Weekender: Back to Where It All Began

So it's decided. Another national lockdown (see postscript). Except it isn't, yet; the details are pending. It's likely going to be softer than the previously, relatively soft (compared to other countries) approach. I imagine schools will remain open because parents are workers. It's gone six thirty in the evening the PM is late in the PM for the press conference everyone needs to hear. It's like his very DNA is shit.

The bottom line is that they have again catastrophically dithered. Just like in March when it's very likely they could have saved lives had they followed the science. At this point the scientific advisers - whatever you may think of their politics - have been reduced to jesters in the Corona Court of the Dimwit King. There for the amusement of Dominic Cummings and his media mates. Which epidemiologist said the bad words this week? Oh wow, let's instead look to Doctor Fringe from Loonpants university with his 'unique' take that neatly confirms all our biases. 

Cue screaming from the right wing media. Howling from Hitchens, his acolytes, and the Curtain Twitchers listening to Talk(shit) Radio/Gammon FM. None of whom cite credible evidence. Again it's just a desperate plea to the notion capital will save us. This just in: it won't. It can't. Perhaps there is something to the 5g conspiracy theory because I've never heard so much bullshit broadcast through a telephone in all my life.

How long will this lockdown last? I imagine much of November. They are certainly going to operate under the assumption that we can be open for business at Christmas. See you then for round three, when we do all of this again. How much more of this can people tolerate? An already divided society has become the chess board for the stupidest people in the country. Playing our lives like pawns while shovelling money into private pockets like they were furiously trying to speed up a steam train.

I hope to god there isn't another run on the shops. Surely, you'd hope, people will have learnt their lesson the last time. But no one's that naive, not even yours truly. I've just started going again to the Big Boy Tesco, in town. Riding the bus! Like a grown up! I guess that's not going to be possible, leaving me at the mercy of Tesco. I remember visiting them before, at the start of the lockdown, it stank of disinfectant and the shelves were half empty such that it made the lighting within harsher. 

I guess there's no point worrying about what you can't control. If only that's how anxiety actually worked.

What this crisis has shown is that you can't hide the truth in a virus. This is a pandemic, it doesn't play by the rules of capitalism and state. You can't get away with venal business as usual; even if the public are blind (willingly or through duplicity) the virus isn't. Like the Terminator it can't be reasoned with and it will absolutely not stop until you need assistance to breathe (social distance Sarah!). The point being: Boris can't hide his laziness, irresponsibility, and ruling class attitudes. He is exposed. Now he must go.

Problem is, who does that leave? Keir fucking Starmer? Oh dear!

PS: Good job I didn't upload this earlier. It turns out, as I type, Johnson the Wonderclown is to grace us with a press conference outlining a lockdown for a month over November. Apparently schools and probably Wetherspoons will be exempt. You can bet this will go down like a lead balloon. 

Honestly he's acting like a highly strung rockstar, delaying the press conference endlessly. Does he think he's Axl Rose ffs? People just want to know what's going one. No doubt he will use this to blame people for not doing the right thing and how it's all our fault, despite him deliberately ignoring the scientists for six months. Still what can be gained raking over old coals - we shouldn't forget though, and certainly not forgive, much as the Tories would like us to do. I don't think this will end well. 

In fact I don't think it will ever end; what happens in December when he, inevitably, flings the doors wide open again and repeats the same mistakes he made in the Summer? This is now the second time he's left it too late, now, as then, we're all stuck paying the bill. Bullingdon all over again; smashing up the place and leaving everyone else to clear up his mess. Eton fucking mess. That's what these places breed. End this.

PPS: I'm not waiting for this idiot to grace us with a press conference, I'm uploading.

Starving To Live 4: Skeletons In The Closet

 According to the Guardian half a million people in the last week had Covid. I don't see how lockdown is avoidable at this point, in the twilight of this crappy year. It also turns out that, despite his best efforts to show us how great a leader he might be, Rish Sunak's insipid 'Eat Out to Help Out' scheme (only a banker could be so uninspired) has actually made things worse. I find that hilarious in a dark way. Dark are the ways we have left to us unfortunately. We're doing worse than the predictions suggested.

I say we, I mean this government. They seem intent on just adding more tiers, rather than initiate a full lockdown. Perhaps because they know doing so would end them. Maybe that's a bit premature, certainly the push back would be tremendous. Sadly in practice I just don't see it making much difference, the good will is spent. The blood is spent. People are tired and exhausted. We do not have leadership, just corruption. Endless, boring, tedious, tiring, corruption. It never ends.

Fortunately Boris, aided by his dullard girlfriend, have publicly praised the NHS. That's the same they've been trying to sell off for the last ten years. I don't care they saved his worthless stupid life. He doesn't get to say this. These are empty words from a liar and a crook, in Minecraft!

And real fucking life!

(Or just minecraft :D)

Wither Jeremy Corbyn? What a year for it all to end. He's been an MP for three decades and possibly more. Yet, in the gutter of civilisation, under the sentinel gaze of the cruellest Tory government he's known, he's thrown to the wolves. By his own party. 

They've not expelled him yet. Perhaps this is worse. A bit like the legend of the Samurai handed a wooden sword and denied the right of ritual suicide. Denied that honour. He won't leave though; they'll have to throw him out. Not that they care about his constituents of course. His crime was, it seems, agreeing with the outcome of the report. Don't speak your mind, that's the real crime in a political party. You can threaten to stab your leader in the front. You can call him all the names under the sun. But you can't rock the boat. Isn't that sad.

Of course the Tories are laughing like giddy hyenas over this. Further removing from them the spotlight on their own indiscretions. I don't say this to justify Labour's failings, but if you're going to take the issue of racism in politics seriously - and you should - then ought you not investigate all political parties? Wouldn't you welcome your own party being investigated? After all, as the authoritarians say: if you've nothing to hide...

That Tory closet is full of skeletons we know that. Just look at dopey thug Ben Bradley's twitter feed this last week or two. His response to the proposition that we should ensure kids don't starve is to double down on racist stereotypes by invoking cultural marxism. A spectre invented to smear Jews, calling them a rotten influence in society. There are no reds under the bed, Ben, just your bigotry, and that's going in the closet as well.

Interlude: How To Destroy Good People

So Jeremy Corbyn got suspended from the party. The spectacle of his demise is reminscent of the medieval barbarism from the likes of Game of Thrones. Bloody vengeance as spectacle. A soap opera of personal destruction. The excoriation of a fundamentally decent mild mannered guy. Someone who helps his community. It's an ungainly sickening spectacle. It happened under Her Majesty's Opposition to the silent pixelated cheers of the assembled right wing media no doubt.

I haven't the energy to get into the specifics of why. Apparently it's because his comments in response to the EHRC report were deemed to reduce or trivialise the problem of antisemitism. I don't really think that's proven. Maybe he should have kept his trap shut, probably would have achieved little more than a stay of execution. We know that the biggest factor throughout all of this is the desire to get rid of him. No one did anything about the few, unacceptable, cases of antisemitism (always unacceptable) in the party before his leadership and the problem won't disappear afterwards. This is because these views have a political dimension that isn't being addressed. It certainly won't be under Starmer.

Ultimately he's not long for this world, politically speaking. Corbyn, that is. They want shot of him. No questions. What that means is a further rightward shift in the British body politic. While many radicals will shed no tears of the death of the Labour party, this is really nothing to cheer on. I want this sytem and the rotten parties within, all of it, gone. This whole machine serves only Moloch, it certainly doesn't serve the working class. But if Labour lurches to the right, as seems to be the current trajectory, all that does is embolden the right, including the media, whose headlines this morning are predictably horrendous.

This situation doesn't benefit the working class. It just weakens the left. That may not mean much given how weak the Labour party is, but anything that reduces the strength of the left in the current climate, under a crazy yet ascendant Tory government (I dread to think what the poll results are today). That just means there's no opposition. Unfortunately, that is the course Starmer has chosen to chart. 

I'm not saying people should remain in the party. Labour is a dead duck, had been for years. This is just one more, if oversized, nail in the coffin. It's a scalp taken by Starmer for his capitalist masters. That is all the Labour party is now, a husk willing to appease the likes of Murdoch and the British capitalist class - who themselves don't want Brexit. That is one of Labour's most egregious mistakes: refusing to understand or accept why people voted Brexit. Even though us leaving under the Tories, which is what the vote really meant, it is arrogant and dismissive to just call people who believed the lies they were fed by a wealthy elite, and who wanted, justifiably, to stick it to the ruling class. The problem is that Labour failed to channel that anger, in fact it had fed it during it's time in office under Blair. 

It could have been different, but the vote last December was, in hindsight, inevitable. Unfortunately Corbyn allowed that to happen. He wasn't, ironically, ruthless enough. He should have removed the Blairites; the troublemakers and the 'front' stabbers, to paraphrase Jess Phillips. Can you imagine the response if he'd said, in respect of, for example, Lucianna Berger, he'd stab her in the front (in the context of betrayal, to be clear)? My god!

But that's the reality. All of this existential crisis was aired in the bloodsports arena of a hostile media, surrounded by bad faith actors who wanted him gone. Many of whom included his own party members!

Yesterday was inevitable, but it won't be the end. There will likely be more scalps, but can you imagine what message it will send to the BAME community if they suspend or even expel Diane Abbot? How many others will follow? Inevitably Labour is intent on becoming a spiritless husk; a drab appeasing entity only fit to serve the interests of the ruling class. I fully support leaving, but there must be an alternative, not a vacuum that will be filled, with equal inevitability, by the far right. The working class must now organise as never before, it's eyes have been increasingly opened during this period. Many must surely now see the truth of capitalism and its crisis prone nature and how its adherents care naughty for them. Labour aren't going to change, reform is undesirable and impossible, 

Fight now. Starmer is no friend of ours. He just appears competent in the face of such a chaotic dishevelled array of Tory corruption and blunder. But that's a smokescreen; a mirage obscuring the truth. He is a weak insipid leader with no vision and certainly no thirst for change and socialism. 

Starving To Live 3: O Corona All Ye Faithful!

 Deaths have now crested 300 a day. We're on course for half a million infections a month the way things have been this last month or so. Yet where is the action? Bristol has been put into Tier 1 and a half, or "1+". What on earth does this even mean? Why are our politicians so incapable of addressing this? Three tiers were bad enough, clearly a system that wasn't working, so now we have half tiers? Apparently it means the city gets some money for local tracing and can organise Covid Marshals. Good luck with that, you can imagine how popular they are going to be! Not!

We are at the end of October (no need to check). Two months until Christmas. I have to believe it will be the death knell of this government if they allow this to continue over the Christmas period. We can't have O Corona All Ye Faithful; mince pies while grandma dies. Imagine the public mood when hundreds are dying during the Queen's speech! Is the levity appropriate? We will never have seen the like quite possible since the war. This is dark and uncharted territory, dead in winter's grasp. Beat the reaper!

But can the government institute a lockdown over Christmas? Clearly that's preferable and, clearly also, it now seems inevitable. The longer the leave it the more likely that will take place over Christmas. They've got November, basically. They've left themselves no breathing room at all. Yet another bloody bookmark in the biography of misery that is 2020. All written with our blood and their pen.

A Christmas lockdown will of course be met with the sternest resistance. Shops will be crying out for a retail break; just the sort that happens over Christmas. They will want rampant consumerism, and I've no doubt there's enough people willing to oblige. More than willing! If they can't, this country could explode - they will have a very difficult time enforcing people staying away from traditional family get together. Turkeys may well be the only ones getting a breather this year!

This is a godawful mess, and it's one entirely of the government's making. We must never let that be forgotten, certainly not in the next few years when the Covid free Waterstones shelves will be littered with books written by money grubbers and politicians, seeking to salve their conciseness, following this deadly debcale. For now all we have is all we have.

Starving To Live 2: Poverty Isn't A Choice

So Marcus Rashford is shaming the government by calling out their intransigence in the wake of pandemic inspired child poverty. Their response, voiced by Clown Bojo, is to say what a terrific job he's doing...of calling them out! 

Meanwhile, in response, they do nothing. 

Is this gaslighting? Yes, it is.

Today I went into town, again, this is starting to become a dangerous habit! I ended up spending a tenner more on food than I would have liked. Now, this is a small thing (for me) but it is pertinent. I can afford this so I'm not complaining. However those in the cohort affected by the Tories' selfishness don't have that flexibility and this is beyond Tory understanding. This issue is more complex precisely because of that. Poor people constantly have to micromanage what little they have with no margin of error. I struggled, so to speak, because I wanted to buy the cheap beef I normally buy for the week. However it was out of stock - probably because other, perhaps poorer, people also want to be thrifty. They can't be blamed for that. Had that been me, after spending £7 to travel to the shop, I could well have been screwed. Fortunately I can afford a less cheap alternative. 

It's an inconvenience for me. For someone that needs things like free school meal vouchers, that could have been disastrous. That money spent to travel is committed. They don't get a refund with which to try again in the food lottery that only the poor are forced to endure. The bus service aren't going to show any sympathy if the shelves are empty. You go without and get what you can and hope next week is different. Maybe you can find a better time to shop, maybe you can't, if you've got kids. You have no way of knowing what's in stock. Shopping online might well be a better choice but sadly even that has a minimum cost that makes it difficult for people in poverty.

That's what poverty is like. It is exhausting, tiring; a constant calculation and measurement of means and methods. There is no respite. Maybe you'll get lucky in the shops one week, but how much can you carry? You have no flexibility to plan in advance and you're screwed if you don't. Do poor people have vast freezer space to store all the stuff they might be able to carry (along with pushing pushchairs and dragging stroppy kids around the shops). 

It's become far too easy for the great and the good, especially half brained poverty pimps or the virtuous thrift merchants beloved of TV (how to cook for less, how to clean your house with elbow grease, how to graduate from the school of hard knocks). It is an endless trial forced on people in liue of simply recognising the nature of life in the working class and the iniquities of capitalism. No one is at fault for being poor. They have no choice in the economic whirlwinds that surround them. But some people think it's OK to berate and lecture, presumably to assuage their own shortcomings. Feelings that would disappear if they acknowledged the simple reality: we are the working class, we have to sell our selves to live, that is wrong. People living in poverty work a damn sight harder than any of these self aggrandising twitter moralising narcissists. Remember that.

And any one of us could end up in poverty; after all who would have thought, this time last year, where we would end up in 2020?

Starving To Live 1: The Same Old Poor Bashing

Are my days now to be filled with me tweeting angrily to idiots that think starving kids is acceptable, or who think baked beans on toast is a good meal? Never mind for a growing child hungry in school? It seems in recent times the spectre of the deserving/undeserving poor has been dug up again.

In fact, Twitter has turned into a mass middle class cookbook. The ruling class, and it's hapless adherents, are telling people they don't need more (they do), reducing everything to a simple matter of "budget better". The press wheels out, from time to time, unwitting stooges: working class 'heroes' who having found some means to be thrifty reinforces this narrative. Look! You don't need base money, that's not for you anyway; here's Jane the Mum from Luton and her shopping list from Lidldialdildl. She can afford to feed her kids on a pittance. SO CAN YOU!

Except her (excuse the gender assumptions) shopping list isn't that wholesome. It's cheap quality cardboard rubbish. Do you really think the quality of stuff from those places is adequate?

The popular refrain then is "oh you think we should be feeding the poor Roast Faberge eggs then". One extreme to the other. Not at all, that is just more class based nonsense, this time in reverse (the assumption that the ruling class eat ridiculous food). I simply want everyone to have access to their natural birthright as citizens of this good earth: the food that grows from it, produced ethically, free from as much bullshit as possible. Not much to ask surely.

That's not to denigrate these working class heroes like Jane (again forgive the gender assumption). They are doing what they've been raised to do: be thrifty. That's the lot of the poor. Spend wisely, it's a virtue. Don't get ideas above your station. These people are then courted by the right wing media who use them against the rest of the working class. It's sad, but again what is needed in the recipe book is mother's own class consciousness!

It's so sad that this narrative has to return, again and again. It's a class war zombie. It returns in periods of crisis to keep the poor down. Anything to dissuade from what might be construed as revolutionary thinking. Unfortunately (for the ruling class at least) I don't think that's going to be enough this time. The furore around the school meal crisis has found purchase. Something is, perhaps, shifting. The government will almost certainly reverse its decision - as much about playing politics and managing its image than anything else. I feel this is inevitable, as inevitable as there will be a second lockdown, something that will almost certainly undo any good will they think they might generate from such a climb down.

Weekender Post +1 Hour of Covid

The clocks go back. To the 1980's, or the 1880's, or even the 1918's; who can tell? We've got the unemployment of the first, the social attitudes of the second, and the virus of the last. What a time to be alive, barely.

There's talk, from the beleaguered Dr Fauci, that a vaccine may be ready by December. But the sting in the tail is in how long it will take to distribute. The more infectious the disease and the more people infected, the greater the requirement to provide herd immunity.

We have poisoned ourselves.

Every day now, across the world it seems, the virus is breaking new, grim, records. It is surging. It is clear: capitalism has no answer to this crisis. We must change course else our leaders will kill us. Every day, in Britain, reinforces the notion that we are in for a carnage laden Christmas. I take no pleasure in saying that but by all accounts deaths could be in the several hundreds/day by December. Can you imagine what Christmas will be like if we get that bad - or worse? There is no way, surely even for this horrific government, to do nothing. Yet each day they leave it, we get one day closer to that time. 

I fear they are playing with fire. This isn't something Johnson can just bury his head in the sane about. He can't just pick up and have a nice holiday. I don't even think resignation would be possible - at least for the sake of his awful party. What does even his emince grise think? Does Dominic Cummings even care? It's hard to imagine!

And yet...

People are out in the streets. They are shopping. They are drinking in pubs, eating in restaurants. I saw it last night. Gosh these are strange times; I went for a walk down a regular route only this time in the evening for the first time in seven months. Such a simple thing, yet made strange. Past the pubs, seeing people inside, orderly yet convivial, past the newly opened restaurant I was sure was doomed to failure, again busy. 

It makes me oddly sad to see that restaurant. I can't help thinking they will go bust by the end of the year. I don't want that to happen and I don't bear them ill will; I don't even know them. But to open a restaurant at this time? I guess they were committed even before this started. I hope I'm wrong. 

I hope I'm wrong about a lot of things. We are in it now, the summer has ended. The clocks have reverted to where we are at the start of this crisis, much as society has. All that was achieved has been curelly wasted, reset thanks to the governmental obsession with profit. It is almost as if there was never a summer. Only, now, a bleak winter.

Oh well, happy days!

Weekender Pre +1 Hour Of Covid

Last year I didn't live in a world with Covid.

Last week I didn't live in a country that voted to deny food to children.

OK that last one is not entirely accurate given that it's one of many many sins the Tories have committed over, at least, the last decade. Still sounds vile though.

These are their policies, not ours.

The response to the pandemic has been their policy, not ours. But if we do not take charge somehow of this crisis, then their policies will kill even more. Of that I am sure. The scientists have already said, of the second wave, tens of thousands more deaths are unavoidable.

Last year I didn't live in a world where excess death rates, from a single cause, were daily and totalling the thousands. That situation is entirely down to the Tories. They could have locked down earlier and saved more lives. They could have kept things shut until it was actually safe to open them. They could have prepared the education service adequately. They could still shut schools and sort out the universities that have become plague pits. Now the dead aren't just the elderly the reactionary rabid right doesn't care about (the traditional Tory demographic, by the way), but the children. The next generation that will motivate the economy.

They could cancel Brexit. They could make some sort of deal to at least ensure more businesses don't collapse, and that food and medicines, and other vital goods, can be provided. They don't even do that.

We're at 23.000 new infections today. This, IIRC, is the highest yet. Though I'm sure that's a record that will be broken in time. If ever there has been a case for a complete and abject dereliction of governmental responsibility and duty of care it is this government. Yet they would rather blame Labour, still. Nicky Morgan on Quisling Time, sorry I mean Question Time, saying that Labour would have had more success had they been a little less coarse. That's text book tone policing. Imagine using that to hold Labour to account - while complaining that they always play politics. I don't hthink she realises the full extent of what she's actually said though.

Just Feed Kids.

Meanwhile, instead of protesting against that, the awakened are out parading around Oxford Street with another march against masks. Fighting for "freedom" or something. I don't think they know what that means. How free are you when you're on a ventilator or infecting the vulnerable in your family? 

It's all a miasma of carefully confected media confusion. It percolates, like a virus, inside their minds where it finds purchase in pure existing, equally nurtured, prejudices and neuroses. Fears about the modern world and life - some of which are justifiable; how will I support myself? What if I lose my job or house? Capitalist fears, placed there by media actors who aren't interested in answers, just outrage.  Snake Oil that makes you sicker until you vomit in the streets all your confused thoughts about the world and try to make sense of it. Until we end up with Neo Nazi's defending Winston Churchill statues because the real fascists are those who point out Churchill's problematic history. Not the man responsible for the swastikas emblazoned on their freedom-loving ample manboobs.

The answer to this cannot come from existing structures. Send the cops in to break up a protest and you'll just further send these people off the deep end. It will feed into their persecution complex. That they are protesting is a sign that things have already broken down too far. Ask if they want real freedom, emancipation from private ownership and profits, and they'll call you a commie or a cultural Marxist (itself an antisemitic trope). That is the problem; they have to develop class consciousness. 

Better get to it

Too Little Too Late 5: This Is What It Sounds Like When Dopes Lie

 Foolishly, I got into an argument with a reactionary on the internet today (where else?) about the Tory policy of not feeding kids over the Winter.

It is very difficult to argue with people like this. The problem isn't that they are wrong, they are. It's that they are locked into a worldview and are logically consistent within it. The issue is the worldview itself; the one that says, for example, if parents can't afford a cheap loaf of Lidl bread and some Blue Stripe value beans, then their kids' hunger isn't the government's problem. Tough love yo.

Or, again for example, they should sell all the expensive white goods they (no doubt) own (regardless of how they acquired them). Pick a cliche, basically.

These tropes are flung at you like chaff. They are distractions to avoid addressing the fundamental premise of a system that's incapable of meeting the material needs of children during a pandemic (and not just a pandemic of course). These people don't want to deal with the fundamental problem. Just like the Tories they wish to preserve that system and thus find ways to victim blame. 

But those people, the ones who spend their welfare on expensive white goods (never mind they might have owned them prior to making a claim) or refuse to buy the cheapest food imaginable (and the assumption that surely even the hungriest kid can be afforded baked beans on toast for ever meal, forever), aren't the focus. It's the ones that are in genuine, material, poverty. So the argument becomes a kind of straw man: an argument made against people that aren't the subject of the proposition. Again, distraction.

Besides white goods are cheap (at least that's the idea, in reality most claimants can't afford these things, even though some of them like computers and phones are now necessary). They depreciate. You'll get next to nothing for them. In the end the reactionary is forcibly depriving someone for no real gaim, but I guess they think that character building. A strange idea that people just aren't entitled to nice things as a working class. It's revealing and sad.

In fact, for many, it isn't that they can't afford value range food, which we know is (relatively) super cheap. It's that that's all they can afford and it isn't sufficient. The argument isn't that kids aren't eating anything (though in many cases that is so), it's that they are not getting adequate nutrition.

Unfortunately trying to persuade right wingers who have gulped down years of anti-benefit rheotic is nigh on impossible online. They are entrenched, surrounded by reinforcing propaganda daily. Presonal responsibility is so alluring - who doesn't want to believe in oneself? Who doesn't want to believe that life's problems can be solved by a generous tug on the old bootstraps? But life isn't that simple; these are systemic problems. Blaming the victim just enables the state, the Tories, to abrogate their responsibility. That is the sad irony of this kind of thinking. If you don't want excuses then don't offer them on behalf of the most powerful agents in the social pyramid scheme starving kids are forced to exist in. 

All made worse by the online environment and the presence of the narrative of 'woke' culture that enables the reactionary to readily dismiss criticism without even consideration. "Oh, you're a socialist" they will howl, thus avoiding addressing the issue or the critique offered, and again kids starve.

Just

Feed

Kids

Too Little Too Late 4: Just Feed Kids

I've been feeling a little peaky. Probably hypochondria as exacerbated by the current situation. Probably nothing. Probably something. Probably Covid! ARG!

Who knows. This time of year is always a petri dish for bugs and bullshit. Unfortunately now there's a spectre hanging over. Whatever coughs and sneezes we get have to be filtered through the lens of possibility. This alone could tip the health service - and the already cracked test and trace 'service' - over the edge. 

Yesterday, Tory MP's, desperate as ever to outdo themselves, voted to starve children.

Let that sink in. 

This is the world under capitalism in 2020. Our government, having been in power for a decade now and having impoverished the welfare state, are so opposed to anything from the opposition they will publicly grandstand on Twitter proud of this decision. They will say Labour are opportunistic, that it's virtue signalling. Essentially framing this proposal as a trap.

Even if all those things are true, and they may well be, politics is ugly, so what?

Just

Feed

Kids

Is that so hard? it is if you're a Tory. They would rather deny a few quid to the innocent than 'lower' themselves to what they obviously think is some form of ideological blackmail. Again: so fucking what!

Just

Feed 

Kids

That's really all there is to it. No need to over think it. No need to trap yourself in a web of your own thinking. No need to 'score points' (by accusing the other of the same). No need for big brains.

Just. Feed. Kids

What else is there? Anything else is pure politics. Tribal, hateful, bigoted, Tory.

I see Farage, ever the opportunist, has jumped on this issue, deciding the government really ought to play fair. Obvious hypocrisy really; this is the guy that's in favour of libertarian politics, privatising the NHS for instance. Sure he's free to say he's in support, but he's not fooling me - and he shouldn't fool you. 

Too Little Too Late 3: Or Just Too Late?

This

Is pretty depressing. There's no getting away from it. Your first reaction may be to think it hyerbole. Maybe it is. I can see that the language used may be intended to provoke a reaction from our moribund government who only seem to act when it aligns with their interests or their mates' profits.

The gist seems to be that we now cannot avoid hospitals being overwhelmed. This will lead to more deaths, perhaps not just from Covid.

Sobering.

I'm not sure what else to say at this point. I have done my best to keep as level a head as possible. I've tried to acclimatise to the deliberate mismanagement - and it is deliberate - of this crisis. For example: the awarding of contracts to the worst candidates possible, mates of Tories and their creepy allies, the rewarding of bad behaviour - Cummings not getting the boot was deliberate and therefore it was rewarding his total malfeasance. This government hasn't just taken its hands off the wheel, it threw petrol all over the road and tossed a match. 

Sooner or later there will be a reckoning. If it's sooner it will be to the tune of, possible - though hopefully not - thousands of dead. What terrifies me is that I avoided it the first time around, now it feels like I'm being forced into a second round of Russian Roulette and I'm having to pull the trigger again. Are the odds in my favour? Yesterday saw an almost 100% increase in local infections. Nationally we have almost 27.000 new infections. I said that the rate would increase. I'm not a scientist, but it seems as obvious as it appears to be inevitable. In response it's crickets from our government. They seem only interested in a spat with working class people up north, revealing once again that the only tools they have are the weapons of class war.

Monbiot in the Guardian (also) has a scathing analysis, excoriating the Serco test and trace contract debacle. I didn't know Penrose was the anti corruption champ or tsar (or whatever) for the government. He clearly need look no further than his own backyard. He won't, of course. 

It's clear that this mixed approach, obviously intended to bend the knee to capital, cannot continue. At this point I'm questioning whether we can keep schools and universities open. Are they banking on the fact younger people are less likely (or so the wisdom goes) to die? A smaller death count than with their similar approach to care homes?

At this point I think it clear the working class are going to have to take charge of the situation, somehow, if we are going to survive this. Anything else and the Tories will send us to the bloody dogs! We can't afford to let them kill us by virtue of ignoring the mounting annual crises in the NHS. Remember during the election the stories of kids sleeping on chairs in waiting rooms for the want of a gurney, or a doctor? The same people are in charge, steering us toward the next disaster, Brexit.

Winter is coming, it will be dark and cold. Do not go gently into that covid night.

Too Little Too Late 2: Remember When 5000 Was a Small Number?

Oh the halcyon days of March when we were in the grip of the pandemic. Before the pubs opened, the schools became petri dishes, and everyone went to the beach. I still find the latter very peculiar. Going sunbathing in a pandemic seems like swimming in a sewer, but what do I know. The local kids were actually swimming in a sewer over summer: splashing about in the local river oblivious to the risk of Lyme disease. Ugh.

The heat makes you do crazy things I guess. 

So today, and bearing in mind it probably includes figures from over the weekend because of how this is reported, we're over 21,000 cases and 241 deaths. This is the worst result in months. Looking at the case rate chart for the year so far, the 500 high point of Spring looks minuscule compared to now, and, potentially, what's to come.

We've got Christmas on the horizon. There is no fucking way the government are going to have any chance of stopping people filling the shops (within whatever limits the shops set, and you can be sure big business won't care), socialising, travelling, and even meeting up with family. If they don't lockdown now, the festive period is going to be a nightmare. 

But we all know they won't. Boris has given up. The Tories would rather change the subject and argue about Brexit. Anything to distract from the catastrophic mishandling of this pandemic. The situation for students is looking dire. They've been completely hung out to dry along with racking up a debt for an experience they arne't receiving. Some of them locked down in halls aren't getting the necessary resources; hot water running out. No decent or adequate food. I fully support rent strikes and would go further and call, now more than ever, for the complete abolition of the student loan book. None of these kids shoudl be in debt for this. The universities can afford this and the government certainly didn't pay for their educations.

Enough of Gove lying and sleaing his way across my TV screen, like the detritus of a sneeze sliding down the screen. Enough of bent housing minister dirty Bobby Jenrick threatening to starve the workers in manchester. Enough of Boris the Cummings Clown. Fuck the lot of them.

Too Little Too Late 1: Not Drowning But Second Waving

Travelling out on Saturday was a strange experience. Saying that is also strange, but then strange are the times in which I find myself! I seem to forever live in two worlds: the normal world wherein folk walk around town and buy stuff from shops, bumping into each other, talking shit, sitting outside cafes and Wetherspoons. The other world is the one with a virus relatively suffuse within the community. You can't see it and you can't feel it. In fact it might not even be there, but we have no way of knowing so we have to act, as we have throughout, as if everyone's affected.

So these two realities share the same space and it feels like a Dr Who episode where reality is cracking and melding. All we need next are the Daleks and Cybermen fighting each other. We'll just have to settle for the American election, though that is almost certainly going to be far more destructive. Living in Covid land is like living in a Lovecraft novel. A terrible cold reality overlaid onto our own. Again a bit like the Presidential parades over the pond.

Wales is to experience a two week lockdown. Fortunately that means no Halloween and perhaps no Guy Fawkes. That would be unfortunate as there's nothing quite like celebrating the almost-success of a plot to blow up a building of idiots. (That's a joke, GCHQ, just like the actual government.) Though I suppose there is no real reason why private backyard bonfire parties for the family and no one else can happen. I rather hope so, Wales and beyond.

As for the rest of us. God only knows. Our fate is in the hands of fools. It is quite clear that they have no intention of doing the right thing so we'd better hope there's herd immunity. Whatever action gets taken, in the wake of at least 100.000 infections a week (half a million in a month) will be too little too late, and if it's not done in time for Christmas then there's a real risk of the NHS in England collapsing. Do these vicious corporate thieves really want that? Electoral suicide surely. Though at this point I think Johnson realises he's a dead man walking. He has no future as PM past Brexit, besides which he doesn't really want the job because it doesn't make him enough money (yet - the real money's after the gig ends).

Hancock will be ok as well. Expect in twenty years to hear about the "Covid years" from Lord Hancock, having been pensioned off to the Lords after this is over. He'll resign in exchange for this 'punishment' and then publish his memoirs while polluting the democracy as an unaccountable lord. There's no shame for these people. I doubt he wants the job anymore anyway, just like Johnson. The novelty's gone.

Oh what a glorious future that will be as we make for digital Waterstones on our floating islands following the climate apocalypse. Waterlogged wifi competing with the terrifying ultraviolet and daily immigration alerts warning of an influx of climate displaced refugees from Spain or Newmerica.

Hurry up with the warp drive please. I have a date with the 23rd century.

Weekender Wanderer 2

 With or without Covid, winter is an ordeal. Gone are the days when you can just step outside into inviting warm weather, the sun, and just go for a walk. Everything's much more oppressive. You can feel the distance from the sun increase because the light is slightly paler, colder. Going out for a walk takes more effort because of the weather. The days are shorter yet ironically time itself stretches into darkness. You are more alone with yourself, I feel. Perhaps that is the consequence, or the cost, of living rurally. The flip side of blossoms and summer bloom. There is always this yin and yang in the world, seeking to understand is the journey, perhaps even the purpose, of a lifetime.

I seek to find meaning in this. I work to align myself with how the world changes through these seasons. This is what I consider to be spirituality. The attunement of self with world. Perhaps a merging of sorts; a sublimation of ego into eternity. The endless movement of life. The heartbeat that never stops.

All that is before the presence of the pandemic. In so many ways winter will be different this year, but in so many ways it will be the same, perhaps made even more intense. For example, I will be very surprised if there isn't trick or treating in a couple of weeks. I will be very surprised if the shops aren't packed over the festive period - even though certain things will be different, or gone. There will be no Christmas markets in Bristol for example. Frankly that's not too bad, although if that's your livelihood then it quite literally will be too bad. For me, I think they busy up the streets making the city centre a horrible overly busy sensory overload. I'm always relieved when that period is over. Well now it's over before it starts. But the shops are certainly going to want to sell as much as possible, as they normally do.

More importantly people are going to want to buy things.

Will there be a lockdown before hand? Maybe that would help. Lockdown for a month and then maybe mad consumerism can return, briefly, before lockdown is necessary again. That's the new cycle of life it seems. The new spirituality. Not really ideal.

Someone floated the idea that we should lockdown during the school holidays, such as the upcoming half term. Use that as an opportunity to 'break the circuit'. It makes a kind of sense, there's something reasonable about it. Of course it won't happen. The longer the stupid government takes, dithering, to decide how to react to this second wave, the longer that wave will be.

Weekender Wanderer

Today is the first day in seven months I rode the mighty steel wagons our ancestors called 'omnibus'. Strange to see many of these great beasts of alloy and tread proudly striding the lonely highways of our benighted land. Not so benighted, the traffic is actually, now, worse than it's ever been, but perhaps that's the fever speaking. The fever of freedom!

Kinda strange going to a place you know well but haven't seen in such a long time. The familiarity is such that it's almost alien. Aside from the obvious changes, social distancing signs, most people wearing masks (I include those that don't understand a mask is meant to cover the nose as well as not wearing masks), it's the same. I walked through the streets and the shops, which were marginally less busy than I expected, especially bearing in mind it's Saturday morning. I kept expecting to be hit with something: a cough or a sneeze. As if I was walking through humid air where you can feel it. Of course that didn't happen. Everything was disarmingly normal, more or less.

And so this may well be the new normal, depending on how the second wave (and perhaps others to follow) plays out. Maybe it'll work out, but it hasn't for Argos. I never expected to see them struggle, but their store in town is boarded up. The big warehouse at the edge of town likewise is turning into an industrial skeleton. Perhaps they have shifted their focus online. Perhaps their Bible of Dreams, the laminated encyclopedia of wishes wasn't covid proof. I don't know. Kinda sad really. What does this mean for other shops? Can they survive? Will the cost of providing hand sanitiser be the undoing of western capitalist civilisation - perhaps Argos should get into the soap business. I bet the manufacturers of portable hand cleaning products never thought they'd see such a terrible golden age!

(Apparently Argos is temporarily closed, but there was a 'for let' sign on the door so that seems pretty permanent!)

Them Or Us Again 5: The Struggle

 I think I'm starting to struggle. I'm running out of things to say. Do I just repeat the same dismal news everyday? The news IS the same dismal daily repetition, though. Shall I endlessly point out how capitalism is failing and failing us over and voer? The problem with that kind of rhetoric is the decades and decades of anti-socialist propaganda that has reached the point where even mention of the word immediately provokes an insurmountable violently ideological response. Even one that's incoherent.

I've tried talking to people online (can't do much elsewhere) and it's an uphill struggle. You are doomed to failure when dealing with people that aren't even willing to consider the possibility, during a pandemic, that capitalism isn't helping us anymore, if it ever was. Our world is falling down around us, the economy is cracking at the seams to the point cycles of lockdown and unlock are unsustainable; they are microcosms of the boom and bust that defines capitalism at the best of times. Yet people are blind to any alternative. All you hear from the tired reactionaries in punditland and the now-blamestream media is that we mustn't lock down. But they cannot (nor will they) offer an alternative. This is because the only alternative that can be offered isn't capitalism, and they are too proudly ideological to accept this.

The shadow of brexit looms. The Euro Doomsday clock ticks ever closer to Midnight. In fact that ticking is being actively ratcheted by people too stupid to realise the damage they are going to cause. Again, their ideology blinkers them. In response, of course, they will assert the same of me or anyone making a similar accusation. We now have to prepare for no deal. The choice that even the Brexiteers said wouldn't happen. The outcome that was to be filed under Project Fear. It has escaped the depths of the underworld and returned to haunt the house. How do we prepare though? Does that mean stockpile food, or, heaven forfend, bog roll? Get all the vaccines for the diseases (not Covid of course!) and inject them all in case of...?

Pray?

Them Or Us Again 4: The Blame Game

Things are starting to crack I think. The application of a higher tier lockdown protocol in Manchester and Liverpool is being rejected. The government, typically, is offering no support for those whose lives it will affect. This is going to happen across the country for the next six months. The Oxford vaccine people are reporting that they don't expect anything until July at least. I don't think this situation can hold - especially come Christmas and into the New Year. There will be a push for retail and celebration. How can that happen?

Once again the media focuses on working class blame. Footage of students in Liverpool, on the eve of increased restrictions, in the streets 'partying' is of course disingenuous, but covid is the hoody of today: the latest affectation foisted on working class people, including students who are now the latest victims of the government's capitalist response. Now we have something else we can use to blame the working class.

To be sure it probably wasn't the best thing they could have done, but outdoors is much safer. Ultimately, what do you expect from people? This government is abandoning them and making no effort to help. Student have bene abandoned to the landlord class. Profit, in the form of rent, is their priority. Earlier on it was old folk, dumped out of hospitals to spare the government's blushes. 

What is clear is that the Tories, in seeking to avoid blame for their ineptitude, are once again seeking to cast blame upon the working class. People are exhausted now. They want to 'come home for Christmas'. They aren't going to be able to, which could well be a flashpoint. I'm not sure the Tories realise they are playing with fire, but the only language they understand is the language of capitalism and it offers no answer to this crisis.

Them Or Us Again 3: You Wanna Be A Circuit Breaker!

 Home for Christmas? If you're lucky!

Tories are planning an extra special University Challenge. Bamber Boris is going to lock'em all down for a couple of weeks just prior to the end of term. Online teaching and then, if you pass the Covid Class, you get to have a Shite Christmas, like the rest of us. Not sure what happens to those who are still infected, are the doomed to remain in dead dorms? Yule's out forever?

What a fucking mess it all is. Over these last few months I've felt as if chunks of my mind are being shed. The endless gaslighting from liars and ministers tasked with, it appears, vast amounts of corruption, is increasingly a pressure on my sanity. My state of mind is like the trees outside. As the winds of Covid mismanagement blow, so do the leaves of calm fall off the branches. A barren skeleton is increasingly revealed with good intentions, hopes and dreams, littering the floor in a fading umber carpet.

Not exactly how I saw 2020 playing out!

We've gone from jeopardising the elderly in their care homes to jeopardising the young in their schols. What's lef? Who's left? What happens when term starts up again; the whole thing goes back to square one for the third time. 

There is no other alternative but the cessation of the education system for now. Clearly, as that appears to be the main vector, it is unsustainable. For the government this is unthinkable, what else can be done? Temporary 'circuit breaker' lockdowns will just reset the clods a little bit. But buying time is only useful if there's an end goal and a vaccine is not ready. We need a permanent shift, and not only in terms of the superficial trappings of society. Fundamentally this is an opportunity for change on a much deeper level, and it is being squandered.

Now Wales has had enough of England and it's Covid stupidity. No one's welcome in Wales from a Covid hotspot. So basically the north. What a rotten mess this is. The daily case rate is the highest it's been for a long time as are, now and grimly, the daily deaths.

We can't go on like this. 

Them Or Us Again 2: fimbulwinter

As you know some people like to claim that we are all overreacting to Covid. If you consider, that is, essentially, true. Why: because to react proportionately requires information people simply don't have. If I, for example, catch a bus, how can I know if there's a dollop of virus all over the seats? Buses are a vector for seasonal bugs like nobody's business. If I visit a shop, can I see germs on the shelves?

No, obviously. So we all have to make best guess judgements. I haven't caught a bus in seven months. That's unprecedented for me. But that doesn't mean buses aren't viral heaven, nor does it change the fact they are over priced, or that having to rely on them is a pain in the arse. That was always true; having to wait, deal with other passengers, the fiddly ticket system, the noisy bus station (oh GOD!). What this crisis has done is forced me to reevaluate whether such journeys are worthwhile. Now, because of the restrictions and the virus - the advice has always been "act as if everyone's infected" - I have to consider how economical it is for me to go into town. Is it worth it to pick up a few odds and sods, stuff I can get either locally or even online, perhaps paying a bit more? My answer, now as it has been throughout, is no. Judging by the state of the buses I see going past, I'm not alone in this.

Or, rather, I am. That, after all, is the wound within society right now. A few isolated faces on starkly vacant buses (which may ironically mean they are cleaner) is a sad reflection of desperate days. Unfortunately I don't have any answers. Even more unfortunately, neither does Boris Trump and his demon puppeteer. We are in it for what appears the long haul. The only stop on this road of oblivion appears to be the mirage over a cliff's edge called Brexit. Sunlit uplands...sharp drop into a ravine filled with stones, sharks and corona crocodiles.

Robert Jenrick seems to be doing the rounds on behalf of Tory messaging right now. I'm not entirely sure why. The guy is corrupt, but that doesn't seem to matter of course. Who among them isn't? His mission is to defend the government ignoring sage advice (literally as well as figuratively). I smell the slimy hand of Gove in this; after all he and Cummings are the real government, and Gove is famously contemptuous of expertise. Who needs science in a pandemic, right?

The death toll is rising. The government is inept. The finality of our oncoming fimbulwinter is stark. If they don't lockdown...

Them Or Us Again 1: Gasmask Revival

Strap in for Boris Trump's announcement.

Well that was clear as mud.

Three tiers, like a shit wedding cake. Or the kind so extravagant that eating it would reveal it isn't a cake at all and you're eating a plastic construction at the risk of your teeth. Choking hazard, a bit like Boris himself.

I had read earlier in a  Guardian article that was simultaneously speculative and yet clearer than this guff coming from the PM. I suppose we'll get details later. It said that, in Tier 2 areas, households could not mix indoors. It also said that a Tier 2 area will be one where there are more than 100 cases/100,000 people.

If this definition is correct than I'm most definitely in such a region as were are over twice that. I would imagine all but the most rural and remote areas are. But what seems to be the case is that it'll be Tier 1 everywhere, except where it isn't, and then there will be lots of exceptions. For example, pubs that sell food (like those that vote Tory, by some sheer coincidence no doubt) can still open. Does food or the act of eating make you immune now?

It's as clear as mud. 

More information has appeared, as I read the rolling news coverage. This from the Guardian: 

"The “medium” alert level, which will cover most of the country, and will consist of the current national measures. This includes the rule of six and the closure of hospitality at 10pm."

If most of the country is going to remain as it is then how is anything supposed to improve? Surely these current conditions aren't effective and that is the problem?

So what does that mean for Tier 1? Those are going to be regions where even those restrictions, previously universal, won't apply, right? Am i correct? Who knows, this fool, this stupid bumbling grandstanding oaf can't even explain. What regions does he think are worthy of no or less restrictions than what currently exist?

Words utterly fail me. We are facing the most intense time of the year for the NHS. The winter is always difficult for a lot of people, myself included. Now this? Utterly incoherent bullshit.

So it now seems that Tier one, which seems likely to apply to most, is basically as things are now with all that Rule of 6 bollocks. But this isn't working so why should this not be addressed?

I am starting to crack

Weekend Or Us 2: Winter Is Coming

It's weird, the little things that have quite the emotional impact. Made all the more apparent as the seasons devolve into winter. A time where every little thing matters. The streetlights have been replaced. I don't remember this being done or when, but instead of those lofty quiet lozenges exuding a quiescent amber we now have austere sharp pinpricks of bright white. I'd always assumed the orange hue was chosen for residential areas because it wasn't fierce enough to keep people awake. I've no idea if that's true, but these new lights are bright and they blot out the horizon. When I go for a walk I can see across to the streetlights thereon. I find that oddly soothing; distant and comforting. But now that view is obscured. No one asked if I wanted that change, but then why would they.

Little things that change and can't go back. Little decisions like viruses. They spread and change things. Our society can't go back. It mustn't. We've seen under the table; we know how the trick is done now. The Wizard of was is a corrupt old media baron, pulling the strings on the puppets in power. Their grasping ambitions exposed. Yet nobody ever seems to notice. Things are too tribal for mere facts to change views. Boris' government can be as corrupt as it likes, as long as it's not the red menace or the likes of the loony left. 

We're almost at 100,000 cases a week now. Just imagine that, back in the Spring. How would people have reacted to such a high number back then? Sooner or later, if this is left unchecked, there will be a tipping point, surely; a critical mass. What happens when the figure becomes a million? 

I don't see how we can go on like this. Tomorrow Boris is supposedly announcing a trio of new measures or gradients of crisis, or something. God only knows what gobbledegook he'll come out with, enshrined in a trio of words intended to directly penetrate the consciousness. That's the pattern they've been using: Rule of Six, Hands - Space - Safe (or whatever it is), Get Brexit Done. And So On...

It's just a PR stunt meanwhile covid is just a business opportunity. Furlough is an investment; a loan scheme. Physician heal thyself, with nothing extra to pay for the first six months. Winter is coming. This is going to be a tough one. It's never an easy one. The rush of Christmas will be replaced with...? Who knows. Now it's going to be dark and cold; like a mirror that knows all your secrets. That's winter. We don't have the comfort of a warm spring or summer to escape into this time. With cases rising and government failing we risking going gently, feverishly, into that not-so-good night.

Weekend or Us 1: Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting...the Class War!

So that Trump's a right laugh! Gets out of hospital, coughs his way through an interview with - of all people - Sean Hannity who couldn't persuade the Orange Virus to divulge if he'd been given the all clear. Meanwhile Tucker Carlson, the king of concern trolling - openly verbalises stunning (and of course confected) credulity at the existence of obesity. As if you could live in America and be unaware of the phenomena of obesity. A country raised on junk food!

Now, he doesn't want a second debate. 

Correction. He doesn't want one over the telephone wires. This is because he can't bully and gaslight "sleepy Joe". Well ain't that a shame. His tactic is therefore clear; hector the guy until you, hopefully, throw him off his stride. Then get that soundbite where it looks like he's dysfunctional and boom. Victory, hopefully.

It's a pretty crappy tactic, but that's what you can expect from a narcissist self entitled liar and bully. If it  wasn't clear by now that's what he is, well you can just watch the first debate. Assuming you can stand the dishonesty. I don't think he said one thing that was true throughout. In fact he's so dishonest I'd have to double check Joe Biden's own name.

That's your president folks; leader of the free world. Now with added medicinal supercharge. Like the biological six million dollar man. Pumped up on steroids and experimental drugs with names so bizarre you'd think they were an eighties rave act. How long can this last? When will his skin stop glowing? At some point what's left of him is going to just expire, like a balloon with the (poison) air let out. A fart and a whimper leaving naught but a withered husk. DNA stitched together by necrotic bigotry. Meanwhile he'll be attending rallies like President Pepe Le Pew, stinking out the place with Eau De Covid. Mask up, for the love of god.

Extreme poverty is set to rise this year, for the first time in twenty years. Pushing up to 115 million people into desperation. By some frightening coincidence, billionaires are now almost 700 dollars richer. Ill gotten gains - literally.

Of course it's not a coincidence. It is exactly how capitalism works. This isn't a roll of the dice, it's the direct consequence of conditions that have been set up and tweaked by the rich to benefit the rich over the decades. All to ensure they profit. Those that make that profit may well join that 115 million. The idea that we can all end up like Jeff Bezos, an inhuman corporate zombie, is pure propaganda. 

Rishi Sunak is promising more furlough fun: two thirds of your wage if you can't keep doing your job because of the disease his government are ignoring. How are people already on poverty pay or the minimum wage (which may well be the same thing) supposed to manage with less? Why can't they be paid their full wage? Why must we even continue the charade of wage labour when, very clearly, it isn't enough to live on. 

Now, when you need them msot, they want you to live on less.

Them Or Us 5: Certainty

 Certainty, after a fashion, has entered my mind. I think that is what has been lacking for the last half of this period. When the lockdown 'ended' things started to fall apart. We can see that through the uncertainty as well as the promise of dangerous normality. Meanwhile Covid was, and is, still with us. 

Clearly the government has opened too much too soon. Although there is some question as to the extent, I think it utterly credible to assert that the hospitality industry ought never to have opened. At the very least not before schools, and schools that were made safe. 

They haven't been. It seems that schools, more so (probably) universities, are now the biggest vector. Kids are being locked down in universities while many more are just ignoring the situation which won't help. University of Bristol student accommodation in the city centre has now locked down and the situation in the city is growing more serious with an alarming number of spikes. 69 clusters have appeared.

I have gained certainty simply because this convinces me that, for the foreseeable, I'm going to avoid Bristol. It just sin't worth paying for a bus journey on dirty old buses (i'm sure they do their best to clean them, but buses have always been a problem) just to go around some heavily Covid-policed shops for half and hour, then back home. It isn't ideal, but the removal of doubt is satisfying.

This is the difference between then and now. When lockdown first happened, way back when, it was certainly scary. I had never experienced anything like that before, have you? But that it was everyone across the country was both reassuring and clear. I'm not excusing the government, they should have done this quicker. In fact this was the last resort following a death of planning and preparation, including before the first outbreak in China. But we were where we were.

That period had certainty - beyond the initial toilet roll chaos (to be clear). People knuckled down and, for a time, a different way of life appeared in the sunshine. Gone was the sound of planes, gone was the gridlock (not like right now, I've never seen as much traffic as recent weeks). Wildlife was reasserting itself even! I had a simple routine where I would enjoy the sun and read a book in the afternoon. A little light cardio in the morning (I hate exercise). It was not life during wartime. Of course my experience is my own, many people have suffered greatly. We even clopped those on the front line.

Now all that was thrown away in the last few months. Who knows what the future will hold. But I'm not going anywhere right now. I shall hide amid the stinging nettles and rain clouds and find something different, hopefully. Away from dirty old buses and city streets.

I now believe a second national lockdown is both inevitable and essential. There is no other solution to the second wave, and we cannot deny that's what it is. Current rules aren't working. Local lockdowns are an ineffective strategy; people just move around too much I think. We all want an end to Covid, but that's not on the horizon right now. Christmas can't happen like this either. Without restrictions people will just flood the streets, and their immune systems. Who wants to unwrap grandpa's last will and testament on Christmas Morning!

Lockdown 2 is the only way forward now. Our government has fucked it up. The real and dangerous question is how long they are prepared to take before conceding. It may well be too late!

Or we could all inject Trump's blood. I support this theory. The whole world draining this evil old husk dry. Might be his best contribution to the world

Them Or Us 4: Fetch My Guillotine

17,000 cases now. Numbers, they have a habit of rising. They say the majority of cases are coming from educational establishments. In fact there was an outbreak at the university of Bristol: nearly 200 students affected. That isn't chump change. That's kids, possibly out of home for the first time, now stuck. What support will they get? The universities are dependent on the money these kids provide. Capitalism uses them, Covid threatens them. Where is the support? We can't go on like this.

I am starting to feel the pressure now. Winter is clearly on the way and claustrophobia is setting in. It was one thing to lockdown in April and through early summer when the weather was nice. I developed a pleasant routine and could sit in the garden. Now it's wet and slowly getting colder and darker. This is not a good time to need a second lockdown or experience a greater spread of infection. It is threatening and depressing. If people were worried about the mental health of people during the earlier lock down, then they are going to bee even more worried now. I think we are in for a pretty dark period. Not least of all because the unresolved Brexit issue remains. We could be looking at a bleak midwinter indeed.

The Tories have squandered the blood sweat and tears of the nation. NHS staff worked hard and we clapped for them. If only we'd known then that it would have been for nothing insofar as stopping this infection because here we are again, as if nothing has happened. The compulsion to stay at home. The sacrifice, the loss of loved ones in care homes, the damage to education. All of it has been for nothing. It is galling to have to say this. But the Tories - and this is a grim and salutary lesson - are behaving as they always have. Putting private interests first. They cannot speak another language. It has resulted in a second wave. Everything the working class has achieved (NOT the Tories!) has been pissed away by these monsters.

Never forget that, why, nor who. Johnson and his filthy racist, hatemongering cronies (and no amount of xenophobia can cover this) can go to hell.

Oh and Trump doesn't want a virtual debate, now that he's President Patient Zero at the Whitehouse. This is inly because it will be impossible for him to gaslight Biden, hectoring and heckling in order to make him look like the "Sleepy Joe" image he wants to sell his shitty voter base.

Fuck these people. Fuck all of them Into oblivion.

Them Or Us 3: Herded

 My mother went to town today (sounds like the start of a wholesome nursery rhyme), she tells me that parts of Tesco are closed. The deli, fresh fish, and fresh meat counters are not serving. Having not visited that shop in six months, where I used to go weekly, I have no idea if this is a new twist in the covid tale, or whether it has been like this throughout. 

It's a bit worrying. The Tesco I do visit doesn't have those sections, but it did say, in respect of their cheap egg range, that they are limiting them to 3 per customer. I do not know why. I can only speculate that there's either increased demand, or perhaps a problem with the supply chain. 

Currently we are hitting 14,000 new infections a day. Whichever way you slice it, that can't be good. I believe it's down to the hospitality industry being open, encouraging socialisation in a way we are not ready for. However, this article, from the Watford Observer of all places (I've never been) suggests it could be schools. It's entirely possible, but in either case the government are going to be reckless. Dangerously unwilling, until (if) it's too late, to break the chain of transmission again.

All the sacrifice we made, as a society, earlier this year has been utterly wasted. If that doesn't sum up the Tories I don't know what will. It is a horrible metaphor for ten years of austerity as well. Can we really risk letting them take us down further? 

According to the Daily Fail 4000 of the world's top scientists have co signed a letter arguing for a heed immunity strategy. This Twitter thread sums up their crank nonsense perfectly. I don't care if they really are the world's best, though I doubt it. What they are advocating is horrible; survival of the fittest. Lock up the vulnerable and the elderly and then let the rest of us get exposed to build herd immunity. Do we even know enough about herd immunity to trust that will happen?

The fundamental problem is that society is too interconnected to simply separate the weak from the rest of us for a period. How would this even work, were it possible? How can supply chains continue to function? How can businesses remain open, even just to deliver supplies to the sheltered? You might not be vulnerable, but your partner may be, your child, or your parents that live with you. What if you work in a nursing home, what about your family? We are connected!

More importantly, do these people not realise that we aren't currently locked down. Even in the areas with local restrictions, they don't seem to be experiencing the kind of restrictions we had earlier this year. They may well have to, now. 

Ultimately, whether these people realise it or not, herd immunity is what is now being pursued by this government, by way of Tory economic ideology. It is survival of the wealthiest.

Them Or Us 2: Covid For Victory

 Stars are out tonight. Watching over us from their distant shapes. I'd spend more time looking at them but I don't fancy a crick in my neck. Would be cool to get a telescope though, this is the start of the season for starry nights after all. 

So Donald Trump has been freed from the state funded healthcare establishment that was treating him in the wake of catching the virus. Shots of him posing, after peeling off his mask like a Scooby Doo Villain ("I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you pesky covid"), reveal a shaky demeanour and what appears to be laboured breathing. 

I don't think it's necessary cruel to wish for the worst. He's the author of his own misfortune. His ignorance has charted a course since day 1 that has led to this point where, mere weeks before possible reelection and redemption, he could die of the thing he's been downplaying for months. In fact the site of him in a mask is oddly disturbing. Something must be wrong if the arch denier, the peddler of the racist 'china virus' meme, is wearing one.

We now know that it was. He caught it from a staffer, ironically named Hope, and has, incredibly, spread it to a huge number of people including reporters as well as Republican associates and assorted scumbags. The absolute state of it; the leader of the free world demonstrably laid low by dint of his own ignorance.

Unfortunately it will spin otherwise to his base. Already he's tweeting some messianic crap that his insane fans, the American Taliban, will respond to. He'll be the hero they've been dreaming of; the man who beat the Covid! All they need now is to market his blood. I wouldn't put that past him, he's stamped his name on all kinds of horseshit already. Including a boardgame (which is probably just a reskin of Monopoly, just different enough to evade copyright).

This ain't no game though. He's already accusing Biden of not having Covid and therefore being unfit to govern. Apparently not catching a virus through ignorance is a sign of weakness. While nearly dying (and possibly still dying) of a virus you've helped 200,000 of your countrymen to die is a sign of leadership and strength. If that isn't a metaphor for the now, I don't know what is.

Yes it's not nice to wish death upon anyone. I don't feel great about it. But he has to be stopped and if him catching a disease as a result of months of utter ignorance, conspiracy, denial, and racism, is what it takes....

We can't have another four years of someone that, right now, is overseeing forced hysterectomies on immigrants. That's Dr Mengele levels of disturbing! Give the world a break!

Them Or Us 1: Gravy Train Incoming

Soon the only employment will be in the employment industry. You'll have work coaches hired to interview other work coaches because nothing else exists.

The coming period is going to be a boom for the employment industry: agencies contracted through public money to essentially eat themselves. The out of work masses will be shoved from one group to another, never really getting anywhere because what jobs will there be? There seems to be the notion that the more we have of this industry the more the labour market will grow, but the truth is they have no influence on the labour market. They do not create jobs. They don't produce anything.

Instead they will profit from the plebs passing through their doors on a conveyor belt from one organisation back to the DWP and to another. Those that are deemed to not be participatory, not be doing enough to fully engage with this pointless round of confidence (trickery) building, magic thinking, and CV tinkering, will be weeded out. Excised and pulped, left with nothing. In this way the government will be seen as positively improving things for people. Of course whenever labour market policies and their effects are discussed there is no interested in the details: how employment is calculated, or, crucially, what people are actually doing to be considered success stories.

And so these organisations will grow fat from public money and contracts. Each will have its turn at the trough and then morph into the next contractor. Working Links became Ingeus and now Fedcap Employment has their contact (in Scotland at least). Nothing really changes. It's a gravy train. It's purpose isn't to help you, if you are helped - great - but that is a happy side effect. Since these organisations have no revolutionary impetus, offer no class consciousness, and don't have the tools to create jobs or even influence employers on behalf of their candidates (because that would be seen as counter to free market principles), they can't do much. It's profit.

Capitalism strikes again.

Weekender 29: To Christmas...And Beyond!

As if further proof of Johnson throwing in the towel was needed, his soft soap interview with professional nodding dog, Andrew Marr, was surely enough. He seems to think that just invoking some spectre of John Bull(shit) and inferring a Vera Lynn sentiment will save us from his incompetence. "We've all got to do our part". Except you aren't, and constantly dismissing the calling out of your irresponsibility is bullshit. That's all he's got. He's a lazy arsehole that just wants the prestige not the responsibility.

Cineworld is closing nationwide next week, perhaps for the long term, perhaps for good. How can they not? Will they be alone? Can the price of eye wateringly expensive popcorn save the economy? I guess not. Is the stench of popcorn stained seats an effective vaccine? Probably not either.

A staggering 12,000 cases have appeared today. This is the result of a technical error which means data from previous data is being added now. At the very least this means the already high levels, as we start this second wave, are actually higher. By how much we don't know, but there's at least another 6,000 (roughly speaking) that need to be allocated to those levels for the period of about a week at the end of September. It is also highly likely that trend is going to continue, if not worsen. Why wouldn't it? Nothing has changed in the meantime. The stupid rule of six, the ignorant pub curfew, which already has demonstrably disastrous if unintended consequences - which Johnson deliberately ignores.

His priority is the economy, he's not shy about this. But as we've discussed, the economy cannot be fixed before the health crisis is addressed. Therefore he's putting one first, and us second. This isn't ignorance, he's not that stupid. He's just blinded by ruling class ethics. Get the proles out working, if a few get sick, or even die, well boo hoo. There's plenty more where they came from. Unkind? Perhaps, but still true.

Who realistically sees this being 'over' in any meaningful sense by Christmas anyway? Do we get to play football in no man's land? People will want to go shopping and I'm sure, closer to the time, the Tories will encourage it. Do you remember when they had a five stage alert plan? Those were the days! We all knew where we was back in the five stage alert plan days. Back when Vera Lynn wasn't dead. Now it's caution to the wind and hope for the best. Dig for victory. Buy for Boris. Sacrifice your kids on the covid altar of profit. They'll thank you for it! School's the best years of your life.

I just hope they aren't the only years of your life!

Weekender 29: Welcome To The Bungle

 To be honest, getting the Covid is probably the best thing that could happen for Trump's re election, though not his health of course. He will likely survive, even given the risk factors, to enjoy a groundswell of support at the great corona messiah. He will dine out on how he's "beaten" the "China virus". and in return Biden will look weak (sadly, he is). It is the American dream writ large. 

I hope I'm wrong. I don't really care what happens to him, one way or the other. He's a terrible human being. I just don't want him as POTUS. But I don't have a say so too bad I guess. Probably shouldn't worry about it, I guess. It's not as if we don't have our own cretins in charge to worry about. 

This is our reality now. Even if and when a vaccine arrives it will take a good long while for it to filter through. Even then it will have to prove effective enough in terms of herd immunity to keep everyone else safe. Will it be free for those of us not in certain risk groups?

That day seems to be a long way off. Where we are is cases rising by 5-7 thousand a day, ever threatening a major increase. Will that happen? It's possible. I don't think the government cares anymore. 770 cases tested positive in one school, but the government hasn't closed the schools down. People go on pub crawls instead of isolating and we haven't shut the pubs down. 

This is the herd immunity strategy right now. The government got its wish in the end. We are being put through this weird survival of the fittest because they care only about profits. Not even the economy, because we could change our economic model. We won't, though. Instead we'll be forced to live like this for a long time to come, and perhaps after that. Who knows what effect the end of furlough will have but it can only increase the risk as people have to take potentially dangerous jobs to survive. At the mercy of capitalists who will value safety less than they ought. 

We are in the petri dish. 

Keir Starmer  ("we don't need another Keiro") is correct to simply say Boris has lost control. Unfortunately all he's done so far is hide under Boris' coattails, agreeing with the government's every intention, despite their epic incompetence. But that's what we have to live with right now. Will Christmas bring a respite? You can be sure people will pile into the shops one way or the other. There's no way people won't want to buy turkeys and presents. More so,  given how everyone will be feeling. Likewise New Year will require a greater deal of control from the government, which of course won't happen. Everyone is going to want to go out and celebrate the end fo a terrible year even though it's not going to end with auld lang syne. Unfortunately the more people will want to go out and party, the more the government will have to crack down. 

Sadly, I don't see that happening.

Writing In The Ruins 4: Rain Rain Go Away

 Well, well, well. It had to happen. The Donald done got the Covid. Apparently infected by a staffer ironically named Hope! How I laughed. His horrific selfish wife (who's on tape moaning that kids are suffering) is likewise sick. Oh, Corona, thou art a most fickle mistress.

You'll forgive my indulgence in a little light schadenfreude I'm sure. Join me! The rest of the world is. No one more deserving (Bolsanaro, but he seems to have survived) than this Tango Trump Elite Racist Dog Whistling Lying Hateful Scumbag. A world without Trump would be a better place, of that there is no doubt. Does that mean he has die? Not necessarily, but if that's what it takes. I mean it's not as if he hasn't spent the last six months downplaying the virus and setting a divisive example resulting in hundreds of thousands of dead. It's not as if his own rallies are breeding pits for this disease (including recent appearances possibly even the debate!). There is literally no one more deserving: he who lives by the sword...

He refuses to wear a mask. He's repeatedly advocated pseudo science. He's tacitly encouraged his supporters not to wear a mask. Some even died from the medicine (I can't spell the name of) he incorrectly recommended. He's lied repeatedly. He ignores and publicly mocks his own health experts. He continually appeals to the profit motive, willingly sacrificing the families - and kids - of the working class so he can capitalism can survive. That is his overriding motive. If that's what kills him in the end...

Well boo fucking hoo.

Meanwhile over here, over Hadrian's Wall some dimwit politician decided the best thing to do, while waiting on your test result was to take the longest train journey imaginable. Hours aboard a train in a small compartment (we'll never know how busy I guess). I mean what planet are these people living on.  The hubris involved in making such a catastrophic and egregious error of judgement are breathtaking. So she'll be up for promotion then - though Nicola Sturgoen thinks otherwise!

And the rain pours. Another storm. Angry earth seeks a cleansing perhaps, but we're getting in the way. The human virus infecting the body of the planet. We are our own covid. The earth cannot take much more of us, we're an earworm. We won't relent. The skies are twisted. Precipitation everywhere except where it's needed. Floods in one corner of the world, fire in another. The biosphere that nature gives us has given us notice. If we don't mend our ways, mother nature is going to evict. Who can blame her.

Writing In The Ruins 3: Miracles Don't Happen

Locally Christmas got cancelled. The mega markets that set up between November and Christmas Eve cannot set up this year for obvious reasons. Personally I'm not entirely bothered, though of course my living isn't contingent on selling weird continental foods that pretend to be sweet but are in fact savoury. Nor do I want to spend hundreds of pounds on bread made from everything but bread. Nor do I want to listen to the same few songs blaring out of a street wide array of loudspeakers over and over.

But I can see how, for some, that's not good news :D

The decision was actually made a month ago, but obviously logistics being what they are that isn't going to get reversed anymore than our useless government is going to get a grip on the crisis. 

I also read that a local idiot went to a pub on a bender instead of self isolating after, yawn, returning from a holiday and not self isolating. Why are we still allowing international non essential travel? I hate to again sound massively selfish, but surely this is a bad idea. Even if the clown gets a ten grand fine (which let's be honest is so ridiculous it won't ever get paid) the damage has already been done.

Fortunately no damage was actually done and the pub was contacted and all's well that end'd well. Could have covid been so different though. 

I get tired of having to defend stupid people.

And now we are getting sued by the EU. Well, potentially. They have initiated legal proceedings and given clown shoes in charge a month to respond. Do we really think he's going to say sorry and make right? Of course not, this will be another badge of honour for the lunatic fringe who have become convinced that everything the EU does is evil and they are deliberately out to get us. It's not fair, they are such meanies!

I thought we held all the cards? On our way to the sunlit uplands wherein the German car industry will be kowtowing to whatever we want, even though we don't seem to know what that actually is. No, the Tories can't even abide by the deal they bullied their way through Parliament, fought a campaign of dirty tricks to win an election on, and have now broken international law to change, even at the cost of a trade deal with the US and peace in Northern Ireland.

No discussion seems to be happening as to how we're going to procure (or even provide, if we come up with one ourselves) a virus from abroad. What happens if the German car industry comes up with one? We have no treaties in place - and they are pursuing us in the courts! Apparently we don't even have enough containers for the drug if one becomes available.

What do people think is going to happen here? Once we crash out - that's it! Miracles don't happen!

(bonus track: Oh and Trump has Covid. Thoughts and Prayers!)