Brief candle

Senator Mitch McConnell – now reduced from majority to minority leader of the US Senate – is a hard right Republican whose manoeuvrings in government over the past four years have helped Donald Trump get many of his wicked ways. 

Senator McConnell is not my cup of tea. And yet here I am, having risen from my bed which wasn’t encouraging sleep, and transcribing a passage from a speech he gave in the Senate when the riots were over and when the Senate resumed its task of counting the electoral college votes, more normally a semi-ceremonial event.

Why? Because McConnell summarised – concisely and, it must be admitted, without emotion – the full horror of what the former TV star had tried to do earlier in the day.

“If this election were overturned by mere allegation from the losing side our democracy would enter a death spiral. We’d never see the whole nation accept an election again. Every four years would be a scramble for power at any cost. The electoral college…. would cease to exist, leaving many of our states with no real say in choosing a president.

“The effects would go even beyond the election. Self-government requires a shared commitment to the truth and a shared respect…”

I don’t like Senator McConnell any more now than I did yesterday. He’s a hard man to like. But for a minute or two he hit the nail on the head.

The other US: The presidents and me

Now reduced to my car number plate

I arrived in the USA on December 30, 1965 and left in mid-April 1972.

These six years bestrode a tumultuous period for the US, heavily influenced by the Vietnam War. Now, I feel slightly sorry for LBJ who might, had there been no war, have introduced telling welfare legislation. But he only served one elected term and chose not to run again,

For my current car I had a choice of plate numbers, one including the sequence LBJ. Out of (no doubt) misguided sentiment that’s what I chose. I’ve pointed out these three letters to a number of Brits and, alas, none has recognised them.

When LBJ departed Tricky Dick took his place. Thus I watched Watergate (June 17, 1972) unfold from afar.

My personal experiences of US politics were brief and comical:

Phone rings 1. I am asked if I care to support the Republican candidate for whatever.

RR: I fear I can’t do that, I’m not enfranchised.

Her: Wuzzat?

RR: (Always the smartyboots, loving long words) Enfranchised.

Her: Is that… like being…. a Democrat?

Phone rings 2. Same question. Different, more sympathetic voice.

RR: I’m sorry, I don’t have the vote.

Her: Why’s that? You pay your taxes don’t you?

RR: Yes, local and federal.

Her: I’m gonna look into this. You should have the vote.

RR: You don’t understand. I’m an alien.

Her: (Genuinely distressed) Oh no! I’m sure you can’t be that bad.

Both times my English accent went unnoticed. I must say most Americans have a tin ear for accents. Queueing for lunch, my friend said to the check-out girl: “Hey, this guy (ie, me) is just in from foreign parts. See if you can guess.” I say something. She: “Albanian?”

Horror of horrors

As if a pure white
fountain, or an
egret's feather
sprouted from 
his head

Should one confront nightmares or just roll over in bed?

Trump may win!

Aarrgh! Nausea as reflux. And yes, my dear, that was the last sheet of toilet paper. But what’s your view of hell?

LYING. We all do it, sometimes claiming the lie is “white”. But not casually. With blatant self-interest. To the accompaniment of imaginary trumpets. Facing irrefutable facts, Contradicting an assertion made in the previous sentence. Through cherubically pursed lips. With hand gestures that suggest a nose-picker in private.

LADDISHNESS IN AN ADULT. Something he should have grown out of. Nudge-nudge, wink-wink about sexual matters. Disregarding society’s discrimination against women, blacks, gays, the poor, the dead. Contempt for the law, worthwhile tradition and quietude.

STUNTED VOCABULARY. Whingeing about being asked “nasty” questions, Being unspecific; unaware that “bad” tells us nothing. And a touching if somewhat imperfect understanding of the superlative form of the adjective: “We gonna have the greatest (Economy, Trade War, Pandemic – fill in your preference) the world has ever seen.”

IMPOLITENESS. Sounds like a minor defect, doesn’t it? Yet he behaves like a man who bumps through social gatherings with his belly. Interrupting others to obscure the dialogue. Remember how he hovered over poor Hilary in the debates, like a swarm of wasps. How small, inoffensive islands – in the Caribbean, was it? – were described as “shitty”. Not that it matters to him but he has another type of image problem outside the USA.

DODGINESS. Denying the US Post Office the cash to process postal votes. Making a crony head of the USPO. The small matter of tax-paying obligations. Self-confessed groping. Continuous firing as an expression of amateur management. Attempting to push Mar-el-Lago as a venue for the G7 meeting – and charge for it. Time spent playing golf. Russia, ah yes, Russia – what dark tales yet to be told?

Twilight of the Gods?

Inevitably one has mixed feelings. Trump has done many things I have hated, notably undermining the whole concept of democracy. I must confess I've hated him for that. To the point where I hoped he would experience deep humiliation since humiliation seemed the only thing that would get through.

But did I hate him enough to wish this on him? Tell the truth, it never occurred to me. Fatalistically - and very ironically - I shared his own superman view of himself; that somehow his flouting not just of medical recommendations but of basic common sense would see him through.

But now I hear there've been undercurrents. That the situation was known within the White House before the public announcement was made. That many people - maskless and otherwise unprotected - may have come into contact. That several White House staff have subsequently tested positive, including Kellyanne, the spokesperson.

If that's true it's not just irresponsible, it's criminal. There are laws. And one has to say, adding in the tax revelations and the mad debate, there's a kind of Jovian Götterdämmerung endgame going on at the moment. But without Wagner's music.

Hatred? Yeah, I know it's childish but...

A time for quiescence

Today Britain is alone, as in 1939 when we had no choice. In that context forget the USA and, especially, the USSR since many Brits do.

I have concluded this: living in, and visiting, other countries gives you a better perspective of your own.

Singly or as a family I lived in the USA (six years), intermittently in France where for a decade we owned a house, six months in Singapore on national service, two weeks in Germany on family exchange. Plus three month-long holidays in New Zealand, independently touring. And many weeks of independent touring and villa rental in France.

As a journalist and for professional reasons I visited France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Japan, Venezuela, Finland, Ireland (north and south separately), USA, Canada.

Living in the USA was a youthful adventure which sort of aged. When Brexit loomed I was too old to consider anywhere other than Britain even if VR had agreed. In any case no country is perfect and one chooses the best compromise. While I was still working Sweden tempted me but not its climate.

But if you’re living a compromise you dwell on the bad bits and Brexit spotlighted them. Before, I’d never felt ashamed of the country I was born in. But now I realised it was rightwing. Not the familiar Tory/Labour divide but rightwing as in parts of fascism. Remember immigration and the referendum.

I’d joked about Britain’s insularity, reckoning it grew out of the country’s monoglottism. But Brexit revealed genuine hatred of other countries; read The Daily Mail, Britain’s most successful newspaper.

Of course I can still visit (albeit with more hassle) the countries that introduced me to Mozart, Balzac and Michelangelo. But I’m no longer part of them. A minor matter. Stop whining, RR.

Now I've got a shocking hangover

So, the “very worst” has happened in the British general election. The proven liar has a free hand. When I described the prime minister that way someone pointed out “all politicians lie”. I wasn’t comforted.

During the campaign the PM said the NHS was “not for sale.” The NHS is a sacred cow, a huge organisation that ensures free medicine, surgery, etc, for all Brits and especially the poor and the aged. The US would love to sell its expensive drugs and services into the NHS, raising its costs and conceivably breaking its back. If that happens (the PM and the US president “get on”) I’m supposed to shrug my shoulders and say, “Gee, he lied. But then they all do.” And accept my newly limited life expectations.

Another campaign phrase was “the EU gravy train”. But where does this train drop off its gravy? I thought of Wales which has struggled to be viable ever since its coal industry closed down. Wales voted to leave the EU. Yet throughout Wales are huge completed projects financed by EU money. Roadside signs show the EU’s circle of stars. Will the British government step in? It has always tended to ignore Wales’ needs. Turkeys and Christmas you might say.

Herefordshire, where I live, is predominantly agricultural. Judging by the Vote Conservative signs in their fields farmers appear to support Brexit. Yet they were warned their huge EU subsidies (mainly engineered by politically active French farmers) could not be matched. Tory immigration policies will prevent migratory labour from picking the county’s strawberries and apples.

Hey, maybe I’ll die of malnutrition.

Am I crying wolf? Who knows? Trade negotiations now stretch out to the Crack of Doom. I won’t see the end of them. But were VR and I right to have children?

It happened yesterday - free on the NHS
Grandson Zach got banged on the head playing rugby. (Like NFL but without helmets or padding.) Mum (Occasional Speeder) took him to A&E at local hospital.

Mum reports: "It took 2 hr to throughly check head injury. Two leaflets with guidance sent home with him. Kindness, no rushing, despite packed waiting room."

The sun supreme

Brexit! How that clicket-clackety word deadens the spirit.

Brexit will allow us to "take back control" we were told. Failing to add we would find ourselves in a circus where a clown had become the ringmaster and was insisting the audience too should don the motley and paint a big red smile on its face.

This morning I was in the Forest of Dean, a place my father warned us about just before our honeymoon tour. "Bogeymen will come through the trees and carry off you and your bride," he said. More on that later but don't hold your breath.

My needs today were more mundane. For reasons other than the most obvious, my car needed a new cigarette lighter. In the stylish if austere dealership waiting-room a huge TV tuned to Sky News burbled almost inaudibly. For a while I ignored it, Sky was once owned by the saurian Rupert Murdoch and my antipathy still persists.

The clocked ticked on beyond 10 am and abruptly I was transfixed. Today was THE day! And 10.30 was THE time! Britain's supreme court would rule on whether Clown Johnson's decision to suspend Parliament was lawful. And here we were: court president Baroness Hale, a gilded spider brooch on her right shoulder (Bad omen for the political right?), spoke the momentous words clearly but almost silently. It's considered bad form to turn up the wick on a waiting-room TV and I strained every ear muscle.

In a phrase I, a wordsmith, could not have bettered the suspension was deemed to be "unlawful, void and to no effect." The future is still cloudy of course but briefly the sun broke through. A happy morning. The bogeyman held at bay.

Goodbye Continong

Whatever happens to Britain, it’ll take ages – perhaps for ever – to suggest
we’re not a bunch of oafs. Since oafishness prevails, here’s another tranche*.

*French for slice.

Damn Brexit, curse Brexit,
And all the votes that spawned it,
To seek a past that never was,
And bring us this Hell's armpit.

Not Europe, they whimpered,
They'll do us down, unhindered.
They envy us our history,
And all the duds we've knighted.

Those rightists, those Tories,
Those half-told fairy stories
Who gave a crown to butch BJ
To choke half Kent with lorries.

It’s fear that’s behind it,
It’s foreign and they mind it
Un-English is what scares their pants
Although M. Thatcher signed it.

No grand thoughts, no culture,
Just relish for a rupture
A love of futile loneliness
And pickings for a vulture.

Oh England, you shame me
I don’t care if you blame me,
I care for European peace
And, yes, I am the same me

To the tune of A-tisket, a-tasket.
For a sprechstimme version click HERE

Tecno-note. For several years, thanks to MikeM, I've used dead simple Picosong
to post audio files to my blog. But Picosong has closed down. No worries,
Soundcloud is even simpler

Democracy revisited

NEW READERS START HERE Britain voted to leave the European Union (Brexit) to regain the country's/parliament’s sovereignty from interfering foreigners. But at what cost? Negotiating trade deals with the EU have failed, a no-deal Brexit looms. No-deal is predicted to be disastrous for our economy. Johnson, our new PM, favours no-deal. To prevent the mainly anti-no-deal parliament from hindering him Johnson has, in effect, closed down parliament for a short, crucial period. So much for sovereignty.

Yesterday daughter Professional Bleeder left Hereford by bus, returning to her home in Luton. Sent us this email

At Gloucester a woman accosted the driver. She was booked to travel on this coach, but not until it arrived in Cheltenham. This morning she had "found herself in Gloucester" and wondered if she could get on now.
 
The driver saw no problem but wouldn’t let her sit in a reserved seat, even though she had a seat reservation. Not too strange; this is National Express.

From the back comes a voice. "Has she paid to go from Gloucester to Cheltenham?"

My mind, but luckily not my mouth, responds with, "How is that your business?"

The driver appears nonplussed, but says that she hasn't. Outrage breaks out; this is "not fair"

The driver points out the woman will miss the coach in Cheltenham if she does not get on it now, thus losing her money. Chuntering ensues
. 
The driver now addresses all passengers. Those wearing headphones are asked to remove them, children are asked to pay attention. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife. "I want everybody to decide. Should this woman pay the fare from Gloucester to Cheltenham? Raise your hand for yes"

We thought Johnson had murdered democracy.

We voted no.

Tixerb

ITEM 1 There's an uneasy belief in the UK that a majority would favour the reintroduction of the death penalty. Perhaps by tacit agreement no major party has ever raised the subject. But could such a conspiracy of silence be regarded as a legitimate function of a democracy?

ITEM 2  Not wanting to go to war with Hitler in the thirties was labelled "appeasement", a term now universally pejorative. Yet this was a  perfectly understandable view given that WW1 was still a hideous and recent memory.  In the end it was seen that war was inevitable and it may be assumed many "appeasers" changed their minds.

ITEM 3 An online petition to revoke Article 50 (in effect bringing the Brexit process to an end) has quickly attracted 5m signatures including those from me, VR, Occasional Speeder and husband Darren, Professional Bleeder (all three without parental chivvying) and the whole of Sir Hugh's family. Theresa May has shrugged this off but there are signs she may be due a long walk on a short plank quite soon.

ITEM 4 Should Item 3 come to pass I am mulling over an all-expenses paid dinner in Cologne (including transportation expenses, accommodation, unlimited drink, blue flags and a German choir to sing the choral bit from LvB's ninth) for the extended family. Plus a couple of willing, articulate and adult Brexiters to discuss how Britain may retrieve some of its battered reputation in the following months.

Intelligent followers of Tone Deaf (are there any other?) will be able draw the inferences that provide contemporary relevance from the above items, since I lack the space to do so. 

Moth-eaten, toothless, deserted by his lionesses

What's afoot here?

History professor, Trinity College, Dublin: "There is a sense that with (them), unless it's written down you can't trust anything they say."

Former Dutch MEP: "A mixture of bemusement and bewilderment. On one level it's entertaining, great spectacle. A pantomime you can't stop watching... Except this isn't Monty Python."

Dutch language teacher: "We had such a close relationship... until now (when) you can't manage your own affairs. Those jokes, that posturing - it just looks silly. Irresponsible."

French commentator: "... a 'national psychodrama' or in more prosaic words 'un big mess'."

CEO of French port, Calais: "You had special conditions. You continued to drive on the left... so fundamentally insular... this is (your) destiny. But it's a pity."

Editor, Spanish newspaper: "Most people see it as chaos... (despite) a strong reputation for being disciplined and well organised."

German diplomat: "Melancholy (like) that of being dumped by a girfriend. 'I still have her jumper and I go round wearing it, hoping her scent will linger'."

Still stumped?

It is the same phenomenon that has kept me - nominally a writer in the winter of my life, keen to finish my fifth novel and desperate to outrun The Grim Reaper - lolling on the couch of an afternoon, reading The Guardian's every last tick and comma, even watching the Live Parliament TV channel, and discussing things in a low whisper with my wife.

Trump? Forget him. A mere shadow in two or six years.

Brexit, meanwhile, may cause my grandchildren's children to curse who-knows-how-many generations of English parents.

Thanks to The Guardian’s G2 Section, pp 8 – 9, “It’s like the crew of the Titanic deciding, by majority vote, that the iceberg should get out of the way.”

Bear-baiting now modernised

My sciatic nerve is not my only source of pain these days. The UK's fumbling attempts to leave the EU (Brexit) are a spiritual burden which is bringing my grey hairs down with sorrow to the grave.

To compound my misery I have taken to watching the Parliament Channel on TV. It's free and it should be.

Remember your school debating society? Parliament is like that raised to the power of n, with bits of comical history thrown in. Newcomers will be astonished to see that when there's a full attendance there isn't enough space for everyone (ie, about 630 MPs) to sit down. A few dozen stand crushed together at the exits; others squat uncomfortably in the stepped aisles. Also, when there's a vote, everyone troops out of  the chamber to be counted. No push-buttons here.

The Speaker, Stephen Bercow, who is - confusingly - an MP who does not vote, utters strange commands during the voting: "Division!", "Lock the doors!", and "Unlock!"

When the MPs are speaking in the formal debates they refer to each other as The Honourable Member for Slumberland and Tittipoo (ie, their constituency). Frequently the two halves of the chamber bellow in support of speeches they favour, or go "Who-hoo." at those they don't.

When the background noise becomes unbearable the Speaker intervenes using language that sounds like a fifties radio comic.

And it is these ritualised fools who are intent on cutting my links with the countries who gave the world Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Proust, Goethe, Voltaire, Molière, Sartre and Flaubert to name but a few. Who are in effect insisting that the river Rhine and Paris's Ile de la Cité are more foreign than I've been accustomed to. Bah to these puffball wretches.

Catching up with time

One picture is worth a thousand words. So what's a moving picture worth? How about a moving picture with words?

Until recently I wasn't aware how incomplete my view of Donald Trump was. His outrageous utterances are captured, live, for BBC television news. Rebuttals, if any, come later, often as summary read by the presenter. Any corrective force is inevitably delayed.

Thus the cumulative impression, here in the UK, is that, day to day,  DT gets away with murder and the US does nothing about it. Then I saw Anderson Cooper on CNN cutting out "wasted" time and offering clips of what Trump said then and now.

● The Mexicans would pay for the wall. No they wouldn't, a new US-Mexico trade deal would pay for the Wall. But the money gained would go to the businesses doing the trading. Yeah but the cost of the wall is peanuts. So the US government would tax the traders? Oh no.

● The US shutdown. People wouldn't be able to pay their mortgage, buy groceries, etc. Trump (a billionaire landlord) reckoned the landlords would be understanding, would allow defaulters some slack. Cut to Trump in 2016 advising on how to collect rent "...never stand in front of the door... because you get bad things coming through that door."

Cooper cocks an eyebrow:  "Does that sound as if Trump is there to give the tenants time to pay?”

What I loved was how much Trump must dislike Cooper. Cool, calm-voiced, even giving Trump credit where it was deserved, shrugging his shoulders at each contradiction, saying, “Hey but it’s just words, just words.”

I owe the USA an apology. I didn’t think the country could do irony. I was wrong.

Dark dream

Two days ago I woke from a nightmare: a daughter I was unaware of  (quite unlike Professional Bleeder or Occasional Speeder, my known daughters) wanted to marry a male offspring of Donald Trump. The pair had already reached "an understanding".

Try not to be obvious. Reflect on this as a parent. Let's assume you are not a fundamental Christian, a cast-iron, gun-toting Republican, a fan of cage-fighting and/or presently short of money. Let's assume, too, you have not spoilt your daughter but have accorded her a reasonable degree of moral freedom. That you have told her that, while there is no rush, you look forward to the day when she is able and willing to fly the coop.

Dissuasion? If her intended had been a heroin addict you would probably have intervened. But just which arguments would you mobilise in this instance? Assuming, of course, you are able to suppress haunting visions of future "all family" gatherings.

Parenthetically, the dream horrified me. Especially when I tried to sneak out of  his campaign visit to a manufacturing plant and found myself stonily observed by my daughter's possible father-in-law, that rosebud mouth pursed in disapproval. But my sleeping imagination is a mere shadow of that when I'm awake. I try to think on other things.

But I'm interested in your reaction. Play the ultimate libertarian and book yourself a dinner jacket? Draft some minatory sentences which carefully avoid social or intellectual snobbery? Take a one-way holiday in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Or drink your way through the state liquor store (Pennsylvania residents only).

Briefly she's your daughter now.

OS in NYC: a PS

Younger daughter, Occasional Speeder, now back in Gloucestershire from NYC and jet-lagged into next Christmas, would like you all to know she did manage this while on holiday.

Towards Cape Horn

Yesterday I bought the Daily Mail to check how it had reacted to Theresa May's doings, see my last post Foreboding Forgotten.

A bit like the Pope ordering The Story Of O under plain cover. The DM is (Ahem!) quite right-wing and edited by Paul Dacre who has campaigned 25 years against Britain's membership of the EU. It is Britain's most successful newspaper and targets the elderly middle classes. It dislikes the BBC.

A Guardianista I haven't read the DM for 50 years. Just how deep is the gap these days?

After several pages I became worried. With minor exceptions I had no quarrel with the DM's news coverage of May's catastrophic decision to hold an unnecessary general election. Had I fulminated out of pure prejudice?

Then I reached the regular columnists, often the source of the DM's distinctive, frequently shrill tone. Here's Steven Glover on perceived pro-Labour bias in a BBC debate programme:

Why should the BBC have afforded  Corbyn and the sinister McDonnell (shadow finance minister), not to mention the idiotic Diane Abbott, such latitude?... I believe many BBC employees cannot stomach Theresa May's robust approach to Brexit.

Robust? A DM news headline has her "haunted by a sense of failure".

In the DM's agony column someone asks: When Did Lefties Get So Illiberal? I was mildly cheered by the inference that lefties were once thought liberal, but my heart wasn’t in it.

Reading the DM had seemed like a good journalistic idea which turned out depressing. The DM represents the 51.9% majority who voted Brexit in the referendum; I belong to the minority (48.1%, not a negligible figure) who voted the other way.

The Ship Of Fools that is the British state creaks its way towards Cape Horn where storms are forecast. Ho-hum.

Foreboding forgotten

A MODEST HURRAH
Five weeks ago Theresa May, UK prime minister, was head of a Tory party with 338 seats in parliament - an absolute majority of 12 seats. A thin advantage, no doubt, but the polls told her she had a 20-point majority in popularity over the Labour party riven by internal strife and endlessly savaged by the right-wing press, notably The Daily Mail and the two Murdoch papers, The Sun and The Times.

If borne out, 20 points represented a potentially huge victory. TM called a general election, ostensibly to increase her majority and thus strengthen her hand in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations as Britain withdraws from the European Union. In fact to put Labour out of business for the next decade.

May looked awkward out on the stump but the Tories were convinced she was well-loved and agreed to personalise things so that the campaign became Theresa May vs. Labour. Her encounters with the public were confined to small gatherings of the faithful with no heckling. Meanwhile Jeremy Corbyn, Labour's head, met the real electorate. The 20 points shrank but was still a very healthy 10 points yesterday when polling began.

Today the Tories are reduced to 318 seats, so Theresa May has lost 20 seats and her absolute majority. I fear VR and I consumed two bottles of decent red watching telly and went to bed at 4 am, knackered but full of praise for the young people who, we think, turned out in great numbers and made the difference.

Now I'm off to French. Tonight - ice cream

Foreboding

UK POLLING DAY

THE GUARDIAN subscriptions department emails me and urges me to make sure my voice is heard. I'll do so but wish my voice was noisier, more like a trumpet (which I used to play), more like Joshua:

Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, Jericho,
Ditto, ditto
And the walls came tumbling down.

A QUESTION I should have put to Theresa May: "When you're asked a question on telly and you either answer another much softer question or utter Tory Central Office boiler-plate, don't your evasions worry you? Do you imagine you've fooled me?"

VR NOTES we need ice cream but we can get it tomorrow. But will we be in the mood to eat ice cream tomorrow?

Election: Brits explained

My post, Rather marvellous, mentioned a small singing lesson triumph. Marly commented: V (my teacher) must be pleased. I replied: V was pleased... she said "Well done you." Marly re-replied: That seems so British.

Which was nice of Marly. Many Americans can't decide whether British under-statement is a character flaw or a ploy to confuse foreigners.

A bit of both. Something similar happened yesterday.

The doorbell rang and VR (the first V; my wife of 57 years) answered. The caller was Jesse Norman, a fella not a lady opera singer, our Conservative member of parliament (see pic), asking for support in the forthcoming election. VR recognised him immediately and said, "I'd like to thank you for helping my husband, with his driving licence. But my family has a mining background and I'll be voting Labour."

Jesse said: "I perfectly understand."

Then stayed on.  VR told me: "He talked about canvassing in the nearby Welsh valleys (formerly the heart of Britain's mining industry) where Conservative voters are rare. He laughed a bit. We were polite."

As I hope I would have been. As an abstraction (Old Etonian Tory, son of a baronet, etc) Jesse represents the UK I detest. In reality (philosophy teacher, book writer, married to daughter of one Britain's most humane judges,  helped me storm the DVLA a fortress-like institution) he is admirable.

Politeness, used genuinely by VR, can also be a social weapon for Brits, as can under-statement. Both are lies disguised as self-abnegation. We admire others’ “authentic” modes of speech while secretly disparaging their inarticulacy. Giving to charity implies pea-nuts; adding “modestly” suggests hundreds. If a Brit, casually met, says “You must drop in some time.” he means “Not on your Nellie.”

Not for nothing did the French call us perfidious.

Election cast list, No. 2

Strong, definitely. Happy? Hmmm

Theresa May, UK prime minister,  insists  she is strong and stable, the Conservative Party (to which she belongs) is strong and stable, the government she runs is strong and stable, her policies are... well, you get the idea. During one recent speech “strong” appeared 31 times.

In my dictionary “strong” gets 14 different meanings, including “having a pungent or offensive flavour” and “tending towards steady or higher prices”. While “stable” can mean immobile. Just so we all understand our etymologies.

What TM is less strong on is giving straight answers. A BBC interviewer said that nurses in our National Health Service were underpaid and some were having to resort to food banks. To clarify matters TM said, “There are many complex reasons for using food banks.”

An incomplete statement. She might have added, “none of them desirable.”

British government is nominally democratic which means there is a ruling group and an opposition, sometimes called “the loyal opposition”. Perhaps because the rulers are often disloyal (I jest, of course). TM recently whinged that the other lot were seeking to undermine her Brexit policies. Another way of saying that the other lot were meeting their democratic obligation: that is, opposing the government.

TM is right to whinge. In some countries with strong leaders (North Korea comes to mind) governments have been so hampered by their oppositions they’ve been forced to do away with opposition altogether. Makes things far tidier.

TM will not take part in TV debates with other party leaders. It takes a strong prime minister to reject this temptation. One national newspaper which will remain nameless but has rightish tendencies ran the headline “Crush the saboteurs”, their word for opposition. Alas for Theresa May Kim Jong-Un has patented this meaning.