Rest day today: 'For Lo, I have laboured in the vineyards of the Lord', er, well, that is, my 0.037 of an acre of a garden and so, as the sun is shining, I intend to sit in it and relax. Well, apart from labouring up two flights of stairs in order to add further rumbles - or grumbles - you decide!
And now I am back in 'the slough of despond': Yes, after my exciting break courtesy of Mr. Terry Hayes and his superlative thriller, "I Am Pilgrim", I have returned with extreme reluctance to Mr. Tim Bouverie's depressing history of one the most shameful episodes in British history, "Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War". With depressing timing I have returned on the eve of the German invasion of Czechoslovakia. Someone please pass the sick-bag!
But this will make you smile: Today's cartoon in The Telegraph as part of a report that the pollsters are indicating that 'our Nige' and his Brexit party will out-vote the Tories at the next election.
When, oh when, will the Tory 'muppets' wake up and rid themselves of that wretched woman and her 'Remainer' cohorts?
'MDK' sums it up elegantly: 'MDK', of course, is 'My Darling Katy' Balls who writes for 'The Speccie' and 'The Coffee House'. Today she summarises an interview of 'Our Nige' by Andrew Marr, the archetypal BBC creature.
The beauty of the Brexit Party campaign is its simplicity – the party’s MEP candidates come from across the political spectrum but all agree that the UK should already be out of the EU and today’s politicians are complicit in that failure. However, today’s interview is a reminder of the difficulties the party could face moving to a general election setting where domestic policies would come under greater scrutiny.
That is a shrewd point and a warning. I suspect that, Brexit apart, if you locked six 'Brexiteers' in a room to decide on domestic issues you would get ten opinions and a punch-up! Even so, for the greater good, let's vote as many of them as possible into the European parliament in order to truly 'frit' the Tories!
Jes' sayin'! I have had a lovely couple of hours sitting on my patio in nothing but my shorts and my tan is coming along nicely. I just know you ladies will find that fascinating!
Now this is interesting: Well, it is if you're fascinated by pre-WWII European history. Many people defend Chamberlain's pathetic weakness by claiming that we could not have declared war in 1938 because we lacked the power. But neither, despite their 'huffin' 'n' puffin', did the Germans:
From the perspective of the Western Powers, the principal defence of the Munich Agreement has rested on the fact that neither Britain nor France were ready for war in 1938 and that Munich granted them an extra year in which to prepare - the so-called 'breathing space'. "Thank God for Munich", wrote Harold Balfour, Under-Secretary for Air in the Chamberlain government, who recalled that in the autumn of 1938 Britain only possessed two flying Spitfires and scarcely more Hurricanes. Of course, Balfour was right. The Spitfires, Hurricanes and radar - all which made the difference between victory and defeat in the Battle of Britain - were not ready in 1938 but were in 1939. What the argument ignores, however, is that Germany was in no position to launch the Battle of Britain in 1938. Not only - as the events of 1939 and 1940 were to prove - did she first need to defeat her immediate neighbours and secure airfields along the Channel coast before she could turn her attention to Britain, but in 1938 the Luftwaffe was not equipped for a long-range strategic bombing campaign.
"Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War"
'MDJ' is absolutely spot on: Yes, 'MDJ', My Darling Julie (Birchill), is yet another lady in my life although, just like the others, she only enters it via the printed word. Even so, 'MDJ', who was an exceedingly naughty girl 'back in the day', obviously inherited some good sense genes even if she nearly drowned them in booze and drugs and high(=low!) living during her youth. It is exemplified in her article in today's Telegraph when she extols the benefit of 'a stiff upper lip' rather than the hysterical outpourings of 'feelings".
If it’s true that expressing emotion is the key to the life well lived, the healthiest and happiest souls among us would be those who frequently blew their tops – look around you and see this isn’t so. Angry people just get angrier, and then drop dead from high blood pressure or a heart attack; on the way there, they tend to become lonely, as people don’t generally care for being around someone who can go off like Krakatoa over an imagined slight.
Spot on, 'MDJ'!
Am I warming to Viktor Orbán? Difficult to say, really, because I know next to nothing of the man. My uninformed impression is/was that he was just another east European bully boy with dictatorial leanings. However, today I read a piece by 'MDC' - yes, another woman in my life! - this time, My Darling Clarice (Feldman) who writes with considerable intelligence for The American Thinker site. Today she writes:
Despite pressure from the EU, he refused to open his borders to immigrants from Africa and the Arab world, foreseeing that otherwise Hungary’s patrimony -- a Christian ethos -- would be lost. Among those who opposed them was the Hungarian-born American George Soros, who, with his money sheltered from taxation by U.S. foundation tax laws, used those funds to undercut Hungarian nationalist desires. As is often the case, the Soros NGO in effect constituted another political party against which he had to battle to preserve his nationalist agenda. He succeeded against Soros, but then faced a difficult dilemma: The country’s dependence on EU subsidies and the opposition of the leaders of the EPP (the European Peoples Party) which endorses candidates for the Byzantine and undemocratic European Parliament.
Anyone who opposes the mysterious and manipulative George Soros gains my support - for what it's worth!
ADDITIONAL: For an alternative judgment on Viktor Orbán try this article at the CAPX site:
https://capx.co/viktor-orban-and-the-corruption-of-conservatism/
No more rumbles today
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