Jigsaw 14, Series 3

A jigsaw from BH's childhood, so at least sixty years old and starting to fray at the edges a bit. Plus one edge piece and the original box are missing. No guiding picture. And not a regular jigsaw at all, more what some suppliers call whimsical.

Some anachronisms. Milk churns. Hay ricks complete with rick cloths. A tractor without a roll bar, let alone built in stereo. A farmer replacing the thatch on a barn. A dovecote. A farm house looking more like something somebody who was something in the City might live in in 'Midsomer Murders'.

PS 1: for the record, for the avoidance of doubt, the proper number of jigsaws in a series is 24. Not the measly single figure efforts of long running television series. See, for example, reference 2.

PS 2: after the jigsaw, I went on to turn the pages of the latest number of the NYRB. Where I was reminded that back in 2015 or so, the US was working hard on corruption in the Ukraine, then held to be about on a par with that in Russia and ranking 131st in a field of 173. All confused by the arrival of Trump on the scene, not much interested in corruption, but very interested in making political capital out of Biden's son being given a fancy role in a Ukrainian energy company. According to the NYRB, very much the sort of thing that you get in China, where the children of important politicians are given well paid jobs in big companies, to the advantage of all those immediately concerned. Paid for, as ever, by the long suffering men and women in the street.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/jigsaw-13-series-3.html.

Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2012/10/jigsaw-24.html.

Reference 3: https://www.transparency.org/en/. The compiler of corruption league tables.

Reference 4: https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021. In the latest version, Russia is 136th and Ukraine is slightly better at 122nd. Although I would imagine, given the difficulty of preparing such lists, that this difference is not significant.

Reference 5: Bureaucrat's Honour - Benjamin Nathans, NYRB - 2022. The memoirs of three US public servants. One of whom was born in Canada to Russian refugees from the Revolution, one of whom was born in the Soviet Ukraine and one of whom struggled up from a working class family in the north of England.