New Agenda on Sunday is out! Edition of 13th May 2018

https://paper.li/f-1346065353#/

Good morning everyone

Power cuts are a regular feature of life in our village and presumably, the surrounding villages in the valley. The season has started early this year however, with the first being on Wednesday evening. Flickering lights then power off for a few seconds, back on again briefly then off for another few seconds then back on and finally off leaving us in complete darkness groping around trying to find the candles. Eventually, with no television, radio or computer, we flicked off the lamp switches pressed the off buttons on the television "zappers" and went to bed.

At around 2:30 am, we were awakened by the sound of quite loud voices from downstairs. Now either this was the sound of a male and female burglar having a "domestic" or the "zappers" had failed to switch off the TV. Muttering unprintable sounds, I went downstairs to find the television on, at not quite full volume, airing one of the all night "news" discussions which seem to be so popular with the late night channels and invariably have a mixed panel of pundits all shouting at the same time. Muttering more unprintable noises, I turned off the TV and went back to bed. Now the point of this story, is to question why this village is so prone to power cuts, the vast majority of which occur during the evening and why is there no obvious cause. It is not as if 9 inches of heavy snow has brought down the power lines, or some other natural disaster has destroyed the generating station. I am beginning to think that some sinister force is creating this disruption just to annoy me.

Sheer bloody stupidity (again)

I received one of these "Wilkinson HYDRO 5" razors in our weekly shopping.
Again, I have resorted to using a Stanley knife to open the packaging to get at the razor. Why this, and other manufactures, use this type of packaging (plastic of course) is a mystery to all. It is not necessary, it is wasteful and moreover, it is dangerous when opened as the package material then has sharp edges.
There must be something that the consumer can do to force these package designers to be more "user friendly" when churning out these useless wrappings. We can't even use another manufacture as they are all using the dangerous plastic.

The madman Trump, tears up the Iran Nuclear Agreement (hailed by many as the most effective non proliferation agreement implemented by the western powers) and only minutes later, the warmonger Netanyahu orders Israeli war planes to attack positions within Syria, killing Iranian personnel.

This is no coincidence in the ongoing conflict in Syria, the only change being that the United States has now given the Israeli government a free hand to attack Syria and ultimately Iran itself, without any fear of intervention form outside to control Israeli excesses.
This is a bad day for the wider Middle East peace process and a very dangerous time for the region and the world. History (if we have any) will record how the unbalanced President of the United States tore up an agreement just to gratify his own personal prejudices and ego, thus plunging the world into catastrophe.

I an not and never have been a great fan of the "Eurovision Song Contest". Awful songs being churned out over hours of television time, culminating in what seems like more hours of "Now we have the voting of the (which ever) jury". As an ABBA fan, I think that far and away the worst song they ever recorded was "Waterloo", which actually won this annual nonsense full of second rate music and overblown performances. What is even more objectionable about this "programme", is that certainly over recent years, the voting of the juries has become even more "political". Certain countries will always vote for another politically aligned country, regardless of the singer or the song. Last night (Saturday) continued this dreadful tradition. There also seems to be some confusion at the BBC and the show organisers in respect of geography. For how long has Australia, Israel, Russia and even Cyprus, been in Europe?

The Brexit Customs Union (or not), "Hard border" (or not), Single Market (or not) arguments rumble on unabated, as various cabinet ministers publicly voice their opposition to their own Prime Minister with comments to the effect that her proposals are "bonkers" or unworkable or undeliverable or some other equally critical side-swipes. Brexit was always going to be a difficult process, but this government with its competing factions are making a complete mess of the negotiations particularly as they have no position which they can all agree on. Added to this fiasco, we have the interventions of former politiciand from all parties adding their views on where everyone else is wrong and we should all do as they say. The latest of these is Miliband Major who threatens to "return to British politics" to save us all from ourselves. Do you remember him? He is the brother defeated by Miliband Minor in the Leadership election, who then in a fit of pique stormed off to the United States to take up a very lucrative post with the International Rescue Committee in New York. He now joins with Kinnock Snr, Blair, Clegg and other former guru's to tell us that only they have all the answers. Oh dera. What a mess.

It has stopped raining and it is getting warmer. However there will be showers and a drop in temperature by mid week. Worry not! The Express (who else) says that it will be the hottest day of the year next Saturday, just in time for THE Wedding!

Have a nice week