Tag Archives: politics

British Citizenship – a Few Suggestions

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I just did British Citizenship Test Number 4. Fortunately I passed. I did, however, get two of the 24 questions wrong. I thought you had to be 21 to become an MP. I should have known as, as soon as I pressed the button, I remembered getting it wrong before. It’s 18. A good age for it, as teenagers know everything there is to know. Much better than getting an old person to do it. Personally I’d just roll dice, as I expect it would be just as successful as a way of running the country.

What interest rate should we have? Roll the dice. Budget for health, defence, education? Roll the dice. Prime Minister this week? Toss a coin.

Then I was told I had got the question about Scottish banknotes wrong. I hadn’t. The citizenship Test needs to rephrase the question, or alter the answer. If you define “valid” as “legal tender” (and what other sort of validity could they mean?) Scottish banknotes aren’t valid in England, but most people accept them. It’s a matter of courtesy rather than a matter of law. Scottish banknotes aren’t actually valid in Scotland either, if you check. Nor are Bank of England notes – they just don’t have  a law on it, but they seem to get by without it.

The rest of it was OK, but I followed up with doing more questions and am quite surprised by how important it is that people applying for British Citizenship know about the Tudor and Stuart monarchs, including the difference between Mary I and Mary Queen of Scots, whereas most people who are born in the UK think they were the same person.

I’d say that if you want to become a British Citizen it’s more important that you know about queuing, driving on the correct side of the road and  the right way to talk about the weather. All the history stuff can be picked up from watching quiz programmes.

The medallion is the one I mentioned a few days ago. It set me thinking about the Citizenship tests. Time flies – I just realised that “a few days ago” wa actually ten days ago.

harrow Council Citizenship medallion.

 

PM, Politics, and Poor Performers

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Well, I did put a post in drafts for today, but I rather think that events of the day have superseded that. It’s been a record-breaking time for British Politics. First Kwasi Kwarteng resigned. He was pretty poor as Chancellors go, though I’m not sure he was the worst. He wasn’t even the shortest serving as Ian McLeod died after just thirty days in office – Kwarteng managed to cling on for 38. Then we had Suella Braverman. I hadn’t even heard of her until the last leadership election. As a result of what I imagine was a deal of some sort, she became Home Secretary. She just left, as I remarked yesterday. Unlike Kwarteng, who couldn’t manage the economy and couldn’t manage top set a new record, Braverman did set a record by becoming the shortest serving modern Home Secretary.

And now Truss . . .

Despite serious opposition from George Canning, who died in office after 119 days. It was a difficult record to break, particularly for a healthy person, but she has done it in some style, shattering Canning’s record by a good margin. It will take a PM of stunning incompetence or really bad health to break that one. Even the Master of Mendacity (or Prince of Porky Pies if you prefer rhyming slang) Boris the Bumbling Blonde Buffoon managed 3 years and 44 days.

Of course, Boris might yet bounce back. Stranger things have happened. It’s just so embarrassing that our Politicians are so bad we even make the septics look good. That’s rhyming slang again. Here, I’ll show you.

Day 188

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There had been few sales, despite us being closed yesterday. Summer is always quiet and when you add the Russian Roulette nature of holidays at the moment (will the flight be cancelled, will the queues be huge?), the cost of living crisis they keep talking about, the war, covid . . . Well, it’s a wonder anyone ever feels like doing anything.

I feel like doing something, I feel like being a highly paid parasite, which is fortunate as there seem to be quite a few jobs going in Westminster at the moment. A whole new set of career opportunities has opened up for me. Boris, betraying a total lack of class is ignoring Macbeth (’twere well It were done quickly) and hanging about like a bad smell. He’s either hoping that we will forget he’s supposed to go, or he is trying to book dates for his forthcoming speaking tour.

We had a parent like that in Midlands Rugby League once. He was convinced that his younger son was fated to be a great rugby player. The kids was, in truth, mediocre – a good club player but not worth a step up to regional level. He hadn’t made it to county level in Rugby Union and they saw RL as the route to the top.

So, he came to the regional trials and was duly thanked for his efforts, but told he wouldn’t be required in the second round.  He still turned up the next week, and once again, missed the cut, being thanked for his efforts and told he wouldn’t be required in the next round. This time I made a point of it, to avoid any misunderstanding.

Imagine my surprise when, the next week, I noticed his father lurking behind a shrubbery. He had  decided to come back anyway and put his kid into the next round. It’s nice to have supportive parents, but there are limits.

And that’s how I feel about Boris. It’s good that he enjoys being Prime Minister, but there are limits. Fortunately, with him being born in New York, he can go and bother the Americans, as he attempts to be the first man since George III to be head of state both in UK and America. I doubt it will end well, but recent events in both countries suggest that the joke candidate does well.

 

Day 62

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A couple of days ago, searching for “pig” on the blog (I wanted that photo with the pigs and cornflowers) I ended up with a lot of pigeon pictures. This, I suppose, is a clue to the workings of search engines.

I offer that thought as nothing more than a stand-alone musing. My brain is in neutral and that is the sort of thing that crops up.

The colour of soup is another thought – I mostly  tend to make soups that are in the fawn/beige range these days. I used to make them more golden, or more orange. Somewhere along the line I seem to have become less colourful. It might an example of food-related pathetic fallacy, or it may just be that I’m using more swedes (rutabagas).

Time, I think, to bring a bag of frozen peas to the party. I like pea soup. Or nettles. It will be that time of year soon and nettles always brighten a soup up. This must be how old age starts (for me at least), beige food difficulty in thinking, beige food and those bedroom slippers with Velcro straps . . .

I went to the pharmacy tonight. I have no choice. It’s the first shop I’ve been in for a month (apart from the one where I work). A month ago, you guessed it, I went to the pharmacy. I haven’t been out in public since we went to see Number One son just before Christmas. Whether this is old age, Covid or a mental health condition remains to be seen.

I’m also speculating on the nature of international politics. I call it the cesspit theory of politics, and anyone who has ever had dealings with a septic tank will know what I mean. In cesspits and politics the same sort of thing seems to rise to the top.

 

Day 54

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I’ve been looking at lists of 10, 30 and 50 Greatest Poets and Greatest Poems to give myself some perspective on yesterday’s surprise about people not recognising the name Adlestrop. Robert Frost ranks highly in most lists. Edward Thomas, his friend, does not. Frost after surviving the trip back to America in 1915, which was not a foregone conclusion in that year, as the Lusitania shows, developed a poetic career and eventually died at the age of 88. Thomas enlisted in 1915, prompted by Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken, and was killed in 1917. It seems to me that poetic reputations are often developed by such quirks of history, rather than by the quality of the poetry. Death, and its timing has a lot to do with reputations. Thomas died too soon, Byron died at about the right time, at which point he became a legend rather than a mere poet. I could name several poets who died too late, but that would be mean-spirited.

What I can tell you about some of the lists is that I haven’t heard of many of the poets on one of the lists, which, as far as I can tell, was chosen on political rather than poetic grounds. Such is life when you start making lists. Any list you make is bound to be biased, though you only notice when it is biased in a way you don’t like.

The average list is composed of classic white men with a few Indians, Japanese and female poets thrown in jut to show how well read the lister is. I’m always left with a feeling that these lists reveal just how little I really know about poetry and how any list I write on this subject should not be titled “100 Best Poets” but “100 best Poets in the Opinion of a man of limited reading and ingrained prejudices”. This would be more accurate.

It’s the same with many articles in the news, in the UK they should all be qualified with the words “written by a young and overconfident Oxbridge graduate”.

And that is the opinion of the blogger Quercus Community (a miserable old git who is not fond of modern life and young people).

Am I the Only One?

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WP seems to be running very slowly, added to which I am not getting my normal pages when I try to write. Am I the only one or has WP decided to give me more unwanted “improvements”?  I really hope ntm as i’m not in the mood for more messing about.

There were more people out on the roads yesterday, and more people walking around in the evenings, so it looks like the easing of lockdown restrictions is having some impact. I’m not sure what the easing is, to be honest, aas I no longer bother to keep up.

I just checked – we are still supposed to minimise travel and work from home if we can. Not sure why there is more traffic about, in that case.

People can met outside, including private gardens – two households or groups of six, though it doesn’t say if you can repeat this every hour or whether you are limited to just the same other  household for the next few weeks. The stay at home rule is ended, though w are still asked to minimise travel and no holidays are allowed.

Outdoor sports can start again, though that’s a bit vague.

You can get married, with up to six people attending. Not sure if that includes bride and groom.

Other countries within the UK have different systems, so if you live in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland the timings will be slightly different. They do this to justify the huge costs of their devolved governments and to show they are different from England, rather than because it makes any difference.

I am fairly sure that life in the Midlands is different from life in London, and we could  justify having our own government. The West Midlands has a population of 5.9 million, which would make it 114 on the world list, above Singapore and Denmark, for instance. The East Midlands is slightly smaller, at 4.8 million, which puts it around 125 on the world list – slightly below Ireland and level with New Zealand.

Compare to Scotland (5.4 million, Wales 3.1 million and Northern Ireland at 1.9 million, and the Republic of the East Midlands starts to look like a viable proposition. We have access to the sea, an airport and a world class cheese industry, what more do we need?

 

 

 

A Tour Around the Internet

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February has a habit of catching me out. Spring starts to drop hints, the birds begin to act amorously and then it snows. Even in years that are generally free of snow February often manages to squeeze out a few flakes. As I’ve said before, it probably wouldn’t be considered snow in many countries that get proper snow, but in the UK a couple of inches for a couple of days brings us to a halt.

It’s a bit like those summer heatwaves we have – we don’t get one every year and they only last a couple of days. We all complain and need a lie down in temperatures that would be considered mild in Australia.

As a result, we have few snowploughs and no domestic air conditioning.

However, that doesn’t stop me complaining that it’s unseasonably nippy this morning. Nor does it stop me becoming a stereotype, British and talking about the weather. Whatever next? I’ll be on to Europe, immigration and capital punishment next.

Talking of which, I’ve just been looking at Albania on Wikipedia. I find that it is a member of two organisations I had not previously heard of – the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation and Union for the Mediterranean. I didn’t even realise it was on the Black Sea. And when I check it up, it isn’t. Quite a few of the members aren’t on the Black Sea, and when you check the “Observer Members” the link becomes even more tenuous – they include Egypt and Israel (which must make for some fun meetings), France, Poland, Tunisia and the United States.

It’s much the same with the Union for the Mediterranean, but the entire EU is in that one – even Ireland, which it’s notably lacking in olive groves and sparkling blue seas. It seems, from reading the Wiki entry, that this is not a particularly effective organisation. One meeting ground to a halt when nobody could agree whether to refer to certain territories as  “occupied” or “under occupation”.  Such is life as an international diplomat.

It’s a good thing I don’t blog about politics or I might be tempted into sarcasm.

There is, it seems, tension between the EU and some of the less progressive states over Human Rights. This led me to checking which countries still executed homosexuals, and then to checking where the UK stood on this.   We last executed men for homosexual activity in 1835. Times and sensibilities were different then, but it was a surprise to find it was so recent.

So there you are, a discussion on the weather followed by world politics and capital punishment for something which isn’t actually a crime in the UK. Only on the internet…

 

A Few Words For Our Leader

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Whilst chatting to Tootlepedal last night in the comments section, I was able to formulate an acronym for Boris. He asked me if I could make it into a haiku, but I admit I am unequal to the challenge. It runs to twenty syllables and even the old-fashioned 5-7-5 Haiku only run to seventeen. I have managed to work it into a haibun.

Warning – contains an acronym of dubious taste.

After admiring the acronym POTUS for some time, I have decided that our Prime Minister needs an acronym. I’m still working on one as a general acronym for our leader, but have managed to develop one specific to Boris. Few, I imagine, would dispute that he is a Famously Unprincipled Conservative Kingpin Without Intelligent Thought.

Julia says it won’t catch on.

a few letters
to sum up his Covid work
RIP

Fish & Chip Friday

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I must admit I woke with worries about the Cats of Salmon Brook Farm. I know they were packed and ready to move as the fires advanced, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed for them all. Ideally the fires will magically die out as they get closer to the farm but I fear this may not be the case.

Julia had set her clock for 6.30 and I wasn’t able to get back to sleep, which allowed me more time to listen to the news. It seems that this country has sunk so low that even American politicians feel able to take the moral high ground from us.

I Googled “honest politician” and did find this man, so all is not yet lost. I do love this quote:

“People of Kentucky, you deserve complete honesty, so here it is. I don’t care about you. Unless you are a donor, a lobbyist who can write a big fat check, the result that you get from voting for me is negligible.”

If the Americans don’t want him, can we have him for the UK. I’d happily vote for him. As for the rest of them, I’m seriously thinking of giving up voting as it only encourages them.

We sold one thing overnight on eBay and another during the day, the second day in a row this has happened. It’s not good. We also got two stupid offers from people. I was on my best behaviour when I declined them, even though they were just wasting my time.

I then went shopping, ate chips, fell asleep in the chair and woke up just in time to post.

The Fifty Foot Johnson

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I suppose I should start with an apology to my American readers for my poor taste, and an explanation to my British readers – johnson is American slang for penis. If you know my views on the Prime Minister and the way my minds works, I’m sure you can see what direction this post is moving in.

Last night I was musing on the chain of circumstances which, if applied to Stanley Johnson, might result in the non-birth of Bungling Boris. As you may have gathered from yesterday’s post, I am not a fan.

Mumps or measles would have done the trick, as would an unfortunate rugby injury. It’s less likely that I could have invented a time travelling burdizzo, despite the obvious attraction of such a direct and effective method. Then I thought of radiation. Would it be possible to travel back in time with a microwave and secure the required result. I’m not quite clear on the use of radiation, which seems to have variable effects. Doctor Bruce Banner seems to have swollen up and turned green as a result of exposure to radiation while Peter Parker assumed many of the characteristics of a spider.

I may have to drop the idea of irradiation, due to the side effects.

Anyway, if one of the Johnsons was to become a Marvel Superhero it would have to be Boris’s younger brother Jo Johnson. Marvel superheroes have alliterative names so there is no other choice. And why, you ask, do they have alliterative names? Because Stan Lee had a bad memory and it helped him remember them. Sounds slightly unlikely, but that’s what it says on Wikipedia.

 

Due to this I am going to abandon the idea of irradiating Stanley, as it might turn him into  a giant, and nobody would want a fifty foot Johnson. Let’s face it, nobody actually wants a six foot Johnson.

Attackofthe50ftwoman