I love politicians!

Oh dear, you've already categorised me as a weirdo from the title of this post, without delving deeper into my feelings, the meaning of what I'm saying. You may be right, dear reader, on the weirdo point, but please read on - you may even thank me later.

We all depend on politicians in one way or another, as they are the ones who govern the way countries - and, therefore, ordinary peoples' lives - are run. Politicians create laws and the way they are enforced, help create and administer the security we all need, even control our pockets in one way or another; they are important to us whether we like it or not. Democracy depends on politicians to represent 'ordinary' people, the same ones who vote them in and out of office according to whatever they feel is apt, correct at the time. And what a job of it we 'ordinaries' are making!

Politicians are great for many reasons, some - but not many - of which occasionally are even related to the job they are being employed to do. To me they are a constant source of inspiration, admittedly in a strange kind of way, of amusement and even hearty laughter. What would my life be without them?

In recent months my best source of inspiration has been the President of the USA, Donald Trump, known in the past as the Donald. From amazing and amusing childish tantrums to the constant stream of petty, often meaningless, lies he gives countless opponents, but also comedians galore, plenty of material to keep anyone - me included - amused for months and months. The fact that he is 'the most powerful man in the world' or 'the leader of the free world' may make this slightly (!!!) disquieting in that this is a comedy turn with potentially desperately serious, even fatal, consequences is a source of concern but...

When The Donald runs out of steam we have other delightful political figures to pick up the slack, with the front-runner being President Bolsonaro of Brazil, a man so outrageously unreal that he is prepared to let the Amazon forest burn down to nothing rather than accept help from France (nor anybody else for that matter); this because he feels slighted by something said by President Macron of said country. Are we serious here? This is delightful playground behaviour - oooh, you called me a name so I'm not playing with you - which is precisely what we should not expect from a serious politician outside high school.

Of course I cannot stay serious when the incomparable President Erdogan of Turkey engages with other countries, in turn threatening or offending the very neighbours and potential allies he should be making friends with and depending on, spouting rhetoric from the bygone days including the choice 'the Aegean islands were ours sometime in the past, rightfully they should be ours again' (I perhaps paraphrase slightly), conveniently forgetting that the first Turks did not arrive from the steppes of Asia until the tail end of the 1st millennium. and Ottoman Turks not until nearly 300 years later... How far back do you want to discuss ownership, Mr. President?

You couldn't make them up, these people, the Trumps, the Berlusconis and the Salvinis, the Farages and Johnsons. They are unwittingly funny because they are 'funny peculiar' in a way few satirists could have imagined, they make me smile and, sometimes, laugh out loud, how could I not love them?

But it is a love-hate relationship - I loathe what these people are doing to our world!