The Wrath of Trump and the Warnings of Blair. Buying a Long Legged Suit.

Mr Trump is not pleased with Mr Bannon, who allegedly made some incendiary remarks in a book to be published. Trump's lawyers are threatening to sue Bannon for breach of confidentiality. The book was written by Michael Wolff and called 'Fire and Fury' and has not yet been published yet. The lawyers are also attempting to prevent the publication of the book. The publisher has brought the publication forward to tomorrow (Friday). The threat of court action has naturally increased the interest and publicity for the book and its contents will feed the media frenzy for a while. Interesting that even the BBC has been repeating some of the claims circulating - see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42559436.

Tony Blair returned into the limelight briefly on Brexit. Currently a maligned figure, he has still succinctly summarised the options for Brexit in his briefing "What we know now" (https://institute.global/news/tony-blair-brexit-what-we-now-know):

"In essence, there are 4 options in approaching the Brexit negotiation:

1. To re-think and stay, best done in a reformed Europe, where we use the Brexit vote as leverage to achieve reform.
2. To exit the political structures of the EU, but stay in the economic structures ie the Single Market and Customs Union.
3. To exit both the political and the economic structures of Europe but try to negotiate a bespoke deal which recreates the existing economic benefits and keeps us close to Europe politically.
4. To exit both structures, to make a virtue of leaving, to negotiate a basic Free Trade Agreement and market ourselves as ‘Not Europe’."

Current government policy is to aim for solution 3. A major element of the conservatives would however like to go for option 4. Blair argues that Labour should be clearly for solution 1.

Made a dash into town today with Jane on the hunt for a new suit. Leg length has always been the issue. My last suit was a Hugo Boss bought in Germany at the end of the last century (with very fashionable padded shoulders then and last used in 2006), where it was possible to buy clothes in my size. After trying a number of menswear outlets in Cambridge, lukewarm about my size, it was therefore perhaps a foregone conclusion that we ended up at the BOSS shop. Here, my unusual size was not seen as a problem and much to my pleasant surprise, after three tries, I had a perfectly fitting suit.