The great
Punch and
Judy show
THE Brexit process in Britain begins to take on all the subtlety of a Punch and Judy Show. Theresa May negotiates a Brexit deal with the EU that is so manifestly faulty it's overwhelmingly rejected by parliament.
Does Theresa May temporise? No, she drives full speed for the cliff-edge, daring her MPs to stick to their guns and plunge the country into the chaos of a no-deal exit, sticking grimly to the totally arbitrary exit date of March 29.
Whoa! A whole lot of her MPs – including members of her cabinet – say: "Put on the brakes!" .Tomorrow a cross-party motion in parliament could take the final decision out of Mrs May's hands, taking "no deal" off the table as an outcome.
Enter Mr Punch with a cudgel to take to the head of Judy, er Theresa May. Will this be Boris Johnson, arch-Brexiteer? Jacob Rees-Mogg, also known as the Haunted Victorian Pencil?
Mr Punch leads the group of Tory Brexiteers who are by no means dismayed by the prospect of the cliff-edge departure, in fact relish the idea. They say they will bring down Theresa May's government if she fails. But do they really have the numbers?
This is a Punch and Judy show of high drama, immense stakes.
You think Cyril Ramaphosa has problems?
OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "Have you noticed that most of the household cleaning agents are Mr Min, Mr Muscle, Mr Sheen, Mr Clean … yet women complain that men don't help around the house."
A LOST parrot has been reunited with its owner through recognition of the Slovakian language, according to Sky News.
It happened in Ireland where immigrant Lubomir Michna had taught Hugo, his female African Grey parrot, a few words in Slovak.
But then Hugo disappeared one day. She was found at Dublin airport, wandering along the main runway.
This was no place for a parrot. Airport staff rescued her and put her in the care of an animal sanctuary.
The airport and a supermarket teamed up to locate her rightful owner through social media. This sounded to Lubomir very much like his parrot, so he recorded an audio clip in Slovak and sent it in.
Listening, the parrot was electrified to hear her owner's voice speaking Slovak.
"She became visibly excited," says Dan Donoher, of the Kildare Animal Foundation. "She reacted instantly and became animated and excited."
"When Lubomir arrived to reclaim her, Hugo jumped onto Lubomir's arm and cuddled into his neck. It was lovely."
Lubomir said he was happy to get back "his baby" after being separated for several days. He did not explain why a female African Grey is called Hugo. It's a Slovakian secret.
STILL with Sky News, a fellow in Basildon, Essex, in England, got a fright when he went into the toilet and was hissed at by a 1.2m snake, which then slithered up into the cistern and, eerily, turned blue from the cleaning products.
It turned out to be a rat snake, non-venomous, harmless and almost certainly an escaped pet.
They should have tried a few phrases in Slovak to find out more.
Tailpiece
WHY are married women heavier than single women?
Single women come home, see what's in the fridge and go to bed. Married women come home, see what's in bed and go to the fridge.
Last word
The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment