Each month I offer you something to think about to get the brain working. This month …
We pass the anniversary of our death every year without knowing.
Thoughts on the Political System
I don’t generally comment on politics and current affairs, but I’m going to offer the following two (probably unpopular) thoughts.
Thought 1
The author of The Empty City Blog contends that:
Getting rid of six Prime Ministers in ten years is a sign of a working political system. It is that we keep appointing poor Prime Ministers that is the problem: an input issue not an output issue.
Wrong!
It is the product of relatively unthinking, sheep-like MPs not understanding enough of the system**, naïvely believing the grass is always greener on the other side, and being preyed on by self-serving commentators and billionaire media owners with their own divisive agendas (after all it sells copy and makes them money). The media have forgotten what their role is: to report what’s happening, not to wage personal vendettas.
[** Unless they’ve worked very closely inside Number 10 no-one has any idea of the complexity at that level. And no new Prime Minister has a flying clue what’s hit them.]
We’ve lost the understanding of peoples’ role and place in the system (and that doesn’t have to mean rigid, traditional roles); the ability to see beyond the brick wall; and the confidence to allow people to get on and do the job they’ve been entrusted with. Meanwhile the media have run off with the sausages.
But this isn’t new. Just in my lifetime we did it to, inter alia, Alec Douglas-Home, Ted Heath and Jim Callaghan.
And it is stupid that we have eight (soon to be nine) living former Prime Ministers. Two or three maybe, but nine shows just how dysfunctional the system is.
FFS grow some spine and learn to tell the media to f*** off.
Thought 2
If Andy Burnham becomes Prime Minister it will be a disaster and he’ll not last two years.
He’s out of touch with Parliament, and will effectively have to relearn the ropes. Most new MPs seem to have a tough time adjusting to the role and finding their place in the system. He should not, and should not expect to, walk straight in and carry on as if he’d never left.
This means that should he become Prime Minister in short order, he will have even less clue than most as to what has hit him when he walks into Number 10.
But worse …
He seems to be divisive (which is what’s got him here). He’ll overtly favour the North with no thought about the South – regardless of the fact that the South is well over 50% of the population and GDP. And it’ll be all about his ideas – aka. the only right ideas – with little or no regard for advice or experts.
So it’ll be another government along the same lines as Boris Johnson – somewhere between farce and fiasco.
Plus watch the vanity projects for the North.
All of which could just result in a backlash in favour of Farage and Reform, which will be an even bigger disaster.
A good Mayor, doesn’t ipso facto make a good Prime Minister!
Monthly Quotes for June
Here be this month’s collection of recently encountered quotes; and it is bumper offering this month.
In crisis communication, a well-known formula is: outrage x hazard. So even if the hazard is low, if concern is great, you’d better be speaking with clarity, acknowledging uncertainty, listening to the questions, concerns, and confusion, and bringing people along for the ride.
[Katelyn Jetelina, @yourlocalepidemiologist]
President Trump seems to have an unsatiable need to be the centre of attention. International relations are a serious matter; they concern people’s lives and the stability of entire regions. At times, it feels as though the whole world is being forced to take part in a multibillion-dollar therapy session to compensate for the attention he may not have received in childhood.
[Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iranian Vice President for Strategic Affairs]
To meet a person you are going to marry requires filtering through a lot of people … If you socialise much less, it takes you much longer to find a match if you find one at all … If you spend lots of time socialising with your peers in the real world, your standards [for a potential partner] are anchored in the real world. If you spend your time on Instagram, your standards are anchored to an artificial sense of what is normal.
[Lyman Stone]
Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.
[Christopher Hitchens]
The Seven Social Sins are:
* Wealth without work.
* Pleasure without conscience.
* Knowledge without character.
* Commerce without morality.
* Science without humanity.
* Worship without sacrifice.
* Politics without principle.
[Frederick Lewis Donaldson]
As it fell upon a day
In the merry month of May,
Sitting in a pleasant shade
Which a grove of myrtles made,
Beasts did leap, and birds did sing,
Trees did grow, and plants did spring;
Every thing did banish moan …
[William Shakespeare; “Sonnet to sundry notes of music” from The Passionate Pilgrim (1598)]
And God said “love your enemy”, and I obeyed him and loved myself.
[Khalil Gibran]
Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature. Unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshipping.
[Hubert Reeves, Canadian-French astrophysicist]
Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.
[Eleanor Roosevelt]
The aesthetic evaluation of women before their intellectual evaluation is not a modern phenomenon. It is not an internet glitch. It is not something Andrew Tate invented between supercar videos. It is one of the oldest organising principles in human civilisation.
[Clare Macnaughton]
And the female aesthetic appreciation of the male. Indeed I suggest this is the bedrock of of sexual selection in all species.
Clothes hide the body, but nudity reveals the woman’s soul.
[Christian Dior]
A woman’s body has the beauty of nature. For her, undressing is like the sun dissipating the clouds.
[Auguste Rodin]
Adult life boils dawn to four simple things: Everything is expensive. I don’t know what to eat. I’m tired. Ibuprofen.
[unknown]
Every tiny creature is carrying a life that matters deeply to itself. The bee searching for water, the bird hiding from storms, the frog resting in cool grass. They are not background decoration. They are living souls trying to survive beside us.
[unknown]
Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control … Human beings, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.
[Albert Einstein]
My daughter, then just shy of five … collapsed our entire chain of species inheritance into a single anthropomorphic figure that she called “my monkey grandma”.
[Stephen Phelan, Guardian, 2 June 2026]
The longer I live, the more convinced I am that this planet is used by other planets as a lunatic asylum.
[unknown]
June Quiz Answers
Here are the answers to this month’s six quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.
Geography
- In which country is Angel Falls, the world’s largest waterfall? Venezuela
- Switzerland is made up of how many cantons? 26
- Which continent has land in all four hemispheres? Africa
- In what country is the Chernobyl nuclear plant located? Ukraine
- What’s the capital city of Tanzania? Dodoma
- Area 51 is located in which American state? Nevada
Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2025.
This Month’s Poem
All in June
WH Davies
A week ago I had a fire
To warm my feet, my hands and face;
Cold winds, that never make a friend,
Crept in and out of every place.
Today the fields are rich in grass,
And buttercups in thousands grow;
I’ll show the world where I have been–
With gold-dust seen on either shoe.
Till to my garden back I come,
Where bumble-bees for hours and hours
Sit on their soft, fat, velvet bums,
To wriggle out of hollow flowers.
Find this poem online at Poetry Soup
June Self-Portrait
[Click the image for a larger view]
Ten Things
This year our Ten Things column will present a selection of words (of five or more letters) with a different ending each month. This month …
Words Ending in -va
- baklava
- balaclava
- bodhisattva
- conjunctiva
- guava
- supernova
- vulva
- yeshiva
- zelkova
- zyzzyva
So how many of those words did you know? And how many do you use?
This Month’s Quote
Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
Bertrand Russell
June Quiz Questions
Each month we’re posing six pub quiz style questions, with a different subject each month.
As always, they’re designed to be tricky but not impossible, so it’s unlikely everyone will know all the answers – just have a bit of fun.
Geography
- In which country is Angel Falls, the world’s largest waterfall?
- Switzerland is made up of how many cantons?
- Which continent has land in all four hemispheres?
- In what country is the Chernobyl nuclear plant located?
- What’s the capital city of Tanzania?
- Area 51 is located in which American state?
Answers will be posted in 2 weeks time.
June 1926
Our look at some of the significant happenings 100 years ago this month.
1. Birth. Marilyn Monroe, American actress (d.1962)
3. Birth. Allen Ginsberg, American poet (d.1997)
4. Death. Fred Spofforth, Australian cricketer (b.1853)
5. Birth. Paul Soros, Hungarian-born American mechanical engineer, inventor, businessman and philanthropist (d.2013)
10. Death. Antoni Gaudí, Spanish architect (b.1852)
28. Birth. Mel Brooks, American actor, comedian, and screenwriter