Let's admit it, our country's in a mess, isn't it!
And, as if to confirm that for me and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois, what should "plop" through our letterbox this morning but my copy of "Private Eye", the fortnightly political magazine, with its heart-stopping cover and, inside, a revealing exchange with a visiting political leader. Pictures are worth a thousand words (each!), aren't they, so 2000 words in this case (!).
First the cover.....
...and then all over the inside pages.... just one example.....
Maybe it's time for Keir to quit - we must have been "suffering" under 14 days of Labour Rule by now (!), and the UK's problems still haven't been solved. It's surely time for Keir to step aside now and let a 'proven successful business man', take over, like Donald Trump did in the US in 2016.
And who better for the job than this thrusting young local guy Matthew Stuart, who seems to be making a lot of waves locally in his efforts to turn around Worcester's ailing Tea Market business [Source: Onion News Worcestershire Desk] !
Worcester's ailing "Tea Market" business - could Stuart's unconventional
approach be just the "shot-in-the-arm" that the business needs?
Could Stuart's trademark "unconventional" approach be just what our whole country needs at this critical time?
I wonder..... !!!
11:00 Of course one of the things that area whizz kid Stuart is most famous for, locally at least, is that fact that he gets into the office each day really early, way before everybody else, and his co-workers report that "there's always a pot of nasty, weak coffee brewing when the rest of us get in".
And it makes me wonder whether Stuart has a clandestine, second job working at the Poolbrook Kitchen and Coffee Shop (!), where Lois and I drop in this morning after a difficult walk in the hot sunshine over Poolbrook Common.
Certainly my iced coffee could do with a "boost" of something or other, a bit like Lois and me after our walk (!) in today's blisteringly hot weather.
we relax with an iced tea (Lois) and an iced
coffee (me), and cakes, at buzzing local eatery,
the Poolbrook Kitchen and Coffee Shop
And despite today's boiling hot weather, Lois's wit is as razor-sharp as ever as we leave the coffee shop and spot this removal van parked just two doors down from the shop, outside some local resident's house:
And should we tell Warren?
Your answers to these, and all other questions in this blog (!) welcome - and on a postcard please (!).
[That's enough exclamation marks in brackets (!) - Ed]
21:00 Still feeling a bit hot and bothered after another evening on the couch, Lois and I wind down for bed with an interesting BBC4 documentary about the building of the Eiffel Tower.
Lois and I visited Paris in 1992, when we were young-and-thrusting 46-year-olds, and I remember that I went up the Eiffel Tower, just in the lift, nothing more adventurous than that (!), although I don't know where our pictures of it are - we downsized to this new-build home in Malvern about 20 months ago, and a lot of our old photos are still in boxes under one of our spare beds, gathering dust, and I couldn't even start to work out which box to try looking in [Thank goodness for that! - Ed].
What madness !!!
Warren with co-worker, seen here in happier times,
organising "promo" pictures for the business's website
Even without the "prompt" of a few badly-taken photos, however, I expect you can recall that it was the era when Lois was sporting her shiny-new "shorty" haircut. Aha - you remember now, don't you! [No! - Ed]
Lois (46) on our trip to Paris in 1992: (left) on the balcony of our hotel room in
Montmartre, and (right) in front of the Folies Bergère nightclub
I remember myself having used the lift to go up to the Eiffel Tower in 1992, eschewing "the hard way", i.e. the "climbing option" (both on the outside and the "extreme" one on the inside (!)), and I suspect Gustave may have done the same for the opening ceremony in 1889, when, aged 60, he insisted on being the person to unfurl the French flag on the top.
What a guy!
flashback to 1889: the inauguration of the Eiffel Tower
with Gustave Eiffel's unfurling of the French flag
And there are lots of other fascinating facts in tonight's programme. Lois and I knew that Gustave Eiffel, creator of the tower that bears his name, had already "cut his teeth" on the Statue of Liberty, a gift to the United States to mark 100 years of independence.
We didn't know, however, was that Gustave had also designed hundreds of bridges all over the Francophone world, including over a hundred in Vietnam, many of which were still around in the 1960's, although several were destroyed either by the fighting in the Vietnam War, or just by general urbanisation.
the Rach Dia Bridge in Saigon, one of over a hundred
such bridges in Vietnam, designed by Gustave Eiffel
Gustave took tremendous care with the health and well-being of his workers: not a single worker died during the construction of the Eiffel Tower, although some got "the bends", like a deep-sea diver gets, when they were digging far under ground to construct the foundations. What madness !!!
A lot of "poncey" French artists, sculptors etc initially complained that the tower wasn't beautiful, calling it "useless and monstrous". However, to his credit, Gustave took no notice, pointing instead to what he called the tower's "elegance".
The finished tower was originally intended to stand for only 20 years, but somehow Gustave managed to get its life extended several times, and its permanent status was eventually assured after he incorporated a wireless telegraphy station into its structure, making the tower a giant radio antenna. And by the time of the outbreak of World War I in 1914 the tower had begun to be acknowledged as essential for national defence.
It's a pity that Gustave got his fingers burned by his involvement in the building of the Panama Canal, which ended with accusations of fraud, lawsuits and criminal charges. Compared to some of the other defendants, however, he got off fairly lightly, with a 2 year prison sentence and a 20,000 franc fine. He died in 1923, aged 91.
Fascinating stuff, isn't it! [If you say so! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!
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