From an ancient text

I’ve been digging through my ancestral archives recently, and along the lines of ‘some things never change’ thought I would present the following, adapted for the present day;

Noah in the 2020’s : Ye Grate Fludde.

In the years of pestilence; The Lord came unto Noah, now living in Kidderminster, England and spake thusly; “Once again Noah the earth and all the people therein have become wicked and sinful and it is time to purge the face of my creation, save two of every species of creature and a few virtuous humans, including thyself.” The Lord emailed the CAD drawings to Noah, saying; “Thou hast a year to build this great Ark before I send a grate fludde of forty days and forty nights to purge the world. Now get cracking our kid.”

At the end of twelve months, under darkened skies, The Lord looked down to see Noah in his back yard. There was no great ark, no two of every species, just Noah, weeping. “Noah!” Roared The Lord. “Where is my ark! Where are the two of every species! Come on mate, I’m about to kick off here. I’ve got storms queueing up like Friday afternoon traffic on the M6.”

“Forgive me Lord.” Begged Noah. “But things down here on Earth have changed. Because of COVID there’s no hardwoods to build the hull and I’ve been told by the council that I’ll need planning permission, even though I told them it’s within the regulations for temporary structures. So they forwarded the decision to the secretary of state, so you’ll appreciate the length of time that’s going to take. I was going to cut down a few trees instead and got a permit for that, but then a local environmental group kicked off on FaceBook and now there’s a thousand people chaining themselves to trees. Then there’s building regulations approval and the Fire Brigade Inspector has demanded smoke detectors in all the cabins as well as a sprinkler system. The department of transport have demanded a bond for temporary re-routing of power lines and an excessive load. I’m also in trouble with the Animal Rights activists for imprisoning animals against their will. I said I was gathering the animals to save them, but they said; ho-ho pull the other one chummy and reported me to the RSPCA, who told me the accommodation is too restrictive, then they in turn reported me to DEFRA, who demanded animal movement permits for such a large menagerie. Then the County Council got involved along with the Environment Agency, and Rivers and Waterways Authority who ruled that I couldn’t build the ark until they’d conducted environment impact reports on the forthcoming flood. Not to mention a full risk assessment on shipping movements through built up areas. I’ve also got a diversity team from the Department of Work and pensions who tell me my family is all too Jewish and we have to recruit a more ethnically mixed crew or be in contravention of employment legislation. Not to mention I’m having to wait to get my Masters certificate to pilot the vessel. The Unions are threatening to picket, saying using my sons to build the ark is taking jobs away from skilled ship builders and have reported me to the Health and Safety Inspectorate. Last week border services came calling and rounded up all my animals, saying that I was potentially in breach of the live export regulations. Then Customs and Excise froze all my bank accounts because they thought I was going to leave the country illegally as part of a massive money laundering scam, and the Police broke down my door because they’d had a tip off that I had more than the permitted number of people at my house in breach of the COVID regulations.”

“So forgive me, Lord God, I’m a bit up against it here, and it looks like I’ll need another twenty five years to finish the Ark.” Sniffed Noah, cowering in response to an expected smiting.

Instead the leaden clouds suddenly cleared. A wonderful triple rainbow spanned the sky and the birds all began singing again. Noah looked up in open mouthed wonder. “Does this mean there will be no Grate Fludde of forty days and forty nights and you’re not going to destroy the world oh Lord?” He said.

“No.” Said the Lord God. “The government beat me to it.”

Peak Absurdity

From midsummer. Let’s remember some of the most laughable bollocks put out on the lamestream in dear auld Oireland. Remember Luke O’Neill ph.D in a ‘Zorb’ demonstrating how to socialise while ‘staying safe’? Whadda Maroon.

Or “Handshakes may never return”? Seriously? If someone tries the whole elbow bump crap with me, which ironically requires closer physical proximity than a handshake, I always demur and keep my hand sticking out for them to shake. If they insist I lower my hand, step back and contrive to look annoyed. Even if I am creasing up inside at their discomfiture. Lunatics. As for hugs, eff off you nutters. I will publicly hug any person I hold great affection for and will cheerfully give the finger to any remonstrations.

Can we ever forget ‘COVID Expert’ Luke O’Neill’s advice to freeze your grandparents to death? You’d think after the whole ‘Zorb’ thing he’d shut the hell up, but apparently he’s in love with his own image on the old Boob tube. His opinion of his advice is not widely shared.

As for the already massive additional logistical costs, supposedly to protect politicians from themselves, Jaysus! What’s wrong with wearing a surgical mask all day like the rest of the peasants, eh? I don’t wear a mask at all if I can help it, but then I’ve been taught about the proper use of a surgical mask and where they are actually useful. Besides, given the size of Ireland’s Parliament chamber (Dáil) and the fact that it’s rarely full, the likelihood of catching anything in there is probably not significant.

Then there’s the tale about Armed Gardai (Police) who had to run away from a guy who told them he was COVID positive. Oh for heaven’s sake! For the under 70’s, the chances of catching and suffering serious illness from SARS/COV-2 are currently less than a quarter of ordinary influenza. And have been since at least December 2020, and the morons in power are still talking about a ‘third wave’, which seems to be taking an age to arrive. Wasn’t it due last year sometime?

A personal observation; in my day to day travels I pass two of our local hospitals. The car parks are not full. Ambulances aren’t queueing up, there are no refrigerated containers doubling up as mortuary storage. Frankly they both look under used. Rather like the streets of Localtown, with all their closed down and shuttered businesses.

Just watch the rest of the video and laugh, or cry along for what has been taken from us. Which makes me wonder why we are still taking this whole COVID business seriously.

For myself I’m trying to look on the bright side and take the attitude of Peter Jurasik as Babylon 5’s Londo Mollari; “Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.“

Well, if you turn off the TV and just go about your day to day business it isn’t. It’s only serious in the minds of the mainstream media and politicians. As for ‘vaccine passports’ anyone asking for one simply doesn’t get my custom.

We have hit and surpassed peak absurdity. Gender pronouns, vaccine passports, banned protests, ‘no fun allowed’ all under a ludicrous rainbow banner of diversity and inclusivity. Ah yes, the ‘diversity and inclusivity’ that has divided society more than anything else in living memory.

Additional: from the Daily Sceptic. The average age of death from Covid in England and Wales in the spring epidemic was 80.4 according to the ONS, splitting 78.7 for men and 82.5 for women. The average age of death in the UK is 79.3 for men and 82.9 for women (though note these are modelled estimates of life expectancy at birth based on life tables, not the actual average age of those who die each year). Public Health England has estimated that life expectancy was reduced by 1.3 years for men and 0.9 years for women in 2020 due to the Covid and lockdown death tolls, though these figures are also modelled.

See graph:

Words to inspire

I saw this on Pinterest, and was moved to create my own version. See below.

Happy Friday.

PING!

Lovely warm day today, the skies have been a cloudless vault of wonderful blue since first thing, only marred by a few puffs of cloud. Mrs S and I have been sitting outside under a recently purchased gazebo, one of those nylon sunshade things you see used as market stalls, preventing us from being cooked by the big yellow thing in the sky.

Well we seem to be dodging bullets over here in the Wilder West of the Emerald Isle despite all the prognostications of doom from the man made climate change crowd. A solar flare was supposed to cripple the power grids and all the rain has migrated into Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium, causing all manner of chaos, from floods to sinkholes.

The ‘experts’ have been bouncing out of their hidey holes like funnel web spiders to pronounce that it’s all our fault unless you renounce anything that looks like fun. Right guys. All your predictions have failed. Every last single one. Your public credibility should be flushed down the toilet by now. Besides, if anyone does any basic historical research, they will find similar incidents, although not in the same locations, from eighty or ninety years ago. When it comes to climate, there is little new under the sun.

At the moment I’m sitting around waiting for the anaesthetic to wear off after I lost a fight with a well done steak a few days ago. There was a tiny crack and half of one of my bicuspids ended up on my plate. A little discomfort, but more surprise than anything else as my errant tooth fragment bobbed around in the gravy. So I did what anyone with any base would do and picked up the fragment, sucked off the sauce before putting it in my top pocket wrapped in half a paper serviette. “Half my tooth has broken off.” I announced quietly.

“Where?” Said Mrs S. I pointed to my upper mandible before proceeding to demolish the rest of my steak. “Does it hurt?”

“Damnedest thing, no.” I replied. And here’s me not registered with a dentist. Well that was just rectified. It had just slipped down the list of priorities under a slew of other details.

Came as a bit of a surprise as I’m pretty assiduous about brushing my teeth, using toothpicks to clear detritus from between my pearlies and even flossing twice a week. Although I thought I would miss North American dentistry, but it turns out that modern Irish dentists are pretty good. So Mrs S and I are now registered as private patients. Wasn’t as expensive as I thought it would be either.

Despite that, the gods appear to be looking favourably upon us, unlike a certain memorial to a dead junkie that got hit by lightning, according to witnesses. My driving licence is now up to date after three months wrangling with the NDLS and we’re starting to get taken seriously by some people who like the cut of our wallets. Our investment strategies have borne fruit and we’re into the numbers now with regard to buying a project house.

China is getting flooded again and certain EU countries are suffering under huge rainfall, so maybe God is trying to get their attention, saying “Okay you EU chappies, stop messing the Brits around. They’ve left your club, now calm down or next time it’s the Frogs.”

As far as the Chinese are concerned, maybe he’s registering his displeasure at the germ warfare they’ve been indulging in. The SARS/COV-2 virus, the balance of probabilities tells us, leaked out of the Wuhan lab. Whether the leak was deliberate is moot. But what was deliberate was the propaganda campaign designed to frighten the West into submission.

Oh yes, and what about this rogue NHS ‘track and trace app’ pinging all and sundry, forcing them to self isolate when they probably don’t need to. Apparently the promoters of this piece of software were warned by some of the Project Engineers, who said it was too sensitive, but no, the bureaucrats and politicians didn’t listen and now somewhere in the region of ten million plus people (Allegedly) have been pinged and told to self isolate. That’s a good chunk of the working population. Talk about an accident waiting to happen. Put not thy faith in Bluetooth should be the lesson here.

Like the Blair regime before them, the Johnsonites are finding that the technology they thought had all the answers, doesn’t. Maybe this will curb their control freak ambitions. We can but hope.

Happy weekend everybody.

Irony alert

A new commenter answered my query about why the giver of vaccines covered the AstraZeneca Vaccine phial when I was being given my second vaccination with the following.

CJ Nerd JULY 11, 2021 AT 12:24 

IIRC the dose is 10cc, but there is 12cc in a vial. They can carefully use the leftovers to make some additional doses. Once the vial has been breached, they need to keep it clean.

Which at first I found hard to swallow, because when I first did my NHS Deep Subcutaneous and Deep intramuscular injection training (Initially on an Orange would you believe,) all doses we were asked to administer were delivered as single dose only ampoules. The old method of drawing up drugs from multi-use phials (we were told) was potentially unhygienic.

However, I engaged my cynicism and did a little searching for myself, finding this five page document about phial sizes for the AstraZeneca vaccine. Which says yes, the ampoules are multi-dose. However, the penultimate paragraph (Section 7 Health & Safety) of which makes interesting reading. See quoted portion below:

“There are no special handling requirements for routine handling of Vaxzevria® (AstraZeneca). However, Vaxzevria® (AstraZeneca) contains genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Should a spillage occur this should be disinfected with an appropriate antiviral disinfectant (active on coronavirus). To note that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) refers to the chimp adenovirus vector system“

Fun fact; the AstraZeneca vaccine is based on GMO’s, (Genetically Modified Organisms). Specifically those cultured from Chimpanzee adenoviruses.

So if you’re one of those people who dislike GMO’s in your foodstuffs and a fervent vaccine advocate; that’s what’s in it. Chimp virus GMO’s to boot. Which makes vaccines doubleplusungood for the Animal rights lobby. Which is amusing as the Greeny-weenies are heavily pro-vaccine, along with all the other ‘Green’ advocacy organisations, including most Western Governments.

Myself, I’m not bothered. The risk of an adverse reaction for me is so small it’s infinitesimal. I’m at more risk of being run down by a tractor crossing the road outside our house. Only had the jab to keep Mrs S quiet. It’s just the thought of all those loud mouthed luvvies and media cheerleaders finding out that their non-organic (Argh! Amputate! Amputate! Get me a CHAINSAW!!!) vaccination was produced from Chimp viruses.

Sorry, but Mrs S is asking me why I’m giggling so much.

For some reason this old favourite flagged up in the memory banks. I have two copies of the original CD set. One for in the car, one for in the house. Mrs S says I play it too often.

All I have to ask is; which characters viewpoint do I represent? The detached cynicism of the journalist? The fanaticism of the crazed preacher or the faith of his wife? I think it’s a little of all three.

Hey, it’s a wonderful piece of aural drama. Phil Lynott stole it completely. Never fails to send a shiver down my spine.

The Covid Shuffle

Having just been (Or should that be nagged into going?) for my second SARS/COV-2 jab, I was in the queue for getting the needle yet again, I found my mischievous brain rearranging a popular song lyric into the one below.

Everybody’s doin’ a brand new dance now
(Come on baby do the Covid Shuffle)
I know you’ll get to hate it if you give it a chance now
(Come on baby do the Covid Shuffle)

Your little crabby grandma has forgotten ID
She’s here under ten minutes and she needs a pee
So come on, come on, do the Covid Shuffle with me

You gotta scuff your toes now
Come on baby, step up, step back
Well, I think you got the knack, ohh

Now you’re at reception, forget your phone now
(Come on baby do the Covid Shuffle)
Patting at your pockets like a mindless drone now
(Come on baby do the Covid Shuffle)

Do it nice and easy now you ain’t got control
You ain’t got no rhythm and you lost your soul
So come on, come on, do the Covid Shuffle with me

Come on, do the Covid Shuffle
Come on, do the Covid Shuffle
Come on, do the Covid Shuffle
Come on,…

I’m not here for the rest of the week. Play nice

Regards

Bill

Just in passing; why did the person giving me the jab feel the need to cover the vaccine phial over with a papier-mâché kidney dish? Answers in recycled grey wood pulp please.

Bored now

Will the UK finally lift its restrictions 19th July? Will the EU stop playing silly political games to try and regain control of it’s major cash cow? (The UK)

Don’t care. I’ve got a midweek break booked into a nice hotel with a restaurant and a bar while we go and size up a property to buy. I intend to have my conversations with Auctioneers and Surveyors before disappearing into a quiet corner, sinking a few pints of recycled Liffey water while Mrs S indulges herself in a few Gin and tonics.

It’s raining (Of course it’s bloody raining-this is July in Ireland) so all the outdoor drinkers will be inside regardless of whether the rules say you can or not.

In the meantime, cheers. Oh, and here’s an appropriate blast from the 1980’s from Tear for Fears.

On the road

In West Clare and Galway. Just some of my personal footage set to some restful music. Well mostly.

If this cheers you up, you’re probably as daft as I am. Welcome to the asylum.

Covid Passports, a modest proposal

Feeling a little buzzed and mischievous right now, having had my first dose of muscle relaxant and painkiller. Talk about pukka stuff. Right now you could cut my arm off and I’d laugh myself senseless.

Mrs S is deriving great merriment from watching me wobbling around the house, bouncing off the furniture like some bipedal bumper car. Everything has stopped hurting and I’m high as a kite. Whoopee. Look kids, don’t do drugs or, oh who am I kidding?

Nevertheless, onto the meat of this post dear reader. Ah, the dreaded lurgi, the not so fatal disease everyone has been running around doing headless chicken impersonations about for the last year and a half. At least if you’re under eighty without a ‘co-morbidity’. The disease 80% less likely to kill you than pneumonia. This plague that has people wearing masks in the streets and more ridiculously, behind the wheel of their car. Now it is being mooted that we must not go anywhere without some form of documentation to ‘prove’ that we are not ‘unclean’. Well now, there’s a thing.

Those of us who object to such an iniquity as a ‘COVID Passport’ have been subject to a litany of public misinformation and vile slander. Despite having proper scientific evidence to hand, not some regurgitated media ‘facts’. So I think it’s high time we got some payback.

Having heard a discussion about how our medical histories might be made available to every low ale house keeper and entry level security guard, I thought; “Hmm. What we need here is a little pre-emptive poetic justice.” And like all seriously good ideas it’s simple and cheap, and here it is;

If some person denies you service because you are reluctant to hand over your personal data, simply log on to your social media account, or better still an account with something like Tripadvisor or Expedia and post a bad review. I mean a zero star complete stinker. No swearing. No abuse. Just keep it polite, brief and succinct.

Say for example a restaurant insists on seeing some form of Vaccine related ID, don’t make a fuss, do as you are asked and have your meal. Enjoy yourself. Then give the premises in question the bad review. Same for any other place.

For example; a bad review in the case of a ‘No Jab-no entry’ café might look like the following; “Appalling coffee, stale pastries and very rude staff. It’s a shame I can’t give a minus star rating to these premises.” Make no mention of the bar to entry, but contrariwise, a café that does not make a big deal about “Papieren bitte.” should get a five star review and fulsome praise like; “My new go-to coffee hangout, lovely helpful staff and sausage rolls fit for the Gods.”

This principle can be applied across social media. Nothing abusive, just muted disgust and a soupcon of sarcasm. Night clubs could be critiqued with “Stale DJ, overpriced drinks that taste like they’ve been watered down and some of the ugliest people this side of Watford Gap.” other venues might attract something like “Doesn’t anyone clean up around here? The place smells like it’s been used as a lavatory.” Yes of course owners read their competitors reviews, wouldn’t you?

Nowadays everyone checks reviews before visiting. The idea being that if enough genuine-looking negative reviews begin to impact the bottom line of any zealous enforcer of the COVID tyranny, I’m sure that eventually they’ll get the message and the whole silly circus will grind to a suitably embarrassed halt.

Me, if found out and challenged, I will simply kiss the rod and plead the painkillers. They really are seriously good.

Random amusement

With all the doom and gloom, virtue signalling etc out there, I have a suggestion to fix the world’s troubles.

Read a book. Go on, find something without pictures in it and read the words. One at a time if that is your reading level but do read one. While reading you will not care about Sparkly Megs specious accusations of “raaaaacism” and TV hosts having a hissy fit over it. Reading will immunise you from the ‘newer, deadlier, more lockdownier’ strain of the dreaded lurgi. Reading is cheap, better for you than telly, the radio or interwebs.

It is also very hard to riot while reading a book. So law and order gets a boost.

Has to be a proper book mind, not one of those e-Readers. Only the real papery thing will do. You will feel better for spending some quality time with your nose in a real book. Reading will make you a better person. Trust me, I’m not an ‘expert’.

That’s where I am at the moment. On a windy Irish beach, with a book. Back in a while.

Verboten

Breaking; mass dogging event planned. This is not essential travel. Or so say the local Stasi.

Do not go to Canvey Island. Even if it is quite close to Southend. There’s a joke in there somewhere.

Downtime

I’m used to living and working online. It is, in some respects, something I’m fairly good at. For other things there is a phone, and as a trained communicator (Two ears, two eyes, two nostrils and one mouth, use in proportion). Unfortunately, when I need to talk to an overseas contact, our landline is down. Like today. So no business gets transacted. People don’t get paid on time and this reduces the sum of human happiness. Not something I like being even partially responsible for.

I could of course, if I had money to burn or an international data package, use my cell phone. But I’d rather put my funds to better use than paying cell phone companies for millivolts and sitting in a call centre queue for an hour or more while my remaining brains trickle out of my ears in tune with the bland awfulness of wait queue Muzak and their interminable adverts.

So what to do? Let my blood pressure be pushed beyond safe limits because the vagaries of fate preclude action? Or do I bugger off and do something slightly more interesting and successful while the phone company fix the lines? Dear reader, I chose the latter. Life, especially under the current pointless restrictions, demands little victories, those micro successes that bolter the shreds your self-esteem can be reduced to when utilities fail, and despite it not being your fault, guess who is first in line to get it in the neck when things aren’t done? Got it in one. Guess whose turn it is to be the office cat? Yours. Enjoy.

Here’s an interesting little life hack; did you know that an air fryer can make toast and fried bread? Well this one can. Saves putting the oven grill on. Don’t have a toaster, and didn’t fancy doing the old skillet toast trick. So my air fryer was put into service. 6 minutes at 200 Celsius lightly browns the bread and makes a nice hot slice to receive marmalade or whatever topping you fancy.

As an FYI; cast iron skillets can make seriously good toast and fried bread, which is where they score over the average toaster. Get the pan good and hot, stick in the bread and frying medium of choice (Olive oil, butter or nothing at all), flip when ready. There are more ways to make top notch toast than are thought of in anyone’s philosophy. All that is needed is a little outside the box culinary thinking and Robert is one’s father’s brother.

You can’t do fried bread in a toaster either. They’re a bit one dimensional as far as kitchen appliances go. Try putting anything but dried bread in them and the next thing you know it’s sparks and flames all round like a fork in a microwave. So I have the more versatile air fryer instead.

Another little culinary parlour trick I have to pass on is to stop your garlic going off. If, like me you don’t use more than a clove every other day, the trick is to peel the individual cloves and drop them into a jar of Olive oil. Result; garlic that doesn’t go off in a week and which keeps fairly well for a month. This also gives you a ready supply of Garlic Olive Oil, which commands a far higher price in the shops than the usual. So it’s a money saver too.

Anyway, supper beckons. Just soup and a small charcuterie and cheese board. There’s probably another glass of Pinot Noir downstairs too. And here’s me with this terrible thirst.

TTFN

A bunch of muppets

As none of the muppets in power seem to have any bright ideas of to get us out of the mess they, and they alone, have gotten us into. May I offer some minor ridiculae to ease my occasional reader’s inner pain.

The European Union. Having a sing of it’s anthem to cheer itself up (and failing) post Brexit.

A screenshot of the World Economic Forums top secret COVID Recovery plan, in it’s entirety.

And a more chilling message, from the Outer Limits.

Hang loose, as it says in the Deisderata;

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Being mindful

We are continually being told that ‘mindfulness’ is a good thing, a goal to be aspired to, the epitome, the acme of all that is good and righteous. To be ‘mindful’, practitioners inform us, is the path to enlightenment, nirvana, and paying off the mortgage on time. Now it seems that this key precept is failing, with many practitioners straying from the path and in the process becoming narcissistic, vile little eejits you wouldn’t cross the road to piss down their throats if their lungs were on fire. But they weren’t nice people to begin with, and no amount of ‘awareness’ and Yogurt can change their true nature, merely the way it is expressed, in saccharine insincerity, passive-aggressiveness and massive self-delusion.

Now it may surprise you, dear reader (Look, there’s one of you out there, I think) but I too once delved into the innermost secrets of the universal soul through meditation and Yoga. Through my contemplations of the infinite and divine, I have become the person I am today. Does this surprise anyone? Yes? No? Don’t give a monkeys? Whatever.

Now my yoghurt and mendicant training goes back a few years to the Dojo where I studied, a small covert room over a Chinese Restaurant in sunny Stoke on Trent. A secret place where ancient masters taught the stoic arts and the ancient, obscure Welsh martial art of LLap Mivitalls, which consists of disciplining mind and body to hardship via the use of large cups of tea and bacon sandwiches consumed in the vast hidden reaches of industrial estates and lorry parks. The major part of which consists of learning how to eat your bacon sandwich in a torrential downpour without diluting your tea or letting your bacon sandwich get soggy. You can brag about the athletic prowess of Shaolin monks all you like, but such things are child’s play when faced with the inner serenity a black belt in this Welsh martial art can attain. Let’s face it, when you can calmly munch your way through breakfast in a heavy Welsh downpour whilst looking totally relaxed, you are indeed a force to be reckoned with.

BC, my home for the last decade or so, is now infested with a plague of ‘mindfulness’ and narcissism to the point where recovery is not possible. There can be no vaccine for this plague, only the burgeoning awareness of the sufferer that all is not well with them, and why their friends seem to clam up or roll their eyes whenever the practitioner of mindfulness opens their mouth.

At my Dojo, we were warned about this outcome by the Dojo’s chief mentor, Lobsang Dai, a Cardiff born man and part time Tom Jones impersonator (Ask your Granny). “Now young disciple, look you.” He would say. “All this talk of inner focus is all very well, but will it keep the rain from getting inn your tea?” He would opine further. “The path to inner serenity lies not in the actions of others, but of looking to yourself and not letting the water in. And putting your right leg behind your left ear isn’t that impressive.” With such sage teaching has my path to inner enlightenment been scattered. If we studied hard that lesson, he would demonstrate his hip twist, and how it could instantly bring down ladies underwear. Never understood why he wore such apparel, but to each their own. We were a very progressive class.

Sadly Lobsang Dai is no more, having fallen from grace to the charms of a Hungarian long distance lorry driver called Magda, but my fellow disciples and I remember his teachings with great fondness.

Dear Santa…..

Dear Santa,

Now as a grown up I’m told you don’t exist, but if, on the off chance you somehow do, I’d like to point out that I’ve been very, very good this year and would like to ask for a few things. If you think some of my listed items are a bit of an ask, I’d like to point out that I haven’t asked or begged for anything from you before in my entire life, but I would very much appreciate one or all of the following;

1. An end to all the palaver over BREXIT. I’d just like to see no deal happen so the EU wakes up and give the UK a Canada style free trade deal so we can all move on.
2. An end to the relentless propaganda over this virus thingy. Some unpleasant accidents to befall those constantly advocating for lockdowns. The demise or shutting down of Piers Morgan and his entire propaganda team would be nice. Something messy and public please, so we’re left in no possible doubt why it’s happening to them and their fellow travellers.
3. An end to the lockdowns and mask restrictions please would be appreciated. They serve no useful purpose.
4. Some kind of legal safeguard to be put in place so that these lockdowns can never ever happen again.
5. A return to pre-COVID normal life and sanity please.
6. Some kind of serious poetic justice against the most enthusiastic COVID enforcers and snitches would be much appreciated.

You see Santa, I’m not asking for myself, but for the rest of humanity who are continually watching their human rights and livelihoods being trampled. Not by any virus, but by stupid panicky people whose brains have shut down with all the fear being pumped out by the politicians and media.

Would really, really appreciate some intervention. Please and pretty please with sugar on it.

Many thanks in advance and a happier 2021 to us all.

Bill Sticker

P.S. For me, a small Christmas stocking with a Satsuma orange or two, a small bar of chocolate and maybe a packet of wine gums would be highly appreciated on Christmas morning. There’s a large bottle of vintage Port in the drinks cabinet. Put your boots up, give the reindeer a breather and have a large drink on me.