FACING THE SOUND OF MUSIC

ALL RIGHT-THINKING PEOPLE would under normal circumstances find today a reason for celebration, as it is the last day that the inhabitants of the European Union will have to put up with the ten-year tenure of the smarmy, unelected José Manuel Durão Barroso, surely the most prominent of the "leaders" of Europe over recent years in their inexorable progress towards establishing a fully-fledged dictatorship.

 

BARROSO HAS CELEBRATED HIS DEPARTURE by giving out a luxury 616-page publicly-funded coffee-table book entitled European Commission 2004-2014 - A Testimony by the President with Selected Documents. This is, if any more were needed, further testimony to how these people love themselves and take their worth to the world so seriously.

 

BLURB ON BOOKS IS CUSTOMARY at this time of year, when everyone who has ever been famous for more than 15 minutes comes out with an autobiography in time for Christmas, so I thought it might be elucidating to report on how some of those who have been given the book have reacted to it. In future print runs Barroso may consider putting these comments on the back cover.

 

 "A DELUSIONAL AND SELF-SERVING MEMOIR", "a vanity project", "a ridiculous propaganda stunt" and "a slap in the face for taxpayers" (Grant Shapps, Chairman of the British Conservative Party)

 

"IT'S GOT SOME NICE PICTURES OF THE G8 SUMMIT IN IT, but we've got plenty of those already" (David Cameron, British Prime Minister)

 

THE DELUSIONAL ONE MAY HOPE that this work will serve as his legacy after ten years of interfering with other people's lives in ways that they do not want, reducing almost a third of the population of Europe to a state of poverty not known for forty or fifty years and making the threat of a European Civil War a reality. The latter event, however, will pave the way for the European Super State governed by a dictator, surely the ultimate aim of these people.

 

MANY, HOWEVER, WILL REMEMBER him by his reply to the accusation that nothing involving this European project is democratic: "Decisions taken by the most democratic institutions in the world are very often wrong". But I myself imagine him singing the following in a snazzy pair of lederhosen, soon to go off and join the ranks of the marauding storm troopers:

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye;
I hate to go and leave this pretty sight
So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu
Adieu, adieu, to you and you and you
So long, farewell, au revoir, auf weidersehen
I'd like to stay and drink some more champagne
So long, farewell, auf weidersehen, goodbye
I leave and heave a sigh and say goodbye

WORKING UP A SWEAT

OF LATE I HAVE BEEN somewhat concerned about the several different issues that appear to be threatening our existence here in the comfortable West. The first among these is no doubt the danger posed by the so-called Islamic State, who, in their misinterpretation of the tenets held and proposed by the Koran, believe that a sure way to Heaven is to behead innocent humanitarian workers, film the event and post it on the new form of television which today's children call YouTube.

 

PERHAPS WITH ISLAMIC STATE THEMSELVES SEEING that this is an unlikely route to perpetual happiness, their agents have of late turned their attention to targeting British police officers as they jolly their days away telling tourists the time on the streets of London.

 

YET ISLAMIC STATE is not alone in its menacing of ending life as we know it; once again a deadly malaise is emerging out of Africa, pointing its bony finger of destiny at the wider world, which is very now cowering in fear whenever any of the apparently "tell-tale signs" are noticed by passengers arriving at airports.

 

THE VARIFORM SYMPTOMS of the evils of Ebola can easily be confused with those of a common cold, the 'flu or a hangover after a serious bout of over-imbibing, and thus one can expect many mistakes to be made as soon as airport staff the world over manage to get the temperature-measuring devices necessary clanking into activity.

 

ON THE SUBJECT OF CLANKING into activity, I was more than briefly interested in a news item this week suggesting that "one in ten British people" have had sexual intercourse inside an airport while waiting for a flight. According to a company called Jetcost.co.uk, this activity ranks highly on the list of things to do to pass the tedious time after we have passed the security checks and find it is still over an hour before our departure.

 

RELAX AND WAIT IN LOUNGE may be what is announced, but it seems there is a lot more gate opening and boarding going on, and usually in airport toilets, should the survey be believed.

 

ALTHOUGH I REGULARLY FREQUENT airports, I feel I should state that I have never indulged in any such practices as I usually travel with my good lady wife.* But I am to no little extent worried that the flushed faces and sweaty armpits of those who choose to carry out airport 'shagging', as I believe the term for sexual intercourse in public conveniences should be called, may be then mistaken at boarding for someone with the symptoms of Ebola. And thus we have a ready-made excuse should we be stopped: we may answer that we have not recently returned from Africa, but merely from a quick knee-trembling thrill in the gentlemen's toilets.

*I do realise that this does not make such activity impossible or even unlikely.

PYJAMA GAMES

ONE HAS TO FEEL SORRY for millionaire Brooks Newmark, Conservative MP for Braintree in Essex, after the recent scandal involving him being "trapped" into sending photographs of his penis to a "young lady" on his twitter account. The fact that the young lady was in fact invented by a journalist working for the Sunday Mirror is neither here and there, when it is obvious that Mr Newmark, who is one of the founders of Women2Win, an organisation aimed at improving life for women in Britain, was, by befriending a person he genuinely believed to be a woman who wished to better herself, only doing his bit to contribute towards this by dropping his pyjamas and taking an intimate selfie.

 

IT WOULD BE UNFAIR OF ME TO SUGGEST that this behaviour has anything to do with being American -- indeed he was born in Connecticut and lived there until he was nine years old -- and that photographing one's genitalia is, I am told, extremely popular in that country, but is, regrettably for Newmark, somewhat frowned upon in this country, even for Conservative Ministers.

 

MR NEWMARK HAS NOW resigned, and will have to deal with the opinion of this matter held by his wife Lucy, given that she is certainly one woman whose life will not be improved by his latest amateur photographic activity.

 

YET PEOPLE OF SOME SOCIAL STANDING, as I can confirm myself, will always be subject to offers normally withheld from the common man, and if only social media maladdress is at the root of Newmark's faux pas then it may be forgivable. My own opinion, however, is that people like us should always be able to say 'no' whenever we are asked to send photos of our penises to people we do not know very well.

SUIT AND BOARD

NO PHOTOGRAPHS ARE AVAILABLE, so my readers will have to take my word for it when I state that I yesterday began my future leisure career as an exponent of "bodyboarding", also known as, at my age, semi-suicidal hurtling of one's body on a flimsy piece of plastic into the middle of Atlantic waves on a coastline renowned throughout the world for throwing up waves that can reduce houses into rubble. This also involves squeezing myself into a rubber "wet suit", one of the most difficult experiences I have ever undergone. An immediate comparison comes to mind, but I will not be going into it here.

 

OF COURSE, IT IS NOT THE DELIGHT of this near-death experience that excites me -- if, indeed, that is the most apt term -- but the relaxation it affords me between waves to allow my mind to wander at will and peruse the issues of the day. And no issue has been more "of the day" recently than the utter and total collapse of one of Portugal's biggest banks, apparently against all expectations, and showing that the Portuguese government had no idea of what was going on in its economic and financial sector.

 

WHILE I WAS WONDERING HOW it was possible for this to happen, I became aware of the startling symmetry between bodyboarding and running a bank in which no real money existed on bluff alone. Firstly, in both activities one needs a good suit if one wishes to be taken seriously. Secondly one needs the right board: one that will support one and will emerge at one's side even when one has taken the biggest of tumbles after getting out of one's depth.

 

LASTLY, ONE NEEDS TO LOOK CONFIDENT, particularly when being observed by foreigners, as is the case on the beach I frequent. Thus it was that Banco Espirito Santo managed to fool the, admittedly easy to fool, troika of the three stooges from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, all of whom went over the books and gave the bank a clean bill of health. Good grief! One can only shiver on imagining how qualified these people are to give advice to anyone.

 

(The lower picture shows Curly, Larry and Mo, the salvation of Europe)

CHEMICAL WEAPONS

THE CHINESE-OWNED MEGASTORES that proliferate throughout many countries in Europe have, it must be said, many advantages: their opening hours allow one to purchase necessities one has forgotten at all times of the day and week. And thus it was that I recently found myself in one of these establishments in the picturesque town of Sintra, in Portugal, a place with a tiny population but with six of these shops.

 

THE PURPOSE OF MY VISIT was to purchase yet another umbrella to help me deal with the remarkably English climate of this part of the country, but my eye was taken by a range of after shaves and EDTs (as "eau de toilette" has now become known), including the one pictured above, which is now the subject of some fascination for me.

 

THIS PRODUCT, "OBAMA", is, or rather was, a part of the range of EDTs produced by the company going by the name of "Shirley May", and which has a website visitable by those who wish to confirm my statements here. If one looks at the back of the box, one may see that Obama (and presumably the other products in the range) was made in the United Arab Emirates and is for distribution in the Ukraine and Moldova. The blurb on the back is mainly in Cyrillic characters, thus being rather mysterious.

 

THE ISSUE OF THE TRAGIC EVENTS in the Ukraine at the moment brought my attention back to this EDT, upon which I detected a certain symmetry between the fate of this Obama and world events in general. Obama has been removed from the Shirley May range, although other products, such as "Just Black", "Black Market", "Army Fight" and "Hero" are still for sale today. (Strangely, one of the EDTs is called "Blog", although I could not find it when I returned to the same shop two days ago.)

 

IN REAL LIFE, OF COURSE, the world is waiting for action on the part of Europe and the USA in order to stimulate the obstreperous Vladimir "Ras" Putin into action both over the Ukraine in general and over the shameful events taking place around the crash site of Malaysia Airlines MH17, but, David Cameron apart, no one seems to care.

 

AS FOR OBAMA ITSELF, my good lady wife has informed me that in her opinion it is extremely well packaged both on the box and the bottle inside, which looks extremely bold and strong on the dressing table. However, she tells me, after an initially forceful aroma it loses almost all of its promised effect very quickly indeed; so much so that if I spray it on in the morning after breakfast, one would swear that after no time at all there was nothing there.

SUMMER SURVEILLANCE FUN

AS SUMMER HOLIDAYS approach, many people will be aware of the new rules to prevent them all being blown to pieces mid-air as they jolly off to "enjoy" a short period of drinking too much and being burnt to a frazzle in a southern European seaside town in which construction has not yet been completed and plumbing has not yet been commenced.

 

THE DECISION BY THE UK AND THE USA to inspect passengers beyond the already absurd procedures carried out at most airports will only serve to annoy serious travellers who need to use the air as they go about their legitimate business; yet for most summer holidaymakers, the majority of whom find it amusing to have to remove their flip-flops and see a body search as just a little more "slap and tickle" in the holiday spirit, it is all part of the lager- and babycham-fuelled kiss-me-quick excitement of a couple of weeks away from the drizzle.

 

INSPECTING MOBILE PHONES and "electronic goods" to see whether they work is one more step towards the nightmare (but expectable) scenario of us one day having to board an airplane completely naked except for our credit card and passport, faced with the dilemma of how to use them to cover our private parts. For the moment this measure will be a source of worry as I ponder over the two computers, DVD player, tablet, two MP players and four mobile phones usually carried on board among other devices between my wife and me.

 

MY WIFE AND I, however, wonder why the searching has not yet been extended to the most obvious devices, known to anyone who is a keen James Bond viewer: surely digital wristwatches are the most common form of detonator for bombs, so why does no one check to see if they are showing the correct time? And fountain pens, in Bond movies at least, can easily be turned into guns, or can be used to stab pilots in the jugular vein, so why are they allowed?

 

(I WAS STOPPED over a fountain pen on one occasion, but that was at Liverpool John Lennon airport, where the security lady was not sure what a fountain pen was. "Ooh, it's one of them fancy ones," was her reaction when I explained the purpose of my Mont Blanc.)

 

YET ALL OF THIS MUST be set against the reality of airport security. On the 22nd of June this year American citizen William Joseph Richardson was allowed onto a flight from Phoenix Arizona to London carrying a Glock handgun in his carry-on luggage. The bag was screened by security services but the weapon was not detected. Nor was his criminal record.

 

OR THE "SURVEILLANCE FAILURE" at Marseille Airport last week during a training routine in which 100 grams of explosives were hidden in the cargo area of the airport for sniffer dogs to find. The dogs were unable to locate anything and then the gendarmes apparently forgot where they had hidden the block of explosive material. Thus it is "lost", either remaining in the airport or unwittingly in someone's freight.

 

ONE SHOULD NOT BE CONCERNED, however, as airport officials have stated that the explosive material is "harmless without a detonating device". So we have no need to worry.

 

(My photo shows a French policeman checking for bombs inside a glove.)

HE COMES NOT TO PLAY

MY ABSENCE FROM THIS BLOG over recent months has been due to a variety of factors, each one as painful as the next. Moving house, excess of work, consequent attacks of stress and an unfortunate mixture of (hopefully helpful) chemicals resulting in hospitalisation were the factors involved. But now I am fine and relaxed again, some events of late have again stimulated my desire to comment upon the more serious of the issues taking place in the wider world.

 

THE LESS SAID ABOUT THE Football World Cup the better as far as England is concerned, yet one is forced to have an opinion about the unfortunate case of the Liverpool footballer Luis Suárez. Uruguayan Suárez, who, besides being a racist is one of the few cannibals existing in the modern game, has once again caused controversy by managing to bite, dive to the ground, cheat an opponent and the referee, and lie to officials and the press, all in an impressively short period of time.

 

OF COURSE ONE DOES NOT become a vampire overnight, and the media is full of explanations for his strange behaviour, most of which focus on his "having been poor as a child" (an opinion from, among others, Maradona, and the President of Uruguay, José Alberto "Pepe" Mujica Cordano).

 

MY OWN TOLERANT VIEW is simple, and was also voiced by one of the unwashed locals interviewed by Uruguayan TV in his home town of Salto (meaning, "leap" or "dive" in Spanish) in Uruguay, and which I translate: "He's just a guy who likes biting. Leave him alone."

 

I WISH THE SAME could be said of David "toothless" Cameron, who today went off to Europe to show some teeth to our European friends and prevent them from electing bibulous Jean-Claude Juncker as President of the European Commission. This mission was an abject failure.

 

YET I CANNOT HELP seeing a certain symmetry in the relative poverty of Suárez as a child and Cameron's wealth in his early days. No doubt it is the silver spoon in one's mouth as a baby that will lead to one having no bite as an adult. It would be wonderful if this convinced anyone that we would be better off in the UK if we elected a Prime Minister who knew something about the life of poor people, but nothing will ever do that.

WINTER OLYMPICS

WHY WE HAVE WINTER OLYMPICS is something of a mystery to me, given the fact that the "Olympic spirit" was born out of an idea of keeping people healthy in mind and body. And how four men lying on top of each other in close-fitting latex suits on a piece of oiled plastic, hurtling down a thousand yards of packed ice can contribute to the health of either mind or body of any of these gentlemen remains something that I need explaining.

NOR WOULD ANY DECENT GENTLEMAN be seen wearing the outfits that these people put on to go about the scenarios of the "games". The gaudy colours are bad enough, but the tight-fitting spandex makes everyone look like a Durex condom in sunglasses. Which, I am forced to believe, is what some people want to be.

THE MAIN EVENT, of course, in the Sochi games, was the small bore shooting competition in which the electrician who ruined the opening ceremony when the lights did not come on properly was taken out into the woods at dawn and shot in the back of the head.

IN THE MEANTIME UKRAINE wants the right to some form of independence. Does it really matter to anyone? And even if Crimea becomes an independent state will it make any difference? And why does Vladimir "Ras" Putin want to maintain a union that has always been tense? My vote is that the future for the Ukraine, which will no doubt be governed by one of the boxing Klitschkos, could be solved by a good ice-hockey match, putting Putin helmet and stick-to-helmet and stick against Vitali. This could be shown live on TV. The revenue might even save the dire Ukrainian economy, given that they haven't been able to produce a marketable product without Russian help for the last six centuries.

NOT TONIGHT JULIE GAYET

THE RECENT SCANDAL INVOLVING the photogenic President of France, François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (above) and his possible bonking relationship with actress Julie Gayet (sic) and subsequent hospitalisation of his partner Valérie Trierveiler due to grief and stress, has once again served to show the Anglo-Saxon world the depths to which the European Union has plummeted.

ONCE UPON A TIME we in Britain considered that French gentlemen had a certain savoir-faire and panache, and that French girls had a je-ne-sais-quoi that we did not know what it was until these same girls did it to us, bringing us a joie-de-vivre that was unusual to find on our home shores.

EQUALLY, IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN ASSUMED in England that French men enjoyed the idea of dipping their wick in foreign vulva, never managed to get the job fully done but went about the ville bragging about the shagging. So the fact that socialist Monsieur le Président Hollande was caught with his pants down and then refuses to admit he did the dirty, then threatening the press with court action is revealing of what Europe has become.

WHEN DECENT BRITISH POLITICIANS, such as Labour's Robin Cook and John Prescott, and the Conservative Party's John Major, Boris Johnson and David Mellor can openly admit to having a bit of afternoon relaxation with their secretaries, yet the French refuse to admit that this goes on, we can see how the effect of the Euro currency has reduced that once proud nation to a state of wussiness. And once a French wife used to give her errant husband a good smacking, throwing suitcases into the street. Now they check into hospitals.

DOING THINGS THE EUROPEAN WAY

THE RECENT UNPLEASANT SPAT between PM David Cameron and António Guterres, former Portuguese Prime Minister, President of the Socialist International and current United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees proved interesting for more than the obvious reasons.

FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT KNOW, Mr Guterres criticised Cameron's plans for restricting immigration into Britain from the rest of the European Union. Cameron, of course, knows full well that nothing will come of these announcements, as unless Britain leaves the EU it will just have to put up with the vast numbers of people arriving in the UK every day, leaving the Republic of Ireland, Portugal and Greece virtually without any young people. The same will happen soon to Romania and Bulgaria.

THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY RESPONSE through its vice-president Bob Neill, was, “We are not going to accept lessons on how to manage our borders from a failed Portuguese Socialist transformed into an unelected UN bureaucrat”, and MP Douglas Carswell said Guterres’ remarks were “foolish” and should be “immediately filed in the waste paper basket”.

GUTERRES MAY BE A LITTLE UPSET by these remarks, despite the fact that they are completely correct, but what seems of more importance to me is the fact that British Conservatives do not seem to understand the European way of playing politics.

UNDER THE SO-CALLED D'HONDT METHOD, invented by the Belgian Victor D'Hondt in 1878, and widely used throughout Europe, rather than the "winner takes all system" we in Britain and our colonial cousins in Canada, the USA and India use, no one is truly "elected". In this system the grandees of the parties sit down at a table and draw up a list of their friends to be elected. The "people" have no choice in this matter, and simply vote for their favourite party without knowing who the candidates are. Those "elected" by the people have no responsibility to the voters, but only to the members of the party with political clout.

THIS IS NOT TOO FAR FROM TOTALITARIANISM, as Mr Cameron should understand, having criticised the system when Nick Clegg wished to introduce it to elections in Britain. But Europeans love it: it means they don't have to think; they don't have to remember anyone's names; all they have to do is tick a box next to a picture -- they don't even have to be able to read. (Which makes one wonder how they digested the party manifesto.)

THE EUROPEAN UNION EMBRACES this system and takes it one step further, through the "nomination" system by which the three most important people in the European Union were chosen. Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, was nominated the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission; Herman von Rumpoy is President of the European Council, and was elected by a secret ballot that is so secret that nobody knows who is allowed to vote; and the much-hated José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, was "invited" to take the position. None of them seems very worried about not having been elected.