Seagull lands on the edge of our small balcony, surveying the world. Fairly long period of grooming himself (or herself - not good on seagull gender identification. J tries hand feeding it a piece of bread. Bird does take it after a little hesitation. Another couple of pieces and it loses interest. Bread is pretty dry after all. So J tries dipping the next bit in the olive oil from a small tin of tuna. Much more enthusiasm for this. Now hoping he doesn’t decide to walk into the flat. Can imagine the difficulty of evicting him, even assuming no complicating bird shit. Close door and bird leaves after a bit. Will we be on his permanent beat?
Lots more seagulls gliding fairly noisily just offshore when we go down to the Arte Bar for a beer. Seem to have no particular purpose other than taking advantage of the strong breezes for the sheer pleasure of long glides.
Late afternoon (Portugal on same time as UK) Theresa May emerges from 10 Downing Street to announce cabinet collective agreement on 500+ page draft agreement between the UK and the EU re Brexit terms. So, to our Twitter tribe for the take. They’re a motley crew, but include some excellent minds and qualifications. David Allen Green is one of the best - English lawyer, writer, and columnist on law and policy for the Financial Times. One of his first comments is that “collective agreement is most frequently used when someone is unable to say “unanimous agreement “.
Yesterday Green referred to our having assumed all was well when the government hid behind secrecy in the earlier stages of negotiations, saying it needed to hold its cards close to the chest, when, as at every other stage the secrecy hid - nothing. Lovely quote from Thomas Cogley: “EU lays down a royal flush. UK looks at own cards: Mr Bun the Baker, Pikachu, a Shadowmage, a fireball spell, and the Fool”.
Other fairly insider rumours have it that the cabinet is fairly deeply divided and the agreement was obtained by majority vote. Certainly cabinet members have agreed, willingly or otherwise, to a document they have not read. It’s 585 pages of legalese, and they were given it late last night to “prepare” for a two PM cabinet meeting. In one of the minor wonders of the cyber age, I now have a PDF copy of the full draft agreement stowed on my ipad, thanks to a Scottish MEP who provided the link. Not that I intend to read it all, but it’s there for reference.