A lonely swan

The talk I attended last night by Anthony Seldon on his new book 'Johnson at 10' was utterly riveting. Sir Anthony is is always erudite, able to hold his audience in rapt attention as he talks with great knowledge on his subject. He has written 45 books, most of them being political biographies or historical books. 

He has a great capacity for remembering facts, names and details - it transpires that he has not yet written one word of his new book on Boris Johnson, despite it being published in spring 2023. But his head is full of information and facts and it is a case of just getting it down in print. He spoke without any notes, he based his talk around ten questions and then answered them and explained the reasons for his answers. Some very interesting facts were shared - like how Boris has always wanted to be prime minister, even as a young student, and he was determined that would happen no matter what. His downfall comes from an inherent ability not to be able to trust people - and consequently choosing the wrong people to support him (Dominic Cummings for example) - and not to be trusted himself. He is a very complex person and I got a good idea of where and why it all went wrong. I will be buying the book when it is published as it will be a very interesting read, due to Boris being such an interesting character. I am guessing that the future book on Liz Truss will be a very short and boring one!

British politics is in turmoil right now - the Conservative party wanted to replace Boris with Rishi Sunak but somehow the utterly useless Liz Truss was voted in, someone without a mandate or any idea of where she is taking the party or the country. It is clear that in two years time we will have a change of party leading the country and who knows how that will turn out. 

This morning Gavin and I went to a walk in clinic in the hope that we could get our 4th Covid jab, the second winter booster, but no, we have to wait for the NHS to call under 65's for this vaccination. I had heard that some walk in clinics were more than happy to vaccinate whoever turned up, but not this one. The rollout of this 4th jab is very slow as there are not that many clinics or vaccinating staff anymore. So we went to our local pharmacy and had our flu jabs instead. For under 65's this is only available free from the NHS from 15th October but the pharmacies around here are so booked up that it was going to be mid November before we could get it and we wanted it sooner rather than later, so were happy to pay for it to have it today. 

It was a sunny morning but by the afternoon the wind came up and it is now raining. The weather for the marathon on Sunday looks a bit wet too, and we are all hoping that the runners can get to the start of the race without any problems due to the train strikes on Saturday, which they are saying will have a knock on effect on Sunday. 

When I went into the village to get some groceries I spotted this lonely swan on the river.