As idle as a painted ship

Here's an old barge marooned in the silt of the Boal Quay which has attracted the attentions of local painters and decorators and become really quite colourful, almost as colourful as the character it is named after, Tosca. A little research, like a little learning, is a dangerous thing so for what it's worth I can say that this area was a loop of the river Nar which emptied into the Great Ouse at the far end; changes to sluices and other works mean that it no longer flows around here hence the silting and 'nature' moving in. Some tidal water does reach in giving councils the excuse to erect signs warning of danger but it wasn't that that stopped me from going further to explore, no sir, it was inadequate footwear, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Tosca is apparently not the only boat lost in this gloopy greenery, a local historical site informs of others lost over time in the mire.

... and those menacing clouds duly emptied themselves on our heads soon after making us seek cover.

The Whitefriars Gate, King's Lynn

Hull has its Whitefriargate here in King's Lynn between terraced houses and a silted up quay is the Whitefriars Gate. It's the last vestige of a Carmelite Friary at the southern end of Lynn. A little sign around the back tells us the following "Gateway of the Carmelite Friary which from before 1260 until 1538 occupied a precinct to the south-east. Here lived Friar Aleyn, writer of 'The Book of Margery Kempe' the earliest biography in the English Language, c1436-40." This little jewel has survived the dissolution of the monasteries, sale to Lynn corporation, demolition of walls surrounding, demolition of later buildings abutting it and now stands in splendid isolation overlooking a car park.

I found an interesting blog post on this monument here.

Shibboleths

I saw a vile thing in a charity in King's Lynn; a face mask pouch. Yes a wee bag to pop your lung excreta soaked rag into after signalling far and wide your belonging to the "good guys gang", your  virtue and how much your really care. Ew! Anyhow here we have the equivalent of the Build-a-bear idea, the entrepreneurial drive may have been biffed around the snotty noggin by the Fat Controller but it is far from dead and still knows no depths too deep to sink.

This desperate advert cum ripped up don't- quite-know-what is just plain barmy. 99.95% survived and most of those that didn't were not long for this world and almost none died of Covid-19 alone. They make it seem like some epic struggled, the only danger was and remains the crazed politicians. 

And on the subject of being political I was upbraided by someone for being too political; this is not the spirit, I was told, of City Daily Photo (all praise and hallelujah!). This was after the said person had posted about the Mayor of her town and the state governor, yes she was American; how could you tell? Hmm I wonder where the word politics comes from; could it be the ancient Greek word for city πόλις I think it could well be. Cities are political entities, politics is at their heart, the pretty buildings, the nice parks, the artful riverside walks all come about by political power.

By the Millfleet, King's Lynn

As I mentioned in yesterday's somewhat rambling post I have been in King's Lynn for a few days and naturally took several gigabytes of photos. More to come over the next few days.

Blame it on the Covid

In the ground, in the ground, in the ground

Oh bury me deep in the ground,

I died of the 'rona and double pneumonia

So bury me deep in the ground

City Daily Photo has, it seems, a theme of "Your response to Covid-19" for this month of October. Covid-19! ... I know, I know, the great yawn inducer of 2020 ... October already how time flies in lockdown with anti-social distancing. My response to this year's seasonal respiratory infection, which has for some reason been given a name (Covid-19) and the sort of mass media coverage normally reserved for world wars, has been not to catch it and to ignore all the rules, guidelines, social distancing, lockdowns, hey-downs, ho-downs, derry derry downs etc that have issued forth like so many shots in the dark from a drunken blind gunman... I know there's been a lot of it about (as doctors used to say when you could go to see them) earlier on but I haven't had a sniffle, indeed never been healthier thank you for asking (I know you care). 

...but then such in depth coverage of the many celebrity colds that have featured in what passes for news these days. I hear even The Orange Donald has a wee snotty nose, a fever and gone to bed early with a glass of honeyed tea; well he would wouldn't he; anyone who is anyone has had this danger bug ... including Alexander de Pfeffel aka the Fat Controller who had it earlier this year but you know the social media motto "pics or it never" ... all these colds, fevers and coughs like it had never, ever happened before.

But that was my response I've expressed before nothing new here but what am I to make of  yours? Well never have I seen so much mass hysterical overreaction to a winter sniffle; you lot have, it seems, been making boldly for the Kool Aid and fallen for the necro-hype. Fear is stalking your febrile minds. You seem to want to be ordered (or mandated as the Americans euphemistically put it) to cover your ugly faces with a magical piece of rag the which will stop you passing it on to others and others passing it on to you. (Yet when this measure was introduced here "cases" rose seemingly in defiance of the politicians and continue to "rise" as testing continues to rise... draw your own conclusions) Strangely you lot seem to live on through this mass slaughter as deaths remain stubbornly near to zero as can be, indeed ten times as many of you are passing away with flu right now and nothing, not a damn thing is being done about that... And what kind of a dumbass is it that takes health advice from  lying, no good, ignorant, bullshitting politicians drunk on control freakery??? ... seems the world is full of numptified hoopleheads.  Still as I have said many times here and elsewhere à chacun son goût and you push your own handcart to that warm inferno ...

This is a little late (it's just back-dated) as I've been away to Norfolk and left all my computing stuff behind me, bliss was it in that dawn to be alive ...

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?