The Year They Took Our Breath (+1 minute)

End of year scorecard: B+. Could do well if only it would apply itself. Easily influenced but can try harder.

That was the year that was. It doesn't really feel like New Years Eve. Perhaps because it's not pissing down with rain. Instead it's horrifically cold and looks set to remain for the foreseeable. Just the sort of weather the health service doesn't need while trying to fight a virus. Aside from human bodies, they are the only one doing so. The government has largely given up. Despite while the increasingly creepy Gavin Williamson says, schools will not be ready. How can they be; they aren't designed for this crisis and no support has been given to effect necessary change. Are kids and staff really going to sit for hours in classrooms made freezing because of windows having to be open? Do the Tories care?

When I recall the initial lockdown it is, to now, as the beforetimes was to that period. A different world. Despite - and not to diminish - the horror and death, that was a paradise compared to where we are now. The weather was on our side and we were fortunate it wasn't then, as it is now, the start of winter. A bleakr not-even-midwinter, despite the sun pouring onto my screen as I type.

I think there was a kind of novelty to it back then, an innocence before fatigue. I haven't been - thankfully - directly affected by this virus. I am lucky in that respect. A great many were, and are, not. But I can speak only to my experience. The sun was shining, the weather was pleasant, almost in ignorance, even defiance, of circumstances. That provided a relief. There was less traffic, less aircraft noise. These are good things, even if they originate in suffering. That is simply the nature of life. 

Then somewhere along the line that innocence was lost. We are weary now. Too many people are too tired. Too many people are not doing what they need to get over this, and that is the bitterest irony of all. While they are somewhat culpable blame must ultimately be placed at the feet of the msot shambolic grasping state I've ever known. Everything they have done has failed, and it needn't have been so. Even though these are unprecedented times for us, these are not uncharted waters. There are places we could have looked to for guidance. Examples to follow. But the arrogance of Tories is always to be underestimated. It has allowed the government to bludgeon through a terrible Brexit deal that will diminish us while half the country, and rising, burns in fever. Every briefing or press conference, at the three word lectern of confusion, just further reveals how lacking in anything remotely resembling competence or statecraft Boris Johnson is. Covid is a torch shone at him throwing up a shadow; a bumbling oaf who thinks he can 'ra ra ra' his way through this. Furiously shaking hands with a virus and nearly killing himself. Oh what might have been.

(Not to be outdone, Crying Matt quickly followed suit and dutifully surrendered to his microbial master. Now he's pretending to be upset in a TV studio in order to impress, of all people, Piers Morgan.)

Yes well.

Now we are here, with two vaccines on the loose. It will take the best part of 2021, and perhaps the rest of us, to see it through. I reckon it will take at least 6 months, assuming a consistent 2 million jabs a week, to get everyone vaccinated. But to assume nothing will go wrong just seems woefully naive. Look who's in charge? They haven't even done 2 million in the few weeks since the program started. They've spent a decade dismantling and selling off the NHS to the point that doctors are unable to provide both regular care and administer a vaccine. They won't listen though.

That is the lesson to take forward. It is, as it has always been, down to us. The only people that can save us...is us. The Tories will never change. They aren't going to learn. I'm sure they've handed the vaccine administering role to Serco or the like. Schools will open, the virus will remain. I want to be positive, for the start of the year. It is a time to start afresh, even if just in spirit. I hope, with the calming of the Christmas rush and the continued lockdown restritions, that the virus calms down. It has to, we have no choice. The government has abandoned everything else to enter into a vaccine race versus the virus. There is no second prize.

Happy New Year.

Thinking About Creativity While Escaping Tier 4 (+55 seconds)

Continuing the theme of not talking about Covid, but then talking about it later because it's such a disaster, I will continue from yesterday. SO GO READ THAT! 

Anyway.

It's a shame that the creative arts are not supported as career choices in our society. At least that hasn't been my experience. There may well have been schemes, but most are - or were (Brexit will put paid to funding) - aimed at young people. While of course I do not object to that, it's rather depressing to consider that older people are dismissed. That's always the implication. It's not just this subject either; most schemes seem to be aimed at younger people. If you're going to dismiss the rest of us, then why not just support us financially, shut up, and let us get on with our lives? You obviously don't consider them of any importance. 

What is so depressing is that all these schemes, in my humble experience, have been so dull. I didn't leave yesterday's call feeling the least bit inspired. A 45 minute appointment, over in a third of that time. It just becomes a tick box exercise for these people/ I'm sure the adviser is competent and professional. I have no personal axe to grind (yet), but what's the point? Is this really the best we can do? It's just a job and one where public money is on the line. My point all along has been that I could do better with the money her company, and so, by extension, and her receive. I don't begrudge her the job, obviously, it's the system that necessitates this nonsense. Creating it by virtue of the profit incentive, conditions that arise ony in our society: the desire to make a successful business and the recognition of inequality, lack of inopportunity, and, ultimately, poverty. It's a system that is feeding upon itself. 

Winter is a contradictory time for creativity. You'd be forgiven for thinking that, with a more introspective period (i.e. stuck indoors) especially now, one could devote much time and effort to being creative. But the limits on behaviour, even without covid, mean that one cannot properly expand oneself, so to speak. Stepping outside is an effort when the weather is oppressive, such as now. One cannot just jump into the fields and wander the land drawing inspiration as drawing breath from the air. Winter is the time of withdrawal, of rest and, hopefully, healing. Certainly an avenue for creativity, but not an expansive one.

Anyway, just thought I'd say that.

One final note, as I'm somewhat elated at still being in Tier 3 (small victories), there are no original ideas. People don't think of things without a reference point: an earlier idea. Creativity isn't about being original it's about freely expressing your voice, which is what's unique. We aren't clones and neither are our experiences. Those are what shape your ideas, even if they aren't your ideas.

That's enough, slowly creeps the scourge. Tomorrow the year ends. I really hope the next few weeks, the start of 2021, can see the virus receding. But that really depends on everyone because we won't get any help from the government.

The Professional Filter (+48 seconds)

 And after fifteen (out of the 45, booked) minutes, my third appointment with Fedcap Employment is over. THe latest in a series of social enterprises paid and ultimately answerable to the DWP that I've been in contact with. I'm happy to dance the dance with these people, as I always am, but it always ends the same way. 

None of them really can help, none of them are ever suited to help, and all of them are beholden to the capitalist state. Consequently everything is processed through certain filters. What you say is heard a certain way. If you, like me (and forgive the self indulgence), creative, you will struggle. Much, I suspect, as you do throughout life, because our society isn't geared to respect or even understand creativity - unless you can provide a clear path for your voice to come to profit. I can't give them that, who can? I have ideas; currently trying to write music. Having some success in achieving that. Ultimately that music will go to one of the many, probably quite exploitative, online outlets that exist wherein I can say "if you dig, share a bob or two". If enough people are generous thus, and inshallah, I can invest in better gear and move ever onward. But this isn't about being pop star or impressing rich businessmen who like to mould teenage dreams as clay. 

In fact I maintain all my creative interests. Not just music, but also writing. This is because I, like others (I hope), are fundamentally creative souls. Not everyone is, and there is no hierarchy of value to people in that regard. Nor should there be. However life is about expression, in my view. Creativity isn't simply liking music/art/words etc. It's about the ability and freedom to express oneself; to live. Our society does not understand this, and, because of the economic model, only values it in certain and limited ways. So when I ask what, if any, financial support is available (fully expecting nothing), the answer, to be fair, isn't outright no, but depends on whether they are convinced my creativity leads to "paid employment". It could, I guess. How would I know? I don't have an order sheet from HMV, for example. This isn't Dragon's Den, it's expression. But unfortunately society is very much a nest of wyrms.

So, 15 minutes. 

The most succinct (hah! I've got to pad this shit out for paragraphs!) summary is that I didn't come away feeling inspired, or even particularly positive. My expectations are already low, from dealing with their kind before. It's much the same, though fortunately not reaching Salvation Army levels of bullshit (yet). It's the tyranny of low expectations. Advertising copy that talks up how they are here to help, but in the end what can they do? These organisations are in fact a block; they take the money, through government contracts (willingly provided, it's a gravy train after all), that could sometimes be better invested directly. But even now schemes like the UBI, itself modest and still subject to capitalist control, are fiercely opposed when they have been shown to work. Helping people invest in themselves. Who else knows better? Most of the time at least; I certainly know better. At least better than I can adequately explain to someone whose listening skills are coloured by their professional filters. 

My adviser (or whatever the term this time is) hears what isn't said, imagining what I'm looking for even though I haven't said it. For example, she had got it into her head that I had asked about courses to attend. I'd said no such thing, just that I'd done a couple of casual creative writing courses (more creative than formal qualification) at a local centre. The sort of place that provides arts and crafts schemes, basic skills and coaching etc, to people, many of whom are disadvantaged or disabled. It's not a university or a college, just a socially funded hub. A place that, despite her working my patch, she'd never heard of (I find that telling). I did these for creative, expressive, reasons. Not for a goal or a qualification, and not because they would ever lead to paid work. They won't, not unless you are exceptionally lucky. She just doesn't understand this; her professional filters hear something specific: I must want to do a course. Courses are the sort of specific, saleable, service these social enterprises can offer. They tick a box. Merely being creative doesn't. 

But in the end she is very perfunctory, matter of fact. Almost stone faced. Bit harsh, maybe. But where's the inspiration? Though could I trust it? Given who she works for there is, unfortunately, a division between us. A hierarchy that gets in the way. That, sadly, is the real barrier to moving forward.

Endus Horribilis (+42 Seconds)

Fortunately, Tesco was less busy today. But goodness it's cold. The hills were capped with snow this morning. I do not like the cold. I'm not like the cool kids, wearing shorts and no masks. Heated by the radiation glow of their smartphones. To me this is body horror; no one was meant to wear shorts in this kind of weather. Who do you think you're fooling? Not your legs, they are screaming red like cooking lobsters.

Covid presents as the greatest threat to mental health since the second world war. This of course conveniently ignores the ten years of Tory austerity, the previous thirteen years of New Labour spin, the previous Tory administration, Thatcher, the cold war, and of course neoliberal economics. It is therefore no surprise that the greatest threat isn't covid, though it is certainly causal, but capitalism. I find it bitter to swallow the voices of those professing to care about our wellbeing while shilling for this toxic system. Their sincerity betrayed by their absence over the last period; throughout austerity and the loneliness of the viciously accelerated class war waged since 2010. Those decrying lockdowns had little to offer then, they have even less now. 

Liar Gove claims that the nation has decided that schools functioning normally is a priority. No, many teachers - and parents- think it too risky. Meanwhile his government has done absolutely nothing, leaving it entirely in the hands of staff and their budgets to make schools 'covid secure'. The government's meaningless 'open for business' catchphrase that is designed to let those MP's who break the rules off the hook. Staff have had to break their backs over Christmas to meet the government, not the nation, and its demands schools be open. Some kind of barometer of success; they think that if we get kids back in schools then we will have succeeded. Except that schools being open has proven one of the major impediments to a successful recovery. Such is the myopia of this exploitative cabal.

Is it real or is it fake? Who can tell anymore? I opened up reddit to see the latest corona virus news. Apparently I'm that stupid; at this point following all this is just self harm. I see mention of Teir 5! Beyond thunderlockdown! 8pm curfew? No outdoor exercise? That can't be real. Even though the sources seem to be the right wing gutter tabloids we are in such perilous times with such a shit government that nothing surprises me anymore. Except this, it seems. I am very concerned about this. Lockdown 3 is certainly inevitable, most of us can see that. Too many people are just not taking this seriously anymore, and we have Boris to thank for that. So something drastic really is the only solution at this point; with or without schools.

It's hard to stay positive. 

Post Advent Weekender 2 (+36 seconds)

Well I guess we have a week to go before the next, January-based, lockdown. The scientists are calling for it which means they are screaming for it. Measured language, for public consumption (so as not to offend gammon in their native environments), is always a step behind true sentiment. Certainly we can't go on as we are. In fact I just visited the shop and forgot to put my mask on! The shame I now feel given how good I've been about this. So embarrassed I put it on while at the till right before I walked out probably drawing even more attention to myself.

I just don't understand where this new spread has come from. If ti's true the new strain is more infectious then that would indicate people just aren't doing enough of the measures to curtail spread. That's the problem. We know masks and social distancing works even against this more infectious strain, for the same reasons. Therefore, since the lockdown, I conclude people aren't doing enough. That is going to have to change or things will get worse and worse.

A vaccine isn't a silver bullet either. Certainly it will help, but it could also promote false security. There will still need to be a period of public caution. We won't be able to walk out of the injection appointment and toss our masks in the air before running naked through the streets. It will still present an existential threat, especially globally. Many countries in the third world will struggle to get this vaccine, thanks again capitalism, which means it won't be fully eradicated for years. Then there is the question of whether the vaccine will need a regular boost or replacement, like with the flu.

Schools are set to open for the new year in a weeks's time. There is no way, thanks to the complete death of support from the government, to prepare them. They will thus remain a vector as they have been throughout. Unless this is addressed the root of communal spread cannot be excised. Although cases did drop during the lockdown at the same time as school's being open. But the only safe answer is the safe answer we've already seen: the March lockdown. Schools shut throughout and we suppressed the spread, after a few months, relatively successfully. Can that be replicated, or are people just now too tired. The tier system clearly isn't working.

Only a few more days of this shitty year left. Then another shitty year beckons. It's going to be a long road before this is over. People have got to do what they can. That is the essence of anarchism. Unfortuantely people are also infantilised by capitalism so the road ahead will be a long struggle as, hopefully, people come to terms with both their own power, and the realisation our leaders are crap.

Post Advent Calendar Weekender (+29 seconds)

Tier 3, again, arrives with the threat of another storm. More wet and miserable weather. I feel it keenly. Winter is just so oppressive. In some ways that overrules the Corona Crisis, but in other ways it brings it home more severely. Unlike summer i'm not out flitting around like a butterfly. I don't do much over Christmas and I don't have a large family that would congregate anyway so it doesn't matter. On the other hand without normality the days aren't really any different and so Christmas doesn't feel like a break. Normally I can feel legitimately lazy for a couple of days. Then I might go into town and, well, do whatever. What i'd normally do, spend money, buy pointless crap. Some CD's whatever.

I can do that now; non essential retail is still permitted, but the virus is present and so are the changes caused to society in its wake. Those changes will be with us for a long time, certainly for the next few months. It's all a question of the calm between Corona related government fuck-ups, of which there will be more. I wouldn't bet against the house on that one.

Yet I have things I can do, but they become a tyranny when there is no break from them, and that's the oppressive nature of winter. Everything is one tone; one colour. Right now, grey. In some ways it's good the days are short because you don't get too long starting at grey rain clouds. Better it becomes dark, I think. There's always tomorrow, which, by the forecast, will also be grey. Oh well.

I would like to plan ahead. I have some money. I've had it for a while, rainy day money I could happily spend on any type of day. There are things I could buy to invest in moving forward - at least that's the hope. The future is always a gamble, that's the nature of a capitalist society without the privilege of wealth. ESA money that I haven't yet spent mainly out of fear: what if I need to replace something, or make an emergency payment. More specifically, what happens if - when - my entitlement ends. 

Should that happen my money would stop instantly. There is no 'notice' or grace period. The decision is made and you learn about it when they decide to tell you, learning after the fact. It's ridiculous. The whole system is completely counter productive as a result. It prohibits you from planning ahead, making decisions that could improve your chances of moving forward. What should be a means to that end, or at least could be, if you're lucky, just becomes a chain that binds you. It would be better for that money to circulate in the economy. Instead it has to live in the proverbial shoebox under the bed in case of future events. We don't live in an economically secure society, our masters don't want that. So the whole thing is self defeating - and I'm lucky, I don't need to spend what I receive as much as others. Fpor many they won't have this luxury, they have to spend to live. I've been able to keep most of my benefit as savings, but am afraid of using them in the most positive way, for me, possible. Isn't that ridiculous.

Of course this is just massively self indulgent. Like I said: I'm lucky. It's a miserable cold wet Boxing Day (sort of, it's that weird double Boxing Day bank holiday weekend thing). But I have to wonder about moving forward. This is the time of year for that, but the straitjacket of the benefit system is its own enemy. It just seems to exist to keep people down. It doesn't help them because it's boith too stingy and too restricting: its gatekeepers too full of their limited ideology that keeps people from moving forward despite that nominally being their function.

Advent Calendar 20: We Got Here! (+23 seconds)

So here it is, merry Christmas.

I don't want to be talking about Covid today. But I do want to make an entry. Honestly it just feels like every other Christmas day: cold, getting dark early albeit slightly less early. I don't do much and I don't go anywhere. Now, this year, none of you can either! Hooray.

I'm sure there's another iteration of the Shrek franchise on TV. It's on every year. But I don't really watch broadcast TV because it's mostly rubbish punctuated by people trying to sell you rubbish. I'm sure the adverts are full of mention of the sales, starting Boxing Day! I can't imagine how that's going to work, but retail and capitalism are juggernauts not so easily stopped. Even with Tier 4 either present or looming I'm sure DFS and the rest of the sofa sellers, tour operators, and assorted tat purveyors (such as the fragrance floggers who, seasonally, hire the actor de jeur to speak french and wear stubble), will all be lining up starting tomorrow to spend your Christmas dollars. Amazon waiting in the wings of course :D 

What a year they've had!

Still, at least it's reasonably sunny and dry. It is however monstrously cold, but then why not? It's winter yo! 

The bells did ring out this morning. Our local church is 800 years old and the vicar is a nice bloke. I have no real time for dogmatic superstitions, but if believing that a sky master (who presumably created covid) exists makes you a decent person who am I to argue? I don't begrudge them their day out especially now. They even managed to get the bells rining and the clock working. No longer is it permanently 9:50, just twice each day.

So here we are. In the midst of a storm. On one side a pointless and lacking Brexit deal, Covid on the other. In a week 2020 dries up, but the effects linger. Hopefully, with a reneewed calendar, hope can follow. I'll be taking it one day at a time, the daylight waxing and the sun rising, ever so slowly, once again. Let us hope it is enough to emancipate ourselves of this prison we have found ourselves in, with the strength to rid ourselves of our jailers.

Advent Calendar 19: Tier 3 Eve Eve (+16 seconds)

The Autistic Spectrum Service haas again been in touch. My efforts to achieve a diagnosis continue. This time with the help (we'll see how far that goes) of Fedcap Employment. Unfortunately these organisations just cannot help with things like this. The government is content to fund them (when it could fund clients, the unemployed, directly) yet they really have no power to do much at all. You exist, as the client, to be exploited by them, in the Marxist sense. That is, from you they derive their profit. When it comes to dealing with, for example, mental health, they are ill equipped and inadequate. Access to things like Diamond Travelcards, which require a doctor sign off, could be really useful but these people aren't doctors. They are also not autism specialists. So what the client is left with is very little.

In the case of neuro divergent conditions, states that alter your relationship with society as it exists, recognition and thus verification are vital. I feel that I am constantly being denied access to who I am. I cannot validate my experience, except ad hoc, through reading or hearing other people's experiences who are diagnosed. But that is not the same. It isn't authentication. I struggle to find an identity and it is not helped by the fact that, I believe, without independent official diagnosis, I can never be sure. It feels somewhat fraudulent to self diagnose. Increasingly this feels the only option.

Sadly the diagnostic people are useless. The test I was given, known as ADOS, was not suitable. I believe it is intended for children, not adults. I certainly don't feel it spoke to, nor was revealing, of my circumstances. I was not asked nor invited to discuss that as is the case with the DSM 5 test, nor any of the tests I've seen online, official or otherwise. 

I guess it is down to the diagnostician which test they use. I have had no luck pursuing this and it is compound by their equivocation. In fact I would call it downright lying. The doctor assured me she would speak to the Attention Deficit Disorder specialists (it was flagged up by a DWP Work Psychologist, of whom I've spoken before, equally useless). This didn't happen and when I chased it up I was told no such promise had been made. They also said that they couldn't diagnose me because of the lack of an 'informant'; someone that can verify your experience from childhood. Of course not everyone will have that capacity but they lack any contingency so if that's you, as it was me, you're out of luck. However they also said that providing one wouldn't have made any difference anyway so doing so would have not changed the outcome. Recently they are saying the former: you didn't provide an informant. Their position, now, is that if you provide one we will look again. Or if 'new evidence' (presumably that) comes to light you can get back to us. I don't know what that could encompass other than digging out someone who's known you all your life. Such things would be difficult for the neuro diverse anyway.

So that's that I guess. At least for now. It's Christmas Eve, not the time for chasing up errant diagnosis. Then, of course, this is all happening in the shadow of the plague and so diagnosis would be remote and I'm not sure that's sufficient for the task at hand, which really is too bad, but no one's fault (except that . clown in Downing Street). I'm not willing to compromise getting a diagnosis. If I have to wait longer, so be it. It's been 47 years so far.

And Boris has a trade deal. To be fair, he had one that was oven ready last year. It's just he left the oven on for 354 days and set fire to the country before concluding that the oven needed replacing but no one was allowed to read the warranty or the instructions. Now we have a less secure replacement to cook our food with and the smell of gas has contributed to the deaths of thousands. Meanwhile the lunatics that live in the kitchen don't want an oven at all, they want to set fire to the house and cook their Beef Wellingtons on the flames while wearing petrol trousers.

Merry Christmas.

Advent Calendar 18: Dancing With Tiers In My Eyes (+10 Seconds)

Probably should have numbered every day during December rather than separate headers for the weekends. 

I'm tired of the news. I'm tired of saying the same thing every day so I think I need to talk about something else, especially as this is now nine months pretty much to the day that I've been doing this. The topic is more or less the same: capitalism's failure in the wake of covid. Our government's creeping and endless ineptitude in the wake of covid. It doesn't look like things are going to improve, but slowly, though I'm sure our leaders will be off soon, on their longed-for Christmas break. I've no doubt Johnsons will be off to sunnier climes as soon as.

Just that troubling issue of dealing with the EU first. The thing he could have postponed for a year in the face of a deadlier crisis. He might even have gotten a chance for a break, but no, all the chickens have come to roost, and cough over our Christmas dinners. Well done.

In Covid/Brexit Britain rice and pasta are considered essentials and thus to face supermarket limits. This along with bogroll of course. The wonders of the age. Humanity's epitaph: for the want of a some roll, her lies the great race. How droll. Makes the Voyager satellite look positively philistine. No wonder a virus has levelled our society.

It's two days till Christmas. The weather is horrific. Local kids are mooching around in the rain. It's a pretty forlorn site. They site on the football pitch in one of the offside team dugouts staring into the great grey open. I guess there's not much for them to do. I've no idea how they spend their time, but I guess they can't hang out in each other's houses. If school remains closed, and it's looking like that's a necessary step, then where will they go? I sensed over the summer they had grown rambunctious; restless. I suspect that could be even worse in the winter. It's not a good look.

But don't forget the days grow longer. Christmas day is brighter than today and New Year's Day will be even brighter. I hope that soon that will be figurative as well as confined to the sun's luminosity. But dare I hope Johnson and his cronies (because cronies are running the show) will roll out the vaccine as quickly and efficiently as possible. Murphy's law is knocking at the door.

Places will be joining London in Tier 4. The whole country before long. But Crying Matt won't tell us which until Boxing Day. Something to look forward to, like a good present. Only one that will take a few days to unwrap. Happy Christmas, you're in Tier 4. No refunds! They know which areas (I'm guessing) so where is the sense in waiting till after all the people can travel around and into those areas (except from existing Tier 4 places) and potentially make things worse? Stupid is as Matt Hancock does.

And we're going into Tier 3. Oh a brief glimpse of the zenith of hope that was Tier 2. Not that any of the pubs opened round here, which I thought was weird. I do feel sorry for the local bistro that chose, unwittingly, this year to start their business. That's a tough break alright. Still at least the non essential shops are still open so I can buy socks that fit this time, or CD's I don't like from HMV. Good times.

Advent Calendar 17: Days Getting Longer (+3 seconds)

This is Yule. The celebration marking the turning around of the days. I'm hoping this is more than a metaphor for the days ahead, dark though they certainly appear. Now, in the, admittedly early, depths of winter, the days shift and the darkness, from the merest nanosecond, begins to recede. This period accelerates until the March Equinox, and I certainly hope the same can be said for the vaccine. If nothing else the government must now focus all it's effort and resources onto rolling this out as quickly and as widely as possible. Do I believe this will happen, do I dare? 

So happy Yule. Reach deeper into the world, into the earth, into the soul of our world and find something to connect with. That's what spirituality is all about. Beyond words, it speaks in symbols and metaphors to the core of our experience, such as it is now. It is all we can do while the flame of days finds strength, reflected in all of us.

Covid is the great leveller. But it isn't the great equaliser. Those at the top may enjoy the same threat as those at the bottom, but the distance between both remains the same, and those at the bottom are thus ever nearer oblivion. Sadly when the government fails they face no consequence, we do. The only constant throughout all of this has been the utter failure of the Tories to grasp the situation and to respond appropriately. Even now Boris is blustering. He is a simpleton who will never understand and act properly and we cannot ever hope he will. All we can do is react, stay safe and hope that he doesn't screw up the vaccine.

There is still plenty of time for that.

Unfortunately he is still disarmingly popular. It is the Trump effect; while Starmer has advocated (mostly) sensible positions, we do not live in sensible times. Even prior to the covid crisis it was more about personalities than policies. It's all very well for Starmer to tell Johnson he needs to do X, but all that does is portray him as the kind of fusty authoritarian people reject nowadays. Like Trump, Boris is seen as having a rakish charm, of being an outlier. People warm to him because they think he can be tamed; a ruffle of his hair, a self effacing stutter and a fist pump. This is an act; he is a bully. A braggart racist product of the ruling class. Now we are paying the price, but Starmer will not win against this. Unfortunately in order to try and do so he's pushing ever further to the right. Sadly Starmer is naive, he's green as an MP (ironically unlike Corbyn),

This is not the Christmas we were promised. Two days away and the country looks set to burn. Will the PM act, or will he be too busy dreaming of a tropical holiday. No doubt he'll feel cheated at not being able to indulge. Will his mind be on the job, or will he find a way to indulge himself and piss off while nobody's looking, too busy hiding in their homes for fear of the virus he can't control. Perhaps he'll shut himself out over Brexit and be unable to return, except on WTO terms. He promises the moon but can't even deliver a speech without talking rubbish. 

Infections are rising everywhere. Hopefully the school break will help, but then what? Business as usual simply cannot continue. There seems no way to avoid another lockdown, but if that happens will schools close or continue to be a vector? Nothing will change while the Tories are in charge because they aren't.

Advent Calendar 16: The Great British Disaster Movie

When science is placed into the box marked 'doubt' you know you're in the shit. Yes sometimes the experts (ie trained people) make mistakes. You know how we know: science. Peer review reveals the mistakes that sometimes happen with the process; opening claims and data out to a wider audience. It is self correcting. But we must still deal with human fallibility, because we're human. Therefore the authority of reason and expertise must be as untrammelled as possible. The problem is that it has been tainted by bias, interference and the scepticism of fools. Like Michael Gove, quite possibly the PM in waiting at this point (unfortunately), decrying experts.

Still too many people are not following teh rules. It is stelling that, in this period, after three egregious errors culminating in the severance of supply lines at the busiest time of year (and ahead of Brexit), people put normal consumer habits before sense. We know what works in the face of a pandemic, but we aren't doing it because for too long people have been conditioned by this twisted scepticism; a mistrust of authority reinforced by authority. The water is so muddied now that I don't see any way out of this. We will just limp along until the pandemic runs its course. Hopefully with the help of a vaccines they hopefully won't screw up. Don't hold your breath.

This weekend has perhaps been the worst moment in British politics. This will shortly be trumped by every other moment. The world has plunged us into isolation because our idiot PM blurted out that he has lost control of the virus. A new strain has appeared and is everywhere. Cases are skyrocketing and still I can go to the pub and enjoy a 'substantial meal'. He isn't taking control, he is not ever going to take control. He makes excuses; at the press conference today he just asserted he had done the right thing. Except that clearly isn't the case by virtue of where we are. It is time now that an emergency government be called. He must be removed if he won't step down. I'm under no illusion that will drastically improve things but there must be someone, among all these useless politicians - from all sides - that can manage this crisis. But after three disastrous mishandled lockdowns and the confusing illiterate tier system I'm fearing the worst. 

This is genuinely terrifying. With our supply lines threatened the Tories feign surprise. They knew about this strain weeks ago. They were told to lockdown way before November, that lockdown has not worked and the response, another bizarre tier system, isn't working. Is it only a matter of time before we are all in Tier 4? I see people walking around still not obeying the rules. There is still no enforcement of things like masks and people are bustling around in town. This should not be happening.  

And then there's Brexit. We are getting a taste of how that will go with France taking control of its borders. Many have pointed to Farage disingenuously tweeting about how this is a terrible thing. Yet that is exactly what he campaigned for. If you argue for sovereignty then, by definition, you are advocating our neighbours can do the same. Now they are. If they don't get this sorted...

Honestly, at this point I can't think straight. Too many shit things are happening. Shopping today was a nightmare, for reasons just explained (wear. masks. please!). My sanity, and my sinews, haven't fully recovered. The weather has been mild and it was pleasant on Weston seafront for a time. Even though it's a muddy estuary surrounding by a peninsula of power stations the scope of the vista is sufficient for clearing the mind. There is something about a wide open horizon and the sea itself that blows through the mind like a cleansing light, and that is refreshing and vital these days. Sadly it's a bus journey away and, even though it's permissible to make that journey, it's not affordable. 

Whether such an experience will continue to be available is another matter.

Advent Final Weekender 2: They Have Failed Us

 So this is it, the culmination of nine months of mismanagement. Itself the culmination of years of Tory misrule. Themselves the culmination of centuries of ruling class dogma. You get the picture. This is a valid point; these clowns don't behave this way because they're simply simpletons. To the best of my knowledge they are well educated. They ought to know better, so why don't they? Tory dogma, which is to say ruling class interests melded with the finally honed nub of hard right pro-capitalist ideology that is so prevalent these days. The ideology that compels Liz Truss, one of the most desperately vacuous and dim politicians ever, to, in the midst of everything falling apart, launches an 'anti woke' campaign, or something. Nobody really knows or cares, expect the people who already think 'woke' is a thing. 

To be clear, it isn't. Not in this simplistic social media form. There is the cause of social justice: fighting for equality in a society that desperately lacks it. A long standing struggle that even she acknowledges, paying lip service to. But that's not what she means; she's just whining about people being mean to her on Twitter. Because she's happily photographed holding a telephone upside down in an obviously stage managed snap for the business portfolio. Just the same as Matt Hancock's tears.

Which returns me to the point. Years of mismanagement have now reached a hideous crescendo with the sound of the entire south east of the country screaming at the television over yet another bungled response to the crisis. The most egregious and perhaps far reaching one yet, given that, now, Crying Matt is saying this not-a-lockdown could last for months. The vaccine, assuming it can survive the viral mutation (my sanity certainly can't!), is now the last chance saloon. In this place the only drink allowed to be served, along with your fifteen mammoth size Covid-absorbing Scotch Eggs, is Tory Tears on the Rocks. 

Speaking of rocks: Brexit!

How, now, can this possibly continue? Is the Kent lorry park and customs enclave also part of this lockdown? Even if not, what about all those business that were already struggling to prepare while having to dance in and out of lockdown possibly going to manage now? They've already had to deal with waste from being told to stockpile and then not be able to sell that stock. This lockdown, as necessary as it is, will make this even worse. I cannot see any way but to ask for an extension, which of course will set fire to the ERG as if you'd poured petrol on their Christmas cake. They don't care about the consequences, they want their 'reward' and damn the consequences. Well unfortunately the consequences are destructive.

WHo am I kidding; of course they will push for this. They are headbangers. Theirs is an alternate reality in which leaving a successful powerful trading bloc within which most of our trade was done is somehow a good thing. Never mind how the constant u-turns and covid confusion have done for us. The Tories will be the death of us. They must be stopped. If it wasn't already clear, it must be so by now. They cannot and will not manage this outbreak. They haven't thus far. We can't walk it back, here is where we are. An utter failure and commensurate disaster. Only the working class can look after the working class. 

Advent Last Weekender

Boris held an emergency meeting (there's a first time for everything I guess) to discuss the new strain of everyone's favourite virus. I can't imagine a day when I haven't used the word Corona or Covid. This meeting was held with ministers. What's the point? He's lazy and isn't interested and the rest of them are either ignorant or ill equipped. About the only ministerial position that would seem relevant would be the Health secretary and that's currently occupied by someone who fakes crying on television - about an old lady receiving half a vaccine (she hasn't yet achieved immunity, his measures may ruin that). 

This is where we are. These people are so out of their depth that they are left to splutter about how the UK branch of UNICEF who look after children. Isn't it a bit hypocritical to stand up, in Parliament, and complain that they are merely acting politically. Of course it's political: it should shame a rational decent humanoid into acting so they don't have to. But no, despite resisting doing so, the Tories want to crow about how unfair it is, that their 'record' on caring for those they render into poverty (I have a solutoin) is important and being traduced. All they have is whine. Starving kids is political because starving kids is what politicians like Mogg do. 

The other complaint is that, by so acting, UNICEF are taking resources from those that need it. Those would be starving kids. Firstly there should never be a hierarchy of need, if triage is required then it's likely UNICEF has conducted such a process and found that either a) they can afford to feed UK kids as well as whomever the Tories think of as the pleasing face of poverty (probably not white in complexion, and acceptably far away). Or b) that the situation here is that dire that they can afford to spend what they are spending. I've no idea the scale of their resources but I think it ridiculous to criticise a children's charity for caring about children. The only reason this rankles them is that it's hitting a little too close to home. They don't care about the kids, that's obvious, they care about their reputation. 

All kids deserve a meal.

In fact all humans deserve the best in life. We have the means and we have the resources. Anyone who denies this is a capitalist. One who hopes to profit from the means to monopolise those resources through some form of violence, and then lobby legislators (their allies, cronies, or themselves directly) into making that legal.

Now here we are, the south east of the country into immediate lockdown, Wales to join them. The rest of us huddled into increasingly fraught tiers. Is there anyway out of this? It's like being stuck in a horrible hall of mirrors; the future reflected back us through the warped lens of an utterly incompetent government. I don't see how Brexit can responsibly be pursued at this point. Isn't the Kent lorry park now in quarantine? If Johnson doesn't ask for an extension, as he should have done (if only for my peace of mind!) at the start of all this, then he seals his fate in my opinion. An utter failure of a man.

What is the way out of this? Vaccine and hope? The lockdown was working; it had successfully bought cases down, and yet something changed. You can see it in the data, a definite downward trend, then back up. Would this have happened if London was not, inexplicably, placed into Tier 2? I guess at this point it doesn't matter as long as the government learns from their mistake. Sadly the only thing history seems to be teaching us right now is that they don't. I feel sad for those in the affected area and I feel frightened because it feels more and more likely we will be joining them, if not before then after the Christmas they won't be getting.

As an aside, dear reader, I am considering doing this as an ad hoc podcast. Recording my thought blurts and then putting them out as amusing audio. If anyone thinks this a good idea and infinitely preferable to reading this rubbish then please let me know :D

Advent Calendar 15: Gone Fishing

0.12%

That is the number that will see us crash out of the EU next month and next year. The value of fishing to our economy, when most of what we catch is sold to the EU with whom we will have no arrangement, at least as it stands. That number is Britain's economic epitaph. We are governed, quite simply, by morons.

Though make no mistake, this whole charade was engineered at the behest of disaster capitalists. Who else would push through with it during an even bigger disaster? It's like they don't want a deal at any cost. Either that or the few, wealthy, people that represent the fishing industry are themselves swivel eyed loons. Both may be possible. Arguing the toss over fishing rights seems to be counter productive.

Farage, of course, sat on the EU fisheries committee; when he could be arsed to arrive. Only then to claim his expenses and keep that account ticking over. He coudl have, I dunno, used his position a bit more effectively. Of course he will counter that by saying the EU is impossible to work with and he couldn't make a difference. Ok, if that's true why remain an MEP? Why sit on the gravy train? Well ask a stupid question.

If they can't get it together over some fucking cod, what chance do we have? We've all haddock!

Moving on.

And with a crunching gear change, the Covid situation looks desperate. A week away from Christmas and we are now just shy of thirty thousand new infections. The R Rate appears to be in the red all over. It's too late now, lockdown three is inevitable. What choice will they have, after leaving everything open for Christmas while we also distribute the vaccine. How is that not being jeopardised, hospitals are nearing capacity. It's also winter! Say what you ike about the Tories but they are peerless when it comes to fucking up pandemics. They knew where we were headed, and did nothing. They were warned. The scientists are beginning to appear like the Ghost of Christmas Last. The very last one gran will ever see, for the want of a vaccine that was days away. This is terrible and I fear the conditions for this lockdown because they may have to be harsh. But the Tories treat all this as a game; a charade. Let's all have a merry Christmas, wiff waff, and then pay the price in January, as we traditionally do. Only this time it won't be the credit card that gets paid off, it'll be your life's blood and your kid's education.

As I'm writing this, I am conscious that this is all I've been saying all week. It's the week before Christmas and this is what it comes down to. However I have been busy trying to be creative. I have used some of my savings, over this period, in a way I probably wouldn't have done at this time last year. Much of the money I've received in ESA I have not spent. At least not as much as I could have, and not as much - I daresay - as many others. People who probably are less fraught about money than I. It is a curse really; I have long been raised to believe money should ne'er be wasted. This has led to me not investing in things that, at the very least, would have enabled me to try and move forward in the things I'd like to do. Whether they'd be successful...well you won't know if you don't try.

However I have spent money recently. I bought some music gear and discovered just how eye wateringly expensive music software is. This is frustrating, obviously, because £300 for a piece of software is a price I cannot reconcile, however there are cheaper alternatives. But even then it's difficult This is an old machine and it can huff and puff a bit too much under load! That's the kind of expensive I've been saving for, just in case.

It's difficult; these are privileges society doesn't generally like to affrd the unemployed. Quite why that is doesn't make sense. Surely anything that can help people is all to the good, no? But apparently not; instead one is meant to have just enough to buy gruel and the cost of the window you're allowed to stare out of. Not the computer you'd also need to actually find work (by way of your Universal Credit journal and JC communications). These are the sort of contradictions the systme hands out regularly but can never reconcile, at your expense.

Advent Calendar 14: Return of Just Feed Kids

Expecting a review of the tier system. Meaningless really, the things that can be opened currently closed are things that shouldn't be opened. Specifically the hospitality industry. I don't enjoy saying that, it has a human cost. One the government has spent the last nine months (at least).

(breaks to waste time doing something else)

And we're in Tier 2. I don't really feel good about that. To be honest part of that is a kind of Covid Stockholm Syndrome wherein one becomes dangerously acclimatised to the situation. But at the same time, while much of the situation is no different, I am greatly concerned about allowing pubs to open. The stupid Scotch Egg caveat applies of course and we can only hope landlords will be responsible. Nobody begrudges them their livelihood, of course, even though we Brits have a shocking relationship to alcohol. But this is the worst time to expect caution.

I should be pleased but I think that is the wrong approach. I will be pleased when the government finally gets on top of this, but it hasn't. This is short term reactive thinking: virus goes up, lockdown (OK, sensible enough), virus correspondingly goes down, unlock. Problem there is that the virus goes up again. Why, because we don't have a proper strategy overall. Why, because we've given the keys to the Covid cupboard to the capitalists.

I will now enjoy the Corona Gold Card lifestyle, well not quite. But the air in Tier 2 will be a lot more exclusive than that enjoyed by the majority remaining or moving into Tier 3. Breathed by a lucky few I guess, though to be honest I can't really understand it. The main difference appears to be that pubs can open, but serving only those who order 'substantial meals'. I don't really understand how the presence of food, consumed or not, prevents the virus. Do Nan breads absorb it? Patrons aren't meant to socialise outside of their established bubbles, which of course is meaningfulness in most pubs because of the size and of being indoors.

But what overshadows this today: Jacob Rees fucking Mogg opening his stupid mouth to blurt out some more Dickensian cruelty. This time at the expense of starving kids. Those his government have already fought tooth and nail to continue mistreating. These scum work so damn hard to maintain a pointless and curle position. I cannot for the life of me understand it. Now, with UNICEF stepping in, he has decided to wade in. This stick insect privileged piece of shit. 

In his view UNICEF are merely concerned with playing politics. No doubt just acting to rub the Tories' noses in it. Prick your conscience does it, Jacob? I certainly hope so. You could have avoided all this by simply feeding kids. Yet there is no political game being played. It's UNICEF. Do you think they give a shit about politics? Of course they don't, but this has to be filtered through Mogg's heavily indoctrinated class antagonisms. These people are scum; they are a cancer. Raised from birth into a hateful ideology of which this is a prime example. Eton breeds and reinforces this, puts them into prime spots for power and wealth. Gives them the contacts they will need (as well as those provided through birth). No wonder then he's able to set up a hegde fund and live high on the hog. No assembly required. 

The rest of us cannot ever hope to live like that. In fact it's because of that fact people like him can. It has to stop. He has to be stopped. In a year of misery and virus, to come to Christmas and speak out like that, shitting on attempts to feed kids. 

Cunt.

Advent Calendar 13: Christmas Is Not Cancelled, Neither Is Covid

What a surprise; the vaccine task force is being run by...a venture capitalist!

How much longer?

Day after day the gaslighting and the mismanagement (if they are to be viewed separately) continue. Tories get up in the chamber and exercise their privilege, whining about how they cannot continue exploiting people during this crisis. They continue to play with a ruinous economic deadline while at the same time handing the vital process of procuring and providing a vaccine, the only answer to this nightmare, to their own. Who needs experts!

They are not going to relax their ill-advised Christmas rules. Though, at this point, what difference would changing them have made; it's not as if they can ever hope to enforce them. The state has spend nine months persuading people to do the wrong thing through their hypocrisy and confused rules. All the while we can see right through them, and that is what provokes the inevitable rebellion. I'm sure many will act responsibly, but that isn't going to be enough if we want to truly suppress this virus. Which, since the end of Summer, we have not. 

At this point it is only a vaccine that can save us. Unfortunately there will be those who think that means they can do as they please, holding out for the injection they likely believe will be imminent. The more we put the health service under pressure, the more the virus spreads, and the greater the threat to successful roll out of this vaccine. There is no other solution. It hasn't burned itself out, and it doesn't appear if it's likely to. What we got away with during the warm blue season we cannot now. Winter is unyielding and unforgiving.

And that's before taking into account the usual pressures faced by the NHS during the winter. To be fair, some of these will be suppressed because of lockdown and the meagre curtailment of social interaction we are currently experiencing. I gather the effect of flu during the last season, coinciding with the first lockdown, was reduced. Perhaps that will happen this time, if we're lucky.

I'm sick of Johnson's tiresome puerile posturing. I need to find something else to discuss; I'm getting Covid Overload (fortunately not in the worst way).

Advent Calendar 12: Common Sense

Last week on Question Time, a freak show I don't watch anymore, Julia Hartley-Brewer, hard apologist for the status quo, made the claim that lockdown rules aren't required. Instead the state ought just rely on people's common sense. This is, at best, extremely disingenuous. Firstly, there is no universal common sense. This is just a myth used by groups to advance an agenda. It's a form of gaslighting; if you don't share those values then there is an implied accusation: what's wrong with you?

Moreover these are people who themselves aren't looking to follow the logic of their claim. Superficially the claim implies that we don't need to be told what to do because, naturally, we'll do it ourselves. But they don't want to do that. These are people that oppose wearing masks and staying in doors. Of course they will tell you they are happy with some measures, but will never accurately define what they are. Of course just some measures aren't enough, that's why more drastic measures were, eventually, undertaken - and, as we can see from the data, they work!

It's not just a case of common sense though because this is, for all of us, an unprecedented situation. We have never lived through this in our lifetimes. Having to take far reaching social measures to avoid the spread of a potentially deadly virus was unthinkable even last year. Now, or at least at the outset, we are thrust into this, learning as we go. To expect people to divine the 'correct' course of action is ridiculous. Consequently the idea of having to wear masks is understandably uncomfortable. To argue people will just freely choose to do this is misleading. Quite the opposite: Hartley Brewer knows full well people won't, which is precisely why an authority is required. The problem is that the only authority we have is bothe corrupt and incompetent. This doesn't reinforce the argument.

Sadly, the BBC sees fit not to challenge this prevailing right wing media dogma. People like her, and of course the intolerable Hitchens, are forever being platformed. In fact Owen Jones attempted to interview Hitchens and explain all this to him on his Youtube channel. It is a painful affair. For all his success at explaining Owen is just stymied repeatedly by a bloviating hypocrite who refuses to act in good faith and show reciprocity in the conversation. It is, sadly, a waste of time talking to these people. Best that can happen is that some people watching, perhaps fans of lunatics like Hitchens, will be persuaded. But as we have seen these days, dogma prevails. Feelings don't care about your facts.

We are a week and a half from Christmas and, again, we are unprepared. Another epoch in miniature within this year of hell. Another the government navigates not by rationality but by hope and desperate belief. This time of year is already difficult enough. The days are cold, often inhospitable, bookended by squeezing darkness at once both soft and unforgiving. It is a period where the psyche is laid bare, I feel. One is alone with thought; the mind risking the snowblindness of enforced introspection wherein the future is a promise and a threat.

We are due a vaccine, but first a series of terrible months. If the government are not careful they could jeopardise the roll out of that vaccine. The virus appears to be on the up, but that may be a blip. Christmas will decide, not just financial ruin. January is, in comparison, often a very bleak month. The world thaws but painfully slowly and there is only the rest of winter to look forward to. No more festivities. Next January could well see a third lockdown. A last chance saloon for a deeply unpopular government fresh out of ideas and possibly the EU. All the more reason to celebrate? All the more reason not to!

Advent Calendar 11: Strained

Hancock's latest excuse for rusing cases in London, to be dealt with by upgrading it to Teir 3, is to blame a mutant strain of the virus. If that's true, and who knows with Crying Matt, what does that mean for a vaccine? Given the existence of the Christmas break rules from 23rd to 27th, which is barely a week away, this really is too little too late. At this point what hope is there that tier three rules will achieve anything? You can see the evidence of this in the fact that, given shops and places aren't enforcing the mandatory mask rule; plenty of people aren't wearing them. It's frustrating to see, but nothing gets done/ I'm not sure that's viable anymore. I'm not happy about that, but what choice is there?

This is so sad given that the vaccine has just arrived. This shouldn't be happening, they are wasting the effort. We know what the cause of this potentially third wave (or wave 2.5): the government once again allowed too much to open. The hospitality industry is dead. It cannot survive this government's mishandling of the pandemic. Furlough the staff on full pay, including the landlords etc. Letting people mix in warm pubs at the years end around a plate of scotch eggs is just ridiculous. I would close it all, right across the board. It may well mean, or could have, that as a result we could be more open in other areas: more interaction between households for instance. Or it could have offset the problems caused by schools opening, given that education is far more important than booze and breadcrumbs.

Christmas is next week. It's hard to say that it feels like it, despite the extreme levels of tinsel and neon wise men pervading the neighbourhood. Maybe I'm just tired, but it looks to me like we're facing an upturn in the virus. Another peak being climbed as everyone rushes around all festive like. In town it's just, to my mind, chaos. Most people wear masks, but it's still too busy I think. Some people, inevitably, aren't wearing masks. I wish shops could challenge them, but they don't. Understandable, but the virus doesn't respect this. People are tired, I'm tired.

Brexit Second Advent Brexit Weekender Brexit

Have you heard the new dance craze all the kids down at the Hop are doing? Move over jive and jitterbug, it's the Brexit Dance. The one that never stops until you are a sweating nervous wreck. The one where the dinner never ends.

If I have to look at that dunce's clown-sans-makeup face once more I swear I will scream myself inside out. 

It's all a sick prank. Four years of this insanity. A nation divided and we are no closer. He's taken charge after four years of negotiations and achieved....? We are still, apparently, no closer to a deal that we already had because it was oven ready and he won an election to sign off on it. No closer to a deal he believes is unnecessary because the alternative, dressed up as an Australian style deal (they don't have an EU tade deal), is 'wonderful'. 

All this would be, and is, bad enough, but we're in the midst of a health crisis. The like of which we have never lived through. The EU even offered to extend the transition period accordingly. This was refused. Just let that sink in. That is not competence, and it certainly isn't humility. It's pig headed stubbornness from people incapable of delivering on their own promises.

They wouldn't even take a break to reorient themselves and focus on what it is is they want from this Brexit mirage. No one knows.

To be honest, this all makes me too angry for words. To call this game playing is an understatement. They have been exposed at every turn and now, when it comes to the crunch, have nothing. It is the most ludicrous attempt to poker I've ever seen. There is no brinkmanship, we are the weaker side, wholly dependent on the EU for trade. Whether you like it or not, and the EU is a capitalist institution (much like Parliament, the British chambers of commerce, and all the major political parties). But this crass act of national self harm just serves no one but the likes of Rees Mogg and his hedge fund gamblers. The only game in town is the game of betting on the collapses of sterling and the price of food. 

Remember food?

Oh, and some rich scumbag named a race horse "jungle bunny".

Second Advent Weekender, Full of Lies

 I don't think anyone actually believed the lies on buses. I don't think Brexit voters actually thought millions would be gratefully diverted, emancipated from the EU and handed to nurses and doctors who would then surgically implant them into pensioners and war heroes. The older ones, that is, not the lazy fuckers on the streets pretending to have nightmares about gulf war syndrome. No, they're just the ones the DWP deals with. Universal Credit's too good for them, as is decency from the state that sallies them forth to murder its enemies. 

People wanted to believe the Brexit lies. They could have written anything on the side of a bus and it would have unfortunately legitimised their belief. Sadly too many working class were and are among this cohort. A sad manifestation of years of political neglect, media conditioning and easy ignorance. I don't say that lightly, we're kept ignorant. Dissuaded from anything that can help analyse the situation. Even I, your humble scribe, finds other things to distract from reading theory. I'll never read Capital. I shouldn't have to. I don't think you need to in order to recognise the obvious odious shortcomings of capitalism, which should have died years ago. But here we are, kept alive on credit.

Sadly the consequence of righteously, and justifiably, sticking two fingers up to a ruling class that has abused you for yeras is that you were doing exactly what that portion of them wanted. The problem is that the ruling class were in two opposing camps over this neither of whom were on our side. The Brexit crowd just see this as another opportunity to make out like bandits and don't care the cost born by us. Their opponents are the more visible face of everything the working class have been conditioned to (and should) despise: authoritarian and exploitative. They are, but so are the other lot. All of them are capitalists bent on our exploitation, but one cohort playing us off against the other doesn't mean the Brexiteers have our interests at heart. They use easy tropes: foreigners taking our jobs and sovereignty. Through this it's divide and rule. 

Now here we are at the cusp of collapse. The lies have been exposed, but back to my original point; people want to believe. It's easy to believe the lies. But even Boris doesn't, otherwise he wouldn't be wasting his time, lazy fucker that he is, in Europe. He's on TV telling us how wonderful no deal would be, but obviously this is just a front because if he genuinely believed that he'd just go ahead and pull the ripcord and all this would be over (or just beginning). 

He lied through his teeth to win the election. In fact I'd go so far as to say he doesn't really care either way, since, as a ruling class millionaire, none of this will affect him. His promise of getting Brexit done was another appealing lie, predicated on a deal that was 'oven ready'. A hideous phrase in a hideous year of such. One more lie. It wasn't ready, because if it was we wouldn't be on the precipice of a no deal crash out. The worst of all outcome stares us in the face because...it was all lies.

Advent Calendar 10: Creativity

Today I'm going to talk about creativity. I don't really have any more to add on the two topics de jeur and frankly I'm going inside out wondering if Brexit will leave us starving.

Creativity, regardless of the field of expression (music, painting, etc), is the compulsion to express oneself. To bring into being that which was imagined or idealised. It needn't be something wholly unique, in fact ideas are only ever inspired by others. Are there any truly original thoughts? It doesn't really matter. The point is that creativity, as discussed here, is a compulsion. For a person so minded it is a necessity. If one cannot express oneself then one is chained.

Thus it is extremely disturbing to me that our society eschews avenues and outlets. For a creative person - and I do not judge creators as superior or inferior - it is frustrating that we do not take such things more seriously. Especially given how wealthy some, perhaps few, can become. Not that I value commercial success as the standard, but that our society does.1 

Consider people out of work who are creators. Indeed, if my experience is any indication, the majority of those out of work, long term, probably are creatively minded. It is as if our society has no use for such people. Coupled with our difficulties fitting in to what society does find acceptable life can be quite difficult. I don't believe it has to be this way. 

Think about how much money is spent 'helping' the unemployed, and the sick. Money that serves to fuel what is little more than a gravy train. Instead of going solely to the pockets of private companies to run whatever scheme is currently in vogue, why don't we invest in the people themselves. Why not fund people to have the tools or training they require. I don't believe that is unreasonable in light of the existence of these schemes and the parasitical enterprises that run them. Organisations who wouldn't exist, nor need to, otherwise.

Of course that will not happen in our society. Excuses would be made about how the money would inevitably be wastde on booze or gambling or whatever vice the state assumes of the least in society - vices it profits from. There are many ways this could be done though: why not have a scheme to allow people access to expensive software for example. Musical software is phenomenally overpriced, but a musician could be given free access, say for a couple of years, to such. In that time perhaps he creates something that sells enough to buy permanent access. That's just one idea off the top of my head. The same could apply for musical instruments. I think it's ridiculous that professional musicians 'collect' guitars and the like. In so doing they hoard them and make them, and similar models, really expensive because of the celebrity endorsement. This is just selfish.

Creative output could be shared through special media platforms. Unemployed artists could be showcased, their work accessible digitally. Patrons could even pay, or leave a tip to support the scheme and the service, and, ultimately, the creators. 

Again this is just me spitballing. The point is to bypass the current capitalist model. The one that gives rise to the existence of work/welfare schemes. Keeps the unemployed enslaved through welfare as wage systems, emboldened by the simple fact there will never be enough work to go around. Thus the existence of the reserve army of labour, used to maintain low wages. An ever present threat created by a working class divided. Why is it acceptable for organisations to spring up and profit from the existence of, for example, the creative unemployed but not for them to receive help directly?

That is my question.

Advent Calendar 9: Welcome To The Long Grass

Oh that didn't happen then.

Can kicked. Road extended. More dinners. More feasting for a bloated fool to enjoy. Stuffing his face at the expense of our entire economy. Does this seem right? I thought Brexit was all about taking control, but it was just a power grab. Now one man, with his deception acquired mandate has control over us all. How is that anything to celebrate. He's literally the worst human we could have scraped off of the scabby ink stained sticky printers at the Daily Mail.

I don't feel particularly empowered.

Apparently London is in particularly dire straits as regards Covid. Can't think why, what with it being the capital of our economy during a viral outbreak during the Christmas consumer pandemic. Bristol is in Tier 3 but has better numbers. London has lots of Tories and landlords and their profit hungry chums. Can't imagine why it's not in Tier 3!

So the government is now officially deadlier than the pandemic: Corona has cut life expectancy, in England and Wales (Scotland doesn't count, they are fuelled by deep fried mars bars and can function without vitamin D by consuming the ginger from their hair) by a year.Tory austerity has had a far greater effect. The result of which is ideological and therefore deliberate. So it's empirically proven that the Tories are a far greater pandemic, spread through low grade pork produce.

Such as Gammon!

Advent Calendar 8: Why Can't Trump Just Fuck Off

He's like the biblical plague. Creeping death, sent by God to fuck with Pharaoh. Problem is there isn't enough lamb's blood to protect at the thresholds of Americans, no matter how fervently they believe he can save them. He won't. He's spent the entire year playing the opposite of dodge-ball with the virus, only surviving through treatments who's ingredients the Republicans would vomit at and whose cost makes them utterly useless to treating society.

He sits at his tiny desk, visibly downgrading himself from (so called) Commander in Chief (Commander in Chaos) to yesterday's news. Newspaper for the fish supper of civilisation, ready to be discarded and blown down the street by society's exhaust fumes. Currently he seems minded to save himself from oblivious before inevitably being evicted, while his government evicts everyone else because they can't pay their rent during a pandemic. He has pac's and schemes ready to fund his next career move, presumably a return to Trump triumph in 2024, when an octogenarian while face off against a mentally incontinent spoilt brat septuagenarian. No one wins. First he needs to find a way to pardon himself because, presumably (though not certainly), the American Dream doesn't extend to criminals. He'd rather not stop and go straight to jail. 

His response to a polite, though I'm sure deliberate, question about whether the laughably named 'Operation Warp Speed' (as in "Mr Scott, can you make this ship go any slower than Warp point zero?"), was to waffle on - again - about how the election was rigged/stolen/unfair. How could he lose; he got more votes than Obama (his sworn enemy). Problem is, so did Biden, who also got more votes than you. I suspect behind the mask that reporter was grinning when he asked. A question deliberately intended to rankle the wrinkle answering. Of course the response was inevitable; spewed out like therapy.

Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of Americans are dead. Well done, you massive orange twat.

Let's now take our daily check on those sunlit uplands, with a look at Brexit.

Still shit.

Dinner time is apparently 7pm. The PM, in a heroic act of self isolation, is flying to Europe to continue being a massive intractable jackass. Johnson says no PM could accept the EU's terms. So why are we leaving then? What is the point of putting ourselves out like this? It's like saying "I'm off now" but the weather outside is shit. You could wait or just stay in, even. But no, despite eschewing the use of a coat, you decide to throw your clothes in a fire and walk out buck bollock naked.

Again, well done. The paucity of intellect and sense from our leaders is terrifying. We are not governed we are led by ideology, trumpeted out with strength enough to fell Jericho, never mind the sanity of the working class. No wonder so many fall for the lies when they are repeated throughout the media endlessly. Humans weren't built to live like this.

Is it any surprise we are where we are: staring off a cliff edge while we sit on our deathbeds. Brexit serves the interests of the most powerful, capitalist, people in society. All of whom cheated to engineer their desired result and convince people it was a decision they arrived at independently, indeed believing they were sticking it to the same elites. The most dismal disgusting con job in history. None of which speaks to the nature of the EU; it is a capitalist institution. But, with the choice forced upon us by those elites, it is preferrable to remain. The working class, I believe, are stronger that way. We are then not at the mercy of so dishonest and stupid a group.

Advent Calendar 7: Why Can't Brexit Just Fuck Off?

Uh oh, looks like Kay Burley's been caught with her pants proverbially down. The (not) apologies from celebs caught breaking lockdown rules (and they can easily afford the fine) are ridiculous. Utterly tortuous appeals to a moral standard they expect others but never of themselves. It was all a moment of madness so here I am, on social media, virtue signalling while facing zero consequences other than some ire from the commoners. They don't matter so what do I care. Why do they even bother with this ritual?

Rota Ora, a singer so I'm told, has twice broken lockdowns, flown across the world to prostitute herself for the rich who think covid doesn't apply to them. She can afford it, I imagine the fee she gets singing for rich old businessmen in the middle east will cover that and then some. There is no justice in a capitalist society when the elite can afford the consequences and keep going. Laws only exist to curtail the behaviour, shape it, even, of the working class. That isn't to say we, the working class, ought to flout those rules - where authority can be justified (such as the science of pandemics) one ought to obey it. 

The chances of Brexit now hang on dinner between two obnoxious capitalists. If there isn't something more apposite to sum up the state of this rotten system than this I do not know it. No doubt, as they discuss the lives of millions, their bellies will be kept full on anything but the Sainsbury's Basic range. That's for us plebs. They will stuff themselves on a meal of many courses, and the most exclusive menu written in a language that only exists for food. Let us hope the cheeseboard has something that can help the economy.

Next week I have a third appointment with Fedcap employment. The latest in a long line of social schemes/enterprises set up to profit from the unemployed. These schemes are a bit like being a landlord: you profit from the tenant. In this case the unemployed person. In other words we exist for them to exploit. What is sad is that the money, which could help, will never directly go to the client. It will go to service, in part, the profits of the service provider. Consequently you will never see the full investment, despite all the promises. This is just how the system works, regardless of how helpful, or not, the people in question might be. In my experience, none of them can or seem to want to really do anything but the bare minimum. They employ people, spending even more of 'your' money who don't really have anything to offer. I could spend the money the state pays them, albeit indirectly, much more efficiently and, hopefully, effectively. This is the false economy of the world of the unemployed. Unfortunately it will never change because the system isn't there to help you, it's a gravy train. A bit like when capitalists claim their system works because one can start at the bottom and become the head honcho through elbow grease. In truth, the boss is never recruited from the masses, they are headhunted from among their own. When was the last time Barclays recruited the cleaner to run the bank, even though both will take you to the cleaners.

Ha ha.

Advent Calendar 6: Day Tripping

On and on it goes, where it stops...

The Brexit carousel. The Tragic Roundabout. It won't stop. It cannot stop. It has been generating gammonic matter for four years. What happens when it finally reaches critical mass? Monsieur Garnier, sorry, Barnier, says the talks won't go past Wednesday. Until they do. 

Four years it's taken, the people that said the day after we vote to leave the EU will be kowtowing before us offering us the terms and conditions of our choosing. Yet here we are. If that were true then how could our bestest and brightest have fucked it up so badly? How did the snatch defeat (we're on the brink) from victory? Where are my sunlit uplands?

Of course it was all a lie. None of them knew what Brexit looked like. Nor could they agree. It is a chimera appearing as something pleasing and different to every single supporter. The only common aspect was a shared hallucination, a matrix world of control. Somewhere along the line the control they believed is theirs but never was had been ceded to Johnny Foreigner, in his most invidious disguise: a continental. Now we stand on the brink of losing everything to gain the control that the government never actually lost. It just refused to exercise. Why, because that control was not in the interests of international capital, which wants cheap global labour and doesn't care about the worker. Yet in order to win over the worker, on behalf of capital, the likes of the Tory have to continuously lie, through their media organs, about migration.

At this point the Brexit negotiations have devolved into a long distance phone call between the EU and Boris Johnson. What a farce it all is. All that time (and money) wasted.

Went out today. Did the double; went to Weston super Mare and Bristol. Felt oddly risky doing this, but honestly I'm not making contact with people. I'm in and out of a few shops, mainly Tesco. The supermarket in town is really the only place to buy stuff. Oddly, with the limited numbers in store, it's much more pleasant. It might be an idea to keep the place operating that way, and ti's not as if there was a huge queue either. Our local Tesco, an express, bullied it's way into the community eight years ago and their prices, for the same things, are ridiculous. They have never satisfactorily explained this disparity.

Even went to Primark for the first time since, well last winter! Pants and socks wait for no man. Fortunately there wasn't a huge queue, or a queue at all. It's strange how otherwise normal everything is. There are people about doing things, interacting (hugging even). There were even people going for a swim in the sea. This is disturbing at the best of times, given how crappy the water is, but in December, in a pandemic? What's next, a rain of frogs? Are these the end times?

I find this juxtaposition jarring; going out is normal. Catching a bus is normal. Seeing people walking through town and doing shopping is normal. Yet behind everything is the pandemic. Not everywhere is open of course, all the cafes and pubs are closed (which personally doesn't bother me). There are massive queues at the post office with people trying to resolve Christmas postage (won't that be fun for the delivery services) and socially distance. It is good to be out and to do things, btu it is not entirely comfortable. 

Second First Advent Weekender

Such is the times we live in.

George Eustice, another stupid Tory, fails to condemn those that booed footballers taking a knee during some match or other. I'm not sure what he thinks he's saying, other than to make excuses for racism. I expect no less from the ruling class. Taking a knee is an act of solidarity with people of colour against institutional racism. Of course as a representative of that institution he's going to think like this.

That's why it's called institutional racism.

There is no plurality of views here. There is the correct view: racism is wrong. Everything else either defends or constitutes racism directly. I don't need nor have you the right to expect me to respect that. If you cannot or will not rehabilitate your view such that you recognise that racism is wrong, then you don't get respect. If we tolerate intolerance, as the saying goes, all that remains is intolerance. Racists and bigots thrive on validity and crave that equality of views. Free speech does not include hate speech, that is a canard. There is no freedom toward intolerance and those that try to box clever with the notion are not your friend. They are appealing to your good nature and abusing logic to make a point that shouldn't be made. 

Do not tolerate intolerance. That is the only path to a truly tolerant society. Whenever a person with power, such as Eustice, refuses to condemn racism or refuses to support those who do, he is making that racism more acceptable. There is no middle ground, no space for inquiry; you have refused to take the opportunity to join the chorus condemning this evil. In so doing that evil gets a little bit stronger.

That is not acceptable.

But then I expect nothing less from a Tory. 

First Advent Weekender

So the week ends with the end of lockdown. Now we are in Tier 3, which is another way of saying lockdown. All the usual contradictions exist, for which we have become necessarily acclimatised. The local library remains shut, despite previously having the most secure Covid regime I've yet encountered throughout this period. Meanwhile non essential retail can have at it. I have no idea what it's like on the high street, but I can well believe the nation is doing just that. There's no doubt in my mind Xmas shopping will be as intense as ever, as much as is possible. People's sensibilities will give way to emotion; we must have Christmas!

Apparently Johnson has decided, at the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour, to take charge of the Brexit negotiation. So that will go well then. This vacuous idiot has no idea what to do or what he wants, and who knows whether what he wants is what anyone else wants or is good for us. Brexit is the ultimate chameleon, able to mould itself to whatever is needed. Want sovereignty? You got it, in fact you always had it. Want to 'take back control'? You got it, in fact you aren't in control now and never will be. You've ceded your power to arseholes whose interests clash with yours. It's an illusion, and the more desperate you are to believe in it, the easier the lie.

It's just a joke to these people. People's livelihoods and our ability to procure vital resources depends on this. It's only taken four years of the same people lying and now playing silly buggers and here we are. Can there be any greater an example of Tory incompetence? This is as good as it gets with them. They are not suddenly about to have a revelation nor a social revolution. These people are products of the systems of power that exist, raised from birth to believe this way is the one true way. Until we reject this completely we are at their mercy. Already our trade and economy are in serious jeopardy but so is the climate. We must get rid of them before they get rid of us.

What will happen over the next few weeks is anyone's guess. No one wants to see Christmas cancelled. This isn't a time of year I normally find easy. Winter is pressing on the spirit, it is demanding. Even more so for those truly worse off. I'm lucky in many ways, but that doesn't mean my own experience isn't important - certainly not to me (as true for everyone). They say the vaccine will start being administered on the 14th, so we are still vulnerable to the flawed policies of the government. It seems highly likely that, if shopping is as bad as it normally is (even with covid limitations - such as no Christmas markets clogging up the streets), there will be some spread. Is it worth taking that chance right on the cusp of vaccine delivery?

Advent Calendar 5: Daft Punk

 Brexit's going badly.

London's Corona is going badly.

Merry Christmas.

You want more? I'm not sure what else to say at this point. I've fortunately been able to procure some musical equipment and am spending my time wisely constructing retro synth (because its cheaper) music. Or trying to. Apropos of nothing, musical software is disgustingly expensive. Like three hundred quid for a virtual musical instrument (ie a synth program). I'm sure a lot of hard work, blah blah blah, goes into such things, but honestly I find this borderline offensive. Music should be emancipating and for everyone, skilled or otherwise (and I don't enjoy punk!). Being able to play an instrument is a wonderful thing. But because of the cancer that is the music industry the tools needed are, by and large, way beyond what most people could reasonably afford. I think that's wrong. When you have rich old rock stars collecting guitars, the price of what they got cheap from a pawn shop back in the day becomes exorbitant. This is wrong. When you have music studios owned and frequented by the professionals this software, used in these places, becomes expensive and out of reach for the rest of us. It shouldn't be that way, especially given how technology is meant to be liberating.

I'm not an antivaxxer by any means. I've received vaccines, including relatively later in life when I went to university just over twenty years ago. Got a meningitis vaccine. Didn't turn me into an ideologically driven weirdo who spends his time talking bollocks online (that was the chemtrails, did that!). However when the government, in the form of covid-impersonating business secretary, Alok Sharma, offers assurances that the approval process was 'meticulous', I worry. I'm sure it's fine, I'm just not sure about anything these liars have said. Of course they will approve this, it's the only thing they have now working for them in terms of a covid strategy given that we're inevitably going to see Lockdown 3.0 after Christmas.

Won't that be fun. In the dull tinsel vacuum of January, when people's wages have taken (another) big hit from the inevitable Festive Mortgage, and the days are at their coldest, shortest, and dullest. Maybe we'll be let out to play when the sun finally returns. Oh come all ye faithful, get your booster shots! Another three months and.... Well that's the question, isn't it? 

Imagine the likes of our media and ruling class bragging at the twin cusp of Brexit and Vaccine that 'we got their first'. What hollow victory is this? Are they trying to piss of the people we need to ensure we can get more? Enough of the stuff? It's crazy. But we aren't ruled by policy, we are led by the nose through ideology and exceptionalism. It doesn't matter what you vote for anymore, everyone, when questioned, will say they want the same things (all the good things because no one wants to identity as being awful and nasty, not even Tories). Instead all that matters is who you vote for. How long can that hold? 

Apparently negotiations could fail on the oven ready Brexit deal that Boris won an election with. You know the one, definitely not Theresa May's old deal, fresh from the dustbin (Boris chasing the recycling lorry down the road, desperate to fish through the refuse for anything to save his career). Oven ready folks, in the way that things are oven ready when you have no oven, no electricity, and no food to cook in the oven you haven't got. Honestly I can't see what the problem is: our government only went and lied to everyone. Persuaded voters that the deal was so good not even the Queen needed to read it. Then when the PM, having won the election, went and read it, along with his ERG (sounds more like an energy drink) mates, decided it was so bad that had to risk their negotiating position by breaking the law.

Sorted. 

So how much time is there left to ratify a deal, should one appear from the lake clutching a sword in the name of the once and forever king? It looks very likely that it will be after the transition period ends leading to a period, finite or otherwise, of possible chaos, including the procurement of further vaccine supply. To say nothing of the food and other medicines we kinda need. Yet people believe this is sovereignty. They will happily accept that the EU did this, deliberately out of spite. Yes, because a continental ruling elite (they are capitalists, regardless of where you stand) want to mug us off rather than continue trading with us which has been happening relatively easily for the last four decades.

Ideology, folks. The colour of your tie. 

There isn't really insight on offer here. The EU is a capitalist institution, with all the problems that entails. However it is a more preferable capitalist institution than the one we're going to be left with, in the form of the British State and it's monomaniacal anachronisms masquerading as politicians. I would thus rather remain in the EU because I think that benefits socialists: it allows us our economy to survive which helps the working class, and allows us to travel and mix with other working class communities across the continent. Internationalism is a thing and it's important because socialism can't be limited to a single country. Without that internationalism efforts at home to fight the Tories and capital become, in my view, harder. Ultimately I reject the EU just as I reject the British state, but this referendum was forced upon us and so my position is, hopefully, informed by what's best for my class and I don't think that's served by exceptionalism and isolation, especially as we need the trade we are throwing away.

Advent Calendar 3: Oh Dear

I seem to have completely forgotten to do an entry for Wednesday.

Even yesterday's is late.

I doubt anyone cares, but this bothers me. That's the consequence of having a neuro diverse cognitive makeup: order and routeine provides stability. I'm not even sure who I'm apologising to, myself probably. But then that was always the purpose of this blog.

So here, just so that I can have a number of entries equal to the number of days since lockdown, so that I can say I've done a blog a day, here is Wednesday's entry. On Friday. Problem is I've forgotten what happened on Wednesday.

I guess PMQ's went as it usually does: the Tories in disarray. Johnson performing about as well as his comb. Blustering his way through a thicket of deceit and bluster. Starmer acting like a wet lettuce supply teacher. I halef expect him to say: "it's your time you're wasting, not mine". THe sort of accurate if utterly ineffectual comment that only provokes more insubordination from the class. Meanwhile he's soliciting donations from a wealthy racist. Labour are well on their way to becoming...Labour.

Priti Patel probably deported some more English people under the assumption that, being black, they don't deserve to live here. Much to the distant cheers of the nasty little Englanders she seems constructed to appease. Simply the nastiest, stupidest, and cuellest MP I've seen in a long time. What part of her identity denies the experience of people of colour given she herself is one. But then as part of the rulign class she can distance herself especially and easily blame those she deports for failing to 'succeed' as she has. Succeed at what? Becoming a venal servant of capitalist-fuelled xenophobia?

Brexit is still happening. Or not. Depending on who you talk to. The EU sits and waits for us to stop shitting the bed and we cast them as bullies for doing so. Apparently it's Brexit that has facilitated the early release of the vaccine. This assumes the Tories don't fuck up handling and receiving it. THey'll probably give ownership to some dodgy company who store it in ovens. A mate of Matt Hancock's whom he played badminton with at the concierge. When we do finally leave the transition period, wither the vaccine? WIthout arrangements, what happens? No doubt it'll be the EU's fault for killing granny.

I have no doubt the first person or place to receive the vaccine will be Tory.

And that ends this brief time warp. Wibbly wobbly timey wimey.

Advent Calendar 4: 28 Days Later

Gavin Williamson, the useless twit with the whip on the desk has declared exams will go ahead next year. I don't really understand the point in saying this. Either they go ahead, which seems likely but we can't know for sure so why bother, or they don't, in which case he looks stupid. Everyone understands the current situation and everyone agrees we'd like education to function. But everyone also understands that might not be possible, we just don't know. So why make predictions? 

Johnson is making excuses, saying "we" didn't have experience of SARS and so can be excused for his colossal ineptitude. I don't think so. We planned for this. Besides which we could have simply looked to those countries and took our cue from them. We didn't; that's arrogance and exceptionalism. Now the death toll from COVID directly is 60,000 dead. This blood, this devastation, the social and psychic toll are his to bear. I hope every single one of these evil Tory motherfuckers is haunted by this for the rest of their very privileged days. They will know lives the rest of will only dream about and their share that with their elite mates. Well now they can suffer for it. I've no sympathy.

Teachers follow the high risk in the queue for the vaccine. By my calculation the earliest anyone can hope to be fully vaccinated is the 28th of December, assuming no break for Christmas on the part of the medical teams delivering this (for which the Tories will offer little more than the sound of a clap I'm sure). That's a day after the long weekend Johnson has deigned to gift us over Christmas. So that means it's entirely possible those at risk people could be jeopardised by well meaning family. Is it really worth the risk, for the sake of a few days? Hopefully some will see the wisdom of avoiding this and perhaps, perhaps, getting together for new year instead. I see no effort from the PM warning against getting together for this reason. 

And you won't.

Advent Calendar 2: Better Living Through Chemistry

 First in!

That's right losers! Britain is the first to license a vaccine. No coincidence that it's being done right before the biggest political miscalculation in history and not at all to save face.

It might be a good vaccine. This might - hopefully - be the right decision. Time will tell, but regardless there is no doubt this has positive political repercussions clearly intended to help rehabilitate the image of this disastrous government. Unfortunately I'm not convinced. Boris is still an utter failure of a human.

So now vaccination begins next week. This will no doubt take a long time. During which restrictions will remain necessary. Hopefully that will be adequately communicated, but... What will be interesting, in this new phase, will be how many people refuse the vaccine. How vocal will the conspiracy fringe be? It won't matter, to the greater society, but the number is crucial for herd immunity. Not that they will care; these people are away with the fairies. I doubt there's any convincing them.

Perhaps this is where the future begins; the dawn of a new humanity. With but a jab we will step into a brave new world. Of course most of us have already been vaccinated, for things like Polio or Chickenpox. But this is a much larger and greater situation; the whole world is waiting on this virus. Maybe then we can begin to adapt to a world with Covid. The first step in hopefully eliminating it, but that's going to take years. Maybe beyond my lifetime.

This is the new humanity. We are altered through chemistry. Some don't like that. But the modern world is too demanding of our humanity. Either we step up or we get steamrolled. I'd say the vaccine is safe. It doesn't make much sense to assume it isn't; that's the conspiracy thought. That somewhere a secret cabal wants to pollute us. Maybe they do, but we've already let them get away with destroying the world and we know they don't give a shit about the working class. Why pretend this is the 'great reset' when you've done nothing to object to capitalism's increasingly oppressive conditions thus far?