Election Fever

Excitement is at hurricane level here in the streets of beautiful Ruislip, (reports our correspondent). Since dawn a long queue of eager voters have patiently waited for the polling stations to open. Flasks of coffee have been passed down the lines while smiling policemen have posed for photographs with the many street urchins drawn to the noise and bustle of this great state occasion. Trees are plastered with election posters and many in the streets proudly wear the rosettes of their chosen party. Surely the good people of this ancient borough have drawn together in strength and unity to celebrate their magnificent heritage .....

Umm, we interrupt our correspondent who has possibly failed to do sufficient research into the subject and seems to be relying on news stories relating to other elections in other countries, possibly from many years ago. Here is a more coherent report.

The apathy has reached a level that you could stir it with a spoon (reports our new correspondent who is sitting at his desk idly checking out his Facebook page) as the people of beautiful Ruislip drive to work, commute into central London, go shopping or take the kids to school on a typical and rather pleasant May morning. Some may vote today. Most will not. It makes not a jot of difference to anything at all. These are the elections for the European Parliament, an organisation that Britain will leave as part of its withdrawal from the European Union. Nobody has the slightest interest in anything the successful candidates may say or do. They never had much interest in the days when Britain was a keen member. The power in the EU continues to be with the governments of the 27 continuing members and, even should the referendum result of 2016 be overturned, will still be so albeit with a much diminished UK voice added.


Our Editor adds: The results will be known on Sunday and may or may not be brought to you here depending on whether any of our correspondents can be arsed to find out what they are.

French rails old and new

Been a while since my last post. Part of the reason is that Mrs C. and I were holidaying in the far south-west of France.We spent a highly enjoyable morning trundling up a mountain side on a cog railway.

This little chap takes you to the top of La Rhune, some 1000m up, overlooking the rolling Pyrenees between France and Spain.  And for those desirous of something a bit more modern, here's a nice tram pic (and you know I can never resist a tram shot) from the centre of Bordeaux.

These trams need some watching - they hurtle around the square seemingly in all directions and with almost no noise.

The holiday was mainly about cruising around the rivers that make up the Gironde estuary and sampling (as one has to, really, so as not to offend the locals) some of the great wines of the region. How we managed to return without needing new and much larger clothes I shall never know.

A Matter Of Some Gravity

In the week that Britain requested, and was granted, a further extension of EU membership whilst attempts to construct a Parliamentary agreement on how to leave continued, the news that a black hole had been imaged for the first time made world headlines.

The first is the culmination of exhaustive efforts to manipulate the views of many disparate people; the second is the culmination of exhaustive efforts to manipulate data obtained from many disparate telescopes.

The black hole in M87	The black hole in London SW1

It would be cheap and easy to suggest that Brexit is the black hole of European politics, that hapless soon-to-be-ousted British PM Mrs May is sucking the life out of her colleagues in the same way that the gravity well of a black hole slows and bends light round it, that time stands still on the edge of the singularity at the heart of a black hole in much the same way that it grinds painfully slowly whenever Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg opens his mouth and that the picture of the utter blackness at the centre of the hole is not dissimilar to to the holes in the brains of those who have convinced themselves that

1. No deal is better than a bad deal
2. There are no good deals
3. Therefore no deal is desirable
4. Anyway it doesn't matter because it can be "managed"
5. We haven't the faintest idea what "managed" means or how it would work but hey, it sounds cool and it means we can dump the problem onto someone else because we certainly are not going to spend any time at all in doing any real work into finding a solution.

As I say, to go down this path  would be a slippage of the high standards of journalism that we have sought to maintain for some 15 years in these columns and we shall steadfastly refuse so to do.
[What about the high standard of editorial control? Ed]

Dr. Commuter helps out ... "A Tory MP"

Dr. Commuter writes:   There are some people in the world who, sadly, perceive a different kind of reality to the rest of us. We doctors call them "loonies". They are to be pitied, rather than condemned. Let us take the case of Mr. MP (real name hidden to prevent unnecessary pain and suffering to his constituents). He does not understand why his party leader is talking to the leader of the opposition in an attempt to reach an agreement on how Britain should leave the EU. "Why, oh why is this necessary?" asks Mr. MP.

The answer is that a minority administration, that, after two and a half years, has failed to negotiate a settlement for Britain leaving the EU that Parliament will accept, should either resign or find common cause from other parties in Parliament. There, that wasn't so hard to understand was it? Now take a lot of tablets, go and lie down and hopefully stay that way whilst the grown-ups make some decisions.

 -*-*-*-*-

If you have a pressing matter that you have procrastinated over for a ridiculous amount of time whilst knowing all along that you were getting it wrong then you are welcome to ask Dr. Commuter for advice but we warn you, you probably won't like the answer. Terms and conditions most definitely apply, subject to an indicative vote, cross-bench support and a great many points of order.

Go on, say you're sorry.

500 years ago a small band of Spanish thugs and some local allies arrived at the capital of the Aztec empire, the city of Tenochtitlán that is now Mexico City, and began the process that would put an end to the indigenous culture of an entire people. Though almost entirely motivated by greed and savagery, they got one thing right - the Aztec religion was based on warfare and human sacrifice. If it existed today, it would be the subject of the sort of attention that the fanatics of the "Islamic State" have recently received.

What makes me bring up this topic (and it was part of my special subject for A level history so I do know a little bit about it) is the story in today's Guardian that the president of Mexico has written to Spain's king Felipe VI asking for an apology for all the nastiness of the conquest. The Spanish government has rejected the idea. They could, of course, have acceded with something on the following lines.

"Dear El Presidente,
I hope you are well, we are all quite well here and looking forward to the summer hols.
My mum told me I am awfully sorry about the bad things that were done long ago by some of the big boys and promise not to do it again, really, even though it wasn't me and it wasn't my fault. I accept that you will stop my pocket money until the royal palace has been reconstructed.
love
Felipe R.

That might be enough to prevent hordes of swaggering, sombrero-wearing banditos from marching on the Spanish embassy before firing bullets into the air, swigging tequila and then slumping down in front of the cantina as a protest but it will surely open the floodgates. What else might we expect?

• Descendants of King Harold demand compensation from Queen Elizabeth II for an eye-related injury caused by her distant ancestor.
• "Romans must apologise for Iceni massacre" says leader of Norfolk Council.
• The RSPCA sues God for forcing animals into unnatural living conditions on the Ark

 and no doubt you can think of others.

If you have been affected by any of the issues discussed in this piece and need counselling or if you feel you have the basis for a valid claim against any historical personage on any grounds whatsoever then call us now. Terms and conditions apply and will be based on either current or historic laws according to whatever is most to our advantage. Claims against fictional characters, aliens from Tharg and anyone from before the Ice Age will not be considered.