It’s still quite warm but there is low-level cloud. You have to be really tall if you want to get the benefit of any late summer sun.
As I walked up my hill I could see that the harvest was over. The fields were full of stubble, the harvesters have threshed the corn and the straw has been baled and taken.
I walked along my lane feasting on the sweet blackberries. The birds were no longer singing loudly, guarding their territory. The flowers had nearly all gone to seed. Autumn is already in the air.
Back home I’ve been reading some John Cooper Clarke and Jeremy Hardy (Speaks Volumes). Both very good.
I can’t settle today. I feel quite deflated and listless. In a minute I am going to try to get back to editing my Second Roy Harper book. After a break, with my grandchildren, it seems hard to get back into it.
Stephen, my publisher, informed me that the Roy Harper On Track book had sold out. That’s brilliant. There are now 12 5-star reviews on Amazon. That is also brilliant. You’d think that might just spur me on.
I think I’ll be OK when I get into it!
You know I think it’s this endless litany of sleaze, ineptitude and stupidity from this government that is getting to me. I really can’t believe that they are getting away with all this stuff. The corruption and controls they are bringing in is unbelievable – yet most of the public seem oblivious. I am also utterly dismayed by the lack of opposition. Starmer seems more intent on inciting division in his own party than standing up against the Tories. I mean, kicking people like Ken Loach out of the party – what is going on???
Meanwhile, out in Coronaland, our self-serving leader is still invisible – shagging and guzzling while our Afghan allies are being dumped for a grizzly end, Brexit causes shortages and Covid is still ravaging the land – not to mention Global Warming and Climate Change.
Really?? This is the best leader we could come up with to cope with major crisis’s?? A greedy millionaire posing as a clown?
Incredible.
The whole world is watching in amazement. They think GB is a joke!
It is a joke. Brexit has turned the population nuts – into a bunch of extreme right-wing nutcases! They’ve become blind to what is going on! It’s like the Taliban, in clowns uniforms, have taken over!
Depressing.
This is a comparison:
| August 25th 2020 | Today | |
| Number of new cases | 972 | 35,849 |
| Number hospitalised | 860 | 6,191 |
| Number of deaths | 16 | 149 |
For some strange reason people think it’s all over. They think that the vaccine has been a game-changer; that there is no need to worry.
It isn’t over. This is Summer – the season when airborne diseases are almost nonexistent. Last year, at this time, we had almost completely eradicated the virus. There were only 16 deaths and less than a thousand cases.
This year the number of cases is 36 times higher! Hospitalisation is 7 times higher. Deaths are 9 times higher!
We know what happened last year – when Autumn kicked in and airborne disease took off we had a huge second wave that killed a thousand a day at its peak!
What will this winter bring? The unvaccinated young and antivaxxers are already filling the hospitals. I reckon we are going to be looking at a lot of deaths, a lot of long covid and a lot of very surprised people who, probably with their dying breaths fervently wished they’d got vaccinated.
Already, around the world, places like Israel, who thought they were out of the woods, are locking down again. The virus is getting into Australia, Vietnam and New Zealand. Things look dire.
Yet people are going about as if everything is normal. The government are invisible. They are quietly following a policy of herd immunity and putting the economy first – let the bodies pile up!!
Nicola Sturgeon is talking – she’s wearing a mask and telling people that lockdowns are coming because the cases are soaring. Where’s our clown?
Perhaps Gaia is looking to rid the planet of the pest that is busy destroying it??
Stay safe!! We might not have long!!
Opher, I’ve started a major series of COVID rants. Well, not so much rants, as dissections of what is going on, world-wide. I published the first one this morning, it’s here: http://www.honestcommonsense.co.uk/2021/08/covid-19-world-review-part-1.html.
I wrote about two-thirds of the second rant (on cases) this afternoon. I’m trying to get one out every other day, so the data doesn’t get too stale. I’m learning lots of things as I look at the data harder and harder!
I don’t disagree with your assessment of the bunch of criminals currently running the show in the UK (apart from the Brexit aspect – Brexit is vital for any way forward for us human beings in this part of the world). But you finally seem to be starting to grasp that the “other lot” aren’t any better; that they’re all on the same side – their own side. That will be an improvement!
I do feel a need to respond on two specifics:
That’s progress, by factors of 5 and 4 respectively.
Are you a pest, Opher?
By every definition – we all are pests. Instead of living in harmony with our environment, we are progressively destroying it. That’s what pests do. We are directly responsible for the extinction of more species than any other organism and we’re doing it at an ever-increasing rate. We’re all a super-pest.
For the sake of life on the planet the world would be much better off without us.
Well Opher, I don’t consider myself to be a pest. And I am not destroying my or anyone else’s environment! The environment which I and other human beings need, an environment of individual freedom and objective justice, is being destroyed by the politicians and their cronies. They are the ones that are pests.
And where is your hard evidence that I have ever contributed to the extinction of any species?
Neil – unfortunately, you do not live in a bubble. Every bit of food, every consumable, every breath comes from the environment. To grow the food woods are cleared, soil is tilled, fuel is expended. To have the basic metals, plastics, wood and concrete that make up your home, goods and possessions forests are cleared, metals mined, oil consumed, energy used, water and air is polluted. Multiply that by 8 billion and we have mass destruction, mass pollution, mass use of space. The pesticides your foods are sprayed with has caused mass decreases in invertebrates. The reduction of natural habitat has caused mass reductions in vertebrates. The CO2 produced is causing major climatic changes. All 8 billion of us are responsible. No man is an island. In the West we consume more and so contribute more to the destruction. Both you and I are responsible. As a biologist, in my lifetime I have witnessed and measured enormous changes in the biosphere. You are in denial.
I too want maximum freedom for myself – but I also realise that as a social animal I live in a group and have to take others into account and that curbs my freedom. It is all about what is the balance.
So with covid – should we be free to wantonly infect others? Should we have our freedoms temporarily restricted in order to protect others? That is the balance.
I think your post and your comments sum up why I can feel so anxious and frustrated with how we are dealing with the pandemic, environmental issues and the tragedies in Afghanistan. And I am so fortunate to be free to take walks in beautiful biodiverse woods. Although I wonder and I do try to keep an eye on how the diversity of life in the woods is managing. Take care too Opher.
Cheers Georgina. The truth is that while I am personally very comfortable. I live in a place where I can take great walks and my lifestyle is very good. I want for little. I am, however, very aware of how hard it is for others, the desperate state of nature and the mess we are making of the world and that grieves me.
I think that is where I am. But sometimes the light comes in through the cracks.
I sometimes think that it would be better to dump all social media, not read newspapers or watch any news and be totally ignorant of what is going on around me. But I think that is selfish.