Baby at Brexit vote , rediscovered words and mudslinging

Distant memories of the March for Europe in Cambridge

A productive day, evening at toastmasters, old words rediscovered, baby in Parliament for Brexit vote and mud slinging from Trump's trade advisor.

There are still good things in the world, Joanna Lumley for one. Hilarious seeing her take and interactions with robots in the Robot Hotel in Japan. Yes, carry on talking Joanna, and I can forget some of the madness going on in the world for a little while.

Actually, the day has been quite productive. Helped J with the formatting of the history project book/catalogue, had an interesting conversation with a craftsman from Germany on entering new markets.  In the evening, went off to an enjoyable session at Huntingdonshire Speakers. I introduced and evaluated a very humorous speech by Debbie and also gave impromptu 2 minute speaking challenges called Tabletopics. Six speakers took up my different moral dilemmas, from what to do if finding GBP100 in the street, to responding when your portrait is revealed in public and you absolutely hate. There is the story of Lady Churchill hating a portrait of him so much that the painting was taken out in the dead of night by Lady Churchill's loyal private secretary, driven by her older brother to a country house and burned so far away from the road that nobody ever noticed.

In addition to reading the corresponding day's entries in the diaries of  Guenther Grass (1990, during German reunification) and The Rev Kilvert's Diary, 1871 (a thank you present from Ann Hales-Tooke), I've started re-reading Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories in publication order. Learned two new (or rather , old) words last night, reading 'The Sign of Four'. First, snib - a window or door fastening. Then, valetudinarian - .someone overly concerned about their health, a hypochondriac.

Well, parliament has voted the Brexit Bill through with a large majority, 498 votes to 114. There was a nice touch from the Speaker, when MP Chloe Smith broke her maternity leave to take part in the historic vote. She seemed to hesitate about coming in, so he shouted out and invited her in with typical parliamentary speak, "I say to the honourable lady, don't be sheepish about it! The little baby is welcome to come in. There's no problem!"

Across the pond, the divide and conquer strategy turned towards Europe as Trump's top trade advisor Peter Navarro accused Germany of using a “grossly undervalued” euro to "exploit the US and its EU partners". A total falsehood as the Euro is regulated by the independent ECB. This is not politics, this is base vilification.