An Englishman's Experiences of Life in Kaliningrad
Category Archives: Meanwhile in the UK
MEANWHILE IN THE UK
Meanwhile in the UK by Mick Hart, an expat Englishman living in Kaliningrad. A category of the blog expatkaliningrad.com
Meanwhile in the UK is a category of my blog expatkaliningrad.com. At its inception, I had fully intended it to be a minor category, allowing me to comment from time to time on UK current affairs but mainly to include innocuous pieces of a nostalgic or historical nature pertaining to life in the UK, possibly more as it was then than as it is now, and then along came coronavirus which, as we know, changed everything. At the time of writing (3 June 2020), thanks to coronavirus, this category would appear to contain as many if not more posts than some of the categories that I had envisaged would be salient, with due deference to my Diary category (2019/2020) which, again influenced by coronavirus, has expanded through my ‘Diary of a Self-isolator’ articles, a series that focuses specifically on Covid-19 in the Kaliningrad region and how the legal rules and social obligations enacted here to better control the virus have impacted our daily life.
MEANWHILE in the UK contains too many entries to preview in this category post, but as of 3 June 2020, the contents of this category comprise the following articles, arranged chronologically:
[caption id="attachment_1339" align="alignnone" width="225"] Hello! Hello! Hello![/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1228" align="alignnone" width="300"] UK Lockdown ~ a new board game to take your mind off lockdown[/caption]
I am aware that the tone and, indeed, the very composition of these pieces may not be to everybody’s taste. Quite obviously they are not supposed to be, so I shall not waste anybody’s time pretending that I feel in the least bit sorry about that. England is a great country ~ and the other chunks attached to it are not that bad either ~ BUT … (could this be an acronym for Britain Undermined Totally? Or is the only thing missing …TOCK?). He sang, didn’t he, ‘Let me take you by the hand I’ll lead you through the streets of London’. Well, yes, mainly London but also almost any and every UK city and town. Still, as the man who never deserved the Nobel Prize in Literature said (no, I am not referring to Obama, that was the Nobel Peace Prize, or Noble Appeasing Prize or something like that ~ but if the hoody fits, so to speak), ‘Times they are a-changing’. Let’s hope so, because for the UK at this present moment in time it is very much Paul McCartney, ‘Yesterday …’
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.
COULD this be coronavirus? Or can’t I take photographs and do you need glasses??????????????
Coronavirus warning: Speech impediment could be new dastardly coronavirus symptom
Published: 20 April 2020
Scientists on holiday in Brightlingsea say a number of people who have not been tested for anything could have a speech impediment together with other indicators, although some will have no symptoms whatsoever, which could make them very suspicious ~ if not of everybody else, at least of themselves.
Along with other indications, such as a sore throat, cough, high temperature, a nasty rash, hives, breathlessness, a pain in the neck and almost everywhere else, sore feet, rings through your nose, tatts, loss of taste, smell and your wallet in Peckham, The Twice-Daily Recorder previously reported that Peter Horn from Scunthorpe had a verruca on his foot and a ‘fizzing sensation’ in his Andrew’s Liver Salts.
Coronavirus New Speech Symptom
The impediment, which is accompanied by a bitter taste in the mouth and an ardent wish that you had not bought their newspaper, been on Google, checked your emails, seen social media or got out of bed until it was all over, is characterised by a pathological urge to babble. A spokesother for Chas & Dave colloquially referred to the symptom as ‘rabbit’, with those affected and affecting intelligence rabbiting on about new symptoms, no symptoms, police states, totalitarianism, and, in the case of one man with a name like Queer Stammer, making false promises (again) about what his party will do for the health service.
Queer, who is Chairman of Exit Strategy UK, and has an alarming amount of likeminded people behind him ~ right behind him! ~ is demanding that the virus pack it in. In a moment of pure perspicacity, “Enough’s enough,” he said, and is calling for a ‘People’s Vote’ ~ a referendum on whether we should leave the house or not whilst telling the virus it has gone far enough. It is thought that Vexit will take place as soon as they have worked out how to rig the electronic voting system.
Whilst this latest symptom ~ mindless babbling ~ seems to be concentrated among media employees and second-rate celebs, the WHAT (World Health Absolutely Trumped) was about to report (but now cannot afford the printing ink) that a virus might happen soon, but is not saying WHEN (World Health Eventually Never).
A new coronavirus symptom is getting drunk whilst wearing a silly hat in lockdown ~ or it might just be the onset of insanity (Photo credit: Museums Victoria on Unsplash)
Boot on the other foot ~ could this be a new symptom?
An interesting but none the less disturbing permutation of this symptom is the UK media’s hysteria that each time senior ministers in the government open their mouths they are not putting their foot in it nearly as often as they would like. One media group, The Onguardism, (which always write its headlines in advance, according to the old policy of making news instead of reporting it) has this to say: BoJo’s Pandemic Policy Hampered by Foot and Mouth, but since it has not happened as scheduled they have simply decided that they will put the boot in at every opportunity.
A vaccine against this contagious nonsense could be ready as early as September, with a betting shop in Oxford giving it an 80 to 1 chance, and the British media saying on Mondays to Wednesdays that ‘it will take at least two years to develop’ and on Thursdays to Saturdays ‘it will never happen’ and on Sundays (when, unless you are The Independent, you have a very big newspaper to fill) a series of in-depth analytical pieces over several pull-out supplements will tell you nowt but come in very handy when your stockpiled bog paper runs out sometime in 2025 ~ and there’s a clue?
And if you do not have this latest symptom, do not worry, the British media is desperately searching for one that is tailored made for you.
In Mondays sizzling, action-packed The Twice-Daily Recorder, which is out on Thursday, we make up the latest symptom of the sexist, ageist, racist coronavirus and ask the tantalising question, have you got an underclothing illness due to baked beans and Brussels sprouts?
This article represents the views of our inhouse expert Billy Bullshitter and any resemblance to you is purely coincidental ~ or is it?
I wondered how long it would take for the whinging and whining to start about the police being beastly in enforcing the new lockdown. Not long, is the answer. Two articles appeared in the UK media this week. Yes, you have guessed right: one in the The Guardian the other in The Independent.
Guardian headline is to do with police over-stretching their powers (is that why they call it ‘the long arm of the law’?) and The Independent’s “Coronavirus lockdown likened to ‘police state’ by former Supreme Court judge”. Hmmm, the Supreme Court, is not that the institution where they tried to derail BREXIT?
Let’s look at some quotes from the latter article:
With the police under attack by the ‘usual suspects’, the police response:
“We are not looking to criminalise people but we have to have some way of enforcing it,” said the NPCC’s lead for out of court disposals, Deputy Chief Constable Sara Glen.
Note: Police are not criminalising people. People are criminalising themselves by non-compliance with the lockdown.
Police having to defend their actions again:
In the same briefing, NPCC chair Martin Hewitt denied the police service was “an arm of the state”, saying forces were independent and adding: “There is no intention to be heavy-handed.”
Note: Brits have been told to stay put, so it is not being heavy handed, it is enforcing the lockdown. It is not unusual in the UK to accuse the police of all sorts of things when caught doing something that you know you should not be doing:
Numerous arrests have been announced by regional police forces since the law came into force, sparking accusations of overreach.
NB: No, numerous arrests are being made because people are not complying with the lockdown. You haven’t been arrested in your armchair in your sitting room, you have been arrested on the streets because you have broken the rules of lockdown.
And, yes, bring on the performing seals …
The Liberty campaign group said the powers had undergone insufficient parliamentary scrutiny and were “very broad, handing extraordinary new powers to the police”.
NB: Yes, well, these are extraordinary times, are they not? As John Steed of The Avengers once said as he fired a champagne cork at the villains, “Drastic measures for drastic situations …”
Policy and campaigns manager Gracie Bradley added: “Despite the broad scope of these powers, we’ve seen various incidents of police going even further – and beyond their lawful remit. This makes it impossible for people to know how to comply with these new rules, and challenge police when they overreach.
NB: We don’t want the police to be ‘challenged’ we need people to comply. Police have an extremely difficult job to do, and they need the full support of the government and the public. We only have to look at the state of British society today to know what happens when police confidence is undermined by over-zealous rights-related ‘scrutiny’: ie ‘discharging a weapon in the line of duty’ (crucify the cop); the end of ‘stop and search powers’ = 21st century knife fest.
But the last two paragraphs bring fresh hope:
At a briefing with journalists on Friday, Boris Johnson’s official spokesman said: “The police will exercise their own discretion in the use of the powers we have given to them and will take whatever steps they consider appropriate to disperse groups of people who are flouting the rules.
“The regulations signed by the health secretary last week set out what the government’s clear instruction to the public is. Having asked the police to enforce that, we would expect them to exercise their own discretion in using the powers.”
I’ve said it once and I will say it again: Hoorah for Boris!!
I think the majority will agree ~ especially those who have lost loved ones through this pandemic ~ that if any time was a good time to put police powers and commonsense above rights ~ especially the right to be selfish and stupid ~ then this is that time.
UK police lockdown enforcement
Let’s face it folks, it really is quite straightforward:
The populace of the country has been told to stay indoors for a very good and sensible reason; the police are there to enforce the lockdown to ensure that it is complied with. If you choose to ignore the lockdown, then you can expect to be arrested. Not knowing exactly where you stand is a bit of a feeble excuse, when the presumption should be, if in doubt do not do it, and as it is a minority of people who are unsure about the advice and guidance, such as a child in a park who turns out to be a criminal anyway, adults who interpret lockdown to mean organise a mass Karaoke party or congregate in a suspiciously clandestine way on a hillock up in the Peak District, I think we can safely say, and with some authority, that such people are guilty as charged.
When you are caught doing what you know you should not be doing you are likely to be quite arsey, especially if you receive an on-the-spot fine or are otherwise prosecuted. First response: accuse Plod. I mean, who do they think they are? Well, they are the police force, you see (note the word ‘force’); contrary to umpteen years of disinformation they are not social workers or public relations officers, they are there to police and enforce.
Let us take it step by step; it is all very elementary:
A. You have been told to stay in your home
B. You stay in
C. By doing so you will be helping yourself, and others by not becoming infected, passing the infection on and endangering other people’s lives
Now, if you learn your ABC (which does not stand for being Arsey, Bolshie and a Complete T..t) you will mitigate the risk of being spoken harshly to by naughty Mr Policeman, you could avoid a fine and by not catching coronavirus you could save your life and somebody else’s.
You
could call it an ‘occupational hazard’ of social distancing and self-isolating,
or, alternatively, you could refer to it as a resulting and highly unpleasant
side-effect ~ syndrome would be good ~ this inexplicable urge not only to go
cap in hand to the media to corroborate your worst fears about today’s news
but, in a moment of vulnerability, to backtrack, to see what gems of wisdom you
may have missed.
And
so it was that I discovered this article from that most august of media outlets
The Guardian. The headline ran, ‘For some people, social distancing
means being trapped indoors with an abuser’.
I
thought crikey, I am not reading that! I mean, I know they are anti-vanilla,
but raspberry ripple across the backside by a fierce femdom dominatrix, not
good advice if you are self-isolating. OK if you are your own abuser. You could
chase yourself around the house and call yourself name’s, like fascist for
example, whilst spanking yourself with a wet lettuce leaf.
But
no, self-arselating is not for me. The butter paddles in the blanket box? I’m a
collector, you see. I collect obsolete things, such as butter paddles,
handcuffs, old school canes, liberalism ~ that sort of thing.
And I have a friend. That is a friend, by the way, not a ‘friend’. And he reads things that I would never read ~ not even if they paid me. And he told me that in most cases the abuser turns out to be a thick-set wife with her hair in curlers, wearing a florid apron, with all-in-wrestlers arms crossed (she’s modern, she’s got tats) whilst brandishing a rolling pin.
Her little henpecked husband, who has a thumbprint on his head and looks as if he has just been spanked with The Guardian (have a care! ~ if you look too closely you’ll see the newsprint!), grovels at her feet (she’s modern, she’s wearing building contractor’s boots) as his female abuser looks down at him (lovely!), whilst saying: “You will not go the pub!!” He replies, helplessly, “I can’t anyway, Boris has closed them all!” “That’s no excuse,” she roars, so loudly in fact that her false teeth escape self-isolation, adding “And stay away from him [Boris]. What sort of man would force husband and wife, husband and husband, it and other (she almost runs out of breath at this point, but not quite), to stay at home together!”
Phheew, I thought, and thanked my friend for warning me. Its enough to give some the willies. I started to look elsewhere, I mean for something to read in the media.
I skipped over the barrage of complaints about Trump saying something in Chinese. It seems that the only language he can’t speak is liberal, and arrived at a comment by the Indie (Windy or Indian?) relating to Nigel Furrage. He is, it seems, a ‘revolting racist’.
I clicked on the site and read beyond the first headline, it said, quite surprisingly: ‘Just joking we have to say things like this about this very nice man because he kicked our ass and delivered BREXIT in spite of our covert attempts to torpedo him.’
Ha! Ha! Sorry, that is not quite true. The onsite headline was: ‘Over the years, it’s become a widely acknowledged truth of British politics that there’s not many situations Nigel Farage won’t manage to use for his own political gain.’
Of course, with a little bit of editing: ‘Over the years, it’s become a widely acknowledged truth of British politics that there’s not many situations the Liberal media won’t manage for their own political gain’.
I decided enough was enough. It was either flick through an old copy of TheBeano and read Dennis the Menace (his father was always spanking Dennis’ bum with a slipper, but political correctness stopped all that) or put on a policeman’s uniform and shout abusive things at myself through the letterbox.
I was
sitting here, the sun pouring through the window, a beautiful clear blue sky
curving over Kaliningrad, the calming and civilised sound of a lawnmower
buzzing leisurely in the background reminding me of those halcyon days, which
seem so long ago now, when we used to go outside without a protective suit on,
when suddenly the telephone rang. It was my brother.
(I don’t mean the telephone was my brother, I mean it was him ringing me.)
Joss:
Hello, how are you? No persistent cough, high temperature, real or imaginary?
Me: Not
that I know of.
Joss: Well,
as old Uncle Son used to say “It’s a real bugaroota, isn’t it?
Me: What
is? You ringing and disturbing me?
Joss: Nah,
this corona thing.
Me: Not
good for lemonade sales.
Joss: Did you see on Google all those W…..s going to Skegness and the Lake District after being told not to?
I affirmed.
Joss: What
a bunch of Twats!
Me: Yes, it
does make you think that we’ve probably got more Twats in the UK to the square
foot than anywhere else in the world.
Joss:
That’s about right. There’s no chance of social distancing in the UK ~ every
square foot is occupied. But why Skegness?
Me: What?
Joss: Why
Skeggy? I can understand why Twats go to the Lake District, but what is
Skegness all about? Even people who live in Skegness don’t go to Skegness.
Me: I used
to love going there as a child.
Joss:
Understandable. It was English in Victorian times and dad’s Superminx only knew
two destinations: Skeggy or Heacham.
Me: Perhaps
that’s the answer.
Joss: Ay?
Me: If
British Twats won’t self-isolate as advised they should all be made to drive
Superminxes. They wouldn’t get very far.
Joss: And
in trying they’d probably die of embarrassment ~ and then where would
coronavirus be?
Me: I’m
sure the embarrassment factor of a Superminx would be far more effective than a
plastic protective suit.
Joss: A
sort of Superminx Embarrassment Vaccine.
Me: Imagine a whole world flying around in Superminxes.
Joss: The American version would be twice the size of everyone else’s,
and the Super Deluxe model would have extra-large fins.
Me: What about the Russian version?
Joss: That would be the new Comrade 7. Window wipers as optional extras
and a Lada-look to the front headlights.
Me: Do you think Mr Putin would invest in one?
Joss: [pause whilst thinking] Hmmm, yes. He would have the top of the
range Superminx Kremlin, complete with manly grid and a perfect ‘no-nonsense
from anybody’ masculine appeal, which the West would be very jealous of.
Me: I get it. The Daily Mail would write things about its
military look and The Guardian would say it was sexist.
Joss: Something like that.
Me: Anyway, I see that UKers have gone from being potential
self-isolators to lockdownees.
Joss: Pity.
Me: Why?
Joss: I was going to suggest, as your wife is on Arsebook, that you
could do your bit by setting up an Arsebook group.
Me: How’s that?
Joss: A ‘name and shame’ page. You could call it SSBT.
Me: Which means?
Joss: Spot the Selfish British Twat. Arsebook is full of wingers and
whiners. They would be only too pleased to identify bonzos who are flouting
social distancing advice and slap their mugs on social media.
Me: All is not lost. Watch out for media headlines about
anti-lockdowners, counter-lockdowners championing civil liberties in defiance
of draconian laws conspiratorially ushered in to advance the fascist agenda.
Joss: Who?
Me: You know, Farcet. It’s that small place near Peterborough.
Joss: I know the off-licence there.
Me: That’s the one. We called in there a few months ago and I said
Joss: Ahh, you said, ‘do you get the impression that everybody is
gawping at us?
Me: And you said, ‘Yes. They don’t hear many people speaking English
here’.
Joss: How’s your Russian coming along?
Me: She’s fine.
Joss: I mean your language?
Me: More foul than usual. Something to do with Google News.
Joss: And the cat?
Me: He swears back at me, in Russian: ‘meeowskee!!’
A sudden muffled noise.
Me: What happened there?
Joss: I lost my phone among the bog rolls.
Me: Better let you get off then. You always did suffer from a laxative
personality.
Joss: Nice talking to you, too.
Skegness on a Selfish British Twat Lockdown Day. More how it should be than how it was. (photo credit: ianna Calvo from Pexels)
If you voted for Boris in the recent General Election, you should congratulate yourself; if, conversely, you voted for Labour and instead you got Boris Johnson, thank your lucky stars that you did not get what you wished for.
Boris UK Lockdown Necessary
Even the opposition is having to admit that the crisis we are facing has placed the government in an unprecedented situation and that this is no time for pitting civil liberties against the need for real action. Nobody knows exactly how to proceed as there is no blueprint for success; nobody knows how things will pan out; the game is ongoing and difficult decisions have to be made, as and when they are necessary.
Boris Johnson has achieved something quite extraordinary and unequivocally necessary today: he has put the country on lockdown. Considering the flagrant and banal way in which thousands of Brits ignored advice to distance themselves from each other, the prime minister had little option but to instigate these measures. And whilst most rational folk will conclude that its worth a try, we can only imagine ~ and sigh with relief that we only have to imagine ~ how much worse it all would be if Labour were in power.
Some evidence of what I am hinting at emerges in a BBC
article about the 329-page emergency bill that was passed in the House of
Commons today.
While Labour believed unprecedented measures were now needed
to “save lives and protect our communities”, he said the measures
would “chill every Liberal in the House” and it only offered its
support with a “heavy heart”
Right, well turn the heating up, lighten up and let’s get on with it.
It is hard
to imagine the people of any other country in the world, except for Britain,
ignoring the advice of the government and health professionals and in the midst
of a pandemic that is killing thousands around the world and plunging countries
into chaos heading off to the seaside for the day. The fact that this behavior
in Britain is exempt from surprise is not surprising either. We are immune to
it. Every day we are treated by the tabloids to scenes and stories of sleazy,
tacky, crude and crass Brits competing for top place in the league of
obscenity.
(Photo credit: cottonbro from Pexels😮[Sorry, silly sanction block; link removed] )
When we lived in Britain my wife had the great misfortune, like the police and NHS, of being on the frontline. My wife was a teacher, which has to be one of the most thankless and God-forsaken jobs in the country. Never a day went past when she would return home with the sordid details of grossly behaved, self-centered school kids and their equally obnoxious parents. There was, in the several schools in which she worked and, we can presume from what we hear and read, throughout the entire British education system, a deeply entrenched, extremely disturbing and highly toxic ethos, a morally corrosive undercurrent that had seeped out of the PC mindset and (sorry to use this word) infected everyone.
At its core there was a contagious admixture, a poisonous combination of entitlement, egomania and absolute selfishness. My wife defined this psychological-emotional malaise as the ‘Me, Myself, I’ attitude. It was rife in almost every school she taught in, and what was more disturbing was that it was systemic as well as endemic. The more she experienced it, or rather the fallout from it, the more convinced she became that it was a product of 70-plus years of so-called progressive liberalism, which had, in its Tony Blair heyday, all but completely disempowered adults in favour of child empowerment.
The clue lies in that most celebrated of liberal words, the High Priestess of Political Correctness, ‘Rights’. Rights are everywhere, and everywhere you look are Rights. Not that teachers have any rights at all: it is open season on them. There were no signs on the school walls where my wife worked, as there are in banks, Job Centres and doctor’s surgeries, stating ‘Our staff have the right to work in a safe and abuse-free environment …’. Empowered school kids know ~ they have been taught by their parents (by government and the media) that they can be as disruptive, offensive and abusive as they like towards teachers, and can act this way with impunity, as they have the Rights and teachers have none. But this glib, blasé and malicious attitude does not end there. It is extended to adults in every sphere and at every level and is manifest in blatant disrespect for teachers, parents, neighbours, police, government and society at large.
Brits ignore social distancing
But we
cannot blame everything on Tony Blair (can we?). Historically, the rot set in during
the 1960s and has travelled ‘progressively’ down, mutating in strength and vileness,
through subsequent layers of generations until it hit rock bottom, which is
where we are today.
“’ere I’ve
got my Rights!” was a mantra that was thrown at my wife when she was a teacher
day after day after day. What was most telling, however, was the conjoined
absence of the words ‘obligation’ and ‘responsibility’, and here was the rub: a
‘do as we please life’ underpinned by Rights but no acknowledgement of, no
understanding of, indeed no knowledge of the fundamental prerequisites by which
those Rights are granted, ie personal obligation and social responsibility.
“Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” — Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): Critique of Practical Reason
Fast forward now and, as I have said, we are where we are today. In the midst of the greatest crisis that the UK ~ the world ~ has experienced since World War II, and with people facing death all around them, the Rights-infected British public ignore advice to self-isolate, ignore the need for social distancing and continue to congregate en masse at the coast, in parks and wherever they know they should not.
Brits ignore social distancing
If it was not so pathetically sad it would be laughable. I am tempted to call it Carry On Infecting, but that would just be cruel: it would be cruel to the people they will infect, to the people that will die, but cruel, most of all, not to mention insulting, to the doctors, nurses and health clinicians who are laying their lives on the line each day in administering to the sick and dying whilst trying to contain this dreadful disease.
Is the
situation as hopeless as it seems? Possibly not.
In perusing The Guardian and The Independent recently (yes, I am sorry, but I do that sometimes), have you detected a distinct change of attitude in some of the columnists, one that suggests that even the most dizzy-headed kite-flying liberals have come down to earth with a jolt? Rights are important things, and let us not forget it, but there is a line where political theory ends and commonsense starts and that line today (and always) we should not be allowed to cross, either guided by a conscious respect for decency and humanity or where selfishness subverts this by any measure necessary to ensure the best result for the greater good.
“One who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him.” — Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): Critique of Practical Reason
I was sat here looking at and listening to a Boris
Johnson coronavirus briefing video courtesy of Stun media and was struck by how
similar in language and tone his address was to a script from Dad’s Army.
There was something immediately quaint, old-fashioned, vaguely pompous,
wonderfully ineffectual and really quite reassuring in its anachronistic
nature. I thought, who is it who is writing the British government’s speeches?
They must be relatives of David Croft and Jimmy Perry.
Compounding this image of retrospective Britain with
Its ‘Back to the Wall’ are escalating media analogies that seek to couch our 21st
century plight in the bulldog-spirited language of Captain Mainwaring. Be
honest, now, Boris would make an excellent Captain Mainwaring. In fact, he does!
But here, sadly, is where all similarities end. For,
in spite of the media hype, ‘Britain in times of national emergency’, ‘never
since World War II have we been faced with a crisis of this magnitude’ and talk
of ‘wartime rationing’ and ‘putting things on a wartime footing’, at a time
when the establishment should be working together, working for the common good,
fighting the enemy like a ‘well-oiled war machine’, the Opposition and its
crony media seem exclusively focused on political gain.
I know all this stuff about the opposition party’s
main role being to question the government of the day and hold them
accountable, but there is holding them accountable and grabbing them by the
balls.
It is understandable that in our hour of need we
should attempt to evoke the indomitable spirit of wartime Britain. Consider
this extract from a Reuters article*:
Britain has
called for a national effort to tackle coronavirus similar to the one which
helped it survive the Second World War
“Our
generation has never been tested like this,” Hancock wrote in the Sunday
Telegraph. “Our grandparents were, during the Second World War, when our
cities were bombed during the Blitz.
“Today our
generation is facing its own test, fighting a very real and new disease. We
must fight the disease to protect life.”
This desire to fall back upon the genuine community
spirit that bolstered morale on the home front and infused the British civilian
population with survivalist stoicism during WWII is understandable; ask any
1940s’ event enthusiast, living history group or re-enactor and they will tell
you why ~ it was our finest hour ~ but if we are going to do it, we
ought to do it properly, and to do it properly not only do we need a united
front politically but the full co-operation and alignment of the media.
Sensationalist, overdramatised, sleazy, reaction-seeking, we have been brought up with and expect this sort of shite-mongering nonsense from the tabloids, and we have learnt to dismiss and trash it (they should never have disallowed the use of newsprint as something to wrap our chips in, ahhh well, come the bog roll shortage). We expect these comic strips to assault our equanimity with panic-seeking headlines of ‘killer bugs ‘and the numbers of dead ‘soaring’ — they need people to click on their online sites to convince their advertisers that they have wasted their money wisely (I should know, I worked in advertising-based publishing!), but even with its inexorable shift to the pit of the penny dreadfuls, the dumbing down and partisan bias, surely we should be able to expect something better from our so-called quality media.
UK Media Headlines Coronavirus
Consider the following headlines, which were compiled
from two UK left-leaning online newsfeeds over a 24-hour period:
‘I’m losing faith in the leadership’: an NHS doctor’s story
At this most desperate hour, Britain desperately needs better than Boris Johnson
The government is sending mixed messages. Johnson’s coronavirus briefings may make things worse
Boris Johnson is struggling to inspire trust on coronavirus
As this crisis engulfs UK business, Sunak’s ‘whatever it takes’ is falling far short
There is more, but I am sure you get the picture.
We could be churlish at this point and thank our lucky
stars that we have old Boris at the helm. Just imagine what it would be like if
the other lot had won the election. The first lockdown would have been at
Number 10 and the second in the House of Commons as such vital questions to do
with equality issues surrounding coronavirus were thrashed out
It is bad enough that it is blatantly ageist, but is
it sexist, is it inciting racial and religious hatred, are there any LGBT
issues to be delicately skirted (is that the right word?), and what about
Rights?! ~should we really force people to have the sense to self-isolate and
not buy a mountain of bog rolls? Would anything and everything passed in the
House of Commons be blocked in the House of Lords and would rich individuals
with vested interests stymie the process of government by launching legal
challenges in a suspiciously biased Supreme Court?
The answer is probably not.
However, most would agree (and this is evident from the change of political fortunes in the UK, Europe and America) that Liberalism is on its way out.
Lost adherents need to be brought back into the
electoral fold (baahhh, get the analogy?), and to do this it is necessary ~
they think it is necessary ~ to embark upon a war of attrition against the
government ~ specifically against Johnson ~ similar in vitriol and
relentlessness to that waged by the Liberal establishment against Trump:
attack, discredit, belittle.
In the midst of dismay, we should feel pity: Trump,
BREXIT, the EU in meltdown, the abject failure of socially engineered Britain,
there is nowhere to hide, nowhere to go. What’s the expression ~ shit or bust?
I am not a conspiracy theorist. If I was, I would suspect my retired scientist friend and his junior biochemistry set far more than I would a cartel of vanquished idealogues. But the fact remains that in —what is the expression?— times of national emergency, party politics need to be placed on hold. As for the partisan media, manipulating, plotting, and scheming, expending energy on how to put the government in a bad light in order to wrest the seat of power for the unelected and unelectable ‘when all of this is over’ is at best ineffectual and at worst morally divisive. People are scared; people are dying. They deserve better.
An article that the The Independent and The Guardian can learn from? https://www.itv.com/news/2020-03-19/uk-very-close-coronavirus-test-to-reveal-who-has-had-covid-19-with-no-symptoms/
A headline from RT news recently, which, even in these dire times, managed to put a smile on my face, albeit with a ‘gallows humour’ shadow: Religious procession in Russia against Coronavirus is CANCELED due to Coronavirus https://www.rt.com/russia/482946-coronavirus-religious-procession-canceled/
Has the outbreak and relentless progression of coronavirus
changed your routine?
It has changed mine.
I sit here in Kaliningrad, Russia, and every morning
first thing I flick through Google News to see what is happening COVID-19 wise
in the UK.
So far, we have had two confirmed cases of coronavirus
in the Kaliningrad region and, as far as I can tell, everyone appears to be
going about their daily life much the same as usual. Of course, all that could
change…
The one exception I noted was during a recent visit to
the London Pub ~ a bar/restaurant/nightclub the theme of which as the name
suggests is London pub oriented.
For the first time in Kaliningrad, I was witness to
the peculiar spectacle of people wearing face masks. The London Pub is under
new management and all the waiters and
waitresses, every one equipped with a face mask, are uniformly dressed in black
trousers (short black skirt if you are female), white evening shirt with winged
collar, black bow tie and a black bowler hat. Add the face mask and the effect
is even more surreal. The more I drank the more convinced I became that I was
on the set of the 1960s’ TV series The Avengers, or was it Clockwork
Orange?
Wollocks: ‘We’re all in the same boat, but some are travelling first class!’
Panic buying empty shelves in the UK
The very next day I telephoned an old chum of mine,
Lord Aristotle Wollocks, founder and Chairman of Wollocks & Co (Supermarket
Consultants), former heir to a newspaper magnate’s empire, to see what his
reaction was to the ongoing coronavirus situation in my native country. I was
particularly interested in what he had to say about the sudden onset of panic
buying and the alarming phenomenon of empty shelves in supermarkets.
Aristotle (as his name suggests) is a trifle
eccentric. We first met during my time as an antique dealer; we were both
bidding on the same item, a portfolio of letters by Ronnie Kray. Needless to
say, Wealth won the day, as it always does.
Aristotle’s house is a cornucopia of antiques, vintage curios and relics. He is a man who has everything but cannot find anything, which is difficult whenever you telephone him because his 1920s’ candlestick phone is often not always to hand.
As usual, it took several attempts before he could
find the phone to answer it, but eventually there he was.
“Wollocks here!”
We had not spoken for several months, so there were a
few platitudes to attend to, such as how is Putin and have you sat down with
him for a glass of vodka in the Kremlin yet, before we got down to business.
I wanted to know, primarily, if things were as bad in
the UK as posts on social media made out, specifically whether there was any
truth in the rumours that panic buying had decimate offerings in our
supermarkets and that UK citizens as a result were having to go without
sausages and were using The Guardian in place of bog rolls.
“The Guardian,” snorted Wollocks, “I wouldn’t
use that on your a..e let alone mine!”
You must remember that Wollocks went to Eton.
I pushed him once again for a sensible answer on the
alleged deprivation in the UK as a consequence of panic buying and empty
supermarket shelves.
Said he, emphatically: “Now look here …” He invariable
starts his sentences this way.
“Now look here. Whether it is true that supermarket
shelves are empty or not is hardly relevant. Of course, in a climate of panic
such as this you must expect a certain level of exploitation in every sphere of
influence, be it political, economic, commercial …” He droned on. “Naturally,
the less scrupulous but more entrepreneurial will make gains at others’
expense, and you have to make allowances for captains of commerce taking full
advantage of any commercial opportunity that the wind of misfortune ~ that is,
of course, the misfortune of others ~ blow their way.”
“You mean profiteering?” I ventured.
“Ahh, well,” Wollocks guffawed, “profiteering to you
perhaps, but for the sake of argument ~ and please, Michael (he always calls me
that; Mick is too working class for him) don’t argue with me ~ let’s say good
business sense.”
“So, what you are saying is that the supermarkets are
emptying the shelves themselves, in effect creating the illusion of shortage,
and with the help of the media and the Twitterartie, catalysing panic buying?”
“What I am saying is that the bods that run the large
supermarket chains are businessmen, Michael, monied people, people who are
versed in the strategies to drive meaningful and profitable sales growth …”
He paused, waiting for me to comment, but when I
refrained from doing so, carried on.
Panic buying in UK shelves empty
“If supermarket shelves are being emptied then the
government must impose rationing, as it did in the Second World War. It won’t
be easy, especially for the young generation to accept because they have not
experienced the hardships that our fathers and grandfathers suffered, but it
would certainly cure the pig-trough mentality.”
“But what about Rights?” I protested.
“Now look here, Michael, don’t try goading me. There
are no such things as ‘rights’, you know that, and had there ever been they
certainly have no place here and neither does entitlement.”
“Entitlement? No one is entitled to anything.
Coronavirus doesn’t care who or what you are. You just are and it just is!”
“Unless you are one of the privileged wealthy and then
you either head to your disaster bunker or use the antidote.”
“So, it’s true what they say about it being
person-made!”
“Don’t get PC with me Michael! Man-made? Ha! Just
checking to see if you are a conspiracy theorist as well as a defector!”
He paused whilst he lit a cigar. Aristotle never
smoked in his life until, he said, the non-smoking zealots banned it. Now he
smokes religiously, especially when he is fox hunting.
“By the way,” he continued, “I’m not saying that there
is an antidote but you could do worse than eat a giant bowl of muesli soaked in
apple juice with half a grape fruit ~ yellow grapefruit, mind ~ each and every
morning.”
“Hmm, don’t you have substantial shares in the muesli,
apple juice and grapefruit markets —”
He cut me short: “Yellow grapefruit, Michael, yellow.”
“But what of entitlement?” I asked impatiently.
“Ahh, yes. Well to understand that you must about turn
to postwar Britain and the we’ve ‘never had it so good’ slogan. You could say,
and I do, that we’ve had it too good, and certainly too easy. Take the
present generation, for example, dubbed by the media the ‘Entitled Generation’.
Not that I trust anything the UK media says. Dammit, I should know, my family
owned most of it, but the fact remains that today’s generation knows as much
about reality as a Liberal ~ which most
of them are, God help them!”
“Please go on.” He did not need encouraging.
“Computer games, mobile phones, obsessing with Twatter
and Arsebook, this isn’t life. Life is red in tooth and claw.”
“Well, crises like these always bring out the bad in
some —” I conciliated.
“And the good in others,” he concluded. “The ‘every
man for himself siege mentality’ has to be discouraged and the ‘coming together
to help each other’ sense of camaraderie encouraged.”
“A backs-to-the-wall philosophy.”
“Don’t be facetious, Michael. Hmmm. Backs to the wall,
I remember when I was at Eton …”
“[cough] You were saying?”
“I am saying that this would be a great opportunity
for people, especially young people, to stop worrying about how to disinfect
their mobile phones and look to the spade and trowel …”
“The Spade & Trowel,” I interrupted, “is that a
pub?”
“No, Michael it is not. I mean, of course, that they should take up gardening. The government should implement a drive towards self-sufficiency, reviving the posters of old, not only the much-exploited Keep Calm & Carry on, but Dig for Victory, Allotments for the Unemployed ~ especially Allotments for the Unemployed ~ and Make Do & Mend.”
“Make Do & Mend, so you think that Coronavirus may
wear out our clothes?”
“Well, it’s certainly putting a lot of strain on
underpants! Ha! Ha! Did I say stain? Ha! Ha! No, but a home course whilst
self-isolating on how to repair your face mask or making do with two sides of
toilet roll instead of one would be inspirational, not to mention useful for
the masses whilst in lockdown.”
“Your last word on the topic is, then?”
Silly expression for me to use. Wollocks, after all,
is a member of the House of Lords (which he fondly refers to as the House of
Whores), perhaps one of the few True Blues remaining.
“Times of national crisis ~ we can forget about what
is happening elsewhere ~ brings out both the good and bad in people in equal
measure, and a little deprivation at supermarket level is just the thing that
is needed to replace selfishness with selflessness. It can work to bring back a
much-needed sense of propriety, to rebuild the national character morally
demolished by seventy years or more of so-called liberal progressiveness. It
is, in short, a wonderful opportunity for the current generation to earn the
entitlement to which they feel so entitled.”
Panic buying shelves empty
More views on empty supermarket shelves and panic buying in the UK can be found in chapter 7 ‘Coping with Coronavirus’ in Sir Aristotle Wollocks’ book, We are fighting a war on human nature, available at all fire stations, police stations and post offices, which are now somewhere else, such as in chemists, book and pet shops.
On 23 June 2016, the British people voted in a democratic referendum to leave the European Union. One thousand three hundred and eighteen days later ~ the political establishment and liberal-left pressure groups having exhausted every trick in the book and more to overturn the will of the people and, in the words of the Liberal Democrats, ‘Cancel Brexit’, even if it meant undermining the very foundation on which the UK’s democratic system historically depends ~ the UK under Boris Johnson’s command ~ thanks mainly to Nigel Farage ~ has at last extricated itself from the Federalist Frankenstein otherwise known as the European Union.
Independence Day: Freedom from the EU
Make no mistake, 31 January 2020 was a momentous day in history. It was the day when natural and commonsense nationalism triumphed over the undemocratic, dictatorial aims of a Neoliberal elite which will stop at nothing to push its globalist agenda. With the UK sailing merrily away, bets are now on as to who will be next to jump. Until recently, it would have been unthinkable to suggest it could be the French, but with Captain Macron at the helm of the globalist Bounty, the scent of mutiny is gathering in the air. Thank heavens that when the French people finally see the light, as we did in the UK, and desert the sinking ship, Le Pen will be there with her safety net. We, in Britain, have been waiting to take our country back. Le Pen says, ‘the world is waiting for the return of France’. More to the point, the world is waiting for the return of Europe.
Independence Day: Freedom from the EU
On the positive side, let’s pay tribute to the architect of our Great Escape, Nigel Farage, who took on the British Establishment and won . Here is his exit speech from the EU pantomime [Link here]
Notice the icy cold Gestapo-type tones as they block Farage’s final words: “If you disobey the Rules you get cut off!!” That just about sums up all the EU says they stand for, but don’t. Have you ever noticed how those that shout the loudest about Freedom of Speech, Democracy etc, are the ones that shout you down the loudest. A case of the sulky EU taking their ball from the playground. Sadly, for them that is, less and less people are willing to play.
There is a historic battle going on now across the West, in Europe, America and elsewhere: it is Globalism against Populism. You may loathe Populism, but I’ll tell you a funny thing, it’s becoming very popular!
NIGEL FARAGE in his final address to the EU Parliament, 29 January 2020
Hello! Hello! Hello![/caption]
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UK Lockdown ~ a new board game to take your mind off lockdown[/caption]
