Poetry – The Invisible Thief

The Invisible Thief

Bread and pizza,

Jobs and careers,

Stolen from mouths and futures

By an invisible thief.

Shops shut,

Businesses closed,

Economies in ruins

With no safety net beneath.

Opher – 5.4.2020

The terrible thing about this pandemic is the long-term affect it is going to have on peoples’ lives.

When we come out of the other end will we still have all the shops? The businesses? The opportunities?

How many people will have lost their jobs?

How many people will be looking for the next meal?

Does this mean a return to austerity?

Are the public services going to have another round of devastation?

Are the poor going to get hammered some more?

It looks like a thief has stolen a chunk of the future.

Poetry – The Invisible Prison Guard

The Invisible Prison Guard

The blue summer sky

                And the new green shoots,

The fresh air

                Tasting new routes,

Seen through bars of the cells

Of our home;

Looking out at a land

Through which we no longer roam.

On the air

And in anything we touch

There’s an invisible prison guard

Keeping us in our hutch;

Away from families

And lost to friends

Until we heal

And the country mends.

Opher – 5.4.2020

Isolation is hard. We are gregarious creatures. We like meeting up with each other.

Fortunately we live in the countryside which means we can get out for walks. It doesn’t stop it feeling claustrophobic though.

Looking out through the window at an empty street. It feels that life has become restricted. Our world has shrunk.

Out there the sun is shining. It looks welcoming. It is hard to imagine that there might be invisible droplets of death lurking in the breeze.

The Corona Diaries – Day 727

I still have covid!!

Here in Yorkshire we are recovering from storms Dudley and Eunice and now find ourselves cloaked in snow!!

The symptoms of this disease evolve! It started a week ago when I was feeling groggy. By the Monday I was feeling sufficiently off colour to take a test. It was negative. It wasn’t until Wednesday that the tests showed positive.

Yesterday I was feeling a lot perkier but in the evening I started getting a headache. I took some paracetamol and went to bed a little earlier than usual. I slept well but woke up with that same headache. I’ve been feeling tired and muzzy all day. I wrapped myself up and have been reading and playing some Bob Marley – appropriately the album Survival.

The virus appears to have disrupted my sinuses. I feel very bunged up with a stream of mucus. Not nice – like having a bad cold. I’m not coughing too much – every now and again – but I’m sneezing more.

The good news is that the sore throat has gone and I no longer have that metallic taste.

I’ve received a number of photos of Captain Beefheart for the book and am hoping for some more. I think the task of photoshopping them, putting captions on etc can wait for next week when I’m feeling a lot better.

Meanwhile, out in Coronaland, Boris Johnson, our lying clown, is still hanging on. He’s sent his report in to the police. I wonder if he’s lied to them too? I don’t see why not. It’s his default mode.

He’s like a chameleon changing colour madly and trying to be everything to everyone. One minute he’s standing up at COP26 lecturing the world on cutting CO2 then taking a flight back to London in a private jet for a reunion. Now he’s having RAF fighters flying the length of the country just so he can have a photo op in the cockpit. Talk about hypocrisy and stupidity.

There is not a shred of leadership. All he does is pose and posture. None of the cabinet will ever appear on any news show where they have to answer questions. Johnson will never appear without a tight script. He seeks out high-profile photo ops in High-Vis or autocue reports where he pontificates about Ukraine.

If cornered he hides in fridges.

The Tories know that their record and policies do not hold up. If they are scrutinised the lies and facts do not stack up.

They treat the public as fools.

They simply say crap like ‘He got Brexit done’ without any analysis of the immense damage done to our economy – to the tune of £30 Billion a year – or the horrendous red tape, delays and costs. They hope that most idiots will take it at face value and think the idiot has done a good job. They’ll forget about all the broken promises – cash bonanzas of £350 million a week! Easier trade! No effect on Ireland! Ready-Made deals with other countries. All lies.

They say crap like ‘He got Covid done!’ without any mention of having one of the worst death rates in the world and one of the worst-hit economies. 180,000 dead people, and their families, might contest his bullish nonsense. He dumped covid patients into care homes, locked down too late, opened up too soon, brought in lots of silly schemes – Like Eat Out to Help Out (obviously with a glance towards helping out undertakers). Now we’re relaxing all rules and restrictions while the disease is still running riot. I know more people with covid than ever before!

No wonder they won’t appear anywhere. If people start delving into their record and policies the whole maggot-ridden edifice crumbles. They are a nasty disaster who have been sleazily profiteering. How many of this government have been lining their own pockets? They’ve been taking from the poor and public servants to give to the rich. They’ve never had it so good! The Cayman Islands are groaning under the weight.

So, in this pandemic that is over there were supposedly another 47,481 new cases with 158 deaths. Not that we can trust this data. I bet the majority of cases are unreported!! I also bet the deaths are higher! Covid causes all manner of problems. People die of other things that covid caused.

It is sickening to read about the profiteers who have abused the system many of whom are the recipients of the governments illegal PPE VIP channel. Sarah and Richard Stoute just bought themselves a £30 million villa in the Caribbean to go with their yacht. They made £1.85 billion. It’s obscene.

We are paying millions just to store badly made useless PPE.

Corruption and sleaze – law-breaking. Why aren’t people in court??

Stay safe!!

The chancer rules!! We’re in the age of insanity. The age of conspiracy, lies and profiteering!!

Today’s Music to keep me SsSSsaAAAnnnNeee in Isolation – Bob Marley

We’ll spice the house up with a dash of Reggae!!

The Corona Diaries – Day 726

This is what I thought I was going to be doing – writing about having covid-19. I didn’t know I was going to have to wait almost two years before I caught it?

We’ve narrowed down the likely place we caught it to the cinema in Beverley when we went to see Belfast.

Picking up from where I was yesterday.

This covid is like a heavy cold for the most part but symptoms do seem to be changing quickly. Yesterday evening found me with a sore throat and cough. It felt like my throat was closing up and I was coughing to bring up a ‘frog in the throat’. It was a little worrying as I could easily imagine that tightening getting worse. Coupled with it was a runny nose. I was uneasy. There was the thought of which way was this going to go. But I had no real temperature and wasn’t feeling too bad. I had this metallic taste and my mouth felt overstimulated.

I woke this morning feeling OK. I still had a runny nose though but the sore throat had subsided. When I got up I soon discovered that I wasn’t quite as fine as I thought I was. My throat came back and I felt a bit groggy.

I took it easy all day – worked on the Beefheart photos, read some Jasper Fforde (very funny and clever), played some Snooks Eaglin, did some cooking and chilled.

Through the day I’ve been drinking a lot of tea (didn’t fancy coffee). I took my Vit C and Vit D. I also took to chewing gum – which I figured would be good for the throat. It worked.

I’m now sitting at my computer, I still have a runny nose, a slight sore throat and feel a little muzzy but if this is as bad as it gets then no sweat!

I’m hoping that this is it and I’m now in recovery! We’ll see! It does go up and down a lot. Liz has a worse cough than me but is feeling OK.

This is covid. I am now a statistic in a pandemic. I’m so glad we both are triple vaccinated. I can see how this could get very nasty very quickly.

So far so good. I’m not counting dodos quite yet! It’ll be good to have got this out the way!

Meanwhile, out in coronaland our clown is out posing. He loves photo ops and Hi-Vis and storms Dudley and Eunice. He’ll probably go back and reopen coal mines, start fracking and prospecting for more North Sea oil so he can stoke up global warming a notch or two and give himself more photo ops – here he is at the floods, here in the drought, here in the freak storm, there in the cold snap. Time of his life.

It’s a shame the nincompoop isn’t anywhere near as good at leading – going on telly and explaining what is the best way forward and why, opening himself up to scrutiny. He doesn’t like scrutiny; it’s closely followed by accountability! He doesn’t do accountability. He likes to hide behind a Hi-Vis jacket and babble like the narcissist he is. He can lie as much as he likes and nobody pulls him up on it!

Levelling up ‘Blah Blah Blah – what do you think to my snazzy Hi-Vis jacket’. ‘£350 million a week for the NHS – blather blather blather – look at me! I got Brexit done!!’ ‘180,000 dead – among the worst in the world – Righto!! Errrr Errrr Errrr I got Covid done!’

It’s like putting a chimp in charge of the zoo!!

The latest distraction from the revelations of his law-breaking Partygate fiasco (from which he is waiting for the official report before deciding if he was there at the party that didn’t exist – probably too sloshed to know!) is to relaunch his war on Woke!! The Tory party don’t like Woke! They like things black and white (not too black obviously – the racist wing wouldn’t like it) – God, Queen, Country and Empire! It’s getting pretty tough for them at the moment – what with there being no god, half the royal family connected with paedophiles, corruption and law-breaking, the government ruling the country breaking all the rules and profiteering away enmeshed in sleaze and corruption and the Empire now seen as the way the ruling class plundered the rest of the world, practised genocide and introduced racism and slavery for profit. They don’t want the truth coming out so they want to label it Woke!!

Well I’m Woke!! I’m alert to injustice and discrimination in society, especially racism. I see the racism in our society, I see the inequality and I see the nasty things our country and empire has done. I see the way this government’s policies have stirred up division and racism in order to become elected. I see the way the plundered gold from our empire went straight into the mansions of the wealthy leaving the working people to live in squalor in slums. I’m Woke. I see Churchill for what he was – a man whose wonderful oratory led us through WW2 (at least he was a real leader) – but also a nasty misogynistic racist whose botched planning killed thousands in Gallipoli. I’m Woke!! I want a country that is much fairer, an end to racism, an end to the monarchy and all the other parasites and apologies for the bad parts of our Empire!! I’m Woke! I don’t like racism, the elite, tax havens, the establishment privilege and entitlement. I want a better country!! I wish more people were Woke!! If I was still running a school I’d make sure that the kids received an unbiased factual history – not some Tory propaganda pretending that everything was hunky-dory, glorifying war and the rights of the aristocracy to steal.

Let’s give back the Elgin Marbles and the rest of the stuff we stole – just keep the stuff we bought honestly!!!

So yesterday, in this pandemic that doesn’t exist, there were another 51,725 new cases with another 183 deaths and not a sign of Johnson talking about it.

Scientists warn of new variants. They might be worse or better, terrible or benign, evading vaccines or not – that’s the thing about mutation; it’s random. It doesn’t go in any particular direction. It just adapts to its environment through a series of small mutations and survival of the fittest.

Stay safe!! The clown is consolidating!!

Today’s Music to keep me SsSsSAAAnNnNee In Isolation – Snooks Eaglin

While my covid is not too intense I thought something light and gentle is the order of the day. Snooks fits the bill.

The Corona Diaries – Day 725

Well, it’s taken 725 days for me to finally catch Covid!! Less than a week short of two years!!

I haven’t much of a clue where we caught it. It was probably at the cinema when we went to watch Belfast. Great film!

I’m sure if we had caught this at the beginning we would have been a lot worse off. Between then and now they have created a vaccine and we’ve had three doses of it. Without that vaccine we could be in hospital now. Instead of being a minor inconvenience, we could be in a life-threatening situation. This just feels like a nuisance.

My symptoms at present are:

A strange oversensitive mouth with a metallic taste.

A feeling of lethargy.

A slight cough, more like clearing my throat.

A slightly runny nose.

The occasional sneeze.

I’m not really feeling that ill – slightly muzzy.

Acid stomach and slight diarrhoea.

That’s it.

Thank you all those vaccine people. The fact that IO don’t feel at all bad is down to you!

I reported my positive test and went through all the bureaucratic questions. Took me a while. There’s a lot of them.

It made me realise two things. Firstly, reporting this illness is a pain. I bet a lot of people don’t bother. Secondly, reporting contacts is arbitrary. I could have put down quite a number and I’ve been pretty much in isolation.

The other thing is that it would have been easy not to have tested. I wasn’t feeling that ill – just a bit under the weather. I went down with this last Saturday but my test was negative. I was unwell and contagious but free to pass the virus on. If I had been in work, mixing with a lot of people, I could have passed this on to a lot of people.

This virus is horribly underreported! I think the levels are much much higher than they’ve ever been. I know of lots of people who have just gone down with it. Because of vaccination most of us are asymptomatic or have, like me, very mild symptoms – easy to overlook.

The Track and Trace system is a waste of £37 billion. There is no chance of following up those contacts. We’d be far better off being instructed to contact our own contacts. Clear instructions are essential.

Meanwhile, out in Coronaland, it is quite apparent that our clown of a PM is playing football with covid-19. He thinks that pretending that the pandemic is over and lifting all restrictions will make him popular. The man is a dangerous chancer.

There has been no consultation with the scientists. his is purely a political decision made for the wrong reasons.

We know that there are numerous variants already on the horizon. We know that Omicron does not give immunity against other variants. That means that we are likely to get variants that evade the vaccines and immunity from illness.

Any sensible leader would initiate a public debate on how we deal with this.

Looking into the future it may well be that we do have to live with it. We need to vaccinate the vulnerable every few months. It is unlikely that we will ever reach herd immunity as this immunity is so short-lived. We need the scientists and politicians involved and a grown-up debate.

What we have is a leader who hides in fridges, provides no leadership, likes being seen in Hi-Vis jackets but not answering questions, unilaterally makes laws, refuses to be held accountable and breaks the rules he brings in for the rest of us.

What sort of pillock of a leader is that???

So, yesterday there were a reported 51,899 new cases (though I take that with a big pinch of salt – it is becoming much harder to obtain accurate stats) with 183 more deaths!!

We are now jabbing 5-11 year-olds – though I am not quite sure what the strategy is and why we are doing it. Are we still trying for herd immunity?? I wish we had more science in this. My trust in politicians is in minus figures.

There is now some discussion as to the ending of free tests. When those go then we have effectively the end of all stats. That means that nobody will really know what’s going on and where. It’ll all be down to hospital admissions and deaths. Might be a bit late by then eh?

We voted in mindless, greedy profiteers – now we are paying the price with both Brexit and Covid – horrendous rising prices and deaths.

They’ll just put a spin on it. The media they control will back them up. The morons in the population will swallow the garbage that they are doing a good job – got Brexit and covid done!!

When will they wake up!! This bunch of entitled, overprivileged incompetents are tightening their grip on power. They are pumping out spin and propaganda. They are banning opposition through protest. They are avoiding any scrutiny and accountability. They control the media and threaten the BBC. They are now looking to turn schools into propaganda sites under the guise of fighting Woke culture. They lie and break laws and rules with impunity.

This bunch of extremists is overtly dismantling what remains of democracy. It’s scary!!

So as global warming exerts itself we have a red weather alert – a severe storm approaches!!

Let’s hope it blows these nasty populists away!!

Stay safe!!

Today’s Music to keep me SsSSSssSsAaaaNNnnEeee in Isolation – Captain Beefheart – Mirrorman

I love this album. I’ve tested positive for covid so I think I’ll kick back and chill out to this masterpiece.

The Corona Diaries – Day 724

Welcome to the new normality – a windswept banana republic off the coast of Europe, inhabited by an arrogant elite who believe they can get away with murder and have. A once proud nation is now being stripped bare by profiteers. An island that exists for the good of the few. An island where the sheep vote for the reopening of the abattoir and cheer as it throws wide its doors. An island where the majority are herded into order by the Tory press who cajole, terrify and brainwash. An island beset by lies, deceit, corruption and law-breaking without a shred of honour, decorum or substance.

Welcome to the reality of global Britain. An insignificant place pretending to be something it never was.

Today was windy, really windy. It rained, poured and blew! They say that it is the worst storm in thirty years – but I think that must be up in Scotland. These are things we will need to get used to – alternating cold and warmth, bigger storms, more frequent storms, heavy tropical rainfall, changes in seasons, droughts, floods and heatwaves. Sounds great! At least, here in Johnsonland, we’ll be poorer and poorer but we won’t be driven out by extremes. Some places around the world are going to become uninhabitable. What are we going to do with a billion or two displaced people? Are we going to have wars over water, food and space??

Needless to say, the only walking I’ve done today was to nip to the shop for the paper. That was an experience.

I’ve stayed in and sorted through my photos for the Beefheart book while listening o some Bessie Smith. Not a bad day. Outside the wind howled and things banged.

Meanwhile, out in Coronaland part of our illustrious elite, with a penchant for young girls and a friendship group that included paedophiles and procurers, paid off one of them with a cool £12 million. Probably didn’t much notice the loss. Now he doesn’t have to go to court to try to prove that he didn’t have sex with an underage girl.

If you are part of the elite, or a Tory politician, you are immune. You can do what you like. You can lie, break laws and arrogantly do anything. There is little scrutiny and no accountability. The media spin it round and everybody forgives and forgets. That’s global Britain!! Ruled by the elite for the elite! A land of inequality where millions are thrown into extreme poverty so that a small number can stuff billions into the Cayman Islands.

It was always thus – but now we vote for it!

So, there were another 54,218 new cases with 199 deaths in this pandemic that we are pretending is over so that Johnson can stay in office!

Heaven knows what the real figures are. Liz had to report her positive test and that meant a mound of bureaucratic shite (typical of Tory global Britain – we’re drowning in it). The questions were interminable. I bet most people take one look at it and can’t be arsed. this bureaucracy is self-defeating. It’s the same everywhere – when it becomes too burdensome people just look for ways around it. In teaching, we were put through the Tory mincer and had to justify everything we did because they didn’t trust us. You spent more time on paperwork than you did teaching kids. No wonder everyone either goes for meaningless shortcuts or gets out of teaching. All pointless!

So we have crooks selling fake testing kits, crooks moving into internet fraud, conmen selling jabs. There are millions of pounds going into the pockets of internet thieves. Mind you, the real conmen, tricksters and thieves are in government with illegal contracts, illegal lobbying and cash for peerages, knighthood and audiences. They are not dealing in mere millions; they are dealing in billions. Strange that despite case after case of lawbreaking nobody ever ends up in court!

I wonder how Sajid’s brother is doing with that MET report??

It’s like America, isn’t it? Trump is still refusing to pay taxes or release his tax records, he’s been shredding documents on an industrial scale. Yet half the bloody country think that grifter is the best thing since sliced bread. Unbelievable. He’s the biggest crook on the planet!

I bet Johnson will be telling us how his wonderful diplomacy sent Russia packing. Ho Ho. I was reading what the Russian media was saying about our clown, his government and Liz Truss. They are laughing their heads off.

The Russians did everything they could to get Brexit done. They wanted to break up the EU and weaken the UK. They did everything they could to get Trump and Johnson elected. They succeeded. The USA is melting into division and stalemate. The EU is weaker. The UK is a spent force. They are laughing their heads off. Now they’re sucking up to China. The transfer of power. That’s what history teaches us!

So stay safe!! The good news is that they’ll be plenty of bananas (once the climate warms some more). The bad news is that you’ll have no money to buy them and you’ll be standing on tip-toe because of reduced landmass and mass immigration from uninhabitable lands. Never mind. It’s what you voted for! Seizing back control and putting it in the hands of the elite!!

Great stuff!!

Today’s Music to keep me SsSSsaaaAAnnnnnEEee in Isolation – Bessie Smith

There’s something about Bessie that moves me.