The Corona Diaries – Day 174.

Posted on by Opher

Another incredibly beautiful warm day in Yorkshire. I walked in the countryside, up my hill and around. I looked out over the rolling wolds. Perfect.

Back home I read and relaxed. Did a bit of work on my Harper book and felt good. 174 days in and I haven’t become ill. It still feels unreal.

I played some Tom Lehrer and had a laugh.

Then I made a mistake. I read the newspaper and it set me off.

We have world-beating operation Moonshot!!

These fools are so arrogant, wasteful and stupid. We’ve already had billions spent on world-beating apps, world-beating Track and Trace, world-beating PPE and oven-ready Brexit (now to be served up cold and raw and packed with salmonella).

Why can’t these morons talk to people? Liaise. Communicate. Cooperate. Work as a team. All they do is give out stupid orders and soundbites.

We already have a system for Track and Trace. It is called the GP service. Our doctor’s surgery knows everyone and is trusted. If the money had been put into that everything would work! Why reinvent the wheel with a bunch of greedy amateurs.

Now they are talking about using the army to vaccinate (if that ever happens). Why? We already have a system. It’s called the NHS. Using our existing provision – hospitals (now with most departments having no patients, surgeries cancelled and people too scared to go near) and doctor’s surgeries, with an injection (no pun) of cash, we could have a first-rate service. But no. The morons know best. We have to have a bunch on inexperienced amateurs.

It’s ideological. The government wants power and control. They do not want the local authorities or hospitals having any power! Idiots!! How much is this costing?

A day of reckoning is coming.

The furloughing is coming to an end. Redundancies will kick in. Those currently furloughed will be on the dole. Brexit is round the corner with another batch of redundancies. Happy days!

The irony is that the very ones that voted Tory and Brexit are the very ones who will be most hit.

While I’m on the subject of vaccines – how many people will take it?? Will they trust this batch of plonkers to have produced a safe vaccine? Will all the propaganda from the antivaxxers scare people??

Who knows?

We live in a world of internet conspiracy. Half the population believe the world is flat and Jesus is coming back. We’re fed conspiracy and misinformation by morons. We have populist knobheads for leaders. We have hoaxes and people with vested interests leading us up the garden path. Our experts and scientists are rubbished.

Meanwhile, the USA, Australia and Brazil burns and still they will not believe it’s global warming because Trump says it isn’t. Morons deserve to be led by morons.

You have to laugh. We in the UK are importing American lunacy. QAnon is sprouting over here. What is wrong with people???? They really believe that there is a democratic cabal who, along with celebrities, are running a paedophile ring, satanic worshipping and this Deep State bunch are eating babies.

Donald Trump is the saviour who is actively fighting this Deep State conspiracy.

Give me a break. Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are part of the wealthy overprivileged elite who are shafting us all for every penny they can get!!

I wouldn’t put it past them to be operating QAnon.

So we lurch forward.- over 3000 new cases. Bet you’re glad you voted for them!

In the USA – another 33506 new cases and 399 deaths. In Brazil – another 14768 new cases and 415 deaths!

What a triumph!! Our leaders are so brilliant!!

Stay safe everyone!! The worst is yet to come!!

Today’s Music to keep me SSSSaaaaNeeeeee in Isolation – Tom Lehrer

Posted on by Opher

Tom used comedy to highlight many issues. Humour disguises the insight of reality. He makes me laugh but he is so clever. This was the fifties!

 

Today’s Music to keep me SaNNNNNeeee in Isolation – Sleepy John Estes.

Posted on by Opher

Sadly, I did not get to see John play. But back in the 60s I did see him on TV. He played an old beaten up acoustic guitar with corks for machine heads! I used to love him. When I was fifteen I remember borrowing a Sleepy John Estes album to impress a girl I was hot on at the time. Strangely she wasn’t impressed. I dumped her immediately. The girl had no taste.

 

The Corona Diaries – Day 173

Posted on by Opher

Great day today. We went for a long walk at Ravenscar to Robin Hood’s Bay. Met up with a couple of friends, had fish and chips and a beer or two while keeping suitably distanced. We put the world to rights. Castigated Trump and Johnson. Lamented Brexit. Discussed the latest travesty as the Tories dump human rights. Had a glass or two of wine. Watched the sun over the sea and the glow on the ruins of Whitby Abbey and came home suitably refreshed!!

It is still strange times that we are living!!

I’m now back in my room, playing some Sleepy John Estes, and turning my attention to the Coronavirus fiasco! Oh for sanity and good government. All this bunch of extreme nutters care about is Brexit!!

So here we are – Human Rights dumped under the pretext of it stopping criminals and terrorists being deported and lines solicitors pockets. It’s like reading the Daily Mail or Daily Express. They take away your rights and protection and tell you that you’re better off. It’s Orwellian.

So here we are safe with the Tories.

Our human rights dumped.

Our workers’ rights dumped.

Environmental rights trashed.

Food standards dumped.

International laws broken.

Irish situation in turmoil.

Scotland about to leave the union.

The easiest deal in the world proves the hardest.

The South of England about to become a lorry park.

Tariffs on goods.

Billions spent on new customs buildings and staff.

Food and goods about to go up in price.

More bureaucracy and red tape.

A loss of our freedom to travel without restriction.

World-beating apps dumped.

World-beating Track and Trace – a joke.

Oven-ready Brexit – a joke.

Worst death-rate in the world.

Worst hit economy in the world.

A PM who is a clown.

Operation Moonshot – something out of a bad Sci-fi comic.

I bet you’re glad we put this bunch in with an 80 seat majority!

With 3330 new cases, a steep rise, the R number above 1, hospital cases rising, deaths rising – we can look forward to a lovely winter!! The Barnard Castle effect means that nobody takes a blind bit of notice of Billy Bunter and his team of incompetent, greedy clowns.

Same in the USA – another 39,184 new cases and 696 deaths – so much for this Deep State hoax!! But Bolsonaro is envious. He could only muster 33,523 new cases! He’s in danger of falling behind in the race for global ineptitude!! But he did manage 814 more deaths!!

One would have thought that people might be beginning to wake up to the correlation – if you elect populist clowns you get incompetent government. If you elect leaders who are stupid, don’t read, don’t believe science and are selfish, greedy and narcissistic – when you get an emergency their failings show up!! Johnson, Trump and Bolsonaro – the three stooges!! How many lives have they wrecked???

Stay safe everyone. They’ll be elections. We can restore sanity!

Trump and the Virus Cartoons

Posted on by Opher

A few more of those wonderful Trump cartoons from Joh Peachey.

The Corona Diaries – Day 172

Posted on by Opher

I wonder if Cummings is having a laugh? Getting Johnson to come out with the most stupid things? Our current testing system (with a capacity to test a mere 10,000 a day) is failing.

Instead of being ashamed Cummings is proposing to up the testing to ‘millions a day’! Wow!! And the results to be given in minutes!! How astonishing!! And the cost is a mere £110 billion!! Amazing what we can find when we want to!!

He is having a joke isn’t he?

The catch is (as the name gave it away) that you are not required to travel to Inverness (as with current testing) but you have to pop off to the moon which might restrict numbers a little. But what a jolly wheeze!!

For once LUNACY is the most appropriate word. If Billy Bunter pulls this one off, (with his track record) it will be nothing short of miraculous.

Meanwhile, Mark Walport from the SAGE group is also having a joke. He is saying that the government is losing control of the virus!! Ho Ho Ho!! As if these clowns were ever in control.

We have findings, contrary to government assurances, that kids transmit the virus as much as adults. There was a £10,000 fine given to a 19-year-old for holding a party for 50 people. There are raves, full pubs and big gatherings. The government allows horse racing with crowds. Inconsistent? No – there is a consistency – complete consistency on ineptitude!!

They are betting on a vaccine – putting in orders for tens of millions of doses from anyone who offers one. I’m converting my bedroom into a lab. I’ll write to them tomorrow. I’m sure they’ll send a few billion my way!

The good news is that the Oxford vaccine trial is back on. Fingers crossed! Roll on January.

So today I walked up my hill in beautiful autumn sunshine. Read a friends book and kicked back as the last of this extraordinary year trickles through my fingers.

I’m going to pour a glass or two of red!!

Stay safe everyone and get your rockets primed!! Ho Ho!!

Today’s Music to keep me SSSSaaaaNNNNeeee in Isolation – Bruce Springsteen

Posted on by Opher

Bruce was the most successful of all the ‘new Bob Dylan’ singer-songwriters. His commercial success and popularity tend to mask the brilliance of some of his songwriting. Bruce is someone whose music contains real poetry and worth – he’s not just a pop star.

Today I’ll play the best of Bruce!

Trump and the Virus – Part 2 – Cartoons

Posted on by Opher

 

The Corona Diaries – Day 171

Posted on by Opher

Lunacy hits new heights with operation Moonshot. Obviously, Johnson has failed with his ‘world-beating’ Track and Trace system here on this planet, so it determined to have a ‘world-beating’ system on another. He will be able to Track and Trace every single person on the moon. Truly world-beating, out of this world – and complete lunacy! No wonder the lunatics came up with Moonshot!

This government needs locking up in a loony bin. They are coming up with all sorts of madness. Cummings is surpassing himself. This breaking of international law over Brexit legislation is another example. They are so arrogant that they think they can do whatever they like and get away with it. But I don’t think they can with this one. They are trying to justify it by saying how terrible the agreement was (that’s the world-beating, best deal ever of not long ago). Seemingly that justifies it. But there is a Tory revolt, The Lords are up in arms and even the Yanks are threatening to pull out of deals. With the EU threatening to walk out I think they will have to back down. They won’t get it through, and if they do it will be the kiss of death to other trade deals.

Over-ready Brexit – remember? Easiest deal in the world – remember? Stupid, ideological imbeciles – remember? What a bunch of idiots! What a mess they are making!!

Then there is the break up of the Union. Remember – that was project fear – another of those things that is going to turn out to be real – like job losses, price rises and diminished influence in the world; like becoming a US vassal state while we tuck into GM cornbread and chlorinated chicken on our reduced salaries and worse contracts.

The trouble with Covid is the lag.  There is a lag between becoming infected and going down with symptoms. There is a further lag of a couple of weeks before you might become hospitalised – then a further lag of a couple of weeks until you die. So the big increases in new cases we have seen this last week are the people who caught it a couple of weeks ago. The low hospital cases are because they haven’t got that ill yet. But they will.

Then there is the asymptomatic side. Nobody is sure if they have it or have had it. It might have been very mild. A very stout lady coughed as she came near to me. I must have looked at her because she shouted at me – ‘I haven’t got bloody Covid.’ The thing is, she might be wrong. None of us knows if we have it.

In the UK the new cases are soaring up to 2919 with 14 deaths. We’re heading back up!

In the US it is back up to 36,080 and 914 deaths.

In Brazil, it’s back up to 40,557 new cases and 983 deaths.

The safest place is Switzerland – just 191 new cases and no deaths. What are they doing right?

Worldwide it is now past 10 million cases with half a million deaths – but that’s a gross underestimate.

I consoled myself with a walk up my hill and played some Andy White.

Stay safe everyone!!

Today’s Music to keep me SSSaaaNNNEEEE in Isolation – Andy White

Posted on by Opher

I saw Andy play in Hull a while back. He was brilliant. I love his brilliant song about religious persecution.