Well said, and very succinct. Especially agree with point number 7. This thread could have very easily got imflammatory, but it has stayed well within the bounds of polite discussion. That is the norm for the Bryce forum. And Vasquez maybe the diversion to discussing newspapers was to stop the thread getting out of hand! Like Diolma I find our national press is laughable and tend to browse the internet to find out what is really going on in the world rather than rely on the press. Like many ideas the EU started off with some really good ideas, but has not managed to practise them in real life. We have ended up with a cobbled together group of countries, each of which is mainly looking to better themselves, rather than a form a true, really intergrated union, in which the whole would become greater than the sum of the parts.

The greatest part of wisdom is learning to develop  the ineffable genius of extracting the "neither here nor there" out of any situation...."