It’s been a wild, windy, wet and wonderful week. Five storms worthy of being allocated names in about ten days – it doesn’t get much better than that. Unless, of course, one considers the “wonderful” bit – the arrival at the end of last week of Julieta.
Adam, Ava, Jessie and Julieta continue to thrive, albeit that Adam and Ava are probably considerably sleep-deprived at the moment. Jessie is, of course, absolutely besotted with her younger sister – I guess that will last until she (Julieta) starts stealing Jessie’s toys.
With the wild, wet and windy week we’ve not done a lot. (Well, I’ve not done a lot – Penelope, of course, is always busy. She’s re-painted part of her sewing room to touch up the areas affected by the installation of the new French doors. She’s baked a cake for the tree-planting celebrations later today and she also has the onerous responsibility of keeping the house and me in order. That in itself is a full-time job). And, Nick, Lucy and Annabelle are coming to lunch today and we have guests arriving on Tuesday so there’s all that additional cooking and cleaning to do. My goodness, it tires me out just watching her!
Later today we have a “celebration” of tree-planting in the village in recognition of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. You will remember that the Garden Club asked for permission to plant about a dozen trees – the Parish Council ultimately gave permission for five, only two of which will be in the actual village and both of those are replacements for trees which previously existed. The other three are to be planted up Plumpton Lane. However, after much lobbying by at least one of our lovely neighbours, they have reluctantly agreed to the planting of three more on the outskirts of the village on the road up to Canons Ashby. Trees are good.
This week I have been plodding along on my virtual ride along Route 66 reaching Kingman, Arizona on Friday. According to my reckoning a mere 385 miles to go!
My goodness, this part of the route is pretty tedious!
This week’s YCNMIU moment comes courtesy of our honest, up-standing, statesman-like Prime Minister. He’s been “reprimanded” for his selective use of employment statistics in the House of Commons. It’s the second time in a month that the head of the UK Statistics Authority has written to him calling out his selective use of statistics.
In his new letter to Johnson, Norgrove noted that at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday the PM had said there were now more people in employment than before the pandemic began.
The Guardian
However, Norgrove said, this was only the case if you considered only workers on payrolls, which was misleading, as it was more than offset by a drop in numbers of self-employed people – if you include them, the total is now 600,000 lower.
I know that the selective use of statistics is a politician’s modus operandi and with Boris it’s a mere extension of his prolific and inveterate lying. Water off a duck’s back as they say.
Desperately sad to see the invasion of Ukraine. Not that I know anything about the Ukraine except that it was the birthplace of my paternal grandfather although he later claimed, for reasons that we are unclear about, that he was born in Colorado. He also changed his name as a young man from Gustav Constantine Passover to Gregory Stragnell. Where he got “Stragnell” from no one knows and, when my father asked him about it many years later, the response was pretty clear, “It’s none of your business!” That’s not the only secret he took to his grave.
And finally, the Brexit bonuses keep on coming! From Private Eye:
Brexit Bonanza Latest
- UK Leaves the EU, saying Brexit will give it freedom to cut VAT on energy bills.
- UK government rejects calls to scrap VAT on energy bills, as the fuel bill crisis intensifies.
- EU countried such as Spain scrap VAT on energy bills.
- Er . . .
- That’s it.
(FYI, for those who don’t know – VAT is, essentially, Sales Tax).
And finally, finally some signs of Spring.
The irises are in Penelope’s front border and popped their heads up some days ago. The starling regularly perches on that hook at the front of the house and makes a merry and melodious racket, clearly hoping to attract the attentions and affections of a mate. The narcissi we bought in town on Thursday. Lovely.
Meanwhile, keep happy, keep smiling, be careful, wear a f**king facemask in crowded places and keep your distance. And keep safe.
Lots of love to you all,
Greg