chrishansenhome

Those of you who read the foreign news (in the US) may have come across several articles in the Grauniad discussing the fact, just revealed, that an undercover policeman not only infiltrated a particularly harmless environmental activist organisation, but slept with several of the female activists. Another police undercover agent actually married an activist and they had two children before he broke down and confessed that he wasn't who he had said he was.

Well, after two stories about policemen not being able to keep their trousers zipped, we heard yesterday that the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (Treasury spokesman for the opposition Labour party) resigned his post for "personal reasons". Normally if they themselves have transgressed they say that they are resigning to "spend more time with their family". This morning we awoke to the news that he no longer has a family with which to spend time with as his former police bodyguard from the time he was Home Secretary has had (perhaps "is having") an affair with Johnson's wife and she has left him.

One wonders how many more cases of this nature are simmering just under the saucepan lid. There have been three undercover officers identified who infiltrated peaceful activist groups, two of which (the two men) got sexually involved with the people they were spying on. And a politician who (frankly) is one of the few Labour politicians I have time for as he is a hard worker, very personable, and doesn't act as if being in the Cabinet made his sh*t not to stink, is poleaxed by his police bodyguard and his marriage ruined.

It used to be that bent coppers were limited to physical violence against prisoners and taking bribes. Now it seems they are becoming studs as well.

Later note; Guido Fawkes is now reporting that Johnson's successor investigated Johnson's private life and discovered that Johnson himself was having an affair with a civil servant. This doesn't make it right for the bodyguard to have an affair with Johnson's wife, but it certainly shows that what's sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. Those old wives knew whereof they spoke. And of course, it's really creepy that the new Shadow Chancellor might have been implicated in the discoveries which led to Johnson's resignation, if that is true.

Archaic laws often are funny out of context. However, in this Wiltshire village, it proved to be fun for everyone to be required to turn up for archery practice.

...is food for thought as the holidays (Christmas in the UK, and Thanksgiving as an extra added attraction for the United States) sneak up on us. The local supermarket already has a small shelf of Christmas items on sale; by the beginning of October they will have 1/3 of the store devoted to the joys of an English Christmas.

Happy New Year to everyone!

I've had a couple of odd dreams lately. The first one was one of a type that many Brits (and other people whose Head of State is HM the Q) seem to report having. HWMBO and I were giving part of my old stamp collection to the Queen. The stamps were very ornate; certainly not part of my former collection, most of which was stolen when I was a child. The Queen was very gracious, and then, in return, asked us to take out the trash. We of course first had to find the skip. The dream ended as we searched Windsor for it.

I'm told that lots of people dream about having the Queen to tea. The one time it happened to someone for real, the Queen, in her blue dress and hat, perched on a dining room chair nervously holding her teacup, looked like she was about to be poisoned. The experiment hasn't been repeated. It was one of that long line of publicity stunts aimed at making the Queen seem more human to the public. I almost said "to her subjects" but as I am always correcting people, we are no longer subjects of HM the Q. We are British citizens.

The second one had to do with my job. For some reason a lot of the sales department was relocated to an upper floor (since the company I used to work for and am now consulting at is actually on the top floor, it was an obvious dream!) and I had to do up there to meet with one of the honchos. The floor was huge when I got up there on the elevator, and as I walked around there was food on almost every desk and table in the place. I finally saw the guy I was to meet, but before I could go into the meeting, I saw HWMBO, with his yellow rubber gloves on, washing up the dishes in the sink. We decided to leave. And that's where I woke up.

I don't often remember dreams, but these two were wacky enough I guess so that I could remember them. But as to what they mean, I haven't a clue.