The Lockdown Diaries (2)
Time for an open thread, in which to share links and bicker. I’ll set the ball rolling with three topical items.
Via Damian, tensions mount.
Via Julia, a lockdown mystery.
And via the Beagle, today’s word is improvisation.
For those in need of further diversion, the Reheated series is there to be poked at.
This morning, the ‘Guardian’ prints an article on Stephen King that I swear was meant for April 1st:
And now I want to see the authorities’ plans for precautionary steps against self-driving homicidal vehicles and supernatural killer clowns in the drainage system…
So many heroes and role models.
So many heroes and role models.
LOL Woke heroes.
LOL Woke heroes.
I’m not sure we need The Waltons In Space, you understand. But when you’re watching a supposedly progressive and inspirational space drama that, according to its star, its writers and its producer, is about “compassion” and “being better,” and “caring for the good of other people,” and yet the result is essentially joyless and morally bewildering, with almost every major character being angry or bitter, or grossly dysfunctional, or chronically homicidal (seemingly with impunity)… well, a raised eyebrow seems in order.
Actually, now that I say it out loud, The Waltons In Space…
[ Stares into middle distance, rubs chin.]
Aw, c’mon! Who didn’t cheer when Riker arrived to shoo off the Romulus fleet? A classic Trek moment.
Just me, then…?
Old Holborn invites us to peer into the future.
Just me, then…?
I blame it on her superhuman levels of gin consumption.
Everybody on our street likes the killer clown in the sewer. No more phony roofers in spring. No more pushy Mary Kay ladies. No more petitions. I have nothing against petitions in general, but we are only 7 miles from a very snooty and very expensive college so you can imagine the kind of petitions we get asked to sign. Example: their agriculture department was raising chickens 🐓. Some of the chickens are starting to poop out. There’s a petition going around not to cook them.
In response to Old Holborn’s question What do you think will change when this is all over? what I think will happen:
The state will use COVID-19 as an excuse to grab more power and squeeze more money out of the populace, ‘for their own good’. The pandemic models will be declared correct. The difference between the catastrophic fatality numbers predicted and the actual numbers will be declared to be a consequence of the brave decision to shut down and wreck the economy. This logic will then be applied to the green scam. Expect governments to double down on expensive bullshit.
The only positives:
More people will realise that being suspicious of and hostile to fascist China is very sensible indeed.
Respect for the mainstream media will plummet. Ideally, this will result in someone punching Piers Moron in the throat.
Britain in a year’s time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnd1jKcfBRE
Old Holborn invites us to peer into the future.
More working from home.
If we’ve any sense we’ll stop outsourcing our medical supply chains to China.
Taxes will go up.
For reasons that escape me, and despite my efforts to correct, the spam filter is mightily vexed by Julia and MC. If anyone has trouble with comments not appearing, email me (top left) and I’ll apply generous amounts of lubricant.
The state will use COVID-19 as an excuse to grab more power and squeeze more money out of the populace, ‘for their own good’.
Cheshire Constabulary, from my neck of the woods. This popped up on my FB feed earlier today; from what I can glean from the legislation, under Schedules 20 and 21 to the Coronavirus Act 2020, the police do not have any powers to issue interdictions such as “you should not be driving to a location away from your home to carry this out”.
A moment’s thought would expose this mindset for the charlatanry which it is; Britain is not currently under total lockdown and we are still able to, for instance, drive to the supermarket to do food shopping. Despite all the “two metre” hazard warning tape and “one in/one out” marshalling, you are probably far more likely to either pass on or contract the virus in Waitrose/Sainsbury’s/wherever than you are in a small car park on the edge of a 1,000 acre forest wilderness. This is 21st century Dibble for you.
Even more dispiriting are the comments, both on social media and BTL in most online newspapers to the likes of this kind of overreach by “the authorities”. I am utterly dispirited by the prod-nosed, sanctimonious and downright nasty attitudes of far too many of my fellow Brits. Once upon a time I fondly imagined that “The Lives Of Others” could never be played out in real life in this country because, well, “we just aren’t like that”.
Unfortunately, we are. I believe MC is correct in his predictions and the really sickening thing is that far too many of our fellow citizens will lap this up, especially if it means protecting “muh NHS” (and no, neither Mrs. Oik nor I joined in with that fatuous clapping thing. It was all a bit too North Korean for our liking).
Cheshire Constabulary, from my neck of the woods.
Who would have thought that the government enacting legislation to give additional powers to the police would result in this sort of behaviour?
We’re always bleating on in this country (i.e. the UK) about how everything we’ve done is the envy of the world etc. etc. Most of this stuff is untrue, but in the case of the British police force, other countries genuinely did look to the UK with envy (or at least the citizens of other countries, if not their governments).
Alas, in my lifetime, the police force has transformed into an army of squat, resentful bullies and spiteful Guardian-reading half-wits. The only sensible thing to do is to limit their powers as much as possible, but somehow I don’t see a back-lash against authoritarianism as a likely outcome of the current situation.
Via Julia, a lockdown mystery.
This is how we’ll communicate in the future. 🙂
This is how we’ll communicate in the future. 🙂
Well, so far – and so far as I can tell – people have been a little friendlier than usual. I seem to have registered more smiles and general forbearance. How long this will last, I couldn’t say.
Ooh, the plot thickens.
I seem to have registered more smiles and general forbearance.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
I think I shall join Spongebob out and about.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
Yes, I suspect this is a honeymoon period. There’s a certain novelty. But I’ve decided to go with the air of bonhomie, however temporary. A visit to the local M&S Food Hall proved remarkably civilised. No queue, and it was fairly well stocked, barring items with antibacterial content. A very nice woman greeted me and, after some spraying, handed me a freshly disinfected basket.
When this is over, I may not want to go back to undisinfected shopping baskets. Like some peasant.
Day 13 of a 14 day self isolation. Thought I was doing ok till I happened to watch an episode of Loose Women and realised I was having erotic thoughts about Janet Street Porter! Come, corona, come take me now!!
realised I was having erotic thoughts about Janet Street Porter
[ Reaches for spray bottle of hamster urine. ]
the spam filter is mightily vexed by Julia and MC
It’s never liked me.
‘Ere, landlord! That stuff yer sprayin’ is out of the same tap as this ‘alf yer just pulled me!’
‘Ere, landlord! That stuff yer sprayin’ is out of the same tap as this ‘alf yer just pulled me!’
[ Summons henchlesbians. A struggle ensues. ]
In entirely unrelated news, I’m now offering patrons the chance to buy our home-made hand-sanitiser.
I can’t vouch for the fragrance. Oh, and it’s probably best not get it in your eyes.
Or on fabrics.
He does This better than you do…
On leftist academia and its standards.
Heh.
Via Dicentra.
And via the Beagle, today’s word is improvisation.
Sigh. You could duct tape a paper towel to your face and save some shred of dignity, rather than this.
This is not the answer, people!
The Cheshire Constabulary wrote “[…] or to walk you dog.”
I’m not sure how to parse that one.
On leftist academia and its standards.
The bachelor’s degree used to be shorthand for “this candidate has intellect and perseverance.” Now it means very little, apart from some tribal affiliation between those who cheer for the same team.
In my current practice, the marker is calculus. If a candidate can recognize and understand something like the exponential survival function in the context of equipment reliability, then we figure they’re worth taking a closer look at.
Advertising one’s pronouns has much the opposite effect.
Easy. “Or to walk, you dog.”
Almost, Lady CK.
It’s “Or to walk, you dog IYKWIMAITYD.”
leftist academia
Way back in 1974 when I first went to UC Berkeley, 40% of the incoming class were ineligible for “English 1A”, one of the required humanities courses for all freshmen. A new class, “English Prep” had been invented to try to bring them up to the level where they could start actual university work. God only knows what their typical math, science, or history skills were.
This problem was even then blamed on the university itself for some unfathomable reason (though UC begging for funding was no doubt at the root). It had been clear to me for years, just from observing my own peers at one of the best public high schools in the US, that maybe 20% were barely literate, and the school was not really interested in dealing with that issue. Better to graduate them and make them someone else’s problem.
When “everyone should go to college” is the accepted maxim colleges become competitors in a market of barrel-bottom scraping.
“Only 31 percent of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it. That’s not saying much for the remainder.”
Almost as if on cue …
[L]ate capitalism has always been a death cult. The tiny-minded incompetents in charge cannot handle a problem that can’t be fixed simply by sacrificing poor, vulnerable, and otherwise expendable individuals. Faced with a crisis they can’t solve with violence, they dithered and whined and wasted time that can and will be counted in corpses. There has been no vision, because these men never imagined the future beyond the image of themselves on top of the human heap, cast in gold [ … ] To the rich and stupid, many of the economic measures necessary to stop this virus are so unthinkable that it would be preferable for millions to die.
And that’s only a touch over 100 words.
The whole thing is just over 1,000.
Imagine that.
leftist academia
In the late 1970s I studied at two US universities. I had been teaching in Australian schools for 5 years previously, including teaching English Expression. I found that many [undergraduate] US students considered writing an essay longer than one page a terrifying challenge. Most were used to multiple ‘guess’ testing, whereas writing long essays was the norm for me as a student and I loved writing.
Jim
I’ll apply generous amounts of lubricant.
But what about the spam filter?
“But what about the spam filter?”
Given that your last name is “Ream”, I’m not surprised by that response. 🙂
Ideally, this will result in someone punching Piers Moron in the throat.
My wife ridicules me for carrying around brass knuckles, but you never know when such a wonderful opportunity might arise.
Given that your last name is “Ream”, I’m not surprised by that response.
I’m descended from a long line of copy paper barons.
Given that your last name is “Ream”, I’m not surprised by that response.
“Dibbler” would be less triggering. [Checks Google Maps for location of nearest Safe Space]
“I’m descended from a long line of copy paper barons.”
snerk Well played.
erotic thoughts about Janet Street Porter
Hmm. That kinda sorta might sound like a microbrewery product…
Or not.
Don’t know what to think of all of this but I am disturbed by how meekly people have acquiesced to what is effectively marshal law in much of the world.
Here in WA, confirmed cases 650, population 2.5 million over a vast area; population Perth is 2 million of those – mostly in suburban areas, comparatively little high density housing. All playgrounds in this sunny part of the world have been closed – thank god I don’t have young children.
We are moving to online learning in schools for the foreseeable future. What I do know is that educational disadvantage is going to be exacerbated. Where I work 25% of our students don’t have access to computers and/or internet, we will send them home with ‘work packages’ to complete and no access to any resources – all of the libraries are closed.
I also worry about my mum living in a 4th floor flat in Melbourne. I was going to go in the holidays to make sure she is ok – but we are effectively banned – would need to quarantine in Melbourne for two weeks and then two week here when I got back. Would do it but because it is non-essential travel I would lose two weeks pay that I can’t afford. I don’t worry about her getting the virus but her mental health. She can’t even go to mass (very important to her) and cannot access online services (she doesn’t even use ATM’s).
I also have friends, supporting families and paying mortgages, who work in retail now unemployed and not sure what the future holds.
I am anxious – but my anxiety is not related to contracting the virus, it is about how we came to a place where we are prepared to live in a police state with no end in sight, kids losing access to their education and many, many people losing their livelihoods
On the bright side my knitting project is progressing at the rate of knots, we have toilet paper and they haven’t banned alcohol yet. The only thing I have felt the need to start hoarding is cases of plonk – I am not risking being locked up and having to be sober.
FFS now this: https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/coronavirus-world-live-updates/live-coverage/e1b671dad7fbefca160fff0a69e30a87
Way to start a another round of panic buying – idiots.
Almost as if on cue…
Even given Laurie’s usual reliance on unearned assertion and florid non sequitur, all piled high, that’s quite a wreck.
Was Wired always this bad?
Bloody hell, Mitchell and Webb are looking more and more prophetic by the day!
https://youtu.be/4jJ203Q-lyk
Almost as if on cue…
“[L]ate capitalism has always been a death cult… Capitalism cannot imagine a future beyond itself that isn’t utter butchery.”
Wut?