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It makes no sense. Unless it's understood that it's not the Greek economy that's being rescued, but European and US banks exposed to Greek debt.
You've got to know when to hold 'em - and know when to fold 'em.
This Treaty marks a new stage in the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as closely as possible to the citizen.
Discovery? It's what I do for a living really. Silicon chips, dark matter, the Higgs Boson.
But recently, I made another discovery: punctuality, legroom, a crisp glass of Chanteloup-Touraine.
All from £49 with Lufthansa. Now that's a wonder of the universe!
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left."
"In every way qualified to receive the honour and dignity of knighthood".
"Personal pronouns and adjectives are a fruitful nuisance in this language, and should have been left out. For instance, the same sound, sie, means you, and it means she, and it means her, and it means it, and it means they, and it means them.
"Think of the ragged poverty of a language which has to make one word do the work of six -- and a poor little weak thing of only three letters at that. But mainly, think of the exasperation of never knowing which of these meanings the speaker is trying to convey.
"This explains why, whenever a person says sie to me, I generally try to kill him, if a stranger."
"In the German it is true that by some oversight of the inventor of the language, a Woman is a female; but a Wife is not -- which is unfortunate. A Wife, here, has no sex; she is neuter; so, according to the grammar, a fish is he, his scales are she, but a fishwife is neither.
"To describe a wife as sexless may be called under-description; that is bad enough, but over-description is surely worse.
"A German speaks of an Englishman as the Engländer; to change the sex, he adds inn, and that stands for Englishwoman -- Engländerinn. That seems descriptive enough, but still it is not exact enough for a German; so he precedes the word with that article which indicates that the creature to follow is feminine, and writes it down thus: "die Engländerinn," -- which means 'the she-Englishwoman.'
"I consider that that person is over-described."
"Now, the foreigner, equipped with these three noble words, is master of the situation. Let him talk right along, fearlessly; let him pour his indifferent German forth, and when he lacks for a word, let him heave a Schlag into the vacuum; all the chances are that it fits it like a plug, but if it doesn't let him promptly heave a Zug after it; the two together can hardly fail to bung the hole; but if, by a miracle, they should fail, let him simply say also! and this will give him a moment's chance to think of the needful word.
"In Germany, when you load your conversational gun it is always best to throw in a Schlag or two and a Zug or two, because it doesn't make any difference how much the rest of the charge may scatter, you are bound to bag something with them. Then you blandly say also, and load up again. Nothing gives such an air of grace and elegance and unconstraint to a German or an English conversation as to scatter it full of 'Also's' or 'You knows'."
So we're off on holiday tomorrow to France - which means, sadly no ODHSNM next week. If you're missing it that badly, read some of the stuff from 2010, when I only had one reader and that was my mother.
As much as I'm looking forward to the holiday, I can't help but think that in roughly 24 hours' time I will be declaring – as per Samuel L Jackson:
"I have had it with these motherlovin' children on this motherlovin' plane"
Or words of marginally more severe profanity to that effect.
So, is it extra Calpol? Or whisky? For me, obviously. Advice on airborne child-wrangling gladly received!
So, goodbye then Colonel Gaddaffi, you crazy old bastard.
It may not have all been over by April at a cost of a few hundred quid, and it may have required a little more force from NATO than was strictly mandated by the UN, but what is it they say?...ah, yes...the ends justify the means.
That's the moral authority and military hegemony of the West re-established then. No longer can it be said that democratic states will tolerate tyrants; even ones who pose no harm to anyone anymore except their own citizens; even ones who make themselves useful from time to time.
Let that be a warning to all you other dictators out there. You hear that? That's the Clash of Civilisations in the distance! Put a foot wrong and BANG, we will mess you up real bad. Are you listening Hu Jintao? No, I didn't think so.
Anyway, now the brave people of Libya can elect a modern, secular, centre-left (or even centre-right! It really is up to you!) liberal democratic government of their own - just like the people of Egypt did earlier in the year.
Hooray for democracy.
By which I mean "fingers crossed, but not getting my hopes up for democracy".
In the meantime, remember the good old days?
PS – The image above is a John Yates classic.
Have you ever fancied owning a poor person? Well, now you can – if you live in Hull, Blackpool or Westminster.
If this pilot scheme goes well, middle class people all over the country could adopt their own family of peasants or a clan of urban lumpenproles. I for one think it would be simply lovely!
The theory is that people with jobs "mentor" a jobless household to get them into work, according to the "social entrepreneur" behind it, Emma Harrison. I find it hard to imagine what a "social entrepreneur" does, unless it means making money out of social programmes – which, with £300 million of government contracts under her belt, Ms Harrison looks highly adept at doing.
I can't help but think this is ridiculously patronising in every way.
Is the grateful serf supposed to view his employed mentor with such admiration that the very force of the example set by seeing a real-life working person makes them stop being a feckless skiver on the spot?
Or is the middle class role model just supposed to fill in forms for their unemployed protégée, in nice, legible handwriting, using long words, spelled correctly – like a Job Centre Cyrano de Bergerac?
I'm intrigued to know what special understanding of "how to find and keep a job when you have no skills or experience" the middle classes of Hull, Bristol and Westminster are presumed to have.
I have a sneaking suspicion that someone like me coming into your home and telling you that - for example – you might find getting a job easier, oh I don't know, if you learn to read or stop drinking Special Brew in the morning is unlikely to go down any better than it does coming from the government.
Coming soon – "voluntary" workhouses funded by wealthy philanthropists and the all rest of the Victorian era! You won't be laughing at my moustache soon...
ODHSNM is one today. That means it's started to crawl around and it has increasingly strong opinions on what it will or won't do (and especially, eat).
However, it still lacks effective bladder or bowel control, and has to be prevented at all costs from getting to the stairs.
Yes, my blog is no longer a baby. It is now a toddler (much like my actual toddler, Tancred, who is also one year old). No longer can I put it down somewhere and expect it to still be there when I get back.
I find it quite remarkable that I've kept writing this up for this long. Here's to the speedy passage of the next 17 years, and to ODHSNM finally leaving home!