{"id":1560,"date":"2021-01-07T20:54:52","date_gmt":"2021-01-07T20:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/?p=1560"},"modified":"2021-01-07T20:54:52","modified_gmt":"2021-01-07T20:54:52","slug":"thursday-7th-january-2021-day-297","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/2021\/01\/07\/thursday-7th-january-2021-day-297\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday, 7th January, 2021 [Day 297]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today was a very incredibly frosty day with the weather at about -4 degrees and with quite a misty\u00a0freezing fog over the whole of the area. We had our Waitrose<\/em> shopping order delivered an hour later than usual which we think will fit our timetables a little better – but by the time we got everything put away, our walk down the hill was delayed somewhat. We made \u00a0our way a little gingerly but, in truth, the pavements were not\u00a0especially icy or slippery. I am tempted to say that the weather was ‘cold enough to freeze the balls of a brass monkey<\/em>‘ which I always thought was actually a nautical term derived from the old sailing ships. The iron cannon balls were stocked in a\u00a0pyramid on a brass plate (called a ‘monkey<\/em>‘) and when the weather was very cold the differential rate of contraction between the\u00a0iron and the brass was sufficient to give the pyramid a minute nudge and this caused the balls to fall off. However, in all honesty, I did find an internet source that\u00a0comprehensively rubbished the whole of this explanation, including the fact that iron cannon balls were never even stored on a brass plate in the first place. Nonetheless, I think\u00a0I will hang onto the first explanation…We collected our newspapers and ate our comestibles on a frozen park bench but the park was\u00a0practically deserted. We did notice, though, that as the\u00a0weather conditions seemed extreme, everybody we passed seemed exceptionally jolly. Is just the British tendency to smile in the face of adversity? \u00a0Whilst we were in the park, we received the very sad news (via a WhatsApp<\/em> message) that Don Mariano Baena one of our oldest Spanish friends had died. In his younger days he had helped to frame the Spanish Constitution\u00a0and then became the Head of the Department of Public Administration at the Complutense University of Madrid which is how we came to know him. Later he returned to the Supreme Court but he was under the constant threat of death from ETA – the Spanish terrorist group. This was not an idle threat as several of his colleagues had been\u00a0assassinated. As Mariano was aged about 90 and had had a\u00a0stroke, we did have the\u00a0inevitable pang of sadness but also a feeling that Mariano might well be in a better place (he was a fervent Catholic)<\/span><\/p>\n

When we got home, we treated ourself to a\u00a0nice hot curry – a dish we often prepare on a Thursday but one that seemed to be especially called for. We particularly wanted to settle down in\u00a0front of the\u00a0rolling news\u00a0programmes to see the\u00a0sequelae of yesterday – no doubt, the American nation as in 9-11 will be full of a period of introspection asking themselves ‘How did we allow this to happen?<\/em>‘ Three particular things are starting to stand out in the cold light of day. Firstly if this was not a coup, then it surely was an insurrection as Trump had urged his supporters on to virtually\u00a0occupy the Capitol building. Secondly, many, many contrasts are being made between the way in way in which the\u00a0Black Lives Matter<\/em> protest outside the Capitol was handled. On that occasion, the National Guard were all protected to the hilt and several peaceful protestors were\u00a0violently manhandled and even arrested. Meanwhile, the mob yesterday were allowed to roam over the building and were even escorted out with perhaps many not being even arrested or charged. I think the number of arrests is about 60 out of a crowd\u00a0which at the\u00a0preceding rally was numbered in thousands and\u00a0many of them\u00a0joined in the storming of the Capitol. The FBI are now appealing for video evidence and anything that might identify them. [Why did the police\u00a0when reinforced by the National Guard not lock the building, handcuff everybody with plastic ties, put them in a secure location such as an army\u00a0barracks nearby, try them in a specially convened court this morning and then keep them locked up for about two weeks until the\u00a0inauguration was over? The suspicion remains that if they black, this would almost certainly have happened) Thirdly, there is now\u00a0acrive consideration of the ways in which Trump could be removed from office immediately before he could inflict God knows what damage in the few days remaining.One possibility is Amendment 25 to the\u00a0Constitution (the Vice President and the majority of the Cabinet with a\u00a0quorum of 8) could declare the President ‘incapable’ and the Vice President could take over. Another\u00a0possibility is impeachment which requites a two\u00a0thirds vote in the Senate as as well as a resolution in the House of Representatives. This vote would pass through the lower house and then could pass through the new Senate if all of the Democrats and one sixth of the\u00a0Republican senators (to give a two\u00a0thirds majority)\u00a0voted for it. This could be passed in one day, given the video evidence. I doubt,\u00a0though, that either\u00a0will happen but these are are\u00a0unprecedented times. I always thought that a coup from the right was much more likely in the USA and the UK than a coup from the left and, of course in the UK, Boris Johnson\u00a0tried to prorogue Parliament to prevent further debate\u00a0before Brexit.The German government recalled that Hitler had arranged for the Reichstag to be burnt down\u00a0before coming to power ‘democratically’!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today was a very incredibly frosty day with the weather at about -4 degrees and with quite a misty\u00a0freezing fog over the whole of the area. We had our Waitrose shopping order delivered an hour later than usual which we think will fit our timetables a little better – but by the time we got […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1560"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1562,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1560\/revisions\/1562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}