Westminstenders: Waiting for Sanity

[RedToothBrush]

We could be waiting a long time, but that's what we have to wait for as that's what the EU is waiting for.

The EU has requested we expand on our plans for 'alternative arrangements' with regard to the backstop.

We need to do so before the next HoC vote on 14th Feb. The EU see no point in shifting their position before than. And the UK will struggle to provide the info the EU want before then. So there is now some doubt as to whether the vote will go ahead as planned.

About a third of the Cabinet now believe that Brexit will have to be delayed due to legislation not being ready for exit date. However we don't have power over this and we might still exit without it.

There is no Brexit related business next week in the HoC to prevent pesky amendments. The recess has been cancelled but MPs have been told its OK to go on their ski holidays so it's just a PR stunt.

Meanwhile No Deal is in full effect as businesses trigger their exit strategy in the absence of certainty. No Deal is reality for many even if we do have a last minute deal...

We are all about to get poorer. As that's what we voted for.

Young people are the future and the majority did not want this to happen. Many did not get to vote.

colouring I find practical stuff helps me. I can't control what happens politically, but I can control how many tins I have in, whether we have firewood and what we plant in the veg patch this year. I can bake banana bread to freeze and make sure DS has an extra-big coat to grow into and ddog has plenty of food.

It helps.

On the Brexit threads I'm seeing more and more familiar usernames that I recall from 2016, back to gee up any waverers.

With soundbites, slogans and no answers;
Just an adoration for their masters.

As D.G. Rossetti wrote back in 2019.

I knitted this for ds who is up in Aberdeen and initially only took hoodies with him as he didn't believe me when I said it would be cold

I've got a WIP (Work in Progress) of a large afghan rug that I've neglected for the last couple of years. Really should get it finished - will come in useful if there are power cuts

That's gorgeous pretty

So many talented folks on 5gis thread!

That's lovely prettybird. I love a yoke knit. I'm slowly doing a cowl neck jumper dress for DD. And then I'm planning on more embroidery.

Young people are the future and the majority did not want this to happen. Many did not get to vote.

Which makes me wonder if we're going to see some sort of equivalent to the 60s and 70s, when youth culture was about kicking back at what the previous generations had built up ? I think that's much less likely now, given how much the world has shrunk. We'll just lose a generation abroad - many of whom won't return. Ultimately in reverse that's my DF. He left Italy to never return - and he's adamant that Britain was a better place for us to grow up. Despite my DB fucking off to the US.

I'm not going to start a thread on it, but the talk of keeping diaries vaguely reminds me of reading somewhere (a long time ago) that in the lead up to the second world war, in hindsight, there were a lot of people recording or recounting troubled dreams to therapists. Nothing woo, just a reflection of the zeitgeist I imagine.

I find crochet massively soothing and forgiving of cackhandedness. Bonus being you can learn how to do a granny square and then keep yourself warm while you just keep on making one.. and watch tv at the same time.

I'm going to learn to crochet this year. I'd always refused to do so because I'm left handed and wouldn't look at the many left handed videos that I've been sent by Woolly Hugs people but a friend has started trying to teach me by getting me to mirror her.

Now....if I'd got my mum to teach me before her accident, it would've been sooooooo much easier

My DM was an avid knitter ... DS was thrilled with the Harry Potter jumpers and scarf she designed and knitted as they were unique.

(Now this is outing ...) I still have the yellow and black hooped jumper that I designed and she made which had a "Fender" logo across the chest. I was 15, a massive Police fan and aspiring guitarist. I had so many people approach me when I wore it, asking where I got it ...

A couple of years later - by then into Led Zeppelin - I embroidered a pair of black cords with Jimmy Pages rune ... I guess I was a walking cliche. I never got around to the dragon-flame trousers though.

It was learning at my DMs knee that gives me confidence to say 90% of all modern clothes are pretty shit - especially the stitching.

We'll just lose a generation abroad - many of whom won't return.

That will be my children. Their jobs / subjects of study could make them candidates to emigrate.

My kids blankets. DDS is all lumpy because she's snuggled up underneath it.

Now I must go and cook dinner and prove to DD that I don't love Mumsnet more than her.

My dd is currently under a similar (a bit less beautiful) one. I just did a big rainbow of wool.

I find crochet massively soothing and forgiving of cackhandedness. Bonus being you can learn how to do a granny square and then keep yourself warm while you just keep on making one.. and watch tv at the same time.

Me too! I’m not very good at knitting although it’s technically quicker. Currently crocheting a blanket but it’s slow progress. Might be finished this time next year.

See , I'm wanting to learn to crochet because it seems to be so much faster than knitting! Certainly, the way that crocheters can produce squares for Woolly Hugs and Kinship Hags is waaaaaayyyyy faster than I can knit one!

Loving all the gorgeous crochet and knitting! I can do neither so I am very impressed.

We'll just lose a generation abroad - many of whom won't return.

I don't know... most Brits are hopelessly dire at languages (a self-inflicted condition) (and even their own native tongue!) and that's what keeps them stuck - and ironically, resentful of foreigners who can move here because they speak English. Perhaps Brexit will give more incentive for young Brits to take their MFL GCSEs more seriously?

DM also crocheted, macramed, and made lace ...

My DFs sister (so Italian, who DM never liked ....) used to do this incredibly fine work where you start with a piece of cloth, and slowly pull out individual threads to make a pattern. No idea what it was called, but it seemed to require superhuman patience.

I think that it would be good to start Mass Observation style diaries. It is such a wonderful archive of the experiences of ordinary people in wartime, especially the women.

The best thing about knitting and crochet is that if you always work with DK you can use up all the bits and pieces that you have left over. It perhaps doesn't work so well for adult clothes but is fine for the kiddies.

BTW I have been keeping diaries for years.

You are talking about Drawn Thread Work DGR

I've been lurking for a few threads, but not been posting (they go so fast during the week!). You've all taught me so much, for which I'm grateful.

On the subject of crafting, I've taken to doing cross stitch as something both decorative and mentally soothing!

My Christmas projects are attached. 🎅🏻 🎄

For the first time ever in history
in most of the developed world
the young are outnumbered by the old
hence the young feel UTTERLY ignored / disconnected
and that is a very dangerous situation

My DD will come back to the UK to finish her degree
but then I cannot see her staying in the UK if its all going tits up

DS pretends he does not "do" languages - but he is very partial to flat Italian cars - so I can see him leaving too

DH's family are dead. Mine are all over the world.
Why would we stay if our kids are not here ?

Brexit is an existential crisis for a country that used to paint the map pink.

DGR I think that is drawn thread work. I have a tablecloth made by a great-aunt.
I can knit and sew, we have a large, productive fruit and vegetable garden, a bread oven, lots of space for storing food and a well. All of which would be very useful except that we are in rural France. As our children and grand children are in England it doesn't make me feel any better.

I have a fab book about the Mass Ob diaries somewhere, must dig it out.

And I need to pick up my crochet hooks again. Although I do fancy some of those big needles and thick wool to knock up a big blanket in next-to-no-time, but I'm a crap knitter.

Or not!

I'm actually a bit scared as to what will happen with Brexit. The thought of my kids living through the lack of money both DH and I did as kids fills me with horror.

Alex Wickham @alexwickham
EXC: Tory MPs terrified at the thought of losing their seats in a snap election flip out at Brandon Lewis and Gavin Barwell on WhatsApp.

Read the messages in full here >>
www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/alexwickham/tory-mps-election-whatsapp-panic?__twitter_impression=true
Tory MPs Are Absolutely Losing It On WhatsApp At The Thought Of A June Election
Exclusive: Leaked messages reveal some Tory MPs are terrified of losing their seats if there's a general election this year.

In leaked WhatsApps Tory MPs warn that talk of a June election is "very unsettling" and order Brandon Lewis to rule it out. Nicholas Soames: "Frankly it's amateur night what on earth are they playing at?"

Mark Francois then starts trolling Brandon Lewis when he fails to deny the Tories are considering a snap election. Michael Fabricant warns this could leak. (Narrator: It did leak.)

Jackie Doyle-Price (majority 345) tears Gavin Barwell a new one for "gleefully" tweeting out that poll showing the Tories in front. Message very much: we will lose our seats if you call an election you idiots.

Then into farce. Brandon Lewis tries to reassure MPs that there won't be an election. Except he rules out an election in 2018. It is 2019.

Lets face it, if we Brexit then losing a June election could work out quite nice for the Tories. I mean who can get blamed for all the Brexit fall out too.