Friday June 13th 2025 "How high can YOUR guinea-pig jump, if that's not too personal a question!!!"

This is a bit of a personal question, Friends, but I make no apology for it. [Why not? - Ed]. How high can YOUR guinea-pig jump? Not very high, I'm guessing!

how high can your guinea-pig jump? Many of these fluffy little fellows 

struggle with even the smallest of hurdles, to put it mildly (!)

[I'd like to see YOU jump a hurdle, Colin! - Ed]

Well, we've all got our favourite guinea-pigs, and the little guys love nothing more than a bit of competitive jumping, do they. And let me assure you, it isn't cruel, and it brightens up their little day, to put it mildly!

But can they do 7.8 inches (19.8 cm), which is the world record according to the Guinness Book of World Records? And which proud guinea-pig is it who holds that record? Step forward and take a bow, little furry Puckel Martin, and step forward also, Puckel Martin's proud, and hopefully  not so furry (!) owner, Ms Madeleine Herman of Vargon, Sweden. 

furry high-jumping guinea-pig Puckel Martin (left), with its hopefully

not so furry owner (!), Ms Madeleine Herman of Vargon, Sweden (right) 

Some sources say that the Swedes hold the world record in record-holding, but in my humble opinion  it could be the Hungarians. I learn in an email today from my long-standing Hungarian pen-friend, Tünde, that the local Hungarian news website 444.hu has been making a habit of clocking the idiotic records being broken almost weekly by their  their crazy Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his government.

Hungary's crazy Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, seen here

giving his weekly interview to "Good Morning Hungary"

 

Let me put my cards on the table at this point. My medium-to-hard-pressed wife Lois and I are particularly interested in Hungary. I started learning the language "for a bet" (!), over 30 years ago, and we've visited the country several times. 

flashback to 2006, and mine and Lois's post-retirement holiday in Europe:

(left) the two of us with our friend "Magyar" Mary, at a café in Szeged, Hungary,

and (right) a delighted Lois being serenaded by a gypsy violinist in our Szeged hotel

In today's Hungary, crazy records are being broken on an almost daily basis.  

The "stupidest waste of taxpayers' money" record has been broken again, this time by ruling party Fidesz's Vice-President, Szilárd Németh, who has been travelling 1800 miles around Europe just to find out what other countries' citizens are paying on their utility bills. As the website points out, Németh has been responsible for finding ways to reduce Hungarian utility  bills since 2013. Better late than never to take an interest in his work, says the website, but couldn't he have done the job more cheaply sitting with a laptop at his desk in Budapest? 

I think we should be told, don't you, or at least Hungarian taxpayers should be told!

Meanwhile the prime Minister himself, Viktor Orbán, is obsessed with Ukraine. Orbán-watchers have noted that in his weekly broadcasts he has been mentioning Ukraine more and more times each week: 25 times a couple of weeks ago, last week 29 times, this week 33 times. 

Hasn't the country itself, and its economy, got any problems, you may say!

What madness!!!!  

Tünde has also highlighted to me a recent survey by the Pew Research Centre, which, amongst other things, indicates that Hungarians tend to trust US President Donald Trump, more than do all other Europeans.

Although I don't claim to be an expert on the subject (!), it seems to me that there are 3 issues with Donald Trump: (1) "Are his policies any good?" (2) "Does he tell the truth, or is he a liar, whenever it suits him to be one?", and (3) "Is he running roughshod over the US constitution for his own ends, and paving the way for the end of democracy in his country?"

I think we all know the answers to (2) and (3), don't we, to put it mildly (!). But how about question (1)? That's more difficult, isn't it. 

Yes, are Trump's policies any good? 

Maybe good for the US at least? Or maybe not even that, in the view of one pundit and longtime contributor to the quora internet website. Yes, step forward, American quora pundit Henry R Greenfield, who thinks that almost all Trump's policies have benefited foreigners more than they have Americans. 

TRUMP HAS CHANGED EVERYTHING FOR THE BENEFIT OF EUROPE AND EVERYONE ELSE.

• Trump threatens Europe, Europe responds by developing their defence industries cutting out the US and all of the USA suppliers. WIN FOR EUROPE
• Trump declares trade war on the world then backs off. US Dollar drops, US stock market drops, other currencies rise. Euro and other stock markets highest in years including China. WIN FOR THE WORLD
• Trump/Musk kills USAID and other soft power. WIN FOR CHINA
• Trump says he doesn’t care about US leadership anywhere any more. WIN FOR EVERY COUNTRY EXCEPT THE USA
• Trump downgrades NATO - Win for European cooperation.
• Trump tells Ukraine to surrender - WIN FOR PUTIN, RUSSIA AND CHINA
• Trump fails at negotiating any ‘deals’ in Middle East - WIN FOR ISRAEL, LOSS FOR GAZANS
• Trump takes 1st trip abroad to Middle East - WIN FOR SAUDI as Biden was kicking their ass now Trump is there making personal deals.
• Trump gets Saudi and OPEC to pump way more oil thereby killing the price down to $57 a barrel - WIN FOR OPEC AND SAUDI and loss for Texas Oil producers who are losing money below $60 a barrel.
• Trump tariffs force blowback against Populism worldwide - WIN FOR CANADA, AUSTRALIA, GERMANY AND OTHER ELECTIONS, LOSS FOR TRUMP AND RIGHT WING
• Trump withdraws from Iran nuclear deal now Iran is about to have ‘the bomb’ - WIN FOR IRAN after Biden had battled them pretty much out of the Middle East
• Trump tariffs of 145% forcing US consumers to suffer high prices as China has moved on to new tech and already outsourced to the rest of Asia, Mexico, Hungary etc WIN FOR CHINA

Congrats MAGA! You have made the world great again and downgraded the USA !

Finally free at last of US domination, Trump has given the world their freedom and destroyed America’s freedoms and dominance. Now ain’t that somethin' !!!!

That's the Greenfield Report on the subject, anyway!

And Lois and I say, "Good old Greenfield, what a pundit you are, to put it mildly!" And you've got to admit, he always says exactly what he thinks, doesn't he!!!

I wonder.....!

Fascinating stuff, though, isn't it!

20:00 Lois and I are pretty tired tonight, to put it mildly. An enjoyable morning with our daughter Alison and her eldest offspring Josie (and dogs!) walking over the nearby Devil's Punchbowl, was followed by an exhausting coffee and Danish pastry for two in the café, topped up with an exhausting afternoon in bed for statutory "nap-time" (!).

[You lazy pair of bastards!, Colin! - Ed]

We want a quiet evening after all that, and we decide to wind down for bed with the first episode in a re-run of the BBC's 1983 adaptation of Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park", published 1814.

If anybody doubts that Jane Austen had a lively sense of humour, they should read this book, that's for sure! In this scene young 12-year-olds Maria and Julia, daughters of rich aristocrat Sir Thomas Bertram, who has sugar estates in Antigua, are mocking the naivety of their poor relation, Fanny to their aunt, Mrs Norris.

Their cousin Fanny, from the poor side of the family, doesn't really know anything about the wider world outside their home county of Hampshire, seemingly, according to little Maria and Julia. 

And poor Fanny is apparently pretty ignorant about life in general, it seems!

Maria and Julia have been trying to teach poor Fanny a bit about Europe, using a jigsaw map, but apparently Fanny decided to put Italy over by Iceland, or somewhere similar - a pretty basic error, by most people's standards! 

What a crazy world they lived in, back in those far-off times!!!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed1 -Ed]

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!