Oh my, what a
rollercoaster few weeks I’ve witnessed.
Unprecedented.
Unchartered. That’ll be us
here in the newly formed island of Brexitland, formerly known as Great
Britain. We’ve long lost the Great
and it now looks like we’re losing Britain. Gone off the EU map.
Discarded by Obama as the “special” friend of America. And soon to be dis-United as Scotland
remains set to stay in the other Union under Angela and Juncker.
I have long been an
admirer of that First Flower Of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, and her cool,
considered statesmanship but even she has gone ditzy with alternating rounds of
chagrin and exuberance at the prospect of ditching the United Kingdom and
anchoring her Celtic mast to the EU ship. We remain 48 lost sheep led astray by
a cavorting and leaderless 52 Brexiteers. So be it.
But it didn’t stop
there. In a Machiavellian-like
plot played out in the absence of David of Pigsgate fame, Gove stabbed Boris in
the back, got nowhere with his own Prime Minister campaign, and left the
country hanging on the edge, waiting for its second female first minister. Act three is kicking its heels in a hot
“Riverdance” roulette as Andrea Leadsom and The Times newspaper slog it out in
what is anything close to the dignified “clean campaign pledge” requested by
Theresa May.
Act two of the same play
was largely carried out behind respectable closed doors: Sam Cam and Sarah
Vine, wife to Michael Gove, went their separate ways, despite holidaying
together, seeing in New Years as ‘besties’, and Vine being godparent to the
Cameron’s youngest daughter. These
long-term friendships that have been smashed to pieces in our British Isles Best
Political Debacle Ever Contest have created a power vacuum in the Camerons’s
vaunted inner circle and a hole in Fran and George Osborne’s famous supper club
- for they are now without a single star attraction to perform an “intellectual
party piece” thereat. So be it again.
But the UK couldn’t stop
there. We were now living it large
in politico soapland and wanted more. With the Tory politicians gone psycho,
Labour decided to kick off too, and Jezza hung on by his fingernails against an
ousting coup from within his own party – simply because he was feverishly
awaiting the Chilcot report so he could point a wobbly, ageing finger at Tony
Blair and accuse him of war crimes while suitably forgetting how to sign his
own surname correctly. So be it
some more.
The only thing remotely
European on our Brexit map over the prevailing days was the shenanigans of
Welsh Wales who produced a football side that kept our hopes alive in the Euro
2016 contest, a side who showed us what unity and cohesion should look like
when egos and self promotion were put aside and every man sought to play for
the greater good of the collective.
Boris (Wooster) Johnson, Michael (Mac the Knife) Gove, Theresa
(Macavity) May, David (Pigsgate) Cameron, Andrea (Mother of a reputedly False
CV) Leadsom, Jeremy Corybn (the politician formerly known as Corbyn) and Nigel (Forever having
a pint) Farage: you could learn a lesson or two from watching a re-run of those
Wales games. It’s called “team
work” as opposed to shouts of “me, me, me”. Team work – yeah, that could work as a whole new, as yet
undiscovered, mantra for politicians. So be some more of it.
And Wales were more than
inclusive in allowing us all a little chink of hope. They allowed us all to be Welsh. Even their late great poet, Nigel Jenkins, had the foresight
to make us all welcome in the event we would like to be Welsh.
The National Anthem of
Wales is fraught with an assault course full of consonants, vowels, diphthongs
and the small matter of the voiceless alveolar
lateral fricative, not to mention several voiceless sonorants. That amounts to the same difficulties
experienced when trying to reconcile the Brexiteers with the Bremainers. Never between the twain shall there be
understanding or meeting. So, if
you’re English suddenly trying to be Welsh in a short time frame, the answer is
“No chance”.
Cue the
Welsh anthem:
“Mae
hen wlad fy nhadau yn annwyl i mi,
Gwlad
beirdd a chantorion, enwogion o fri,
Ei
gwrol ryfelwyr, gwladgarwyr tra mad,
Gwlad,
gwlad, pleidiol wyfi’m gwlad,
Tra môr
yn fur
I’r bur
hoff bau,
O
bydded i’r hen iaith barhau.”
A bit hairy, you might say. But then we found Nigel and there was a
choir of light between the rest of the UK and Wales:
“My hen laid a
haddock on top of a tree,
Glad barks and
centurions throw dogs in the sea,
My guru asked
Elvis and brandished Dan’s flan,
Don’s muddy
bog’s blocked up with sand.
Dad, Dad! Why
don’t you oil Aunty Glad?
When oars
appear, on beer bottle pies.”
Wales, I salute
you. Felly mae.
I haven’t even
started on Wimbledon. I was in tennis
mode for all of two weeks, grand slamming my way through those matches almost to
the point of exhaustion and we were all rewarded with the one and only Scottish
Andy Murray taking the title. Of
course, if Angela Leadsom is to be believed in her “Mums know best” address to
the nation, then the real winner of Wimbledon is mum Judy Murray. Follow her @LeadsomTips - curated by
@Jason_Spacey and described by The Guardian as “a parody too beautiful for
these brutal times”. Oh my!
You, my
observant readers, will have noticed something by now: no golf blog.
Too busy with
top totty politics and other sports.
Yup, I am saving it all for Troon, Scotland and The Open this week.
To the Lowlands... agus mar sin bitheadh.
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