Flight risk

Heathrow arrivals 30 March 2020

New York is a virus hot-spot, right ? The most dangerous place in America with runaway infections. And the US is now the global epicentre of the disease.

So it would make sense to limit arrivals from New York (and maybe other American airports as well) ?

You would think so.

Looking at the schedule for Heathrow for yesterday, there are a lot of planes due in this week, and I guess every week.

The little plane symbols represent a lot of people travelling from JFK airport.

So it's obvious that while we are all subject to travel restrictions to prevent to spread of the virus, all arrivals would be tested or quarantined ?

You woud think so.

These passengers are neither quarantined nor tested. Listening to Michael Gove, it is clear that the government has insufficient tests avalable.

Well, then, surely the flights should be halted until testing is available ? Trump stopped al flights from Europe when Eurpoe was the epicentre.

You'd think halting the flights would be an obvious thing to do.

You'd think wrong.

This situation is nuts.

If this bothers you, write to your MP. Do it now. Make a fuss about it.

Social distancing

Is it the politics of resentment to notice that the Royals are hunkering down in their various separate palaces ?

Is it sour grapes to notice that while the man in the street is told to go home and stay there, Prince Charles has travelled to his Balmoral Estate, far away from his first home at Highgrove ?

Or that the Cambridges are safely tucked away on their country estate ?

This is serious social distancing.

The trouble is that this particular family is distanced from ordinary people by an unbridgeable chasm.

Having social distancing Mk I for the plebs, and social distancing MkII for the pampered elites only points up the need for more focused social justice.

The virus has little respect for boundaries of property, class, nation or religion. Perhaps we needed an equaliser like the virus to remind us that ordinary people matter. Without them, the elites might actually have to do some work.

Busy doing nothing

This comes from The Joy of Not Working by Ernie J Zelinski. (He also wrote How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free)

TJONW is a terrific book, and very reassuring. This illustration knocked me for six, however. It seems so obvious, but if it was obvious, there would not be so many people struggling to fill their time usefully.

Like me, you will know people who are lost without their job, the job that leaves them so little time for living happily. And when the job goes, not much else is left.

It's a puzzle that there are people hoping for life eternal who find it tricky to fill a rainy Sunday with useful activity.

Me ? Well, as you probably guessed already, I have never been busier than after retiring. The job always felt like one those huge tyres that slightly mad explorers drag behind them to train for the extremes of exertion, usually in temperatures that would make a penguin shiver. So shedding it was not exactly taxing, and I never regretted its loss, not even for the length of time it takes to eat a small yogurt.

At school, there was a barrow-load of irrelevant reading. But in Dickens I came across a sentence which resonated so much that I wrote ot down when I was 14. He had a smattering of everything, and a knowledge of nothing.

Not only was that written to describe me perfectly, but I recognised that at 14. It was true then, and it is, depressingly, still true to today. I am an inveterate messer-about. And it shows.

What made me think about TJONW today was the Great Virus Lock Down. While it is driving some friends up the pole, we have not got time to even think of shopping, as there is just so much interesting going on.

Sometimes, being an incurable and curious dilletante is a very handy thing to be. And I have my epitaph ready-made ... 

The blue lagoon

I have fond memories of Buxton.

When I was a kid, my parents often used to end up in Buxton on Sunday afternoon jaunts. I think there was a restaurant called Millers on the main street. Buxton had a kind of faded grandeur but was impressive. It reminded me of visiting the neat houses of maiden aunts where the loudest noise was the clock ticking. You could ignore the hairy chin and faint powdery smell because of the inexplicable kindness.

As an adult I worked in Buxton for a couple of happy years. I had an office in the Crescent, which at that time housed the Local Education Offices. The building was a bit tired, but the place was lovely and the people friendly.

Recently, Buxton has been working hard to revive its allure.

The spa town has been trying to get its mojo back.

The magnificent Crescent has been re-magnificented after a long period of dereliction and refurbishment.

Buxton is beginning to bloom again, even without its M & S.

One of Buxton's little local attractions is the Blue Lagoon at Harpur Hill. (No, its not a pub. Good guess though.)

At least, it was attractive until yesterday. Sure, the water is toxic and has the odd submerged wrecked car. But the Police decided that the lagoon was far too attractive. So attractive that people might be tempted to go see it, sit by it, view the water, relax. Pass on the virus. 

No problem. The Police had a brainwave, and it was a cracker. Here's what they said:

“Yesterday we received reports that people were congregating at the ‘Blue Lagoon’ in Harpur Hill, Buxton. No doubt this is due to the picturesque location and the lovely weather (for once!) in Buxton. However, the location is dangerous and this type of gathering is in contravention of the current instruction of the UK government. With this in mind, we have attended the location this morning and used water dye to make the water look less appealing.” 

Less appealing ? Sure, black dye would help with that.

Now it feels like a daily stroke of luck to live here in the Peak District. But I am nervous. What might be the next creative master-stroke to tame the siren delights of the countryside? Here are some brainwaves of my own:

• Dump rubbish on village greens. Fill lay-bys with old sofas and fridges.  (No. Old news.  Fly-tippers have been doing this for years.)
• Pour diesel on the roads to make them less attractive for speeding 
• Throw lorry-loads of supermarket trolleys into the rivers
• Have Police helicopters blast spiky music at high volume over every hill 
• Look into defoliation. There could be some old agent orange hanging around somewhere.

Poor old Buxton. Poor old Police. Poor old us.

If wrecking the attractions of the environment is the answer, what was the question again ?

Bus-slogan Boris

Boris Johnson makes it very hard for me to like him.

It isn't his air of entitlement, or even his perpetual clown act, his indolence or his insouciance. It isn't even his serial dishonesties or his utter lack of principal. Maybe it isn't the impossibility of taking him seriously.

Maybe it is all of the above. But what bites me at the moment is his inability to talk in anything other than sound-bites. Striking little phrases, devoid of much in the way of actual meaning, but catchy and resonant.

HIs Brexit bus ought to have been warning enough.

We send the EU £350 million a week
Let's fund our NHS instead
Vote Leave
Let's take back control

He kept on displaying this same slogan, even after it was roundly discredited. Why ? Because while it was untrue or misleading, it caught the voters' imagination. The actual truth of it was not an issue.

Now, he is spending £8.5 million on writing to 30 million households (what's wrong with texts and email which would be a lot cheaper ?). At the heart of his message, another bus-slogan: Save the NHS.

It doesn't seem mean to point out that the government has spent the last decade imposing austerity, a large part of the programme being the withdrawal of funding from public services in general and from the NHS in particular.

It doesn't seem too tough to ask whether our national resilience, and the NHS, might have have been more able to cope had the Tories focused on saving it a whole lot earlier. The constant reorganisation of the NHS, which led to staff losses and demoralisation were hardly a signal improvement.

No matter. Bus-slogan Boris will continue to fly the Save the NHS flag as long as it feels expedient.

Hello God

A friend sent me this. It must beong to somebody, but who ? If you let me know, I will happily ascribe it to its author.

Anyway, I like it a lot, though I have no reliable religious belief system at all.

Hope you like it, too.



Hey God.

Hello.....

I'm falling apart. Can you put me back together?

I would rather not.

Why?

Because you aren't a puzzle.

What about all of the pieces of my life that are falling down onto the ground?

Let them stay there for a while. They fell off for a reason. Take some time and decide if you need any of those pieces back.

You don't understand! I'm breaking down!

No - you don't understand. You are breaking through. What you are feeling are just growing pains. You are shedding the things and the people in your life that are holding you back. You aren't falling apart. You are falling into place. Relax. Take some deep breaths and allow those things you don't need anymore to fall off of you. Quit holding onto the pieces that don't fit you anymore. Let them fall off. Let them go.

Once I start doing that, what will be left of me?

Only the very best pieces of you.

 I'm scared of changing.

I keep telling you - YOU AREN'T CHANGING!! YOU ARE BECOMING!

Becoming who?

Becoming who I created you to be! A person of light and love and charity and hope and courage and joy and mercy and grace and compassion. I made you for more than the shallow pieces you have decided to adorn yourself with that you cling to with such greed and fear. Let those things fall off of you. I love you! Don't change! Become! Become! Become! Become who I made you to be. I'm going to keep telling you this until you remember it.

There goes another piece.

Yep. Let it be.

So...I'm not broken?

No - but you are breaking like the dawn. It's a new day. Become!! Become!!