Ch-ch-ch changes

Today’s bitch is about being at the beck and call it seems of everyone but us. We’re trying to arrange visitors for Elderly Friend, who is ever more confused and vulnerable. She is well cared for, but we’re constrained by this godawful lockdown and our own moving schedule, yet those who have leisure time to assist, well, ‘crickets’ from them.

Landlord is popping in and out doing minor bits of maintenance for the next tenants and caught me with my head and shoulders inside the oven. Being an expat Brit, he made the traditional joke “Don’t do it Bill!” as he passed by. It’s not even a gas oven, but someone has to clean it, and guess whose turn it is in the barrel? Got it in one.

Then our logistics company called and asked if the export packing crew could arrive early, one extra day early in fact. Which means we’re going to be sitting on boxes in an empty house watching Amazon Prime on our computers for twenty four hours longer than necessary. However, if the kit gets shifted early I’m okay with that. It won’t affect what we’re paying as they’ve told us not to downsize any more because there’s no further cost benefit to be had. We’ve also still got some old stuff to shift, but most of that will go to the charity stores on Wednesday or Friday after the shifting crew has gone.

In the latest development over these lockdowns I see that the CCP is ‘vaccinating’ their citizens without the completion of proper clinical trials. Which is rather a cynical mass experiment the Chinese may well pay for. The H1N1 vaccine was rushed out like this to health service workers, resulting in a number of issues like Guillain-Barré Syndrome. Short to medium term respiratory disease vs long-term neurological illness? Dealers choice. I don’t want to be a guinea pig.

Coronaviruses like influenza seem to have a similar mortality to SARS?COV-2. Which is not surprising, they’re all from the same family. That said, the mortality figures for this novel coronavirus are slightly higher than common seasonal influenza, but not by much. This is not the black death, as I have said several times. It’s more like the Hong Kong flu of 1969 or the Asian flu of 1957, or of the 2010 ‘Swine Flu’ which we never shut our economies down for. My major concern is that some moronic panicking politician will lock us down yet again before we can get to the bloody airport. As for making a half-ready ‘vaccine’ mandatory? I say; fuck off and let those who want to get back to their lives.

I’ll breathe properly again when we hit dirtside at our destination.

Trust and the NHS

Getting ready for the movers at the end of the week and I Just saw a report about Do Not Resuscitate orders being applied by NHS and care home staff which caught me off guard. My first reaction was a bit of a double take. This is the National Health Service that the UK is supposed to ‘thank’ yet is is carrying out what appears to be a campaign of euthanasia during the SARS/COV-2 pandemic?

Bloody hell, there’s a spur to get private health insurance and no mistake.

First reports started filtering through in April and the situation is ongoing. Care home patients over 65 (and younger) have allegedly been issued with DNR’s without discussion or consultation which is bizarre. A DNR is a voluntary legal agreement, a waiver saying that if the patient suffers from a crisis where breathing or the heart heart is compromised and CPR may be required, life saving treatments will be withheld. See this RT report below.

Being a power of attorney means you have to keep up with this sort of thing and ensure that all is legal and above board. For example, Elderly Friend has a DNR. Not that Canadian medics have paid much attention to it, on one signal occasion they just pitched in and kept her going. More recently, Elderly Friend has had yet another series of falls and we think she’s on the final stretch, Funerals always cast a long shadow and I can feel the darkness creeping up on us. We just hope it’s peaceful.

However, if you have the misfortune to live in certain areas of the UK and an unpleasant rumour has it, have a lighter skin colour, bad luck.

There is something legally very dubious about these reports and it mainly concerns consent. My understanding of the law is that a DNR is a legally framed request by the patient (no-one else) not to resuscitate. A completely voluntary agreement with the patients witting consent. A DNR has to be signed by the patient and countersigned by their POA or next of kin if necessary, to be valid. Otherwise deliberately withholding treatment could be construed as criminal. That part of the law is a necessary safeguard to prevent some ideologically minded sociopath who has weaseled their way into the NHS from doing a Shipman or Munchhausen by proxy on their patients. Medical and care home staff are not allowed to play God or they can be charged with manslaughter or even murder.

Having worked in the UK NHS, the law on consent was drilled into us during training. Treatment beyond that necessary to maintain life, needs consent and DNR’s cannot be imposed because treatments have to be agreed. If this imposed DNR rule is true and is a top down imposed ‘guideline’ from NHS management then those responsible for drafting said policies needs to be held to account. Hanging upside down in the scorpion pit if necessary.

There’s far too much of this ‘implied consent’ business going on in the UK, which makes me pretty leery about spending any prolonged time there. If I was a UK resident I’d opt out of the organ donation side of things as well but I can’t even though I’m a UK passport holder. No UK address you see.

There’s much talk about the NHS being the ‘envy of the world’, which upon examination is just so much propaganda. To be even more blunt, complete bollocks. Canada and the USA, where medical treatment is superior to the UK, make exactly the same claims. The US believes their system is best because you pay for your treatment (or at least your health insurance does) and US doctors are, in my experience generally pretty good, as is their dentistry. North American dentistry I know from experience, is light years better than the UK.

As for being any good, globally the UK NHS trails way behind Taiwan, South Korea, France and Japan. So, the NHS is the ‘best in the world’? Cobblers.

Unafraid

Thinking about what I’m about to do in the next few weeks, specifically change continents for the second time in a lifetime, I must confess to being a little stressed, but that stress is all about the small stuff. Things like; can I get to the airport on time, have I packed enough stuff in my carry on for comfort during travel, have I remembered to keep the myriad details of my life up to date so that we can pass untroubled? Is the last meter reading correct? Is the gas off? Are all the forms filled in properly? Hundreds of tiny details. But I’m not stressed about our destination or what we’ll be doing when we get there because we have a plan. A good plan. A workable plan. And I am not afraid.

I’m not afraid of this Pandemic nor of of man made climate change, or any of the other imagined crises the mass media likes to afflict us with. They’re coming across more like conspiracy theorists than the stereotypical tinfoil hat wearer bundled up in a slept-in parka raving about 5G and Chemtrails. Much of the mainstream news, with a little simple research, can be dismissed wholesale. Especially the more notoriously partisan outlets. I say; if the money ain’t moving it probably isn’t anything to fret about. It’s just drama for drama’s sake.

As for Neil Ferguson, the progenitor of the worst possible case pandemic scenario, a little bird tells me that he is heavily invested in one of the companies in the rush to produce a ‘vaccine’ for SARS/COV-2. Mm-hm, money followed and look where it leads.

Yes there are potential risks to our venture, but most of those come from over-zealous enforcement of rules made by badly advised and panicking politicians. I can deal with those by moving purposefully with the right papers in hand, having my lawyers on speed dial and paying the barest lip service to the many counter-intuitive restrictions. So I’m not scared. Exasperated probably, annoyed possibly, mildly worried, frustrated and even angry about the lack of cognition among the greater public perhaps, but frightened? Nah.

Yet I’m definitely not fearless. I actually like and respect fear. Fear is useful because the experience gives you options. It can also be a spur to action rather than make you freeze like a rabbit in the headlights. However, caution is usually a good idea when dealing with the unknown. Now the evidence is out there that this virus is a known risk and the raw numbers say it is a minuscule risk. Ergo fear at this juncture is not warranted.

I’m not afraid because I have learned that fear always makes things worse. All that screaming and shouting is so counter-productive when actions are more important. I swear, my last words on this earth will probably be something like “Oh fuck.” cursing myself for not being vigilant enough. Besides, I’ve spent a good deal of my existence fixing other people’s screw ups, as well as a number of my own. So being familiar with various minor disasters, conflict resolution gets to be second nature and all the drama others like to generate around their pointless little lives just triggers my eye-rolling reflex. Calm, I have learned, can fix almost anything. Calm lets you think, assess the true risks while everyone else is running about like headless chickens getting in the way. Panic makes you witless and prone to screwing up even further. Yes, I’m a member of the awkward squad, so what?

By way of illustration about my membership of the awkward squad, may I recite the following anecdotes; I got kicked out of the Boy Scouts and much to my families endless entertainment and embarrassment, Kindergarten. Bill, you got kicked out of kindergarten? Yes I did because someone’s little darling tried to push me around and I wasn’t in the mood. On my second day no less. Ma turned up and was visibly upset at me being asked to leave. I think there was something about a bloody nose somewhere in the mix, but it’s too long ago and I don’t remember. Honestly officer, I din’t do nuffin.

And I’m willing to bet there are a whole lot of other people out there who aren’t really afraid of this stupid mass panic either. They’re confused by all the craziness pushed by the dramatising, click hungry media, angry even, as am I. But afraid? No.

It’s not difficult to be unafraid. All you have to do is adjust your attitude to risk. Not to be fearful simply because someone tells you to be. Learn to accept the inevitability of pain, which is rarely so bad as imagined. I have old injuries that hurt all the time and slow me down a bit. However I have learned that fear only makes pain seem worse. Physical pain is a whole lot easier to handle than fear. I speak from raw experience.

The people pushing this endless fear need a good stinging slap in the face or two, just to let them know. Yes, you Piers Morgan, you media whore, we’re looking at you. Go to the top of the class and do a header into the playground. I promise not to cheer, much.

We need aliens

Mrs S and I were discussing the current government caused coronacrisis yesterday as the rain fell and a thought popped into my head. “What we need. Really need right this minute.” I declaimed. “Is a bloody great flying saucer landing in every capital city on the planet. We need aliens. It would take everyone’s mind off this stupid panic.”

Mrs S started to laugh, then her expression changed. “That’s not such a bad idea Bill.” She replied. “But it’s hardly likely.”
“A man can dream can’t he?” I said, staring gloomily at the trees. At that moment I would have shaken tentacular appendages with whatever life form who wanted to say drop by and say / squeak / whatever hello.

Does anyone else feel this way about lockdown and this belated and unnecessary mask policy? We really need a real-life, no shit Sherlock event to wake people up from their blind compliance. A few starships dropping off tourists to visit our blue green marble might be just the societal kick up the arse everyone needs right now. Arecibo is off line at the moment, so they could probably sneak right on by and drop in for tea / beverage of choice.

If any non-humans from beyond our solar system are reading a translation of this text, don’t be shy. Come on down and just remove the uncertainty. Give our politicians something to really think about. Phasers or whatever energy weapons you have need not be set to stun when you meet them.

No alien civilisations were harmed in the writing of this blog post.

As long as they don’t kill the Dukes

Had an entertaining weekend. Brother in law was spouting off CNN talking points and I was having fun shooting them down, which seemed to annoy him somewhat when I pointed out the glaring idiocy in them. Either he enjoys being beaten over the head with verifiable facts or he was doing it just to have something to say. Come Saturday evening he was tacitly accusing me of being a ‘know it all’ which I am not. I freely acknowledge that there are vast gaps in my knowledge, but I also know when some bugger is taking the piss.

When I was a boy, elder sibling handed me a book about Victorians and the expansion of railways. Specifically “Taken for a ride” by Ivor Smullen, a well-researched volume including Punch cartoons from that era. From references within I remember it was said to be a common music hall saying that “as long as they don’t kill the Dukes” (Pages 109, 111, 129) nothing would change or improve.

Now, in the depths of a Government created crisis, egged on by a plethora of NGO’s with their own sinister agendas, Western civil society has suffered massive social damage. Some of these NGO’s with the ear of big Government, are driven by agendas completely horrific in their magnitude, we’re looking at you Bill and Melinda Gates, you and all your elitist fellow travelers.

It often astonishes me that a good number of NGO’s funded by such people openly campaign for a depopulation of the world from 7.7 Billion to a ‘sustainable’ 500 million. That means Gates et al want to murder 7.2 Billion people. And these people’s NGO’s are advising governments? He asked in astonished tones. This is the object of this farcical ‘Green new deal’? Because the ‘Green new deal’ is a black comedy of such inimical intent that any proponent should stand trial in the court of human rights for crimes against humanity.

As Leg-Iron so eloquently points out in this blog post, it won’t be the people who are at the top of this tree of terrorism, because that is what it is, who will suffer. The proposed ‘Green new deal’ is a gross act of terror against the general population and should be treated as such. To be honest the aims of this horrific public policy makes those two twentieth century monsters, Stalin and Hitler, look like mere pikers by comparison. They only managed to deplete their respective populations by a mere hundred million (A shade under 4% of world population at the time). Which is barely a scratch compared to the proposed slaughter total of 7,200,000,000 (93.5%).

So; who gets to live, and who chooses those who will die? Well I’m pretty sure me and those like me are going to end up in a mass grave if these Green new dealers have their way. Our entire families wiped out of course, root and branch to the third generation. All on the back of some seriously shonky ‘science’. Because of the unhinged delusion that man is a cancer on the earth and crazed billionaires think the world will look better without the greater bulk of humanity.

Oh we’ll all be offed ‘humanely’ no doubt, by injections posing as vaccines or some other excuse. Even so, many of us won’t die conveniently and will have to be disposed of by a bullet to the back of the head or starvation in some gulag. Then all the executioners will have to be disposed of. And their families. And what few friends, if any, they managed to accrue.

This proposed mass slaughter is to ‘save the planet’, so we are told. To which I would ask; for whom are we ‘saving the planet’? Not me, nor probably you dear reader. According to the supporters of this philosophy, our fate and over ninety three percent of all human life on the planet, over ninety three people out of every hundred of every race or creed are for the chop. Think about that for a second or two. Say if you have a hundred friends and relatives, ninety three or four of them will end up pushing up the daisies to ‘save the planet’. Not for their own kin but for people like Bill Gates’ family and all the other über-rich psychopaths out there. Most of the surviving 6.5% will end up as serfs, their whole lives regulated without remission. That’s what the ‘green new deal’ has in store for them.

And that’s not just the ‘old folk’ who children are being propagandised into considering worthless, but a good deal of those children too. Again, I ask you to contemplate the horror of empty street after empty street, the echoes of life causing spectral ripples on the air. UK towns like Manchester or Birmingham with only half a dozen or so inhabitants living in each street. Cities like New York reduced to hollow parodies of themselves. A terrifying silence, airbrushed by an eternal wind would echo across an empty land. Modest UK market towns with populations of around 30,000 would shrink to the size of large villages and most villages all over the UK would simply cease to exist. London would revert to early 1800’s population levels of just under a million. The UK (Including Scotland) would be reduced to a population of less than 4,5000,000 (Half the current population of London), Canada from 40,000,000 to 2,600,000 and the USA from 306,000,000 to under 20,000,000.

Once useful farmland would rapidly be covered in weed and scrub, forest fires run unchecked because there aren’t enough people left in any given area to put them out. Crumbling infrastructure, a world of desolation, deserta est. And not enough people to support the technology to keep it going.

Not enough people Bill? Pish and fiddle-faddle. As my brother in law might infer. Sorry chaps, but there’s an old adage which goes like this; “It takes fifty with their feet on the ground to keep one with his head in the air”. If you think how many Engineers capable of putting a satellite into orbit it takes to provide GPS etc for our elite few to lord it over the remaining serfs, who also have to provide cleaning and gardening staff for their palatial homes, then a global population of under 500,000,000 is way too low a figure. At those population levels, the knowledge to keep the elites of a civilisation in the style to which they wish to become accustomed will dwindle over as little as fifty years and begin to die.

As Leggy so rightly points out, I don’t think this grand plan from the NGO’s is going to work either. But that won’t stop the nutters trying.

Afterthought: Just occurred to me that these billionaire-funded NGO’s all claim in some way they are only trying to ‘save the world’. But what if the world just needs saving from them?

Withdrawal symptoms

Bloody hell. I only sold the car the other day and I’m already in withdrawal. Mostly because I tried to use the public transport today.

This was a major error in judgement on my part. I should have taken a taxi. I can afford it, it would have gotten me from A to B and back again in good time, but instead I spent over four hours sitting and standing at sodding bus stops. What would normally have been a one hour minor chore turned into a five and a half hour slice of moderate purgatory. It was also a reminder that I suffer from a dose of misanthropy, kind of. One one leg of my four part journey I fell in with reasonable company who conversed with me about travel, on another, two shit-talking wasters were trying to bullshit each other to death. Tediously. Interminably. Blaming everyone for their problems apart from themselves.

I have another such errand to run on Friday. But I will definitely be calling a cab and paying for the privilege. Time is money. You forget that until you have to rely on public transport. Especially out here in the ‘burbs.

Hitchens has it

Hitchens is right. Masks are useless in this stage of the pandemic. There, I’ve said it (Repeatedly). SARS/COV-2 (Covid-19) has already passed through the available population. With a few isolated exemptions, the death count is minuscule even though case numbers are up, due to increased, and some would say, less than accurate testing. Herd immunity has more or less been achieved, apart from a few places where nature has not been allowed to run it’s course. The numbers do not lie.

Wall street is back on the up, we had an investment meeting today with our broker, and the ‘losses’ we sustained in March to July have dropped from fifty thousand dollars to less than twenty, the pound is up (at the time of writing) three to four cents against the Canadian Dollar, more against the Euro. So, things are improving. If only various governments could lift these pointless lockdowns they’d get better way faster. The money could then flow properly again, creating more and better jobs.

The Euro, without Sterling to use as a cash cow, is going to take a massive hit, possibly even collapse by the end of the year, maybe February 2021. But unless the lockdown is ended soon, most of the other western economies will take yet another, and possibly way bigger hit when the bill for these unnecessary restrictions kicks in some time in 2021.

So we’re shifting our investment portfolio around to ensure we don’t lose everything when the bill for this pandemic comes due. We’ll make all our Government lockdown mandated losses back by mid next year at this rate, but we’ll also have a better idea where the next major financial shock is coming from. Probably because of well meaning but completely economically clueless politicians, but hey, but what’s new?

Bugger

Never met the man, but he was part of the Scriblerus group, so a quick Atque in perpetuum, frāter, avē atque valē to Raedwald, a blogger I often read, but rarely commented at. I had no idea he was that ill.

Always well-informed and even erudite, Mike (His real name) leaves us the poorer for his passing. God speed.

Masks, a true story

A few decades ago, as rather a callow and idealistic young man, I made a career mis-step. Specifically working in the NHS, undergoing two years training out of the then three year SRN programme. I have worked my secondments doing medical procedures under supervision in Operating Theatre, Casualty (A&E or ‘Emergency’) male surgical and medical wards working on everything from delivering deep intramuscular and subcutaneous injections to being scrubbed for major surgical procedures like hip transplants and emptying bedpans and urine bottles. That and being trained for ICU and reverse barrier nursing. Why I ended up quitting is between me and my conscience. However, I have done my bit, so to speak, and a few people got their lives extended because Ma Sticker’s boy was heads up and on the ball. So, a no-score win there I think.

One of the things I learned working in hospitals was about the use of disposable surgical masks, why they are used where they are and why filter masks are not used instead. There are whole libraries of scientific studies available to back me up on this. Such was my basic training. Which includes the following anecdote;

I was in a hurry one morning, running a little late, having suffered a flat tyre on my way in to work. When I went to the operating theatre washroom to scrub up, the theatre’s normal stash of surgical masks wasn’t in their usual place. So after a quick hunt around I found a box of filter masks and put one on. Thirty seconds later as I was washing my hands and arms before going in to help set up theatre for the next patient, the Duty Sister blew out my eardrums with a stern “Sticker! Take that off!”
“Sorry Sister, but we’re out of standard masks.” I countered lamely.
“This way.” She beckoned me out of the washroom and gave me a severe wigging about the hows, whys and wherefores of wearing disposable surgical masks in operating theatre, before handing me a replacement box of new surgical masks to restock the washroom. Once suitably masked and re-scrubbed I was sent back, somewhat mollified but a little wiser, to go do.

What I had driven into my thick skull was this; operating theatre staff were not to wear filter masks as the sole purpose of a surgical mask is to stop us breathing pathogens over an open wound. Surgical operations open a wound cavity in someone’s body and not breathing the host of lurgis normally resident in your airways all over that gaping red maw is a jolly good thing as it massively reduces the amount of dead bodies in the mortuary.

If you’ve ever seen (and smelled) a really bad (and fortunately extremely rare) wound infection, they are pretty stomach turning affairs and occasionally even seasoned ward staff could be found chundering in the wards sluice.

The thing is with masks is that they have the potential to be both good and bad. Disposable surgical masks should only ever be worn once, as should N95’s, the clue being the word ‘disposable’, and they all have limited facility. Masks are only useful in reducing the radius of infection from you over other people. They cannot stop viral transmission, only reduce the area you, as a potentially infected person, can breathe potential infection out. If you’re infectious, was the rule, you were not allowed in theatre at all. Staph Aureus and E.Coli, to name but two, are nasty things to be avoided if at all possible.

A cloth mask is, as I have stated before, a one-time-only get-you-home affair and should never be worn twice without a thorough sanitising. A cloth mask must be thoroughly hot washed then heat treated to above boiling point with a hot iron and sealed in a new, unused plastic bag ready for use. Every time before use. Even then it will only offer very limited protection and will need a fresh paper tissue insert as a snot catcher as well. It is also not wise to wear a mask for protracted periods because it will increase your CO2 intake and rebreathing of pathogens from your snot laden sinuses and airways. Which may lead to near constant reinfection.

Now I’ve sat through hours of classroom time on this and allied ENT topics, albeit over thirty years ago, but it all boils down to this; you can’t wear a mask all day every day and expect it to give any level of protection after two and a half hours. Even if they’re part of a full NBC or Hazmat suit with activated charcoal filters, masks cannot completely stop viruses. Not even an N95 standard will do that. If you wanted to be absolutely sure of being virus-free you could try to purchase a total immersion suit with add on gas filtration or an ex-NASA or old Soviet era space suit and set up a decon chamber at your front door, providing your home is hermetically sealed, but that would be a bit extreme now, wouldn’t it?

Therefore the mandatory mask legislation currently being enacted in various jurisdictions has come as something of a surprise. Not to mention looking somewhat insane. The time for masks has come and gone. It went in late March and early April 2020. At the time of writing in August 2020, wearing a mask is purely symbolic and possibly bad for your health if not properly sanitised before each use.

Re sanitising; You can use your microwave like below, if you have a spare microwave oven you don’t mind throwing away…. But as the man says, this is only for emergencies. Do watch all the way through before attempting this at home. This blog accepts no responsibility for you getting it wrong and blowing up your kitchen and the neighbourhood power supply.

As for waiting for some nebulous ‘miracle’ vaccine; I’m no ‘Anti-vaxxer’ but would encourage everyone to resist having one of these shots until proper double blind clinical trials are completed and the results made public in the next 18 months. Because that’s how long it takes to properly test vaccines. You can’t rush biology. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. Especially Government sponsored media. That should always be viewed with your bullshit detector on it’s highest setting.

A little light in the darkness

Elderly Friend is in hospital yet again, this time with a broken femur after a fall. We’ve okayed the surgery, as is our responsibility as powers of attorney. We’re fairly sure she’ll pull through but these things always cast a long shadow. At her age the risk of complications is sky high, but still has to be balanced against quality of life. The only alternative was palliative care which is a definite one way street confined to bed in intermittent pain. So, we’ve rolled the dice with crossed fingers. We’ll know more later on today.

The darker part of me wishes her a quick and painless death under anaesthetic, even though we will be very unhappy to lose her. She has of late said that she is wondering why she keeps on going, so perhaps the long night might be the best outcome for her. Does that sound heartless? It’s not meant to be. For all my faults, I believe that mercy is not the prolongation of suffering.

On a more positive note; for those Scots interested in a little good news for once. From the Free Speech Society’s Newsletter, a letter;

“signed by 20 people, including Rowan Atkinson, Peter Tatchell, Val McDermid, Chris Brookmyre, AC Grayling and Prof Timothy Garton Ash, as well as Index on Censorship, Scottish PEN and Cartoonists Rights Network International. It looks as though the message has finally got through to Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s Justice Secretary who has been tasked with getting the Bill through. On Wednesday, he announced he was preparing to make changes following the chorus of objections. “This letter from various artists will be given serious consideration,” he said. “Their key concern seems to be that ‘stirring up’ offences should be restricted to intent only. It is an area of the Bill I will reflect further on.”

The aspect of the Bill Yousaf is referring to is the proposal to enlarge the offence of “stirring up hatred” without the need to prove intent to secure a conviction. It is already an offence under Scottish law to stir up racial hatred, but the proposed legislation will extend this so it applies to “stirring up hatred” against people on the basis of their religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, transgender identity or variations in sexual characteristics, where “stirring up hatred” is defined as behaving in “a threatening, abusive or insulting manner” to a member of one of these groups, either with the intent to stir up hatred or where that is the likely outcome. It is that last clause that Yousef has said he’ll look at again. If that’s removed, it will certainly make the law less draconian, but he would do better to scrap the Bill altogether.”

I know it’s not much, but it’s a sliver of light in the darkness of censorship and oppression.

As for ‘stirring up hatred’, this heinous bill will do nothing to abate that, even if passed unmodified. The Scottish Nazi Party think they can fix things just by passing ever more restrictive laws. Yes well, all I have to say about that is; murder is against the law, but people still do it. Besides, hate speech laws will just drive the ‘problem’ underground where like flowing water, it will eventually cut the ground from under the oppressors feet.

Crazy

Okay, that’s the car sold. Yes, our beloved little Subaru is going to a new home up island. I didn’t want to sell Thumper, but the shipping fees would have been half the value of our versatile little SUV and there was also the nuisance of re-registering to look forward to, so we have elected to sell. Got a reasonable price, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to a good home so what can I say. Like with the Mutt, it’s a bit of a wrench but we’ll survive. We will remember the miles we travelled (Twice across North America and back, provincial road trips and sojourns to Oregon and California) with great fondness.

As for how our car got it’s name? Hey, who can forget this moment of movie magic at about 1:01. “Hey Bambi, look what I can do!” Shouts Thumper the Snowshoe rabbit (Voiced by then young actor Peter Behn). Let me enlarge. Shortly after we bought it there was a series of heavy snowfalls and a cold snap which it sailed through while we saw vans and 4×4’s up ended in drifts and ditches. Thus ‘Thumper’ was christened. It will be a long while until I can score another car that sure footed in all weathers. I’ve looked at subsequent models, but they’re all gadget heavy and are nowhere near as much fun to drive, so we were never tempted to upgrade.

The craziness in the outside world continues unabated, from an anti-lockdown party in Ontario being attacked by two chainsaw toting nutcases, political rioting south of the border, and other stupid frightened people doing all kinds of unhinged shit because the media and politicians have scared them out of what little wits they have. They think wearing a cloth mask that is not regularly cleaned reduces their chance of getting sick. It doesn’t. Sorry kids. Even a properly made surgical mask cannot prevent you inhaling infected droplets. The only way of being completely ‘safe’ is by wearing a hermetically sealed Level A Hazmat suit like one of these with it’s own dedicated oxygen supply. Even then, that will need to be thoroughly cleaned between uses.

The best way to avoid getting ill is to keep your immune system topped up with a decent mixed diet, fresh air, moderate exercise and some sunshine. Friendly human contact helps too as it reduces stress which might act as a suppressant to your immune system.

Yes I know I keep repeating the above, but it’s my way of inoculating myself against all the crazy shit being pumped out by politicians and the majority of the mass media.

As for stress, I’ve got quite enough of that and more to come until at least the middle of next year and don’t need any more thank you so very much. Due to yet another Canadian ‘Government advisory’ we’ve had our booking changed yet-a-bloody-gain this morning.

What is it with these idiotic ‘government advisories’. Do the Canadian authorities think that by keeping changing people’s flight arrangements they’ll put them off flying? Don’t hold your breath baby (On second thoughts please do, oh yes, please, please hold your fucking breath). Because to paraphrase the famous words of St Anne of Widdecombe, we’re going, and ever more glad to be going. We’re off.

Downsizing rapidly

Wow. Have we only a month or so to go before our flight leaves? How these things creep up on us. Fortunately we’re keeping to schedule, and despite mildly bizarre happenstances like having masked people turn up at your door to buy stuff off you, oh and disturbing a rather large wolf spider, about five inches span, which somehow had hitched a lift indoors last night, all is moving along nice and steadily. So far so good.

Masked people have come and gone. Spider was dealt with and this week sees us passing our power of attorney on to our deputy along with all the paperwork that entails; bank accounts, wills, DNR’s and all the rest of it. A trip up island is planned to visit Elderly Friend and relatives who are taking over from us. A time for everything and everything in it’s time sets the order for the day. All we can do is grit our teeth and hope we don’t have too many more curve balls to deal with.

At least locally our parks are open again and a few families are venturing up to our local lake for a dip when it gets a bit too warm. Apart from the malls and stores where all the silly restrictions are in place, life trundles on.

Today I have car hire to organise and the last of our stuff to put up for sale. Our apartment grows more echoey by the day.

The new abnormal

What is this bullshit about a “new normal”? I hear this repeated a lot via people whose only input is parroting something they’ve read in the lamestream media. It’s propaganda. Nothing more.

This never ending lockdown where some truly bizarre restrictions have been foisted on us all is like a choke chain on a dog. Indeed it has created a whole tranche of society who are permanently frightened of their own shadow, wear face masks all the time and screech hysterically at anyone who doesn’t, presumably because that is what they think will keep them ‘safe’, for a given value of ‘safe’.

For my part I have begun shaking hands with anyone who will accept a handshake, showing I’m not afraid of a negligible risk like COVID-19. There are a number of anti-hysteria memes going around too, which make me chuckle.

There’s also a slang term I found in an obscure science fiction novel, that term is ‘Zeep’, which is short for ‘Zombie peep’. In the book, a ‘zeep’ was a criminal who would previously have been given a whole of life, never see the light of day again sentence or the death penalty. But instead of being locked away or executed, they were effectively brain wiped, potty trained and just to be safe given a cortical implant to suppress their homicidal urges. Then these hollowed out people were sent out to work at menial jobs for the rest of their days. In the book, someone managed to hack the technology and was using it to gruesomely assassinate politicians by turning their closest friends into homicidal maniacs.

‘Zeep’ is what I have taken to calling the over-propagandised and hysterical following the irrationally implemented government dictums regarding personal protection against a virus that has already (Mostly) come and gone. The thing is, by now all but those living in an air tight bubble have been exposed to some level of SARS/COVID-19 contamination. If this disease was as bad as the mass media pantywaisters have been telling us, the global death count would be up in the tens of millions by now.

Even the UK Government has admitted that the stats have been inflated by logging the death of anyone who has previously tested positive for SARS/COVD-19, no matter what really killed them. And at the time of writing, health services have not been overloaded, there are workable treatments, yet the zeeps are still scared out of their remaining wits. Which can make them dangerous, for a given value of ‘dangerous’. Or should I say annoying and tedious, which would be a better description.

Maybe we should ignore them and just get on with the business of living, rolling our eyes at the unnecessary restrictions and not even bothering to give the finger to the Zeeps. Not that they’ll listen, their fear has given them imagined power over others.
And still it’s hard to get a really sick person into hospital for treatment. How many have died simply because they couldn’t get treated for an otherwise curable condition on time, eh?

Civilly disobedient

While downsizing and packing I have been pondering how to try and help get us out of this lockdown mess and think I may have at least a partial answer. One which, short of going to the most obviously ridiculous extremes, there will be no defending against by those who think they are in authority.

Now I’m not a “Let’s burn it all down” raving radical revolutionary. I like to think of myself as a decent, fiscally conservative, socially liberal sort who believes in organic change that liberates rather than closes down. And if treated with courtesy by anyone, automatically return it. Which isn’t that hard. To be honest it’s one of the easiest things in the world. Yes, yes, I know the tagline of this blog is that of ‘A Sarcastic gentleman abroad’ and I may be an extremely sarky sod if provoked, but I’m also a gentleman, with all that entails and understand that there are ways of being assertive without resorting to force or even raising your voice.

Unfortunately there are a lot of ‘Kevins’ and ‘Karens’ (The archetypes, not any real people who bear those names) out there who never got the memo and have a complete fit of the vapours if someone says or does something they don’t like. They are powerless, perpetually frustrated people brim full of hysteria which too often boils over into fits of public anger because they’re all so wound up that they can’t think straight. It would be so easy to stir them up to the point of meltdown, but that’s half the problem.

However, I think there is a way out of this insanity. A diplomatic way. A civil way. A peaceful route which will reduce the blood pressure of everyone who wants to get back to normal. Not the farcical ‘new normal’ either. What I’m talking about is a form of guerrilla civility. Also known as a kind of social Ju-Jitsu. What I will outline can even be fun, and nobody really gets hurt. Apart from those who give themselves a hernia trying to get under everyone’s feet.

‘Guerrilla civility’ Bill? What tosh you write. No. hear me out. This will make perfect sense. Well it does to me. ‘Guerrilla civility’ was what I used to use a lot during my time ‘walking the streets’. It’s very simple, so simple that even I can do it. Basically all that is required is that you wind your stupid neck in and stop looking for things to offend or go looking for trouble or confrontation. Yes I know it’s fun to wind the terminally offended up, but far too often that sort of thing comes back to bite you. The trick is not to get angry, and to instruct the terminally officious to go to hell without actually saying it. They’ll take themselves anyway without any help from you.

There are those who would remark thus; “Yeah, but I don’t want people to think I’m a doormat.” to which I would respond that you don’t have to get angry or raise your voice to be assertive. A little lateral thinking, good eye contact, a smile and firm but friendly words can grease your path around obstacles far better than all the finger pointing, blame making and shouting of the socially inept. As will a purposeful casual saunter with eyes fixed upon your goal. Add a small puzzled smile and some affected mild bafflement at anyone who officiously gets in your way and you’ve more or less cracked it.

This is the basis of my kind of very civil disobedience, the art of; “Oh really, is it? I had no idea.” or “I didn’t know that. Would you mind helping me out please?” delivered in a friendly but faintly bemused manner. Both of which are designed to flip a curved ball right back at your protagonist whilst not alienating a potential ally. A careful “No.” or slightly mocking “Who on Earth told you that?” delivered at the right time and place can also often have devastating consequences.

The perpetually officious might think you’re taking the mickey, but you should never let them suspect until they’re just on the cusp of earshot, when a private guffaw is allowed at your opponents predicament. If they come storming back, a well timed “What do you want now?” followed by a firm denial that your mockery was ever directed at them will do. This may be repeated as often as you deem necessary to induce an apology from them. Or they blow a blood vessel. Either is good.

But this is only half the story. The other half is looking for allies. Seeking out like minded folk to ease your path. Those who may not have your back, but will encourage and at least make it feel like you’re not alone. A shared smile here, a thumbs up there. It all builds up. Because deep down, we all know this pandemic went into total fantasy mode in May, no matter what the politicians and mass media say.

We need to learn to peacefully fight back against the draconian control measures in ways making it very hard for the powers that be to police. Learning to shake hands again while the coppers aren’t around. Reconnecting socially. Who knows, a simple friendly handclasp and a shared smile may prove the ultimate revolutionary act.

We might even change a few minds, although I won’t be holding my breath on that one. But I can always live in hope.

Seconded

I’ve been following Anna Brees’ little project over the last couple of weeks, and among all the weird and wonderful I found this vox pop from a Mr David Dalling, a Scottish Farmer.

What he says hits all the nails right on the head. This whole lockdown over a virus that is little more than a bad case of seasonal influenza is mad. Much of the Western world, especially our political class, is clinically insane. The mindless mob rushes hither and thither, worked up into a frenzy over bad statistics and an overweening sense of its own worth. But here is a man who has his feet placed firmly on the ground, saying; “Hang on a minute. This is mad. What the hell are we doing?”

Maybe if the mass media and politicians stopped and really looked at the real figures for once we might get out of the hole that they’ve dug for us all.

Update:
When it comes to analysis; the Peerless Reads channel on YouTube offers a more studied perspective.

Also; I was out getting Sushi last night, and although not a hugger myself, was delighted to see a few people hugging in the streets. Which made me think that maybe we all need to reinstate the handshake and other forms of friendly physical contact to reconnect with others and so free ourselves.