Politics and plants

Adam West, the original and campest Batman ever, died yesterday aged 88. He was totally the coolest guy. He’ll be missed.

The day was beautiful and bright, perfect for a bit of work in the garden while Mirinda worked on her DBA. Not so bright was the news that the Tory minority government is planning to cosy up with the Northern Irish DUP. A few things I have found out about them before I get onto more pleasant things…

From New Scientist:

DUP assembly member Thomas Buchanan has previously called for creationism to be taught in schools. In 2016, he voiced support for an evangelical Christian programme that offers “helpful practical advice on how to counter evolutionary teaching”. He has expressed a desire to see every school in Northern Ireland teaching creationism, describing evolution as a “peddled lie”.

Buchanan told the Irish News “I’m someone who believes in creationism and that the world was spoken into existence in six days by His power,” adding that children had been “corrupted by the teaching of evolution”.

Here is a YouTube video from 2014 showing how backward the DUP is. And this is the party who will hold the government to ransom over decisions affecting the normal human beings who vote in this country.

And this is when a record number (45) of LGBT members of parliament were elected this time around.

It goes to show that you don’t have to blow people and things up in order to be a religious extremist. I despair, I really do.

On a nicer, less discordant note, I heard a piece on Radio4 this morning talking about how more younger people used a mix of media to decide on their vote. Given the inherent and distasteful bias shown by the increasingly misnamed news media, they are turning to more politically challenging websites and blogs for their information. And it’s not just because they are more attuned to using the Internet for information because all the national newspapers have a massive online presence as well as traditional print. This is really, really good news for the future of the UK.

But enough of that (there’ll be another election soon enough anyway) and back to the normal, more mundane things of life. Like the garden…

When we returned from our extended visit to the southern hemisphere, one of the things we found in the garden was that all but one of the potted conifers appeared to be dying of thirst. Rather than their evergreen leaves, they were turning brown. It was difficult to ascertain whether it was because of the long dry period or some sort of disease or because the roots were waterlogged or…as I said, it was difficult. Made even worse by the fact that one of them was perfectly fine.

So, today I dug one out of its pot to examine the soil and the roots and anything else that could cause such evil actions.

The result? Completely inconclusive! There was nothing wrong with anything. All seemed fine and dandy (except for the colour). We re-potted it with fresh compost up the back with the other nursery plants to see how it goes. Very odd.

The roses are all blooming beautifully, oozing delicious scent around the arches and gazebo. All perfect for an English country garden like ours…messy English country garden I meant to say.

For dinner I treated Mirinda to a Japanese feast. Most popular was the spinach and tofu jelly which worked well enough to be left for last (always the ultimate test) though the teriyaki tuna came a close second. I also made shiitake mushroom miso soup.

A delicious way to end the day.