Category: Chips on Shoulders

A Pyrrhic victory?

The ever-vigilant meeja continue to report that the EUroprats are sneering at the efforts of the UK team to negotiate BREXIT, led by JC Juncker himself. But if it’s obvious to me it must also have struck others that the EU members have a lot to lose from driving the UK into a corner. Why? Because whether the EU’s feelings are hurt or not, the UK will remain an important trading partner. And trade goes both ways.

The Chambers of Commerce of Britain and Germany seem to have reached a similar conclusion, pointing out to the EU that businesses will suffer if more positive moves are not made – and soon.

Let’s hope that as their suntans fade the EU’s supercilious expressions will also give way to serious attempts at agreement. Otherwise, who wins?

What a beauty!

Tum-te-tum-te-tum….Stuck a feather in his cap and called it Macaroni…..

Not only that, mes braves! He blew beaucoup de euros on face-paint too. Mais pourquoi?

  1. Does he have something to hide?
  2. Did he tell his wife, ‘I will if you will?’
  3. Does he want to look like Angela?
  4. Is he having an affair with his make-up artist?
  5. Is he advertising a well-known brand of cosmetics?
  6. Or wha’?

Plebiscites are the problem

I know one of our cherished colleagues currently resting in NW America would have us use referenda to run the country – like a township in God’s own country. Democracy at its purest.

Unfortunately last year’s vote on Britain’s EU membership has caused psephologists (and normal folk too) to question their real value. I mean, why not have another go if you don’t like result of the first? One particular guru who was one of our Dave’s teachers has written about it:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/19/british-voters-second-referendum-on-brexit

His justification is that the voters may have seen the error of their ways! Yeah, right! (Which being translated is ‘now agree with him’.) In fact that’s precisely the problem with the whole idea of asking people to vote on issues. They will change their minds and change them back again (etc. ad nauseam) – which ain’t no way to run a railroad. That’s why we have a Parliament, to even out the bumps in the road to decision-making. Or to try another analogy: videos provide more evidence than snapshots.

I’m afraid I can hardly credit the principle that if you don’t like an answer, you can always ask the question again!

Dog days

Like everything else, even the hot and sultry weeks old Srius used to offer us have changed – to cool and damp. And countless Charioteers (at least I have lost count) are taking their R and R away from the proferred joys of our W and W (er…. wit and wisdom?).

The remaining participants are ‘off’ politics, off royalty, off meteorological mysteries – so what’s left? The culinary arts, garden rescue, tales of times past….and of course, love – the passion that drives us.

Better to let sleeping dogs lie, eh?

Back to the future

I have an awful feeling of dèja vu when I scan the headlines today. The so-called Cuban missile crisis in 1962 was similar, but in several key respects different.

First of all, the context was the Cold War, when fear and suspicion were the background to every international event. 2017 has been relatively calm diplomatically. Second, the protagonists were schooled in the politics of the time: fear and suspicion! Third, the media and even, one suspects, the leaders of the USA and the USSR were dependent on relatively primitive intelligence-gathering. Nothing was certain.

Lastly, the current leaders might both be classified as mentally defective. Both rely on a supreme sense of superiority and power, neither, it seems, relying on the support of their people.

I can only hope a peaceful solution can be found this time, as it was in 1962.

 

Pardon?

It can be dangerous to seize the moral or social high-ground. But it’s what institutions and their representatives do for a living.

Take the venerable Church of England. It gets its ecclesiastical underwear in a tangle every time a social norm is challenged, trying valiantly to remain relevant. Divorce, same-sex partnerships, gender-switching – and now women’s rights. Guess what! Equal pay is a distant dream for female staff at Head Office! Come on, Justin.

And on the day when British society’s top dog conducts his final public duty, the top people’s handbook flies in the face of decency and established principle. How? By declaring that the cognoscenti now accept the long-outlawed retort, ‘Pardon?’ when one mishears or seeks clarification. The Murican interrogative alternative, ‘Excuse me?’ has never gained acceptance in the face of the patrician, ‘What?’ and is now firmly removed from the contest by the plebeian and not-a-little-Gallic, ‘Pardon?’.

Both of these faux pas will acquire legs, I fear. Two referenda will be needed to help us decide what to do.

A royal dilemma?

The anniversary of Diana’s demise has prompted public outpourings of emotion across the meeja and (for me surprisingly) from her family. Once again the Windsors find themselves dragged into a world where emotions are worn proudly on the sleeve while they continue to demand privacy and special treatment whenever it suits them. The Princes themselves were certainly the victims of the misconceived funeral display – but should they continue to parade their grief? Was their family less revered while Margaret’s tribulations were more discreetly exposed?

Baggage

I’m midway through my clan visits in the Green and Pleasant; now moved oop narth from Mid Sussex to West Essex (I can’t have you imagining me in Sarfend, can I?). So I’m very aware of the airlines struggle to squeeze maximum cash out of their no-doubt-tight-fisted passengers.

The pressure on cabin shelf space is inadequate for all the ‘free’ hand bags – the airlines admit it – but despite that, some charge significant sums to stow bags in the hold. On my trip here last week the passengers were invited to volunteer to have their hand luggage stowed below – free, of course. When insufficient numbers cooperated, a number of bags were seized whether their owners approved or not! Of course this treatment is meted out on those who decline to pay for ‘priority’ status only.

The latest nonsense is that Ryanair have now ordered new aircraft for 2019 with 8 or 9 more seats but only room for 2 or 3 more bags.

The race for low fares has ended in tears for both the carriers and the carried, it seems – with no hope of the worst culprits getting together to find better ways to price their services. Ho hum.

 

 

Vive the difference

 

The recent cringe-worthy visit of the First Man to France demonstrated the qualities of Gallic behaviour. Larger than life, self-satisfied and fundamentally hypocritical. Excusez-moi? Did you say those adjectives describe their No. One Visitor? Oh, yes, I hadn’t noticed. By all accounts the French populace were less than impressed.

Meanwhile, back in the real world (London) his demands for a ‘better reception’ when he deigns to grace us with his ineffable presence, were met with a straightforward, ‘Well, you know the British press’. So he should not hold his presidential breathe.

Says it all really.