{"id":1335,"date":"2022-06-06T14:16:55","date_gmt":"2022-06-06T12:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=1335"},"modified":"2022-06-06T14:16:55","modified_gmt":"2022-06-06T12:16:55","slug":"that-was-the-week-that-was-30-may-03-june","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=1335","title":{"rendered":"That Was The Week That Was 30 May-03 June"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>More Latin, More Europe<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Welcome to that wonderful time of the year when for reasons to do with a lunar, rather than solar calendar, we take a number of days off.&nbsp; Forty days after Easter Sunday is inevitably a Thursday.&nbsp; There is no point going back to work for a Friday after the Ascension holiday, so we take what the French call <em>le pont<\/em>.&nbsp; And why not?&nbsp; Then, the Bible decrees, ten days after that we get another day, for Pentecost.&nbsp; That, inevitably, is a Monday, or as we like to think of it, another long weekend.&nbsp; The weather is on the turn, summer is on the way.&nbsp; You would think it was predestined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the UK, long before Brexit, these long weekends were ignored.&nbsp; Protestant work ethic and all that.&nbsp; But this year, this special year, and indeed this week, the week that was, Elizabeth II commemorated 70 years as monarch.&nbsp; That is a lot of boring meetings and speeches to sit through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nonetheless, whilst pretending that the UK is not jealous, a catch-up four-day long weekend was decreed, in between the days off continental Europeans enjoy.&nbsp; It rained for much of it, of course.&nbsp; Leaders from around the world sent best wishes.&nbsp; The new Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese \u2013 who has just created a ministry for creating a republic \u2013 sent a message that once Australia was in a different place, but now we are equals.&nbsp; Equals?&nbsp; Equals?&nbsp; With Britain?&nbsp; Who wants to be that far back in the pack?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But what, I hear you ask, has this to do with aviation?&nbsp; First, of course, the school half term break and a super and unforeseen (as long as you were starting to do your foreseeing 71 years ago) led to huge, vitriolic airport chaos.&nbsp; The obvious problems include Brexit and no longer having staff available, but no, we must ignore Brexit.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the aviation angle.&nbsp; The war of words about Brexit between the UK government, a group so underwhelming that to suggest they have less imagination than a caravan park insults caravan parks everywhere, and the Europeans, is now at the \u2018anything is possible\u2019 stage.&nbsp; This includes trade wars and air blockades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you think that too far-fetched, consider this.&nbsp; This week, hoping to mix the nostalgia of the Jubilee with its flag waving, the Johnson government suggested bringing back Imperial weights and measures.&nbsp; Yes, ounces, pounds, acres, gills, furlongs, chains and leagues.&nbsp; This is so bonkers it is inspired, or at least it would be, if it had gone further.&nbsp; This does not go far enough!&nbsp; We need pounds, shillings and pence.&nbsp; We need the Julian, rather than the Gregorian calendar, and, most of all, we need to bring back Latin.&nbsp; Boris Johnson takes pride in his few Latin phrases he remembers from his 2:2 in Classics at Oxford.&nbsp; Finally, we will have the chance to completely re-engineer aviation (and everything else, for that matter) by using the need to translate into it to rid ourselves of the silliness.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By doing this, we will, in fact, reunite all of Europe and bring the entire system of Roman Numerals back into fashion.&nbsp; Who supports using Roman numerals?&nbsp; I for one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More Latin, More Europe Welcome to that wonderful time of the year when for reasons to do with a lunar, rather than solar calendar, we take a number of days off.&nbsp; Forty days after Easter Sunday is inevitably a Thursday.&nbsp; There is no point going back to work for a Friday after the Ascension holiday, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1335"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1336,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1335\/revisions\/1336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}