Month: February 2022

RANDOM THOUGHTS

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I’m not brilliant at lip reading but she appears to say “Sit Down”, then after a short pause, it looks like “cow”. Anyone better at lip reading than I am? I suspect Patel REALLY hates her because she is so much better, cleverer and more competent than she is?

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Dear heavens. Apparently this buffoon is going to Poland and Estonia tomorrow. Please let him not say anything about Peppa Pig or Kermit or Eagles pecking out eyes in Greek mythology. And while he’s at it he should pen up the vacant woman who is his foreign secretary before she does any more damage.

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Good old Liz.
Dear Mr Putin, there are other countries besides the UK. Honestly and they are FAR more important.
Well…we needed something to cheer us up.

JUST FOR A LAUGH

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18. Who are you calling lazy?
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Thanks to Andi, Brenda, TMc and Twitter.

SOPPY SUNDAY

I think we all need a little reaffirmation of life (© Ed) as well as some balm for the soul (© PP), so here’s Munguin’s attempt to make things a bit better for us if not for them.

It is touching, however, to see people all over Europe and governments in most of Europe (but not the UK) reaching out to the refugees.

1. Wakey Wakey, Rises and Shine.
2. This is your early morning wake up call.
3. You woke up the three bears.
4. Shhh, I’m still asleep.
5. Where’s Dave this week?
6. Bradford upon Avon.
7. What a time to be born.
8. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
9. Welcome to my world.
10. The burn at Spinky Den, by Fowles.
11. I dunno what they are watching, but it must be fascinating!
12. It’s that time of year.
13. I think the eyes have it.
14. What? You don’t expect us to work in a storm, do you?
15. There’s nothing better than a cuddle.
16. And the carrots agree.
17. Gurgles: The best wee burn in the world.
18. Lima, Peru.
19. Where’s this?
20. Did you say it was tea time?
21. Jarlshof, Shetland.
22. Any ideas? This time it was Dave’s brother who sent it in…
23. You may enjoy this.
24. Mum… you’re hogging my picture on Soppy Sunday!
25. That’s it then. I’m off duty now, so I’m going to play hunt the banana! Do you want a game?

Thanks to Dave and Dave’s brother.

ALL OUR YESTERDAYS

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Thanks to Dave and Tony.

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Bonus Pics, which arrived earlier today from Indepedant. The first one is his mum and him at Holy Loch protest. The second, some words his mum wrote and the third, that well known comment from Harry Patch. I’ve long thought that leaders would be far less likely to rush to war if they were the ones who were going to get their heads blown off.

HERE WE GO AGAIN

Across England workplace parking charges have been operating for years. Why is it unfair in Scotland?

These are not taxes imposed by central government in London, Cardiff, Belfast or in Edinburgh. They are, instead, options open to local councils to raise extra money. Freedom, if you will for locally elected councillors to find different ways of raising money to pay for services that the Tories seem to think are so dire.

I thought that the Tories were in favour of more local democracy and that they believed that government in Edinburgh should devolve more powers to local authorities.

Conservative councils are, of course, at liberty to decide whether or not to impose this ‘tax’ on people, as they are to reduce the council tax, not charge for any parking, allow people in to council gyms and swimming facilities for free, etc…

However, it’s somewhat anti devolutionary for the Tories in Edinburgh to say that no Conservative council will impose this charge. Surely that is up to local government to decide?

Most people who work in town centres have to pay parking charges either to the local council or to private car parking firms because their companies do not have car parks, and that includes UK government offices, like, for example the DWP. And of course, people shopping in the town centre have to do the same.

Perhaps the Tories would like to remember that as we all come out of the dire situations of the last 2 years of lockdown, that increases in tax are not only being imposed by local councils and not only in Scotland.

Despite the well documented promises of Boris Johnson not to increase Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance, he has done just that, indeed to the highest level for decades.

WAR AND PEACE

Perhaps we need this dog as Foreign Secretary?

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Satire!

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I’ve been wondering whose fault this war is, and Nigel explains it all.

It’s the EU’s and NATO’s.

Also Nigel_Farage

Well, I was wrong.

Putin has gone much further than I thought he would.

A consequence of EU and NATO expansion, which came to a head in 2014. It made no sense to poke the Russian bear with a stick.

These are dark days for Europe.

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Isn’t he the one who’s son has now been ennobled by Johnson?

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posthac tantum appellamus imperiales mensuras

It appears that Mr Rees Mogg’s letter to readers of the Sun, asking for ideas to ensure we get the best out of Brexit, has borne fruit.

The British government is to launch a study into the economic advantages of reintroducing imperial measurements.

Also on the cards is an Order in Council insisting that men be properly attired in morning suits at all times from 10 minutes after they rise…and women in long dresses that hide their ankles, whilst they go about their daily tasks of entertaining friends to coffee mornings and occasionally popping into the nursery to say goodnight to their children.

The most obvious economic advantage, to Munguin’s mind, is that teachers who trained in the 1940s and 50s should be able to take up employment again to teach the various combinations of measures and their interesting relationships to one another and about which no one else knows diddly squat. This will, of course, mean that they will not require to be paid their pensions and can invest such tasks for the children as : <If milk cost two pennies and three farthings a gill, how much would you get for 3 guineas, a florin and tuppence halfpenny?

Munguin suggests that other measures may include the general teaching of Latin and Ancient Greek. (Perhaps past prime ministers could try that kind of work instead of being a burden to society after they, umm, “retire” for whatever reason.)

Extra work too would be created in the design and manufacture of good old faithfuls such as farthings, halfpennies, threepenny and sixpenny pieces along with florins and half crowns.

And of course a 10/- note would have to be redesigned with some symbol to indicate that Britain was once again a Global nation of import second only to … well, no one. Maybe an idea to think about how Charlie’s ears would fit into the design in preparation for that dreaded day of which we may not speak…

No more of this 10, 100 and 1000 nonsense… Let’s get back to interesting numbers… like 12, 20, 21, 240, 480, 960, 3, 16, 14, 4, 8 and so on.

That’s much more British, indeed Great British. None of this namby pamby foreign softness of making things easy.

My only worry is, how will the average Sun reader cope?

PS: Munguin intends to increase subscriptions to the Republic, by a Groat.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

With respect, which I doubt if you deserve, Mr Handsy Hancock, what you should have said is that we are one of the first countries (it’s a bit of an exaggeration to say that England is a major country globally) to remove all restrictions and trust to “the good common sense of the people” regardless of how misplaced this may be.

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Caroline Lucas

Extraordinary that PM is refusing to commit to publishing the scientific evidence & risk assessments on which he’s based the decision to abandon free #Covid tests & legal requirement to self isolate in England – decisions which many health experts have called premature & unwise

Johnson said, in reply to a question asked by Dr Whitford in the Commons today that a variety of different sources had been consulted but that ministers had made the decisions. I would have been more confident if Whitty or Valance could be seen to back it. But no one seems to have seen or heard from them…an astonishing situation when such a decision is being made. So far I have seen no medical backing for this.

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Wasn’t he the bloke that told us that we couldn’t expect his army to keep on helping out our health service at the height of the pandemic when it was doing so in England?

You know, it’s almost like our taxes don’t go towards paying for their army, and our people never fight in it.

I wonder if the politicians making disparaging and untruthful comments like that for a cheap laugh from their backbenchers, ever take into consideration just how much damage they are doing to their precious union and how much dislike they engender here and probably in Wales too.

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That’s a really little cow…

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JUST FOR A LAUGH

1. I thought it was the under gardener, but I’m told it’s Britain’s Foreign Secretary.
2. Um, correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t libraries usually have a book or two?
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25. It appears that Marine Le Pen, hard right leader in France, wants to ban foreign languages in advertising! Pen, of course, is an English word for “un stylo”.

Thanks to Andi, Brenda, TM, John, Erik, and Twitter.