News of the world

Reading about the various legislatures of the world does at least make me feel a bit more charitable towards the US Congress. They're awful, but they're not uniquely awful. There is something about getting a group of politicians together in a room with microphones and gavels that guarantees you will not be seeing humanity at its most inspiring.

The Legislative Assembly of the Falkland Islands recently required seven speeches to discuss a motion to adjourn. But they are at least refreshingly civil to one another, which is probably a necessity when you live on a remote group of islands with only a few thousand other people. It's not as though you can avoid running into each other at the supermarket.

But you do have to like any legislature where the speeches begin with "Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I wish to begin with tall poppies and Mexican Crabs" and go on to this:

Mr Speaker, July was an entertaining month -the World Cup for us football phonetics and also Farmers’ Week. There’s only so much excitement any man can take. This was, of course, my first Farmers’ Week and I’ve nothing to compare it to. All of the sessions were well attended and I sensed an air of optimism and hopes of a bright future for farming. All that we can do as an assembly is to create opportunities. It is now up to others to seize the day; and hats off to all those involved in the setting up of the Falkland Islands’ Meat Company many years ago. It took a fair amount of vision. I said this before – “FIMCO might not be the ‘last chance saloon but there aren’t too many watering holes for farming after this one.”