Coronavirus
Seems that the public has become accustomed to the name and refuses to adopt the official “Covid-19” label.
As for our medical and scientific progress, look at this news item from 1918, prior to the arrival in New York of the worldwide “Spanish Flu”, which eventually killed millions.
“Soap and water” (and “fresh air”). Progress? What progress?
Note also the optimistic “will be less violent than [in 1917]”… which turned out to be quite mistaken.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2862336/
A New York Times report from 2009:
We do not yet know what is going to happen worldwide or in the UK in respect of the present outbreak, but the signs are worrying. The UK government response has been quite flabby: unco-ordinated, while giving out “fake news”, as suited thug Matt Hancock MP (only at the present time could such a person pose as a Cabinet minister), Secretary of State for Health, has done:
“Supermarkets have said Matt Hancock’s claim they will deliver food to those who are self-isolating over coronavirus fears was “totally made up”.
The health secretary said during a Question Time appearance on Thursday that the government was in talks with retailers about home deliveries.
“We are working with the supermarkets to make sure that, if people are self-isolating, then we will be able to get the food and supplies that they need,” he said.
However, supermarket sources have said they have not been involved in discussions.
“Matt Hancock has totally made up what he said about working with supermarkets,” one executive told the BBC. “We haven’t heard anything from government directly.”
They said sales of cupboard basics, such as pasta and tinned goods, had “gone through the roof”.
Teams were working “round the clock” to keep shelves stocked, he said, adding: “We are using processes and staffing levels we set up in case of a no-deal Brexit.”
The supermarket exec added: “While I think people don’t need to panic buy and should just shop normally, I’m not sure the government can guarantee all food supply in all instances.”
One senior executive accused Mr Hancock of lying and told The Times: “I am really angry about it.”
Another said the Department of Health had got in touch with his company for the first time on Friday.”
[The Independent]
A major problem in both the UK and USA is that the reins of “democratic” power are basically in the hands of idiots.
In the UK, we have someone posing as “Prime Minister” who shows every sign of repeating and enlarging upon his previous failures as journalist, editor, MP and Foreign Secretary (and that’s without even getting into his personal life), but doing that while intoning a rote-learned Latin or Greek tag, or making a silly joke.
In the end, for Boris-idiot, everything revolves around him, not in the sense of a Stalin, a Hitler, a Napoleon, who were centres of attention and power because they wished to achieve policy ends; in the case of Boris-idiot, the attention/power conflation is simply an end, indeed the end, in itself.
Below, a couple of well-meaning and logical tweets which will be totally ignored in the lemming-like rush to panic-buy:
https://twitter.com/mmingix/status/1236369004173897728?s=20
MPs at the trough
In the least surprising news of the week…
Priti Patel
Talking of dishonest freeloaders and expenses cheats…
More on the emerging pandemic
A recent survey of “advanced” countries showed Italy at the bottom of the list re. washing hands after using the bathroom etc. Only about 50% of Italians do. They are not very clean. Now see…
Foxhunting
We dislike the sadists who use dogs to (illegally) root out badgers etc, or those who abuse other animals in the wild or in domestic or farm settings, yet foxhunting still continues despite the (typically) badly-drafted Tony Blair law passed nearly 20 years ago.
Foxhunting is an old and admittedly colourful tradition, which started several hundred years ago after the royals and aristocrats had hunted larger game to extinction or near extinction in the UK, or where such animals had been driven away by farming: bear, wolf, deer etc. It is now an archaic and cruel spectacle and practice which has had its day and should be banned outright.
I have no objection to drag-hunting or trail-hunting, so long as they are not used as an excuse for hunting the fox.
If hunts continue to hunt foxes, they have to be closed down by law.
I might add, that, in view of the illegality which is common in hunts, both in their hunting and in their preparations etc, as well as in the violent way they deal with protestors, they could scarcely complain if a greater degree of direct action were to be used by those opposed to hunting. The police in most rural areas are, at the least, turning blind eyes, or are complicit with the flouting of the hunting law. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Action directe…
[above: me at a young age, about 1958, involuntarily among the foxhounds and foxhunters]
Marr and Sophy Ridge
Saw bits of both The Andrew Marr Show (BBC1) and the Sophy Ridge on Sunday effort (SkyNews). Marr I have always found a peculiar dog’s dinner: a newspaper review, some discussion, one or two political interviews, a showbiz section, then cabaret to finish, the last at 0950 or so on a Sunday morning! For me, the format does not work. Today, the talking heads were
- Israeli doormat, Priti Patel’s, former chief of staff (“No, Sir! She was no bully! No, Sir!”, which makes it rather odd that civil servants from three separate departments are lining up to denounce her and in some cases to sue her…); and
- a couple of women journalists, neither very interesting and one irritatingly loud as well.
After that, there was an interview with a woman in Geneva, maybe Australian or New Zealander, who apparently is an expert in epidemics or something but who had little of interest to say.
Finally, Andrew Marr turned to John McDonnell, who has recovered from the post-election shock (when he looked like a frail pensioner tipped out of his wheelchair and mugged), and who now once again affects that “John Prescott” fake bonhomie that means so…little. McDonnell is very obviously a humourless and unpleasant man.
McDonnell still at least pretends to believe that Labour has a future, even under one of the three not very wise monkeys now contesting the leadership. McDonnell today seemed to me like nothing so much as a bored pianist, hitting most of the right notes but without enthusiasm. Living conditions, pay, poverty etc…No mention of mass immigration, though, which overall is such a terribly negative factor in the UK’s society, stretching NHS, schools, policing, housing and all the other areas. Also, reducing pay for almost everyone. More people seeking jobs means lower pay, overall.
The same applies to more people wanting social security, and every other type of State aid for citizens.
One notices, on Twitter in particular, how many people still look to Labour for socio-political salvation, but they are sadly misguided.
https://twitter.com/rozzleberry/status/1236578652449640448?s=20
Corbyn was actually better than the “three unwise monkeys” who are now vying for leadership, but he failed to get sufficient voter support (yes, partly by reason of the Jewish campaign against him in the msm and on social media, so be it…).
At present, there is no reason to think that Labour can get greatly (or any) more voter support than it got at the 2019 General Election, though it is true to say that, in a sense, what happened to Labour last year could happen to the Conservative Party next time, meaning 2019 Con-voters staying home (far more Lab voters stayed home in 2019 than switched to Conservative). If that happens next time, Con and Lab could find themselves not far apart, amid voter apathy and/or discontent.
As for Sophy Ridge on Sunday, pretty underwhelming. The lady herself seemed out of her depth and seemed to be reading from a script. Maybe others do that too, but if so they do it in a more polished manner. I was not familiar with her background, so looked her up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophy_Ridge
Underwhelming, despite her career success at a relatively young age.
I doubt that I shall become a regular viewer.
A thought out of season
It could be that the Coronavirus peak in the UK will prove to be the biggest boon the criminal milieu has had since the Second World War blackout: police and courts, already stretched to the max, failing to function, streets empty, shops denuded of staff (both ordinary assistants and security staff). Not only that, but (if the epidemic is really bad) witnesses in trials failing to appear because unwell or deceased.
Disturbing people
People who play practical jokes rarely have a sense of humour. The newspaper report below features a couple perfectly happy to make their 3-y-o son unhappy in order to get Facebook “likes”. What appalling and stupid people.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/boy-3-left-gagging-after-21654153
The parents call that “harmless fun”. I think not. What does it teach the child? That it is OK to do silly, cruel things to others because you want to see them suffer? For so-called “fun”? These parents may well find that the seed they have planted turns into a tree which will fall on them in later years…
I find those parents, and others like them, disturbing. This is only a few steps removed from child abuse.
Labour Party poll
“Jeremy Corbyn is bequeathing his successor a Labour Party so out of touch with mainstream British values that almost half of its members are ‘ashamed’ of their own country’s history, according to a new poll. After four years with Mr Corbyn at the helm, barely one in three of the Labour faithful are proud of the nation’s past, compared to more than 50 per cent of voters.” [Daily Mail, citing a YouGov poll]
“More than half of Brits – 53 per cent – were proud of the last 300 years of the nation’s history. But only 29 per cent of Labour members agreed, while 48 per cent of them said Britain’s past in that period was something to be ashamed of.” [Daily Mail]
I see two factors at work here. First of all, “Brits” in this context will include the blacks, browns, and all the rest who have flooded in (or been born here) in the past half century or so. They are not fully “British”, not really. Why should these aliens feel patriotic about our country?
Apart from that, there is the basically anti-British bias in education. Nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale eclipsed by (black woman) Mary Seacole, who ran a tea-room for officers during the Crimean War. Just one of many examples.
Anyway, it is clear that the Labour Party is in a slow but probably terminal decline. So is the Conservative Party, though.
Late night music
The stunning Sadie Marquardt:
Ian Robert Millard 