Lockdown Tales: Are We Doing The Right Thing?

Some genius from XR was saying the government are to be writing out to people telling them that lockdown conditions are set to get harsher. I've no idea if this is true, XR are unfortunately prone to hyperbole. I'm not sure what this means. In fact I'm not even sure the post is working! My greatest fear: rationing. Though I think that (hope to god!) unlikely as it would be an administrative nightmare. Not that that ever stops these idiots in charge.

I just put the bins out. A very weird experience for something so mundane. But that's how it is now. Everything has a weird yet invisible sheen. As if the perimeter of the property, when I place the bins, has some social shielding I must not breach. I feel the eyes of the neighbourhood peering out to ensure correct protocols are enforced. Are the bins even 'clean'? What will I catch from the bins after they have been cleaned? A million insane questions spin; the product of a world gone mad.

Sometimes I wonder if we are overreacting. It's hard to think so without coming across as a conspiracy peddler or an attention seeker. But yet, as I've said before, we must have perspective. The XR clip spoke of a death count as if it was some biblical slaughter. People have died, of course they have. Denying that is grotesque. But excess winter deaths are always high, even with 'regular' flu which we can vaccinate against. Is this the right approach?

Honestly? 

I don't know. Maybe lockdown is necessary because our government have so spectacularly fucked up. That is indisputable. They've not just been caught with their pants down; they've actively stood in front of a charging bull called Covid, pulled their pants down themselves and painted their arses bright red. This is a horrible mess of their own making. Now we are paying the price, whatever the correct course of action may be. I guess only time will tell. In many ways whether or not I agree doesn't really matter since they aren't going to listen to me.

This is only week 2! They say truth is always the first casualty of war.

I think we can all agree that this should have been dealt with earlier, and more thoroughly. Test, trace, quarantine where necessary. We didn't. 

But on the other hand, it's a certainty surely that there are more people who have been infected/are infected than is being recorded. It is also quite credible to assert the virus has been circulating in Britain for longer. Which means we can compare it to the seasonal flu figures (which are collected or the totality of the season). Is it as bad? What does it mean if it is given that we don't lockdown the country over the flu. I hate to sound like Peter bloody Hitchens of all people (because he's a self righteous anachronism), but this is a valid inquiry and, if nothing else, I want to believe this can be better and not the doom laden scenario prophesied by the likes of XR.

But maybe they're right

Lockdown Tales: Hold Them To Account

Mother dearest had an Amazon delivery today.

Never has the arrival of a cooker been so confusing and terrifying. Do you leave it on the doorstep, staring at it hoping your eyesight can disinfect whatever germs lay hidden on the surface? Eventually she put on some marigolds and opened it up. Ultimately pointless, since you'd have to forensically clean everything at every stage, including yourself, until you reached the point where the product itself remained, cleaned.

Yeah, that didn't happen. If, at any stage in the packaging and delivery process, the virus got transferred onto this then we're fucked. To be honest, what realistically can you do? At some point you have to let go. Given how overworked Amazon staff are at the best of times I think it's only a matter of time before someone there catches, then inevitably spreads, the virus. I would assume that Amazon aren't in the habit of caring for their staff such that they'll be testing them.

So that's us then.

I'm starting to forget what it was like when things were normal. As far as normality goes in the pre-climate collapse capitalist crisis era. Something was boudn to go wrong, though I'd have preferred it to be something less...bacterial. It's pretty obvious human civilisation is undergoing a radical shift. Neoliberalism, dare I say it, has run its course, surviving on the fumes of credit and the desperation of powerful men that depend on it. Even now, while their societies splutter into oblivion they cling to this dream. Too frightened of change.

But change we must. To live again. Something is waiting to be born. It cannot be denied. It is screaming inside each of us. Whether individually and collectively we deny this will decide the coming period. Either we win or the ruling elite enforces harsher systems and increased austerity while the poor, predictably, get the blame. Don't fool yourself: that's exactly what will happen. The poor and the sick - the marginalised - will be scapegoated. Already the west are trying to blame China, ignorant of the fact that, as ground zero for the outbreak, they may be useful allies in dealing with it.

The capitalists revert to type. Parochial scapegoating, othering and racism are par for the course for the clowns currently in charge. Let us hope that is not for much longer. I cannot, in all reason, believe they can survive this. Surely this amount of fatal incompetence can only be met with the boot. Right up Johnson's fat self entitled arsehole.

Yet we know these slippery bastards have the means to survive. The media will rally around, questions that should be asked will go unspoken. Journalists exist now to serve the status quo. Never to question. It will be decades, generations, until the truth - probably in the form of a docu-drama (or reality show) - is revealed. Why our government, back then in 2020, fucked up so spectacularly. Until then, when the dramatis personae have dramatis passed away, they will redouble their efforts to oppress and obfuscate.

This must not be allowed to happen. Our eyes are open. We see  you.

Weekender 2: Longer Rays From An Old Sun

Ah the Summer we'd all rather forget is about to happen. Or maybe it will turn out good and the virus will recede or even disappear (at least enough for some semblance of normality). We simply do not know.

I fear I may be getting lax in keeping a daily blog. I try to avoid the news. It's just too depressing and too overwhelming. Inevitably the death rate will increase. In fact that isn't as alarming as it might sound (clearly it's awful, and I fully blame our Clown Car Crew flaccidly calling themselves a government). We know that recorded cases of the virus represent those in hospital; people already sick enough to run a greater than perhaps 'average' risk of dying. This skews our perception of the threat posed. So it isn't surprising that death rates will rise from among that cohort. It takes time for the virus to do it's evil work. People aren't dying the moment they contract the virus; their is a lag. They go into hospital, stay sick, and eventually pass (or recover - hopefully the latter). So it doesn't mean the virus is killing more people in the way you might imagine as it cleaves through the community, but that those already sick are finally reaching an outcome.

Furthermore, the news will not divulge comorbidities or existing health conditions. Even that young woman who was mentioned...they say she was otherwise healthy. But as far as the news is concerned what does that mean? The government considers eating what is, quite frankly, rubbish (grains, cereals, a whole host of inflammatory foods) to be a 'balanced' (i.e. healthy) diet. She could have smoked, enjoyed a drink now and again - just enough to be 'normal', but that's not a synonym for healthy.

Anyway. Let's leave that there for now; I'm not a scientist.

It's the first day of Summer. A day I normally mark, even though, these days, it's a lot colder at this time of year than childhood memories affirm. Perhaps that's how the climate has changed, or perhaps I just remember poorly and 'twas ever thus. I'd like to think otherwise: I always associate the elongation of the day, the start of summer time, with the warmth of the widening rays. It feels cleansing to do so. It feels right

I mark this time on the psychic calendar; to manage the days. More so now that we find ourselves in this difficult period; unprecedented. We can say goodbye to Winter (hopefully - I hear it's been snowing). As a reward for strength of soul through the dark months, we are blessed by Mother Sun. Ra raises us up. Atem-tion!. Hopefully it won't be long before we can say goodbye to the Corona virus.

Maybe this can be a turning point. That is it's purpose for me. The value of the aforementioned psychic calendar. A way to map out the days to pace yourself and prepare throughout the year as the seasons shift and change and the days grow long and short. Some can stumble through the days; they seem to tumble down the stairs of our lives always landing softly on the feathers of good fortune. That person is not me. This is about a spiritual map; a mandala if you will. One can navigate life on an emotional level this way. It's why, I believe, we benefit rom traditions that mark things like the harvest, the end of the year, the return of spring, etc.

I think we need them now, more than ever.

Weekender 2: We May Be Here A While

The weather's changed: gotten colder and windier. Hopefully this won't last for too long. I could say the same thing about the wider situation. Unfortunately I'm starting to really feel that isn't going to be the case.

The likelihood of there being a vaccine any time soon is slim. It took a long time for SARS to get one. Perhaps they can build on that, I hope so. What is needed now is a concerted, and sadly unprecedented, global effort. Capitalism won't like that. No profit in it.

So here we are.

There's a possibility that the summer heat (and perhaps early summer heat - global warming we need you!) could force the virus into recession (much like the economy). But can our country survive like this until then. That's three months away, and even then it only really ramps up around July/August. I cannot see this situation sustaining until then.

If it does then it will move into the global south where, next winter, there is every chance of it returning here. I have no faith in our leaders' taking advantage of a period of calm to do anything practical or preparatory. So what happens then; shut down again? How can a country survive like that? Coming out of economic hibernation every summer before shutting down the rest of the year. The answer is they cannot.

If there is a period of respite - and hopefully something better - then that must be exploited. We must push hard for new leaders and new leadership if that's what it takes. But our economy will be battered. They will try and inflict further austerity, of that you can be sure. If the answer to the crisis of 2007/8 was austerity then what now if not the same? I don't even want to think about how much more can be cut.

We may be fighting for our lives in more ways than one.

Our leaders have failed us in the worst possible way - and don't forget (as if you could) that in December Brexit time's up and we are set to crash out. You might hope that won't happen all thigs considered, but we cannot count on the Tories to really care about that. Especially under Coris the (coughing) Clown.

We could well see the onset of genuine societal collapse.

I want a better world. But at the same time I am currently so out of my comfort zone. This situation is continually scary. There is no pressure valve here. I have to find things to do, which, fortunately so far, hasn't been too difficult, but there is no break from this. The longer it goes, the harder it will be. When the weather turns, even going for a walk (which I could do more as I'm lucky to have the space nearby - and no police drones) is difficult. You might think, then, that staying at home is all the more appealing. But when there are no restrictions on going out it isn't a problem to choose not to, paradoxically.

This is difficult. I imagine there are plenty of people struggling right now. They are going to struggle more in the coming weeks, if not days. Finding things to do isn't impossible, I have tings to do, it's knowing that you have to that causes the frustration.

That is all I have to say for now. I wanted these posts to be more upbeat, or at least quirky. But right now, I think I need to vent. That's likely to happen more and more I'm afraid.

Weekender 2: Self Isolated Boogaloo

Seems like only a week ago I did my first diary entry called Weekender. How time flies :D

The weather is noticably cooler today. It's set to get a bit colder still over the weekend, and hopefully not much beyond. All normal of course, about the only thing that is right now. I bought some Bok Choy and some garlic this morning. Our local shop is not cheap, but it is local and a shop. I've spent a small fortune on food these last few days, but it should see me through the next fortnight. Who knows where this situation will be then. Hopefully Batman will have created a vaccine to save us from the Joker's plague. Maybe not.

Sometimes I feel it getting to me. I hope I can endure. I ask myself what else I would be doing in normal times. Probably nothing majorly more productive. I can't lie though I do want normality. Activists are saying things cannot return to normal. That may be true, I guess it depends on the power of the media to persuade everyone how wonderful the Tories and capitalism is. Even so it would be nice not to have to worry about death by shaking hands. Or worry that the food chain is going to collapse. Or that some damn fool politician with a lightbulb up his arse is going to introduce rationing and compulsory singing of the national anthem. I think some believe this to be a crisis that's part Blitz spirit and part holiday camp. Die die hi! I've long suspected Blitz spirit to be an urban myth - no one really enjoyed living under the terror of Nazi bombs. They just wheel that trope out in tough times to reinforce nationalist tendencies. These are nowt more than a precursor to fascism.

Truly though we cannot return to normal. There must be an impetus toward positive change, once the bacteria bombs have stopped dropping. The Tories must not be allowed to pretend everything's fine. The economy will be evidence of that with all signs pointing to a situation beyond a recession. There could even be worldwide depression; I have no idea what that looks like. Would it eclipse the 1920's?

The truth of austerity has been laid bare, as if more evidence were needed. But we're still (as far as I know) headed for Brexit. I've no idea if that madness has been cancelled. Doubtless Boris the clown doesn't want that, but he may have no choice. But again who can say where we'll be at the end of the year when the transition period expires. Back to panic buying bog roll I suppose. Maybe that's the future. Maybe all those future books I read as a kid were really just coded warnings about a future without toilet paper. Various designs for robot bidets and nanotech arsewipes.

Finally, it isn't without some schadenfreude that I note Matt Hancock, the Tory health secretary (as if you didn't know) has reportedly contracted COVID19 (why caps, why?). So how did that happen? How many hospitals has he wandered around infecting? He could be the most dangerous man in the country right now! Nature seems to be doing the job of the working class right now in bringing these bloody Tories down.

Don't worry they can't last forever.

Lockdown Tales: The Dawn Poor Us

Off I go for a morning walk. Still cold. Actually not something I really would want to continue otherwise, but it seems a decent time to stretch the legs when few people will be around. I'm lucky that I have the capacity and space to do this so I'd be a fool not to take advantage. I feel for foilk stuck in the urban sprawl who would find getting some fresh air tough.

Unfortunately it is also proving to be the only time to get food. Like the post apocalypse scenario: dawn rises and the scavs rise from the gutter and the sewerscapes to forage for junk parts and old tins of something called S P A M.

The shop situation is crazy: it's at once busy, which is good for business, but at the same time the buying frenzy is like a plague of contactless payment locusts. There's nothing left but the beep. It will - must - stabilise. What else can be said.

Getting what I need isn't impossible, but the effort required rather negates the notion of 'infrequent' the OverGov declares we must undertake. The situation is exacerbated by the limited choice of shopping venue mandated by the crisis. Normally I'd bus into town and get what I need. Not no more. When it comes to whereabouts you are quarantined it's very much a case of swings and roundabouts.

I don't really see how this situation can continue, in all honesty. They said three weeks. I suspect (without a shred of evidence) that Boris will relent in some fashion thereafter. But that may not be wise, and it may not even happen. Or it may get worse. Though I don't see any value in curfews for example, even considering how far down the poison rabbit hole we've come.

I'm still uncertain about what I presented yesterday. The Oxford study claim that Corona has already inftected much of the population is interesting, perversely even hopeful, but unsubstantiated. It is being refuted by many as being premature and lacking evidence. Hopefully that evidence can be provided. I'm beginning to believe we must return to normalcy as soon as possible. I don't know which is worse: capitalism or COVID. Both are shit, let's just agree with that. Both are also incompatible. Capitalism won't cure it.

I regularly sit outside at around 3pm (come and wave from a socially distanced point beyond my garden fence). The weather remains most clement. The book I'm enjoying, in the Corona Book Club, is Malice, John Gwynne's fantasy novel (because that's how I roll). There are a lot of characters to keep track of, but the writing is none too taxing. It seems like a pretty standard, fun, fantasy romp set in a society reminiscent of ancient Britain.

That is where I shall leave it today. Happy Thursday.

Lockdown Tales: Sitting in the Garden, Trying to Maintain Perspective

Today I am going to present three articles for your delectation. The weather is lovely, which certainly lifts the mood. I've enjoyed sitting in the garden reading, doing a little meditation, and some yoga (I'm so new age) in the evening. Lovely in the starlight, if it's not too cold. There's still a touch of frost in the air. Yet it's so eerily quite outside at night. I put the bins out and suddenly felt very self conscious doing so!

Anyway. I hope you's lot are coping. It's all we can do for now. I've also been following a couple of nature twitter feeds which are soul nourishing, including Chris Packham of Springwatch. He has been putting out some quality wildlife work from his home/garden. I think he should be knighted for this, personally (if he isn't already, I'm not entirely sure). There's also the #solaceinnature and #wildlifefrommywindow hashtags, and the Self Isolating Bird Club account, for those interested. Lovely stuff: far less depressing than being overwhelmed by the multitude of corona hashtags..

So these articles are interesting because I feel they help put things into some sort of perspective. Something we desperately need right now, to keep us sane. COVID19 (caps?) is serious, as is the seasonal flu. Of course we can vaccinate the latter. But nonetheless panic is not helping anyone, no more than our dreadful inept PM.

The first, from the FT, questions whether Corona may have already infected half the population. (there may be a paywall). At first blush this seems horrifying. Certainly, given the government's complete failure to test adequately, it would be foolish to think there weren't more people carrying/infected than there are recorded cases. Those would be the ones serious enough to warrant hospital admission.

This seems to suggest that, if herd immunity is possible with COVID19 (don't know why I'm using caps), then, if so many people are infected, then herd immunity might well work. I'm not suggesting this was a good police but we don't really have anything else after all. Government should have been more prepared and more vigilant: testing tracing quarantining. It could also means the crisis could perhaps 'end' sooner. If true (if!) then that's good, surely.

Zoe Harcombe, a very thorough nutrition expert and researcher whom I follow, posted this article. It is intended to reassure. The take home is that we should maintain both vigilance, good hygiene, and perspective.

I leave it to you to read and make of what you will. I do not want to tell people what to think say or do; this is a scary time. Potentially terrifying: one moment you're sat in the garden reading a nice book, the next thing you're reading that a young girl otherwise claimed to have no underlying health conditions (which doesn't mean she was fit and healthy living on a good diet etc) has sadly been lost to the disease.

There will be people who, when the vaccine comes, will receive the inoculation and still die. Just as there are 17,000 people that died from seasonal flu which can be vaccinated. Apparently healthy people drop dead. It, sadly, happens; though of course infections don't help.

But 17,000 didn't seem  to overwhelm the NHS in quite the same was this outbreak could. I'm not suggesting we shouldn't anticipate the worst, that's what government should have done. But I don't even think the worst cases we've seen across the world thus far (and hopefully never see) come that close at all. Furthermore there would have been more people that got sick with flu but didn't die. Our NHS seemed to have coped. As it does yearly. Which isn't to say it isn't overworked and underfunded because we know that to be the case, thanks to deliberate Tory misrule.

Lastly, and perhaps a bit conspiratorially, there's this. Now this comes from an official source (or I'm a gullible fool). But it seems odd to read "as of 19 March 2020, COVID19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious diseases (sic) in the UK". On the face of it that would fly in the face of everything we are told. It's possible that is a very specific scientific term and that it doesn't mean COVID isn't serious and dangers, nor am I saying otherwise.

Consider who is in charge. Capital faces a huge crisis right now and one doesn't need to be Oliver Stone to know that the ruling class makes laws and changes to keep power centralised. It's been doing that for the last ten years under the Tories. It's stripped away the rights of many, and plans to do so more with its Emergency legislation. While it is right to respond to crises, whatever the shape of your society, one must always, as a private citizen, question the motives. Apply Tony Benn's five questions:

1. What power have you got?
2. Where did you get it from?
3. In whose interests do you use it?
4. To whoom are you accountable
5. How do we get rid of you?

This last is perhaps the most important.

Meanwhile, wash your hands, take care, don't be an arse :D

'Till tomorrow.

Lockdown Tales: Healthy House Arrest

So we are finally here. May whatever gods you believe in - science! - have mercy on our souls. This is unprecedented. The culmination of capitalist decline manifested through the microbial world to wreak havoc on our very bodies.

There is no going back from this. Our society has now fundamentally changed. Last night a clown, who forgot to put on his make up, announced to the nation that, because he screwed up, the country was in lockdown. We are paying the price for the intransigence and incompetence of the last and final expression of a pestilent economic system. It has failed, and so have they.

What this means remains - at least to my addled brains - vague. You can go out but you can't. You can go to the shops but you can't. You must remain at home except when you can't. I don't see how this can work, even when, ostensibly, the reasons are sound: no one wants this bloody disease. Will this affect mutual aid networks? Surely not!

Unfortunately, because the powers that be failed to act earlier , it will be us paying the price. The working class. Make no mistake whatever else this is it is class war. Just look at what is being proposed in the Emergency Powers Bill. As well as giving vague (ie sweeping) opowers to cops and immigration scumbags, it makes provision for local councils to have their duty of care for the vulnerable removed. Though you might well ask who would notice?

I don't see how on earth this can be enforced (which isn't to advocate for recklessness). Again it will be the working class that gets the blame. We can all point at a few idiots in soccer shirts drinking their way thriugh La Macarena on the beach, when, really, that's a bit fucking stupid. But what about the bosses needlessly dragging people in to work when they could work from home, or when they really shouldn't (cough cough). It's easy to pick on the working class, but idiots on beaches are a product of class war politics and media malign: the demonisation of the poor.

Make no mistake this is the close of a chapter of our society. The page ends spattered in the blood of the vulnerable and the poor. Again. That is what you must remeber: that is always how it ends. When it happens it proves the point: capitalism doesn't - cannot - work. That's it. Let their be socialism. The government are asking for a quarte of a million NHS volunteers! Vindication, if indeed a most hollow victory. A terrible toll is being exacted. It cannot be for nought.

Where we go from here will be decided with class consciousness and activity. We are now all in this together and locking our doors is at best a temporary solution. I hope it helps. I'm not advocating people ignore it, obviously! I am saying that in the absence of leadership direction and a strategy to fight a pandemic, which we lack, this is unsustainable. Are the cops going to arrest everyone who goes out for a walk? This strategy is more practical in built up/urban areas. Here? I'm not so sure.

And consider: what can the state actually do to punish people? Arrest them? Fine them? This is capitalism's failings utterly exposed. It will expose the police, overstretched already, to the virus. Locking people up puts them further at risk. It criminalises people with consequences to come further down the line. Can our system cope with Covid rebels? Fining just impoverishes people. I get it's meant as a deterrent but you'll just end up pushing people into desperation - the sort of stupidity that currently forces people without financial security to keep working when they may be infectious.

The government claimed to have abandoned their hideously malformed "herd immunity" play. The rest of the world were aghast at such stupidity. But the reality is that it's the default position, and it remains so, in lieu of proper testing and quarantining (as practiced by such commie bulwarks as South Korea and Vietnam). Doing nothing means letting the infection run rampant. We can try to flatten the curve, I hope we succeed because this is going to take a considerable psychic toll on the nation (if I'm any indicator).

Capitalism has no answer. As we say goodbye to society we must realise it's never coming back. Not in the shape we used to know. If people can't go to shops other than supermarkets then half the high street has just been wiped out. That's going to devastate the economy. If capitalism doesn't relent and the economy not put in the people's hands then there will be dire consequences. But the Tories have no answer. The humourless clown at the helm doesn't really know what to do. He forgot his face paint. How much longer can this charade continue?

So in short: fuck capitalism once again. Take care

Virus Diaries: The Nice Day That No One Wanted

It's starting to get nice.

The weather that is. Everything else threatens to remain the same unfolding overwhelming horror that we've enjoyed so far this year. I'm not sure I can go on talking like that. It's probably not healthy. But it is cathartic.

Morning stares me in the face earlier and earlier, until the clocks go forward next week. Normally a cause for celebration. Spring has arrived. Enjoy the day. Carpe diem and all that. Only now it just blazes through my window like an unwelcome fire, licking at my door.

The days are getting longer when I'm not sure I want that right now. One of the saving graces of the shorter days of winter is that when the sunsets you can draw the curtain on a bad day, or a gloomy day. Not so in the summer. The day stands tall and long in all its morning glory. Of course the days are all the same length, but I think I want to be fooled: the shorter the day, the quicker this crisis ends.

I notice the vibe is one of "in the coming weeks". Everything is going to exponentially harder, tougher, worse, deadlier. Not now. Not the present levels of panic buying or the symptoms everywhere of society shutting down (except all the people not social distancing of course). No, this is a dry run for the final expression of this eschatonic epidemic. Will I be able to finally leave the house? They say we'll be like Italy in the coming weeks.

So, that's great then. Strapped in to a roller coaster ride slowly cresting before the inevitable stomach ripping drop. What lies at the trough? It's already tough out there. I just went to the Tesco for my mother. That experience has changed beyond all recognition. My senses are haunted: shopping now stinks of disinfectant. I'm afraid it will taint the taste of food. This is cognitive warfare! Now there's a proximity alarm when people leave so you can give them distance before entering behind them. The tills have a distance barrier warning people to keep theirs before being served. There was some stock, but it's still painfully obvious people are stocking up. When will it end? This is shopping in the fallout zone. Supermarket Geiger Sweep.

The kids are back. They are playing football again. Why wouldn't they? The weather is lovely this afternoon. Should someone tell them to be careful? Do they even care? Am I/I am overreacting? I don't know what to think or how to process this situation. I'm going to have to learn because this isn't going to change anytime soon.

Don't mind me. I'm just here in the corner, overreacting. Or am I? As the balding ozone layer peels away I'll have the last laugh, from within my virus bunker. The Van Allen belt will collapse and the solar radiation will pour in like an angry tide. If only you damn kids had listened to the crazy old man with the thoughts in his head. If only...

Today's thought for the day comes from some fella who went up in a rocket ship onetime. Someone posted a link to this on FB, I think it good to repeat it here.

Take care folks, thanks for reading. Tomorrow we do it all again!

Weekender Epilogue: Silent Night

Someone on FB commented, hopefully erroneously, that lockdown is a-happening. Isolate if you're vulnerable or, in my case, if you're close to someone that is. Seal yourself for an indeterminate period while our bumbling twat of a PM lies about what's happening because he and his lunatic advisers haven't a fucking clue.

I stepped out of my house to collect my washing. The line is outside, in the garden. If I want dry clothes that's what has to happen, so at some point the spell will be broken. Either I will breathe in the deadly air, or I will breathe it out into the world. There is no compromise. No Prince Charming.

A clear night sky surrounded the washing line. Transfixed by the mathematical beauty; ordered spotlights from a different kind of corona. I stood at the centre of a celestial equation so perfect I could fair ascend to the heavens in my slippers. Framed in eternity, a constellation with bad hair and a basket of still ever-so-slightly-damp attire.

From there I would watch the earth, loosed on its axis. Cavorting, as continents between oceans between continents dance and ripple;a whirling universe. Life teeming in multitudes shrinking and rising; ebbing and flowing. A suite of biology echoing across the planet like a drum dance or a hammered dulcimer.

I would turn to my celestial kin with but one question:

"How did we fuck this up so badly?"

Weekender: This Isn't a Health Crisis

It seems to be that the fundamental issue in the response to this virus (not the virus and its effects per se) is one of capacity.

In other words, capitalism cannot deal with this. Cannot. Why; because capital chases profit which leads to cuts. Austerity. Countries like Italy are overwhelmed. Not because they are reporting large numbers of victims (though one is too many of course), but because their health service isn't equipped for it. Neither is ours. This is because of the capitalist ruling class. Cuts are made, privatisation creeps in. This latter serves only to exclude more from the oublic pool. Britain isn't planning to merely recquisition privte provision, but to compensate them. Unacceptable.

It didn't have to be like this. But capital demands cuts and competition to maintain profits. Now its demanding compensation - ultimately from us - to maintain the same. When the final analysis takes plaec this must not be forgotten: this is not a health crisis, it is a crisis of capitalism. Things must change.

Caveat: that isn't to say COVID19 isn't a health problem. It is. But the pandemic is a crisis of capitalism. However health issues can be dealt with. A vaccine will eventually appear but how the ruling class deals with this virus is the issue. We could have been prepared. We could have had leaders who knew what to do and weren't motivated by things other than public health. We didn't. We could have preserved upgraded and cared for the caring profession. They didn't. There must be culpability.

The weather is threatening to finally show a little spring from under the skirt. Normally this would be a celebration. But, perhaps hypocritically, I blanched and winced out on the trail, as families and their kids all had the same idea, cycling past. If this is social distancing, then god knows what coming together looks like!

If the hot weather doesn't finish off the virus (let's hope it does) then all the people out and about will finish off the rest of us. Kids off school end up playing in the park. That's as it should be, in a world free from viral worry. But kids are immortal. It's the rest of us that have the problem.

In strange futurity I will have become the old man in the neighbourhood. Shaking my withered fist like a husk of corn at the kids playing ball. As they grow up, their viral immunity built in, their offspring - those who survive the genetic mutations bred by this forced evolution, will come to know me as a terrifying urban legend. The perennial witch in the witch house; the house no one visits. Its garden overgrown and angry; battening down this brave new world.

A thing of folklore I will become half remembered urban legend whose mystery I wear like a wicker man. No one will correctly remember why until the climate alarm shouts; as it now often does. Then thy will run to the shelter of their Van Allen yurts. I will no longer care, as the sky blackens and the double glazing fails. For I have outlived the virus, if only physically. I survived the Broadband Wars. The Roboplague. The Oasis/Blur Schism. The Autotune Era. As capitalism finally dies I will survive this.

They will laugh but not understand. The alarms sound the all clear and atmosphere levels stabilise rendering sunlight safe again. This is their world now. Their memes will have to mend the sky. I'm off to watch Netflix; I have it preserved on a tablet that still requires a wifi connection. I am a relic from a time best forgotten, to be replaced by a future best ignored.

Till tomorrow, my children.

Weekender: Too Far North

I've become slightly phobic about it. Sort of anti-Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. I have associated desperation with shopping and so every time I visit I'm anticipating the won't have what I need. Of course the fact they are social centres means they are vulnerable to the plague and yet they are vital. I still can't get the smell of disinfectant from visiting Tesco out of my nostrils. Sensory desperation.

I'm ok for the moment however. I have coconut oil - though only because the shop in town has it for cheap. That shop might as well be in Narnia now. Gosh, I can just about remember the wonderland of the high street...lined with magical phone case vendors and coffee shops. A panoply of flavours and colours punctuated by old favourites like WHSmiths or Boots. Reassuring! Keep the memory alive, Ghosty, like a torch in a cavern.

Surely even Corona cannot survive the invisible aroma field of make up and anti aging creams in Boots. A pharmacological bulwark; antiviral archers at the l'Oreal ramparts. Because we're worth it. Imagine the silent unseen war being fought in such a place. You'd never know until your eyes, greased up on tears, roll out of your head. Like a Hong Kong protester forcefed a state recipe of teargas and police violence.

My daily routine has changed weirdly. I've started going out for a morning walk really early (if you consider 7-7:20am really early) in lieu of exercise I'd normally do. It's still too bloody cold in the morning, but with only earlybird farmer, crazed dogwalker, or intense runner type persons around it seems a good time to stock up on sunshine and fresh air before a day indoors. I usually go out later in the day as well. We haven't yet met mandatory lock down.

Changes in routine are weird for me. Part of the reason I believe I'm neurodiverse. I'm sure change is weird for a lot of people. But routine is comforting and upsetting that, as is the case with the new unreliability of food procurement, is problematic. One can only hope others in my position are faring OK. This will be tough times for people with low mental health or particular neurodiverse needs and considerations. But of course the governments big bail out isn't for them. I listen to a lot of ambient music to get me through. Maybe I should build a playlist.

The clocks go back next week. Normally that would be a high point in my calendar. Mentally I mark the passing of the seasons and the movement of things like the Equinox. I give them an inner nod; a way to signpost surviving this far. You've made it through another winter, kid. Keep going. This to me is spirituality: the tools by which humans (that's us!) relate to our world. One we're increasingly at odds with. The language of signs and traditions to form a relationship that shoudl be nurtured, now more than ever. Who's with me?

There is an ebb and flow to life: the Chinese called it the Tao. To everything a time; things wax, then then wane. Always, at the peak of either, is the seed of the other. Nothing is permanent except impermanence. A time for sowing and a time for reaping. That is how we should live our lives. But somewhere along the line we got the bright idea to wander too far north. Then we had to invent central heating and mortgages. Now look at us; living in boxes that we now depend on to keep us safe from an unfortunate wrinkle in the biological world. An ecological refutation of our hubris.

Too far north I tell ya!

Weekender: Foraging in the Time of Gift Cards

And so week one of this haphazardly hosted hazard festival draws to a close. As the days grow longer, the sun sets on a greater situation than the sunrise faced. This is now the pace of our lives, I guess. Hinter gatherers foraging a mid a so-called civilisation. Mammoth hunters with credit cards; foragers with iPhones dodging the thorny proteins in a field of sky and asphalt. A primal life set to last...weeks? Probably months, realistically.

I remember when the word month wasn't a tiny stepping stone across a yawning chasm. We're in the viral waiting room; we hope our number isn't up before the vaccine calls our name. Better get used to reading those gossip magazines they keep on the table.

The food situation seems (and hopefully isn't) as fraught as it was a week ago. The local coop is doing its best, commendably. They seem to have stock, but they remain busy - which, given the nature of the crisis, seems inherently problematic.

I have been checking out online suppliers, usually the sort of place that I'd dismiss because it's too expensive. Unfortunately they too are oversubscribed. Everyone wants their shopping it seems all the time simultaneously. This isn't rational, but then what is?

As I said previously: the situation will have to stabilise because there isn't an alternative.

By the way does anyone else find it really weird how they keep saying kids are OK, but they are just carriers. Either that's meant to reassure people their kids aren't about to die, or we're living in a seventies sci fi cult tv plot. Logan's running!

I've largely shutdown Twitter. It's too much overload. It feels like being an antenna during a lightning storm. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss, and lord knows I need that now. Just bathe me in it, like a guru when the cheque clears. Facebook is more manageable (even though it's shit in it's own way :D). I can't handle the news. I end up checking the numbers. Always the numbers..."rising the tide, imperial". Metric my life away. Numbers. Always the numbers - always constant it's that they go up before they go down. A measurement of the inevitable.

I tried setting up Netflix today. It's come to that! I shall steal the virus and turn it into a permanent TV signal static. Couldn't manage it though: 57 channels any my debit card's wrong. It wasn't viable for some reason. I tried ringing the bank. Unsurprisingly the call centres are rammed. People need to live and I want Netflix. Ridiculous, I could weep at how trivial it is. But all it takes are the little things; like tiny shards of a dropped plate. You see yourself in the accident and it reminds you of your own fragility.

It's the weekend. Will we notice? I shall continue to write down my thoughts. I hope for those reading they offer as much as I get from writing it. That's all there is now. However I would like to invite comments: feedback from anyone interested in setting up a more interactive approach. I don't know what, or how, but that idea of a radio channel I wrote about days ago seems like the sort of thing that could help. A little sense of community. Or a bit of fun. Maybe you have some thoughts. Let me know.

Finally, a comrade linked me this. An interesting, damning, and obvious, read. It's getting heavy. Let us take care of each other, and ourselves. Until tomorrow, gentle reader

Part of your 5 a Day...A Well Financed Apocalypse

So says Rishi Sunak, our shiny new Keeper of the Coin, elected by plutocrats who aren't us. The neoliberal answer to this existential crisis of capitalism (and life) is to lend money at "attractive" rates.

Isn't this blackmail? You need the money, your staff need the money, your society needs the money...so sign on the dotted line. They'll hold us hostage to the last breath - or should that be last gasp.

Even Trump is considering the equivalent of a Universal Basic Income. He's calling it helicopter money, though not quite the Richard Branson definition (money to bu helicopters to fly over my private island while my staff go without pay). Of course it would be naive to believe the upcoming election isn't a factor. As if Trump, anymore than Sunak and the Tories, cares about the working class. He cares about votes.

And golf.

Every day the numbers increase. It just seems inevitable now. A few days ago there were 2 cases. Now it's 4. In a few days 6? A week? It's like when you were a kid, at the beach, and you saw the tide come in, slowly realising it wasn't going to stop and you could be in trouble if you didn't get out the way. Nature has a way of asserting herself. We better get out the way.

But I don't see that happening. What will happen when it gets here? Will I even notice? Or just the fear. They are shutting the schools tomorrow, yet the local pub remains open. I'd be more concerned about the casual drink driving that takes place there, but allowing people to congregate in this way doesn't seem well informed. I can understand why the pub wants to stay open: it's life or death. Problem is we don't want it to be life or death!

And so these are the shape of our days: how the immediate future will unfold. The undressing of our lives. I went to the chemists earlier (stress + piles = TMI!). Only two people are allowed inside simultaneously. I got the sense they were busy; lots of people want their prescriptions. They're shutting an extra hour for lunch. I wondered if that was to give the place a clean but I don't know.

All these little changes are conspicuous yet small. Staff wearing blue gloves - probably a good idea at the best of times. If only these were the best of times.

On the way home I noticed the trees just starting to bud. It's still cold though; as if nature was still oppressive. What else could it be right now? What will it be like when the sun appears? Come May/late April, when that time finally comes, I can feel the expansive part of myself relax. Like a creature stirring from hiberation. Will that happen this year?

Parts Per Million...Market Garden Armageddon

Welcome to the next day at the end of your life. Not literally I hope, but certainly - dare I say necessarily - life as we know it. Unfortunately, and thanks to the elites who speak only the language of capital accumulation, that change could be very painful. It's a Middle Class Apocalypse, a very proper market garden armageddon. Look after the avocado supply while soap and eggs (the new breakfast) fly off the shelves like terrified pigeons.

If this is revolution let it be so. It's not as if we can stop this now. The virus is here and so are people. Yummy squishy stupid lovely people (just keep your distance folks). All the better to incubate in. A virus bred in the test tubes of fast tracked capitalism. Poured into poverty and ghettos. Bred not by comic book supervillains or fiends but ordinary people who want to get by. A very avoidable misery, a very cyclical misery that can only end with the coughing death of this mode of production. It is just a sad, sick, tragedy that those who will pay the price are the least among us. Not the privileged politicians backslapping their own over what their mouthpieces call "a gamble".

A gamble. Like a spread bet, or a speculation on the price of food for a millionaire dining on the impossible. Our lives, a plague, a gamble. I wager 400 quatloos on a stimulus oriented toward big business and not the so-called 'big society'. When we all arise from our shelters there must be an accounting. A very big accounting.

Paul Mason puts it succinctly here.

Further discussion, from an in depth Marxist perspective here:

Now I hear supermarkets have instigated purchase limits: two tins of mackerel (or whatever) per customer. You might think I agree. Actually, no. I shop once a week (likely to change) as such I need to buy more than this limit. I eat mackerel, for example; one tin a day. That means I need 7 tins a week. So now how will that work? Could I eat something else? Depends what's available and whether it would also impinge on the limits likewise.

This shouldn't be a problem. The supply is there, but, because our supply chains clearly can't cope with pandemics, and because the people have lost their minds, it is. I have some sympathy with the latter; people aren't trained to cope in this situation. Reason must prevail however, proscribing to people what they can eat, which effectively is what is happening here - rationing, isn't the answer. It doesn't need to be the answer. We have got to work together and the government has to maintain supply. I do not wish to appear unreasonable but I I still need enough, we all do.

In fact I worry about rationing. If they, god forbid (though he can't rule out), bring out ration books then we will be told what to eat and how much. If you eat a particular diet (if you're a vegan for example) you are going to struggle. Maybe people can exchange their purchases, but I don't trust the government on nutrition as on anything. They've been pushing sugar and carbs for years; a diet that made me sick for two decades without a clue. I know better now and I'd like to keep it that way. I don't expect fried angel feathers and the golden caviar of paradise. I do expect healthy real food. In my case that's meat, a little dairy, eggs (which are currently rarer than actual Faberge eggs), and some veg. I'll wipe my arse with my hand if I have to.

What an epitaph. See you tomorrow.

Part Who's Even Counting Anymore? Shopper's Delight

Cuddly toy, deadly virus, stockpiled toiletries, terror in aisle 9, creme eggs...

I can't imagine any worse a petri dish for the poor than your local Amazon gulag. The work is exhausting which means weakened immune system. All the termites in that retail mound, enclosed space, probably crap ventilation. I hope I'm wrong about that. There are enough problems with Amazon already.

Anyway

I just went shopping, or tried to. It's a reflex, like breathing. A social spasm as we hiccough money into the system for it to feed us.Moloch grants thee one more day! I was planning to go on Friday. I do it every week. I can't stock up - besides what's the point? Panic buying is counter productive: none of us know how long this will last so all we're doing is making the situation worse for ourselves and everyone around us. Moreover, it's a vicious circle: you spy limited supply and are compelled to stock up likewise. An understandable but irrational reaction. We all have to get through this, none of us know how long it will last, you don't need anymore of any one thing than normal, maybe soap, so what is the point?

No one will listen. You can't argue rationality against emotion. The heart will win over the head every time.

The supply chains are already struggling, so the shopkeep tells me. Either we start being creative (sausage, egg, and tampon - the traditional British breakfast!) or we start starving.

Or we get a competent leader. I think we'll be eating fried tampon (the stringy bit is where the...ugh, I've gone too far) before that human wiff waff weetabix goes gently into that good night.

On the other hand I suspect Amazon are making out like bandits (when are they ever not?) as the country settles into its comfy couch groove and orders a metric ton of stupid shit through Prime. Sometimes though the stupid shit is what we need to get us through. Although it'll just end up in landfill and end up waiting for us in the climate apocalypse looming post virus.

Hopefully this situation will stabilise. It has to. In lieu of the boffins cooking up a post haste vaccine, which isn't going to happen for a variety of reasons, or a miracle, people will have to start acting responibly. There is no reason for people to panic buy, there is no reason to buy more than you need. Online deliveries are one thing, and a separate issue. But for those of us who can get to shops as we do normally: please do as we do normally!

Part Whatever...If You Go Down In The Woods Today, REMAIN INDOORS!

It's eerie in the sunlight. Normally the blue sky is your friend. Now it's just a bit pale, like a rubbish kids drink (the one's your friend used to make who was too stingy with the fucking cordial). The sun in the sky looking down and making you warm and feeling good. The celestial Green Cross Code Man. Now that light has to filter through the invisible threat that's weaving itself around us slowly, but, more importantly, certainly. Fighting through a viral jungle with a shit machete.

I went for a walk. Of course I did. I have to breathe don't I?

There seemed to be more people around, as if it was a weekend or a holiday. It's all about how things seem now; the real world versus the terrifying reality of the news world. But that's probably my perception. Warped as it is. Perhaps it is a holiday. A chance to enjoy the fresh air, while you still can. Fortunately it's possible to get out and be able to avoid people. This may come in handy in the days ahead. Like the book of revelations; a highway code for the apocalyptically fundamental

The dichotomy is weird: the news and social media are an invitation to a nervous breakdown. The worst case scenario is constantly paraded like an endless catwalk of ill fashion. Sickly models are dressed up in lurid possible worlds of increasing terror. Supermodel meets supernature. Worlds all sharing a common threat: the incompetence of an elite with no answer to this crisis. It is a language they cannot speak and could never learn. It would be like trying to teach a dog Latin. Or like Caesar learning to speak dog.

Ave, it barked.

People are still going to the shops. The shops seem to still be functioning, but then they have to be. What on earth will happen otherwise; do we start chasing the sheep with blowpipes and bic razors? Chewing the cud while desperately waiting for blackberry season?

I did see a lady with her kids. Her cargo of probably genuinely necessary toilet roll(s) looked very conspicuous. Perhaps that too is just my perception. There doesn't seem to be any point to panic buying when there's so much uncertainty and who can afford our months' worth? I haven't got a freezer big enough - no, wait, that's for the beef, not for my arse. Oh dear. I'm coming apart at the seams.

I don't think I'll be the only one. I just received an email from a comrade; he's in the high risk group three times over! What a time to be alive, and will there be much time left to be alive? Suddenly a thirst for knowledge is a curse. I could quench it with the mythical waters of Lethe. Or just wait for Starbucks to do it as a latte.

When the doors are shut and the viral air raid sirens in government compel us to our mortgage cocoons, someone should set up a pirate radio network (or social media channel as this isn't the sixties anymore). We could all sit in our antibody bunkers listening to the COVIDEEJAY giving us the lowdown on the best looting hotspots, weather reports including clouds of infection, spinning the latest 'beats' (hopefully your heartbeat). He or she could tell us the latest fashion for evening wear in the lounge, and a quiz show to help us remember what flowers looked like.

Part Three: Scenes From a Virus

It's a peculiar thing to walk around knowing that somewhere, out in the environment and wholly invisible, are floating proteins angry that you're alive.

The idea that nature wants you to suffer is...alarming. Some people, in a marketplace far away, twisted the world. Tore at the fabric of nature to allow something to get through. Now we're unwelcome guests in a genetic house. We better learn to behave ourselves. Take our shoes off at the door.

This is a reality we can't turn back from. The genie is out of the bottle and no genius is in charge.

Everyday the people in power fade a little more. At some point I fully expect them to just bolt halfway through a press conference.

"Look! An eagle!"

And then he just runs. Heads to the car. Heads to the coast, takes off all his clothes and runs into the sea to be consumed by dead grey waves. Blissful dissolution in Brexit waters as ego and body return to what pass for clean water. The primal circle is complete. Dinosaurs and evolution happily forgotten; written off as a bad idea or like a tax deductible. Like the petrol they will one day become. He is human petrol now.

Boris just stares at us with his tired dead eyes. He wishes he was somewhere else. We all do.

But there is nowhere else because this fucking disease seems to have travelled further around the world than it has any right to in lieu of a blue passport. Brexiteers ought to be annoyed but instead they are dazzled at the performative chaos melting around them. Like a Dali clock dripping over the White Cliffs of Dover.

Instead they are moaning on Twitter about how - somehow - it's still Jeremy Corbyn's fault. If only Dianne Abbot could count. If only Dawn Butler would stop embarrassing racists. If only a man who didn't get voted in three months ago somehow didn't have the power he doesn't have to influence decisions made by a man who did and does.

Imagine if he were in charge, they say, just imagine how bad it would be. I know right! People might be tested, the NHS might have funding, hope! We could buy toilet roll in peace. Andrex for all comrade!

Oh dear. It's all too much. I'm looking online at expensive butchers to see if they can locally deliver food in lieu of the regular supermarkets. Even at the he best of times they aren't reliable. You order minced beef and they bring you Arctic Roll instead. Well it's all food innit - and it's one of your five a day right?

It's come to this my friends. Housebound for four months if the government gets their way. I get to sit and watch summer and the virus roll by. Like the biblical epic by Cecil B Demille. The one with Charlton Heston (which? He's in ALL of them). Moses (that's the fella). Where everyone's sat in the house protected with Lamb's blood while the angel of death goes around killing the firstborn of Egypt. Happy days. No passover here; just a balding crank with a Mekon head whispering into the ear of a man too lazy to use the power he always wanted responsibly.

Not sure how it ends though, if it ever did.

Interlude (or, Comfortably Numb?)

This is not the future.

I'd like a refund.

Yes I'll hold.

Yes, I will accept store credit.

The future I dreamed of as a kid was illustrated in plastic books that talked about sailing to Barnards star on a ship powered by nuclear fusion. A world of people sailing to work in jetpacks. Solar powered cities. Send me back to sleep Buck Rogers!

I looked up at the moon and saw the distance between it and me as a potential. A current of energy with which to could charge my imagination. Now that same moon, surrounded by a curtain of star spangled night, is cold as the wind and now unfriendly. I don't want to go out now. The moon's looking at me funny.

Then came Cyberpunk. People living in computers knew our secrets and would reach out to sell us insurance and offer us the credit to do so. If we didn't, anonymous people would share our data with the wardens of nascent social media. A place where we could connect with strangers that became a prison where we were held hostage by our own indiscretions, office party embarrassments, or credit card details.

Something very dark has taken root in our soul. Fattened on credit and junk mail invitations to a purgatory of debt. Dante's mortgaged inferno. We broke the world and we didn't know it.

Now we can expect government assistance, while it deigns to reign in capital for a time, to keep the Netflix connection going. Let us binge watch ourselves into acute respiratory collapse.

Periodically the Amazon driver will appear. Santa Claus for the Resident Evil generation; the postman from Chernobyl. With careful hands he will surgically insert the entertainment package I've ordered to keep myself from going crazy through the door. It may be infected. I may never know until I know. This is our world now. Boxed in by necessity, passing plates under the door. Daring to cook in a dangerous kitchen.

A prison of our own making.

Capital cannot be reigned in forever. Like an angry dog the master invites its bite, reminding him who's really in charge. It's all over Rover. Fiduciary Fido. Outside the virus fights the climate in a bloodsport of our own making. If only we could televise it.

I tell myself this is not the future. Hopefully it will be the past and in a few months, when America is suitably leashed to the whim of cognitively diminished calcified plutocrats, men, for it is always men, of limited vision, we will look back and laugh. Ha ha! But the humour will haunt us and our chests still ache. Oh how they ache.

The virus, like the Spotify ads I am forced to listen to as I write to keep myself from hearing the silence of this stolen tomorrow, will never be gone. The future is an infection. We have polluted ourselves and will never be clean. The very sky hates us. We have poisoned the earth. Sow the wind, they say. Reap the whirlwind. A steel breeze of depleted nutrients and toxic protein. I still argue with the recyling bin as it spills over onto the floor; I curse modernity.

Maybe the moon is all we have left, just waiting for me to plug in. A phone call to the universe. Hey aliens! Come and invade! This virus might let you live this time! Nope, I'm calling the cops, someone's trying to commit genocide. I think it's the Prime Minister! Yes, I can recognise that voice. Some maniac blathering on about wiff waff.

More of A Comfortable Seat At The World's End

Someone linked this on another site, in another life. It's oriented toward the US but since the virus doesn't care about borders and ethnicity (which is all I want to share with it) I figure it would be useful here.

My biggest concern about all this isn't so much catching it, though I certainly hope I don't (other than to get over it - assuming you do). It's the subsequent societal collapse: getting food. Panic buying isn't helping either and my freezer is unfortunately tiny!

When I was a child I remember looking up at the moon from the back garden. I remember it because Jean Michel Jarre's haunting synth bleepiness, Oxygene, was playing. Ever since that tune and the memory have become inextricably intertwined. I thought, then, by this time, the galactic space year of 2020, we'd be there. 2020 was such a distant, almost mystical, number. The future for sure: jetpacks, moon travel, solar power, abundance, hope.

Now look at us. Laid low by our own inability to see past markets and profits. The planet is on fire, the climate is fucked, and the only thing threatening to put it out might wipe out half our families! Politicians are testing positive. You know it's bad when they try to reassure us "I'm feeling fine!". If this was like the disaster movie that would be an inevitable precursor to their death! Jesus, it's come to this: we're living the Andromeda Strain.

Capitalists and capitalism has no answer to this. These problems cannot be traded on stock exchanges. They are only manufactured by them. We've allowed greed to breed reticence that can cost lives. Trump wavers because he wants some chum of his in Big Pharma to make the private healthcare antivirus, so he can profit from investing in it. Nero speculated while Rome burned.

And we're watching all this happen on social media. Like a video game. In fact there is a virus video game. It's called Plague Inc. Your avatar could easily be Trump Strain D, SARS faketanovirus or CoronaTory Wiff Waff 19. Your goal is to cause the world to sneeze itself to death. Big win, ten million points.

Fortunately there are people who care. A little too far from me, but so far the number of known infections is zero (likely above). Check this out, it may help.

Lsatly, since this blog is largely me whining about the DWP, I shall whine about the DWP. We still don't see clear unequivocal guidance. All it takes is the following: "everyone on benefits, over the next X months, gets their benefits paid. You don't need to turn up. You won't be asked to. Look after yourself. Treat yourself to something nice" (that last bit is admittedly optional)."

Why can't they do that? Simple: because capitalism breeds the belief that people be scroungers yo. Even in the midst of a viral outbreak, a pandemic, the worst health crisis for a generation ("a must see movie!"), they cannot let themselves evolve a better, more compassionate - life saving - ideology.

We will see how far this takes us. I suspect, dare I say hope, that, if anything good can ceom from this fundamental, indeed existential, chaos, we might see revolution. People can't take this. Not if these strained ramblings are indicator.

Till next time, sneeze safely and be well.

A Comfortable Seat at the World's End... Part One

To the good people who read this (and you must be good if you're reading this of course :D) - and to the creepy Russian bots that seem to comprise a portion of my analytics - please stay safe.

I've seen my mental health take a drop what with everything in the world. We humans weren't built for this, a pervasive stress. It's not good for the soul. It erodses; wears you down. I catch myself losing patience, getting frustrated, shouting at clouds (not literally but the weather is exasperating). You see yourself in the moment - and even having that awareness is a luxury, some don't - and you start thinking "my god!"

This isn't good. The world is on fire. These weather patterns aren't the norm. It leaves you out of sorts. If winter was properly winter, snow, chilly, cosy (even), I could cope with it. We're programmed for that; to respond to the ebb and flow of time and tide. Things like seasons. But not only are we completely out of balance with that in the modern world, but we've twisted the world itself. Now the seasons are out of sorts. Winter seems to start and end later. This isn't right. A month and a half of storms; freezing gales and thundering icicle rain isn't normal. It's not good for the land, it can't be good for nature. Now to add to that a man made (after a fashion, man's carelessness) has led to an outbreak that's now a pandemic. My first ever! I feel so...blessed?

They say that healthy folk (like me I hope) are no more going to suffer than regular flu and we don't worry about that quite so severely, and for good reason. But 17000 died of seasonal flu last year! I don't want either! But it's there: the fear. You can't avoid it. The media is everywhere now. It's right next to this screen, on another tab, waiting to be unleashed when I next press the button. I hide it like an index. A contents page of man made misery. Our government seems indecisive incompetent or just plain uncaring. Will we all end up sick?

Getting food is my biggest worry. How are the poor to manage? supermarket deliveries are, IME, notoriously unreliable and you have to pay a hefty delivery charge. "Sorry we didn't have any chicken soup, we gave you dogfood instead". What if you live alone? Who will care for you? The epitaph of modern life.

Those are my concerns; strictly born of the modern world. A place I am finding myself increasingly at odds with. I can't handle it. It asks too much of me in ways that bend and break. I am twisted through torsions of complexity that seem to exist for their own sake.

It doesn't have to be this way. We have made it thus. Our very system is being tested. What happens if it fails? When there is no more money to prop it up? In the wake of a pandemic, politicians care more that stock markets fail. Billionaires and millionaires throw their perfumed sanitised hands in the air, from within their privilege bunkers. They are probably gambling and preying on the outcomes of this situation. Delaying the creation of vaccines so that they can get there first. Human life is an investment portfolio, now stained with the sputum of its own sickness.

Turn back spaceman, the earth is not fit for human consumption!