Author: janus

I'm back......and front - in sunny Sussex-by-the-sea

Lookin’ good, Ms May

may-eu

The meeja clever dicks are already up in arms about the PM’s priorities for Brexit, kick-off timed for the end March BST. But the ever-fickle markets for money seem to approve and have swiftly reversed the Brexit discount they applied yesterday before she spoke.  So I approve too, given the sterling nature of my pensions.

Being British but not being liberal or elite, I applaud the idea of explaining slowly and loudly to the Continentals in English that there’s more than one way to trade together, to deal with immigration and to subsidise worthwhile activities – none of them involving the EU, its legal set-up and its federal ambitions. And more fool the Europrats if they can’t follow the logic or see the light.

Keep calm and carry the day, Ms May.

Meg’s mate

This is your Court correspondent, reporting on the life and work of Snowdon, just call him Tony.

Of course those society snappers faced awful temptations. Some resisted, I’m sure; others, like Tony, indulged. But (again of course, given the the tempora and the mores) the extent of the indulgence was never revealed.

After Meg succumbed to the curse of her cigs, Tony continued to bat for both sides, taking his latest handsome squeezes to be entertained to dinner by ‘friends’.

A full-colour fella, eh? RIP.

 

The green line

In ’67 I visited a relative serving in the RAF at Akrotiri, conveyed by an ear-shattering  VC10 in the company of other families. We landed in Nicosia, at an airport which fell out of service in ’74 when Cyprus was split in two, the warring sides separated by the green line on a military map. I was shown the bustling port of Famagusta too, which has been a ghost town since ’74.

So I’m intrigued by the latest efforts to reconcile the north and south of the island at talks now underway in Geneva. My good friends there would be more than happy to recover their families’ long-lost properties. But there are serious reservations about Turkey’s willingness to withdraw their forces.

I hope Cyprus achieves unification. Fingers crossed.

C’est la vie, n’est-ce pas?

Hacking, bugging, snooping, leaking, infiltrating, etc., etc., seem to be the daily agenda for governments, as they have, I guess, since Adam were a lad. So let’s save our concern that Russia showed interest in the US election. Do we imagine the US is idle in Moscow or Beijing or Delhi or London or…..?

No doubt the meeja will be reporting Trump’s first decisions as President almost before he has made them; and the Brexit negotiations will be about as secret as a fart in a bathtub.

It’s interesting that Trump chooses to herald his activities by using social media, which can hardly be pre-empted by data thieves! Not a bad idea, perhaps.

 

Elementary?

I realise that during the holidays (Am.) all discerning trend-setters among screen addicts will have been on Netflix (or similar) but back among the plebs a milestone was reached.

I recall that from my earliest years it was mandatory at home to be silent at 3 pm on Xmas day to listen/watch HM the Queen making her annual speech to her subjects, on pain of Grandpa’s awful displeasure: Shut up! So it was.

But in 2016, for the first time, more tv sets were tuned to less regal matters: the first episode of a new series of Sherlock, promising fiendishly new twists and subtle references to the old characters and events. Obviously the average Brit isn’t quite so addicted to the monarch’s words. Or maybe only the pensioners tune in these days. Like Donald J Trump, the twat generation have little time for broadcast speeches of more than 140 characters.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Edgukayshun

There’s a lot of noise about further education, its price and its value. Let’s not question the principle that studying a subject after school will be valuable, not as a substitute for eventual on-the-job training but as an intellectual challenge by way of preparation for work. Its price varies from country to country. Here in high-tax DK it’s free, as it was for Brits when I were a lad. Now in England somebody has to find £9k p.a. in fees (or thereabouts) and the cost of living on top. Loans, bursaries, etc. are available but it ain’t cheap for the average family to deal with.

But the meeja bang on about the demographic bias in universities – as if it’s a surprise. But have you looked at the mix in fee-paying schools? A lot of non-local children from the nations of the world.

So not surprisingly the top universities appear to be biassed towards the ‘home counties’. Sorry to say it but that’s because they and many of the top schools are there. Not all of course, before there’s an outbreak of under-collar heat! The brightest kids can be found everywhere but life is not an ‘equal opportunity’ experience.

Naturally, if you don’t believe in further education this whole issue is meaningless. But I do and it means  lot.

 

Fools rush in

I was foolish enough to mention Israel in my non-Yank post and Boa intimated she might comment at a later date. Probably a wise idea, judging by the current mayhem.

There is the Sec of State erecting a road-block before 20th January; the Pres Elect promising to sort it all out in no time; and Ms May (should I say ‘dismay’?) somehow managing to vote with the UN but oppose Kerry. Netanyahu meanwhile is white-hot with rage at it all.

Far be it from me to suggest anything by way of a road forward. Russia could annex The Crimea. Is the West Bank, occupied for almost 50 years, so dissimilar? Should the former occupants not be allowed to reclaim it? Or is such a comparison somehow inapposite? What are the rules?

Since the whole world (except Israel itself and its American cheerleaders) accepts a 2-state solution, what next?