Author: Janus

Hey! I'm back ...... and front

Bulldog spirit

Yes, yes, I know some of you are (shall we say?) a tad critical of the British gubmint (pause for widespread, even furrry heckling…..) but may I make a point by way of balance? Last night Cameron used the veto to draw a line in the European sand. Unlike his Opposition he didn’t want the Federalists to make further inroads into British sovereignty and hog-tie the City of London in deference to the Franco-German policies of envy. Other than Hungary (who agreed with him) and Sweden (who had to go home to ask Dad) the rest of the lily-livered mob are going to accept that their national budgets and expenditure will be controlled by Berlin.  No, not by the faceless Commission or bottom-feeding Parliament or feckless Froggies – by Berlin.

Am I anti-German? No. Do I accept their economic imperialism? No. And Cameron has delivered the message. Well done.

RIP, Sherm

Backside and I are fans of M*A*S*H. It was sometimes cringingly sentimental but more often grippingly ironic and entirely relevant; a tour de force in the genre of ‘war soaps’ that has barely aged a year since it was produced almost 40 years ago. And Harry Morgan who has just died, aged 96, typified its intelligent examination of conflict, both medically and politically. He played Col. Sherman Potter for eight of its glorious years.

RIP, Sherm.

Curiouser and curiouser

The Independent today reports that when Scotland secedes from the Union, it (no, not she) will align itself with ….. (fanfare)….wait for it, Scandinavia. (Pause while you digest that).

Now that seems to me to make eminently good sense: a clutch of little countries huddling around the Mother Hen (the oil and gas industry), giving each other moral support against the big, bad Euro-lands and the Auld Enemy. So far so guid.

But, but, N, S and DK are all independent monarchies! And Scotland can’t take ours with them, innit? It can co-opt the Princess Royal, I suppose, but can they declare her Queen? OK, why not? Then the Royal Regiment (which they also plan to filch) won’t have to change its insignia.

It will all take some getting used to. Plus ça change…….

For the intrigued…..http://www.independent.co.uk/hei-fi/news/snp-would-join-the-scandinavian-circle-if-country-was-independent-6272464.html?origin=internalSearch

Budgets never did solve anything

Sorry to hog the home page but the Europrats are really getting my goat. The Twin Tw*ts (Merkel and Sarko) want to tighten the budgeting process to solve the Euro problem. ‘Beat them into submisssion if they don’t behave,’ they say. Er, excuse me. How? When? How often?

Any cherished member here who has been in biz or some other ‘profit-responsible’ position, will appreciate my point – that coming up with a budget is the easy bit. Delivering is not. So the Disastrous Duo will have to wait until countries default before they do anything and then what? Send them a bill? Come on! A further charge on the account won’t help! By which time the Euro has disappeared down the pan.

As Standard and Poors are trying to say, the Euro crisis is about debt, not budgetary control and about the EUrozone’s failure to deal with it, leaving Sarko in no position to pontificate on it, given his own precarious position on the cliff-top. (Bit of a mixed whatsit there, sorry.)

Let’s face it: Germany wants to rule the roost. France knows that but is powerless to act. Same old.

Dead right

There’s a nice story in the DT about the Dead Sea. Apparently it all but disappeared 120,000 years ago when things hotted up in the region but it returned, salted but not deterred, and has kept on evaporating quite contentedly until its neighbours started robbing it of fresh water fairly recently.

Now I don’t take much notice of climate conferences and stuff but this news seems to me to confirm my suspicions that our climate is pretty cyclical and only extremely determined efforts from homo sapiens to change it will make much difference in the long run.

PS This might also be one in the eye for some of our Fundamentalist friends whose Creation apparently came later.

Effin dangerous

This is the story of a some innocent denizens of a village in County Limerick who wanted to be part of the great phenomenon called Facebook which only a few, like Backside and me, avoid like the famine (allegedly).

But as fate would have it their village is called Effin (in English, not in their native tongue). So as seems to occur with all such electronic media, it could not speak its name.

I presume (for I dare not put it to the test) that one should not refer to a festive furkin either?

(Please note this post is split into short, easy-to-read paragraphs and avoids any link to a media report or a relevant stock photo selected for the amusement of cherished members.) 🙂

Unfrozen assets

The ginormous island of Greenland (pop. 56,000)  is ruled by little Denmark (pop. 5.6 million) and occupies two seats in the Danish parliament (Folketing). As a relative stranger to the culture here I have the impression that Danes regard their western ‘compatriots’ with a kind of sentimental sympathy – simple people who are trying hard to make it in the sophisticated world of hi-technology and low cunning. Continue reading “Unfrozen assets”