At the Centre of the Universe

I have resumed my pre-pandemic routine of reading my morning newspaper in the flesh, i.e. on paper rather than on my tablet. You'll be pleased to know that this blog will continue in the internet flesh.

Today's paper is full of Cornwall, which is where I live in the UK. For the next few days Cornwall will be the centre of the world. Or at least the centre of the G7 world, since the leaders of the US, UK, France, Germany, Canada, Italy and Japan are meeting from Friday in the sleepy south west of England. Not so sleepy when a very noisy aircraft flew over my house in the middle of last night, waking me up. Civilian flights into the local Newquay airport don't usually operate at night so either (a) this was an emergency load of noisy British revellers returning from Portugal to avoid quarantine requirements, (b) Vladimir Putin's air force was bombing the G7 or (c) a US military cargo plane delivered Joe Biden's armoured people carrier, which apparently has 8 inch armour plating and can survive a nuclear strike. I don't imagine that's a direct strike, more like stopping those nasty uranium atoms from a nearby explosion.

The G7 used to be the G8 but they sacked Russia because Putin insisted on the leaders engaging in underwater naked fistfights to determine the seating positions at the conference table. Now they sit according to political preference: Biden on the left with Merkel to his left, Macron on the right with Johnson on the far right alongside Mario Draghi and Yoshihide Suga, Canada (of course) in the middle. Britain, in the chair, has invited fellow Russophobes Australia, India and South Korea. The latter refused to sit in the same room as the Japanese unless they received an apology for Japan's 20th century imperial atrocities. The Australians only came after receiving an assurance that they would be allowed to continue trading with China and the Indians came as long as Pakistan wasn't included.

There is a suggestion that the G7 could morph into a D10 group ('D' for dumbing down). Although the French want Russia to be invited back into a S11 group - Sinophobes United. The original 'G' by the way stood for Good Guys.

Are all these temporary immigrants good for Cornwall's economy? I don't quite see Joe Biden slipping into the corner shop for a packet of fags or Emmanuel Macron popping into the chippie; Scott Morrison is partial to a pint of beer although given the fizzy muck that Aussies call beer he isn't going to be delighted with the local Proper Job. In a week's time they'll all be gone and we can resume our sleepy lives, at least until the end of the school year when we will be invaded by hordes of kids and dogs who can't travel abroad because the French and the Americans won't have them, the rest of the EU blames us for ... just being us ... and the Australians, whilst in the Green Zone, don't allow anyone past their borders so that they can stay Covid-safe without bothering to vaccinate their citizens.