Yes, the charmingly slow Iberians are in need of a good slap. Poor dears, they’re mixing up their ideas even more than usual. So let’s help them to behave, shall we?
They don’t believe in self-determination for their regions – or anybody else’s. Or do they? OK, they now think Scotland deserves the chance. Fine. But Gibraltar still doesn’t.
Que?
It is now a couple of days since Ms May filed for divorce. And it is still ‘news’, so the esteemed (and other) meeja seem determined to comment on every jot and tittle, nay every molecule of the first exchanges between the combatants. But boredom will soon set in – cf. a ‘nine-day wonder’ – and remember a week is a long time in politics.
Few commentators wish to recognise (at least in public) that there is a standard procedure when any negotiation starts. I recall life in several craft-based industries which reviewed their pay-and-benefits-scales every year. The protagonist stepped up, all mouth and trousers, with a proposal he knew was unacceptable. The antagonist objected with thunderous determination never to accept it. Neither was real life. It took days or sometimes weeks or months to ‘come together’.
So when the UK and EU have marked each other’s cards and the meeja have gone into the extreme boredom mode, the real work will begin. Patience, everyone.
It’s an annual occasion tailored out of extravagance, excessive emotion, self-congratulation and self-deception; strangely appropriate to the state of the nation itself, if its new President is a bellwether. Perhaps unsurprisingly the man himself is reputed to abhor the whole business, owing to Hollywood’s leftish leanings, or perhaps in reality because he is a luvvie himself but can never win the coveted statue. The winners will speak as if with authority – just like him and spare no tears for anyone, if it makes good copy.
Proceed at your own risk!
It’s best to keep new year’s resolutions to oneself. That way, breaking them inspires least hilarity or contempt in others. Backside’s irritating irony would always be too much for me. But for all that, I can reveal I am resolved to kill the gadfly which my other head too often allows me to employ at others’ expense. I will brave his efforts to persuade me to harness a new one whenever I feel the urge. So! That’s done. And yes, I feel better already and hope that you, friends, will let us know how you intend to conduct yourselves in 2017. Or have you resolved to tell nobody?
It’s been a while since I reported on the royals. Probably because Kate can do no wrong and Wills is doing his best, bless him.
But sources tell me that the PoW is side-lining his rapacious brother whose strings are obviously still being jerked by the inimitable Fergie. Andy’s been whining about his daughters’ having to work for living – which they seem do do but rather spasmodically – arguing that the Heir’s lads are fully subsidised royals. With his nose well and truly out of joint, Andy asked HM the Queen to intercede on his behalf – and got what can only be described as the bum’s rush from the Palace too.
Come on girls! Use your natural talents, tap into Daddy’s well-oiled connections, marry well – and Chuck’s your uncle!
English football is an enormous business, so why is it incapable of employing top people who have the talent to keep its house in order and control its excesses and self-destructive urges?
I’m afraid the answer lies in the boardrooms of the biggest clubs, which pull the strings of the FA, ensuring it employs only second-raters who will not threaten their own PR needs.
No FTSE-100 company would have hired Woy or Sam as England manager. The hiring process would have exposed their weaknesses – Woy’s spinelessness, Sam’s cupidity.
So Alan Shearer is correct: English football is a laughing-stock. The corruption is only now beginning to be exposed – and I’ll whisper ‘drugs’, the next scandal to break. Mama mia!
Le petit Nicolas schemes his way back to the top, despite his criminal cases. Will he be given another chance? Will it make any difference to France’s failing fortunes and Europe’s little local difficulties? Probably not, mes amis.
Boadicea's Chariot 
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