Not sure what the EU Constitutional Treaty really says? Confused by the rhetoric and argument emanating from politicians? Then download the full text, all 485 pages of it, in a handy 2MB PDF file.
And I’ll hear no more discussion of the matter until you’ve read it all!
Category: current affairs
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Constitutional treaty
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A little bit of politics
Who knew that it was so easy to set up a political party? According to this BBC News article, all you need is two people, a constitution and £150! So, if anyone wants to join with me and form The Arty Farty Party (and has £150 laying around), then let me know. I will, of course, be Supreme Leader For Life and you can be Chief Minion. Our policies will have a broad appeal and include
- free Smarties on the NHS
- beer hydrants in every street
- an increase in spending on public gardens
- twenty seven new bank holidays
Any other policy ideas?
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Successor
Never mind all the feeble speculation in the media about who should be the next Who (I favour Moira Stewart, or maybe my father in law – or both), the question we should be asking is this – who will be the next Pope?
I’d love to have a go at a job like that. Firstly, I’d issue a few papal edicts for a bit of a laugh – things such as "the pious shall hop on their left foot on Tuesdays" and "the Lord favours those who wear blue socks". But, after that, I’d dismantle the whole ridiculous edifice and give the accumulated wealth that the Catholic church possesses to those who really need it.
What would you do if you were in the Papal shoes? -
Live long and prosper?
Pill could extend life by thirty years. If this did come to pass, it would obviously only be affordable by the wealthy, so would increase social division. Not only that, but it would only work if people were in gainful employment for those extra years – no use expecting your pension fund to keep you going for all that extra time.
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Quiet here…
…due to being away from the laptop, either due to work and non-work committments or due to DIY and gardening tasks, some of which resulted in downtime on my internet connection whilst cables were taken out of the way to facilitate painting. Anyway, since we last spoke, H and I have:
- demolished the wood store in the garden
- extended the outside dining area around the barbeque
- created a new small flower bed by the outside dining area
- planted various plants including Brachyglottis, Cytisus, arum lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica Crowborough), Oenothera, Osteospermum, a cardoon (Cynara cardunculus), burnt-sugar bush (Cercidophyllum japonicum), magnolia (Magnolia stellata), two clematis (the varieties Henryi and Piilu) and assorted herbs
- sown seeds of coneflower (Rudbeckia) and sunflower
- painted the woodwork on the stairs, in the porch and in the master bedroom
- painted one interior wall of the conservatory – aqua, for turquoise fans
- painted the troughs along the side of the house and part of the summerhouse
- visited Borough Market and the Saatchi Gallery
- spent a day with the in-laws/family.
The garden is certainly beginning to take shape now, particularly as the seeds that were sown last week are beginning to sprout. I’m fairly sure that there are going to be too many of some plants if all the seeds germinate – our small garden is unlikely to be able to accommodate 70 sunflowers – so some judicious thinning-out might be called for in a few weeks time (I expect I might be able to donate some seedlings, if they come out of the ground in good shape, to Sil – depends how they all grow). We also feel like we have made some progress on the house, although we have at least two more full days of painting in the conservatory and porch, just to complete what we have started. The bathroom and kitchen have both been put on the back burner for the time being – maybe we will tackle them as autumn projects before the dark nights set in.
There will be photos, certainly of our trip to the South Bank, and possibly, if I get round to taking some, of the garden.
Also, since we last spoke, my parents’ MP has caused a furore in the Tory party by speaking his mind and then standing his ground – more on this when I have a moment. -
Aide memoire
Note to self: research further proposed liberalisation of EU services market and possible implications for PFE. Also, look up Polish PM’s comments on joining euro – looks like he’s holding off for a while to carry out further economic reform, even though half his country’s economy uses the euro already.
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Inbreeding
This article is interesting, not least because several people have commented that there is more than a passing resemblance between myself and Hels’s brother.
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Poor decision?
If I’d been advising the breeder of this new plant, I would probably have advised against selling the rights for £150,000, even though that is a good price. Sales of 30,000 in the UK alone in year one would return royalties in the order of £15,000. Add sales of probably five to ten times that volume in the United States, and the same again in the rest of the world, then, even after paying an agent’s commission, you should reach that asking price in a year or two. And then, after that, you’ll be getting similar royalties continuing for the next twenty years or so. Not bad if you can get it.
The shame, of course, is that I’m not representing this plant. I’ll not be earning that commission. Plants with that sort of market power are very few and far between, coming along perhaps once in ten or twenty years. -
Food for thought
A note to Americans that voted for Mr Bush in the last election. Your president seems happy to run around and fly halfway across the country in the small hours to sign a bill to prevent one woman from dying a death that would have occured naturally fifteen years ago, instead keeping her alive with no quality of life at all. Meanwhile, he seems determined to continue to permit widespread ownership of firearms, firearms which lead to widespread crime including the loss of ten lives yesterday afternoon in a school in Minnesota.
To me, the priorities don’t seem to be quite right.