The Long Road 27: (+3:17) Good Riddance January

Finally it's snowing. Again. It snowed last week I think, only when I wasn't looking. There wasn't much to show for it. Snow is a strange beast: I like the idea of it, but it quickly becomes disruptive and that, like the lockdown, is oppressive: it just reminds you that you can't get out and doo much. Unless you, unlike me, enjoy the cold and have non-leaky wellies. Oh isn't it a sad life! Still, if we must have Winter then the least it can do is be like Winter (does the word require capitals? Let's pretend not). Proper frosty still clear sunny days, please. Not the endless biting wind, grey, rain and misery thanks. Snow is permitted, briefly. Like a sip of your dad's watered down lager at the dinner table. 

And so we must, gladly, consign this shitty month to the dustbin of history; deservedly so. I have celebrated by visiting the local shop, as I do every day (because it's something to do out of the house), only to find that, thanks to Brexit, vegetable prices have markedly increased. Thanks idiots! During a pandemic as well, what could be a better time to make people pay more for the limited choice imposed on them by lockdown. Disgraceful.

Now the papers are calling Boris a hero for 'facing down' the EU - thus proving just how evil the EU is. It's facile of course. But that's the small attention span of modern politics. We can forget the entire death toll of the Tories catastrophic mishandling of the pandemic because...Boris has told the EU 'non'! Meaningless. Even if we assume he has handled this particular, latest, wrinkle with uncharacteristic aplomb (and I don't), it speaks 'non' at all to their overall catalogue of failure and malevolence.

Fortunately the infection rate has been falling well. Testing reveals that the percentage coming back positive is falling. We are almost two thirds where we were a month ago. It has been a dark and dreary month, made worse by this awful pandemic, but, despite our shit government, things have improved. As long as this happens consistently throughout February we should be in a good place for the Spring. Fingers most definitely crossed. 

Of course this will provoke the usual suspects to call for early normality. This would be desperately premature: with the virus still around, and without a crucial zero covid strategy, restrictions will ned to remain in place for a good long while. If not then, inevitably, the virus will start to spread again. This is the mistake that has been made by the government repeatedly, no doubt egged on by the cranks and the capitalists. We can't let that happen again. Another lockdown would be catastrophic.

See you next month comrades.

The Long Road 26: (+3:15) I Hate The Cold And Everything In It

Good lord it's cold today. The worst kind too; sharp cold wind as well as generally being cold. I don't care for weather like this. I don't even like going out in it. This is tough, I find. I don't like being stuck indoors all day. I need to stretch my legs, it's good to do so, but I sure as shit do not like being outside in this cold. This awful period has only reinforced in me my discomfort with Winter. I shall be glad when it, and the rest of this, is over. Who won't be?

So much could have been done to help people, especially during a difficult time like the Winter. Not just the obvious, like making sure people have enough to eat and a place to live etc. You know, the basics. But in ten months the government has seen fit to do nothing. Are there not things they could have done? Maybe just little things to help people get through this. Not simply a matter of giving people money, though that would certainly help. How about, just off the top of my head, getting people to have access to free media content - reduced costs for things like the BBC license fee. Archives of stuff people can access. Or just making sure everyone who can can stay connected during this period. But no, that would compromise profits. It's broadband communism. 

So let people struggle then. What a surprise.

It is very difficult right now keeping track of what's happening. At the start of this month we were staring down 60,000 cases a day. That has now at least halved, somewhat reliably. But the concern I think is whether this levels out to a stubbornly high number in the 20,000's. We need the infection rate to be way lower, but will that happen without further action from our useless government? Unless they start properly helping people and ensuring they can work from home, rather than trap then somewhere between guilt trip (with their new adverts) and refusing to help them deal with an unwilling employer, nothing will improve. But are they prepared to cross the necessary threshold to truly reduce the infection rate, if that happens. It may not, hopefully it won't, but I think there is a background level of interference, supported tacitly through our government's approach, that means we will struggle to reduce this far enough. Certainly before the planned school (and therefore the rest of society) opening date of March 8. Then it will simply be a repeat of past mistakes as the virus, not properly dealt with, creeps back into our lives. I don't trust the government to have grasped this yet. Not when there are so many lunatic backbenchers who don't take this seriously.

The Long Road 25: (+3:12) Let's Fight Over Vaccines!

Now we seem to be making (further) enemies of the EU, because why not piss off a successful protectionist trading bloc right on our doorstep after voting to leave in the most petulant and deceitful way possible. A process that fostered counter productive enmity now leaving us alone in the world while, apparently, we owe them vaccines. Or at least AstraZeneca does, and our dutiful corporate lobbyists wearing the mask of politician, will defend them. It does sound like the EU might well have itself to blame; the contract appears to offer a "best case" clause in which it will do it's best but if production problems occur then... Meanwhile the EU has yet to certify the vaccine while the UK took the isolated decision, correctly it appears, to allow it. The EU are late to the party. Still if the big boy flexes its muscles what can we do? They hold all the cards, always have.

This is all a product of the shit show that passes or an economic system in the western world. Contracts, private big pharma, individual politicians cursed with ego and ideology. None of this is necessary, all of this is counter productive. The end result, millions across the continent will needlessly suffer. For what? Can we, as a species facing existential threat(s), not do better? Apparently not.

Our aristocracy is laughable. One of the many and countless examples is the creature wearing a skinsuit known as Desmond Swayne. Unsurprisingly, a Tory MP. He has been championing the anti lockdown cause since day one and is now going around claiming the NHS isn't under immense pressure and that the data has been manipulated. This is of course idiotic, there has never been as much scrutiny on a situation as this. Naturally he refuses to apologise, because he's a self entitled pompous ass of an arse. 

This is what our society rewards; he will face no consequence. Boris won't do anything. At worst he'll be dismissed as another wacky eccentric; "that's our Desmond!". 100,000 deaths and it's clowns like this that contribute to the death toll. If it were Jeremy Corbyn - the great political test of our age - the response would be seething. If it were someone saying "I wish Boris had died", again the result would be class apoplexy. How dare you question a member of the ruling elite. But the ruling elite are toxic; filled with this kind of hateful garbage. Full of people who's ignorance is exceeded only by their lack of humility. 

Just another reason to get rid of scum like this and the anachronism they represent.

The Long Road 24: (+3:09) Another Grey Day

Just another grey day today. 

The aftermath of the great non-apology. No lessons learned. Not only that to brag about not learning them during the crisis takes Tory arrogance to the stratosphere. It will not stop there of course. Today the most useless politician Britain has ever produced is making an essential (not really, he isn't essential himself so anything he does is pointless) trip to Scotland, defended of course by Starmer.

It is fortunate when the days are short that the weather sucks because grey skies are quickly covered up by night. But the days are getting longer which means an uncomfortable period of extended grey. Fortunately it is mild, if mildly so. It is Britain, let us talk about the weather. What else? The idiot that busted his way into a hospital to, presumably, 'rescue' a covid-afflicted relative. Some utter twat; another that has lost his mind to the conspiracy theology. I assume it's a relative otherwise it's just exponentially worse. Are we going to see a spate of these 'rescue' attempts. Kidnap, in other words. It's like the start of a horror movie, where some well intentioned muppet ends up spreading a disease across half the planet as patient zero.

It never goes well for them, and I hope to god they contain this clown quickly because there is a very good chance that, sans mask, he will have spread the bloody virus. Super spreader idiots like this are all it takes. It's what happened in Bolton when some clown, who shoudl have been in quarantine after a plane trip, decided on a pub crawl instead.

"EU could block millions of vaccine doses from entering the UK."

Not exactly a headline you'd want to read. Though of course the word 'could' is used to mean a great deal when it comes to headlines. I could be PM. I could win the lottery, etc.

What a great time to have left the EU and throw up trade barriers not only with former trading allies with whom we had a seat at the decision making table, but within our own nation. Well done Boris. Again.

The Long Road 23: Sorry (+3:06)

It's the word of the day. The countdown corona conundrum. Just as jumbled up and meaningless without proper understanding. Unfortunately Johnson doesn't have that. So when he apologises to the nation, subsequently plastered over the front pages, immortalised like a terrible postage stamp charging an unimaginable cost, it is meaningless. His address, his 'apology', is just words. Like these; pixels on a screen. Except his are pixels not a scream. That's left to the rest of us, as our brains draw the reality of his performance into focus. Realising that it's just...words.

The only charitable reading is that, by his own words, he, and therefore his government, and therefore his class, are unfit to govern. Either he believes that he did the best he, and thus anyone, could. That no one could do better. Or he's admitting he fell short to the count of a hundred thousand deaths. Neither of those produce a better outcome. Both of those confirm that he, and therefore his government, and therefore his class, are unfit to govern. So, then, what will change?

Nothing. This apology is merely a projection. A bat signal to the lunatic fringe to reassure that business con function as usual. Already the ghouls that support him, largely in the media, itself a lost cause, are dismissing the death count. It's 'okay' because it's the elderly (and, as someone pointed out on Twitter, that argument didn't apply when it came to Brexit and the age divide between remain and leave). That they were, apparently, inevitably going to die anyway is at the heart of the anti lockdown covid denial movement. Let the rest of us take our chances (they say, dangerously speaking for everyone else and putting us all at risk), the old are going to die. Boo hoo, it's life, get over it. Except that, somehow, Boris' father has been privileged enough to receive the full dose of the vaccine. All while essential workers (probably including those administering his medicine) wait.

What a giant mess. He made it.

And he's refusing to learn the lessons (that trite prhase, deployed to achieve precisley the opposite). By saying it's "too soon", he's just proving my point. If, during the pandemic that is still happening, you aren't humble and willing to learn the necessary lessons to help end the pandemic that is still happening... you are unfit to govern.

So nothing will change. 

The Long Road 22: (+3:03) A Game Called Media

Despite everything, and this period certainly fills that definition to bursting, the Tories are still ahead in the polls. Not by much of course, and they don't command an overall majority of the population. I don't think we can just assume these polls are flawed or obviously biased, but I simply refuse to accept we are that far gone as a nation. 

What I choose to believe (that is, I have no evidence) is the polling sample, which I accept to be genuinely as representative as possible, cannot accurately guage the full national sentiment. I think they ask a sample based on criteria they take to be the accepted norm. They are not inclusive enough, in other words. I could of course be completely wrong and we live in a desperately fucked nation. Given the long standing deeply ingrained and highly toxic media it wouldn't be hard to believe. 

The Tories stand at 40%, commanding a large minority. This is the problem with our electoral system. It's all about a perceived, ever drifting, centre ground. Issues don't matter but for how they are framed. How else can they get away with not caring about starving kids for so long? As for Labour, they are a point or two behind. Dismal indeed, but they have long shown themselves to be a dead end. Refusing to fight on a genuine working class ticket, which they have conceded for this centre ground. Thus giving birth to Blair and his ilk. Starmer will never join their rank, he's naive, untested, and bland. While the Tories are the worst of us in charge at the worst time, so Starmer, who now leads a party afraid of its own shadow, is the worst opposition. He has failed to show leadership where it was necessary, agreeing with the government instead. Look at his pathetic position on schools: siding with the government if only to criticise their obvious mishandling, thus alienating teachers and the working class (whose kids he's happy to abandon). Now they want to fight the Tories using immigration, putting out a thoroughly obnoxious commercial about the borders. It will fail because Labour has long allowed itself to be seen as the party of open borders (it isn't, but that's the problem - they are the worst of all worlds). They are afraid of who they need to be and afraid of the media criticism of that position and so are stuck between left and right. Bland as.

Are they opposing the Tories on their cruel decision to deny legacy benefit claimants the same pandemic related 'bonus' as Universal Credit claimants? Are we really to be left scrabbling in the dirt at this time while the Tories play politics? Their answer is to compel people to claim Universal Credit instead. Whatever the reason for this (and why ascribe to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity) it would be a terrible mistake for people to abandon what they already have and start down the minefield of Universal Credit; how long would that claim take to process, how long until you receive your money - would you even be entitled to that which you currently receive? During a pandemic?!?

The dearth of coverage on this issue simply illustrates how benefit claimants are seen in society, still. Unsurprising after a long decade of the most concentrated class hatred I've ever seen. To say nothing of the fact this is a legacy long in the making. Now, this group are people who are certainly not seen in the same light as Marcus Rashford's cause celebre. Of course we should all be outraged that the Tories are happy to let kids starve. But why aren't benefit claimants, who will include those kids, seen with the same compassion? Are they not vulnerable too? 

To even have to ask this question is depressing; it simply reveals the disgusting divide and rule politics that dominate our culture. It shouldn't be one or the other, not least of all because, as I've just said, they are the same. Starving kids and their parents are most likely those on benefits, possibly legacy claims. But instead there is the implicit belief that one is a worthy cause, or, to be as toxically cynical as our press, a popular cause. One that sells copy. The other is just a group of lazy scroungers. 

Maybe covid can sweep away our toxic media, like the bacteria they both are.

The Long Road 21: (+3:00) Solidarity With The Colston 4!

Another covid casualty, perhaps, I read Debenhams is to shut all its stores. A bit like Woolworths, back in the day, they are, or were, a high street fixture. Like an old tree. Although I'm no great fan of consumerism, it will be a bit sad to see. Debenhams has always had this oddly comforting self contained ecosystem. Regardless of the weather outside, meteorological or otherwise, it felt strangely pleasant being inside. A kind of warmth, not just actual. It also helped, that, given the clown Mayor running Bristol had shut down the public toilets, it was convenient riding the elevators up to floor 4 in order to spend a penny before catching a bus across the road. The alternative of course is to permanently carry a twenty pence piece in order to use the toilets at the bus station, effectively increasing the cost of fares. The only reason they exact this toll at the station is to keep the 'undesirables' out of the station. That's my opinion.

I tried to use Tesco online for the first time today. I thought I'd give their online deliveries a try given that we're not really meant to be catching buses to go to the shops. Unfortunately the local options are both limited and expensive. It's actually cheaper to go to the superstore in town, which also has what I want instead of having to compromise at the 'Express' (i.e. more expensive) local variant. The one that bullied its way into the village a decade ago. Unfortunately, despite having to first create an account (which means they know my name!), I can't get a delivery slot for two weeks. Understandable but it renders the whole thing pointless. I can live with it, I'll just catch that bus and given they are empty now it's probably quite safe. But in terms of optimal lockdown living, it isn't. Oh well. 

It's sunny today, which makes the earlier sunrise all the more pleasant and apparent. This is a good thing. One has to drink in the sunshine when one can, right now. Like animals in the dry season (this is anything but) we must replenish ourselves whenever we can, maximising opportunities since we know not when they will return. Another month or so of Winter at least; that's hard enough. But to have endured this woeful January deserves at least some kind of merit badge.

It's been three weeks so far. Only three weeks. Long and painful, but a drop in the temporal ocean. the time taken for a Galapagos turtle to sneeze. If this is going to last until March, the unspoken assumption, then we aren't quite half way through. If this is going to last as long as is required to give half a vaccine to people then we are nowhere near. This is just one giant Hail Mary on the part of a morally and ideologically bankrupt government led by deniers and cranks. They have nothing, they have left us with nothing.

And finally, last year a group of people had the foresight and bravado to throw a statue of a racist into the river. I'm not entirely sure how that constitutes criminal damage, but four of them are being presented before the state so they can be made examples of. It is important that doesn't happen. Not least of all because this is an egregious flexing of muscle that must be resisted; the state wants to reassert dominance like a bad dog. Problem is Edward Colston's reputation, whitewashed by his statue, has been revealed; now everyone know he was a dealer in death and flesh. And he can rot in hell. Solidarity.

The Long Road 20: (+2:57) Days Getting Longer Still

A massive covid outbreak at, where else, a government facility; a DVLA facility in Wales. This speaks to the heart of the ongoing failed covid response. They are not willing to protect people and have not done enough to ensure that people can safely stop working. It is not in their DNA and so this will never change, even with the pressure on, as this case has, hopefully, bought to bear. Instead I suspect they will dither and dither. The virus, I'm afraid, will not. It doesn't care about your politics or whether you have enough to live on and can afford to self isolate. In fact it would prefer that you didn't. Consequently our government is actively helping it.

Crying Matt regularly pops up now, like a hideous Jack in the Box, to remind us how nothing is improving in terms of the lockdown ending. A long way off he says, from the comfort of privilege. Recently he has been pretending to self isolate, but that means nothing to the ruling class. Their walls are not stifling and in decline. They have everything they could want and the power to have the rest delivered privately by people paid enough not to care if they catch the death disease. Sunak, for instance, has a portfolio of mansions. His office alone is probably the envy of working class, locked in their flats and tenements, throughout the land. Private jets are private for a reason.

There is no justice in any of this. When it ends, or at least morphs into a presence we can accept in our lives as we will have to, they will hurtle austerity at us and finish us off. Gone, will be the NHS. Gutted of its workers, those that survived, who will have left due to stress and desperate conditions the government have inflicted, the remains will be sold to pay off this debt. Their debt. Vast corporations avoid tax, btu the NHS hasn't that luxury. It will exist in name only, the one thing that the vultures can trade on that they ironically cannot touch. Crying Matt will have more crocodile tears, but the situation will compel the capitalist in him. It will be the same across the social spectrum: education, housing, social services etc. All grist to the mill; all to save capitalism at the cost of everything. In the background, the grim spectre of Brexit. The stupid pointless of it all; the paucity of ambition tempered by xenophobia compelled our idiot government to heap woe upon misery at the worst time imaginable. Who but Johnson could pursue Brexit at the height of the pandemic? Who else would want to? 

Tomorrow is another point of light to celebrate in the movement of the seasons. A thing I'm into. It's what I define as spirituality. Moements during the year, the cycle of our days, that helps to navigate thorugh the dark and into the light again. Now more vital than ever, given the intensity of the storm that surrounds this particular dark period. All the more dark. Monday is when the sun rises, once again (locally at least), at 8am. This is a good thing; I always feel that we are truly in Winter's grasp when the days start after 8am. From then on it's downhill, like a toboggan ride. Celebrate these points, make them mean something. Because they do.

The Long Road 19: Are We Getting Out Of This Ever? (+2:54)

The problem with Winter is that it's just too fucking long. Especially during a plague. Here on Plague Island. The one time you'd want the Tories to be shutting the borders, the one time it's actually kind of necessary (and not in a point and sneer at refugees in failing boats way), is the one time they actually don't want to. Says it all really. the borders must remain porous because...international finance and because big business (Specifically the airlines) whisper sweet nothings into the ears of Rishi Sunak. That's who's really running the show currently. It's a giant farce. They will fix and solve nothing. Winter is going to be a long, dreadful, slog. The cases appear to be declining, going by the percentage of people testing positive, but this is a slow clip.

It could be properly accelerated if the government actually supported people. But in ten months they've learned nothing, changed nothing, and prepared nothing. Instead we have ministers taking their turn to be humiliated by Piers Morgan, who, make no mistake, is a scumbag. He's no friend of the working class, but sport is sport. This time it was Gavin Williamson; possibly the least competent human ever to take office. He's had a year to prepare schools/education. Now the Daily Mail is taking up the challenge of providing laptops for kids to learn. How is that difficult? How cynical is the Daily Mail. They have spent ten months calling lockdown measures into question, but now, with practiced cynicism, they pretend to care about poor (ie working class) kids. Of course their campaign isn't directed at the right people: the rich and the ruling class. The government, who should be sorting this out. No, they will appeal to the public good will and expect them to shoulder the burden. We pay taxes for this ffs.

Sitting and looking out the window, as I am right now on a relatively clear evening, I think I can see my mental health slipping. It's like a loose roofing tile or a wobbly tooth. Can this ever be repaired? Covid could well leave scars forever, if we ever get through it - and the longer that takes the more difficult the healing process. To say nothing of those frontline staff experiencing PTSD and real trauma. Our society is being reshaped daily by this. I think this will be the last lockdown, which isn't to say there won't be others, but that the clown government will fail to implement further successful ones. Already people are reticent to behave, that is the problem right now. Too many business open, unsupported. Fines being ratcheted up to absurd levels for ordinary people. These wont' work; you might as well fine people ten million quid. If they know they can't pay, they won't care. The riche of course can get away with it all, and make no mistake they surely do. I don't doubt there are tons of Dominic Cummings' out there. They just haven't been caught yet.

I'm getting existentially tired of all this. But then who isn't. The same routine every day, in cold weather that makes it all feel forced. I have to go out for a walk, but I don't remotely enjoy the cold. It all feels a struggle with no respite. I have things I can do. But knowing there's no way to take a break from it all is a real problem. There are no safety valves. I don't think this situation can continue. If this lockdown extends even into deepest February I think this government, who plainly don't care in their ivory towers, will struggle to maintain the social order. People will just give up. 

I support the lockdown idea; I believe in the science, which is proven. But they were never meant to be implemented over and over again like this. Scientists devising these policed, examining the data, assume, I think, that most governments aren't going to be run by utter clowns. But our lot seem hell bent on dispelling that assumption. We are the worst performing nation in the world, with no desire to take any responsibility. Priti Patel just says "you have to put it in context". Meaningless; an utterly vapid thought terminating cliche. It has no value at all. Consequently we lurch in and out of lockdown. That isn't how it's meant to work. What's meant to happen is that you prepare your track and trace so you can get on top of outbreaks. 

We know how that went.

The Long Road 18: New Guy (+2:50)

Got a new advisor with Fedcap employment. But to be honest I think the relationship with these people is now irreparable. For me you have one chance to connect, after that it just feels contrived, awkward and ultimately counter productive. I don't trust these organisations and I am deeply uncomfortable with small talk, particularly from strangers over the phone who work, essentially for the DWP. That may seem unfair, and in many cases it will turn out that the advisor is just someone who wants to help. But the problem is the system dictates what they can do, how far they can go in support, as well as shaping their overall attitude, which, is also determined by prevailing social conditions. In other words, they want a specific outcome; if your goals don't align with that so easily then the relationship becomes difficult. Never mind the presence of a plague that has fundamentally and irrevocably warped society.

And so the New Guy introduces himself to me on the phone and a painful conversation ensues. I cannot cope with these kinds of discussions and knowing he is only trying to be friendly (I hope) makes it worse. It makes me feel guilty; as if I am being ungrateful or rude. That is not my intention, but there are two factors: a) I am socially awkward and find these conversations gut wrenchingly hard. This is made worse when it's b) someone I don't know that is working for an organisation funded by the DWP. 

My experience with these groups is not positive. No doubt many will point out that, as I'm the consistent factor throughout, then it must be me that's 'to blame'. But that attitude is also apart of the problem, shaping further my reaction. All of this is a symptom of our toxic society. It is, essentially, true to say that I am that factor, but that is, I believe, because of my undiagnosed Asperger's/like condition. I simmply cannot function or interact in the way these people require and so there is a disconnect that makes me appear unwilling to engage. It isn't fair, it's just how it is. 

This is why so many of these organisations fail; they don't have a grassroots understanding of thins like neurodiversity and they are unwilling to apply a correct class-based understanding to the circumstances of the people with whom they interact. Consequently they cannot understand that the problems people like me fact aren't simply intransigence or laziness, but due to the difficulties faced having to interact with a class based, capitalist driven, society. Any society would present conditions people within (me as well as DWP advisors, everyone) have to face. However these conditions are particularly toxic, in my opinion. We cannot ignore them, which is why I discuss them. As a consequence they throw a division between people like well meaning Fedcap New Guy and myself. I have no idea if he has an understanding of Asperger's and the autism spectrum; I'd be surprised if he did. They ostensibly rely on specialists for that (despite claiming to have health expertise, they instead 'signpost' you to real experts).

The tragedy is that, this time last year, I had made inroads into getting advocacy for a second diagnosis attempt. The pandemic has put paid to that; it's desperately unlikely they will concede to a second opinion, using the more appropriate DSM system (and not the ADOS method which I believe is for childhood diagnosis, not adults). Even if they did, I have no support, no advocate, and no chance of a diagnosis under optimal conditions. That is simply how it is now. I think I will have to appraise New Guy of the Asperger situation, he didn't bring it up which indicates the previous advisor hadn't recorded it in some fashion. If that's the case then that's not good.

However at this point I really don't think there's much we can do. It takes much for me to trust these kinds of organisation. I need to know the people I'm working with have my best interests at heart and are genuine. I don't expect them to actually be raging socialists though it would be nice. But if, after nearly four months, they have barely scraped 3 appointments with nothing to offer and no effort, I feel, in establishing rapport (or understanding the difficulties in me doing so), then I think that isn't ever going to happen.

The Long Road 17: (+2:47) Nothing New

 This is what happens when you forget. Easily done on days like these where you lose yoirself in other things while imprisoned by the weather and the pandemic. Here I am writing this in bed, like a weird romance novel. I'm typing using the touch screen so who knows what devil I'm writing, I certainly don't.

I've been feeling very downbeat all day, the news carried a double whammy of possible bad news. The single shot via cine approach may be linked to considerably less successful outcomes, thought the BBC is sceptical all. But then they would be. Imagine it this strategy fails. The government. Cannot afford for that to be the case. Secondly a study has found d that, thanks to the lack of support from the same, the effect of this lockdown is minimal, and may be starting to reverse. Again can't afford for that to be the case.

Here we are, on Another flood wracked January day. The sort that seem to co e around annually. Nothing new about winter flooding and January storms, except at this time.  O one needs this, but its what we are going to have to endure for a painful couple of months. There is no getting around this, we are in it for the long haul. It is going to be a long winter. Each drop of cold rain, each lash of cold wind will be keenly and exceptionally felt for longer than they should be. People are third, I'm tired, it gnaws at you. These cod nations would test the Buddha himself. Something will have to give I get.

The Long Road 16: (+2:43) Changing of the Guard

So today Trump, after pardoning everyone that's not black, gets to disappear into history. Posterity recording him as a narcissistic fantasist who lied to convince the world he was going to drain the so-called swamp. Unfortunately those working class that fell for his maverick act were unaware he was slap bang in the middle of it. 

I have no illusions that Biden will be any better. He is another member of Chez Swamp, only less unstable and less of an outlier. But he is an establishment politician through and through, it will be a return to business as usual, with the stultifying stability that ensues. The fringes will be smoothed over, but the US will be no less a totalitarian capitalist state, using prison slave labour and global destabilization to maintain its fading hegemony in a world within which it is increasingly toxic and irrelevant.

If I'm 100% honest, I couldn't give a damn about what happened on the 6th. It's probably not a good thing, but to hear the strained cries of the state and its liberal defenders is sickening. Sedition! That word is used by witch hunters and McCarthyites; it gets used to describe the perceived influence of ethnic minorities by racist demagogues and state leaders. It's not sedition, it's the mindless entitled who have been brainwashed by corporate capitalist media into thinking, for one reason or another, that Trump is their man and his removal can only have come through chicanery. It can't simply be that people find him repellent and stupid, particularly during a crisis.

I probably should give a damn. By all accounts these weren't actually the blue collar Joes I first thought. Instead it's the petit bourgeoisie and the middle class. But the reaction from the state, across both sides of the political spectrum, is ridiculous. Of course none of these were people interested in exposing how rotten the US machine is, its imperialism, warmongering and oppression - home and abroad, are things they don't care about. But if there is ever going to be change, in America at least, then that machine will have to be confronted and those confronting it, eg antifa groups, will be called seditious and terrorists just the same. That already happens. My problem then is allowing the normalization of this rhetoric. To be instantly offended and outraged equally with the politicians when something like this happens, instead of an opportunity to expose the truth about capitalist states, none more powerful or vicious, perhaps, as the USA.

Biden is at the heart of it. Now it's going to be his turn to hold the reigns of power. A 77 year old man who will be in his 80's when the next election happens. I don't want to be ageist. Indeed the attacks against him by Trump supporters are odious in their disablist. There is no reason why an elderly person can't be perfectly capable, but is this the best we can do? The democratic machinery, the entirety of US politics, cannot find someone more vibrant and vital - he ain't! I don't wish him ill, I just wish the US would fuck off and stop oppressing people at home and abroad while the world burns in a fever.

The Long Road 15 (+2:39) Here, Matt Hancock Lies Again

In my humble opionoin. Of course we will never know the truth, btu I don't trust Crying Matt at all, especially for a Tory. How can anyone tryust a man who doesn't blink and pretends to cry on television.

Here he is telling you how the track and trace system pinged him, forcing him into willing self isolation, in his weird red little shoe box. Like the photoagraphic chamber and peep hole of a serial killer. Imagine, he's going to be self isolating in there for six days. Isn't that meant to be fourteen days? How did that change, now that we have a more virulent strain abroad. I don't believe a word of it. 

It's the government of the Boris who cried wolf. Except, when the stution gets more serious, increasing numbers of people find his government, and authority, even less credible. More people turn away from lockdown. To be fair, it is an increasing strain to live like this. But that isn't an argument against the science of lockdown. We know it works because we've seen it work twice already. Now, for a third time, it's having an effect. Hopefully that wont' be a false positive. It's not the lockdown that's the problem, it's the incompetent government who keeps putting us back to square one, wasting all the blood spilled by key workers and doctors. This guy is the minister in charge of health and he's here having to lie to persaude people to obey rules his government keeps fucking up.

No policy can withstand such deliberate mismanagement. We shouldn't have needed three lockdowns and so it is no wonder people are tired. A fourth will fail because it will be ignored. This one is, largely, being ignored. Fortunately that doesn't appear to be having a negative consequence. It's not helped by the lack of support from the government; right across the board. People are having to work when they should be isolating, travelling during rush hours in calamitous conditions, and the government does nothing. They in fact push to make it worse by compelling everyone's kids back into schools, or, now, rebranding them as vulnerable children to get them out of the house.

Our only hope, if we are to salvage this year (at least), is to fight back ourselves. No one else can do it. Where is Starmer and the useless Labour party? Who cares, that question begs electoralism. The notion that we shouldn't do anything until the next election comes around, which is why Labour have no policies. Who is campaigning on behalf of legacy benefit claimants who have been completely ignored in respect of the £20 Universal Credit uplift? Labour want to contest that battle ground, but are they fighting for the legacy claimants? Maybe I'll ask them when I'm allowed back on Twitter.

I got a week on the naughty step for saying that we ought to throw the Tories off a cliff. Unfortunately, despite allowing actual fascists to get away with widespread abuse, my piddly little account gets flagged for a comment that's the equivalent of "I could murder a cup of tea". Social media is as much a joke as it is a 21st century lifeline.

Unfortunately, until my spell in the sin bin stops, I can't amplify the few voices calling for parity under the government. Those of us on legacy benefits still haven't received the same uplift as those receiving Universal Credit, even though we have no say in which benefit we receive. When this scheme ends and the chancellor doles out the £500 that seems increasingly likely he'll do we will similarly be left bereft, and that is a bitter pill to swallow. Sadly, the cause of benefit claimants isn't as easily sold to the masses as starving kids, despite the fact the same families also need that money. That's Tory dogma for you, drip fed over the last period as social poison.

The Long Road 14: Another Day In Lockdown (+2:35)

Not sure what to write about today. The weather is crap and lockdown is getting to me a bit. This was inevitable. January is the very epitome of the doldrums. I think I'm going to have a big dinner and comfort eat my way out of this morass, which is probably a bad idea. It's grey and wet, endless drizzle blown by a cold breeze that forever centres around my neck. I live rurally, perfect, you might think, for getting out of the house, except the weather is hostile. I don't want to be outside and I don't want to be inside. 

Waling around the same streets isn't really that much fun. Walking through the fields is cold and difficult. I'm not built for winter, so I just moan about it. This wouldn't be so bad but for the obvious. Here we are, and here we are going to be for quite some time. What is most depressing about all this is that the government, which could do so much, has, once again, abandoned people. I'm lucky; I have a roof over my head and food in the cupboard, but this is still difficult. We aren't meant to live like this and our social systems have neither adjusted nor adapted. Moreover the scum in power don't want them to.

Much more could have been done, but they'd call that 'broadband communism'. Providing things for people to do, access to goods and services even for free or at a greatly reduced price. All these things, not just food for starving kids, could have been planned for and prepared. We can't even manage to pay people enough to stop spreading the damn plague. So people crowd onto trains at rush hour, without masks. What on earth!

So, because capitalists can't abide letting the chance for people to see through their shitty system, we all have to suffer. Isn't that reason enough to dump it?

Long Road 13: The Shiny Copper Penny (+2:31)

And so it came to pass that, in the months (I refuse to say...) of the pandemic, the demon masquerading as chancellor did grant a portion of the precariat a boon. Those 'lucky' enough to receive the blessings of Universal Credit were given an extra twenty pounds per week, for a time. Oh truly these are the days of salad! Iced gems all 'round!

Trouble is he didn't grant it to the bloody rest of us. If, like me, you're in receipt of a legacy benefit, which means you have yet to be transferred to Universal Credit (something over which you have no say), then you get NOTHING!

via Imgflip

Now it further transpires that, when this effulgent boon expires (the impermanence of things), the Chancellor is considering giving a five hundred quid lump sum instead of continuing. Given that the £20 increase doesn't apply to legacy claimants, it will be a fucking kick in the nuts to give only Universal Credit claimants such a windfall. The Tories certainly know how to play divide and rule because that is an obvious (if perhaps unplanned - is he that smart?) consequence. I will spit bloody feathers if that is the case. Yes this might make me sound like a grasping pauper, thus proving Tory propaganda right in respect of the perception of the undeserving poor, but ffs!

That, considerable issue, aside, this is the shiny copper penny. Like that 'joke' where the rich man asks the bumpkin, in return for services rendered, if he'd like the shiny copper penny, or instead the dirty old piece of paper that just happens to bear her majesty's likeness. Surely, the aristocrat thinks, the bumpkin is more likely to be impressed by the shiny thing? The poor after all are quite thick you know!

It will cost the treasury more to pay a year's worth of £52 than to just give out £500 in one lump sum, which is about half that amount. This is devious, but it's what we've come to expect from these Tory scumbags. They're happy to starve kids, there's little they wouldn't do, especially to the poorest in what they almost certainly see as a time to push through such punishing social policies. We all know austerity redux is imminent.

What makes this worse is knowing poor people aren't stupid, they're just poor! This means that an offer like this is impossible: who is going to refuse, when they're on the breadline, a windfall of £500? Even if it's going to be less in the long run. People living hand to mouth - especially now - simply cannot afford ot make any other choice. Not that it will be their choice to make; this will be decided by the rich ruling elite. Labour will, of course, nod align. Snoozy Starmer has done fuck all in opposition. Tomorrow they have forced a vote on whether to keep the £20 scheme going. A vote they will of course lose as they don't have the numbers and the persuasive power. It also means it's more likely this idea will actually come to pass because a) the government will win the vote and thus end the scheme as planned and b) giving £500 is, as I've said, cheaper.

I just want nice things!

The Long Road 12: Then and Now (+2:26)

I find myself looking back on the initial period of this pandemic. What might, perhaps insensitively, be called the honeymoon phase. Certainly there was an innocence about it, ignorance even. I came too close to the orbit of cranks. Fortunately I was able to pull away in time before being locked into geostationary around bad ideas. Some were people I'd previously thought better of, but Covid is the great revealer.

Of course compared to now it was a more pleasant environment. This is January, staid and cold. March of 2020 was pleasant weather. At least the initial lockdown period, the entry into the dark pandemic world smoothed by fulsome weather. People were fresh, eager to help. The natural world was reacting by reasserting itself; fewer cars and fewer planes. Nature is the great healer. Until then the norm had been the rat race, pollution and stress. Initially, with the lockdown and despite it's disrupting upheaval, those things were eased. People couldn't work, so roads became silent, skies became clear, and people could take time out. The nice weather helped. But not right now. Maybe again.

Now people are tired. Ten months of utter mismanagement, mixed messages and denial have left us shell shocked. When this ends there will be a great reaction; forces conspiring to realign to the waking capitalist norm will be bought to bear against those born of the suffering. How can we go back to selling off the NHS after the blood spilt by those working in it? Will they, like the veterans of world war 2, want a return? That period saw the birth of the NHS and the welfare state. Our current government will be looking, first and foremost, to sacking it. They will cry crocodile tears while telling us they have little choice but to balance the books by breaking our backs. This cannot be allowed.

Communities came together, at least I'd like to think, initially. But the government breeds cynicism with terrible exemplars and rank hypocrisy. Ever the epitaph of starving kids; twice having to be bought to heel. But not by HM Opposition, but a young soccer player. There is shame to go around. 

We are a long way from Spring. But the journey is inevitable. The road is paved with difficulty and death. Like a bus ride past an endless car crash. Winter is a time of great testing, but none more so than this. The sad part is that most of us saw this coming at the tail end of last year. We knew, but the government wouldn't listen. They will never listen; even more the roads are busy again, people are out (myself included). Public transport in London is heaving during rush hour. This journey is deliberately being kept in first gear because of the lack of support. 

At the end of this a great vacuum threatens, caused by the exposure of our government's utter ineptitude. What threatens to fill it is down to us: either we build a better world and fight to keep the positives necessitated (at great cost) by this crisis. Or we lose everything once and for all.

The Long Road 11: Eclipse (+2:22)

Today was supposed tpo have been the next appointment with Fedcap employment. It didn't happen. Unforeseen circumstances was the reason given. No further explanation. This is now the third failed appointment, even if the majority have been for genuine (health) reasons, on the part of my advisor. Honestly, perhaps even unfairly, I am not impressed. 

I have asked to be assigned a different advisor, which is happening. But to be honest, there was no rapport with whom I had been with until today. I see no point continuing if that's going to be the case. You have to have someone you are confident with. Perhaps it's much to ask, but someone that's inspirational and warm. I've no idea about her personally, or whether she has a glittering track record as an advisor. I don't really care. I'm not going to be working with her anymore, there was nothing to work with. TO be fair, given the times we're in, some slack must be given. That's fine, but then, what's the point?

While searching for their course details, so I could email them and ask for a different advisor, I came across this testimonial on their website. I thought I might dissect it here. I have no idea who Bryan is, and if Fedcap has genuinely helped him, then that's great. I'm not interested in denying positive experiences, but everyone's circumstances are not the same and one of the problems of schemes like this is the assumption that one size fits all because the consequence is that  you get blamed if things don't work out. You're either failing to engage or not being honest. This is because these organisations are incapable of a broader social analysis, one taking into account the balance of power between groups within society. One that has an understanding of class relations, something so vital. Also, it is important to understand the nature of these testimonials and the language dployed.

There's a problem right away; The headline claims Bryan has secured a job. However the article says that he only managed to secure a temporary work experience placement. There is no indication as to whether this did lead to full employment, what the job was, whether he was even paid (I hope so!). Times like this are going to be rough; even if he did get that job where is he now? This article was written in October. Things are much worse now, two lockdowns hence. There is, sadly, every chance he has lost his job, if he had one. We don't know. I'm not sure why they wouldn't share more details if the outcome was as positive as they claim, so my feeling is that it wasn't a full time work. Instead they will claim it had other positive benefits. That may be true, but we'll see how long those last when he hasn't got a wage and is still dependent on the DWP.

This article caught my eye for two reasons; firstly Bryan is on the spectrum. That speaks to my experience even though it is extremely unlikely I will ever get the chance at a second, proper, diagnosis. That is something I am just going to have to live with. Secondly, the advisor, Lorraine, has the same name as the one I was seeing. Now that may be coincidence, but I choose to believe otherwise. Even if it's another, their performance ought to be similar.

Bryan was referred to a specialist, within the service (presumably); Sophie (don't know her) who is an "occupational inclusion specialist". This term is new to me. As far as I can tell it's a fancy term for a work coach. So no different than bog standard Jobcentre personnel, it seems. This is the description of someone who has this job within the same company. No idea who they are either; I found this by googling the term:

"Experienced Administrator with a demonstrated history of working in the professional training & coaching industry. Skilled in Customer Service, Performance Management, Employee Training, Time Management, and Leadership Development. Strong information technology professional graduated from Sutton centre academy ."

A typically long winded way of saying 'work coach'. It doesn't scream specialist to me, in perhaps the same way that being an 'occupational therapist' does, for instance. Make of that what you will, but it speaks to just how these companies big up themselves in articles like this. Already we have doubts as to how their client fared, now we have over inflated hyperbole to describe bog standard work coaching. These phrases also morph and mutate over time and keeping up with it all is exhausting.

The essence of my problem with this article is encapulated in this opening sentence:

"Bryan was diagnosed with Asperger’s which affects his confidence and he struggles with routines and adapting to new ones. "

This seems to diminish a condition that is life long and, to whatever degree, all encompassing. It informs how you interact with and see the world. It isn't merely an issue of 'confidence', but work coaches love to talk about confidence building. Everything gets reduced to this simplistic approach. While it is important, it isn't the simple solution: just make Bryan feel more confidence and he will be a success - as defined by your organisation. Aspergers isn't an illness and it shouldn't be seen as a negative thing, it is just that Aspies are different. The only reason that's a problem (for the most part) is because our society wants people to operate a certain way; to play specific roles with specific interactions etc. Now obviously a full explanation and examination of the neuro diverse experience is beyond this article, but then isn't that the point? You can't just reduce it down to mere 'confidence building'. that's patronising and unhelpful. I've spoken with work coach types that espouse that. It's not enough because it doesn't address the individual's place in the social order, nor the nature of that society and how it operates (including economically, since people need to procure essentials).

The last point I will make is about the language used. Language is important, it is able to control and shape the discourse. This is all the more potent and important when the relationship between speaker and listener is hierarchical, as it is between work coach and benefit claimant. There is a power differential, which is what makes the integrity of that relationship all the more vital. If there is no trust, no warmth, no rapport, then I don't think it can work. When I talk about their portrayal of aspergers I'm referring to this sentence, for example: 

"Lorraine referred him to occupational inclusion specialist, Sophie to help him with his health and wellbeing barriers. "

Not only does this traduce the lived experience of a cognitive makeup, one's entire psychology, but it commodifies it. Packaging it up into something they, hopefully, can deal with. Something that can be sold to those they work for and those they aspire to help. "Health and wellbeing", like confidence, become products. Things that can be used to achieve the desired result. Your history, experience, yoru entire relationship with society and everything within it ("but the sun is eclipsed by the moon"), are reduced to this entity; this language that has a currency within the political ecosphere. It's about wellness/wellbeing. It's about removing 'barriers'. Aspergers isn't a thing you (can) cure, nor should it be because there is nothing wrong with you if you have it. It's like the fit notes the government created out of the old sick notes; by focusing on what it is perceived you can do, we can ignore what you can't do. 

Orwell would be proud.

And everything under the sun is in tune, but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

The Long Road 10: Points of No Return (+2:17)

These are the times in which we live. The great pandemic of 2020. Our leaders have failed us. They are not there to govern, but to rule. To make this their playground. One now that is infected. Moving forward, as we do so, slowly, we must now fight. As never before. There will be, in the period subsequent to this suffering, a realignment. A sharp reaction, pulling the yoke back, tighter than before. People have seen how vital the NHS is, a worse outcome the Tories could never wish for. Our eyes have been opened, or should have been (for many this will not be the case, and they must be approached), there is no return. I have often wondered, as you have I am sure, what it is to live through a period of perceptible dizzying change.

Consider; what support has been given throughout? These fuckers have gripped the levers of power more tigtly than ever before. We stand in the playground of giants, yet we are bigger than everyone of these clay-footed monsters. We just give them the power over us, like nightmares. Although many have been furloughed, many more are still forced into work that isn't essential or could be done differently. It isn't. Some of course have received the help they deserve, but it hasn't been enough - and it has been offered through gritted teeth by a man richer than the Queen. How can this be acceptable? Cabinet ministers only act to help children when faced with vote-jeopardizing shame. Schools were only shut at the last minute with no provision to help staff or pupils. Labour's now-prescient plans to offer what the media risibly calls 'broadband communism' are of course dismissed, yet children are forced to stay at home while the government cries crocodile tears about education. To translate, the mean the rental income from schools and of course the danger of a new world being seen. One where the systems and hierarchies of old, they benefit from, are pulled into the disinfecting light. The truth is shone upon their claims and are found wanting.

How many times can I say the same thing? I won't tire of it though; it is a vital message. As vital as the meals Tory donors are now profiting from providing. Money that the government spitefully gave to them, and not the families. That is teachable. Kids will learn more from that than they will from what Gavin Williamson wants for them. 

The best education is revolution.

The Long Road 9: Another Day of Liars Starving Children (+2:13)

Another grey day in the country where children are collateral damage for the Tory agenda and Brexit. Crying Matt on the morning news is nailed to the wall by, of all people, Piers Morgan. Despite Piers being a thundering piece of overbearing shit, he seems the only "journalist" willing to hold these liars to account. Crying Matt crumbled when asked if he regretted voting against feeding starving kids. Yes, we live in the age where we should debate everything, where there are two sides to every story; just as Tim Martin's Covid denial leaflets exhort. This is of course utter bullshit, there aren't two sides to whether kids should be fed (never mind during a pandemic). There's the right thing to do, and then there are evil scumbags.

I believe Brexit could have been postponed. The transition period, at the very least, could have been extended. Our government should have focused on one crisis: the pandemic. It chose to continue with Brexit and I can't help believing that this was partly intentional. Disaster capitalism is served by them hiding what they knew would be unpalatable (once the truth was out, as is slowly becoming apparent) within the folds of a greater crisis. I'm not suggesting this was a conspiracy. It's simply they saw the situation and acted accordingly. Now they can blame Brexit's failings on the prevailing economic conditions. In other words, a good day, lasting ten months and running, to bury bad news.

The covid figures for the last couple of days appear to show the start - hopefully! - of a decline. Hopefully the lockdown is starting to have an effect, although it feels totally presumptuous to say that. I choose to...hope. Even so, thousands more will die. That cannot be avoided; deaths follow on from hospitalisations, preceded by infections. Thus, because of the high rate of infections over which this lunatic regime has presided, we will be looking at another 25,000 dead by Spring. That is a hell of a toll.

With that in mind, this has to be the start of something revolutionary. It's been said before, but we cannot go back to business as usual after this, This is the start of a brave new world, these are terrible birthing pains and so they must not be for nothing. To coin a phrase, another world is possible. It has to be. So much more will be lost than a hundred thousand of our lives; the Tories will come for everything. Brexit is already the beginning of the end of workers rights and hard won terms and conditions. All that faces being swept away in the next couple of years. We're only a water of the way through this Parliament and they are already starving kids. We cannot let them continue. We must fight, there is no alternative. A better world awaits.

The Long Road 8: Another Grey Day In Which Kids Are Again Starved (+2:08)

Today I am feeling it. There's an annoying feature in Blogger where the cursor, at the start of writing, is one character further to the right than it should be. I can't work out why and every time I write I have to delete that space, otherwise the paragraphs aren't uniform. It bugs the shit out of me. It's like an itch you can't scratch. Like when carpet patterns don't align correctly. I've been that way for years. When I was a kid I used to gaze into them like the Penguin's umbrella. Phenomena like this would have me equal parts transfixed and frustrated. Something wrong with the world that I cannot fix. This is why I believe myself to be on the spectrum. Sadly I am alone in that.

It is another grey day in Winter. One of many; we aren't even half way through January. The pandemic is like a slow weaving tapestry unfolding all around. Our government will never get a grip on things, we are doomed to remain in holding patterns for a very long time. It's like having an itch you cannot scratch; or a carpet pattern you cannot unsee. 

The best thing this government could have done, assuming this was ever more than rumour, would have been to cough up that £500 'free' money to everyone. I have no idea if Sunak ever considered it. Unlikely, as he's a filthy rich banker whose entire worldview depends on people not getting used to such things. By people I mean the rest of us, of course. Go out, spend it in the click and collect economy. Spend it at Amazon, from whom the government will collect no tax thus rendering the entire exercise pointless. At least you can get something you like to help pass the time.

And.

We're back to starving kids. For the third time. These bastards have to be dragged kicking and screaming for a third time. There really is nothing more to say at this point. This is how they are. It will never change. These people are just evil; giving a contract to provide food for vulenrable kids, during a pandemic, to donors is one thing. Letting them pocket the vast majority of that contract and using as little as possible to provide a sorry platter of half wilted, near the knuckle, muck is dehumanising and degrading. I could rage for hours about this, but today I'm tired. I'm just not surprised at any of this and you can bet your bottom dollar this won't be the last you hear of this. I could also say that every Tory should hang their heads in shame, but what would be the point.

There must be an accounting though, at some point. 

The Long Road 7: Why Don't We Support Creativity? (+2:03)

Thinking about my next appointment with Fedcap employment on Friday. I wish I knew more about them and their arrangements with the DWP; is the payment structure similar with the Work Programme? I can't imagine it's far different. 

The last appointment was, so to speak, pointless, I mean, nothing happened. I feel like I'm interacting with a machine. A 45 minute interview that offered so little it was ended in a third of the time. Not by me, either. To be fair, with things as they are, there probably isn't much they can do anyway. But if the government can, and presumably does, pay them (their scheme is affiliated with the DWP so they must have a working contract), then I can't help thinking it would be better to just give people that money directly. Anything else is a waste, though obviously not as far as they are concerned since that's their revenue. As I said before, in this relationship, I am being exploited so they can profit. I add the value to their labour: without clients or customers they have nothing. 

I fully expect to hear from the Jobcentre in the next few weeks. It is approaching six months from the last Work Focussed Interview. That took place at the end of Summer. What a halcyon time that was, a paradise compared to the cold and the covid of now, but even then the appointment took place over the phone. I wasn't asked to attend in person, thankfully. It was of course a complete waste of time as it will be now. I am assuming that it will be exactly the same process as before. I can't see the logic, now, of being asked to attend, but the one thing you cannot do with the DWP is assume. That's the road to ruin so I will have to act accordingly and perhaps assume the worst. It's not good for the soul having to operate that way, but you are not given any choice.  They don't have a standard operating procedure.

Why don't we have a society that supports the creative arts? Clearly our society isn't interested in helping people reach their true potential when it prioritises wage slavery. When I asked Fedcap if they had of knew of any financial support for music (be it grants, loans, schemes, whatever), they said help was conditional on whether the result would be paid employment. Well naturally that prioritises wage slavery. It's lot more likely they would help fund getting a CSCS card, for instance, or a pair of work shoes, rather than an investment into someone's future. But one choice leads to the enrichment of culture and social growth, the other just perpetuates a capitalist system.

You might retort by saying "well if you got a job you could buy the stuff you need that way". Sure, but again you are just reinforcing wage slavery. Why is that desirable? This also assumes that, having done a full day's work for a master, that you'll have the time and energy left for your passions. This idea that you can work for the life you want is often not how things work out; how can they when people are pressured into prioritising their job. Work more hours, commute further, spend more on the things you need to reproduce that labour (food, rent, etc). Capitalism is all consuming. Your own life is a luxurty that is increasingly put out of reach. I don't think that is a virtue, despite how the capitalist class tells you that you're "paying your dues". There's no such thing, and don't disbelieve that actually purusuing yoru passions isn't. That's the real work.

The Long Road 6: By The Autumn (+1:58)

There really isn't much to talk about that hasn't been discussed ad nauseum by now. Crying Matt, in his odd tiny little office, has proclaimed a vaccine will be on offer to everyone (over 18) by Autumn. That then means waiting another three months for the full dose (assuming nothing else changes about their plan). In other words, next winter will also have restrictions and possibly even a lockdown. People need to be aware that nothing is really going to change even when a vaccine comes in. Their plan isn't to immunise people and thus generate the hallowed herd immunity. It's to keep people out of hospitals. So, unless I've misunderstood (entirely possible), that means those vaccinated (like my mother) can still catch and thus spread Covid.

Hopefully the situation is better than that, but, given where we are, it's what we're stuck with. Thanks to our crap government, and clowns like Crying Matt.

Apparently two women drove five miles with two cups of coffee for a walk and got fined £200 each. This isn't on the exams, but what is the point? What does this solve? Clearly the threat didn't deter them nor will it deter many others, and at that point they would have affected anyone if they were a danger. It all seems pointless and disproportionate. I'm not condoning people being reckless, but this is human reality meeting with the blunt trauma of the state. No one wins. Maybe they can afford the fine, in which case so what? Or they can't, in which case they are now impoverished. Either way the damage is done. The greater danger is probably from the cops presenting more targets for infection, if either were carrying. Hopefully they at least had the sense to steer clear of others and go somewhere isolated. There's plenty of places like that, I live in such and could well face a fine myself. The rules are of course unclear.

They travelled five miles, which could easily be matched by any serious jogger on a morning run. It's more than I was planning to travel to Tesco to to do my shopping. The cops in my case would argue that I could shop nearer to home, which is true, except that the shops here have less and charge more than the supermarket in town. They are more than welcome to do my shopping for me. Those two cups of coffee were regarded, in legal terms, as a picnic, and thus against the rules.

It's all a bit pathetic, but this is what we've been reduced to. I don't think this helps anyone. But this is all capitalism has to offer. Meanwhile thousands will be compelled to work throughout this lockdown when there is no good reason. Lives put at risk for profit, pandemic worsened. We have to do better, and we can. Democratic control of those work places would solve this. Putting the economy int he hands of you and I. Let us make it happen

TheLong Road 5: Bullshit Legacy (+1:53)

Yesterday the mayor of London declared a Major Incident due to the virus. Sadly he will be ignored. This is the legacy of years of neoliberalism, aligned with the islamophobic rhetoric that is popularly levelled against him. He is an easy target because of his background. Whenever anything happens in London, and I'm sure this will be no exception, he is blamed because he's a Muslim. Yet in truth, he's not a friend of the working class; he's happily overseeing a great deal of gentrification. His job, performed willingly, is to ensure that London remains the profitable centre of finance it always was. Damn the working class. The virus is a concern and while I'm sure he does care about people dying, he cares more about business being able to proceed as usual. It's a major incident because it threatens the status quo.

What is happening now, specifically the degree to which the virus is being allowed to spread, is a consequence of these power players. Years of gentrification and exploitation. Years of not being listened to are what caused Brexit, are what caused the backlash to immigration - people coming here with whom you have more in common than the people ignoring you. We have to accept this. It's no good calling people racist, though some undoubtedly are, and within this dissatisfaction and disenfranchisement racism breeds like a weed. Now, with Corona fatigue setting in, the result of almost a year of utter mismanagement and corruption (synonyms), people are in the worst place at the worst stage of this crisis thus far. Led by the worst people.

Trump got banned on Twitter.

Today my mpther had her virst dose of the Pfizer vaccine. We of course hope that's sufficient to kee[ her and everyone out of harm's way. She won't get another one until the Spring. So really this is a hail Mary. It's a transparent gamble by a government in shambles. Their last roll of the dice with the grim reaper. 

Reading the accompanying leaflet is interesting. It says the medicine doesn't have a UK marketing authorization, whatever that means. Instead the Health department has given authorisation for temporary supply. It is for people 16 years and above. It's not for kids. As I type this, the local kids are all hanging out in a group on the football pitch. This lockdown isn't being taken seriously. That's the case everywhere I fear.

The leaflet was also written before the decision to withhold the second dose. It says you will receive 2 injections 21 days apart, and that protection may not be effective until at least 7 days after the second dose. Let's hope that's not the case then!

In regard to side effects, 1 in 10 suffer pain at the injection site, tiredness, headache, muscle pain, chills, joint pain or fever. Nothing too serious I guess. 1 in 100 suffer enraged lymph nodes and "feeling unwell". I hope that's not a euphemism.

Overall it isn't anything to stop people getting the damn jab, it's just the rest of us will have to wait a very very long time.

The Long Road 4: This Isn't Insurrection (+1:47)

I have felt strangely ambivalent about the events underlining Trump's political dissolution. As he fades into narcissistic array, amid deliberately consistent lies, his elite among the groomed working class engage in what some mistakenly call 'insurrection'. It isn't; it's the reactionary rump of a rusted corrupt and racist hegemony beating its chest. The saddest part of all is that these may well rank among Trump's greatest victims, when they face the legislation he himself instituted, to their cheers. Put in place to deal with the perceived threat of the 'far left' (i.e. black people).

They are storming the infrastructure of a state in the same way that overweight neo nazis (look at their tattoos) defended statues of Churchill from the same 'baying mob'). They did it not because it aligned with their ideology, but because they have been conditioned by that same state into becoming its citizen defenders. This fact is reinforced further when the police, it's legitimate (according to the state) defenders, "stand back and stand by". 

WHy are people still surprised at this? The role of the police is to protect and serve...the state. Sure they might chase a burglar or find a missing kid, but that's ancillary. Their fundamental function is preservation of the status quo. These so called insurrectionists are only being supported by them because they share the same goal, and the same colour. If they were anything likt he revolutionaries they've been convinced to identify with they would be shot. If they were black (or any ethnic minority, tbf)...

This is purposeless and chaotic. It will be described, with tedious inaccuracy, as anarchism. Again false: anarchy is rule by direct grassroots democracy. Not a society without rules. The question anarchism poses is in where the power lies: who gets to make the rules. These 'insurrectionists' aren't looking to change rules, they are raging because they've been carefully convinced, by a media that inspires rage but never provides solutions or explanations. A media that, crucially, never questions power, in fact it seeks to deflect; that's what lies behind the rage inducing headlines. All of which reinforce the status quo, the unbalanced violent hegemony that the 'insurrectionists' are defending, though they have no idea how.

Ultimately a genuine working class insurrection, that is, a revolution, will have to address state power. This too will involve the question of approaching its infrastructure, such as Capital Hill, or Westminster. People quick to criticise these events mistakenly claim these are the 'people's' places. This is 'our' seat of democracy. It isn't. These are the palaces of the ruling class - why are there cops in the first place if they belong to everyone. I don't have cops protecting my home. You are not welcome there, not without some serious vetting and a purpose the ruling class accepts. You certainly can't just walk in and demand answers from the people who lie to you telling you that they are your servants. The truth is quite the reverse.

Unless your purpose in visiting is to protect it from its enemies, in this case Trump's ideological enemies. The sad reality is that Biden isn't. He's another rich capitalist installed to represent rich capitalists. He isn't revolutionary and never will be. Ironically, for all his narcissism ignorance and cruelty, Trump is more of a revolutionary. That is what the ruling class feared and that is the beast the Republicans unleased. Now they are reaping the orange whirlwind. I'll drain the swamp he said, while pointing to foreigners and paupers. The tragedy is that his ideological opponents, i.e. the Democrats, are indeed the swamp. But then so is he. One rich ruling elite scumbag is no different to the other, when it comes to the lives of the working class. 

Like it or not, that's who's storming the Bastille right now. They are our brothers and sisters and the ugly truth is that they have been expertly lied to and manipulated. This is the ultimate play of divide and rule. Their only real crime (thus far) is being gullible, but then poverty will make you that way.

The Long Road 3: Another Round of Applause (+1:42)

Today may yet be the coldest day of this pandemic. You see, new records broken daily. Just not in a good way. Two days in and Iv'e yet to be arrested for going on multiple walks during the day. It makes no sense: you can't leave your house for recreational purposes or leisure, but you can for exercise. In other words, if you enjoy going for a run you're breaking the law. If you don't enjoy it then it's perfectly law abiding.

Anyway we played this game last year; things won't be any different this time because the same arseholes are running the show. They will of course break the rules, you just won't hear about it. I have no doubt that there have been a ton of politicians that have broken the rules, thinking they are better than everyone else. It's what they do. We just don't hear about it.

Another tradition, along with a March-esque lockdown, being revived, is the NHS clapping. To be honest I'm in two minds about this. Part of it is a grassroots (or should be, I don't know who 'invented' it) response to the experience of those on the frontline. Currently they are being put through the wringer again, and then some. That doesn't provide any material benefit, but it should help a community become a little closer and demonstrate that, at teh very least, you care. Sure you can call that tokenism or sentimentality, but that has some value.

On the other hand it is very easily co-opted by the ruling class as a means to divert from actually giving them what they want and need. Of course staff want to be appreciated and respected. Clapping shows them that we, at least, do respect and appreciate them. But it isn't enough. 

I think the real issue is whether clapping diverts from focussing people onto putting pressure on the government to do the right thing, where it counts. Properly resource and fund the NHS, and pay the damn staff. I take the view that the government is always going to look away from doing that, and it can be argued that clapping raises people's awareness. Keeps the focus on the scumbags in Westminster. But it can't just end at clapping, it should compel people into putting that pressure on. That, unfortunately, is all we can do, within this system. The real solution is revolutionary activity. As long as medical staff are dependent on a wage, and as long as health care is a commodity, nothing will really change, and no amount of applause will make a difference.

The Long Road 2: Covid Catastrophe by Owen Jones (+1:36)

I am tempted to post only one thing today because this may well be the most important piece of media we will ever see right now. Unfortunately those that need to see it the most will disregard it because the author is Owen Jones. Equally unfortuantely, he is 100% correct. This is depressing and stark; simple in its factual accounting of the last ten months. Exposing a throroughly corrupt government, guided not by the science, but its own self interest. 

This, I hope, is their epitaph. It must not be ours. Polling shows that even if a general election were held today the Tories would still win. They would command a vastly diminished majority leaving them a minority government. The only victor in such circumstances would be the Westminster machine. We, the rest of us, would all lose. 

To put it another way: there is no opposition. Keir Starmer has utterly failed. He is just a red John Major. Grey Labour. Certainly no grey eminence. A man that has bottled every challenge the pandemic has given him. He wants to represent the labour movement, that's the party's cause, yet he cannot even oppose white supremacist talking points on a racist radio station. He caves in to racism when it's politically expedient to do so, giving in to his ideological enemies. He equivocates on the issue of schools opening at the wrong time, when it is abundantly clear that the answer is NO! They should not open! He has had an open goal staring him in the face for the best part of a year and still manages to perform poorly. Worse, I would argue than Corbyn, yet he's the right kind of politician (literally) and so won't face the same opprobrium. What then is the point of the Labour party?

Share this, but don't forget this. We have been abandoned to die by a government profiting from its failure to mismanage the worst crisis we have faced, nationally, in our lifetimes.  Never forgive.

The Long Road 1: March Redux (+1:31)

So here we are and here we go again. The fruits of ten months experience distilled into one festive fuck up. They were warned and we never listened. We know what they're like. We know they don't listen and don't care. We also know that they are staggeringly stupid and, now, criminally incompetent. None of this will improve with the Tories in charge; Gove cheerfully telling us all how it might (might?) last till March. No problem for him; he's an incredibly wealthy Tory. He'll have plenty to keep him busy and all the luxury within which to do it. Nor for him the panic buying, the destitution, the boredom, the desperation. We aren't in it all together, and we never where. 

But this time, is it a step too far. Certainly they have placed us in a position where this lockdown is necesary. Like every time before they've done it too late. Now there are going to be thousands of deaths before this wave recedes. That cannot be avoided; the infections have already happened. Almost 60,000 a day for the past couple of weeks at least. Percentages are not our friend. That's nearly a million people infected. Even with a seemingly modest survival rate it amounts ot thousands more dead, condemned by Boris on the eve of vaccine. He could have locked down over December as well, suppressed Christmas. He didn't. We're dying. We can't avoid that. 

What consequence will he face? Sooner or later he risks even the support of the media. There's always a step that a leader can take that puts them beyond the pale. But if he fucks up the vaccine, if this gts rolled out slowly, which it will, they will step in. I'm sure of it. He's on borrowed time, spending our goodwill as a maxed out emotional credit card. There will be a reckoning. There has to be.

For now, and for the detriment of providing the kind of razor sharp sarcasm this ridiculous blog has become accustomed to, I have decided to take a break from the media. It's too much. Of course it will be impossible to avoid completely since I'm on Twitter. I like Twitter, I like the format. But it's a hellscape to be sure.

Unlike town, which, aided by the invisible cold breeze (not unlike the invisible cold breeze of death), was a ghost town. Almost everywhere shut up, or shutting up. A bit like the dregs of time on Christmas Eve (the normal kind, not the deadly kind), when the shopping hours are up and the storefronts are closing. At this point most people are shopped out and heading home. All that's left are the lastr strains of the Salvation Army brass band and the desperate homeless, ignored as ever. They are still out there, by the way. They'll become like the blast shadows at Hiroshima, haunting us after this nightmare is over. The Tories don't care though; leave them to freeze or disease.

Ironically the shopping conditions are more pleasant as a result. Consequently I'll be avoiding lockdown (or I won't, if the cops are reading) to do my shopping in a less turbulent Tesco on a welcomingly empty bus. Just me and the bus driver. Unfortunately for him he has no choice.

Ten Months, Here We Are Again

So here we are. The inevitable. We all knew it was coming. Everyone except the people that made the decision, whose incompetence reaches beyond the criminal. Either Johnson survives this or I will. We are back to the situatoin last March, except this time it's worse. Ten months in and we are back to the beginning. That's why it's worse. 

To be honest, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to cope. It's a different world now. One that the Tories have let slip the leash. I see the walls closing in. You'd think, with it being winter, I'd not want to go out. But that means freedom. We're back to essential trips and a brief moment of exercise. I go for a walk three times a day. To me that's essential. It was essential back then and it's even more so now. So that won't change. Fortunately I don't walk where there are loads of people, it's the countryside here.

What about shopping? Right now I've been going to the Tesco in town because it's the only place that's a) affordable and b) has the food I want. We have a local Tesco Express; it's expensive and shit. We have a Coop, same deal. We have a butchers, they too are expensive, just not shit. I'm not compromising my diet for the sake of this lockdown so what do I do? I can't imagine catching a bus to go to a different shop is going to be in the spirit of the rules?

This is going to last at least 6 weeks. Most likely until March. Same length as the first lockdown; three months. Only then it was sunny and pleasant, and we all got a kick out of Dominic Cummings giving us the green light to break the rules. Then it all sort of slid; kids started using the plaground, people were having picnics. Before long the rules were relaxed. If only we knew then...

Now it's dark, it's cold, and utterly terrifying. These are short days but they are going to get longer a lot quicker, just in the worst way possible. Our society has failed. It's so called leaders have failed us and in the worst way possible. They must go.

I'm not sure how I'm going to cope.

The Boris Who Cried Wolf (+1 minute 25)

When they turn the pages of history, when these days have passed long ago...

At some point this period will morph into words. More likely energetic pixels on a screen; the response to a finger touching a screen. The deaths of thousands and the upending of an economy, overseen by pitiless incompetent overlords, will be the equivalent of a Tinder swipe. A lesson next to an energy drink advert, easily ignored en route to the regular booster shot cycle now priced out of the hands of the working class. This is the inner city of Old New Old London, January 2, 2121.

Back in time, it's just us. Living through this. Our hopes and aspirations coalescing into app form to be preserved. A lesson, however, that cannot be ignored. This is not the world we want to leave, but until there is a critical mass of consciousness that won't change. Power is never given, it is only taken. That fact alone makes uncomfortable reading for those still clinging to the apron strings of the economic alma mater. Capitalism makes children of us all. Even the rich are not its masters, they are just a better class of slave.

We're 4 days into 2021 and things are not going well. On the day schools are meant to return parents, and teachers of course, are still in a state of unnecessary confusion. The problem is that the government prioritises the economy over the safety of children. This is a hard fact, simple in premise, for people to understand. A reality too straightforward to accept. Parents are needed at the pump, tilling the soil for the master. School provides valuable caretaking duties while instilling enough and as narrow of an education as required to raise them to do the same. This is the government's MO all along: put the economy first. The economy that has been in slow motion decline for decades. The economy unable to cope with crisis. It is crisis.

The government likes to think it virtuous to act like this. They are not acting recklessly, they are 'defending a decision'. A very bad decision the consequences of this have repeatedly been made available. This is ignorance, it is not resolve. It ain't a virtue.

I am writing this in the morning this day. I fully expect, by the time you're reading this, we'll be back under national lockdown, plus possibly more. What that could be, I do not know. I find this genuinely terrifying, more so than the virus (which is serious enough). This is simply because policy response has a more immediate impact than the virus - and that's only because I've fortunately avoided the virus. That is to say: whie the virus isn't physically ubiquitous, the risk is. That means everyone, however remote they might be from infection, is affected because the counter measures have to assume everyone is at risk. I went to Tesco on Saturday. For all I know everyone or no one could have had the virus. I will never know. In truth the cases locally are about 4100 per million of population. This of course fuels the denialists, but the reality isn't relfected in simple maths because the virus is infections.

Boris is going to be speaking to us, again, at 8pm. I tink it's clear where this is headed, the only question is: how strict? At this point we need a government of national emergency. We need proper planning: commandeering supply lines and seizing private assets. Socialism is the only solution. Let Jeff Bezos whine. Let them all whine. All effort must be strained toward the one goal of vaccination because by god we know otherwise they'll fuck that up as well.

Ok this is being posted before 8pm. I might respond afterwards, but I'd be lying if I said I'm not beginning to wobble. I've argued the case against deniers on social media (god knows why), but we cannot go on like this, that's certain. In and out of lockdown, decisions made with no time to prepare. No planning, no accountability and, perhaps worst of all, no humility. These Tory scum have got to go, now. We are paying for their Christmas; they wanted the economy open. We're dying for it. I can only hope the current horrific rates are just that bad blood passing through the system and that, in a couple of weeks, it will stabilise. I'm struggling to believe it's down to the variant. I find it too conveneitn when I hear the liars in government use that as the scapegoat. However if it's true, they must have known of it's existence back in December when they ended the last lockdown, surely? It didn't just appear on December the first. 

Something to ponder

Brave New Weekend (+1 minute 19)

Stupid Boris confirms what the rest of us know. He is currently buffering; like a shit internet connection. Information being downloaded, hits low bandwidth. More restrictions coming down the line. What more can they do? Will the regional approach by abandoned in favour of us being kept indoors 24/7? Presumably it would be a return to conditions seen at the start: an hour's permitted exercise and you get to make one trip to the shops a week, or whatever. This of course will be followed by the usual, predictable, bogroll insanity. Andrex Madness (sounds like the name of a great talkshow AI host in a world gone mad).

This weekend is the decider for the coming month, at least. We all knew January would be the big hangover. They should have maintained lockdown throughout December at least, never mind that they left it too late. Never mind that they will never admit their faults - a huge red flashing DANGER! sign. If these people, our so called leaders, aren't willing to learn. Aren't that humble, We are fucked.

I fear the teachers won't go far enough. This is a potentially revolutionary moment. It has potential. They need to make the right decision for the safety of everyone, and I mean everyone. It isn't just kids or even staff. It's everyone to whom a school outbreak could reach, which is...everyone. Stand up to this government; stand up to that creepy Williamson guy. Send these fuckers a message. Teach them a lesson!

What is required now, more than ever, is critical thinking. So many people engage in dreadful and fallacious reasoning in the face of what they, understandably, don't want to believe. None of us want to be in this situation, but we are. Engaging in cloudy logic will not justify the notion that what is happening is either deliberate or completely false. For example, claiming that covid has a high survival rate doesn't detract from how dangerous it is. Nor does it address the fundamental problem; it's highly infectious. That is why it's dangerous, and the current situation, with hospitals in dire crisis, show precisely why. 

These people believing this nonsense really need to understand. But in our society it's easier to retreat into personal conspiracy, believe that you with the truth, are special. This is just more divide and rule from a government that has given up all pretense of fighting this situation. They have allowed Christmas to go ahead as normally as possible (which was too normal) and we are being made to pay for it with thousands of new infections, exhausted and crippled health infrastructure and staff, and more death. None of this they will accept blame for. However people would rather believe infantile conspiracies or employ simplistic and fallacious reasoning. They blame Neil Ferguson because the right wing press scapegoated him for scaring the economy but they don't blame their own for breaking the rules.

You can thus see why critical thinking isn't on the education, and yet it is one of the most important skills you can learn. The ability to sift through the deluge of bad reasoning that would expose our terrible leaders is vital. The biggest culprit is irrelevant arguments and whataboutisms - a bit like when they pivot from accepting responsibility by asserting Comrade Corbyn would have been worse. Irrelevant, he's not in charge. Another is the appeal to numbers, big or small. "99% survival rate", "it only affects people over 75". Problem is that 99% of 65 million is still a lot of death, and in the meantime while it might not kill it spreads, therefore keeping the problem going and infecting more people. 

So don't let the bad arguments from the covid deniers win the day.

Brave New World 2 (+1 minute 13)

Ah the days grow long now. Drink in that vitamin D. It's going to be a long journey.

Today, in town, I walked past Wetherpsoons, my only relationship with that place. Tim Martin and his clown show have decided posting covid denial nonsense on their doors is ok. No doubt in protest at not being able to sell shit to the drinking classes. That guy is beyond stupid, and this is beyond irresponsible. I'm even considering making a complaint to the council. People are listening to this rubbish, a lot of idiots are damaging our chances to recovery. London and the southeast are still on fire. People have got to start listening. People have got to start taking this seriously.

Teachers are taking action though. They have called for staff not to open schools. This is correct. Schools should not return. The reason the government want them to has nothing to do with education, we can see that by looking at the existence of last year's (and every year's) infamous algorithm. The purpose of their education system is to keep the economy ticking over: childcare for workers and bean counting for tomorrow's drones. They have now taken reproductive labour away from parents. Forced to work, both parents now can't even have ownership of that small piece of capitalism. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is ours. Not even our breath. We are crying out for a revolution.

A short entry today because a) I'm behind and b) we're holding on till Monday to see what actually happens with the new school term in the new covid year. If the government gets its way on this then, again, it will have succeeded only in exacerbating this nightmare

Brave New World, Day 1 (+1 minute 7)

And welcome to it. The year we fight back! 

Or at least that's the idea. Unfortunately we've already got problems. I fear the vaccine rollout is going to be fraught. The BBC revealed what I fear may be the truth. The government is planning instead to give 1 dose of the vaccine, treating more people, rather than doubling does for fewer people. This was the original plan because it is a more effective vaccine. Apparently this has the backing to the scientists, but I suspect that's pragmatic.

Talking about this the BBC gave the game away: they said that one dose was enough to prevent serious infection, keeping people out of hospital. That is the goal. They know they don't have the infrastructure for optimal vaccination quickly enough to fight the current situation. Both are circumstances we can fairly and squarely lay at the government's feet. They have spent ten years dismantling the NHS (further). while their response to the pandemic has ignored the scientists at every turn, with dire consequences. That trend is set to continue at the start of the first working week of 2021 as schools are not being kept shut. Does anyone really believe they have been made covid secure? Is it even possible?

So there it is. The government is hoping to dose enough people to keep society going until their vaunted herd immunity kicks in. A meagre dose of the one thing they promised us that we really wanted to believe would be ours: a vaccine. Now they are denying that. Perhaps it will work out. I'm not a scientists and so I have to admit it's possible I am incorrect and this minor mass vaccination, assuming the rollout goes smoothly, even if slowly, will actually work. We can but hope, but is keeping people out of hospital sufficient to bring an end to this pandemic in any reasonable fashion? I fear it will have to be. At the rate they are going it's going to take all year. Not just till Easter.

Even so, this is the new year. On a Friday. Which feels more like a Sunday (in my opinion; my inner clock has been completely out of whack this past fortnight). Let us use this period to replenish and reorient. Hopefully over the coming weeks the virus will recede. Every lockdown (even if this isn't technically a national one) has reduced teh spread. Lockdown's aren't the problem; it's the government opening too much too soon that causes teh spread. Factor in the festive season and boom you get 2020. Now that's over with, seeing in the new year finally, I hope people will start taking this a bit more seriously. January is that sober a month after all. Maybe then, by the time Easter rolls around, we will be back to where we were in the first half of Summer when things really were brighter. Before the Tories inevitably screwed up. A lesson there.

Happy New Year.