Ponters Pensées: 19.7.16
Bull-running: It's not always pure fun. Click here for how it sometimes turns out.
Spain's (acting) President Rajoy: He's not exactly the world's greatest speaker. In fact, his only oratorical trick is to pound his left arm up and down. David Jackson treats us to his view of the man's skills here.
The EU President: This, of course, is Plonker Juncker. As Private Eye recently pointed out: During his two decades as finance minister and prime minister of Luxembourg, he transformed the country into a great tax avoidance machine which allowed multinational companies to dodge millions - even billions - of taxes back home. And this man is now in charge of cleaning up Europe. A poacher turned gamekeeper? Or just a jumped-up, self-important fraud? Mind you, he's survived the man who did the most to try to stop him being made President - David Cameron. What does that tell you about Brussels? And he's shown great statesmanship over the horrific Brexit development. Not.
UK Politics: There's been an amazingly successful spoof party created in Britain. Hundreds of thousands of people – mostly young – have been persuaded to pay to sign up to a party with a decent program of policies but with a leader who's clearly a comedian and has about as much chance of leading the party into government as my coffee table. In case you haven't heard of it, it's called The Labour Party. And it's giving people a lot of laughs. Last night, the leader even managed in parliament to vote against his party's manifesto-declared policy on nuclear submarines.
Turkey: Another joker in the spoof Labour party had said this about recent events there:- Turkey is now - and has long been - a lynch pin in European and wider security. The ludicrous Brexit lies undoubtedly contributed to destabilising the country. HT to reader Sierra for this.
Russia: According to Moscow and RT TV, the report on the state-sponsored drug regime there is just 'political posturing by the West' and the process of arriving at this conclusion has been farcical. But the government accepts it and will sack everyone named. Cognitive dissonance? Which reminds me . . . If there's one person on RT TV I simply have to switch off, it's 'Gorgeous' George Galloway. So, it's nice to see that he's lost a case in which he was accused of various offences, including scurrilous sexual slander against an ex (female Muslim) employee. And will now have to pay her a lot of his ill-gotten gains. What an egregious shit the man is. Would anyone else employ him?
Here Be Dragons: Here's an interesting list of places which were believed to exist during the Middle Ages.
Finally . . . Cecile McLorin Savin. This year's Jazz & Blues Festival in Ponters hasn't been up to the standard of previous years, presumably because of cost constraints. I was on my way home past last night's final concert when I had my socks knocked off by this wonderful, Ella-esque singer. Try this as a sample of what she can do.
Another showing for a (Spanish) favourite of mine . . .
Ponters Pensées 30.7.16
Ponters Pensés: 29.7.16
Ponter Pensées: 28.7.16
Ponters Pensees: 20.7.16
Questions from Ponters 11.7.17
Ponters Pensées: 9.7.16
Ponters Gripes: 8.7.16