3 February 2019

And so it begins – February arrived on Friday and we had our first significant snowfall of the season. Nothing like our friends in less temperate climates – no polar vortexes to deal with – and no real traffic or transport issues but still colder than we’d like it to be, even if Jessie does think it’s marvellously good fun.

And so it begins, Part II – we had a phone call from our prospective builder last week who informed us that they are ready to commence work on our kitchen extension on Monday. Holy crap! We better get the existing conservatory emptied and various items relocated so that they can knock that down straight away. Exciting!

Ms Playchute and I enjoyed a very pleasant Date Night on Thursday – another NT Live screening. The play on offer this time was I’m Not Running which both Penelope and I thought was excellent. It’s about a young woman who goes to university to train as a doctor. At university she meets and is involved in a relationship with the son of a prominent Labour politician. She ends the relationship just as they are finishing their university degrees and each goes their separate ways.

The next we see of her is ten years later working as a doctor in an NHS hospital which, we learn, is threatened with closure in the name of efficiency. Lo and behold, it transpires that her former boyfriend, now working as a consultant for the Labour Party, is responsible for drawing up the closure plans. She leads the campaign to save the hospital and ultimately is elected to Parliament as a “single issue” independent – i.e., fighting against the hospital closure and in support of the NHS. She becomes a very popular Member of Parliament and is encouraged to run for the leadership of the Labour Party. Of course, her agent announces that she is not running but that doesn’t stop the speculation. As it turns out (of course) her main rival for the job is the very same son of the prominent Labour politician who is now an MP in his own right and is busily climbing the political ladder. Largely as a result of the arrogance and conceit he demonstrates she decides, at the very end of the play, that she will, indeed, run after all.

The cast were excellent and the play zipped right along. It hit all the right notes – women’s rights and gender equality (one of the best lines in the play is when she says that there is only one part of Labour Party policy she understands – never put a woman in charge of anything) as well as the contrast between the “professional” politician and the political machine versus the amateur, naïve outsider.

Marvellous.

As I say, we had our first significant snowfall of the season on Thursday night/Friday morning, just about the same time Steph put the following on Facebook.

You can actually see as well as hear the birdsong.

More of the same in the Brexit debacle. MPs passed an amendment this week demanding that the EU make further concessions, something that the EU has already said was out of the question. It’s been out of the question the last three times Mrs May has tried to go back and negotiate a new settlement which her looney Brexiteers will support. What’s that definition of insanity? Something along the lines of doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting a different result. That just about sums it up.

And finally, just because it made me laugh:

Love to you all,

Greg

 

 

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