tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3409103217861366902024-02-20T04:48:35.387-08:00nestawynellisinlondonLife, love, politics, gossip, fashion, media; all about London in action.Nesta Wyn Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239146058475819744noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-340910321786136690.post-64246952374099245362018-09-27T16:42:00.000-07:002018-09-27T16:42:24.858-07:00L'Heure Bleue--the Blue Hour<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">L'Heure Bleue</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">The light
changes in a moment. Usually the sky turns lavender with an eerie glow. Early
October in the Quartier St Honore with the afterglow of the sunset lingering
over the Tuileries brings this light. Walking in the Place du Marche, the market
closing, the cafe terraces crowded and lit with candles, one breathes the warmth
of Indian Summer. Women in summer clothes with light wraps on their shoulders;
waiters ready to light the terrace heaters as aperetifs are served. Yet that
light glimmers from a translucent sky that hints of mysteries beyond human ken:
a moment seen as if through a crystal. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">L'Heure Bleue by
Guerlain formulated by Jaques Guerlain in 1012 is a famous scent that hints at
forces beyond reality. That moment which tells us we are not in control. This
breathtaking moment that can begin a love affair or turn order into calamity,
peace into war:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">It hints at time
suspended, even as that lilac sky is suspended above the Paris <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>rooftops.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Jaques Guerlain
said that one day l'heure bleue brought him a premonition of an imminent
catastrophe which was to be World War I. L'Heure Bleue, the scent which he
created symbolizes the Belle Epocque : as he recalled that moment where the
leisured strolled between afternoon and evening at the hour when dusk after a
warm afternoon brings this atmospheric light. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">In the present
day, that light continues in the moment between sunset and night. Before the
lights come on in the streets and apartments, the sky glows as if lit through a
pale amethyst. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">I sit outside in
my English garden, sipping a cocktail. I have never seen L'heure blue here
until now. I know it from Paris where that moment of early evening after sunset
in early October inspires one with mystical alertness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is it the hot summer or the imminence
of great changes, portending some elusive future? Something is suspended, waiting:
a moment that portends a new world. Mingled scents of wood smoke, fallen
leaves, lingering roses reassure one that there is continuity or a sort. Stars
and bats appear from opal fragments of light caught among dark branches.
L'heure bleue is gone, leaving only faint disquiet for what may come.</span></div>
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Nesta Wyn Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239146058475819744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-340910321786136690.post-7222458741305196272017-11-21T09:59:00.000-08:002017-11-21T09:59:18.359-08:00Cycles of Renewal<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Thirty Nine and
a half years ago I was in that country that was still called Rhodesia, to write
features on the colonial regime's final days: Ian Smith's government had
struggled to survive twelve years of sanctions for its Universal Declaration of
Independence from the British Crown but now faced transition to majority rule
engineered by the British government. Thirteen years earlier, an impassioned
speech I made to the London Liberal Party denouncing Ian Smith's UDI in
November 1965 brought me invitations to stand as a Parliamentary Candidate: I
did so in the following year's General Election. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Rhodesia was
stamped on my CV from that point and when I made my first journalistic safari
to Africa in 1973, I had hoped to go there. Instead, I stared across the
Victoria Falls at it from Livingstone, Zambia and became the only journalist to
provide a story on the shooting of some Canadian tourists by Zambian troops. (I
gave the story to two other reporters--from Reuters and the Johannesburg Star
in order to protect my hosts. The two were expelled from Zambia).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Rhodesia
remained in the news, a bête noir to liberals world wide. I made my name
writing exclusives from South Africa and East Africa on human rights topics for
the Guardian. In 1978, with introductions in place, I made my long planned trip
to Rhodesia.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">I found a
nostalgically English time warp from WW2 where melodies from South Pacific
played by a string trio in the Meikles Hotel dining room were the sound track:
a country divided by age and generation as much as by race and tribe.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">The old made the
politics, but it was the young who fought the bush war. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like characters from Neville Shute's
novel. "On the Beach", they danced in Salisbury's downtown disco to their
favourite song " I'm Singing In the Rain" but their world was ending.
Many told me they did not believe in the war: they wanted to drink in the bars
with their African friends not shoot them. Others felt bitterly towards the
British. The older generations who had made this confrontation into an echo of
the WW2 in which many had fought for Great Britain, felt let down by the mother
country: they clung to their British ways: church services on Sunday were a fragmented
link with Queen and Country. Air Rhodesia did a fine job of patching up their
old Viscount passenger planes; buses and cars were kept running with spare
parts coming in via South Africa. Rhodesian beef was driven over the border to
Botswana and flown to Lusaka to feed Zambia where farming had collapsed after
independence. Young Africans of the different tribal groups watched, and hoped
for a future of democratic freedoms and prosperity: now forty years older, many
of these are demonstrating their wish to end Mugabe's regime.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">It could have
been better had Harold Macmillan who spoke of "The Winds of Change"
not lost power after the Profumo scandal, had the minority Wilson government
that followed Alex Douglas Home's short lived government, had more
comprehension of the hopes of both sides. But the hoped for negotiated
transition to majority rule had failed during Roy Welensky's Federation of the
two Rhodesias and Nysasaland (which became Zambia, Southern Rhodesia and
Malawi). Black faith in political promises faltered. Positions--UDI on the one
hand, armed guerillas financed by Marxist states--hardened due to political
weakness in London. Leaders in waiting, Joshua Nkomo, for the Ndebele; Bishop
Muzorewa, moderate Shona leader, head of the Transitional Government, Mugabe
the exiled Catholic Marxist; Ian Smith the departing man of history; I
interviewed all except Mugabe but it was my interview with Ian Smith that was
syndicated around the world. The disappointed but still obdurate leader who had
been terribly scarred when his WW2 Hurricane fighter crashed in Egypt, fascinated
the world. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">At the start of
that, my third long journalistic safari to Southern Africa I interviewed Nadine
Gordimer for my political column in Harpers and Queen. The article with the
opening phrase, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"Every writer
needs a war," (headlined "In Black and White") can be read on Google.
Rhodesia's struggle was my 'writer's war'. I could have wished it a more successful
outcome.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Soon after, in
1979, I returned to the UK where I fought as Liberal Candidate for North Wales
in the first European Parliamentary Elections. No one believed me when I told
them the vote meant the start for a democratic Europe. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">How right they
were. But, another cycle, another future is beginning: for both Zimbabwe and
Europe, let's go on hoping and working for democracy' renewal.</span></div>
Nesta Wyn Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239146058475819744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-340910321786136690.post-18062365123474957452016-10-26T08:49:00.001-07:002016-10-26T08:49:37.660-07:00The Donald, Women and Me!<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I've kept quiet about this for some time. But yes, Donald asked me for a
date. I met him when he came over to London with his then fiancé Marla Maples
for whom he was divorcing first wife, Ivana. The Mail on Sunday asked me to interview
Marla for a photo shoot for their YOU magazine. Donald was there, for once
trying to keep in the background. However he had already vetoed 'You'
magazine's plans for a picnic lunch in the gardens of the boutique hotel near
Sloane Square where the Mail on Sunday had lodged Marla, Marla's mother and Donald.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It was a hot July Saturday afternoon and I arrived by cab from my
Montagu Square flat to be told that Donald wanted fish and chips so the
champagne and seafood picnic were being spurned in favour of a fried lunch at
the famous Sea Shell Fish and Chip restaurant in Lisson Grove, W2. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The Sea Shell had no other customers on this hot afternoon, so we were
easily seated at a table for four. Donald spoke little while we ate, chomping
his battered cod and chips: ignoring snide comments from Marla regarding his
weight. Later we had time to chat while Marla was changing various outfits for
her photo shoot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I gave Donald a signed copy of my just published biography of John Major
and he expressed interest in the idea that I might write a new Trump biography.
He was impressed to the point where Marla began to show jealousy. She objected
to me joining them at Tramp for dinner than evening and next day when my taxi
was caught in a Victoria Street traffic jam, the ferry taking the party to
Greenwich left without me. I was told Donald kept asking, "Where's Nesta?
Where's Nesta? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">At a lunch organised by 'You' the following Monday, he kept glancing
unhappily at Marla. As we quietly chatted at the table he revealed his
uncertainty's re her being the right girl for him. Her looks made her hard to
beat, "but...." he sighed, and my mind went back to the mean way she
had taunted him at the Sea Shell. This aspiring actress, who had been quoted as
saying "Best sex ever" about Donald, whom she had met on the street
while walking home, might have been less in love than ambitious to marry a
mogul. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I filed my piece, but before it could appear in print, the couple had
had a fight and split up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The Mail asked me to ring Donald and interview him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">During our phone call he asked if I would be available for a date in
London the following week as he planned to come over on business. (He had
already asked me if I practised safe sex). "Go back to Marla,
Donald," I told him. "She's the right girl for you." But I was
wrong: they married but it did not last.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I included Donald in my hugely successful "Britain's Top 100
Eligible Bachelors," a collection of mini biographies of rich, famous and
powerful men. While researching him for what was billed as 'a gold diggers
guide'. It played to a widespread fascination for sex power and money. The
impression I formed of him was that he is incurably insecure with women, one of
those men who is never sure that he is loved, who is always looking for
approval and never gives up trying to find it with one woman after another.
It's also the motive behind the vulgar flashing of his wealth. He clearly has to
keep boasting--about his wealth and his conquests; the top gorilla who can have
every female in the tribe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Photos show he was extremely handsome in his youth, and oddly, beauty is
often correlated with insecurity. Handsome men and, beautiful women too, are
often trying hard to prove they really are desired. And Donald is a classic
case: women, he believes, either love him for his looks or his money, never for
himself. As time has passed the looks have faded, the money is still there but
he now wants to add political power to his armoury. He first considered running
for the White House job in 1987 and I had been asked to interview him, while on
a trip to the US, by the Telegraph Magazine. But he changed his mind about
running only to pop up again twice. Now, third time may not be so lucky after
all. But consider the consequences for women of Trump in office.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">A Donald who can't keep his hands to himself might be no worse in the
White House than Jack Kennedy who was a notorious womaniser. So much for the
curse of looks and money.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Alas, poor Donald.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Nesta Wyn Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239146058475819744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-340910321786136690.post-29789790562953425952016-06-19T15:25:00.000-07:002016-06-19T15:25:12.828-07:00George Osborne: a brief profile<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Naked ambition.
He will lay down his country for his life. Someone who works obsessively on his
own future but who gambles with other people's money and rights. A dangerously
dedicated and selfish worker for his own gain. A ruthless liar.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">What an epitaph
for a Chancellor of the Exchequer!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">He is due for a
shock. Perhaps many shocks as his plans come to naught.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">It is for reason
of his obsessive ambition that Osborne has made the most disgracefully untrue
claims of the outcome of the Referendum for Brexit.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">He has staked
his own future on the outcome of the vote: if we stay IN, he gets Cameron's
job. If we Leave, he gets nothing except a well deserved kick in the pants. As
a Telegraph headline on Thursday (June 16th) declared, "Chancellor
finished if Britain quits Europe, say scores of Tories."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">The claims that
he would bring in an Emergency Budget after a vote for Brexit was the last
straw. That claim alone could damage Britain's ratings, our future borrowing
and trade deals. He has launched the most extraordinary claims of disaster for
the British economy following a vote for Brexit. Instead of focusing on the
best possible outcome, he is fictionalising on the worst case scenario and he
has persuaded his friends on the IMF and other international bodies to do the
same. Why? Because Brexit for George is Curtains. He is staking his entire
career in a gamble that he can kill the Brexit surge with his dire predictions
of disaster, job losses, tax hikes and austerity. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So that he can replace Cameron as Prime Minister.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">But he is a fool
without political judgment. Few in the Conservative Parliamentary Party will forgive
him or vote for him as a result. Few if any Conservative MP's would support him
in a leadership election. Following his announcement that he would, after a
vote for Brexit deliver an Emergency Budget involving tax hikes and austerity
cuts, he was lambasted. Sixty-six Conservative MP's said they would vote down
such a Budget. Labour would not support it either, and in the Daily Telegraph
Business section, the respected columnist, Ambrose Evans Pritchard wrote that
Osborne should "no longer be trusted with the keys to 11 Downing
Street."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">I agree. He has
already messed up the housing rental sector and has caused three revolts in
Parliament over his ill judged Budget austerity cuts on the poorer people in
our society.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Worse, Osborne
still believes he can become the next British Prime Minister. But he can only
do so if British voters choose to Remain in the EU.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Otherwise he is
very definitely OUT of the running. Therefore he is lying and twisting the truth
to serve his own ambition: even if his claims damage his country.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">His fraudulent claims
that the rich will be the ones to benefit from Brexit, delivered last week in
Porthmadoc, North Wales are the exact opposite of the truth. The rich, whether
citizens of the UK or international power brokers and financiers, businessmen
and elites of all kinds are clearly the ones to benefit from a vote to Remain
in the EU. The Brexit vote belongs to the poor, the hard working middle classes
and those who believe in Britain as their nation and who have had enough of handing
control of their destiny to unelected committees of other countries and the unelected
EU government in Brussels.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">During and after
Cameron's failed negotiations with the EU, Osborne was buzzing from capital to
capital trying to fix his future by ratting on Britain's interests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is visibly prepared to sacrifice his
country to his own goal of becoming Prime Minister.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">He will never
make it. Nor is he capable. In the Cameron/Osborne deal forged on the anvil of
the Blair/Brown deal, he will fail. Why?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Because he does
not have what it takes to govern 'one nation' or to be that special unifier of
a government called "First Among Equals."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Osborne must go.
And the faster, the better, for the good of this country.</span></div>
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Nesta Wyn Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239146058475819744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-340910321786136690.post-26351396300903349012016-06-12T16:19:00.000-07:002016-06-12T16:19:21.382-07:00Dithering, Procrastination and Prevarication<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">I first planned
this blog in February 2016 as Cameron announced completion of his failed EU
negotiations. It was to be headlined, "The Destiny of David Cameron: Part
2. On Yer Bike Dave!"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">It was evident
from those failed negotiations that Cameron was doomed and my verdict was and
is that he should resign. MP's of his own party are now calling for his
departure: he has lost all credibility. After his ludicrous 'predictions' of what
will happen after a Brexit, his word is worthless. Whether Britain Leaves or
Remains in the EU, one thing is clear, that after June 23rd 2016, Cameron must go: he cannot be trusted to lead the government or the country.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Cameron or
'Conman' as I am now calling him, has kept Britain in a constant state of
indecision and confusion since he came into office in 2010. After the
Coalition, a brilliant achievement of consensus but one which brought daily dithering
over government decisions, came the Scottish Referendum, then, unavoidably, the
2015 General Election. Now we have the EU referendum--a result of Cameron's
promise to voters that helped him get elected. The fault is not all Cameron's.
The state of confusion and indecision are actually part of the nation's make up
at this time. We are a divided nation. The division between the haves and have-nots
is dramatically exemplified by property owners on the one hand, and on the
other, those who know they have no hope of attaining that basic capitalist goal.
Never before have the problems--in housing and social services, now exacerbated
by unrestrained immigration and unrestrained 'foreign investment' in our
property market been so overwhelming. But the divisions between the 'People'
and increasing coercion by the Brussels bureaucracy are now reflected all over
Europe in new political alignments and anti EU protest movements.
Still the fat parasites in Brussels stick to their arrogant ways. But, the
potential for revolution against 'Power at the Centre' from the EU that is causing
ever intensifying revolt, is greater than ever before. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Can a British referendum
about EU membership deflect the rising tide of discontent? A vote for Brexit may start a contagious revolt across Europe. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The referendum campaign is a cynical
move by Cameron/Conman to pave the way for Britain to succumb to further
pressures from Brussels and that looniest EU obsession referred to by Donald
Tusk of a "Utopian union of European nations in one Europe,' that of
Freedom of Movement which brings the whole of Africa and the Middle East
through our ports. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Promising a
referendum after a renegotiation of our terms of membership was a device Conman used to unify his deeply divided party for the 2015 General Election and to win
it. Not that he knew he would win it: Cameron is clearly not
clairvoyant and had been quite prepared to deliver his resignation speech on
May 8th. No one was more shocked than he that he actually was voted into office. This
is a man of limited political judgment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How come then that he is so convinced of disaster if Britain leaves the
EU? How can he predict the future? 1. "House prices will fall" (oh but isn't that
what we want in order to make affordable housing more available? And to release
to the enterprise sector, capital, currently locked up in bricks and mortar). 2. "Sterling will fall" (isn't that what exporters need to open new markets outside
the EU? So what if Spanish holidays cost more?--the Spaniards are now
protesting disruption from excess <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>tourists), and if the prices of beers or wines rise as a
result of a devalued pound--so what? We can import them from elsewhere or continue
to make our own. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Cameron has arm
twisted support from 'names'--appointed toadies from the Governor of the Bank of
England to 'actors and producers' who benefit from EU cash handouts, to the big
international banks and companies who's executives and owners don't even live
here; those on Conman's Honours List (past and future) all parroting the same
dire prognostications for our future. They have no
business interfering in our electoral process. The Referendum is for the
British people. Not for the Obamas, Bransons, IMF, American Banks, G20 members and
Bank of England Governors who benefit from globalisation and its offshore
profits. Why are they all so terrified that the UK will 'Leave' this incompetent
EU? They clearly expect much profit from sacrificing the independence of the
British people. Yes. Because our decision to 'Leave' will give such a shock to
those Brussels bureaucrats and such a lead to the citizens of other nations who
are now desperately unhappy with the EU's creeping totalitarianism that it will
bust the whole crumbling edifice. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">My bet is the
solid electorate of this nation will rebel against this elitist support for the
EU. And that after Brexit, small and medium sized businesses will grasp the new
opportunities and, once released from stifling regulations (our own as well as
the EU's) will surge forward in a burst of enterprise and global trade not seen
since the 19th Century.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Conman has kept
the nation on the edge of its seat since he came to office in 2010. This is massively
distracting to business and is holding up decisions. It also creates a
smokescreen for the fact that the government is doing little to solve mega problems
in housing, infrastructure and energy production. Clearly, this style of 'government
by suspense' must cease. It is dishonest and disastrous. And it is thanks to this
dishonesty that Cameron must resign. Not only the several blatant lies he has
told during this campaign but also the misuse of facts in the 'predictions' he puts
forward mean that I could never vote for a party led by David Cameron. In or Out,
he must step down on June 24th to make way for a PM whose words can be trusted.
And woe betide that PM if he offers Conman a job on the negotiating team for
our exit. When Cameron steps down we should be able to exhale in relief at
release from the dithering, procrastination and prevarication that have been
the brand image of his reign. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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Nesta Wyn Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239146058475819744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-340910321786136690.post-7937157447442220042015-10-23T16:11:00.001-07:002015-10-24T06:02:22.969-07:00Can A Bearded Man Ever Pleasure a Woman?<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I'm not criticising my
neighbour but when I hugged him on impulse the other day as a thank you for
finding a lost key to my bike lock, I was suddenly made aware that he had grown
a beard. Ouch!</div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
One sees it
everywhere. Imitation Beckhams? Or are they imitation Imams? The worst is
probably the total baldie with a great bush on the chin. "Mummy", do
I hear a little girl cry? "Why are the men wearing their heads upside
down?"<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Equally with smokers
and baldies, I avoid the bearded. One of my Paris lovers grew one and I made it
clear I couldn't have a sexcessful evening with him unless he came clean shaven
for our date. Bless him, he shaved.
On the spot!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It's not only the kiss
that suffers. Full love making involves lingual caresses of other body areas.
Does one really enjoy the sensation of a brillo pad between one's thighs? Or do
we deny oral sex its place in the love making experience?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
My feeling on
returning recently to the UK and seeing these dreadful facial growths was that
men were retreating from sex. Or was it that they felt so dominated by the
confident females one sees striding around that they had to fight back and say,
"It's ok to be male" and even more that, "A man has to convince
you that he has the hormones to grow a bushy beard.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I've noticed the older
male usually grows a beard. Grey, of course. Perhaps it's a statement that his
sex life is finally over? But now the younger ones are wearing these feeble
little fungi. Is this also a statement? Men must be Men! Awch! If they have no
other way of proving their maleness: must they grow these often badly tufted
outgrowths?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
When Mark Antony
accepted Cleopatra's invitation to dine aboard her barge on the river Cydnus,
we are told (by Plutarch) that he shaved himself almost to the bone to impress
her--and indeed to start his historic love affair with her. Are we to believe
that Roman men who did not have the facilities available to present day men would
have managed such a feat, using a very sharp knife?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
My impression is that
stubbled jaws and beards are a sign of disregard of and disrespect to women's
sensibilities. Females have more sensitivity to touch and the notion of being
scraped by a stubbled male face wherever it puts itself in her anatomy, is an
insult to that notion of the love of women which should be at the heart of male
approaches to sex. Or are women so desperate these days for a caveman
experience after a belly full of beer and pizza (and I'm afraid that's what it
amounts to for many) that they will accept anything? Face down, presumably?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Beards like the
present ones were prevalent during Victorian times when women were corseted and
closeted and had few political rights. Can it be that men by becoming bearded
are striking back into the heart of female liberation by saying, beards show
who's boss?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
And then there's the 'Health
and Safety' question, "When did you last shampoo your beard dear?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Nesta Wyn Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239146058475819744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-340910321786136690.post-66490997166436568552015-08-03T17:28:00.000-07:002015-08-03T17:28:11.071-07:00The Vandals are at the Gate. What next?<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Periodically I leave this sceptered isle for lands less prosaic. East
Africa, America, France: I lived in them for years, left them, then came back
to what I supposed to be home. Last time I returned it was not quite as
desperate a venture as that of clinging to the underside of a lorry for the
entire crossing. I financed my, nevertheless, refugee like return from Paris to
the uk with a job for my Paris Production Services film facility: it contributed
the bulk of what I nicknamed "The Colditz Tunnel Escape Fund."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">That was because returning from France was more complicated than my
escapes from Africa and America. Those latter flights to my London homes of
those days were accompanied merely by personal baggage. When I moved to Paris however,
I left no home in the uk and embarked for what I thought might be forever
taking all my furniture, files and treasures. Most of those now rest in a friend's
chateau in Burgundy but I had some pieces in Paris that I wanted to bring
with me and all of this requires organisation, packing, shipping, and funding.
After several months hard work I found shippers and a haven to which my stuff,
including a 1912 Bechstein I inherited from my mother, could be carted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I was a sort of refugee fleeing from the jelly bellied Francois Hollande
and coming hard times in France after his election. The problem began when my
landlady's husband died and she decided to sell my apartment where I had lived
for 13 years. I had paid a total of some €150,000 to her in that time but I had
no rights under the law to either buy the place as a sitting tenant or keep on
renting it with a new owner. Moving had become a difficult option. I had been
living in a privileged location, poised above the Place des Pyramides on the
corner of the Louvre and Tuileries Gardens. The only blight to my southerly
view was the wretched Tour Montparnasse. The other blights were related to my
discomfort under the legal regime that favoured the landlady's over my own rights
and which, due to demand, made it by now virtually impossible to find a
substitute central Paris apartment. I did not think I could stand being a
foreigner any longer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I left a great love behind me, but it was a great relief to reach Angleterre. Alas, I found it greatly
changed but still very civilized with sensible common laws for property rentals.
Now I am watching with some horror, those others, less blessed than
myself and without a British birthright, trying with intense
desperation to come to the uk. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Recently, a photograph appeared in the Telegraph of a 22 year old
Sudanese whose words "Britain is good" touched my heart. He was
pictured sitting at the Toddington Service Station on the M1. I could not but
chuckle. Never had such a banal place seemed so much like Paradise, it seemed.
He had crossed to the UK clinging to the underside of a lorry. Now he hoped to
study for a degree. I was moved. I cannot bear to think of him, after his brave
enterprise, languishing in a prison cell.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I can also be moved by the plight of thousands who, whether political or
economic refugees and with only the clothes they are wearing, are trying to
enter the country by force, even with their children? Desperation to reach a
country where welfare will help them and indeed where there are many lower
level jobs: surely our compassion cannot refuse them? But, we can't let them
blackmail us, can we? Legal immigration procedures must be enforced. We must
have the immigrants we choose, not those forced upon us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This is a terrible harvest reaped by the great success of the English
language and by the equally great success of the British economy which can
provide the jobs that are unavailable in the Social Chapter strapped EU.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the freedom of movement allowed
within the EU is also our great handicap. Italy, Hungary, France, just wave
them through.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">We are besieged and must man the battlements.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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Nesta Wyn Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239146058475819744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-340910321786136690.post-25658932462352473952015-07-15T16:19:00.002-07:002015-07-15T16:19:32.147-07:00A Criminal Geo-Political Plot<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Few recall that an American bank helped Greece to enter the single
currency.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The idea of monetary union existed in the EU since its inception. The
late 1990's saw preparations for all EU countries other than the UK and Denmark
to adopt the currency. In 1999 the currency existed in virtual form. The Euro coins
and notes actually entered circulation on January 1st 2002. Greece had joined
the virtual currency on January 1st 2001 after several years of preparation
with what are now known to be fudged statistics, to which evidently the EU's
Eurostat turned a blind eye.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">During the height of the Grexit crisis of July 2015, President Obama
urged Angela Merkel to 'ease up' on her demands for a renewed Greek austerity
programme. Was it his business? Most certainly. The US and its always fumbling
geo-political strategy has been at the heart of the Euro's creation (as a
competitive currency) and deeply, in the sense of 'deep politics' (political actions
hidden from public scrutiny) a part of the European Union's attempt to become
the United States of Europe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What am I saying? The United States of America and the dictators of
Brussels are at one in their goal to rule the world. Only, of course, in the
endgame's outcome the US comes out on top. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The Euro had its inception in the Maastricht Treaty of 1991--1993. But
that treaty also ruled no country could join the single currency without
qualifying by having a budget deficit no more than 3% of GDP, nor could its
government debt exceed 60% of GDP. Almost every EU country, France and Germany
included were cheating on this percentage. But Greece, having worked the magic
of statistical manipulations also received help from a US investment bank who's
deal was the fount of 2015's disturbing debt drama, and before that, of
Greece's fall into the pit of long term debt accumulation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I quote from a Spiegel Online article of Feb 8th 2010. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-size: 22.0pt;">"Greek Debt Crisis: <span style="color: #b10014;">How Goldman Sachs Helped Greece to Mask its True Debt</span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">By
Beat Balzli</span></i><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">"Goldman Sachs helped the Greek government to mask the true extent
of its deficit with the help of a derivatives deal that legally circumvented
the EU Maastricht deficit rules. At some point the so-called cross currency
swaps will mature, and swell the country's already bloated deficit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">"The
Greeks have never managed to stick to the 60 percent debt limit, and they only
adhered to the three percent deficit ceiling with the help of blatant balance
sheet cosmetics. One time, gigantic military expenditures were left out, and
another time billions in hospital debt. After recalculating the figures, the
experts at Eurostat consistently came up with the same results: In truth, the
deficit each year has been far greater than the three percent limit. In 2009,
it exploded to over 12 percent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">"Now,
though, it looks like the Greek figure jugglers have been even more brazen than
was previously thought. "Around 2002 in particular, various investment
banks offered complex financial products with which governments could push part
of their liabilities into the future," one insider recalled, adding that
Mediterranean countries had snapped up such products.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">"Greece's
debt managers agreed a huge deal with the savvy bankers of US investment bank
Goldman Sachs at the start of 2002. The deal involved so-called cross-currency
swaps in which government debt issued in dollars and yen was swapped for euro
debt for a certain period -- to be exchanged back into the original currencies
at a later date.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">"Such
transactions are part of normal government refinancing. Europe's governments
obtain funds from investors around the world by issuing bonds in yen, dollar or
Swiss francs. But they need euros to pay their daily bills. Years later the
bonds are repaid in the original foreign denominations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But in the
Greek case the US bankers devised a special kind of swap with fictional
exchange rates. That enabled Greece to receive a far higher sum than the actual
euro market value of 10 billion dollars or yen. In that way Goldman Sachs
secretly arranged additional credit of up to $1 billion for the Greeks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">"This
credit disguised as a swap didn't show up in the Greek debt statistics.
Eurostat's reporting rules don't comprehensively record transactions involving
financial derivatives. 'The Maastricht rules can be circumvented quite legally
through swaps,' says a German derivatives dealer."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">How does this fit the Criminal Geo Political Plot scenario as
orchestrated from Washington DC? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">1. Washington wants to control global politics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">2. Washington believes its real enemy is the China/Russia bloc.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">3. Europe is a useful device or decoy for manipulation and control of
the frontiers that are inaccessible to the US and to the resources that lie
behind them. That is the Middle East, Central Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean,
and Eastern Europe bordering the Russian Federation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">4. Current and continuing destabilisation in these regions, notably the
Ukraine, Afghanistan, and now Greece, suggests interference by a global
manipulator. Greece, of course falls under the control of the EU. And the EU is
governed from Brussels aka from Berlin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">For the US plot to succeed, Greece has to remain in the Euro. After all, Greece geographically commands the Eastern Mediterranean. But it has signed over some usage of
the port of Piraeus to China and the US can hardly have wanted the left wing
Syrzia to start doing deals with Putin's Russia--even more danger if the
Russians gained a warm water port within a EU and NATO territory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The US has long been pushing for Turkey to become a EU member state.
Why? Oil pipelines from the Caspian reach the Med via Turkish ports. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Now, the plot seems to falter. If Greece leaves the Euro might it not
also leave the EU? Might historic tensions between Greece (still a NATO member)
and neighbouring Turkey break out once more? Worse, could Russia find ways of
buying itself into that Mediterranean port? Via gas swap deals for instance?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Solution, Greece must stay in the Euro and of course the EU. Thus
diplomatic pressure from Washington plus public words from Obama, encouraged the
Brussels/Berlin/Paris axis to try harder avoid the Grexit. When the project
seemed lost and Grexit looked only hours away, even with a paper from the
German Finance Minister--who in all logic has the right idea, to kick Greece
out of the Euro but with a nice diplomatic compromise of re-entry in five
years--brilliant but not what Washington wants, Obama tells Merkel to ease up
the pressure for increased austerity. France, never likely to bow to US
diplomacy has another reason for wanting to keep Greece alongside: socialist
solidarity and the kudos that comes to Francois Hollande for being Merkel's
poodle in keeping the Eurozone together. And also for keeping the wolves away
from France's own currency credibility when the Front National looms as a powerful voice
for the return to the Franc forte, and France's own economy and debt mountain
threaten her economic stability.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Quite a stitch up don't you think?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And where does it lead us? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">To the conclusion that independence from the Eurozone and the EU is a
far, far better thing than being a victim (and a paying one too) of these
alarming geo-political power games.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Britain, now is the time to GET OUT!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Nesta Wyn Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239146058475819744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-340910321786136690.post-5361369465809148742014-10-05T15:26:00.000-07:002014-10-05T15:26:16.883-07:00Nesta Wyn Ellis: from politics, journalism and biography to songs, stage and film.
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<span lang="EN-US">She was the most
famous author of the 1990's, splashed across front pages and plastered across inside
pages too, and a favourite of TV shows for her revealing biography of John
Major and a subsequent collection of mini biographies of "Britain's Top
100 Eligible Bachelors." These two books were all about Sex, Power and
Politics and Sex, Power and Money. She denied being John Major's Mistress while
Edwina Curry believed this was true</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">After a decade
of inconvenient celebrity, of being stopped in the street for autographs and
written about in a way she thought distorted her character, Nesta Wyn Ellis
decided to live in Paris. She returned to the uk last year after 13 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">At once, she set
about editing and organising the publication on Amazon Kindle of some of her
novels. One, 'The Banker's Daughter' is a title well known to the public,
already issued in hardback and paperback and still available from Internet
bookshops world-wide</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Some reviewers
compared it, due to its tale of passion across a class divide, with DH
Lawrence's famous love story, 'Lady Chatterly's Lover.' Currently, there are
many who say this wonderfully plotted story of obsessive sexual passion set
against a taughtly drawn background of Westminster politics, crime and City of
London banking is far more tittilating than Fifty Shades of Grey. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Lioness Books is
also publishing three novels Nesta wrote in Paris. One of these "Three
Days in September," is the book version of the screen story she is now
producing and will direct.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Set mainly in
Paris, 'Three Days In September' tells how a singer who follows her elusive
love there, is compelled to resolve shadowy issues from her past, when, in
Paris, she meets a second love: the encounter moves the story forward into a
confusing miasma of haunting visions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Nesta's songs
and theme music will bring a beautiful subtext to the story, enhancing the
subtle shades of grey of the Parisian Autumn and Winter scenes and the deeply
melancholic mood of this drama of divided love. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Locations have
been found, some key actors identified and distribution and production finance
are being coordinated.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Work on the
musical score now dominates Nesta's agenda. Some songs that she has already
performed at London and Paris concerts and the Edinburgh Festival in English
and French have been recorded on earlier albums. Now, songs composed in Paris
and London form the body of work that will be part of the film score and tracks
for the latest album she is preparing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Hard on the
heels of this comes the actual production work and directing of scenes for
'Three Days In September' in London, Germany but mainly France (where Nesta, a
fluent French speaker, has already worked on productions for internationally
based companies with her 'Paris Production Services' facility). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">A half hour
interview in the Face to Face series from ITV Wales appears on October 23rd. A
tour of Nesta's career from her political and journalistic days to her singing
and film production developments will keep audiences engrossed with the life of
this unusual and versatile talent. Meanwhile, she is completing work on a version
of her life story that covers those most startling years from the late 1970's
in Africa, America and London to her departure, shrouded in mystique, for
another life and a story, yet to be revealed, in Paris.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Links to Four
novels by Nesta Wyn Ellis published by Lioness Books on Amazon Kindle"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">The Mistress<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00MZJBOBS?*Version*=1&*entries*=0"><span style="color: #001bf4; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00MZJBOBS?*Version*=1&*entries*=0</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Three Days in September<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00NX4YK7O?*Version*=1&*entries*=0"><span style="color: #001bf4; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00NX4YK7O?*Version*=1&*entries*=0</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">The Banker’s Daughter<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00MZJBOGS?*Version*=1&*entries*=0"><span style="color: #001bf4; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00MZJBOGS?*Version*=1&*entries*=0</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">A Love Is Like A Day </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00A5X2AAK?*Version*=1&*entries*=0"><span style="color: #001bf4; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00A5X2AAK?*Version*=1&*entries*=0</span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Nesta Wyn Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239146058475819744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-340910321786136690.post-33815977482972030672014-09-30T16:50:00.000-07:002015-05-28T06:15:01.382-07:00Iron in the Soul: David Cameron's destiny.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">During
my now celebrated interviews with John Major, I asked him, "When did the
iron enter into your soul?" The answer is in the biography I wrote. But I
now want to ask that question of David Cameron: and I'm going to second guess
the answer. The rather flabby Mr Please All PM of recent years has suddenly
developed grit and vim of the sort that only comes after the iron has entered
into the soul. It happened while he agonised over the outcome of this Scots
vote. Did it matter that much to the English? No, it was just an exercise
somewhere else. Not quite a far away people of whom we know nothing, these
purveyors of salmon and scotch, proprietors of North Sea oil, seemed to turn
Cameron from polite yes man into a sudden superman. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">If he
hears Boris barking at his heels or senses worse to come at the in/out EU
referendum, or thinks he's found a way of leaving Nigel Farage without a foot
to stand on, and Ed Milliband with 40 fewer MP's he has now risen from his
couch and is beginning to look like a leader rather than a follower of pubic
opinion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He'll
bomb Asil and try to win a Tory coalition on English Rule and maybe he'll win
the next General Election. I still doubt he'll remain as leader after that,
unless he shows real determination to lead the country out of the EU. And he
may still need to be pushed hard to do that. Meantime, I have been watching and
waiting anxiously for this decent and chronically indecisive man who waits to
see what people think before he leads them forward, to discover that leadership
is more than managing the results of market research. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Has he
found the way? I think so. I thought he found a way in 2010 when he came to an
agreement with Nick Clegg after a ten day wrangle that ended in the Coalition.
This was artistry of the possible at work, I thought, as I watched from my
eerie above the Louvre and was pleased with them both.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Cameron
is a negotiator and a diplomat but real leadership needs a rougher gift of
uncompromising conviction in one's own rightness and the firm determination to
win the day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Seeing
a nation poised on the edge of calamity with constitutional reform as the
unavoidable agenda for the next few years, Cameron may have tempered steel out
of that iron newly in the soul. At last the flab has become firm muscle. On
your horse, boy! History may yet award you the prize. Not only Britain, but
Europe, needs to be led out of a floundering mess of indecision, excess
government and false notions of union. The poor economic performance of the EU
and its member states is due to a system of government and economic management
that is too cumbersome to function effectively. Sweeping reform is needed to
simplify government to allow real growth through fresh enterprise; and where
better to start than at home, from the ground up. Constitutional reform is the
way to release the forces of economic dynamism that are now trapped among
layers of bureaucracy. But the reforms must be good ones. There is no point in
adding another layer of government to soak up more taxes and generate busybody
laws. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The aim should be to reduce
not increase government and to ensure its relevance to present day patterns of
economic activity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
common good is to be found in new political structures that reflect a true
sense of participation in regional and national life, in the roots that choose
their expression in a sense of identity with origins and traditions, no less
the tradition of Parliamentary democracy. As George found his dragon, David may
have found his Goliath, while Cameron is discovering his destiny. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Nesta Wyn Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239146058475819744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-340910321786136690.post-63382322608578874002014-05-25T16:48:00.000-07:002014-05-25T16:48:50.003-07:00So, what next, Dave Nick and Ed?
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Is this the week
the reality principle sets in for the EU? And for the political leaders who
support the massive fiction that they can actually govern their countries without
being told what to do by the Brussels Commissioners and the Committees that
dream up newer and better ways of diminishing personal liberty?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Yes. This is the
week that will go down in history as the undoing of the European master plan
for a toxic super state to end all others.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">In an earlier
post on my Paris blog site (http://nesta-wyninparis.blogspot.com) headlined
" A Walk in the Woods" I described how I got lost in the Forest of
Rambouillet and found the house, now a museum, of Jean Monet, founding father
of the European Union. As I reported then, I was moved by the sentiments
expressed by Monet, De Gaulle and Winston Churchill in the letters they wrote
to each other in those days before World War 2. The idealism, the belief in a
European Union that transcended nationalism, the hope that this union would end
war in Europe.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">My belief in the
European dream, which also inspired me to stand in the first European
Parliamentary elections, had however dwindled to a mere 'If only." Now, I've
hardened my determination that the uk should leave the EU, as its own interests
are seriously threatened.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">If the only
means of doing this is to vote for a politician who is listening to the pulse
of opinion, then we do it regardless of the rest of the package.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">I fear that the
Cleggs, Camerons and Millibands of this world think they know better what the
demos wants. But now, a voice has been heard --which however dodgily connected
to far right sentiments-- does actually show that its owner has been listening
to what all us ordinary folks are saying.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Let's not try to
educate the voters at this point. Let's just listen to their heartbeats. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">As I came out of
Tesco last night carrying my bottle of Cava, I paused to chat to a guy who
works there.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">He was preparing
to risk the rain on his bike, as was I. After our comments about cycling in
tropical downpours we turned to the EU elections. I had missed the close of
poll on my return from Paris but he had passed his polling station on his
return from Ibitha and cast his vote. We discussed UKIP. I said I dont mind
foreigners, I just dont like Brussels telling us what to do. He said he had
been to eight countries already this year so foreigners were not a problem.
What he disliked, he said was not being listened to. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">So it's the
arrogance of the Dave, Nick, Ed types that, frankly, get's us onto Nigel's
ticket. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Will these ear-plug
wearing party leaders respond? They must now know the options. The number one
item on the Agenda is getting the uk out of an expensive catastrophe which,
alas, is will get worse. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Too swift enlargement
of the EU is one mistake, but the common currency is the major reason for the
EU's failure. I warned John Major about the disaster of being part of the ERM
in 1992. He stepped back after Black Wednesday. But I suspect his belief in the
common currency had not faltered. Cameron, then Special Advisor to Chancellor
Norman Lamont, quickly found another job when Major fired Lamont in May 1993
for saying he sang in his bath after the UK left the ERM. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">So, to get back
to my question, what next, Dave, Nick and Ed?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Clearly, if you
read the rhetoric from the other side of the channel, whatever they say as
palliatives about border control and immigration, the juggernaut of political
and fiscal union is still rolling. Regardless of the impossibility of
harmonizing disparate economies, the conventional party leaders still want one
United States of Europe. And it's this obsession with competition with the US that
is driving Europe to disaster. Thanks to the failure to understand the nature
of the Federal Union as opposed to nations with thousands of years of cultural
individuality, this is doomed. Thanks to the Euro, the failure of EU economies
is keeping the world in recession. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">So, will Dave,
Nick and Ed get the message? Or will they persist in their support for central,
undemocratic control of all European nations. More Governance, better
Governance, said my French EU loving lover. In other words more and more
central control of banking, finance and law.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Grab the lifebelts say I. The Titanic is
going down.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Nesta Wyn Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239146058475819744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-340910321786136690.post-88965141383594612622014-05-11T14:26:00.001-07:002014-05-11T14:26:14.932-07:00When "the Toffs" went "Rotten"
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">My new blog <a href="http://nestawynellisinlondon.blogspot.com/">http://nestawynellisinlondon.blogspot.com</a>
does not replace my Paris blog <a href="http://nesta-wyninparis.blogspot.com/">http://nesta-wyninparis.blogspot.com</a>
Rather it adds the dimension of my life in the uk after 13 years in Paris. I
will be commenting on lifestyles, politics, personalities, arts, love and new
trends as well as giving my views of how London and the uk have changed during
my absence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Here, I am
posting a review of a book by a British author who is well worth reading.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">The Whitehall Mandarin by Edward Wilson<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">published by
Arcadia Books Ltd on May 15<sup>th</sup> 2014</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Those were the
days when ladies wore gloves. Arcadia Books’ cover for Edward Wilson’s, “The
Whitehall Mandarin” shows an elegant, gloved woman walking into a Whitehall
Office. The days were also those when public and private standards were
collapsing and when, as Wilson’s protagonist Catesby remarks to his devious
boss Henry Bone, “The toffs have gone rotten".</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Much of Wilson’s
gripping story centres on Vietnam where he served with US Forces prior to
renouncing his citizenship. It also focuses on the UK Ministry of Defence where
leading players are pawns in a complex game of lies and betrayals woven around
the Mandarin’s enigmatic figure.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">The early 1960’s
were also the focus of Wilson’s 2013 novel, “The Midnight Swimmer” which plays
on secret events behind the Cuba Crisis of 1962. As the plot of The Whitehall
Mandarin unfolds we revisit Cliveden, scene of erotic parties, where a nubile
young stripper from Murray’s Cabaret Club, Christine Keeler, played a key role
in the demise of Defense Minister John Profumo and the fall of Macmillan’s
government. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Cliveden in the
early 1960’s is an alluring point of attachment for the English dimension of
this singularly shocking tale, shocking because of the revelations its author
makes about the inner corruption of crumbling political institutions. The elite
running that world were, it seems weakened by amorality. The story opens us to
an understanding of how the ruling class of Britain of the time became
corrupted. There are mentions of Kim Philby and Guy Burgess by the fictional
characters. In life as in fiction, privileged people who should have been more
grateful to their country were working to undermine its fabric. Sexuality and
secrecy about sexuality except between members of a special coterie, was one of
the subtle raisons d’etre for this undermining of the Establishment.
Homosexuality, in those days a criminal offence, had to be a secret and its
practice led to other secrets and to vengefulness against the established moral
order. A sexually deviant motif lies at the heart of Edward Wilson’s story
where it plays its subtle undercurrent of sinister sounds under the melody of
the main plot to its denouement.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">The suspicious
sudden death of Hugh Gaitskell and his replacement as Labour leader by Harold
Wilson, plus the latter’s role as a suspected Soviet front man comes under
scrutiny. While the suspicion about Harold Wilson, the suspected fellow
traveler, is dismissed perhaps for legal reasons, that dismissal fails to
convince the reader that Soviet collaboration among those high in politics and
in espionage, was not a part of the rot affecting the British Establishment.
The left and the right wings of the British ruling class seem to have been
equally corrupted, to have suffered a failure of belief in the system that gave
them their privileged lives. During the evolution of this story, we find
ourselves doubting the trustworthiness of senior MI6 operators, civil servants
and politicians. We become aware of the venal international manipulations that
laid the foundations for the Vietnam War. A scene with an unnamed President
(clearly Johnson) at the White House cues the reader about the close
involvement between British and American leaders and secret services over the
reasons for and pursuit of the Vietnam War.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">This story is a
natural sequel to “The Midnight Swimmer” which leads us along the mad precipice
when the Kennedy Brothers in their embroilment with Castro and the Cuban Mafia
almost brought civilization to its end.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">This is a work
of fiction with well-drawn characters and a deftly constructed plot but it
reads at times like a documentary. Wilson, an academic, has researched his
subject deeply but imparts much private experience and knowledge throughout his
story telling. He is clearly writing about what he knows and there are only
rare moments when a flight of imagination intrudes into this narrative that
otherwise convinces one of the authenticity of the author’s material, his
characters and his storytelling. When one reads Edward Wilson one feels sure
one is only one step away from the truth of what really happened in that place
and time. The result is a chilling conviction that history as it happened is
not what we have been told.</span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Nesta Wyn Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239146058475819744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-340910321786136690.post-82951689859694037802014-01-10T16:20:00.000-08:002014-05-08T17:00:15.512-07:00Who Turned Off The Effing Lights?<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Back in Blessed
Blighty but I cant see what the eff I’m doing. Do I qualify for a blind guide
dog to help me find my way around the house?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">It seems someone
has blundered? I cant buy a light bulb that will give me a decent light with
which to read a book, write a music score, cook a meal or find any object gone
missing since sundown.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Apparently the
EU has decreed that light bulbs must be tamed in their emissions to below 100
watts. This is to “Save The Planet”. I am not sure this is best the way to do
it. I ride a bike to save the planet and keep my legs fit to whistle at, but
I’m being suffocated by traffic fumes wherever I go, and find other riders lit
up like animated Christmas trees (batteries still have to be charged) and no
sign of an electric car charge point in my neighbourhood if I choose to opt
for<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a hybrid.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">I re-established
residence in Blessed Blighty a few months ago but, since then, my French light
bulbs have gradually been popping. So I have had to replace them. But whereas
the French bulbs will give me up to 140 Watts, I’ll be lucky to get 70 Watts
out of the British equivalent.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">I suppose I
should be reading on a Kindle. But I don’t have one. Despite being a Kindle
published author I have not invested in one, preferring something I can read in
the bath without risk of electrocution. Do I therefore have to read with a Kandle?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">As for cooking, searching for objects or files and other normal tasks of a civilized
society after sundown, I am baffled by the problems.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">In the
supermarket and some other public shopping areas I will find dazzling white
light.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">But at home, it
seems I have to bumble and fumble, write music and find black underwear in some
kind of officially acceptable gloaming.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">The first light
bulbs I bought here in Waitrose turned out to be so feeble that I took them
back. With their usual graciousness, Waitrose did this. I later found some
slightly stronger ones and at better prices—probably old stock-- in Tesco.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Now I realize I
am fighting a losing battle to light up my house, so I am asking my Paris based
lover to buy up a few 100 plus watt bulbs and bring them over with the
consignment of champagne and the naughty undies on his next trip. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Oh, are you
surprised about the French having proper light bulbs? Yes, Paris is still in
the EU. But it seems the only country to take seriously and obey the EU edicts
about light bulbs is—guess who—the UK. Another one to add to the list of
conditions for staying in, David, dear. If you must.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Well all I can
say at this point is, that in or out of the EU, I want light bulbs that give me
light. Not only that but I want to buy new lams and these seem to allow nothing stronger than 40 watts. Watt? Clearly, I will have to plug in more
lamps until I have something resembling a film set with which to get on with my
night’s work. The alternative is to spend £200 a time on LED lights that enable me to read without eyestrain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Who allowed this
idiot ruling to pass into law? Blair or Brown, maybe? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Assemble the
firing squad asap, if you can find the criminals. And revise the law.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Right now I have
plugged in some Christmas lights (350 Watts and French) that I did not use at
Christmas, in order to give me enough light with which to find my way to bed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Welcome back to
Blighty—if you can find the door.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Nesta Wyn Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11239146058475819744noreply@blogger.com0