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I look back and see my last post on this blog was back in February. There is so much going on in our world, most of it is splashed daily across the headlines of the planet’s media outlets. There seems little point in adding to it. Anyway, I’d hate Mister Putin to read what I had to say about him. As it is he spends hours staring longingly at his little red nuclear button and pondering on how long he can keep his finger off it.

Besides, my own life has been somewhat hectic since I last wrote on these pages. As we grow older we have to expect to cope with less than perfect health, so when a large growth appeared on the outer part of one ear recently I headed for the dermatologist to have it checked.

She took a sample for biopsy, but to my surprise showed more interest in a tiny mole, no more than two or three millimeters across, that had inhabited my right cheek for some months. I’ve always had a few moles on my person and as this one seemed inert and caused no discomfort whatever, even when assailed by my electric shaver, I’d happily ignored it.

She insisted on a biopsy for the mole. I thought it unnecessary, but I’m no dermatologist so didn’t argue. I truly expected the biopsy report to state the painful lump on my ear was cancer, but also that my miniscule mole was just a mole and why had she wasted the pathologist’s time with it?

It transpired the lump on my ear had a medical  name longer than the Mersey tunnel, but was not cancer. My tiny mole, described in the report as a pleomorphic cutaneous sarcoma, was.

The decision was rapidly taken to remove both offending items, and I was booked into a hospital where two ENT surgeons worked one either side of me, one removing my left ear lump and the other the ‘mole’ on my right cheek. It had been explained to me that an area of my cheek two centimeters in diameter would need to be removed around the ‘mole’. This would help  to ensure no cancer cells were left behind. I would have a scar. Also, as the ear lump was situated a good centimeter and a half in from the outer edge of my ear, it was necessary to cut out a wedge from my ear to remove it.

The procedure went well. It was done under local anesthetic and I was able to drive home that afternoon, my face well and truly stitched up. A week later I returned to have the stitches removed and was told the lab report on the ‘mole’ showed that all the cancer cells had been removed with it.

I now have one ear two centimeters shorter than the other, and a five centimeters long, vertical scar down my opposite cheek. My daughter has helpfully suggested I should tell the ladies I’m a retired pirate.

I am grateful to the dermatologist who took nothing on chance, and to the French health system that dealt with me so swiftly and efficiently. Also, of course, the ENT surgeons whose skill has left me with the chance for a much longer life.

I’m now almost back to normal. Everything is healing well and hopefully I’ll be able to fill these pages a bit more frequently from now on.

That is, of course, if Putin can keep his finger off his nuclear button for a while longer.

^{Hind Rajab – “I’m so scared, please come.”}

It’s hard to even write about the devastatingly sad case of Hind Rajab, the little girl aged just six years who lay wounded in a dead relative’s car for hours while desperately pleading for help on a mobile phone.

Help did arrive in the form of an ambulance and two Palestinian paramedics. It was blown apart by an Israeli tank only a few meters from the car in which Hind Rajab was lying, Both the occupants of the ambulance died instantly.

The dead bodies of the little girl and her relatives weren’t retrieved until a fortnight later, when Israeli forces finally left the area.

I remember when my daughter was six years old. To even begin to imagine how I would feel if she had been in that situation is to spend time in hell. Even now, the tears flow at the thought of what that little girl was feeling as she begged for help for three hours while waiting for the rescue that never happened. Then she lay and slowly died, her only companions the bodies of her dead relatives.

I am so tired of the word, “antisemitism,” which has been propagandized, politicized and utilized to allow Netanyahu and his band of pseudo-religious, right-wing compatriots to commit atrocities similar to those of the Nazis in WW2.

No-one would surely argue that the evil perpetrated by Hamas on October 7th did not deserve retribution, but not the genocidal outrage being perpetrated by Netanyahu, with the assistance of the US, UK  and EU governments.

Netanyahu is more concerned for his own political skin than the innocents he is slaughtering in Gaza and on the West Bank. It’s time he ended his days in a jail cell.

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^{Alexei Navalny-“Be scared of nothing.”}

If Vladimir Putin thinks that by murdering Alexei Navalny he will diminish the opposition against him in Russia he needs to think again. He may have got away with the assassination of Yevgeny Prigozhin by shooting down his private jet, but Prigozhin was not the beloved figurehead that was Navalny, and still is even in death.

Navalny and his associates pulled no punches in revealing the corruption in the Kremlin. He has now paid the ultimate price for doing so. Meanwhile, Putin continues to lie and deceive the Russian people into believing his war against Ukraine is merely a defensive stance against Western (NATO) aggression.

As though from some malignant volcano, the world seems to have spewed forth a number of vile, ruthless, or just plain selfish and greedy men, intent on bringing humanity to its knees in their quest for the insanity of ultimate power.

In fact, the numbers are quite small. Even if one includes the petty dictators like Orban of Hungary, Lukashenko of Belarus, Kagame of Rwanda, and others who, while a curse to those nations who would prefer an honest democracy, are hardly in the league of Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un, Ali Khamenei of Iran, and if re-elected this year, Trump of the United States. These latter control nuclear armaments they would not hesitate to use if their positions were endangered.

Vladimir Putin is already threatening to do just that if NATO countries intervene in his invasion of Ukraine. If he did so,  it would almost certainly result in a world-wide nuclear war in which Russia itself would cease to exist. It says much for Putin’s total unconcern for the welfare of the Russian people.

Meanwhile the rhetoric both in the Middle East and in Europe piles up. As do the mutilated dead bodies of the innocents. Little children like Hind Rajab who only wanted to live; Alexei Navalny, prepared to die rather than bend the knee to a cold-bloodied assassin of a dictator who had stolen his country’s freedom.

We are eight billion souls on this planet, yet we allow less than perhaps twenty individuals to hold the power of life or death, freedom or slavery, over us all.

Where did we go wrong?

There are many beautiful châteaux in France. They were built in an era when the country was a kingdom and folk were either filthy rich and could afford to have these great houses built for them, or peasant poor and could only gape open-mouthed whenever they happened to pass one by.

Times change and wealth drifts away or is reassigned, making the upkeep of such huge properties more than a millstone around the neck of owners.  There was a great deal of enthusiasm  for them in the UK some years ago, pre-Brexit. Much was made of how low-priced some of these châteaux were and what a good buy they would be. I think a number of people (sometimes groups) bought such a property in a moment of madness and never stopped to think of the renovation and running costs of such huge buildings, and expansive grounds. The main reason these often magnificient constructions stand empty is because previous owners just could not afford the upkeep.

When I was about sixteen years old, myself and two mates of similar age, Dave, and Pete (now in Australia), learned of an ex-Royal Navy Motor Torpedo Boat (MTB) that was for sale in Liverpool docks. We began to fantasize about owning such a craft. The fantasy drifted into virtual reality and we decided there would be nothing amiss with at least going to look at it.

^{An MTB (this is not the one for sale)}

It was wrecked inside and would obviously cost a fortune to renovate. The big twin diesel engines had been removed. We fantasized about buying an old bus engine to replace them. After all we wouldn’t need it to speed along at 60kph, which was it’s original top speed.

Of course, the whole idea was ludicrous. I doubt that between us we could even raise a hundred pounds. Our dream-like visions of standing on the bridge guiding this monster out to sea were eventually replaced by slightly less exotic ideas.

I relate this tale to show how easy it is to get carried away with fancies that end up as totally impractical. It makes no difference whether you’re sixteen or sixty, when the notion fires you and the dream carries you forward, logic and financial reason can be easily thrust aside.

Thankfully, Dave, Pete and I were never able to do more than dream. Had we been able to raise the cash even to buy the thing, it would have become a great millstone around our necks.

Just as are those French châteaux, now owned by struggling English folk whose dream, for some, has turned into a nightmare.