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When the facts change, I change my mind

Some attribute this quote to Sir Winston Churchill, some to John Maynard Keynes. I think Nigel Farage could have said it. This weekend Farage is under fire for saying what he’s been saying since the 1990’s. What he’s been saying and what he said this weekend he is able to justify, and the facts haven’t changed. The facts are that Putin is a warmonger, and the EU/NATO has so far failed at the complex, goalpost-moving feast that is this particular geopolitical game. Farage is claiming that the EU/NATO’s ambitions eastwards and perceived flirtation with Ukraine “provoked” Putin into invading Ukraine. He didn’t say he liked Putin. In fact he said explicitly that he didn’t like him. He said he admired him as a political operative, which does not mean he thinks he’s honourable. Farage was also very clear that Putin is to blame for the invasion of Ukraine. Neither did he criticise nation states for exercising their sovereign right to – er – sacrifice their sovereignty in order to join the EU.
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First-world problems

For those who think the sky’s about to fall in should they a) break a nail, b) be mis-gendered, c) lose an egg-and-spoon race (or just take part in an egg-and-spoon race if you’re vegan), then look away now. You’re only gonna get mad.
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What's your beef?

Beef featured prominently in my life last week, literally and idiomatically. On Tuesday night, after our er second glass of wine, me and my mate H started on the state of British farming through no fault of the farmers. At one point, I wailed, “Why oh why do we have to trace every beef burger back to one animal? Or even one farm? As long as we know it’s British beef, we know it’s reared to a sufficiently high standard. Just get the beef to the butchers and let them do what they want with it. It would cut costs all along, literally, the food chain.”
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Can't tell the difference

Got an email from a blog fan this week: “I do think that there is a blog to be done about the Starmer. Given that he seems to imply that he changed the Labour party singlehandedly, how can the businesses [who signed that letter of support] be sure he won’t get bumped out by the left? They need to beware of what they wish for. My cousin once told me that success as a barrister was down to 10% knowledge of the law and 90% acting!”
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"Sly and ill-disposed polemicists"

Gee, I wonder who I might be referring to (to whom I might be referring). One could say that my PhuDding is getting in the way of my blogging. This is bad news for those seeking commonsensical, factual, logical, nonsense-busting insights, but good news if you prefer a truth-denying, IQ-quashing, Guardian-fuelled, free-speech-subjugating echo chamber.
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Another Ruddy Requiem

I remember my excitement several years ago when it was announced that Stewkley Singers would be performing Mozart’s Requiem for our spring concert. Not sure which year it was – it was pre-Covid so timing’s all a bit of a blur really. A Requiem is traditionally a ‘Mass for the Dead’ from the Medieval Church, with the usual prayers and exhortations (e.g., Kyrie Eleison; In Paradisum) to give comfort to departed souls. Come the actual concert, it was a wonderful, novel experience: the Sanctus uplifting and the Lacrimosa incredibly moving.
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Long live colonialism!

I didn’t say that. Others are saying it: those quick to condemn and slow to join the dots. Usual suspects. Colonialism has had its day. No one in their right mind, which rules out the EU, wants to colonise nations to plunder their resources, goodwill and foist their values on an indigenous peoples who want to make up their own minds and manage their own affairs thank you very much. Von der Liar take note.
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The devil wears Prada

Apt title – a story by a woman about women for women chosen as the title of a blog by a woman about women (born as, that is; no other kind exists).  I’ve been pretty brutal in previous blogs about some of my fellow women: a venerable rouge’s gallery of wannabees, neverbees, shouldnabees and wokerbees. Think (because they tend not to) Vennels, Markle, Rayner, Abbott, Rose, Maitlis, Van der Liar, Ardern, Dick, Sturgeon, Hale, Miller, May, Gay, plus one or two you’ve never heard of, and I wish I hadn’t either.
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Forgiveness seems to be the hardest thing

Hello, blog fans. Apologies for the radio silence, but I’m bi-i-sy doin’ a-lo-ot, workin’ the whole day-and-night through, tryin’ to find lots of things not to put off doing. To no avail. 
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Radio Ga Ga

With apologies to Freddie Mercury et al. When I’m not Zooming, Teamsing, Skyping or Sleeping, I like background music. I need background music. It’s at once company and comfort. Mostly it’s classical, but Hubby likes nostalgic pop and Greatest Hits Radio, until they sink so low as to air Fearful Sharkface. Then it’s a race to the off-button or, more apt for FS, the F off button.
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Houchen, we have a problem

But the problem is not Teesside Mayor, Lord (Ben) Houchen of High Leven; au contraire, he’s part of the solution. The problem is that it’s impossible to effectively deliver on a demonically complicated, conflicted, conflated, mega-sized mega-faceted project by tenaciously following the rule book and ticking all the boxes. A compromise has to be made between outcomes and process – if you want more favourable outcomes then you have to cut corners on process.
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Catty

Feeling lazy / tired / dispirited / blah, ready to curl up with the cat in front of the woodburning stove (Oh, the carbon emissions!), I can’t be bothered to compose my own masterpiece so instead will cobble together others’ nuggets. Not elegant, but functional.
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A circuitous route

After supper with Sis of burger, chips and red wine at a Gordon Ramsay place in London, I settled down in my armchair to blog. I was too tired to PhuD or prep for next week’s meetings, and disinclined to change a light bulb, vacuum the rug or straighten a wonky picture on the wall. In any event, it suited being wonky. It’s a vividly colourised and abstractly contrasted reflection of part of a boat on the water. Cleverly conceived and beautifully executed, it would never win the Turner Prize, no matter how wonkily presented.
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ac alys us of yfele soşlice

Sometimes you have to block things out and soldier on as if nothing bad has happened.
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Fallen Women

There’s been a plethora of ‘fallen women’ in the news recently. Together with the others I’ve complained about over the years, they snap in half the scratched record that we need more women ‘at the top’ (as opposed to ‘on top’) to better reflect society (not that there is such a thing, according to one woman who so deserved to be at the top, and by that I mean at the right hand of God). The other argument for positive discrimination is that women bring something to the executive echelon that men can’t. They sure do, but I don’t think the following roll of dishonour is what was anticipated.
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Insulting behaviour

One of my favourite mantras is: Those who can, debate the issues; those who can’t, insult. Remoaners insulting Leave voters as Little Englanders, is a prime example. Developers dismissing rural communities as Nimbys, is another.
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Autumn berries and easy prey

This is one of my ‘start typing and see where I end up’ blogs. It ain’t pretty but it does the business. I’ll start with one of those, ‘has anyone else thought of that’ moments. Hubby and I were walking round and about in the crisp autumnal air yesterday morning, most of the autumnal leaves having dropped to the ground, revealing loads-a autumnal red berries still clinging to the branches. The birds don’t need to be fed by us, I mused. Look at all these berries, literally ripe for their picking. Hubby was pretty sure the birds would be following their instincts and only eat what was best for them. I disagreed. At this time of year, on a cold and frosty morning, Mother Nature intended them to gorge on vitamins. The nuts and seeds in our feeders were tastier, more filling, but full of protein, of which Mother Nature, in her wisdom, was depriving them. Therefore, by making protein available, we were messing with the birdies’ natural diets, most probably to their detriment somehow. You don
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Remarkable

I went to see a friend today, probably for the last time. I wasn’t the only one. Three more people arrived as I was leaving. “They’re all coming to say goodbye, you see,” explained his remarkable and remarkably calm wife. So had I.
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Sacred Cow

No prizes for guessing what this refers to. No, not the BBC; that’s just a cow. I’m talking about the NHS. If it’s not the elderly being discharged prematurely from hospital, it’s bereaved parents being lied to, sepsis sufferers being told to take paracetamol, paperwork filed incorrectly leading to precipitous prognoses, or the vulnerable being butchered on the perverted altar of transgenderism. Whatever happened to First, Do No Harm? The NHS mantra is now: First, Cover Our Arse; or even First, Woke Our Outcomes.
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The C word

C is for Covid, of Course. There’s also a C in the ongoing Public InCwirey. There are two C’s in Cowardly Cain and another in Mithering MaCnamara, the two uncivil servants who are blaming poor planning for and handling of the pandemic on something called macho-culture, diversity boxes not being ticked, BoJo being hospitalised and, yes folks you read it here first, BoJo Cracking jokes. They’re wailing that BoJo was too jovial. Ahem – some people rely on humour as a Coping strategy when the going gets tough. I should know because I do the same … why Cry when you can laugh?
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