Welcome to my nightmare

Well bless my raddled soul. Elder sibling has started his own blog, a chronicle, a mash up of personal experiences and events in the UK. In it he tells of the gripes and tribulations of living in his part of the UK, from supermarket beefs to the media stoked paranoia of certain people he encounters.

Here’s the type of thing he writes;

“I had to attend an outpatient clinic at our local hospital today. To my surprise, it was functioning as normal. No-one was wearing a mask and there were no signs of panic or hysteria.”

This seems to be a common thread. NHS Healthcare staff do not appear to be overstretched and can indulge in behaviours like doing dance routines on Tik tok, or conga lines to ‘celebrate’ an extubation. Look, if it were an all-hands-to-the-pumps situation, would primary healthcare staff have time to indulge themselves thus? Damn straight they wouldn’t.

Then he reports on the fake news items such as;

“Sarah Montague said that all pubs and leisure facilities in cities were closed “for good”.”

No doubt with a good deal of malicious relish on her part.

I have been requested to act as a consultant in this matter to let another frustrated voice into the wild and will be acting as his right hand man on how to handle all the wonders and witlessness of online life. Which could get interesting. At least we have ensured he has a confidential email and a few layers between him and the worst of the Internet. We shall see what we shall see.

No, I’m not going to link to his output, as elder sibling has not asked me to do so. If he does I’ll think about it. Better that he develops his own community.

Yes, he too detests what the BBC has become as I too loathe the fawning arse-licking the Canadian bought and paid for mass media goes in for when it comes to Canada’s glorious leader, that neo fascist Trudeau. Yes Trudeau is a neo-fascist, his government ticks all the boxes but the military one. He cloaks his disdain for all working class northern European descended males in talk of racism and sexism, but those two sins are something Trudeau indulges in all the time. Not sure why. Perhaps he feels threatened and like so many of the middle class, suffers from a deep self-loathing and sense of inadequacy.

Good news from the UK comes via political vlogger Mahyar Tousi. With added steak. Although I think Flat-Iron steaks are much nicer than Rib-Eye. Lovely buttery texture and more flavour.

So, all the accusations leveled against the Brexiteers have come to naught. For now.

Anyway. I’ve done the shopping, fed the hummingbirds and now it’s time to get back to the day job. Sometimes the fun never starts.

Oh no!

Glanced at my stalker counter Saturday and noticed that it was showing the dreaded number ‘666’. Does this mean this blog is now demonically possessed? Oo-er matron. Or even repossessed, but we’re not there by a long chalk. We’re still working. Money is still coming in to cover the bills and we’re beholden to no-one.

Got a surprise call from my Doctors surgery to tell me that my GP has retired (Decent old boy, a bit old school, but a very good GP) and the surgery was just checking up to see if I was still breathing as according to their records I hadn’t been in for the last two years or so, which is par for the course for my family. We don’t seek help until we need it. And don’t need it very often, if at all. As evidenced by a favourite hospital anecdote of my Mother’s which I shall recount below.

My late Mother (Six years gone now, how time flies) at age 95 went to a hospital out patient appointment for cataracts. Upon arrival she was interviewed by a clipboard wielding nurse.
Nurse with Clipboard: “Can you tell me what medications you take regularly?”
Ma Sticker: “None.”
Nurse with Clipboard: “I don’t think you understand me dear. I mean’t what pills do you take every day.”
Ma Sticker: “I understood you perfectly the first time. I have no prescription medication. No regular medication.”

Good old Ma, sharp as a tack to the end when faced with condescension. We Stickers are born members of the awkward squad. Generations of us. We take nothing at face value, especially if it comes from some authority figure. No reason, apart from that they will always have an agenda we don’t share and is probably not to our benefit.

Anything else to report? Not really. Mrs S has been on a conference video calls to the distaff side of the clan talking about introversion and such. I’m writing. Just a usual weekend in fact. We even took a stroll out to a windy downtown and meandered around an almost deserted park admiring blowsy Cherry trees shaking their booty of blossom. The Cafes and restaurants that are open are all doing take-outs. We walked and talked, enjoying the sunshine and remarking what a shame it is that Canada is economically fucked. And will remain so as long as wet lefties are in power.

Maybe in contrast, demonic possession doesn’t sound so bad.

Update:
Bojo has flubbed it.

Monday is coming…

Mrs S and I were discussing this on the journey out to the accountants today. For the UK I think that the lockdown will shortly be coming to an end. Our reasons for thinking this? Bojo, the UK’s suspiciously unclownish PM is back in the saddle on Monday morning. He has to make a show that he is back in control and what better way than to take advantage of the shrinking death rate by beginning to lift the ‘stay at home’ restrictions and let certain businesses open, declaring that “Britain is back in business.”

He’s had time away from the political firing line to gather his thoughts. He’s had time to risk assess, to consider. Now he has a very small window in which to react. Seven days, tops.

If the NHS is anything like over here it’s understressed. Which is quite likely given the reports of primary health workers, including Doctors and Nurses, having time to rehearse dance routines for Tik Tok.

According to this web site, we on Vancouver Island (at the time of writing) only have one person in ICU and five hospitalised with the dreaded lurgi. Seventy one cases (81%)have registered as recovered. For the more densely populated Metro Vancouver, they have fifty in hospital and eighteen in ICU. Out of a population of two and a half million. The worst is past. See screen shot below.

He should also really let Ms Patel off the leash to discipline those Police Commissioners forcing the UK Police to do all the cringeworthy stuff they’ve been observed doing during the lockdown. Not to mention direct the courts to strike down all those quarantine tickets that were, in my view, highly counter intuitive.

We could do with something similar on this side of the pond. Break time is over. Time to get back to work. Oh, and to stop buying cheap stuff from China.

Update: Watch the video below. Yes it’s long, and Ferguson was wrong about BREXIT, something he later conceded he was wrong about. But, on this occasion I think they’re right, the sluggish big state got us into this mess, but it’s individuals and smaller, private groups that can get us out.

I disagree on how to handle ‘climate change’, but that’s another discussion.

Bak two skool

Okay, a couple of weeks of lockdown wasn’t that bad, but over a month with no real respite? Waiting for a vaccine that may be over a year in the making? That’s not a lockdown, that’s house arrest.

Time to start relaxing the restrictions. People need to work so they can pay the bills properly. The worst is over. So we have to wear masks and gloves in public places? So what? Let’s get things moving again.

I’m finally taking my own advice and am doing online courses to formalise the skill sets I otherwise use every day. At least enough to fill the unforgiving minute. That and the weather recently has been nice. So the lockdown isn’t currently that onerous, although Mrs S has vouchsafed on occasion that she is getting ‘twitchy’. A statement which immediately had me looking for my helmet and flak jacket. It got to the point where I even had to deploy Klondike Bars (Double sized choc ices for you poor deprived buggers) and extra chocolate. It’s hell in here I tell you. I found the men sir, gawd I wish I hadn’t.

Even though we mostly work from home Mrs S and I are both in sore need of a timeout. I really pity the poor sods who live on their own. Solitary confinement is really, really bad for the mind. Ordinarily sane people tend to go postal. Maybe that’s what pushed the Nova Scotia Shooter over the edge. And he’s just the first. The longer this lockdown, the more domestic disputes will begin to cross that bloody line. The damage may already be done with the fuse fizzing toward the dynamite.

For me, this weeks learning / displacement activity is taken up with numbers. Specifically accounting techniques, most of which I use every day in my day jobs. Nothing that complicated, but enough to get me a study credit or two with the Open University and a recognised certificate at the end. Given time, all these things mount up. At some stage or other I must have a tot up. I believe 300 study credits will get you a degree but I’m not absolutely sure.

I’ve got transcripts with a number of online Universities, Duke, Simon Fraser, The OU and I think there is one course from Vancouver Island or UBC which I never finished, even though I’ve never had the time and money to go to a University and get a formal, full time degree. This is not to say I haven’t physically been to a University. In various work roles over the years I have been to several UK University campuses. Even attended lectures. I’ve also sat down in the canteen of several campuses for a number of lunch times and do you know what? Not one of the snotty buggers ever bothered to talk to me. Or perhaps they didn’t want to soil their precious ickle minds by talking to one of the real workers, not the fantasy version as believed in by certain student activists and their professors. Judging from the current output from the Non-STEM courses, I think I may have dodged a bit of a bullet there. Although to be fair I do tend to try and generate a “Don’t bother me I’m busy” stasis field while I’m reading, which I so often do.

The main thing that puts me off doing a full time degree course is all the PC bullshit you have to go through to study at University nowadays. Could anyone tell me what use is a compulsory course in ‘diversity’ or pronouns for recently invented genders within the more practical disciplines of technical writing, accounting, computing, biology, medicine or engineering? Apart from worse than useless.

Universities do theory and do it well, but the problems start when bad theories collide with real life. At the beginning of my working life, when I was an apprentice engineer (My my, I have had a chequered past haven’t I?), we knew whenever we got a graduate engineer in that they were being groomed for management and had to train alongside us yokels, whose career path would be more about the actual design of things and day to day problem solving. Theirs was to be planning the projects and handling the politics. Now we seem to have progressed into some twisted Huxleyesque future where there are far too many University trained Alphas with impractical ideas.

Academia may be the place where all the wild ideas go to play, but the rest of us mere mortals could do without the crazy shit (Man made climate change, gender studies, socialism) spilling out into the real world.

We mere mortals have all got things to do and Academia and the politicians who listen to them are getting in the way.

Hi ho. Back to my study.

Never mind the NHS

Looking across the pond, I’m disturbed to see a media and government driven fetishisation of our respective health services. By that I mean;

fetishise (UK)

or American fetishize (ˈfɛtɪʃˌaɪz )
VERB
(transitive)
to be excessively or irrationally devoted to (an object, activity, etc)

Derived forms;
fetishization (ˌfetishiˈzation) or fetishisation (ˌfetishiˈsation) NOUN

Is it me or are the UK NHS, and the One size fits all Canadian Healthcare systems being subjected to an unhealthy (Anyone else get the irony?) and obsessive Greek chorus when there are other, far superior healthcare systems in the world? Frankly the whole business makes me worried. It’s obsessive and completely over the top.

The last time I felt this way about what should be quite a mundane support system, like getting your drains cleared or other bits fixed, was that frankly weird squirm-inducing dance routine dreamed up by Danny Boyle for the last UK Olympics. See video below.

Now I’ve worked for the UK NHS, and also over here as a volunteer and part time employee of the Vancouver Island Health Authority. Hospitals and health clinics to me are necessary places, but no more worthy of the hysteria currently being demonstrated than say, calling out an emergency plumber. My taxes pay for the service they provide and the best they are going to get out of me is a sincere thank you when a job is well done. Anything more strikes me as cringe-inducing and more than slightly creepy.

My approval of what medical staff do on a day to day service is no more than what is due to any other type of service provider. Their competence will engender my respect because that is earned. Respect is due for the years of training it takes to get qualified, but this placing an institution on a national pedestal is somewhat disturbing. Yes the front line individuals are doing a tough job, but it’s what they signed up for as medical professionals on their very first day of training.

There’s something strange going on. We’re being subjected to what feels like a massive snow job. I for one am very unhappy with this state of affairs. Never mind our health services, there’s something unpleasant under the surface and I’m not sure what it is, but I sure as hell don’t like it.

The dreadful algebra…

Easter weekend saw us sorting the affairs of Elderly Friend, who has moved into dependent rather than independent care. There’s tax papers to forward, furniture to dispose of. So many things she no longer needs. The care home have been very helpful while we make sure all the bills are paid, even while they’re in lockdown. Elderly Friend has a new room with a view rather than the poky place she’d been consigned to after her last bad fall. She’s happy, and has mostly forgotten about her old apartment. Give her another month or three and she’ll probably have forgotten all about us the way things are going.

Such are the pains of dealing with dementia. It’s like watching a slowly sinking ship. To extend that simile into a conceit, there’s not much else you can do apart from get the survivors off, log the wrecks location and inform Lloyds of London. Which is what we’ve been doing. Handling the details of Elderly Friend’s downsizing (Err, how much was that brand new and now it can only be thrown away?). Ensuring the equations of comfort divided by finance are kept in balance by applying the right kind of fuzzy logic.

Watching someone close to us go under like this is bloody hard on the soul, but absolutely essential work. We could just walk away of course, but that would mean someone else would take up the reins and maybe drive Elderly Friends wagon prematurely off a cliff without meaning to. So this is our burden to bear. As I’ve often said before, we’re paying off a debt of gratitude. Not to mention having to face our own dwindling prospects by reinventing ourselves, yet again. That too is a work in progress.

It’s at times like these I’m reminded of something that has been called ‘the dreadful algebra‘, which aptly describes the hard choices you sometimes have to make. For example where a loving pet has to be put down or a close relative has their life support switched off. Or to amputate a limb, perhaps your own, crushed in a rock fall or trapped in machinery. Symbolised by the mathematical function; Life >(Greater than) Death.

Sometimes it’s about letting go. Sometimes of a friendship or child because they have to walk their own path. However;

The dreadful algebra is always about hard choices.
The dreadful algebra always demands a sacrifice.
The dreadful algebra doesn’t care about your feelings.
The dreadful algebra means no more comfortable illusions.
The dreadful algebra is a calculation, and in extremis, if you guess the wrong answer for the wrong reason, or worse, not make a decision, it will kill you, and possibly a great many more around you.

Weak politicians hate it, because they’re going to have to make a considered decision and stick to it, no matter what. Decisions that may cost them votes in the short term. Decisions that may cost lives short term, but will save far more in the long.

Being a grown up sucks. So suck it up young Bill. Quit whining and get on with it.

General weirdness

Went to get a takeout this evening. Phoned in my order and turned up at the appointed time. Well, so far so good young Bill. You did something mundane. Good job, give yourself a pat on the back, go to the top of the class and jump off.

Yes, but I found the whole experience, as I remarked to Mrs S over a modest curry, somewhat surreal. Light traffic. Hardly anyone to swear at. Not to mention the oddness of wearing a surgical mask and being the only one in the queue. A simple trip to the curry house had a distinct feeling of ‘The last man on Earth‘ or ‘The Omega man‘ to it. It’s like ninety percent of the population has just gone away without leaving any bodies.

Then there’s the sudden banging of saucepans outside at around seven pm, which is one of those ‘clap for our carers’ things. And I thought, “Why clap for them? At least they’ve got jobs, and no-one is asking them to take a pay cut.” Yet we hear elsewhere in the world that they’re already lifting their lockdowns and using effective treatments tested by other nations. While our own Prime Minister openly flouts the rules the rest of us are meant to live by and tells us the lockdown will continue until a vaccine is approved. Which will take until May next year at the very least.

I know that useless part time drama teacher has to live over the shop (And 24 Sussex is a very nice shop indeed), but at least he could hold the fort and do the duty he’s paid very well for. The rest of Canada having to work away from home has to teleconference to see their families. But Trudeau the hypocrite can’t make that sacrifice, oh no. Then he has the bought and paid for sycophants of the Canadian Press running interference on his behalf. Frankly the whole spectacle is nauseating.

If only Andrew Scheer had the spine to say he’d cancel all the politically correct bullshit, he’d win the next election in a landslide. Can we send our current crop of politicians back to their makers? A lot of Canada wants to make a claim on the warranty.

I can’t win

It must be cabin fever. Mrs S has received one of those Amazon widgets that does sound and voice control. The kids bought it for her for her birthday. Personally I don’t like them. Won’t have them anywhere near me due to the well documented privacy issues. To me, they are junk that has no real facility. I call them junk because they report to outside entities, rather like Windows 10, which is a shit operating service Microsoft won’t let you control and is full of bloatware. Besides, voice control and recognition has many drawbacks. Did play around with a few voice activation programs a few years ago, but when those report outside of my control, well… ’nuff said.

Today Mrs S waved the uninstalled item at me and said that I “Won’t let her use it.”
To which I had to respond; “Use it if you like, but I want nothing to do with it.” Now guess where I ended up. Go on. Guess. All because I like to keep my personal affairs private.

So the sound on her PC is now ‘inadequate’, because she wants to fill the house with Andre Boccelli singing the Easter Mass, which is my fault apparently. Not Boccelli, but the inadequate sound. If Mrs S wants to install the wretched gadget herself, she can do it.

Not that I care much for opera. The only Opera I’ve got any time for is using it as one of the five web browsers I use on a daily basis. When it comes to some opera I’d rather saw my own head off than be exposed to it any longer than necessary. Opera as an art form is an acquired taste I have chosen not to acquire. Not surprisingly there is no opera in my music collection. There’s classical music, a lot of Prog rock and electric folk, but no opera. Okay, I’d go to a performance if the tickets were free, but only if you didn’t mind tracking where I was in the audience by my snoring.

Add to that I’ve got a minor headache and a seasonal sniffle. A sort of light echo of what Mrs S suffered the day before yesterday and shrugged off in forty eight hours. So today we took a drive out. Unlike in Ontario and New Brunswick, the RCMP here in BC have better things to do with their time than randomly stopping people and demanding to know where they’re going, or if they’ve been buying stuff the prodnoses disapprove of. It was just a nice day for a drive, even if there was nowhere to go.

We have officially been in self imposed lockdown since 10th March. When the panicking is all over I am going to have the mother and father of all timeouts.

Deeply sorry to hear about Tim Brooke Taylor, comic actor who made the nation laugh in shows like I’m sorry I’ll read that again, At last the 1948 show, The Goodies and many more. The man was a national treasure, but now we have to bury him. He’d probably have enjoyed that gag.

Bugger.

Mutatis mutandis

Was just browsing the science sources and a recent paper flagged up on my radar. Fun fact; did you know there are three variants of Covid-19? I didn’t, until a short while ago. Variant A is the original ‘Bat’ flu. Variant B, found in Wubei, mainly affects Chinese Asian people. Variant C is now endemic in the West.

Researchers have also documented 10 mutations in the viral journey from Wuhan to Mexico for example. So not only is the Wu-flu contagious, but it’s out in the wild and mutating now. This is not the change that was sought, surely?

Oh whoopee.

So tell me again, why are we still allowing flights out of China to land in the West?

Good news

Mrs S was a little unwell yesterday, which gave me cause for concern. A little photophobia, headache and elevated temperature, which has now passed. Being the worry-guts that I am I sat up for quite a while last night before taking to my bed in the spare room. She’s a little tired this morning, so I shall, like the good family guard dog that I am, remain on alert. However, her symptoms have eased. She is feeling much better and currently on a conference call to her sisters and our girls, which is good news.

I hear Bojo, the UK’s suspiciously unclownish Prime Minister is on the mend. Which is also good news. The Pound is up a couple of points on the news and will grow stronger with him. Not sure whether he’s out of hospital to recuperate at Chequers or not. I think as a whole there will be a large but unheard sigh of relief when he’s well enough to be back at the helm. Bojo is in some ways, whether he likes it or not, a symbol, a symptom even of the UK’s post-Brexit health. He’s pulling through and as he does, so will the UK. This is an unusual phenomenon, but nonetheless a welcome one.

What I find a little hard to fathom is the spite and bile for Bojo’s recovery in the FT’s comments section and elsewhere. People wishing him dead or worse. Banging on about his ‘privilege’ and that he’s been taking up a ventilator that should have been reserved for someone else. Who ‘someone else’ should be these people never specify. But heavens to Murgatroyd me ol’ beauties, he’s the UK’s Prime Minister, with one of the largest parliamentary majorities in living memory. Of course he’s in a ‘privileged position’. Would these people expect their favourite politician to sit in a queue with the rest of us plebs, coughing and choking our way to eternity? Don’t be ridiculous.

If Keir Starmer, Nicola Sturgeon and Sadiq Khan et al (All people who in my view need a personality transplant – only the personality might reject them) were to be so afflicted would I wish them dead or at the back of the queue? No. We should be better than that. Obviously there are those who aren’t. Probably rump remoaners still in denial over Brexit and the inevitable slow motion implosion of the EU.

Like it or not, MP’s have their privileges because they are in a position of responsibility. Their job is to debate and discuss the law under which people live, unless of course local PCC commissioners are making law up on the fly, telling their officers to order people in their own gardens indoors and harassing people who are observing social distancing rules while walking the dog or searching their shopping for ‘non-essentials’.

With the responsibility for the nation as a whole, the job of Prime or government minister comes with a few perks, like getting immediate medical treatment when they need it. So Bojo got rushed into hospital after trying to tough it out. He got oxygen therapy when he needed it. He probably got a secure private room and ICU unit to himself because of all these remoaners wishing him dead. Because it’s not unknown for some crazy to take a dislike to someone over their politics and interfere with their treatment. Why isn’t he in with the general run of patients? Because of the remoaners who are so pissed that they’ve lost the Brexit debate (and their reason) so hard that they would lower themselves to cold blooded murder. As if that would fix anything. Which it wouldn’t.

There are far too many small minds. No wonder most of our little clan left the UK. Personally if I saw someone breaking restrictions, would I rat them out to the cops? Probably not unless they posed a real (Not an imagined or existential) danger to me and mine. If they were having a party I wouldn’t say a dickie bird so long as it shut down by 11pm and allowed everyone else to get some shut eye. If their guests caught the lurgi, that would be a consequence of their actions and nothing to do with me. If they end up on a ventilator, again, not my problem.

The curve of Covid-19 infections is beginning to flatten. Although the grim reapers scythe is swinging with a terrible rhythm of its own and there often seems no rhyme or reason to it. Two more weeks of high death rates are likely. However, I think for the UK the worst has passed. Here in Canada, because of the dithering from Ottawa, our worst is yet to come.

Anyway, the US markets are picking up and I will be checking my financial reports with a less heavy heart than last month. The shares I bought at bargain basement prices have already netted a 25% gain with another 220% to go before they reach their previous median price. So after a few fretful nights I’m feeling a little easier in my mind. We’re not out of the woods yet, but the worst I feel is over.

Hopefully this temporary downturn should begin to resolve shortly, then heads begin to poke out of foxholes and look around at this new world. One less reliant upon the totalitarianism of China. Maybe wondering loudly how necessary the worst aspects of this lockdown are. Like our four legged friend below.

Come on you no hopers

This little number from 2010 has a great deal of synergy in the Sticker household at present. Particularly the line “We’re on the road to nowhere, let’s find out where it goes.”

Our main place of work is doing a prolonged shutdown over Easter, there’s bugger all else happening, so Mrs S and I are GTFO’ing in the car for a while today. Just for a change of scenery. Not stopping anywhere except maybe for gas or a drive through. If we are stopped and asked where we are going, the answer will be; “Not a clue. Why are you breaking quarantine to ask us?”

If further questioned upon the necessity for such a journey I will simply state that our trip is essential. Essential, that is, for our mental well being. And we are not breaking quarantine because we are self isolating within our vehicle. We’ve been in self imposed isolation for a month now and we’re having a very necessary day out. So there.

The world is crazy enough at present, and I think two (Slightly) less crazy people may not make any difference in the greater scheme of things, but it will certainly improve the quality of our lives.

Either that or it’s stay home and shout at the migrating Turkey Buzzards using our roof as a convenient rest area. Nasty, ugly things.

Ants in my pantry

Being a moderate cook I try and keep a pretty tidy kitchen. A place for everything and (Mostly) everything in it’s place. I look at it this way. A kitchen is like a workshop. Keep it tidy and you’ll never lose anything or trip and fall flat on your stupid face. I may have a stupid face, but I do my best not to make it look any more stupid than it can possibly be. So I try and keep work surfaces clear and as clean as is practicable, so no-one gets food poisoning.

So imagine my shock when I picked up a packet of sugar today to make some feed for the Hummingbirds and half a dozen tiny ants dropped off it. Bloody things. I paid for that sugar, these freeloading bastards didn’t, so out comes the ant killer and I busy myself emptying all the cupboards and evicting the squatters. Thoroughly spray empty cupboards and leave the powder down for an hour before hoovering the excess up and giving the cupboards a proper clean with antiseptic wipe downs of everything before the dry goods and cans go back in.

The ants are now history. Until they establish a new run. But I’ll be ready for them.

We currently rent our Canadian domicile, choosing not to buy a house over here, but if it were down to me I would be getting pest control in to fumigate the place while we take a hike out for the week to fresher pastures. Unfortunately due to the current lockdown that isn’t going to happen for a while. So we do the best we can with the resources available.

Frankly the end of this quarantine can’t come too soon as Mrs S has decided I need a haircut. She’s got out my old trimmer kit and has, how can I put this? A slightly malicious twinkle in her eye. I think I should be afraid. Very afraid. I think she’s going to go all Wednesday Addams on me.

No, seriously, despite everything Mrs S and I are still getting on like the proverbial house on fire. You know what I mean; screams, sirens, collapsing buildings and a lot of curious onlookers wondering when the bodies are going to be brought out.

This is my life, such as it is. It’ll have to do until something better comes along.

Bring on the dancing monkeys

I really am going to ditch my FT subscription. The financial information I need to keep ahead of the curve is currently too often buried by a great steaming heap of poorly informed, but very well written op-eds. As for the rest of the press, I’m more inclined to read the National Enquirer or Fortean Times for serious information at the moment. Dear me. The BBC is a joke. The Times and Telegraph aren’t much better than the Wail. The Guardian is full of clickbait op-eds. CNN, MSNBC etc are too busy taking pot shots at Trump. The main Canadian media channels are bought and paid for by our taxes, so they’re little better than trolls or bots. When it comes to real news it’s like the western mass media is in some alternate reality.

Listening to a Q & A session from 10 Downing Street and later another from the White House, I was struck by ‘Journalists’ attempts to finger point and assign blame rather than dig out the real numbers, which is where any worthwhile information resides. It seems that we are poorly served by our mass media, who currently resemble a crowd of dancing monkeys, each desperate for their moment to please and garner a few pennies in their cap whilst delivering nothing of real value.

Then there are desperate for attention ‘celebrities’, virtue signalling and lecturing the rest of us from their fan bases without actually helping out. Some preferring to sing that idiotic Lennon song ‘Imagine’ on a YouTube video, pretending to show us mere mortals that they ‘care’ (Yeah, right). Lennon’s tune is a pleasant enough sequence of notes, but otherwise completely vacuous. It really is like being lectured at and talked down to. And I for one don’t care about air head ‘celebrity’ politics or morals because both derive from a moral vacuum. They can roll around in a cloud of cocaine until their noses rot and bugger each other senseless as far as I’m concerned, but so long as it happens behind closed doors and I’m not expected to like or pay for it, have fun guys.

By way of contrast, might I point to the example of James McAvoy, actor, who has donated GBP 275,000 of his own money to an organisation equipping NHS frontline staff with masks, then rolling up his sleeves and volunteering. Much Kudos and respect to that man. It’s his money. Besides, volunteering will get him an excuse to be out of the house with something worthwhile to do whilst this emergency is on. The fact that such a donation will also be tax-deductible is fine by me.

Speaking of tax, my bill has almost tripled this year, which I’m not totally ecstatic about. This is because Mrs S and I made quite a bit on investments in the last tax year. Unfortunately much of these profits have since evaporated in the current economic downturn. So effectively we’re back where we started at the end of last year. Notwithstanding, I’ve still got my ‘walkaway money’ and our investments will recover, but in the meantime the taxman takes his bite regardless, so I’m down. Significantly. Even though I’ll make it all back and then some in the next 6-12 months.

Nobody likes losing money through no fault of their own, least of all me. But here we are.

Little Blackface needs our money to buy that seat on the UN Security council. Although with the (local) price of gasoline down to under a dollar a litre at present, which is about 56p / litre! You heard me, Fifty six pence per litre, he might have to wait a while for that extra carbon tax money. For example, up province in Prince George, the price of 87 octane has dropped to under seventy five cents a litre, which translates at current exchange rates at 43p GBP (forty three pence) per litre, although I’m not driving that far for cheap gas. By comparison, in December 2019 we were paying 1.40 a litre (80p / litre). All I have to say is, long may the Russo-Saudi oil price war continue. That price war, more than the Wu-flu or mishandling rail blockades by NGO’s posing as First Nations could well be the deciding factor in Trudeau’s well deserved downfall.

Although you’ll never hear that from most of the bought and paid for dancing monkeys. Never mind about the Wu-flu plague.

Quick financial tip; watch for a series of possible (Probable) sovereign debt defaults by certain African nations. They’re deeply in hock to the Chinese and European banks who are all over extended in that region. That is where the next financial crisis will be coming from.

As for the reports of China ‘opening up’ and coming out of lockdown, the Indian English language site video below paints a very different picture. Even if it is someone else’s propaganda.

(Watch this space. Someone is playing silly buggers with YouTube shares – fixing)

Another day

Elderly friend is phoning us at least six times a day from her care home bed, she’s fretting over trivialities because she’s got nothing better to do. Contrariwise I hear Bojo, the UK’s suspiciously unclownish PM has been admitted to hospital and thence ICU. Hope it’s for a treatment that works. I may not like absolutely everything he’s done, but he’s a lot better than many alternatives. That said, he’s in for a rough ride. Good luck to him. Looks like he’ll be hors de combat for the next week or two.

We’re okay. Just hunkering down and weathering the storm like any sensible people. We get out on the deck whenever the sun shines and work allows. I’ve had a minor morning cough, but nothing much. Just a seasonal snotty nose. No other symptoms. Mrs S says I need a haircut because I’m looking a bit shaggy around the edges and has threatened to stake me out on the lawn while she gives me a quick run over with the lawnmower. Unfortunately all the local barbers are shut, so it may well come to that. Am I afraid? Good God yes.

Out in the neighbourhood, every day looks like Sunday. It all looks so peaceful. Neighbours doing chores, mowing lawns, fixing odd bits and pieces, cutting wood. We’ve even sighted a couple of the older deer looking a bit unkempt, but the usual bucks, fawns and yearlings are conspicuous by their absence.

Oh well, another day, another crisis, another fix. This afternoon I was playing around with four man sized Kleenex, a bit of plastic packaging wire, some sellotape and a little twine. Result; twenty minutes later one perfectly adequate limited-use four layer pleated face mask. Not up to Operating Theatre or Intensive Care Unit standard, but good enough to keep the worst of the dreaded lurgi contained or at bay when out and about or in a shop. And comfortable enough to wear for a couple of hours.

Talking of the dreaded lurgi, a clue has surfaced regarding misleading Covid-19 figures from China. Now cell phones are used for everything over there. Even small transactions. Apparently even the smallest street vendor uses them. This being the case, a stat poked it’s head above the parapet recently saying that twenty one million cell phones have gone inactive in mainland China over the last three months.

Now AP says that this is a bit of fake news as it’s all about cell phone users with multiple accounts cancelling unwanted phone plans. Which on the surface makes perfect sense. Okay, it’s rather a lot to happen all in a relatively short time frame, but it’s probably mostly down to their travel ban. People are obviously rationalising multiple SIMs and cell phone accounts, but still, that’s a very high figure. We don’t cancel our phone SIMs just because we’ve had to miss a trip. What is actually interesting is that a total of 840,000 landlines went dead in the very same period. Which is also, upon first examination, a high figure. I have no idea what the usual phone line turnover is, so cannot draw any solid conclusions.

However, other news keeps popping up about mass deliveries of cremation urns being delivered within China, which look, and I’m choosing my words with caution here, look like there are a lot more deaths than official figures would indicate. Then there are the people who are just dropping off the grid in mainland China. The usual crop of dissidents, but still, it’s a lot more than would be expected, so maybe a fraction of those dead cell phone and landline accounts reflect a higher death count than we’re being told. It’s hard to make an assessment with such limited information but enough to flag up on the old bullshit detectors.

What might be useful, as a way of compiling a predictive model, is to reverse engineer the Covid-19 stats from Northern Italy which would give a better idea of what is happening behind the bamboo curtain and great firewall of China. Not that it matters. No doubt the Chinese Communist leadership will be reaping the gales of wrath behind their polite smiles in the very near future, as voices are already calling for a boycott on anything made in the PRC.

For my own part I’m watching the disease stats closely, as they may well impact the travel plans we have for September. We may even need some kind of permit to travel involving getting some sort of ‘we’re immune’ documentation that is recognised on both sides of the pond. That will be when the restrictions are lifted and a decent antigen test becomes available, not those shoddy ones currently emanating from mainland China.

All this and spring rolls too

While we’re closeted away, amongst all the other stuff I’m getting up to is that I’m trying to expand my culinary catalogue. I can produce a reasonable facsimile of special fried rice, Cantonese style, but last night I was handed the following challenge by Mrs S; Szechwan style fried rice.

First try was a bit hit and miss as I had to adapt and improvise on ingredients, however, throwing in a little handful of fried chicken and fudging my ingredients a bit of a with powdered Ginger and chili flakes actually brought forth a reasonable result. Add some store bought vegetable spring rolls and the final result was quite acceptable. A nice amount of heat in the mouth without searing the old vocal cords. I’ll post the recipe when I have had more practice and my results are consistent.

While I’m on the topic of diet, rummaging through memories of decades old (Some out of date, some not) training, there is a well founded school of thought out there that a healthy diet helps the immune system fight off infection. Foods rich in vitamin D and Zinc are good against the viruses that result in colds and flu. So if you partake of Oysters, Lobster or red meat once a week, your cellular zinc should be high enough to help fight off the worst of anything. For vegetarians, beans and pulses are modestly endowed with the necessary, as are mushrooms and spinach but supplements like cod liver oil and vitamin D2 or D3 (D2 is plant based, D3 animal based) will be needed. But as Vitamin D is a ‘fat soluble’ vitamin, a low fat diet may not be such a good idea in the face of a pandemic. As is covering up on a sunny day. Vitamin D is essential to a healthy immune system. Without enough of either you’re more likely to be a candidate for a ventilator.

Note to the dense; licking things made of zinc is not a good idea to get your Recommended Daily Allowance. Firstly, it’s the wrong kind of zinc, like fish tank cleaner isn’t pharmaceutical grade anti-viral chloraquine, and secondly, dietary zinc in foods needs to be bound to specific molecules within those foods which your digestive system has evolved to process. Which is why you are only supposed to take these supplements with food. So directly trying to ingest metallic zinc won’t work, and heavy metal poisoning is no laughing matter.

Side note; dietary advice from anyone who uses the word ‘veggies’ instead of ‘vegetables’ should automatically be considered suspect. It’s soft language used to cover up a lack of ability and sophistication and is so far from cool it could be considered as the real cause of the minor increase of global temperature we’re constantly harangued about that is going to drown everybody and is all our fault. At least according to people who have more than three houses each and fly everywhere on private jets without ever having done a proper job in the real world.

Candidly, baby talk should be reserved for babies and Mumsnet. Anyone using such regressive speech to grown ups needs to take and pass a proper course in English. That and be tested for schizophrenia.

Explanation; ‘veggies’ is a classic neologism and such neologisms are symptomatic of low grade hebephrenia, a type of schizophrenia or may even be a precursor to dementia. Some authorities even say that ‘precursor to’ may not be the right term and would substitute ‘symptomatic of’.

Communications wise, the world and his wife are currently bombarding us with nauseating saccharine email messages about the dreaded Wu-flu, assuring us that their services will not be affected and that they ‘care’ about us deeply. Everyone has ‘resources to support you’ which turn out to be not much different to the usual online services I use on a day to day basis. I blame the parents of people who grew up watching the Tellytubies and Care Bears pap on TV. Which makes me convinced too much TV negatively affects brain development in infants.

These spammy emails and messages are actually beginning to get rather tiresome and intrusive. Yes, fine. We’re in bloody lockdown and honestly we don’t need anyone’s ‘help’, which is only a thinly disguised marketing ploy anyway. We’re grown ups who have crossed continents and only require that anyone we pay for a service does what they contract to do. Yes, I’m cynical, but my experiences have made me so.

That and it’s tax paying time. Because we did so well last year, my tax bill has almost tripled. Unfortunately for me, all the gains I made last year have just been wiped out, so I’ll have to dig into my savings, my ‘walkaway money’ as Mrs S likes to call it to pay. Which some call ‘rainy day money’ – and boy is it pouring right now. It’s also been real four season weather outside. Snow, hail, wind, then sunshine. In other words, Spring.

Maybe Spring will mean the collapse of the Trudeau government and it’s complete ineptness in the face of two crises (in 2020 alone!) so we can get someone in who will stop being such a muppet and be half way economically sensible. I live in hope. But I’m not holding my breath.

Another observation; our local deer population has not been seen for over four weeks. Normally they’re snacking on everything with a flower on it. Are they packing someone’s freezer somewhere? Not that I care, our garden is not being denuded as it usually is by the freeloading little sods.

Speaking of gardens, our daffs are starting to fade but my tulips are coming on strong and buds everywhere are beginning to break. We’ll survive.

Update:
Read the abstract on this 2015 paper on immunology. It confirms that proper nutrition can help resist viral infections.