OneGuyFromBarlick

From today's Bob's Bits...
"A woman is like a teabag. You can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water." Nancy Pelosi.

I liked that as well.... She certainly proves the point!

From a BBC news report

"We've sold out of table tennis tables - they're the new loo roll."


PS - If you had seen that six months ago. you'd have the chap sectioned.

Indeed David!

The BoE's Mark Carney: "We have a situation with climate change which will involve every country in the world and from which we can't self-isolate."..."The question is, when will the physics of climate change mug the complacency and denialism - just as biology has with respect to the virus." Carney

In the end, no matter how much deniers procrastinate, the realities of the situation will bite hard. We are seeing it happen already because of the effect of the pandemic on food supplies and hence driving migration.
Malcolm Turnbull was also on the ball "Drawing bleak parallels with the pandemic, Mr Turnbull said Covid-19 was a case of "biology confronting and shaking the complacency of day-to-day politics with a physical reality of sickness and death". "
Question is when will the blocking deniers reluctantly agree?

From the comments on Guido Fawkes website -

"We could end up with a huge divide of the public sector employees happy to sit at home, safe in the knowledge that they have protected positions and final salary pensions, versus those of us in the private sector who fund them - struggling for survival and watching our savings and pension plans depleting before our eyes."

David, I think we may have already arrived at that point.....

"“It’s very clear that once this crisis is over many people will be unemployed, many companies will have filed for insolvency and a huge economic cost will have been incurred. On the way there, people will look for who is responsible and if we’re not very careful there will be a blame game. That is the big danger”."
A business exec reflecting on the effects of the virus.

Plaques has mentioned pessimism in one of his posts today and that reminded me of the story related on Thought for the Day on Radio 4 this morning. Here is a longer version of it...

An old Cherokee Indian told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, ‘My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. One is evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.'
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: ‘Which wolf wins?’
The old Cherokee simply replied: ‘The one you feed.’

I have a lot of respect for those old Native American tribal elders. My reading of their history was triggered by a conversation with an old man on a reservation when I was driving Route 66. It was a culture shock for me, raised on cowboy films when, during a discussion of the forced relocations of the tribes he drew a direct parallel with the Scottish Clearances. It triggered me into a course of readings that gave me even more culture shocks! Many parallels with Australian Aborigines and I suppose the experience of indigenous cultures world wide.

Last night's frost nipped the tops of my potatoes! - Alan Titchmarsh

Funny how people rediscover the farmer's old concept of Grass Day each year. They always reckoned the second week in June in Craven before it was frost free and cattle could be left out all night.
People have been moaning about closed garden centres meaning that the time for putting bedding plants out has passed. Titchmarsh mentioned that as well. Up here the Grass Day rule applies, not too late!

From Pluggy of this parish -


"Being nice helped a lot"


True - but sometimes it's a tough call. . . .

I noted that as well David. I tend to reserve my ire for situations where it can't bounce back on me. Comes from spending much of my life lubricating engines, the engineer's version of being nice.

Dominic Cummings doorstepped by the press today -

"It was reasonable and legal - It's a question of doing the right thing, It's not about what you might think"

So that's OK then. . .

He's seen as part of government although he has never been elected. The man is a parasite in my book but I would say that wouldn't I. Do as I say not as I do.

Ask yourself the old questions, would I buy a used car from him and would he make a good house guest. QED

Tom Bower the well known political biographer said this morning words to the effect that 'he has no friends, and the loathing of other people acts as his oxygen'

Not hard to work out why he ran from Downing Street, and fled to Durham - no chance of anyone in London helping him in the upcoming predicament.

That could be very close to the truth David. He doesn't strike me as being a very happy person. XXX

He's a complex character all right. They say he's just gone in to No 10. Sunday morning, and it looks like he's 'tapping the boards' on CO's orders. Tricky for Boris. I doubt he can manage without him, and will do all he can to keep him. Close call.

Jobs have to be saved David! The days of gentlemanly resignation ended with Lord Carrington. Or at least, that's the last one I remember.
In an apparent reference to US President Donald Trump, The Rt Revd Pete Broadbent, Bishop of Willesden, also tweeted on Sunday evening: "Johnson has now gone the full Trump."
Adimarably concise and true.

The following might not be new to all of you but it is to me. I came across it in Steig Larrson's writing.
"Armageddon was Yesterday. Today we have a really serious problem"
It made me laugh out loud, very unusual!

Twitter has put a warning of misleading information on a Trump post about postal voting and sent Trump into a fury, criticising the social media company as "completely stifling free speech". His presidential campaign manager Brad Parscale also responded with this...

Partnering with biased fake news 'fact checkers' is a smoke screen to lend Twitter's obvious political tactics false credibility. There are many reasons we pulled all our advertising from Twitter months ago, and clear political bias is one of them. BBC

"I was struck by the congruence rather than the disparity"

From a leading British politician today. Nice to see someone with an impressive vocabulary, who is not afraid to use it. And he didn't say 'nartamean' afterwards.