Friday Links: Plane Crashes and Rising Authoritarianism

Posted on June 13, 2025 by nicdempsey

Happy Friday!

We are pretty much in the era of no good news, so here are some links…

What Keir Starmer can’t say. This is long but worth reading

British man is sole survivor of Air India plane crash that left more than 260 dead

US senator Alex Padilla comments on forcible removal from Noem event as Democrats condemn ‘sickening assault’ News from the US hasn’t been good in a while but this just about says it all

Iran Is Breaking Rules on Nuclear Activity, U.N. Watchdog Says. Well yes they probably are, but Israel has a completely unmonitored nuclear programme. Everyone should be subject to the same rules, yes?

Mount Etna spews huge plumes of ash. I don’t know how people live near Etna, it’s really active, but the world and most especially Europe doesn’t need a massive natural disaster to add to all the man made ones happening at the moment.

Therapy isn’t about life hacks. The best solutions are simpler – and more complex. This is lovely and so true but like a lot of things in life, sucks. I have a translation of the Book of Job, at the end of it, when all of Job’s wealth, health etc is restored (but not really because how do you restore a dead wife and kids), God is justifying what He did and Job says “As hearing but the ear I have heard you/And now my eye has seen you/That is why I am fed up”. I access my inner self via my relationship with God and I understand that I’m allowed to be fed up with having to do the work. The work needs to be done, nethertheless…

‘A godsend at 5am’: the ultimate, sometimes surprising, festival kit list, by the experts I am well past camping and festivals but a surprising number of people I know are going camping this summer and some of these suggestions are pretty good.

I also what to recommend this week’s In Our Time, which was about the evolution of lungs. You know it’s a good one when one of the experts on the show, gets excited about learning something new, I honestly had no idea that lungs aren’t all similar from an evolutionary point of view (the sciences have never really been my thing!).

While I’m on a R4 roll, Postwar, has also been fascinating, well the two I have heard, there are five and they are 15 minutes long so easy to dive into.

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Allotment Adventures: Progress

Posted on June 11, 2025 by nicdempsey

I spent eight and half hours on the plot on Sunday. Two of those hours were spent with Tom and a small person, who helped me plant out the courgettes while Tom (the absolute star) moved my compost. I have one bed of green and one of yellow. A total of nine courgettes on the plot assuming they all survive!!

A clear path at the front of the plot

They left and I spent three hours sorting out the winter squash beds. I’ve cleared the bed once, but it had grown back and bed nearest the path was just grass and it was setting seed. So I weeded the bed and the path and strimmed the bed. Then I covered the bed, with weed fabric, covered the path with weed fabric (I’ve done the cardboard and wood chip thing for over four years, it’s really improved the soil so the weeds have gone hog wild. So this is my solution for a couple of years.

Halfway there, path in place and grassy bed covered

I topped up the weeded bed with compost and planted the winter squash that arrived on Friday, (I’m not convinced they will survive, but I live in hope – in fact I’m going to stick some spare winter squash seeds in that bed just in case they don’t) and sowed some lazy housewife beans by the arches. Then I watered and strulched the bed. I left a plant in the bed because I’m not sure what it is, so we’ll see..

I had weeded next to the bed and when I returned the potatoes to their spot, I decided to make use of some of my lavender starts to make a mini hedge.

There is some grass at the edges to sort but I’m so pleased with it although there is also some weeding to do in the main path.

All done

Tom also brought me his spare french beans, there were nine plants so I decided to put them in the ex garlic bed. There are some volunteer potatoes from last year in that bed, so I just topped up the compost over them. Then the beans were planted, I also added two spare courgettes, I had and some marigolds at the end of the bed. I also scattered some dill and roman chamomile seeds in that bed.

New bean bed with some very wonky canes

That’s four beds planted up and sorting out the winter squash beds was a high impact job. My plot neighbour said that it made the grass in the rose beds and at that back look planned, like a wildlife area and I have to admit that it had a huge amount of ladybirds in it so it’s not a terrible idea.

Courgette beds

I had a bit of a tidy up, took a moment to admire my day lilies then it was time to go home.

Next week, the plan is to get the sweetcorn in its home and have a tidy up of that area, sort the paths and get the square beds sowed with carrots and beetroot. It’s also time to net the blueberries (I had my first this weekend!)

First blueberry

Then I need to clear the final uncleared beds and it’ll be all about the weeding (again!)

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Monday Miscellany: Intermittently Productive

Posted on June 9, 2025 by nicdempsey

Happy Monday!

Full disclosure, I’m writing this on Sunday night, I have no idea if Monday will actually be happy but it is my fervent hope that it will be for me and for anyone reading this…

So last week was tricky, I’d planned to be in the office for the first half of the week but I was struggling with work and home and sleep. I was also back on the ‘throwing up in the morning’ bullshit, this has pretty much been a thing my hormones do, periods as a teenager came with a side of vomiting. I’ve been having either a very light period or some breakthrough bleeding, my money is on the period but I’m nearly fifty fucking two and I’m so over this bullshit….

Anyway, work continued to be difficult as all the reporting systems broke down and the person in change of the reporting was on leave. I was convinced it was me, not the reports, so I spent an entire two days checking my work. And it wasn’t me, it was the reporting. So I did it the old more manual way and I found a bunch of other stuff that was wrong and it was a day late. So I essentially spent four and half days, doing something that should have taken me a day and a half at most. It’s all good to keep me continuously improving (which is a huge thing in my work life) but it does mean that this week is going to be busy and full of catching up.

Aside from that, it was a very normal week. Admit the irritations, I got a new toy for making my feet smoother, it’s amazing how getting rid of the dry skin on my feet, helped my mood!

I saw Ma on Saturday and did her ironing (when we were teenagers, we were responsible for all our non uniform ironing, if we wanted Ma to do it, we paid her £1 per item) £7 of ironing! My brother did shopping with Ma last week and left me some gin, for which I was very grateful post housework.

On Sunday Tom and his daughter came for a visit to the plot and some strawberry picking, no strawberries went home because I’m pretty sure that the amount of berries a small child can eat is infinite! It was good to see them and then to get some work done.

Which brings me to now. This week is all about all the usual things. I’m missing Grace at the weekend because they are in the woods for the day on Saturday and that is my mother day! I need to make sure I exercise and get enough sleep this week because it has just gone to bits in the past week or two.

I hope to have the best week I can manage and hope you do to…

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Allotment Adventures: Some planting, more weeding

Posted on June 4, 2025 by nicdempsey

Six hours on the plot doesn’t get a lot of work done.

A view from the polytunnel

So what did I do?

I weeded the front bed of the plot and planted the erigeron, the primrose and a sweet aztec plant in that bed. Planting in this bed is tricky, I want that bed to be full so I don’t see the soil because that’s better for it but I do have plants in there that will spread and I need some space to weed the grass which is not in anyway diminished because the plants are in that space. It’s just a space that needs regular attention to get rid of the grass and I’m confident that it will look amazing at some point in the future.

From the shed door

I’ve also made a bit more progress with the grass under the plum tree, but that really is a work in progress. I’m thinking that I’ll just mow it and mulch, do some digging in autumn and sow some yellow rattle to out compete the grass. I was told that it’s best to mulch fruit trees – which I know and I did and that’s why the grass is having a wild time in the improved soil!

Planting

I planted up some of the tomatoes. This was a task, I put the tomatoes in. Watered, then I put chopped comfrey around them and added more compost to cover that, added basil and chives to the bed and watered again. At some point I’ll have some marigolds and I’ll add those too. The basil and chives came from the supermarket herb section and were left on the plant table for a week so are fine with the outdoors, I do grow herbs from seed but if you can’t or haven’t, these pots work really well, just divide them and plant.

Tomato bed 1

I looked at the polytunnel planting. I planted up the watermelons, melons and aubergines. And watered and mulched, the strulch is great and while it is expensive, so far it seems to be working well.

Everything in!

That done I picked strawberries and the weeds out of the strawberry towers. Don’t let anyone tell you that strawberry towers result in less weeding, it’s all lies. I ordered six strawberries back in January and they arrived over the weekend so I planted them up into the gaps in one of the towers and the remaining two into the strawberry bed.

Strawberries finally

That was the planting part of the work done, so then I watered everything. Which took forever and finally, I netted the biggest of the blackcurrant bushes.

Like a big blue ghost!

There is a lot more to do. I still have 12 tomatoes, the sweetcorn and some courgettes to get planted and the new herb bed to fix fill and plant up. There are beds that need clearing and the paths all need weeding again. I need to net the blueberries too and sow things.

At home I have to plant up the little basil, coriander and parsley, the kale and broccoli and summer squash need potting on too. There is a lot to do.

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Monday Miscellany: June

Posted on June 2, 2025 by nicdempsey

Happy Monday!

We are at the midpoint of the year and I am eating strawberries that I grew for breakfast. Forget Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year is now!

The last week of May was not epic, the problem was me (although I’m blaming menopause), I’m just really struggling to be motivated and focussed. I have a lot of things to do and the desire to do none of them but I’m just happy that I can have bare minimum weeks. However, there were some good things, I saw Ma on Wednesday and Sue and Kathy came round for ‘Friday fizz’ to catch up and celebrate Sue’s birthday! Sue and I are also going to the Hampton Court Flower Show in July so that’s something to look forward too!

So this week, I need to find the mojo and get all the things done. I’m in the office Tues and Wed, a visit to Ma’s on Wednesday and Saturday, the allotment needs almost daily visits unless we get some rain and I really need to catch up with the housework! Work is also busy as it’s reporting week and I need to get a grip on it.

So it’s a very non social responsible week for me, which I am going to conquer with coffee and lists. I hope you have a good week.

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Sunday Music: Zach Bryan – Sandpaper

Posted on June 1, 2025 by nicdempsey

This is just so lovely.

“winter was a drag/but spring was a friend”

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Friday Links: Some Good News

Posted on May 30, 2025 by nicdempsey

Happy Friday!

Finally Chelsea won something and qualified for Champions League. Of course Chelsea Women did the domestic treble this season (at some point we’ll crack Europe as well). And I will take all of that!

Here are this weeks links…

Nigel Farage accused of ‘fantasy promises’ with expensive policy pledges. I’m always astounded that anyone believes anything Farage says…

The real story isn’t young men supposedly voting far right. It’s what young women are up to

A great prize, but a great risk: why we all need the nationalised South Western Railway to work

Tom Friedman: Will Israel’s War Ever End? I don’t agree with much of what Tom Friedman says about Israel’s attitude to what’s happening in Gaza. I think there will be no peace until they start to think of Palestinians as actual people. What’s happening now though, it’s a genocide. Even the way Friedman mentions the stench of decaying bodies in Gaza and I can’t help but think about how people described the smell at Auschwitz. Israel is a nation founded on terrorism, go and look up the Stern Gang. In trying to prevent the Holocaust, Israel has replicated it, but it’s citizens are the perpetrators not the victims. Hamas are terrorists but they are not the only ones, go and look at what the settlers are doing in the West Bank right now, with the support of the Israeli government. Doesn’t make what they are doing right but view it in all its context. Until both sides start to view each other as people with justified positions and work towards compromise, the war will never end.

‘My mother didn’t try to stab my father until I was six’: Alan Alda on childhood, marriage and 60 years of stardom. I love Alan Alda and this piece just confirms my view that he is a delight!

Why does Elon Musk love this socialist sci-fi series? This is like when David Cameron said his favourite song was Eton Rifles. Completely and utterly missing the point. Also I’m going to have to re-read the Culture novels. But if sci-fi isn’t your thing, Iain M. Banks dropped the ‘M’ and wrote other books, The Crow Road is a particular favourite of mine…

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Allotment Adventures: Some Weeding

Posted on May 29, 2025 by nicdempsey

Not many allotment jobs were not done last weekend.

I did however, weed the beds and surrounding paths where the tomatoes and courgettes are going and talk to several other people and get convinced to help at the bar for the allotment open day in July, so not an entirely wasted weekend!

I have this idea that plants between the beds and the path that separates my plot from my plot neighbours might help with the weeds, but it’s been really difficult to get them to take. Last year, I planted echinacea and santolina and either survived the winter. This year, I’m going for more weed like plants, so I’ve bought, nepeta ‘neptune’, erigeron ‘stallone’, geranium ‘tiny monster’ and a whole bunch of lavender ‘hidcote’ to plant down the sides and hopefully help with some weed suppression as well as add to the gaiety of the plot.

I managed to plant the geraniums this weekend and hope to get to the rest of them this week or at the weekend.

In the polytunnel, two of my cucumber plants didn’t survive and I’ve just put a couple of seeds in the soil where they were and I’m calling it successional sowing! I’m waiting on melons and aubergines, which I’m told have just been dispatched, to arrive and fill out the other bed in there. I really am trying to pack plants in and not have any bare soil.

I’m still in ‘my throw money at it’ era and bought a lot of reduced-price dahlia tubers. I have a bed that up until the weekend was full of pansies and forget-me-nots and I hadn’t decided what to do with it. Now I’m going to add the tubers and see if I can have a cut flower bed. I’m also hoping that if I leave them in a mulched raised bed that they will overwinter and become a ‘perennial’ bed, because I never have much luck with digging them up and storing them. 

I did pick an entire box of strawberries this weekend too, it’s taken a lot of work (and many, many attempts) but yay strawberries.

At home, the perennial kale and nine-star broccoli have sprouted as have all my herbs. The summer squash, physalis and beans are taking their own sweet time. I’ll need to take the herbs and brassicas off to the plot as I suspect that they are too hot at home and the basil needs potting on anyway!

My work list is still big but if I can get my head down over the weekend, I’ll have several beds planted up for summer and more weeding done! I know that the weeding is the price I pay for good soil

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Allotment Adventures: Quick Visits

Posted on May 21, 2025 by nicdempsey

Here’s my confession, I never have it together everywhere, I can do being social, having a tidy well run home, I can have a really switched on work life, I can have a tidy well run allotment, I can ace looking out for Ma. All these things are possible, they are not all possible in the same week.

Last week, the thing I had to drop was the plot. I didn’t get there on Sunday and so I started this week with no progress and a ton of plants.

However, it’s May and the lighter nights are good for allotment visits so on Monday, I took some plants round and set up a table for storage. I watered, ate some allotment strawberries and weeded some more. The worst of the grass on the main path is gone, and the garlic bed got weeeded. and some of it pulled, but I think I’ll pull it in a couple of weekends time anyway.

Plant table

On Tuesday, I popped around with more plants and also planted the peppers and cucumbers in the first polytunnel bed. I’m using Strulch this year to hopefully retain water and help keep down weeds.

On Wednesday, it rained, for the first time in ages so I had a day off!

Plants in the soil, finally

Indoors, I’ve sowed (late) some courgettes, tromboncino and, french beans. I also sowed physalis, nine star broccoli and cottagers kale – these are for the new perennial beds (the physalis might survive a winter we’ll see!). I sowed three types of basil (greek, red and lettuce leaf) and some parsley and coriander.

A clearer path

I have a lot of work to do, this weekend I need to get some plants in the ground and some more beds cleared. For planting, I want to get the new herb bed set up and plant fennel, lemon verbena, olive plant and maybe chamomile and thyme in there, I have some thyme in a couple of places that aren’t doing well and need to be relocated.

Weeded garlic bed (I did pull some of the garlic too)

I really need to get the tomatoes in the ground and I have some marigolds and herbs to plant in with them. I also need to get the sweetcorn in a bed and sow black beans next to them and I really want to get beetroot and carrots sown.

I also have other plants that need homes, three new alpine strawberry plants to go in the bed next to the patio. Some more chamomile lawn and some more heath pearlwort for the patio. The erigeron arrived and needs planting, as does the geranium and the bloody grapevines, I also need to net the blackcurrants and set up the arches for the blueberries.

Garden snacks

I also need to get the big squash bed weeded, cardboarded and covered with compost in preparation for the 12 squash plants coming in the next month (butternut – sweetmax, delicata, muscat d’provence and crown prince) they will go in that bed. Which I inend to ‘strulch’ that bed too. The other squash bed is completely weed infested, and I think my plan for this year is to chop all the grass down and cover it. Then in the winter, I’ll work on the rehab, there is a lot to do with that side of the plot so one less task would be helpful to my mental and physical heath. There is still so much weeding to do.

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Friday Links: News, some of it good…

Posted on May 16, 2025 by nicdempsey

Happy Friday!

Britain’s Roller-Coaster Ride to a Trade Deal With Trump I always like to see how things are reported in the US.

‘Hollowing out’: New Zealand grapples with an uncertain future as record numbers leave. Anecdotes are not data but I’ve only see people move back.

Fixing England’s water isn’t just the right thing to do – it can be the start of Labour’s fightback. As a Thames Water ‘customer’ – it’s a monopoly I have no choice of who I use, I’m so angry about the latest price rise, my bill over 10 months has gone from £35 to £53 – for no discernible change in service, if my bills are going to be high and they are, then I’d rather it was owned by the state and didn’t paid out dividends. One of the reasons that the last Tory govt was such a failure is that there was nothing left to sell of and public infrastructure shouldn’t be in private hands…

We told young people that degrees were their ticket to a better life. It’s become a great betrayal. Most of the under 30’s in my team are earning a lot of money (more than double what I am) but buying property without family money or a hefty deposit is almost impossible. Think about it, the one bedroom, no garden flat I rent is valued at about £550,000 in zone three (yes really!) and a salary of £80,000, you could maybe borrow five times your salary which gives a mortgage of £400,000, which would need a deposit of £150,000. Average salary in London is roughly £44,000 (the House of Commons Library puts it at £835 a week in April 2024). You want to know why the younger generations are experiencing a mental health crisis, what future do they have to look forward to? I’m aware that buying a property is not the be all and end all, but security of tenure is and there is a distinct lack of social housing about (and if you were earning £80k a year, you wouldn’t be entitled to it) and private rent by and large isn’t secure. What’s happening is hopelessness, something must change because this is untenable, it’s been untenable for years for most working class kids (I’ve been banging on about it for at least 25 years) but it’s now becoming difficult for middle class kids. Marx is increasingly looking prophetic…

An English gentleman, a crooked lawyer: the secrets of Stephen David Jones. My first thought reading this was that if some of those guys had just paid their tax, they’d still have their money!

Bicester Village at 30: how a wet field in Oxfordshire defied the death of the shopping mall. I find this fascinating because a whole day for shopping sounds like a nightmare (although I do love an hour wandering around the homewares dept in John Lewis!)

‘I lost so much weight, my husband thought I was terminally ill’: why do people lie about taking Ozempic? This is really interesting, a friend of ours is doing this and feels so much better about herself for doing it. I do think it’s going to change how we think about fatness and maybe not for the better.

Aphids plaguing UK gardens in warm spring weather, says RHS. I’m watching my roses but so far so good, I don’t have broad beans this year so I’m currently blackfly free.

‘One father threatened to stab the referee’: why does kids’ football bring out the worst in parents? I was brought up with the saying ‘the referee is always right’. Even when they manifestly aren’t right, they are. To the point that when my brother was sent off for being lippy to the ref (he was still in primary school, I think), my mum took him home and he missed the end of season celebration (my mother did not play!). More parents could do with that attitude.

‘Stealing joy’: the sadness and symbolism of the crime at Sycamore Gap I just don’t get it, why would you do it? I don’t have any attachment to the tree and if it had blown down, I would have just thought it was a shame. And it is just a tree. Cutting down a tree isn’t as bad as any of the really bad things that are happening in the world at the moment but it’s the act, cutting down a tree that brings joy to go viral. It’s the mindlessness of it, ruining something because you can that feels well, evil.

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