7 February 2017 (Tuesday) - Stuff

Not a bad night’s kip I suppose. It would have been better had my phone not told me about a Facebook Messenger message at half past midnight and an email at 5am. I wish I knew how the thing gets these notifications when all its Internet connections are turned off.

I got up, and watched the Darling Buds of May buy a brewery and win an election, then I thought I’d best see what that message and email were all about. The message was a rather cute picture of a dachshund, and the email was my leccie bill. The dachshund picture was cute, and the leccie bill has gone up by seven pounds each month.

I was rather amazed by the leccie bill. A couple of days ago I had a message from the leccie company telling me they were putting up their prices, and my bill would increase by about fourteen pounds over the next year. But an increase of seven pounds each month works out to an increase of eighty-four pounds a year?

I also saw there was news from Geocaching HQ. they’ve appointed a new head honcho. I wonder what difference (if any) that will make to hunting Tupperware.

I had a hunt round the Internet for mention of yesterday’s Sapphire jubilee. Yesterday was the sixty-fifth anniversary of the Queen’s ascension to the Throne. No other British monarch has reigned for so long. I would have thought the occasion would have been marked in some way. But it looks like absolutely nothing had been done for the event at all.

Something of a shame, really.

I set off to work; it was a cold morning, and I was nearly driven off the road by a rather arrogant Audi driver. Personalised number plates are especially good when you want to remember someone’s bad driving; if any of my loyal reads see a white car with registration “2 MSE” I’d suggest keeping your distance.

As I drove the pundits on the radio were discussing the Speaker of the House of Commons.  Speaker John Bercow doesn't want President Trump to address Parliament and he has said so quite forcefully and publicly. It is quite unprecedented for a Speaker to make such an opinion known; the Speaker of the House is meant to be politically neutral. Whether he thinks President Trump should be invited or not is *not* something he should be voicing opinions about.

But if he does feel strongly, why did he previously allowed the Emir of Kuwait to address Parliament (Kuwait allows the imprisonment of homosexuals, doesn't punish domestic violence and allows marital rape) and why has he invited the President of China to address Parliament? (The list of human rights abuses of which China is accused is too long to list)

I got to work, had a rather good day really and came home. I left work on time, but didn’t get home any earlier than yesterday (when I left twenty minutes late).

I ran the dogs round the road, and then we had a bit of scoff. The usual suspects were mostly unavailably for the usual Tuesday meet-up, so we had a rather good curry and a bottle of plonk instead.