Down the rabbit hole...

BoJo was looking a little perturbed and generally confused as a nice man from the Treasury had come to visit him and was doing some math with BoJo to try to explain that the expression 'added two and two and got five' was not actually a legitimate way to do national accounts for a whole country regardless of what his cousins, quite literally, where doing back across the, quite literal, pond. He was doing math because he was American you see and in America they really try to use as few letters as possible when expressing themselves as there was a study that said it really wasted oxygen and also wore out the speaking box thingy in the throat, so they did away with lots of unnecessary words and letters and stuff like that. Indeed a follow up survey pretty much said the same thing about keyboards and how the US language meant that keyboards lasted longer in the US than in Europe because there were simply less letters to type, plus you could type more memos and still get all th

Squirrel sat counting his nuts, because squirrels can count, when a sheet of newspaper floated past on the whiskery willowy wind. Squirrel caught the paper and started reading, because squirrel could read, he's not stupid you know. He read that the UK is doomed and damned and soon to be sunk without trace in a world of storms and plastic filled water. Oh, thought squirrel, I wonder how many nuts I'll have when all that happens! Because clever as squirrel was, he could not for the life of him, work out when exactly all of this cataclysmic catastrophe was supposed to happen. Squirrel released the newspaper back into nature and away it floated on the willowy wallowy breeze. And rain fell and water rose and death and damnation road up with two other horsemen looking for directions to London. Unfortunately for Squirrel, he did not know which road led to London, so one of the horsemen skewered him with a lance for being particularly useless and then the two horsemen heated him

...meanwhile, in a land far far away... Dumpy sat in the corner of his room playing with his super great Lego set. It was a lovely room, all plush and bright with a big desk where Dumpy could do his colouring in with big crayons and when nice people came in to visit he'd draw a huge big signature on their pads and seal it with great big kisses. Sometimes he would go and chat to nice people who came in for a little talk with the little chap before they went off to find the adults who were generally keeping out of sight in a side room in case Dumpy got all frustrated and started throwing toys and stuff. But today he was playing quietly in the alcove that overlooked the lawn with the big green whirligig toy that he enjoyed riding on with the pretty lady that held his hands when they went to play in the sandpits with a little white ball. And he always had his secret rubber so he could make amends to the big numbers and make them smaller if he wanted, and he didn't like it whe

"Blather and babble", he said as he once again failed to answer a million questions thrown upon him like verbal rice as he stood outside the imposing black door with the lions head staring at the back of his head. In fact it was not what he said, to be precise, it was as intelligible as the blathering and babbling that he did say though and that is what the worlds reporters reported. That he babbled, and then he blathered. Although, as they reported, he did not do so necessarily in that order. But indeed, as the Financial Times so wonderfully and at great length reported, it was not of great concern whether one came before the other as sure as one plus one is the same either way the one or the one is placed. the answer will be the same. As they also noted with considerable humour or an intellect far greater than the average girl on a bike in a Stockport street. The answer that was forthcoming was certainly not two, however it was placed and whatever was substituted for t

I had some strange dreams last night. Not much point writing about them other than to say they involved a giant and an office full of confusion. I know, right! Strange. Even stranger is that the 'giant' was somebody who I used to know and work with many years ago, and he was very tall. I have no sense as to why I should suddenly find him in one of my dreams. I want to say his name was 'Tim' but I don't think it is! Not sure why that is, that I think it is Tim, not that he should be named Tim if he were, I mean that would be a life choice of his presumably long dead parents! Also... odd that I should remember this portion of the dream. It is uncommon for me to recall dreams except in the initial point of waking. Then, it is like trying to grasp a wisp of smoke as one hemisphere of the brain wakes and the other dozes off. Only rarely can I catch a part of the dream while the handshake between the two halves of the brain are taking place and the dream portion that I

Harp on about things is what I do best. I find it fun. Harp harp harp... Not that it does any good, then I am not suggesting that it would, or am so full of conceit that I think it might. Maybe I just do it, or even this, just for my own mental well being or simply mental stimulus. Whatever reason, here I am, typing for no apparent good reason other than it prevents me going out and doing something more useful. A bit of procrastination perhaps. I was dwelling upon the merits of Douglas Adams works the other day. Also upon the works of George Orwell. All of those who enjoy Orwell would appreciate the allegorical nature of his writing. That's what I like best. When first I read his books I was very pleased with myself to understand what he was doing and why, but its not like I was in a small select club. The whole point of his writing was to help explain complex and dull aspects of modern sociopolitical life to the masses... was it not? Why then would I mention Adams in the sam

Storms come and go and nothing much happens. Well, not here at least. In China, not so good. Sure the wind blew a bit and some of the dead branches speared themselves into the lawn. But then the lawn is a bit of a misnomer anyway. Yes it might look green from a distance and indeed it looks green if you pass out on it and open your eyes several hours later when the next rain shower hits. But lawn, is a stretch. Some grass, of course but proportionately more weeds of a zillion varieties and moss than actual green bladed grass. That said there is still sufficient for it to require cutting every week or so, but lawn, it ain't really. I noticed today when someone sent me an email that it is still frowned upon by some people not to have them as friends on FB. Thing is I got very very tired of FB some years ago and have not used it since. Sure, I log in and have a quick nosy about once a year but I am not 'on' FB! And, more than a few years ago I deleted 90% of my 'friends

As a complete random aside. I've got a stack of books that I have not read but keep meaning to get around to. This morning, as I have run out of books on military history of the past hundred years and the politics and economics that go with it (cease yawning...), I picked up one of this stack of books and started reading it. I'm three chapters into Huckleberry Finn. My initial impression is 'wow, that's a lot of N words!' Seems like the kind of book that would have Donald in stitches, reading it with a guilty look on his face while hiding in an ante room somewhere in the White House. Chuckling every time he reads a word that modern sensitivities find unacceptable. And then I suspect he carves his initials in a desk somewhere before taking his phone of charge and heading straight for Twitter. Nice to hear his pen pal sent him a lovely lovely letter full of lots of nice things and a drawing of a huge penis on the back. Well, it looked like a huge penis but could

In a purely rhetorical way... I cannot help but to ponder upon the sight of these wealthy, public school educated, white men who are conducting the British people to the exit door of the EU by making such extravagant promises and denouncing all and every opponent as some form of demagogue who is against democracy. It amazes me as every day passes to what will now certainly be a 'no deal' Brexit that the British people no longer seem to care nor understand what this will mean. Who knows, maybe the grass will be greener, yet every person of any academic note is saying, to one degree or another, it will not! What will be certain, is the aforementioned group of wealthy white wizards, who have many and varied business interests will certainly benefit from the coming exit. You can be certain indeed that they care not one iota what happens to the average British citizen. Their sole purpose is to become even more wealthy and, one way or another, more powerful. But what will h

Not another one... You have to wonder why we bother reporting on mass shootings in the USA, it's not like they will ever do anything about it. In fact they cannot do anything about it. The genie is well and truly out of the proverbial bottle. It becomes a top story, in the UK at least, only when a certain number of people are killed or if there are some highly emotive subjects involved such as a school shooting. It would be faintly ridiculous, in the UK, to report every 'mass shooting' in the USA because that would result in a news story every single night! And that's only because 'mass shooting' has a definition and that definition is four or more victims! Given that there are on average more than one 'mass shooting' per day then we would all soon get a little bored of the regular news report. If anything it might as well be a daily segment just like the weather for about ten seconds just to note, another nn deaths from gun crime in the USA in the p

You know when it's a 'slow news' period in the UK when the top story, for three days in a row, is the potential collapse of a 'dam' built by Victorian era engineers to form a reservoir for the local canal. And it's not the structural integrity of the actual dam itself (which is a grand name for something that is made of earth mounds with a clay core) but instead the overflow slipway. Granted, if more water is permitted to overflow onto the slipway then the dam would compromise because the earth/clay would be eroded with the flow of water which ultimately would compromise the dam. And what would happen... well if you stood below it you would die. But you would be rather dumb to do so and everybody has been evacuated from the direct path of a collapse anyway. Even that is a little overkillish as the amount of water escaping from the dam would cause a lot of flooding and not a small amount of damage but are buildings going to collapse under the weight of a tsun