For everyone, of course, but a special mention for Bruce and his wife, who are getting a bit better, and for Sub Orbital Pigeon, who is feeling a bit down.
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NOW that we’ve lived during a plague, we understand why most renaissance paintings are of chubby women lying around without a bra.
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THREE little boys are presenting gifts to teacher. One gives her a box. She shakes it. She knows his dad has a candy store.
“Sweeties?”
“Yes Miss.”
The second gives her another box. She smells it. She knows his dad is a florist
“Flowers?”
“Yes Miss.”
The third little boy gives her yet another box. Fluid is leaking from it. She knows his dad has a bottlestore. She tastes the fluid off her finger.
“Whisky?”
“No Miss, it’s a puppy.”
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I don’t mind what language an opera is sung in so long as it is a language I don’t understand. –Sir Edward Appleton
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NEWS comes this way of a super-commercialised marital service. Women can go to a six-floor Husband Store and take their pick. The quality on offer improves with every ascending floor. (And the price goes up). But the women are not allowed to dither between floors. With marriage you make your choice and stick with it.
Ground Floor sign: “These men have jobs.”
First Floor sign: “These men have jobs and love kids,”
Second Floor sign: “These men have jobs, love kids and are very good-looking.”
Third Floor sign: “These men have jobs, love kids, are drop-dead good-looking and help with housework.
Fourth Floor sign: “These men have jobs, love kids, are drop-dead good-looking, help with housework and have a strong romantic streak.”
Fifth Floor sign: “There are no men on this floor. Your expectations are utterly unrealistic.”
Across the street is a six-floor Wives Store, run by the same company, where potential husbands can take their pick.
Ground Floor sign: “These women are stunningly beautiful.”
First Floor sign: “These women are stunningly beautiful and very sexy.”
Second Floor sign: “These women are stunningly beautiful, very sexy and have money.”
Nobody knows what’s on Floors Three, Four and Five because nobody’s been to investigate.
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SCIENTISTS have now confirmed that women who have put on weight during the Covid lockdown live longer than men who mention it.
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A PUBLIC-SPIRITED fellow in South Africa offers some sound lockdown advice:
“I’ve disconnected my alarm system and deregistered from the neighbourhood watch. I’ve put up an “Alcohol For Sale” sign outside my house.
“The police and army are now watching my house, day and night. I’ve never felt safer and I’m saving R900 a month.
“Follow me for more budgeting advice.”
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Thanks to John, Erik, Brenda, Graham, Anya, T, et Claudine à Paris. Excuse me if I’ve missed any out…
Crazy tae think the UK has the highest death rate in the world, and Bawris wants to come to Scotland tae tell us up here how lucky we are tae be part of that. Not even the most sarcastic scriptwriter could come up wi that…
The story of the Wellerman song and the viral video of Scottish postie, Nathan Evans, the other day was more popular than I had imagined it would be. (Munguin was right, as usual, when he told me to publish).
Pentlander saw it and sent me this article with far more detail on the background to the story.
He also sent mentioned that there is still a whaling industry in New Zealand, but a much more humain one where people are taken out to do some whale watching, rather than whale killing. He sent a couple of videos.
“We did everything that we could and continue to do everything that we can to minimise loss of life”, says the British Prime Minister.
And yet, Prime Minister, you oversee a government which has reported the worst per capita death rate from Covid in the world.
So, the best you could do was, in fact, not really that great.
Should that not mean resignation?
The lot of you?
Because it says to me that your very best was the very worst IN ALL THE WORLD.
You wanted herd immunity …something that is impossible with this virus.
You locked down too late; you restarted too early.
You failed to close borders or even check anyone coming through airports, even from places where the virus was at its worst. (My own brother came back from Milan while the pandemic was raging and walked straight through immigration. He at least had the sense to self isolate for three weeks.)
You spent billions of borrowed money on ensuring that friends of and donors to the Conservative Party got contracts to provide various goods and services, including medical PPE, many of which were unusable or simply didn’t happen.
You were determined to “get Brexit done” and so you refused the EU’s offers to postpone the end of the transition period so that you could concentrate your efforts on beating this pandemic.
You didn’t, and you still don’t, protect care homes in your dash to record break again.
You came up with Eat Out to Help Out and encouraged, nay PAID people, to go into crowded restaurants en masse.
You, in fairness, in common with other countries including Scotland, Saved Christmas”… and killed many more people that would otherwise have died… still, it got you a good headline in the tabloids.
Maybe another time don’t take your degree in Greek Poetry and “battle experts” in virology.
You ignored all the advice on getting your tracing ap and ended up with one that didn’t work (Androids wouldn’t talk to iPhones, remember) presumably so it wouldn’t the same as the EU’s, but instead a world-beating English one. Well, it’s certainly been world beating. You’ve beaten every other country in the world.
Global bloody Britain.
And now you are insisting on a reckless vaccination programme which goes against the advice of the vaccine manufacturers and brag that you have vaccinated more people than other countries in Europe. Another world-beating load of bulls**t.
Because you haven’t. You’ve HALF vaccinated people (with some notable exceptions, like for example, your father). 12 week gaps could render the vaccine far less effective, but you can brag that you’ve done better than Germany, so sod it..
The British Medical Association said that the vaccine should be rolled out “as quickly as possible” and called for an urgent review and for the gap to be reduced.
The doctors’ union said the UK’s strategy “has become increasingly isolated internationally” and “is proving evermore difficult to justify”.
“The absence of any international support for the UK’s approach is a cause of deep concern and risks undermining public and the profession’s trust in the vaccination programme.”
“We will honour the selfless heroism of all those on the frontline who gave their lives to help others.”
My colleagues didn’t “give” their lives, @BorisJohnson. Their lives were taken – by you.
Your failure to lockdown, to provide proper PPE, to close borders, to be competent.
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And one of the main problems is that some people will assume that, having had the first jag, they will be safe to get back to life as normal. They won’t.
And to add insult to injury, you yourself, intend crossing the border, with your entourage, from an area of England rife with the English variation virus, which is more contagious and more deadly than the original… and for no other reason than some fruitless mission to save your bloody union that apparently can’t wait a few months.
Get Brexit Done; Save the Precious Union. Continue to be a global British embarrassment.
As Mr Johnson seems this week to be intent on crossing the border into Scotland against the advice of the Scottish government, which is that people should only travel to Scotland on urgent business, I thought that we should show the British, or rather English (by his own choosing) First Minister the same level of respect that he is showing us (given that he will be arriving from a very badly effected part of England)… that is to say, none.
Of course, it’s not unreasonable to argue that Johnson coming to our country and talking in his plummy, Eton-Oxford accent, showing complete and utter ignorance of what we’re all about, can only do us a power of good and his party and power of harm. I bet you he says or does something embarrassing.
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Munguin was sad to read earlier that Bruce (Grumpy Scottish Man) and his wife have both contracted COVID. He sends his best wishes for a speedy recovery to them both.
OK, whaling is bad, and Munguin doesn’t advocate it, but this song, once you get it in your head, just won’t quit.
Try not to think about the lyrics so much as the way these people have worked together, at a distance, to make a great sound and one which has gone viral over the last two weeks.
The guy in the centre, who started it all, is Nathan Evans, a postie from, I think, Airdrie, although as he’s just been signed for a record deal, he may have delivered his last letter.
Boris Johnson was visiting one of the Scottish Isles:
Finally he met the Island Council, just as the sun began to shine through the clouds. His spirits began to lift, “And what can the government do to help you here”, he asked.
“Well,” said the leader, “We have two problems. The first is that since the GP retired to the mainland we have no one to run the health centre and …”
“Stop right there”, said Boris whipping out his mobile phone. He chatted away for a couple of minutes then announced, “That’s sorted. A new doctor will be here tomorrow. And can I say how clearly that shows up the difference between the way we do things in Westminster compared with the government in Edinburgh. Now what was the other problem?” he said beaming and preening for the cameras.
The council leader gave a heavy sigh and said, “We have no mobile phone reception here on the island.”
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9.
Thank you to John, T, Erik, Brenda, Andi and Panda Paws.