summer retreat, but gave permission in 1954 for the first-floor private apartments in the royal pavilion to be open to the public.

The carved dining room ceiling with a minstrels’ gallery at the end

Always interesting to see inside these magnificent buildings, glimpsing how a very minute section of our nation lived. Most of the rooms are very ornate, the decoration befitting the Ruler of the British Empire. Wearing her Empress of India hat, Victoria created The Durbar Room and corridor, with its paintings from India. Victoria had a great sense of humour and she commissioned a huge painting of bare-breasted women to hang on the wall above Albert’s and her working desks.

Their desks side by side, facing the somewhat raunchy oil painting!

Walking around Osborne, I was wondering what happened to their nine children; Victoria (1840), Albert Edward (1841), Alice (1843), Alfred (1844), Helena (1846), Louise (1848), Arthur (1851), Leopold (1853) and Beatrice (1857).

Albert, Victoria and eight of their children

 I am reminded of my great great grandmother Sarah Fosbery who, having married at 17, gave birth to nine daughters between 1839 and 1861 – and then died aged 39; hardly surprising?

Regular readers will remember that, in the aftermath of food poisoning from a TAP meal on my flight back from Brazil, I rediscovered sweet jelly. In the extensive grounds of Osborne House is Swiss Cottage, a chalet-style house that Albert built, well I don’t imagine he built it himself (!), for his children, somewhere where they could be themselves, away from the suffocating atmosphere of the main house. Each child had their own vegetable patch

Princess Alice’s vegetable plot

and in the cottage, rooms were dedicated to cooking, playing games, sewing etc. I spied one of those lovely copper jelly, or blancmange (?) moulds and asked the volunteer overseeing the visitors whether I could borrow it. Fat chance huh! In Swiss Cottage there was an interactive explanation of what happened to their children; naturally most married into other European royal families.

Albert’s love of horticulture has ensured that the 300 acres of gardens, pastures and woods are well worth exploring, including his walled garden with cold frames and conservatories. From Osborne House, a long tree-lined avenue leads down to a beach on The Solent

and it was here that the queen would swim.

Memories of Osborne are numerous but sadly the abiding one from this visit will be my observations on the health of the other visitors. Granted we visited on a Wednesday, so not a day to go if you were still working, but I was reminded what Sami had said on my last visit to the Hope Café (See PC 438 May 2025), that ‘only 9.3% of older people, defined as ‘surviving to the age of 70 year without the presence of any of 11 major chronic diseases’, could be classed as properly health.’ (Note 3) In the United Kingdom 45% of those of pensionable age have some form of long-term illness, impairment or disability. It’s not something you can shout about, confront, but I despaired at the general apparent lack of health of the public who visited on Wednesday, with their walking sticks, Zimmer frames, hunched postures, spare tyres and ‘bingo wings’. Maybe they will all apply to take Ozempic, ignoring the possibility that with sensible eating and general exercise, none of these things is necessary. I read on Wednesday that KFC has announced plans to create 7000 jobs across the UK and Ireland. Great! More fried chicken will be consumed ….. that’ll increase the bottom line for both KFC and the Nation!

Everyone has a story about their health; for some a genetic condition or accident will have created a disability through no fault of their own. But as I said to someone the other day, everyone is responsible for what they put in their mouth.

Richard 30th May 2025

Hove

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 The worst time to visit the house is on a Wednesday morning. If that’s your only day, visit the gardens in the morning and the house in the afternoon.

Note 2 In PCs 44 and 45 (July 2015) I scribbled about our trip to Eagle in Alaska. Great grandfather George was there when Queen Victoria died and remembers the palpable grief.

Note 3 I am not in this 9%, having had a triple heart bypass in 2013!

PC 440 The Isle of Wight

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The visit of Celina’s mother and partner Toni has become an annual occurrence, and we have always tried to organise a few days away during their time in the UK. We have been to my home city of Bath (see PC 337 An American in Bath – June 2023), visited Arundel Castle, the home of the Duke of Norfolk, and spent two nights in Lymington in the New Forrest (see PCs 388 & 389 May 2024). This year, prompted by Toni mentioning his mother had much enjoyed Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, we organised a two-night stay there. Being an island itself, Great Britain has a long coastline stretching some 1800 kms with numerous offshore islands. Apart from the largest groups such as the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Orkneys and Shetland Isles, the larger ones include Mull (875 sq kms), the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea (572 sq kms), Arran in the Firth of Clyde, and then the Isle of Wight on the south coast. This triangular shaped island covers some 381 sq kms – I read that for comparative purposes it’s about half the size of Singapore ……. if that’s useful? (Better than comparing it with Wales!)

Ferry in yellow, journeys in blue, places in red

On its western tip are the famous Needles, three huge, white chalk rocks marked by a C19th lighthouse.

And nestling into that western coast is Alum Bay, famous for its strata of coloured sands

The western entrance to The Solent narrows by Hurst Castle on the mainland.

Hurst Castle is at the right hand end of the line of pebbles in the distance

Actually, you can see the Isle of Wight when visibility is good from the high ground on the north side of Brighton & Hove, some 55 miles away.

Most of my experiences of the Isle of Wight come from my love of sailing. I have taken part in Mermaid dinghy regattas off Seaview; I have swum in Cowes harbour way past midnight and possible having had too much to drink (!); moored up in Yarmouth harbour numerous times, once having to go over the side of the yacht to unwrap a rope from the propeller; anchored outside as the harbour was full, and had to cope with a dragging anchor in strong winds and spring tides; on returning from the Channel Islands one year, we hit the sand off Ryde, between Cowes and Bembridge, and had to wait for the tide to change; and once, as the tide was favourable, we nosed our way into Newton Creek, a wild nature reserve between Cowes and Yarmouth. For a few years I took part in Cowes Week, the August international yachting regatta that attracts thousands of entrants. In 1969 I took part in a Sail Training Association race from Cowes to Skagen in the northern tip of Denmark, and then on to Malmö in Sweden. I feel at home in this part of the United Kingdom.

The island is served by two ferry companies, Red Funnel from Southampton and Wightlink from Lymington, Portsmouth Harbour and Portsmouth. During my career as an executive coach I worked for Sea Containers, who at the time owned Wightlink and Hoverspeed, the latter running ferries to Calais and Boulogne-Sur-Mer.

I guess the most famous town on the Isle of Wight is Cowes, although its capital is a town called Newport, right in the centre of the island and where the Medina River starts being deep enough to be navigable. Most of the east-west island traffic flows through its congested streets, as north at Cowes the only way to cross the river is on a ‘floating bridge’ which can only take 20 cars on each trip. On the south coast are the Victorian holiday resorts of Ventnor and Shanklin.

The Albion Hotel overlooking Freshwater Bay

You will see from the map that we stayed a couple of nights in the renovated Albion Hotel in Freshwater on the southwest corner. A C18th hostel overlooking Freshwater Bay was destroyed in a big storm in 1824 and the Royal Albion Hotel dates from 1860. The building of Osborne House drew tourists and courtiers alike to the island and the hotel prospered. Today its 40 rooms offer a tranquil setting to unwind after cycling or walking around the island or, as we did, visiting Osborne House. And if you’re lucky, you wake up at just the right time, in this case 26 minutes past midnight, to take a photograph of the full moon over a calm sea.

Nothing is very far on the Isle of Wight and on our second evening we drove north to Yarmouth – yes, the mouth of the river Yar! Our friends from Lymington, whom we had seen last year, came across on the Wightlink ferry for supper at The George Hotel. The tourist and yachting season hadn’t really got underway and it wasn’t at all crowded; in the summer months it becomes very busy and to guarantee a mooring in the harbour you need to be there by 1600, which is too early!   


On the last morning we took a quick trip out to the coast above The Needles; in stunning warm sunshine we looked down at the iconic lighthouse, which I have sailed passed many, many times.

From there we drove east along the south coast before heading north to the ferry terminal at Fishbourne. One’s unlikely to go to the IoW with a car for a day trip, as the ferries are expensive; if you live on the island you get a discount but it does tend to isolate the island community – maybe they like it that way? We caught the 1300 ferry back to Portsmouth and were home in Hove by 1510.


We were lucky with our weather; wall-to-wall sunshine with 20°C and little wind. Next week’s scribbles will cover our visit to Osborne House.

Richard 23rd May 2025

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS Flights to Portugal from Gatwick pass over the IoW. Often the view is amazing


Looking south over the Isle of Wight. Cowes is in the centre of the photograph.

PC 439 A Global Contentious Issue

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In January I posted a card entitled ‘Contentious Issues in the UK’ (PC 420) as a focus to the New Year. I should have added something about the definition of a woman, as events have defined this also as ‘contentious’. After years of acrimonious debate about the ins and out of changing sex, from man to woman, from woman to man, and for those who would prefer to stay somewhere in between, some LBGT pressure groups were, in my opinion, demanding unhealthy, skewed and biased changes to societal rules.

I left the world of paid work some time ago, so this issue is one I read about, care about, but have no real experience of. I read that everyone was being forced to declare themselves I/me/moi/my etc ….. or else! Thankfully the pendulum has swung back from its extreme position. Those who wish to identify in a certain way, by certain criteria, should be allowed to do so. But it’s rubbish to assume that if you don’t declare your pronouns for yourself, you’re somehow against the whole idea. Sadly the polarisation of any topic, any issue seems to be a feature of the current times and that shuts down reasonable debate and acceptance of opposing views.

Britain has a tolerant attitude, in the main, to diversity, but it seems that, anxious to be tolerant, accepting, we allowed pressure groups like Stonewall to bulldoze their way through and into government departments’ policies, dictating their slightly skewed agenda. The threat to individuals was that if they didn’t sign up to the propaganda they would be cancelled. We have enough bullies at the moment. It really was a clear example of the tail wagging the dog (see PC 421 Not The Way to Go January 2025)

It’s not the end of the debate for sure, but on 15th April 2025 the UK’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a woman is defined by biological sex under equalities law. Chris Mason, the BBC’s Political Editor, headlined it as one of the most contentious issues for 2025. It’s worth just quoting one of those who got the case heard: “For years, a lot of us have felt just completely gaslit. That the truth is no longer the truth, that women cannot speak up. That we should allow anyone who wants to be in our sporting categories, our bathrooms, our hospital wards, our lesbian dating sites, that we should just allow anyone that wants to, to just come in. We’ve been told that we’re cruel and unkind, transphobic, discriminatory, that we’re breaking the law. All these things are completely untrue.”

In late April, the European Court of Human Rights (EHRC) released an update on the practical implications of the Supreme Court’s clarification, saying that in places such as hospitals, shops and restaurants, “trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities”. It is now compulsory for workplaces to provide sufficient single-sex lavatories, as well as single-sex changing and washing facilities where needed. The EHRC added that “where possible, mixed-sex toilet, washing or changing facilities” should also be offered. (Note 1)

So now local councils will have to provide ‘safe’ places, changing rooms, loos etc for the transgender community. Let’s just put this in perspective. In England and Wales 0.5% of the population, some 262,000, have a gender identity that is different from the one they were assigned at birth. And we have allowed individuals, under pressure from Stonewall, to self-identify, the idea that they are the sole authority to determine their sex, regardless of biology.  Compare their needs with those who have some form of long-term illness, impairment or disability. Shockingly, almost a quarter of the UK’s working-age population meet this criteria. It’s also shocking that 45% of those of pensionable age fit this group. There are estimated to be 1.2 million wheelchair users, who are often unable to travel due to poor wheelchair access. So when councils are asked to allocate dwindling financial resources, surely those with the greater need, the majority, come first?  Of course, in an ideal world everyone would be accommodated but it’s unlikely there will ever be an ideal world!

Even among jubilant women’s rights campaigners, there is a feeling that this is just the beginning. They want to challenge the institutions where they believe gender ideology — and specifically self-ID, the idea that an individual has the sole authority to determine their sex, regardless of biology — has taken root.

Kate Barker, the chief executive of the LGB Alliance, which made a submission to the Supreme Court about the importance for lesbians of the primacy of biological sex, argues this anger is misplaced:

“Why are they so mad at women for protecting our spaces and at gay people for protecting our rights [to same-sex relationships] and not mad at the people who have fed them duff legal advice for the past ten years?” Barker asked. “Stonewall and all those groups have spent ten years pushing the idea of self-ID, saying that it might not have quite been the law but it was practically the law. And institutions — particularly places like the BBC — were captured by Stonewall.”

So common sense will need to be applied to this judgment. Organisations will have to try to accommodate the trans community in whatever way they can, in a climate of stretched financial resources. Already many sports governing bodies have said that trans women will not be able to compete in women’s only events; surely common sense?  

We don’t live in an ideal world and the silent majority need their voice heard; not drowned out by a vocal minority.

Richard 16th May 2025

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 On 2nd May Stonewall posted this: ‘It’s important to remember that the ruling is not law as of yet and organisations should wait to see how statutory guidance is changed before making policy changes.” Actually the Supreme Court’s judgement is exactly that, legal clarity as to how a woman is defined and Stonewall’s advice is encouraging organisations to act unlawfully!

PC 438 More Odds from The Hope Cafe

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Knowing my days would be busy with the visit of my mother-in-law around Celina’s birthday, I popped into The Hope to catch up with Sami on Monday afternoon. When I first met him some years ago, he was reading the latest John Grisham novel and sure enough, this afternoon his head is also into a book. He looks up and slips his bookmark between the pages:

“Hi! Richard. How are you? I read that you had food poisoning on your flight back from Rio. You OK now?”

“Yes! Thank God! Very nasty! Got into jelly! Haven’t had sweet jelly for decades and it was perfect. Even bought a block of blackberry flavour and poured boiling water over it ……. ! What are you reading?”

“Well, given the death of Pope Francis, it seems an appropriate time to read Robert Harris’ book Conclave; it was published almost ten years ago but it feels very current! Very good, but then I would expect nothing less from Harris; such a great and inventive author.”

“You’ve watched the film Conclave, right, the one with Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci? I read the book a few years ago and found the film on our flight out to Rio de Janeiro towards the end of March. Sometimes the director of a film diverges from important elements of a book for whatever reason; for a film is only their take, their understanding, and may or may not compare with one’s own imaginative thoughts derived from its reading. Personally, I think the film’s great and whilst it may not be a completely accurate description of the real conclave, it’s going to be in the back of my mind when the 133 cardinal electors gather in the Sistine chapel on Wednesday to choose Pope Francis’ successor. (Note 1)

Hopefully there is a big dollop of truth in terms of the way the next pontiff is chosen; it sort-of lifted the lid on something regarded as very mysterious. Wasn’t his funeral wonderful? But a demonstration of a male-dominated organisation, hundreds of men in skirts and brocade and silk, centuries of tradition; I wonder whether it’s fit for the C21st? And now we’ll see the fight between traditionalist and liberals, the former tending to be a strong cohort in catholic churches of Africa.”  

“Ha! I heard that, in a twist worthy of Harris’ book and the subsequent film, Pope Francis, in a death-bed letter, forbade Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the most senior Catholic Church official ever to stand trial before a Vatican criminal court, found guilty but free pending an appeal, from voting in this month’s conclave.”

“For some reason a rerun of a Dave Allen skit (Note 2) was broadcast on Instagram the other day. You remember Dave Allen, Sami?”

“Oh! Come on! I was born in 1958 so too young for what I gather was compulsory Saturday Night television viewing! Of course I have seen some of the compilation programmes. What was the topic of the skit?”

“With the current focus on the Vatican and the choosing of the next Pope to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, it’s very apposite:

‘Jeremy died and made his way to heaven, where he was welcomed by St Peter, who offered to show him around. ‘Over there, that group are Hindus, and down there by the lake are Muslims; Anglicans and Jews tend to congregate around here.’ There was a very tall wall behind St Peter and curious, Jeremy asked him what was on the other side. ‘Ah! On the other side of the wall are the Catholics; they think they are the only inhabitants of heaven.’

Then we had Morten Morland’s wonderful cartoon that summed up the late Pope (Note 3):

“Don’t you love cartoons like that? Perfect! Different topic. Not sure you were here or in Brazil but there was an interesting news item about health a couple of weeks ago that caught my eye.”

“Health? In Brazil it’s a national fixation but here in the United Kingdom less so!”

“You’re right! Researchers studied more than 100,000 people living in the United States over 30 years and found that only 9.3% of the older people could be classed as properly health, defined as ‘surviving to the age of 70 years without the presence of any of 11 major chronic diseases and with no impairment in cognitive or physical functions or mental health.’ Those eleven, in case you’re interested, cover cancer, diabetes, myocardial infarction (a heart attack), coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, stroke, kidney failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (a fatal type of motor neuron disease). Not surprisingly, it concluded that ‘greater long-term adherence to a healthy diet during mid-life was associated with greater odds of healthy ageing.’”

“Not rocket science huh but I guess everyone will be asking themselves – ‘Have I had any?’ More yoga I say! By the way, you remember I scribbled about Gen Z a while ago?” (PC 425 February 2025)

“Yes ……”

“Well, Robert Crampton, writing in The Times about Generation Z and their idea of work, laid it on the line:

‘Generation Z don’t seem to understand the basic social contract!’ and went on to say your family care for you, from being a baby to acquiring educational qualifications, then you go and earn your own living. You pay taxes to keep the country safe, educated, moving and healthy. He stressed that the ‘going to work’ business, reliably, regularly, cannot be construed as emotional abuse! ‘It’s normal to feel anxious; it’s also normal to have days when you don’t fancy it.’ Then you retire and get looked after again. ‘That’s the deal. It’s really not negotiable.’

“Actually, think that’s spot on! Not only Generation Z; too many people think The State should support them.”

“Sami! Must get on. Lovely to talk to you and I’ll let you get back into ‘Conclave’.”

Richard 9th May 2025

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS White smoke appeared yesterday as the cardinals elected Robert Prevost to be the next pontiff. He’s decided to call himself Pope Leo XIV

Note 1 135 were eligible but two are too infirm to travel.

Note 2 Dave Allen (July 1936 – March 2005) was a brilliant Irish comedian, satirist and actor.

Note 3 Morland is a Norwegian political cartoonist who regularly features in The Times.

PC 437 Pulled back to the Hope Café

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Mo had sent me a WhatsApp asking if I was back. I am reminded of the difficulties of those who spend a long time in different parts of the world; no one is ever sure where you are, if you’re back. My mother-in-law tries to spend the European winters in Rio de Janeiro, her home city, and vica versa; her friends need to be briefed as to when she’s coming, or indeed when she’s going. I replied I could meet Mo in The Hope Café on Tuesday …. so we catch up over a coffee and a little pastry from Teresa’s Brazilian counter.

“How was Brazil? Read your postcards. (PCs 435 & 436) Sounds as though you had a great time.”

“Actually, very relaxed. Didn’t try to go to hot yoga in Copacabana; just walked along the beach before the sun got too hot, then caught up with friends and family. Two people particularly. Carl von Studnitz, in addition to his surfing and cinematography businesses, runs a charity that provided essential food and clothing to poor families in the municipality of Queimados, to the north of Barra. He lives in the suburb of Jardim Botânico.

A Lily pond within the botanical gardens

The other was Pricilla Goslin, the author of ‘How to be a Carioca’.”

“Sounds like you enjoyed yourself. Wasn’t the main reason of your visit to assist your mother-in-law on her return to Lisbon?”

“Yes. Then she and her partner Toni will come and visit in May. You may recall a couple of PCs I wrote last year after a similar visit. (PCs 388 and 389 Lymington)”

“But you are looking well – always good to have a little tan, makes one look healthy!”

“You should have seen me when I got back – ‘walking death’!”

“What do you mean? What happened?”

                “We had a late afternoon flight out of Rio, with an arrival time in Lisbon of 0500 on Monday 14th.

Looking south over Guanabara Bay with Pão de Açucar at its western entrance

I always love looking out of aeroplane windows, in the hope I’ll see something interesting. Look at the moon rising:

This was taken late on; we’d left Brazil and were heading to the West African coast.”

“Richard, I am in suspense. Why did you feel awful?”

“Chose the little ‘fish & rice’ starter and chicken ‘main’ for the inflight meal and settled down to watch Ridley Scott’s Napoleon. About two hours out of Lisbon was feeling decidedly funny. Managed to get off the plane and make my way to our connecting flight. I could still taste the meal! Slept on the Gatwick bound flight, although had a sick bag ready (they seemed ridiculously small!), got home by midday … had a couple of hours sleep …… got up and made myself vomit …… had a couple of hours sleep … got up and made myself vomit ….. repeated twice more. The Tuesday and Wednesday are a blur. Had a banana on the Wednesday and another on the Thursday. Haven’t had jelly for years but that was another option, that and dry toast ….. and Lucozade! What I hadn’t experienced before was the ache in my abdomen; sometimes it really was quite severe. Still, by Saturday of the Easter weekend was beginning to feel better, sort of 70%! The only good thing was I had no diarrhoea!”

“You know, Richard, everyone has their personal horror stories of food poisoning; dodgy curries, fish very definitely ‘off’, chicken contaminated with salmonella, funny mushrooms (Note 1). And as soon as someone tells you they have/have had food poisoning, they will tell you about their own experiences, in graphic detail, as if your own weren’t enough, but maybe theirs were worse!”

“Haven’t had any chocolate for ten days!! On the subject of food, I am often late to hear new labels and so it is with ‘Food Noise’; apparently it’s the nagging voice of craving which affects almost 60 % of the population, like ‘chocolate’ which I absolutely identify with. ‘Food Noise’ (Note 2) is the title of a new book by the son of the late Michael Mosley, author of The Fast Diet, whose engaging personality encouraged us to watch many of his television programmes about food and our bodies. Jack is following in his footsteps.

We have a friend who’s 7 months into a year-long trial using Ozempic to lose weight, so there’s a personal interest. Jack sounds several notes of warning about its use, the first about the type of weight that users tend to lose. According to its Danish manufacturer, users lost about 17% of their weight over a 70-week period, but 40% of this was lean body mass ie muscle. And that muscle loss is not regained; most put on fat when they come off the drug.”

“Wow! That’s very disturbing. Like you I have a couple of friends who are on it, but by the sound of it no one really knows its long-term effects on our organs. Incidentally had you left before Heathrow shut down on 20th March?”

“No, and fortunately we weren’t flying until the 26th, so we were unaffected.”

“Seems amazing that one failed component at an electricity sub-station near the airport could cause a fire that shut down the sub-station …… and Heathrow ….. completely. I imagine everyone is asking searching questions, about how can Heathrow, the second busiest airport in the world and important national infrastructure, be brought to a complete stop by the failure of one supply outlet. I suspect a great many organisations and companies are dusting off their Contingency Manuals, the ones which have Plan B and Plan C in the event of a failure of Plan A!” 

“Mo. Before I go, do you know when the bookshop is going to open?”

“Yes! By the beginning of June; a little later than Duncan planned. I will help out three days a week ….. and I need to get going too. Always good to chat, See you.”

Richard 2nd May 2025

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 Poisonous mushrooms are at the centre of a murder investigation in a court case in Australia.

Note 2 ‘Food Noise: How Weight Loss Medications and Smart Nutrition can silence your cravings’ by Dr Jack Mosley.

PC 436 Where’s the Girl from Ipanema? (Continued)

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On this visit we rented an AirBnB in the Lanai Condominio, around the corner from an apartment owned by Celina’s bother, in Barra da Tijuca. The suburb lies to the west of Ipanema and Barra’s beach, just across the road, is even better than Ipanema’s; the girls probably are the same. 

I’ve written about this long stretch of sand before, collecting thoughts in PC 08 ‘Beach Life in Brazil’, which has a short postscript concerning dental floss. (See PS) On another visit in September 2014, almost eleven years ago, I wrote PC 21, questioning happenings in the world; I think the first two paragraphs are worth repeating:

“We walked along the line of the surf of the crowded beach on a Sunday in September in Barra da Tijuca; the sun was warm on our backs. I looked at the carefree groups of families and friends, at children playing either in the surf or with a football, this is Brazil after all (!), and at other adults, just splashing in the shallows. It was totally divorced from the obscene photograph of a black figure brandishing a knife in front of a kneeling, orange-suited human that had appeared on the front page of my digital Times that morning.

I had looked at the photo of the latest British hostage, a 44-year-old man with a family, with friends, with loved ones. It was so surreal. I knew from the news report that, moments after the photo had been, he would be murdered, in cold blood, in the most barbaric and inhuman way.”

‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.’ Then it was ISIS, trying to bring about a C7th Caliphate in the Middle East; today for example it’s the slaughter in Ukraine. A poem by Robert Burns in 1786 included the line – ‘man’s inhumanity to man’; we don’t learn, and some of those who profess to lead don’t care.

I am no ornithologist but am mesmerised by one particular bird that populates the Brazilian coast; it looks almost prehistoric, like a pterodactyl perhaps.

With the aid of Google I learned it’s called a Frigate bird. They are apparently found across all the tropical and subtropical oceans. Characterised by black plumage, deeply forked tails and long hooked bills, there are five extant species. Wonderful!

Currently the temperature of the sea at Barra is fine but, surprisingly as the littoral current moves in a southerly direction from the equator, it can be very cold. Additionally, the underwater profiles of the seabed mean it’s not a particularly safe beach. Undercurrents, fierce draw-backs and constant breaking waves mean those wanting a dip do just that, have a dip. The only swimming going on is by those on surf or bodyboards, making their way beyond the breakers. Every 400m or so is a manned lifeguard station and if someone thinks it’s safe further out, the warning whistles start and they are encouraged to come back to the shore.

It’s always interesting going to other countries and engaging with those people who live there on a permanent basis. The moans I hear today in Rio are an echo of those I hear in Hove; distrust in politicians, the cost of living, the energy/climate crisis, streets unsafe at night and more frequently in some areas during the day, the pervasiveness of social media, the lack of acceptance of opposing views, the lack of common sense etc etc. The locals complain of the traffic, especially at rush hour along the coast road that leads from Barra da Tijuca, past São Conrado and into Lebon and Ipanema. I remind them that in the UK the normal commute is at least 90 minutes.

The southeast corner of the UK is fairly prosperous; relative poverty rarer here that further north. In Brazil poverty is never far from the surface, that and the insidious drugs, their peddling and their use. Surprisingly the city administration clears the streets of those with nowhere to live, ensuring they get shelter and food. (Note 1) The rich here would hope that Rio de Janeiro remains globally famous for its Christ the Redeemer statue, Sugar Loaf Mountain, carnival and its beaches, and maybe for the girl walking along Ipanema beach. But in the last thirty years its favelas have been making the news; some are more famous than others, some more dangerous than others, and the nearest one to Celina’s mother’s house is Rocinha.

Rochinha houses cling to the mountainside in all directions

Times change and its residents have benefitted from the provision of a new tube line and station in 2016, part of the Olympic infrastructure, and lately by a Tourist Office opening within the favela. This is creating more money for the inhabitants, which can only be a good thing.

We had little rain during our visit and what we had was tropical.

Downpour at 0300!

Our AirBnB had air conditioning, essential if you want a good night’s sleep, but the pouring of water onto the external metal box made such an horrendous noise that sleep was impossible. Being a practical sort of chap, I wondered why no one had glued a thick piece of insulation material or rubber matting to its top. Think it would have worked! Of course, electricity failures are common here and then there is no air conditioning! And if you didn’t, read ‘PC 145 Extreme Weather’ from February 2019 about the floods in Rio de Janeiro.

So that girl, that ‘tall and tanned and young and lovely’ woman from the 1960s, is no longer visible. There seemed something innocent about her and I don’t think that’s true of the woman on Ipanema beach today!

Back in Hove, we miss the warmth, we miss the constant noise, we miss the friendly carefree Brazilian people; I don’t miss the mosquitoes!

Richard 25th April 2025

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS For those of you who might like to read more of my Brazilian scribbles, look at: PC 01 Bahia, PCs 3&4 Rio de Janeiro, PC 5 São Paulo & Cananeia, PC 6 Petropolis, PC 8 Brazilian beach life and PS PC 09, PC 10 Paraty, PC 11 Reflections on São Conrado, PCs 17 & 20 The Pantanal, PC 34 Recife, PC 37 A Small Town in Brazil, PC 51 Foz, PC 63 Santa Catarina and PC 91 Japanese São Paulo.

Note 1 Pricilla Goslin, author of ‘How to be a Carioca’, told me that some streets in Seattle, near her Portland, Oregon home, are a permanent ‘tent city. Echoes of San Francisco perhaps?

PC 435 Where’s the Girl from Ipanema?

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In June 2023 I wrote a postcard entitled Serendipity (PC 340), initially prompted by the obituary of Astrud Gilberto, the young woman who serendipitously was asked to sing the English version of ‘Da Garota de Ipanema’ (The Girl from Ipanema). The wonderful opening lines will be familiar to many: “Tall and tanned and young and lovely/the girl from Ipanema goes walking/and when she passes, each one she passes goes, ‘ahhh’.” (Note 1)

Heloisa Pinheiro Born 7th July 1943

In 2025, over 60 years later, is the modern-day equivalent of Heloisa Pinheiro still visible, walking along the promenade of one of Rio de Janeiro’s iconic beaches? I sense the 1960s were a more tranquil, more relaxed era, no more so than along Ipanema’s beach.

Today there’s a constant effort to get fit, be seen, wear the right gear and hundreds of people are in constant motion on Ipanema’s beach; not many seem to have the time to sit and stare at others. We were lucky enough to stay two nights in the Fasano Hotel, situated just before the little promontories of Pedra do Arpoador and Forte de Copacabana that separate Ipanema and Copacabana beaches.

Pedra do Arpoador

From the rooftop swimming pool there’s a good view west down the road ……

and, at the far end, the favela of Vidigal cheek-by-jowl with the Sheraton Grand Rio Hotel & Resort and both overshadowed by the two peaks known as Dois Irmãos. We arrived in the rain on a Sunday afternoon and those two mountains seemed extremely mysterious.

On our second morning rather than walk along the sand as we had the first day, we walked on the promenade the length of both Ipanema and Leblon beaches, about 5kms. Maybe I could identify a modern ‘girl from Ipanema’? No one seems as carefree as Heloisa Pinheiro must have seemed; a little too much filler in the lips, eyelashes so long they could be used as a paintbrush, small or large tattoos in abundance, the smallest bikini bottoms requiring Brazilian waxing, and possibly stopping every few moments to take a Selfie! (Note 2) Towards the end of the pavement, with its characteristic black & white swirling patterns, suddenly someone yells: ‘Celina!’; I turn around and there’s a friend we hadn’t seen since 2019, Alessandra, getting fit on the beach. She doesn’t speak English so I left her to catch up with Celina and walked to the end, reengaging with Celina on the way back. Six years – in the same time, in the same place – a lovely coincidence!

There was a wonderful observation from Letitia, one of the delightful managers in the Fasano Hotel. The hotel was hosting a book launch on our second night. Assouline Publishing, founded in 1994 in New York, has published over 1700 titles on subjects including architecture, art, design, fashion, gastronomy, photography and travel. In amongst these coffee table book titles are, for instance, ‘Napoli Amore’, ‘Bangkok Spirit’ and ‘Paris Paris’. The book for the launch was obviously about Rio de Janeiro (Note 3), by Bruno Astuto. 

Letitia told us the book costs about R$ 1300 per copy (£170) and ‘that is about the same as Brazil’s minimum wage’! Maybe small change for those who can afford to stay at the Fasano and who might say: ‘Cost of living crisis? What crisis?’ but a good example of the gulf between rich and poor.

Since my first visit to Brazil in April 2012, the Brazilian Real has gone from R$3.2 to the pound to R$7.5. This is great for tourists from Europe like me, but not for instance for Celina’s cousin Bel Gasparian, whose recent week in Florence cost her an arm, a leg, and the bag off her back!

On the subject of finance, here in Brazil, forget ‘contactless’, forget cash; everyone is using a system called Pix (Instant Payment Ecosystem). Created and managed by the Banco Central do Brazil, its aim is to reduce cash transactions and offers an alternative to existing payment instructions. It was fully operational in 2020; all you need is to have a Brazilian bank account. Here credit card transaction fees can reach up to 2.2%, whereas Pix charges retailers about 0.2% and is free to individuals. Naturally everyone is using it, the hotels and restaurants, supermarkets and our taxi drivers, even the street artist making a meagre living selling souvenirs or the chap on the beach offering chairs and a sun umbrella to rent. It aims to achieve the transaction in under 10 seconds, although there is an individual payment limit of R$1000 between 2000 and 0600. (Note 4)

I suspect that most decent human beings are sadden by the way in which the new president of the United States goes about dealing with people. The bullying, the threatening manner; “Do as I say or else …. I’ll throw your toys out of my pram.” But we encountered a couple of instances where international hotel guests completely disregarded anyone but themselves, with no ‘Thank you’, no ‘excuse me!’, certainly no ‘please’. I imagine they hadn’t read ‘manners maketh man.’

To be continued …….

Richard 18 April 2025

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 The rhythm of Brazil is of course Samba. Sadly today you’re more likely to hear some repetitive techno stuff.

Note 2 These days filler in one’s buttocks (The Brazilian Lift) is popular globally among some, but I don’t think it’s something the Brazilians want to be associated with.

Note 3 R is pronounced H in Brazilian Portuguese. On one visit there was an advertisement for a rock concert called ‘Rock in Rio’ …. Pronounced ‘Hockinghio’!

Note 4 In England the use of contactless cards is widespread, but the retailer pays a percentage for every transaction. On my way back from hot yoga I often buy a drink from Hanan who runs a 7/11. The bottle cost £1.85; I pay cash. Recently it went up to £2 as he makes a loss if the customer pays by contactless; I pay cash and he charges me £1.85.

PC 434 Sods and Odds (continued backwards)

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My regular readers will have seen my postcards about young men, PCs 352 (About Men) and 354 (More About Men), reflecting on Caitlin Moran’s most recent book ‘What About Men’. These are hugely important issues, the development of teenagers into fully functioning adults; I have three grandsons so have an acute interest in what has influenced them already and what might in the near future. Those scribbles were eighteen months ago and today the subject has become a hot topic, in the aftermath of the first screening of the Netflix film Adolescence. The overview states: “A family’s world is turned upside down when 13-year-old Jamie Miller is arrested for murdering a schoolmate. The charges against their son force them to confront every parent’s worst nightmare.” It stars Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller, Stephen Graham as his father Eddie, Christine Tremarco as his mother Manda and Amélie Pease as his sister Lisa.

We watched all four episodes on Netflix here in Barra da Tijuca, although both Celina and I struggled with Tremarco’s strong Liverpudlian accent, often unable to understand what she had said. I am familiar with the issues that form the core of the drama; social media obsession, uncertainty about male/female relationships, influencers like Andrew Tate, parental abrogation of their crucial role in the development of their children, to name but a few. Of these ‘influencers’, Sir Gareth Southgate, the former football manager of England, has this to say: “There is a lack of role models and father figures at home and into this void step the callous, manipulative and toxic influencers. They trick young men into believing that success is measured by money or dominance, never to show emotion, and that the world and women are against them.”

The old model of an ideal family consisted of two parents and two children – the ‘nuclear’ family. Recent statistics highlight one of today’s problems; in the group classed as ‘long term unemployed’, 60% of the households with children are headed by a single mother. The centre for Social Justice says: ‘boys are now far more likely to have a smartphone in their pocket than a father at home.’

Today we sadly read a lot about Andrew Tait; writing his name makes me grimace, such is the revulsion I feel for this individual. I read somewhere that back in 2019 there was another ‘Andrew Tait’, a ‘Canadian professor, called Jordan Peterson, who was capturing the attention of young men and boys. A generation of young men who were desperate for structure and guidance read his books or watched his You Tube lectures. Research carried out in May of 2020 by the anti-extremist charity ‘Hope not Hate’ found that two in five young British men had read, watched or listened to something by Peterson.’

Beyond the basics of personal responsibility, Peterson’s message about women’s place in society was an extreme one, particularly dangerous to underdeveloped minds. He clearly had a misogynistic view of women, even suggesting that feminists had an ‘unconscious wish for brutal male domination’. Nice huh? Well, he would think that, given he also claimed that women wearing make-up to the office was “sexually provocative”. His audience soaked up the bullshit like a sponge does liquid.

Before some more scribbles about the male/female interface, a little light relief. Sometimes on my FaceBook account a poem pops up, like this one, familiar from way back. Written by Leo Marks in 1943 in memory of his girlfriend who had just been killed in a plane crash in Canada, it was used as a ‘code poem’ in the Second World War:

“The Life that I have, is all that I have, and the life that I have is yours.

The love that I have, of the life that, I have is yours and yours and yours

A sleep I shall have, a rest I shall have, yet death will be but a pause

For the peace of my years, in the long green grass, will be yours and yours and yours.”

In the middle of March The Times published an obituary of Alison Halford, the first policewoman to be appointed an Assistant Chief Constable, in her case to Liverpool Constabulary in 1983. Seven years later, at the Employment Tribunal into her sacking, her evidence ‘lifted the lid on Merseyside police’s canteen culture of hard drinking, strong language and cut-throat promotion politics’. “There appears to be a strong but covert resentment or mistrust of the competence of a woman who can get to the heart of a problem, shows creativity and innovation and manages to acquire a reputation for getting things done.”

From the standpoint of 2025 it was a fascinating exposé of the misogynistic and laddish culture found in England’s police forces in the 1960s and 1970s; I suspect Merseyside was typical. It was sad reading but what really shocked me was Alison Halford’s recollection of the initial interview process when she applied to join the force. Apparently after ‘eye, hearing and intelligence tests, the female rookies were paraded in front of senior officers and ordered to remove their upper clothing, including their bras, and answer questions.’ If it is true, as it sounds so outrageous it questions whether it was made-up to colour her autobiography, ‘No Way Up The Greasy Pole’ (1993), how no one suggested this was appalling speaks volumes about that organisation at that time. Thank God we have grown up …. a little!

During my career as an executive leadership coach one of my client organisations was Surrey Constabulary, headquartered in Guildford; today it has over 2000 police officers. I WhatsApp’d Mark, a senior officer I had worked with 1999-2000, what he thought of Alison Halford. 

          “Halford was actually the first of many senior officers of both sexes in the 1980s, who thankfully became whistleblowers on everything from the taking of bribes, turning a blind eye or stopping cases to drink driving. The 1990s were probably some of the best years for the British police service and I was so fortunate to experience them. She made a huge difference and started a much-needed positive change. I never met her but hope that I was one of the huge number of cops who admired her, carrying forward what she started – fairness, the search for the truth and serving the public with integrity and honesty. God rest her soul. Take care my friend. Mark”


Enough said!

Richard 12th April 2025

Barra da Tijuca, Brazil

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS Two days ago a French parliamentary commission found sexual violence and harassment towards girls and women endemic in their entertainment sector, suggesting ‘collective denial’.