A beautiful sight and a beautiful sound

Yup. Our hero came through for us. We are happy.

Not salacious. Just beautiful, idealized dolls.

Kind of a dual post. There was the Esquire Magazine of my youth, which featured incisive writing by truly talented writers and pneumatic girls aplenty.

Another point. My mother’s father, my grandpa, was a gifted cabinetmaker. I spent countless hours in his basement workshop. He was in his seventies then. And the walls of the workshop were papered with Esquire girls. Like these ones.

My mother knew and she just laughed. How I found out that women had breasts and other things. Me and Grandpa never talked about it. Think he just knew that I would get it somehow.

I learned a lot about writing from Esquire. They were there before there was Playboy. You really did read Esquire for the writing first, the girls second.

But now there’s Esquire TV. Which is politically correct, stupid, and only semi-literate. Today, though, they’re doing a Parks and Recreation marathon, which progressives claim to love. Funny thing. Parks and Recreation has a lefty cast, progressive values, and yet the show is deeply conservative. It’s the progressives, led by the comedic genius of Amy Poehler, who come off looking like total morons.

Guessing the Esquire editors don’t even know what they have wrought.

Idiots rarely do.

Like, she ain’t from where you think, dude.

So I just got off the phone with my plumber because the zero degrees nuked our pump, and by “my” I don’t mean I own him or command him in any way; I inherited him from my long dead dad and he is a man I honor and respect.

Get this. He actually expressed sympathy about the fact that our pump blew up when the space heaters thawed it. Water all over the garage floor. How many times over the years has he heard this story? When he answered the phone I suggested he might be busy and he said, “Just a little.”

But he sailed right into the problem. “I’ll be out there this afternoon.” He also didn’t cushion the blow. “It could be Tuesday before a replacement pump is available.” Did I forget to tell you, he told me immediately the pump we have probably could not be saved?

I love this guy. He always comes sooner than he promises. He starts work whether you’re there or not. We once pulled back a cover from some plumbing fixture to find a snake wrapped around it and looked at one another. He said, “It’s the kind of place snakes like.” Then we finished uncovering the fixture. The snake discreetly departed the scene.

Part of me says he’s too old for what he’s doing. Another part of me says, please, please, don’t ever stop.

You think plumbers aren’t heroes? You probably think Bonnie Tyler is from West Virginia. Guess what. She’s Welsh. From WALES.

My plumber is from heaven.

UPDATE. He came early, of course, and we just now shooed him back to his wife. He’s not sure if the pump is dead. Trying to find a bad wire. Trying too long. It’s snowing like crazy and we’d rather have him in future than water today. How things are in our neck of the woods. He met Raebert. And the Scotty. They all nodded at one another. Hopefully he’s home by now. He’ll be back first thing tomorrow, you can be sure. Life as we used to live it. The grace of confidence among men.

There’s a sinister thing no one can explain…

Like you, I thought most of the grand conspiracy theories were silly: the New World Order, the Illuminati, the Bilderberger Group, the Freemasons, the Knights Templar, etc. but I finally realized there’s a Harvard house I’ve never met anybody from, and I’ve known a lot of Harvard people.

Dunster House. One of the most beautiful of all Harvard houses. But who they are, what they do, where they come from and what they’re really secretly up to, unknown.

Keep your eyes open. And your ears. If they’re from Dunster, you can be sure they’re in on it. Meaning, shhhh, The Conspiracy. Whatever it is.

Why Obama won’t win in the end. America has conquered the whole civilized world. Meaning the non-Muslim parts, or about 80 percent, which is the Pareto Principle at work.

Conquered? Yes. Not by force of arms. But by osmosis, otherwise known as technological/cultural creep.

Watch this movie, set in India. It doesn’t matter if it’s true to life or not. What matters is that it’s an example of the spread of Americanization as a recognized state of being. A woman in charge, cell phones everywhere, children as spoiled and entitled pains in the ass, sybaritic parasites aplenty, and a dutiful handful who do what needs must be done. When all is said and done, it’s not about Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, etc. It’s about human beings, some percentage of which do bad things all the time and have to be stopped by the good guys. Why we always need heroes.

In shorter terms, this is a Steven Seagal movie, starring a beautiful Indian woman who absolutely kicks ass, in a tradition as old as John Wayne. WITH rap, Rolls Royces, swimming pools, drug stuff, mobsters and monsters, sexual vice and abuse, and kids who watch too much TV.

All their kids are our kids. Bad. And all their heroes are our heroes. Good.

Can heroes turn kids to the good side? Yes. ‘Twas ever so.

The near and far east aren’t that far away from us. They listen to our music, use our slang, order Chinese food in cartons, use salty language in mixed company, and know what guns are for in the hands of good guys.

Isn’t that a functional definition of what we used to know as liberty?

America might be reduced, shriveled as a world power, seemingly humiliated and shoved aside. But we were never Romans like the Brits. We have been, unlike them, the Greeks, the avatars of a way of thought and life that can’t be undone by edict or even slavery. America can’t be repealed. We have conquered the world.

All that remains is for us to remember who we are and turn up the volume.

What I said. We don’t get the same weather everybody else does.

Supposed to be buried in snow tonight. Not us, though. You figure it out. The blank spot in the storm right now is us.

For reference, check this.

Hell has a hundred fathers.

No college or university has been depicted in the movies as much as Harvard. Here’s a staggering link. I was just looking to see how many more actors came from Harvard than Oxford. Lots more. Harvard is a 747 with Oxford and Cambridge under its wings like two antique Lockheed tri-stars. Yale is a sorry also-ran. Princeton is just a postcard. The reality of it all.

Most of the movie depictions make it seem like Harvard is fun, or romantic, gorgeously gorgeous, or anything but the reality. It is fun, and romantic, and amazingly other, but it’s also a very very dangerous place. It can make you and it can break you. You don’t win unless you let it do both.

For people who’ve been raised with a belief in accomplishment, it’s a brush with heaven. The first place you’ve ever been where everybody automatically belongs. Everybody gets the benefit of the doubt. They’re all at Harvard. Not everybody is brilliant. Forget that. Some are there because their fathers and grandfathers and great grandfathers were. But they have their own magisterial authority. Others are there because whatever you believe, they can assail it, puncture it, twist it, pervert it. If you let them. Are you as smart as you think you are? Or are you one more of innumerable fakes, of which Harvard is also full.

People’s appraisal of you is not linked to grades. That’s the democratic side of the place. On the other hand, you’re supposed to be not ordinary. Which is hard to do in a place with so many who excel and whose sons and daughters proclaim ambitions they actually achieve. You’re continually breathless. It’s a motor started in your head and gut that never goes out.

It can kill you. There are suicides nobody wants to count. There are also stories of persistence.

Kind of like life, ultimately distilled, when you think about it.

Why did I write about it today? A movie called Prozac Nation. Nobody writes about the darkness. It’s not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It’s a crucible. You survive or you die.

Harvard is full of dangerous people. I am one of them. Go Crimson.

He would like to be president. Too.

As you may have noticed, I have not weighed in to handicap the purported candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.

I have two reasons for that. First, I’ve been too busy. Owning a deerhound and a Scotty at the same time is way above your pay grade, whoever you are. Second, who exactly is it who isn’t running for the Republican nomination?

The good news. I am NOT running for president. Even though I’m smarter than most of them and have better ideas about how to fix what’s wrong. A man’s got to know his limitations. I know mine. How come all these guys don’t?

Ben Carson. Love him to death. But he’s another Obama waiting to happen. Smartest guy in the room, inexperienced, convinced of his own superiority, destined for isolation and official paralysis. I agree with him on practically everything, but he would be a disaster.

Jeb Bush. An oxymoron. With the emphasis on moron. A complete dysfunctional nut who looks like the safest man in the room. He’s actually a white Obama; he doesn’t like Americans. What Yale can do to a man.

Marco Rubio. A pretty boy who can make moving speeches and has no experience. What’s wrong with this picture?

Chris Christie. If you want to elect an oaf for president, he has to be a charming, plausible oaf. Like Clinton. There’s nothing charming or plausible about this guy. Almost everybody has already sussed this out. Go away.

Mike Huckabee. Governor of Arkansas. Been there, done that. Next?

Rand Paul. Next?

Ted Cruz. He’s the guy you want to nominate if you plan to win the next presidential election. Just not this one.

Sarah Palin. I’m her biggest fan. She’d probably make a decent president. And she’s beautiful. My wise old granddad used to say of such women, “She can put her toothbrush in my valise anytime.” But she cannot, will never, be president.

Scott Walker. On the plus side, he has no college degree. On the minus side, he has that appalling, glaring bald spot. Doesn’t he know about the aerosol product that disappears a bald spot with paint? What else doesn’t he know? Wisconsin is its own fatal handicap.

Donald Trump. Pullease.

Rick Santorum. See the candidate assessment above.

Lindsey Graham. Sure, she’s got the LGBT vote locked up, but I’m not sure the country is ready for a Lesbian president.

John Kasich. Ohio has produced multiple presidents. Not many good ones. Enough said.

Ted DeMint. Who?

Jeff Sessions. Haley Barbour with a functioning brain. It’s not enough. Country won’t elect a Deep South mushmouth.

Bobby Jindal. When is an Indian not politically correct enough? When he’s not a Native American but an Indian-American.

Rick Perry. All right. I’m thinking. Give me a few more months. But I’m liking the glasses.

George Pataki. I wouldn’t mention him except that I used his picture up top. Now I’ve mentioned him. Are we done yet?

Almost. One more hopeless semi-candidate on the list.

Mitt Romney. Famous for indecision. He decided absolutely this time that he wasn’t running for president. Then he allowed as how he might be persuaded to reconsider. Really?

So here’s what I’m prepared to do. I’ve invited Mitt Romney to brunch at the Green Room in the Hotel DuPont. While we feast on crab legs, eggs Benedict, and pre-noon champagne (meaning me, not the Mormon prig), I will keep repeating the adverb “really” until he gets it. I swear.

Maybe someday they’ll come for us. God knows, I’ve said some bad things about Obama. But I’ve only two points to make today.

First, you can see that we live in the saucy rump of the Garden State, in the least populated part of the least populated county in New Jersey. Also the Jersey county that saw the most action, apart from Trenton, in the Revolutionary War. We had Mad Anthony Wayne here, and the Queens Rangers, the Hancock Bridge Massacre, and a heroic stand at Quinton Bridge. We may be rural and a bit backward, but we’re America.

Hancock House. Brit bayonets in the night.

Right now the wind is howling, but it will come to nothing. It hardly ever does. The Delaware River perpetually covers our ass, exposed as it looks. Storms — thunder, snow, whatever — sweep through Delaware headed east and, voila, they find their furor blunted by the mighty river between them and us. We’re promised six inches of snow and we get one. We’ve lived here for ten years and nothing predicted has ever been as bad as promised. Not even hurricanes. Which just knock down a few branches. Eerie.

I know. If God wants to knock us for a loop, he will. Just saying, so far he hasn’t. People can laugh that we’re the ass end of New Jersey, but we’re — so far — the kind of booty everyone wishes they had.

Point number two. When the time comes, we’ll head south. Where you’ll find us. In a sanctuary at Cape May Point.

All the way at the bottom. All the way.

Why go there? Because church. Not to hide. But to profess faith. We were married in an Episcopal Church. We’d prefer to die there as well. There’s a haunting icon at Cape May Point called St. Peter’s by the Sea.

A few scant yards from the Delaware Bay.

MY wake at St. Peter’s. Hardly anybody will be there. Not Lake, not George, probably not even Monica. But there WILL be Stones and Mozart. And me in my boots and bone chains. I’m also guessing my Boudica will read some of my awfullest stuff.

You’ll find us there. When the time comes. Get ready. Won’t be here long. Writers are all screwups. If you can’t make it, think of this place before you nod along.

Her nose is ALWAYS dirty. What does “terrier” mean? Doesn’t mean “cuter.” I don’t know much, but I know that much and don’t you forget it, buster.

Everybody knows pugs are the cutest. Then this THING shows up. She weighs more than me, so I can’t bump her out of the way. I own the Boss’s hip, but he doesn’t let me sit there anymore. It’s always, “Eloise, get up in your spot.” So I have to sit on top of the couch instead of on his hip. What does “allergic” mean? I don’t know. Just because his upper lip swells?

Why does the Boss like the big guy and the little bitch so much?

Everybody knows pugs are the cutest. See?

Black blob versus ME.

Jeopardy Clue: Why there’s such a thing as a punchline.

Oops. Gave myself away. Everything’s a joke. That’s the setup and the punchline.

The president is a joke.

Our foreign policy is a joke.

Our domestic policy is a joke.

And the smartest people on earth, the Jews, don’t know it.

Nuclear war awaits. Total economic collapse awaits. Constitutional annihilation awaits. Some of us are prepared to risk the entire U.S. for Israel.

Who was I kidding? It really is all a joke.

Or. If you’re a Jew who knows what I’m talking about, wants to save Israel and turn back the tide of anti-semitism that’s sweeping the world, then comment here.

Why do I care? Julian. Who won’t even talk to me now. Because he’s another lefty softy.

There are apologists. Won’t cite them here. Jews are way too smart to be persuaded by simple goy logic.

Pencil tapping and then “What the f**ck?!'” Comedic genius.

Lots of idiots involved here. Including all the Republicans and conservatives on book tours who agreed to be mouse-trapped by a third-rate intellect who had control of editing, graphics, and the inevitable WTF punchline. What were you thinking? How could you not lose on the teevee?

More idiots. Even conservatives seem to be conceding that they were unable to mount an effective counter example of news satire. Really? Guess none of you ever stay up late.

Fox’s Redeye is far funnier and more intellectually challenging than the Daily Show ever was. Turn, twist, turn, wit, actual observation, all the way through. Gutfeld is at least three times as smart as the WTF phony. He’s witty enough that he’s scalding and hilarious without having to be bleeped. If he ever holds a pencil, he drops it without a tap. And his guests amazingly rise to him and the occasion. It’s on at 3 in the morning. Still beats MSNBC and CNN in Prime-time ratings. How could that be? Redeye is actually not a ritual of partisan skewering but something else. Something called funny.(!)

All this week, the MSM have been lamenting the loss of Jon Stewart. And the right wing New Media have been grousing about the praise. As if conservatives have no counter-programming of their own and no sense of humor to compete with the great Jon Stewart. Bull.

Redeye, not the Daily Show, is the edgiest news comedy show on television. Get your head out of your asses, conservatives. This is an arena in which you’ve won and you don’t even know it.

Sigh.

Beauty is the only permanence, no matter how short lived it is. (Click for bigger.)

Your lives may be grey, but ours never will be. We’ve had the privilege of beauty in our lives. An unmatched pleasure. Color is its own reward.

Darwin, Gould, Dawkins. Three icons of evolution who didn’t actually agree on the facts of the matter. A veritable Mount Rushmore of Evolution.

Really tired of left-right Darwin arguments. Tired of the arguments on the left. Tired of the arguments on the right.

One way or the other, absolutely everybody is sanctimonious.

I won’t waste time on the lefties. They’re a bunch of sententious creeps. I’ll direct my ire at the right. Including people I know and ordinarily like. First up, Kevin Williamson, who while seeming to defend Scott Walker, said this:

The relevant scholars in the field do not “believe in” evolution, any more than a physicist “believes in” the proposition that objects subject to earth’s gravity accelerate toward the pavement at 9.8 meters per second squared — they know. As an intellectual matter, Scott Walker’s proclaiming that he “believes in” evolution would be precisely as meaningful as his proclaiming that he doesn’t “believe in” evolution — he has little or no relevant knowledge about the subject, and his choosing the right answer would be as intellectually significant as a chicken playing tic-tac-toe or infinite monkeys banging out Shakespearean sonnets on infinite typewriters.

They know. Sure they do. Proof? George Will.

“Descended from the apes!” exclaimed the wife of the bishop of Worcester. “Let us hope that it is not true, but if it is, let us pray that it will not become generally known.”

An American majority resists such an annoying notion, endorsing the proposition that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.” Still, evolution is a fact, and its mechanism is natural selection: Creatures with variations especially suited to their environmental situation have more descendants than do less well-adapted creatures. [emphasis added]

Sure. Fact exists in the case of 2 + 2 = 4. It does not exist in matters such as the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and the origin of species. Too many variables. (As with climate.) No scientist is prepared to declare the Big Bang a fact, no scientist is prepared even to offer a definitive theory about the origin of life, and yet we have a full-on army of PhDs prepared to lecture us about the origin of species as FACT. Including notable evolutionary biologist George Will.

Kevin Williamson, take note. Real scientists do not know that Darwinian or Neo-Darwinian or even Dawkins’s “Blind Watchmaker” version of evolution is fact. They just “believe” they have the best hypothesis going.

The science question is not simple. It has two parts. But surprise, the question is not the polar choice offered up in politics. It’s not creationism versus the scientific “consensus.” Which is the kind of yes/no, smart/dumb question the leftists among us prefer. It’s subtler than that. Lots of us dumb righties have no problem with micro-evolution, meaning the demonstrated ability of species to mutate in response to changing circumstances. Which is where academic science has concentrated most of its firepower.

Where we have a problem is with macro-evolution. The ability of species to evolve to altogether new species as a result of Darwinian evolution, punctuated equilibrium, or other “blind watchmaker” mechanisms. Doesn’t pass the smell test.

Occam’s Razor. Which makes more sense?

1. A wholly random universe that just happens to be perfectly attuned in terms of its physics for the creation of life like ours — even if we have to posit a multiverse of infinite parallel worlds for which there is no shred of evidence, let alone proof — which has no meaning whatsoever beyond blind chemistry governed by a law of entropy (i.e., falling apart) that nevertheless succeeds in complexifying itself (i.e., falling apart) into intelligent life forms whose artistic and intellectual achievements seem to mean something for which we can find no antecedent or precedent.

2. An intelligent universe (um, er, uh, created universe) that holds within it the capacity for pattern and self awareness consistent with its origin. That is, a demonstration of the principle that there is no something from nothing. If intelligence can arise, it’s only because there was always intelligence. If there can be music, there was always a music of the spheres. If there is morality and a sense of divinity, they were always part of the program. A program we see enacted in what we call evolution, over an incredibly long period of time, no matter how we much we de-engineer the program and pronounce it 19th century mechanical theory (a la Darwin) and deny the existence of an authoring computer and programmer. Where the hell does DNA come from? Made itself up, did it? Occam is screaming.

The other side is SCREAMING!

This is not about Genesis, George, Kevin, and Jonah. It’s not about dummies versus smarties, not even about you, the real intellectuals of the right who think you have not forgotten how to think.

It’s about the biggest questions ever asked, the biggest mysteries ever pursued. Why Isaac Newton did his thing, and Einstein, and everybody you think is just part of the passing scene. Darwin wasn’t right, not in terms of having determined facts. He just laid down the next rung of the ladder we should all be climbing. Where did we come from? How? Why?

I feel like I’m closer to those questions — never mind the answers — than you are. Ignore me. Most do. But I’m probably happier in my quest than you are.

Do I believe in Evolution? Not an unfair question. Undoubtedly, contrary to your protestations, its adherents do. It has become their religion, or we wouldn’t be subjected to the screeching scripture of Richard Dawkins. Do I? Yes, of course. But in nothing like the polar terms you and your opponents insist on.

P.S. Today is Charles Darwin’s birthday plus one. Many happy returns, old chap. I think you might understand me better than your supposed acolytes.

Happy Birthday plus one, Charles. The one is for tomorrow, of which there is always one, when everything can change. It’s called one to grow on.

Muff and Raebert. So different and so much the same. Natural affinity.

She’s still learning to be touched. He has to be on us all the time.

He’s huge. She’s not so.

She’s smart like a terrier, constant needling. He’s smart like a harpoon in your soul.

He’s a Scot. She’s a Scot.

Apparently that’s enough. She took to him faster than to us. We’re still working on it.

Betting on us.

How old do you have to be to be a wise old cat?

What would she say?

“I’ve lived in the garage a long time. Seen them come and go. Dogs, cats, and always more dogs.

“In the summer it gets hot. In the winter it gets cold.

“You could count on that happening. Nobody bothers me much. I’m a cat who lives in the rafters. Life is… What life is. Running, hiding, lurking. But it will get better. One day.”

She’s fourteen. What does she know?

We’ve got your back, fella.

This one I owe almost entirely to my wife. I asked her what on earth NBC could do to wriggle out of this PR nightmare. A veteran of decades of corporate nightmares, she had a quick and perfect answer: “Promote him.”

Of course. Get him off the air into a bigger office and a fancier title. Where he can do no more harm. Obvious when you think about it. But I was still troubled about what position you could promote him to. Until I realized the perfect place for him.

Brian Williams, President of the MSNBC Network. I mean, even the NBC parent knows that MSNBC is in need of repair.

How bad was 2014 for MSNBC?

So bad, the left-wing cable news network lost the 2014 ratings war to CNN. Yes, that CNN.

According to Deadline, MSNBC is hemorrhaging viewers, especially in the all-important news demo (viewers aged 25-54)…

Makes sense, doesn’t it? MSNBC is clearly the fiction division of the news business at NBC. And media coverage has already provided hints about the way out of the mess.

And when the looks start to fade, Mia can even steer Brian to an appropriately expensive — if disastrously incompetent — cosmetic surgeon.

What herself had to say.

Actress Mia Farrow is on Team Brian Williams. Still.

The Broadway Danny Rose star used Twitter to defend the embattled NBC anchor after he apologized for claiming to have flown in a U.S. military helicopter hit by an RPG.

Farrow, mother of low-rated MSNBC anchor Ronan Farrow, claims Williams’ apology should be more than enough…

Which could pave the way, finally, for Chris Matthews to move into the anchor chair at NBC proper.

You see how everything works out if you keep the Big Picture in mind?

Of course you’ll get fooled again. Because you’re fools.

Happily distracted with Brian Williams and Bruce Jenner, are we?

Our anti-Christian Muslim president. Time for you all to learn about the Crusades, medieval times, and the thousand year Muslim jihad.

Nothing new about Jihad.

Jihadis 14, Crusaders 2

Obama Rips Bible, Praises Koran.

Still More of Obama’s Moral Equivalence.

Getting Medieval.

And our anti-Semitic Muslim president, who ordered the congressional black caucus to boycott Netanyahu and diss the Jews while he was having White House meetings with the Muslim Brotherhood to discuss the problem of Islamophobia in America.

Obama told Black Caucus to boycott Netanyahu.

White House Anti-Muslim-Bigotry Meeting.

Our president with a pen and a phone is about to commandeer the Internet and rule our private communications via the FCC.

Get Ready for a Government Takeover of the Internet.

And don’t forget Global Warming, the Holy Grail of the Left.

The Greatest Scientific Scandal ever..

But Brian The Idiot is a beautiful distraction from all that, isn’t he? So nice that he advanced so far without an education, yes?

People get mad at me. But now more than ever I am Instapunk.

Shammadamma.

Her name is Cassie. I met her last week.

Everyone who reads this site knows that we lost three in a few weeks. But God in his wisdom provides solace and reward for loss. We lost the greyhound Molly, the feral Mickey, and the Bengal Izzie, before we could accept even one of our fatalities.

Funny how everything happens in threes. Everything significant that is. Told you about Mickey, my Main Man. Told you about Penny, the lost girl who finally came inside. Both of them big and beautiful. Every once in a while I’ve mentioned our pet skeleton in the closet, or more accurately, our skeleton in the garage, Cassie. She was the third of three ferals Lady Laird got wished on her 14 years ago. The only one who was able to resist the allure of couches, air-conditioning, and stroking. She preferred to live in the attic space above the garage. In all weathers, temperatures, and times. We fed her on the freezer. She’d wait for food to appear and eat in our absence. If you entered the garage when she was “down there,” she set speed records for getting up into the rafters and out of sight.

Ten years of this.

Suddenly, though, since the three died, she’s moved into the house. Shockingly, amazingly, incredibly, impossibly, she’s bonding with me. She lives under the couch in the living room and waits for the dogs to be fed and then if I go downstairs I hear what I hadn’t heard since Penny: “Yap, yap, yap.”

And there she is. The rara avis of the Laird household, Cassie. Yap. She lets me pet her. Yap. She lets me tease her tail, just like Mickey did. Yap. She lets me hold her in my lap for a minute at a time.

Tiny thing. Mickey and Penny were big. Cassie is the oldest of them. She’s fourteen at least. But still lovely. Though tiny.

It’s like getting a cat without getting a cat. Seems kind of angelic, doesn’t it?

She did save a dance for me. Breaks my heart.

Which one is Angela Merkel’s ass? Me, I’m thinking both.

Greeks, being Greeks, think all their fiscal problems can be solved by Windex. Germany, being Germany, has sixteen infantry divisions on the Greek border. Windex is good only for ameliorating pimples on the buttocks.

In her first interview since Syriza won the Greek election last weekend, Angela Merkel has made it clear the debt stands but she hopes they stay in the eurozone.

The far-left party stormed to victory last weekend with 36 per cent of the vote, promising to ditch austerity and renegotiate the country’s £180billion bailout from the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – also known as the troika.

Their finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has said this troika of global institutions is “rotten” and has refused to work with them to renegotiate bailout terms.

Syriza is now beginning to roll back on the austerity measures imposed by the EU on the previous administration in exchange for the loans.

However this morning the German Chancellor said that while Europe will continue to show solidarity with Greece and other nations hit by Europe’s debt crisis, the debts must be repaid in full.

Speaking to Hamburger Abendblatt, she said: “I do not envisage fresh debt cancellation.

“There has already been voluntary debt forgiveness by private creditors, banks have already slashed billions from Greece’s debt.”

I’m good at explaining European politics. I just don’t do it very often.