Conversation with Britney.

Britney is our resident Lauren Bacall in ginger, every pose a languorous expression of royal intelligence. Here for example is this morning’s conversation.

“Hello Britney.”

You’ve taken Dave to the black table. We all know.

“You OK Brit?”

You remain under suspicion comedy man

“What you looking at me like that for?”

think about it

“Oh yes sorry, I’ve taken Dave to the vets to get his teeth done. You’re fine. Bloody vets, they’re like the American healthcare system.”

And

“And what? Do you want some milk?”

If I wanted milk I’d take you to the fridge. No I’m here sitting in front of the cat flap, you work it out.

“What?”

 you locked the cat flap so he couldn’t get out

“Oh sorry I locked the cat flap so he couldn’t get out, here.” (unlocks cat flap)

There you go.

I’m not sure. You’re a bit too close. We know the tricks you know. Betty may be neurotic bless her but she’d worked you lot out years ago; Dreamies out of the blue, slowly bending over to give us a stroke in an ominous manner> Remember the rule, ‘We come to you.’ Always been always will be. Just back away and we can both get on with our day>

“Oh sorry, here.”

Thank you.

(Five minutes later)

“Back in?”

look out the window dumb ass, it’s raining.

Brexistential.

Midnight news and the spokesman for the road haulage industry is saying he asked the Brexit gov sec for ‘clarity’ on a no-deal Brexit. And the Brexit gov sec asked, “What exactly do you mean, clarity?”  I think he went on to say there would be no problem on the UK side but it also depends on the EU. Well ‘der!’ I may have been half asleep and not 100% sure what existential means but post two years of negotiations one would expect at least a slim idea of what the other side’s response will be. I’m now fully awake and realising the EU really don’t want the UK to leave. Not because of some familial affection but because they’re fearful for their club. They don’t was to lose membership. Like Greece found, we have entered a Hotel California. Back in 2016 we thought we just needed to pay the bill and check out but now we’re finding the price of leaving also carries existential costs that the EU won’t tell us. ‘Sure your lorries can queue up at Dover but we control the price of landing in Calais.’ In response Brexiteers are forced into saying, ‘Hang the price we’re going to leave anyway!’ It’s the only way the UK can throw the deadline back into the EU court. Of course the haulage industry is concerned but the UK are not negotiating with them. So now the EU is thrown into counting the existential cost to them. And it’s considerable: a founder member, a large economy and a large scientific and security contribution. And it’s all about inflexibility. Germany has a long history of amalgamating disparate groups. It took over a century to form the country from antagonistic feudal Germanic fiefdoms, it put huge energy in amalgamating east and west and was the major driving force in forming the EU. But the wider it grew the more disparate the countries have become. There are now major differences in living standards, attitudes to money and politics, population density and even reputation. Maybe the EU rules are based on an old German idea of amalgamating broadly similar fiefdoms and outdated in a modern Europe. And that’s what Brexit is about, updating Europe. Vive la special case.

How the USA gave up Guns.

Joe’s brother’s daughter died in a school shooting. The kids marched but the NRA and public opinion stood firm. It was like if you weren’t personally affected like Joe guns were your only protection in this crazy world so you loved them. In his head he went through countless ideas of how to change things. Laws couldn’t make it happen, the government wouldn’t and protests didn’t change things. OK forget guns and focus on ammunition, guns are no use without ammunition. He remembered Stuxnet where US malware blew up Iran’s centrifuges. Could he do the same for munitions manufacturers, malware their machines to make cartridges that blew up your gun? It turned out US bullet manufacturing was antiquated; they just used machines with an on/off switch. It would be easier to get them for lead poisoning. But there was a part of that plan that persisted, that if guns blew up in your hand due to faulty ammunition people would think twice about using them: it would feel like Russian roulette only American. In the end he turned to Trump. He was always talking about fake news and tweeting ridiculous things. So that’s what Joe would do. He rang around everyone he knew who had been personally affected by the shooting and from there other shootings and other people. Everyone he rang agreed. Pretty soon he had over a hundred people from all over personally committed to the project. Each had a different start date over a three month period, one or two at first, then five then twenty. They all began to tweet about guns blowing up in their hand. No one knew the cause, could be the guns or the ammunition. Some posted pictures of bloody hands or face, an eye blinded, a kiddie with burns. It was happening all over the country, a twitter storm, Youtube videos, Facebook posts. The more the NRA denied there was a problem the more fresh instances cropped up in new places. The public became jittery. Guns could harm you if you used them?! Of course not every shot, most fired fine, but you could never be sure if the next one might. OK it was fake news but nobody could get to the bottom of it. Even people who said it was a conspiracy weren’t believed. How could all these ordinary real people from all over the place be tweeting the same problem? Ammunition sales plummeted. People still had their guns but stopped using them, ‘just in case.’ Homicides fell by 50%. People talked, felt safer, the news picked up on the stats and drew conclusions. Little by little guns lost their appeal. People began to look at guns not as protection but personally harmful. (much like cigarettes)

And that’s how Joe got rid of guns in the US of A. Of course this is a story, Joe doesn’t exist, but best keep just quiet in case he does.