As I was going down the stair
I met a man who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today.
I wish that man would go away!

In another week, in another universe, I hope that I will be in a mental place where I can share with you the origin story of the surreal poem from which that is a stanza. This week, however, my mind is elsewhere.

One of the places my mind is, or was until a few days ago, is the death of Tom Lehrer. My reflections on that will also have to wait for another time, other than to say that, towards the end of last week, I found myself wishing passionately that Lehrer were sixty years younger, and alive, so that he could capture, in his inimitable fashion, the full irony of the surreal geopolitical reality we are living through.

Last week, as you will doubtless be aware, France announced that it plans to recognise the state of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly this autumn. Then Britain made a similar announcement, making its declaration contingent on Israel failing to carry out a number of measures before then. Then Canada and Malta followed suit.

I have a little skin in the UK game, and I wouldn’t have expected anything else from Macron, Malta has no muscle at all, and Canada…is Canada. So my attention is directed at Sir Keir Starmer. A cynic would argue that the timing of his announcement reflects his desperation as he struggles to fend off challenges from within and beyond the Labour Party he leads. I would like to believe that his announcement is driven purely by political expediency and cynicism. The idea that he might actually believe that such recognition of a Palestinian state is a good thing for the world, for Britain, or even for the Palestinians, is too worrying to contemplate.

Anyway, Tom Lehrer I am not, but a verse came into my head as I attempted to digest this news.

As he was going down, Sir Keir
Recognised a state that wasn’t there.
IT WASN’T THERE! He knew full well.
I wish Sir Keir would go to hell.

A couple of other observations. First, let’s look at Starmer’s statement that this recognition will take place unless the Israeli government “take[s] substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza” (no clear statement about what precise situation Starmer is referring to, because that might involve considering at whose feet the responsibility for the “appalling situation” can be laid), “agree[s] to a ceasefire and commit[s] to a long-term, sustainable peace, reviving the prospect of a two-state solution. And this includes allowing the UN to restart the supply of aid” (which hasn’t stopped) “and making clear there will be no annexations in the West Bank”.

Here he virtually makes explicit the fact that he is motivated not by any sense that recognising the state of Palestine is the morally correct thing to do at this point in time. He presents it as merely a tactic to persuade Israel to act according to his will. Either he believes Britain has a moral duty to recognise the state of Palestine, in which case he should recognise it, unconditionally, or he does not believe that, and has no justification for recognising the state. To use recognition of Palestine purely as a stick to beat Israel with is indefensible.

At the same time, he has demanded that Hamas “must immediately release all the hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, disarm and accept that they will play no part in the government of Gaza”. However, he has not made his government’s recognition of the state of Palestine contingent on Hamas meeting those demands. Only the goose gets the sauce, not the gander.

So, with your permission, let us step back for a moment from Starmer’s delusional universe into the real world. Imagine, for a moment, that you are one of the Hamas executive enjoying the hospitality, protection and financial support of that upstanding nation, Qatar. Sitting in your seven-star hotel room, you read Starmer’s demands. “So”, you reflect, “unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire, Britain will recognise Palestine, regardless of how we act. Well, then, all we need to do to guarantee that outcome is withdraw from the ceasefire talks.”

My second observation is this. What, in the name of all that is logical, does “recognising the state of Palestine” mean? A purely hypothetical entity with no borders, no system of government or administration, no diplomatic service, is not a state, and cannot be recognised as a state. (“I met a man who wasn’t there.”) That’s not just my opinion, by the way. Under international law, the Montevideo Convention of 1933 gives the following minimum requirements for a recognised state: a defined territory, a permanent population, an effective government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. (One out of four apparently doesn’t qualify you.)

The good news is that 40 peers from the House of Lords have written to the UK Attorney General pointing this out, and concluding that, therefore, for Britain to recognise Palestine “would be contrary to the principles governing recognition of states, according to international law”. The bad news is that it is far from certain that the Attorney General will so advise the government, and even further from certain that the government will take his advice.

A tiny part of me, of which I am not excessively proud, would like to see France, UK, Canada, Malta, and everyone else, “recognise” “Palestine”, and then for Israel to “recognise” “Palestine”. When, a couple of hours, or days, or weeks later, a terrorist attack (correction, an enemy invasion) takes place in Israel, or a rocket is launched from Gaza (correction, Palestine commits an act of aggression against Israel), as it inevitably will, Israel can declare this an act of war from a foreign state and conduct a war against that foreign state, thereby sidestepping all of the arguments about supplying humanitarian aid to the enemy and about innocent civilians. Even this very small part of me is, I wearily acknowledge, too big for some of my readers to stomach, and I apologise to them.

There was a brief period when I thought the above was going to be the story of the week. However, another story has loomed into view that towers over it, especially in the week that marks our annual commemoration of the disasters visited upon the Jewish people throughout history. The last couple of days have marked a new low in the moral depravity of the once-civilised world.

Hamas, taking their lead from the Nazi death camps, are systematically starving at least some of the “hostages” (surely we can find a word that better captures their desperate situation). This should, perhaps, surprise nobody. However, Hamas has judged that its cause will be best served by publicly flaunting this starvation. It has published videos in which the victims of that gradual starvation speak about their plight (one of them, Evyatar David, speaks while, barely able to stand, he is digging what he has been told will be his own grave). The benefit to Hamas of releasing these videos should be clear: their effect on the morale of the man in the street in Israel. The last couple of days have seen entirely understandable calls, from hostage family members and many others, for Israel to recognise that it cannot win the war, to lay down its arms, to bring the hostages home through an agreement, and then and only then, if it wishes, to resume the war, unfettered by responsibility for the hostages.

What is chilling about the release of the videos is not the cynical way Hamas seeks to manipulate Israeli public opinion, but its judgement that, at this stage, the decades-in-the-making worldwide propaganda campaign that the jihadi regimes have financed and orchestrated has been so successful that releasing video of its inhuman, obscene, calculated, cold-blooded murder of Israelis by slow starvation, and its (I assume deliberate) inclusion in the video of a muscular, well-toned Hamas bicep handing the emaciated Evyatar a tin, will not lose Hamas any significant amount of sympathy around the world.

At the time of writing, this calculation by Hamas seems chillingly, horrifyingly, accurate. If that does not keep you awake at night, if that did not inform your reading of every kina (every liturgical poem of lament) in shul yesterday, if that does not make you contact the Jewish Agency representatives in your home country to inquire about Aliyah, then I don’t know what will. Our safe Jewish future here is not yet certain, but our unsafe Jewish future anywhere else is increasingly certain.

May we all hear better news this week, and may I feel able to write about happier topics this time next week.

The Great Depression was, ultimately, a good thing for Ole Kirk Christiansen, a Danish furniture maker. In reaction to his business struggling in 1930, he started building miniature scale models of his various designs, to show to potential customers. This inspired him to branch out into toys, and, in 1934, he gave his company a new name based on the Danish for “play well”. In 1947, injection moulding as an industrial process was introduced to Denmark, and Christiansen, ever enterprising, bought an injection moulding machine for his company. In the same year, he obtained samples of plastic, interlocking Kiddicraft bricks. In 1958, he patented a toy brick with cylindrical protrusions on the top face, and hollow tubes on the undersides, and Lego, as we know it, was born.

Fast forward to 2025 and Lego seems to have weathered several storms. Despite its patents having expired all over the world, and competition from many copycat manufacturers, Lego is still a prestige brand, and, astonishingly, manufactures more tyres every year than any other company in the world. The question of copies is ironic, since Lego arguably copied the interlocking concept from Kiddicraft.

All of which is an introduction to the fact that one of this Portugal trip’s greatest hits was a non-Lego rip-off pirate ship kit that Bernice spotted in Maxstock. Tao is a great Lego fan, and we have been fairly impressed with the quality of the significantly cheaper copies we have bought him a few of in the last year or so. The pirate ship was a particular hit, not only because it feeds into one of his favourite imagination games, but also because the ship comes equipped with an anchor that can be wound up (not, sadly, by turning a capstan in a horizontal plane, but rather by turning a cog-wheel in a vertical plane, but you can’t have everything). It also features a ship’s wheel that actually turns, a rudder that moves from side to side, a trapdoor that reveals a treasure chest with jewels, and, the cherry on the top, a cannon that actually fires a Lego cannonball an impressive distance. This guarantees hours of fun as you fish under the cupboard with a broom handle, in an attempt to locate the fired cannonball.

It was probably a mistake to follow up the pirate ship (which was our last Shabbat’s present to Tao) with a film night on our very last night in Portugal (Sunday night) that featured Disney’s 1952 animated Peter Pan. While Tslil was a little concerned by the darkness of a few moments, and I was appalled by the shameless sexism of the portrayal of Tinkerbell, the mermaids, and even Wendy, Ollie enjoyed his first entire film, particularly the ticking crocodile, and Tao was captivated by Peter’s antics, delighted laughed hysterically at Smee’s bumbling ineptitude, and completely captivated by Captain Hook’s suavity and sinister aura.

What this meant on Monday morning was that Tao insisted on wearing his magician’s cape – inside out, so that the scarlet lining was on the outside; he also insisted on a long-sleeved t-shirt (despite temperatures in the high 30s), because it enabled him to hide his hand and clutch a terrifying hook fashioned from a tube game. Hardly any area of the house was safe; at any given moment, the sofa, or the kitchen table, might be requisitioned as Hook’s pirate ship. Unfortunately, his pirate’s hat has, over the last months, been ravaged in numerous near-fatal encounters with opposing navies and other enemies, so we will have to be sure to bring out a sheet of black sol (a kind of centimetre-thick, rubberised foam sheet, a little more flexible and durable than card, that can be easily cut, shaped and stuck, and is used in craft projects) for making a tricorn.

In all of these games, as in so much of their lives, Ollie is both a valuable playmate and an eager sponge. By osmosis, he seems to be absorbing more and more of Tao’s knowledge of arithmetic, as well as his abilities for very rich imaginative play and construction work, with Magnetiles or Duplo. He also unerringly echoes some of Tao’s favourite phrases, with very accurate intonation. As the boys grow, one of the great pleasures during our visits is to see how well they get on together.

On Sunday afternoon, we all went down to the gym for a private unveiling. After huge efforts over the last couple of weeks, with Grandpa chipping in as floor-layer’s first mate, and Micha’el and Tslil putting in long hours, the gym is now virtually ready to open, and they hope to start taking paying customers in another week or so. It certainly looks and feels a very professional space, and, having tried out, for the briefest of sessions, the multigym and the rings, I can vouch for the enthusiasm and positive attitude of the personal trainer, as well as the challenge of bodyweight training.

This family outing was also an opportunity for a whole range of family photos. Needless to say, we have taken hardly any photos on this trip, but we certainly made up for it on Sunday, and have a number of great shots to take home.

Apart from pirates, Monday morning was spent packing, clearing away, ticking our way through our ‘leaving Portugal’ checklist, and wondering whether the industrial action at Lisbon airport would affect our flight. I am writing this from the departure lounge. So far, things have gone smoothly (although I am once again reminded of the man dropping past the 29^th floor of the Empire State Building). If you are reading this on Tuesday morning, then you will know that we are safely back in Israel, in Zichron Yaakov actually, ready to resume our adventures with Raphael and catch up with Esther and Maayan. All the family within 24 hours! Bernice and I never dreamed we would have so much to look forward to in our retirement.

Philosophical question. If I tell you that a post headline is clickbait, have I effectively de-baited it. Whether I have or no, this week’s post title is unabashedly clickbait. I’m here to talk about life in rural Portugal. Gotcha!

I was reading the Penamacor municipality’s glossy twice-yearly magazine the other day (that Google Lens is pretty good at translating while standing on one leg!) and my eye was caught by an article describing a public meeting in Penamacor, presenting a report commissioned by the inter-municipality of Beira Baixa.

Since Beira Baixa is not a name I have dropped in these pages much, if at all, over the last five years, let me bore you with a brief description of Portugal’s political structure.

All of Portugal is divided into some twenty provinces (seventeen more than Gaul). Penamacor is in the fourth largest province (in terms of area): Castelo Branco (which is also the name of the province’s capital city). Each province is divided into municipalities. The village of Penamacor, with a population of about 6000, is the largest parish in, and the ‘capital’ of, the municipality of Penamacor, which is itself part of the inter-municipality, or district, of Beira Baixa, a looser association formed to formulate and carry out policy common to several municipalities (in Penamacor’s case, 8) within a single district.

Castelo Branco is Portugal’s fourth largest province in terms of area, covering almost 7% of Portugal’s total land mass. However, its population of 226,000 represents only about 2% of the country’s population. This reflects the imbalance in the distribution of Portugal’s population. The metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto together constitute only 5% of its total land area, but they contain almost 45% of the country’s population.

This uneven distribution is largely a result of the economic boom that began in the 1960s and led to mass migration from the hinterland, especially the rural North (where Penamacor is situated) to the urban centres. This was coupled with a drop in the birth rate to well below natural replacement levels,

So, back to the report commissioned by Beira Baixa. The authority commissioned the Castelo Branco Polytechnic to conduct an analysis of population change in the district. Specifically, the report focussed on the immigration situation and dynamics in Beira Baixa from 2008 to 2023.

The report revealed that recent migration has played a fundamental role in reshaping Beira Baixa’s population dynamics, reflecting growth trends that contrast with the region’s historical recession. The total population of Beira Baixa is just over 80,000, having dropped by about 10,000 in the decade before 2010. However, the number of legalized foreigners living in the inter-municipality was 1,856 in 2008. By 2023, it had grown to 6,786, a 265% increase. In Penamacor itself, over the same period, the number grew from 58 to 440, a 758% increase. Since Ollie is a Portuguese citizen, our family has contributed only 3 to this figure.

If the kids’ subjective perception is a guide, this number has increased considerably in the two years since the survey was completed. Even on our visits, when I venture no further afield than the supermarket and the dog walk to the forest, I almost always come across at least one or two new faces during every trip.

Due to this growth, the real population in the territory of Penamacor, in 2023, increased by 49 inhabitants, resulting from a positive migratory balance of 130 inhabitants, as opposed to a negative natural balance of 81 inhabitants. This growth and population inversion is happening for the first time in the last 50 years and enhances the development strategy of the municipality, reinforcing the growth of the school community in the last three years.

The report also indicates that the United Kingdom and Germany are the countries that supply the most new residents to the municipality, although other North European countries are also well represented.

During the preparation of this analysis, about 400 surveys were carried out with immigrants residing in the territory, which showed that, despite the structural challenges, Beira Baixa has been attractive to immigrants and has the potential to deepen this path of animating development at local and regional level. Researchers also carried out interviews and focus group sessions with a very large number of local interviewees, from a variety of institutional and business spheres, and the general perception of immigrants was positive in most municipalities, highlighting their contribution to the local economy and to the maintenance of essential services.

The authors also highlight that, from the community’s perspective, this immigration represents an opportunity to revitalize the economy and combat depopulation, but it requires effective inclusion strategies, with the most pressing challenges including housing, language barriers, and access to public services.

From our limited perspective, it seems to me that Tslil and Micha’el and the boys are integrating successfully in the local community, meeting all of the above challenges successfully. I suspect, looking at their circle of immigrant friends, that their integration is well above average for the immigrant community. They certainly deserve for it to be, because it is something whose importance they have long been aware of, and they have invested considerable time and effort in ensuring their successful absorption in the local community.

Which is just as well, because Micha’el’s parents have made hardly any effort. We can still barely scrape together two words of Portuguese, and our interactions with the village include a lot of Bom diases or Boa tardes (depending on the time of day), a fair number of Obrigados and Desculpas, and an inordinate amount of smiling and nodding, but precious little more than that. Almost everyone we meet knows who we are; half the time, Lua, or the boys, are our calling card. We, on the other hand, know very few locals, beyond shopkeepers and the kids’ immediate neighbours. Fortunately, being the kids’ parents wins us a fair degree of affection and regard with no effort required on our part.

As I have grown to know Bernice better over the years (indeed, let’s be honest, decades), one of her qualities that I have grown to admire more and more is the extraordinary intelligence she shows in understanding people, their emotions and their motivations. If I cast my mind back, I think it was something that I was aware of even way back when, but, with each additional year, I grow more acutely aware of it, and admire it more and more.

In fairness, there are times when I admire it more, and times when I admire it less. As it happens, last week marked one of the latter occasions. Micha’el and Tslil are very much occupied with the final stages of renovation of the premises they are renting for their gym and studio, and, when Micha’el announced that the studio walls were ready to be painted, I offered to help. Quick as a flash, Bernice observed that I was only volunteering because it would look good in the blog, a remark no less hurtful for containing just a sliver of truth in it.

Micha’el and I had a very productive couple of hours, and completed the painting of the upper half of the walls, which, because it is a very attractive mid-grey with a slight bluish tinge, being painted on top of a not dissimilar existing grey, required only one coat. I’m hoping that we will be able to repeat the double act on the lower half of the walls in the next day of two. Since this will not require me spending extended time on a stepladder, it promises to be kinder to my calves. Mind you, if you spend a couple of hours in a gym, I suppose you should expect to come away feeling achy.

Since a couple of you have asked me privately for an update on this exciting project of the kids, this seems like the perfect time. To put the story in context, you have to remember that their efforts to register the business are being conducted in Portugal…and, in provincial Portugal at that….and, to make matters even more interesting, in rural provincial Portugal.

By this time, the kids had hoped that they would already be up and running, but there are two inter-connected obstacles that are preventing that. The first is the question of obtaining a licence. They are renting two premises opposite each other on a narrow side-street very close to the centre of Penamacor, a street that, in a normal town, would be an alley leading nowhere with no passing trade, but that, remarkably, in Penamacor enjoys a fair amount of pedestrian traffic throughout the day.

One space, which they will use as a studio for private lessons, was fairly recently renovated; the other, which will be the gym for general use, and will include a small office, the owner had been using for storage.

Ready to lay the floor

In order to start trading, the kids have to register their business and obtain a commercial licence. Micha’el accordingly arranged a meeting with the municipality, at which he submitted all of the necessary documentation. Extraordinarily, all of the paperwork was in order and he had brought all of the paperwork needed. It only remained for the clerk to determine into which category of commercial business the gym falls, and to issue the appropriate licence. Unfortunately, it appears that nobody had ever sought to register an equivalent business in Penamacor, and neither the clerk, nor, after consultation, his colleagues, were able to decide exactly which licence was appropriate. Currently, the problem has been kicked up the bureaucratic chain, and the kids are waiting for a decision. However, the municipal architect has given them the go-ahead to begin operating regardless; if there are any issues down the line, they will be addressed as and when they arise.

To complicate matters, the premises do not have a valid electricity clearance. This is much less serious than it sounds. Between the time that the building was renovated, a few years ago, and today, the regulations for electricity supply have changed, and the owner needs to arrange for the electricity company to carry out the necessary, but minor, adjustments required.

All being well, this should be resolved very soon, and then Tslil and Micha’el will be able to launch their business with an easy mind. They already have a number of potential clients interested in group classes. Increasing numbers of locals are asking the kids when the gym is going to open. Micha’el has actually already started individual training sessions with one client, and is offering a free assessment session to a second. While neither of them is in the kids’ target customer group (family men and women in their thirties), they both seem keen. One is in his fifties and the other in his seventies, and Micha’el is enjoying the challenge of building an individual program that is age- and fitness-appropriate, as well as the challenge of polishing his Portuguese. After his first sessions, he realised that he needs to strengthen his body-part vocabulary, but, as I pointed out, at least when he needs a word he has the necessary body-part on hand (or foot, or torso) to demonstrate.

When Tslil and I were at the pool with the boys last Thursday, a woman she knows from Pilates and from the forest school that Tao attends came over. She is currently launching a program of free classes for local residents to be offered by the municipality, and asked Tslil if she was interested in teaching a yoga class. Since this offers a steady income and no need to find students or chase them for payment, Tslil is understandably keen.

So, things are developing: a little slower than hoped, perhaps, but reassuringly steadily. You have to learn to adjust to the rhythm of Iberian life. Meanwhile, both of the kids are continuing with their existing work – Tslil teaching yoga and Micha’el teaching English online to Israeli schoolkids.

The other major development is that Tao is now officially registered in the Portuguese home-schooling program. In practice, this means that, starting in September, he will be taught at home, following the Portuguese school curriculum, and required to sit the national school tests. He is registered with the local school, which means in practice that he is eligible to participate in extra-curricular school activities. Tslil and Micha’el plan to teach him themselves, as well as hiring a tutot for the Portuguese-based subjects (language and culture/history). This last will almost certainly be online.

All of this means that at any time in the coming years, Tao will be able, should he wish to, to transition to merging into the formal school system, or, if later, to apply to university. The formal scheme offered by the authorities allows the kids to home-school while keeping all options open – the best of both worlds.

Which more or less brings you up to date, other than to say that last Friday we celebrated Ollie’s third birthday, a day of balloons and cake and a lot of wonderful presents. It is heart-warming to see how Tao and Ollie are very ready to share their birthday and un-birthday presents with each other – they do play together really well.

By the time this post is published, we will, astonishingly, be halfway through our four weeks here. It feels as though we only just arrived!

My goodness, we have a lot of ground to cover this week, so we had better get started.

It may come as a surprise to some of you to learn that this week’s is the first of four planned posts from Portugal. I know that I normally give some warning of any impending trip, but the fact is that things were very uncertain in the weeks immediately preceding our planned departure of July 1, what with the Iranian campaign and all. Bernice and I postponed our preparation until virtually the last moment, not wishing to tempt providence. Not that we are superstitious, of course. I used to be, but then someone told me that being superstitious is unlucky, so of course I stopped immediately.

Anyway, in the event, and despite Eeyore’s worst fears, Piglet won the day, and our entire journey day was almost as smooth as possible. Five days before we were due to leave, Bernice reminded me that we still needed to book a taxi to the airport. This is a mild bone of contention between us. Bernice feels that we are now too decrepit to face the walk from where a taxi would drop us close to the railway station in Jerusalem, to a seat (if we’re lucky) on the train. This involves lifting our luggage onto a security conveyor belt, negotiating three separate lifts or escalators, steering through the ticket gate, lifting the luggage onto the train, finding places to store the cases out of the way on the train, then, at the airport, retrieving our luggage, lifting it off the train, negotiating the ticket barrier and walking into the airport, which is on the same level. The alternative, a comfortable taxi ride with a friendly driver from outside our house to the airport entrance, has only one downside: the 350-shekel fare. I find it difficult to admit that we are so old and frail as to justify the fare, even though I know in my heart that Bernice is right.

However, when Bernice raised the question of booking a taxi, I was blessed with one of those rare inspirational moments of clear thinking that serve to reassure me that I have not yet completely lost it. I suggested that, rather than missing seeing Raphael (and his parents) on the Tuesday we return, we should pack and leave home on the Monday, drive to Zichron, pick up Raphael from gan and stay overnight with Esther and family, leave the girls our car for the month, take a taxi to Binyamina railway station (for only 40 shekels!), take the train to the airport, and then return to Binyamina, sleep for a couple of hours in the girls’ flat, pick up Raphael from gan, and then go home in the evening. Since the platform at Binyamina is at street level, this journey is much easier.

This meant that, for the first time, we were able to take Raphael to gan, rather than just pick him up. He is now approaching the end of his second year in this gan, and it is lovely to see how he has matured there and how he relishes his role as one of the big boys. Interestingly, he chose to play by himself on one of the swings, rather than playing with any of his friends. Normally, when we take him to the park, he always has half an eye looking for one of his friends from gan, and he always enjoys himself much more if he can run around and climb and kick a ball with friends, rather than having to rely on the inconsistent agility and limited stamina of his grandparents.

After a few minutes, we said our goodbyes to Raphael and returned to the flat, to pack our overnight things and prepare to leave. Esther had arranged to time her journey into work so that she could drive us to the station in our car (no need to transfer our cases), help us get the luggage on the train, and travel with us most of the journey. (She was working in Tel Aviv that day.) Although the day was, as always, very long, the journey was uneventful, although we experienced a couple of delays, and arrived in Penamacor an hour and a half later than we had hoped. We even managed a not unreasonable night’s sleep, and were ready for the boys when they came into our room in the morning.

Since then, our days have been as full, and as fun, as they always are here. We arrived to be greeted by a heatwave. Having left Israel in the high 30s, we were greeted by temperatures reaching 40^o for the first couple of days. Since the house is now equipped with an upright fan in each room, and the air conditioner in the kitchen is effective, conditions were less intolerable than we had initially feared. An added bonus is that it appears that 40^o is too hot even for flies, and there were far fewer in the house that we remember from last summer.

Over the last couple of days, the heatwave has broken (if that is the right word for temperatures around 35^o), and the flies have returned, at least in the cooler morning and evening hours. Even 35^o is a bit much for Lua, the family dog, who has so far refused to go into the forest when I take her for a morning walk. She doesn’t really ant to go out at all, but after I drag her up the road, we reach a point where she accepts the fact of the walk. However, there is a further point, beyond which she has, until now, refused to go. I have, I must admit, a certain amount of sympathy for her position.

Last Thursday, Tslil and I took the boys swimming in the local open-air pool. Although it is only a seven-minute walk from the house, it is located at the very top of the hill that our street climbs, and it is a challenging walk at 37^o with two children whose combined age is 9. I was therefore very pleased when Tslil suggested we drive. When we arrived, at about 4PM on a cloudless July afternoon, there were just two couples sunbathing on the grass slopes that surround the pool, and both the children’s pool and the main pool were completely empty. By the time we left, two and a half hours later, there were perhaps 15 people in the pool. The boys had free admission, and Tslil and I, as ‘residents’, were charged EUR 2.70 each. So, that is the equivalent of ILS 21,00 for the four of us to have a full-size pool virtually to ourselves.!

Since we were last here, Tao has become much more comfortable in the water. The kids have an inflatable toy dinghy that Ollie was happy to sit in almost the whole time, squirting water to put out imaginary fires. Having been given a couple of hours’ warning, I had time to buy a very fetching pair of bathing shorts from the China shop, and I was happy to spend a couple of hours cooling off in the pool with the boys.

Other than that, and the usual multiple supermarket shopping expeditions, there is not a lot to report. We have already given the boys two of the books we brought out, and they appear to be the only books Ollie wants to have read to him. He is, it must be said, rather an obsessive listener. Once he attaches to a book, he doesn’t want to let go. Fortunately, one of the two books is The Cat in the Hat, which, as far as I am concerned, stands up to being read multiple times every day. The only problem is, of course, that any mistake in reading is immediately pounced on by Ollie, who quickly committed the entire book to memory.

On Shabbat afternoon, Tao and I built a Lego robot, and I have found it fascinating how Tao has interacted with the robot since. We were both pretty pleased with the end result, but I did not expect the robot to prove as popular as it has. Since Shabbat afternoon (about 53 hours at time of writing), the robot has barely left Tao’s hand. It has featured in all of his imaginative play, and has had a starring role in all of the interactive puppet shows that Bernice and the boys improvise several times a day. When we played a board game this morning, the robot played for Tao.

I used to think of Lego as a construction toy, but Tao has demonstrated since Shabbat that it is, of course, a construction, destruction and reconstruction toy. Literally tens of times every day, Tao breaks the robot up and then effortlessly builds it again. The breaking-up is often a side-effect of the robot wrecking a magnetile tower-block, However, sometimes Tao just disassembles and reassembles the robot, treating it almost as a six-year-old’s equivalent of a set of worry beads.

This is, of course, also a large part of the appeal of magnetiles, which are even easier than Lego to take apart and put together. Tao has been a dedicated magnetiler from a very young age, and Ollie has learnt from sitting alongside him. Tslil mentioned the other day that, although she rotates many of the boys’ toys, she never ‘rests’ the magentiles, because they are played with every day.

The other day, we were able to observe the extent of Tao’s construction skills. In the past, Tao has helped Micha’el assemble a number of standing fans. This time, with no guidance, Tao assembled the fan we had just bought. When Micha’el checked the fan afterwards, he only had to make one minor adjustment. We can only hope that, finally, someone in the family will have a marketable skill that pays well. It should also improve Tao’s chances of being taken in by a closed community in the event of the apocalypse. My reading of the geopolitics suggests these are not trivial considerations.

There! Even in deepest rural Portugal, I can’t quite clear my mind of what is happening elsewhere. Perhaps by next week I will have managed to detox more effectively.

This week, I feel as though I want to step back and attempt to assess where we are. There are a few things I want to say in this post. Some of them may contradict others. I apologise for that. It seems to me that it is still premature to attempt any final assessment (of something that clearly isn’t finished). However, this feels like a good place on the road to pause and reflect. I apologise for any lack of clarity, and I’m really not sure that I can bring anything new or particularly insightful to the table. However, that has never stopped me before, so here we go.

Since 7 October, 2023, we have been fighting a war against Iran and its proxies. This war still has no name. That may be partly because the war has no single theatre: it has been waged and is being waged in Israel, in Gaza, in Judea and Samaria, in Lebanon, in Syria, in Iran, in Yemen, and, conceivably, in other theatres that we will learn about at some point in the future, or possibly not.

The lack of a name may also be partly because, for Israel, the war has never had a single, clear, achievable aim. Throughout the last 20 months, various aims have been proclaimed. Principal among these are: eradicating Hamas; returning the hostages; breaking the ‘ring of fire’ around Israel; preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons; destroying Iran’s missile capability. Let’s take a closer look at these.

Israel cannot remove Hamas from Gaza: it can certainly mow the grass shorter than ever before (and has done so), but Hamas cannot be separated out from the population of Gaza and defeated. As long as there are Arabs in Gaza, and as long as some of them are attracted to Hamas, Hamas will continue to recruit new members to replace those who have been killed.

There are two possible ways to remove Hamas from Gaza. The first is to expel the entire Arab population from Gaza, and I am not proposing that. The second is for the population of Gaza to undergo a social reform. This would, presumably, need to be sponsored, fostered and nurtured by Arab countries that are allies of Israel, and would, I imagine, involve dismantling the entire corrupt UN infrastructure in Gaza. This is not something that will be completed in my lifetime. My feeling is that a 30-year plan is needed to achieve a situation where Gazans under 40 years of age are all deradicalized.

Israel cannot return the hostages from Gaza. It can work towards that, but only Hamas can return the hostages, and to couch the desire in terms of ‘bringing’ them home has been a constant source of unresolvable contention within Israel. Neither the Government, nor the IDF, nor the Mossad, can ‘bring’ the hostages home. In addition, creating the negotiating conditions under which Hamas will be prepared to return the hostages will certainly mean giving up on the aim of removing Hamas from power.

In terms of breaking the ring of fire, Israel has achieved a great deal, but, on every front, Iran’s proxies are weakened but not destroyed. This is, of course, a function of those proxies being terror organisations rather than sovereign states. A terrorist organisation cannot be defeated in war with the finality that a nation state can.

As for Iran’s nuclear capability, who knows how much we achieved? Were several hundred kilograms of enriched uranium smuggled out of Fordow before the American B-2s struck? Have we assassinated enough of the scientists and administrators of the nuclear program to set it back a generation? Regarding missile attacks, have we destroyed enough missile launchers, stockpiled missiles and missile factories to remove the threat of further missile attacks from Iran?

Much of the above feels like kicking the can down the road. Undoubtedly, a long way down the road; further than ever before. However, it is difficult, at this stage, to know how much the fundamental existential threat to Israel has been removed.

Let me say, at this point, that the name 12-Day War, to describe the campaign directed against Iran by Israel and then the US, is a misnomer. This was not a war, but rather a single campaign in the war that began on October 7. To see the threat of Iran as separate from the threat of Hamas, Hizballah, the Houthis and others is to misrepresent the role of Iran in the Middle East.

In fact, I would like to propose that we call the current war the Israel-Iran war, both to emphasise that all of the other forces of evil involved are mere tentacles of Iran, and to point out that America’s involvement, valuable and valued as it was, was momentary, and came only after the bombers’ path to and from the bombing site had been secured by Israel.

Last Friday, which was Rosh Chodesh, the first day of the month of Tammuz, shuls in Israel said full Hallel, rather than half Hallel – the shortened form of Hallel that is recited on Rosh Chodesh. (Hallel is a collection of psalms expressing thanks to God.) The reason for this decision was to express thanks for the success of the campaign in Iran over the last couple of weeks.

While I expressed, above, reservations about coming to any final conclusions regarding our success in waging the war and the impact it will have on the geopolitics of the Middle East, it is difficult to argue with the decision to say Whole Hallel. Let me try to give a sense of what I feel we have to be thankful for.

First and foremost, we need to give thanks that Hamas acted unilaterally and impetuously on October 7, assuming, as it did, that the other tentacles of Iran, and maybe even Iran itself, would join the assault on Israel. Horrifying and devastating as the assault on the Southern communities and on the Nova festival was, imagine how much worse it would have been, how much more thinly our national resources would have been stretched, if, at the same time, Hizballah had launched rocket attacks and a major incursion in the north, while the Houthis fired missiles from Yemen and Iran sent over wave after wave of ballistic missiles.

Then, we need to give thanks for the nationwide, immediate, unhesitating response to this assault. Countless stories of individual heroism continued to emerge even months after the events of those first 36 hours. Without in any way belittling the horrifying suffering visited on the thousands of victims of this assault, those who were murdered, raped, abducted or otherwise assaulted, it was only the selfless courage of so many of those present, as well as of the hundreds who rushed to the area, that prevented many thousands more being similarly abused.

We must also give thanks that each of the vast number of pieces that constituted the jigsaw of the Hizballah pager sting fitted perfectly. There were so many points at which the plan could have failed. That this sting demoralised the organisation as completely as it did is an incredible game-changer, and that this seems to have emboldened the government of Lebanon to stand up to Hizballah is even more remarkable.

The timing of the fall of Assad’s regime in Syria opened a potential air corridor for our fighter planes that we could secure, bringing Iran within much easier and safer reach of the Israel Air Force. Coupled with the ease and speed with which we neutralised Iran’s own air defences, this meant that we had total control of the airspace over Iran, and our planes were able to traverse the country with no losses.

Not least of all, we must give thanks that, within the Haredi community, there are growing numbers who recognise that they are part of this national struggle, and are choosing to serve in the army. From this modest but already growing start, a national change may well grow, until Haredi military exemption and avoidance are sought by only a minority of that community. What seems clear to me is that this necessary change can only come organically. No attempt to impose it by force can succeed.

Each part of this is deserving of thanks. Taken as a whole, it represents an alignment of positive outcomes that invites the adjective miraculous, whether used literally or metaphorically. All of the above is, of course, also testament to years, if not decades, of assiduous intelligence-gathering, brilliant planning, meticulous preparation and, finally, flawless execution. It all shows what can be achieved by a nation whose citizens recognise the justice of their cause and are committed to their surviving, and their flourishing, in their homeland.

Last week I wrote, you will almost certainly not recall, “… in this week’s post, and almost certainly for one week only, I am adopting ‘war correspondent’ as my profession.” Despite that prediction, I find it impossible to write about anything other than ‘the situation’, and so I will stick with being some strange kind of war correspondent for one more week. William Boot revisited.

I had planned to devote this week’s blog to the other major story of the week: the news of the passing of Alred Brendel, one of the giants of classical piano of the second half of the last century. It is true that he retired from the concert hall 16 years before his death, and that he lived to the respectable age of 94, two facts that mitigate to some extent the blow of the news of his death.

However, he was still, until relatively shortly before he died, an incredibly insightful, as well as a charming, speaker and writer about music, art, philosophy. He was also a living oxymoron. No great pianist was ever more cerebral, yet Brendel achieved, in performance, a depth of emotion that few could equal. Terrifyingly serious, he could cow an audience into silence with a single look, but was possessed of an impish sense of humour.  A rationalist intellectual, he had a deep love of Dada and the absurd, as well as kitsch.

He was also, astonishingly, almost entirely self-taught, not a career path normally recommended to classical pianists. I’m guessing the secret is that, if you are going to be self-taught, make sure you get a teacher as insightful, disciplined and gifted as Alfred Brendel.

As if this were not enough, Brendel was an exhibited watercolour artist who also published both nonsense verse and serious poetry. Indeed, it seemed at times that he was all things and everywhere. Yet, he was above all a uniquely crystal-clear pianist, and it is this purity that makes his frequent encore – Busoni’s arrangement of Bach’s choral prelude Nun Komm’der Heiden Heiland – a perfect distillation of his musical insight.

If that is too dry for your taste, then search for Brendel playing any Mozart concerto, Beethoven, Schubert or Liszt sonata. (Those links are all suggestions available on YouTube.) His repertoire was confined to those composers who commanded his respect and into whose works he felt he could offer insight. Within that repertoire, he plumbed incredible depths and uncovered truths that perhaps no other pianist has revealed.

Meanwhile, back in Israel, it has been a truly remarkable week, as you may have noticed. Once again, I am going to avoid attempting any profound geopolitical analysis, other than to observe that, whatever else you might say about that Donald Trump, he certainly keeps you on your toes. Those of you outside Israel won’t be surprised to hear that even Israelis who are not, by nature, fans of Trump are acknowledging his contribution, this week, to Israel’s, and the world’s, security.

Incidentally, this is, I think, a reflection of Israelis’ understanding of the nature and extent of the existential threat we face. Too many in the Western world feel so secure in their lives that they cannot imagine a situation in which they could applaud any action of Donald Trump. In Israel, over the last couple of weeks, or days, sworn enemies of Netanyahu, and those who despise Trump, have acknowledged the rightness of their actions against Iran. There is nothing like an existential threat to encourage a pragmatic world view.

On a more personal level, our life has understandably shrunk over the last couple of weeks. We are following orders, and not venturing far from our bomb shelter, except when we have to, of which more later. On all but one occasion, we have been given the 10-muinute heads-up before the sirens sound, indicating that we have 90 seconds to get into the shelter. Indeed, on several occasions, the warning is not followed by a siren, either because the missiles have all been intercepted or because, as they approach, their target can be more accurately calculated, and it isn’t Maale Adumim.

As a result, we have often either been lying in bed, or sitting in the salon, ready to move, listening to distant, or, sometimes, what sounds like not-so-distant, explosions, trying to assess whether they are mid-air detonations of intercepted missiles or explosions of missiles as they hit the ground, and wondering whether we are wise to have such confidence in the accuracy of assessment of the Home Command in determining that we really don’t need to go in the shelter. So far, our confidence has not been misplaced, although as I say that I may sound to you rather like the man who threw himself off the roof of the Empire State Building and, as he passed a 29th floor window, called out to a spectator: “So far, so good!”

Last week I was due to have a minor medical procedure in Shaarei Zedek hospital. After a couple of days of trying, I finally got through to the hospital to confirm that my appointment had not been postponed. As the information clerk put it: “We’ll be treating anyone who turns up.” The following morning, the roads were considerably emptier than usual – at that point, schools were closed and only essential workplaces were open – but the hospital was fairly busy, although not quite as crowded as usual.

I was actually seen to very quickly and efficiently, and we would have been in and out in just over an hour, were it not for the fact that there was an air raid just as we were nearing the end of our stay. Fortunately, Shaarei Zedek, like many hospitals in Israel, has considerable facilities that are in protected spaces, and the department we were in was one such facility. As a result, the air raid did not interfere with the procedure at all.

Last Shabbat, when restrictions were marginally eased, our shul reopened, with provisions to use the shelters in a number of buildings within a minute’s walk from the shul. We personally didn’t return to shul on Shabbat, largely because we live a 15-minute walk from the shul, and would feel rather exposed on that walk. I understand that those who did attend were almost exclusively members (and others) who live very close to the shul.

I haven’t even been attending the shul I normally go to on weekday mornings, which is currently conducting services in the shelter attached to the shul. This is because I have not been putting an alarm on for the morning. Most nights the Iranians interrupt our sleep once or twice, and, even when they don’t, I, in common with most people I speak to, am finding it difficult to get the energy and the focus to do very much.

Having said that, Bernice and I have, this week, tackled the jungle that our front garden had become. Our gardener has spent much of the last 20 months on reserve military duty, and, even though we understand he is currently home, he did not respond to Bernice’s WhatsApp enquiries. So, I have been cutting back the nectarine tree, most of whose fruit this year was beyond my reach to harvest, and Bernice has been trimming and tidying up the bushes, thinning out the undergrowth, and collecting leaves and rotting fruit. We can only work for an hour or two in the morning and another hour or two in the early evening, because of the heat during the day. However, we really got into a routine, and we are currently convincing ourselves that we can handle this routine on a regular basis, and save ourselves a considerable amount of money while keeping fit.

Past experience suggests that this may be one of those plans that sounds good when pitched, but doesn’t always deliver. In addition, gardening in the dappled early morning light of June is not quite the same experience as in the cold and rain of December. However, only time will tell.

I have one more observation to share with you. I have started playing bridge online, on a platform that allows individual players to join an ad hoc table. I have noticed, in the past, that every two or three tables that I joined would contain one other person from Israel. Since we started direct hostilities with Iran, I am bumping into Israelis at the table two or three times as frequently. This is not really surprising, since you can play online bridge close to, or indeed in, your bomb shelter. It did mean that, when I left a table last Friday afternoon, I felt very comfortable wishing my fellow players Shabbat Shalom.

At some point in the last fifty years, ‘Profession’ stopped being one of the items of personal information that appears on a British passport. This is a shame, because I have always secretly wanted to have my profession listed, on my British passport, as ‘War correspondent’, and, in this week’s post, and almost certainly for one week only, I am adopting ‘war correspondent’ as my profession.

I have, undeniably, left this career move rather late. I’m not sure just how cut out I am these days for weaving my way across a live minefield, dodging sniper fire, and I no longer have much of an idea what I would be supposed to fill the multiple pockets of a fisherman’s flak jacket with. (I suspect these days it would be heart tablets and foot cream, one or two really useful lengths of string and yesterday’s unfinished crossword.)

Nevertheless, for what it’s worth, and in a considerably jauntier style than the last few days’ events would appear to call for, here’s my dispatch from the front.

Israel’s air force, in coordination with Mossad operatives on the ground, struck multiple strategic sites and carried out multiple assassination strikes on key personnel in Iran in the early hours of last Friday morning (which, as I write on Monday, is staggeringly less than four days ago, but seems like a previous existence). Literally overnight, the balance and nature of the war that Israel has been waging since 7 October changed. Instead of heart-rending stories, almost every day, of our youngest and finest falling in the service of their country, we now have equally heart-rending stories every day of civilians, men, women, the elderly, children, being killed in ballistic missile attacks in the heart of our civilian centres. We have, over the last couple of days, heard almost no news from the Gaza front; the news focus has been on Iran, 1500 or more kilometres away, and on our major cities, under fire.

Historically, the home front has been on the frontline in ‘peacetime’, with terrorist attacks carried out within Israel. In wartime, however, the front has almost always been beyond Israel’s borders. The burden on the home front has, even in the 20 months since October 7, been almost exclusively emotional and economic, being measured in the number of weeks families have been without their reservist spouses, parents and children and the effect of those absences on the workplace and the study hall. It is the reservists and the other serving troops who have faced the enemy on the battlefield.

Suddenly, in the last four days, the bulk of the military activity has been conducted by fighter pilots who appear to have total domination of the skies above Teheran, and the entire country has been under the terrifying threat of massive missile strikes. While we have become to some extent inured to rocket barrages, confident that, if we follow the Home Front protocol, we will be safe, we now know that a direct hit from an Iranian ballistic missile can destroy even a purpose-built safe room.

It is a measure of this change of perceived reality that Bernice and I, in common with several like-minded friends, have, in the last couple of days, moved from stupidly believing that we were safe enough in a windowless and entirely internal space within our house, to recognising that the only sensible action is to use the communal public shelter that serves our row of five houses. This shelter is not the most salubrious of living spaces, but it is clean, has a working fan and lighting, has been stocked by considerate neighbours with plenty of bottled water and enough chairs for everyone, and should withstand anything less than a direct hit from a ballistic missile.

Not the least curious effect of living in Israel in these times is how quickly the unthinkable comes to seem normal. It was only when rereading that last sentence that it struck me how I was calmly discussing our shelter’s ability to withstand a hit from a ballistic missile.

In the same vein, the updated Home Front protocol for using a safe room or shelter is bizarre in the way in which it turns what one might expect to be a panicky scramble to find cover into a mundane routine.

The new protocol is, if you can believe it, as follows:

1. Between 15 and 30 minutes before a missile attack is anticipated to land in our area, we receive a heads-up on the Home Front app, which reads, in part: ‘It is required to stay next to a protected space.’ Since the missile flight time from Iran to Israel is about 15 minutes, this message is, I assume, sent when there is some kind of intelligence information (either from aerial observation or human intelligence) of an impending launch.
2. About 15 minutes before a missile attack is expected to land in our area, we receive a follow-up message, which reads, in part: ‘Continue to stay next to a protected space.’ This message is sent as soon as the launch is observed.
3. A few minutes before a missile attack is expected to land in our area, we receive a further follow-up, which reads, in part: ‘In the next few minutes, alerts are expected in your area. If an alert is received, enter the protected space.’ This message is sent when the more exact area of the expected landing has been determined..
4. 90 seconds before the expected landing, sirens sound locally and we receive a further follow-up, which instructs us to enter the protected space immediately.
5. Subsequently, we receive follow-up messages, instructing us to continue to stay in the protected space, or informing us that we may leave the protected area.

Between steps 4 and 5, as we sit in our shelter, we usually hear, sometimes more clearly, often more faintly, one or more booms that signify either a successful interception or a missile landing and exploding.

You may well agree with me that this reads more like instructions for a charabanc outing than guidelines for coping with an air raid. I can assure you that the very matter-of-factness of the instructions, and generous time allowance, greatly help to reduce the feeling of panic. It also appears to be true that the number of injuries incurred while getting to the communal shelters has been reduced dramatically. Under the previous protocol (for rocket launches from Gaza or Lebanon), 90 seconds was the maximum time allowed. This induced panic and led to many cases of people slipping and bruising themselves or sustaining fractures.

So, this is the new reality we find ourselves in. I am well aware that this particular we – the inhabitants of Maale Adumim – have, so far, had a very quiet war. For the inhabitants of Sderot or Nahariya, the twenty months of the war have been nowhere near as quiet. For us, on the other hand, a succession of disturbed nights is a new experience. The new protocol renders it considerably less stressful than it would otherwise be; nevertheless, it is a somewhat draining experience.

Perhaps the greatest worry is not knowing how long this situation will continue. Official statements speak of the air force making faster progress than originally anticipated. There is talk of one third of Iran’s missile launchers having already been destroyed on the ground. At the weekend, there was talk of the campaign lasting two weeks. At the moment, the country seems to be more or less on hold: schools running on zoom; non-essential workplaces closed; significantly reduced public transport and health services. If this continues for much more than a week, recovery becomes much more complicated.

We will, as always, just have to suck it and see.

By the way, if the reference to William Boot in this week’s title means nothing to you, then find a copy of Scoop by Evelyn Waugh and treat yourself to a gentle, very English satirical delight, originally published, I am staggered and dismayed to discover, 87 years ago. Probably no longer qualifying as modern fiction, then. Heigh-ho!

If you’re reading this, then it represents third time lucky.

Last week, you may remember, I cunningly constructed a very brief post out of an abject and depressed confession that I was, for the first time, failing to produce a post. This had the desired dual effect: it both elicited sympathy from my many kind-hearted readers who assured me that I should not be downcast: my unbroken run until last week was, in itself, a magnificent tribute to my perseverance and dedication; at the same time it technically constituted a post, so, as I shall claim in any court of law where the issue is raised in some as yet unclearly delineated future legal dispute, my run is still unbroken.

Yesterday (which was Sunday), having decided already last week what I planned to write about, I diligently locked myself in the office and began pecking away at the laptop. After a couple of hours of fairly tough slog, and stuck in an inability to locate an article I had planned to reference, I ground to a pathetic halt, broke for lunch, and then spent the rest of the day, and a decent chunk of today (Monday), avoiding resuming.

I have spent the last hour wondering how I am ever going to complete this week’s post, and I have only just now realised that, for one reason or another, I am simply not ready to write what I planned to write about. There are probably several reasons for this. My intended subject, which I was going to approach a little obliquely, was Israel’s position as a pariah state, but I am ambivalent about choosing this subject. Preaching to the choir seems a little like a waste of effort, particularly when the writers who set me thinking are so much more eloquent and better informed than I am. I’m not sure I have anything new to add to the conversation, and the one idea I have, which may possibly be something you haven’t already encountered twenty times this month, is still in a process of gestation. In addition, of course, anything I write that is even vaguely topical runs the risk that news journalism always faces: today’s paper is only fit for wrapping tomorrow’s fish. I don’t want to risk being a hake hack.  

On this note, friends brought back from their recent visit to the grandkids in the States, a copy of Douglas Murray’s new book, and kindly lent it to us. As it sits accusatorily on the table in the middle of the salon, Bernice and I have spent a couple of days edging round it, wondering whether we really need to read another 250 pages of Douglas Murray telling us, with whatever clarity and grasp, the depressing truth we already know.

In the same way, Melanie Phillips, through her almost daily majestic appearances in my Gmail inbox, is beginning to feel like a stalker, or one of those lost souls who used to stand on streetcorners, their feet wrapped in newspaper, their torn trousers held up by string, and rant about the impending apocalypse.

So, in the end, and third time lucky (Oh! I do hope so), I have opted to write about what I arguably do best, which might be described as half a yard of assorted wittering.

I don’t, in the normal run of things, spend much time thinking about greengrocers, but today it struck me forcefully how sorely I miss them. In stark contrast to much of our disorganised daily life, Bernice and I have supermarket shopping down to a military operation, at whose heart lies the division of duties: our printed shopping list, with its checkboxes for marking off what we need this week, is designed to be torn vertically in two, once filled in. The left half, whimsically headed “His”, lists the fruit and vegetables, in the order in which they are shelved in Rami Levi, and also flour, wine and cooking chocolate, for reasons lost in the mists of antiquity. This represents my objects in the weekly scavenger hunt. The right half, headed, as you may have guessed, “Hers”, represents Bernice’s challenge. She brings to this both the topological knowledge of exactly where Canola oil, salted butter, bleach and night lights are located in the store, and the youthful energy to put in the extra miles of doubling back and criss-crossing the store. She also has the people skills to navigate the cheese counter.

All of which is relevant only to explain why, for me, Rami Levi is our greengrocer. I remain largely unaware of what else he has to offer.

Back in the day, in the old country, the greengrocer’s was located at the end of the street. (The apostrophe in the previous sentence is, I hardly need point out to you, a distant relative of Schrödinger’s cat , being simultaneously a greengrocer’s apostrophe and not emphatically not a greengrocer’s apostrophe.) The greengrocer himself was a friendly soul, in his white coat and, if you are buying into the de luxe nostalgia edition, straw boater. He greeted you warmly, and, where relevant, urged you to sample the cherries which were “just perfect, this week”, or advised you against the melons, which had been harvested too early.

The shop was designed to enable the proprietor to reach all of his stock with minimum movement. He would glide around the premises, placing your produce into proper brown paper bags that never ripped or split when in use, and did not strangle turtles when disposed of later. They could be used multiple times at home, and then made excellent spills, or firelighters, for those long evenings we spent smoking our churchwardens or lighting our coal fires.

Rami Levi offers a rather different shopping experience.

This morning, it offered a very unsettling shopping experience. After Bernice and I corralled two stray shopping trolleys, we separated. While she entered the store, I went to waste five minutes at the side, where a machine has been installed to accept, read the barcode of, and credit the customer for, returned deposit bottles, This is a fine example of progress in reverse. 50% of the time the machine is out of action. When it is working, it routinely refuses to accept several types of bottles, including ones definitely purchased at that branch of Rami Levi. The process is not fast, involving feeding the bottles one at a time through an orifice onto a conveyor belt. Today’s experience was better than usual. I did not arrive just after a Russian who had just carried out his twice-yearly clearance of the cupboard under the sink (50 vodka bottles) or a young adult who had just had a weekend-long barbecue party (200 beer bottles). Mind you, our stock of wine bottles piles up shockingly quickly – and there’s only two of us.

Anyway, having posted two-thirds of the bottles, and handed the rest in at the main desk to receive the small change owing to me, I went round to the entrance, where Bernice told me she had been approached by one of the staff encouraging the use of barcode laser guns. We have, until now, avoided getting sucked into this revolution, which, I suspected, saved the customer no time, and was basically just another cunning way Rami Levi gets the customer to do the job of the staff (weigh, tag and scan purchases) without being on the payroll. After a three-minute training session (“Ah! The death ray comes out of that little hole? I see.”), we both felt good to go. First, of course, we had to declare how many shopping bags we were going to fill. How on earth I am I supposed to determine that before I have started shopping?! I realised, at this point, that this meant Bernice would be packing her own shopping. Now, we all know that packing supermarket shopping, like dishwasher stacking, is a job that should only be done by a man. Women simply don’t realise the seriousness of the decision-making processes involved. However, I took comfort in the fact that at least the greengroceries would be separate from the dry goods.

For me, weighing and printing price labels for the fruit and veg was a little frustrating, until I realised that the quickest way to locate an item on the screen was to type in the first two letters of its name. (I have never noticed how many produce items begin with an aleph, or, rather, dammit, an ayin, or is it an aleph after all – agvaniya, avocado, ananas, anavim, agas, afarsek – tom’s, avocado’s, pineapple’s, grape’s, pear’s, peache’s/peach’s/peaches’ respectively, complete with their grrengrocer’s apostrophes).

While I was facing up to this spelling bee challenge,an eager young salesman with a tablet approached me to offer a Rami Levi credit card. When I explained that my wife had one, he pointed out that, since it was an old one, she was paying a monthly fee on it. If we took a new card, we would receive a Rami Levi gift card equal in value to the registration fee, our first year would be free of charges, and, at the end of the year, we would be able to request a second year free of charges (which, of course, we could not do with our existing card, because it was so-o-o old). I told him to wait a moment, located Bernice, discussed it with her, and, since she didn’t need to be involved in the bureaucracy, she agreed we should go for it. This was, I should add, the third time I had been targeted in this way in as many visits oto the store, and my resistance had been worn down.

For the next ten minutes, the salesman talked me through the intricacies of applying for, using, and unlocking the benefits of, the card. The speed of his delivery put me in mind, at times, of Leroy van Dyke, for those of you who go all the way back to 1962. At the end, I was only too happy to sign the tablet, and wait for the credit check.

After all this high-end tech stuff, both Bernice and I had our trolleys rejected by the weighing station, and yet another member of staff had to come over and beat the machine about the head until it submitted.

In short, I have seen the future, and it doesn’t quite work yet. Bring back the straw boater and the brown paper bags, I say.

Dear Reader

No. I really can’t, on reflection, attempt to hide behind the pathetic excuse in this week’s title. I have to come clean.

It’s been some time coming, but I’m afraid it’s finally arrived. I am sitting at my desk, heavy-hearted, typing this brief post at almost 1:40 on the night between Monday and Tuesday; or, to put it more bluntly, seven hours and twenty minutes before publication time. I have nothing to say. Words fail me. I blame a combination of the Jewish calendar, a slow news day (something of a novelty in these parts) and the lethargy induced by not getting to sleep until gone 2:00 on Sunday night (not quite the all-night learning that is traditional on Shavuot night, but about as much as Bernice and I can handle at this stage and still have a hope of making it to shul in the morning).

And so, a hitherto unbroken run of 289 posts of content (some better than others, but all over 1200 words: never mind the quality, feel the length), one a week over 2023 days, ends here, with a mere 348 vacuous words from a henceforth broken man.

There will, bli neder, be other weeks. I plan to be back next Tuesday for my usual desperate ramble through the byways of what passes these days for my mind. If I’m really firing on all cylinders, I might address the question of what exactly is the nature of the ‘Palestinian state’ that France claims to be about to recognise. Or I might just possibly be sharing with you the details of our interesting crop of nectarines this year, or speculating on the likely etymology of bandersnatch. At this stage, dear reader, your guess is as good as mine. I can only hope that, by this time next week, my guess will be considerably better than yours!

Until then, and in the hope that I have not completely ruined your week (just my own), I remain

Your (finally exposed as intermittent) correspondent

David