This World, This Life

  It's taken a while to write this post.   We all knew it was coming sooner or later, as it does to us all, but for all that, the news of HM Queen Elizabeth II's passing still shook me to the core.  It shouldn't have, of course.  She was 96 years old, a fine age for anyone to reach (and I hope I do) and apart from these unspecified "mobility issues" appeared in good health.  There had been rumours, rightly never commented on by Buckingham Palace, for a while, and she had started to look a little frail on her infrequent public appearances - but like most people I thought that was probably par for the course - I've never met anyone in their 90s so it's difficult for me to judge. Then suddenly, after the first announcement at lunchtime that there was "a concern", in only a few hours she was gone.  It was even quicker (at least in my memory) than Prince Phillip's end.....and am I the only person who believes that a light went out in her life that...

  So the Serial Liar, the Rt.Hon. Alexander Boris dePfeffel Johnson, 80th Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, has wandered off into the sunset of the Tory Back Benches.  Earlier this year he had stated a desire to serve further terms of office, remaining in power for perhaps another ten years - like so many things he has said, no-one was sure whether he was being serious or just having a laugh.  Given his childhood ambition of being "world king", I rather suspect he was serious. As things turned out, his behaviour during his brief (less than three years, at least until his ignominious resignation, though he clung on for another three months until the Nasty Party found a new leader) term of office was riddled with lies, deceit, self-promotion, incompetence and general all-round crapness.  Despite this, his opinion of himself as a hero and the best PM in British history was been unwavering and on display at every opportunity - ev...