Eight White Vans Continued

I told the foreman I hadn't been expecting such a show of strength and he said something about pulling in extra hands because it was Friday and the lads wanted to get done quickly and go home. Judging by their accents most of the gang were Welsh and home was a long way away.

We'd been warned to expect the electricity to be off all morning- from nine till two. In the event the job was done in an hour and a half.

I was asked if I wanted to keep the old pole. And I said I did. Matthew can chop it up and feed it into his wood-burning stove.

The Old Man In The Buggy

The image I keep coming back to is the G7 leaders in a posse strolling through Taormina while Trump putters along behind in a golf buggy.

My imagination adds further spurious details. The leader of the free world has a rug over his knees. The buggy morphs into a 19th century bath chair.

Authority leaks away from the Presidency. Trump announces he's leaving the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and a chorus of mayors and governors from around the nation pipes up with, "Well, we're not." Mayor Bloomberg adds that if Trump withholds funding he'll personally make up the shortfall. When Trump says he was elected to represent the people of Pittsburgh not Paris the mayor of Pittsburgh tells him to get lost.

It's become a meme- bouncing round the media and internet- that 2017 marks the end of the American century.

Trump has played his part; he has stirred things up and united the world in opposition. He has made his enemies strong. The French president- a vigorous young man with whom Trump instituted a handshake contest only to lose- has turned his election slogan against him. "Make our planet great again," he says.