Saturday 15 July 2017

Not drowning but waving


The Germans are arriving next week. This will be their first visit since the Brexit vote.

Tobias (the other one) sent me a message the morning after the vote, saying that the whole of Germany felt like a bride left jilted at the altar. Since we are going to spend the next two years working out the terms of the divorce, this was not a good metaphor. Far better to have never married in the first place.

They will, of course, find things very much the same as their last visit. We will eat a bit, drink a bit, talk a lot, and they will make a walk to Bradford on Avon via the towpath, or maybe bus there and walk back. They will not be able to drive to the Cotswolds to visit our mutual and dear friend, Colin, this time. He is dead, but they know that.

We will go to The Bell and Thomas will be greeted like an old friend. I think he likes the place more than I do, but absence makes the heart grow fonder and he is not an alcoholic who is pestered by other alcoholics every day. They were once watching a travel program in Germany which featured Bath as a holiday destination, and it included some footage of the interior of the pub. I was there, sitting at the bar with a pint of something in front of me. I don't remember it being filmed, but that isn't surprising - by which I mean cameras are so much smaller these days, not that I was pissed.

During the run-up to the Brexit vote, Nigel Farage arrived at The Bell, accompanied by a camera team with journalists. They all piled in and Farage was just about to order the signature pint, when the barman told him that he would be served only if the camera team stayed on the outside. They all piled out again to film Farage, but this time without a pint in his hand.

During his speech, a friend of mine walked up behind him and made the universal masturbating sign over his head. 'The Farage Wave' was born. The resulting film found its way onto the national news plus media, and you can still find this footage somewhere on the net. The above is a still - hand a-blur. The bodyguard looks a bit concerned, but there was nothing he could do about it. It is, as they say, a free country.

I have just refreshed my love for The Bell by reminding myself of that day.

13 comments:

  1. Your German friends will no doubt find that everything is much the same, and if they were to return in four or five years time I'm sure they will find it the same.

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    Replies
    1. So you don't think things will get better then?

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    2. The price of beer will get worse, otherwise...

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  2. I voted to remain so I am taking absolutely no interest in the proceedings - as to your 'pissed' reference - all I can say is I believe you but thousands wouldn't.

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    Replies
    1. Well, I don't remember being pissed anyway.

      Has the Guildford picture arrived yet Weave? It should have.

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  3. Replies
    1. Thomas is very dear to us. Tobias too, but in a different way. Tobias, being a gay lay Catholic and once a Marxist, is a little more complicated...

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  4. Take it from me ... your friend may feel what he feels. The whole of Germany doesn't "feel like a bride jilted at the altar". More like having walked into the wrong film, England being a laughing stock all over mainland Europe. And if anyone from over there once more says to me "You ..." lumping me, the foreigner, in with these isles I shall not so much gently point out that I am a non-entity here, with no right to vote, as to tell them what Rachel tells people when people piss her off.

    Your reply to Cro's comment is sarcasm when you do sarcasm best. Don't tell him I went to a Corbyn rally earlier today, Corbyn working the South Coast over the next few weeks.

    U

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    1. Hang on, you are not allowed to vote but you are allowed to practice law in this country? Something a bit fishy going on by the sound of it.

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    2. As much as I like fish there isn't a whiff (when it's going off) around my dealings.

      When I came over here, in order to acquire British citizenship I'd had to give up my (don't betray where I originate from) passport (by dictum of the motherland, not England's - England is promiscuous that way.

      Give up my passport? You might as well ask me to lose my accent. We are who we are. Fast forward a few decades, the motherland's laws have softened. And now the British, always quick to make a fast buck on the strength of little effort, offer me the privilege of a British Passport for a mere £1,000. After I tell them what happened at 1066 (William, the Conqueror, and all that).

      Anyway, no citizenship no vote (in the general election). Simple if not cricket.

      What are fingertips for if not to cling onto the cliffs of Dover? Even you haven't deleted me (yet) today. You must be bored indeed.

      U

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    3. You haven't yet warranted deletion - you came close when referring to two others who always delete you, because I don't like my blog to be used to get at others.

      I just thought that the retention of your original passport might preclude you giving evidence in a British court, and you say you are a fully qualified solicitor/lawyer/barrister? I know you threatened me with some sort of libel action when I said something you didn't like once, reinforcing it with the assurance that you had access to chambers equipped to do so, and I took no notice even though I thought that you had at least dual nationality.

      I think you will find that the Fatherland - sorry, Motherland - is just as avaricious when it comes to getting money from economic immigrants as any other country in the world, including Cuba.

      You're right. I am bored.

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    4. Update: Due to a culinary disaster (I accidentally tuned the oven off) my blood sugar is sow low and I feel so trapped in this apartment in the Summer, that I am going to allow you one more comment before I delete every other comment you ever make in the future.

      I will leave this shit up so that others can see where we are both coming from (and I will delete your final comment if I do not like it) but that's it.

      I AM bored, and you are not helping. Go away and do not come back. You are a pain in the arse, no matter where you originated.

      Delete
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