Brexit, for once some facts.
- Thread starter flecc
- Start date
Did you ever see a cat stuck up a tree? It desperately wants to get down, but when a kindly human climbs up to rescue it, it hisses and claws. Even cats can’t bear to lose face. Brexit is like this: England needs to climb down, but it can’t bear to lose face. The only solution is to offer England enough ways to declare victory. In return for forgetting about Brexit, the European Union and member states will offer the following concessions.
1Germany will agree that the penalty shoot-outs from the 1990 World Cup semi-finals and 1996 European Championship semi-finals will be restaged at Wembley. Chris Waddle, Stuart Pearce and Gareth Southgate will be allowed to take their penalties as many times as is necessary for them to score, ending decades of hurt. There will be mass chanting of “two World Wars and two World Cups”.
2Queen Elizabeth II will be permitted to add queen of France to her titles for the remainder of her reign, in keeping with the claims of her predecessors. The title will have no extraterritorial significance, but the fleur-de-lis will be returned to the royal standard and will fly over all royal palaces.
A helmeted Boris Johnson will be winched on to Rockall, waving a Union flag in each hand. He will remain in residence for six months each year
3The European Union will recognise British sovereignty over the northeast Atlantic islet of Rockall. Denmark, Iceland and Ireland will withdraw their rival claims and issue a joint statement recognising the inalienable Britishness of the rock. A helmeted Boris Johnson will be winched on to Rockall from a helicopter, waving a Union flag in each hand. He will be granted the title of sovereign lord of Rockall and will remain in residence for six months each year.
4Beethoven’s Ode to Joy will be replaced as the official EU anthem with On Ilkla Moor Baht ’at.
5France will agree to import 1,000 tonnes of cheddar each year until 2023. The Cordon Bleu institute of gastronomy in Paris will endorse an advertising campaign under the slogan “Roquefort merde, Cheddar mmmm!”
UK regulations won’t change much after Brexit, says David Davis
6Spain will agree to reissue all school atlases with Las Malvinas given their proper name, the Falkland Islands.
7Spain will formally cede the Pie n Pint pub and Churchill’s sports bar, in Santa Ponsa, and the EastEnders pub and Arfur’s cabaret bar, in Magaluf, to her majesty’s government, recognising them in perpetuity as British overseas possessions.
8Marmite will be granted protected-designation-of-origin status by the European Union.
9In recognition of distinctive English traditions and justified irritation at bloody Brussels interference, EU labour laws will contain a special derogation to allow for the employment in England of soot-faced child chimney sweeps singing “Chim chiminey / Chim chiminey / Chim chim cher-ee!”
10 Jellied eels will be served at all formal EU dinners.
A nation that is still celebrating the retreat from Dunkirk as a stunningly heroic deed will have enough fuel for self-love to last a century
11Ireland will agree that Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw, WB Yeats and James Joyce are Great British writers. (The status of Samuel Beckett will be referred to a special United Nations commission.)
12 Saoirse Ronan, Rory McIlroy, Graham Norton and Bono will agree that they are British when they win an Oscar / win the Masters / tell a good joke / make a good album but remain Irish when they make a dud movie / hit a round of 82 / tell a terrible joke / make a show of themselves. The Irish people will enter a solemn covenant not to whinge about this ever again.
13 Brussels sprouts will be renamed Little England cabbages.
14 English grocers will not be banned from selling only bendy bananas. English women will not have to turn in their old vibrators for recycling before buying new ones. English lorry drivers will not be forced to give up rashers and eggs for muesli and croissants. (None of these things ever happened, but, largely thanks to Boris Johnson, people believe they did, so the “concessions” will feel like a victory.)
15 The people of Paris will agree to stop being rude and pretending they don’t speak English, especially when it is helpfully spoken at them slowly and very loudly.
These proposals have two great advantages. First, they are much more practical and achievable than the actual have-our-cake-and-eat-it demands of the British government in the Brexit negotiations. They involve some pain for the countries making the concessions, but they do not threaten vital national interests. Second, they are designed to send the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and Sun into paroxysms of patriotic ecstasy. A noisy orgy of triumphalism will fully cover the retreat from Brexit. A nation that is still celebrating the retreat from Dunkirk as a stunningly heroic deed will have enough fuel for self-love to last a century.
Above all, honour will be satisfied, face will be saved. The cat will be able to come down from the tree with a smile on its face and its tail in the air, knowing that it is its rescuer who has been humiliated. In years to come Brexit will be but dimly remembered and people will say what the grandfather says of the Battle of Blenheim in Robert Southey’s poem: “But what good came of it at last?” / Quoth little Peterkin. / “Why that I cannot tell,” said he, / “But ’twas a famous victory.”
From today's Irishi times..
1Germany will agree that the penalty shoot-outs from the 1990 World Cup semi-finals and 1996 European Championship semi-finals will be restaged at Wembley. Chris Waddle, Stuart Pearce and Gareth Southgate will be allowed to take their penalties as many times as is necessary for them to score, ending decades of hurt. There will be mass chanting of “two World Wars and two World Cups”.
2Queen Elizabeth II will be permitted to add queen of France to her titles for the remainder of her reign, in keeping with the claims of her predecessors. The title will have no extraterritorial significance, but the fleur-de-lis will be returned to the royal standard and will fly over all royal palaces.
A helmeted Boris Johnson will be winched on to Rockall, waving a Union flag in each hand. He will remain in residence for six months each year
3The European Union will recognise British sovereignty over the northeast Atlantic islet of Rockall. Denmark, Iceland and Ireland will withdraw their rival claims and issue a joint statement recognising the inalienable Britishness of the rock. A helmeted Boris Johnson will be winched on to Rockall from a helicopter, waving a Union flag in each hand. He will be granted the title of sovereign lord of Rockall and will remain in residence for six months each year.
4Beethoven’s Ode to Joy will be replaced as the official EU anthem with On Ilkla Moor Baht ’at.
5France will agree to import 1,000 tonnes of cheddar each year until 2023. The Cordon Bleu institute of gastronomy in Paris will endorse an advertising campaign under the slogan “Roquefort merde, Cheddar mmmm!”
UK regulations won’t change much after Brexit, says David Davis
6Spain will agree to reissue all school atlases with Las Malvinas given their proper name, the Falkland Islands.
7Spain will formally cede the Pie n Pint pub and Churchill’s sports bar, in Santa Ponsa, and the EastEnders pub and Arfur’s cabaret bar, in Magaluf, to her majesty’s government, recognising them in perpetuity as British overseas possessions.
8Marmite will be granted protected-designation-of-origin status by the European Union.
9In recognition of distinctive English traditions and justified irritation at bloody Brussels interference, EU labour laws will contain a special derogation to allow for the employment in England of soot-faced child chimney sweeps singing “Chim chiminey / Chim chiminey / Chim chim cher-ee!”
10 Jellied eels will be served at all formal EU dinners.
A nation that is still celebrating the retreat from Dunkirk as a stunningly heroic deed will have enough fuel for self-love to last a century
11Ireland will agree that Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw, WB Yeats and James Joyce are Great British writers. (The status of Samuel Beckett will be referred to a special United Nations commission.)
12 Saoirse Ronan, Rory McIlroy, Graham Norton and Bono will agree that they are British when they win an Oscar / win the Masters / tell a good joke / make a good album but remain Irish when they make a dud movie / hit a round of 82 / tell a terrible joke / make a show of themselves. The Irish people will enter a solemn covenant not to whinge about this ever again.
13 Brussels sprouts will be renamed Little England cabbages.
14 English grocers will not be banned from selling only bendy bananas. English women will not have to turn in their old vibrators for recycling before buying new ones. English lorry drivers will not be forced to give up rashers and eggs for muesli and croissants. (None of these things ever happened, but, largely thanks to Boris Johnson, people believe they did, so the “concessions” will feel like a victory.)
15 The people of Paris will agree to stop being rude and pretending they don’t speak English, especially when it is helpfully spoken at them slowly and very loudly.
These proposals have two great advantages. First, they are much more practical and achievable than the actual have-our-cake-and-eat-it demands of the British government in the Brexit negotiations. They involve some pain for the countries making the concessions, but they do not threaten vital national interests. Second, they are designed to send the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and Sun into paroxysms of patriotic ecstasy. A noisy orgy of triumphalism will fully cover the retreat from Brexit. A nation that is still celebrating the retreat from Dunkirk as a stunningly heroic deed will have enough fuel for self-love to last a century.
Above all, honour will be satisfied, face will be saved. The cat will be able to come down from the tree with a smile on its face and its tail in the air, knowing that it is its rescuer who has been humiliated. In years to come Brexit will be but dimly remembered and people will say what the grandfather says of the Battle of Blenheim in Robert Southey’s poem: “But what good came of it at last?” / Quoth little Peterkin. / “Why that I cannot tell,” said he, / “But ’twas a famous victory.”
From today's Irishi times..
They probably already are, they've gained a taste for British mature cheddars. They are now an important export market for main brands such as Cathedral City, stocked in the major French supermarkets.
They'd only have take 0.84% of our cheddar exports to pass that 1000 tonnes.
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Excellent! the parallel with Dunkirk is well drawn.
Then many were rescued with small boats
Now the Few (the Government) will be rescued with small Boasts
I like both Emmental and yellow cheddar, and my preference is for cheddar...especially as a microwaved melt with mixed herbs on full wheaten bread toasted.... Not easy to come by in France. Either wheaten bread or cheddar.
Just some of the lies put together so you know where we are at and where we are going. 'Brexit' - race to somewhere......
Tom
Tom
Just when I was beginning to warm to you...
FAKE NEWS folk! Both are very easy to come by it just depends on your part of France I guess.
A special Royal Tent will be erected for her in the Calais migrant jungle where she must come on holiday for at least two weeks every February in order to keep her claim to the title...
Cathedral City cheddar entered the French market over ten years ago and sells around a quarter of a million packets every year. Sales in France are up steadily 5% year on year.
Another British cheddar brand, Wyke Farms from Somerset, the UK's largest independent cheese producer and milk processor, is now stocked in Intermarché, Monoprix and other big French supermarkets.
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Sorry about that.. by full wheaten I mean a dense soda bread,, possibly slightly green in colour, from the wheat germ . This toasted and with cheddat and black pepper to the food of God's. .A French bread of the brown variety to which I am very partial is the pain aux noix, but that is much lighter in texture, being a yeast bread.
My local supermarkets in Morbihan, would tend to have a wide selection of cheeses, of which the Edam is the closest approximation to a cheddar.. but without the bite...
Some interesting comments in "The Canary" about Goves Keynote speech
"
Gove said.
We already, as everyone here knows, have a high baseline for animal health standards. And we’ll continue to enforce that. But we could also support industry-led initiatives to improve these standards, especially in cases where animal welfare remains at a legislative minimum.
It was clear from the beginning of that statement that Gove was going nowhere good. Because stuffing female pigs into cramped, inhumane farrowing crates and removing calves from their distressed mothers after just 24 hours of life isn’t a “high baseline”. So it was no surprise when the minister went on to say that his chosen elixir for making farmers treat animals humanely was, wait for it, self-regulation. Gove is planning to pay farmers to come up with their own “initiatives” on animal welfare.
In other words as usual he presented lies as proof of good intentions where none exists.
"
Gove said.
We already, as everyone here knows, have a high baseline for animal health standards. And we’ll continue to enforce that. But we could also support industry-led initiatives to improve these standards, especially in cases where animal welfare remains at a legislative minimum.
It was clear from the beginning of that statement that Gove was going nowhere good. Because stuffing female pigs into cramped, inhumane farrowing crates and removing calves from their distressed mothers after just 24 hours of life isn’t a “high baseline”. So it was no surprise when the minister went on to say that his chosen elixir for making farmers treat animals humanely was, wait for it, self-regulation. Gove is planning to pay farmers to come up with their own “initiatives” on animal welfare.
In other words as usual he presented lies as proof of good intentions where none exists.
That's fine as the theory.
But can we simply forget to send a boat/helicopter/surfboard/aircraft carrier to pick him up? If a week is a long time in politics, six months is an eternity+plus+plus - easily long enough for the person responsible to have been replaced a dozen times. So no blame.
(At first glance, I though it said "The helmet Boris Johnson..." Which seems fair enough.)
Today on the TV I heard someone mention CPF Singapore when referring to Rees-Mogg. On Question Time I have often heard that Brexit voters did their homework before the vote, but I have never heard anyone mention that they googled ‘CPF Singapore’ to see where this right wing government is intending taking us.
If you are rich it will be a wonderful society,if you are in work your life is controlled by CPF but if you are out of work you go hungry,better keep your job!!!
Surprised Corbyn does not mention CPF.
KudosDave
If you are rich it will be a wonderful society,if you are in work your life is controlled by CPF but if you are out of work you go hungry,better keep your job!!!
Surprised Corbyn does not mention CPF.
KudosDave
Singapore: Wonderful climate, great contemporary architecture, crappy lifestyle for non millionaires. Do you have any non millionaires in the UK?...
We are jointly trillionaires in debt.Do you have any non millionaires in the UK?...
It's a form of wealth to optimists.
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Since when did the industry lead improvements to standards?
(Some individuals within the industry might well try hard - but not the industry as a whole.)
Well it worked wonderfully when the Bankers were set free and deregulated, didn't it?
OH!
But that nice Mr Gove isn't put off by minor setbacks is he?
What could possibles go wrong?
Our problem is the same, Brexit deregulates this Keystone Cops of a Government of ours, and you would have to be blind or stupid not to see where that will take us all.
What are the Express and Telegraph doing with this headline?
"
Betrayal? Boris Johnson labels Brexit ‘a MESS’ in secretive meeting with German officials
BORIS Johnson betrayed his own Brexit campaign by calling it “a mess” in a private meeting with senior German officials, European Union sources have claimed.
"
Betrayal? Boris Johnson labels Brexit ‘a MESS’ in secretive meeting with German officials
BORIS Johnson betrayed his own Brexit campaign by calling it “a mess” in a private meeting with senior German officials, European Union sources have claimed.
Has it ever crossed your mind that sometimes newspapers report the truth? They are not slavishly bound to reporting only lies, sometimes there is truth within their columns. When a person becomes obsessed and highly passionate regarding one particular agenda, as you are, there is a tendency to become blind to balanced reporting.
The situation becomes binary. For example, if the news text contains information which does not suit the agenda, then in the eyes of the obsessed it consists of lies, half truths and propaganda. If the text fits the agenda, then there exists in the mind of the obsessed, suspicion, mistrust or alignment with the sentiments of the article. There is no half-way house, no ability to take a holistic view or to try and extract common elements from a wide variety of sources.
My thoughts are that both The Telegraph and Express made this report because Boris Johnson has stated that Brexit is a mess and that his reason for doing so is because Brexit is a mess.
the battle lines are drawn: conservative ERG against the world.
For some time now, the Express has been promoting JRM and the DT Boris Johnson.
May be the DT is now considering JRM because BJ seems to be open to a compromise in his last speech.