MPs changing parties, confused voters who aren’t sure any longer who or what they voted for, PMs who don’t know what’s going on - it’s a strange country at the moment. It’s a good job we don’t have volcanoes and tsunamis as well.
David Davis shocked the House yesterday by telling Johnson it was time for him to go. Addressing the House, he said, “So, I will remind him of a quotation which may be familiar to his ear: Leopold Amery to Neville Chamberlain.
"'You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. In the name of God, go.'"
The “him” referred to, Johnson, apparently claimed not to recognise the quotation. His alter-ego, voiced by Michael Rosen, on the other hand gets all the classical and historical references:
“Dear Mogg
Who does Davies think he is? He’s just a jumped up Cockney boy trying to sound like Cicero. No Sword of Hercules poised above me, Moggo! I am deeply grateful for your loyalty. You are loyal, aren’t you? Aren’t you? Await your reply.
Nil
Boris”
“Dear Mogg
The tricky bit of juggling I’ve got to do today is prove that I spent 25 minutes looking at a hundred people quaffing and munching and thought it was work. You’ve got to remind them of Telemachus and the Feast of the Sabine Women.
Postprandium desperandium
Boris”
“Dear Rishi, I hope you were listening to Today: me being lauded as the great leader with the weight of state on my shoulders, too busy to have twigged it was a party. Be like him, young man, and not like Virgil suckling the wolf.
Omnibus terminus
Boris”
And now they’re telling us that all the covid restrictions will be lifted, some of them immediately. This is provoking further discussion but it might be taking attention away from other governmental problem area.
In other parts of the world, where they are somewhat behind us in the coronavirus waves, restrictions are causing all sorts of wedding problems:
“Until 28 December, Heena Vashisht was a happy bride-to-be. The 28-year-old was pleased her family had put in place early all the arrangements for her wedding on 10 February, right down to the last candle. But her plans have been shredded by India’s Omicron surge. The nuptials can go ahead in New Delhi as planned, but only if she cuts her guest list down from 650 to 20.
“My own immediate family is 80. How can I reduce the guests to 20? The tension in my family is unbearable right now. No one knows what to do and my mother’s blood pressure has shot up with all the tension,” says Vashisht.
With India’s Omicron-driven third wave firmly under way, the New Delhi government has, along with other restrictions, limited wedding guests to 20, dealing a huge blow to India’s traditional wedding season, which runs from November to March.”
I find it hard to imagine getting together an immediate family of 80, but I suppose that if I considered all my cousins, and I do have rather a lot, as immediate family, then I might manage it. I certainly can’t imagine a guest list of 650! And how on earth do you reduce that number to just 20? Of course, soon we won’t have to worry about such things any longer!
On the subject of marriages, it seems that Isabel Allende has recently married for the third time. Asked about this in an interview promoting her latest book she said this:
“Do you think that anybody expects to marry at 77? No! But then this man heard me on the radio and fell in love with me. The only reason we got married is because for him it was really important. The last straw was when his granddaughter, who was seven years old at the time, went to the librarian at school and said “Have you heard of Isabel Allende?” And the librarian said: “Yes, yes, I’ve read some of her books.” There was a pause, and then Anna said: “She’s sleeping with my grandfather.””
That’s a different sort of scandal.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment