In which the bromancer meets the moggy ...

Something snapped in the pond this day. It simply couldn't be bothered reading the press release direct from the PM's desk, as channeled by the savvy Savva, and yearned for tales of strife in far-off lands, and luckily the bromancer was in travel mode, and sending missives back home …

… and so the pond felt a nursery rhyme coming on ...

No, that's not quite right, how about this?

Bromancer, bromancer, where have you been?

'I've been to London to see the moggy …'

Bromancer, bromancer, what did you there?

'We frightened the Tories hiding under the chair.'

The bromancer is a devoted Brexiteer, so the current ructions are just a way of ensuring the Poms do a hard exit, and fall into the arms of their very good friend, the Donald. Why, he's got their backs, and if they don't like the result, perhaps they could sue him ...

And there's every chance dinkum Oz lads will be able to score payback for their offensive caricatures of colonials …

The jackals are gathering for the feast, and the bromancer naturally was on hand to reassure the readers of the lizard Oz that all was well …

Well not so well with ™ (hmm, can you ™ her initials?) ...

Ah, Rees the moggy routinely featured in Steve Bell cartoons, and the moggy the bromancer visited in lieu of the Queen ...

Inevitably the bromancer was in awe of the moggy, though those who can remember the bromancer's devotion to the onion muncher might wonder if this is a good sign ...

Indeed, indeed, the prospect of Europe returning to the competing nation states of yore is a prospect to get arms manufacturers salivating. It worked out so well in the twentieth century, and with a bit of luck, Vlad the impaler might be able to nip a little more territory here and there … operating a little bit in the style of the moggy himself ...

Recently the pond read a Graudian interview with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, available here in full, in which inter alia these questions turned up:

Q: Airbus CEO Tom Enders said recently: “Brexit in any form, soft or hard, light or clean, will be damaging”: would you agree with him on that? 

A: Science by its nature has always been an international enterprise and in fact the more prestigious and high performing the lab or institute, the more international it is. It’s very hard for the science community to see any advantages in Brexit. They are pretty blunt about that.

Q: Speaking as someone of Indian origin who was awarded the Nobel prize for work conducted here – and you’ve been knighted – did you find the rhetoric around immigration during and after the vote disheartening? 

A: I was certainly not happy about it. One reason I was happy to be awarded the knighthood was because I thought it sent a good message, a positive message for immigration. 

Q: What does that fact that 19 different European cities bid to replace London as the home of the European Medicines Agency tell you? 

A: It shows how important it was and what a blow it is to lose it. Considering that we have a very large pharmaceutical industry in the UK, the UK was a natural home for the European Medicines Agency, and I think it is a big loss. 

Q: At the moment we’re a net gainer from EU science funding. Presumably this will end. Are you confident the UK government will make up the shortfall? 

A: The onus is on the government to make sure science doesn’t have a net loss of funding. My understanding is that if there is a good agreement on science between the EU and the UK, we would continue to participate as an associate member – on a pay-as-you-go basis. But it’s not just the funding. In the aftermath of two world wars, there was a decline of European science compared to the United States. In the 1960s and 70s, the US was the natural destination for young scientists, but in the last 40 years, Europe has come together in a concerted way and made Europe a global powerhouse. So I think it’s important for us to preserve that cohesion.

Good luck with cohesion, because in the world of the moggy and the bromancer, it's all just a parade down Piccadilly Circus …

If the moggy is the solution, it must be a dummy like the bromancer that asked the wrong question ...

Never mind, there's more Bell here of course, and full of insights too. The pond had never understood before this day that the Donald didn't just have tiny hands ...