Amor Fati

I like it when I can agree whole heartedly with this wayside pulpit on the Baptist Church, Cottingham Road. Usually they are just plain old fashion bunkum along the lines of "If God is your co-pilot change seats" that kind of religious twaddle. But here the message is clear and true, some things have to be believed to be seen, further, everything has to be believed to be seen. Even Science believes in the validity of sense data and the regularity of nature before it starts with its experimenting. But this is just Philosophy 101.

Some things, however, once seen are quite unbelievable. 

Take for example, the Vaccine ... soon to be rolled out and pushed into the welcoming arms of the nation. I have seen the claims made for it, I do not for one minute believe a word. Oh the company has legal immunity should it start killing, maiming or doing what rushed and untested medicines do.

Or the Virus, I have read loads of evidence, studied the procedures, looked at the "cases", the "deaths" and still I do not believe.

Or Face Nappies ...

Or Lock downs ...

Or Social Distancing ...

Or Track and Trace ... this evil device rings you up and tells you your phone has come close to another phone with the lurgy (Turn off Bluetooth! ) and so you must isolate for a fortnight, so you cancel all appointments that have taken months to arrange due the Stupidity, close your business, prepare for hard times ... only two days later Track and Trace ring to say it was all a mistake ... this is a true story. Un-f*******-believable!

Or protecting the NHS ... let me tell a harrowing tale I heard yesterday from a friend of a friend whose mother-in-law died of undiagnosed cancer week or so ago. Undiagnosed because face-to-face GP visits only happen after telephone triage and this old lady somehow failed to get through the system. Her breast cancer spread up to her shoulder and neck ... anybody out there who has read Cancer Ward by Solzhenitsyn (it's not for the faint hearted) will  know what I talking about ... Just last week I had to go through several impassible hoops to see the GP mano a mano, first I ring up, no chance of even a phone triage appointment this week, hmmph so I lay on the agony and say the magic words "official complaint" and they go off to see what they can do, meanwhile I ring the NHS Healthline (I think there were ten binary choices mostly C-19 related before I spoke to a person) and they listened and say I should see a Doc ASAP (Hah! they, however, can email the surgery with this advice) ... a while later I get a call, the Doc will call me , he does, he listens, he fixes an appointment for that very evening and the process of getting a diagnosis was started ... we all know the long term prognosis, it's just a matter of time (Tic-Toc). You can see how frail old ladies who do not know how to push and  lever the system, indeed have never needed to, will just simply die by the wayside. They probably are thinking they can just turn up at the surgery and wait as in the bad old days ... Meanwhile, I do not know anyone who has died of or with, alongside or even in the same room as Covid-19 and only know of one person who has managed to test positive with the False RT-PCR test. (His verdict is that he thought it was a bad cold and was not at all bothered about it, so why get tested? but see below about People ). This huge leap backward is going on all across the country. Unbelievable in this day and age ... but at least the NHS is being protected, Gawd bless it!

Or anything any politician says ... weasel words we expect, a year of mendacity and manipulation, illegal, illiberal seizures of our liberties deserve the attentions of a "national razor". So today (December 2) we leave a notional national lockdown (honestly has anybody paid it any attention?) to go into a Tiers system, (cue cries of "it will all end in tiers" and so on). They just changed the locks on the prison doors. We are to be in the top tier 3 based on Hull and Hereabouts having the highest "case" rate in the country (somebody has to) back in the middle of November. It matters not that now the "rate" has fallen by 40%, no that "fall" will count as the "tiers" working ... 

Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira
les aristocrates à la lanterne!
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira
les aristocrates on les pendra!
 

Now where was I? Oh yes, people ...

Or people in general ... they are unbelievably gullible (I was going to say thick, yeah OK, thick will do it, stupid ...)  and victims of their own gullibility. They have the Faith, they believe in the Virus, they believe in the Test. They cry out for the Vaccine (so we are told), they believe all the precautions are vital, they demand all this and beg for more... and they will not be shaken from it.  Folk ("Wackos") like me are a threat to them somehow, we anger them because we do not share their fear. Never trust the People.

Or the Police ... no-one with an ounce of self-preservation would ever believe anything the police say. They  are too busy with fads to police the Law, allowing some demos not others, arbitrarily arresting people, illegally detaining people on their way to a demo (this seemed to shock youngsters but they would not recall the Miners' Strike back in the 80s when this was common practice) the usual garbage we come to expect from the boys in blue, at least they do not have guns or they'd shoot themselves.  Indeed, many do not even know what the Law is at present (indeed, who does?).

But now I'm rambling on and becoming like a silly old man shaking his fist at the sky ... but I've been away a while and I ain't coming back anytime soon, so ...

Or Global Warming ... 

Or Net Zero ...

Or the EU ...

Or China on the UNHRC ...(satire is long dead)

Or Biden won cleanly, fairly and legally ... it seems the wheel's still in spin on this one. I likes me a nice dirty, corrupt election, so I do. It shows where the powers really lie and clearly it's not with the electorate. But this is not my problem, so I don't care, no, really.

Or BLM ... yeah, right.

Or Antifa lalalala ... likewise.

Or Transphobia ... "people who menstruate", I mean really, come on?

Or MSM (Defund the BBC!) ...

Or adverts for coffee ... or any adverts, of course, but coffee adverts are the pits.

Or ridiculous blogs like this ... enough, let's have done with it, why keep dragging on with rubbish?

 

But fairies at the bottom of the garden are quite cute ...

“Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.”

 

I admit I haven't been paying attention to the news, the local news, any news, or Twitter or such like for a week or so, so when I wandered across to the local rag's site and was informed that this town had the highest number of "cases" in the country ... "by along way" was the sub-headline... my reaction was not one of great despond but more "Gosh and golly the old city of culture finally caught up with the nonsense that has been going on around parts of the world". This backwater has always lagged behind fashions by a year or so so this was pretty quick catching up, also the somewhat cynical thought passed through my mind that maybe there's Government money to be had from being so infected... "Oh save us and forgive us, Fat Controller, for we have sinned!"

Still, I wonder, how do they know this fascinating snippet? Why by testing, dear boy. 

But where are folk being tested? In places like this on Inglemire Lane, do try to keep up... 

So with so many new "cases", and new "cases" being but a small percentage of those tested, there must be lots and lots of folk being tested, then?

So how come, there is never anybody either going in or coming out of this place when I go past? Erm, no comment ...

I ask only to be informed.

You think I'm making this up, that I have some agenda ... frankly I don't give a damn, it's your game and I am most definitely not playing.

Government figures are for, I think, half a million tests per day, and I read this comes out at 150 tests per hour per testing station assuming a twelve hour working day, over two a minute... it's just not happening here or at many other testing stations. 

There has always been a Big Lie at the heart of this year's stupidity and it spawns smaller lies along the way to keep it afloat.

Oh then I read there are plans for "mass testing" of the stupid folk of Hull (what was the testing before then? ) anyhow this is with a brand new test, quicker and easier, and can be (and probably will be) administered by a squaddy on his day off ... the reward for going through this is 14 days house arrest if you get a "positive" result. So why would anyone with any sense put themselves through this? It's madness.  

Did I mention that we are supposed to be under yet another lockdown, the first having worked so well a second was the obvious choice ... naturally I am ignoring it, this time many others seems to be doing likewise. It's supposed to end December 2 but you watch it will be back next year, complete with new models of new plagues and the hope of a vaccine for the totally insane...

Anyhow the whole thing is boring and as someone once said even Gods struggle in vain against boredom.

.... and I seem to have forgotten that wise maxim of never believe anything you read in the papers... catch you later... possibly much later.

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.

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.

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.

A Twenty Twenty Vision

Remember back in the bad days, the days before the glorious Fat Controller took us all under his gross, adiposal care and smothered us with lock downs, useless, health threatening face muzzles and quarantines and testing (always with the testing) and , now, whisper it softly, a vaccine! Yeah Laissez les bons temps roulez as nobody ever said, ever. You'd have be a "nutter" not to take the vaccine and save lives (it's not about you it's about saving lives, don't be so selfish and wear your mask!) ... Remember when life was so evil that the country was rich with a booming economy, there were shops that sold stuff, bars where you could get a drink, restaurants where you could eat, transport you could use freely, go anywhere without a care, without the glare and the stare ... Do you even recall the simple Referendum to leave the European Union? (or even remember the EU? No, me neither, strange how quickly the memory fades... I had to check yes; it's still there and still falling apart, still wants to fish in UK waters and have the UK pay for its follies, plus ça change...) The madness back then inspired this monstrosity though it seems to be talking more and more of the divisive insanity that strides the land these days, with mass hysteria and ovine compliance with ridiculous politically inspired dictats from ministers who are drowning in their vain, incompetence. The UK is no longer a Parliamentary democracy, no, the land that was the Mother of Parliaments is now run by statutory notices, the rotten, stinking vestige of medieval Royal prerogative, supposedly vetted by MPs but in practice just pushed through without so much as a whisper of a debate, and Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition are just compliant ninnies in this coup d'état. It's dictatorship in all but name. Oh he's a bumbling, avuncular dictator, but that is what he is, have no doubt. I hear he's a classical buff, can recite the Iliad in the original ancient Greek, then no doubt he'll recall the words of Brutus as he shivved old Julius: "Sic semper evello mortem tyrannis". His turn will come, it always does.

The weekend in Black and White is here.

Dear God,

Hi, how ya doing? Thought I'd drop you a line since it's been a while, well it's been a lifetime since they dipped me in that old holy Roman Catholic water and drove the devil and all his works from me ( we were having such fun) but in terms of the infinite less than just a tick. I know my mum (How's she doing, btw? I'm sure she's up there with the saints and all, what with all her faith, damned unbreakable faith) tried to point me in your direction dragging me off to church each Sunday and Holy Days of Obligation (nipping me when I was bored and naughty and sitting when I should have been kneeling) even sending me to a Catholic School ( no priest took a fancy to me sadly or I'd be much richer than I am today) but I got to six years old and it wasn't going to stick, sorry old chap, no hard feelings, eh?  ...
So I heard you were unwell, well I heard you'd died (was it really 'pity' that saw you off, was it? or something less serious? the nauseating Postmodern relativistic morality and the happy clappies and the apostasy of women priests would drive anyone off a cliff) I assume those reports were an exaggeration and you're just going about your merry, mysterious way; giving folk freedom will then punishing 'em for using it (teehee!)... 

Now if you're thinking your hearing has gone a bit dickey recently and that it's gone a bit quiet down here, no it's not you it's (who else?) the Government (you don't like 'em either? They think they are your gift to humanity, please tell them it isn't so, go on do a bit of smiting you know you want to. Do they tax you too and put you in a gag when you go shopping? I know, I know, where's it all going to end? Now don't pretend you don't know ... I can feel you smirking even behind that face muzzle) Anyhow they only went and closed the churches, first time in centuries even the old Black Death (thanks for that by the way) didn't close 'em. Yersinia sends her regards, I hear she's out in Colorado living with some squirrels but she always was a wild one.  So, yeah erm things are a little quiet down here atm, folk wary of each other, scared to admit that they really don't think this little flu thing (was that one of yours or have you outsourced plagues and pestilence to China?) is a big thing and they'd love to get on with their lives but the schools are closed ('til September, teachers can't miss their summer holidays can they?) so someone's got to stay home and look after the brats, and the shops are going to be a test if you turn up bare faced, as you intended, and the nauseated worriers play up and start moaning, I swear I'll take a stick to anyone who bugs me (I am, as you know, without sin so they'd better watch out) ... but you got your troubles I got mine, it's been good to talk, catch you again sometime, don't be a stranger.

Your old mate ,
                          Bill

Deserts of vast eternity

The cunning plan to make Hull's tenure of the title of UK City of Culture as miserable as possible seems to be working ever so well. Above is what used to be called Holy Trinity Square but no doubt due to changes in the political climate is possibly called Perfidious Albion Plaza or Mea Culpa Square or some such. Those of an age can maybe recall the neutron bomb and how it was to take away the people and leave the buildings (a wonderful device) ... Anyhow thousands were spent clearing it up, installing mirror pools, plans made for food festivals and so on and they had to go and invent a plague just out of spite. They need not have bothered I wasn't going to go anyway.

The statue of Andy Marvell still stands, though really the viral iconoclastic nonsense of pulling down statues seems to have peaked and died away here much like an English summer. I read that this MP for Hull during interesting times (civil war, regicide, restoration and what have you; OK not of interest to everybody I know...) was a master of self-preservation. I wonder what the man who wrote this:

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power...

would make of the servile, bedwetting, safety-first, neurotic, mask devouring cowards that want to impose their fear upon us all. But then maybe he too would mask-up, rub in the alcohol gel and conform; self-preservation, dear boy, self-preservation. Gah!

Viяuƨ Scriblings

 

Sometime next week, I think maybe Friday I haven't been taking notes, folk will be under a legal obligation to wear a face muzzle when doing their shopping. This novelty will not apply to the staff who work in shops all day only to those who pop in for a few minutes to pick up a newspaper, a pint of milk, and a loaf of bread. Shop staff seem not to catch whatever it is that is supposed to be going around. 

If the store is large enough to have a cafe or restaurant attached then those eating do not need a mask, however they will need to wear one between the front door of the shop and the cafe and, of course, upon leaving they will need to cover their ugly gobs on the way out; should they need to use the rest room then it's masks on but not while actually in the rest room. If you want to sit all day in a pub getting sozzled you can do so without encumbrance. I did a brief survey whilst out and about and saw no-one wearing a mask at all, not one; usually there's been one or two but today nobody. Why folk would suddenly choose to obey this stupid decree I can't imagine.  Many stores say they will not police this (it not being their job to annoy their customers) and the actual police (or rather the London Metropolitan Police) have said they do not have the resources to police it either (meaning they have better things to do) so we'll see ... Anyhow, I do not intend to participate in this pointless, infantile parlour game.

I should note that we are some four or five months into this Government inspired fear-driven fiasco, and even in Hull no-body is bothering to die with this alleged virus any more though, of course, testing is picking up some cases (the tests however are utter rubbish), the current situation clearly does not come close to an epidemic. 

It has been noted that the death figures are wrong, that is to say folk are counted as dying of this thing even if they got over it months ago, in England you can never be free of Covid-19 and no matter how gruesome or mundane your death it will still be a viral demise should you ever have tested positive for this wee sleekit cowerin' timorous beastie, much as I foretold for Poor Sam. So Public Health England ("We exist to protect and improve the nation’s health and wellbeing (sic), and reduce health inequalities.") have been overstating the mortality figures (why ever would they do that, do you  think? what could possibly be their game?) which means that this thing (whatever it is and that is far from clear) is even less of a risk than previously thought and previous thought had it as a mild flu/bad cold sort of event that happens most years and nobody notices ...

I note the following also because it needs to be noted. The reason for the lock down was to "Save the NHS": now that slogan was quietly dropped some time back in April (I think) when it was apparent that the outbreak had peaked and the NHS was not (and never came close to being) in any danger of collapse. So is the NHS back  up and running? What do you think! A visit to the dentist involves more rigmarole than open heart surgery, GP appointments are now triaged over the phone, GPs have made millions fewer requests for medical tests and assessments, cancer patients are dying in their thousands with many thousands still undiagnosed and heading for an early grave. If you break your arm or have an accident that requires an X-ray you now have to make an appointment before approaching the A&E department of your local hospital before you simply turned up and pointed at your dangling limb and got an X-ray. There's more going on, no doubt, but this is enough for me. I do not for one minute think these restrictions will ever be lifted. The relationship between the people and the NHS has switched from it serving them to them serving it and this cannot be good.

But, finally it is not all gloom and doom; the Fat Controller says he hopes it will all be over by Christmas and since he started it he can finish it any time he likes; I suppose getting him to say he was wrong and was all a big mistake is too much to ask.

The somewhat scruffy mail box is on Park Avenue and has been there for a century or so and is merely decoration for this rambling post.

Look, Duck and ...

The Avenues area, described by some wag as the Muesli Belt of Hull, is currently plagued by feathery fiends who cause untold harm to the economy, health, education and safety of the neighbourhood. Residents are wary of venturing forth lest they should come across a malicious mallard, the very sight of which is sure to cause respiratory failure, diarrhoea, apoplexy and general malaise not to mention corporal decay. Urgent research into a cure, a possible vaccine ( a quackzine? no seriously...) has shown adverse effects with patients reporting  webbing on the extremities and an irresistible desire to go paddling in Pearson Park. The Government assures us that the problem will be over by Christmas and is introducing legislation making duck pate compulsory festive fare. 

Salisbury and Park

Here's the intersection of Salisbury Street and Park Avenue showing the somewhat quaint Queen Anne style fronts designed by George Gilbert Scott. Did the Council really have to put that road sign just there; I mean it wasn't there a few years back. Are drivers really so thick they need to be told to go round a roundabout? (Don't answer that.) There are mermaids too but doesn't every street have mermaids?

I had to change the title of this post as I had the avenue  before the street and that is a big no-no with our American friends who tell us how to live, who we should get our technology from, who our friends should be, who should be our Prime Minister, how we should write our own language, and which way we should pee in the morning (For this relief much thanks ...) We're touched by your presence, no really, we are, touched.

A tired old tart

I've told before how gun-running local entrepreneur cum property developer Zaccharia Pearson 'donated' a piece of land to the west of the then expanding Victorian city of Hull so that the local council could have a public park (around which desirable space Zacc built and sold many large town villas). Anyhow past speculations and malfeasance aside the place was a Victorian promenading success with a bandstand and a lake and a little bridge and a glass conservatory. But we no longer live in the era of middle class well-to-dos taking the air in a town park and so  over the years the bandstand went, the bridge went and the conservatory became shabby and run down. The park in recent years has a reputation for not being at all pleasant or indeed safe. Still, undaunted by the flow of history, the Pearson Park fan club and the council and (I think) lottery funding of nearly £4 million have put back a little bridge and a bandstand and rebuilt a conservatory. Oh and repaired the ornate gateway as I mentioned some months back. (Must get a picture of that delight some time)

As you know I'm a great believer that bandstands are quite possibly the most stupid invention even more than face masks in public spaces. Here's a little beauty, already the haunt of local youth and destined to feature in so many stories of vandalism, drug abuse and violence in the local rag. If there were awards for pointless constructions well this is surely a contender. The only reason I can find for it being here is that there used to be one so there has to be one now, stands to reason.

I did like the weather vane on the conservatory though the building itself looks hideous and out-of-place. I believe it has already been vandalised several times in the short time it has been built; with any luck they'll destroy it completely.

So there you go, several million pounds in the pockets of the renovators and we have a park that has a pointless bandstand, a reinstalled but unnecessary bridge and a crappy glasshouse and a repainted cast iron gate posts for a gate that is never closed. I think this was a massive wasted opportunity to spend money wisely on something new, innovative and imaginative. This is supposed, somehow, to make Pearson Park attractive, "like new". It fails. It might have worked a hundred and fifty years ago but not now. Now it looks like a tired old tart with way too much make-up and hideous lippy hiding the cracks and pretending she can still pull the punters, not quite ugly but giving off a stench of desperation.

A Movable Feast

The Christian festival of Easter was cancelled this year; that quasi-pagan celebration of Christ's victory over Death was put to one side because ... well no real good reason at all; Government fear of collapse of health services (that didn't happen) led to panic, scaremongering, a return to medieval thinking, mass hysteria, media bullshit reporting, misuse and abuse of statistics, you name it  and it happened this crazy year and to get out of the grave dug for us by stupid, vain politicians (who seem at least to have stopped digging) we linger in this not free transition with illiberal regulations for anti-social spacing, reservations for the pub (for Chrissake!) ... and (useless) face mask virtue signalling social tyranny. It's the control freaks' wet dream ... 

PS the church sign has been removed after so many weeks and there's talk of the place reopening with every soul isolated lest they should spread this 'germ' ... I won't ask who made this 'germ' since, well, we don't want to go down the rabbit hole of theodicy on a  cold, damp Thursday in July.

Derelict Doodles

At some time in the down days of this year someone with way too much time on their hands found a way to brighten up the walls of this empty old bank on Beverley Road. Well done them.

A cooling dollop of scepticism

But I'm near the end and I just ain't got the time

And I'm wasted and I can't find my way home ...

Long, long ago when that was but little tiny lad I started a course in biochemistry, at Liverpool University if you're interested which I'm sure you're not, anyhow the course involved much practical work in laboratories doing protein assays, carbohydrate assays, lipid assays, mineral assays. Measuring stuff, in short, answering that perennial question how much of what you claim to be there is actually there. Common to all these assays was preparing a calibration curve using purified protein or glucose, vitamin C, starch, NADH or whatever was on the mind of the lecturer that week. We always started with a bottle of known and measured our sample of unknown against that. It became ingrained, dinned into us: start with what you know and compare that against what you have in your hot little hand.
I relate this because it seems to me that a lot of so-called science, as reported today, skips that part of dealing with what is real and known and reaches for the computer model of how it is supposed to be, dogma has replaced experiment. This might not have been so important, reality will eventually catch up and bite these dreamers, except they have immunised themselves against reality by a wall of self-righteous indignation that reaches all the way up to and including the top levels of political and business power. The model is now emperor of all he surveys (not actually surveys since that would entail taking measurements and stuff, facts and data only get in the way)  and his clothes are a glorious array of flim-flammery and untested theory.
So with so-called man made climate change (seemingly now a way of browbeating folk into accepting expensive, windy, sunny, watery, willowy woody power generating schemes when nuclear is clearly the way to go and there's centuries' worth of nice coal under our feet) and so, more to the point with coronavirus testing.
When I read the protocol for this test back in March first thing I asked myself was where is the metaphorical bottle of purified virus that they are using for comparison, well it didn't exist then and, you know, it still doesn't these months and several million tests later. You might think that something as important as this test would at least have a so-called gold standard behind it. You'd be wrong. It has less behind it than the Wizard of Oz, it's basically an act of faith, believe in the dogma behind all this, believe in the method, in short believe in the very existence of Sars-Cov-2 or what? What is there left to believe in? It simply has to be true. This is the 'truth', the only possible 'truth' and nothing but the 'truth'.
Belief is, of course, basic to science but it has to be based on evidence, on repeatable demonstrable experience that can be refuted by experiment. In short it is based on a "bottle of known stuff" not on fanciful dogmatic delusion as seems to be the style these days.
So if you see me wandering around, too close for comfort, breaking that anti-social distancing claptrap, not wearing a silly face-nappy and laughing at poor saps who worry that their world is being ruined by alleged nanoscopic pieces of lipo-protein wrapped RNA ("that come all the way from China") that may or may not exist well now you know why. Three years of scientific training and three more years of postgraduate research (or paid fun as I recall) and years of watching that old handcart roll on down the path to who knows where have left me deeply scarred with what are now old man's doubts. 

A little bit special

Whenever I see this tree on my way back from the shop I say to myself I must take a picture of it in its springtime glory. Finally I had my phone in my pocket and so here it is. I think it's a maple of some sort but don't trust me on trees, certainly stands out from all the green stuff round here.