Brexit II

So, there can be a vote of no confidence in the PM. People say that the number of signatures required (48) is gettable.

Mrs May was still putting on a brave face and is determined to see it through and complete her time in office, something which is admirable, Mr Cameron, but maybe foolhardy. She can leave before it really gets bad, get a nice book deal and relax.

Mr Trump has been weighing in, saying Boris is a big chum (chum, as in friend, not “chump”) and he hopes to meet him this weekend.

Nigel Farage is also still around. The rest of this paragraph is censored.

I am writing this late Tuesday, for early Wednesday. Who knows what will happen in the meantime. Odds are there will be a leadership challenge, sooner rather than later, and an election. Davis, Johnson, Ress-Mogg stand. Boris wins.

A friend said to me “I don’t know where this country is going”. I do. Downhill, rapidly.

Posted in News, Politics | Comments Off on Brexit II

Brexit I

I wrote about Brexit a while ago, but it has raised its ugly head “bigly”, as Trump would say.

More time is spent in Parliament on Brexit than on everything else combined, which is probably as it should be, as it’s a major change for this country.

I have a simple view of how a timeline for this would have gone:

  1. referendum – we are going to leave
  2. government gets ministers (and maybe others) together and decides clearly how we are leaving, what we want from the process, what it will be like afterwards etc. A plan ahead is agreed (yes, it’ll be a compromise and everyone will be unhappy to some extent, but at least there will be a plan). This process takes as long as it takes.
  3. Article 50 is triggered. Two years to negotiate with the EU. The clock ticks.
  4. we negotiate, more compromises but a solution.
  5. we leave.

Article 50 was triggered in March 2017, so we leave in March 2019. But, to hugely misquote George Harrison, Lewis Carroll et al, if you don’t know where you’re going, how do you know when you’ve arrived.

So Prime Minister May got her troops together last Friday to discuss a post-Brexit plan, in other words, step 2. No doubt there were disagreements, and apparently the ministers were treated like naughty children, having their phones confiscated and so on. But in the end, we are told, they all came out unified.

Then Brexit minister David Davis thinks about it all, decides he’s not having it and resigns. Boris Johnson is also unhappy about the plan, and also that Davis may make a bid for the Conservative leadership/PM job, something he thinks is rightfully his, so he resigns too.

More have gone today. Mrs May’s party/the government is in total chaos. Apparently Mrs May was told that unless the agreed Brexit plan is withdrawn, more will resign on a regular basis. As I have been writing this, two more have gone.

The country is in a mess.

Mrs May appeared in Parliament yesterday and put a brave face on. I don’t understand her.

Maybe she is hugely intelligent and I am missing something.

Maybe she wants to be the most hated/worst PM of all time. Trump clearly is the worst USA President and Thatcher definitely the worst PM of modern times, but no-one would really want that on their gravestones, would they?

Maybe she has a big ego. Maybe she really believes that people like her.

Maybe she is delusional.

Maybe it is all a clever plot to get out before it gets worse.

 

Posted in News, Politics | Leave a comment

Kids

Just on the subject of restaurants, it is very common in mid-price restaurants, especially chains, to find hordes of kids running around using it as a playground. The adults will be off in a corner laughing and drinking wine, and the children will be running round, screaming, knocking over tables, even breaking glasses and annoying everyone else, at least until one of them gets hurt and starts crying, loudly.

Look through the window of any restaurant you are interested in, and if you see kids, go elsewhere.

My worst experience was at a local place. The kids were maybe 5 or 6 years old, running around and playing hide and seek behind other customers. Why I went in I have no idea.

Then one of them was sick on my coat which was hanging on my chair. UK restaurants don’t do cloakrooms, or even hangars.

The parents thought this was very funny. I did not. When I started to complain, a rather burly father (I suppose) got up and started to threaten me. Surely my kids had done the same? No, no kids here. I was told to shut the fuck up (or else a punch perhaps).

The waiter was very apologetic. He helped me clean up, and I went elsewhere.

Just so you know.

Posted in Food | Comments Off on Kids