I want to be the 'Bells on Sunday' man

For the past two or three weeks the BBC has run out of contemporary recordings of change ringing for the 2-minute 'Bells on Sunday' slot on Radio 4. We've had old recordings instead. So what? many of you will be asking. Some of those bells were cast in the 1500s - they've sounded the same for over 500 years. Why does a few weeks make a difference? Yet in a strange way it does make a difference. You see, I have a strong mental image of that tiny department at the BBC.

It starts with the 'Bells on Sunday' man. He's provided with a BBC technician's van in Brunswick Green livery and each week makes his way to one or two small English or Welsh villages, booking into a small local 3* hotel before an English breakfast and a 10am meeting with the ringers and vicar.

"Righto - I'll use three mics. An external gun mike oriented to the tower louvres, one in the nave and the other on the ringing floor."

"Okay let's go for levels please - ring away"

Then, even if the first take of 'Campion quad bob minor' is perfect "Okeydokey let's go for one more take ..." because with two or three takes everyone feels they're getting their money's worth.

Then onto an agreeable solitary lunch in an ancient pub at least a village away before the next appointment. I reckon the BoS man does two recordings a week, probably by Wednesday, allowing Thursday and Friday for the programme editor, the BBC Controller of Bells, first, second and assistant sound engineers, offline and online editors, archive and rights manager and HR director, all on the payroll of the 2-minute BoS slot, to undertake executive meetings and decide which of the two or three takes from each church recording is to be broadcast. The head office team doesn't waste the time from Monday to Wednesday, you can be sure. On Monday there's the wash-up meeting following the Sunday broadcast -

"I thought the continuity was a little rushed, Jeremy. Schedule a meeting, will you, with the Head of Continuity, the Scripts Editor and the Facts and History Controller, say next week?"

On Tuesday the team meets in plenary session to agree the locations for forthcoming recordings, each with a fat file of photocopied letters from tower captains across the land extolling the qualities of their ring of eight tuned to E♭. 

And of course Wednesdays are for the clearance of the equalities statements with the BBC Equalities and Diversity teams. Wednesdays are the worst day of the week.

"I see you've got the next eleven rings planned. All villages. Cheshire, Shropshire, Worcestershire. All hideously white, from the demographics. And despite my previous memoranda, not a single recording of change ringing from a Moslem church"

"Uhm, Controller, there's a problem there. You see mosques don't have ..."

"With respect, I'm not looking for excuses. Just action. I want to hear bells from Moslem, Hindu and Jewish churches in the next three months. Clear?"

"Well of course we'll try. I Expect this is a bit of a change for you from the BBC Climate Change department?"

But most of all I want to be the BoS man in the little Brunswick Green van, never entering Broadcasting House from one year to the next, going home each week to a little pink cottage in a tiny hamlet in the Suffolk brecklands, a comfortable wife and a loving dog. 

Intermission II

Whilst we wait for the judgement, I've been re-acquainting myself with Somerville and Ross' The Irish RM. The problem that Brussels completely fails to understand in relation to any Brexit border is the character of the Irish themselves. For many years, before the pre-2008 development boom destroyed much of what was valuable, I made an annual early Summer pilgrimage to a cottage near Oughterard on the shores of Loch Corrib for the trout fishing. The fish went into feeding frenzy during the mayfly season, and the technique was to 'dap' a live fly on a thin floating line. Local kids sold boxes of live flies to fishermen, and the sport was so easy that even an Englishman could not fail to land a couple of 3lb fish before the 'Boat' opened. So here (with apols to Messrs Somerville and Ross) we have ... The Irish MEP

A Horse! A Horse!
In which Flurry dyes a hunter and smuggles it across the border as a 'ringer' for the favourite in the point-to-point, evading EC78/245 'Movement of equine livestock (marking, tagging and chipping) cross-border trade Directive'

The Dispensary Doctor
When Finn is caught with a poached salmon by the Gardai he protests that as the fish had swum from Northern Ireland it was an alien species that had violated EU phytosanitary controls by failing to claim asylum status at the border. Whilst the case was referred to the authorities in Brussels the fish was eaten by Dr O'Rourke, to whom it had been passed for retention as evidence by the Gardai.

Oweneen the Sprat
A car from the north has an accident near Galway - but is not fitted with Winter tyres in accordance with Directive EC 86/294. It damages a tractor being used by Oweneen the Sprat but he refuses to exchange insurance details as the land he was working was being claimed as set-aside under the CAP. Instead he demands that Sergeant O'Connor lock the motorists up until they pay in cash - but he is wary of their Article 8 Human Rights

The Muse in Skebawn

zzzz OK that's enough whimsy

Loch Corrib

Cameron and the Referendum

"I remember exactly how I decided to call the Referendum. Giles and Penny were coming up for a kitchen supper, and Sam had a spag bol on the go. I had cued-up a whole box set of the West Wing, fluffed the sofa cushions and had ordered up three bottles of Rioja, which were nicely chambré.

Then the internal phone went, It was Oliver from the private office. I had sneaked away early (as I often used to do) using my usual trick of leaving an old suit coat on the back of my chair - a trick I learned at Eton to make me appear a girly swot when I was really listening to the Smiths on my Walkman behind Wankies. Oliver had discovered I hadn't done my red boxes again. Boring! In fact I had been looking at brochures for houses to rent for the Summer in Rock. I couldn't wait for the annual hols in Cornwall - miles better than all this politics and government and stuff!

Oliver said I had to make a decision on the EEC thing. Well, if there's one thing I learned from Mrs T it was never to get serious about anything to do with that Brussels lot. Just leave them be, sign anything they sent and pay the money - that way the hols wouldn't be interrupted by pesky phone calls from blokes with funny foreign accents! So I told Oliver to bring the file up and I'd break off my evening to give it full consideration.

It was HUGE. I couldn't read all that! I had a rule that if anything took more than three minutes to read I'd just pretend I'd read it. Well, this was no different. I turned straight to the signature and decision sheet. There were two options, one of which had to be crossed out. I reached into my pocket and called out to the kitchen

'Sam! Heads or tails?'

'Tails' she said - brave girl!

'Right then! Referendum it is!'

'What?'

'Nothing'.

I gave the file back to Oliver in the morning looking a bit haggard, as though I'd been up all night reading. In fact we watched an entire series of the West Wing and drank all three bottles of wine and Giles and Penny didn't leave until 1am!"  

A national Memorial for Eco heroes?

I may write to Saint Greta this morning, suggesting a new national memorial to all those who fall in the cause of the planet. Those killed by wind turbine blades or toppling towers, blinded by solar panels, those who succumb to a surfeit of quinoa and those such as the late Mrs Struthers-Gardner killed by metal drinking straws.

Hipsters and Eco warriors risk their lives saving the planet from plastic drinking straws

May they rest in peace. Preferably in hand-woven wicker coffins buried in the woods with a sapling planted over them.

"Only Mrs Hunt sees my naked arms!"

"No, I'm not wearing that, sorry. It's ... colourful. And swirly. The pattern is irregular. I always wear a white shirt"

"Jeremy! You're not connecting with people. The feeds say you're too bland. We've got to spice it up a bit. Look, take off the suit coat at least"

"I'm sorry, I don't want to appear on the Television in people's homes as they gather around their cathode ray sets improperly dressed. I always wear my suit coat on the Television. And in the office."

"Ok well let Samantha take it for a quick steam and brush down.

Now roll up your sleeves - we need to take a light meter reading of your arms for the camera"

"Roll up my sleeves? But people will see my naked arms. Only Mrs Hunt ever sees my naked arms. Really? Oh alright"

"... and take the tie off please"

"No! I won't take off my tie for anyone ..."

Floor! One minute to Transmission. Places please.   

"That's fine Jeremy - now just rest your elbows on the chair arms for a reading, please"

Floor! Fifteen seconds

"Where's my suit coat?  Bring me my suit coat please ... can I roll my sleeves down now?"

Three ...two ... one

They think it's all over ...

Actually, you won't hear a peep about yesterday's election on the news or read a word in the nationals, because we've all got to pretend we don't know what happened until Sunday night, after the last EU subject nations have voted. Already it's safe to assume that the Brexit Party have scored big and Labour and the Tories have been creamed. However, steps are already underway to undermine the validity of that vote -

Change UK (CUK) claim that many of their members were unable to find their way to the polling stations as the little map on the poll cards was not in colour and didn't look like TomTom. "Change UK voters have been wandering the streets utterly lost, clutching their poll cards and were still looking for somewhere to vote at 10pm" said a spokesperson

Remain Alliance took the example of Dan Snow, who claimed a crocodile in a Brexit Party waistcoat was delivered inside his postal vote "I thought it was the postman playing a joke, but all over the New Forest hundreds of little Brexit Party crocodiles in Teal waistcoats have been gummed into the vote envelopes and in some cases they have eaten the ballot forms" said Dan

Momentum claimed a shortage of milkshakes had prevented many of their members from voting "The comrades won't turn out just to put a cross in a box" said Comrade Spart "They need a bit of street action, know what I mean? But it was warm and most of the milkshakes accidentally got drunk"

A Soros-funded 'migrants taxi' organisation claimed that rigorous checks by electoral officials were preventing illegal migrants from registering to vote "I mean honestly, we've arranged for over 1,000 Afghans, Iraqis and Somalis to come over in stolen boats in the past few weeks but barely a score have managed to get on the electoral register. The system is biased towards people who can read and write English and who have a legal right to be in the UK. This is unfair to global migrants"

LibDems claimed their vote had been sabotaged because there were more than three parties on the ballot forms "It was deliberately intended to confuse our supporters, who expect only three boxes and look for the one that isn't Labour or Conservative. This time the papers were as long as your arm with loads of boxes. This totally confused our members, many of whom reported making crosses at random on the form"

Guy Verhofstadt claimed Britain's vote was unfair because Belgium was not allowed to participate in the vote "Had perfidious Internationalist Britain acted fairly and invited the populations of Belgium and Luxembourg to participate in the elections, as is their right as loyal Europeans, the result may be very different. This constant pandering to British nationals is destructive and anti-European"

Update 11.50
...It is now!

Ships with Dicks

Varadkar's cringemaking letters

It seems that the Teasack is a dangerous man when left alone with some official letter-paper and a biro. It started when his letter to Kylie came to light; in his childish inward-sloping script Varadkar gushed 

Dear Kylie,

just wanted to drop you a short note in advance of the concert in Dublin.
I am really looking forward to it. Am a huge fan!
I understand you are staying in the Merrion Hotel which is just across the street from my office in Government Buildings.

If you like, I’d love to welcome you to Ireland personally

Leo
Teasack (Irish Prime Minister)

Now journalists want to see a letter he wrote to Melania Trump - but the Teasack's officials, wary of more cringemaking gushing being revealed, are so far refusing an Irish FOI request on grounds that it deals with 'International Relations'.

However, we can take a stab at the likely content;

Dear Dear Melania

How wonderful you looked today! How do you get your hair like that? You must tell me your secret. In fact, we should be besties and share all our secrets - I do a thing with yoghurt and cucumber peel which is very good for the private places! I loved your shoes - I could die for the chance of Manolo Blahviks like that, with the cute little bows!

Anyway must dash - Jean-Claude wants me on the phone (boring!)

Leo
Teasack (Irish Prime Minister)

Further requests are to be submitted for copies of the Teasack's letters to Beyonce, Lady Gaga and the blond boy from 'Talent'.

Reasons to be Cheerful ..

Ian Dury should be compulsory for all those suffering the Brexit Blues.

Today very briefly, I offer you Farage achieving top place in the pre-EP opinion polling (which as a loyal Conservative I should deprecate cough cough) and Boris achieving top place in an Express leadership opinion poll. Add to this the spectacle of the self-loving little Sadiq Khan making an utter arse of himself in London trying to get down wiv der yoof (actually most of them went to £45k a year public schools and live in Surrey with Mummy) who in turn are pretending to get down wiv der Man.

Enough to make one smile.

Parliaments we have known

British Parliamentary sittings have, over the years, been characterised as individual and distinct epochae taking their character from the sum of their members; we have

The Short Parliament
1640,  Sat for only three weeks

The Long Parliament
1640 - 1660 England was much engaged during this time with other matters

The Rump Parliament
1648 - To convene a court to lop off the King's noggin

The Rotten Parliament
2009, The Brown ministry, when MPs were found out in theft, fraud, peculation, lying and gross misuse of public funds. Everything from moat cleaning, duck houses, crystal grapefruit bowls, Bang and Olafson hi-fis was charged to the poor taxpayer, but only three of the hundreds of crooks ended up in prison

The Quite Short Parliament
Parliament sitting under the gaze of the diminutive Speaker Bercow, whose little legs swing boyishly from the Speaker's Chair without an elevated footstool. Like many small men, he compensates for lack of size with an outsized ego and profusion of self-love

The Anal Parliament
Going beyond the Rump, the 2017/19 Parliament is entirely up its own arse, incapable of representing the people by whom it was elected but unwilling to surrender power and privilege by facing those electors in the polls.

With the Maybe Parliamentary session that started in June 2017 now coming up to two years without a State Opening, the tourist industry, robe-making and carriage-wheeling industries are suffering and the sovereign must surely be wondering whether she'll manage another one in her reign.

One Parliament however that has been entirely unknown to British democracy since Edgar summoned his first Moot over a thousand years ago is the Honest Parliament.

Plus ca change ...

Some things never change; from the Telegraph

In 1938 John Reith, Director- General of the BBC, asked the German foreign minister to tell Hitler that the BBC was “not anti-Nazi”, adding that if his German opposite number were to visit, he would fly the swastika from Broadcasting House. Even after war was declared, the BBC decided not to allow Sir Horace Rumbold, a former ambassador to Berlin, to broadcast on Germany because he was “too anti‑Nazi”.

They've just replaced their love for the Nazis with love for the EU. 

Duff Cooper, who resigned from the Cabinet after Munich, told friends that if Chamberlain had “come back from Munich saying ‘peace with terrible, unmitigated, unparallelled dishonour’, perhaps I would have stayed. But peace with honour!” Harold Macmillan burnt Chamberlain in effigy on Guy Fawkes Night in 1938.

Theresa May, the deluded Chamberlain of our own age, has the same utterly misplaced faith in her own scrap of paper. She, too, I suspect will decorate many a Guy Fawkes Night bonfire in the autumn.

Karfreitag

A cautionary tale.

For as long as anyone can remember, Good Friday or Karfreitag has always been the same. Easter is a big deal here - after the chill snows and dark valleys of Winter, Spring bursts out with a fecundity unknown in Britain; nature is like a teenager pumped with hormones and just explodes into life. Spring flowers push through the last of the snow, and the first of the year's butterflies spread jewelled wings over still-brown herbage.

For Catholics here in the alpine Land, the deal is work until late lunchtime and then home early for the weekend. Protestants, for reasons I can't quite fathom, have always had the whole of Good Friday as a holiday, by custom going back to the 17th century. Paid. Like a Feiertag. Not taken from their annual leave.

Until of course some idiot claimed the arrangement was unlawful and discriminatory and started a legal action. Now the state government has introduced a new law - everyone gets a half-day on Good Friday. Work ends at 14.00.

Of course, both Catholics and Protestants are up in arms. Protestants have lost half a day's holiday, and Catholics used to slink-off home at 2pm anyway so have gained nothing.

The politicians responsible have called it "einen guten, tragfähigen Kompromiss" - a good, sustainable compromise. Everyone else has predicted it won't last the week.

The Remain Party

The seven  - or possibly now eight - MPs sitting for what, to be honest, we must call the Remain Party, despite having been preparing since last month with company registrations and so forth, were singularly unprepared yesterday for the questions of the press. Chukka on 'Today' was classic. "Do you have any policies other than Remain?" "Brexit is a really important issue and we're committed to rescuing Britain from this foolishness" it went, sort of.

So no. The only policy they have is Remain.

I wish them success in attracting a further 29 rebel MPs from both sides of the House, so they may assume from the SNP the privileges of a third party, together with more Short money and a better quality offices. I also look forward to February 2022 and PMQs

"Mr Ummummumma!"

"Will the Prime Minister recognise that the only way out of this Brexit debacle is to allow a further Referendum, to keep us in Europe where we belong"

"I thank the honourable member for Streatham. He will be aware that since we left the EU in 2019, slashing taxes and opening trade borders, our economy has boomed, defying the global downturn and the car crash of the Eurozone. Foreign Direct Investment is at its highest ever, we have the fourth greatest global GDP, the pound buys €2.20 for our holidaymakers who will again flood Europe this Summer. The Trussel Trust has opened its two-thousandth foodbank in the EU and the incredible generosity of the British people in sending their spare packets and tins across the Channel is keeping many poor Europeans afloat. We fully support IMF aid to the Eurozone, and will do all we can to help the nations of Europe to recover democracy and to stand on their feet again. The government however has no plans to join them"

CUTTER!

On board HM Cutter Vexatious somewhere in the Med ..

The tannoy crackles into life

"Now hear this! We have been ordered back to the UK to patrol Channel waters to intercept up a new wave of migrants crossing from France. We will make cautious passage via a number of ports, combining our passage home with a number of courtesy visits. Number 4 working rig under way with Whites in port until Gib. That's all."

In the wheelhouse the 1st Lt shifted against the chart table. "How long do you think we can string it out, sir?"

"Our orders say 'dawdle'. So I reckon we can take six weeks or so. Maybe develop an engine fault - that could give us another four weeks if needed. The last thing they want is us working the box in the Channel and actually picking up migrants"

"But I don't understand why we've been ordered home, sir? We were doing perfectly well not picking up migrants from Libya, so why go back home to not pick up migrants from France?"

"Politics, Futtock, politics. We have to be there to prove that the government is compassionate and humanitarian, but without actually rescuing anyone who would embarrass the Home Secretary. He's still reeling from putting that twelve year old with a full henna beard and three wives into Knob Hill Secondary. And right now not rescuing Channel migrants has greater priority than not rescuing African migrants"

"Some of the lads were talking about the old days, when they used to board yachts looking for hooky fags and baccy, sir. Or maybe catching some Rupert with a K of skunk. Now they say it's just lying in port with a maintenance watch and sunbathing"

"What's wrong with that? You've never been stuck in a frozen muddy creek near Hull, Futtock, waiting for a non-existent landing of Superkings and missing the final of X-factor. Thank God we had those TV satellite domes fitted before we sailed"

"Oh. And do get back into men's clothes before we reach the Western Approaches, Number One. Those sarong wraps really won't do for Pompey."

HMC Seeker - ordered home 31/12/18, as at 0700hrs GMT 13/2/19 berthed at Gibraltar

Designer primrose vests and obscene imprecations

There is a new suggestion going the rounds from the Remainers - that they should stage a Remainer 'General Strike' in the event of Brexit happening. The chaos, of course, would be appalling.

Schools and universities would be short-staffed as teachers would leave their posts to enjoy a strike day, some in London no doubt headed to Borough Market for a day of browsing and grazing. But Borough Market, like much of Hoxton and Spitalfields, would have come to a halt. The artisanal yoghurt-makers would be striking, as would the sour-dough bakers and vegan-rennet Islington cheese-makers. The Feng Shui carrot stall would be deserted, the hipster porridge and Quinoa bars empty and dark, and the cute bistrot start-up using roofer's nailbags as plates forlorn.

In Farringdon, Exeter Market would be empty. The app design studios, the organic health workshop in which Guardian hacks have their feet nibbled by fish to the sounds of whalesong, the myriad colour consultancies and the interior design practices they serve all dark. Only St John, the coarse eaterie feeding ruddy Leavers with offal, would remain open.

Across London traffic would flow freely as TfL's traffic consultants took a strike day. Black cabs would enjoy a near monopoly - Remainers preferring Uber - with drivers explaining the perils of Qualified Majority Voting to imprisoned fares. The trains would be blissfully empty, and best of all the streets clear and safe from the swarms of lycra louts on their £3k death machines.

The BBC would broadcast Ealing comedies and 1950s war films non-stop as eight out of ten staff would not have turned up. James O'Brien (Ampleforth, LSE) would be lunching with David Dimbleby (Charterhouse, Oxford, Bullingdon Club) and Adam Boulton (Westminster, Christ Church, Oxford) at Le Gavroche whilst assistants covered their shows.

And outside Parliament, a score of Remainers in plastic vests specially designed in pastel and primrose shades by Stella McCartney would howl vile and obscene imprecations at SPADs and researchers they mistook for MPs.

What's not to like?

UFOs, scared Septics and Anglo-Saxon ghosts

I had intended to post about rebalancing political power this morning. No longer. It's not often that a story in which one was personally involved drops into one's lap, but today we have one. A story in the Telegraph  has just explained for the first time an old event about which I have been feeling a little guilty for many years.

First my tale. It was 1980. We were a small group of lads in our early 20s from southern Suffolk, scattered around Ipswich but meeting frequently to carouse and take fun. One Saturday we decided to make a lunchtime session at the Queen's Head in Erwarton, a cosy waterside pub in a small village looking southwards out over the mouth of the Stour into darkest Essex. A friend of a friend had just taken the lease, and we were trying our chance at discounted beer.

In the bar we quickly made friends with a young American Air Force Lieutenant, who like many from the nearby USAF cold-war squadrons was living off-base in a rented cottage and had immersed himself in English village life. The pub was now his local - and he loved it, and his status there, with his own pewter beer jug and folk that knew his name.

Of course we knew the USAF bases well. We would talk our way in usually claiming to be brothers-in-law to Airmen married to Brit women. They were like small bits of the Midwest transported by tornado into ancient East Anglia, with black and white Dodge police prowlers on the gates and cops with pistols on their hips. They had Main Street shops and outlets, and importantly a PX and American bars. The PX provided pints of vodka (bought by a compliant serviceman with ID) at a fraction of their UK price, and the bar provided a truly authentic American drinking experience. One needed dollars for everything, of course - and all of us carried them.

I was also at that age, not far from my pubescent Airfix model days, something of an expert in US aviation kit, as only the sponge-minded young are. I could not only identify an approaching low flying aircraft as a F4 rather than an A10 or rarely then as a Lightning from engine noise alone but could tell you which models of F4 were stationed at each base in Suffolk, their range, weapons payloads and more.

We were keen, as the young and foolish are, to let the young Loot know we were chums and that we knew all about his world and we thought it cool. The young Loot, for reasons I had not fully understood until this morning, felt obliged to report to his CO on the Monday following an encounter with some young Brits who knew a helluva lot about their base and aircraft. The result we heard from our mate's landlord mate a week later; the base security people had thrown him into jail and subjected him to three days of  'enhanced interrogation' by teams who had flown in from the States, extracting from his tortured mind every single word exchanged in the Queen's Head.

We weren't that worried. We hadn't done anything wrong and we believed ourselves untouchable. We put the experience down to many Septics being arseholes (let me tell you another time about being chased around the Three Tuns by an obese puce-faced Tech Master-Sergeant for tearing up a dollar bill into a bar ashtray ...). However, the Loot was a nice young man, albeit a silly one for reporting our encounter, and I've always held myself a bit responsible for his three days under torture / interrogation back in 1980.

Now of course it's clear that his action and their reaction was around the time of the SAS fooling the poor Septics with fake UFOs in Rendlesham Forest. Made believable by long local tradition of the ghosts of the ancient Anglo-Saxon court of King Raedwald haunting the plantations, the king whose 'palace' (read big hut) was located in that place. 

Thirty-eight years on, it's good to know it wasn't really my fault.

Have a very happy New Year's eve all and drink a dram for me. And one for the Loot.

Five things we owe to the EU, they say ...

After reading the blurb for the new multi-million House of European History in Brussels, a building that pays homage to the architectural genius of Albert Speer, here are five little known facts about European history. They must be true because Antonio Tajani, one of the EU's several unelected Presidents, said so in public last week:-

1. Conflict
The EU not only defeated the Nazis, but it was the Common Agricultural Policy that crushed the Soviet Empire in the Cold War, leading to the lifting of the iron curtain in 1989 and the freedom of the enslaved serfs of Eastern Europe. The EU has kept the peace in Europe since 1945 and no wars or conflicts have ever happened since. 

2. Information Technology
Since the EU invented the Internet in the 1990s, computer technology has transformed the world. The EU leads the globe in rolling out new phones and tablet computers and our browser Euview and operating system Eudoze lead the world in quality and function. Our search engine Archimedes has superior functionality to any other. 

3. Art and Culture
The EU are global leaders in popular music, culminating each year with the Eurovision song contest, which attracts viewers and many homosexuals from around the world. The contest sets the gold standard for modern popular music - much of which can be heard on the trams of Porto or Budapest played by young people on their Euphones!

4. Education
The EU is home to the world's highest-rated German, French and Hungarian language universities - ranking number one for both German speaking and French speaking institutions, and the EU rates number two in the world for Hungarian speaking higher education institutions.

5. Sport
During the 2016 Olympics, the EU28 took more gold, silver and bronze medals than any other competitor - beating the US, Russia and China. This demonstrates the sporting excellence in the Union that produces world class sportsmen and sportswomen. 

Although the EU is proud to disseminate this information to EU children through the Euro Museum's learning packs, my old friend the Major has some minor quibbles with the claims - which he noted as

Conflict - Since 1945 the EU has defended bugger all and has actually fomented war in the Balkans and Ukraine
IT - The EU lags both the UK and US, and now China in computer development, with not a single world class product or application achieved 
Culture - The EU ranks abysmally low in pop music and culture; their last star, Johnny Hallyday, has just died of old age
Education - The EU 27 don't have one single university in the global top 20 - the UK has 4
Sport - The EU can only claim a decent medal haul by including the UK, which alone reached 2nd place in the 2016 medals table

Back to the Future

"Thanks Gloria. And two digestives this afternoon, eh? It being Friday?"

"Tea's just mashing, Mr Scroggins. Shall I bring cups for the assembly line shop stewards?"

"No, No. We'll be here all day. And porcelain upsets them. Show them in". As he looked out of his  steel Crittal windows over the vast Leyland car plant, George Scroggins' heart surged with pride, pride at the haze from the leaking steam pipes, the cracked and patched asbestos cement roofs, the grimy and cracked windows and the plywood-patched skylights. From this plant came the finest automobile in Britain - the Austin-Morris Allegra. The noise of  the broken door closer woke him from his reverie.

"Come in! Come in! Arthur, Frank. Sit thee down.  Now I don't expect this to be a lengthy meeting ..."

"That's why you always see us at three-fifteen on Fridays, Mr Scroggins. To be fair."

"That's not wholly true, Frank, no, no .... now this is about young Donald Higginbottom I gather?"  

"Foreman suspended him, yes. Unwarranted victimisation. We're demanding full restitution."

"But Arthur, he was fixing gearbox gaiters with two inch nails. He ruined nearly two hundred cars before Quality Control noticed, half of which have already been sold."

"Not his fault, Mr Scroggins. Supply shop ran out of that size of machine screws, and the screw shop said they weren't scheduled to turn any more until November. Donald was on gaiter bonus for twenty gaiters a day - not fixing gaiters would have taken food from his childrens' mouths. So he used what he had. You can't blame the lad"

"Arthur, I have to support my foremen. I have to uphold the suspension."

"We'll bring Number Two Line, the rubber shop, the window shop and the carpet-cutters out unless he's revoked. Higginbottoms are big in the eastern sheds."

"Wait wait Frank. There's no need to be precipitous. Digestive biscuit? We've had two strikes already this month, if you recall. Now what if I say he's only provisionally suspended, permitted to work as normal until his hearing, on full pay, but nominally suspended?"

"On full bonus? Even if screw shop can't supply gaiter screws?"

"Yes yes. Alright? We'll ask the Welsh Megra plant if they can lend us some screws. Otherwise we'll go with the two-inch nails. Now about next month's cars. What have we got?"

"There's plenty of bright red upholstery vinyl, so we can switch all production to that. On the paint side, there's four thousand gallons of that yellowy-brown - 'Curry' the paint shop named it."

"Head office vetoed 'Curry' as an Allegra colour, Frank. It's not the best word, is it? Reminds me of that German mustard we had at BMW last year ... I know! Let's rename it the German for mustard - Gloria! What's German for mustard?"

"Moutarde, I think, Mr Scroggins"

"That's it. Tell the dealers they'll all be getting Moutarde Allegras with pillar-box red upholstery next month, Gloria. Now, lads, was there anything else?"

"There was a suggestion that in future customers might be able to choose their own body and seat colours, Mr Scroggins. And that the waiting lists might be cut from four months to ten days"

"Bloody scaremongering. Don't pay any heed to that rubbish, Frank. I promise you, under Mr Corbyn, such things will never happen!"      

Happy Jewish New Year - Rosh Hashanah!

Howard Jacobson in the Jewish Chronicle eviscerates Corbyn. Worth a New Year dram or two and a toast to our Judaic citizens.

"We know what an antisemite look like. He wears jackboots, a Swastika arm-band, and shouts Juden Raus; Jeremy Corbyn wears a British Home Stores vest under his shirt and is softly spoken.  Antisemites accuse Jews of killing Jesus; Corbyn is an atheist and seems not to mind if we did or didn't. Whether that's because Jesus was Jewish and killing him meant one less Jew in the world, is not for me to say.  And - and - he doesn't deny the Holocaust..."

Interlude

No Brexit today - I just can't do it. 

Off to Spain, then. I can just remember fascist Spain under Franco in the early 1970s - desperate poverty, asses carrying goods rather than the Commer vans that we had, wrinkled grannies in black doing dreadful things to children, fear and religious superstition, the secret police, and Franco's victims uneasy in their hidden graves. We had 10cc, Suzi Quattro and Genesis. They had torture. It was a third-world fascist shithole. Growing-up seeing the depths of degradation that far-right zealotry could bring to a European people, Spain left me with a lifelong hatred of fascism, far right authoritarianism, the racial purity nutters, the National Front (in those days) and anyone who wanted to control what I did with my own willie. I cheered when Franco died.

Years later, in the Easyjet age,  I saw the forensic tents over pieces of undeveloped scrubland beyond the city boundaries, exhuming the victims of Franco's death squads before the pile-drivers moved in to buid new apartments or industrial sheds. The sight moved me beyond words, and cemented my loathing of fascism.

Now Franco's raddled corpse itself is to be removed from Valle de los Caídos, a vast egoistic memorial to Franco and the unknown rapist. Well, good. Except, as politico-eu reports, the fascists are still with us, protesting at the desecration of their saint. At least it seems that the lady-fascists shave their pits these days, or perhaps the boy-fascist to her right is hiding her pit-hair under his nose?  Hey ho.