It’s been a rather strange time for everyone. Our disgraced PM resigning. A bare-knuckle fight to choose his successor. At last summer holidays really beginning. But it’s getting too hot everywhere.
Air travel is chaotic. Rail travel is subject to industrial action. And the economy’s in turmoil. Meanwhile especially Sri Lanka and Italy and France are in various levels of political array. And the horror story in the Ukraine gets worse. The world’s overheating in almost every respect.
Back to a more Enid Blyton world.
Two Go on their Hols. We went on a brief holiday to Canterbury of which I remember little as I had Covid and managed marathon sleeps. If any of you has trouble sleeping Covid’s the solution. I also had a bizarre dream in which I was in a company which had a large cryptocurrency portfolio. I decided, unilaterally, to sell the lot putting hundreds of millions into the bank. Two days later the cryptocurrency crashed and the previously held portfolio would have been worthless. Nonetheless the Board were outraged and forced me to resign. I agreed but pointed out I’d saved the company. “That’s not the point” they shouted. I went into an even deeper sleep.
Canterbury is beautiful and the Cathedral always an awe-inspiring sensation. They had a visiting choir, the King’s Counterpoint from South Carolina.
They were astonishingly mellifluous and brought calm and harmony to those who on hearing South Carolina think of “Donald Trump.”
But harmony has not been the highlight of the Conservative Party election process. I think I’d prefer to have Covid again. Do the candidates and their respective supporters have any idea of what impression they leave on the electorate? Matthew Parris said that should Liz Truss win he’d dust down his Scottish credentials, move north of the border, get out of any sterling savings he had, vote for Scottish independence and had he any grandchildren (he hasn’t) he’d try to help them get Canadian citizenship.
It must be the effects of Covid that caused this with me but initially I rather fancied Penny Mordaunt who resembled the sort of amply bosomed nurse I felt I needed. But we need a competent Prime Minister not a nurse. I think Boris Johnson might even win if he stood again. Isn’t it weird that this tawdry process has somehow slightly mitigated his disgrace?
A lovely hot summer? Here’s the Guardian headline from Saturday:
“England braces for 40C temperatures as experts warn thousands could die”
I’m going to attach “as experts warn thousands could die” to anything I feel like in future – so hysterical, so Guardian. It’s going to be as hot as it used to be when we went to Greece a long time ago…that’s what we went for. But that was before the current air travel chaos. And isn’t it ironic that of all the airlines in control and doing a proper job it’s Ryan Air and that old rascal Michael O’Leary who come top of the class for reliability?
As we head towards a “summer of discontent,” as experts warn thousands could die – sorry I couldn’t resist it – I watched RMT Union boss Mick Lynch and thought the unthinkable.
He’s a fantastic interviewee – a slayer of BBC upstarts – and he looks, compared to those Tory hopefuls, almost Prime Ministerial.
He’s arguing calmly for a large but below inflation level wage rise for his and other workers. As companies like PWC give their people a 9% raise and their partners (all 900 odd of them in the UK) £1 million bonuses doesn’t anyone see the irony of the government saying: “we can’t afford it”? Maybe we can’t afford not to negotiate more positively.
Meanwhile Sri Lanka has inflation of around 55% and the economy has collapsed. In relation to that we are very rich.
Strange times? What’s new? But let’s hope we all regain our health, wealth, sanity and cool soon. Happy summertime everyone.
Posts
1 comment:
Well I for one delighted you're safely recovered, but I worry about you. The suggestion that Johnson could return worries the hell outta me. i'm not entirely sure where I could go but go I would
Post a Comment