Well may the world go

 

Well may the world go
The world go, the world go
Well may the world go
When I'm far away

 

Was it Saturday? yes it looks like it was Saturday that the Government once again bought all the national papers (the free press, at our expense) and had them print a four page puff piece to get the sheep and camels of the UK to put upon their dumbass phones a device, an App, nay the sacred, long awaited saviour of humanity App, the App of Apps. This collection of machine code is going to lead them to the promised land, freedom, free at last, free at last, etc, etc ...

Only you know that war is peace and freedom is eternal surveillance and subjugation. This thing tracks you around (if  you let it), you'll need it to scan a code (QR? I wasn't paying too much attention)  to gain entry to restaurants and pubs and museums and art galleries and your granny's front door (but granny can't let you in oh no ...) and soon your own bathroom. It is supposed to allow you to scan your Covid-19 test ( yes do have one regularly (only £150 a pop and discretely sent your home in brown packaging ...) to save your loved ones and save the NHS! All praise the NHS!) but this is a farcical quasi-fascist regime and only tests from private outlets that is to say not the NHS (all praise!, and peace be upon it! ) can be entered... so the vast majority of users cannot show that they are negative but this is surely a mere technical glitch, an "innocent" oversight, that will be cleared by the Fat Controller as soon as he can.

By Sunday, that is within 48 hours of its release I read that 10 million and more had obeyed the Fat Controller and tied themselves into this comic prattery. There is, as they say, nowt so queer as folk.

The FC is finding that his bizarre controls and excessive testing are running against each other. More controls, more testing, more positives (80-90% false positives but he don't care he's too dumb to know what a false positive is or maybe he knows that the test is utterly meaningless it matters not ... ), each positive is, of course, a "case" and is a potential near-death experience and a place in intensive care , and so pressure on the NHS (sing its praises, hallelujah!), and so on ... well each "case" now will have to self-isolate for 7 or 14 days (again I'm not too attentive to the copious steaming farmyard stuff emanating from the FC and his crazy gauleiters ) on pain of fines AND they threaten to check up on you with policemen calling round (yeah right like that's going to happen). And the rule of six thingy is in force, and folk are ratting on their neighbours like it's East Germany in the 1950s and the Stasi have put Pentothal in the water supply. The place is gone to hell nicely, unemployment about to rise steeply, students locked in their halls of residence and forbidden to go home at weekends or Christmas (It was a three week lockdown back in March, three weeks to save the NHS! (all praise yada yada) now it's just repression for repression's sake each step further away from a "return to normality". Normality, like the  Nietszchean God is dead and we killed it, the first victim of this pestilence, there will not be, cannot be, a return to normal... stop dreaming about it, ain't gonna happen), companies facing closure are desperate that their employees leave their smart phones at home lest they be shut down if a staff member catches a sniffle and tests positive ... Let the good times roll!

 

...and all for a little biddy cold virus that's been and gone taken its crop of the frail and aged and sunk back into the viral underfroth like all previous seasonal respiratory infections. 

 

Well I'm off now you'll be glad to hear. There may be lockdowns ahead, pretty sure there will be more impositions and crass inanities, the only things that are growing exponentially are the Government's manic repressions and the desire of folk to be punished for their sins. As for me, I cannot be separated from my freedom while I still breathe so it's the old two finger salute to the lot of it. Catch you (and your colds) later, maybe.

 

Sweet may the breezes blow
Clear may the streams flow
Blue above, green below
When I'm far away

 

 

 

This is all your fault

You know the story of King Canute (or Cnut if you wish, maybe even Knut ), he that sat by the sea shore and told the tide not to rise and was soaked for his troubles. The story as was told to me in my childhood was that Cnut (I think I prefer that) was so proud that he thought he could stop the sea but had to be given a lesson. Later I learned that the story was that Knut (prefer Cnut) wanted to show his obsequious courtiers that he was not some divine majesty and only a mere mortal so he set himself up for a foot bath. Either way, the moral of the story, to labour it for those at back of the room not listening; time and tide wait for no man or so the story goes ...

Why am I prattling like this? Well the modern Cnuts have set themselves up by the tide of Humber to raise once again the barriers to watery ingress and we can no longer pass or indeed repass along this Queen's highway as there's barriers erected and piles of what can only be called stuff heaped up on Nelson Street.

I think the plan is to extend the waterfront by a few yards and raise the tout ensemble to prevent tidal flooding to thousands of properties. There's a poster thingy to explain the plan but I think I'll wait until it's all done and the concrete set and we've had a surge tide or three before commenting.

Now I'm not one to guilt trip anyone but all this is because it is thought that sea levels will rise because you turned on your computer and read this drivel (it's all your fault didn't you know, everything is your damn fault, racism, Covid-19, inflation, deflation, ageing population (how dare you live so long?), rising birth rate, falling birth rate, STDs, white supremacy, alleged global warming, the next ice age, pedophilia and pornography, Donald Trump, face masks, unemployment, world war, famine & Brexit, pestilence, you name it ... all down to you and you alone). How could you let this happen?

Progress Report

Do you remember May? In particular Sunday, May 3, just this year? No, me neither but it seems I posted about the sudden, to me, appearance of a construction site on what had been flower filled waste ground. If you compare the barebones structure of that post to this wonderful glassy prospect (ouch nearly bit my tongue, there) then clearly some progress has been made at least with this delightful building.

As for the other matter mentioned back then some five months down the line things seem to be going backwards if anything. Stupid folk will do stupid things and be afraid of their own shadow if you tell them often enough that it will bite them. 

A little rusty

One thing we don't get in England is tumbleweed but perhaps a ball or two wistfully drifting across this scene might be appropriate here and maybe a plangent steel guitar blues riff to go with.

The rumour mill is saying a second lockdown is just what the country needs as the first one worked so splendidly well. I, of course, will ignore it like the first; I have no time for conneries as the French have it. The world and his wife can go play at medieval doctors and nurses; frankly I don't care, it's true I do not care. You can all go to hell and take your handcart with you.

Let's take a pew

Sometimes, don't you think,  it's nice to just sit and reminisce and get away from the stupidity of the day... Now let me see ...the one on the left resembles a former Labour MP who, whilst elected and sitting in the Commons, had part-time jobs as correspondent for the Guardian and the Spectator, a weekly column of gossip and tales in what he no doubt considered a humorous vein, all with that nauseating patronising flat Yorkshire working class "common sense" voicing. The guy as I recall went to Hull University, his dog, notoriously, chased and caught and killed a goose in a park. Anyhow this fine example of how grammar schools elevate folk spent his whole political life in a party that wanted to abolish grammar schools. (For the record and to show my bias I too went to a grammar school which was abolished, abolishing grammar schools ruined the education of thousands, improved the education of none and sank our standards down to medieval times, there; is that clear enough for you? To be fair though it was Mrs Thatcher and not Labour who abolished Grammar schools perhaps history should be spelled IRONY, you do know that Labour PM Wilson closed more coal mines than Thatcher but that's old irony and water under the bridge...). where was I? Yes back to our cherub cheeked friend, I recall he had a tendency to dribble as elderly folk sometimes do (or did, since no dribbler would be allowed on the media these days). I suppose he imagined he was doing good works, they always do, his sort. He was Old Labour, a schemer in the days of smoke filled rooms and deals done behind people's back between over powerful and undemocratic (dare I say corrupt?) Trades Unions and scared Governments. In his days he was considered right wing by those who considered themselves on the left; in reality the chicken had no wings and couldn't fly, was plucked and heading for the oven. When Blair came along he moaned from the left as Blair, well Blair was in different playground altogether (and playing a different game) ... He also said that he would never take a peerage (that, for those from foreign parts, is appointment to our unelected second legislative chamber, the Lords) but you know how the tide turns and inevitably he took the ermine and became a baron (Don't you love how progressive this country is: from snotty kid in Sheffield to a baron of somewhere in Birmingham, you see the system works!) I just can't remember his name what was it now ? Let me look him up ... Oh Yes, I remember now; Roy Hattersley (Lord Roy of Sparkbrook, that's it) and Buster was his dog. Strange how the memory brings up a complete nobody from the past ... is that the smell of madeleines? Time for some tea and cake I think, shall I pour dear, one lump or two? Do you think it will rain?

Here's two figures carved onto the seating of Holy Trinity in Hull, their appearance, though somewhat grotesque, is nowhere near as twisted as today's reality or indeed the fading memory of our youth.

Regeln om sex

Her most excellent Britannic Majesty's Government regularly astounds us all with its sagacity and fleetness of foot in reacting to changing circumstances. Once again when faced with a death rate of near zero from its very own Covid19 epidemic it cleverly instituted a system of testing. It would do 100,000 tests a day, it boasted, and sure enough it took 100,000 snotty samples a day. (Hoorah and God save the Queen!) Then noticing that these some of these tests came back positive (as they would even if there was no virus left in the world) it claimed, no, stated as fact, there was an increase in the infection rate and certain towns would have to be put back into lockdown (Boo, Hiss and why don't fules obey the guidelines?).
Then seeing that the restaurant trade was as near to dead as can be it brought in a 50% off voucher scheme to get folk to eat out then moaned when folk went out and enjoyed the discount... (Hoorah! no, no sorry not Hoorrah!  hush with the Hoorahs...) There were other clever moves but you want get to the sex.
So of course the testing goes on, relentlessly on. (Today I heard that vast numbers of samples will never even make it to the "testing" stage and have simply been binned, the system is creaking, cracking and about to break under the strain) ...and the testing still tells a tale of increasing positives (OoooooH *scarey noise* but as I keep saying the hospitals are strangely empty ...hmmm.) So now there's to be instituted the brilliant Rule of Sex, a device so fantastic it defies criticism. From Monday (and not before) you cannot have sex with more than six people in a house or in any social gathering, I think that's how it goes, like all the guidelines this seems fair and reasonable to me and, speaking personally, won't be too much of a hardship to endure. I might, very easily be confused on this and have got the wrong end of the stick, my hearing's not what it used to be. Anyway ... Take that Sars-Cov-2, you dastardly fiend! Beep, beep now ... and keep a stiff upper something, lip , yeah lip.
And how will this be enforced, do I hear you ask, do you even care (frankly I've given up, gone home and am phoning this in) ...  because even Her most excellent Britannic whatsit  has noticed a slackening in enthusiasm (nay outright mockery, shame! will no-one take this seriously?) for its imposed ordinances. Answer came there: Covid Marshalls! Yup brilliant, garner a posse of neighbourhood Stasi wannabes (at £10/hour) to go round and check up that the Rule of Sex is being applied. I think I'll apply, I've always had a hankering for sticking my nose in other people's business and telling them that whatever they're doing they should stop. Yes I see a smart career change opening up before me... I just need to get myself a stab proof vest off eBay.

But, seriously, anyone wishing to have their say on the Covid19  and issues pertaining should take half an hour out of their busy lives to look at this brilliant video and consider that the epidemic was a normal event, was not particularly severe, is well and truly over and we are being pushed around by a despotic bunch of thugs using a 'casedemic' as an excuse. The insane rule of six is just a device to stop political action, to prevent gatherings of discontent. We should fly up and teach them manners.

... and the crane? is just a crane in Cottingham, a device to lure you into lurid tales of depravity. The Swedish title is a hat tip to a country that did not follow the madness, suffered the same as everyone, but is now moving on or so we are told ... nah scrub that it was silly ruse to get sex in the headline.

Moments in time

Paragon station clock seemed to be offering a couple of options, it's always nice to have a choice even if neither one was right.

Rude Awakening

These guys rolled up at 7ish this morning; not quite what a peaceful neighbourhood wanted at that time of day, much crashings and bangings and digging up of the road and laying a new patch of tarmac. This was East Riding of Yorkshire Council come to fix the road. Only a good bit of road they fixed I happen to know belongs to Hull City Council (or at least they claim it does). The lorry above is parked over another bit that needs fixing so we can look forward yet another early morning call from these horny handed sons of toil or their Hull equivalent.

... had a great fall.

There's an old joke, usually involving an Oirish peasant farmer stereotype, whose punchline is along the lines of if I was going there sure I wouldn't start from here. It's not terribly funny but then things aren't right now. Like Humpty Dumpty civil society has had a great fall and is lying shattered and in pieces while the King's horses and men scratch their heads and trample on the debris. 

It's not that there's folks dying in their hundreds and thousands from the great panic. Nobody is dying of it or even with it, deaths from the dreaded lurgy are as close to zero as you can get. No, it's not even the rise in the number of 'cases'; these are just 'positives' from the much discredited, indeed derided RT-PCR test for Sars-Cov-2 (or what ever name they call their mysterious friend these days). These 'cases' are not even ill, not in hospital, not in Intensive Care Units, they're not bothered about this at all because it's not a problem healthwise. There is no problem with Covid-19. No really, there isn't, there never was; it was just another seasonal bug passing through and picking off the 'at risk' elderly and sick, compared to other seasons it wasn't even particularly severe...

The problem is the Government, the problem is the state of the State. It has taken powers that bear no relation to any problem faced by people in the United Kingdom. Having gone down this path it has found itself unwilling to let go, so it plays with our liberties like a bored cat with a  mouse, a little loosening here, a tightening there, a quid pro quo on your being able to go to the shops whilst muzzling your faces, pubs can open but you cannot have groups of more than six at home, children go to school but must be muzzled and so on. 

It goes without saying that none of the measures will prevent, or did prevent to the spread, rise, and fall of whatever it was that was killing off the old, sick folk back in March and April. The measures are not health measures but power grabs by the State. Indeed by distancing folk these measures may for the first time in human history have stopped or more likely delayed the development of mass immunity via normal transmission, irony comes back and bites you on your muzzled tush.  I assert once again that only an idiot would think that a flimsy rag over your face will stop a virus. However the world is not short of  idiots and they comply and, in compliance, they give the crazed loons of Whitehall yet more power. A You Gov poll showed a majority for 10pm curfews, please lock us up in our homes, cry the fools,  O hear us when we cry to thee, For those in peril on the streets! .

The absolute fools will applaud the absolute lunacy of the Fat Controller's dream of daily testing to show you are fit to mix in society (a test a day keeps the Covid away!). The absolute fools will queue, nay, fight each other tooth and nail to be first in line for the new, unlicensed, wonder 'vaccine' (which will be sold as the passport to normality, you can hear the crazed mob yelling....please, me please, me first, me first, I want it, I want it, I want it, please, please, pretty please .... ye Gods!)

There is, as the Fat Controller and his mad crew have shown, no limit to the depths of stupidity of fools and no lengths they will not go to exploit it. It's tyranny but for their own good, as ever.  

This is all beginning to get a bit lengthy, tedious and depressing so I'll end with wee, pathetic joke: if you were to ask me the route back to normality I would have to say sure I wouldn't start from here.

Who Ya Gonna Call?

I must say it's been an exceptionally good year for neuroses.

In other news

... and also with the passing of the years there comes a dropping off, a lack of interest, a failure to be aroused, I suppose it was inevitable and I'd heard that others have suffered similarly, it's nothing to be ashamed off I'm told and that there might be treatments for it, have I tried resting and maybe finding something to take my mind off it?  ... but really I'm not that bothered any more, free at last as someone once said. Nope after what seems like a lifetime of doing it regularly, everyday without fail,  sometimes two or three times a day especially on Sundays (the day of rest!) I really can't do it at all now ... well I suppose it's not the end of the world. I can live without reading newspapers or watching the news.

Otoño Porteño

In these revolutionary times I find I have practically given up watching TV. I watch one recorded episode a day (if that) of an old repeated detective series; Law and Order preferably with Jerry Orbach, I know they're far from real policing in New York ( & probably filmed in California) but they're comfortable like an old pair of slippers and a favourite jumper. And that's just about it save for a late night episode of Family Guy (Stewie Griffin is just a wonderful invention). Dabbling with the new technology I end up with You Tube; which, disturbingly, thinks that I am interested in watching beautiful, suicide blonde, young ladies playing classical guitar, it knows me far too well... OK must go now as Señor Piazolla's tangos cannot be put off any longer ...

Walking the Walks

One of the tree lined walks in the Walks, King's Lynn.

In this brief interlude between two phases of non-existence it really seems otiose to have favourites that may, like us, be here today and disappoint tomorrow. Despite this City Daily Photo in what it assures us is its very last first day of the month thing has chosen 'favourite photo' for its theme. Is this a favourite photo? Meh! It'll do for now; until the next one.