What it was really like in Lockdown! How corrupt and stupid were our politicians?
The final volume of my Corona Diaries, extracted from the daily rants I produced during lockdown in the Covid Pandemic. The provide an insight into daily life during lockdown, what I was writing, reading, listening to and eating as well as where I was walking and the wonders of nature’s uplifting effects on the spirit. It combines this with a rant about our corrupt, inept and greedy politicians – namely Johnson and Trump and their useless, self-centred associates. This diary provides a picture of life during lockdown, the changing political/medical scene and describes what it was like to get covid, come out the other side and straight into war! We are the survivors of a very strange and unique time (no thanks to our leaders!) If only we learnt from what has gone before!
I’ve just spent the last days compiling the final volume of my Corona Diaries extracted from my blog. During the pandemic I put out a daily rant. The early ones are out in three volumes. This one will be out shortly. It takes me from December 2021 to April 2022 and the end of the pandemic and covers my own illness.
Makes for interesting reading – a reminder of the corruption and incompetence as well as the daily life in lockdown.
I have finally found the time and energy to compile the final section of my catalogue of Corona posts. During the pandemic I put out a daily broadcast. We lived in isolation during the strangest, most surreal time, yet already, just two years on, that all seems like a fading unreality. These posts remind me of the reality of those days. Overnight we were thrown from a life packed full of commitments, activities, friends and packed calendars into a blank canvas. For once in our lives we had time! What a strange experience!
Some of us spent that time profitably. I wrote, listened to music, read, went for long walks, basked in nature and we decorated the entire house! Some of us became incredibly bored, ate, drank, smoked and watched day-time telly. There wasn’t even any sport. I guess I was lucky. We lived on the edge of the countryside. We had a big house. I had lots of interests. Writing and reading take time. Walking in nature (without traffic) revitalizes the spirit.
Time well spent.
Those daily rants captured a little of that strange time. They were full of rants at the spectacular ineptitude and corruption of the Johnson and Trump governments. I watched with horror at the vacillation between panic and arrogance, the lack of preparedness and ignorance. We were incredibly lucky. We dodged a bullet. As it turned out the virus had a relatively low kill rate – 1 in 1200 – next time we may not be so lucky. A virus will come along with a 90% kill rate, then we will be in trouble. Hopefully, when that happens we will have a competent administration in charge and an intelligent, scientific policy. Hopefully (but I wouldn’t count on it – they seem to currently be re-electing the biggest idiot who has ever gained office – we never learn).
My reports gave an insight into my daily activities as well as my diatribes aimed against the politics of the pandemic. They usually contained a weather report (weren’t we lucky with the weather?) and what I was reading and listening to. There is the complete range between the personal and wider issues. I usually put in the deaths and a record of the current initiatives on a national and global scale (along with my personal views).
They also give a report on what it was like to finally catch the dreaded disease (fortunately when fully vaccinated) and the long-term effects.
I am compiling them with an eye on the historic importance of those two years. They are really no more than a personal record for me to look back on. The first three volumes met with shattering indifference. I think I actually sold 1 copy. So I know there are no commercial gains to be had and no interest from outside to my own experience. That’s fine. I am writing this for me.
In order to compile this book I am trawling through the archives of WordPress and copying the reports that I put out. This is not as easy as it seems. I have put out some 20,549 posts over the years (sometimes up to 20 a day) and WordPress annoyingly seems to jumble them up so that finding a sequence is made much harder than it should have been.
In the course of this I have found that there were ten days not accounted for, and, despite diligent searching, I have not managed to plug these holes. The posts are missing in action. However, my assumption is that there were some days (as around Christmas time 2021) when things were going on and I did not manage to put out a post. So those posts were not actually lost as much as never existed. Not to worry. The reports are extremely repetitive anyway. They were not intended to be read as a book; they were put out as stand-alone daily reports in a blog. You haven’t missed much. When put together like this they can be boring. Fine with me. I dip into them and it jogs my memory. They are my personal diary. Nothing more.
By the time of this fourth volume the fear factor had all-but disappeared. The vaccines were out. Exasperation had replaced concern. We knew more about the virus – how it was spread, the success of the vaccines and its deadliness (or lack of it). I was immensely furious at the corrupt squandering of money on VIP lanes, ludicrous salaries, PPE, undocumented loans and useless schemes – apps, T&T and Nightingales. They were frantically throwing money at any Tory donor who asked instead of using tried and tested firms. They were also hiding things up and putting out misinformation. The way they had panicked and chucked out the elderly (often infected) from the hospitals to Care Homes in order to make space. Instead of putting together a sane, scientifically designed program to avoid infection they continued with more of the same. Science was besmirched with politics and greed. A tale of political opportunism, unbridled avarice and complete stupidity.
Eat Out to Kill Again! Why not Eat Outside to Help Out – they knew how the virus was spread. The weather was fine. Stupid schemes badly thought through that killed people!
I despair!
Anyway, you can see that this is dredging up those same old frustrations and angers. I’ll stop. I’m only talking to myself anyway.
This then is the final section. It takes us from December 2021 to April 2022 and our re-emergence into a different world.
I churned these reports out on my blog in a torrent without any editing or rewriting. Consequently they are probably riddled with poor grammar, spellos and repetitive nonsense. I did toy with carefully reading through and working on them but rejected that. I think they stand as they are – spontaneous outbursts. They are what they are – warts and all. They are of their time – raw and rough.
The pandemic was over but the War in Ukraine was just starting. We humans are surely the most stupid species that have ever lived. We have intelligence but, as you can see from these reports, we allow our hormones and self-interests to supersede all else. We elect fools, psychopaths, narcissists, self-serving conmen and arrogant imbeciles and then wonder why their insane black and white solutions don’t work. We never learn.
I was fascinated to read what I had written just under a year ago regarding the politics of the day. Our resident crime syndicate of a government decaying under the weight of its own sleaze!! Makes for interesting reading.
Nearing the end of January (not my favourite month) the sky was overcast but it was dry and not raining so I took myself up my hill for an early walk. At the top of the hill I found myself looking out over a wet and soggy land enshrouded in mist.
I came home and set about editing my Beefheart book while listening to the Kills.
Meanwhile, out in Coronaland, Johnson is hovering on the brink. Just as he’s trying to come to terms with Partygate and prepare himself for the onslaught of Sue Gray there suddenly comes Muslimgate out of left-wing. We haven’t got over Bullygate either and still have Covidgate, Sleazegate, Wallpapergate and Brexitgate to come.
The common feature in them all is Johnson’s cavalier attitude, entitlement, lack of detail, lies and laziness. It all sends a clear message. You can break rules, even laws. It’s always party time. You don’t have to work hard. You just make things up. You can get away with anything.
Partygate – the cavalier breaking of rules, lying and love of partying. Wine, women and wallpaper. Arrogant superiority and disdain for the little people. We make the rules. You do as you’re told. We do as we want. It’s party time.
Muslimgate – we can be racist, rude and offensive. We pretend to be inclusive but we aren’t. We have token ethnic minorities but we don’t like them. Why do you think we wanted Brexit? We don’t like foreigners. We’re the party of xenophobia – letter boxes and sacks says it all.
Bullygate – it’s black and white. We tell you what to do and if you don’t do it you will pay. Rules and laws mean nothing. We don’t have to follow them. Blackmail, threats and nastiness are the tools of the trade.
Covidgate – we alternated panicking with complacency, did everything too late or two early, dumped the old, dumped the care homes, used it as an excuse to give billions to ourselves and our chums and killed more people than nearly everyone else. We did not have our eye on the ball, did not know what we were doing, ignored advice and cocked up. No attention to detail, coupled with arrogance and incompetence made everything much worse than it needed to be. Confusing messaging, invisibility and breaking the rules that were made coupled with failure to set examples – a disaster. Silly sound bites and exaggerated claims of world-beating this that and the other, magic moonshots and then lie about it, tell everyone it was a great success and that Johnson introduced vaccination and saved the world. In reality it has been a complete mess up and a lot of Tories made a lot of money.
Sleazegate – second jobs, revolving doors, lobbying rules broken, Cameron and Patterson, government ministers earning millions while working in the Caribbean, backhanders, illegal donations, cash for peerages, cash for meetings, cash for everything. The Cayman Isles must be groaning under the money being stashed away from all the dodgy deals we don’t know about. The Tory Party has been profiteering.
Wallpapergate – the tip of an iceberg – illegal donations from promises and deals. We’re expected to believe that these people do it for nothing. They do it because they expect stuff in return. Meals, expensive wine, refurbishment, expensive holidays. Heaven knows what else goes on in private.
Brexitgate – based on lies, unfounded promises of sunny uplands, xenophobia, racism, nostalgia for an age that never was, nationalism and fear. 5 Million Turks, Muslims taking over, Eastern Europeans taking over, unimpeded immigration. Stark horror out of the minds of racists who despise foreigners and still think Britain is not only superior but should have its empire back. So badly negotiated that it has landed us in the shit, ruined trade, loaded us with red-tape and delays, left food rotting, put costs up, created HGV shortages, nursing and caring shortages and stopped our youngsters having access to Europe for work and study. Obstacles, impediments and competition replace free trade, cooperation and friendliness. But a lot of Tories made a lot of money out of it – how many million did Rees-Mogg make??
It’s a nasty long list of malaise that all stems from one man – a self-serving clown whose character flaws, greed and gluttony have created a government of self-serving, lazy fools who think they too can get away with murder.
It all comes from the top!
So, yesterday there were another 74,800 new cases. Not exactly tumbling down is it? There were only 75 deaths though. That’s something. Though they’ll probably tell us that they forgot to count them over the weekend or that it doesn’t count people with nasty coughs.
The ONS is insistent that there have been 177,000 deaths which mention covid. But what’s 20,000 deaths to a Tory?? Let the bodies pile up!!
We’re fine. There may be a new variant on the horizon and we may lose half of our NHS staff soon who are being kicked out because they’re un, and we’ve lost 2 million days of NHS staff due to long covid, so they’ll be nobody to care for us, but we are trialling the antiviral drug from Merck!! Maybe it’ll work. The hospitals will be closed but they can pop it in the post to us.
Lord Agnew resigned. He’s been in charge of fraud. Well I bet a number of Tories have really been in charge of fraud. But he’s getting out before Fraudgate becomes investigated. It seems that he has mislaid £4.3 billion. It’ll probably turn up in some MPs account on the Cayman Islands.
Johnson will need a lot of money to maintain his lifestyle, childcare and alimony.
Stay safe – this looks like being an interesting week!! We could have a leadership contest for who’s taking over the crime syndicate!