{"id":3049,"date":"2012-05-27T07:05:29","date_gmt":"2012-05-27T06:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/?p=3049"},"modified":"2026-05-09T14:29:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T13:29:17","slug":"27-may-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/2012\/05\/27\/27-may-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"27 May 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

My goodness, what a busy, busy week we\u2019ve had. And, to make things even better, the weather in the second half of the week has been fairly marvellous \u2013 bright clear skies and temperatures reaching into the mid-70s \u2013 a veritable heat wave for the UK! I\u2019m afraid there is too much to relate this week so you\u2019re going to get the current narrative spread over two weeks. That means you will have to wait until next time for a detailed description of Ms Playchute’s Sixty Sensational Celebratory Surprises which began on Thursday with Ben\u2019s arrival for her birthday party yesterday evening. In the meantime, though, you will have to put up with an account of last weekend\u2019s entertainments which included a terrific day out in the big city with the usual suspects.<\/p>\n

Last Saturday we went up to town to catch the Turner exhibition<\/a> at the National Gallery \u2013 Turner Inspired \u2013 in the Light of Claude<\/em>. Apparently, Turner was \u201cinspired\u201d by the light and landscapes in Claude\u2019s works and the exhibition has gathered various examples together and displayed them side-by-side. Indeed, on his death Turner left the National Gallery two paintings on the condition that they were hung between two pictures by Claude. The exhibition was very good but for all Turner\u2019s fame, I thought the Claude\u2019s were better.<\/p>\n

After the exhibition we made our way to Ed\u2019s Diner<\/a> for a very tasty lunch.<\/p>\n

\"Ed's<\/a><\/p>\n

And then it was on to the Theatre Royal Haymarket for the matinee performance of One Man, Two Guvenors<\/a> which was great fun. It\u2019s a very amusing comedy based on The Servant of Two Masters<\/em> by Carlo Goldoni and is very reminiscent of a Shakespearean comedy complete with a woman dressed as a man (and, you will be surprised to learn, none of the characters can spot that \u201che\u201d is a she), mistaken identities and multiple, farcical misunderstandings. And so to dinner at Assaggetti<\/a>, an Italian just opposite the Haymarket for a very pleasant meal of Italian tapas which was most enjoyable. The 8.30 train got us home and into bed by about 10.00, a terrific day out and, as you can see, London is getting dressed in its celebratory costume getting ready to commemorate the Queen\u2019s Diamond Jubilee and then, of course, the Olympics.<\/p>\n

\"London<\/a><\/p>\n

From the \u201cYou read it here first\u201d department \u2013 a report on the BBC web site<\/a> the other day suggested that \u201cHigher university fees ‘will add \u00a3100bn to public debt’. You will remember I wrote some time ago<\/a> about the lack of \u201cjoined-up\u201d thinking in the coalition government and the raising of student tuition fees, intended to reduce government expenditure and help cut the deficit, would actually end up increasing the deficit because of the increased student loans required and the likelihood of some eventual default on the loans. The latest report suggests that the policy will add about \u00a3100 billion to the deficit over the next twenty years. One of the more astute policies they\u2019ve introduced.<\/p>\n

I also enjoyed an article in the Guardian<\/a> where one of those giving testimony to the Levenson enquiry on phone hacking, Peter Oborne, a journalist on the Telegraph, has suggested that lying in politics should be made illegal and a punishable offence. I\u2019ve mentioned this before but isn\u2019t that what politicians do? Apparently, the only \u201cproblem\u201d is how to define a lie. It seems pretty straight-forward to me but then I\u2019m not a lawyer or a politician but something along the lines of deliberately saying or writing something which is untrue in the knowledge that it is not true ought to do the trick. So, for example, a politician who says during the election campaign, \u201cWe pledge not to increase tuition fees\u201d or \u201cWe have no plans to raise VAT\u201d ought to get them banged up \u2013 what a great idea.<\/p>\n

Finally, are white bluebells still called \u201cBluebells\u201d?<\/p>\n

[portfolio_slideshow id=3056]<\/p>\n

Love to you all,<\/p>\n

Greg<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My goodness, what a busy, busy week we\u2019ve had. And, to make things even better, the weather in the second half of the week has been fairly marvellous \u2013 bright clear skies and temperatures reaching into the mid-70s \u2013 a veritable heat wave for the UK! I\u2019m afraid there is too much to relate this … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “27 May 2012”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9w76b-Nb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8780,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3049\/revisions\/8780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}