Trigger Warning: British Politics

The following has almost nothing to do with this blog, except that politics are a form of theatre, and Britain is hilarious:For those of you just tuning in, Nigel Farage got $5 million from a possibly shady Brit living in Thailand shortly before he ran for Parliament. People are irked. So he has decided to resign from Parliament and run again so, when he's re-elected, he can say, "The people have decided, so shut up."

However, since 2 March 1623, a Member of Parliament cannot resign. Rather than simply changing the rule so that one can, Parliament decided on 30 December 1680 that an MP who accepts a position under the Crown is disqualified. So Farage will apply to King Charles to be appointed Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds of Desborough, Burnham and Stoke. Which he can then ask King Charles to be released from, so he can run again.

The regular parties are boycotting this farce, which would guarantee Farage a win, except that a farcical candidate is running: Count Binface, a comedian who appears in public with a trash can on his head. He could potentially gather all the regular parties' votes, which would put him in Parliament and, one hopes, end Nigel Farage's political career, since how do you carry on when you lost to Count Binface? ("Yew lost to Count Binface, shut up!")

British democracy is Very Old.

(As UK PM Gordon Brown said, "when establishing the rule of law, the first five centuries are always the hardest.")

(This is what happens when your pubs have entrances six feet below street level, because the street has risen six feet since they were built.)

(Q.  How many Englishmen does it take to change a lightbulb?

A.  That lightbulb has been perfectly good for one thousand years, why would you want to change it now?)

On further research, it turns out that Count Binface has a degree in Classics from Oxford, or rather, Jonathan David Harvey, the man inside the bin, does.

In 2019 he ran for prime minister on a platform of nationalizing model railways. He used to run as Lord Buckethead, "but was forced to create a new character due to a dispute with the filmmaker Todd Durham, who owns the Buckethead character."

And this just in:  there is a rule that you may not address the House whilst wearing headgear. It's unclear whether you may sit in the House whilst wearing headgear, though. The bin sort of speaks for itself.