Wetherspoons in Huntingdon; Chilly response from UK/GCHQ to US wire-tap claim; Best news sources; Brexit more important than Union.
A bit of website work in the morning before setting off for Huntingdon, with the aim of bagging a table at Wetherspoons for this weeks HBN meet. Up to now, I'd taken the statement that the Wetherspoon Ordering app only worked on i-phones as gospel. Being there early, I enjoyed finding out that the app certainly worked on my android phone and promptly placed an order for a tandoori chicken starter and diet Pepsi. They arrived at the same time as the first HBNers. We had a lively lunch with two large tables drawn together and conversation bouncing back and forth. I was pleased to hear that the transcription of an interview I'd conducted for a company was useful and the source of future blog articles.
It was a chilly, blustery grey day and, coming over the bridge back to the car park on the Godmanchester side of the river, the ruin by the riverbank facing imminent destruction caught my eye. The wind was so strong that the pedestrian bridge was actually wallowing up and down slightly.
I bought some oranges, lemons and liquid pectin on the way home. After dinner, I used them to make some orange fruit pastels. They have set and need to stand further overnight.
In the absence of finding any evidence of wiretapping of Trump by the US agencies, his spokesman Sean Spicer claimed that Obama had sidestepped them and actually had GCHQ do the dirty deed. This generated a sharp response from the UK government and an unprecedented statement by GCHQ itself that this was not the case and - please DO NOT MENTION IT AGAIN. This was obviously respected by the White House, because, when asked about this issue at the Merkel -Trump press meeting, President Trump stated that they had not themselves claimed that GCHQ was responsible for the wiretap, rather that they were merely quoting a very talented lawyer on Fox News.
Perhaps this is a sign that the expensive public FBI and CIA can be scrapped and replaced by an independent commercial organisation, Fox News. Blindingly obvious in retrospect. After all, according to POTUS, news agencies generally spew out 'Fake News', so where better to get your own fake news from?!
It looked like an uncomfortable meeting between Merkel and Trump, for example the ignored offer of a handshake by Merkel, but at least she is the pragmatic realistic one. She did comment that it was better to talk with one-another rather than about one another.
According to a Telegraph survey, sixty percent of respondents polled thought that Brexit was more important than keeping the UK together. Now I can quite believe that - you can be for or against Brexit and regard it as an important issue.
The follow on claim that "the majority of people would still vote for Brexit, even if they knew it could trigger Scotland's independence" bears closer scrutiny. According to the article's charts, 50.5% would still vote for Brexit. The percentage seems to reflect the Brexit voters anyway, i.e. those who are predominantly from England, so maybe national self-interest dominates. Perhaps the source of the survey, the ORB, will reveal more detail in the near future. The Telegraph article can be found here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/17/brexit-important-keeping-uk-together-public-say-poll-telegraph/
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