Month: May 2020

Yesterday the police had to clear Durdle Door beach following three accidents caused by people jumping from the rocks into the sea (known as tombstoning), and also too many people crowded into this small space. I suggested that maybe the police should close the beach because it was impossible to maintain social distancing in such an enclosed area. Today they did close roads and put up notices saying the beach was closed, not because I said so, I’m sure. It didn’t hinder a rather large number of visitors who found a way to arrive there and some of whom continued to jump from the rocks. Police and coastguards had to attend to clear them, again.

Our two intrepid astronauts, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken,  who rocketed into space yesterday in a private venture, today entered the International Space Station (ISS). They were in the Dragon capsule which attached itself to the bow of the orbiting lab 422 km above China. I bet the Trump didn’t like that, he’s bound to see a conspiracy or something with China so close. What an amazing achievement for private enterprise.

The horrific news of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis by a police officer has sparked some of the worst riots where it happened and across America. It has also brought forth a number of offensive remarks by the Trump, unforgivable in a president. Four police officers have been arrested and one of them, who knelt on the victims neck for eight minutes, has been charged with murder. I’m very sorry to say that I don’t think equal rights for all will happen in my lifetime. Demonstrations in support of George Floyd were held in Trafalgar Square and Battersea in London with thousands gathering in spite of the social distancing rules. Hundreds marched through Manchester and a smaller protest took place in Cardiff. George might not now be forgotten but he should not have died in those inhuman circumstances.

I’ve been lucky enough to go for a BBQ this afternoon invited by my daughter Sam and Paul. Lovely to sit in the garden with family and spend time with grandchildren. Always a pleasure. I made an effort before going and coloured my hair. I’m sure nobody had realised that I had slightly grey roots but no harm in trying to look ones best. It was a bit of a palaver trying to do the back, lots of arm twisting but I think the result was ok. I don’t look at it that much anyway.

Dominic Cummings still has a job but Prince Andrew doesn’t. The Queen has decided (I wonder if a 94 year old woman makes this decision alone) that he should never resume royal duties and that they have no plans to review the situation. It seems that she will also pay off his debt of £6.7 million on a swiss chalet that he purchased with his ex wife Fergie. Seriously? she must be the only mum in the world who has that sort of money lying around to help her wayward offspring. I need to lie down. Good night, sleep tight.

 

I’ve been one of the people who went to the beach today although I didn’t actually go on the sand. I walked along the Southbourne prom with a couple of friends from U3A, we sat on the wall at the bottom of the cliff and ate our sandwich and drank our coffee. The beach was scattered with small clusters of people and it all looked very social distanced. For some reason, every year I forget that I might catch the sun just walking along and not sunbathing. Happened again today so when I got home and happened to glance in the mirror I had a pink face looking back at me. Some people never learn. Others who don’t seem to learn anything are the crowd who gathered at Durdle Door, small beach in a cove and the famous rocks giving the place its name. Visitors once again were jumping from the said rocks and got into trouble causing two helicopters and police to be called out. The helicopters landed on the beach with all the visitors herded together and being treated to a real live reality show. Great pic showing idiots being kept away from the rescue and then being shepherded up the cliffs and away. The police closed the beach. This isn’t the first time in lockdown that the emergency services have been called out to that area, I think it’s time the police closed that beach and clifftop until the end of lockdown.

I haven’t watched ‘Have I got news for you’ for quite a while but today I did following a news item referring to Ian Hislop’s Virtuoso Roasting of Dominic Cummings. He and Paul Merton were hilarious and I must say I enjoyed seeing it relayed via video link (I didn’t miss the canned laughter which spoils it on tv). Ian described Cummings’ ninety minute press conference explaining why he had ‘needed’ to break lockdown as utter  twaddle, or as nannyjune would say, absolute tosh. He took especial exception (as did the rest of the uk except a few conservative cronies) to Cummings’ drivel as to why he drove to Barnard Castle to test his eye sight. ‘Why’ asked Ian ‘would he put a four year old in the back of his car and drive for 30 minutes to see if he could in fact see?’

So. the engineer, designer of the all electric Tesla car has just managed to launch a rocket into space. I can’t help feeling that Richard Branson might have his nose put out of joint over this event. But that isn’t the point, the point being that as one twitterer pointed out ‘the guy (Elon Musk) has now built rocket ships better and cheaper than any government ever and just sent an astronaut into space on one. Remarkable’. It is currently circling the earth and has already passed above Britain twice. After travelling for nineteen hours it will join the International Space Station which is orbiting the earth. I hope they sleep well in their space suits, in their space capsule and I hope you sleep well too. Good night.

The Trump needs to learn when to button his lips. The riots in Minneapolis lead to him stating that the troops would be sent in and that when the looting starts the shooting starts. This is a phrase that had been used against black protestors by southern police in 1967. It was repeated by the White House in a tweet and subsequently hidden (not removed) by twitter for inciting violence. Separately, CNN say that the POTUS has made 654 false claims over fourteen weeks during the pandemic, they can be seen on CNNs web site. And finally (for me today) he announced that the US will terminate its relationship with the World Health Organisation. He more or less said that the WHO and China were in cahoots with each other. Could this man really get voted in again?

In Whitstable, Kent a man drove his VW Golf onto the beach to unload his jetski, he parked too close to the water and a wave floated the car out to sea. A few onlookers took to the water to attempt to push it back onto the beach and one of them attached a rope and they were able to pull it ashore. No one mentioned whether he was able to drive it away but I guess that is a little doubtful. I used to go to Whitstable on holiday as a child, I don’t remember any cars being on the beach, I only remember always being cold.

My daughter Elena and hubby Andrew took possession of their new house today. They can’t move in yet as the container with all their goods and chattels doesn’t arrive until Tuesday. Still, I was able to pop around and give it the once over while it is still empty. Absolutely lovely, spacious rooms, light and south facing, big garden and a great location. Quite near me.  I’m sure they’re going to be very happy there.

Anyone planning a family BBQ next week will need to read the government guidelines. They are suggesting a one way system around the garden and grill and guests should also arrive with their own cutlery and condiments. Now, they haven’t mentioned who provides the plonk and glasses but as everyone seems to have turned into a brewer or winemaker the choice should be interesting. Don’t forget that numbers should not exceed six and if by chance, once grannie and grandad arrive there are seven or eight, you’ll have to relay them in and out anyway. Will this be reminiscent of a game of snakes and ladders, or hide and seek? Maybe you could mark out a large board and if anyone lands on a snake, out they go.

I read today that Laura Kuenssberg earns £250,000 as political editor at the BBC, sounds like a lot right? and it’s described as a staggering amount. However the dopey Alex Jones who presents the very boring The One Show which everyone I know switches off after watching the news, is paid £450,000. Do you think I could read them my blog instead, I would only charge £50,000? Good night

 

BoJo has announced another easing of lockdown with groups of six people being able to meet outside, including private gardens from next Monday. I can’t help it but I’m picturing a family of five, mum dad and three kids, grannie and grandad want to visit for a drink in the garden. Now here’s the problem, someone has to leave the garden to keep the number at six. It could be achieved in a relay, one in, one out. kids probably don’t want to be there anyway but who thinks up this stuff? Why can’t they just say, small groups of people using their common sense and staying safe.

I went for a walk today, late afternoon, early evening and I have to say there were plenty of people still on the beach. Sunbathers, swimmers, cyclists on the prom, runners and plenty of groups which may or may not have been families who live under the same roof. The gardens were busy too with people sunbathing on the grass, playing football and generally enjoying the wonderful spring weather. Hate to be a wet blanket though, the weather forecast isn’t good, although it doesn’t look bad here in the south. I wonder if people will just move their reunions indoors? Cummings gave a good example of twist the rulings to suit the circumstances and then twist the circumstances to suit the small print in the ruling.

No one has said anything about hairdressers or barbers being able to open, other than a few supposedly funny suggestions on how it might be done. Oh, how we would all love to have a hair cut, not to mention getting the colour back to our normal natural look. No, it isn’t natural to have the roots a different colour to the ends. I wonder if our hairdressers will have survived lockdown and lack of earnings. I’ve been going to one of those salons where you don’t make an appointment, you just turn up and wait for a stylist to ‘do you’. Nearly all of the stylists are not from the UK, mostly they are east europeans. I’m not sure if they have a contracts or if they would have received any payment during lockdown. I do know that their working conditions are not excellent, I also know that they mostly are good hairdressers.

Now didn’t I say yesterday that I didn’t have much faith in the new track and trace system starting today? I would hate to say ‘I told you so’ but actually I did. Ex shop workers and probably exes of other employments are being paid £10 an hour to warn people that they may have been infected with coronavirus. The trouble today though is that they couldn’t log onto the system, neither could anyone else. Have you ever known any new,  official online system that didn’t crash or have some other technical problem? Well some people are still being paid £10 an hour and maybe that includes my hairdresser until she’s allowed back in the salon. Good luck to them I say. Good night, sleep tight.  😴💤😴

 

We’ve seen a lot of speeding in Dorset with the roads being emptier following lockdown. Maybe that’s why three young men in Oklahoma decided to take their motorcycle on a high speed ride down the interstate. Unfortunately for the bikers they were clocked by the police so one of the men decided to outrun the officers. Didn’t work even though he reached a speed of 183 mph. He eventually was made to pull over, was arrested, cuffed and taken away in the police car at which point he burst into tears. The officer told him that had he stopped as his friends had done he would only have received a fine, he could now be imprisoned or fined $5000 and would have to listen to the officers music. Maybe that’s why he cried. I always thought those hairy bikers were just big babies with their dungarees and sulky faces.

The Trump is understandably under pressure. He has threatened to shut down social media because twitter added fact checks to his tweets for the first time. What did it find? that a fact according to the POTUS, was in fact not fact!   He threw a tantrum.

An immunologist and ex employee of the WHO has stated that he believes the uk could be virtually back to normal by August and possibly sooner. He previously said that lockdown would begin to ease by mid May, and obviously he was right, and has been less pessimistic than others throughout the pandemic. Meanwhile the government’s track and trace system will be launching tomorrow (Thursday) and I have to say that I have little faith in the system working efficiently. Who is going to be chasing around looking for those people who have been in touch with people showing symptoms. And what about the chasers, won’t they be spreading the virus around as they chase?

Next month we can go shopping if we don’t mind queuing and if we can resist touching before we buy. I think shops will have to do more than mark out a one way system and try to keep shoppers two metres apart. We all know that women like to pick things up, put them down, feel the quality, hold it up against us and then rifle through colours and sizes prior to making our purchase which we will probably return a week later. I’m just saying, otherwise we might as well stick to Amazon. It’s also been suggested that pubs and restaurants could also open next month as long as they can maintain social distancing. I wonder if this will curb illicit liaisons? No canoodling in the corner, big brother will be watching.

So, we might be coming out of the battle with coronavirus but beware, there is more trouble on the horizon. In Virginia and North Carolina millions of cicadas are expected to rise after seventeen years underground. The insects have been growing for all those years and when they emerge they will be buzzing around making a deafening noise, they will lay their eggs and about three weeks later they will die, and we’re complaining about lockdown. In India there is a plague of locusts the worst in thirty years, which are eating crops and causing food shortages. In England we have been invaded by giant hogweed plants. The plants can grow over twenty feet tall, are toxic and can cause blindness and other life changing injuries.  Don’t let it keep you awake though.  Nighty night.

As if the coronavirus isn’t enough, the warm weather has enticed people out of lockdown and, in Derbyshire, into the Blue Lagoon. Very nice too you might think. Well, you’d be wrong. There are plenty of notices up warning visitors not to swim in the turquoise water as it is toxic with a pH level of 11.3. Bleach and ammonia have a pH level of around 12. The water is also full of animal carcasses, faeces and old cars. And there they were, taking a break from ‘stay at home’ and splashing around with all that old s**t.

Anyone looking for a bit of lockdown reading? JK Rowling has released a political fairytale for children called The Ickabog which is available, free of charge, in instalments on the internet at theickabog.com . Adults can read it to their children at bedtime if they don’t want to admit, even to themselves, that they are reading a fairytale.

A Yorkshire woman has become the first hijab wearing judge in the UK and the western world. Raffia Arshad, a mum of three and the first in her working class family to go to university was appointed Deputy District Judge on the Midlands Circuit last week. Congratulations to Raffia and good news for women and diversity.

More shenanigans and blatant hypocrisy in our lockdown parliament. The new leader of the opposition has shown his muscle and called for the resignation of Cummings following his dubious travels during lockdown. However it backfired on Keir Starmer when conservative Steven Woolfe asked why he hadn’t asked for the resignation of at least three labour MPs who had also broken the lockdown rules. No answer to that one of course, but it all gave everyone a good excuse to forget about staying at home and popping out to enjoy the sun.

On the internet suggestions abound on what to do to make the lockdown less tedious. The latest I’ve read about is to write a sitcom. The first piece of advice is to stick to something you know, in other words, your family. Look for funny situations in your own home and put it down on paper. After two months of being stuck in with your dearly beloveds I’m thinking that a drama might be more likely than a sitcom. And what about the singletons sitting it out on their own? I’m not sure we would want the rest of the world to know what we are getting up to. It’s the same as when people keep asking me to write my memoirs down, what did we really get up to in the swinging sixties? At the moment I think I’ll stick to blogging. Stay safe, sleep well and dream about the story you will tell. Nighty, night.

 

Virgin Orbit, Richard Branson’s fledgling satellite company failed at its first attempt to launch a rocket over the pacific ocean. The booster (launcherone) was released from under the wing of an old Virgin jumbo and its engine successfully ignited but due to an anomaly the launch had to be terminated. It should have started to climb to orbit but it didn’t happen on this occasion and Branson will have to wait for launchertwo. I wonder how they managed all this at the same time as managing lockdown.

For the first time since lockdown the public car park behind my block of flats was really rather busy today. My daughters who cycled to the beach tell me that there were plenty of people there enjoying Bank Holiday sunshine but they were able to keep their distance. They also mentioned that there were plenty of quite big groups which probably were not families living under the same roof. I went for my daily constitutional after 5 o/c, through the town and gardens, and there were still plenty of people out and about. It looked as if they are about to replant the flower beds there, all spring flowers have been removed and next time I go it should look like summer.

Cummings is all over the news today and still convinced that he didn’t break the rules and trying to convince the voters and non voters of the same. He apparently thinks he’s cleverer than most of  us and if that is true he should have gone and laid low and not been seen. As I said before, what he did doesn’t show a lot of smarts. I’m fed up with him as a subject, he is extremely unappealing.

So, all shops can reopen in three weeks time. Just in time for the summer sales if my calculation is correct. We’ll be able to shop till we drop but still won’t be able to go very far to show off our new togs, although we will be able to go to outdoor markets from next week. I’m sure you will all be pleased to hear that we will also be able to browse around in car showrooms, maybe treat ourselves to a new motor. Lucky us. Airlines have also made plans to start flying in July and EasyJet, Ryanair and Jet2 have announced their destinations. EasyJet’s only international city will be Nice in the south of France. Made me feel quite nostalgic as I used to go there every year with Sandy.

A lack of tourists might be having a negative impact on the economy at local attractions but it is having a positive result as far as wildlife is concerned. For the first time since the 1980s peregrine falcons can be seen nesting in the ruins of Corfe Castle. Less welcome visitors might be the travellers who have parked their caravans on Kings Park, Boscombe. The local council say that they are monitoring the situations and supplying rubbish bags and then collecting them. I have never understood why travellers are allowed to park up anywhere when people who are paying taxes would be immediately moved on, after being fined of course. Enough from me and time for bed.

 

BoJo might have to listen to not only public opinion but also to his fellow parliamentarians on the matter of Cummings breaking lockdown. Also, a doctor working in the Covid ICU for the last two months has stated that if Cummings doesn’t resign then he will. Doctor Dominic Pimenta said he has not seen his own parents since January and he added that Cummings was spitting in the face of what they were doing and the whole of the NHS. The PM is backing his senior aide and said he had needed to go to stay with his parents to get help with the child care while he and his wife were ill with the virus. When asked if he had returned in April Cummings replied that he had not. Whoever saw him there needs to come back with some evidence, in this country we are still innocent until proven guilty. I personally still think he’s lying though.

Lockdown doesn’t deter the Trump. He will be hosting an independence day 4th July bash in the National Mall in Washington. Rooms at the Trump International Hotel are going at $562 to $2257 plus taxes etc.  In 2018 the hotel made him a profit of more than forty million. Did you know that I once got a speeding ticket in Wisconsin on 4th July? Not the best day for a Brit to be breaking the law in the US.

I’m not breaking lockdown but my daughter Elena did pop over with Elizabeth today just to have a little catch up chat over the garden fence. She very kindly also brought me a bottle of milk and a bunch of yellow tulips, very happy looking flowers. Just before she left we were talking about the possibility of Elizabeth getting some work experience to help with her psychiatry degree. Elena mentioned her neighbour and suddenly I realised that I actually knew her. Not only that, I had been out to dinner several times with her as we have a mutual friend a Croatian lady whose husband I used to work with. It’s a small world. Then another strange thing, I was just saying goodbye when I looked down and said ‘is that a silver earring down there?’.  And it was and Elizabeth had lost it a couple of weeks ago when she last came over. My lockdown world is so weird.

In the news today is makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury who is hoping to sell her company supposedly for one billion pounds of which she will get to keep 500 million. Not bad for a girl who learnt to use mascara and never looked back. Her parents Lance and Patsy were ‘original posh hippies’ and I wonder if Absolutely Fabulous Patsy got her inspiration from that source. Charlotte who was brought up mainly in Ibiza applied paint and powder to an endless list of models and stars before launching her own company. She claims that on her mother’s advice no man has ever seen her without cosmetics. I once hitchhiked to Spain with a blonde hippy named Dolly, her mother gave her similar advice ‘don’t ever go to bed with a man completely naked’. She used to wear a pair of socks.  I won’t tell you about my bedtime habits. Night night, don’t let that bug bite.

The Trump has visited a golf course in Virginia although it’s not clear if he played golf or not. He has been clocked visiting golf clubs nearly 260 times during the nearly four years  he has been president. A political writer said that the POTUS won’t do anything else to stop a virus that’s killed 96,000 Americans and won’t do anything else to fix an economy that sees 40 million out of work, but he will play golf. The POTUS is also threatening to override state governors and allow churches to reopen. Ah bless.

Piers Morgan has issued an ultimatum to BoJo. If lockdown breaker and government adviser Cummings isn’t sacked then Mr. M. will drive two miles and visit his parents. He said there can’t be one rule for us and another for them. Or he could say that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Isn’t this situation reminiscent of Animal Farm? I do love a public scrap.

Sweden didn’t impose mandatory lockdown and people went about their business going to work and school etc as long as they didn’t have gatherings of more than fifty people. The results haven’t been good. Only 7.3% of residents in Stockholm developed antibodies to the virus and the number of deaths was much higher than in neighbouring Nordic countries which did impose a lockdown. It definitely seems a case of ‘you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t’.

I hadn’t realised that Melanie Griffiths (Working Girl) was the daughter of Tippi Hedrun (The Birds). Not that I thought much about either of them anyway and if I had, I would have thought that Tippi had passed to another life in the sky without being attacked by birds. It seems that I would have been wrong as Tippi is very much alive (or at least still in this world at 90 years old) and living in California on a sanctuary where she keeps exotic, endangered cats including, lions, tigers and other animals. She used to keep them in her house and garden when she first started rescuing them as she believed they shouldn’t be bred for pets, I absolutely agree with this and hate to see animals and birds caged up. I have to wonder why she thought that it was alright for her to have them roaming around as semi domestic animals but not ok for anyone else. We are back to the beginning with one rule for them and another for us.

Before I finish, I noticed that yesterday’s post about nurse Nadia brought a flurry of googling for photos. I further noticed that the tale about the fisherman made hardly a ripple. Says quite a lot about my readers.  Sixty one days into lockdown and the same number of blogs and a Russian Covid nurse gets all the attention for takings her togs off. Sleep well, good night. 😴💤😴

An Australian  fisherman was returning home from a fishing trip when he spotted a lot of commotion in the water. He was off the coast of Queensland’s Moreton Island and soon realised that the upheaval was a large shoal of fish being attacked by sharks. He steered his  boat into the area and saw that there were at least forty sharks enjoying a feeding frenzy. He said he’d never seen anything like it before and didn’t think he ever would again. Jaws 2 maybe?

It’s often been said ‘be careful what you wish for’. Venetians are finding this to be true as they come out of lockdown and survey their city without tourists and cruise ships. Locals are enjoying each others company but are worried about how they will survive without the tourism income. During the last century the population has shrunk from 170,000 to just 53,000 and many of those are elderly and alone sometimes living in old palazzos by themselves. Many of the businesses have been purchased from the locals by Chinese entrepreneurs. The city has been hit by plagues in the past and locals say they survived then and they will survive now. I’ve never been to Venice, wouldn’t it be nice to go now.

A study by JP Morgan claims that coronavirus lockdown has made little difference to the spread of the pandemic which quite likely followed its own dynamics. It’s all theory anyway isn’t it? The opposition says the government has got it wrong, and people that want to go about their business say it’s all tosh. We can all say whatever we like because we can’t prove a thing.

A nurse in Russia has been photographed wearing only her underwear (looked like bikini to me) underneath her see through PPE gown. Her boss said that the nurse had come before him to be disciplined but that wouldn’t happen as she was a professional who was good at her job and didn’t deserve to be punished. He added that the patient was wrong to photograph her and publish it on social media. The nurse whose name is Nadia  told her bosses she was too hot. Bet the men on the ward were too.

We had the government advisory scientist breaking lockdown to be with his girlfriend and now we have Dominic Cummings travelling from London to Durham when he should have been isolating. BoJo’s chief adviser had tested positive for coronavirus and travelled to the area where his parents live. Unfortunately for him he was recognised by a member of the public who reported him to the police who visited a property where he allegedly was staying. A few days later he was spotted again in the company of a young child. We really need brighter people advising our government, here we have two who spend half their life in the public eye and then think they won’t be recognised. Doesn’t show an awful lot of smarts, does it? Lock ’em up, I say. He’ll be having a restless night wondering if his next pay check will be there. But you all sleep well good night. 😴💤😴