Month: June 2020

BoJo announced new measures to kickstart the economy after the pandemic tried to bankrupt the country. The opposition said that the measures weren’t anything new but that’s what they’re there for, to oppose so they are just doing their job. BoJo’s idea is to throw a whole load of money into rebuilding the infrastructure of England. Roads, schools, hospital maintenance and buildings, prisons as well as new and affordable homes. The idea is that this would create new jobs putting more spending back into the economy, then we can pay more in tax. The government will also change some planning laws to speed up building projects which could turn out to be something we are sorry for in the future. We will have to wait and see, we’ve had plenty of practice at that for the last three months.

Illegal raves have been held all around the country, Manchester, Bristol, Leeds and many more. Huge numbers gathered together to dance and take drugs not worrying or even thinking about coronavirus. Clubs are closed and young people are bored. They have been forced to finish their schooling early and need somewhere to let off steam. Social media lets them know what is happening and where and that’s all that’s needed. What they don’t know is that these raves are often set up by criminal gangs who have also lost business because of the pandemic. They entice a DJ along to a field somewhere, let the word get out and then they suddenly have all those customers, sometimes as many as 4000, in one place and money starts rolling in. It’s easy when you know how.

Young men do the strangest things and sometimes like this one very sad. A mother was concerned that she hadn’t heard from her son in Peterborough and couldn’t get him to answer his phone. She called his neighbour and asked him to go and check out the young man’s room. He was found on the floor surrounded by drinking vessels and it was later established that he had died from drinking large quantities of caffeine. The coroner said it was unclear how or why he had consumed them but it was probably not intentional.

In Kent a young man was having a quiet drink in a field with friends at 1 am, northing to do with the raves. I have to wonder though why you would go to have a drink in a field at that time of night and tend to think there was more to it than that. Still, on with the story, he needed to go for a pee after a few bevies and went behind a bush to relieve himself. He hadn’t realised that they had been sitting on the edge of a 100 ft deep quarry and he lost his footing and went over. He grabbed a branch on the way down and hung on for more than two hours until firefighters arrived to rescue him. He suffered collapsed lung and broken ribs, vertebrae and ankle. The moral to this story is that it’s safer to drink in your mum’s kitchen. Nighty night, 😴💤😴

 

Sunday 5th July will be the 72nd anniversary of our NHS. To mark the occasion the photographer John Rankin Waddell, known as Rankin, has taken photos of 12 NHS staff members from around the country. These twelve represent all frontline workers and include a doctor, a cleaner, a call handler and all other roles. He travelled around the country at the height of the pandemic as he wanted to offer his services in some way. This tribute to all NHS staff everywhere is his way of thanking the people who risked their own lives and at times sacrificed time with their own families to save others. Rankin worked as a hospital theatre porter when he was in his twenties and now he will donate the pictures to the NHS. They will be seen in lights around the country, in Piccadilly Circus, on billboards in cities and at bus stops. The pictures were released today and are truly beautiful.

Leicester is to get the first localised lockdown in the country and only essential shops will open and the other businesses which were due to open at the weekend will have to be delayed. Schools will shut from Thursday. Sadly Leicester has more new cases of covid than anywhere else and three times more than the next largest. The residents are disappointed to say the least but most realise that it is the only way forward. Localised lockdowns do seem sensible at this stage of the pandemic but travellers in and out should also be restricted. Good luck to everyone there.

In a New York park a homeless man who claims to be Jesus was found laying naked face up on a drained fountain. This was the third time the man had been naked in the park and this time he was arrested. Officials tried to cover him and tried to persuade him to leave but the naked ‘Jesus’ would have none of it. ‘No, no, no’, he cried out, ‘if I need help I will ask my mother, she is a virgin’. Nice try, Jesus but he was still carted off to hospital. I wonder if he would have tried the same stunt in winter?

It’s the end of the academic year for university students even if they haven’t managed to take advantage of lectures. Still they had to pay their rent till the end and now is the time to clean up the student accommodation and hand the keys back to the landlord. One group of seven students in Burnley did just that and waited to receive their deposit back. Imagine their surprise when each of them received not only the £250 they had paid but an extra £50 each as a thank you from their landlord. He sent them a note saying that they had been excellent students, a pleasure to deal with and he was sorry to see them go. That made me smile.

Talking of smiles and universities. My grandson Thomas has just received his results and now has a first class honours in Finance and Economics. Yippee, one down and quite a few to go. Proud Grandma moment.

A British pilot who went to Vietnam to work as a commercial pilot was one of the first people there to contract covid-19. The country has had very few coronavirus cases and not a single death in spite of having 95 million inhabitants. The pilot who is from Motherwell in Scotland believes that had he not been in Vietnam he would have died. His was the worse case the doctors had seen and they published news of his treatment in national newspapers. Most of the people followed the story and he became known as patient 91. He spent 68 days on a ventilator in a coma but has now regained consciousness and said that he was grateful for the bloodymindedness of the doctors for not wanting him to die on their watch, The Vietnamese government over reacted at the beginning of the pandemic and therefore were able to halt to virus before it got out of hand.

Isolation and social distancing have been recommended and for a short while implemented in many countries. Now a scientist is saying that too long spent in this type of vacuum can cause several problems Well we could have guessed that, couldn’t we? For years we’ve been told to get out, exercise, socialise, use our brains etc. etc. it’s good for our health and well being and to be fair, we found that it was so. Now apart from isolation affecting our mental well being it seems that it can affect our immune system which needs to learn to protect by contact with other humans. And while we are on the subject, I went to the shop this evening and I was the only person wearing a mask.

A young teacher has become a real hit with her pupils after receiving a bionic arm. Vicki Smith who is 25 years old was born without her left forearm and while she has learnt to live a normal life, never having known anything different, certain tasks she was unable to carry out. She was chosen by a charity to receive the first bionic arm they were going to donate. The arm works by picking up signals from muscles in her upper arm and then behaves like a regular limb. She can now hold a knife and fork at the same time, cutting up her own food. She can curl her own hair without burning herself as she once did. And she can even do cross stitch which is a favourite pastime for Vicki. Her pupils are fascinated by the robot arm and like to ask her to do things that she couldn’t do before. They have named her Super Teacher. The organisation who donated the arm is The Worshipful Company of Glovers which was set up by London glove makers in 1638. I find this very apt.  Good night. 😴💤😴

 

 

Well done BPC council for clearing 80 tonnes of rubbish from Bournemouth beaches in 24 hours. Today the newspaper reported that people had heeded yesterday’s warning and stayed away. I don’t believe a word of it, they stayed away because the weather had changed and the visitors are fair weather friends. A local businessman said that declaring a major incident at 3 pm was useless. I can tell him that Central car park wasn’t full until after 2 pm so I think lots of people working from home did half a day and then went to the beach. By the way, yesterday’s news reported that a million people descended on our beaches, today they said it had been half a million. Another report said it was 40 tonnes of rubbish and not 80, never did trust the press. Perhaps the first figure referred to the whole of Dorset beaches.

While researchers have know for a long time that micro plastic can be found in sea food and bottled water, they didn’t know that it could be absorbed through roots into fruit and vegetables. They said the most highly contaminated fruit was the apple and carrot the vegetable. Now while I can see that the carrot could absorb particles in through the root, after all it is a root, the plastic would have to travel a long way up the trunk and branch etc. to get into an apple. It’s ironic when you think that people started drinking bottled water for their health and now those empty containers are a big culprit in spreading micro plastics through the food and drink chain. All makes you think about our five a day.

Brexit lingers on and the only good thing I can say about covid is that we stopped hearing about Brexit. Now it’s back in the news and BoJo is adamant he will end the transition period by the end of 2020 and if he does it looks like being a no deal exit. At least one recent survey reports that the majority of British people do not want Brexit in any shape or form. I’m not sure anyone knows what they want at this moment in time.

It’s a long time since Robin Hood roamed Sherwood Forest, the people you are most likely to see dodging and hiding among the trees are the bird watchers. They arrive early with their cameras and long or wide distance lenses and look forward to capturing rare and unusual specimens. Recently the twitchers have been surprised by a more unusual sight, a naked man rambling around the area. He has been spotted several times by different twitchers and it seems he is wearing just trainers, a baseball cap and a backpack. Police and the RSPB are looking into the matter. Wrong sort of rare and unusual I wonder? Something for the twitchers among you to dream about though. Tweet, tweet. 😴💤😮

You all know what happened in Bournemouth yesterday and today, one million people are estimated to have arrived in one day. Camping on the beach and clifftop because hotels are closed, ALL their rubbish left behind (slobs) and parking on double yellows,at least that might bring in some revenue for the council, they’re going to need it. I popped to see a friend this afternoon and when I came from Southbourne at 5.30 there wasn’t one available parking space along the clifftop. I bet the sea smells like a toilet after all that lot have been there. I have a message for the visitors ‘Take your rubbish home with you, we don’t want it’. Somehow I don’t think they read such an intellectual blog as this.

An Irish hair salon has, apparently, provoked outrage when they reopened after lockdown. The problem? they want to charge more for fixing their customers’ hair as it will take longer and use more products. Quite right too I say, they also have had to buy protective clothing and sanitisers etc. in order to look after the customers. Tell the people in advance, don’t be greedy and if they don’t like it, we know what they can do.

In Florida (the one in USA) there has been a spike in coronavirus cases as in many parts of the country. In Palm Beach County the commissioners were discussing at a public meeting whether to make the wearing of face masks obligatory. The public, or at least some of them, really didn’t like this suggestion and accused the commissioners of being communist dictators and following the devil’s law. They also said that the officials were violating the constitution. One woman said she was going to carry out a citizen’s arrest for crimes against humanity. (this is for wearing a mask and the two metre rule). She said a lot more mentioning Bill Gates and Hilary Clinton and she is going to vote for the Trump. I’m beginning to see why people might vote for him, it’s all to do with the big conspiracy theory against American citizens.

I think my son and his family have gone to their pad in Spain on holiday. At least he showed a photo on FaceBook of his car all packed with luggage and another pic of the car getting charged up in France. So, he’s either going on holiday or he’s running away from home. No sign of Claudia or the kids, is everything ok Cludsy?

I watched Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads on tv this evening, or rather I listened as there’s no need to even look at the tv if you don’t want to. Tonight’s was Soldiering On with Harriet Walker which follows the death of the heroine’s husband. Very clever dialogue and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think I’ll catch up on all the others. I wonder if it could help improve my writing.  Good night everyone, don’t come to Bournemouth unless you live here. Although the weather is already on the change so you might not want to. Sweet dreams.  😴💤😴

 

Some days recently, in spite of the pandemic still spiking in certain areas such as Anglesey and Yorkshire, I have managed to have the odd day where life seems almost normal. Today was like that. I was invited along with a couple of friends over to Veronica’s garden for a cup of tea and a chat. Our hostess had made lemonade and scones and as it was so hot we decided to skip the cuppa. Her garden was looking really beautiful with lots of colour and loads of different plants. The virus was mentioned but not too much and we had a thoroughly nice afternoon. I have nearly forgotten to mention that Margaret whom I was giving a lift to suggested I went over to hers early and we had a light lunch there. What more could a girl possibly want in the middle of all this uncertainty?

I see that Bournemouth beaches were crowded again today. I think it was possibly the busiest day so far if the car park was anything to go by. Central car park near where I live was almost full when I left home at mid-day and it was still full when I came home at nearly 6 o’clock and quite a bit longer. Let’s hope it doesn’t set off another spike in Covid cases, Bournemouth has been doing quite well with the numbers dropping.

In America the first known wrongful arrest using facial recognition technology has taken place in Michigan. A man was arriving home from work one evening when a police car drove up and the officers arrested him and put him in a crowded, filthy cell for thirty hours. He was eventually released when it became obvious that the man hadn’t stolen the watches which is the crime he was being accused of. Apparently facial recognition technology is a long way from being accurate and even more inaccurate when trying to identify people of colour. The wrongly arrested man was black. The large tech companies such as Microsoft and IBM are not yet selling their software to police departments or not developing it at all for these reasons.

I’ve been watching the Great British Sewing Bee because I used to do a lot of sewing from when I was quite young and we had an old Singer treadle machine at home. Tonight was the final with three finalists making a gown fit for the red carpet, in other words very glamorous. The winner was Dr. Clare Bradley who is a respiratory consultant at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth and likes to sew in her spare time. I have to say that I didn’t think what she made tonight was the best of the three finalists but she had made some really good garments throughout the series and I’m sure she was the best choice. Clare also dressed every week in retro thirties style clothes and hair etc. Lovely to see someone following their dream.  Talking of dreams. Sleep well my lovelies.  😴💤😴

It’s a fact that Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove attract visitors from all over the country and are encouraged to do so by ‘Visit Dorset’ our local tourist initiative. It’s a small beach and very shingly so you are likely to feel a bit hemmed in and might need some jelly shoes to protect your feet. I don’t know many locals that head for there when the weather is warm and visitors likely to be arriving. They’re more likely to go for a walk or a longer hike when the temperature is down a bit. I met up with some friends from London who had come to Bournemouth for the day yesterday and one of them said if he wanted to swim he would go to Lulworth Cove. He thought because it is a small cove and beach he would feel safer, more like being in a pool. Sadly that doesn’t seem to be the case. Once again a swimmer got into trouble in the water there on Sunday and this time he lost his life. A young man in his twenties, out for a day with friends.

I know I keep on about public toilets being closed but it can affect your day out. What I never really stopped to consider was people going about their daily jobs such as postmen or postladies. Now it seems that one of their number has been dismissed for having a pee in a public place. Oh dear, someone saw him, filmed him and complained and he was fired for gross misconduct. Now an employment tribunal has found that this should not be a sackable offence and that it apparently happens all the time by both male and female staff.

Ten days time and life could almost be getting back to normal although the new rules do seem a tad confusing. Two metres distancing will be reduced to one metre but stay further apart if you can. Go out to a restaurant but leave your name and phone number in case you need to be contacted about an outbreak. There’ll be a bit of false information given out there. And if it’s like the public transport in Dorset, it’s compulsory but not mandatory. In other words if I’m some stroppy so and so and say ‘well I’m not doing that’ then I don’t have to.

Someone by the name of Scarlett Moffatt has popped up on some news feeds recently. I didn’t know who she was which isn’t unusual as most so called celebrities are unknown to yours truly. I googled her and found ‘A reality tv personality best know for appearing in gogglebox’. She has just claimed that she has proof that the Bermuda Triangle actually exists and says that it’s a portal for time travel. I guess we really must take this seriously then? Don’t get lost in your dreams. Good night.  😴💤😴

We all remember lovely Captain Tom who raised millions for the NHS. Well now we have another hero in the shape of 5 years old Tony Hudgell from Kent. Tony is a double amputee who had to have both legs removed following parental abuse. He now lives with adoptive parents and having received prosthetic legs decided to try to raise £500 by learning to walk again. His aim is to walk 10 Km in a month and at the same time find out if the prosthetics would be a solution for himself. So far he has raised over a million pounds and reached 8.4 km but his mum said he might go over 10km if he can walk a little bit further than his 300m daily target on some days. Not only has he raised an enormous amount of money for the Evelina London Children’s Hospital where he had his operations but he has found out that he can manage very nicely with his new legs. Yesterday he even went running. Very well done to our Little Man.

The Trump went to Tulsa but quite a few people didn’t and the Trump was sad. Sounds like the start of a fairy story but it’s more of a horror story in the middle of a pandemic. Now it seems the POTUS is looking for a scapegoat because, as usual, it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with his own behaviour. It couldn’t have had anything to do with the lies he tells, or his reaction to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, or the fact that he told his people to take a poison to combat the coronavirus and it could have killed them. His 2020 campaign staff are probably wondering today whether they still have a job. Now here’s the thing, why would they have wanted the job in the first place? Maybe the salary made it all worth while.

News is that the infection rate for Covid-18 in England is dropping quite fast. More worryingly in Germany where they relaxed lockdown earlier, the R number which needs to be below 1 has risen to 2.88. I haven’t heard if any new restrictions have been put into place but the outbreaks seem to be in care homes, hospitals, refugee centres and following religious festivals. There is also of course the outbreak in an abattoir in the north of the country. Surely if the infection rate there is rising we should be looking at whether travellers from Germany should be allowed into England. After all it was stated that we had so many deaths in London because it is a hub for flights and because we closed down our borders too late. Just saying.

Heatwave is on its way and should be here, in the south at least, tomorrow. Hope you’ve got your factor 50 ready and your swim suit, I might even make it to the beach myself. But then again, are the toilets open? Sleep with the window open. Nighty night.

 

Now here’s an interesting fact from the coronavirus lockdown, did you know that 84,000 kittens could be born as vets are not neutering cats? That’s a lot of cats and as they can get pregnant from as young as four months and each cat might have given birth to four kittens, that 84,000 could soon become a lot more. Now having picked up this little bit of hot news for you it got me wondering if a baby boom is likely at any time from the end of this year, well from Christmas actually as lockdown started on 23rd March. All that working from home, pubs shut and lets face it, the tele has been pretty bloody awful. Take my word for it another generation of baby boomers is on its way.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I was invited over to my daughter Elena’s for dinner. Every time I pop in the house is a little bit more together and is looking lovely. I sat in the covered patio area with Elizabeth and Alice while Elena finished cooking, it’s a perfect spot to sit and relax. Andrew was watching Bournemouth at home football match and getting very excited. I, of course, didn’t even know it was on but as it’s local I was sort of interested. Sadly, it was disappointing with a 2.0 lose for our local team. Dinner though was delicious as was the company and the girls looked lovely and are very entertaining.

One of the first post virus planes to Spain was from Manchester to Alicante with, it seems, the majority of passengers heading for Benidorm. I’ve never quite understood why people want to go there when Alicante is so much nicer. Still the truth of the matter is that if everyone stopped there instead of travelling on it probably wouldn’t be so attractive. When I hitchhiked to Spain in the early sixties with two friends, down through France, over the Pyrenees, through Andorra (the first place I tried eating snails), along the Costa Brava and eventually reaching Alicante, we liked it so much we just stayed put. There were hardly any tourists there in those days but as it was a shipping port, there were plenty of sailors. It was there that I tasted for the first time real Spanish food and I loved it. Sailors weren’t too bad either. I’ve always had a soft spot for that city, it’s well worth a visit.

As we are all well aware, lockdown hasn’t brought about a reduction in crime in fact, apart from shoplifting for obvious reasons, there has been an increase in home and car breakins. A burglar in Swindon, Wiltshire was trying his luck in an empty property last week when his leg got stuck in the window. He must have poked his leg through the partly opened window when it got jammed and he was left hanging upside down on the outside. He had to use his mobile phone to call the fire brigade to get rescued. They turned him over to the lads in blue. Don’t let it keep you awake. Nighty night. 😴💤😴