Penny Mourdant Balances May's Cabinet. A Bookish Day.

Autumnal leaves from a good previous year

With Priti Patel having resigned from the cabinet, Prime Minister May had to find another Brexiteer to balance the numbers. Penny Mourdant was appointed  as International Development Secretary. She has parliamentary experience, is MP for Portsmouth North, a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts, a member of the British Astronomical Association and a Royal Naval Reservist. The latter giving rise to the opportunity for the following statement:

“I have benefited from some excellent training by the Royal Navy, but on one occasion I felt that it was not as bespoke as it might have been. Fascinating though it was, I felt that the lecture and practical demonstration on how to care for the penis and testicles in the field failed to appreciate that some of us attending had been issued with the incorrect kit.”

She does fill the role of Brexiteer, though not with the best credentials. According to Wikipedia, in a 2016 TV interview,  she denied that the UK had a veto on Turkey joining the EU. This despite Article 49 of the EU constitution requiring a unanimous vote of all 28 members of the General Council to allow a candidate state to join, meaning a member state could veto the process.

Received a delivery of the third print run of 'Understanding and Using the Light Microscope' today, quite chuffed that it is still ticking over as a book! At the other end of the process, spent the day working on completing draft manuscripts, without images, for two authors and posted them off.  The cold that set in Tuesday evening looks as if it might have peaked today.