It's always interesting to go abroad for a short break and detach yourself from your home country because you tend to miss out on the minutiae of events. On your return you usually find relatively little has happened in your absence but there's always something that catches your eye on returning and this particular weekend was no exception.
I've been back to Romania for another fantastic weekend. No chance to log on to the internet and check the BBC website. No email and no home news. I'm not a news fiend but I do try and keep up with current events and like to know what's gong on, if only at a mostly superficial level.
Here in the UK we have a politician called Peter Mandelson with, one suspects, a mildly colourful lifestyle. Sacked/resigned from a senior position in government on at least two occasions for extremely dubious financial dealings, he was shipped off to Europe where most of our least successful politicians are sent, to see out their days in disgraceful luxury but away from the glare of public opprobrium at their mendacity. Mandelson actually came back and was again given another senior job in government - one suspect this was only to placate some disillusioned faction of Gordon Brown's party (there are quite a few of these I imagine so he has to make a lot of peace offerings to keep his party on a barely even keel and maintain the semblance of organised government). Mandelson was almost immediately undone and up to his usual tricks again by being caught accepting the hospitality of a Russian billionaire on his yacht in the Mediterranean. He survived this particular spat but has continued to rarely be out of the news for some reason or another.
This time, as I stepped off the plane at Heathrow I saw a TV screen with such an eye-catching headline I could barely imagine what he'd been up to this time....Mandelson Custard Probe Develops....it was quite an anticlimax when I finally read the actual story.
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