SOPPY SUNDAY

1. It’s OK, little one. You don’t have to socially isolate from me. I’m your mummy!

3. OK, Quokka, if you have any spare food, I got a nest of hungry chicks to feed!

4. On a tour of the grounds, Munguin chats to lesser animals, almost as if they were his equals.

5. Andi sent this in. A couple of busy bees on a cotoneaster. I’ve been trying to get a photograph of the bees in the garden (there are hundreds) for ages, but every time I get close, they move!!!

6. Mum, I could give the birds a rhino ride too!

7. I’m gonna eat this all up before my lil brother hatches!

8. Hmmm, does that make me the black sheep of the family?

9. Nothing like a socially isolated stroll in the woods. If you bring anyone with you, I’ll eat them, OK?

10. Munguin addresses a meeting of the Snails.

11. What’s this, a free-for-all with my breakfast?

12. Humans on the beaches after they lift the lockdown, leave me scratching my head. Are they all quite mad?

13. Me too. They are all bats… er, well no, they’re humans, but batty humans.

14. So, is the diet working?

15. I’m not sure you’re supposed to bite me when I punch you.

16. Grrrrrr… oh, I can’t be bothered.

17. I hate it when he comes out and supervises. He says nothing but I can see him silently disapproving of everything I do.

18. Heaven, except at high tide!

19. If you want a song, I’m a warbler…

20. I’m giving my mum a goodnight kiss… so that’s your lot for the day. These tours are exhausting. I wish Munguin paid more.

Thanks to Quokka, for the quokka… and Andi for the bees.

Additional pic for DonDon from Dani in Budapest.

ALL OUR YESTERDAYS

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Thanks to Dave and John.

Today’s laugh…

From John.

AS RESTRICTIONS START TO BE LIFTED

Please keep safe

Munguin makes a rare foray into the kitchens to check up on the staff (me) and make sure that his Lobster Bisque is being prepared to his satisfaction. There will be no letup of precautions in Munguin Towers.

 

Bloody Hell: It just gets dafter

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has told the Commons Liaison Committee that he is not certain that an inquiry into the behaviour of his aide Dominic Cummings is a 'good use of official time', saying it is time to 'move on' from the matter pic.twitter.com/iUqYvQyc6C

— RTÉ News (@rtenews) May 27, 2020

During the committee’s questions, he was asked about targets and replied: “I’m not giving you a deadline right now. I have been forbidden from announcing any more targets.”

You have to wonder, by whom was he forbidden, given that he is the actual, erm, prime, uh, minister? He really only has one boss. 

No, silly, not her…. 

Yep, that’s da man!

Oh, yeah, then there’s Gove being left looking even more stupid than he usually is:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1265547788160507906

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Today’s laughs:

And for something utterly different…

Thanks to John and Brendan.

And, so it continues

Thanks to Brenda for sending this.

Well, pathetic excuses are the name of the game for this bunch of cowboys.

Another day of interviews and tv/radio appearances, each one direr than the last.

Gove was asked about self-assessing eye health and specifically, had he ever driven 60 miles to check that his eyesight was good enough to drive 250 miles. He started to say he had and then realised halfway through how utterly ridiculous that was and tried various and sundry other tacks till the interviewer put him out of his misery. But he was hauled over the coals several times over it.

I’m wondering what Cummings has on all of them that is strong enough, that they are scared enough about that they are prepared to make utter fools of themselves over it.

Another minister (Hancock) said that it was possible that those people who were fined for being out and about on childcare matters during the lockdown in England might have to have their fines returned to them because, presumably, it wasn’t illegal to be out and about for childcare purposes… But then Downing Street rejected Hancock’s suggestion! There’s an article here, but fair warning, it’s in the Daily Mail.

I wonder who it was that did the vetoing!!!

In Scotland, Douglas Ross resigned from the non-job of Under Secretary of State on the basis that he could not support Cummings, given that so many of his constituents had had similar kinds of problems and not broken the law. When Downing Street was asked for a comment on the ministerial resignation, a “source” said in that diplomatic way that we have come to expect of the British government,  that Ross was “a nobody”.

I wonder who that source was!!!

One of the interesting things I thought of today was… who will replace Mr Ross? Suggestions on a postcard to Munguin.

How long will this go on?  What will the government find that can distract the press, even the friendly press from this? They can’t have a royal wedding. It would mean people coming from all over. They can’t have a royal birth…even royals take time to manage that. A war is probably out of the question and we don’t have earthquakes of any size in the UK.

I guess they could ask Phil to make the ultimate sacrifice, but why should he? He’s half Greek and half Danish.

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For today’s spirit lifter, Brenda sent me this. It seems that Dom’s Castle has been getting a lot of attention on Trip Advisor.

And I liked this one too:

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WHAT CAN YOU SAY?

So, yesterday we had a pantomime and a farce in Whitehall, tous à la fois, as it were.

Having kept journalists waiting for half an hour like a haughty French empress: “Qu’ils attendent à mon plaisir” instead of “…qu’ils mangent de la brioche“, His Supreme Importantness, Dominic of Durham, eventually honoured the English Press (I’m told Scottish newspapers were not invited) with his presence… and waffled and spun.

I’m not sure anything is any clearer than it was before, as an advisor to the prime minister of the UK took to the rostrum to explain why he left London and drove 200+ miles to Northern England with his sick wife and their 4-year-old child, against the express orders of the government that he more or less runs.

Mr Cummings lives in a world of his own. He had an answer for everything. Just, by and large, not a very good one.

For example, when asked why he had taken a day trip out on his wife’s birthday to visit a local beauty spot, he said he was testing his driving skills after being ill. Apparently, he was worried about his eyes. So worried was he that he packed his wife and his son (about whom this whole episode was supposed to be) into a car and drove 30 miles and then back, just to make sure he was safe to drive for the journey south.

I’m sure there are many people who have defied the various governments in the UK (and around the world) and made journeys that they REALLY didn’t have to, or failed to socially isolate as well as they might have. Some have got away with it. Some, including senior medical advisors to the Scottish and English governments who variously entertained their girlfriend, or visited their holiday home, have had to go.

Famously, Prince Charles, suffering symptoms of the virus, and Mrs Parker Bowles, left London (before the lockdown actually happened but when the dangers were known about and when his mother’s government had said that people shouldn’t travel unnecessarily and certainly not when ill) and brought an entourage of servants and security people to a small Scottish village.

His mother, the queen, went from Buckingham Palace to Windsor… a second home of hers, well both are ours really, but who is counting?

The prime minister, having suffered from the virus, went from the London hospital where he was treated, to his country estate at Chequers, a second home (again ours), when he could have simply returned to his London flat in Downing Street (yep, ours).

There have been others who have visited their parents under the guise of taking shopping, birthday presents, etc… Ruth Davidson and Stephen Kinnock spring immediately to mind.

But tens of thousands of other people, ordinary people, have taken the hit of having to let their parents be alone and ill, and in some cases die, without being able to be there to comfort them.

This is surely what makes the selfish behaviour of people like Dominic Cummings so very unacceptable to the rest of us who do not have his connections to those and such as those.

 

For those with a tendency for masochistic behaviours, here is Cummings’ press conference.

I know we are living in strange times, but SPADs giving Press Conferences…? Why don’t we just crown him king and be done?

Oh, and even now, Johnson appears to be incapable of telling the truth. Bill Cruickshank on Twitter says: I heard Johnson say that the virus has affected his eyesight (backing up Cumming’s story) & that he now had to wear glasses after many years without them.

But, he was “blind as a bat” 5 years ago…

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Today’s cheer up pics are related to this…

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2. The good old BBC. Fair as ever.

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4. What does that remind you of?

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Just for a laugh

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The Hallelujah Horse

A cowboy buys a horse from the town pastor. The pastor explains, “to make the horse go, you gotta yell, ‘Thank God!’ And to make it stop, yell, ‘Hallelujah.’” The cowboy rides off. He rides all day and starts to nod off in the saddle when he notices he is about to ride straight over a cliff. Searching his memory, he yells to the horse, “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” The horse grinds to a stop just at the edge of the cliff. The cowboy wipes the sweat off his forehead. ”Phew!” the cowboy sighs. “Thank God!”

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Thanks to Brenda, AndiMac, John, Brendan, Erik, Panda Paws, Dave.

 

SOPPY SUNDAY

1. Morning all. The little one was afraid to come out on his own, in case he met Dominic Cummings on one of his round the world tours.

2. I just saw him… My hair’s standing on end!

3. Cummings? He’s the scary-looking one, right?

4. Enough about Cummings. Look at how lovely I am.

5. Just checking that both of them are still there.

6. Dave A said that he’d never seen any goats on Soppy Sunday, so he sent me these two photogenic animals for your pleasure. 

7. I hope you are separating us from those goats!

8. Finland…well, only a bit of it, really.

9. Remember me, Joey, from last week? The cute one? This is my naughty side. Don’t worry we got plenty more dunny roll. My dad was in that big rammy when that virus thing that you humans get, started. 

10. Eat you out of hen house and coop!

11. Watson Falls, Oregon.

12. I’m Buzzy, I mean Busy!

13. Yawn. Do you ever have anything interesting on Soppy Sunday? Oh yeah, me…

14. Horses, huh? Funny as dogs. Talking of which, I’m hiding under this bed from one of them right now!

15. And why not? Some of my best friends are nuts!

16. Morning all. Sorry, did I miss the start?

17. Make with the food, Mumsie! 

18. Blaze and his “Wii” brother.

19. Are we socially distancing enough?

20. Yep, little one. It was exhausting sitting through all Tris’s half-wit jokes. You just get off to sleep. There will be jokes tomorrow.

ALL OUR YESTERDAYS

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Photograph  No. 11 has been removed at the request of the person  to whom it was copyrighted. I express my sincere apologies to this person for my violation his copyright and for the distress this may have caused him.  It was most assuredly an oversight de ma part.

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Thanks to John and Dave

Today’s cheer-up:

From Andi… Hilarious!

Holiday Friday Laugh

Many thanks to John. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow with All Our Yesterdays.