Alien road circles and Tusk pours oil on troubled waters

Walking to the post-office, I noticed these strange circular marks on our newly paved road, concentrated at our dead end, that had not been there a couple of days ago. The neighbour cleaning his car looked up and said "They're caused by cars turning!"

This called for an experiment. I drove my car onto the road, stopped and turned the steering wheel left and right, then reversed the car a bit more to look at the road. There was indeed a very faint circular mark left by the rotation of the tyre, but not as pronounced as the others. I replicated the experiment, with the same result. Checking with the separation of now obviously paired strongly visible circles in the road, they were further apart than my car's tyres.

My curiosity was satisfied  - yes, these are the marks of vehicles turning at the end of our close. These vehicles were larger and heavier than a domestic car, such as furniture and other large delivery lorries  - or the road sweeper that appeared yesterday.

The results also do not bode well for the lifetime of our new road surface.

After the aggressive rhetoric from Westminster on 'EU interference in UK elections', a more emollient set of statements came back from the EU. The European council president, Donald Tusk, has called on Theresa May to show “moderation and respect” in the increasingly heated Brexit negotiations. He also said:

“These negotiations are difficult enough as they are. If we start arguing before they even begin, they will become impossible. The stakes are too high to let our emotions get out of hand because at stake are the daily lives and interests of millions of people on both sides of the Channel. We must keep in mind that, in order to succeed, we need today discretion, moderation, mutual respect and a maximum of goodwill.”

Which was taken as a rebuke to Jean Claude Juncker by the UK press.

President Trump finally has a something he can cheer about, as the Republicans narrowly win the vote for the American Health Care Act, to repeal 'Obamacare'. The story is not over yet, as apparently, the act has to pass through the Senate, where the Republican majority is less secure. The costings of the new care act, after the amendments that have been made to get it to pass, still need to be established by the Congressional Budget Office.