Архив метки: Coronavirus vaccine

The Liberal Solution to Anti-vaxxers

A response to ‘What to do about the Anti-vaxxers ~ there are three options’

Published: 20 December 2021 ~ The Liberal solution to Anti-vaxxers

The two things ~ two of many ~ that liberals are not very good at, but believe they are, is twisting their square-pegged ideology into the round holes of democracy and, when it suits them, which is most of the time, lathering a thick and sickly synthetic icing of Holier Than Thou on the cake that they want to have and eat.

Hence, the two-faced two faces of liberalism, in all its disingenuous and dissimulating tawdriness, emerges yet again in two media articles, one from The Independent (The Independent My Arse! Who said that?) and the other from The Guardian (The Guardian of what?), both articles seemingly wrestling with the question, how can people who are reluctant to have a ‘Friday afternoon vaccine’ pumped into their bodies be compelled to do so?

Unless you understand the liberal way, you might ask yourself the question, how could anyone of this political persuasion pursue such gross illiberalism and still try to pass themselves off as the champions of equality, human rights and civil liberties? It’s called ulterior motive.

The Liberal Solution to Anti-vaxxers

Let us take a gander at that first article, the one from The Independent¹, and deal with the cynical iced-bun version in a later post.

Papers Please!!
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What I personally enjoyed about the first article was its compromising headline. It immediately set the tone of the piece, condescending and arrogant, and left me in no doubt that what I was about to read would be a consummate example of illiberal neoliberalism.

Here is that headline:
‘What to do about the Anti-vaxxers ~ there are three options’¹.

There is nothing new about condescension and arrogance from illiberal-liberal sources, it is their stock-in-trade, their signature, but what I did find interesting in the mindset of this piece and the ideological perspective from which it is written was the schematic way in which a solution to the anti-vaxxer problem had been approached, mapped out and presented.

This article has all the makings of a future historical document, something remarkably similar to those which, back in 1940s’ Germany, would have been served up in an emblem-impressed file and handed around to those who sat in judgement in the offices of Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8.

Before outlining and analysing the various solutions to the anti-vaxxer problem, the document pedals generalisations and pushes assumptions that would make even the most dissembling fact checker blush:

These are:

1. “The threat to society at large from Omicron comes not from the virus itself but from pressures on the NHS from rapidly growing numbers of serious infections among the unvaccinated.”

Response: Read this: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/evidence-mounts-that-people-with-breakthrough-infections-can-spread-delta-easily

Do your own research, compile your own statistics: Ask yourself the question, how many people do you know who are double-jabbed and boostered who have still gone on to contract the virus? We know of several to date. We also know several unvaccinated people who have had coronavirus but had a mild version and treated themselves at home.

2. “The pressures are felt by NHS staff but also those whose treatment for other diseases is disrupted or postponed.”

Response: The NHS is under pressure, there is no doubt about that, but a substantial proportion of that pressure comes from hoards of terrified people running to doctors and hospitals in response to the terror tactics used by the UK media. Some have been wise to present with their symptoms; others have merely created longer queues and consumed valuable GP time, suffering from nothing more than abject panic. The majority of Brits who are vaccinated are putting further pressure on the NHS by running back to it in droves for more shots as instructed by their government, boosters which might or might not protect them ~ the degree to which they do, if they do, is unsubstantiated ~ from the unfortunate, but who can say not apt, anagrammatic Covid variant Moronic. How can the NHS not be under pressure, ie “GPs will be told to cancel appointments to dedicate resources to offering vaccines to every UK adult by the end of December².”

It is painfully true that treatment for other diseases is being disrupted or postponed, which is inexcusable but quite understandable. It is a deplorable situation which came about when the National Health Service ceased to be the National Health Service and became instead the Covid Health Service. Note the following: “Britain’s National Health Service was stretched to the limit but never overwhelmed.” The NHS is stretched to the limit because it cannot cope on a day-to-day basis even without the Covid situation, the obvious reason being that the UK is over-populated, but, hey ho, any excuse, and let’s face it Covid is the best one yet. Even better now that the problems of the NHS can be dumped on the doorsteps of the evil unvaccinated.

How does this alleged political preoccupation with the wellbeing of the NHS and healthcare workers stack up against threats such as this: ‘60,000 care workers face sack after being told to get vaccine jab or lose job’³

3. “The idea that unvaccinated people should be treated differently and discriminated against as a conscious policy runs into several objections. The first is widely heard but weak: that people have a basic right to exercise a choice not to be jabbed. But if that exercise of choice harms others, it is not a valid choice. We do not allow motorists to choose to drive the wrong way down a motorway or allow people to choose to hold noisy, all-night, parties whenever they wish.”

Response in two parts: (a) Of course people have as much right not to be jabbed as Big Pharma, governments and policy makers pushing vaccine mandates assume that they have the right to hide behind a get-out-clause, a disclaimer, that protects them from all and any responsibility in the event of adverse side-effects including, but not exclusive to, fatalities. If the vaccine is perfectly safe, then the above organisations and our democratically elected representatives, should put up or shut up! ‘Papers Please!’ ‘Compensation Please!’ ‘Or even on trial for murder please!’ But, hey wait a minute, what about the scientific evidence that categorically states that the vaccine is as safe as houses (what was that crash? Negative equity?) What about the deplatforming, social media censorship, conflicting statements from once respected medical professionals and scientists. Sorry, I forgot, they all turned into conspiracy theorists. It happened overnight.

(b) “We do not allow motorists to choose to drive the wrong way down a motorway because they know that it would be a silly and rather dangerous thing to do.” Motorists do not need politicians to instruct them in this fact. By the same logic, they do not need politicians to tell them to drive over Vaccine Cliff.

“[We do not] allow people to choose to hold noisy, all-night, parties whenever they wish.” I can assure you that you do (dring, dring: “Is that the police? There’s a lot of noise coming from my neighbour’s house …”. “Sorry, Sir, that’s nothing to do with us.”) and, in certain cases it would seem, hold governmental parties whilst instructing the entire population of the UK that it must refrain from doing so ~ or else!

4. “Elected ethnic minority figures, such as the Mayor of London, have given strong, clear leadership on the need for vaccination.”

Response: He is fulfilling the political function that an ‘elected ethnic minority figure’ is paid to do. That is why he has been installed, precisely for this purpose. Sadly, but evidently, a lot of people just don’t trust the man.

5. “This is a classic case of the distinction between “freedoms from” and “freedoms to”. It is objectionable that the freedom of a majority from restrictions on their daily lives might be removed by the freedom of a minority to refuse vaccination.”

Response: This is a perfect example of twisting square liberal pegs into the round holes of logic, to which I referred earlier. It’s similar to ‘you must not discriminate against minorities’ and then arguing for ‘positive discrimination for minorities’ and being banned from social media for ‘inciting racial hatred’ when what you have really been banned for is posting something that challenges liberal fraudulence. In other words, it is playing with words to protect a flawed ideology and is a facile attempt to disguise the U-turn taken.

The distinction between ‘freedoms from’ and ‘freedoms to’ is a semantic nicety acceptable perhaps at the vicar’s tea party (keep your distance, please!) over a game of Scrabble, but when used in a debate on incarceration by Covid it simply becomes a ploy to entice the vaccinated into believing that their freedoms are inextricably linked to the opposing views of anti-vaxxers, when lockdowns, as well as other restrictions, are indiscriminately executed and at the proverbial drop of a hat. Case in point, it was announced today [18/12/2021] that a two-week ‘circuit-breaking’ lockdown could be brought into force before Christmas across the UK. This restriction on daily life will no doubt go ahead, and when it does it will affect everyone, despite the fact that the majority of UKers are labelled as fully vaccinated. This restriction, as with enforced mask wearing, has no bearing whatsoever on who is vaccinated and who is not. It is a State embargo on freedom, for which there is no trade-off.

In the real world, however, in real democracies, where ‘freedom’ is supposedly sacrosanct, you do not go around forcing people to take potentially harmful biological substances which, for the sake of expediency, or so it was originally reported, could not be effectively tested either for safety or for efficacy by normal standard protocols. If this is ‘fake news’, then lay the blame on mainstream media. As for the negative use of ‘minority’, ie “the freedom of a minority to refuse vaccination”, whatever happened to the liberal obsession with cossetting and protecting minorities?

4. “Furthermore, the experience of France and other European countries is that, faced with serious barriers, large numbers of unvaccinated people drop their objections to vaccination very quickly. France was regarded as implacably anti-vax; but quite suddenly that has changed.”

Response: Wooh! Look at the arrogance and control-freakiness in that statement! ‘Faced with serious barriers’ = force, brownshirt bully-boy tactics, open confrontation. France is still ‘implacably anti-vax’. Hey, Mr Neoliberal have you forgotten to pay your TV licence?

Jack Boot was one of my favourite dancers; he really set the tone. And the tone having been struck in this ‘oh so very brimming over with the milk of human liberalism’ piece, we now come to the real nitty-gritty. The three proposals on what to do with anti-vaxxers.

The Liberal Solution to Anti-vaxxers

All rise. Court in Session. His Lord Justice Liberal-Lefty Presiding!

The whole thing had become so devilishly and blood-curdling juicy by the time I had read this far that I was compelled to put away the other fiction that I had been reading, penned by the Marquis de Sade, to focus solely upon what demoniacal torture the Chief Inquisitor had up his sleeve for those sub-human anti-vaxxers (clap of thunder off-stage and devilish laughter!!!).

And, on the conveyor belt tonight!

1. Compulsion through employment conditions [meaning get vaccinated with a potentially harmful substance or lose your job: very liberal, I must say!]

2. Changes to rights of treatment under the NHS [no treatment unless you are a prick ~ no doubt with a refund on NI contributions; well, I liberal never!]

3. A more comprehensive vaccine passport system [not allowed to go anywhere ‘Papers Please! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!].

The architect of the solutions document takes a pause at this point whilst he mulls over the consequences of brownshirt tactics but, seeing a dangerous precedent in this, resorts instead to name calling. “It is, of course, impractical and unacceptable to have ‘refuseniks’ (Ha! Ha! is this a play on ‘Beatniks’? Who remembers those? And what does that make the vaccinated? By default, Accepttwits?) dragged away, held down and forcefully injected. Oh shucks, come on, why not? Oh yes, I just remembered, we are supposed to be living in a democracy, aren’t we? And then, of course, there is that old but sensible adage: ‘Those who live by the sword die by the sword’ and ‘violence begets violence’ and lots of other unpleasant ‘don’t go there stuff’ to do with vendettas, revenge and repercussions. That’s a point? Are security details and personal bodyguards subject to the ‘condition of employment’ policy’?

The writer does note with unbridled satisfaction that NHS and care staff face forced vaccination as a ‘condition of their employment’. In other words ‘Get vaccinated or get the boot!’ He acknowledges that some ‘quality staff’ may not comply and will presumably ‘have to be let go’, but considers this eventuality to be perfectly acceptable collateral damage, when only a moment ago he was whacking anti-vaxxers around the head with the be-it-on-your-conscience stick, asserting in no uncertain terms that the NHS must be protected and that NHS staff face impossible stress and pressure. Er, doh, am I missing something here?

Surely, any examples that need to be made for the ‘condition of employment’ clause could be more effectively applied by rooting out those MPs who are refusing to take the jab or, better still, some of those who have indiscriminately had it and are pressuring others to ‘make the same mistake’. I am sure that the general public would welcome this with open arms, whereas they may not understand, with or without their jabs, how culling medical staff at a time when they are desperately needed solves anything, apart perhaps from justifying the daily death rate figures and blaming it all on anti-vaxxers.

Do you know, there is so much that is fundamentally wrong about this article that it makes you want to jump in the air and rejoice that the Liberal Party is where it should be, at the bottom of the bin just below the potato peelings. Let’s hope that North Shropshire is a blip on the protest vote graph: Heaven help this poor country if these twits are ever given the key to number 10!

Sorry for that emotional outburst. I hope I’m not turning liberal.

Moving on to point number two, ‘Changes to rights of NHS treatments’. This gets the writer into a ‘right old two and eight’. He starts badly with an inadmissible concept, waffles on in an attempt to prove that he really is a nice liberal and descends into nowhere land. So, no need to concern ourselves with that.

So, it’s on to point number 3, the final solution.

And, tonight’s star prize is … Yes, you’ve guessed it ~more extreme vaccine passports (demoniacal chuckle!!!)

Papers Please!!
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The gist is that the nice liberal man who wrote this compassionate article is eager to see the ‘minimal’ model of vaccine passports adopted in England recast in the image of the more ‘extreme version’, which is the one that is causing riots and mayhem in totalitarian Austria. Chilling stuff comes next with his prophesising comment that “If the Omicron wave gets out of control the UK will move inexorably in [the] Austrian direction.” Place your bets, place your bets (Its, Others and What Have Yous), will the Omicron wave get out of control in the UK …? That’s as rhetorical as do we need a new script writer for the popular Covid-19 soap opera Coronavirus Streets?

“Not much happening on Coronavirus Streets tonight, love. Just a lot of people ignoring the lockdown laws, trashing the streets of the UK and those liberal-fascists running around in leather coats and trilbies, saying ‘Papers Please!!”

The article, ‘What to do about the Anti-vaxxers ~ there are three options’, fizzles, futts and farts out on the smug prediction that a more rigorous vaccination passport system (which, incidentally the UK government vowed we would never have ~ lucky then that Omicron came along, and just before Christmas at that), will, by effectively confining anti-vaxxers to their homes except for essential shopping ~ bog rolls, and the like ~ enable the ‘socially responsible’ (the ones that stand to attention on the command of ‘Papers Please!’ Woof, Woof) to enjoy all the freedoms that our wonderful democracy can offer, such as going to work, for example, presumably to earn enough money to pay the benefits of the 10 million minority or more squirrelled away in their homes.

The writer concludes his final solution project with the ultimate act of liberal hypocrisy by playing word games with what freedom is and freedom means, to wit (he is, isn’t he!) that by some strange twisting of square pegs into round holes, the systematic curtailing of freedoms for the obdurate few will eventually lead to freedom for all. Having delivered his ‘must be cruel to be kind’ curtain call, he then gazes steadfastly into his crystal balls and, like a new mutation called Prophet, let’s us in on the secret that we will all be where we want to be, or is that all be where they want us to be, come 2022.

Master plans such as this are about as funny as the prospect of the Liberals coming to power. Thankfully, from the way the tarot cards have been played in ‘What to do about the anti-vaxxers … ‘ , I think we can safely say that such an unmitigated catastrophe is unlikely to happen soon and, may we add, hopefully never will.

All you need to be aware of is that they are now saying openly what they have been thinking for a long time. It is your choice whether or not to go on swallowing the sugar-coated pill ~ ‘Freedom’, ‘Freedom of Speech’, ‘Democracy’, ‘Civil Liberties’, ‘Equality’ and so on ~ or reject it as placebo on the evidence of the totalitarian policies that they are implementing across Europe and also, unbelievably, in the UK. At least you have a choice with the sugar-coated pill, which is more than can be said for the Covid-19 vaccine. 😉

Papers Please!!

Please see my following post, scheduled after a beer or two, on the ‘sickly iced bun’ from The Guardian.

Comment:

As the vaccinated are still capable of catching and spreading the virus after the miracle ‘fast-track vaccine’, why not lock them down instead? What’s the point of them vaccinating hundreds of times, mixing with each other and then spreading new strains? By locking down the majority, more NHS workers can safely lose their jobs and with less people to care for we can protect the NHS, if only from bullshit. (Don’t forget to stop the boats arriving first!) Much better to have the majority under lock and key and the minority wandering around. They can be given Unvaccinated Passports and be made to go to work to pay for the keep of the obedient vaccinated. Just give the vaccinated congratulatory Obedience Certificates and let them lounge at home. Good dog! ~ Mr I.M. Crufts

Customer: That’s a small piece of freedom. How much is it?
Purveyor of lies: 33 vaccinations and 16 boosters, please.
Customer: When will Complete Freedom be available.
Purveyor of lies: Soon, soon. In the meantime would you like another piece of Freedom. I hear it’s going up tomorrow by another 7 boosters!

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Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes

“Bucket!” he shouted. They hadn’t let him in!

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 608 [2 November 2021]

Published: 2 November 2021~Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes

So I said to my wife, “No, I don’t think so. I’ve got better things to do this morning.”

But she looked so disappointed that I relented, saying, five minutes later, “OK, I will walk with you to the market.”

“You don’t have to, unless you want to,” she quickly said ~ a little too quickly for my liking.

I know when I’m not wanted.

I remember hearing my mother and father quarreling when I was about six months old, blaming each other, arguing about whose fault it was. I have no idea what they were arguing about, but when I got to the age of five I suspected something was wrong when I came home from school one day and found some sandwiches, a bottle of pop and a map to Katmandu in a travelling bag on the doorstep.

Never one to take a hint, I knew that my wife really wanted me to walk to the market with her today, so I swiftly replied, “Well, if you really want me to come with you, I will.”

Apart from knowing when I’m not wanted ~ it gets easier as you get older ~ I needed to buy myself a new atchkee. No, not ‘latch key’. Atchkee is the phonetic spelling for spectacles in Russian. Isn’t my Russian improving! I am a two-pairs spectacles man. I like to have one pair so that I can find the other.

This was a great excuse for being a nuisance, so I got ready, tried not to look at the cat, who always looks sour at us when he sees that we are leaving the house, and off we went, on foot, to the central market.

“Ee by gum,” I might say, if I was from Up North in England, “but it were a grand day.” Here we were at the end of October, underneath a bright blue sky and the sun right up there where it is supposed to be.

We stopped off for a coffee at the top of the Lower Pond, risked the public Portaloos and then made our way to the market from there.

Being Saturday, and good weather, the second-hand and collectables market was in full swing.

When it was our business to buy and sell, we always had an excuse to buy, now all we could say was, ‘we’ll just have a quick look’. And then leave an hour later barely able to carry what we had bought.

Today was no exception. That’s willpower for you!

During the course of not buying anything we got to talking to one of the market men, who was not wrapping something up for us because we hadn’t just bought it.

“Good thing about outside markets,” said I, no doubt saying something entirely different in Russian, such as “Would you like me to pay twice as much for that item that we really should not be buying?” It must have been something like this, because when I checked he had short-changed us.

That sorted, I continued: “Good thing about outside markets, you don’t need ‘Oo Er’ codes.”

“QR codes!” my wife corrected me impatiently, as she bought herself a pair of boots that she didn’t need.

“QR codes!” repeated the market man solemnly, with a sorry shake of his head. “It’s bad business and bad for business. You can’t go anywhere without them now.”

“Niet!” I agreed, looking all proud at myself for saying it in such a Russian-sounding way, which enabled him to sneak in with, “But if you do not have a QR code, there is another way of getting access to bars, shops and restaurants.”

My ears pricked up at this intelligence, or was it because someone walking by had laughed, as if they knew what I didn’t?

I was too intrigued to be diverted: “How is that?” I asked

“Tin buckets!” replied the market man, with stabilised conviction.

“Tin, er …?”

“Like this!” the market man infilled.

And there, in front of me, where it hadn’t been a moment ago, was this large tin bucket.

Mick Hart with tin bucket in Kaliningrad — **Old fort, old fart & a tin bucket (thanks to my brother for this caption)**

As tin buckets go, it was quite the bobby dazzler.

It was one of those vintage enamel jobs; a pale, in fact, with a cream exterior and a trim around the rim.

“If you don’t yet have your QR code,” the market man continued to solemnise, “all you need is a tin bucket and, as you say in England, Fanny’s your uncle.”

Well, there is nothing LGBTQITOTHER about that, I had to admit.

“OK,” I said curiously, “I’m listening.”

There was Olga in the background, sticking to her non-purchasing guns, busily buying something else.

“That’s it really. Just say at the door, ‘I haven’t received my QR codes yet, but I do have a tin bucket’.”

I am telling you this just in case you are wondering why I have photos in this post of me walking around Kaliningrad with an old tin bucket. (That’s not a nice thing to say about your wife!)

The next stop was the city’s central market, where I bought a pair of specs, better to see my tin bucket with.

I needed to confirm that I really had bought that old tin bucket and that it wasn’t, after all, a figment of my stupidity.

“Ahh, you are British!” the spectacle seller exclaimed.

“No, English,” I corrected him. “Anyone and everyone can be ‘British’. All you need is to arrive illegally on a small boat, and a couple of months later they give you a piece of paper with ‘you’re British’ written on it.”

Now I had my new specs on, I could see that approximately 75 per cent of the market had been rendered inoperable. Many of the shutters were down, and I could read the ‘closed’ signs that were Sellotaped to them, stating that they would remain closed for the ‘non-working week’. If coronavirus turned up here in the next seven days, it would be sorely disappointed.

Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes in Kaliningrad Market — **Spot the old bucket**

Nevertheless, by the time we had exited the market at the end where the spanking brand-new shopping centre has been built, my bucket was getting heavier.

I put it down for a rest, on the pavement, directly outside of the new shopping centre entrance, thus giving myself a commanding view of the row upon row of plate-glass doors, behind which sat shops that still had nothing inside of them. Obviously, no chances were being taken. Should the thousands of square metres of space remain empty, the risk of non-mask wearers and QR fiddlers entering the building would be considerably reduced. In addition, the spanking shopping-centre was surrounded by a large impenetrable fence, creating a 20 metre no-go zone between itself and the pavement. A red-brick fortress had also been built just across the road, so that any attempt to cross the minefield between the pavement and shopping centre, if not thwarted by the mines and patrolling Alsatian dogs, would be repelled by a volley of arrows, or something closely resembling them, fired from the slits in the fortress wall. In particularly demanding circumstances, for example when everything in the shops that had nothing in them was half price, thus attracting the crowds, I would have thought that backup, in the form of mobile dart vans stationed close to the entrance, would be advisable. But who am I to say? Confucius say, “Man with tin bucket talks out of his elbow!” Confusion says, “Man with elbow talks out of his tin buttock.” (The last sentence is sponsored by The Cryptogram and Sudoku Society.)

Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes Shopping centre Kaliningrad

Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes front of Kaliningrad shopping centre

A lesser person would have been intimidated by fantasies of this nature, but not I. I had a tin bucket and, in case I haven’t divulged this already, that same tin bucket contained a green leather jacket, which I did not buy from the second-hand market, and a jar of homemade horseradish sauce, which I had not bought from the city market.

Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes

The bucket was as heavy as my heart as we parked ourselves on one of the seats outside a once-often visited watering hole, Flame. We were waiting for a taxi.

We had not long been sitting there, when I began to develop a jealousy complex. Staring back at us from the large glass windows were our own reflections. What were they doing in the bar without QR codes? It was then that I noticed that my reflection had an old tin bucket with him. What a coincidence, it was not dissimilar to mine. I recalled the wisdom of the man on the market who had sold me the bucket; his tale about old tin buckets having parity with QR codes for gaining access to cafes and restaurants.

However, before I could put his advice to the test, our taxi arrived. We said farewell to our reflections and hopped inside the vehicle. Our taxi driver, who was a stickler for rules, did insist that our bucket wear a mask for the duration of the journey. Stout fellow!

Although the taxi driver never asked, I was unable to say whether or not we managed to gain access to anywhere using our tin bucket in case the authorities find out and proceed to confiscate every tin bucket in Christendom.

The taxi driver did want to know what we were going to use that old tin bucket for, but I was not about to divulge my secret to him.

Give me a week two and I will divulge it to you. Although there will be a small charge for the privilege.

You can ‘read all about it!’ ~ as they say ~ in Mick Hart’s Guide to Homemade Vaccines.

Some posts that have nothing about tin buckets in them:
Tracking World Vaccination with the Prickometer

Something for the World’s End, Sir!
UK Lockdown New Board Game
Exit Strategy Board Game
Clueless World Health Game

Russian Anecdote a Man Exempt from Coronavirus

Never a lender or borrower be

Published: 12 August 2021 ~ Russian Anecdote a Man Exempt from Coronavirus

As any of you who have read my blog post will know, I was married, here, in Kaliningrad, Russia. Before delivering my speech at the wedding reception, I passed the written draft to my wife for critical appraisal. As predicted, her response was, ‘OK but I do not think that Russian’s will understand your strange British humour’. Hmm, I thought, should I take the bit about holes in underpants out?

Nevertheless, with a little invisible mending, the speech went ahead, almost without me, which is not surprising considering the amount of vodka I had drunk, and if people were laughing at me instead of with me it did not matter as at least they were laughing at all the right moments.

Whilst some elements of British humour might miss the mark with Russians, Russian humour conveyed in the traditional form of an anecdote often ends as enigmatically as it has begun.

My first encounter with a Russian anecdote left me wondering if Tolstoy had written it to counteract criticism that War & Peace was too short. The question as to whether I found it funny or not was quite frankly immaterial. As the yanks would say, I never left first base. The plot, which had more twists, turns and red caviar in it than one of Agatha Christie’s who dunnits, was so convoluted that it is my opinion that even Poirot’s little grey cells would have struggled to have made sense of it. At the end of the anecdote, I was left with the question, ‘What?’

Since then, I have learnt to compose my own, simplistic version of the Russian anecdote, and this one, which I have the honour of presenting to you now, might even be a true story.

Now, are you sitting comfortably?

Russian Anecdote a Man Exempt from Coronavirus

A conversation with a Russian man about whether he had had the vaccine, wanted the vaccine or was avoiding the vaccine, led him to confide in me that the nature of his job was such that under the new laws he was ‘obliged’ to have the vaccine. And yet, he told me, he was vehemently opposed to it.

In this frame of mind, he attended one of the city’s mobile vaccination units. No sooner had he crossed the threshold than he demanded from the white-coated medic a vaccination exemption certificate (do such things exist?) on the grounds that since he had an allergy he could not have the vaccine.

When the medic nonchalantly replied that he need not worry as the van opposite was an intensive care unit, and in the unlikely event that he exhibited any untoward side-effects from the jab, they would rush him in there immediately, he promptly replied: “If I do not get my exemption certificate, it will be you who will need intensive care!”

It was not for nothing that this reasonable gentleman had decided that a career in the diplomatic core was not for him.

The vaccination certificate duly administered, but not the vaccine, our man with his certificate in his hand, walked into a nearby shop to purchase a bottle of peeva.

Arriving at checkout he was just in time to experience one of those peculiar mask-wearing confrontations that are unfortunately blighting our daily life. At the counter, a middle-aged woman was being lectured by the checkout girl to cover her face with a mask.

“But, I only have two items [to buy],” the woman complained bitterly, “and I have forgotten to bring my mask.”

“Then you must buy one,” said the shop assistant curtly.

“Buy one!” the woman exclaimed. “I’ve enough of the filthy rags hanging about my home already!”

The shop assistant, as shop assistants do in situations like this, kept shtum. But her pursed lips and the body language of a nightclub doorman left little doubt that no mask meant no sale!

The woman with a house full of masks but none on her person was about to remonstrate with the iron maiden again, when a nice elderly gentleman, who had just been served, lifted up his mask and said kindly from beneath it, with a bit of a sneeze and a splutter: “You can borrow my mask if you like.”

Another woman, standing in the queue seeing that no mask meant no service was searching frantically for a mask which she also did not have.

Meanwhile, the first woman, having turned down the gentleman’s magnanimous offer, suddenly found herself in the throes of one of those euphoric moments when brought to the cusp of despair by the realisation that you have no mask, you find one, thrust deep down in your jeans’ back pocket among the fluff, dust and grubby remnants of knotted old pieces of tissue.

Extracting it and holding it five inches from her nose, but not following the proprietary rules for mask application (who does?), the sight of a mask wherever it might be was sufficiently acceptable from the shop assistant’s point of view to make further objection unnecessary. The woman had a mask. The world was safe. The woman could be served.

The second woman in the queue, who, alas, had no snot-ridden mask concealed about her person, now almost besides herself with woe was promptly offered the loan of the gentleman’s mask, which was now sitting on his whiskery chin, and the first lady, who had dropped her mask twice on the floor before wiping her spectacles with it, also offered her mask. Oddly enough the second lady refused on both counts.

Now that she had left her full basket at the till and gone to the shop next door where they never asked for masks, our man fresh from the vaccination van made his debut. He, too, was sans maskee.

The shop assistant was just on the verge of exercising the only power that she had ever been invested with and was ever likely to have in her life, when our anecdotal hero stepped promptly forward, certificate proudly in hand.

“As you can see,” he asserted, “I have an exemption certificate. This means that I do not have to have the vaccine, and if I do not have to have the vaccine, then it stands to reason that I cannot catch or spread coronavirus. It also means that it is not necessary for me to wear a mask!” and with that, he slapped his bottle of beer loudly on the counter.

The shop assistant, who was a paragon of logic, immediately recognising that the validity of this argument trumped forgotten, shared and improperly worn face masks, picked up the bottle of beer as one would reverently touch the road to salvation (which, dear reader, beer most often is), and placing it into a bag allowed the wiley man to pass without further let or hinderance onto the other side. It was almost as if she was manning* the Pearly Gates like Peter (or is it Bill?) which, without wanting to spoil the end of the story, perhaps indeed she was.

*Any similarity to actual LGBT persons, living in the UK or it and otherwise, is purely coincidental

MORE

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An Englishman Married Twice in Russia in One Day

Tracking World Vaccination with the Prickometer

Stay Young & Avoid the Vaccine

I have had my Covid Vaccine!

Репетитор английского языка в Калининграде

Image attributions:

Syringe with hand: Openclipart (https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Hand-and-syringe-vector-image/3695.html)
Cute Baby: http://clipart-library.com/clipart/pi58ypdKT.htm
Sheep face: https://pixabay.com/photos/sheep-animals-cute-nature-3727049/
Donkey face: Gilles Rolland-Monnet on Unsplash; https://unsplash.com/photos/Y-gQdCSvMbo
Halo emoji: http://clipart-library.com/clipart/piqKy7qi9.htm
Middle finger: Jonny Doomsday; https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Man-in-suit-showing-middle-finger/6429.html

Stay Young & Avoid the Vaccine

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 483 [10 July 2021]

Published: 10 July 2021

Growing old is an occupational hazard of being born, but by staying young forever you can avoid untested vaccines and serious complications from catching Covid-19.

Just when I was absolutely certain that I would soon be certain about changing the name of this series of diary posts from ‘self-isolating’ to something more applicable to the lifestyle I am leading, like what?, along came the Delta variant, the call for bars and restaurants that do not have outside seating areas to close, renewed attention to maskee wearing and a rallying cry for mass vaccination, which has as its masthead the controversial word ‘mandatory’. Thank heavens for that, I thought: self-isolating it is and thus it will remain.

An inveterate worrier, and a professional at that, who is more worried about not having something to worry about than worrying about something, lately I have done a lot of introspective soul-searching as to why coronavirus has not bothered me as much as it should, and in the process have asked myself the questions: Is it because I have adopted a reckless and cavalier attitude? Have I been turned by the myriad conspiracy theories? Or have I just dropped out of the panic circle by living one day at a time and by allowing the news that I can be bothered to read to simply wash over me?

Not much news is good news and no news even better, but if you have ever tried avoiding mainstream media, along with the gabbling gibberish of social media, you will inevitably have discovered that it is not that easy. There always seems to be some well-meaning soul on hand to replace the valve in the radio that self-preservation removed.

Dropping out is a great feeling, truly emancipating, and what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve about, but bad news like coronavirus itself has an aerosol effect (at least, I think that is the right word for it), and when I turned on and tuned in I discovered that in the UK Matt Hancock had left his post, disgraced but lustfully happy, that the man who had replaced him, Mr Sajid Javid, the brown man with a bald head, was calling for ‘F’ Day and that western media was adopting an ‘I told you so’ attitude to Russia’s latest Covid predicament, eagerly using words like ‘forced to play catchup’ and ‘caught on the back foot’ to describe Russia’s clamour to get as many people on the vaccination bandwagon and in the shortest time possible as the Delta variant stalks the land.

Our World in Data ¹ states that 18.5 million people have been fully vaccinated in Russia, representing 12.8% of the population, compared to 48.2% fully vaccinated in the United States and 51.3% in the UK. So, perhaps the phrase catchup is not as undeserved as it first might appear.

From The Moscow Times² I learn that the Delta variant is surging ~ now, where did I put that maskee? ~ that someone in Moscow has been detained on suspicion of selling fake coronavirus vaccine certificates and that Moscow’s first criminal case against someone has been opened for allegedly purchasing a counterfeit QR code, which could be used to grant the perpetrator access for indoor dining in Moscow’s restaurants. It is times like these that make me feel glad that I am a beans-on-toast man.

So, does this all mean, taking into account the ‘success story’ of the UK’s vaccination programme, that jumping onto a small boat and heading to the Sceptered Isle would be strategically fortuitous. After all, if I was to set off now I might arrive just in time to celebrate Britain’s big ‘F Day’.

And yet, there is no confusion like coronavirus. Google News UK throws up any number of articles claiming that the virus can be spread and caught even by those who have been fully vaccinated; that thousands of Brits are destined to catch coronavirus once restrictions are eased; that ‘breakthroughs’ are happening all the time (that’s not victims breaking out of lockdown but coronavirus infecting people who have had the vaccine); that Brits are being told to carry on social distancing and wearing masks even when they have had two jabs; that booster jabs will be needed … etc

The Mirror³ reports, for example, that the UK can expect 100,000 cases per day as restrictions are eased. Another Mirror⁴ article tells us to watch out for Long Covid, and identifies 14 symptoms that could be signs of Covid, from insomnia to earache. Looking down the Mirror’s list I thought, “Well, I’ll be buggered, it looks as though I may have had Long Covid since I was 14, or even before”.

Then there was this report from the BBC⁵ which informed me that due to escalating cases of Covid that the NHS Covid contact tracing app used in England and Wales must be made less sensitive to take account of the hundreds of thousands of new cases that will emerge after ‘F Day’, which, in case you are in any doubt, means Freedom day. I had to back-track through the news and read up on what exactly this app is and what it does. Apparently, it detects the distance between users and the length of time spent in close proximity, which is currently 2m or less and for more than 15 minutes. In doing so it seemed as if I had stumbled upon the latest chapter in How to make your life technologically unbearable and become neurotic in the process. But then, what would I know? I do not have a mobile phone.

On reflection, I do not think that I will travel to the UK after all, although given the inconvenience, costs of tests and what have you, if I was to go I would most likely go by small boat across the Channel, as thousands of illegal migrants can’t be wrong.

Stay young & avoid the vaccine

So, back to taking the vaccine, or not as the case may be.

It occurred to me that instead of taking any vaccine and exposing myself to any number of unknown, possibly critical and censored, adverse side-effects, I could try getting younger, as the incidence of coronavirus cases in the young is relatively low as is the risk of developing serious illness and dying from it.

But whilst the young may feel good about this now, unless they do as I am doing, which is getting younger, they too will eventually grow old, which is not advisable, given the depressing prediction that coronavirus may never go away. All of which points to the unsettling conclusion that growing old is becoming a far more risky business than it was and always has been.

After serious consideration, I think we could do worse than to take a leaf out of Charles Aznavour’s philosophical song book. Asked about ageing, the acclaimed singer/songwriter reputedly said, “There are some people who grow old and others [like me] who just add years.”

Seems like the only way to go.

References
1. Our World in Data [https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=OWID_WRL] [accessed 9 July 2021]
2. The Moscow Times [https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/07/09/coronavirus-in-russia-the-latest-news-july-9-a69117] [accessed 9 July 2021]
3. Mirror Online [UK records 29,000 Covid cases in worst day since January – with 37 more deaths – Mirror Online] [accessed 9 July 2021]
4. Mirror Online [ Long Covid: 14 symptoms that could be signs of illness – from insomnia to earache – Mirror Online] [accessed 9 July 2021]
5. BBC [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-57772515] [accessed 9 July 2021]

Image attribute
Cute Baby: http://clipart-library.com/clipart/pi58ypdKT.htm

Vaccination Rollout is not Russian but World Roulette

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 460 [17 June 2021]

Published: 17 June 2021 ~ Vaccination Rollout is not Russian but World Roulette

My sister wrote to me today from England and at the close of her letter asked, and I quote, “Just to touch on the most current topic … How is the [vaccination] ‘roll-out’ going in Russia?”

The answer that immediately sprang to mind was, I don’t know.

Vaccination Rollout is not Russian but World Roulette

The reaction to and media coverage of coronavirus in the UK is world’s apart from its counterparts in Russia. Even making allowances for the fact that we do not have broadcast TV and that I rarely read the news on the internet, my wife is an inveterate Facebook twiddler so news filters through to me, whether I want it or not.

One thing is certain: There is less hysteria here in Russia, both in respect of media coverage and the reaction of the populace to coronavirus. True, my wife reads news clips on Facebook, but she is more concerned with the ambiguities, ambivalence, seeming double-talk, twists, U-turns and general, what might be scientifically referred to as, arse-about-face of it all than she is in who has had their first or their 55^th jab, the proclamations of new strains and dire warnings of further mutations. She is diehard ‘anti-maskee’ and is always quoting, whenever I mention the vaccine, that never in the history of the world have governments embarked upon a global vaccination programme such as the one they have launched in the name of addressing Covid-19, which she finds suspicious, and she is more concerned with the impact that never-ending social distancing, lockdowns, isolation and general fearmongering is having on the psychological health and wellbeing of millions of people robbed of their need of personal and social interconnection, which in her philosophy is both the essence and hub of human existence.

It was she who sent me the following video link (after twenty-one years of marriage communicating by email is more popular than you might think!), telling me to listen to “what your favourite person [Katie Hopkins] has to say”: https://youtu.be/qQV1Ww9QGmU

It is not that my good lady wife disbelieves the existence of coronavirus or the potential of it pernicious effects, simply that she like many others questions the efficacy of the measures imposed upon us by ‘those in the know’ and like a lot of us is none too comfortable with the gold-rush mentality to be injected with something that has not been tested according to the usual standard protocols. In discussions on the subject, she likes to remind me that I was one of those who casually opined that come the vaccine come the silver bullet, whereas we now know ~ or rather are now told ~ that nothing much has changed and possibly will not change until 2023/24 and perhaps not even ever.

An article published by Elsevier¹ supports my wife’s criticism of me, the commentary clearly stating that ‘Vaccines are not yet a silver bullet’. And yet, I quote from the same article [my emphasis], “In other words, to help societies avoid transmission vectors and start imagining the “new normal”, continued communication about the need for face masks, personal hygiene, and social distancing is of instrumental importance.”

As I understand it, however, in the UK the new normal is resulting in a great deal of new suffering ~ psychological, physical and emotional ~ by those whose livelihoods are threatened, whose businesses are going under and many more who, because of coronavirus prioritisation, are finding that they are unable to gain access to the vital healthcare that they need if they are to survive existing illnesses, regardless of whether they get coronavirus or not.

Whilst controversy over the fallout from coronavirus restriction rules is buzzing around on social media as if someone has kicked the hive, a large vacuous hole continues to exist both in media spaces and authoritative places. Without answers, there are only rules; and rules without answers are there to be questioned, challenged and even ignored.

Nevertheless, my sister’s comment about the ‘most current topic’ had left me feeling out of the loop, so I turned for the answer in the pages of The Moscow Times². Well, why not, for a change!

Accessed on the 17 June 2021, under the headline Coronavirus in Russia: The Latest News | June 17, here is my update:

~ Russia has confirmed 5,264,047 cases of coronavirus and 127,992 deaths, according to the national coronavirus information center. Russia’s total excess fatality count since the start of the coronavirus pandemic is around 475,000.

~ Russia on Thursday confirmed 14,057 new coronavirus cases and 416 deaths. Of today’s cases, 6,195 are in Moscow.

~ Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin on Wednesday announced mandatory vaccination for service sector workers, saying the measure is necessary as the city grapples with 12,000 hospitalized Covid-19 patients and levels of illness equal to last year’s peaks.

And there is more about closing bars and restaurants early and working from home.

But that is Moscow. What of Kaliningrad, where we live (I last checked about 12 weeks ago!). Here is today’s update³:

~ In the Kaliningrad region, 80 new cases of coronavirus were detected. The total number of infected reached 34 694.

~ 56 patients were diagnosed with ARVI, 15 with pneumonia. Nine more had no symptoms.

~ During the day in the region, 73 patients were discharged from hospitals after recovery. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 33,525 people have recovered, 538 have died.

So there you have it!

I think that the ‘most current topic’, as my sister refers to coronavirus and the issue of vaccination, is, like a lot of other things, evaluated in a markedly different way by the Russian population compared to the mindset in the West.

As usual, would-be pundits in the West are seemingly confused about why the take-up of the Covid-19 vaccine is not steaming along at full tilt as it is in countries like the USA and UK. I say, ‘as usual, because the inability of western Europeans to understand anything Russian, or to assume that they do not, is not a new phenomenon (understatement intended). Take a look at the screenprint (you may have to magnify the image) that I have included in this post, which returns from the Google search ‘vaccination in Russia’ [accessed 16 June 2021]:

Vaccination statistics for Russia 16 June 2021

In the circles in which we move in Kaliningrad, there is a lot to be said for my wife’s theory that people tend to judge the coronavirus situation, and personally react to it, depending on what is happening closest to them. In other words, each individual weighs up the pros and cons of the restrictions and vaccine-taking depending on how many people they know who have had a mild attack of the virus, a serious attack, how many people they know who have died as a direct result of contracting coronavirus and how many people they know who have not been infected at all, and then they act accordingly. In the UK, mass opinion is mobilised, and large swathes of people motivated, by what politicians tell them to do and by the national media’s complicity to bring about a desired result by whatever means it has and whatever it takes ~ and it does not take much.

On the wearing of masks, for example, here I have heard it said that most people who wear them, wear them to avoid a fine rather than give credence to the unproven science of their latent life-saving properties, which is possibly why most people wear them with their nose poking out or as under-chin accessories. In the UK, however, whilst some people wear masks for the same reason and in the same way, the majority of mask wearers wear them purely because they are told to do so. In the UK, compliance is king.

On the slow take-up of vaccination in Russia, as you can see from the following screen grab (you may need to magnify), which returns from the Google search ‘vaccination in Russia’ [accessed 16 June 2021], western media is more than happy to tie Russian vaccination reluctance to their efforts to discredit the Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine, which resulted from a fit of pique when Russia won the ‘vaccine race’.

My take on the low uptake from people I have asked is that no such specificity exists. It is not that the Russian people are crying out for western vaccines, just that they are more individualistic and selective in their approach to the whole question of vaccination safety and efficacy. I mean after the latest revelations about the AtsraZeneca vaccine⁴ …

Let’s face it folks, life is a roulette wheel. Whether the vaccine is running around inside you or not, until they finish those vaccine trials, which will not happen before 2023 or 2024 earliest, it is still a game of chance. So, fingers crossed.

Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets!

References:
1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666354621000077?via%3Dihub [accessed 16 June 2017]
2. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/06/17/coronavirus-in-russia-the-latest-news-june-17-a69117 [accessed 17 June 2021]
3. https://kgd.ru/news/society/item/95599-za-sutki-v-kaliningradskoj-oblasti-vyyavili-77-sluchaev-koronavirusa [accessed 17 June 2021]
4. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2280446-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-may-hinder-blood-clotting-in-rare-cases/ [accessed 16 June 2021]

Photo credits:
Roulette wheel
Photo credit: PIRO4D (https://pixabay.com/illustrations/gambling-roulette-game-bank-2001128/)

Globe
Photo credit: Arek Socha (https://pixabay.com/illustrations/earth-world-planet-globe-1303628/)

Репетитор английского языка в Калининграде

I Have Had my Covid Vaccine!

I Have Had My Covid Vaccine ~ so many times that I’ve lost count

Published: 28 May 2021

These are the coronavirus vaccine statistics from ourworldindata.org as of 25 May 2021 (not easy to see from this screen grab, but you get the picture):

😉The Covid-19 Vaccine Race from Gaydock Park🤞

Never before in the history of transmissible disease have governments embarked upon and pushed an agenda like this one. But is that agenda honourable or there is a subtext to it that neoliberal global politicians, Big Tech and Big Pharma are exploiting for their own elitist ends?

Coronavirus has polarised the world. There are those who believe everything they are told by the powers that be, and in the process seem to have resigned themselves to a lifetime of lockdowns, mask-wearing, new strains, mutations and an ever-expanding cycle of vaccinations, and those that suspect that as nothing about coronavirus and, more to the point, coronavirus restrictions appear to add up, then someone must be up to something ~ and up to something on a global scale.

The UK is a perfect example of this polarity, divided as it is by those who are falling over themselves in the panic to get the vaccine ~ the same group of people that advocate enforced lockdown and mask wearing ~ and those whose distrust of the establishment’s official vaccination line is only exceeded by their utter contempt for the WHO.

The West’s liberal-controlled media routinely rounds up all coronavirus sceptics and labels and thus discredits them as conspiracy theorists. But what if they are? In the words of Joseph Heller, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”

The ‘we don’t trust them as far as we could throw them’ camp entertain myriad theories, which when gathered up coalesce into one or another of the big three. These three theories have one thing in common, which is that the perpetrators of the biggest hoax in history are neoliberal globalists. The three scenarios play out like this:

1. Coronavirus restrictions, particularly lockdowns, mandatory mask-wearing and state-enforced mass vaccination programmes are a covert way of reconditioning the collective mind, controlling the masses by fear in preparation for something worse to come. That worse being the neoliberal New World Order.

2. Both the virus and the vaccine are man-made entities (Sorry, let’s be woke here, I mean person-made entries. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, so who knows what ‘it’ and ‘others’ can unleash!). Both have the capacity to liquidate, and both have a job to do, which is to reset the world’s population, in other words, to cull.

3. The vaccine is a long-term project which will inevitably pour endless amounts of wealth into the globalist’s coffers through the symbiotic relationship between Big Pharma and the neoliberal mega-rich. Yes, the vaccine may be free now, but as mutations and new strains emerge requiring, so we will be told, new or modified vaccines, someone will have to pay ~ and that will be you and me.

For the sake of argument, let us play devil’s advocate and say that the endgame involves elements of all three scenarios but, neoliberal globalists being what they are, money must figure first and last, so is it proposition number three on which we need to focus, or is all of it just tabloid pie in the sky?

Responsibility for the propagation of distrust, its entrenchment and the vast number of citizens throughout the world who are either unsure of the vaccine or vow they will never accept it, lies in the contradictory messages with which the public has been bombarded since day one of coronavirus. Making sense of it is like trying to put together a sabotaged jigsaw puzzle, the vital pieces of which are missing: nothing fits, nothing adds up and very little is logical.

At the centre of this programme of obscurantism is the liberal media and at the epicentre the liberal-oriented social media, which, instead of upholding free speech, the number-one tenet of democracy, have decided ~ inspired and emboldened by its track record for crucifying dissenters on the altar of censorship ~ to persecute anyone and everyone who dares to contest, question or doubt the rubber-stamped version of coronavirus.

Now, I do not have a Twitter account or Facebook account for obvious reasons, but I hear tell that if you post anything on Facebook that calls into question the official coronavirus narrative, especially as it pertains to vaccination, first your post is blocked and then you are ‘politely’ redirected to a source of information that purports to tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But whose truth is it?

I am also told by those who use Facebook and other liberal-orchestrated social media sites that if you post anything that challenges pro-lockdown, pro-mask wearing, pro-vaccine enforcement, you run the risk of being banned from such sites for a month or in severe cases, for example if your argument is too cogent or too plausible, face permanent exile, destined to live out the rest of your unliked days in a social media wasteland every bit as dire as the ironic political wilderness into which Enoch Powell was cast when he told the truth about immigration.

The reality is that apart from liberals, nobody trusts Big Tech. Why should they, when it is the same mega-corporations prohibiting alternative viewpoints on coronavirus that routinely censor and remove the numerous accounts of those who dare to expound the cultural and moral tragedy of state-sponsored social and gender engineering programmes? And don’t forget that this is the same Big Tech that banned the President of the United States and attempted to atom bomb Parler, an alternative social media platform for those who mainstream social media have arbitrarily deplatformed.

The EDL, Britain First, Paul Joseph Watson, Katie Hopkins, Tommy Robinson, all enemies of the neoliberal state, wear the same badge of honour: they have all been banned from either Facebook, Twitter or both, as have a good many other ‘ordinary’ people. According to the social media monopolisers, these individuals and/or groups are guilty of using their squeaky-clean sites to incite racial hatred, religious hatred and call it what you like. But the truth is that this arbitrary definition is a convenient way of silencing anyone who dares to question, contradict, make a stand against or even invite discussion on subjects that run counter to the liberal-left’s world view and to its global aspirations.

And it does not matter how cogent the argument is or by whom it is addressed ~ acclaimed scientists, long-serving public health officials, eminent virologists and so on, are summarily struck down for speaking out against coronavirus protocols which, in their opinion, have a scientific margin of error that render them at best questionable or at worst not fit for purpose. Woe betide you if you post the views of these renegades on Facebook!

These distinguished dissenters ~ doctors, professors, scientists and so forth ~ who, it would seem, have nothing better to do than to incite the ire of the powerful and the media megalomaniacs, are summarily dismissed by the same as misinformation peddlers. Some of these eminent personages question the shaky empirical foundation on which mass vaccination is based; others claim that vaccines are already causing significant harm and that there is evidence of deaths directly linked to the vaccine, but, as any search on Google will confirm, absolute proof of such does not exist [as of 25 May 2021]. All media-owned signposts point in the same direction.

Now, I am not a Facebook subscriber (I wonder why?) but I have been told that pricks ~ people who have had the vaccine ~ have been cajoled and coerced by Facebook to wear their vaccination status with pride. Apparently, once you have been vaccinated, you can change your Facebook profile image using a ‘I have had my vaccination’ template, a circular frame surrounding your mug for all the world to see.

Is it my imagination, or do some of these silly little roundels come complete with frames in limp-wristed rainbow colours? Hmm, when I see such things, I am put in mind of that excellent Orwellian TV programme The Prisoner, in which a spy who has resigned from his post is gassed, abducted and wakes up in a terrifying fantasy world known as The Village, a high-tech concentration camp masquerading as a utopian democracy (sound familiar?).

In this happy realm of many nationalities, the good citizens, those who have been brainwashed and soul-destroyed, do everything they are told to do and say everything they are told to say. They are deliriously model citizens, who, deprived of free will and no longer capable of independent thought, literally dance to their masters’ tune wearing rainbow-coloured clothes whilst toting rainbow-coloured umbrellas (It certainly was a programme ahead of its time!).

I have nothing against taking the vaccine myself, in spite of the fact that I would never allow the likes of Facebook or Twitter to manoeuvre me into taking it and provided that I am not forced to take it under duress and threat of not being able to travel, not being able to get a job, not being able to visit a pub, in fact, not being able to do anything or go anywhere without my vaccine passport. All this smacks of a cheap protection racket: Buy our Brand or else!

But the last mistake I would want to make was to discover all too late that between them they have murdered me and, in the process, have conned me into celebrating the fact that not only was I stupid enough to have bought the lies they sold me but that they have also had my leg up to such an extent that they had me advertise my gullibility in a circular social media frame surrounded by rainbow colours ~ the final insult!

If I was Facebook inclined, I personally would not entertain such a frame. It is not nearly woke enough for my liking, and until they include a clenched BLM fist, preferably certified by Sadiq Kahn, if I were you, I would refuse to use one, at least until you are sure that you have been well and truly exploited.

At the end of the day, it is not up to social media or governments to force you to have something stuck in your arm or anywhere else for that matter, especially when it bypasses the usual strict requirements for vaccine testing and approval and even more especially when Big Pharma, Big Tech and ultimately Big Brother have a get-out clause in the small print which exonerates them from any blame or compensatory comeback in the ‘unlikely’ event that it all goes terribly wrong.

To conclude with the inconclusive, I will leave you in the safe hands of Facebook’s Mr Zuckerberg and his team. Ruminate on their words and then ask yourself the question: are these the words of humanitarians, or is something else at work?

“These new policies will help us continue to take aggressive action against misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines. We will begin enforcing this policy immediately, with a particular focus on Pages, groups and accounts that violate these rules, and we’ll continue to expand our enforcement over the coming weeks. Groups, Pages and accounts on Facebook and Instagram …” ~ source: An Update on Our Work to Keep People Informed and Limit Misinformation About COVID-19, published by Facebook, 16 April 2020 [my highlights]

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) response to Facebook & other social media censorship:
Covid-19: Who fact checks health and science on Facebook? | The BMJ

At the close of this article, I have provided three or four links to alternative views: Are these the words of crackpots or of well-informed and enlightened people who genuinely fear for our future and are attempting to shine a light to avert us from the very dark place to which we are being taken?

How will history judge our shepherds? Will they be praised and exonerated as the angels of our salvation, or eventually tried Nuremberg style for crimes against humanity?

Living through history is certainly not the same as reflecting on it, but these must be interesting times indeed for those out there in the future to whom Facebook and its kind are just amusing anachronisms, a spent and obsolescent force harking back to the days when Big Tech, in its naivety and arrogance, mistook its short-lived era for the promise of eternity. I wonder what lessons the new generations have learnt from our coronavirus ‘conspiracy’ era, and what they will do to prevent it from ever occurring again.

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

Alternative Views on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Media Censorship & Why {don’t take their word for it ~ draw your own conclusions!}

Why are we being censored? ~ Professor Dolores Cahill
Dr Reiner Fuellmich, international lawyer has all the evidence that pandemic is crime (rumble.com)
Did some scientists use ‘scare tactics’ during lockdown? – YouTube

Disclaimer: No animals were harmed in the making of this post, but we are sorry if we have insulted them.

Image credits:
Sheep face: https://pixabay.com/photos/sheep-animals-cute-nature-3727049/
Donkey face: Gilles Rolland-Monnet on Unsplash; https://unsplash.com/photos/Y-gQdCSvMbo
Halo emoji: http://clipart-library.com/clipart/piqKy7qi9.htm
Middle finger: Jonny Doomsday; https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Man-in-suit-showing-middle-finger/6429.html
Parrot: Christopher Alvarenga on Unsplash; https://unsplash.com/s/photos/parrot

Tracking World Vaccination with the Prickometer

Sorting the Pricks from the Prickless

Preamble

An ex-colleague of mine, whom I have not heard from since his wife became a diversity manager, submitted this essay to me, ‘Tracking World Vaccination with the Prickometer, saying, “I think you should put this on your blog.” At first, I thought it might be something from The Guardian, so naturally I ignored it. But curiosity, not being the sole province of our cat, Ginger, mugged and got the better of me. Two paragraphs in and I was thinking, “Hmmm, this is rum stuff.” So, I did what I always do in times of trouble (they would make good lyrics for a song), I contacted my old friend Lord Wollocks.

“Ha!” he snorted, having read it in less time than it takes to enter Britain illegally, “You know what you can do with this …”

“Wollocks!” I reproved.

“Put it on your blog,” he continued. “Heaven knows, I, and most of my class, come from a long line of pricks. Take my second cousin, The Duke of Megan Merkel, at last removed …”

I got the point. At that moment, our next-door neighbour’s boy, Little Tommy Goodsense, who had been eagerly listening to my conversation from behind the Truth, chipped in, “Mr Rart …”

He’s got a bit of a lisp, bless him, and cannot pronounce his ‘Hs’. When he says WHO, he usually says ‘WO!’ ~ he’s an intelligent child.

“Mr Rart. If it says ‘Freedom of Speech’ on the can, then it should do as it says. Just because they say that Freedom should wear a muzzle does not mean that Covid masks really work.”

“They, Tommy, Who are They?”

But before he could answer, Tommy had seen the light and had quickly emigrated, taking his Noddy books with him.

I realised, of course, what it was that my ex-colleague was getting at in writing and sending me this post. He knew that I was contemplating having it done to me later this year. He knew, in other words, that I was a potential prick, and like the British education system he was out to take advantage of me.

“I’ll show him!” I thought. “I’ll post his manifesto and let that be a lesson to him!”

Tracking World Vaccination with the Prickometer: Chapter (& Verse)

The race to see which country would develop the vaccine first is over; now it is the race to see how many will get the prick in each country and which country can claim that theirs is the first to be full of pricks.

Dr Force-It, whose name is synonymous with prick, vows that all Americans will be pricks by the summer of 2021 and mumbled something about ‘open season on something’, which will make anti-vaxxers think twice before bending over indiscriminately. If all goes according to plan (but whose plan is it?), even if some Americans do insist on remaining prick-free, herd immunity could be achieved by late summer: ‘baa, baa’.

In order for us to understand how well their plan is working, we are indebted to Big Pharma for providing us with the world’s first Prickometer, a cunning tracking device sponsored by the NWO (New World Order), which will please some and confirm the suspicions of others. Already the Prickometer shows that in most European countries pro-pricks are on course for a majority, but what does this mean for the prick-resistors?

Some of us flew to the UK to find out, where we were forced to stay in hotels for two weeks costing us almost two thousand quid a person or be promptly sent to prison. The rest of us travelled by small boats and inflatable dinghies across the English Channel, were bussed to five-star hotels, and each offered a free prick along with British citizenship. We turned the latter down on the grounds that it might affect our benefits.

Whilst we discovered that the Prickometer was a useful tool for persuading the majority to continue to be the majority, its big carrot has been let down by its even bigger stick, which, although it rhymes with prick, is seen by some as a back-passage way of enforcing mandatory pricks. We refer here to the controversial Prick Passports, which Hatty Mancock has refused to rule out, but which prick-resistors feel will soon be used to shaft them.

But what does this mean exactly for society at large, or rather, before total lockdown, the society that used to be at large?

It means that pricks with Prick Passports will be allowed to roam the globe at will (no change there then!) whilst conspiracy theorists and those without a prick will have to content themselves with sneaking out in the dead of night for illicit trips to Skegness or bumming around in Brighton.

Opponents to the scheme worry that once Prick Passports are introduced, it will pave the way for including them for pubs, clubs, restaurants, museums, art galleries, various regions of the UK and hopefully McBidens, in which case the best that prick-resistors can hope for will be to sit at home doing distance holidays on the liberal-left censored internet.

Whilst some are determined to avoid a prick at any cost, others are crying out for one. Take this woman from Scunthorpe (she wished someone would) Mrs Northgob, who having received her first prick free, courtesy of Big Farmer (blast Gates and his spell checker!) went on to equip herself with several different identities: she just could not get enough pricks! And can you blame her? With so many to choose from, Big Pharma has ensured that one-size-fits-all is simply not an option.

But sailoring is not as plain as first it might appear.

A spokes-it for the UK Outrage Industry claims that every ethnic minority no longer under the sun, because they are all living in Britain, are victims of prick discrimination. They are disproportionately short on pricks.

“Give them an inch and they’ll take a yard,” sneered someone who was feeling particularly inadequate ~ he was waiting for Labour to make a come-back.

Leroy, currently doing a 10-inch stretch for procuring illegal pricks, said that it was simply a case of supply and demand, m’lud, and if white bois won’t help white chicks, it might be a dirty job, but someone had to do it!

An International Commission of Inquiry, costing the tax-payer millions, has been convened to look into allegations that the ‘Parades R Us’ community were short of pricks, hadn’t had a prick in months, wouldn’t know what a prick was even if it was offered to them, had had more than their fair share of pricks or could not decide whether they wanted one or not.

Alice Quimby, spokes-something or other for the dating agency Snatch, said that she was personally chuffed that none of her members were prick-oriented. She boasted that they had it licked, the system, that is, and then, just before she got the hump, she adjusted her strap-on ~ seatbelt ~ and before driving off on speed added that her friend Dilis de’ Doe had summed it up in a nuthouse when she said the whole world had gone arse about face.

Terry Twinky, owner of Tinker Tailors the Men’s Infitters (Alterations Made, Shirts Lifted), took umbridge at our suggestion that some of his lads considered themselves above pricks, whilst others in his sister company, sometimes referred to as his sissies’ company, Fudge Packers UK, downed tools and aprons at the mere mention of having a prick.

“I’ll have you know,” he hissed, “that my members have bent over backwards to meet the demands of this government and what have we got for it? Nothing! It was never like this when Jeremy Thorpe was in power!” Upon which, telling us in no uncertain terms that he would not bandy his wotsits and mince his words with us, he turned the other cheek, and walked away like the words he would not say.

Meanwhile on the streets of London, there have not been riots. According to the Indefensible, peaceful pro-prickers who were simply having a nice day out showing off the new banners they had made whilst living with their mums and claiming benefits, had been provoked by right-wing statues and anything vaguely phallus-like. Heckled by Far Right, White Supremacist, Nazis, disguised as two old ladies chanting ‘No more Pricks’, and then sighing loudly, the largely peaceful protest descended into a mild anti-Christ of all riots, about which Theresa May later opined it was ‘highly likely that the Russians dun it’.

Nelson (certainly not Persondella) was the first to get it in the neck ~ or somewhere.

An innocent bystander, who was later jailed for 5 years because it was discovered that he had once voted UKIP, said that he was “horrified”. “One minute, Nelson had been up there, proud and erect on his column, and the next he was sent crashing to the ground. In the ensuing impact, Nelson’s coat tails whipped up and what happened next was just too shocking to report … “

A man named Hardy (I think that’s how you spell it?), said “It Woke mine up!” He is now helping police with their inquiries ~ into people saying mean things on Twitter whilst terrorists roam the streets.

The only other witness, Churchill’s statue, was unavailable for comment since he had been boxed up and moved for his own protection and what had replaced him hadn’t got the intelligence to understand the question.

It was reported in The Gonadstan that the suggestion that the extreme left group Anti-Prick had fomented the violence was baseless, not least because the British establishment, which most likely funds and supports it, denies its very existence. The Gonadstan went on to say that pro-prick supporters had been provoked by something which Nigel Farage was doing, which was sitting outside a public house drinking a pint of beer whilst wearing his tweed cap, looking far too British for his own good and anyone up from Dover.

The British government, its well-paid advisers and members of the shadowy government, unassisted by the House of Frauds, immediately did one: they consulted the Prickometer.

But can the Prickometer help? The answer is no. There is little chance that Nigel Farage will suddenly vote liberal.

So, what does the Prickometer tell us? Well, the Prickometer tells us how many pricks there are per 100 population, the total number of pricks in any one country, the percentage of population that has had at least one prick and those that enjoyed it so much that they have gone back for another and then changed their Facebook avatar to something under a rainbow and had an orgasm. In short, the Prickometer is a reliable source of which countries are swallowing the official coronavirus narrative and which countries are a head ~ according to our expert Dick ~ of other countries in boasting more pricks than others.

In short, the Prickometer tells us that never before in the history of the world have there been so many pricks.

“Never before in the history of the world has so many pricks been administered by the machinations of the few” ~ Sir Wokeston Chapelhill

WHO SAID THAT!!! DOWN WITH HIS … STATUE!

Note: We have had to substitute ‘prick’ for ‘jab’ as ‘jab’ is the registered trademark of World Exploitation Inc.

Something for the World’s End, Sir!
UK Lockdown New Board Game
Exit Strategy Board Game
Clueless World Health Game

Image credit: Blidfolded dart player:
Openclipart
https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Blindfolded-darts-player/68889.html

Image credit: Shoe banging tantrum
http://clipart-library.com/clipart/362082.htm

No Lockdown in Kaliningrad Russia

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 310 [18 January 2021]
or Business as Usual

Published: 18 January 2021

There is no lockdown in Kaliningrad, Russia. In fact, I think I am right in saying, and I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong, that there is no lockdown across Russia, and it would be deceitful of me if I did not say that when I see what is happening back home that I breathe a sigh of relief that I left the UK when I did.

I am not talking about the numbers, the figures, the statistics the doom and gloom wreaked by the UK media’s representation of how bad the virus is supposed to be, but about the lack of transparency, unambivalent information and, of course, the notorious punitive measures which no one in authority seems able or willing to say are actually making a difference, apart that is from ruining people’s livelihoods and subjecting many it seems to psychological and emotional duress.

No Lockdown in Kaliningrad, Russia

Here, for better or for worse, things continue to be pretty clear cut. We wear our masks, some of us reluctantly and others with zealous intent, where we are told that we are supposed to wear them ~ some of us ~ and we try to avoid large crowds and crowded places ~ some of us ~ and some of us self-isolate.

Bars, restaurants and shops are predominantly open as usual. Hospitality outlets appear to be implementing a table-distance rule, and some establishments close early. Masks are required inside public places, such as in shops, the working environment and on public transport. Also, when I travelled by train last week from Kaliningrad’s main railway station, I was subjected to an electronic temperature check before passing through the security gates.

I am able to report that among our social circle we know about eight people who have had coronavirus, both here and in the UK, or, to rephrase that for accuracy, have had a seasonal respiratory illness that has been classed as coronavirus, and, I am glad to say, whatever it is they have had, they have had it mild.

So far, I know of no one here, in Kaliningrad, Russia, who has had the vaccine and only my mother, in the UK, who is no spring chicken, and a friend of ours around the same age also in the UK, who have had their first jabs.

No Lockdown in Kaliningrad, Russia

The situation here regarding voluntary take-up of the vaccine, and not just the Russian vaccine but any vaccine, is no different than it was when I wrote about it last month: lots of recalcitrants and one or two wait-and-sees. Me? The jury’s out. My wife? No.

So, for the time being, at least, its Carry On Mask Grumbling and keep on taking the homemade vaccine: a combination of quality beers and vodkas. Come to think of it, I must be about due for my follow-up treatment.