Eat, Drink, Laugh and Wash your hands: a guide to dealing with a global pandemic at 70

I can’t take credit for this one which was forwarded by a friend and which is doing the rounds on social media. But it seems to capture so perfectly the frankly bizarre new rules that are coming in I just had to share it. And saves you the 60 page read – not recommended.     I think I’ve worked it out...  ·        4 year olds can go to school but university students who have paid for their tuition and the accommodation that they aren’t living in, can’t go back to university.  ·        I can go to school with many 4 year olds that I’m not related to but can’t see one 4 year old that I am related to.  ·        I can sit in a park, not today or tomorrow, but by Wednesday that’ll be fine.  ·        I can meet one person from another household for a chat or to sunbathe but not two people so if I know two peopl...

I spent a beautiful sunny afternoon in my front garden chatting to my neighbours on VE day. Two of them were aged 9 when victory was declared in Europe and they told me that they had more cake that day than we did on Friday – even though they had rationing back in 1945 they were clearly better at coping with measurements than we are today as you can’t find flour, sugar or eggs anywhere. I am currently shopping for these lovely people. They are avid readers of this blog so I have to be a little careful how I phrase this but I am a little concerned about their latest supermarket order which comprised copious amounts of wine and bleach and a couple of packets of crisps. I suppose that’s what a balanced diet looks like in these days. The gentleman who shall remain nameless of course was in the past something to do with the prison service I believe (although whether as an inmate or staff I’m not quite sure). But he was most helpful and gave me much needed information about how to ...

One of the things to make me smile this week is the farce that has been the ordering of PPE equipment for the NHS. You really couldn’t make it up. I’m just waiting for Rishi Sunak to announce that our economic woes are over, having received an email from a Nigerian prince promising untold wealth, all we need to do is hand over our remaining gold reserves... My daughter used to work in central government. She once received a similar request from No10 about a ‘promising communication’ and struggled to provide the requested briefing without using the words ‘blatant scam’ and ‘is this a joke?’. Luckily she’s inherited her mother’s diplomatic skills and embarrassment was averted.  But I digress from the story that caught my attention. Following reports that we were running out of PPE equipment, a young man called Mehmet Duzen sent an email to our government asking if he could assist, as he had a fondness for the UK having lived here in the mid-2000s and wanted to hel...

Evidently, so I’ve heard, the healthy over 70s are set to be released back into the wild amidst rumours of ‘social unrest’ if we were made to endure a longer lockdown than the rest of the population.  Finally, someone is listening.  We “vulnerable” types are a generation born during rationing (some of us even caught some of one or both World Wars). We grew up alongside rock and roll in the 50s. We reached maturity during the 60s, with all that entailed. We mostly forget the 70s. We raised our children in the 80s. We packed them off to uni and retired in the 90s and now we’re whatsapping and zooming and googling and blogging with the best of the ‘woke’ generation in the – whatever the current decades are called.   Vulnerable, us?!   You show me one millennial who could have survived any of that let alone all of it. So many of us – myself included – would prefer to face actual incarceration over being forced to endure a longer lockdown. Now there’s a thought...

Day 50: Big Brother is watching I don’t know about you but I find that I can no longer watch the gloom of the BBC 6pm news and the Corona daily bulletin preceding it. For weeks it has been a catalogue of unremitting bad news. No wonder the country is in the grip of hysteria. The national news is followed by the local news with even more Corona gloom and despondence, albeit right on my doorstep. Very comforting!! However, after yesterday’s briefing by Matt Hancock I believe there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Well a glimmer possibly. I must say I am intrigued by his continuous use of the ‘pink tie’ - is he trying to set a trend or am I missing some important symbolism here? I would also like to know why Matt’s hair and that of Michael Gove are so well quiffed? Are their wives hairdressers or have they got a clandestine arrangement with Nikki Clarke? Trump clearly hasn’t as his roots get worse each day and Boris’ hair looks a bit like someone who’s holdi...

Day 48: Oh when the saints Silver Dream Machine sent me this intriguing snippet and as it’s Sunday I think it is quite appropriate.  There is a truth that a ‘bad time’ for someone is often a ‘good time’ for someone else. Take the almost unheard-of St Corona who has now shot to fame, being brought in from the cold of the least remembered saints of ancient times and now placed at the centre of the legions of the great and the good. In the popular press and social media her name is now invoked by some as the patron saint of pandemics, or rather more accurately, the patron saint of all who resist pandemics..  The story goes that a young sixteen ‑ year-old girl, Corona, comforted a Roman soldier, Victor, who was martyred for his faith around 160-70 BC in the Roman province of Syria. The two are often linked together romantically as man and wife. The story of St Corona’s death is particularly gruesome. She is said to have been tied to two bent palm trees and then torn a...

Day 47: Beer o’clock The Americans celebrate every day of the year with some bizarre thing or other and today believe it or not is Home Brewing Day. Fortuitously this year it falls on a Saturday. In those long-forgotten days BC this was a day for going out with friends or eating out. We should all therefore embrace home-brewing day to bring some fun to our weekends once again. If my father were still alive, he would no doubt already have a thriving moonshine business going. This is after all the man who ran his own whisky still in Saudi in the 70s and on retirement invented ‘beer o’clock’ and ‘zonkas’. Crucially, those daily milestones were sacrosanct. He may not have needed a watch, but slippage would not have been tolerated. Standards, after all, must be maintained. Quarantinis should therefore be restricted to “locktail hour”. Resist the temptation for this to creep earlier with each passing week. If you’re hitting the sauce in the presence of Phil and Holly or the BBC Br...