THE BRITISH THREAD II

From the paper today:

"DID you hear about the woman in Israel who accidentally binned a mattress stuffed with a million dollars?" asked the chap in the pub.
"Aye, no wonder she was down in the dumps," replied his pal.

"I left my job because of illness and fatigue," we hear a woman in a coffee shop tell her pals. She adds: "My boss got sick and tired of me."

What's your opinion on Prince Charles' contribution to the modern architecture debate, particularly in the light of recent events?

-"At least when the Luftwaffe demolished our buildings, it didn't replace them with anything more offensive than rubble."

I agree with HRH's general position. He's had enough time and enough expert advice to have got himself straightened out I should have thought. He is, after all, an Admiral, a General and a Marshal of the Royal Air Force isn't he? And he's partial to some shamanistic myticism from what I've seen.

Is there any other nation which makes an extended State occasion out of a jamboree of gambling, boozing, cut-throat competition, fashion and other displays of conspicuous consumption? At Royal Ascot our gracious Queen smiles down on her people and probably feels a blissful contentment at feeling herself at one with them. I have it on good authority that She, like Her Mom, bless her, bless the both of them, likes a little tilt at the bookies. And all the other things I mentioned.

Isn't the Royal Progress up the 1 mile straight course at Royal Ascot on a fine June day a sight for sore eyes. I get misty-eyed watching it. Especially in the old days when Julien Wilson did the commentary.

Well said, Spendy, and more power to your elbow and your little mousey scroller.

Just the same, the monarch is at the apex of a system of hereditary privilege which we should deplore, no?

Guilty as charged sir.

It's easy to deplore it Mac but just imagine it not being there. It has style and that's a tough thing to get in a republic. Open carriage through massed crowds.

That's style.

It's great being a subject don't you think? It must be horrible being free and independent and saddled with a load of rights.

Pity about Kitty Usher though.

Funny you should say that about the Queen. I realised a good few years ago now, during a televised opening of Parliament and as if for the first time, that that wee woman in the regalia was the focus of millions, and was the symbol of our society and the outcome of our history and I must say I felt quite emotional that all that should be placed upon her little shoulders.
I think she carries it well.

More rich irony in the news this week, that Martin McGuinness should be the spokesperson to deplore the racist abuse of Romanian families in Ulster.
The same Martin McGuinness who in an earlier incarnation was a sniper for the IRA, and representing Sinn Fein devoted his adult life to fomenting violent sectarianism in Norn Irn.

I don't know whether you mean that.

I could almost feel sorry for her, being advised by some smartarse tax-dodging team of lawyers who were recommended to her by people in government who should have known better. Amoral bastards all, and to sup with them you should use a long spoon.

These are the people who stand up on their hind legs in the House and pontificate about benefit scroungers and welfare cheats among the lower orders. Let their noses be rubbed in it, say I. The Telegraph hasn't finished yet.

Hazel Blears won her no-confidence hearing today, but if she's the candidate in Salford next time I don't think Labour will win the seat.

Did anyone else see some Leonard Cohen on the box last night?

I had no idea he was so good. Great band, too.

Tony Blair wants the Iraq War inquiry held in secret.

What a surprise.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/blair-demanded-hold-iraq-inquiry-in-secret-1711549.html

I think Blair is a war criminal and a liar who deliberately manipulated Parliament with false evidence, made a private pact with Bushco ultra vires,and lied to the British people over and over again.
It will be marvellous if he can be interrogated under oath.

I don't think you should underestimate the complexities involved in matters of this nature Mac.

What mealy-mouthed poppycock, from you of all people, Spendy.

The nation needs to be cleansed of this stain.

Then what-- you'll need another stain. You might even be using this stain to blot out all the others. It's a nice, easy one to get your indignation off on.

And anyway--it can't be cleansed of anything that's done. There are bereaved families and friends. There are grotesque injuries in our midst. They are there. No amount of cleansing will shift them.

I objected to the war because I didn't think we were up to it. But once it happened it was a different matter.

For goodness sake, you objected to the invasion only because you did not think were were up to it? Considerations of legality and morality did not trouble you?

Surely the days are long since gone where we would simply send a gunboat to deal with any foreigners who might be becoming a problem to us.

come now McT, soon you'll be wanting to give the Elgin Marbles back.

I don't think you quite understand Mac. When we sent out gunboats it wasn't to quell people who say they hate us and have access to oil wealth, modern science and a source of cheap labour unhindered by health and safety laws.

The two situations are not comparable. Not in the least. A moral argument would insist on reducing the oil wealth by not using so much oil oneself.

Moral arguments are more than grabbing the high ground with some sweet and easy words.

And Saddam was worse than any beast. By a long way. He was a stain on humanity. He showed his young sons the most entertaining way to make a man die slowly. Maybe a woman. With science.


We were not about to let him tool up like we did Hitler. We are not slow learners.

He was a stain on humanity, sure (trained and backed by the CIA) but that is a long way from being a reason for an invasion and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

Anyway, we need a gesture here. Brown has said the Inquiry will not seek to apportion blame nor instigate any prosecutions. So what's it for, then? What will it conclude, then? That everyone did their best in the circumstances?

The gesture: Tony Blair should be prosecuted, hung by the neck until dead, his body drawn through the streets of the city to the Tower, where it should be quartered by an apprentice butcher with a blunt knife, the four pieces to be displayed in a prominent place at the biggest shopping malls available in the capital: Brents Cross, Earls Court, Bluewater and that other one.

That would have the double benefit of making us feel better, and being instructive to the tourists.

It would make me feel like emigrating Mac.