The Ocean Will Have Us All:John Cale @ the Royal Festival Hall.

The ocean will have us all. John Cale is 83 years old. He was 26 when he was kicked out of The Velvet Underground in 1968, less than a month after I was born. Though he joined for the odd reunion gig, or series of gigs, in the nineties, he's been officially out of the band that made his name for nearly sixty years. So it was probably a bit rich that I was disappointed that he didn't play any VU songs when Darren and myself went to see him last night at London's Royal Festival Hall.

On other dates of this tour, he's played I'm Waiting For The Man as part of the encore but last night there was no encore and no VU tunes. It didn't really matter. Cale's got a huge, rich, and musically diverse back catalogue and he picked from right across it last night. There were tracks from as far back as Paris 1919 (released 1973) and Fear (1974) right up to a smattering of selections from last year's Poptical Illusion LP.

Some of it was very good indeed. Some if it was fine. But some of it, and I hate to say this, dragged on a little. It feels almost like sacrilege to make even mild criticism of such a wonderful and storied artist but the odd track could have been cut by a couple of minutes and would have been better for it. You don't go to John Cale for the hits, for straightforward rock'n'roll, for Friday night energy. But I greedily wished he'd played a few more of his upbeat tunes.

Opener Shark Shark got a pretty addictive motorik groove going, Captain Hook was long but served as a perfect showcase for Cale's artful and literary lyricism (the East India Company and the Cape of Good Hope crop up, later in the set he'd reference field marshals and company commanders, Cale sometimes feels like he should come with a suggested reading list), and Out Your Window brilliantly captured the mood of grey intrigue in cold war mitteleuropa perfectly. Close your eyes and can you see Germanic detectives smoking filterless cigarettes on the Alexanderplatz at night.

Better still were The Endless Plain Of Fortune (despite being played in a weirdly jittering style that managed to divest the song of a little - not all - of its beauty), a rousing Davies and Wales, and a lovely - and well earned - rendition of Barracuda from Fear. Possibly the tune of the night. While Rosegarden Funeral of Sores revelled in the sort of proto-goth energy that makes it no surprise whatsoever that Bauhaus chose to cover it.

Other moments were less impressive. I know that it's long been widely critically acclaimed but I simply can't get on board with Cale's version of Heartbreak Hotel. Yes, it's a bleak lyric and Cale mines that very bleakness to its very core until it sounds like he really is so lonely he could die but I'm not convinced anyone has ever improved an Elvis song with a cover. It got Darren and I talking after the gig and the three closest we could come up with were Nick Cave's In The Ghetto, The Fine Young Cannibals take on Suspicious Minds, and The Pet Shop Boys electropop take on Always On My Mind.

All good. None better than Elvis' versions. All better, though, than some of Cale's more disappointing output on the night. Setting Fires simply dragged, and Villa Albani was a bit of a tepid choice for a set closer. Hence the disappointment at the lack of encore. Tom McRae, too, was an underwhelming support act. Though he did at least have a few nice anecdotes that involved Scott Walker, Bowie, Elliott Smith, and The Waterboys. As well as Cale himself.

Let's not linger on the negatives though. Set Me Free was gorgeous (Cale's lovely Welsh singing voice here, and elsewhere, reminded me of when loads of my elderly relations came down from Llanelli to sing at my grandfather's funeral over thirty years ago, apologies if that's a bit Ivor the Engine for you) and last year's Company Commander proved he's not growing old gracefully and neither has he lost his penchant for making a glorious racket. Which is what you want, isn't it?

Thanks to Darren for a great night and a (mostly) great gig. The odd moment of longueurs at the gig was more than made up for by top company, a drink (lemonade for me during this month off the pop) at the bonkers Lord Nelson pub, and bloody tasty dosas (I had moong dal dosa with grated spiced paneer) at the South Bank food market beforehand. John Cale was never going to become a heritage performer, churning out the hits night after night. That may occasionally frustrate but, far more than that, it means he's a rare talent and one we should cherish. Even if his idea of a fun Friday night is doing a cover of Nico's Frozen Warnings!

The Child With The Man In His Eyes:Adolescence.

80% of women are only interested in 20% of men. That's the lie that appears to be dominating the 'manosphere' at the moment and even if it's not a lie (which it is) how and why would that lead us down a path into a world of imagined 'feminazis', 'feminisim is cancer', pick up artists, incels, and Men Going Their Own Way?

That's the question Netflix's Adolescence (created and written by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, directed by Philip Barantini) dares to ask and, as with last year's Mr Bates vs The Post Office, it's a television show that has got people talking, got people looking for answers, has seen a large part of one episode of this week's Newsnight devoted to it, and has got politicians at least saying the right things. If things do change however? Well, that's an entirely different matter.

Adolescence doesn't suggest any answers and nor does it explicitly point the finger of blame in any one direction. While adults, and adults only, may talk about Andrew Tate, the kids talk about red pills and blue pills as well as incel culture. The manosphere isn't something delivered to them by the likes of Tate and Jordan Peterson (for many teenagers, those two are yesterday's news) but something they live much of their daily lives inside of. 

Both online and offline. Served up by Instagram algorithms, emboldened by the likes of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, and waved through by populist politicians eager to court the disenfranchised youth vote. But thirteen year old Jamie Miller (played, brilliantly, by Owen Cooper in, amazingly, his first ever role) isn't, at least at first sight, the sort of kid you'd expect to be pulled in by this noxious strain of thinking.

Jamie's a good student, he's doing well at school where he's particularly interested in Isambard Kingdom Brunel and the Industrial Revolution, and he's from a kind loving family. Dad Eddie (Stephen Graham) is a plumber, Mum Manda (Christine Tremarco) cooks a mean roast, and elder sister Lisa (Amelie Pease, another first timer) is a typical teenage girl. They're a spectacularly ordinary family. The type of family you will have met (and liked) many times. The type of family you may well come from.

So when Jamie is arrested by heavily armed police in his own bedroom at 6am one morning, their lives change forever. Jamie has murdered a girl from school, Katie. Stabbing her multiple times with a kitchen knife. Jamie denies everything and his family believe him. He's so scared when the police break in to his house that he pisses himself. Surely a boy this young, this innocent looking, could not be capable of such a brutal and heinous crime? He still sleeps with his teddy bear.

Yet we know, from the start, that he is. There's CCTV footage to prove it. None of this a spoiler in any way. Adolescence is not a whodunnit. The question here is why did he do it? Why did a bright thirteen year old boy from a happy, loving family violently end a young girl's life? Is that a question that can ever be satisfactorily answered?

Adolescence doesn't offer easy, or definitive, answers. When DI Bascombe (Ashley Walters) and DS Frank (Faye Marsay) visit Jamie's school they find an almost prison like environment of bullying, kids excited by violence and watching violent videos, phone addiction, coded heart emojis, and teachers who have given up. Teachers like Mr Malik (Faraz Ayub) who think the kids are "fucking impossible". In the playground, flowers and teddy bears mark an all too familiar tribute to a murdered child.

An entire, and very powerful, episode is given over to Jamie's meeting with psycholgist Briony Ariston (Erin Doherty). They talk about family, masculinity, what being a man feels like, how Jamie feels about girls and women, and how he feels about sex, how he feels about himself. It's very tense and it gets very heated. For the most part, what Jamie says is not that different to what a huge number of teenage boys would say and think, either now or in the past.

But it's the times he crosses the line that are the most telling. The aggressive comments he's written under photos of women and girls on Instagram, the anger that swells up within him when he feels cornered, emasculated, or made to look stupid. The margins of transgression start very small but then extend very easily into deeply troubling behaviour.

All of which makes Adolescence a painful and uncomfortable watch as well as a frustrating and heartbreaking one. It's also a very engrossing watch (I binged all four episodes in one sitting) and sadly, right now, a very very important one. It's brilliantly acted by an excellent cast (I should also give credit to Jo Hartley as teacher Mrs Fenumore, Mark Stanley as Jamie's solicitor, Amari Bacchus as DI Balcombe's son Adam (at the same school as both Jamie and Katie), Kaine Davis as Jamie's friend Ryan, and Fatima Bojang who plays Katie's friend Jade, understandably struggling to control the anger she feels towards those responsible for Katie's death) and there's also a surprisingly moving version of Sting's Fragile - sung by what sounds like a school choir - halfway through and during one of the many moments when Adolescence allows actions, and not words, to speak to us the loudest.

The makers of Adolescence do a wonderful job of showing us how cases like this affect everyone in their orbit. Jamie's family, the pupils and teachers at the school, the police, the psychologists. Though there is no focus whatsoever on Katie's grieving family. Which could be seen as an oversight if this was not a show that clearly intended to shine a light on a very real crisis in masculinity that seems only to be getting worse.

Perhaps it was ever thus. Perhaps we're just (finally) paying more attention to it. But perhaps it is getting worse. Perhaps online trolls whose names we need not dwell on right now are juicing this for their own financial benefit while at the same time causing ever more suffering to young women and young men. On Newsnight this week, Adolescence's creator Jack Thorne spoke about how, since the show has been aired, he's had his own masculinity called in to question, had it suggested to him that he may have too much oestrogen and that he may not even be a man, and been told he's Jewish. Which he isn't - but how is that even relevant?

Depressingly, men have always committed crimes against women in far higher numbers than women have committed crimes against men. Many of those crimes are violent and a terrifyingly high number result in women, and girls, dying. What seems to be happening now is that it's starting younger and younger as Internet fuelled hatred spills ever more fully formed into everyday life, as online life merges with offline life. Adolescence made a brilliant job of showing us how severe the problem is. It's up to all of us, men, women, girls, and boys, to find an answer and drive this hatred out before it tears us all apart. Before more innocent people die. Incredible and brave television like this is the first step on what may prove to be a long and difficult journey. But a journey that simply has to be made. 

 

It's Not Easy Being Green.

It's not easy being green. It really isn't. Kermit the Frog may have risen to the very top of the Muppet hierarchy but he still had to suffer being pursued by a lustful porker and he grew up in abject poverty in Mississippi with over 2,300 siblings. His nephew Robin sounded pretty sad when he sang Halfway Down The Stairs and then there's all the other green dudes.

The Incredible Hulk had serious anger management issues, Oscar the Grouch and his girlfriend Grungetta lived in dustbins, poor Shrek was lonely, the Grinch didn't even like Christmas and yet had to suffer being permanently associated with it, Slimer had to contend with the nickname "Ugly Little Spud", and though The Jolly Green Giant seemed to have his shit sorted out, who knows what depths of despair his soul plumbed? Spending your life shilling for frozen vegetables can't have been much fun.

 

Then there's the less celebrated (unless you live in Suffolk) Green Children of Woolpit and I was at Greenwich Skeptics in the Pub (in their new home, The Duke of Greenwich - closer to Maze Hill than Greenwich proper) to learn all about them. The ever reliable writer and folklorist Deborah Hyde was my/our guide.

On the A14 road between Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket lies the unremarkable village of Woolpit. Ian Lavender who played Private Pike in Dad's Army is buried there, Time Team's Helen Geake was a Green councillor there, and its primary industry is brick making. Oh, and about nine hundred years ago two green children were found wandering around in unusual clothes speaking a language that nobody else could understand.

It's a story that became part of local folklore and then, in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, gained national notoriety through the then popular compendium books of mysteries and marvels. Deborah Hyde, ever keen in her research, visited Woolpit last year to dig a bit deeper into the mystery of the Green Children of Woolpit. Who feature on the village's sign!

The legend of the green children was taken more seriously than other potentially tall tales because it was related by two different people. Both, presumably, trusted sources. There was Ralph of Coggeshall, an English chronicler and monk (later an abbot) from nearby Essex most famous for penning the Chronicon Anglicanum who later went on the Third Crusade in an attempt to reconquer the Holy Land.

Then there was William of Newburgh (William Parvus). William was from Yorkshire (much further away than Essex) and was both a historian and an Augustinian canon who composed sermons based on the liturgical texts of Saint Alban. Both religious men. Surely they would never lie!

The story goes that two children, a boy and a girl, appeared one day in the 12th century (possibly during the reign of King Stephen) in the village of Woolpit. They were brother and sister and of generally normal appearance apart, of course, from their green skin. They spoke a language nobody could understand (at that time Suffolk was a multicultural area and French, German, and Flemish would have been widely recognised if not spoken), and they wouldn't eat anything except fava beans.

Broad beans as you may have called them growing up. Even then they had trouble separating the beans from their leaves. As time passed, they learned to eat other food and eventually lost their green colour but the boy became sickly and died. The girl learned to speak English and later married. She was deemed to be wanton, impudent, quarrelsome, and troubling though in 12c Suffolk that was a charge probably levelled at a lot of girls and women.

The children said they had come from a place called St Martin's Land. A twilight land where the sun never shone and everything, and - it seems - everyone, was green. The girl was believed to have become a servant in the house of local nobleman Richard de Calne and de Calne is another who passed the story on.

With what he called 'improvements'. What we may call lies. He brought in mythical elements to the tale. He suggested the cave they had been found in (there aren't caves in Suffolk and though Woolpit's name comes from two pits that were believed to be wolf pits it seems more likely they were something far more humdrum like grain silos) was an entry to fairyland and he told stories of people chasing a pig into a cavern and then finding themselves trapped in a different world as well as the story of King Herla. Herla was a legendary leader of a mythical Germanic hunt (who gave his name to the Old French word, harlequin) who, following a wedding held in a mountain, was handed a dog that could make men, Herla's soldiers, disappear.

Deborah was away, quite literally, with the fairies here and took us on a diversion into the story of the 13c Scottish laird Thomas the Rhymer and how his friendship with the Queen of Elfland gave him the (supposed) power of prophecy. There was also a digression into 12c royals from Henry I (buried in Reading, fact fans), his daughter Matilda and the violent dispute - known as The Anarchy - between her and her cousin Stephen over who would take over the monarchy, Stephen himself, and his successor Henry II. 

Returning the conversation back to the green kids of Woolpit, Deborah looked into some of the theories and explanations behind this story. Were the childen extraterrestrials? Some say they gave rise to the concept of 'little green men'. Were they fairies? Or elves? Were they Flemish immigrants!? Or were they from even further afield? Some suggested they may have come from the Levant and that they may have even been Jews or Muslims. Though, at the time of the Crusades, it would have been very very risky to be a Muslim in England. Some have suggested the green was quite simply camouflage and have others wonder if the siblings may have been suffering from favism.

Flamingoes are pink because their diet consists almost entirely of shrimp. Greenwich Skeptics host Chris French offered that he knew a woman who went orange because she only ate carrots - and lots of them. Favism (or Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficieny to give it its more catchy name) is a form of anaemia than can be caused by excess intake of fava beans. It could cause a sufferer to go a bit green and it also has an X-linked pattern of inheritance which means that male sufferers are far more likely to die of it than female ones. That would explain the boy dying and the girl surviving.

Of course, it could all be a complete load of bullshit and Deborah Hyde, though in far more polite words, would almost certainly agree with that but her interest, and mine, is not so much in the veracity of the story but in how stories, how folklore, spreads, mutates, and changes over years, decades, and centuries. In this case, almost an entire millennium. A 12c audience would have taken different things from this story compared to a 17c audience or, indeed, an audience sat in a Greenwich pub on a Wednesday evening in March 2025.

It's a good story and it was a good night. Thanks to David V Barrett for joining me, thanks to Professor Chris French for hosting, thanks to Goddard's Pie and Mash (as so often) for feeding me beforehand, thanks to The Duke of Greenwich, and thanks, most of all, to Deborah Hyde and those long gone, and seemingly unnamed, green children of Woolpit. It's not easy being green.

Two States:Israel And The Palestinians:The Road To 7th October.

The war in Gaza has been raging for over a year and five months now. There's no realistic end in sight and Trump's batshit vision of a kind of Dubai meets Las Vegas resort where bearded bellydancers shimmy on the beach while Elon Musk eats hummus and children carry gold Trump balloons looks like the fevered dream of a very warped mind.

The atrocities carried out on the 7th October 2023 were horrifying. Israel's response to those atrocities is also horrifying. Unlike some of my friends on the hyper-engaged left, I don't subscribe to the theory that everything Israel does is evil and everything Palestine does is both justified and saintly. To put it bluntly, while I have respect for the citizens of both Israel and Palestine I have nothing but contempt for the leadership of both.

Hamas and Netanyahu are not just blocking a solution. They are both, quite actively, the problem. Of course, the issues go back decades and are deepened by the belief in non-existent Gods and fucked up medieval religions, but the people of Israel and the people of Palestine voted for Hamas and Netanyahu so maybe they deserve the shit they've brought on themselves. Maybe instead of a two state solution we should look at a zero state solution. If you can't play nice then you can't play at all.

Of course, that's me at my angriest. Frustrated by the fact that there never seems to be any progress in this part of the world. While it's hard to have sympathy with the killers on either side (and there are lots of them), most Israelis and most Palestinians are just trying to get on with their normal life. A huge number of those being killed are innocent children. The ones that aren't being killed are being brutalised and that in itself makes the continuation of these seemingly eternal hostilities ever more likely.

Norma Percy is a better person than me and she has incredible form when it comes to making documentaries about geopolitics. Her Death of Yugolsavia from 1995 is essential viewing (I've gone back to it countless times) and she's also made Inside Europe:Ten Years of Turmoil, Iran And The West, Cuba:Castro Vs The World, and Endgame In Ireland. Israel and the Palestinians:The Road To 7th October (BBC2/iPlayer) may have been her toughest assignment yet. Not least because the situation is still ongoing. Not least because she will undoubtedly be accused of bias no matter how she chooses to tell the story.

I didn't think it was bias. I thought it was incredibly fair handed and the list of people who turned up as talking heads suggests that I was not alone in that. There was Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair, Ehud Olmert, Condoleeza Rice, John Kerry, George Mitchell, Rahm Emanuel, and the Hamas leaders Khaled Mashal and Ismail Haniyeh.

The latter assassinated in Tehran last July, not longer after filming of this series finished. Then there's an assortment of Israeli, Palestinian, American, and Saudi Arabian ministers, security advisers, chiefs of staff, princes, ambassadors, delegates, and consul generals. Together with historical recorded interviews with Netanyahu, Ariel Sharon, and Yasser Arafat they all combine to tell a story that is as fascinating as it is frustrating and tragic.

It starts (this show, not the entire Israel/Palestine story,) in 2003 with a Hamas suicide bombing on a bus in Jerusalem that kills twenty-three people. Part of the Intifada, it sees then Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (a former guerrilla fighter) accused, not for the first time, of turning a blind eye to Hamas terrorism and results in the then Israeli premier Ariel Sharon ceasing all contact with Arafat and his people.

Sharon, however, had a radical plan. To remove Israel's presence in Gaza - including dismantling settlements there. The Disengagement Plan, as it was known, needed US backing and President George W Bush was more than happy to provide that backing even if members of Sharon's own party, the right wing Likud - including one Benjamin Netanyahu, were not.

Some Palestinians didn't trust Sharon and there was widespread doubt, suspicion even, that this would not lead to the long desired return of Palestinian statehood. As this was all happening, Arafat died (of natural causes) and his successor Mahmoud Abbas, despite being a more diplomatic figure, vowed to take on Hamas in a way that Arafat never had. In Egypt, with Sharon by his side, Abbas announced he would put an end to the Infitada.

Huge protests against Sharon's Disengagement Plan gathered force in Israel and then, just before the withdrawal was due to begin, one of Sharon's cabinet ministers called a surprise press conference. Netanyahu. He resigned, claiming he considered Sharon's plan an appeasement to terror.

Despite this, Israel still began pulling troops from Gaza (which caused huge internal troubles in Israel) yet, as this happened, support for Hamas grew. In an attempt to normalise Hamas (an armed terrorist group), they were allowed to partake in Palestinian elections. Abbas thought that would make the elections legitimate and he also believed they'd lose. They didn't. They won.

Condoleeza Rice got Sergei Lavrov (Russia's foreign minister then and now) to speak to Hamas about embracing peace (that shows how long this has dragged on, the Russians were considered peacemakers) but Hamas believed they had been voted in expressly to continue their armed struggle and to ultimately wipe Israel from the face of the Earth.

Abbas remained President of Palestine while Hamas's Khaled Mashal became the Prime Minister. Hamas and Fatah (the party of Abbas) members started killing each other and the situation got so bad that the king of Saudi Arabia invited representatives from both groups to Mecca to talk about conciliatory moves. Saudi Arabia!

A short lived peace did not last and soon Hamas took full control of Gaza placing a two state solution in peril. In Israel, Ariel Sharon had had a stroke (that would eventually end his life) and Ehud Olmert had taken over as leader. As Hamas continued to attack Israel, Olmert promised direct talks with Palestine. He wanted to offer Abbas a deal. 95% Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and handing the Arab side of Jerusalem over to Palestine.

But Olmert was under investigation on corruption charges and was all but forced to announce he would resign as soon as a new Israeli leader was appointed. In the meantime, him and Abbas pressed ahead with their plans. George W Bush advised Abbas to seize this chance for peace. Abbas, however, did not seize it.

Bush was replace by Obama, Olmert by Netanyahu. Obama wanted a two state solution and peace between Israel and Palestine yet Hamas (who, of course, controlled Gaza) were designated as terrorists by the US. Obama appointed Senator George Mitchell as envoy for the Middle East. Mitchell was best known for helping to negotiate peace in Northern Ireland.

But Hamas would neither give up arms nor accept Israel's right to exist. Obama agreed with Abbas that Israeli settlements had to stop but only Netanyahu had the power to stop the expansion and he had already assembled Israel's most pro-settler cabinet in the country's history. When Obama told Netanyahu that "not one brick" should be built on Palestinian land, Netanyahu agreed. 

But only to talks. UN investigator Richard Goldstone discovered that Hamas had committed war crimes. He also discovered that the Israeli Defence Force had done so too. Israel was in danger of being sanctioned and negotiations were in danger of being derailed. Netanyahu put a freeze on West Bank settlements but that freeze lasted less than a year.

It wasn't exactly the "not one brick" that Obama had demanded. Obama and his Vice President Joe Biden condemned the move yet Netanyahu shook Abbas's hand and talked of respecting Palestine's need for sovereignty while Abbas agreed he would accept international security in the Palestinian lands.

At least in public. Privately, Netanyahu had told Abbas that it would take "many decades" for Palestine to become a free country. Abbas was so unhappy that the two of them never met to discuss peace ever again - and may never do. When the Palestinian people protested, Hamas and Fatah listened to them and reconciled in the neutral city of Cairo. Netanyahu saw this reconciliation as a victory for terrorism.

George Mitchell resigned as he felt it highly unlikely an agreement for peace could ever be reached. Netanyahu strengthened the Israeli defence forces while Hamas built a huge network of over two hundred tunnels to get goods in from Egypt. Food, water, and medicine. But also 'war materiel'.

With the situation at a low ebb, Tony Blair was sent in to mediate. His team found Hamas was taking a cut of everything that arrived through the tunnels and the Israeli blockade was strengthening, rather than weakening, Hamas. A young Israeli hostage, Gilad Shalit, was - ostensibly - Netanyahu's reason for not lifting the blockade.

Hamas were demanding the release of one thousand prisoners in return for the safe return of Shalit. At first Netanyahu rejected the offer but after eighteen months, and following huge demonstrations in Israel about Netanyahu's mishandling of the economy, he agreed and 1,027 Palestinian prisoners were released. Two hundred and eighty of them were serving life sentences. One, the mass murderer Yahya Sinwar, was serving four life sentences. Sinwar received a hero's welcome on his return to Gaza. He would go on to mastermind the 7th October attacks.

Hamas continued to attack Israel with rockets and Israel continued to bomb Gaza. Obama's Secretary of State John Kerry hadn't given up hope and he went to see a politically weakened Abbas. Abbas demanded the release of more Palestinian prisoners. Netanyahu begrudgingly agreed to release 75% of those on Abbas's list.

When Hamas and Fatah finally agreed to form a unity government in Palestine, both the Israelis and the Americans considered Fatah to have thrown in their lot with terrorists and when Israel discovered Hamas fighters arriving, via tunnels, in Israeli space, Netanyahu ordered a huge invasion of Gaza with the specific aim of destroying the tunnel network.

The fifty-one day war that followed was the deadliest (at that point) Israeli/Hamas war so far and the tunnels, as we now all know, were not eradicated. When that war finally ended, Hamas, encouraged by Blair, tried some diplomacy. But not much. Blair's meeting with Mashad in Qatar saw Mashad refuse to make any compromises whatsoever.

Netanyahu's plan to build a billion dollar barrier between Israel and Gaza was approved despite the fact that Israel would have to cut its budget for health, education, and even, er, security to be able to afford to build it. Israel were basking in the fact that they had a new, and powerful, ally. The new American President Donald Trump was a family friend of Netanyahu.

Trump wanted a 'deal' (of course he did) and he did all he could to win over Abbas. Abbas, for his part, was impressed with Trump. Hamas, also, had high hopes for Trump. Trump set up a team to deliver his 'deal' and put his son-in-law Jared Kushner in charge.

Hamas tried to play it both ways. They signalled support for a two state solution while refusing to recognise Israel's right to exist! It seems unlikely Israel was impressed with that and it seems equally unlikely Palestine was impressed when Trump became the first sitting American president to visit Jerusalem's Wailing Wall and when he moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The latter move led to a fear of mass uprising in Arab capitals, storming of the embassy, and US diplomats potentially being taken hostage but none of that actually happened. What did happen, however, was that Abbas hung up on Trump and instructed his people to have no further dealings with the US government.

In Palestine, they burned images of Trump and Hamas turned ever closer towards to Qatar who provided them with millions of dollars. In cash. In suitcases that were carried through Israel. Netanyahu knew this was happening and was happy to allow it to happen. The theory being that if Palestine had economic prosperity they would no longer want to kill Israeli citizens.

Israel's policy, at this point, was to back Hamas in order to edge out Abbas and Fatah. Hamas now enjoyed the financial support of Qatar, the military support of Iran (under General Qasem Soleimani - who was assassinated by a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020), and the tacit support of Israel and by extension the US.

Trump spoke of bringing major international investment into the West Bank and Gaza (not for the last time) while at the same time providing Netanyahu with everything he wanted. In Trump's world of deals, Israel could have the land and the arms, Palestine could be paid off. Netanyahu, however, wanted even more than what Trump was giving him.

Abbas called an emergency meeting of the Arab League in Cairo and the United Arab Emirates (after years of top secret negotiations) became the first Arab nation to recognise Israel's sovereignty. The UAE thought this would help them get their hands on America's state of the art F35 fighter jets. US law would not allow an American company to sell weapons to stated enemies of Israel.

When the US, Israel, and the UAE agreed a deal (with Bahrain also a signatory) - the Abraham Accord - Palestine opposed it and an unpopular Abbas postponed Palestinian elections under the pretext of Israel apparently not allowing voting in some parts of Jerusalem. The election cancellation ensured that Hamas were not brought back into the political fold and when Israel attacked the al-Aqsa mosque that, predictably, created further tension and violence.

Rockets were fired at Jerusalem, the inevitable tit-for-tat killings followed, and Israel launched an eleven day 'Guardian of the Walls' bombing campaigm. Syria and Lebanon supported Hamas and Hamas would go on to call the 7th October attacks 'the al-Aqsa flood'.

At the time, Israel was in the process of trying to normalise its relations with Saudi Arabia but to do this they would need the help of the new American President Joe Biden and Biden, during his campaign, had called Saudi Arabia a "pariah state". When Biden visited Israel and Saudi Arabia he was reluctant to shake the hands off the Saudis (following the horrific murder of Jamal Khashoggi) and instead dished out fist bumps to both the Saudis and Israelis. He also agreed to open Saudi air space to the Israelis.

Six months later, Netanyahu returned to power in Israel and assembled the most right wing cabinet in Israel's history. Months of protests in Israel followed and some Israeli army reservists threatened not to call up for duty if called. Netanyahu spoke of a peace deal with Saudi Arabia and one with Palestine too but at the United Nations when he showed a map of the Middle East, Palestine was conspicuous by its absence.

The map showed Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, the UAE, and Bahrain but no Palestine (or, for that matter, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Oman, Kuwait, or Qatar). Netanyahu's map showed both the West Bank and Gaza as part of Israel. 

A few days, on the 7th October 2023, Hamas attacked Israel killing well over a thousand people. Israel responded by invading Gaza killing, so far, over 62,000 people. After that - who knows?

One thing seems certain. It was never in the interest of either Benjamin Netanyahu or Hamas to have peace. It suits each of them to have a forever war. It seems almost impossible that peace will ever come to the region unless both Netanyahu's government and Hamas are removed from power. Hamas are as much a danger to Palestine as they are to Israel. Netanyahu is as much a danger to Israel as he is to Palestine. In my lifetime, peace has never looked close in this part of the world. Right now, it looks further away than ever. 

Eastern Spring.

The curse of Theydon Bois! Would it strike again? Did we, like Caesar, need to beware of the Ides of March? Two years, Pam, Katie, Mo, and myself made a first attempt at this walk which ended with me sliding in the mud near one of Epping Forest's ponds and recovering only to look like I'd seen active service in Passchendaele. The walk, perhaps wisely, was postponed. But it was never cancelled. 

Yesterday, we finally returned. My main concern had been the weather. It hadn't rained much during the week but it had rained and Epping Forest, from personal experience, does seem to stay muddy for longer than most places. As it happened, the mud was not our main concern. That was the vagaries of TfL to begin with and then, later, our knees, ankles, and feet. I didn't walk as many steps as I did a week ago on the Thames Path (or a fortnight ago when three game TADS yomped from Bletchley to Leighton Buzzard) but my feet were stinging a bit by the end.

I wasn't the only one. As ever, I'd been up bright and early and was just about to head down to Honor Oak Park to take three short tube rides up to Theydon Bois when I got a WhatsApp from Rodney letting me know there were bus replacement services in action - and, it turned out, lots of them.

So I took the P4 bus to Brixton and the Victoria Line up to Walthamstow where I had to take two separate replacement buses to Theydon Bois. Except, at first, I couldn't work out where I actually had to catch the first of those omnibuses. Both desks had signs up reading Position Closed. As I took a photo of this example of 'broken Britain' a very friendly member of staff appeared and directed me towards the number twenty bus. I met Sharon and Jason in the queue and the three of us hopped on a bus to Loughton. Rodney somewhere ahead of us, Pam somewhere behind us.

At Loughton, we changed for another bus to Theydon Bois. Driver aside, it was just the three of us on it but in keeping with the day's unannounced travel chaos there was a road closed so we had to make yet another diversion. At least it gave us a good look at parts of Epping Forest which didn't look too muddy. Hopefully, a positive sign!

On arriving in Theydon Bois, we noticed our planned brunch stop, The Brick Lane Bagel Co., only had outdoor seating. It was a bit chilly and The Queen Victoria was advertising breakfast (and Pam's car was already parked outside :-)) so we decided to give that a try. A sign informed us that the breakfast offer would not start until April. The friendly bar staff said we could order off the main menu but that seemed a bit indulgent/decadent/expensive so we decided to grab hot drinks and sit in the warm while we awaited Pam's arrival.

I had a hot chocolate while Rodney flicked through his Dictionary of Pub Names and launched into the first of the day's truly terrible jokes! That's one train that's never late. When Pam arrived we headed back for those Brick Lane Bagels. Pam had a very breakfasty looking one, Rodney had two meaty ones (still not enough for him, he's a growing lad, it was his birthday this week), and I had a cream cheese bagel (an old favourite I'd not had for a while) and a Twix. They were delicious and though I fancied another it was time to set off for the actual walk.

We were only about ninety minutes later than planned. Time would be against us as the day went on. We cut through Theydon Bois Green on a diagonal path and headed down Loughton Lane/The Avenue of Trees, TB's most iconic landmark, apparently. It's a row of oak trees planted in the 1830s to celebrate Queen Victoria taking the throne. Slightly underwhelming, not least because many have since died and been replanted.

Loughton Lane becomes Debden Lane. It's a busy stretch but at least it has a footpath. Not so fortunate was the driver we met whose car had broken down and was unintentionally causing all sorts of traffic situations. It looked like a pretty unfortunate, and potentially dangerous, place to break down but the driver seemed in fairly good spirits considering.

There's a nice monkey puzzle tree nearby and Debden House (a conference centre cum camping venue) looked pleasant on a sunny, if not particularly warm, day. Dating back to the early 19c, Debden House has been owned by a local magistrate (John Williams), an ink manufacturer (Joseph Thomas Palmer), and various others before it found its now, unusual, occupation.

From here it's a short path into Epping Forest proper and we soon picked up a path known as the 'Main Path'. The path namers must have had a day off when they chose that name. Confusingly, it's one of many Main Paths in Epping Forest but, fortunately, we didn't get lost for more than a few seconds at any point in the day. Equally fortunately it was nowhere near as muddy as our last attempt. In fact, in places the forest looked absolutely beautiful.

 

We followed that Main Path for a while, crossing Golding's Hill, observing knobbly trees and less knobbly trees with denuded branches. We passed Golding's Hill Pond and, with great satisfaction to me, Baldwin's Pond. That's where I came a cropper last time (dog barking at me and everything) and where our last attempt came to an end. It was muddy this time (but nothing compared to two years back) so we stepped gingerly and slowly and all made it through that little section in one piece.

 

Then we hit probably the prettiest section of the day as we followed the winding route of the shallow Loughton Brook south. The brook lies in a little canyon (okay, ditch - but doesn't canyon sound better?) and it twists and turns (which meant we did too) incredibly scenically towards the slightly less picturesque Staples Road Flood Storage Reservoir where we left the Loughton Brook behind.

 

The brook would eventually flow into the River Roding (and then, of course, the Thames) but we would cross another road, and then follow a more interestingly named path, the Slippery Snake. It wasn't that slippery and nobody saw any snakes but it took us to a wide bridleway called Green Ride where Sharon and I talked about Dick Turpin (he was only 33 when he was executed for two charges of horse theft in York) which took us across Cuckoo Brook (now there's a name) and past Strawberry Hill Ponds and eventually to Ranger's Road on the edge of Chingford. Some us had been here (twice) before on our London LOOP adventure.

 

People were ready for a pub stop but we passed both The Butler's Retreat and The Royal Forest as I had another pub in mind. We'd been in The Royal Forest before and not been massively impressed although I have to say it looked quite inviting yesterday. The highlight of this little architectural set piece is Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge (that's Liz I, not Liz II) although sadly some if it was boarded up yesterday.

 

It was commissioned in 1542 by Henry VIII so he could watch the deer chase. Then called The Great Standing, it was renovated for Good Queen Bess in 1589. It's one of Chingford's architectural treasures but as we were to find out later not the only one. For now though we followed Ranger's Road to Station Road and on Station Road found ourselves a table in The Rusty Bike pub.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It wasn't bikes (or cycling) they were showing though. It was rugby. There were A LOT of screens up showing England spanking Wales 68-14 (England would go on to finish second in this year's Six Nations, behind France) and the only spare table was right in front of one so it was very loud. We shouted at each other across the table but it was still a very amenable, and well earned, pub stop.

Nobody had a Rusty Bike lager though Jason did have a lager, Sharon half a cider, Pam a pale ale, Rodney a Guinness 0.0%, and me a blackcurrant'n'lemonade. It was too loud to do the Chingford spiel (I did it later) but there was a bit of history I'd prepared.

Chingford (previously Chingestone and Chingetun(e)) may either mean the king's (ching's) river or possibly refer to a shingly ford and its notables include a lot of very famous footballers. Both David Beckham and Harry Kane attended Chingford Foundation School (there's a Harry Kane statue in Walthamstow where he was born, alas we never saw it) and Andros Townsend and Teddy Sheringham are also listed as having links with the town.

Away from the beautiful game, Chingford is linked with Michael Nyman, Peter Greenaway, Alan Davies, Leslie Phillips, Jonathan Ive, the Kray twins, Iain Duncan Smith (their current MP thanks to a split between the Labour candidate and Faiza Shaheen who Keir Starmer unwisely booted out of the party just before the election), and Paul Di'Anno who was Iron Maiden vocalist before Bruce Dickinson (though still their third singer).

We left the pub and continued down Station Road and on to Kings Road towards the course of the river Ching. En route, we passed a shop selling an extraordinary large amount of very pretty buttons, some rather splendid road names (The Four Wents, British Legion Road, with Sky Peals Way and Hollywood Road yet to come - wonder if there's a Chingford road in Hollywood), and some splendid Art Deco and mock Tudor architecture. As well as the St Peter and St Paul church (1844, Grade II listed, architect:Lewis Vuillamy).

 

 

 

Our first sighting of the Ching was none too impressive. It looked like a ditch into which people lob their empty beer cans, plastic bags, and shopping trolleys. But once we dropped off the road and started following the path on its eastern side things soon improved. In fact this stretch, even with the light fading fast, was nearly as scenic as Loughton Brook had been.

It was quite uppy and downy though, and there were lots of trees that had fallen down to block our path. They were easy enough to either go round or over but it all adds to the strain of the day and it slowed us down so much that by the time we reached Highams Park and Highams Park's lovely looking lake we had to make a slight change to our plan.

Originally, I'd intended us to keep plodding through Hatch Forest but being in a forest when it's dark is neither clever nor fun so, making our route longer rather than shorter, we peeled off where the toads like to cross (sadly we didn't see any) and took a few residential streets to our final destination, Walthamstow. Sharon, who was having some problems with her foot, and Jason hopped on a bus and Pam, Rodney, and myself arranged to reconvene with them in The Bell pub later. Hmmm.

 

 

 

Before that, though, there were the architectural delights of Walthamstow to look at. Waltham Forest College is a pleasant, classical, looking building but Waltham Forest Town Hall is perhaps even more striking. Built in 1942, in the 'stripped classical style', by Philip Dalton Hepworth it's lit impressively at night. The style it was built in never really caught on in the UK but was very popular in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the USSR, and New Deal America. Bucharest's Victoria Palace is another example.

At least it was open though. Which was more than can be said for The Bell pub. On reaching I laughed about it maybe being closed. It was - even if the Internet insists differently. I checked my phone. As I suspected Jason had sent a WhatsApp. Him and Sharon weren't waiting in a pub though. They were in Tabaq chicken shop and they'd even bought some chicken and chips.

 

 

 

Chicken shops were of no interest to me or Pam so me, her, and Rodney made our way to The Rose & Crown further down Hoe Street where we grabbed more drinks (my second blackcurrant'n'lemonade - though after that second stretch I was tempted by a beer) and supped up on some chairs that were either too comfy to get out of or too hard for my poor bum while a rock band soundchecked and we waited for Sharon and Jason who were there pretty quick.

We threw a few food options around and ultimately decided on Dhaka Tandoori, an Indian just three minutes walk away. The short distance definitely being a factor, we were getting tired. It was a good call. Staff were friendly, we chatted to some fellow diners who had been visiting for three decades, and I had a paneer tikka masala (which came with pulao rice) and a paratha and washed it down with a mango lassi as we chatted about the price of beer when we first started drinking, what we were doing the next day (lots of lying in), work, Diana Ross, and various other hot topics.

Of course, I did some Walthamstow spiel. Formerly named both Wilcumestowe and Wilcumestou, the town is described in The Domesday Book as a manor owned by an Anglo-Saxon noble called Earl Walthe of Huntingdon and Northumbria. This was before the Norman Conquest. The Earl was executed in 1076 after joining the Revolt of the Earls against William I. Some claim him as a martyr and it is said when they removed the lid of his coffin his decapitated head had reattached to his body. Healing miracles have been reported in the vicinity of his tomb so if your head gets chopped up, don't despair, just jump on the tube to Walthamstow.

William Morris was born in Walthamstow in 1834 (you can now visit the William Morris Gallery in the rather lovely - and nearby - Lloyd Park), in 1892 the first ever British motor car was built in the town by Frederick Bremer (you can see it in E17's Vestry House Museum), and the current MP with 76.1% of the vote is Labour's Stella Creasy. Famously, a big Wedding Present fan.

Blur's Parklife album features photos taken at the local dog track, Lethal Bizzle and (of course) East 17 hail from Walthamstow and in the seventies Small Wonder Records operated from near where we were dining. They put out music by The Cure, Bauhaus, Crass, and The Cockney Rejects. Other E17 notables include Clement Attlee (MP for Walthamstow when PM), Peter Blake, Darren Hayman, Fabrice Muamba, Grayson Perry (has a studio in E17, calls the place Awesomestow), Fred Pontin, Ken Russell, Ian Dury, Benjamin Disraeli, June Sarpong, Daniella Westbrook, and Vivian Stanshall, as well as - save the best until last - Adam 'Ian Beale' Woodyatt.

We followed the footsteps of these giants back to Walthamstow tube (some of us more gingerly than others, all of us looking forward to our beds) and hopped on the Victoria line for a service so regulated we could only assume Warren G (ft. the ghost of Nate Dogg) was driving. Rodney got off at Green Park, Sharon and Jason at Vauxhall, and Pam and I went all the way to Brixton where we waited for our buses on opposite sides of the road. I took the P4 home and arrived back at about quarter past midnight. It had been a long day, but it had been a good one. I went straight to bed.

Thanks to Sharon, Jason, Rodney, and Pam for another great, if exhausting, LbF day out (and for many of the photos used in this blog). Next time, next month, we're walking from Kingston to Southall and rounding things out in one of Southall's famous desi pubs. Before that TADS are back on the road on April 5th. Balcombe to Haywards Heath taking in the river Ouse, the village of Cuckfield, Ardingly Reservoir, and the 'elegant' Ouse Valley Viaduct. Come join us. Your feet might hurt at the end but it's 'good pain'. Pain that tells you you've got out and done some exercise, taken in some fresh air, and hopefully had a few laughs along the way. Here's some wallies having fun.