Author Archives: Captain Codpiece

UK Coronavirus Confusion Strategy

At least we can all die laughing

Published: 11 May 2020

The media may be slating Boris Johnson this morning over his obscurantist speech the day before, but I for one found it intensely amusing. I haven’t laughed so much in years. If I’d have been wearing false teeth at the time, I would most likely still be looking for them.

I am not altogether sure what is most amusing, Boris attempting to provide us with a catch-all solution when there is not one, or Joe (and Joanna) Public betting everything on an answer tailor-made for them and then being disappointed when they did not get it. Perhaps Boris should have filmed his address to the nation with Sooty’s magic wand in his hand, and then we would all feel better.

UK Coronavirus Confusion Strategy

Who was it who sang “Do you know where you’re going to, do you like the things that life is showing you?”

Is it the media, not our politicians, that have led us up the garden path and into the maze into which we now find ourselves? Consider the following headlines and out-takes from online news reports over the last two months:

Derbyshire Police force was heavily criticised for using a drone to “shame” people walking with members of their household in the Peak District. (27 March 2020)
[What a terrible thing for the police to do. But aren’t they supposed to be enforcing the isolating rules?]

Coronavirus lockdown likened to ‘police state’ by former Supreme Court judge (30 March 2020)
[So, does that mean that lockdown is unnecessary, bad, to be avoided? Was the Supreme Court established by Tony Blair?]

UK police warned against ‘overreach’ in use of virus lockdown powers (30 March 2020)
[Police should enforce lockdown rules, but they haven’t got the power to do so?]

Keir Starmer calls for ministers to set out plans to end lockdown (15 April 2020)
[Lockdown should end]

Coronavirus: Labour calls for lockdown exit strategy this week (15 April 2020)
[Labour wants an ‘exit strategy’]

‘Blair and Brown never missed Cobra meetings (19 April 2020)
[And? ~ Ahh, so perhaps it’s a positive thing that Boris has missed some of them?]

Coronavirus: Which are you? Britons are reacting to lockdown in one of three ways (27 April 2020)
[Hoorah! It’s just a game]

Fearful Britons oppose lifting lockdown (2 May 2020)
[But many people are opposed to lockdown, aren’t they?]

Coronavirus: UK to bring in two-week quarantine for air passengers (9 May 2020)
[Why are people still flying into the UK? Why wasn’t this done earlier? Why are we in lockdown when people are still flooding in from other countries?]

I’m losing my teenage years (9 May 2020)
[And?]

‘Recipe for chaos’: union leaders sound warning over return to work (10 May)
[But I thought lockdown was tantamount to a police state and should it not be ended? And hasn’t the Labour party called for an end to it?]

Doctors and police warn of new coronavirus wave as UK lockdown weakens (10 May)
[But I thought people wanted out of lockdown, as does the Labour party?]

Boris Johnson suggests coronavirus lockdown will be loosened on Monday (6 May)
[That should please Labour as they want an ‘exit strategy’ and want lockdown to end, don’t they?]

Boris Johnson’s lockdown release condemned as divisive, confusing and vague (10 May)
[It didn’t please Labour. If they have an exit strategy, perhaps they should tell Boris]

BBC’s Marr stuns Ashworth after blaming Labour for lockdown chaos ‘Take responsibility!’ (11 May 2020)
[Truth is stranger than fiction]

And this is without citing the plethora of news stories about strange new symptoms …

UK Coronavirus Confusion Strategy

So, here we are in the Coronavirus Maze and we just do not know how to get out of it.

Economists, scientists, healthcare professionals, business consortiums, psychiatrists, ‘experts’, MPs, all scampering this way and that looking for the exit and the strategy that goes with it. But the most confused, and we could argue the perpetrators of confusion, seem to lie with certain ladies and gentlemen of the press. Does the confusion lie in a desperate almost hysterical pursuit of political point-scoring: which way and how can Boris and Boris’s government be discredited and the current crisis used to pave the way for Labour’s resurgence?

An extremely cynical friend of mine, who has always voted Liberal Democrats, opined, “Perhaps it would be better if a Labour government was in power. We might be on the edge of the precipice waiting for the final push, but at least if we go over we would meet our end with Labour right behind us, after all they have been pushing that way for years.”

UK Coronavirus Confusion Strategy ~ like being in a maze — (Photo credit: Tarey (pixabay.com))

I personally still believe that the ‘maze’ analogy is the best one, although ‘Shit Creek without a paddle’ could be a contender.

Another confusing article: Lockdown! New Board Game

The views expressed in this article are my own (unless stated otherwise) and have nothing to do with Boris Johnson’s haircut.

9th May Kaliningrad Social Distancing

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 52 [10 May 2020]

Published: 11 May 2020

Yesterday was the 9^th May, which is not surprising as today is the 10^th May. But here, in Russia, the 9^th May is one of the most important day’s in the nation’s calendar. It is, of course, Victory Day, the day when the nation celebrates the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.

As I wrote in my blog post, Thoughts on 9th May Victory Day Celebrations 2002/2020 , this year Coronavirus upstaged the ceremony as it has everything and everywhere.

In lieu of the parade and formal celebrations that would have been held on the ground in Kaliningrad, we learnt from online local news that there would be a military flypast, which was scheduled for 10am.

Now, I am not entirely sure who got what wrong, but we were out of bed and on the terrace by 9.45am and, like our neighbours, gazing skywards. Nothing? Apart from a lovely blue sky.

Blue skies 9th May Kaliningrad Social Distancing — **A remarkable display …** (Photo credit: Junior Libby [Link] https://www.publicdomainpictures.net)

Either the news feed was wrong, our clocks were caught up in one of those coronavirus conspiracies that everyone is talking about or else? I wondered if the planes that they were using were one of these new stealth jobs: so swift, so fast and so ultimately undetectable that they were there, but we just could not see them?

If this is the case, then airshows of the future are likely to be extremely challenging. Imagine thousands of spectators staring into the azure, a collective sweep of the head, deep intake of breath, loud round of applause, appreciative mumbling: “Wasn’t that a …” and “The way he, you know …” and “I really liked the, er, yes …” On the positive side, such airshows would be relatively easily to organise, inexpensive, no safety problems to worry about and the pilots could all stay at home, thereby running no risk of breaking social distancing rules, which is more than could be said for the spectators.

9th May Kaliningrad Social Distancing

Made of sterner stuff than you may think, we did not let this blip on the horizon, which we thought we almost saw, phase us, but continued to pay tribute on this special day as we had planned.

As I have said, it was a glorious spring day, and this enabled us to hoist a large red velvet soviet flag from the superstructure of the terrace canopy. This flag, of genuine vintage, has on one side a symbolic image of Vladimir Lenin and on the other the Soviet hammer and sickle emblem together with the names of the constituent republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Our immediate neighbours across the way had erected a Soviet victory flag and as we are people of many flags, we were able to give our neighbours on the ground floor another soviet flag, which went well with the patriotic marching music that they were playing from their gazebo.

Who is losing it?

During the day, my wife, Olga, occupied herself in what has become, sadly, as much a part of the annual event as the event itself. The controversial discord of who exactly won the war ~ was it the East or the West? This year the argument descended to a new level of bitter acrimony, thanks to what a friend of mine described in his usual vernacular as a lot of ‘shit stirring’. He spoke of deliberate attempts in the United States to abnegate acknowledgement of Russia’s decisive contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany.

As if airbrushing out the Soviet Union’s inestimable role in defeating the Germans was not enough, adding insult to injury came, apparently, in a White House Tweet ‘On May 8, 1945, America and Great Britain had victory over the Nazis! “America’s spirit will always win. In the end, that’s what happens.”

Judging by the indignant comments on various Facebook posts, if this was a deliberate misappropriation, I would have to concede, using a football analogy, that someone in the US Revisionist Department has scored an own goal. It is bad enough having to endure relentless and politically motivated revisionism of historical TV dramas, but please could you desist from insulting our intelligence by trying to rewrite history itself. How about victory in WWII came about as a combined effort. As the refrain from the old 1960s’ pop song goes, “Wouldn’t it be nice to get on with me neighbours …”

Come the evening of 9^th May, we were ready to sit down, relax and toast Olga’s derdushka for the part that he played in the war. The history of my wife’s grandfather is a rather interesting one and one that I hope to research and elaborate on at a future date.

She posted this brief biographical detail about him on Facebook: Alexei Dolgikh (1910-1987) MVD Kaliningrad

Immortal Regiment Alexei Dolgikh

Alexei Dolgikh (1910-1987) MVD Kaliningrad

Published: 10 May 2020

My wife shared the memory of her grandfather, Alexei Dolgikh (1910-1987), on the 75^th Anniversary of the Great Patriotic War, via social media, Facebook.

“With Victory Day approaching, I decided to share the following information about my grandfather, Alexei Dolgikh, Immortal Regiment.

“My grandfather Alexei Dolgikh (1910-1987) was born in Perm, where, before WWII, he worked as Secretary of the Komsomol District Committee. When the war began, he was transferred to an Officer’s College in the Far East (Nakhodka). After graduation, he was sent to the front. He took part in the Belorussian Front Military Offensive and was awarded the Medal for Bravery.

A young Alexei Dolgikh

“When taking part in the East Prussian Offensive, he was wounded in the Battle of Königsberg on the Kurshskaya Spit. He finished the war with the rank of Captain. When discharged from hospital after the war, he was asked to stay in Königsberg to serve in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). He studied law and graduated from the Central Committee Party School in Moscow. He worked as Head of the Police Training College, retired at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Deputy Chief of the Regional Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Kaliningrad Region.

Thought to be taken around the time of the Russian Revolution: Alexei Dolgikh centre

“In spite of the fact that my grandfather was subjected to Stalin’s repressions and lost his health whilst imprisoned in one of the Gulags, until the end of his life his favourite toast was “For Motherland, For Stalin!’’

With colleagues of the MVD. Alexei Dolgikh third from left

“He believed that Soviet power was power for the people, a liberating power that gave him and other ordinary people the opportunity to realize their dream of free education, access to free health care and free housing.

“And he had it all, an ordinary boy from a peasant family in the Ural Mountains. Before the revolution this would have been impossible for people like him.

Alexei Dolgikh Immortal Regiment

“Throughout his life he loved poetry and music. His favourite poet was Sergei Esenin and his favourite music Russian folk songs. He wrote poetry himself and sang in the local choir until the age of 75, even when he became blind as a result of the torture he suffered whilst imprisoned in the Gulag.

“I will always remember him as the most loving and compassionate person I have ever met in my life. He was an example for me to follow — a man who loved life regardless of the hardships he endured.”

A toast to Alexei Dolgikh, 9th May Victory Day 2020

9th May Victory Day Kaliningrad

Thoughts on 9^th May Victory Day Celebrations 2002/2020

Published: 9 May 2020

9 May is an important day in the Russian calendar. It is the day when the entire Russian nation pays homage to the sacrifices made by their forbears in World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War. Each year an impressive military parade is conducted in Red Square, Moscow, and simultaneous events are held throughout the country to commemorate the 27 million Russians ~ military and civilian ~ who died in the Second World War, the highest loss of any country.

Western leaders have been snubbing the parade for years, evidently finding it far easier to rewrite history than acknowledge the inestimable contribution made and loss suffered by Soviet Russia in defeating Nazi Germany.

Whatever underlies the political motivation and projected end game of such revisionism, apart from the obvious, provocative disrespect, it is pointless speculating on as, thanks to coronavirus, the world’s events are cancelled pending further notice.

As many as 15,000 soldiers have been stood down, and so has Mick Hart. I was looking forward to the celebration this year and was contemplating a trip to Moscow, but then along came a little round thing with trumpets stuck all over it and put the mockers on that.

9th May 2002 Kaliningrad

The last time that I attended a 9th May event in Russia, I was in Kaliningrad. This was way back in the mists of time, 2002, but I remember it vividly: bright sunny day, warm, blue sky ~ perfect.

As we walked towards the park, the hub of the celebrations, the first thing that struck me was the sheer volume of people that had turned out. It was relatively early, well, around 10am, and the streets were inundated. The second observation was that the age range extended across the entire generational spectrum, from the very young to wartime veterans. Within that broad swathe of people, teenagers and young adults from 14 years old to late 20s were well represented.

The latter seemed odd to me as this was and still is distinctly not the case in England. Our equivalent of Russia’s 9^th May is V.E. Day, 8^th May. It is officially acknowledged and in the past few years the tradition of street parties has been resurrected in some places, but both it and Remembrance Day, which is held on 11^th November each year, attracts fewer and fewer young people.

I can appreciate, or at least understand, the disinterest for non-heritage youth but the sad fact remains that even legacy-UK youth have very little time, very little interest and even less respect for the sacrifices made by previous generations, let alone those that continue to be made by our serving military.

In more recent years, the very act of remembering the debt we owe to our armed forces has become a victim of a socio-political pincer movement, caught up in the machinations and fripperies of social engineering and political correctness. Pathetic spectacles of the red poppy, the traditional symbol of remembrance and peace, being burnt by dissident immigrants whilst the usual suspects on the left agitate to expunge the tradition, ostensibly on the grounds that it offends the sensibilities of certain foreign groups and sects, but really as part of a broader cultural purge, is grist to the carnival mill of neoliberal politics. But the real disrespect lies not in these sideshows, but in a cultural revisionist programme which invidiously subtexts the UK education system from primary school to university level.

Thankfully, the wind of change is blowing from various directions ~ even from a coronavirus one~ and achieving positive confluence, so perhaps there is hope for us yet?

From angst to Hallelujah in three paragraphs!

9th May Victory Day Kaliningrad

Meanwhile, back in Kaliningrad, Russia, 9 May 2002.

As we were walking Olga introduced me to two WWII veterans. The first was ex-Soviet Navy and the other Merchant Navy, and my presence at the celebration was warmly welcomed by both. Because of my involvement over the years with 1940s’ re-enactment and living history groups and through personal associations made when we ran a vintage and antique warehouse, I have been fortunate in that I have had many opportunities to meet and converse with veterans from various countries and from different services of the armed and auxiliary forces. It is 75 years since the close of the Second World War and each year the number of surviving veterans dwindle. I am grateful that I have had the chance to meet and speak to this remarkable generation before the era in which they lived and the experiences they encountered fade from living memory into history.

On our return from the war monument and park where the celebrations were being held, I would have the chance to meet more veterans, but first we went to place the flowers we had brought with us on the steps of the war monument next to one of Kaliningrad’s eternal flames.

Mick Hart at 2002 Victory Day celebrations, Kaliningrad, Russia

Placing flowers at the 1200 Guardsmen monument, 9th May 2002, Kaliningrad

Mick & Olga Hart with Russian Soldier at the 1200 Guardsmen monument

Photo-shoot opportunity with Russian soldier, 9th May Victory Day celebration, Kaliningrad, 2002

The 1200 Guardsmen monument, which was constructed a few months after Soviet troops wrested what was then Königsberg from the Germans, is arguably one of the most dynamic sculptures and wartime monuments in the city, and a fitting tribute in scale and drama to the fallen soldiers whose remains occupy the mass grave by which it stands and marks. The gas-powered eternal flame burns in front of a tall, carved obelisk. Behind and set back from the obelisk a curved wall bears the names of those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the four days of savage urban warfare which it took to take the city. At either end of the wall, on massy plinths, two figural groups of soldiers storming into battle capture the cost in death and the glory in memory of what in its entirety is a truly awesome ensemble.

Mick & Olga Hart wedding day at the 1200 Guardsmen monument. Kaliningrad

Mick & Olga Hart, Wedding Day 2001. Photograph taken at the obelisk of the 1200 Guardsmen monument, Kaliningrad

This was not my first encounter with the monument. We had been here before, on 31^st August 2001 to be precise, on the afternoon of our wedding, when, in keeping with Russian wedding tradition, we had placed flowers on the monument steps, as we were doing today.

‘Kasha’ dispensed from a mobile military unit, 9th May 2002, Kaliningrad

From here we descended the steps into the park and walked towards a row of tables at the far end, where, my wife informed me, I would be able to refresh myself with mineral water or tea. There was quite a crowd assembled in front of the tables, and, as we drew nearer, I saw in the background, two or three old Soviet mobile ‘soup kitchens’. Olga revealed that on this occasion they were serving ‘kasha’, hot porridge. My inclination was to avail myself of a glass of water or tea, as I was parched, but lo and behold, as we arrived at our destination I found that not only was there free water and free tea but also free vodka! Well, it was far too early in the day for me to say no, and besides as the friends who we were with had already helped themselves to a glass apiece, it would, to coin a phrase, have been rude not to.

Partaking of vodka at the 9th May Victory Day celebrations in Kaliningrad, 2002

It was whilst we were imbibing that my wife told one of the staff serving behind the tables that I liked the t-shirts that they were wearing. There were about six people serving in total and all had white tea shirts with a printed ink outline image of Mr Putin on the front and on the back the slogan ‘Forward with Putin’. The chap whom Olga was talking to, when he discovered that I was from England and that I liked the shirt, immediately said that I could have it and, taking it off there and then, handed it to me. I still have this shirt, which, being almost 20 years old, must have acquired collectable status. It is, after all, a piece of significant political memorabilia.

9th May Victory Day Kaliningrad. Mick & Olga Hart

Vodka gratefully received at 9th May celebrations, Kaliningrad, 2002. In the background you can just see the back of a Putin T-shirt, one of which was given to me on this day.

By the end of the day this, at that time contemporary political icon, would be joined by another, but one which represented Russia’s Soviet era.

We were making our way back from the park along the street busy with pedestrians when my attention was drawn to a group of lady veterans bedecked with medals and carrying aloft a large silk Soviet banner. Olga introduced me to them and as a token of their esteem for my attendance at the celebration that day, they presented me with a 9th May medal. This medal was home-made, constructed from cardboard with a pin back but, as with the Putin T-shirt, it is still in my possession, waiting to return home if or when coronavirus allows, along with many other personal items that I want to ship from England.

9th May Victory Day Kaliningrad., with lady veterans, 2002

Kaliningrad 9th May Victory Day celebrations 2002: Lady Veterans

Had things been different I would certainly have been in Moscow this year, and history would recall that whilst many western leaders were conspicuous for their absence, Mick Hart did his duty and was there to fly the flag!

Aaah well, “This time next year …” as Del Boy was fond of saying, and I will qualify that with another aphorism, “Hope dies last!’

Mick & Olga Hart the evening of 9th May Victory Day Kaliningrad 2002

Patriotism & Romance: Wearing my 9th May medal, Kaliningrad 2002

UK LOCKDOWN NEW BOARD GAME

LOCKDOWN! ~ the game that everyone is talking about …

LOCKDOWN! is one of a new trilogy of games from well-known boredgames maker, John Wankerson, sponsored by Kim Whetherfork in association with Big Pharma and the Chinese Tourist Beard. The object of the game is for one or more players to sneak off without the other players seeing them. The winner is the first one to send a postcard back from Skegness, without having been stopped on the way for breaking the social distancing rules.

UK LOCKDOWN NEW BOARD GAME

Players have to run the gauntlet of hysterical media headlines, leap over the boggy landscape of Conscience Mire, escape the Maze of Conflicting Stories, grapple with conspiracy theorists and eat Chinese takeaways. Bats (which is difficult to start a sentence with at this point) are no longer in the Belfry, a restaurant which has been closed down by public health officials, and players run the risk of forfeits depending on where they land. For example, on squares such as ‘LOOK OUT! THEY’RE OPEN!’, the player takes a LOOK OUT card, ie ‘Stop off at Kim Whetherfork’s for a pint, pay a £10 fixed fine or take a Chance and catch coronavirus’ and on other squares, such as VOTE LABOUR, there is no hope and it is just GAME OVER.

The full-length version of the game takes about 33 years to complete, unless a vaccine is discovered in the meantime, but the concise option, BLAME, takes less time than it takes to ask who left the backdoor open. Hatty Mancock, BLAME Executive without portfolio and mask, admits that distribution during the coronavirus epidemic may be a bit tight if not disingenuous, but the Onguardianism and The Indefensible cannot stop saying that 1 million will be available in the UK yesterday, now that we have a female Dr Who. In the United States, the game will be licensed under the tradeoff LOCKEDOUT, distributed by Mexican Wall inc, in very limited numbers. Forfeits will be replaced with Trumps and each game will come free with an imperial gallon of disinfectant. People living in deprived areas should not expect to acquire the game now, in the near future or ever, or run the risk of losing their privileged status.

LOOKOUT ^(™) is a trademark of The British Tourist Bored and is endorsed and enforced by Queer Stammer and the TUCs (Trades Union C_ _ _s)

Reading to take your mind off coronavirus
UK Coronavirus Hypochondria Day
UK Media Coronavirus Symptom Circus
Coronavirus New Speech Symptom
Trapped Indoors with the Media
Brits Upend Social Distancing
Panic Buying Shelves Empty

UK Coronavirus Hypochondria Day

It’s a great time to be a hypochondriac

It was reported today in The Indefensible that the British Government is considering introducing a new public holiday. The new Bank (meltdown) holiday, proposed in recognition of the affect that the UK media’s ‘new symptoms articles’ have had on the national psyche during the coronavirus period, will be officially known as British Hypochondria Day. It is expected that the holiday will be ‘mobile’ and only staged in times of epidemic and pandemic outbreaks.

In anticipation of people staying at home, The Skegness Pandemic Trust have organised a series of impromptu festivals that can be rolled out across the delightful backstreets of Skegness and in council flat parking lots, as and when required. Top billing will be by an extreme left-wing excuse for an entertainer, Rubber Band. There will also be a live band ~ if they still are, by the time you have broken social distancing rules. Tickets will be limited to the entire population of Great Brithead, but you will need a special self-isolating permit available from your local police station before setting out by charabanc, three to each seat.

The Foundation for Social Distancing, which has a staff of six experts who operate from a phone box in Scunthorpe, were not available for comment ~ and possibly never will be (for further information please contact the Co-op Chapel of Rest on Whitehall 1212*, options 3, option 6, option 9, please hold, I’m sorry all our representatives are helping themselves to the feeble excuse that they have other clients (calls at the new national rate cost £2 a minute); alternatively, further information can never be obtained online at www.crappywebsite.gordblessyu_guv.co.ok; or via our Chat service (please note you will always be 81^st in the queue and sat there all day, ‘Hello, my name is Ogbog Muggeridiamin.”); the book Understanding Pigeon English is available free of charge when you leave us your bank details; alternatively please telephone the Samaritans on 116 123).

*Please note that calls to this number are monitored for quality and training purposes, which basically means that since we are so inept at our job we expect to receive a lot of verbal abuse from you, so we let you know that we are recording you as part of a national terror campaign that undermines any rights that you naively think you might have.

Reading to take your mind off coronavirus
UK Media Coronavirus Symptom Circus
Coronavirus New Speech Symptom
Trapped Indoors with the Media
Panic Buying Shelves Empty

Englishman Self-isolating in Kaliningrad

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 42 [30 April 2020]

Published: 30 April 2020

Are you familiar with that old British expression, “The pot calling the kettle black”? Case in point: Since entering the new Coronavirus Age, the British media claim that vodka consumption has substantially increased here in Russia. What the UK’s self-appointed temperance league failed to mention (and having worked in the media, I have to say that most of them are alcohol sodden (mind you, they may all be too PC for that now!)) and what has subsequently emerged in a BBC article* (no less!) is that Brit’s consumption of supermarket-bought alcohol has shot up during lockdown by a whopping great 31%.

As to whether there is any truth in the purported rise in vodka sales here, it is quite possible that the UK media has only part of the picture (not that that has ever seemed to bother them). An anecdote related to me last week told of mystified traffic police, who, having stopped a number of cars to ask the occupants where they were going (as part of the social distancing rules) and in the process discovering a strong smell of vodka, breathalysed the drivers only to find that they were sober. Apparently, the vodka was being used not for human consumption but as disinfectant!

Ha, a likely story, I thought. But then it seemed to make sense. With so much adverse publicity accruing over the dubious effectiveness of this and that disinfectant, and Trump wanting to inject us all with it, what could be more logical than to fall back on something you can trust! I was straight out and buying my extra two bottles!

Whilst there is no direct evidence to suggest that consumption of the national beverage has been coronavirusised, I have detected among our immediate neighbours what I consider to be a far more invidious addiction seemingly catalysed by the rules of social distancing, and that is an obsessive predilection for D.I.Y..

They are all at it! Apart from me. I am too busy indoors disinfecting. But there they are in their gardens digging, sawing, hammering, shattering the tranquillity of early-spring with the high-pitched rasping noise of angle-grinders and the dentistry whine of high-powered drills. Cement mixers rumble, new garden fences clank and rattle as they are bolted into place, old tiles and other neglected items are noisily removed and stacked; indeed, such is the energy expended, both in physical labour and ardour, that it is enough to make you reach for the bottle and disinfect again.

Even we had six new trees delivered and planted, but I think we got away with it, leaving payment at the backdoor and shouting merrily to the tree planters from the safety of our terrace-balcony.

Englishman Self-isolating in Kaliningrad

The man next door, whose garden has resembled Steptoe’s yard for the past 12 months, possibly more, appears to have developed one of the rarer symptoms of coronavirus, which the Daily Express expressly discovers on an almost daily basis. Why else would he cut down a tree that should never have been cut down, put up a plank to replace the tree because his cat used to climb up it and, what I really found hard to accept, removed the bog that had been lying around incongruously in his back garden?

This toilet was the sort of romanticised novelty that I had not beheld since the days of my early youth. I had been brought up in rural surroundings, in those halcyon days when villages were still villages, before that is the second-home buyers and city commuters moved in; when villages were populated by British-legacy stock, folk born in Victorian times whose families, generation after generation of them, were born in the village, lived their lives in the village, died in the village and were buried in the village graveyard. Every one of these people was a country character, and every other house in which they lived was characterised by a tin-roofed shed at the far end of the garden. Admittedly, the ubiquitous outside lav would normally be enclosed, inside four walls and with a roof of sorts, but this only strengthened my case for the retention of a toilet most unusual in mode and manner.

Englishman Self-isolating in Kaliningrad

In deference to those save-the-planet groups who, like the dinosaurs before them, used to rule the world, before that is the world decided it could stand up for itself and swept them off the streets, I like to think of this toilet as the environmentalist’s bog of choice. Lying abstrusely on its side and out in the open, it was such an inspiring sight that had I not been disinfecting I could almost have taken up easel and canvas and captured it for posteriority.

On the other side of us, the place I call ‘the commune’, rum goings on are keeping us guessing. For 14 months or so the back garden owned but unfrequented by our rock-music-loving neighbour, fondly referred to by us as Greengrass, was little more than a neglected patch of scrubland. Then, in an alarming development, a gaggle of Greengrass’s confederates, hitherto unknown to us, began gradually, very gradually, to hack down the undergrowth, clear the extraneous material and dispose of all the junk. In the process of doing so, the wilderness was turned into a place where weary cowboys can bivouac.

A camp fire was lit and, with the help of Mother Invention, makeshift seats were quickly assembled ~ a couple of planks on four piles of rock ~ and with the timely assistance of some disinfectant our auxiliary neighbours ~ seven or more ~ set about celebrating the art and science of coronavirus distancing.

Since then these rawhides have helped the neighbour at the end of their Ponderosa to put up a new fence (the irony of this did not escape me) and in a sinister development, which has given credence to all kinds of ‘there goes the neighbourhood’ theories, are constructing something around their camp fire which could be anybody’s guess, from a Russian version of Stonehenge to an outside toilet from Wigan. My money is on a coronavirus air-raid shelter, the idea being that should the Big C continue to threaten the populace with more of the same social distancing, then the entire city could protect itself by getting together in there.

Englishman Self-isolating in Kaliningrad finds outside toilet drinking den — **A Social Distancing Vodka-Drinking Shelter** (Photo credit: https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/)

Reference
*https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52329679

“If coronavirus has taught me one thing about the human condition it is that the less sense it makes the more sense it makes.”
~ A man with an outside toilet

FAQ Self-isolating Lockdown

Self-isolating/Lockdown: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Published: 28 April 2020; Updated 28 April 2037

Are you still unsure about what Self-isolating and Lockdown are and why or if you are doing it? Or, if you have caught yourself doing it accidentally, are you concerned you might not be doing it correctly? Before disappointing yourself by seeking straightforward advice from national helplines and not getting it, why not refer to our FAQs (Frequently Arsed-with Questions) below:

What is Self-isolating?

Self-isolating, also known as Billy No Mates best friend, is a test designed to reveal to what extent in today’s rights-oriented society you have become:

(a). Completely self-centred;

(b). Utterly ignorant;

(c.) Still able to take sensible, adult advice.

What is the difference between Self-isolating and Lockdown?

Self-isolating is when the government asks you to stay indoors in an attempt to prevent the spread of a potentially lethal disease.

Lockdown is when the government tells you that you must stay indoors by law because not enough people exhibited enough common sense or self-discipline to do so for themselves in an attempt to prevent the spread of a potentially lethal disease.

What similarities do Self-isolation and Lockdown possess?

This depends on which category of citizenship you fit into. If you are a selfless, considerate, intelligent member of society, then Self-isolation and Lockdown equate to the same thing ~ a preventative measure aimed at keeping you, your loved-ones and other members of society safe.

On the other hand, if you are a selfish, ignorant arsehole, the similarities are that you will ignore both and go to Skegness for the day.

Who does it?

Everybody and anybody can self-isolate, but it is recommended especially to old people as therapy for CBPD (Compulsive Bowls Playing Disorder) or unwanted visits on Sunday afternoons to your son’s or daughter’s house.

Is it difficult for young people to Self-isolate?

No, they have been doing it for years. The only difference is that instead of sitting next to each other in bars/restaurants, twiddling on their mobile phones and not speaking, they will have to do it at home.

What can I do to prevent being bored whilst in Lockdown?

Find your brain and use it.

When is it safe to stop?

Whilst there are some that believe that the time to stop is similar to not being liberal ~ don’t start in the first place ~ the time to stop is once you have started with a bit more in the middle.

What is an ‘Exit Strategy’?

An Exit Strategy has many connotations. It thus has a ‘multi-’ prefix, which consigns it almost exclusively to a world of total fantasy. Some use it to suggest that potential deadly viruses have an identifiable and negotiable shelf-life; others, such as a desperate Labour politician, whose star has not yet ascended, and no doubt never will, use it to imply that they possess this wonderful thing called an Exit Strategy whilst the government does not, when we know they are really lying. Yet others already have an Exit Strategy, it is called No Entry, and still more exited as soon as they were told that they should not. Universally, the definition of Exit is ‘way out’; the strategy bit really depends on whether you want to walk out or be carried out in a box.

What can I do whilst I am Self-isolating?

Well, there are certain things that you can do and cannot do. For example, whilst self-isolating if you are young you may feel that you have to; but it is not advisable if you have been married for 30 years as the shock may prove too much. If you live alone, you are strongly advised not to overdo it (although you probably already have), and if you are part of a traditional family (although such a phenomenon is scarce in today’s UK) government advice is find a quiet place where you can do whatever it is you are used to doing, or, just for a change, do something entirely different. You may find that surprising yourself is really quite surprising.

I am anti-social. How might Self-isolating/Lockdown change my life?

You could start talking to yourself.

Can Self-isolating cause callouses and weak sight?

If you are not wearing plasters on your hands and you can read this, then it’s a myth. Otherwise, see ‘What can I do whilst I am Self-isolating’.

Is Lockdown addictive?

A survey undertaken at HMP Lincoln in which a cohort sample of 300 recidivists were asked to write the answer on a sheet of paper and slip it under the door of their cells would seem to confirm that it is. Although contraindications suggested that the government, police, judicial system and prison staff may have something to do with it.

Can you over Self-isolate?

You’ll know that if you step outside the front door and a hover craft zips past.

Will I be the same person by the time that I finish Self-isolating?

That depends significantly on who you were when you started and who you have been self-isolating with. For example, although our expert Dr Jekyll was not available for comment, his friend Mr Hyde reported no adverse effects. And Dr Who, who has been self-isolating since time immemorial and in a small flying box, was perfectly alright until the BBC relaxed its social distancing rules and as a result subjected him to UPCGR (Unnecessarily Political Correct Gender Re-assignment). But don’t worry, the likelihood of this happening to you can be significantly diminished by following the television watershed coronavirus (W.C.) guidelines, which recommends pre-PC safe-viewing times to be between 1956 and 1987.

How long will Self-isolation/Lockdown last?

Ask coronavirus.

Has the government provided an estimate of how long it might take?

Yes, the official estimate has narrowed it down to between 6 weeks and 37 years.

Will everything be the same as it was when coronavirus has passed?

Unfortunately, yes.

FAQ Self-isolating Lockdown — Small houses can present more of a lockdown challenge!

Endnote by Lord Wollocks

Bedside reading when in Lockdown

Panic Buying Shelves Empty

Brits Upend Social Distancing

Trapped Indoors with the Media

Coronavirus New Speech Symptom

UK Media Coronavirus Symptom Circus

UK Media Coronavirus Symptom Circus

I don’t believe in could anymore

Years ago, when I first started working in publishing, a friend and colleague of mine who had worked as a journalist on numerous newspapers warned me off the idea of ever working in that field of print myself. “Don’t do it!” he said. “You could do it just because you can, but don’t. It’s just a race to the bottom!” If I had no distinct impression of what he meant then, I think I do now.

I found the answer in the UK media’s rabid quest for new and alarming coronavirus symptoms. Two articles, which headline two consecutive editions of the Daily Impass, appear to have hit rock bottom: Look Out! for strange coloured wee’, it could be a sign that you have coronavirus; and, the following day, presumably because by then you will have got quite used to staring into the pan, Look Out! for your poo as it could be a sign that you have coronavirus.

Yes, I suppose it could; but it could also be a sign of something else, ie too much alcohol the previous evening (apparently, Brits’ alcohol consumption during coronavirus is up by 31%) or it could be due to a change in diet, ie since the onset of coronavirus you’ve decided not to buy any Chinese takeaways anymore ~ even if people do call you Donald Trump, or it could be that you are suffering from the nutritional equivalent of coronavirus embarrassment syndrome, eating all those baked beans and pickled eggs that you stockpiled whilst panic buying in an attempt to erase your shame ~ good job that you bought that mountain of bog roll too!

UK Media Coronavirus Symptom Circus

Articles such as these that ostensibly forewarn you of peculiar indications that could mean that you could have coronavirus are about as useful, not to mention reassuring, as someone telling you that if you had chosen lottery number ‘7’ instead of number ‘6’ you could have won a fortune. Expect in the coming days for the same newspaper mentioned here to offer ~ at a bargain price of course ~ Do It Yourself Coronavirus Testing Kits ~ they could, but most probably won’t.

The bottom-line is that this particular media group does seem to have an unsavoury predilection for symptoms below the belt line, since, looking back, we could grandstand ‘From the newspaper that brought you coronavirus testicular symptoms we have exciting news about wee and poo!’

The old song ‘Things ‘aint what they used to be’ has never been so applicable, and, naturally, a little awareness of the lesser symptoms of coronavirus could go a long way, but really the last thing that the very much strapped UK health service needs at the moment is 2000,000,000 telephone calls, “Help, my wees turned straw coloured, my poo looks like a boot-polished bowl of mushy peas and my balls hurt.”

UK Media Coronavirus Symptom Circus

Is your daily paper or media group plumbing the depths of coronavirus symptom depravity? Is it scraping the bottom of the barrel, or, more appropriately, your gran’s old tin bucket that used to sit in a shed at the bottom of the yard? If so, you could do a lot worse than whiling away those extra hours that Boris has given you in lockdown flicking through the media pages whilst playing ‘spot the could competition’. And when you are done, take heart from the lyrics of one (Roger) Getonyour Wicketer. He didn’t ‘believe in If anymore’, and neither should you concern yourself too much with the UK media’s over-reliance on the ‘no news get out clause’ could.

Coranavirus New Speech Symptom
Positive Outcomes from Coronavirus
UK Police Lockdown Enforcement
Trapped Inside with the Media

Diary of a Self-isolator in Kaliningrad

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 35 [23 April 2020]

Published: 21 April 2020

I am sitting here on day 35 of self-isolation feeling all retrospective. Since I cannot comment on what is going on outside at present, as I am not getting out as much as I used to, my mind decided to do a Henry David Thoreau and wander off at will. It led me by the hand to the last days of December last year and from this point in time pushed me forward to a day in the past, two weeks ago, to be precise 7 April. More on that in a moment.

Diary of a self-isolator in Kaliningrad

It has been a bad winter; by bad I mean nondescript; lots of rain, no snow; it has been dank, murky, wet, unpleasant.

At the risk of being accused of typical British understatement, I think most people would agree with me that Kaliningrad is not at its best during periods of near perpetual rain. When the snow comes it cloaks, muffles and hides the flaws and imperfections. It is to Kaliningrad what a dose of Botox is to a weathered and wrinkling face. It disguises the wrongs of time, at least for a while.

On 30 December 2019 I had travelled back to Kaliningrad from Gdansk Airport, crossing the Russian border from Poland by taxi. Peering through the taxi window as we approached the city outskirts, I ruefully observed the pitted roads, distorted sidewalks, rusting and buckling metal fences, dilapidated buildings and winter-abandoned building plots, all thick mud and heavy-plant-machinery tracks pocked with bomb-crater pools of water. I do not know whether I love Kaliningrad in spite of its imperfections or because of them. “Ahh, it’s good to be home,” I sighed.

Diary of a Self-isolator in Kaliningrad

In the past few days, whilst we, other realists and most people with a social conscience have been hiding indoors, spring has arrived in Kaliningrad. With flagrant disregard for self-isolation rules, buds and blossom are out and social distancing is out the window, as sprigs of small green leaves gather on the trees and small groups of bright blue flowers, wild and gay (in the non-PC sense) congregate at the edge of gardens and the roadside verges.

Kaliningrad is a green city, and very soon the trees that line the streets, the public spaces and parks will soothe and soften the urban landscape.

As this happens and the weather hopefully improves, the grim phantom of coronavirus will seem even more unreal to us at the other end of the nature spectrum ~ the unpredictable human end ~ and will surely test our resolve.

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 35 [23 April 2020]

On 7 April (doesn’t time fly ~ all over the place ~ whilst in self-isolation), we had to answer a call ~ not of nature ~ but of a bureaucratic kind, which would winkle us out of the house and make us trek, on foot, of course, across the other side of the city to fill in yet another official document and receive yet another official stamp.

Although serenaded by a beautiful spring day, gloriously sunlit and dry, and whilst I welcomed the chance to walk, two weeks of isolation harnessed to ever-more disturbing media content on the seemingly invincible march of coronavirus had increased my perception of risk and hardened caution against anything other than excursions into the outside world deemed vital or essential, such as trips to the local shop for beer and vodka. But ‘needs must when the Devil drives’, so out and off we went.

It was early days for self-isolation, but we had not been out for a week or more so it was interesting to see what, if anything, had transpired from an increased knowledge of the virus’s escalating incidence and its possible deadly consequences and also whether the advice from central and local government for self-isolation and social distancing had been received loud and clear or whether some people still had a sock stuffed in it.

Around the lakeside there was no diminution of people, but there were less people on the streets and less traffic. Nevertheless, the city was far from deserted. Traffic lights were still needed and at main bus stops groups assembled. Public transport had taken a hit, but still had enough passengers to make it profitable and questionable. Mask wearers existed in a ratio of about 1:7. We were not among them yet, as I could never get on with masks, which I have had to wear on occasions whilst working in dusty environments. I was forever adjusting them, which means running your fingers around your face; they make your face hot and sweaty, thus acting as a particulate attraction, and, in my experience, as they still permit the ingress of a small amount of dust, visible on the mask inside after 30 minutes of wear, I remain unconvinced of their virus-halting efficacy and cautious about the possibility that they may, in fact, heighten the risk of inhaling the great Big C.

Diary of a self-isolator: should I wear a mask or not? — (Photo credit: National Archives. Link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalarchives/3182090361)

Masks and gloves

Arriving at our destination, like them or not masks had to be donned. We had been given strict instructions that we would not be allowed on the premises without masks and gloves. My wife had both, but the surgical gloves that a friend had acquired for us were too small for my manly hands, so I just stuffed my hands in my pockets. We did have a mask apiece, but that is what we had ~ one each and no more.

In ordinary circumstances, we would have been considerably more nervous about today’s toxic environment, an enclosed space where there was no possibility of distancing ~ we had already had the dubious pleasure of this experience at another official establishment, thank you ~ but we had been led to believe that there would less people present today.

Olga was well and truly flustered. She had donned her green-blue facemask and I, complaining bitterly, put mine on as well, as we waited outside the office building for someone to open the door.

A rather large, somewhat buxom lady had been assigned to our case, and we followed her into one of the small offices where she checked the sheath of documents Olga handed to her, and after holding my breath for the inevitable conclusion that we did not have all of the paperwork we should have, I was pleased to be proven wrong. The lady with the largest handed Olga two documents plastered with questions and answer boxes, saying, at the same time, “Roochka?” I’ve been swotting up on my Russian language, and I immediately recognised this as ‘pen’, or rather by intonation, ‘have you got a pen?’ (It is a funny thing this Russian language, as she could just as well have been asking ‘Have you got a door handle?’.)

We vacated the small office and went into the service area beyond, where, sitting at a small oblong ‘stol’, Olga proceeded to huff, puff and grimace her way through the form-filling process, predicting that she would get it wrong and have to do it again, which became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then she started to get all nervous, stressed and sweaty, removing the face mask as she could not breath in it. I kept mine on, but I had noticed that the lady who was catering for us had her facemask slung over her large double chin. This woman did not inspire confidence. She too looked hot under the gills, and I noticed that she was continually sniffing!

On the streets

Not wanting to take a taxi ~ or rather wanting to but not doing so ~ we trudged back the way we had come on foot.

In the new Coronavirus Era everybody you meet takes on a sinister dimension, and they are to you as you are to them ~ you can see it in their eyes, especially in the crab-like eyes that peep warily and frightened above the line of their masks. Fear stalks the streets as if the Grim Reaper is on his heels. The irony is that the least affected, and therefore the most relaxed and complacent, are drunks, who continue to assemble and congregate, share their bottles of hooch and pass their cigarettes as if the world is as it was ~ before along came a minuscular round thing with trumpets stuck all over it.

A little bit of fear can go a long way; like Mary Poppin’s spoon full of sugar, it can assist quite considerably in helping ‘the medicine go down’, so that when we are told not to touch our faces, as the Big C can be transferred from surfaces to our vitals by this route, we remember the consequences. The Grim Reaper is waving his scythe at you.

When out and about, I try to keep my hands thrust inside my jacket pockets, but you can always be sure that the more conscious you are that you should not touch your face the more certain you can be of that itch developing around the edge of your nostril or your eyes and the growing insistence in your brain to scratch or rub it. I suppose that there is a little bit of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Imp of the Perverse’ in all of us.