Euronalia

I just can't help it, like a guest at a party who keeps turning their head to see who's coming in the room, I can't help looking Europe-wards and wondering what's going on.

Alex has arrived safely and has informed me that Matt's cousin Grace has been booted out of the Big Brother house three weeks since. I guess that was pretty much eclipsed by you-know-what. Seems like Garce has been dissing Matt's part of the family in the press. That would be the gutter press I'm guessing. So that's pretty much what's going on in Britain - thingy, the game you eat strawberries at and Big Brother. Oh, and an interesting little conundrum involving Gordon Brown. I've never heard the abbreviation 'Gord' in Britain, so he will always be Gordon.

Now Gordon as you know, is Tony's annointed successor. I'd prefer it to be a woman, but even though Tony is well aware of my feelings on the matter, he has chosen to ignore them. Nonetheless.
Now Gordon is Scottish. Well, you might say, Scotland is part of Britain. Yes it is. But Scotland has its own government although not with full powers. For example, they do not, nor do they wish to, raise taxes. Sound reasoning oh wiley Scots, because as I have mentioned before, the population of Scotland has more per capita spent on it by Westminster than does England or Wales.
Some issues concerning Scotland are voted on by Parliament in London and the article I read in the 'Economist' while I was in Scotland argued that the Scots MPs wouldn't have it any other way, because there were certain things they didn't trust their own people with.
Fair enough.
Now Scottish MPs traditionally do not vote on English matters. Except for the labour MPs. And Scotland has been Labour (socialist) since the 1940s. Oh yes. SO this is quite useful to Tony. But where does it leave Gordon ? Even the quality Press have been muddying the waters a bit on this one. I kid you not. I remember clearly when Neil Kinnock, a good, old-fashioned socialist was leader of the Labour Party, the press wouldn't leave him alone because he was sandy-haired and a Welshman.
Gordon of course has more Saturnine, dark looks, but they are doing anything they can to scotch (pun intended) the hopes of a Scotsman as premier.

Meanwhile, take the Seacat to Ostend and then drive across Belgium to the Hook of Holland and you would find that the Dutch government is scrapping. This has been bothering me for a few days since I saw it on the French news. They were showing a picture of a very dark-skinned black woman, so I mistakenly thought that the prime minster of Holland was that same woman. This plus the fact that there is no difference in French between the personal pronoun for his or her.

The problem seems to have been caused yet again by the indomitable Ms.Verdonk. Not only does she have a fabulous name, but she was once a prison governor. You may remember that 'Iron Rita' upset many of her countryfolk by trying to bring in a law insisting that only Dutch should be spoken in public. You can't help warming to her. Now she has taken away the citizenship of a popular politician, Ayaan Hirsi Ali because she lied on her original asylum application, putting a false date of birth and name. Except that the name she gave turned out to be her grandmother's surname. Ms. Ali was trying to escape one of those usual women-hating regimes, Somalia in this case, and she has written extensively about the repressive side of Islam.

But one of the parties in the coalition withdrew support for the government, resulting in a domino cascade. A vote of no-confidence against Iron Rita left her barely hanging onto her job, and Jan Peter Balkenende, the real Prime Minister, resigned. Ms. Verdonk has had to give Ms. Ali her citizenship back.

I feel there is a place for Iron Rita, maybe it's cell-block H, but I think she may become a bit of a star akin to Big Brother's fall-from-Grace.

Whilst you're paddling in the North Sea, wade over to Sweden and see that something is missing. The Swedes have given back a very important totem pole belonging to the Haisla tribe from just north of here. I can see that this is enormously important to the band concerned, but I personally am more grateful to Sweden for Ikea, that's like one big old totem to me.

And finally, this morning, Simmi brought to my attention a story from Spain about this amazing 81-year-old's self-built cathedral. The cathedral didn't build itself, Justo Gallego built it on his own.
There is poetry, there is art and there is cathedral building and all can glorify your God or Goddess. Justo deserves admiration in my opinion. Well, I think I can safely say 'in our opinion' and not be emulating the great Queen Victoria.