Lock Down Diaries. Day 4.

OK desperate times call for desperate measures; I decided to bake a cake. Having two brownish bananas I look up Banana Loaf on the BBC good food site. Mouthermouse assured me we had all the ingredients so out with the electric scales, which I mastered on my New Man course some years ago. Butter, softened, fresh from fridge mixed with sugar to a ‘fluffy’ consistency: How the hell can a mix of butter and sugar get ‘fluffy’? Did best anyway. Mix in two eggs, good, and a little flour, fine, but I was a little concerned about the colour. It wasn’t quite as white as I remember it, but in for a penny in for 140gms of self raising and it all looked perfectly cake mixy with a little stirring. Add some baking powder and the two bananas into a pre greased tin for thirty minutes and asked Alexa for an alarm call. Then began putting up the solar outside light from Toolstation, which I heartily recommend. It also gave me time to look on the packet of self-raising flour. It turned out the grey colour was the result of its sell by date being Aug 15 as in 2015. This prompted me to look at the tub of baking powder, Dec 2011. Anyway out of the oven it looked lovely so I iced it with icing suger dated Oct 2015. I’ve have had a little but I’m not sure; don’t want to be the only family in lock down that died of food poisoning. And I don’t believe Mothermouse’s excuse that, “they must have been out of stock at Sainsburys due to the hoarders.”

Lock Down Diaries. Day 3.

Someone’s nicked our milk, the bastards! OAPs in lockdown and I’m going to have to jeopardise Mothermouse’s life to go get some more if the hoarders haven’t cleaned out Sainsburys already. But it’s prompted a topic on my mind yesterday. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to shame all those who act against our common good and applaud good sorts that act for it. Sorts like Garry Neville and Ryan Giggs, and unlike Richard Branson who’s just donated three pairs of used underpants to the NHS in appreciation of several multimillion pound contracts, or Jacob, the filth, Rees Mogg who’s already frantically buying up all the shares in crematoriums he can. We need to create a roster of sorts, from true heroes to filthy scum, from acclaim to the sort of shame that any amount of anti-viral hand jell will never get rid of. This calls for a national database. Anyone can enter a name and then anyone can look him/her up and enter a score. Nothing to do with wealth, looks, position or anything like that, just are they, in your personal opinion, a good or bad person. It could range from Heroic (+100) to Totally Despicable (-100) It’s the wisdom of crowds put to good use. One’s individual total divided by the number of entries will level out scores so Michael Gove doesn’t blow the internet. It’s the ultimate in group therapy. Everyone will know their own score and know that everyone else knows it too. They won’t be able to say ‘my face doesn’t fit’ or ‘he/she’s always picking on me’ or ‘it’s because I’m wealthy’ or ‘because I’m in public life’. No, if your score is over -80 it’s because you’re a total shit. End of. Get over it. Do something. Be proud of improving your score. Be nice, and return our milk!

Lock Down Diaries. Day 2.

Linda Sell’s sitting up! Phew. I don’t listen much to the Archers but I couldn’t live without that voice in the world. Oh but now my coffee’s got no sugar in it! It’s like all I’m doing is sitting around waiting for the Corvid to get me. Aren’t crows Corvids? Something’s changed. It’s day 2 and.. I mean why is up until two days ago I would happily mong around the house for days, even weeks quite happily mending a spatula or straightening a fork and now? Well it’s all pointless. What good is a straightened fork against.. I mean you can’t prong them like peas, the little bastards. I’m thinking we should cast the net of death tables a good bit wider than the daily virus scores. And don’t forget the little bastards are cynically taking all the credit for all the ‘underlying health problems’ too. Mark my words, two months on the wider death tables will be:- Corvid-180, suicide-105(underlying mental problems), starvation-673(underlying shopping problems), household accidents-448(underlying electrical faults) and domestic violence-1,003(underlying marital problems) We must not let the little bastards take all the credit for everything. And if I go down when our electric show falls into my bath I will insist, last dying breath, “it’s nowt to do wi’t that bloody virus, it was mi own stupid fault.” That’ll teach it. To be honest my low mood is because it’s raining, and that’s always been the case. I told Mothermouse my best chance was to get it early before the NHS is in lockdown to which she, always quick with a helpful suggestion, said, “Good idea. Why don’t you go out and lick a railing.”

Lock Down Diaries. Day 1.

Keep Discos Open. OK I’m giving away my age but seems to me fit young people have a duty to society to get Coronavirus ASAP to build up our immune cohort. Likewise OAPs while the NHS still has slots free on its seven ventilators. Likewise the Conservative Party must not appear in public until at least September: We must think about the public good. For the sake of our economy all institutions that just rake in money like tax collectors, landlords, insurance companies, and finance must immediately self-isolate and cease monetary transactions. Personal transport must be seen as extensions to the home provided they are solely used by the occupiers. The elderly need to see lambs in a field at least once a week. It is also imperative individuals take stock of their lives and cease any form of deception. Now is a good time to realise what lies, half lies and expedient untruths one uses for commercial gain. They will only worsen the effects of the pandemic. Conversely it’s also a good time to be joyful, to use one’s time in learning and creative pursuits; stand-up comedy for example, in the long weeks of isolation. Don’t be brought down by the irritating habit of your loved ones, rise above it. Just a quick slap and laugh about it afterwards. It’s also a good time to reflect on the short comings of our human society that can be so easily brought to its knees is a few short weeks, and that if we can’t outwit a virus the size of something very small with all our technology we can’t actually be very bright can we?

Coronavirus at Bedtime.

Fans of Dr Who will immediately recognise Coronavirus is an alien invasion. Its intergalactic advantage is that none of us can remember what we did in the last two weeks except of course if you were on a cruise. But there’s no doubt about it, Coronavirus is out to infect all of us given the chance. It’s strange to realise that such a dumb life form can have the malicious intent of a Bond villain but basically, it’s us or them. They can’t survive without us and, as they see it, a few humans deceasing prematurely is a small price to pay. So it’s our capacity to organise ourselves against their capacity to sneak across handshakes and sneezes that immediately disappear into the fog of history. And we mix and move like never before. I mean if we were all required to walk for a month things would be a lot simpler, and, in the vein of more helpful suggestions, if we were all issued with a forehead patch that changed colour when we were the least bit feverish. Identified carriers could hand in their phone to show where they’d been. But as we’re told simple things like not shaking hands, sneezing into tissues etc are the best ways of stopping transmission; if only we would think about it at the time, not the next time we watch the news! And why oh why doesn’t the government post a precise case by case map of the UK posted daily showing new ones dark blue and fading out to older ones? This ‘at a glance’ information will galvanise people at real risk to take precautions. With 4 in the whole of Wales and 51 in London it’s obvious who needs to wash hands most. And when a new one appears at 52 Tally Bont Street, Aberystwyth, who’s visited there from, say London? With the public mind informed it can organise itself but our government, seeing us as children, only placates us, assumes it knows better and keeps us in the dark assuming we’ll throw a tantrum like a two-year-old. As with all our other problems our PM’s advice to cabinet has been, “Tell them a bedtime story.”

The Prophet in Pakistan.

The case against blasphemy. The crowd was inflamed by the robed High Cleric, and calling for the young girl accused of blasphemy to be beheaded. Then a voice was heard from the crowd, “Is not the Prophet the highest, most wise and powerful amongst us?” The crowd cheered. “Am I by comparison an insignificant mortal human?” The crowd cheered again. “Am I not fit to touch the hem of his garments?” The crowd didn’t know this man but he must surely also be a cleric to debase himself so at the feet of his Prophet. Sensing the crowd was behind him the High cleric offered the man the microphone. Both men smiled and the man continued. “Who amongst us would commit blasphemy?” The crowd moaned negatively. “Who amongst us would not fight to defend the most wise and powerful?” He waited for the renewed cheers to die down. “And yet what might the Prophet think of our actions”, he paused, “when he is far wiser than us and far more powerful? Does it not dishonour him for us to consider he needs our paltry weak and ignorant help to succeed? Which one of us would truly feel the need of support from a paltry, infirmed beggar to achieve his success? And if that beggar took great pride in his insignificant actions to claim our success for himself would we not feel greatly aggrieved?” The crowd fell silent unsure where this was going. “We are followers of a great prophet who achieved great things and are we here like that beggar to claim his successes for ourselves; that without our defence the wise and most powerful would fail? Surely Allah is greatly aggrieved by such insolence.” The crowd became restless. This was not what they wanted to hear. The High cleric grabbed the mic back. “But the prophet is dead and we now are the living body of Islam. We alone can defend his name.” The man answered, “True. As you say you are defending his name. But what is that? Is what you believe in simply a name? If you honoured me would you defend my name or my way of being, my wisdom, joy and humility? Am I nothing because you don’t know my name? And if you knew it would that be most important? Would Allah in his wisdom be threatened by the words of a child and demand she be put to death? Would his wisdom countenance such a vicious retaliation believing his feelings were hurt? It is you who forget his greatness and in that forgetting are defaming the honour of our prophet, usurping it to the uses of your own ego’s paltry honour.” The crow murmured. “And are you not now offended by what I say and, in your mind, trying to invent some reason to dismiss me and consider me also blasphemous?” The crowd fell silent. “Brothers we must live by the wisdom of our prophet, his kindness, understanding, charity and love not commit sins of vengeance, brutality and hate in his name.” The man sat down. He was never seen again.

Zero emissions part 1

Our street is almost full of parked cars at night and roughly 50% full during the day. So ~40% are used daily and 50% are used for used intermittently for frequent short or rare long trips. A high proportion of the 40% used daily are for short trips to work and back. There are near 26 million cars licenced in England. So roughly two thirds of the 50% (35%) and three quarters of the 40% (30%), i.e.65%. are not in use at any one time so a comprehensive taxi service could cover all private car usage making 50 to 70% of private cars obsolete, i.e. ~15 million, an overall value saving of very roughly £400 billion. (the cost of buying and running a private car) But this doesn’t cut the overall emissions of all car journeys. If though a proportion of these saving were spent on electric taxis and busses to cover the actual 35% car usage, (100%-65%) we could get to zero emissions by making 2.4 million electric cars as opposed to 26 million. And if bus services were upgraded to provide say 50% of this mileage and a bus carries say 6 car loads this would need 1.2 million electric taxis and 200,000 busses. The conversion to electric of 1.2m taxi cars as opposed to 26m private one’s will be far quicker and save several hundred billion in private expenditure. Yes we would lose our own private car parked out front but gain clear streets. Yes we would pay for taxis but save all the hassle and expense of owning a car. Yes we might walk a bit more but that’s good. And yes there would be zero emissions and that’s good too.