Category Archives: Diary 2019/2020

2020 Memories are made of this

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 292 [31 December 2020]
or Goodbye 2020, if I never see you again will it be too soon?

Published: 31 December 2020 ~ 2020 Memories are made of this

The End is Nigh! Well, you would think so from the aggregated hype bubbling furiously over the past 12 months in the cauldrons of the western media. Never before in recent history has the press had the opportunity to indulge itself in a Groundhog Field Day like the one that has been handed to them by the pandemic (or is that scamdemic?). But enough of the soothsaying and a tad more soothing-saying, if you don’t mind. The end is nigh for 2020: Time to reflect on the past 12 months.

My period of voluntary self-isolation began back in March 2020, and like most people I have evaluated the quality of my life during this epoch as a series of stops, starts and checks. However, on looking back I realise that although the impediment of coronavirus fear and its attendant restrictions have cast a long shadow over our social life, it never succeeded in inflicting a total eclipse. As my wife is fond of saying, “Humans can adapt to anything in time”, and whilst in my books I have committed the cardinal sin by steering clear of bars and other places where people tend to congregate, in retrospect 2020 was far from totally written off. Indeed, in spite of muzzle-wearing and fetishistic hand-sanitising, we did still have a life ~ we met friends, took several trips to the coast, visited art galleries and places of historical interest, entertained at home and, most importantly, used the extra time that we had at our disposal in the most constructive ways.

We certainly managed to get more done around the house and in the garden ~ especially in the garden. This is Olga’s pet project: converting what was a slab of inherited concrete into a proper, functioning outdoor area, where she can enjoy the flowers and trees, and I can enjoy a pint.

Years ago, in the mists of a different time, I worked on a magazine called Successful Gardening, from which I learnt that my greatest contribution to any practical endeavour in this field would be to make myself scarce, which is exactly what I did. So, I have to confess that the lion’s share of the work was done by my wife. Yet, I feel no need for excuse making. Gardening is a sport, and like any other sport, some you participate in; in others you are a spectator.

Where coronavirus is concerned, it is for my family and friends back in the UK that I feel the most sorry. The UK media has not had the opportunity to be this gory and ghastly in its coverage since Jack the Ripper terrorised Whitechapel. Not even brutal acts of terrorism, which are officially swept under the carpet by deflection techniques that focus on holding hands and candle-lit vigils, come close to the penny dreadful coverage that coronavirus receives. It would not be half so bad if 1 + 1 = 2, but nothing about the measures being taken to combat coronavirus in the UK ~ the draconian measures ~ seems to add up, and, as with Brexit, the country appears to be split yet again, and uncannily yet again, as with Brexit, the fault lines are political and a peculiar inversion of the status quo.

In complete contradiction to the overt emphasis placed at any other time on civil liberties and the evils of the so-called surveillance society, 1984 and all that, it is the left that appears to be screaming for lockdown, mask-wearing and any other hard and fast rules. Indeed, they do not seem to be able to get enough of it, and, with the illiberality that is customary with liberals, are spitting tar and feathers at anyone who is impudent enough to advocate liberty above home slavery. The megaphone message is: Do as you are told! Stay in! Don’t go anywhere, or we are all going to die!!.

Admittedly, there are a lot better things to do with your time than dying but is being bolted and barred in your home for what little there is left of your life it? The older we become the more precious life becomes, but so does living your life. It is the Bitch of having been born at all.

The problem, or at least one of the salient problems of getting old ~ and for some inexplicable reason we all tend to do it, get old, I mean ~ is that you reach the stage where you think you can hear each grain of sand dropping into the hour glass, and whilst it is normal on the push-penny arcade machine of life to brace yourself for the moment when inevitably your turn will come, when you will be bumped off down the chute, the media over the past 12 months has not missed a trick in reminding us that the man with the cowl and scythe is busier than he has ever been pushing coins into the slot.

No one can deny that there has been a lot of death about, and sadly we were not spared. Our good friend, Stanislav (Stas) died in November 2020. Immediately, rumours abounded that he had died of coronavirus, the majority of people having become so obsessed with the virus that it has become almost impermissible to die from anything else. Stas did not die from coronavirus. But he did die, and with his passing we lost a very good and much-loved friend.

Without doubt, one of the most perplexing things about getting older is that not only do you have to come to terms with your own mortality, you also have to come to terms with the loss off those who are nearest and dearest. Each loss tears a hole in the fabric of life that can never be repaired.

But enough of this morbidity. Like everything in life, what some people lose on the swings others gain on the merry-go-rounds, and whilst we can conclude that whereas it has been a troubled year for most of us, especially those on the frontline ~ doctors, nurses, paramedics and the rest ~ if you have the good fortune to be a mask producer, the director of a pharmaceutical industry, a media magnate, I do not suppose that Mr Coronavirus seems such a bad fellow after all, and this is without mentioning the increased yields experienced in the funeral industry.

Enough said: In a consummately original and unplagiaristic moment, my valediction for the year 2020 is that it was ‘the best of years, ‘t’was the worst of years’.

Think of 2020 as a painful tooth that needs to be extracted by the dentist: you might miss it, but you will certainly be glad it has gone …

Happy New Year
to One & All

Flowers in Olga Hart's Garden Kaliningrad

2020 Memories are made of this Mick Hart Woodoo Hairdressers Kaliningrad

Kaliningrad 2020 Mick Hart & Olga Hart Vintage Car

2020 Memories are made of this Mick Hart & Olga Hart

Olga Hart celebrates Kant's birthday Konigsberg

Mick Hart with relics Kaliningrad market

2020 memories are made of this

Auto Retro Club Kaliningrad 2021 Calendar

2021 calendar celebrates classic cars of Russia

Published: 15 December 2020

It was during the summer months this year that our friend Sergey Goryunov invited us to take part in a photoshoot which he was organising with a view towards producing a 2021 calendar for the members of Kaliningrad’s Auto Retro Club.

The photo session was scheduled to take place at 6am, which meant that we had to wake up at 4am, and it was just my luck that the night before I had experienced one of my life-long bouts of insomnia. It was not a case of can I drag myself out of bed in time, rather should I be dragging myself into it.

As the photographer was on standby, the vintage car organised and the venue prescribed, the effort had to be made and, in spite of myself, it was good to have the opportunity to get dressed up again in our vintage attire and to take part in this capital retro project.

Hotel Tchaikovsky Kaliningrad is Nothing to Sneeze at

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 272 [11 December 2020]

Published: 11 December 2020 ~ Hotel Tchaikovsky Kaliningrad is Nothing to Sneeze at

Psychological problems resulting not from contracting Covid-19 but from the social prohibitions orchestrated and, in some instances, enforced in the name of spread containment and personal safety appear to have affected some people more than it has others. Indeed, scientists and health professionals alike, not to mention conspiracy theorists, postulate that ‘extreme measures’ such as lockdown and diminished social interaction have had and are having serious adverse effects on the mental-emotional well-being of a large cohort of people who feel that they have better things to do than imprison themselves in their respective homes playing John Wankerson’s Clueless for the rest of their unnatural lives.

Speaking for myself, the restrictions, self-imposed by ‘informed guidelines’ and/or edict, have left me bamboozled (What’s that? You’ve never experience it? You don’t know what you are missing? Vote Labour and find out!), the puzzle being, am I really responding as I perceive I should be to the exigencies of the pandemic or, as time goes by (good song that!), have I allowed my guard to slip?

Yes, I know, here I go again, getting myself into a mucking fuddle about whether my coronavirus precaution corollary justifies me calling myself a bona fide self-isolator. I would like to think that the ambiguity is simply a matter of semantics ~ self-isolator, social-distancer, reluctant mask-wearer, anti-social misanthropist using coronavirus as an excuse to hermiticise myself, whatever ~ but the crux of the question is, are divergencies allowed? Does one have to be an either/or? Either self-isolating or not self-isolating? Or can one be self-isolating some of the time but not others? A sort of part-time self-isolator or one on day release?

For example, given the reported rising tide of coronavirus cases, I am still inclined to err on the side of caution, and, in fact, I continue to do so by resisting all temptation to frequent the bars and licensed premises that I would normally have patronised a couple of times a month was it not for coronavirus. Whilst this inexcusable retreat is as injurious to Kaliningrad’s hospitality trade as the decision to close or restrict the opening hours of pubs has been to the UK’s equivalent, I have worked out, even with the handicap of a Grade 9 CSE in maths, that from a purely economic standpoint my bar-patronising reticence has put a smile on the face of my piggy bank.

However, as I have confessed in previous posts, my self-inflicted isolation falls somewhat short of perfect and, insofar as restricted social contact is concerned, I know of a number of people who are far holier than thy in their fastidious observation of the social distancing rule.

There are occasions when it is not impossible but is still difficult to swerve in the opposite direction to the norms and mores that bind us, where, just as it was in the pre-coronavirus age, we find ourselves obliged to proceed in a manner not entirely in keeping with our own convictions, and, at such times, are compelled, I am afraid to say, to throw caution to the wind.

Thus, it came to pass, a few weeks ago, that a strong gust in the form of a birthday celebration and the traditional expectations that such engenders, whipped my caution away like an unstuck toupée, and I found myself faced for the first time in umpteen Covid months with the arguably risky prospect of dining and drinking out.

Hotel Tchaikovsky Kaliningrad

The occasion was my wife’s mother’s 80^th birthday. We had discussed with her how she wanted to celebrate this milestone in her life, and she had shown great favour in the suggestion of going to a restaurant. The idea was that three other friends of hers, roughly of the same age group, would join us, all of whom at the outset expressed an interest in doing so. However, come closer to the day, as news began to percolate of escalating Covid cases, one by one these friends dropped out.

Admittedly, their example made me think that perhaps it would be best if we followed suit and instead of the restaurant settle upon a quiet celebration at home, but my wife’s mother remained unphased. She still wanted us all ~ what there was left of us ~ to go to the restaurant, and so the restaurant it was.

My wife, Olga, had chosen the Hotel Tchaikovsky as the venue. Hotel dining rooms tend normally to be less populated than restaurants per se, so I could see the logic in this. Of course, going anywhere without first strapping on our muzzles would have been so 2019 don’t you think? And as I had not dined in a restaurant for quite some considerable time, I found myself wondering how exactly one would be able to eat one’s food with a mask slapped about one’s kisser?

As my wife’s mother is in her 80^th year, walking, cycling or running to the restaurant were less obvious options than taking a taxi. I remember the time when travelling by taxi was looked upon as an innocent luxury as well as the best expedient, but in the coronavirus age taxis, as with every other mode of transport requiring third-party involvement, is where the risk-taking starts.

Hotel Tchaikovsky Kaliningrad

The Hotel Tchaikovsky is situated on a Königsberg street, which backs onto the city’s Zoo. It was a cold, wet and inhospitable evening, so my observations of the hotel’s exterior were minimalised by the need to get inside. There, it was light, charming and warm. Not only that, but there was something, whilst not exactly ‘decidedly’, vintage going on. In the hallway leading to the main reception, an impressive array of old suitcases had been stacked, two rows and several high, the uppermost cases garnished with clocks, and there was an upright parlour piano standing in the corridor. Vintage was going on at the same time as something almost antique, and also almost classical, as reflected in the reproduction 19^th century furniture, impressive walnut servery and glass chandelier-style ceiling pendants.

**Something vintage this way comes: the reception room at the Hotel Tchaikovsky in Kaliningrad, Russia**

Even with the threat of coronavirus hanging over us like the proverbial Sword of Damocles, I was still able to take this in, whilst applying disinfectant to my mitts from one of those pump-action dispensers, which had been strategically placed on a small console table prior to the dining-room entrance.

The hotel dining room consisted of two rooms, which was handy Andy, as between each there was a pair of glazed French Window-style doors, which kept things bright and airy whilst enabling the hotel management to comply quite handsomely with coronavirus distancing rules.

The first room had one engaged table, a family gathering, the adult occupants of which glanced apprehensively at us as we strolled in, passing within millimetres of their social distancing space. But they need not have stressed themselves. Two waitresses in regulation mask attire were ushering us courteously but firmly and swiftly into the adjoining room, where there was nobody else but us.

Since every table was unoccupied, it made the task of choosing where to sit virtually impossible. Each and every location was appraised and, by the time we had settled for the seats in the window, I felt as if we had sat everywhere else simultaneously.

The window seats turned out to be the perfect coronavirus cubby hole. They were literally seats, together with a table, placed inside the special dimensions rendered possible by a rectangular bay window, and being given to private corners of this type, I would have chosen to have sat here even if coronavirus was not half the threat that we have been led to believe.

So, we sat down, Olga’s mother done up to the nines, sporting her best jewellery and looking far more relaxed than we could ever be, even though every other table was only almost occupied by us and nobody else. We had no beef and Yorkshire pudding with that; only Olga’s mum seemed disappointed that the rest of Kaliningrad was not in the same room. I do wish that she had not said as we entered the restaurant, “There’s not many people here. It can’t be that popular”. But if you cannot insult the hotel management on your 80^th birthday, when can you?

It was about this time, as we were sat there, in the bay window, with only us and our reflections as company, that I heard the ghostly voice of my long dead auntie Ivy saying, “Hold hard, Michael!” (How I wished she could have used a different expression!), “What about the cutlery and glasses?” And she was right, we had not brought those antiseptic wipes with us for nothing! So, out they jolly well came, and yours truly set to with a vengeance wiping the wipes around the ends of the eating implements and around the rims of the glasses. That should do the trick! ~ none of us believed.

We were alone long enough for me to talk myself into the fallacy that I was still, technically, self-isolating, when a young waiter-me-lad appeared, wearing his mask in a Constructivist fashion. He took our order and scooted off to the kitchen. This was the real test, I thought: kitchen and kitchen staff coronavirus cleanliness.

It is quite frankly amazing how a couple of swift glasses of vino can transform melodrama into maladits (perfection!). By the time the waiter reappeared, bringing with him my vegetarian dish and Olga and Olga’s mum’s meaty options, apprehension had almost completely given way to restaurant rhapsody. The wine was excellent, if not a tad expensive, and we would soon discover that the food at the Hotel Tchaikovsky was crisp, fresh, first class and delicious.

With such culinary conviviality going down, and Olga having ordered three glasses of apricot brandy, which was sympatico, Covid, or rather the morbid dread of Covid, had been well and truly kicked up the arse.

Somewhere, at some time, during the indulgences, auntie Ivy had spoken again, and, in compliance, I had whipped out the wipes and shot them around the brandy glass rims, but no repeat performance was forthcoming as regards dessert spoons and later the shot glasses brimming with vodka.

Hotel Tchaikovsky Kaliningrad is Nothing to Sneeze at

Amidst all of this post-normal abandon and frivolity, a couple had come into the room and were occupying a table to the outside right of ours. They were over a metre away, so niet problem there then, but suddenly, with no warning, quite out of the blue, Olga’s mum developed a sneezing fit!

The first rendition had my head shoot round at a nervous pace. There was a pause, and there it was again, a second sneeze! I shot a glance at our neighbours. It was alright, they had not noticed it or, if they had, they had not reacted. I think they were secretly restraining themselves, preferring a diplomatic reaction to demonstrative rebuff. Then came another sneeze, then another and another, during which the potential recipients of this respiratory outrage had begun to look rather less comfortable.

At first, I had tried to placate their unease in that embarrassed way that we English do, by giving them an insouciant smile, which, by the second eruption, however, had tightened itself into a gritty-toothed grin. Meanwhile, Olga’s mum was holding a tissue to her nose, as if it was a white flag, but the performance was not yet over. There came a sneeze, and another, and within seconds ~ it must have been the wine ~ I was doubling up with a fit of the giggles. I did not know what to do. I would have put on my mask, but it was not big enough to hide behind, and yet I felt certain that in the current climate of fear and dread we would be frog marched out at any moment by several men in protective suits armed with pump-action spray guns and there, in the carpark, disinfected.

The crisis past, however, as crises often do, without further ado or incident, and the young waiter, who had obviously taken cover behind the bulky servery or piano in the corridor, now emerged not with the carafe of vodka that we had ordered earlier but with three of those nice tall glasses which hold a lot of vodka. It had been I who had suggested the carafe since the vodka was all for me, and I thought it would look better, would make me look less of a lush, presented in this fashion. But I ended up with three large glasses in front of me and the most surprised, amused and delighted look on the face of the youthful waiter ~ well, let us rephrase that and say in his eyes, as I could not see his face for one of those blasted muzzles!

I was just getting into my drinking stride when out came one of the senior staff to inform us that the witching hour was nigh. Apparently, coronavirus has got a thing about infecting you after 9pm, so they had to close the restaurant.

With about five minutes left at my disposal, I had to down three big glasses of vodka as if I was a real Russian vodka drinker, instead of a sipperoonee anglichanin.

Apart from the hurried exit, which was no fault of the management as they were just following orders, we all agreed that the service, fare and atmosphere had been top notch. It was a shame about the sneezing and Olga’s mum’s last words as we ambled off the premises, “There wasn’t a lot of people. It can’t be that popular.” Well, if you can’t say that on your 80^th birthday, when can you say it?

The toilets in the Hotel Tchaikovsky, Kaliningrad, are atmospherically located in the basement of the building. The arched red-brick ceiling and walls are exposed in all their original glory, and the loo interior has been sympathetically constructed to preserve and highlight its historic ethos. Note the copper-bowl washbasin, matching distressed-framed mirror and the reflection in it of the no-longer distressed Englishman, who had just downed his first glass of vodka.

For a self-isolating experience with a difference, including good food, good wine, good apricot brandy, good vodka (in tall glasses) in an elegant ambience and with good service, dine out at the Tchaikovsky Hotel, Kaliningrad.

Essential details:❤❤

Hotel Tchaikovsky
43 Tchaikovskogo Street
Kaliningrad, Russia

Tel: +7 (4012) 67-44-43
Email: reception@tchaikovskyhotel.ru
Web: https://ageevgroup.ru/hotels/tchaikovsky/

Умер Калининградский Кенигсбергский Гид Стас

Потеря незаменимого друга

Опубликовано: 3 декабря 2020 г.

С большой грустью сообщаю, что наш дорогой друг Стас (Станислав Коновалов) скончался от послеоперационных осложнений во время лечения в больнице. Мы с женой Ольгой познакомились со Стасом в январе 2019 года. Нас познакомил с ним наш общий друг, художник Виктор Рябинин. Позже Стас рассказывал мне, что Виктор сказал ему: «В Калининград переезжает англичанин. Тебе следует с ним встретиться. Он интересный человек, и я думаю, вы найдете общий язык ». Я не совсем уверен, что заслуживаю быть названным «интересный», но мы нашли общий язык в нашей любви к истории в целом и в частности к истории Кенигсберга- Калининграда и его окрестностей. Важным элементом нашего общего языка было вдохновение, которое мы оба получили от нашего друга и наставника Виктора Рябинина. Вскоре после смерти Виктора Рябинина в июле 2019 года я сказал Стасу, что нашел две картины Виктора среди своих вещей в Англии. Он ответил с присущей ему скромностью, что, хотя у него нет картин Виктора Рябинина с его автографами, ему достаточно того, что у него есть «тайная гордость», заключающаяся в том, что он был «близок к этому великому человеку». «Я был его учеником много лет, – сказал он. Когда я рискнул предположить, что Виктор был его другом, Стас ответил, опять с присущей ему скромностью: «Виктор знал очень многих людей, но он, вероятно, не считал их всех своими друзьями. . Могу сказать, что я был его учеником, что я восхищался им и был счастлив в его обществе… »Затем он сделал паузу, прежде чем сказать:« Но я хотел бы думать, что он считал меня своим другом ». Стас был скромным человеком. Он скромно относился ко всем своим достижениям, даже тогда когда было совершенно очевидно, что у него было столько же, если не больше, прав их превозносить. В знак признания его достижений, я попросил Стаса написать краткий биографический отчет о его работе и жизни, в том числе о его отношениях с Виктором Рябининым, и поместил его очерк, вместе со ссылками на его практику экскурсовода на страницах своего постоянного блога под рубрикой “Виктор Рябинин Кенигсберг”. “Стас Калининград Кенигсберг Путеводитель”https://expatkaliningrad.com/personal-tour-guide-kaliningrad/ Стас очень много работал над своими проектами гида, оттачивая и совершенствуя их, снимая несколько видеороликов на YouTube и всегда спрашивая: «Что ты думаешь об этом аспекте?» “Все в порядке?” «Есть ли в сценарии видеоролика что-нибудь, что, по твоему мнению, требует пояснения?». Как и смерть Виктора Рябинина до него, смерть Стаса лишила Кенигсберг-Калининград еще одного его великого посла. Но нас его смерть лишила гораздо большего. Стас был человеком прямолинейным, открытым, искренним. Он был добрым человеком, всегда готовым помочь, он был сердцем хорошей компании. Вместе, мы делили общий язык прошлого, а я через него – общий, но очень важный язык – человеческий. В общем, Стас был самым ценным арсеналом – он был незаменимым другом, которого мы не могли себе позволить потерять.

Stas Kaliningrad Königsberg Guide has Died

The loss of an indispensable friend

Published: 2 December 2020

It is with great sadness that I report that our dear friend Stas (Stanislav Konovalov) passed away recently from post-operative complications whilst undergoing hospital treatment.

My wife, Olga, and I met Stas in January 2019. We were introduced to him by a mutual friend, Victor Ryabinin the artist. Stas told me later that Victor had said to him, “There is an Englishman moving to Kaliningrad. You should meet him. He is an interesting man, and I think you will find a common language.”

I am not altogether certain that I deserve the appellation ‘interesting’, but we did find a common language in our love of history generally and specifically for Königsberg-Kaliningrad and the surrounding region.

An important element in that common language was the inspiration we both received from our friend and mentor Victor Ryabinin.

A short while after Victor Ryabinin’s death in July 2019, I told Stas that I had found two paintings by Victor among my possessions in England. He replied, with characteristic modesty, that whilst he did not have a signed painting by Victor Ryabinin the artist, it was enough that he had a “secret pride”, which was that he had been “close to this great man”. “I was his student for many years,” he said.

When I ventured to suggest that Victor had also been his friend, he replied, once again with characteristic modesty, “Victor knew a great many people and associated with a great many people, but he probably would not have considered them all to be his friends. I can say that I was his student, that I admired him and enjoyed his company …” He then paused, before saying, “But I would like to think that he thought of me as his friend.”

Stas was a modest man. He was modest about all of his achievements, when it was quite obvious that he had as much right, if not more, to blow his own trumpet with the ‘best’ of them.

In recognition of this, I had Stas write a brief biographical account of his work and life, including his longstanding association with Victor Ryabinin, and included it, along with references to his tour guide practice, in the permanent pages of this blog, under the ‘Victor Ryabinin Königsberg’ heading.

Stas Kaliningrad Königsberg Guide

Stas worked extremely hard on his tour guide projects, honing and perfecting them, making several YouTube videos and always asking, “What did you think of this aspect?” “Was that alright?” “Is there anything in my tour guide script that you think needs clarification?”.

Like Victor Ryabinin before him, Stas’ death has robbed Königsberg -Kaliningrad of yet another great ambassador.

It has robbed us of so much more.

Stas was a straight-talking, open, sincere individual. He was a kind man, always ready to help and good company.

Together, we shared the common language of the past, and I, through him, the common but all-important language of humanity.

In summation, Stas was that most precious of all commodities ~ he was the indispensable friend that we could ill afford to lose.

A sunny afternoon with Stas Konovalov, ‘Stas’, [right of picture] Kaliningrad Königsberg Guide

Stas Kaliningrad Königsberg Tour Guide ~ links to his videos

Why wearing a mask is different from wearing pants

Wearing a mask is like wearing pants. Really?

Published: 24 November 2020 ~ Why wearing a mask is different from wearing pants

Of all things that are mysterious and confusing about coronavirus, the salient example is mask wearing, or rather the contentious issue of mandatory mask wearing.

Enter Bill Gates. Bill would seem to be an ardent mask-wearing supporter, so much so that he has difficulty in comprehending why anyone should object to wearing a mask. Peeping out into our world from behind his very large wallet, nothing could be more natural or normal to Bill than slinging a piece of fabric about one’s nose and mouth. His is so convinced about the normality inherent in this practice that he considers the psychology of anti-maskers ‘weird’ and asks “I mean, what are these, like, nudists?” Then goes on to make a bizarre comparison between wearing masks and wearing pants: “We ask you to wear pants and, you know, no American says — or very few Americans say — that that’s, like, some terrible thing.” {source: www.wionews.com} [29/03/24 Link to this page no longer exists]

You see, Bill, my old mate, the thing is that this comparison is not really a valid one. I don’t know where you wear your pants, but most people wear them around their arse, and have been doing so for years. There are distinct convenience and comfort factors in pants-wearing that do not readily relate to the experience of wearing face masks.

For one, a bandage wrapped around your nose and mouth tends to get in the way of that all-important function of breathing, whereas pants do not, unless, of course, you are wearing them over your head ~ Bill?

Where Bill wears his pants or mask is entirely up to him. Correction, where he wears his pants is entirely up to him; I forgot for a moment that mask wearing is obligatory.

It was not always this way.

Time was once, and recently, although it seems like an age away, when if you were to wear a mask in public you would be guaranteed to excite a certain degree of suspicion. Indeed, before we were forced to do otherwise the only people wearing masks, discounting for the moment those who have a penchant for PVC or leather, were muggers and bank robbers. In the bad old pre-mask days, shops, banks and government offices would not insist that you wear a mask, they would insist that you remove it! How times change ~ and suddenly!

Fauci claimed that “wearing a mask, keeping a distance, avoiding crowds, being outdoors as much as you possibly can – weather permitted – and washing your hands” are the defining ways for one to return to the normal world’. {source: wionews.com ¹} A nice sentence that begs a one-word response. When?

When, Mr Fauci, when?

The mask is the single most potent reminder that normality has gone, and its odiousness is this respect has not been helped any by suggestions that mask wearing may be with us forever. So, for the time being at least (let us be optimistic), the mask is the visual signal, the day-by-day reminder of our altered state of reality ~ the corporate logo of the so-called New Normal.

Some cynics believe that this visual statement, the compliance it represents and the fear it engenders, is an essential weapon in the psychological arsenal of governments and Big Pharma intent on ensuring the maximum uptake of their rushed and suspect vaccine products. Where there’s a will there’s a way, and where there are millions, billions of people, purchasing cart loads of vaccines, not to mention vitamin pills and, lest we forget (how could we?), masks, there is money to be made. Lots.

But let’s not be trite, here. A few months back there were a number of articles written by medical and health specialists postulating that not only are masks useless in the fight against coronavirus but that they can actually contribute to your chances of catching it. The out and out criticism was that wearing a mask for virus prevention was like wearing string underpants to stop a pea. Here we go again, Bill?

The case against mask wearing has since swung to wearing masks correctly, ie moulded around the facial contours, never touched by hand, changed periodically ~ at least every two hours ~ not placed in one’s pocket, not washed and not re-used. An idealistic scenario unlikely to be achieved when the majority of mask wearers do not seem capable of rising to the challenge of the basic principles of how to wear a mask.

How many mask wearers have you clocked wearing their masks correctly? Sitting baggy, possibly like Bill’s pants (who knows?), swinging from the ears, acting as a chin cuff and, the old favourite, mouth gagged, snout out ~ this is how they are worn.

Whenever I see someone wearing their mask like this, as in the last and most popular example, and, of course, I do, because my wife is one such transgressor (she refers to masks as ‘muzzles’), I am reminded of something I saw on Facebook: two drawings, with captions. The first caption read, ‘Wearing your mask like this …’ (there then followed a drawing of someone wearing a mask with their nose sticking out above it) “is as silly as wearing your underpants like this …” (there then followed an image of a pair of Y-fronts pulled halfway up with a willy hung over the waistband). “That’s funny,” I thought, “doesn’t everyone wear their Y-fronts like this?”

Bill?

And yet the risk of catching coronavirus by improper face mask wearing is possibly not so high as the risk that emanates from face mask fiddling. You see, wearing a chunk of cloth over your nose and mouth is devilishly uncomfortable. After a while it can make your face hot and sweaty, and it can also make you itch. OK, so you can suffer the same inconvenience should you be wearing the wrong kind of pants, but there is a subtle difference. In adjusting your mask and scratching your itch, you generally touch your face and possibly, inadvertently, your mouth, nose and eyes, which is precisely what you are told that you must not do if you do not want to catch coronavirus.

But what about the altruistic argument, the one that goes that mask wearing significantly reduces the risk of passing coronavirus onto someone else, especially if you happen to be an asymptomatic spreader? In the first instance, look no further for the answer in Bill’s string underpants and their pea-stopping potential ~ catching coronavirus is a two-way process: what gets in must get out. And this also applies to the mysterious, unproven asymptomatic as much as it does to the snotty-nosed cougher.

So, extrapolating what we know already about masks from the lack of evidence placed before us, what we can say irrefutably is that no one knows. And this is where we are at, at the moment: mask wearing will protect you from catching coronavirus, mask wearing will increase your chances of catching coronavirus; mask wearing is a temporary measure, mask wearing is here forever. And this ambiguity rolls over into other things, such as: the vaccine is coming, but no one knows when; the vaccine is a game changer, but what game and whose? The vaccine will not be the 100% solution that people have been led to believe: it may work for some and not for others; it may not work at all; it may have serious contraindications; it may have built-in lethal implications ~well, let’s don’t go there for the moment. And what about lockdown? For some it is the bib and tucker; for others it is Bill Gate’s underpants. There is a lot of hot air about it, but no hard evidence to support it, so to speak.

In fact, all that we can say with any degree of certainty about coronavirus, from what we have been fed, is that your guess is as good as mine.

What we can say, getting back to masks, is that generally speaking, the general public are not comfortable wearing them. There is a convincing argument that politicians and big neoliberal corporate globalists have no problem with it as they never show their true face anyway, but for the many, as distinct from the few, normal human contact is not traditionally mask to mask, it is traditionally face to face.

So, to summarise, masks are uncomfortable, they make breathing, one of the main functioning processes of the body difficult and speaking problematic, symbolically they are a constant reminder of a deviant reality, and, at worst, they could actually create the environment for catching the very disease which they purport to prevent.

Whatever one’s feeling about masks, the inescapable fact is that ultimately, human visual contact and human communication is a face-to-face transaction, not a mask-to-mask one, since full-time mask wearing is as alien as it is alienating.

But I should not worry about it too much, Bill, the only confusion you seem to be suffering from is a pants and mask one, and whichever it is and wherever you wear them, it does not seem to have affected you any, as you still seem perfectly capable of talking out of yours.

Why wearing a mask is different from wearing pants — **NOW, WHERE DID I PUT THAT MASK?**

(Image attribution: https://freesvg.org/johnny-automatic-head-up-ass)

Source:
1. https://www.wionews.com/world/bill-gates-wonders-whether-anti-maskers-are-nudists-and-why-they-wont-wear-masks-343913

😉Coronavirus Language & the Mask Argument

Life & Death in Mauthausen Concentration Camp

A Russian Survivor of Mauthausen Concentration Camp

Published: 22 November 2020 ~ Life & Death in Mauthausen Concentration Camp

This summer we had the pleasure of meeting a very special lady in Kaliningrad, Zoya Ostin, the widow of a former Russian soldier, Vsevolod Ostin, who, in his youth, was incarcerated in the notorious Mauthausen Nazi concentration camp in Upper Austria. The young Russian soldier survived his ordeal and later wrote a highly detailed account of life and death within the camp, how he beat the odds and lived to tell the tale. My wife, Olga, has been busy translating his book, Rise Above Your Pain, into English.

During the Second World War, Vsevolod Ostin, a young Soviet soldier, had the grave misfortune to be interned in the notorious Mauthausen Nazi concentration camp in Upper Austria.

Whilst most of us in the West are familiar with the names of Auschwitz, Dachau and Belsen, the name Mauthausen may not be immediately recognisable, but Mauthausen was considered to be one of the Nazi’s most severe and brutal camps, so much so that it was known affectionately by the SS as the bone mill or bone grinder.

Life & Death in Mauthausen Concentration Camp

Mauthausen was the principal camp in an extensive complex of satellite camps operating throughout Austria and the southern regions of Germany. The inmates, mostly drawn from the Soviet and Polish intelligentsia, were used as slave labour for numerous German companies, both local and national, with the majority of prisoners working mainly in the nearby granite quarries, providing raw materials for the reconstruction of German towns and cities.

The regime in Mauthausen and the surrounding sub-camps was so relentlessly brutal that the average life expectancy was estimated to be 3 to 6 months at most. Vsevolod Ostin entered the camp in 1942 and miraculously managed to survive until 1945, when the camp was liberated by the United States Army.

Vsevolod Ostin wrote his account of life in Mauthausen in 1961 but not to the acclaim that he had hoped for. Publishing house after publishing house rejected the manuscript. Various reasons were given, but the main stumbling block seemed to be that the Soviet authorities considered it to be too international, too cosmopolitan, at a time when literary and historical accounts of the war had an urgent imperative to condemn Fascism as irredeemably evil.

Surviving Life & Death in Mauthausen

A man such as Ostin who had survived the horrors of Mauthausen was hardly likely to give up that easily, and he did not. But it would be 25 years from completion of the manuscript before he would see his work in print. Rise Above Your Pain was finally published in 1986, a year after perestroika.

By definition, Rise Above Your Pain is not an easy book to work on, neither is it bedtime reading! The subject matter is grim and grisly and in order to do it justice, to translate and edit it in the tone and spirit in which it was written, we have had to rise above our pain with each successive chapter.

This is because Ostin tells it as it was; he pulls no punches. He lays bare the worst excesses of human nature’s darker side, his book serving as a salutary reminder of how war unleashes the worst in us and how, in its consuming climate of hate, violence and death, the dregs of our societies, the malcontents, thugs and sadists, rise from the sediment into positions of power the consummate nature of which they could only dream of in times of peace and stability.

Nevertheless, between the cracks of inhumanity that the book so meticulously documents, reassuring glimpses of a human light shine through, and it is this as much as the depravity it delineates that makes Rise Above Your Pain a compelling lesson from history and a story that needs to be told.

Life & Death in Mauthausen Concentration Camp

Olga and I were approached to translate and edit Vsevolod Ostin’s book Rise Above Your Pain by Olga Tkachenko, Head of the Sobolev Children’s Library in Kaliningrad, on the recommendation of a mutual acquaintance, author and journalist Boris Nisnevich.

The translated and edited text is scheduled for completion in early 2021, with a view towards publishing an English language version later in that year.

Vsevolod Ostin, writes of Life & Death in Mauthausen

Vsevolod Ostin, Life & Death in Mauthausen

Vsevolod Ostin, recounts Life & Death in Mauthausen

Vsevolod Ostin, survivor of Mauthausen concentration camp, author of Rise Above Your Pain

An afternoon in the company of Zoya Ostin, widow of Vsevolod Ostin, survivor of Mauthausen concentration camp, author of Rise Above Your Pain. {Top middle picture, left to right: Olga Tkachenko, Head of the Sobolev Children’s Library, Kaliningrad; Zoya Ostin; and Olga Korosteleva-Hart.}

**Place laid at table for the deceased in keeping with Russian tradition, with glass of vodka and bread**

Important to Keep in Touch During Coronavirus Christmas

Important to Keep in Touch During Coronavirus Christmas ~ Cheer them up with a card and personal letter!

Published: 17 November 2020

So, what I have been doing for the past week? Did news that they had installed a Democrat in the White House appall me so much that I have not been able to focus and write? No, even stranger than that, I have been busy writing my Christmas cards ~ either a case of there’s forward planning for you, or its time he invested in a new calendar.

Nothing quite as spectacular. I have been writing cards to folks back home, to friends and family in the UK, and cognizant of the fact that the post from Kaliningrad to England is not exactly the 21^st centuries’ answer to a hypersonic version of Pony Express, I hope to have mailed them in good time.

Another reason for planning ahead is that every year I include a ‘brief’ note with my card. This has become as traditional as Christmas dinner, party hats, Christmas crackers and auntie Ivy turning Christmas day into a rugby scrum as she insists on clawing open everybody else’s presents.

Important to keep in touch during coronavirus Christmas

My Christmas letter has become such an important element of the annual Christmas ritual that its up there with seasonal sayings like ‘just what I always wanted’, when it is quite obvious that you didn’t (I mean, who in his right mind would wear a jumper like that, and when did your gran lust after a WWII German tin helmet (or even a WWII German in a tin helmet?)) ~ and ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have!”, when you obviously didn’t: that’s the aftershave you were given by someone last year and which you personally would not touch with a barge pole and neither would anyone else. Mind you it makes the perfect Christmas present for social distancing.

The thing about my Christmas letters is that although you have to state out loud at UK post offices these days what you have in your ‘packet’ ~ and my letters are known for being rather bulky, so they always ask ~ they always get through, even though sometimes I cannot resist answering, at first in a whisper, “It’s an inflatable doll,” and then, in response to the lady behind the counter urging me to ‘speak up’, to call out stridently, “It’s an inflatable doll,” so that everyone can hear (you should try this sometime, it really is fun!).

No stopping those Christmas letters

Yes, my letters always get through. Like Reader’s Digest junk mail, electricity and gas bills, even if the Post Office had been sold to China (what’s that, oh, it has been) and my letters rerouted via the M25, carried in the pocket of a young thief travelling on a skateboard during rush-hour, my letters always get through.

They zip past defiled statues, hoody-wearing muggers on handbag-stealing mopeds and bearded men burning poppies. They cruise through ganja-stenched knife-secreted carnivals, through nice areas deprived by people. As slippery as Hope not Hate, they riot their way down Looting Street, defying all manner of social distancing, lockdowns and Tiers for fears and, before you can say Hoorah for Brexit or Joe Biden is as honest as Clinton, they sail up your drive, through your letter box and plummet onto your doormat quicker than the stink from a suspect scientific claim.

They are so popular, my Yuletide missives, that family and friends leave home for them, and come back after Christmas ~ a long while after Christmas. Some people board up their letter boxes, others disguise them as something intimate in such a way that were you to insert a letter through them, you’d have the neighbours shout ‘pervert!’. Some teach their dogs to savage them, and others, those with ‘Beware of the Cat’ on their doors, train their feline friends to hide them under the Christmas tree ~ and scrape the soil back over.

One year my brother shoved his letter under the mistletoe, prompting his gay friend to say that he would rather kiss his own arse. He is a lonely guy, but no worries, he is double-jointed and quite the contortionist.

Selfish people, those who stockpiled toilet rolls when they heard the word pandemic, convert them into paper hats and hide the Christmas crackers for pulling on their own when they think no one is looking. Ahh, but someone is always looking, especially in these days of essential travel only. Do they really think that they can get away with it?

“Where are you going in that Support Bubble Car?”

“I am a victim of self-isolation and social distancing, officer. I am shunning all that I have ever known and all those that know me, even those who have tried to lose me, give me away or pretend that I don’t exist, such as my mother. I am going somewhere where they can’t track and trace me, and there, in the privacy of somebody else’s Tier 1 home, I will hide from the world and pull my Christmas cracker.”

“Very well,” says the Social Distancing Marshall, “but no laughing at the joke inside the cracker, mind. This is no time to be enjoying life, and don’t forget to wear your mask.”

Sorry, that was uncalled for.

“Hello, I think I may have coronavirus. I have been trying to telephone the hospital for the past three hours and nobody has answered.”

“Sorry, the hospital is as full as boatload of migrants from France. Wait a moment. Oh, it is a boat load of migrants from France. Please hang yourself. I mean hang up and try the Samarlians.”

The Samarlians ~ a not-for-profit organization that will talk you out of the ‘easy way out’:

Answer machine: “Hello, you have reached the end of your tether. I am sorry, due to a high volume of excuses about coronavirus we are unable to take your call at the moment, please leave your name and telephone number and you will never hear from us again. You might like to waste what remains of your life by visiting our website, goingaroundincircles.con, where you can often never find what it is you want to know using our FAQ Offs ~ Frequently Asked Questions Offline ~ alternatively, you will find the end of the line at your nearest Midland Mainline Station.”

Once, all you had to do was press Button A to be connected and Button B to get your money back. Now ‘you have the following options’, more numbers than the National Lottery and about the same chance of winning.

What my coronavirus Christmas letters mean to the recipients

Rumour has it that carol singers have written songs based on the contents of my Christmas letters and sold the rights to Leonard Cohen.

Christmas vicars have read them out in their sermons and have been summarily excommunicated.

Edgar Allan Poe, who essentially travelled by TARDIS, was inspired to write The Masque of the Red Death having read my treatise ‘Lockdown ~ the most effective life saver since leaches’.

Important to Keep in Touch During Coronavirus Christmas
{See end of article for image credit*}

My letters have tweaked the ears of statesmen, tickled the underbelly of boat-owning philanthropists and have sunk a thousand ships, or would have if I had my way ~ where is my letter to Sir Francis Drake?

Napoleon stuck his arm up his vest after reading one of my letters, and what would Lord Nelson have asked Hardy to do for him had he read my letter before someone shot him first?

Thank heavens Adolf burnt his letter!

As for ordinary mortals, some wrap their present to auntie Joan in them and still others wrap them around uncle Martin’s chestnuts, who would otherwise lose them on Christmas morn as he struggles to adjust his mighty pendulums attached to his very large grandfather’s clock (thank the Lord for Spell Check!).

Looking forward to my letters

People look forward to my letters so much that they ‘wish it could be Christmas every day”. One day they will write a song about it and play it every year with depressing regularity.

This year they are all busy singing to, ‘So this is Christmas and what have you done. Sat in self-isolation it isn’t much fun.” I know, let’s open one of Mick’s Christmas letters and cheer ourselves up (gunshot off stage).

My letters have a sentimental and emotional appeal. They are up there, tugging at the heart strings like that old romantic Christmas Carol, who your mother caught your father with (also Christmas Connie, Christmas Christine and Christmas Cordelia, well, Christmas comes but once a year).

Ahh, the old ones are the best (Connie was 73).

Lovely old Christmas carols

What memories these well-known carols:

“Drug King Wenceslas looked out from his boat to Dover

When the snow is not found out we’ll roll the UK over

Brightly shone the hotel sign, the waiting bus was free

It was worth the trip through several countries and across the sea, He! He!”

And do you remember this one:

“Away in a 4-star I don’t pay for my bed, the tax-payer in England pays for it instead …”

And how could you possibly forget:

“Twinkle, Twinkle celeb star who the F..K do you think you are?

Pontificating up on high?

Spreading all those EU lies.

Twinkle, Twinkle talentless star paid too much, too much by far”

Dear old Christmas Carol, one of Charles Dickens’ favourites. This will be the one year that Ebenezer Scrooge will be looking forward to a visit from the ghosts of Christmas Past, anything has to be better than Father Boris’s Christmas Present.

Important to Keep in Touch During Coronavirus Christmas

Although it is very important to keep in touch during a coronavirus Christmas, I don’t as a rule send the prime minister a Christmas letter, besides he will be far too busy this year reading and listening to fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm. Chris Witty and Sir Patrick Vallance, sorry I don’t know them ~ and neither do you, but there is a sort of chemistry there. It reminds me of that Chad Valley Junior Scientists set I was given at Christmas a long while ago. As I recall, it was a very disappointing present, all smoke and mirrors, bits missing, as incomplete as a Liberal manifesto and it had a very funny smell about it, something slightly fishy.

Send them a Christmas letter? I would not give them the steam off my turkey. What I do like to do, however, is spice up my Christmas offerings with the odd anecdote from Christmases past.

“Please, pretty please do tell us one.”

Well, all right, if you beg nicely.

Once upon a time, long ago, when England was really England, I worked part time as a waiter. I was young once, and in those days I was a teenager. These were the bad old days, before teenagers became entitled and were able to live at home with mum until their 45^th birthday (you can ~ could? ~ always take a loan).

Teenagers in those days were not deprived as they are today. They were lucky, in that they did not have the internet from which to plagiarise articles to pass their exams with and, without keyboards and computers, they had the fun of writing all of their essays out by hand, correcting them by hand and then rewriting them by hand for presentation. This meant that they had less time for anything else, which was good, because there were no smartphones in those days and nothing to twiddle on, no Twatter, Arsebook, Snapcrap and the like. Instead, after school teenagers went out and worked.

I worked at the Talbot Hotel in Oundleshire, a very prestigious establishment, with a long history dating back to Elizabethan times and with a staircase that was said to have come from Fotheringay Castle where Mary Queen of Scots lost her head and on which staircase I almost lost my job for telling two old ladies that Mary was always looking for it in the rooms that they had paid for.

It was a posh place, the Talbot of Oundle, and still is. Standards were high. We had to wear black trousers, white shirt, cummerbund, little white pointed tail jackets and a black dicky bow. We looked like clockwork penguins. We were always well turned out, apart from one person whose flies were never done up, as if, we suspected, by no fault of accident.

It was three days before Christmas, us well turned out and him with his flies undone, that we were called to wait upon a very important table, several tables in fact containing the governors and alumni from Oundle’s prestigious public schools.

I had two salvers: one with Christmas seasoning and the other containing peas on my arm.

Several of we waiters moved along in single file serving our guests of honour. And then it came to her.

She was gorgeous, stunning, wearing a low-cut dress. She had the most diaphanous orbs you could ever imagine ~ yes, her eyes were beautiful. Mesmerised by love, or something that starts with ‘L’ and has the same number of letters, I leant over her and with the seasoning in my hand, asked:

“Would you like stuffing madam?”

The timing could not have been more perfect. Hardly had I realised that I should have used the word ‘seasoning’ than my waiter friend at the side of me, my pal, my very good pal, gave a purposeful nudge to my elbow and off went a spoonful of peas straight down the lady’s cleavage.

Talk about Captain Kirk’s ‘Space, the final frontier’!

And really, what did it sound like: “Madam, can I help you?” As she is reaching down inside, red faced and all a fluster, for those penetrative peas.

Sounds like something out of a Carry On film? How about Carry on Down the Cleavage? Rather that than Carry on Down the Pandemic.

Important to Keep in Touch During Coronavirus Christmas

But what has this got to do with it being very important to keep in touch during coronavirus Christmas? I confess, I have digressed, when my real intention for writing this piece was to say how nice, affectionate and charming Russian Christmas cards are. Different again to the crass and vulgar things that they churn out in the UK.

Every year in the UK, Christmas cards get bigger, which is a problem for my family and friends, for it means that instead of a ‘short’ letter I can really go to town and insert a tome like War & Peace. But British Christmas cards do not just get bigger they become more vulgar each year. In keeping with declining moral standards, smutty innuendo ~which is as traditional as laxatives on Boxing Day ~ has given way to images of a semi-pornographic nature and to captions laced with obscenity. It is enough to make you lie and say that Rubber Band has comedic talent!

How much nicer these traditional Russian cards are. They remind me of the sentimental cards that were produced in wartime England ~ soft, delicate, romantic and affectionate

Of course, they are not really Christmas cards as such, as this is an Orthodox Christian country, and Christmas is celebrated on 7^th January. No, these are, for the sake of accuracy, Happy New Year cards ~Snovam Gordams.

Snovam Gordam (Happy New Year!) I shouted that last year on the stroke of midnight. You did too? Really?

Hmmm, we’d better shout twice as loud this year, as I don’t think He was listening.

By the way, sorry if you did not receive my Christmas card and letter.

No, I shouldn’t think you are!

Leonard Cohen: Waiting for the Miracle ~ A song for 2021

Illustration for Edgar Allan Poe’s Masque of the Red Death
(Image credit: Harry Clarke – Printed in Edgar Allan Poe'sTales of Mystery and Imagination, 1919., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2348546)

Vaccines’ Healing Powers Better be Better than Biden’s

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 239 [8 November 2020]

Going down the Pandemic ~ or just when you thought it couldn’t get much worse …

Published: 8 November 2020

With all the gushing, fulsome and hypocritical talk in the western media of a ‘new dawn for democracy’, clearly it is time to steer clear of Google News for a few days until the gloating and rhetoric subsides, and the ‘New Management but Business as Usual’ sign resumes its rightful place among the beer cans and spliff ends of yesterday’s party aftermath. As sure as the Devil finds work for idle hands, he is sure to find soundbites for delusional minds. Best to keep busy.

My wife, Olga, and I are busy translating and editing a book from Russian into English about a young Russian soldier’s experiences as a prisoner in Austria’s notorious Mauthausen Nazi Concentration Camp, known at that time as the Bone Grinder. Not exactly bedtime reading, but it serves to remind us that the privations and hardships endured by the wartime generation puts our gripes about lockdown and the associated inconveniences of Covid-19 firmly into perspective and underlines the difference between the Grim Reaper’s mortality harvest now compared to then as one of existential proportions ~ a difference on the scale of a sniper’s bullet and the bomb that they dropped on Nagasaki.

I am not saying that the situation is good, far from it. You may be of the opinion that it is not good that ‘Healing’ Joe Biden is the new incumbent in the Whitey House, but it is one of those awkward things that we have to live with, and when we think of it in relative terms, coronavirus that is, not the resuscitation of globalism, we would do worse than recall Phil Collin’s words, “Hey, think twice. It’s another day in paradise.”

I am sure those migrants think so, those that are escorted across the English Channel first by the French Navy and then by the British, and when they land at Dover are chauffeur driven to 4-Star hotels. Home and dry, you might say! But it is not such plain sailing for the rest of us.

With summer having waved goodbye and taking with it further opportunities to socialise outside, in, as we have been led to believe, the relative coronavirus safety of pub gardens and on bar decking areas, and with the media everywhere ramping up second-wave horror stories, the imposition of lockdown in the UK and here, in Kaliningrad, self-isolation, or at best cautious socialising, is back with a vengeance.

Vaccines’ healing powers better be better than Biden’s

So, what do you do? Your mother who is about to turn 80 has been looking forward to celebrating this significant milestone in her life with friends at a restaurant. Arrangements have been made, but as the date approaches, one by one her friends shy away, taking the view that discretion is the better part of valour, that there is clear and present danger in social mixing. This is the coronavirus conundrum for older people, is it not? The older you get the more precious time becomes? So do you go for it, regardless? Get out there and live life whilst you can or allocate the time you have left for hiding in the house? It is, to say the least, a difficult trade-off.

The media repeatedly tells us that the infected world is on the cusp of vaccine roll-out, but what does that mean, exactly? A recent article in The Moscow Times¹ claims that “The share of Russians unwilling to vaccinate against Covid-19 has risen to 59% in October from nearly 54% in August, according to the Levada Center pollster.” The same article makes the claim, “almost half of Russians would never vaccinate against the coronavirus regardless of whether it’s produced in Russia or another country.”

They are not alone. People in the UK who I know personally are on the same wavelength. When I spoke to a friend recently, a retired biochemist, a scientist, aged 81, he said that he had never been vaccinated for anything and would not be now. Mind you, I suspect that he owes his longevity more to a frugal diet of muesli and oily fish than to his lifelong avowal of the risk of medication-taking and his strict regime of non-medication use, but then on second thoughts …

Vaccines’ healing powers better be better than Biden’s

In an article from The Lancet², it is affirmed that “Vaccination is widely regarded as the only true exit strategy from the pandemic that is currently spreading globally.” But, “Hold Hard!!” as my auntie used to say (unfortunately, and I am not sure why?), as we read on we find, “… we do not know that we will ever have a vaccine at all. It is important to guard against complacency and over-optimism. The first generation of vaccines is likely to be imperfect, and we should be prepared that they might not prevent infection but rather reduce symptoms, and, even then, might not work for everyone or for long.”

Having read this, you could be forgiven for believing that the vaccine has about as much chance of warding off coronavirus as Biden has of ~ according to the liberal media ~ healing America’s rifts, which the ideology that he represents ironically created. Why else did so many Americans vote for Trump initially and continue to vote for him now?

The vaccine vote still hangs in the balance, but not wanting to take it or, conversely, dying to take it (so to speak) is not a Russian phenomenon, it is global not Russian roulette.

Vaccines’ Healing Powers Better be Better than Biden’s

What we need now is a plethora of articles elevating science with the same degree of shameless enthusiasm as that used to hoist Joe Biden to a level that he does not really deserve. Or do we?

The tone of the liberal media on Biden’s election victory has Biden cast in the image of a crusading saintly Other, ordained by the deity and sent to earth, his divine mission being to restore the neoliberal globalist vision of an incongruous imperialist democracy. If Trump was the pantomime villain that kept oons of leftist scribblers in feverish employment during his term in office, and how entertaining their toil has been, Jo Biden is the Second Coming, America’s last great hope for the salvation of a dying doctrine, everything and nothing that stands between the meltdown of the melting melting pot.

On every American dollar you will find the words, “In God We Trust”. With Uncle Joe Biden about to be installed (they need a couple of days to attach the strings), these words could take on an entirely new and ominous meaning.

Over here, the Almighty is held in no less high regard, but it is also generally believed that vodka cures everything.

For the time being, at least, I think I will stick with that!

References (Vaccines’ Healing Powers Better be Better than Biden’s)

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/11/02/mistrust-grows-for-russias-coronavirus-vaccine-poll-a71929 [Accessed 8 November 2020]
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32175-9/fulltext

Is Biden their Last Straw?

Is Biden their Last Straw in a show of pantomime proportions?

Published: 4 November 2020

Because I write this blog and update my diary, absolute avoidance of COVID-19 news is impossible, and I must confess that recently I have fallen off the UK media wagon and relapsed into the inexcusable habit, which I managed to kick for three or four months, of ruining my day with Google News.

That is how I know that Boris Johnson’s 3 Tiers ended in tears …

Tiers for souvenirs are all you’ve left me
Memories of a love you never meant
I just can’t believe you could forget me
After all those happy hours we spent (together)

Tiers have been my only consolation
But tiers can’t mend a broken heart I must confess
Let’s forgive and forget
Turn our tiers of regret
Once more to tiers of happiness

Thank you Ken Dodd for this inspiration

… that open-door immigration policies are again in the spotlight in countries such as France and Austria and that there is an election going on in the USA.

How close is Biden to the brick house?

Regarding that election, I gather from Google News that has-been Biden appears to be on track to get his left-wing rump into the seat of power. At 12.30 (Kaliningrad time) today, the UK’s liberal left press is already teetering on the cusp of a great collective orgasm, albeit slightly ruined by the fear that if Mr B does not win by the landslide they hope for, then a further shadow of doubt will be cast on the liberal media’s ability to translate ideological bias into hard support, which, let’s face it, after years of banging the anti-Trump drum they desperately need for their own reassurance.

Consolation is that if Trumper is ousted, at least we may at last be spared the relentless barrage of vitriol and belligerence that exudes from the West’s anti-Trump lobby, together with all those go-nowhere stories about collusion and hacking; all we will have to stomach is a fat dollop of the sweet and sickly ~ the same thick icing atop of the stodgy pseudo-democracy cake that we had to endure when Obuma was in the hot seat (or was that on the very cool fence?)

Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don’t think that I can take it
‘Cause it took so long to bake it
And I’ll never have that recipe again
Oh no!

Thank you Richard Harris

As for ‘he will do their’ Biden, is he having another one of his ‘senior moments’ or is he really that out of touch? I suppose that he has been just too busy winning the election to keep up with events in Europe. I see from The Daily Express* today that he has condemned Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Poland’s Andrzej Duda as “thugs”. Hmm, could this be because they have refused to back down to the EU’s demands that they unlock their borders and take in thousands of migrants? Why, whatever next! Holy Perfect Phobias, Batman!

Well, it’s their lookout isn’t it. I mean, if they want to miss out on enrichment, of the kind experienced by France, Austria, Sweden and the UK, then they only have themselves to blame.

Trump’s drainage plan has siphoned some off

Sometimes, in times of trouble (no, not Paul McCartney) you need to go looking for solace. And with Bill’s Bar closed (‘I’ll go down to Bill’s Bar, I can make it that far …’ ~ Thanks Mr Cohen), I went looking in the most unlikely of places, you’ve guessed it ~ Google News UK. And it was there that I found it, in The Guardian** of all places.

Bogs are not the usual place where solace can be found, but for some reason, call it another mischievous effect of coronavirus, I was in the mood for old clichés. I was not disappointed. I waded through the slush of appeasement and capitulation and derived a peculiar sense of déjà vu from the tired, sad and, in these post-liberal days, weary and worn out apologetic tone, before I arrived at Pipe Dream Station, just in time to see the last deflection train leaving for Desperation. “This is the last train to Desperation, calling at Propaganda, Political Correctness, Tony Blair’s Legacy, Vigilsville County, and Somewhere Nowhere Never Over their Rainbow (obsession).”

It was here that I read the writing on the wall, in a sentence so hollow that it echoes incredulity, “In the UK last year, police warned that the fastest-growing terror threat was from the far right”.

Far right? Yeah, right …

I have had this recurring dream, since 1997. I am trapped in a grotesque pantomime, every bit as fantastic and disturbing as Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘theatre’, The Conqueror Worm^†. On stage, the plot, and the plotters, coerce me into looking in the wrong direction. It is Poe’s ‘bidding of vast formless things that shift the scenery to and fro …’ Fortunately, fortunately for me that is, there are still people in the audience who are not afraid to tell the truth. ‘Look Out! He’s Behind You!’ they cry.

The first time I had this dream I awoke at this very moment, and I have been awake ever since. Insomnia is not an easy condition to live with, but it is better than the alternative.

Wake up! They will never give you your money back, but at least you can leave the pantomime before it is too late!

Is Biden their Last Straw in a show of pantomime proportions? — (Image attribution can be found at the end of this post.)

And here is the happy ending you wanted:

You have heard it said, no doubt, that every cloud has a silver lining, but what hope is there of finding one if has-been Biden accedes to the [ ] House? Oh but there is one ~ to be sure, to be sure. It may not be much, but it was flagged in a media article today*** [4 November 2020]. Allegedly, Meghan Markle has vowed that if Trump wins the election, she will leave America. Now, come on, don’t let’s be too hasty!! Besides, the boats are full.

So, if you cannot find any other reason for rooting for, what’s his name(?), you know what’s his name, for the next U.S. president, then this has got to be it!

References

*https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1355790/joe-biden-news-democrat-rant-thugs-within-eu-us-election-donald-trump-spt

**https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/03/the-guardian-view-on-the-vienna-attack-refusing-division

*** https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/1355879/Meghan-markle-news-us-election-2020-prince-harry-leave-America-Donald-trump-latest-ont

^†The Conqueror Worm

Lo! ’t is a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years!

An angel throng, bewinged, bedight

In veils, and drowned in tears,

Sit in a theatre, to see

A play of hopes and fears,

While the orchestra breathes fitfully

The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,

Mutter and mumble low,

And hither and thither fly—

Mere puppets they, who come and go

At bidding of vast formless things

That shift the scenery to and fro,

Flapping from out their Condor wings

Invisible Wo!

That motley drama—oh, be sure

It shall not be forgot!

With its Phantom chased for evermore

By a crowd that seize it not,

Through a circle that ever returneth in

To the self-same spot,

And much of Madness, and more of Sin,

And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout,

A crawling shape intrude!

A blood-red thing that writhes from out

The scenic solitude!

It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs

The mimes become its food,

And seraphs sob at vermin fangs

In human gore imbued.

Out—out are the lights—out all!

And, over each quivering form,

The curtain, a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm,

While the angels, all pallid and wan,

Uprising, unveiling, affirm

That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”

And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.

By EDGAR ALLAN POE

Image attribution:
This image is available from the National Library of Scotland under the sequence number or Shelfmark ID Weir.8(6). You can see this image in its original context, along with the rest of the Library’s digital collections, in the NLS Digital Gallery, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33869245