Emerging from hiding perhaps I ought respond to your appeal. The Suez crises happened when I was on holiday from college.... I am always abroad on holiday there is a huge major event.. 9/11. Kuwait invaded and others but in this case, the Suez crises. Apart from father's huff-puff - it was a bit stale  by the time new college term started. Most of my friends were staunch left wing who relished the death throws of old Toryism. Eden was reckoned as a naive gentleman, doing what he thought was the right thing to preserve assets, but only 11 years after war no one wanted another. We were not long out of rationing and had had enough. Truth at last was confirmed. Suspicion that we had we had been sidelined at the Yalta conference after making  an heroic and finally victorious stand was realised and that we  no longer really counted in the great scheme of things. Whereas much of Europe had been given massive aid to rebuild to avoid communism our own industry was flagging - both from inept management and subversive unionist undermining, and we were still paying back war loans. And that only finished in 2000.
As I recall the impact of the Suez crises did not impinge on our daily life. Such hardship that there might have been in shortages of stuff having to round the Cape were not momentous because we were well inured to doing without and making do. That the Empire was breaking apart certainly did so with the approval of the student bodies of the time.... we, as did many others understood it to be obvious, essential and about time. 

Only outsiders thought we would all feel bereft at the loss of our old Imperial strongholds. I think that to be a myth and perhaps  old sentiment was only wafted about in the cigar smoke of old leather chairs in the posh clubs and in far outposts. The old school who remained in the former colonies were a mixed bag. The old timers actually understood it was the newer ones  who had delusions of superiority...... dear God, I could tell a tale or two on that. 

It  is interesting as far as I can recall, that no one denied support for Israel.... there had always been a sense of shame that we had had a standing army in Palestine etc. 

We had to take on board that we countered far less in  world affairs, that USA pulled all the strings - and that gun boat diplomacy days were finally over. But of course our student body knew all of that and parental huff from then, on  just about anything, was scoffed at. Youth in Britain was ready for the '60's. 

That is a ramble from a very old briar rambler - but nord, you did ask. So. 

As a post script I ought add that the following Macmillan years and his 'Wind of Change,' actually saw a surge in growth and the economy improving. Enough.

Ha ha, I'd already sent an email to a friend of mine who is in her 90s asking if she recalls the impact of the Suez crisis (though I didn't go into the reasons why) - whether folk carried on as per normal or did they realise the UK wasn't a world power any longer?  I did actually use the words 'Clapham Omnibus' though I said the man or woman on the 'bus rather than the conductor.  Prime Minister Eden only lasted about a year after the Suez crisis - I remember that much.  Whether H MacMillan was less competent than A Eden is debatable though it was the 'Profumo Scandal' that saw HM off so he lasted six years from 1957 to 1963.  If we are comparing Bo-Jo with Mrs May, I preferred Mrs May.  Trying to get a Brexit deal for the UK was always going to be something of a poisoned chalice though.  When I've asked people in the real world (rather than the online one and thinking pre-pandemic) why they didn't like TM some said they thought she gave away the UK's bargaining power too easily.

What defines 'normal'?

Just editing to say that when I typed this I hadn't seen Priscilla's post.

P wrote:

As I recall the impact of the Suez crises did not impinge on our daily life. Such hardship that there might have been in shortages of stuff having to round the Cape were not momentous because we were well inured to doing without and making do.

Thanks, Priscilla. I was beginning to feel as I am sure Paul must often feel when he thinks he has asked a perfectly cogent question, at least in his own mind, and receives answers to ones he had never even imagined.

So, aside from student debate and political theorising, life just carried on "as was" in effect, with no discernible improvements or deteriorations beyond those already being endured. Important for Eden who maybe missed out on some post-resignation banquet invitations and after dinner speech engagements (though maybe in fact not), but for everyone else it was mainly something done by "them" "over there" and not something that afflicted Clapham in the slightest, omnibus or not.

Temp's point, I think, was to draw a parallel between British people's opinion of themselves undergoing an adjustment in light of the Suez crisis and now Brexit. However while I am completely sure the latter will force such a re-evaluation and pretty quickly too, I imagine the former initiated a much more slow-burner effect in that regard. It was a salient moment in terms of national identity, but the true significance still took years, if not decades, to really sink in.

LiR, I'd be interested in what your 90 year old friend has to say from what she remembers. The ordinary individual's experience in times of so-called "great" political upheaval rarely fits the prescribed narrative as depicted by historians afterwards, at least as cosily as they might wish, which is of course why it is equally - if not more - important that it too is heard.

The only effect I was aware of as a small child was petrol rationing. At that time, we had a 3-wheel Bond miincar (irc a 500cc JAP or Villiers engine in an alloy body) and my grandfather's Ford (Pilot?) which was usually used for collecting the money from the"rounds" (he, my father, and my grandmother ran a Credit Drapery business, Ladies & Gent's outfitters) was too thirsty for the job, so the Bond took over. Took much longer and was much colder.

As the global media reacts to events in the US you can always rely on local news outlets to get to the very heart of the matter:  

South Ayrshire golf club owner loses presidential election (Ayrshire Daily News 07/11/2020).

This follows on from another Ayrshire newspaper's parochial reporting of Trump's October COVID diagnosis with the eye-catching (not) headline:

Turnberry hotelier tests positive for coronavirus (Ayr Advertiser 02/10/2020).

That's right MM, indeed those locals can go to the heart of the matter, as I read your mentioned site:
https://www.ayrshiredailynews.co.uk/post/south-ayrshire-golf-club-owner-loses-2020-presidential-election

Perhaps also a kind of a vote for Biden is the reaction of the stock markets as in Japan?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/09/biden-win-boosts-global-stock-markets-as-japanese-shares-soar-to-29-year-high

And as Temperance wrote, as I recall it well: what will now be the reaction of Bojo with "his" Brexit plans?

Kind regards, Paul.

This one was from 4 years ago:

Ellon Times 9/11/16

Can some British or other insider enlighten me, what that means now for the peace in Northern Ireland? And the Brexit? I am a bit confused as a Belgian. Will that stop Bojo now from going still ahead with a hard Brexit including the "special" controversial legislation?
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-54882088

Paul.

The Lords, as an unelected body, cannot actually stop or change legislation. However they can send it back to the House of Commons with suggested changes - this time they have sent the bill back minus the clauses that are in breach of international law.

Back at the commons the prime minister then has a choice. The amended bill can be put to a vote. Alternatively the prime minister can insist on the clauses being put back in. However a vote cannot then be taken until the next parliamentary session (after the Christmas break). If it passes again it can go back to the Lords again and the same procedure applies. However there is a time limit on this. If the Lords rejects the bill for a third time then that's their lot, and the Commons can proceed with the government's version, this time for real. Johnson has said that this is his plan - in other words he has no intention of removing the clauses, even if it takes three parliamentary sessions to get it passed into law.

What it means for peace in Ireland is not good either way - though one outcome in parliament is slightly better than the other one.

If Johnson's version of the bill becomes law then the die-hard NI Unionists, who support it, will be happy. However this makes a hard border between north and south Ireland almost inevitable as the clauses basically make monitoring of goods shipped between Britain and Northern Ireland unaccountable. To protect the single market the EU and British would have to recognise the border - itself a breach of the Good Friday Agreement by Britain if they do this - and this would inflame the nationalist community in NI immediately.

At this point however even if the clauses are dropped then damage has been done anyway. Besides the Unionists being angered by this alternative - a customs and regulatory border between NI and Britain - the very fact that Johnson has said he has scant regard for treaties has alerted the nationalists anyway to the fact that any such arrangement is obviously subject to removal at the whim of the British, who can easily sabotage it anyway by simply refusing inspection of goods between them and NI, regardless of the official regulations. This, the nationalists argue, is simply a more roundabout but just as effective way to inflame tensions in the North with all the tragic consequences this will bring, and they have switched in large numbers to supporting whatever it takes to accelerate Irish unification.

Brexit was always about English nationalism, however many times its supporters claimed it was "good for Britain". The Welsh, and even more the Scots, were obliged to come along for the ride whether they wanted to or not (the Scots most definitely did not). The Irish, even worse, were simply pawns - the threat of knowingly encouraging a new descent into violence and inevitable death now being used simply as a form of cruel and indifferently callous modern brinkmanship by the present British government in its "negotiations" with the European Union (a fellow guarantor of the same Good Friday Agreement that the British are now tearing up).

The worst part in all this is when, as during last weekend, Johnson sends his underlings out on media rounds to parrot the most egregious lie that the offending clauses in their so-called Internal Market Bill "support" peace and stability in Ireland. To the Irish this is simply twisting the knife on Johnson's part. That it is delivered with faux sincerity and a smile simply makes it all the more chilling.

nordmann wrote:

 That it is delivered with faux sincerity and a smile simply makes it all the more chilling.

And all those English people - who for centuries cherished their freedom under law - must be turning in their graves, because, perhaps more extraordinary than the bill’s provisions on international law, are those on domestic law. Under s45(4)(g) of the bill, regulations made by the minister on state aid or customs declarations would have legal effect notwithstanding their incompatibility with "any rule of international or domestic law whatsoever".

This appears to be an attempt to oust the jurisdiction of the courts to review the legality of ministerial decisions under these powers at all.

It's awful. This is not "taking back control": it's naked tyranny. Johnson fancies himself as a new Churchill - the irony seems utterly lost on him.

Please do not say: "I told you so", nordmann. You did, but we would rather not be reminded. Problem is, what on earth do we do now? Any limited and specific ideas anyone?

I've had a response from the friend I asked about the Suez Canal crisis.   She gave a bit of background to the event in question but I won't repeat that as I think folk know that.  Apparently she was working for the RAF at the time as a civilian secretary.   This is what she said - which is much on a par with what people have already commented:-

"How everybody felt about the Suez crisis is difficult to say – some were really cross because they regarded the Americans as having let us down.  Others probably didn’t bother too much.  Well, we probably had to give up our ideas of being a Great Nation...."


I can't suggest anything about the Irish border at present.  Maybe if somebody would call for a vote of no confidence in Boris Johnson - but in all honesty I can't see that happening.

Thank you very much for your enlightenment about my question, nordmann. This vote and its problems
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-54882088
became much clearer to me.
Kind regards, Paul.

From yesterday's Financial Times, reporting that a deal is now in sight. The British negotiators, it would seem, have decided to shift position on fishing rights:


British ministers confirmed a deal could take shape that allowed EU boats to continue to have “generous” access to UK waters for a transition period, reflecting the relatively small size of the British fleet. “We haven’t got enough boats to catch all the fish,” said one minister, adding that a deal must recognise British sovereignty, but could allow “generous” rights for EU boats while the UK fleet was built up.


Haven't got enough boats for all the fish!!! Whatever next? Still, if this gets us a deal...Dread to think what Dan the Fisherman down on Appledore Quay will say though...







Not One Boat Left Now

They know their patriotic history in Appledore. The fleet that defeated the Spanish armada was largely built and crewed by the men of this port, in north-west Devon. The village, sitting on the banks where the Taw and Torridge rivers meet before they flow into Bideford Bay, is perhaps England’s oldest fishing port.
So it was with dismay that locals looked on as the last English boat based here – the Hannah Marie – was sold five weeks ago. The marine-blue trawler is awaiting shipment to Denmark. According to local people, it is the latest victim of EU fishing quotas. “Not one English boat here now,” said Tony Rutherford, chief executive of North Devon Fishermen’s Association, his anger barely concealed. “There were about 80 to 100 in these parts in 2002.”


The above was taken from the Guardian link - an article written in 2016. Ah, 2016 - we remember it well. The rest is history, as they say...

Can some insider from the UK or the Irish Republic  or someone else enligthen me, what it means that Biden wants an "open Irish border"?
I read it this morning on the teletext of the French language Belgian television.

An open Irish border - that is, no return to border posts and customs checks. It's part of the Anglo-Irish agreement, intended to reduce the risk of renewed Republican military campaigns. The EU rules must be applied on both sides of the border for that to happen, and that means customs checks in some form between NI and the rest of the UK, or it would mean an open route into the rest of the EU for goods from Great Britain. BoZo agreed to this in the withdrawal agreement but now wants to do away with the GB - NI checks.

GG, thanks for this immediate reply and enlightenment.
That said, does that mean then that Biden will support then the rest- European Union in its quest for a solution as agreed before between the UK and the rest-EU about the Irish border. Does that mean that Biden is in disagreement with the machinations of Bozo?

Kind regards, Paul.

I read during the last days that in the negociations Bozo would at least nevertheless agree with the maintenance of no NI-Ireland physical border? And he comes ultimately to Brussels this week.

For me as I see it from here (the Belgian coast ) , Bozo is not a bad politician and he can turn his coat if necessary, planned or not. In any case much much better than his counterpart Trump. All in my humble opinion.

Could it, but I don't believe it, that the first Covid 19 vaccin injection friom the Western World is in the UK and premeditated by BJ? Even more daring: That the first person in the UK! vaccinated is in Northern Ireland?

If so? Chapeau Bojo...a "real" politician...

I wonder what the other contributors think especially those residing in the UK and perhaps insiders in the matter, as Temp, GG, LiR and Dirk Marinus? Others are also welcome as a former Englishman near the Spanish border and yes I would forget an ex-Irishman...

OOPS...and I forgot Triceratops, Priscilla, Brenogler and Vizzer as UK residents...although I am still not sure of Vizzer... ...

Deleted

I've removed my response to PaulR's posts above, because, as Thumper says: "If you can't say something nice - best say nothing at all".

Meles meles wrote:

Deleted

I've removed my response to PaulR's posts above, because, as Thumper says: "If you can't say something nice - best say nothing at all".

True, but we all get impatient at times, even Thumper. And Bambi was "kinda wobbly"...

Re Paul's musing about what we Englishers are thinking: I regret to report that most of us have stopped thinking. We are numb with misery - most of it self-inflicted of course. I just keep taking my Vitamin D3 and am still eating my way through my shameful stockpile of M&S muesli. Looks like, having survived Covid (just), more Britannic gloom awaits us: our salad days are well and truly over - or will be after December 31st. Oh well, Wensleydale is nicer than Brie, and you don't need salad from Europe - a nice English apple is the traditional thing to go with Yorkshire cheese. And we can grow our own salad, I suppose. Can't grow VW Polos, though.

PaulRyckier wrote:

UK residents

But for how long will there be a UK? This Englishman is no surer than you are Paul and probably a good deal less so. Only today Michael Gove the Cabinet Office Minister said: “We will be able to ensure unfettered access for goods which come from Northern Ireland to the UK.”

By ‘the UK’ here one imagines that he meant GB. One wonders whether this was just a slip or whether it was indeed Sigmundian. Either way, it touches on the origins of this thread - i.e. the Scottish independence referendum of 2014. There is a view that Brexit will essentially spell the end of the UK. It certainly seems to be already fast-tracking the uncoupling of Northern Ireland from Great Britain. By co-incidence today (8 December) marks the day when Northern Ireland joined the UK. That was in 1922 when, after a day as an independent country following separation from southern Ireland which also became independent, the Northern Ireland parliament applied for union with GB. This application was immediately accepted by Westminster without further debate as just such an eventuality had been pre-ratified 9 months earlier.

Thank you very much for your enlightenment Vizzer.
Kind regards, Paul.

Just saw on the news that Facebook - in its efforts to curb "out there" accounts - closed down that of the Wimborn Militia who are a re-enactment society focused mainly on the Monmouth Rebellion.  All but one of the members have regained access now (according to the interview I watched).  If someone thinks this snippet would fit better on another thread let me know and I'll move it.

Perhaps I overrated Bojo (Bozo?
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bojo-or-bozo-311694   )
a bit in my last message as a politician, who always sees where the wind comes from, especially from his "constituencies?" and than acts, even when needed would seek at the end for a so-called "Compromis des Belges" even when before bluffing to both his constuencies and the EU.

But with the last meeting at Brussels I see more and more no solving of the problems because and Bojo and Ursula can't give in, because in both the UK and the EU there is a will to not lose economical gains and by that employement for their citizens.

I guess for the UK, but perhaps as I understand it from Vizzer, for England, it is as nationalist emotional as it is economical, while it for the rest-European Union is more pure economical (as that Union is not yet that strong as many try to emphasize).
For England it is a bit the right wing nationalist "Trump" way: "take back control again" and "defending our sovereignity" (as if there is even one country in the world still fully "sovereign"?) "and "freedom of handling" whatever the consequences are for the economical competition (the EU seeking for "une concurrence équiitable" (fair compétition?), while for instance ecology and state subvention can be seen as competion while it all means "money").

Of course Ursula has to look also to her "constituencies" as more and more there are growing right wing nationalist parties in Europe, who want to do the same thing in Europe as in England. And in my opinion that is a deadly danger, if it is not bridled by the more democratic opponenents within the European Union (and that is perhaps also an emotional check rather than an economical one?)

Sigh...and I, an adherent of the Benelux (the Low Countries) and of an enlarged European Union, including England, a beacon of Western democracy (yes I know about those who say that the "Commision" is not democratic), will have to submit to the "no deal" and yes I forgot: Does that mean that "no deal" means a hard NI custom border in the isle of Ireland?

Perhaps a "compromis des Belges" ? Making a deal and then after the first of January going further the "old way", sector per sector, as for instance agriculture, automotive, chemicals and so on and then gradually changing to full indepedence?
And for the control and judge: an overarching "Commission  " constituted of both "entities" UK and EU to come to a fair competion?

Thank you Brenogler for your take on Alex Johnson. And by that "Alex" I went for "Wiki" always the first line before "deeper" research. Know your adversaries...

But now that I read it all about his life, you can be right with the term "overrated", but what a life, it reads as a novel...and his father...and his mother...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson

Merry Christmas and happy New Year from Paul.

PS: And in the middle of next year Covid 19 free. You, there on the border between Scotland and England, a bit earlier, as Alex started a bit earlier with the vaccination than in the European Union.   As that all to do with the slower action (inaction?) of the European "Commission". As we say overhere: "The Commison"...

Well things aren't exactly looking up in the UK at the moment. can't go anywhere in the country, can't escape to another, and this :- https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2020/12/21/the-kunts-boris-johnson-song-could-it-actually-be-a-christmas-no-1/

They might have had more imaginative lyrics but what else could one add?

  At least our nuance impaired PM will understand them.

  Please may I move to somewhere in Europe away from idiots (which, unfortunately excludes about half of the 27 who have similar views to Johnson or even Farage)?

We are getting a pasting from the world's media. Sadly, we have been regarded as "the Septic Isle" in some quarters for a long time: we are now officially "Plague Island", the rather schadenfreude-y name the entire world seems to be using when surveying the effects of the Great Conjunction - Covid and Brexit - on our beleaguered land.

This comment, quoted from a French paper in an article in this morning's Guardian (a sane British organ, if there is indeed any sanity left), interested me:

For the French daily Libération, the continental blockade was “even more effective than that decreed by Napoleon in 1806, cutting Britain off from the rest of Europe and from parts of the rest of the world.”With ports closed, planes grounded and the Channel tunnel shut, it said, “nothing can leave the kingdom – even if, theoretically at least, it is still possible to enter … A few days from the UK’s exit from the single market on 31 December, it’s all giving London a foretaste of its ‘regained sovereignty’.”

Did Napoleon really do that in 1806? Did it work?

I worry more about the Treaty of Versailles and how the gleeful bashing of the Germans led to the rise of fascism and Hitler. Lot of nasty people here, just waiting for an excuse. But I am probably overreacting as usual. I hope I am.

I'm sorry if this is an unwise post, but do we have a real elephant in the room now -  the realisation that the world is absolutely loving it that the Brits are getting what they deserve?

Dear Temperance, cheer up. I even think that in next summer it all will be a bad rememberance, both the Covid and the turmoil of the "Brexit", as seemingly thanks to the modern media a "hype" can rise overnight and suddenly calm down again after a fortnight.

To show how some hypes can dominate the web and google. As I as a Dutch/French/German/English speaking one wasn't sure about the spelling of "fortnight" I put occacionally first : "fortnite" in the mighty "google". Try once you will see...

Even the truckers in Kent and Calais see already "'n licht aan het eind van de tunnel', both figurative and real. (and even the proverb is the same in English: "a light at the end of the tunnel")
At noon we saw an interview with Belgian truckers locked up in the travel bottle neck...now they let them go, after they have done a "quick? corona test". Half an hour for fifty persons, that makes 100 hours total for the "stranded?" (blocked?) truckers.
And I guess in Calais it will be the same.

And I bet with you for a glass of your favourite wine...and I am not a Boris Johnson, nor a Trump, who would not give in to the hype about him, which is now "passé" in the media.

And whatever one says in the nationalistic media, England and the British Isles will remain a part of Europe as it was already from the Roman time, and even more in medieval times, when the European nobility was one big happy but as in all big families continuous quarreling. And Erasmus and More corresponding with each other in Latin.
And see: our European Ursula is speaking English even in the new (rest)-European Parliament...now English instead of Latin?...

Kind regards from Paul.

nordmann wrote:

I'll try again. Third time's a charm, as they say ...

I wasn't asking about what people thought one way or the other about the politics of the action. Suez excited extreme views, both for and against, and a lot of debate that in some ways is even still going on.

BUT - I was asking about what impact it had on ordinary people's daily lives, at least for those who remember more than their dad groaning. Did the price of milk, beer and staples go up? Did the conductor on the Clapham omnibus actually start asking people's opinion? Did Woolworth's nylons plummet (in any sense)? More to the point, did queues at food banks grow? Did hundreds of thousands of workers move from union protected employment to zero-hour contracts? Did fascists start feeling brave enough again to set up their beer crate at Speakers' Corner in anticipation of social meejah? Did the electorate think it was high time to replace an incompetent prime minister with an even bigger buffoon?

Or did things just carry on as normal. Which is what I suspect happened ...

I have had to ask my Mam as I was born a few months before the Suez crisis.

 She tells me that it was hardly noticed, and had no perceptible effect on her life at all. 
 
I suppose if one one had a car it might have been noticed, but in 1956 who had a car?

And Temp...what did I say to you yesterday...and even to our nordmann...the Irish seaborder is saved if I understand it well?...
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-55354451

And as I said "next summer"...we will all used to it and "we will meet again"...




Kind regards from Paul.

And even in Northern Ireland they seem to be happy...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-55441508

As I understand it, when I read the "flamboyante" Michelle O'Neill or even the Ulster Unionist Party Steven Aiken?
Although as for him he don't like that the custom border "lies in sea" (or is that not a good English sentence?)

I read the same article and get a very different impression from its contents - a list of political and industry leaders who are all hedging their bets and remaining non-committal until they either digest the details of the treaty or, as has now unfortunately become all too common among "leaders" in Britain today, obediently wait for instructions from whomever tells them what position to state.

However that is simply an analysis of immediate publicly stated reaction (much of which could have been written for these people months in advance) to what is, as yet, an unpublished document. We are all still where we have always been throughout this debacle of "Brexit" - offering views and analysis based on consideration of what has always been a purposefully nebulous concept based on a semantically hollow term that means nothing and everything to anyone and everyone, with each individual constricted only by common sense and intelligence in so far as they voluntarily wish to be, and with all stated views and forecasts - regardless of whether such constrictions are recognised or ignored - deemed to carry equal validity and weight. The luxury of indulgence in academic hypothesis has been applied to an existential crisis and has proven effective only in disguising that crisis for an increasingly diminishing number of those affected even as the crisis first loomed, then began to manifest itself, and is now about to engulf even its deniers. Reality, after all, has a habit - one might say even a duty - of catching up and overtaking hypothesis. The clue is in the use of two different words to assert the difference between both of these things, regardless of how much denial is utilised to pretend they overlap.

I watched Johnson's press conference yesterday and the first thing that struck me was, when answering a question regarding the manner in which this "deal" will tackle divergence, how even at this stage he fails to distinguish between "ex ante facto" and "ex post facto" - whether through ignorance, bad advice, or sheer malevolence hardly matters at this point. His problem, and the one shared by all those who sleepwalk into existential crises, is failure to acknowledge "facto" at all. And that alone (were it the only clue as to what lies ahead for Britain, which of course it is not) just about sums up the root cause of this suicidal tendency - a naive belief that "facts" are themselves a nebulous concept that can be invented, re-invented and even abandoned at will. The satisfaction, pride and warm feelings induced by perceiving oneself as "master of all one surveys" far outweighs for these people in this place at this time the inconvenient but inescapable truth that an increasing amount of what one "surveys" is projected fantasy.

Meanwhile back in the real world the crucial difference between that which arises for consideration- even arbitration - in advance of the fact and that which arises as a consequence of the same fact is a crucial one, and simply amplifies the importance of establishing the fact in the first place. And, as of now, the facts as they stand are not at all promising for an increasing number of individuals within that polity who harbour even the most basic of wishes, such as to put a meal on the table for their children or work the next day.

The concept of "leadership" as anything other than a mere illusion of what it once meant has long exited that polity and in its wake now follows most of the democratic structure that once also formed the only tangible bulwark between poverty and prospects that those within the polity could rely on. "Reality" - which right up to today could be so cavalierly ignored and dismissed with disdain as an unnecessary hindrance to retaining, however delusionally, a warm and woolly feeling related to "sovereignty" (whatever that currently means these days, so far has it migrated semantically from its roots) - is about to bite hard.

Johnson, and others within the UK, are about to discover just what "facto" actually means.

nordmann,

as usual I appreciate very much your to the point and well written analysis of the article.

And indeed, there is always a big difference between wished reality and de facto reality, but in my humble understanding there is also a "reality" of the yesterday's statements from both Boris and Ursula.

Once the official statements are done as yesterday, they are "official" and no matter what happens now the UK and even more the 27 will have to ratify the "deal". Now it is gone too far to retreat.

And whatever "ex ante facto" or "ex post facto" the two parties will have to go on now and the problems will have to be solved "underway"...and it can be "achterkamertjespolitiek" (backroom politics) negociated behind the sight of the voters, but now they made a declaration in the bright spotlights

It let me think about what my learned compatriot professor F. Heilighen, of the VUB (Free University Brussels) said about "le compromis belge"...
I published it here upstream on this thread some days ago:

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/BelgCul2.html
A special expression, "a Belgian compromise", has been invented to design the typical solutions derived in this way: complex issues are settled by conceding something to every party concerned, through an agreement that is usually so complicated that nobody completely understands all its implications. In spite of the apparent inefficiency of these settlements, the compromises do work in practice, because they stop the existing conflicts, and thus allow life to go on without fights or obstructions. The practical ambiguities and confusions that arise out of the compromise are usually solved on the spot by the Belgians' talent for improvisation.

As I said in my former paragraph I would only change the Heylighen text "solved on the spot by the Belgians' talent for improvisation" by my "and the problems will have to be solved "underway""

Kind regards, Paul.

Paul : I'm not entirely convinced that some nation or group will not consider it to be in their best interests to derail this deal.

Green George wrote:

Paul : I'm not entirely convinced that some nation or group will not consider it to be in their best interests to derail this deal.

GG, I hope it will not be. But in fact I am nearly sure that somehow the whole 27 will ratify in January...

PS: And again about Senior Monster. All younsters come through whatever...even the senior youngsters..."sterkte" to you and your wife...Paul.

Paul wrote:

nordmann,

as usual I appreciate very much your to the point and well written analysis of the article.

I just wish I could understand it - when nordmann's prose goes all Jamesian, I tend to get a bit lost. But I think the gist is:"You're all ****ed."

So I won't "cheer up", as you advise, Paul.

Well, I might cheer up a bit. I've just told MM that I'm looking for a recipe for Dish of the Day for Thursday, not midnight on December 31st, but 11.00 pm. A Dog's Dinner will be served to celebrate our becoming "an independent coastal state" again.

Apparently Frosty, or the Great Frost (the PM's name for him), aka Lord Frost, defeated the French Freeze (see weather forecast for 1709) in the trade talks by adopting the axiom of 19th Century German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who once said of his diplomatic strategy that combined charm and menace: 'With a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and when I have to deal with a pirate, I try to be a pirate and a half."

We were always good at being pirates.

But how on earth were we menacing last week? I suspect the French were terrified we would send Boaty McBoatface to the dire Strait of Dover. One mention of our Boaty and they caved, as the Daily Mail put it.

No need to stay in this wretched room....... 

'Nellie the elephant  packed her bag
And said goodbye to the circus
Off she went with a trump trump
Trump Trump Trump...

Unsure that Trump is the best of company, mark you....

And so again we all happiiy muddle through and  onwards  in the style which is so peculiar to us..... and off npw, of course, into that  shadowed land of doom and gloom that nord sees so clearly ahead for us. As long as I can still get Comte cheese what the heck. At one stage I had thought we might have to concede that we actually lost at Sluys, Crecy, Harfleur, Agincourt and Waterloo which may have been sticking points - to mention but a few.

Not sure anyone - even those darned foreigners - would have demanded you go quite that revisionist concerning past aristocratic victories just to keep the price of tomatoes within the budget of your poorer brethren. However the same recent events have indeed raised one revisionist "what if" from the dank bowels of English history that is certainly an intriguing one given the ease with which a few entitled criminals have taken over your country (again) leaving the rest of you as usual to scream "MUDDLE MUDDLE" to the gods in the usual desperately plaintive tones that now increasingly sound very much like self-pitiful whining to those outside.

In the picture the lad in the red jacket has just foolishly believed a promise made by one of those self-appointed elitists (the guy on the right), while another one (the one who looks like a 14th century Gove on the left) demonstrates the folly of ever listening to these bastards ...


Now THERE'S a "sliding doors" moment if ever there was one.

nordmann wrote:

...leaving the rest of you as usual to scream "MUDDLE MUDDLE" to the gods in the usual desperately plaintive tones that now increasingly sound very much like self-pitiful whining to those outside.

I do hope you are not referring to anything I have said, nordmann, when you talk of "self-pitiful whining". If you were, I should punch you in the face, metaphorically speaking - if I were male, drunk and stupid, that is. But I am not male, not drunk and hopefully not that stupidly impulsive.

Today's comments on the implications of the deal re the financial services are interesting, far more so than the fish. I wonder what is going on behind the scenes? Our national life is getting more and more like Peaky Blinders by the hour - the toffs being far worse than the official gangsters at all the wheeling and dealing and threatening. But I suppose it was ever thus - nordmann may have a point about that, Priscilla.

But the self-pitying whining comment was quite out-of-order.

Temperance wrote:

I do hope you are not referring to anything I have said, nordmann, when you talk of "self-pitiful whining" ...

You think I can distinguish one lone voice from the cacophony of entreaties presently being offered up to the great muddle-god Serendipideity to save His supplicants from their masters? I fear not - in fact it's even difficult to distinguish the entreaties from the other half of the population's endearing choral riposte to Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" as sung with such spontaneous vigour by those assembled around Trafalgar Square back in January. How does it go again? "F*ck You, Eee Yeeooh, F*ck You, Eeee Yeeooh!"? Inspiring stuff.

If I were a little more male, drunk and stupid, as you say, I'd probably have fired off a sonata or two in response, but then I'm thankfully outside the asylum listening in ...

Oh, so did you mean me, nord - self pitying whiner? - chuckle. Your judgmental observations are often so off pist - or just pissed, perhaps, that it makes all else that you offer opinion on somewhat suspect. Whine I do not and I am not a bit sorry for myself - after the extraordinary lifetime of experiences I have  been oh so lucky to have had that would be a profound sin. I just remarked that we always seem to muddle through....... of course some muddles are more skilfully handled than others. Self pity did not get me through 3 wars... with attached bombing, riots, week long curfews, surrounded by a mob to get through to get help, bomb threats to my outfit(by telephone)(and worse) attacked by buffalo and stalked by a leopard(or so I was told) snakes by the washing up bowl , dengue fever... not sure how I survived that, rescue by lifeboat and on and on... and in truth most of that was a laugh a minute. Who sir? Me sir? Not me sir. It's them uvvers.

No, I did not mean you either. One person does not normally a cacophony make, though some do indeed try harder than others.

Cor - Ohhh I can make an effortless cacophony -  and make it work, too. So exactly who do you mean? This loud self pity lot having a whine? Whatever, nordmann  do you watch/ read/ talk to? If you were a Chelsea fan I might understand.........if I tried reelly reelly hard, I might.

And I'm not sure what Watt Tyler has to do with Brexit - along the line of broken promises? Like divorce and stuff like that?

Priscilla wrote:

And I'm not sure what Watt Tyler has to do with Brexit - along the line of broken promises?

The comparison is actually peculiarly relevant. Good article from the Washington Post here - written in 2016:

Modern Day Peasants' Revolt?

What is so tragic is that - as The Who presciently warned us way back in 1971 - there is a tendency for the "peasants" to be fooled by their betters - again and again and again. We are a nation of lions led, sometimes by donkeys, but more often by jackals. That said, there have been one or two exceptions to the donkey/jackal rule.

And here we are being all angry and vicious with one another - daft, isn't it? The jackals love it when that happens.


The track does go on a bit, but here are the relevant lines:

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again...


PS I looked up cacophony in case I made some awful semantic error here which could provoke further rebuke from the management and was intrigued by two things: you can have a cacophony of smells (unless you've got Covid, of course), and a synonym for cacophony is a gloriously onomatopoeic word, katzenjammer:

Definition of katzenjammer
1: hangover
2: distress
3: a discordant clamour

Katzenjammer is definitely word of the day...

Katzenjammer, in fact, might be the appropriate word for much longer than a mere day in certain parts.

Before it made it over to the USA and got watered down semantically so that it could apply to any old cacophony or even, as you pointed out, a hangover, "cat yammer" in its original German and Dutch context was a much more pointed expression indeed. The sound, one familiar to all cat owners, is that penetrating and infinitely forlorn wail, eerily like a very young human child in great distress and which, to the German mind-set, was exactly the noise emanating from any human of any age who, after briefly enjoying a euphoric "high" induced by infatuation, lust, amazing good fortune, sudden unexpected success or similar intoxication of the humours, is equally suddenly plunged into the horrors of reality and despair once the initial effect has worn off and the grounds for happiness proven to have been ephemeral and fleeting.

As Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine of 1884 phrased it: "... whole pages of English cannot express the sick, empty, weary, vacant feeling which is so concisely contained within these four German syllables." How ironic that the post-Brexit national mood about to descend on those who waived the rules should so accurately have been encapsulated by the Germans. Schadenfreude indeed.

Or, as The Who also prophetically sang:

La la la la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la la la

So sad about us
So sad about us
Sad - never meant to break up
Sad - suppose we'll never make up
Sad about us

Nae quin! Nae king! Nae laird! Nae master! WE WILLNA BE FOOLED AGAIN!

but enough ARE, repeatedly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybsZpSn1grg

And the Dutch kind! of invasion of London by the André Rieu Orchestra...



I don't know if this link about the whole event will work in the British Isles?
https://www.npostart.nl/andre-rieu/30-12-2017/AT_2066066

Season Greetings from Paul.
 
PS: OOPS I now see that it is already from DEC 2017 (it was just on the French language Belgian TV some days ago)
But nevertheless in 2017 was already a year after the "decision" and you can see that there was still a comradeship between the Europeans...   
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/comradeship

Addendum 

And indeed the Christmas concert I saw some days ago seems to be indeed an old one as due to corona...
https://www.cinetelerevue.be/p/952174782/andre-rieu-christmas-in-london
https://www.axs.com/events/374657/andre-rieu-rescheduled-tickets

yes that tricky "internet"...