Ignoramus

Ignoramus sounds as bad as it is. Ignoramuses just more so. Ignorami sounds much better and has a touch of handcraft about it creating something magical out of a simple sheet of paper - a ballot voting sheet for instance.

I don't like the word unless it is used in combination with something that qualifies it. Nobody is totally "an ignorant or stupid person" (Oxford) or "a person who knows nothing" (Cambridge) or, as we might expect from Trumpland, "an utterly ignorant person: dunce" (Miriam)

I am utterly ignorant about lots of things - brain surgery, chemistry, physics and a whole lot more. I am largely ignorant about the majority of  things I have to deal with in life;  electricity for instance where I do know it is useful and I know you need at least two wires, I can wire a domestic plug even one with three wires, I know it can be dangerous and don't use a hair dryer in the bathtub but that is it. Repairing anything using electricity is not a starter. There are a few things about which I know a bit more than perhaps the average but nothing falls to mind right now.

Back in 2016, the experts were saying there were plagues of Ignoramuseseses to be found in two large English speaking tribes. Now that was somewhat unfair. There were a lot of people who were frightened although they had no basis to be afraid. Frightened of the unknown and driven to it by the odd populist  airhead, blockhead, chucklehead, dimwit, dodo, dolt, donkey, dope, dork [slang], dullard, dumbbell, dummy, dunce, fathead, goof, goon, half-wit, idiot, imbecile, know-nothing, knucklehead, lamebrain, loon, lunkhead, moron, nincompoop, ninny, nitwit, noddy, noodle, numskull (or numbskull), oaf, pinhead, saphead, simpleton, stock, turkey, yahoo, yo-yo,  .... bigot, racist money grabber.

Most of the above voted in their elections and referendum accordingly - with fear and not a tiny bit of factual knowledge of what they were voting for.

Two years later we have come a long way. We have had two years to see how Mr Trump chooses to be the role model to the children and adults of the world: lies, division, hate, fear, sexism, bigotry, racism, violence, threats, disloyalty, nepotism, cruelty, injustice ....... Given Mr Trump has declared today's midterm elections as a referendum on his performance, I cannot believe the Republican party will get one single vote. I'm not questioning the core traditional Republican policies or their various candidates but just taking Mr Trump's own voting criteria to heart. You really do have to be a criminal or an ignoramus to vote for any Republican candidate (REMEMBER TRUMP'S CRITERIA, NOT MINE).


In much the same way in the UK, you need to seriously consider asking me to carry out a brain lobotomy for you if you still don't see the need for a second referendum. We are just weeks away from the border post poles coming down and yet only today HM Government issues a "warning" notice about pet travel from the UK to EU (boy do you need to get your skates on if you want Fido to enjoy Easter in the Normandy), they want the car businesses to tell them how we are to control CO² emissions from April 2019 and yesterday they told us what we need to do if we drive any vehicle over 3.5 tonnes in the EU. I guess Nigel Farage won't be able to hire a small van to move his collection of continental beer mugs and glasses, that he "acquired" during all the research he did while others were in the EU Parliamentary sittings, from Brussels to The Dog & Rat Tavern in Southend.

There must still be hundreds of specific areas where the details are still not known. We are a million miles and about 1.8 million kilometres from knowing what a Brexit means - light years away.

Just see what it costs you to spend Easter camping with Fido in Normandy. Assuming you even get through the Kent carpark and as far as Dover/Channel Tunnel, the one part is easy: the EU will accept all the two-legged people coming over with a Burgundy EU passport. But only so long as your car and caravan have the correct papers, you have a Green card for car and caravan (two if your insurance policy happens to run out during the trip), each driver has an International Driving Licence, Fido all his jabs and blood tests and passport. BUT when drunken Farmer Jacques in his CV2 laden with crates of  Calvados hits your gleaming BMW, the mobile phone rates calling the UK to get you sorted will be at a big cost. And then safely back on home territory, you will be faced with very long and expensive court battles in France to get the vet's fees for treating Fido's strained neck sorted. No more simply going to a UK court to get justice. And don't laugh you all-inclusive Majorca lot. Even if your plane can fly, any problems with Pedro's hotel will need to be sorted out in Spanish courts.

So I don't call Leavers ignoramuses. It wasn't even as if the majority of voters, Leave or Remain, had any experience of what a UK without the EU even meant. Anyone aged under 60 has spent all their adult life within the European family and simply takes everything for granted. 

But now we do know a lot more and are better equipped to make a semi-informed decision. Only the bigots, racialists and self-enrichment lobby could possibly deny the right of the folk to have a referendum, or better still a simple vote that bypasses even the bigots, racialists and self-enrichment lobby in the Houses of Parliament.

Today's Blip should really have had a different title -  "Schlagbaum"- as it refers nicely to the wind toppled lovely but lonesome larch tree which was the closest of the State forestry plantation trees to our house: "Schlagbaum" is the German word for the barrier, usually with red and white stripes, put up at places like borders crossings, entrances to business premises. It literally means "Schlag"=- blow (not as in wind but in the context of boxing ring punch) and  "Baum" =Tree.