London -- Yes, I have flown off to London. After Washington's
rainiest spring in memory I could say that I have fled to London
for the exquisite climate. It is sunny here, dry and graced by a
cool breeze. Yet it is not that the weather in London is more
pleasant than the weather in Washington. I flew over for a wedding,
and after the wedding I shall fly on to Spain. In both places I
shall espy what the locals are up to.
Here the news is sobering. This week the British military
suffered its worst casualties in Iraq since arriving. All the
newspapers' lead stories are about the six British police officers
killed and the eight soldiers injured in two attacks on Tuesday.
The tone is grim, but there is no sign of panic. The conservative
papers call for discovering the whereabouts of Saddam and his sons,
arguing that only by assuring the Iraqis that the tyrant is
impotent can Coalition forces expect the Iraqis to cooperate in
establishing civic order and government. The left offers no
suggestions, just more whining and fond hopes. Says the
Guardian with its usual huffy affirmation, "What is needed
is a coherent plan to hand back Iraq to the Iraqis rather than the
limping measures taken so far." Hear, hear for a coherent plan. But
you can be sure that if the "coherent plan" issues from Washington,
the Guardian will see only "limping measures."
Yet once we have the sobering reports from Iraq behind us the
London news is more amusing. The media report that Russian
President Vladimir Putin is being given a "Czarist" welcome by the
Queen, as well he should. His four-day visit to London is the first
state visit by a Russian since Czar Alexander II in 1874. Mrs.
Putin arrived in a dress dowdier than anything worn by a British
Monarch since Queen Victoria. And the similarities do not end
there. President Putin arrived 15 minutes late for his state visit
with the Queen. Czar Alexander arrived much later in 1874, his
imperial yacht Derjava having run aground off the British
coast thus causing him to miss the tide and arrive at his state
dinner hours after the gaudy affair commenced.
The British government has fortified Putin's security in light
of an embarrassing event that immediately preceded his arrival. A
gate crasher, comedian Aaron Barschak, eluded security at Prince
William's 21st birthday and rushed up to kiss the Prince on both
cheeks. Worse, the gate crasher was not attired in a conservative
British suit but in the unmistakable rags of Osama bin Laden.
Members of Parliament are demanding an explanation from the police
for the security breach, and the Labour-dominated body is engaged
in other more traditional left-wing deliberations as well. Two
parliamentary committees have denounced spanking. The committees,
both heavily left-wing Labourite, made it clear that their
opposition to spanking refers to parents spanking their children.
The committee members, being Labourite, presumably have nothing
against spanking between consenting adults and might even encourage
it.
London this week offers other amusing stories. There is the
report in the Daily Telegraph that Dr. Andrew Stapley, a
chemical engineer at Loughborough University, has created a
scientific recipe for the "perfect cup of tea." The story appears
next to a picture of one of Britain's most famous tea drinkers,
left-wing politician Tony Benn, who, says the Telegraph,
"drinks a pint of tea an hour." He is silhouetted holding his tea
cup and puffing on a pipe, a dispensation allowed a lefty who has
stood for every lunatic-left proposal since Karl Marx adopted the
Nazarene's miracle of the loaves and fishes as sound economic
policy for the state.
That story was not reported as a scientific story despite Dr.
Stapley's scientific findings, but the story of the smelly socks
was. Yes, the Telegraph's science editor reports that
"smelly socks could one day be just a nasty memory thanks to
nanotechnology." Apparently a scientist in South Korea has
developed a fiber that kills bacteria and thus is a promising
"weapon against malodorous feet." The British press is famous for
stories like that, and when I read it I had a good laugh. Yet I
would not think the smelly foot problem was that great in London.
Everywhere I go there seems to be soap.
topics:
Vladimir Putin, Military, Iraq, Russia
