A modern political career...

(For those who haven't followed the ins and outs of all this, the links will explain....)

1. The Mop-headed Buffoon becomes Our Beloved Mayor®
2. After eight years of achieving or initiating... well, not a lot, Our Beloved Mayor® becomes the Great White Shark circling No. 10
3. Seizing his opportunity, the Great White Shark attempts to position himself as the nation's Great White Hope, resuming an earlier persona as the asbestos-pantied promoter of dubious tales about the EU, only this time not so much as a wizard jape, as with actual serious consequences
4. On realising that the consequences might be more serious than he thought (despite what so many people had been telling him), the Great White Hope starts retreating from his taller tales
5. When his bestest friend turns out to have been marched on to the playground to take his ball  away, the Great White Hope becomes the Mop-Headed Poltroon and wanders off to.....
6. ..... next stop - the Paul Gascoigne comedy circuit?

And these people think they are educated, trained, entitled to run the country?

So in this brave new world (or strange new limbo), where those who won don't appear to be quite sure whether they really wanted whatever it is they have won, if they could only decide what it is, and those who lost don't know what to do next, what certainties are there?

Death and taxes, of course, according to Benjamin Franklin (or Daniel Defoe). To which, as after every other trip abroad, I have to add, as neither of them did (but that's eighteenth-century patriarchy for you)..... laundry.

And showing one's holiday snaps (even if they are curiously similar to every other year's):

Stubaital - the Rütz-Katarakt

Stubaital- mountain meadow

Innsbruck

Munich - Alte Pinakothek

It seems the people have spoken

From my point of view...

I am still in Europe (Austria, to be precise).

Ah, the great panoply of London life.... All the pomp and circumstance of Trooping the Colour for the Queen's 90th birthday this morning, and then the World Naked Bike Ride in the afternoon - and the rain (is it better to cycle in the rain clothed or in the nip? I fear the latter might cause some chafing).

Not that I went up to town to see either.

Instead, we have some visiting sailing ships to admire at Canary Wharf: the US Coastguard's Eagle and the Mexican Cuauhtemoc, quite putting the shame the plutocratic gin palaces moored behind them.

My dental appointment would just have to be on the day summer finally looked to have decided to make an appearance, wouldn't it? But all was in order, and a few  (if interminable-seeming) minutes of scraping and polishing wouldn't spoil the rest of the day.

Just the sort of day, and time of year, for a look at Queen Mary's rose gardens in Regent's Park. Not exactly a quiet walk in the park, what with the numbers of people with the same idea, but still restful.

Not all the bushes were in full flower, and some were definitely not living up to their names - not a bloom was to be seen on Sight Saver, and Song and Dance was doing anything but.  However, Majestic was looking sufficiently Queen Mother-like, and Ingrid Bergman certainly suggested the lady in question (but Deep Secret was hardly in deep cover):

Majestic

Ingrid Bergman

Deep Secret