Friday 17^th June – it had to happen. Jamie Shupe, who has male biology and female traits, has won a ruling in an Oregon court to become the first genderless person in the USA. The 52-year old says that being referred to as male or female is not her, hence the choice of Jamie as an interchangeable name. She now considers herself as a third sex, a ‘counterpart’ our preferred term. No problems for Jamie with queues outside the ‘Ladies’ any more. It gives a whole new meaning to ‘Pick & Mix’!

    Saturday 18^th June – the ‘Remain’ team seem to be panicking. They’ve identified that pensioners are more likely to vote ‘out’ and have come up with an idea to influence the oldies. www.callyournan.com is the latest campaign. They are urging youngsters to call their grandmothers to try to influence their votes. In case the youngsters can’t think of the words to use the website even provides a script! I can barely wait for the kids to call me. I’m considering setting up a website called www.goodbyeinheritance.com to see if that has influence. 

    Sunday 19^th June – Christian groups have released a EU referendum prayer.  It plays it straight down the middle, but both sides will probably be in church today sending different messages upwards. We say upwards, but like much of the data on the referendum, it’s just a forecast. The big church names – those we recognize anyway – seem to lean towards remain but we like the comment from a Church of Scotland minister. He says ‘the EU is not perfect, but has replaced bombs with bureaucrats’. Several of us were on the receiving end of bombs during WW2 but the bureaucrats have had more impact on our lives.

    The ban on Russian athletes competing in the Rio games has finally been confirmed. The decision received a predictable response from Vladimir Putin – ‘unjust and unfair’ he says. He makes a good point that ‘responsibility should always be personified – if some members of your family have committed a crime you can’t hold all the family responsible’. Perhaps he needs to make a real example of the coaches and scientists that colluded with those that used performance-enhancing drugs. It might just get the decision reversed.

    The sad murder of MP Jo Cox has sent a shock wave around the country. The media is awash with suggestions that her killer is a right wing extremist, though information about his background suggests instability rather than extremism. A number of MP’s are now talking about increased protection since they receive regular threats. Most of these ‘threats’ come via social media and it raises another conundrum. Perhaps more action should be taken against trolls. Identified and arrested it would give the police a chance to assess these people. Are they a real danger or just insecure nonentities that have a voice that would be unheard if social media didn’t exist?

    Monday 20^th June – David Cameron got a mauling in a live TV debate on the referendum last night. Inevitably, the topic was immigration. He likened himself to Churchill in his willingness to fight for the UK within Europe and got jeered for even mentioning himself in the same sentence as Winnie. The debate was in Milton Keynes and with last year’s net immigration of 333,000 he was on a hiding to nothing. The population of Milton Keynes is about 250,000 and even those who can’t add up know that you can’t house a greater number every year than currently live there, even by concreting over the rapidly contracting green belt.

    We can think of few areas in which we would say Canada leads the world but they took a big step last week. They adopted a controversial law that allows physicians to legally help people close to death to end their suffering. Some senators and campaigners wanted to add those with degenerative diseases but the government decided against that. But at least they have a start. We have seen good friends suffer in no hope situations and applaud the decision.

    Tuesday 21^st June – it’s rumoured that Anne Robinson has been spotted filming in London today dressed in a burqa. The 71-year olds burqa looks black with orange trim in the pictures, though the orange colour may just be visible skin. The confrontational lady is alleged to have been under the knife more often than a chateaubriand, so if it was Anne, and it could have been anybody, we recommend she wears the dress more often. She looks good in it!