Diminished British Brexit Negotiators. On Hoovers

Chalk smear on road after yesterday's rain - Kandinsky effect using Lunapics

Brexit negotiations started again today and were marked by one iconic photograph  negotiators. But Davis Davis' bullish comment "get down to business" somewhat marred in the photo. We see on one side of a practical table, the three EU a pile of files ready in front of them. On the other side, the three British negotiators with nothing except a solitary paper notebook. Then the news that David Davies had left after a couple of hours to get back to the UK. The definite impression was that the EU was prepared but the Brits were not. The petty in-cabinet squabbles have also not been lost on a European audience. The reality is apparently less clueless, a UK team of (hopefully more competent) civil servants remaining behind once the politicians have left.

We started the day gently after the busy weekend, setting off later for town to get a new vacuum cleaner. Not impressed with the offerings on show which look less robust and tackier than our old machine, which we have now taken to be repaired instead. The first portable electric vacuum cleaner was invented in 1907 by James Murray Spangler, a department store janitor, and patented a year later. It had a rotating brush to loosen the dust, an electric fan for suction and crucially, his wife's pillow case as a filter. Sadly lacking the funds to develop it further, he sold the rights to a local leather goods manufacturer, William Henry Hoover, and the rest is history!