Ipple-Pen Diary. End of June

Well that’s June over with and we’ve had the longest day of the year in terms of daylight and sunshine so it’s all down hill to Christmas.

What an awful demoralising thought.

So what happened in June.

Well to start with we had Donald Trump visit the UK (Remember him? The man with fake sore heels that prevented him going to Vietnam though the streak of yellow and thin skin he constantly displays with his tantrums may have been a more believable reason) to pay his respects to all of the Americans who lost their lives on the beaches of Normandy.

Just for anyone in the USA reading this, we thank-you and them for their sacrifice as we do all those who fought to avoid freedom being crushed under the heel of right-wing zealots but bloody hell fire next time send someone with credibility to honour them.

Right – change of subject, what else happened in June.

Well to start with it rained (a lot) which is not I know that unusual but as most people who read this know we Brits are obsessed by the weather and now that the days are getting shorter and nights longer we will start to look forward to complaining about it for the rest of the year.

Incidentally after having a year off Glastonbury with a star studded line-up took place for four days from Wednesday, 26 June.

Unlike previous years the sun shone and those hardy festival goers who turned up wearing brightly coloured ponchos and wellington boots expecting and anticipating a mud bath were sorely disappointed.

And is it only me who thinks it’s amusing that vegans go to Glastonbury and have the time of their lives on an actually working dairy farm?

There will be complaints written to The Times

There is something about a midsummer festival, (Ipplepen has theirs next month though without the big names of Glastonbury ) in which ordinary people (who can afford the ticket prices) congregate to enjoy the talents of famous stars many of who have a history of alcohol, drugs and philandering that adds to their mystique and street credibility.

Of course it would be remiss not to mention that they are all now reformed characters who apart from appearing at the occasional music festival are now revelling and enjoying a new career as a regular chat-show guest reminiscing about their past and sharing amusing anecdotes.

Which will always raise the question… are they making it up?

I ask because if they were so out of it at the peak of their fame as they claim to have been how the bloody hell do they remember it?

I have a sneaking suspicion that most of them are just a blink away from reverting back to their previous lives and wouldn’t be at all surprised (in fact, and I know its wrong to think like this but what the hell it’s summer) if secretly when talking to kids they say,

“My advice is to avoid those people who take drugs…. like the bloody police who were always taking mine from me..”

But never mind the festival season, the June film in the Village Hall was A Star is Born (a remake of the 1937 film of the same name for those who have been hiding under a stone and hadn’t heared of it) it looked as if the audience came dressed to watch having survived the sinking of the Titanic but it turns out we were simply caught in a sudden downpour between leaving the Welly and getting to the hall.

As for the rest, well parents have been gearing themselves psychologically for the coming stress of having their beloved offspring home for the six week summer holidays and as how now become the norm in the UK grandparents are getting ready to look after the little cherubs while mum and dad are at work.

So much for our wonderful Governments commitment to family life.

June was also the month that the state Government funded BBC made the decision that the free television licence for citizens over 75 would be scrapped with the support of the very same Conservative Government.

Strangely they seem to have overlooked the fact that 53 of the government MP’s claimed the cost of their television licence back on expenses last year.

Oh and a handful of over-privileged, over-paid self-serving toss-pots have chosen two of their kind one of who will be the United Kingdom’sdemocratically unelected) Prime Minister and they have selected as their future hero a man who has a record of being a consistent liar and one who did his very best to destroy the NHS.

So all is well in Great Britain for our democracy.

Except of course it isn’t and the nation now appears to be even more polarised than ever between what could be sets of football supporters who turn their nose up and sneer at supporters of another club for no other reason than your dad did the same and therefore not only do you think your team can do no wrong all you wish is disaster for the other team.

Infighting in and between our two largest political parties has reached epic proportions which are at least on the scale of that between the Democrats and Republicans in the USofA.

So today is the first of July and there’s only six months to the New Year so something to look forward to.

Happy summer everybody in the Northern Hemisphere – if it isn’t interrupted by a politically convenient war in the Middle East that is.