The Resistible Rise of Boris Johnson

Off goes Surya to the vets in order to have some teeth extracted, poor thing! And because I fret about her, I must turn my thoughts away, and will muck around momentarilly with thoughts of Boris.

One does wonder about Boris Johnson; he seems to have been the kind of pupil who had his teachers saying, 'This is almost very good,' as they failed his papers. He has neatly  cornered the market in comedy bungling, an act which leads people to believe he must be actually rather clever beneath it. And perhaps he is one of those bright sparks who never had to revise before an exam but couldn't get their homework in on time for love nor money; perhaps he is one of those characters who, at school, was known for brilliance and erraticism. Perhaps.

Eton and Oxford displayed Boris as a star, with his scholarship and his prefecthood and all that jazz; Cameron went to the same school, same university, same drinking club, was two years younger,  and far less entertaining. And yet he became party leader and prime minister, leaving the boy who would  be 'World King,' to  lesser glory. Can't have been easy for Boris, who had always been marked out as the special one. It would please him to topple his old chum off the pot then settle himself there with a rueful grin. Name of the Game.

Cameron is no great statesman.He has survived because he lives in a time of no great statesmen, and for all his faults, is not mad. His is the pragmatism of the not particularly talented. He never was a star,and if he leaves office without worse to his name than being a  poppy faking knower of pigs, he'll be doing all right.

But he is lucky. As opposed to his old school friend, who is just extraordinary, always has been, and now is thoroughly bloated on the expectation of it. The only hope for Boris is success; disloyalty is never forgotten among the  higher eschelons of his party, and combined with failure, will bring him utter oppobrium.  He is a made man if his gamble pays off and his turnabout strikes a chord  as some kind of prescient understanding of the British public. If not, he will be judged a thing of shreds and patches. The City of London will not be quick to forgive him in any case. They may  happily use accept concessions/bribes offered, but they will never trust him again. Comparing the EU superstate idea to the aspirations of Napoleon and Hitler was the kind of  ghastliness to make Boris-despisers smile; he's close to the ropes, and he knows it.

My thought chewing is done,apple blossom scattering all over the garden in sunlight. I wait for a call from the vets so I can bring my kitty cat home.

Hot Potato

£200 the vet told me, and two molars. Got handed a bill for five extracted teeth including upper canines. It came to £426. The anaesthetic bill alone nearly covered the amount he had quoted.

I paid the £200 the vet had estimated,and will think about what to do next. If poor kitty had been suffering from long term gum issues or tooth decay (apparently the teeth were wobbly and surrounded by pus) why wasn't this picked up on at her last health check earlier this year? I brood, I am angry.

So furious with the world am I that I take my baked potato out of the oven and put it on a plate. Then I lose track. My head is so full of Vet Anger I cannot find my potato. It's not in the oven,not on the worktop, not on the table. I search, wondering if I ever did, in fact, bake that potato at all, decide I must have imagined it and open the crockery draw to get a plate. There lies the freshly cooked potato on top of a stack of clean plates. I had put it in the draw, then closed the door and forgotten about it.

I don't care if it is only Tuesday. It's beer time.