31.03.2020 Day 19 of self-isolation. Jinping Pandemic Darwin Award: Bolsonaro.

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Google has broken Blogger. I'll try again later.

Tuesday 31st 24-44F, hard white frost, clear skies and sunshine. Lots of birds about in the hedges and trees. Walked to the lanes in thick brown dust clouds. From traffic running over the dried mud on the roads. Left there as a thick layer for over a week. By pig shit spreading farmers.

I could smell the pig shit on the rising dust. It may also explain why I have an itchy eye. Despite frequent rinsing once I arrived home and several times during the day.

Today's Jinping Pandemic Darwin Award goes to: Jair "Retardus" Bolsonaro. May we hope that he faces a genocide charge at the International Court if he survives his drooling idiocy? No, of course not! He is well above any law. And, after all, he was only following his hero, Herr Dr. Chump's deluded example. Herr Dr. "Nero" Chump is surely the world's Greatest Living Vitriologist by miles. For when the truth is simply too awful to comprehend for one so hideously disadvantaged. He needs all the honorary qualifications he can get!

Today is the official re-opening of Denmark's infamous recycling stations. Her Majesty The Queen was excused an official opening ceremony on the grounds of being in the "at risk" age group and a heavy smoker of Capstan Full Strength.

As is now well known from the international new headlines: Regular visitors to the Danish recycling yards are unable to maintain social distancing rules. So spare staff are being bussed in from SS Job Center Client Interview Divisions. They have been specially drafted in to apply highly modified cattle prods at no expense.

These prods are well over 2m long and will allow extreme pain in air head socialisers. Without the risk of undermining strict social distancing rules by the prod operatives themselves. It was seriously considered importing trained Welsh Sheep Dogs. Though that would probably lead to reduced social distancing rather than the desired separation.

It may all seem a bit "unnecessarily" harsh but we are dealing with an aging population group. Brought up on a fatty diet of Janteloven, intensively reared, factory farmed, Danish bacon and intensively reared, factory farmed, Danish hen's eggs.  All on Danish Rye, fried bread, paving slabs. With lashings of intensively reared and factory farmed Danish butter.

Most of them are so deaf. Or just so daft. That to use a net for their garden waste trailer would be unthinkable. So that most roads in Denmark are constantly and heavily over-decorated with garden waste. Not to  mention all the other other McLardy's detritus. As the "Reckless Recyklers" daily attempt new Danish Land Speed Records for trailer towing on every outing. So it's all having to wait for global warming to raise the tides enough to rinse everything away. Denmark would so easily win any competition for road composting. That it was banned from the last Olympics for insider trading of gold medals.

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30.03.2020 Day 18. Jinping Coronavirus Darwin Awards: Traffic.

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Monday 30th 41F, blue skies but rather cloudy. Sunshine rather limited. A cool NW breeze as I
walked to the lanes. Traffic today was quite busy rather than light. It remained rather cloudy until mid afternoon when it finally cleared from the NE.

At least 1.25 million people die every year in road crashes. The national lock downs will save far more lives from the absence of traffic related deaths, than will die of coronavirus. Far more people will live far longer without traffic fumes. Than will die from the Jinping Pandemic.

Satellites are already showing steep drops in airborne gases and toxins. The stresses of commuting and traffic noise take an annual toll on humanity as most of the world's children will never know clean air. I'm still waiting for the world's leaders to announce a lock down on traffic. It would certainly make a serious dent in climate changing gasses. Now will do for a sea change...

The Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, is strongly suggesting that the Danes must continue to show the same patience, self-isolation and social distancing as before. Society could then begin to slowly open up in a highly controlled fashion after Easter. If the numbers of infected begin to rise again then the lock down must be extended.

Ms. Frederiksen has remained a pool of calm and quiet authority at the center of an incredibly difficult time for everybody. I am not fond of most career politicians but have great respect for her performance. Hopefully that respect will extend to the talking heads in the opposition. All who are just dying to break the agreed dam of silence and share their usual bullshit wisdom with the rest of us.

All in the desperate hope of a vote for the musical chairs on the lifelong gravy train. By promising their own brand of snake oil is far better than any other's. Yet they are completely unable to provide a single shred of evidence. That their own, very recent and extended time in office, benefited anybody but themselves, foreign property investors and the "offshore" tax free rich.

Homes in the city became impossibly expensive even for doctors. As shell companies bought up anything worth having. Then raised the rents, or forced existing tenants out for a quick cosmetic whitewash. Before hiking the rents even further. The same story right across Europe and the world.

Meanwhile, the elderly and other vulnerable members of society, must continue to protect themselves from infection. Largely by self-isolation, for a much longer period. The danish borders will continue to remain closed. To avoid uncontrolled, reintroduction of the virus from outside. As has tragically occurred in China and probably elsewhere.

It should be absolutely clear that the pandemic is far from over for most Danes.  Or the rest of the world for that matter. Let the Taiwanese example of disease control tower above the evil dictator in Sly's Jinping Pandemicland.

We are expecting another food parcel tomorrow after an eight day wait with one particular online supermarket. They stocked items which we could not obtain locally. Fortunately the local, online website, "personal shopper" grocery delivery system. Of a major high street chain, Rema1000 via Vigo, has allowed us to remain safely in our rural isolation. If only other supermarkets would provide online access, to their own wares, we need not go out for  months. These other stocked favourite items we simply cannot obtain at our other resources. 

Those around us continued their lives seemingly as normal. Their cars came and went as normal. The children were more obviously at home, than usual, but that was little different from any other school holiday.

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29.03.2020 Day 17. Accretion Ice!

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Sunday 29th 34F, bright with gales after half an inch of overnight snow with fierce gales. Every north facing roof is white as is the grass. Though not to any great depth. I heard the wind in the night and it sounded weird. As if it were driving rain against the windows.

It is going to be freezing today with gusts to 17ms/35mph at these low temperatures. What a change from yesterday's still and warm sunshine at 51F. My hand still hurts from the thorn. So I shall have to be careful for a while. It is only slightly swollen and a bit pinker than the rest. Time for a walk with white clouds racing over from the north.

The wind was so strong that I was able to lean on it. I was holding my arms behind me just to make progress by reducing my frontal area to the wind. The strangest sight greeted me here and there. I thought I was looking at a scattered packaging debris like thin, fine polystyrene sheet. It turned out to be white ice. Some road signs had huge plates of the stuff. Even spreading out like square wings at the sides of the metal plate.

A single post had a sheet of ice a foot square fixed just above the grass. I had been staring at it as I approached from a distance and assumed it was a white bag dumped by a litterer. I think they call it accretion ice but have never seen it in Denmark before. Usually the stuff of mountains and shipping in hard winters.

It was far too cold to take off my GripGrab, two fingered mitts to take a picture. Even turning my back to the wind was painful on my bare hands as I tried  to take my camera from its soft case. The wind was relentless and perfectly steady. Rather than gusting.

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28.03.2020 Day 16. Jinping Pandemic Darwin Award: Fox/Faux/Fake News.

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Saturday 28th 28-51F, clear at first but thick mist by 8:00. What do we want? We want our promised sunshine and we want it now!

I walked across the fields up to the woods in thick mist. Then back along the marsh track as the mist thinned. There were even a few brighter moments as blue patches appeared overhead. It was sunny until mid afternoon. When cloud crossed from the north.

The Head Gardener roped me into sawing large, upward growing branches from the hideously thorny hedges. I stabbed my hand with a thorn, right through my leather gloves and now it hurts like hell! Just like I've been hit with  a hammer. After a quick change of uniform, The Head Nurse has applied a drop of Tea Tree oil to the almost invisible wound. Which is Her all purpose snake oil disinfectant in these moments of major, medical crisis. We must hope that a full frontal lobotomy is not vitally necessary for a full recovery. Mine, not Hers.

In further medical news: Dr. Chump Von Quack, the self-styled, world's leading vitriologist, is having General Motors make respirators. So far, have the mighty fallen! Do you ask a farmer to make medical masks? Do you ask a chain of pet shop owners to make virus test kits?

Is there no remaining, manufacturing business in the whole of the USA who could rapidly convert to making lots of respirators or virus testers? The answer is obviously no. So he must call on a failed car maker instead. Particularly if it has a "messy woman" at its head. One whom can be bullied without the right of reply. Mind you, she did want a billion dollars and five years to start making respirators in bulk. Or so it would seem, from what passes for the news these days. I might just have lost something in the translation from US Ingleesh, Googul Mews.

Fox/Faxe/Fake News reached a new, all time record high with the sacking of another of their  Chump [Fake News] Mouthpieces. She had somehow forgotten that Chump [the immigrant] had completely changed his tune once desperately needed voters actually started dying like flies. The US now has far more cases than China. That 's what Dr. Chump [the world's leading vitriologist] calls: "Making America Grate Again. By loudmouth denial of reality. Another win for drooling idiocracy! 😷

How do I know? More American's now believe in Chump's qualifications as the world's leading vitriologist, than don't. Spooky!! Now we're all strictly in the Twilight Zone! Wooohoo!

Let's see if I have this right: So, no, Jinping Virus is no longer as completely harmless as last week's flu, fake news. Which causes lots and lots of deaths BTW! No, that was Chump's previous message. And, no, Chump's patented and copyrighted, Infantile Twatter bullshit is not a miracle cure for Jinping Virus. Not even with a shot. That comes next. When he starts the "laying on of hands." They'll really <cough> lap that up <cough> according his previously recorded bragging scriptures! It's no wonder guns are so popular with him on the loose! 😏

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27.3.2020 Day 15. Boris is Bravely Blighted.

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Friday 27th 35-51F, both forecasters say sunny all day! Light frost on the grass. I looped [no, not loped] across a field which had just been sprayed with pig's muck and then back along the road. I haven't lost my sense of smell but may well have lost my senses. Quite a pleasant day without the recent cold winds.

The price of freedom is lots  more cases. The price of piss poor leadership is lots more cases. The price of ignorance and idiocy is lots more cases. They all add up! Ask Dr Chump. The world's leading virologist. Self praise is absolutely no recommendation when Americans begin to die like flies! If only those responsible were the only victims. Except that they are never the victims. Only the innocent masses suffer. History repeats itself endlessly. Nobody learns the lessons.

Boris of Gravely Blighted has become a victim of the virus. Symptoms mild so far and he will working on using video conferencing as he goes into self isolation. You could say Britain is now Bravely Blighted. Get well soon Boris! You need your country!

We had another "personal shopper" grocery delivery today. The young chap who delivered hadn't quite grasped the meaning of pandemic quarantine. He wanted me to sign for acceptance on his mobile phone! No way! I backed well away from the gate and signed off online. I'm not throwing away 15 days of isolation and counting!

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26.3.2020 Day 14. Today's Jinping Pandemic Darwin Award: B-O-Y-D: Bring Out Your Dead!

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Thursday 26th 32-42F, it could be bright if there were fewer clouds. 😏  Full sun promised for later. With lighter winds and a possible 10C/50F. Followed by colder weather at the weekend.

I was very pleasant to be walking in the sunshine with a much lighter easterly wind. Up to the forest, along the spray tracks past the marsh and back home. About an hour and ten minutes. Traffic still lighter that normal. Lots of birds about.

The Danish government is rushing through new laws to forbid more than two people from assembling outside their homes. The previous figure was ten and even that wasn't enough for water pipe smokers. The police will have the necessary powers to fine those who break the rules. But what if they never inhaled? Is that an excuse?

Criminals who abuse the pandemic, for profit, should soon face jail terms instead of fines in Denmark. Sociopaths will always find an excuse for their evil absence of conscience. Though there is always the personal choice. It is a shame they can't reach the sick bastards who stole whole shipments of masks on their way from Asia. Organized crime will always find a way to profit from misery. It is their stock in trade.

Today's Jinping Pandemic Darwin Awards: Chump World! The US sounds as if it is about to commit germicide at the hands of the health insurance crooks. Not to mention their wealthy, insider lobbyists in Chump's [let's pretend] Government by Infantile Twatter. No insurance? Spread your Jinping virus at will! Your country needs you! [Until they don't.]

And now a message from our sponsors:

Catchy jingle.... "Make America Grate Again! BOYD Funeral Homes! Bring Out Your Dead Funeral Homes!! Invest your insider trading, pandemic profits in America's favourite funeral homes! Presently offering Family Discounts for Bulk! [Conditions may apply.] Buy BOYD now! While stocks last!! Buy BOYD! You know it makes [no] sense! B!-O!-Y!-D! -BOYD!! No health insurance? Better buy BOYD! B!-O!-Y!-D! BOYD!!"

Catchy jingle repeated to the terrifying sight of zombie cheerleaders frantically waving their pompoms over great piles of dead bodies in the NY streets.... 

 [This message was approved by your insider trading congressmen.]   👍

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25.03.2020 Day 13. Today's Jinping Pandemic Darwin Awards: British Job Centres and Tesco.

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Wednesday 25th 35F, sunny with light winds. Expected to gust to over 20mph later.

There was already a cool wind pushing me along to the village. A Mallard duck and drake were checking out the church pond but were gone on my return. Traffic down to 1/10 of normal. At least it felt  a bit safer on the sharp, blind corners.

Today's Jinping Pandemic Darwin Awards go to the morons who decided that everybody laid off in the UK, because of the Jinping virus, had to sign on, all at once, as unemployed.

Not only were there long queues at the <cough> Job Centers <cough> but the telephone capacity was absolutely pathetic. With people complaining of long queues and being dropped off the queuing system after waiting for ages. If this was Denmark everybody could have registered online and stayed safe. But we are talking about Gravely Blighted. The Legendary Land of Hypocrisy.

"What did you do today, Dear?"
"I was practicing my social distancing at a packed Job Center."
"That's nice, Dear. And what did you do after that?"
"Well, by the time I had finished social distancing at the Job Center it was time to stand in the 50 deep queues at Tesco."
"That's nice, Dear. It's good they have things so well organized, isn't it?"
"Cough - cough - cough - cough - cough!"

Who couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery? Who is [supposedly] in charge? Fat Boris? Surely not? That would be rather like putting a complete inadequate, like Dr. Chump, in charge of the whole country. Wouldn't it? Talk about a "Perfect Storm!" 😨

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24.03.2020 Day 12. And now for some good news? Jack Ma versus Jinping's protection racket.

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Tuesday 24th 33F, bright, but with some thin high cloud taking the edge off the sun. There was a bitterly cold wind as I circumnavigated the nearest prairie. It took me about an hour at a brisk pace with brief stops for photography and simply to admire the view.

The picture is taken from the local summit at the forest's edge. It shows how easily the eye is defeated by perspective. The strip of wooded marsh is partially hidden in the foreground. While the tractor suddenly brings the seemingly distant ridge down to a far more human scale. The mobile telephone mast is in the next village just over the rise.  Rather less than two miles away. The most distant hills and houses are only 7 miles away as the trike flies. But only five miles measured in standard crows feet.

The slight frost and recent dry weather allowed me greater freedom of movement. Which was recently denied to me by the usually, soggy soil. Though I never walk on the crops. Always keeping to the tractor tracks and bare earth. There seemed to be more traffic today. Mostly tradesman's vans and large lorries. Only a few cars.

Jack Ma, the wealthy, Chinese businessman behind Alibaba, has sent a huge number of masks, virus test equipment and hazard suits to Denmark. His generosity also extends to many other countries in desperate need of these vital, medical supplies. 

One man, at a stroke, has undone quite a lot of the damage caused by the evil communist Mafia in the name of corruption. While the lifetime, evil dictator, Jinping, fights for his <cough> reputation <cough> and <cough> authority <cough> Jack Ma will help to save real people's lives. 

Jack Ma has personally undone a lot of the "Nero fiddling" amongst the world's totally inadequate and totally unprepared political leaders. They were all terrified to close down their countries, to save countless live, simply because of the cost. They really had no plans to feed and support The People.

i.e. Those daft enough to vote for them in exchange for the burden of taxation and corrupt privilege of a limited few. Democracy is fine until you see what floats to the surface of the turgid pool of blind ambition and back stabbing. There has to be a better way in the future. If only to weed out the worst culprits who are currently working well above their natural ability. 

A cynic might point out that Jack Ma badly needs customers and customer confidence once the pandemic dies down. His altruism is not without its obvious personal benefits. The corrupt Chinese authorities caused this pandemic by inaction and desperately hiding the truth. The virus was something they could not control with their usual ruthless suppression of all dissent and criticism. It will cost the world so dear that it may never recover to former levels of [largely minority] prosperity.

Nothing, except fear of their ruthless authority, props up the communist Mafia. In its untouchable position to rip off their cut in the world's largest protection racket. All protection rackets cause unnecessary poverty. They are a parasitic, non-contributory drain on any economy. They deny businesses the right to flourish by their own efforts and investments in time, risk and money. Worse, they corrupt those whose sole purpose is to protect the people and support their right to competitively priced services and products.

The Big Reset Button has finally been pressed. Climate is on the back burner. Who can lift the dead hand of authority to free the world from their corrupt graft? More of the same just will not do. Wealth and authority must be earned. Not bought in the shadows of the back rooms by crooked ambulance chasers, sleazy politicooze and sociopathic lobbyists. Nor inherited on the backs of slaves. Is it too much to hope that we shall soon see the back of these evil clowns? Those who tightrope walk the news headlines at the very top of the pyramid in exchange for skewed, opinion polls?

When the world settles down to count their completely unnecessary, dead and departed, loved ones, there must be change. We should not have to wait for history to tick off the endless failures to provide comfort and meaning for all of the people. Not just the 1%. [Including Jack Ma.]

We have no need of more emperors, pharaohs, kings, chancellors, dictators, presidents and queens. We need leadership which cannot be corrupted by the mere whiff of power and vanity. The party system divides. It does not join hands to map out the murky future of mankind.

We have no need for those who deliberately set the people against each other to hide the hideous truth. That those in power have no real answers to the world's problems. Though they still insist on taking the money. They continue to pretend they have purpose and meaning as they beat each other about the heads in their sniggering, privileged, debating halls. Before retiring to their palaces to preen. It is all bought by those who have no need of a ballot, nor taxation. They pull all the strings behind the scenes. Leaving the politicooze to petty-fiddle the books for a mention on the latest, mutually-parasitic, news bulletins.  

Isn't it lucky I am not a cynic? 😜

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23.03.2020 Day 11. Today's Jinping Pandemic Darwin Award: The Danish Health minister.

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Monday 23rd, 28F, a white frost but clear, blue sky. Yesterday was disappointing on the quantity of sunshine and a cold easterly wind. Making working out of doors less pleasant than it might have been.

A quick walk to the lanes while The Head Gardener compiled an online, grocery shopping list. Which was subsequently delivered to the gate in under two hours! Thank you very much to Ms.C and Vigo at Rema1000! Your efforts are greatly appreciated in these difficult times!  😊

We also placed an order at Osuma/Coop who are now 8 days behind on deliveries. They will make up the order at a distant Coop instead of using a local shop, local shoppers and local deliveries. It is no wonder they can't keep up with demand! Delegate and spread the heavy load? What are they waiting for?

Let's stop beating about the bush and call this pandemic disease for what it is: The Jinping.

Today's Jinping Pandemic Darwin Award goes to: The Danish Health Minister Magnus "Nero" Heunicke and/or his staff.

A Danish company has offered help with the coronavirus for over a week. Finally the authorities are holding out their hands:

 Danske virksomheder har tilbudt corona-hjælp i en uge: Nu rækker myndighederne hånden frem | Indland | DR

There is a Danish company, which specializes in testing equipment and reagents for serious diseases like cancer. They asked the Danish government a FULL WEEK AGO whether they wanted the company to start producing Coronavirus Tests. The firm has the capacity, the expertise and the same equipment is used. So no starting from scratch with untested products or untested producers. The firm has received no answer to their offer from the minister according to the new media.

There is a desperate shortage of coronavirus tests in Denmark [and elsewhere.] Even front line health workers are being denied testing. Which could and probably will, accelerate the spread of the virus amongst the most vulnerable in society. The complete opposite of what we hear on the hourly, government press conferences.Where it is OUR responsibility to do all we can to avoid infection.

There is also a desperate shortage of hand cleanser and masks for staff in Danish hospitals.

This is not what we want to hear as the number of cases and deaths continues to rise. You can't fine people for ignoring the rules of close engagement and not keep up your end of the bargain!

Denmark said no to South Korean offer of Corona tests. Now the health minister apologizes:

 Danmark takkede 'nej' til sydkoreansk tilbud om coronatest: Nu beklager sundhedsministeren | Politik | DR

Let's add to the catalogue of denial: Denmark turned down an offer of thousands of test kits from South Korea. Must Danes now die unnecessarily because of Jante's Law? i.e. The Danish law which trumps all else: Including international law on Basic Human Rights and genocide.

Jante's Law: If something is not invented and made entirely by a pure bred Dane, whose family members have never left the village boundaries, within the last 500 years and counting, then it simply isn't good enough for the Danes! They would rather die first! And probably will now. 

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22.03.2020 Day 10. Today's Jinping Pandemic Darwin Awards: Bondi Blonds.

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Sunday 22nd, 30F, white frost on the grass. A turquoise sky with cotton wool decoration. Lots of sunshine forecast again. Now, would do!

The sun had come out by the time I walked to the lanes. The traffic was the lightest so far. Only once car and a keen cyclist out training. A couple ore cars on the return leg. Two people were walking their dog in the lane. I really felt the cold easterly wind while I was walking back along the road. 

It is a great relief to have basic foods again. Now we just need Denmark's "worst supermarket" chain to organize home deliveries. We like Thise, organic milk and cream. The Arla, factory produced stuff just doesn't taste the same.

We are down to  less than 2 liters of milk. I'll have to drink black coffee instead of with milk for a while. It also looks as if we shall have to order again from the best rated, Danish supermarket: Rema1000. Am I being too fussy in this time of grave danger to Twirlies everywhere? Probably. 👶

The supermarkets now have stickers on the floor to remind customers to stay 2m[6'6"] apart. I hope the staff are taking notice too! Many supermarket staff feel entitled to ignore the fact that only the customer can pay their wages. The supermarkets employ very young staff, on low pay, who clearly haven't been brought up properly. 

So they block the aisles with trolleys for restocking the displays. They brush past customers while moving the empty baskets away from the checkouts and back to the door. Or when required to attend the checkouts to solve some minor problem. Of illegal, pricing differentials between display labels and the auto barcode readers at the checkouts. 

These staff have absolutely no sense of private space at the best of times. Meanwhile, those damned customers keep getting in the way of their own vital, shelf filling duties! I wonder whether the checkout staff are still handing change and receipts directly into the customer's hand? Instead of into the tray provided. I blame the parents!

I'm still waiting for a prerecorded, voice-over on the Tannoy:

"WILL CUSTOMERS PLEASE NOT GET IN THE WAY OF THE STAFF!  THANK YOU!!"

 

Am I the only one beginning to see a clear pattern emerging with present world <cough> leaders? Are any them really up to the job for which they were elected? You can't have a harmonious, world orchestra when they are all Neros practicing their own fiddles. Kim, Boris, Chump, Morrison and Sly are all identikit, airhead blimps. More hot air than substance.

Could they all be aliens? 👽  Or clowns?  🤡 Or alien clowns? 🐵 Were they chosen for being most like the electorate? i.e. Overweight airheads with bad diets and hairstyles. Who all list their exercise regimes as TV soap watching?

Talking of which: Today's Jinping Pandemic Darwin Awards go to: Cancer Research Blonds on Bondi Beach. Airheads to a man. More surf board and six packs than real people. Perhaps they really should still be allowed to <cough> congregate? It's not as if they are useful members of society. Just think of the savings in medical staff a few years down the road if they were just left to do what they do best? Soak up the UVs, practice sun-bleached, surf hair styling and Fostering a lifelong drink problem. 👱

 

Anyone who has struggled to reach this far of today's monologue should probably find their own way of coping with the pandemic. This is mine. So there! Move along please! Nothing to see here. 😉

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21.03.2020 Day 9. Shopping on Mars. Today's Jinping Pandemic Darwin Awards: Cafe goers.

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Saturday 21st 31-45F? A light, overnight frost. The forecast is sunny all day, but cool. Woke early and couldn't go back to sleep. My walk may be at 7 o'clock instead of nearly nine.

I left at 7:40. Thankfully the frost had produced firm footing. Returning an hour and a bit later after a tour up to the woods. Then back along by the marsh. Lots of birdsong and light traffic. Several woodpeckers could be heard but not seen. I saw a Red breasted merganser with a black beak on the marsh pond. They are suppose to have a carrot for a nose but this one was obviously just trying to be  different.

Buying shopping online is proving far more difficult and costly than I had hoped. Our favourite supermarket Rema1000 has a "personal shopper" system but no service for our entire postcode area. They rely on pocket money volunteers to shop and personally deliver after payment online. Now they'll want danger money!

The Danish Coop has an online purchase and postal delivery service, Osuma, but doesn't stock most of what we usually buy at FAKTA. Its discount partner, supermarket chain. We rarely shopped at the Coop after they closed the nearest branch but shopped regularly at FAKTA. Which now means large gaps in our usual diet. I don't think I'm being too picky. Despite our choosing organic produce when the option is available. Yes, I do know there is a pandemic, but who wants to eat or drink what we have already tried and rejected as unpleasant?

It would be so tempting to go down to the village and get all our usual stuff for a week's consumption. If they would let me buy that much in one go. The Danish supermarkets haven't invented early opening for the elderly. So its battle with the hoards of shoulder to shoulder, coughing hoarders, or go without. Just the price of Jante's Law. Until a pure-bred, Great Dane invents early opening times it will never happen. Not ever!

The supermarkets are being rationed to a limited number of shoppers at a time. This it to maintain social distancing. This must surely put a dent in their customer numbers overall. What happens then the multibillionaire, supermarket chain owners, lounging on their super-yachts, off the coast of their private, tropical islands, realise that the takings are down?

Will they suggest an online delivery service for all? Preferably before there are no customers left alive? Or will they choose fewer staff and make them even younger? Like they do in FAKTA  already?  Oh, I've just realised: The hoarders are making up for the drop in customer numbers. Forget everything I've said so far. There's still absolutely no shortage of easy profits to be had.

There was a time I could trike down to any local village supermarkets and be back in an hour with everything we needed. These villages might as well be on Mars for all the good they are now. I daren't take the risk of bringing the virus back and giving it to my lovely wife of over half a century and still counting.

"Nero" Von Chump, the immigrant, gets a Consolation Darwin Award mention today for ordering millions of doses of malaria vaccine. Malaria vaccines are probably as useful as sugar lumps against the virus. That didn't stop him attacking a journalist for pointing out the bleeding obvious. Why can't the White House staff just put the overgrown, retarded chump in his secure playpen and work around him?

I have just realised that businesses are going to invest heavily in robots when they get a chance to re-open. How else will they lower the risk of absenteeism through ill health? Buy pork bellies robots? Suit yourselves.

I have just tried to order food online from Osuma at Coop.dk. I worked my way through the shopping process, filled out my inside leg measurements and then they said: Friday of next week, 6 days away, before they can deliver!!! What is the Danish for starvation? Stay at home in our age group? What complete and utter nonsense if we are expected to stay at home without food! Give the Danish PM a nudge, will you, before she fines old people for going to the shops! 

Fortunately, I discovered that Rema1000 is now able to home deliver orders placed online using their Vigo service. [We-go for those slow on the uptake.] When I checked their website a couple of days ago there was no service locally. They must have expanded with the sudden close down of most, non-essential jobs.  Leaving people free to find alternatives to fill their time. I was on the point of giving up all hope of home delivery and about to get in the car. We are out of almost everything after 9 days without doing any shopping at all.

It all went very smoothly apart from a couple of items being out of stock. [No, not bog rolls!] I left a wheelbarrow outside the gate with a large box to contain the shopping. The pleasant young lady who performed the delivery was understanding about my desire to remain at a safe distance because of the virus. Many thanks.

Today's Pandemic Darwin awards go to cafe goers in Copenhagen. Despite the rule against more than 10 people congregating together, 23 people and the cafe owner, were all fined. Why? For feeling fully entitled to completely ignore the dangers of spreading the virus far and wide.  

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20.03.2020 Day 8. Today's Jinping Pandemic Darwin Awards. Concrete boots!

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Friday 20th 37-45F, an indistinct, cloudy sky. The cloud steadily cleared but it took a long time. A northwesterly wind took the edge off what little sunshine was visible.

I walked up to the forest and did a loop on newly cleared tracks. They have been all but impassable for years. Still very wet underfoot but the field puddles are slowly sinking.

Today's Pandemic Darwin Awards: I was just reading about how the young feel fully entitled to ignore expert medical advice. Advice to keep themselves safe in this unprecedented, modern pandemic.

Because they each carry the burden of Solomon's wisdom, the young feel they have no need to practice social distancing. After all, they already know everything there is to know about literally everything in the universe. Nor will they avoid high risk areas and known, pandemic, hot spots. They would clearly choose concrete boots, in a global flood, because they were fashionable and "everybody is wearing them!"

Anybody would think, from their ingrained and fixed social habits, that the young were all octogenarians. Unable to break the rigid conventions and codes of their life-long, social conditioning. It's no wonder alcohol and illegal drugs are so incredibly popular. I expect drug residues can be found in central Antarctica  by now.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish ex-PM and NATO Leader, praises Taiwan for its remarkable containment of the virus. An example to us all! Or so one might think. Though Sly "Nero" Jinping would have us all believe the Taiwanese are his personal chattels. To be scorned over their long, mutual history. Not to mention the tens of billions more he could be funneling into his private bank accounts.

Taiwan was fully prepared, after previous pandemics and closed it down hard before it could spread into the general population. They were also completely transparent about the contagion. Rather than fiddling for months at the People's [private] Palace. As did Sly "Nero" Jinping. Author and micro-manager of covering up the Pandemic for  months while it took hold. Then deliberately distributing it worldwide via the Chinese, national holidays.

Can he be charged with genocide and now please? No, of course not. Only privates and lance corporals are ever prosecuted by the utterly worthless international courts. As those few who made sergeant posture and preen themselves between 5 star accommodation. In front of all those lifetime ambulance chasers.

Taiwan used all the modern technology available to them, to monitor those in quarantine. Simply by following their mobile phones. Taiwan immediately began to mass produce surgical masks. Now, because they have limited the outbreak so incredibly well, Taiwan now has a surplus of masks, not patients. They are sending their spare masks to Chump's "Nero World" USA. With fancy gold lettering, as he demanded, or else. "From Towering Chump."

The chump's US no longer has the industrial capacity for making anything so utterly complex as a surgical mask from scratch. Exporting all industrial production to China is so much easier. In exchange for the masks the US has promised to share any successful remedies for the virus with Taiwan.

Meanwhile Sly "Nero" Jinping [author and micro-manager of the Corvid-19 pandemic virus] keeps Taiwan off the thoroughly corrupted WHO. Taiwan was clearly the only country in the world "doing the right thing." While the WHO was too afraid of Sly's niggling criticism to call it what it really was. The Global Jinping Pandemic. WHO 0 Rest of the World 0. Taiwan wins all the medals for citizen protection.

Tens [OR HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS] will now die for the Chinese, lifetime dictator's, political expedience. Remember children: Don't mention the pandemic in the same sentence as Sly "Nero" Jinping. That just wouldn't be fair. Would it? And, if you do mention The Jinping Pandemic you will be held without trial and beaten several times a day.

People in France are being fined for being on the streets without good cause. Did you see the pictures of French police completely ignoring safe, social distancing rules? Shouldn't they be fined?

~~

19.03.2020 Day 7. Today's Jinping Pandemic Darwin Award: Fake News!

~~

Thursday 19th 41F, bright and sunny. With lots of blue sky and only thin, high cloud. Time for a walk. The dustbin men haven't been! [They came at lunch time instead of the usual, early hours of the morning.]

I walked around the rural block listening to the unlikely clomp of my boots on the road. Then there was all the bird song and their calls.

The traffic today was lighter than I ever remember it.  Lots of daffodils in flower. Several geese and a large bird of prey went over. Cormorants too.

A flood-prone field has been adopted by water birds.  There were at least a couple of dozen coots, two swans, two mallard drakes and several geese. They were all enjoying a very natural looking lake which wasn't even there last year.

Today's Pandemic Darwin Awards: The Internet is awash with fake new about the pandemic. Some of it is trivial. However, other online rumours are clearly dangerous to health and safety. The "no smoke without fire" brigade should go back to the prisons and mental hospitals from which they have obviously escaped. Then see how well your "infinite" medical knowledge and "wise" advice survive the test of humble reality!

~~

18.03.2020 Day 6. Today's Jinping Pandemic Darwin Award: Hospital thieves.

~~

Wednesday 18th 45-47F, very windy and wet with a heavy overcast. Walked in steady rain. Traffic very light between the odd clusters. I had a wave from several drivers for giving them room on the road by taking to the verge. I saw no passengers on the two buses which passed by. The government is hoping people will avoid public transport as much as possible and stay at home.

The council [Danish: kommune] recycling centers have had to close to private citizens. Visitors were completely ignoring the government advice on distancing themselves from each other. This was considered far too great a risk of further contagion to be allowed to continue. Businesses can still use the recycling centers. It seems that normal, home refuse removal services will continue.

Most other, local government services have closed now. All meetings of greater than 10 people are banned. All schools and further education services are closed. All shops, except supermarkets, food and chemists are closed. All shopping malls are closed except for the food shops and chemists. All businesses with close physical contact are closed. [Hairdressers, therapists, etc.] Dentists may offer emergency treatment only.

All sports facilities are closed. All theaters and places of entertainments are closed. All bars, pubs, restaurants and clubs are closed. Though restaurants and cafes may still prepare food for consumption elsewhere. Supermarkets must adhere to strict guidelines on hygiene and customer numbers and distancing. They will have to limit a maximum number of customers per square meter of floor space. Religious services are discontinued or video streamed.

The Danish government has now announced fines for individuals and businesses where gatherings exceed 10 people. It seems that too many individuals feel entitled to ignore the restrictions.

I liked the idea that some country's were opening supermarkets an hour early. To allow the elderly and infirm a chance to avoid having to wrestle goods from the grasping clutches of aggressive hoarders. Some shops will now be rationing goods per customer to reduce hoarding. One may well ask why only now? When it could and should have been done much earlier!

We are seriously considering doing our grocery shopping online from now on. As members of a high risk age group I would rather totally avoid visiting the shops in case I bring the virus home to my wife.  Our most used supermarket has a "personal shopper" system.  You order from the supermarket online and pay a little extra for the delivery with a bank card. Just like any other online purchase. The "personal shopper" does the shopping and brings it out to the customer for pocket money. Whether the service is available locally in our rather rural area is another matter.

Some interesting statistics for European hospitals were published today. Denmark has the second to last, fewest hospital beds per capita in Europe. Beaten only slightly by Sweden. Conversely, it has close to the highest number of doctors and specialists compared with many other European nations. Which means patients usually enjoy a very high level of expertise, on site, on hospital arrival, whatever their symptoms. Medical healthcare was also free on demand. Though dentist's fees were payable.

Most "ordinary" health care has stopped now, it seems. With heavy concentration on the pandemic's most seriously ill victims. We must hope that this low bed count, specialist team model, can cope with the expected, large numbers of virus infections. Hence all the business and other drastic closures to limit the number of victims as much as possible.

Today's Pandemic Darwin Awards goes to hospital thieves. These serial killer sociopaths moving freely in normal society. i.e. Those who feel they are entitled to steal masks and hand wash from those fighting the pandemic on the front line.

Not to protect themselves out of panic. But simply for corrupt, personal gain. By selling the stolen goods onto those who never [ever] question the source of stolen goods. It is said that these masks and hand wash were offered for sale on the Danish, small ads websites. Which, if true, shows a callous level of drooling idiocy, rarely matched in peace time.

These "loyal citizens" have ensured that multiple hospital entrances must be closed and/or guarded. That police must be stationed at hospitals to avoid further material losses. Instead of being available for their other, more pressing duties. Rather than having to escort away those with absolutely no reason to be there. Now everybody entering the hospitals has to be screened for would-be thieves.

Let it be absolutely clear that denying a single person hand wash in a hospital toilet could cause tens of thousands of additional deaths and long term misery over time. Not least economic. All thanks to the domino effect radiating out from a single infection point. Doubt that? Remember that this entire global pandemic started with a single person passing on their infection to just a few others.

The inverted pyramid of globally spreading infection could still cause the entire world to topple into economic chaos. It is absolutely certain that "our" world will never ever be quite the same again. Vast numbers of people are being thrown out of work to avoid gatherings passing on the virus to countless others. All this is taking place at such short notice they cannot possibly be supported by the usual services. Jobs centers, social welfare, etc.

These support services have already been closed down. Few manual workers have a healthy bank account and may already be in debt. This must be seriously addressed to avoid a petty crime wave of desperately poor ex-workers seeking essentials without the funds to do so. Landlords, mortgage lenders and the banks are going to suffer as well. Every decision sent down from above has a serious knock on effect down the line. Tourism is a huge industry which supports countless businesses and workers.

So, in summary, I really wouldn't recommend that hospital thieves be escorted off the premises without charge. Let's just assume they have personally volunteered their bodies for open-ended, "cutting-edge" medical research and proceed from there. 😉

~~

17.03.2020 Day 5. Today's Jinping Pandemic Darwin Award: Banana Republic's immigrant chump.

~~

Tuesday 17th 41F, calm and breezy at different moments. Early sunshine is supposed to cloud over. The traffic was very quiet as I strode to the village. Mostly tradesman's vans.

One chap was using a backpack sprayer on the moss on his paved yard. The spray drift was clearly visible for yards downwind. As it blew across other people's gardens.

Today's Darwin Award goes to the u.s. president who is likely to have personally cost more lives than any previously. He downplayed the pandemic to the very last moment. Simply because it might reflect on his landslide victory in the coming elections or hurt his investments.  

"Make the chump grate" didn't work. So now lots of people will die unnecessarily. As he makes a complete 180° in his <cough> advice <cough> to his brain dead washed electorate. And no, sorry, the grate chump's "fake news flu" will not just go away. But don't expect an apology from the grate chump.

You won't get one from Fat Boris either. The other, self-inflating clown. Who played down the pandemic at the cost of, who knows how many, lost lives. It is calculated that Boris' laid back, original approach might well have cost a quarter of a million completely unnecessary deaths! How many deaths has the chump cost in the US? With his expert-belittling, spittling and rambling idiocy on Infantile Twatter? 

It's not all bad economic news though. As the markets plunge to new lows: There are queues around the block for weapons [only in the u.s.] to protect themselves from the inevitable hoards of looters. Just think of the chump's other pandemic of the alcoholic homeless and illegal drug abusers. All needing to break quarantine for "essential supplies." Not to mention stealing from the innocent to fund their fixes at inflated prices.

It is said, in today's European news, that "the chump" tried to buy up a German, medical research company. Which has a promising, early, candidate vaccine for the virus. Aspirations of a global monopoly patent? Price gouging? Whatever.

How ironic, that the one person, from which the world would rather distance itself, is on every front page. Still selling his snake oil for all it's worth. Selling himself as the Second Savior. Welcome to the chump's grate new reality show! His every word a constant stream of infantile bullshit. Being lapped up in the world's gratest dumbocracy.

~~

16.03.2020 Day 4.Today's Jinping Pandemic Darwin Award: Fat Boris of Broxit.

~~

Monday 16th 42-46F blue skies and sunny. More cloud expected. It was overcast shortly after 8.00. I
walked to the lanes in a southerly wind with bare hands. Quite a large bird of prey went past again. I saw it yesterday. A long tail, pointed wing tips and lots of brown and ginger plumage.

I still have brief, repeated attacks of a mild sore throat. It was throbbing on my walk but lasted only briefly. Still only a slightly bunged up nose and occasional wet clearing of my throat. Probably just another mild case of a cold or flu virus.

Today's Pandemic Darwin Award goes to Fat Boris of Broxit. Not only for his lamentable reaction to the pandemic, as a whole. But! For not properly protecting GPs [family doctors] and their equally vital staff. 

These absolutely vital people are in the front line of diagnosis, triage and prevention in the wider community. Treat them for the enormous value they represent to the country and the world beyond. Treat them with real respect, real information and real safety equipment to avoid them falling sick.

These real and vital staff want to go on working. Despite your best efforts to be your usual self-important, self-inflating clown. Delusions of grandeur do not make a great PM. Remember that you only got the job because of the absolutely pathetic opposition. With nothing resembling leadership qualities, or even a single, realistic candidate on either side of the house.

Get over yourself and pass the batten to competent, human beings. This brave new world can no longer afford to tolerate clowns working so far above their station. Ambition is not a qualification. It is a weakness in most [supposed] leaders. In your case I use the "leadership" term extremely loosely.

Today's discretionary, consolation Darwin Award goes to all the delivery services. Who still haven't thought it through. They are now the most likely avenue of contagion for elderly [and many other] people in home quarantine or voluntarily self-isolating. 

With the closure of many other businesses, the parcel delivery services may well become vital but uniquely placed "Super Spreaders." These delivery services and their drivers, still insist on having customers sign their "contagion machines." Just to confirm receipt of a package. With a completely unidentifiable scrawl! It wouldn't matter if a stray dog scratched the bloody screen! So why insist on the customer making their own scrawl?

These machines do not seem to react to hard points. They used to have real pens, or a plastic stylus, but went over to soft touch, fingertip sensitive screens. I tried a large, plastic knitting needle and it didn't register anything! Ideally it ought to be a pencil with an eraser but we don't have one. I'm going to try the chisel point of a large eraser. That can be well cleaned afterwards. I bet the screen isn't wiped with anything between customers! Plastic can hold the virus for a week!

The delivery drivers [sio far] do not remotely [sic] attempt to keep two meters away from the customer. Nor make any real effort to avoid close physical contact. Get your act together! 

There is no real choice for those who are self-isolating or in quarantine. They must either order food supplies online. [See risks above] Or make an even more risky visit to the filthy, multi-handling, multi-visitor, hoarder-packed supermarket. Where desperate shoppers must battle with hoarders, who are packed shoulder to shoulder at the checkouts with today's loot.

Supermarkets where the staff have not been given any guidance, whatsoever, to avoid spreading infection. Where the baskets and trolleys have not been cleaned since the first day they arrived, many years ago. Except by accident, before they built a little stabling carport, to stop them rusting prematurely in the rain.

UPDATE: We have just had a small parcel delivered by DHL. The driver was happy to put the parcel safely down outside. So I had no need to handle it without careful preparation and wearing disposable gloves. He left without asking for a signature on his "contagion machine." Though he had it with him. Just in case. A very polite, intelligent and pleasant young chap he was too. Well done DHL!

I've just checked the popular, Danish, online food sales website. Nemlig.dk. Huge numbers of people wanting to order and a 28 minute delay if I chose to join their ordering queue. At least they had all the relevant timing and numbers up front. Not like the Danish Postal service with their endless queues for what they loosely describe as Customer Services.   

~~

15.3.2020 Day 3. Today's Jinping Pandemic Darwin Awards: Macron!

~~~

Sunday 15th 40F, heavy overcast and breezy. We both have a wet cough and slightly, "bunged up" noses. More of a clearing of our throats than a repetitive cough. Time for my walk to have a good clear out. The traffic was light again but I saw five cyclists. One girl rode around the 3 mile, rural "block" on her electric bike in the time it took me to walk about half a mile. She was clearly enjoying herself and grinned at me both times as she passed.

Teslas obviously don't have auto pilot engaged all the time or it might stop illegal driving behaviour. Like completely ignoring double white lines while cutting blind corners. Yes, you! Owning a Tesla is still not driver anonymity by any stretch of the imagination!

The BBC News Website is suggesting the UK elderly could be asked to self-isolate for weeks or even months to protect them from the growing pandemic. This action could seriously reduce the death toll in this vulnerable age group. They would be expected to stay at home and be supplied with essentials delivered to their doorstep.

UK scientists are seriously worried by the seeming lack of preparation and controls being applied by the apparently complacent, UK government. Other countries are taking much more drastic steps and much earlier, to help to reduce the expected death toll. The elderly are already at greater risk due to naturally weakened immunity.

They can be further weakened by other health factors and immunity reducing, long term drug regimes. Expecting the elderly to psychologically survive long term physical isolation intact is another hurdle. Not all of them own a computer, let alone a smart phone with paid for apps, to remain in constant touch with anybody else. Nor to enjoy a rich, but remote, online social life via forums and discussion websites.

Many elderly people have already lost partners and will be entirely alone in an almost, sci-fi horror scenario, right outside their own doors. We must hope that deliveries are absolutely reliable and human contact can be safely maintained. And, that looters will be shot in the legs, on sight and then left to die, handcuffed to a lamppost in the streets. As they so richly deserve.

Meanwhile, today's "Pandemic Darwin Award" goes to Macron. "Guard de l'eau!"

Macron d'Entitlement, has closed the country down but will still hold local elections. Dugh? Que? Dogh! How many more extra infections will this raving idiocy cost? Ask Macron.

Macron should probably go and sit on a throne in the corner in his favourite Louis 14th palace. With his favourite, designer, pointy hat with the big D on it.  Or should it be a big C for "Cancre?" Just say: "NON!" Don't encourage the deluded fool!

~~ 

14.3.2020 Day 2. Today's Jinping Pandemic Darwin Awards: Hospital thieves.

~~

Saturday 14th 27F, calm, a hard white frost and bright sunshine. Denmark has closed its borders. 

Comparisons are being made between the strict management and advice of some countries compared with others. Londoners are ignoring the dangers and enjoying the same level of social life. Or so it seems from the news media.

Immature Danes were also, totally ignoring advice on distancing themselves in the supermarkets. The exact opposite, in fact. I suppose they never read or watch the news in their isolated, mobile phone bubbles. Which surround their vapid, ephemeral existence.

I am still getting brief sore throats and an occasional wet cough. There is little danger in going out on my walks. As long as I keep well away from people and they stay well away from me. The arrival of packages ordered online is still a worry. The survival of the virus on different surfaces is still largely unknown and mostly extrapolated from other viruses. 

Yesterday is all seemed rather overwhelming. I was reading everything I could find online on the pandemic, symptoms and best means of avoidance.

We had both been suffering from strange, but rather minor symptoms and feared we were already infected. So far we don't seem to be getting worse than these brief irritations. Nor suffering more serious symptoms like a fever or shortness of breath. I had better make the most of the sunshine and enjoy a proper walk.

The lack of wind decided that I walk anticlockwise up to the woods. There were three hares being silly on the steep track. As they do. They were dashing in and out of the hedge and out onto the ploughed field where they became completely invisible.

Once I reached the beech forest I saw four large deer. They bounded across the open  space under the trees and on into the dense undergrowth. I made the steep descent via the edge of the very wet fields. Fortunately the frost had stiffened the soil enough to make it quite manageable. The traffic on the road was lighter than usual. Though there was a bus running. It looked empty, but then they always do. Except during the school run.

Today's "Pandemic Darwin Awards": Hospital Thieves. Danish hospitals, dealing directly with severely ill, coronavirus patients have had hand wash and several boxes of masks stolen. Masks, to be used by the front line staff in the isolation wards, is missing. May we earnestly hope that the thieving bastards receive the natural justice such evil behaviour deserves? Rather than the ample rewards they hoped for. By selling their stolen loot on to other, similar sociopaths. i.e. Those without any functioning conscience.

Stealing the handwash from the toilets of a hospital may well deny many others the right to survival during a highly contagious, global pandemic. How many more will die, as a result of the domino effect, because of this truly sick behaviour? This is premeditated, mass murder, during a pandemic, IMO. Or the most callous form of multiple victim, manslaughter at the very least!

Update: The Danish police are stepping up hospital security with multiple entrances locked or have security guards on duty. The police have already escorted several people from the hospitals because they had no valid reason for being there. What a shame the police can't handcuff hospital thieves to lampposts in the grounds. As a shining example to the rest of the thieving scum. 

~~

Friday 13th March. Self-isolation Day 1. Jinping Pandemic Darwin Award: Danish "Ostrich" politicians.

~~

Friday 13th 41F, very heavy overcast with gales. Trees rocking again against a leaden sky. A depressing scene at the best of times!

My walk was without incident in unusually light traffic. Just a few tradesman's vans and some lorries. It began to rain increasingly heavily from the half way mark.

Today's Pandemic Darwin Award goes to Danish politicians who were certain the Jinping virus would never enter Denmark. Even though it was "business as usual" until the very last moment.

This is our first day of deliberately staying at home to avoid public contact. Though the risk of seeing another person on my morning walk is usually close to nil. I see perhaps one or two other pedestrians, per year, on the rural roads and lanes I frequent during the morning rush hour. There is never any exchange. Apart from a friendly smile or a nod to show I am not a serial killer looking for more victims. Our neighbours can be seen moving about outside sometimes but we rarely interact at close quarters. Living, alone on the end of a long, muddy drive suddenly has some value.

Our greatest risk is arguably the arrival of post and parcels. The virus is said to be able to survive on different surfaces for quite some time. Though the figures for infection are unreliable or simply untested. Bleach is said to be the best killer for hard surfaces which doesn't involve neat alcohol. To which few have ready access. Bleach isn't a substance you want to be splashing about either.

The Danish government has given itself emergency powers to control the movements of infected people. Most institutions are closing or already closed to slow the spread. Given that most people will be exposed to the virus eventually, it really feels like a death sentence to be over 70 right now. Pneumonia kills lots of older people every year. That was when treatment was as optimum as it ever gets. What chance access to antivirals, respirators and oxygen now? Or in the immediate future as the contagion peaks? 

An interesting aspect of all this is the number of global "leaders" who are close to, or actually having the infection. Or already confirmed in family or close associates. There could be a major power shift. I really don't believe in having older politicians anyway. They should have a sharp cut-off at [say] 60 before compulsory retirement. Not that the deluded "entitled" would ever vote for it, of course.

The Chinese are now trying to shift blame onto the US Army for the Jinping, viral outbreak. Just more empty propaganda? When they, themselves, probably allowed the leak of the virus in Wuhan through trivial carelessness? Or even a one man, or woman rebellion? By somebody with a grudge against corrupt and evil communist dictatorship for personal, private profit? 

If the Chinese are going to enjoy even greater economic and manufacturing power, as the rest of the world literally goes under, what then? Nobody voted for Sly "Nero" Jinping. But then, neither did the Chinese!

Is Pootin really safe from infection? He is presently seeking a lifetime job as the wold's second most corrupt dictator after Sly "Nero" Jonping. I seriously doubt Boris has long for this world. Not given the sloppy way things are being run in the UK. What price Brexit now? It is ironic that it is almost exactly 100 years since the 1918 flu Pandemic. That killed up to 50 million people. Nothing was learned from that one either. Life is a rollover lottery. With no winners in the end.

~~

12.03.2020 Jinping Disease. First Jinping Pandemic Darwin Award: Sly "Nero" Jinping.

~~

Thursday 12th 42F, overcast, storm force gales with occasional rain. Stormy gusts!

Today's Pandemic Darwin Award must go to Sly "Nero" Jinping himself. Lifetime, genocidal, evil dictator and author of the global, Covid-19, virus pandemic. While he was arresting worried doctors and citizen journalists this evil thug and Communist Mafia Boss played all his usual fiddles. 

After being in denial for so long Denmark's politicians are finally closing all the schools and similar places for at least the next fortnight. There are a number of other restrictions. Internal transport is affected because of the need to separate travelers. Official government offices and the libraries are all closing. 

The Danish DR Nyheder [news] website is overloaded with stupid questions by people asking if they can go on holiday and where! There are no clear headlines on the new restrictions! Tom Hanks is sick so that's top of the headlines too. What an utter farce!

Food shops are staying open and claim they have plenty of stock. That didn't stop an evening rush to hoard after the PM made her speech. The people noticed: She is a politician and her mouth was open. So she must have been lying. She was lying through her teeth when she asked to be elected to save the world's climate. Months have passed and nothing is being done. Which automatically triggered a panic response in the streets. Queues fifty meters long in Nettos! 20 times more than normal sold in Rema1000 supermarket yesterday evening. Arrests over shoppers refusing to leave when the shop closed for the night! Throwing items around!

I need to buy essential foods but risk contagion if I mix with other people. How do I know I don't already have the virus and spreading it myself? The latest advice is that any cold or flu symptoms could be the virus. Both of us have had odd flu or cold-like symptoms for over a week now. So it's home quarantine for a fortnight. The news is that the online shopping websites can't cope and have half hour queues to get onto the website. Another farce!
 
I risked a run to the shops in the hope that the virus hasn't spread this early. I wore fresh disposable gloves for each shop and discarded them immediately afterwards.

The village idiots were their usual, pig-ignorant, backward, peasant selves. Pressing together in ther queues and coughing loudly, wide open mouthed, all over the displays and the endless queues at the checkouts. Just like they always do.

Several, regular items were out of stock. I asked the staff but no, they hadn't any sliced, wholemeal sandwich bread, tinned tomatoes nor raisins. No shortage of toilet rolls or cigarettes though. Yes, there were people queuing just to buy a single packet of cigarettes! Along with the company of all their school friends!

The tills were not accepting contact-less cards, completely at random, as usual. So you have to press the filthy keys to input your pin code and press enter. I was wearing my disposable gloves but nobody else was. I didn't see any face masks.

I did see lots of brain dead, teenagers though. Who were hanging about in the shops, peering down at their mobile phones. While accompanying their friends. Who were only buying a small packet of sweets or cigarettes at the checkouts. Paying with their "mobile pay" phones. Which never, ever, seem to work properly either. So there were far longer queues and far more drooling morons in the shops than I normally see. Just when I didn't want to see anybody at all! Nor they, me idf they new the rules!

Three of the supermarkets had specially bussed in semi-comatose sloths to man the few, open tills. I had never seen them before. Nor ever want to see them again. One must assume the supermarkets are hoping to maximize profits from sles to the clinically obese at the sweets and crisps displays. Which are always placed right beside the checkouts. And yes, there were people leisurely picking over the sweets and crisps during this pandemic.

There were calls over the Tannoy to open more tills. So, of course, lots of people moved over in anticipation. Only to be told, when the staff bothered to turn up, that there was no money in those tills. So it was back to the other, endless queues, but now having lost three places! More exposure to open mouthed, coughing peasants and certified, fully qualified, fully paid up, village idiots buying single packets of cigareettes.

At least we have enough wood, fuel bricks for the stove to last a couple of weeks. We must hope that the potential safety of our rural isolation is not broken by deliveries. The drivers are still insisting on signatures on their contagion machines! So then it's back indoors for another good scrub of the hands. Most wouldn't even think about it this contact. Let alone be bothered to maintain good hand hygiene afterwards. I suppose our next trick is to practice "speed disposable glove fitting" for the next Olympics. If they are ever held again.

As we go to bed on Thursday night the 12th of March 2020 it all seems horribly surreal. Or just plain unreal. We are in the age group for pneumonia regardless of our fitness levels. Tomorrow is Friday the 13th. Oh joy! Perhaps we should call it Sly "Nero" Jinping Day? 🙄

*

11.3.2020 The joys and pitfalls of tricycle riding Pt.3.

~~

It takes real courage, bravado and lots of practice to ride a trike really well. The vast majority of cyclists, of all calibers, cannot manage just a few yards without hitting the pavement. At 73 I can still drift all three wheels around sharp corners and mini roundabouts and do it faster than any normal car.

I always wanted to ride 100 miles in a day but managed only the mid 80s a few times. Always with a shopping stop on the way home. I have regularly sat down on the bike rack outside local supermarkets. With 80 miles in my legs. Just to eat the sandwich I should have eaten hours earlier. Well, there was no suitable place to pause and to eat out on the road!

Learning to ride a trike can seem like an insurmountable hurdle at first. But! It will repay practice with compound interest. Nobody stops to talk to a cyclist outside a shop. They are simply far too commonplace. A trike rider always gets noticed. Often getting far more notice than the poshest, sports car. You learn to live with it. As heads constantly turn in the high street. People begin to think they know you. Because they see and notice you so often. Usually as you pedalled furiously along an empty lane so very far from home.

My memory is stuffed full of such moments on the trike. Countless tens of thousands of miles in all terrains and all weather conditions. Every yard achieved entirely by my own efforts. I would often seek out the steepest hills, in the middle of nowhere, just to overcome them.

I can measure my total, tricycling distance by the very large box full of punctured inner tubes. I would often puncture before being advised to try Schwalbe Durano and Plus tyres. The next best thing is having enough air in the tyres thanks to a track pump. Before that I would often get pinch flats. From riding on too little pressure with too much shopping aboard! You'd have to be very unlucky to puncture often on the Durano Plus. It's quite heavy but has a nice bouncy, free rolling feel to it.

The Mk1 thumb is a very poor tyre pressure gauge. It makes you vulnerable to a simple piece of loose gravel on the road. The tyre with the built in, absolute guarantee of punctures is the folding Continental 4000S. I once punctured all three, brand new tyres on one ride. It is also one of the most uncomfortable tyres to have on a trike, at any pressure. Never again!

A ride with a puncture is a waste of time and effort. When you could be covering more miles. If your delusions suggest that lighter tyre will help your distance then be prepared to waste your days on the side of the road. Instead of riding along it.

As a cyclist you are usually dressed lightly for hard physical exercise. You are ill equipped for standing around in the snow and the rain. Snow? I have ridden countless miles on snow and ice covered roads. By having Trykit 2 wheel drive I could overcome most hills, on snow, while riding 23mmx700C slicks.

Single wheel drive just means wheel spin. Even on smooth, dry roads. I invested in Trykit 2WD to be able to ride on the wrong side of the road with a UK, left wheel drive trike. Over here on the Continent, the British OWD will be driving you constantly down the camber instead of up it. 2WD is neutral and doesn't care which side of the road you have to ride on. OWD tries to crab sideways on every steep climb! 2WD means you can ride uphill on grass and sprint, flat out, even on on loose gravel.  

Low gears are essential on a trike however fit you are. They protect your high mileage knees by allowing you to spin the pedals at high revs [cadence] regardless of the incline. On really steep hills your revs are bound to drop. If you cadence drops too far your knees caps will ache. I had that and nearly had to give up riding altogether! So I bought a Spar Cycles short crank, triple chainset with small chainwheels. Knee problem solved! Later I went back to normal cranks and a small double chainset. So much easier to change effortlessly than triple chain rings.

A bicyclist can only manage a certain steepness before their forward speed is so low they can't stay upright. They can always bail and turn back downhill. A trike stays completely stable as you use your "crawler gears" against gravity. You have no real choice!

If you run out of puff on a really steep climb then you can't easily turn around and descend. You would instantly tip right over and fall the "long way" downhill on your hands. With the trike landing right on top of you. If your trike is heavily laden you can't just lift it off the ground to rotate it around your feet. They will try to slide back downhill on your slippery shoe plates! For the same reason you can't just get off and walk uphill. The braked, front wheel will just slide backwards downhill. You don't have the traction and the back wheels always get in the way when you walk a trike. So you must gear for every eventuality.

A trick I learned early, when descending fast, was to lift my bum off the saddle. On a steep and rough lane the trike will buck left and right. It finds every bump and hollow and change in camber. At the same time it is rocking wildly back and forth. Trying to remain seated will put you in grave danger of losing control and crashing. Lift yourself well off the saddle with bent knees. Let the trike do its own thing. Completely independently of your usual dead weight on the saddle. This has often saved me from disaster and was often, white-knuckled fun. Fairground rides are tame compared with tricycling. That's why we do it!

 
Trike Mileage from 2010 to 2015

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11.3.2020 The joys and downsides of tricycling. Pt.2.

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My desire to share the fun of tricycling with a wider audience had been accomplished to my own, limited satisfaction. By blogging and by my gentle tricycle forum leadership. The forum was thriving and didn't need me any more. Nor did the Tricycle Association. It had little to offer the distant member despite the paltry, annual sub of £10. Many tricyclists are elderly. So I hope they aren't seriously thinned out by the pandemic.

If I die from the 2020 coronavirus pandemic few will remember me. All the things I hid from my online audience will die with me. Cycling and tricycling, in particular, is great fun. Hanging off the side on corners is a very inefficient and a very silly way to get about. But the compensations are utterly worth it. Tricycling offers huge enjoyment despite the extra weight and parking problems.

The tricyclist is always acutely aware of the undulating road beneath the spinning wheels. Every change in camber is a challenge to be overcome. The tricycle has a very limited range of lateral stability. Though it didn't stop me riding along insanely poor, unmade forest tracks and paths where few would dare to walk. The limit was usually when the deliberately low, pedal circle struck the ground. Vehicle wheel ruts will do that to a trike.

You simply would not believe the places I tried to tricycle. Even when loaded down with shopping. If I saw a new turning I would often take it to add it to my range of knowledge. It sometimes got me into serious trouble where I lost my sense of direction under an overcast sky. I have dragged the tricycle by the scruff of its neck through waterlogged bogs and steep forest fire breaks. Where no vehicle has passed in years. 

You can carry loads on the rear rack of a trike which would make most cyclists swoon with disbelief. I still think nothing of carrying 6 liters of milk. Now add everything else: The large bags of spuds, carrots and apples. The boxes of 10 eggs, the cartons of cream and several packs of butter. The tins of fruit, soup, beans and assorted bottles. The several liters of organic apple and orange juice. Washing ujp and laundry detergents in all sizes and containers. Different loafs of bread. Frozen fish and vegetables. Always organic produce, if it is available. It is a fine art to load a bag and return home without having anything crushed. I once lost a pack of butter in the bottom of the bag. We won't dwell on the stink after a warm weekend. Milk has similar properties if you puncture a carton.

It took me years to fully develop and finally reach the Overboard 40 liter duffel bag on the trike's rear rack. It isn't perfect but the 40 liter capacity makes a complete and utter mockery of the overpriced, traditional and puny, canvas saddle bags. Though they win on longevity when you fondly wish they'd just die so you can buy something else. For nearly a decade I shopped, for two, entirely on the trike at ranges up to 40 miles from home.Yes, I have bought real shopping at the mid-point of long rides.

The trike was our only means of shopping transport on every, single ride. I don't remember ever doing a ride which did not replenish the larder on the way home. Except for the largest and heaviest loads which always needed the car, or its large trailer. iIt can all be done with a trike.

Bikes are ill-equipped for shopping unless you have a specialized carrier bike. I have an old, original, LongJohn at the back of the shed but have only ridden it a couple of times. It is far too impractical despite regularly seeing even teenage girls riding them on the narrow, winding cycle paths in the city. Modern examples have prams for carrying the children and why not? If oil goes through the car roof the modern LongJohn already offers town delivery services and school child delivery and return.

Our aging car sat unused, taking up space, but was still vital for our rural situation. My CO2 conscience is clear as the Earth's ice caps melt at 6 times the rate they did in the very recent 1990s. Cycle if you must but tricycle by choice. Anybody can ride a bike. Even a robot!

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