Washing. Some cartoon comments on life. Sweet nostalgia. And a troubled Foreign Secretary.

The rain has gone … for the time being. I have optimistically hung a lineful of washing in the garden. Optimistically, I say, but the first items are halfway dry already, a little but of sun and a regular gentle wind! That’s the way to do it.

Here’s a cartoon targeting Trump supporters. “The REAL Trump Delusion Syndrome. Some suffer so deeply, they don't even recognise they're suffering at all...  “

Here’s a dalek comment on peace plans.

And here are several cartoons relating to the recent space mission.

One of my early childhood memories is about receiving a threepenny bit for pocket money and going off independently to spend it on sweets, which had to last all week unless you gave in to temptation and ate them all there and then. Some items could be bought at a certain number for a penny, various sorts of chewy sweets or aniseed balls for example. Some were sold loose by weight - sherbet lemons, mint imperials, dolly mixtures, and various disgusting flavours of coloured sugar, marketed as “fizz”, which you consumed by dipping a wet finger into the bag and licking it, turning your finger a lurid blue or pink. Three old pence would usually buy you two ounces of whatever you chose. 

A foot-long barley-sugar stick seemed like a good idea but once partially unwrapped it just got stickier and messier as the days went by. One of the best was a packet of Rowntree’s fruit gums; if you resisted the urge to chew you could keep one fruit gum quietly dissolving in your mouth for about 15 minutes. And if you eked them, sealing the packet up each time, you could make the packet last all week. On balance, I must have been a horribly determined child; I don’t think I could resist the temptation nowadays! 

It was this article that got me thinking about sweets from my childhood sweet-eating. Before it was taken over by Nestlé, Rowntree’s was one of the three great Quaker businesses, along with Fry’s and Cadbury’s. They were said to be known as good Quaker employers, treating their employees well. Now, the article says, Rowntree’s has appointed someone to look into their past connections with slavery. I guess it was one of those things that even philanthropists took for granted back in the 19th century.

I’ve not quoted Michael Rosen for a while. So here’s his reflection on events in Lebanon:

Yvette Cooper is 'troubled'.

She says she's 'troubled'.

She's been on TV saying she's 'troubled'.

What's troubling her, it seems

is that Israel is killing people in Lebanon.

I wonder if that really is what's troubling her.

Perhaps what's troubling her

is that the British government 'stands by Israel'

but hardly anyone else is.

Perhaps what's troubling her

is that she knows she can't go on and on

turning up in studios and in the House of Commons

justifying what Israel is doing.

Perhaps she feels that Israel has

let her down.

"After all we've done for you, Israel

and now you go and do something beastly

that I can't justify."

So Yvette Cooper is 'troubled'.

And it's all been such a surprise.

Up till now

everything that Israel has done

since the 1940s 

has been great.

And here’ s what Jeremy Corbyn had to say about it:

The UK Foreign Secretary says she is “deeply troubled" by Israel's latest massacre in Lebanon.

So “troubled” that the government still supplies Israel with weapons and intelligence.

Israel is committing war crimes in Lebanon - and this government is shamefully complicit.

Hmm!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!