Welcome back

It made quite a change to have a real bit of news on TV last night – the launch of Mr. Musk’s space taxi with a pair of NASA astronauts as fares. Where the Russians go wrong is not letting the world see their launches in case something goes horribly wrong and dents the image of the Putinocracy.

Credibility zero

There’s nothing the criminal community loves more than any old excuse for a spot of looting and arson. And the mobs in the USA have the cheek to talk about justice while rocks and bottles are flying and businesses and buildings are going up in flames.

Flim-flan?

“It’s the diet that could save your life”, claims the puff in the Daily Mail for a doctor with a book to flog. But if it doesn’t save your life, hard luck? So much for Dr. Mike’s corona cookbook.

Sounds of normality

I heard an ambulance siren yesterday – something that used to be common before all the trouble started. That’s going to be one of the indicators of normality’s return – the usual level of ambulances dashing about and needing to use a siren to get a clear spot of road.

That’s fair

The best reaction to the Dominic Cummings Affair I’ve heard is that anyone else can do what he did in exactly the same circumstances. But only in exactly the same circumstances.

Cynically . . .

‘Book now for 2021' the advert in the paper read. ‘Book now to be ripped off again in 2021’ more like, if this year’s experience is anything to go by and there isn’t a vaccine for the Chinese plague available.

Well, I never!

The most interesting thing about sacked Labour leader Oh, Jeremy Corby, 171, is that . . . his hobby is photographing manhole covers. Sounds about right.

Skive or not skive?

BBC presenter Emily Maitliss seems to have hit on a very cunning strategy for getting a vacation. Do a rant that rips up your employer’s fairly non-existent impartiality rules and reap the benefit.

Information gap

It’s proving very difficult to find out what that bloke in Minneapolis actually did to get himself arrested. All the news media seem to be fixated on the mob violence rather than the trigger; if there was a legitimate one.

Phoney frenzy

Is ‘middle England’ exploding with anger over the Cummings Excursion? Or is it just the tabloids being tabloid?
    He did something that was available to a person in his position to ensure child care, he remained isolated and didn’t spread the plague around and a big chunk of the ‘evidence’ is fake news aimed at confecting outrage for political reasons.
    When the likes of Alastair Campbell get involved, that’s the sinker.

Grounded

Shame about the SpaceX attempt to launch astronauts to the ISS being cancelled because of the weather. Brilliant sunshine here but normally sunny Florida was looking very grim and grey. I can’t believe it’s almost a decade since NASA had to junk its space shuttle.

Lost cause?

Having played it at school, I’m fascinated by the attempts of the professional side of rugby to turn it into a non-contact sport to generate cash again.
    About the only hope they have would be to invent something akin to the flag football played in the US, where hauling a flag out of the ball-carrier’s belt counts as a tackle.
    The ‘tackled’ player would then be obliged to drop the ball and play would resume with the ‘tackler’ in possession after the ref has sprayed the ball with disinfectant.
    Would people pay to watch that? It’s doubtful.

Negative positive

I get the distinct impression that so many people have it in for Dominic Cummings that he must be getting it right most of the time.

Signs of normality

Today’s venturers out into the streets have reported seeing crisp packets blowing about, proof that the Great British Litter Lout is starting to unlock. Also, there were some con trails in the sky, indicating that the airline business is not yet totally dead.

Inescapable conclusion

What did watching Kong: Skull Island yesterday tell me? That US troops in helicopters are total idiots! Maybe not the message the film makers wanted to convey, though.

Attack of the Pip-Squeakers!

There appear to be whole gangs of people who are desperately outraged that Mr. Cummings hasn’t offered them a personal grovelling apology – for being more famous than them. They’re obviously not aware that being a hissy git on a bank holiday is not acceptable conduct in polite society.

No contest

Which was more relevant to the future of the human race? The Dominic Cummings Address to the Nation or the King Kong film on ITV2 a little later on?
    Not a difficult choice.

It’s true, a bit of sun does make a difference

Those who left the Mansion today and yesterday reported not many people about on a dull Sunday morning but they had lots of chances to show off their people-dodging skills on the pavement during today’s warm and sunny morning.

It’s all about Me! Me! Me!

I can’t help but think that the sob stories people are telling around the Cummings Excursion are confected to put the spotlight on the sobbers, who are claiming that if life was rotten to them then everyone else should join in their suffering. Selfish sods, or what!

A lockdown dilemma

I’m having a real problem with my library. Safe-spacing the books 2 metres apart would just require the construction of a dozen or so outbuildings in the grounds of the Mansion. But how am I going to separate the characters in the books?

Yet another empty myth

I think my local shop is selling the wrong sort of onions. No one who has ever chopped them up has reported ended up with their eyes bleeding rivers of tears.

Stats we don’t need

It can’t be long before some ghoulish bean counter tells us that things are back to normal because road deaths are back to pre-lockdown rates. I know I’m having to be more careful when I go out now that the roads are full again.

Vowel sabotage

When did tripes become tropes? I must have been on holiday when that happened.

Definite need

Is there such a thing as a screw-down as opposed to a screw-up? Because people do occasionally get things right.

How unfortunate!

I noticed that one of the many cash-seeking TV adverts includes the initials MSF, which struck me as highly unfortunate. Why? Because I’m just now I’m reading Prey by Jon A. Gored and that’s what the street cops call their criminal customers – MSFs. Mobile Sewage Factories. Oh, dear!

Ungrounded urban ‘wisdom’

Why are people perpetuating the myth that there is no flour around because everyone is making lots of cakes and bread in lockdown? Far more than they could ever hope to eat.
    The industry says there’s lots of flour around and the Mansion’s baker has never had a problem with getting as much as he needs.
    Unless it’s a sinister plot to make people panic buy flour to make the myth come true.

Another of life’s mysteries

Where do you get digital air to go in a digital air fryer? And why would anyone want to fry air, digital or not?

Depressing thought

Someone is going to survive this cycle of the Chinese plague right up to the last gasp. And then achieve the doubtful distinction of becoming its final victim. What a wonderful thing to be remembered for.

Revolutionary thought

Why don’t the actors do the scene in English with Russian sub-titles to show which language the bad guys are supposed to be using?

Just impervious

Cold air falls but if the cat is sitting in front of the fridge, having a wash, when the door is opened and all the cold air inside falls out, she never bats an eyelid. That fur coat of hers must be really great!

Why not make the extra effort to do it right?

Why do film makers insist on putting in scenes where the actors speak Russian (with English sub-titles) when it’s obvious that the people saying the words are not Russian speakers?
    Time after time, you get ‘Russian’ bad guys having a chat in the woods and failing to get the pronunciation right and failing capture the natural rhythms of Russian like what it should be spoke.

Lockdown rebellion

“No man is an island”. How do we know that? Because some bloke wrote it years ago. And it’s only when you get a chance to think about such things, as during the present plague crisis, that you can put that bloke’s statement beside another from another bloke, namely: “All generalizations are false, including this one”.
    That’s when you decide that if you want to be an island, you’ll be one and sod the nay-sayers.

Useless bloody BBC

That little headline panel at the bottom of the BBC News Channel’s screen design is worse than useless. The same three items repeated over and over at times. A complete waste of space compared to the Aljazeera ticker tape.

Blurb Extension

Another spot of jolly fun for lockdown:
    Seen on the back of a blockbuster paperback: “No one can plot or tell a story like she does”.
    Which invites?
    “Or would want to if they’re in their right mind”.

Best before bunkum

I’ve just discovered a packet of posh chocolate biscuits, which were bought when on offer and which managed to hide at the back of a cupboard. The best before date is February 2020 but they taste okay with a nice cup of tea.

Double bubble

The Prime Minister has declared war on obesity as it makes people more at risk from the Chinese plague. Mental health has never been more fashionable and talked about. Maybe his campaign could combine the two.
    His move out of lockdown demands common sense but the media bods have no trouble finding people lacking it, who are baffled by the new instructions. Perhaps a campaign element aimed at mental obesity will reduce the number of fat-headed people with minds too clogged to think straight.

Opportunism breeds cynicism

Now would be a good time to address inequality in the world, we are told. But to what end? To put some cash into the pockets of the poor and the feckless at the expense of the fortunate and achievers. To make a change to the world which history tells us will not endure. And to shove lots and lots of other people’s dosh into the pockets of the equalizers.

Me, neither

Anyone remember the Hong Kong flu epidemic of 1968/69? It killed 80,000 people here but the government didn’t shut everything down, my parents and people like them just kept on going as normal, and there was no economic collapse and recession. Apart from the usual one when Labour is in charge, of course.

Time shifted

The thing about letting the newspapers pile up and reading some of them a day or two or three late is that if there’s good news and nothing more to worry about, you get it eventually and if the news is terrible and we’re all doomed, it’s too late to worry about it.

Same old story

Depressing, ain’t it? The trade unions are trying to keep their members at home on benefits to make them lose the work ethic and turn them into Labour-voting handout-junkies for the fun & profit of their trade union leaders. How very Corbyn Labour.

What the world wants to know

Who was the man in Wuhan
Who put the ‘dead’ into deadly?

The Chinese would like the glory
Of spreading the story
That, in some way,
It was the C.I.A.

Responsibility? Wot’s that?

How will associating with one person from outside your family be enforceable? a clueless punter asked the Prime Minister. By people doing what they know they should be doing without needing a copper watching them 24/7 has to be the answer.

Bye, bye, Lloyds Bank

“The interest rate on your savings account is going down on Bastille Day”, is the cheerful news I got yesterday. To 0.01% gross AER. No sort of incentive to stick with the sign of the black horse.

Give it a rest

‘Stay at home heroes’? What a load of bloody rubbish. There’s nothing heroic about staying at home. It’s like calling FBI and NCIS agents ‘special agents’. If everyone is pretending to be special, no one is.
    Similarly, if millions of people are staying at home because they don’t have jobs to go to, that’s the norm and not even the tiniest bit heroic.

Wise after the event

There’s an idea floating to the effect that lockdown was a mistake and it made the Chinese plague worse by not giving it a chance to evolve into non-lethal forms which leave the host still alive and able to spread the plague further.
    All very fine in theory but not something any responsible government could have tried in practice.

What’s the weasel writing the words up to?

It says the PM ‘warns’ that a vaccine for the plague may never be found but the headline claims it’s something he ‘admits’, implying it will be his fault somehow if a cure is never found. Sloppy journalism or an agenda?

Give us a break

All this VE-style garbage is getting v. tedious. The first V is all about Victory. But we haven’t won any sort of victory over the Chinese plague. We’re still Very Much stuck where we’ve been for the last couple of months.

The march of tech

Are emails the new faxes? The business essential fax machine vanished when everyone got computers. I’ve noticed that because I’m reading Dreamers Of The Day by Jon A. Gored, which was written at the end of C20 and there are lots of business transactions by fax machine, which hardly anyone uses any more.
    Recently, I’ve noticed that getting a response to an email can be rather a forlorn hope now. I assume it’s because people are switching to gadgets on phones – apps I can’t be bothered with.

DS-9, Over & Out

Blimey! Doesn’t time fly when something’s on twice every weekday night! Episode 26 of Series 7 of Deep Space Nine last night. Back to the very first episode tonight and another run through the saga. At least they didn’t blow the station up like they did to Babylon 5.

Van der Valk Moment

What sort of sad git puts a picture online of himself having a cup of coffee on the way to work? Is that really how Dutch people behave?

Impact reduction

One thing about letting the newspapers pile up and reading them a couple of days old is that the shock-horror headlines lose all their urgency and effect. It rather puts things in their proper perspective when you realize that something that was headline-worthy a couple of days ago has been completely forgotten by today.

Legal fun ‘n’ games in store

The news that jury trials will resume put sceptical smiles on the faces of the Mansion staffers who have been on one. The average jury box won’t hold 12 safely spaced jurors without a considerable rebuilding job.
    And then there is the problem of spacing the army of people who are called to the court building and have to hang around, waiting to find out if they’re needed for a trial or they can get lost again after lunch.
    Sounds like a considerable challenge, getting the courts back to work.

Time on their hands

We seem to be enjoying an explosion of baking at the Mansion during lockdown. Every sort of bun, cake, tart, etc. is getting a go. The latest effort is a creation jam-packed with fruit and no one can decide if it’s a cake or a loaf. Not that it matters as it tastes great.

Xcluded

Of the top nine items on the John Lewis’s list of lockdown must-haves, I have bought . . . none at all. Not surprising if the list contains stuff like gym equipment, yoga mats and sports shoes.

Not impressed

An outfit called Vytaliving is claiming to sell face masks @ 99p each. But a pack of 20 costs £19.99, which is 19 masks at a quid apiece and just ONE for 99p. 20 masks @ 99p each should cost £19.80.
    Similarly, a packet of 100 masks costs £99.99 not £99.
    Which leaves me wondering if the quality of the masks matches that of the accounting.

The way ahead?

We’re being told that British cities are not built to manage social spacing out. Which means what? They’ll all have to be knocked down and rebuilt. How are we going to be able to afford that after the Mother of all Recessions?

Back to normal

Those who ventured out of the Mansion yesterday reported that they had not seen so many people around for weeks. Back to normal today. Maybe they should abolish bank holidays if they want people to stay at home.

Could work

That’s an interesting idea in a email from The Whisky Exchange – buy a tasting pack and sample it whilst enjoying a virtual tasting experience with their drinks ambassadors!

Nose hacked off or not?

Making the Lockdown Professor resign for a spot of adultery with someone else’s wife sounds like a case of typical political posturing.
    As someone else said, who better than THE expert to do it without the risk of spreading the plague? Especially if he’d had a dose of it himself.
    On the other hand, his record on BSE death-rate forecasting suggests he’s no great loss.

There’s a lot of it about

Gulp! Odo, the constable of Deep Space Nine, has been given the shapeshifter plague virus, which was brewed up in a lab back on Earth. How very prescient, given what’s happening during the reruns.

Small omission

100 greatest footballers? If Maradona is on the list, then the TV promo missed out ‘cheating foreign’.

A fair question

What is the object of a public debate on relaxing lockdown? To find out how many covid casualties the public will accept as the price of getting the economy going again and tax revenue flowing into government coffers? That’s the bottom line.

Let’s not pretend

Does killing a human monster instead of locking him/her up for a while/forever put us on a par with the bad guy? No, Inspector Banks, it doesn’t. It’s just the sane thing to do.

The old way is better

Using the internet or a ‘device’ to check the spelling of a word deprives us of the beneficial exercise of lifting and holding a heavy dictionary while we scan for the word concerned, one of my mates reckons. But he’s a writer who is never more than two or three yards from a dictionary, which makes him a special case.

New hobby

Going through the newspapers, counting up the number of ‘celebs’ whose name means absolutely nothing to me without a lengthy explanation.

Another mystery

Something else I was wondering yesterday was why Mr. Data was putting on a Canadian accent in an episode of Star Trek TNG. Possibly as a way of reminding Americans that he’s a machine, not human?

What really happens?

After watching this week’s episode of the new, improved Van der Valk on ITV, I started thinking it would be interesting to hear from a real policeman if bad guys do a pointless runner when confronted in real life or it’s just a film and TV cliché.

In the right place

VE75 on the History Channel on TV, okay. But let’s not get carried away everywhere else.

Mask Manners

Finally, an expert making sense on TV yesterday. If you’re observing social spacing, indoors or out, you probably don’t need a mask.
    If you’re indoors or on public transport and unable to observe social spacing, you need everyone else to be wearing a mask to avoid infecting you.
    If you wear a mask in an area full of unmasked others who are at close range, an ordinary cloth mask will give you no protection at all.

Include me out, please

The Chinese plague is supposed to give us the chance to experience the joys of tidying up in lockdown. Can’t say I’ve ever been upset by not having time to waste on obsessive tidying.

Ever the sceptic

The actor John Hannah reckons he can remember the feeling he had over 40 years ago when he was doing his O-level exams. Really? Or does he just have a set of manufactured ‘memories’ to make him seem interesting during media interviews?

Yeah, right!

Today was my turn not to have any broadband for a while. I was able to discover that being told to go to virginmedia.com by the phone menu lady instead of using the phone to report my distress isn’t all that helpful!

A Bloody Creepy Criminal

The best episode of Agatha Christie’s Poirot (who else has one?) is . . . The ABC Murders. That’s the TV viewers’ choice, anyway.

The Cat Diet

She parks on your lap and goes to sleep after having a wash and digging her claws into your knees. You eat everything within reach and that’s all you get unless you’re prepared to disturb your little furry friend.

A great life if you don’t weaken

More from the Inspector Banks book I’m reading at present: it turns out that his boss has a stack of crime fiction paperbacks in his office – implying that the bugger reads them when he’s at the workplace but skiving off from his job. Just the sort of person we want protecting the public.

Oblivion on the way to oblivion

There seems to be a curious notion flying around that people waiting to die need to have an audience of their family around them. That might be so for some people but I’d much rather not be conscious when my life ends. Out of it so I can just drift away not bothered if there’s no one anywhere near.

We’re the BBC and we don’t care

Today, I’m catching up with Thursday’s Daily Mail, which took a break from celebrating its vast airlift of PPE stuff from China to reveal that the BBC recruited only Labour-supporting members of the medical trade for a Panorama about the government’s failings on the PPE front. And didn’t reveal their political leanings.
     Which is arrogance of the first water as the waxworks at the Beeb must have known they’d be found out. But they didn’t care. Because they’re the BBC with a hand thrust firmly into the public purse and sod the rest of you? Very likely.

Hidden history

The Reign of Terror during the French revolutionary period was an excuse for a mass execution of vampires? Hanging doesn’t work but hacking heads off with a guillotine does. The things you learn from watching box sets! Moonlight, in this case.

Appearances are all

Did the government achieve the target of 100,000 tests per day for the Chinese plague by the end of April? Possibly ‘or near offer’. But getting close must have had the ‘can’t do’ waxworks of the NHS burrocracy sweating a bit. Making the Minister look like an idiot does have an effect on undeserved bonuses.

Literal twist

There was an exact rendering of ‘digital message’ in the first episode of ITV’s Son of Van der Valk – a severed finger in a small tin. I can’t see the real Mr. Valk running round in a jacket with POLITIE on the back. He’d have had minions to do the running.