Tag: virus

To Understand Or Not To Understand

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Everyday, rules on the coronavirus seem to change. They are now discussing closing pubs in September when schools go back. I assume this is with the intention of balancing the dangers posed from both pubs and schools being open and slowing down any potential infection rate. I understand a certain amount of logic in that but it does seem to fly in the face of previous statements on there being no danger to schools opening up. If my memory is right teachers unions were blasted and shamed when they suggested that re-opening schools might increase the risk of infection and endanger teachers. Boris, his media mouthpieces and his puppet Sir Keir all seemed to be in agreement in dismissing the fears of teachers and now in a round about way they seem to be admitting these fears are in fact well founded. I wonder whether they will retract their previous statements.

There really is no way to follow what is going on properly though. There are some parts of the country going into gentle lockdowns, or ‘putting the brakes on’ as Boris suggested. They’re not really just putting the brakes on though if they’re re-introducing elements of lockdown, that suggests they’re also then going in reverse. Does that mean in other parts of the country that are not applying the metaphorical brakes that everything is fine and they can carry on or should they start to gentle apply them to prevent the necessity of slamming the foot down. The thing is I really don’t know. Ultimately I’m not an expert, very few people in this country and around the world genuinely are. That would presumably be ‘the scientists’ who by now have developed mythological status and who once ran the government according to a government trying to deflect criticism of itself and pass on any blame. It becomes hard to accept that decisions made weren’t political when blatantly they were. I want to believe there is no ulterior motive to all of this but it’s hard sometimes.

And then the rumours are that they’ll be expecting another full on lockdown in November and that it’s now not old people in danger but twenty to forty year olds. Why that age range all of a sudden? Does that suggest the virus has morphed slightly into something else, and if so does that mean the vaccine that if I’m not mistaken we’ve pre-ordered a rather large amount of will need to morph too. And if younger people are now in danger from it evolving should they not be discussing this a bit more. Everyday it feels like we hear something new but all that ever happens is we end up with more questions than answers. Nobody has a clue and those in authority on all sides only seem to focus on their own self-interests which frustrates and angers everyone further. No wonder people question and reject what would ordinarily be acceptable ideas. Will we ever get real answer and clarity. Will pigs fly as they say.

Incidentally, I picked out an old scarf I never imagined I would be wearing in the summer and have started tying it around my face in a way I never dreamt possible when going into shops. I’m still slightly sceptical about a few things and confused about others but am I another fool? I doubt I’ve ever not been.

The Great Showmen

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What’s going on in the world then. A section of Trump’s infamous border wall with Mexico blew down. Apparently Hurricane Hanna got the better of it. Past wall failures include another section in California being knocked over in January following a strong breeze, smugglers taking minutes to saw, yes saw, through sections of the wall and another incident in San Diego apparently saw them doing this eighteen times in one month. Perhaps a series of the same incident would be more apt. It does suggest he has been making it on the cheap and undoubtedly this does fit in with the type of image of Trump we have. Doing things for show without any substance and grabbing everyone’s attention with another outlandish ‘project’ the moment the old one starts to fall to pieces. Why anyone thought a showman would change his stripes I just don’t know.

The plan wasn’t just to talk about Trump, it was to mention a few things going on in the world but it’s so easy to start with him and get carried away with whatever it is he’s doing now. I think the whole world knows what’s going on, although saying that having just quickly checked the BBC, even on the actual US regional page it doesn’t really mention a lot about how arguably troops, or their equivalent at least, have been deployed on domestic streets and quite violently against peaceful protesters. It’s almost more interesting to see what’s newsworthy and not being reported. The man is gearing up for an election as he tries to get everyone to forget about his handling of Covid-19, as well as the fact he’s still continuing to handle it badly, and focus instead on how good he is or would be at cleaning up the streets. The law and order campaign approach being one usually deployed by a hopeful incoming President criticising the current occupants job, how that quite works with a sitting President suggesting he’ll clean up the streets of not only a country he’s been running for four years but that he’s repeatedly said has “been made great again” is still slightly unclear. I’m sure he’ll all confuse us with his explanation.

What else has been going on then. Well he’s still orange. He’s still the slightly shittier American version of a television series that originated in Britain and revolved around Boris Johnson performing a stage version of A Clockwork Orange. We thought it could never be topped but evidently in the most brash of American ways it has been. I wonder which one will run for longer without being cancelled. I wonder too what the spin-off would be; their best mate Nigel Farage losing all his money and having to hang out with the working men he pretends he’s one of. Or the ultimate twist of fate, through a loophole in the law he gets kicked out of the UK and manages to claim refugee status in Germany with his wife and kids. Now that would be both compulsive and car crash television. Maybe Boris, Don and Nige could be the three men to Dominic Cummings as the baby; probably doing his best version of an early Stewie Griffin when he was his in murder everyone faze. They just don’t make television like they used to. They don’t really make reality what it once was either though. Maybe it’s just those blurred lines confusing us all. Which is which, we just don’t know.

Squeaky Bum Time

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It’s that time of year when (fill in blank). Let’s be honest this year doesn’t count as any normal year. I was expecting to be swanning around in Greece sailing, eating and drinking right now but I’m doing something else. Today though my focus is not on what would probably have been a Euro 2020 match, as I imagine the tournament would still be going. With Covid-19 forcing it’s postponement we’re instead left with the final instalment of a very long English Premier League season. And I’m nervous. We’ve got a massive game against Leicester City today which could have repercussions for years. If we qualify for the Champions League it could be a springboard for what is a young and exciting team to step up and take their game to levels we’ve not seen since the now mythological heady days of Sir Alex Ferguson. If we fail to either win or draw today we spend another year wasting our time in the Europa League, failing yet again. Big clubs need to play in the best tournaments; money and reputation can only get them so far. The best players can make the money in most clubs these days, they want the best tournaments. It has been a long season. Today feels massive. We’re five minutes from kick-off. I’m excited and nervous in painfully equal amounts. I’ll write the second paragraph upon the conclusion of the match. I hope I come back smiling.

Well that was a relief more than anything. We won 2-0 with the first goal being a penalty and the second with virtually the last kick of the match after a mistake by the keeper. It was nervy, no real major chances and wasn’t the goal fest I thought it might be. We’ve been fatigued as a team recently and I thought their game plan would be to hold us tight and hit us as we started flagging in the last fifteen minutes. Had we not got the penalty after seventy minutes that may have happened but it invigorated us enough to hold on for the win and finish third in the league.

I had a feeling before the game that we would win but the longer it went on with us drawing I got nervous. Next season will be interesting. The top two, Liverpool and Manchester City, will probably still be top two but I suspect swapping positions. Chelsea are buying some really quality players already with the likelihood of a few others being really high, Arsenal look like they may become something worth worrying about under Mikel Arteta and Jose Mourinho will turn Spurs into winners one way or another. Wolves and Leicester will improve too and they’re already quality teams. We need to not only improve our first team on the right wing and at centre back but need someone who can fill in at number ten and arguably another centre midfield of the defensive ilk. Let’s see what happens. We’ve been so badly run these last few years that I will resist getting excited but we do look like we’re finally heading in the right direction. Time will tell, but time for a rest now I say.

Day Ten

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I’m not sure if this is day ten or day eleven of my ten days without the news. For those with no idea what I’m talking about I decided to go ten days without looking at news channels or websites, I generally avoided Facebook except for emails and was left pretty confused and lost whenever anyone mentioned something going on in the world. I semi-accidentally saw a few news headlines over that period but generally avoided most things. The intention had been to avoid the sensationalised twenty-four hours a day news coverage and all the draining exhausting bullshit that goes along with that. I actually lost track of the days, I wasn’t even sure if it had been a week yet until I saw someones Facebook post about Donald Trump commuting his friend Roger Stone’s sentence and realised I really wanted to know what that was about. I haven’t actually found out because I don’t need to read an article to tell me everything that is already obvious.

It did make me want to check the amount of days without news I’ve gone though. So arguably and technically this is day ten if I wrote the piece making the challenge statement on the first of July. That also means I can’t check the news properly until tomorrow. All those little hints that something is going on with masks and shops, that Boris dug himself a hole with care homes yet again and that Jair Bolsonaro has caught coronavirus. This knowledge is all without checking the news once, it’s impossible to avoid everything. I also discovered that VAT on takeaway food is going to be reduced to five percent from twenty, which for someone who makes pizzas as one of his jobs is perhaps the best news I’ve heard all day.

I have enjoyed not knowing what’s going on in the world. It doesn’t create obvious amounts of anxiety in me but I’ve definitely noticed that I feel slightly freer without knowing whatever the latest ill facing the world is. Clearly I have to be realistic, without checking the news I’ve still been drawn to those updates above, amongst other things, which means I’ll never be able to avoid whats going on completely. I don’t see many happy people constantly glued to the world’s events. I doubt it brings out the best in us. We must find balance. The Royal We that is. This isn’t the time for grand statements about future intentions but hopefully I’ll remember this experience if I ever get myself caught up in the stupid bullshit once more. Here’s to liberty, forever more!!

A Bad World With Negative News

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I read an article last night about the future of schooling in the UK in regards the consequences of Covid-19. It was after I had written yesterdays piece on returning to schools and the possibility of fines for those who don’t, otherwise it would have been included in the article. I thought of writing about it today though but I won’t. I won’t for two reasons, a quite important one being that while my gut feeling from what I read was that they were teaching this generation a certain necessity to be controlled and it scared me, I can’t find the article or remember exactly what it was that made me feel so worried. The other is that today I feel a bit tired of writing these pieces damning some politician, political party or whatever example of systemic corruption that takes my fancy. I will again for sure but today my mind is in a different place.

Why then do we keep coming back to these articles which do nothing but confirm our understanding that the world is a corrupt and bullshit place. The obvious would be that we’re searching for some kind of confirmation or negative bias. We hear of research that social media companies use suggesting we’re drawn to and spend more time responding and reacting to bad news over good. There’s also the instinctive scared animal within us which is constantly on the look out for danger in our quest for survival. My direct experience of the world is not that it’s a dangerous place, quite the opposite, of course that is just my experience not one representative of anyone else or any collective group.

My view of the world through my news, political and social internet search history is an alarmingly different one to what I have seen through my eyes. Don’t get me wrong I have seen some shocking things in my life but proportionally these are but a fraction of the overall experience. What keeps drawing us back then to following a different vision of the world. Perhaps we know that there is more out there than our small bubble, maybe we just want to. There is a chance we just want some more excitement in our lives. Could these bad world experiences draw us in because we’re actually collectively deep down unhappy and they appeal to that. Certainly I’m online less and care less about world events – football aside – when I’m having fun, travelling and living more in the moment. There just seems to be something unhealthy about it all. The news has not all of a sudden become a negative thing but we now have a constant live stream of it and with their need to keep our focus, there surely can be little beneficial about it. With that in mind I’ve just had an idea. I will avoid the news and therefore my Facebook feed too for the next ten days and see not only how I feel but what it forces me to come up with on here. Oh god, I’m getting the shakes already. What have I done?!

A Fine Mob

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Our current version of a government in the UK are a concerning bunch. I have spent these last six months largely unsurprised by their bumbling attempt at government. While it is possible to give them some slack over the coronavirus handling, their response has been slow, inept and ultimately a failure. It is not just Covid-19 though, having taken us out of the EU they seem reasonably content to do absolutely nothing about creating a smooth departure and transition. Apparently negotiations are non-existent to obstinately deadlocked. Of course the EU bares some responsibility for this but you do get the feeling that this is exactly what the government wants and this is playing out perfectly for them. We crash out, become an international tax haven for the wealthy and sell our arse to the Yanks. In that case my accusation of bumbling is inaccurate, they are clearly doing a great job from their perspective.

What grabbed my eye today though and what led to this piece was that they announced there would be fines for parents whose children didn’t return to school in September when they reopen. This is a remarkably aggressive approach to something which should be handled with far more care and which exposes the underlying approach to governance they feel to be right. If you’re unable to persuade people with your argument then bully them into doing it. Telling parents they will be fined for acting potentially against their own health interests is nothing less than bullying and will have disproportionate ramifications for financially poorer sections of society. Headteachers have called them out on it as have elements of the media. This is one more step on their road to handling the return to school issue so terribly. Was it the first of June, or maybe earlier, that schools were supposed to return and teachers unions who were demonised by some, forced the government into a rethink. It’s not impossible to see another Marcus Rashford style u-turn even though governments hate to be seen doing so.

A government which seems incapable of persuading people their arguments are right will eventually have to try a new approach, aggression in the form of fines being the form this time. Whatever happened to us working together. They are merely slipping deeper into their bunker and adopting an ever more aggressive siege mentality. Whether you agree with them ideologically, it is without doubt not a way to run government and while it may help short term survival, if it carries on like this it won’t be another four years until the next election. The problem is by then they can and most likely will have done enough damage that it’ll take decades to reverse it. This is a long war. Perhaps even an indefinite one.

Another Day, Another Ramble

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Today is one of those days in which I can’t think of anything to write about. One of those moments the mind feels stagnant. But I write everyday, there can be no excuse, 365 days won’t reach itself. Incidentally I’m definitely over six months now, maybe even seven or eight if I could be bothered to count. I just know come October I’ll have to start checking the exact date I started and try to avoid writing endlessly about how close I am to completing a year and how nice it’ll be not to have the constant thought in the back of my mind that I have to do something. Some days I enjoy it, some days I just can’t be bothered and some days I wish I had written something earlier as I’m tired and want to go to bed. Rarely I don’t enjoy it though.

I’ve still not written a poem, that was one of the things I thought would be interesting to try. I’ve not written a short story either. I can’t remember the other things I excitedly thought I may do. I think I misunderstood how my writing would go down. I don’t take the time to write creatively like that, life can be busy and I generally just give myself an hour to bash these out. I suspect this will be a little less but that’s because it’s one of those filler pieces. Yet I’m still writing.

I thought about mentioning Covid-19 and the political implications of todays relaxing of lockdown rules but I’ve been talking too much about that already recently. I even checked RT.com to see if they had anything outlandish I could talk about. They don’t seem to think too highly of Meghan Markle and I’m not entirely sure why. What ever she did to piss off the Russians is beyond me. Maybe I should have checked Al Jazeera, I could have compared their stories, RT’s stories and the BBC’s to create a balanced version of the days events. I’m sure you could add all their stories up and together they would create a reputable version. Either that or the average of what total bullshit could look like.

In personal news I’ve been fantasising about living on the canals again. This is not a new one and I nearly did it about five or six years ago until I realised I wasn’t quite ready for such a sedate life. Sounds lovely now though. Nothing against the village, but I suspect small insular communities don’t quite have enough to hold me. Not that I’ll find the opposite all along a canal. It’s times like these though that I remember how being oblivious to the same type of thing but in foreign countries and therefore foreign languages, made places seem so much nicer. There’s something lacking in forever being on the periphery though. I wonder if people come here to the white sandy beaches, castles, monasteries and walks, and think how lovely the locals are, unaware to how they really feel about outsiders. Perhaps they just resent them because they know they depend on them.

But I shouldn’t be too unfair because I don’t know everybody and I don’t know they all feel. Also nobodies really done anything directly to me it’s more that I just feel sadness at witnessing such a beautiful little area stifled by idiots who can’t see outside of this tiny little whole universe of theirs. And I’m judging people I don’t really know again which I shouldn’t be because it’s unfair and that just makes me a dick. It’s just the frustration that’s all. This place just isn’t the best version of itself it could be. But then what and who is.

This Way Please

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Well we’re one step closer to a tyrannical regime. They’ve decided which direction we can now walk up the street. That would be an example of using an exaggerated statement to belittle a potentially legitimate argument on something ridiculous. Of course we’re not one step closer to a tyrannical regime because of this but it is ridiculous. I should probably explain a little more on what I’m talking about. As you can see from the picture they have created a one way system on the pavements. On one side of the road you can walk up the street and on the other you can walk down. Apparently it’s okay to go into shopping centres and queue outside Primark for hours but god forbid you face someone on the street as you walk towards and pass them. I had a similar opinion on having a one way system in the supermarket, all it seemingly did was confuse and stress people as they did huge laps just to pop back one aisle because they forgot something, or lingered behind as they weren’t sure if it was acceptable to pass you. Saying that I’m not dismissing the fact that statistically even if minimal it could probably have help prevent the spread in some way but it seemed like slight overkill. Outside on the street though; give over.

It’s very easy to get excited by something like this and use it as another example of people slowly being controlled, or getting used to being controlled in the most minute way. But all this is is some bureaucrat sitting in an office somewhere trying to justify the existence of their job and people spurring them on because they know they can use it as an example of some kind of action. Make no mistake something like this is for nothing other than appearance sake, a cosmetic little plaster to cover a deep wound. Actual action would be proper testing not just smudged empty figures, it would be actual PPE for nurses, doctors and care home assistant, it would be a contact tracing app that is ready before November not nearly a year after the first official case in the UK.

This nonsense outside on the street is nothing other than a local version of the same thing we have on a national level. Everything, literally everything, the government have done in combating the spread of Covid-19 has lacked even the remotest amount of substance. It has been enforced reactive empty action for nothing other than appearance sake and we have the highest death rate in the world as a result. Now we have a supposedly skint, when it suits them, council taking two days and four workers to put up and spray a few signs on one little street. Three months of nothing and now just as everything is reopening and the two metre distance rule probably dropped, they finally act. If as the Economist described it; “The government played a bad hand, badly”, the local council it appears don’t even know how to play. Or at least not the game they should be playing.

The Paradox Of Numbers

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There have been some stabbings then. It happened yesterday, three were killed and three badly injured. It was announced today that Khairi Saadallah has been held on suspicion of terrorist activities. Apparently he shouted some “unintelligible words” before attacking a group of people. I don’t know about the intricacies of law and being able to name people but there must be a reason for the discrepancies over naming suspects, and in this case not even someone who has been charged but is just being held on suspicion. They must have a pretty strong, let’s say definite, case against him to make what is ultimately a public announcement of his guilt. Perhaps the ones not mentioned are down to the issuing of injunctions of some sort and the standard approach is to be able to name people. Either way it it’s something new for people to get horrified over and will now be the new thing to focus our attention on.

I mentioned a week or two ago about how we seem to be lurching from one crisis to the next; be it Brexit, disastrous elections, back to Brexit, coronavirus, police violence and now we can add these stabbings to this years list of events. It does seem to be one thing after another and I wondered how long it would take for something extreme to happen so as to distract people from what feels like genuine social change. The Black Lives Matter movement was helped by people being dissatisfied and restless after the virus. I thought with the return of capitalism and the opening of shops that people would forget but they’ll have this now to take the headlines completely. I’m not suggesting or going down the rabbit hole of conspiracy but undoubtedly the government, media and anyone else who’s vested interests were in danger will use this event to maximum effect and personal gain. The old maxim of never letting a good crisis go to waste can yet again be expected to ring true.

Let’s not forget that people have been mercilessly murdered but I’m not going to dwell on that because I doubt beyond the public statements neither will the authorities. Maybe it’s just my mood today but I feel incredibly sceptical about the expected response or just immune to being horrified about the extinguishing of more life. It also highlights a difference in our responses to virus deaths and these ones. Over forty-thousand people have died of coronavirus based upon one set of statistics, some suggest more and some less, but despite everything we have seen and felt, there is still an underlying feeling inspired by that being nothing more than a number. It comes back to the idea that we feel more of an emotive reaction to the deaths of three people than forty thousand people. Perhaps we can comprehend three people, there’s a good chance there are three people in the same room as us now but forty thousand is difficult, if not impossible to comprehend. It also makes you realise football crowds are enormous. Wembley stadium can hold double the number of people killed in the virus. Which make it feel like not many people have died at all. Yet they have, but have they really? Three have now died and that’ll feel perversely like a higher number. All it does is makes me feel even more that worldwide events, disasters and news are better off ignored, the spare energy from this can be put towards embracing our immediate environments. Perhaps that’s the way forward. Or at least embracing a little more of what’s around us than living in a version of reality the news wants us to.

A Tangent Of Change

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As I struggle to think about anything to write today, scrolling through Facebook and the news channels for inspiration I am left with the feeling the world is falling apart. We seem to have moved on from the virus pretty quick to the virus of racism. Prior to that of course we moved on from the virus of power and corruption in the form of Brexit. I wonder what we’ll move on to next, a second wave of infections perhaps? I know someone who drives a lorry and apparently the word going around is to prepare for a second lockdown in November, this is what they’ve been told and apparently lorry drivers know stuff so I should believe this. I have seen memes online suggesting this is the worst year ever and what terrible things are going to come next. It might be the worst year ever but that is simply because typical issues which many in poorer parts of the world have to deal with year after year are finally landing on our doorsteps. Face to face with the uncertainty of catching a virus, a hidden bullet we can’t see. Deaths we are impotent from preventing. Is this the new-normal the politicians were talking about.

The unknown is scary. We are scared of the dark because we don’t know what is there, all is unknown. We fear change because we don’t know what it is or what it could entail. We are quick to want to conserve our current way of life if we view it from the standpoint that it works for us and has got us this far. Why change it. Clearly something out there is not working though because we still have violent systemic racism, we still have ideological approaches to saving lives in a pandemic, we still have people manipulating a population for their own personal benefit and greed. So it’s time for society to take that collective step into the unknown and as one step out of that bubble we live in. We don’t know what is going to land on our safe little doorsteps next. We’ve flirted with working together throughout this virus which means we’ve shown we are capable of it. Much of what we’ve heard has been feel good propaganda but we’ve all seen people at some point at least thinking about others before themselves. Some change might need a few generations of social reeducation which sounds ominous, but some we’re clearly capable of. Maybe there is hope for deconstructing the state, decentralising decision making and creating the opportunity for people to achieve self-determination, autonomy and respect. Maybe that’s just me going off on a hopeful tangent but then that is all today seems to be, what life has now become.