Maurice le coq peut chanter maintenant ! ......Country people and their poultry have won a landmark case in France.

Vive Maurice!

In France's Ile-d'Oleron a tribunal and a judge have decided that Maurice the cockerel can continue to sing.

Maurice has become a symbol of the resistance of country people to gentrification of rural areas by  the "neoruraux" incomer retirees and second home owners from urban France.

Earlier this year a neighbour of Mme. Corrinne Fesseau complained to the authorities that her cockerel, "Maurice" was a nuisance because his early morning crowing disturbed the peace of the village.

Mme. Fesseau defended Maurice on the grounds that in French law it would be necessary to prove that Maurice was a nuisance and this was not done. The villagers and neighbours enjoyed Maurice's morning song and he received letters of support from all over France. Further she saw this as an attack on the rural way of life in France. What would be next? church bells? frogs?

Here in Kilchoan I have five cockerels who all sing in the morning and there have been no complaints but in rural southern England where areas such as the Cotswolds have been taken over by wealthy incomers it is against the law to keep a cockerel. This is further evidence of the English countryside rapidly becoming a large suburban park and luxury housing complex.

Vive la France!......... Vive Maurice!. For a full report of the proceedings see todays Le Monde

19/06/20    Maurice est morts

The Guardian newspaper announced today that Maurice, aged 6 years has died of Coryza a respiratory infection of poultry  .https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/19/maurice-the-noisey-french-rooster-dies-aged-six 

The UK and the EU after Brexit......... There's a simple solution to every human problem; it's neat, plausible and wrong. H.L.Mencken.

Last week 84 %  of this blog's readers lived in the USA, I know that thanks to Google, but I don't know why? you are obviously intelligent and discerning people so....

I thought that you might find it useful to have a brief explanation of our current political shambles in the UK and consequences of our leaving the European Union (EU) without an agreement on future arrangements between ourselves and our biggest trading partner.

While you are reading bear in mind my favourite aphorism of the late, great american H.L.Mencken.

" There's a simple solution to every human problem

it's neat, plausible and wrong"

The simple solution to the current UK problem of leaving the EU favoured by the loony right of the Conservative party ( mainly angry old men) and the even loonier, authoritarian English nationalist Brexit party is to leave the EU without any agreement on trade, the EU border between Ireland and  N. Ireland and freedom of movement. A complex problem but for Johnson there's a simple solution.... just walk away and all will be well.

Our current UK Prime Minister ( Alexander Boris Pfefell Johnson) is well known to be incompetent, lazy and mendacious from his early career as a journalist and his time as Mayor of London, our own "Mini Trump". It is obvious that he is aiming to take us out of the EU without a deal despite the awful economic consequences.

Johnson's wealthy backers see opportunities for "disaster capitalism" during the ensuing chaos . In the longer term their aim is to turn the UK into a low wage, low tax offshore  haven for money laundering and tax avoidance with minimal regulation of financial services and the environment.

All will not be well as many of our Members of Parliament who are meeting today to try to stop the , No Deal Brexit know. Thay have to do this before Johnson shuts down parliament on 14th September.

Because if we leave without a deal on October 31st........

•  From November 1st we will be treated as a, " third country". A vast range of checks and tariffs will be applied to our exports to the EU our biggest customer taking 46 % of our exports. Trade will immediately become more complicated, costly and difficult especially for smaller businesses. Farmers and fishermen will be totally screwed.
• Air and road transport will be disrupted, perhaps not immediately because the EU have put in place some temporary mitigation procedures. The UK does not appear to have done anything.
• We rely heavily on immigration from Europe to staff hospitals, care homes, the hospitality industry and agriculture. Employers will have to apply complex new rules which have not yet been decided.
• The UK will lose access to information and data from Europol, the Schengen visa system and the European arrest warrant system....... new opportunities for criminals however.
• Ireland will remain an EU member. The UK has a land border between N. Ireland and the Republic of Ireland so checks and tariffs will be applied at the border.  the ~~UK government (Johnson) has said this will not happen there will be no hard border which is against World Trade Organisation rules. 

I do have a dog in this fight as you may have realised. I am a Scot, living in Scotland where 62% of the population voted to remain in the EU at the referendum in 2016 . In this of course, we are ruled by our political masters ,in London.



Postscript, 13/09/2019

My friend Derek sent me a comment today.,,,,,, Derek doesn't use Google, he's a one man stand against their bid for world domination! His comment is another quote by H.L.Mencken in his political commentary, "On politics, A carnival of bunkum".

"As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents more and more closely the soul of the people.  On some great and glorious day the plain folks of this land will reach their heart's desire at last the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

This doesn't just apply to the White House of course, the quotation applies equally to No. 10 Downing Street .

NB
If you have nothing better to do:-

Here's a link to authoritarian nationalism