Cyclists! Football! Politicians! Artists?!

Cyclists on the pavement drive me crazy. The other night we were strolling home from the bar when we heard shouting from behind us, telling us - not asking - to get out of the way. Two young people racing along on bikes. When I say young, I mean older teenagers, maybe 20+ year-olds. Needless to say they had no lights, no helmets or warning bells or hooters. In a rare moment of assertiveness, otherwise known as bad temper, as we dodged I yelled back at them that they should be on the road not the pavement. They shouted back that I too should be on the road and they gave me the finger. What are things coming to!?

England played Belgium in the World Cup last night. Off we went to a bar to watch England lose the match. Mrs May is at a summit of EU leaders. The Belgian PM gave her a Belgium football team top. Which she unfurled and held up before realising it was not her team at all. Oops! How the other EU leaders laughed!

While I am talking about female politicians, here’s a little something:-

“An MP has been praised for breaking a taboo by talking about being on her period during a debate over the cost of sanitary products, which many women cannot afford. Scottish Labour’s Danielle Rowley, who represents Midlothian, apologised for being late to a House of Commons women and equalities debate, saying she was on her period and it had cost her £25 so far this week.

She called for action on the cost of sanitary products. “We know the average cost of a period in the UK over a year is £500. Many women can’t afford this. What is the minister doing to address period poverty?” she asked. Several MPs congratulated Rowley after she made parliamentary history.” 

So that’s another disgrace in modern society, women who can’t afford to pay for sanitary products! And that in the UK as well, not a third world country!

I’ve been reading Craig Murray, writing about his work in Ghana and in Uzbekistan. Disturbing stuff, giving the lie to the UK being pure as the driven snow and knowing nothing of corruption. And then I came across this little item, asking Jack Straw how much he knew about the UK’s involvement in torture after 9/11.

More amusingly and rather less seriously, a few years ago an amateur artist had a go at restoring an ancient painting in a local church in Spain. Well, it’s taken a while but she started a trend. Here’s the story:-

 “For 500 years, the painted wooden effigy of St George that adorns a chapel in the Spanish town of Estella has been locked in a silent struggle against his old foe, the dragon.
Today, however, the saint faces a different battle thanks to a feat of restoration that has prompted comparisons with the infamous “Ecce Homo Monkey Christ” and exasperated the mayor. An attempt to freshen up the 16th-century polychrome statue has left St George with a rosy pink face and a bold, red-and-grey suit of armour. The restoration is believed to have been carried out by a handicrafts teacher at the request of the parish authorities of the Church of St Michael.”

 There you go!