2 (45) THAT BLOODY REFERENDUM.

GIVE IT A FEW YEARS. 

It's all happening.

Recumbent on the back of my chair the cat Shadow (that's him up there) opened one eye 
"You should have known," he said. 

He was right. I voted Remain and Mo voted Leave. I should have known. 

On Friday morning I woke her with a cup of tea and the news: "We're out of Europe," 
"God! We're not! Are we?" was her (far from jubilant) response. 
I think it was a reaction echoed by many throughout the country. 
So now what? 

David Cameron's gone for a start, so presumably our next prime minister wlll be either Michael Gove (most recognized for buggering about with Education), or Theresa May (an ominous Thatcher clone). Boris Johnson (the tousle-haired chancer who originally seemed to be front runner) has apparently opted not to take a chance this time. Can't you hear the woodwork rattling though. 

In the meantime, daft buggers have scrawled messages of hate on buildings and pushed muck and threatening messages through letter boxes. 

The thick gits have also been shouting racist crap at anybody who looks faintly foreign. 

Throughout it all, bull-necked BNP bother boys have been encouraged by the this-is-good-tele twats to broadcast their anti-immigration tripe ("Oi ent a racist, but...") on national television. 

One certainty is that nobody had anything to crow about over the way the referendum was fought or how it panned out. 
Britain is now roughly split down the middle and, in some cases, kith and kin, entrenched in their conflicting views, are no longer speaking to each other. Ain't that sad? 

My Leader and I are lucky. We have seen the same silly - and sober -side of most things for nigh on fifty five years. Politics is high on our silly list. 

On the day after that slightly shock result she asked me what I thought would happen now. 

My response was sadly negative. 

"Give it a few years, probably after my time, and it will all have gone pear-shaped. Then you won't find a soul in the country who voted Leave." 

She nodded: 

"I'm afraid you may be right," she said. 

The Isle of Wight had one of the biggest Leave percentages in the UK. 

Every cloud, though. Perhaps we'll get out of the Eurovision Song Contest now. 

You can but hope.

FOOTBALL 

What football? 
What hope?

Goodbye, old mate.

Back to regular Watching... next month. 

2 (44) IN LESS THAN A CENTURY XVI.

SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE.

Though this may go.

If you keep the occasonal eye on these scribblings

you will know that lately I have been droning on

about the many changes to our country since I was born. 

The opportunity to vote whether or not Britain remains in Europe has highlighted certain things that never seem to change: think connivance, class distinction, elitism, jingoism and, lest we forget, hatred. There will always be sociopaths, religious nutters and those nursing grudges who, when their innate evil or progressive insanity takes total control, behave in lethal fashion to others. The latest victim of what seems to be an insane hate crime is the mother of two small children, Jo Cox, who was murdered on the sixteenth of this month, six days before her 42nd birthday. It was a barbaric act. By all accounts, Mrs. Cox was a hard-working and highly respected young MP. Her alleged attacker, a male who is now in police custody, also stabbed an elderly man who tried to defend her. How long legal proceedings will take is anybody's guess, but if the attacker is found guilty he should put away forever. 

Since 1863 we have retained proven offenders at Broadmoor Hospital (above) or (from 1912 and the 1970s respectively), Rampton and Ashworth. This never should and, I hope, never will change.

The vote is on. 

By tomorrow we will know whether we are still in the EU. Our family seems to be divided, half In and half Out. That particularly applies to Maureen and I. 
If every pair in GB votes like us it will be stalemate. 

Good luck to you, however you voted.

Back later in the month, come what may.