The friday joke and a few random thoughts

Firstly, it's Friday. I think we all need a joke, so in the long tradition of Barnet blogs, here's a rather good one courtesy of our friend Mr Robert Wilkinson

I was knocked down by a cyclist this morning.
It was my own fault, I was walking on the pavement.

— Robert Wilkinson (@robertwlk) September 22, 2023

And as promised, a few random thoughts. I am at a bit of a loss what to do tonight. Normally on such Friday nights, we'd have a curry, but I had one on Wednesday and I need to watch the figure. I'm still not feeling like going out too much. We've been watching the rather depressing "The woman in the wall" series, about the abuse of young, single mothers by the Church in Ireland. I find such things hard to watch, not least because I'm a a Catholic and I never had such bad experiences, but am aware of just how widespread the abuse was. We may finish off the series tonight. It is good to be challenged.

Another random thought I've been having a lot recently is about the weather. I sometimes feel that I'm going mad, because there is lots of talk about extreme weather, but for me, I seem to recall as a kid the weather was far more extreme. The snow was deeper, Mill Hill Broadway would flood, we had the summer of  '76, there seemed to be more thunder and lightening and there was deffo more fog and smog. I do wonder how much more accurate the measurements are today? I am not a climate change denier, but I'm not sure that in the UK it's really changed.

Another thought I had was about the Rolling Stones, who released a new album. There was a time around 1970, when they were my favourite band in the world. It never occurred to me that Mick Jagger would still be singing when he was 80. What seems even odder is that people such as Jacob Rees-Mogg who is nearly 30 years younger seems ancient in comparison. I find it bizarre that a character such as Mogg is younger than me. 

Another thing which I was thinking about quite a lot this week was the alure of celebrity. The current woes of Russel Brand (who is only six years younger than Rees-Mogg) have been much written about, but one thing that is not discussed is that a lot of women seem to have slept with Mr Brand and presumably were quite happy with it. I can't beleive he had any shortage of takers. It does make me wonder what fame and power do to us. I spent my teens and my twenties wanting to be a famous rock star.  Now I'm glad to be in an obscure band that does small scale gigs. It's fun and never really gave me carte blanche to grow into the sort of narcissitic dick head that thinks that people's feelings don't matter. I do wonder what would have happened if I'd have 'made it'. I'd hope I would not have gonea round exposing myself to all and sundry and bragging about it, but can we ever really be sure, if every stupid thing we do is applauded by hangers on?

And finally, some dates for your diary!