The Diary of a Country Bumpkin

It seems that from September 2021, the GB plate that’s on the back of your car will no longer be valid, instead, you’ll need a UK plate and whose clever idea was this, I’m forced to ask.

The United Nations, said it had received a notification stating that the United Kingdom is changing the distinguishing sign which we have used for years on vehicles registered in the United Kingdom, from GB to UK.

Apparently GB refers to Great Britain, which includes England, Scotland and Wales, while UK refers to the United Kingdom, which is Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

I had never thought that GB did not include Northern Ireland and having now left the EU I have been replacing all my car number plates that have the EU logo with GB and the Union Flag, commonly known as the Union Jack.

I do not want a UK plate as we are becoming less and less united with every passing day and changing a number plate from GB to UK is not going to stop the Scottish people from demanding independence.

I am more than happy with my new GREAT BRITAIN plates which I think represents the way I feel about the country, it is GREAT that’s why every migrant who walks all the way from the other side of the world doesn’t stop in all the countries they have passed through but continues until they manage to get into GREAT BRITAIN.

Is it sexist to say women should grow old gracefully, apparently Oscar winning actress Julianne Moore has called the phrase totally sexist and judgemental.

She says ageing can’t be stopped so why tell women how to do it?

Well, as a man I am very glad to have a woman assist with regard to this very thorny issue, never an easy one for a man especially when one finds oneself faced with awkward questions something along the lines of ‘don’t you think I look young for my age?’

I now know I don’t have to be anywhere near as tactful as I have been previously, where I might have answered something along the lines of ‘yes, of course you do and how gracefully you are achieving the continual bloom of youth’.

I can now respond, ‘no, you have let yourself go to wrack and ruin, you look dreadful’, and in the case of an American actress one might add, ‘it’s only a matter of time before you are playing toothless hags, like the wicked witch of the west’.

This sounds a little harsh to me I know but I wouldn’t want to appear sexist, myself I shall just continue to grow old disgracefully.

The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has just started a campaign to encourage people back to London and it is called Let’s do London which leaves me to wonder, why?

On the last three times I went, all relatively recently, firstly to purchase a new bed for my wife’s aesthetics clinic where I unfortunately strayed into a deserted bus lane whilst looking for the business in question and I received a hefty fine.

The next occasion I dropped our daughter to her boyfriend and made the mistake of using a back route I used to use when I worked in London, unfortunately I came across a bus only road but was committed to turning and had no opportunity to stop suddenly and try to reverse away so once again I received a hefty fine.

Lastly, when we were delivering an orange plant to our son I made the error of thinking that I wouldn’t be charged the Congestion Zone as it was a Bank Holiday, sadly I was wrong and I received a hefty fine.

Now we have the Congestion Charge Zone expanding and the chargeable hours increasing together with the introduction of the ULEZ Ultra Low Emission Zone charge I have to say as a motorist I am not feeling remotely welcomed in London.

The last time I went to London it was absolutely heaving with people quite a few of whom were only too happy to spill out onto the road as if they owned it which I thought a bit of a cheek as I’m fairly certain pedestrians don’t pay any tax to use the road, unlike us motorists.

So as far as I’m concerned Mr Sadiq Khan with regard to your Let’s do London campaign, I’m inclined to say, LET’S NOT, I shall take myself and my car to somewhere where I feel more welcomed and spend my money there.

Faster than a speeding bullet I give you tomorrows news today, although I’m guessing some of you may have anticipated the following news event too.

I’m led to believe there was a football match last night in which England won against someone else and bravo to them I say, however I am not at all pleased with the actions of the England fans after the match and I think the following video will sum up why I am not remotely impressed with the conduct of the fans.

As you can see there is not the slightest attempt for these mostly young unvaccinated people who are not wearing masks to social distance, so I gave you tomorrows news today.

MASSIVE COVID OUTBREAK AFTER THE ENGLAND MATCH, THERE’S A SURPRISE!

The new statue to Princess Diana was unveiled this week and I have to say what a pleasant change it is to see a new statue being erected, especially in these woke times in which we live where the norm nowadays it to knock statues down.

One wonders how long it will be before some bright spark comes up with a reason to knock this one down on the grounds of white privilege or finding some slight connection to the slave trade in her family when dinosaurs ruled the world.

I must say I thought it a little odd the grouping of three small children, two of whom had no shoes on and I wondered if this was the reason I was finding the statue looked somehow wrong and then it dawned on me the reason the statue doesn’t look right is because it doesn’t look like Princess Diana.

Perhaps I’m wrong and it’s my memory of how Princess Diana looked that is not right having faded over time, what do you think, I’m curious to hear your opinions.

I believe it was this week that 20,000 Scottish football fans came down to London as there was a match where their team were playing, don’t ask me who they were playing for I have absolutely no idea.

Vast numbers of young unvaccinated Scotsmen gathered in the streets drinking and I imagine watching the match on television and the next day went back to Scotland.

Upon their return home there was a sudden increase in the number of recorded cases of Covid, 2000 of which were directly traceable to those who came down for the football, now how could this have happened when they were all socially distanced and wearing masks.

I could be wrong but I’m inclined to think the following photograph may go some way to explain things.

The headlining on the hardtop on my MG TF came adrift which was doing nothing for my field of vision as it had fallen over my head, so I took the top off and attempted to stick the old one back, unfortunately this failed so I purchased some new headlining and started again, this time much more successfully.

Now all I had to do was put the soft top down, drag my wife from the house and put the hard top back on the car.

Back on and looking fairly presentable my field of vision greatly improved.

Flushed with pride at my achievement I gave the car a wash and took her for a drive.

A useful days work, you can’t beat the old wartime saying, “make do and mend!”

Well it’s all kicked off today, the internet has gone berserk, questions have been asked in the House of Parliament when Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu described dunking a biscuit in your tea as an abomination.

I have just recently noticed that this woman is an American which may go some way to explain her peculiar belief that one shouldn’t dunk one’s biscuits.

Luckily the nation has stepped up to the plate and told this woman in no uncertain terms what she can do with her ridiculous idea that one shouldn’t dunk and should enjoy the experience of munching away on a dry biscuit.

I’m sure in days gone by when travelling by sailing ship to the Americas a dry ships biscuit may have seemed like luxury compared to the other option of starving to death during the crossing but I’m forced to wonder would the application of some tea to dunk the biscuit may have helped to stave off the effects of scurvy.

This is a very slippery slope she is treading on and I wonder how long it will be before we have the suggestion that we shouldn’t drink tea out of the saucer, it’s this sort of thing that undermines the stability of a nation.

I’m really not at all interested in football, however I have to thank the current Euro football thing for the rather fascinating piece of trivia which came up recently during a discussion about Germany.

Apparently it is quite legal to try to escape from prison in Germany, although bizarrely it is against the law to run out of petrol on the Autobahn or to verbally abuse someone in public.

Whilst I have to commend the Germans broadminded attitude to prison escape, I have to say they were not quite so easy going in 1944 when allied troops who were imprisoned in Stalug Luft III prison of war camp dug three escape tunnels called Tom, Dick and Harry.

In the end only Harry was used for the escape of 76 men, although 73 were captured and very sadly 50 of them were rounded up and shot and killed by the Gestapo, as I said the Germans attitude to prison escape seems considerably more broadminded today than it was in 1944.

I have watched previous episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale as my wife enjoys the programme although I am not so keen as I find all these fairy story dramas a little hard going.

Currently I have watched two episodes of the new series and I have absolutely no idea what is going on and I very much doubt if I will have the faintest idea what has happened even if I get as far as watching the full series.

There are various reasons for my confusion as to what the story is all about, the first being that I have great difficulty translating from American into English which doesn’t help, followed by the fact that I have trouble hearing whispering acting, especially when the background music is as loud as the dialogue and even more trouble with the dramatic scenes when the music completely drowns out the dialogue altogether.

Having said that I am having trouble following the plot, I don’t think it will make a great deal of difference as I haven’t noticed much change in the storyline since the damn thing started.

This leaves me little to add except, “blessed be the fruit.”