Another sad day

About a year ago, I mourned the fact that our fat leader had secured a second term, big time. This country, my country, had bought into his swank and twaddle.

Now we have a rather bigger disaster over the pond. Their country, that is to say the US, may not have bought into their fat leader a second time around, but they came close. He got around half the votes, more than 70m of them. With the successful challenger getting a few million more - but not enough to give him serious power for good, even if he were so minded.

But how is that the ruling classes of this rich and powerful country come up with these two seniors as the two candidates to offer to the citizens? One of whom appears to be wearing a lot of make-up. What is the matter with people of working age?

Should we be surprised if other people, in other parts of the world, start to look elsewhere for their role models? How can we claim, how can we be so sure, that our way is best? How can we convince them?

All of which is as it may be, but it is also true that I cared more about the result of this election than any election in this country that I can remember. This one seemed to really matter and I was checking the news at regular intervals to see if there was any news. And I got quite excited when the right man won. It took a little while to calm down and remember that it was not that great a result.

PS 1: we must not get smug about seniors. A chap called William Ewart Gladstone was our Prime Minister in his early eighties in the late nineteenth century, when health care was not what it is now. And more recently, one called Winston Spencer Churchill was our Prime Minister in his early eighties. Perhaps it was all the brandy and cigars which kept him afloat. From where I associate to a tale from the Blenheim about him turning up at Gibraltar to inspect a parade of sailors, drawn up on the dock side, some time towards the end of the war, certainly incapable, probably drunk. Kept afloat by his aides. A tale from a chap whose father was in the Navy for the duration. A tale which does not detract from Churchill's achievement in keeping us afloat at the beginning of that war.

PS 2: picture courtesy of 'The Independent', from which Microsoft News seems to take quite a lot of the news they put out. Perhaps they get it for free.

PS 3: it took some serious searching to turn up reference 1. I searched the various blogs, to no avail. I searched the various places where I keep pictures, to no avail. But then I searched the places where I make pictures, that is to say in Microsoft's Powerpoint, and after a while I turned up the relevant picture. This gave me the date. I then searched the blog archive around the time of that image date and turn up a posting date. From there, but a short step to reference 1 itself. The lesson being that if you want to be able to find your post by searching, it helps to include some sensible search keys in the content, along with the whimsy.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/12/sad-day.html.