It has a sort of Tyrolean feel to it, but alas is neither jaunty nor rakishly bold and carefree. The whirly thing on top just looks daft. Not even the Duchess of Sussex could make that piece of headgear work.

We've never had a hat thread: I wonder if one would take off? I shall leave that to Priscilla to decide. Her threads always take off.

Temperance wrote:

We've never had a hat thread: I wonder if one would take off? I shall leave that to Priscilla to decide. Her threads always take off.

Au contraire ... Priscilla herself started a thread about military millinary some two years ago (Apr '17): Military Head-gear.

Apologies - I must have missed that one. Put off by the word "military", I expect - or did I post at length on that thread? I must look.

Poor Theresa - defeated, dejected and hoarse. Are we allowed to feel a bit sorry for her? I suppose not, but the Prime Minister does look utterly exhausted. She needs some Lemsip and a hot toddy.

I'd give up and go on a  nice walking holiday with husband if I were her. Pass on the poisoned chalice.

Off topic and typically stupid of me. I am British (with three Irish grandparents), so you must forgive me.

Temperance wrote:

Poor Theresa - defeated, dejected and hoarse. Are we allowed to feel a bit sorry for her?

... it's her job, it's what she wanted, and despite everything she's still lying, cheating and fighting tooth and nail, just to stay there ... no, I have absolutely no sympathy for her at all.

Temperance wrote:

I suppose not, but the Prime Minister does look utterly exhausted. She needs some Lemsip and a hot toddy.

But at least she's secure in the knowledge that her own insulin supply will not be interrupted ... unlike most other UK diabetics that rely on insulin supplies coming from other EU countries.

Useful information for all diabetics may be obtained here:



Diabetes UK Blog (really useful infornation).

They didn't put that on a bus did they...

"Brexit - Overall we'll survive but some of you may die, and you'll all get poorer".

Meanwhile Jacob Rees-Mogg has acknowledged he's already made 7 million pounds from sterling's fall.

MM, I know you are not getting at me personally (well, I sincerely hope you are not) - but please may I remind you that I voted "Remain" and that I think the Mogg is a prat? I have a very tiny portfolio and I too have made a bit of cash - not £7,000,000 though, I must admit.

I suppose I should donate my ill-gotten gains to our local hospital for their new stroke unit, the building of which is on hold at the moment. But I won't, of course. We are not nice people - any of us - really, are we?

I'm sick of both sides pontificating and lecturing us, so for my part I'll shut up.

@Temperance wrote:Poor Theresa - defeated, dejected and hoarse. Are we allowed to feel a bit sorry for her? I suppose not, but the Prime Minister does look utterly exhausted. She needs some Lemsip and a hot toddy.

I'd give up and go on a  nice walking holiday with husband if I were her. Pass on the poisoned chalice.

Temperance,

I saw it life on BBC 2 with subtitles, but the subtitles couldn't follow, so I had to catch it from the voices. Nevertheless in all this mess, I would say a strong woman. Not that much difference between men and women if you ask me. It all depends from the "person" (neutral) involved.
Temperance I hope for the best in all this turmoil, independent from whom it has caused. And I find that the EU counterparts would have to have some more insight, aside from the economics, for the emotional impact it all has on the general population. More feelings of we stand alone. And old nationalism feeding a "we and the others". We as a nation stick together wathever will happen, bad or good...Really I hope from the bottom of my heart for a compromise.

Kind regards, Paul.

Temperance, crossed posts. I wanted to post it immediately after the vote, but just as I saw the no and yes votes, the grand daughter rang up from Zürich to have a chat via Face time. And in some days she flies with her brother to Japan from Stockholm for a journey. And then the usual "coffee with something" with the partner around nine o'clock (8 PM UK) (I heard the depressing news thus here on BBC 2 on 20 past 8  )

Kind regards and with empathy from Paul.

So, while the British public are invited to discuss Teresa May's hat and vocal chords, her trade minister has just announced her government's first real attempt to legislate trade after her country plummets from the EU. Apparently this will mean effectively that, in order to preserve a "soft border" between the Republic and Northern Ireland, the M1 Motorway between Dublin and Ballymascanlon will have all of its side-roads blocked, assumedly barbed wire and watch-towers along its entire length on both sides (the fact that this motorway isn't even in Britain is of course irrelevant to British logic), with various magical non-existent electronic devices monitoring the traffic leaving Dublin Port en route to Unicorn Land (the bit after Ballymascanlon) to ensure that non-EU imports are open to tariffs when crossing this "land bridge", EU imports are open to reduced tariffs in the case of dairy and meat products when going over this same "land bridge", and Irish imports are "exempt" from scrutiny while negotiating the "bridge" in his head. This, according to the trade minister, will ensure that ordinary British people can buy carrots at the same price as before the clusterf*ck.

Someone on Irish radio this morning (not even a rabid republican - just a rather frustrated chamber of commerce member), when asked if British stupidity and arrogance was walking us all into civil war in Ireland, answered that it certainly seemed the case. However, she helpfully suggested, the solution might be to pre-empt civil war by simply declaring war on Britain on behalf of all intelligent nations. She suggested that the same people designing "magical electronic customs devices" for the British government might possibly throw their 23rd century technology expertise into also designing a "smart bomb" that might be used to target only those in Britain whose arrogance quotient on the plus side matched their stupidity quotient on the minus side, as well as hedge fund managers like Mogg who are making millions from selling their country down the toilet. Such an air strike or two might even have the support of about 52% of the British population - though at this moment all bets are off regarding what the British understand by percentages anyway.

Meanwhile, back with the hat ....

My dear nordmann - the hat comments from me were a futile and childish attempt at irony. Surely you, of all people, realise that?

Many people here in the UK are saddened, exasperated  and fearful at what is happening  - and may happen - in all these islands. It is all dreadful, unnecessary. - and stupid. However, may I, with all due respect, suggest that it is arrogant  - and pretty stupid - to suggest most of us here don't care. We in the UK are not a complete bunch of unfeeling idiots, whatever you may think.

We are in varying states of despair this morning: civil war is not unheard of in England either.

Temperance wrote:

Poor Theresa - defeated, dejected and hoarse. Are we allowed to feel a bit sorry for her? I suppose not, but the Prime Minister does look utterly exhausted. She needs some Lemsip and a hot toddy.

Today's  Le Monde reckons that Theresa's hoarseness "symbolised the state of a supposedly pragmatic country left voiceless by its inability to accept compromise with its neighbours".

'La quasi-aphonie de voix dont a souffert Theresa May toute la journée de mardi symbolisait l’état d’un pays réputé pragmatique mais restant sans voix faute d’avoir su accepter des compromis avec ses voisins. "Je regrette profondément la décision prise par la Chambre ce soir", a déclaré la première ministre sur un ton caverneux, à l’issue du vote.'

Perhaps my picture of the Kaiser  (now deleted) in his daft helmet was not so inappropriate.  Is there a worse prospect than civil war? This Guardian article is worrying. Perhaps I have posted it before - we go over and over and over everything about this whole wretched Brexit, so it's possible. As we all know - certainly we are regularly told here - the British are a nasty, belligerent, very stupid lot - bit like our German cousins? The rest of the world, of course, is entirely without blemish. God, I'm fuming - and I can usually see the funny side of everything. There is no longer a funny side to any of this unholy mess, and that is so very dangerous. Time to get out - of what I am not  entirely sure.


Lessons From History?


From the article:


(Are we heading for ) a milder, peacetime, bureaucratic version of the punitive Versailles treaty imposed on Germany after the first world war, which sowed the seeds of German nationalist revisionism. Britain’s Brexiteers are already talking about a Brexit 2.0, to follow and revise any makeshift deal cobbled together so that Britain can formally exit the EU on 29 March 2019.

Am I exaggerating the danger by even hinting at a comparison with Weimar Germany? Indeed I am. I don’t seriously envisage millions of newly unemployed, or a new Hitler coming to power, or a world war started by Boris Johnson. But it’s surely better to overdramatise the risk, to get everyone to wake up to it, rather than do what most of our continental partners have done for the last two years, which is consistently to underestimate the dangers for the whole of Europe that flow from Brexit – especially a mishandled Brexit.

And let’s face it, many things have already happened that most people would not have thought possible, even a few years ago.

My opinion is still that we'll have to make the best of a bad job...I remember being surprised back in 2016 learning that a (small) majority had voted "Leave" but with the first past the post system in place I don't see how there is any getting out of the result. It is feasible, I guess, that the leaving date could be "pushed back".  I certainly don't want a return to trouble on the border of Northern Ireland and Eire.  I do feel that some British MPs are acting ignobly - trying to do the best for themselves in the difficult situation instead of working as a team and putting the country's interests first.  I'm not saying Mrs May is the greatest British politician ever but she has had a difficult job (and wasn't she a Remainer at the time of the vote?) and I wonder if any of the people criticising her currently would have been able to secure a better deal if they were in her shoes.

Temperance wrote:

Lessons From History?

I do see parallels with Weimar Germany but not as a fall-out from the Treaty of Versailles (... who is being punitive with brexit? the UK's pain is entirely self-inflicted) but rather in terms of the so-called German stab-in-the-back myth (the Dolchstoßlegende). 

This myth, which so helped the rise of the Nazis was, like 'project fear', 'EU bullying', and many of the pro-brexit arguments, exactly that, a myth and unsubstantiated by any real facts. But it destabilised the Weimar democracy to such a very high degree that it greatly facilitated the rise of National Socialism. It was not necessarily the aggressive conspiracy theory itself that helped the Nazis but rather the breakdown of all political debate. After 1924 the two political camps were not able to communicate anymore: the right-wingers had convinced themselves that the country really had been stabbed in the back by internal elements who they reckoned were still in power, while the democrats were left to discover that any attempt to clarify the events was hopeless as all evidence was simply dismissed as being politically contrived lies (so rather like current attempts to discuss the effects of Brexit are all too often simply dismissed by the leave side as "project fear" etc.) The real danger as far as brexit is concerned is what happens now. A Britain in recession, isolated from its nearest neighbours and internally split down the middle by Brexit (whatever happens) will be an extremist's dream.

Meanwhile, with just two weeks to go, I still do not have my new French driving licence nor any residence permit ... but I can't blame that on the UK, it's the French authorities who seem to have lost all my paperwork.

Don't worry LiR - when Unicorn Electronics (they do exist don't they? So much of Britain's future will be decided by this company) perfect the smart bomb requested by the Dundalk Chamber of Commerce, I reckon you'll be on the right side of the blast.

Temp - a better analogy I heard, also on Irish radio, was that this self-harming exercise has now reached the stage where it is akin to national suicide. However not one of those nice polite neat little suicides in which the "victim" takes care not to overly discomfit others around them, more one of those "school shooting" or "get me to heaven to meet the virgins" suicides in which the perpetrator is so pissed off with their own perceivedly wretched existence they have decided to bring everyone else down with them within whatever radius their indifference and loathing encompasses.

Trike's post above, which probably has them rolling in the aisles in the land where unicorns abound, reminds me somehow of deckchairs on a certain ocean liner ....

MM - I agree. Brexit plays into the hands of every fascist, nutjob, and psychotic agenda out there which could in any way be classed under "extremism". It isn't even clever enough to have been tailored for one of them. It's so utterly extremely stupid that it's "one size fits all" when it comes to other rather more "usual" manifestations of extremism. But the price of carrots in Wigan, we are told today, will remain unchanged and that's apparently a government "pledge".

Best not to think about it, and concentrate on May's laryngitis ....

I've been saying that for ages (about extremism, I mean, not Theresa's sore throat). I do wish I got a bit of credit sometimes for the odd sensible remark I make.

I grow my own carrots which the rabbits all enjoy, so I am OK. But if my blood pressure medication is unavailable  next month, I shall probably explode, especially if I continue posting at Res His.


EDIT:

Oh God, she's on her feet again. How does she keep going? Good joke about sign language...

I would imagine that blood pressure medication might well be in short supply ... not because of any problems with importing or distributing it, but simply because of the huge extra number of UK citizens suddenly developing hypertension in sheer exasperation with the whole shambles.

But gardening is good for reducing blood pressure. I've just sown a whole lot of carrots too, plus planted out my leeks and lettuces.

This suggestion has been doing the rounds on a few messageboards:

Quietly revoke article 50.
Tell Brexiters we left with no deal.
Give them blue passport covers.
Give them long ques at Ports and Airports.
Charge them for roaming calls and data.
Give them food and medicine ration books.
The rest of us carry on as normal

Keep quiet about your home-grown carrots people! Once the truth is out then there'll be hoards of Wigan carrot zombies descending on your patches demanding what they're entitled to ...

Blame the trade minister.

EDIT: Actually MM, you're pretty safe. By the time the zombies have queued for their exit visas to escape Unicorn Land you'll have long consumed your carrot consommé.

Re: getting the blood pressure down, MM, I've been trying to scrub my kitchen floor clean - a rubbish bag split open when I was taking some [used] kitty litter to the outside bin at the weekend.  I guess I need stronger refuse bags.

I know it's not her fault but Anna Soubry gets on my nerves.

Meles meles wrote:

I do see parallels with Weimar Germany but not as a fall-out from the Treaty of Versailles (... who is being punitive with brexit? the UK's pain is entirely self-inflicted) but rather in terms of the so-called German stab-in-the-back myth (the Dolchstoßlegende). 

Yep - the "stabbed-in-the-front - by-yourself" myth is a harder one for which to find historical precedents.

I've been going through known historical mass suicides to see if I can find a parallel, but all the non-delusional (ie. non-religious) examples that unfortunately abound in history are of people quite pragmatically and even sensibly electing to off themselves rather than endure a very real and very horrible alternative imposed by others, so they don't count.

On the delusional side however one gets quite a few examples a little closer to the present British psychosis, especially those poor deluded fools throughout history who actually believed their self-destruction would lead them to a "higher plain" of being. However the highest tally I could find before "reality" set back in to the extent that even the most deluded could disabuse themself of their sheer obtuseness was 918 people (the "Jim Jones" cult in Guyana), nowhere near the numbers involved in "Project Unicorn" in the UK at the moment.

In terms of characteristics, the closest parallel I can actually find is the Ugandan "Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God" cult's mass suicide in 2000 in which 778 people succumbed fatally to lunacy but when this tragic loss of life was forensically examined by police afterwards, it turned out very likely to have been only about half of the dead who actually opted for self-harm and went through with it, but who decided however to murder the others along with them (ie. had they had a referendum then Teresa May would have been battling hard for the first group - in true democratic spirit etc etc).

17+ million people opting for slow but certain death (figuratively or in reality, unfortunately, for many of them), and bringing the rest of their compatriots down with them, is a new one.

My view on what the Euroseptics have wrought is similar to what Pterry has Moist von Lipwig say in "Raising Steam".
However, Mister Simnel has made it clear that while it’s easy to deal with stupid, bloody stupid is horribly difficult to erase. I wonder how many dreadful crimes have been perpetrated following a well-meaning person saying ‘I only …’?

Of course Henry V111's breakaway from the dictates of Rome brought huge shudders of fear but making the best of it he and  the country sort of pulled through =negotiator Wolsey and a few head losers apart - and the Tudors actually  made quite a good fist of things by and large.

Temp and I both voted 'Remain'  I don't know about her but I keep  getting these 'Leave, Leave Leave' hot flushes, now. Amicable divorce is so very rare and the dog probably always loses out.

I followed it all life on BBC 2 with subtitles. Any comments from the honourable members of this messageboard?
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47562995

Kind regards, Paul.

nordmann wrote:

17+ million people opting for slow but certain death

I think everyone in the UK is being bored to death by our own history. For example during yesterday's 'meaningful vote' (one wonders what they consider to be a meaningless vote) BBC One television interrupted the broadcast schedule to follow proceedings live in the House of Commons. Tonite, however, at 7pm the continuity announcer heralded The One Show (a light entertainment magazine) and suggested that if anyone wanted to follow 'the latest Brexit vote' (yawn) then they could do so on BBC Two.

To be honest I do actually blame the British electorate for the present mess about Brexit.
Since the referendum (June 2016) many of the electorate have said  that they were never given any information/guidance about what was all involved.

So my question is:
" why on earth did the voted on an issue they knew nothing about"


Dirk

Dirk, why were subjects suddenly asked to behave like citizens? And by people who struggle with the definitions themselves?

It was never going to end well. Sensible subjects have now tuned out of the whole thing (they know their place, or at least can remember how and when they last felt secure) and, like Vizzer says, are opting to retreat back into light entertainment magazine TV fodder (discussing the prime minister's clothes and vocal chords etc), or like Priscilla, are finding solace in nostalgically pining for the good old days of a late medieval monarchical adulterous psychopath to find some kind of "sensible" precedent of when "muddling through" last worked. Insensible and incensed subjects (those who still cling to some naive belief that they are citizens of the state without really knowing what either word actually means) are now so out of their depth that each posture they adopt is more ludicrous than the previous one.

Parliament, the great democratic tool that it is, has been reduced to presenting the population with a microcosmic mirror image of itself. Which at least means that some people can forego self-loathing and direct their ire at the mirror, though of course miss the implicit irony in the exercise.

Outside of Britain the world goes on. The Irish deputy prime minister yesterday said that he would appoint a civil service "task force" to assess the cost of constructing a new walled motorway on Irish soil to service the British Trade Minister's "land bridge" (apparently a "solution" to the current "Irish problem"), and would be glad to forward the bill to Greg Clark (if he was still in office by the time it arrived in the post). That way, Simon Coveney reckoned, it should be easy for the British government to calculate the total cost of servicing the other three hundred and seventy four known "land bridges" their "solution" has to accommodate.

If only it was as simple now as "blaming the electorate", as Dirk suggests ....

nordmann, I don't know that it applies now but back in the day weren't the inhabitants of the City of London (as in the Square Mile) considered citizens?

When I switched my computer on this morning, looking at Yahoo (not the most reliable news source I know) I read the headlines originally that Brexit had definitely been pushed back but looking again it is saying that a "push back" is looking increasingly likely.  We'll know soon enough I guess.

In Britain "citizen" is like "constitution". It's whatever you want it to mean, and you can even change your mind from day to day - no one is in a position to correct you.

To become a member of London's "Citizen's Club" back in the day (they met in Smithfield, so weren't technically "citizens" of London at all) one had to identify with at least one of the following from a contemporary description by a disgruntled Yorkshireman who learnt to his dismay upon his arrival in the big smoke in 1709 that he could not transfer his citizenship from York to the capital:

"This Accute Society (I hope the Religion Menders of London will pardon the expression) was held at one of their County Houses in the Rounds in Smithfield, upon every Market Day, to exercise their cunning on the credulous Bubbles of this half-witted City, who play the Knave too foolishly, that the Northern Tikes think no more of the biting now and then of a Head off, than a Monkey does in the cracking of a Nut, or a Whore of picking a Drunken Man's Pocket.

The most flourishing Members in this Whipshire Community are Needle Pointed Inn-Keepers, Rich and Froth Victuallers, honest Horse Coursers, and pious Yorkshire Attorneys, the rest good harmless Master Hostlers, who us'd to measure their Oats with the bottom of their Peck upwards, and two or three innocent Farriers who Worm'd their Masters out of their Shops, and themselves into their Business."

The story has a happy ending - the author trained to become an attorney, joined the club as he now fitted one of the criteria, became its president, and renamed it The Yorkshire Club (to which citizens of London were thereafter "barred by virtue of their unfortunate birth").

nordmann wrote:

Trike's post above, which probably has them rolling in the aisles in the land where unicorns abound, reminds me somehow of deckchairs on a certain ocean liner ....

This one Nords??

nordmann wrote:

MM - I agree. Brexit plays into the hands of every fascist, nutjob, and psychotic agenda out there which could in any way be classed under "extremism". It isn't even clever enough to have been tailored for one of them. It's so utterly extremely stupid that it's "one size fits all" when it comes to other rather more "usual" manifestations of extremism. But the price of carrots in Wigan, we are told today, will remain unchanged and that's apparently a government "pledge".

Best not to think about it, and concentrate on May's laryngitis ....

my whole "elaborated" message gone- the first in weeks- the famous: no post... I start again ...

nordmann, it was that what I wanted to say in one of my former messages and I guess, it are Temperance's thoughts too. I agree with MM, it are the English who brought the mess on themselves perhaps lurred into it by the UKIPs and Nigels, and perhaps when they end in an economic mess, these same nationalists will blame then the others for their  intransigence. And I feel the same as Temperance in some way about the Thirties, a kind of beleaguered feeling, which is again an ideal breeding ground for fascists. And I said it here already there are many UKIPS in Europe, as an Orban to call but one.

And don't forget the mess will be at both sides. They call of 70,000 jobs losses for the Flemish region. The Walloon region is not so dependent on the UK economy. What will the Flemish nationalists now say about the mess their English nationalist brothers has brought them into?
Today I liked the Tusk declarations, which are not that intransigent as the ones of "our" Verhofstadt
https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2019/03/14/no-brexit-delay-until-end-of-june-says-mr-verhofstadt/
The Verhofstadt, who was at the barricades in the Ukrainian civil war, blurring about Europe. I hope he was not aware, how he supported the Ultranationalists with roots in WWII...

And I say it again I hope from the bottom of my heart that this crisis is solved with a reasonable compromis. As, if not, Europe is back to square one. A Europe of the "nationalisms" and as said a breeding ground of fascisms of any kind...I hope that the Europeans have learned something in the century since these "Fascisms" of all kinds started.

PR

Nostalgic pine? Who, me? Did Henry Tudor muddle through? I was merely drawing attention to a fact that nothing is written in stone. The 10 Commandments possibly but the Romans sorted that and they were short enough to remember and a life style code. Despots disliking treaties simply ignore them. A good Democracy - granting that the concept has its flaws - tries to do it by consensus. MP's are elected in trust in the policy which is declared and hopefully with integrity in other issues; This usually amounts to following a three line Whip which someone else has decided but then again some of the elected ones stand firm on having other opinion - and not always self seeking. And that too in the probable fate of never getting elected again. Like them or not, it takes courage...….. its a bit like trying to swim against a Res Hist current. To see something from another angle and worse yet, express it here always gets the pack going. A thick skin is needed when engaging with those who are so sure of their stand. so certain they are right that to suggest counter opinion or reveal a glimmer of doubt, or to have compassion for those who may well be trying to do the right thing as they see it is asking for trouble - not cool debate, anyway. 

And I did not think the Tudors muddled through...… and are the English the only ones who recognise it in themselves?  It happens all the time, I am well aware - and have been party to it in a crisis, too. Sometimes, in fact we even have confidence in it to tease out the best way forward. Gosh I shall soon press Send and shock waves will ripple through the waters by morning. Stand firm, woman. Either that or the silent cold shoulders will be exposed to you yet again. Ain't' the web a social wonder, eh?

Did Henry Tudor muddle through? Are you serious? The guy was the ultimate epitome of someone who simply makes it up as he goes along!

Democracy, as I'm sure you're aware, is about something rather more than simply "consensus" (albeit this has suddenly become a buzzword around Westminster at the moment, as if the idea has just occurred to them).

Defining consensus in a robust way that even would-be Henry Tudors can't piss around with for self-centered opportunistic reasons is probably even more important than establishing it - which gets us back to the other "C" word again (I can hear your skin thickening into hippopotamus mode even as I mention it).

The English, of course, are not alone in trusting to luck and an absence of too many mini Henry Tudors in their ruling establishment at any one moment in time when they go about the business of keeping their citizens - sorry, subjects - relatively free from unnecessary suffering and deprivations (or even from having to think too much, as in England). They are, however, one of a very few people on the planet who think that this incredibly bad and potentially disastrous form of government is somehow a national virtue, and current events are probably all one needs to see just what happens when the quality of virtue is ascribed to negligence, stupidity, or worse. Any system ripe for exploitation by people for whom "virtue" was probably a Mitford sister, "constitution" is something one encourages through one's diet to avoid "constipation", and "government" means "Gove - with a string of superfluous letter after his name", will be exploited by said people. The other "people", those who naively expected to be governed, can simply "suck it up" - as Henry Tudor might have remarked at several junctures in his own little psychopathic journey through life as Head Muddler of England, "teasing out" a political and religious departure for his "people" which, remarkably, suited his own ambitions.

Now, by all means carry on muddling, if that's all you know  .... (while the rest of us get on with sweeping up the considerable ordure deposited in the wake of any animal with a weak constitution).

I don't think all the people who voted "Leave" in the Brexit referendum were adherents of UKIP. 

Isn't there something of a trough in the car market worldwide?  Some of the factories and units which are scheduled for closure might in the long run have been on the way out anyway.

Very likely there will be a period of adjustment (maybe a prolonged period) when (if) the UK leaves the EU.  I personally don't see the EU as a glorious organisation - and wasn't it supposed to be a trading group in its original form (if I'm wrong no doubt I'll be jumped on from a great height figuratively speaking)?  I did vote "Remain" as the (slightly) better option (in my opinion).  In recent years in elections both local and national I've often voted for whichever party I have deemed to be the best of a bad bunch.  There don't seem to be a great many men or women of honour entering politics (I'm not saying there aren't any - or maybe they start out bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and in the end go with the flow).  I haven't been able to stick through the entire Brexit discussions in Parliament - I know they are important but I've been tired and have watched the highlights later.  This is slightly off the point but am I the only person who thinks there is a lack of good orators in Parliament currently?  I didn't always agree with what the late Manny Shinwell said but he spoke well - and of course Dennis Skinner teasing during the opening of Parliament is worth a watch.  But in the Brexit talks there does seem to be a lot of droning.

Err, Trike,

Is it me gone of my trolley, or do I smell a small dose of irony?

A fairly large dose of irony there, Neilsen

Lady, I read for the first time in my life the word "trough" and it was thanks to you. I found something about a hole to put for instance from the street coal into your coal cellar of the beginning of the former century. Can that be? Regards from Paul.

Paul, 'trough' is one of those English words with several meanings. I've probably come across its use as a manger or water receptacle for the use of domestic animals most commonly in real life.  I can't find a picture of it online but I recall there was a trough (not that far from the Central Line [London Underground] station) still in existence from the days of horsedrawn transport.  In colloquial English we speak about 'peaks and troughs' in an economic sense - so if an industry is going through a somewhat unproductive phrase it can be described as going through a 'trough' [url=lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=peak_to_trough]lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=peak_to_trough[/url] and a link to the various meanings of 'trough' - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trough

The link to the Financial Times explanation of 'peaks and troughs' hasn't copied well so I've done a copy and paste of the contents - of course this is not my explanation but that of the Financial Times.

"The stage of the business or market cycle from the end of a period of growth (peak) into declining activity and contraction until it hits its ultimate cyclical bottom (trough). This is the change in a data measure - e.g., an asset price or economic statistic - from its highest point to its lowest point."

I might rename this thread The Hippopotamus in the Room.

Keep posting, Citizeness Priscilla. Courage, mon brave!

I like being a Citizeness -  sounds really cool: makes me feel like something out of The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Posted by Citizeness Temperance. (Have I spelled it right - "citizeness" looks a bit funny.)

I swear I read the word as Hippolyta - which is acceptable; dyslexia can be a boon. I may consider a name change. 

En Avant!  Les tricoteurs. Fair Isles For All!     Woolies Forever!

Following my last post hats off to MP Boles who resigned from his local party because he would not compromise his stand on fighting against a no deal Brexit. He will lose his seat but at least he is defending his integrity. And I shall do the same here or anywhere else = and as politely as I can. Of course I am also nostalgic for the courteous days of old which are probably a fantasy, I grant.

Regards, Hip

Lady, thank you so much about your clarification of the word trough and the link. And looking to the picture about the horses I suddenly saw that it was in Dutch a "trog"

And as I had from childhood on no "table manners?" my mother said you are like eating from a trough, meaning I suppose a swines trough (eating like a swine)...
First I thought that it was a bag  hung at the neck of the horse to eat his fodder from...
And on economy we would say I guess, more the English "dip"...there is a dip in the market?...
Sorry to the ladies and gentlemen for derailing this "serious subject" (not the nordmann's "subject" (sujet, onderdaan, Untertan(Staatsangehörige))

Regards from Paul.

Dear Temperance, of course I guess "citizeness" don't exist in English as it is since long all unisex for those terms. I had always difficulties when reading "nurse" in English, as I had always a picture of a nice and friendly lady in mind and then I came to the discovery that it was meant as a male nurse...you are not lurred in French, German, Dutch I guess Spanish Italian..infermière, Pflegerin, Krankenschwester, verpleegster...of course in the nobility you have baroness, princess, empress...
To be sure I sought for "female citizen" and even the mighty google gave no answers...
But with that search I came haphazardly to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Woman_and_of_the_Female_Citizen
Yes, even the French citoyennes weren't equal to men...
And what a woman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympe_de_Gouges
but she ended up as Antoinette under the guilotine...
To not derail this serious thread I will put her in the "individuals" forum...as that other Russian Jewish Italian antifascist Leone Ginzburg who ended also up dead in prison under the German occupation of Rome in 1943...
But Temp you started it all with your "citizeness" ...
But nevertheless, ladies, keep up the good work...

Kind regards from Paul.

Paul, you are correct that in general English there is one standard term 'citizen' for both genders but in Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities the author uses 'citizeness' for some of the female characters in conversation (I suppose because of 'citoyenne' in French).  Madame Defarge a character in the story is referred to as "Citizeness" if I remember rightly.  I don't think I ever read The Scarlet Pimpernel but I've seen various adaptations of it (mostly on the TV over the years) and from what Temperance says above it would seem that the word "citizeness" is used The Scarlet Pimpernel also.  Madame Defarge does a lot of knitting in AToTC (though I think "les tricoteuses" as referred above by Priscilla were a real phenomenon).

I didn't know that platinum bullets were more deadly than those made of lead.  I remember in (an American children's TV series from my childhood) The Lone Ranger used silver bullets so they wouldn't kill people though I have no idea whether silver bullets are in truth less lethal than other types of bullets.