Locky-D2

 Morning Mugs

Yes, Locky-D2 is what I've seen the latest lockdown called. God help us if this sort of truncated language strangling shite carries on. 

Remember just 2 weeks ago how Boris castigated Starmer for suggesting a circuit break lockdown? About how Johnsons 'tiers' system would do the trick of stopping the much wished for second wave (yes I do think people wanted it to happen, and that shutting the country down was a typically stupid Labour idea that hadn't been thought through?

How did that work out for him then? I wonder if he had any sense of irony, or duplicity or sheer shame as he announced a 4 week lockdown for Engand last weekend?

I feel sorry for all the businesses and organisations who spent money making their environments COVID secure and as safe as possible only to find the government thinks it wasn't enough. And yet, school, colleges and the key COVID hotbed, universities, remain open. A teacher friend of mine has already said that apparently between 9am and 3pm she is immune to the virus, and the virus itself won't apparently infect during those hours. She can enjoy a coffee with her sister, also a teacher in the same school. Or any of her other teacher colleagues. But from 3pm onwards she can't even sit at opposite ends of the same garden with them. The sheer illogic of this is mind-boggling. 

I don't have the answer aside from fucking hurry up with a vaccine, but there will be a point where people say enough is enough and will take their chances with the virus in order to return to a mask free world with hugs and group gatherings.

I'm on that side as well.

Later Mugs, GJ

Farewell, my friend

 Evening Mugs,

Today we said goodbye to my father in law, my wifes dearly loved Dad. 76. Too young by todays standards. Struck down after being given a very good prognosis on Prostate Cancer, by a fucking incidious, underhanded cunt of a stroke. The Lord might giveth, and The Lord might taketh away, but in my view if The Lord exists then he's a absolutely vindictive bastard. Oi...Lord, just take the cunts yeah? 

 

He was kind, gentle, caring, loving, funny, odd, never angry, never vengeful. A man who had a great life, married a great woman , spent 60 years with her and sat at the head of the most loving family, all of us inspired by him.

 This sad passing has given me a jolt on how to live, how to love, how to spend time with those you love and how to spend what the fuck you want on what the fuck you want or who the fuck you want.

Life is just way too short, our existence way too ephemeral, our connection to life and existence and love and everything we cherish is gossamer thin and we take it for granted at our peril and then in the blink of an eye it's too late.

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you, no-one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

Take Care Mugs

Thought I'd something more to say......

 Morning Mugs

My last post was in July ffs. I promised there'd be more thoughts, notes, observations and stuff posted here, including an option to maybe lookat 'vlogging' for the older more mature person maybe.

But it didn't happen did it?  What a lazy git. How hard is it to spend 15 minutes a day dumping thoughts and ideas down on a public forum?

That no-one reads.

Loads of mundane stuff did, not exciting I grant, but maybe that's an advantage of lockdown....life quietened down for many of us. So, a list of things to discuss might be a good idea and then peridocially I will try and crack through it and add as necessary.

 

1. Holidays , or lack thereof and what I did with my leave
   
2. Days out I did do
3. New hobbies from days gone by - astronomy in this case and the reintroduction of walking football
   
4. Losing someone close unexpectedly
5. The joys of artificial grass and unnatural worry about the garden in general
6. Pensions, transferring out and all the worries
7. More gardening, ffs...something I never thought I'd enjoy but.... 
8. COVID bollocks - getting busy dying or getting busy living?
9. Stuff I've enjoyed watching, and of course stuff I've hated
10. Football under COVID
11. Dogs and cats.
12. Working from home, working in general. 
13. The perils and joys of online shopping
14. Why the hell do I seem to have more to do than ever before?

That'll do for now. Add grumbles about the weather , the government and all sort so other niggles  and maybe I can get some consistency going. 

Later Mugs, GJ

Ticking away the hours that make up a dull day...

Morning Mugs,

I have been bloody slack haven't I? May the 18th since last blog post....,lazy old bastard me then.

There's so much going and paradoxically so little. Well of any real interest....

Wife and youngest daughter are still furloughed. I'm still working though. I did take a week off in June, but ended up spending that time doing 'stuff' around the house and garden. There was a time when this would have been an anathema to me.....breaks from work are exactly about that...taking a break doing nothing except visitng somewhere nice, going to the mobile or just frittering away hours in an off hand way (apologies to D.Gilmour and R.Waters there...) - but there is a weird desire to purchase and use 'man-tools' and get stuff done.

It has been an expensive time.

The consequence of this is the garden looks ...well not good..but better than normal for this time of the year. Trees have been pruned using the new cordless recip saw, the lawn is cut weekly using the new cordless lawn mower, ladders are hung on the wall and new pictures added to walls thanks to holes drilled by the new cordless power drill, and screws attached using the cordless screw driver. A new plastic shed was bought and constructed, a new hose  wasbought and attached to the wall, a new picket fence in the front garden, a complete tree cut down (by visiting...ahem...tree surgeons), a new fence sits proudly down one side of the garden rendering the whole garden 90% dog proof (nothing is entirely dog proof in my experience) . New grass has been sown at the bottom of the garden on a rough old patch, with about 70% success (more overseeding needed) and in July the patio was repaired and will, in August, be covered with artificial grass.

In this lockdown period I have bought the cordless recip saw, a paint sprayer, a shaver, ladder hooks, a cordless battery powered lawnmower, new dog tracking devices, new trainers for walking the dogs, a new patio table, new sun loungers, a cordless power drill, a scarifier/aerator for the lawn, a lawn spreader, a new rake, a wheel barrow, new headphones, a new wall mounted hose-pipe, new hose spray and sprinkler fittings, grass seed, grass feed and weed, weed killer, a weed burner, a new small handy cordless screw driver, a new CO alarm to replace the end of life (after 7 years) of the previous one, a new soft bristle wide broom for the artificial grass, a trowel set, dining room seat covers, a new toilet flushing thing, new slow feed dog bowls, a mulching kit for the lawn mower, a glue gun, new vest tops for me, new shorts for me, new t-shirts for me, a kitchen whiteboard, new Blink security cameras, a new Ring Video doorbell, lawn mower blade sharpening bits, a new head torch for winter dog walking, an outdoor clock and thermometer, an Echo Show 8, a new folding trolley, new iMAC speakers (replacing blown old BOSE ones), kiln dried sand for the block paving, pre-mixed mortar for brick and path repairs, tile paint, kitchen cupboard paint and new dog harnesses. There are other bits as well, but here is definitive proof of the cognitively dissonant side of lockdown. Are these things 'must-haves' or 'nice-to-haves' or just indulgences? There does seem to have been a weird coincidence between the failure rate of some bits (lawn mower, iMAC speakers, doorbell, old dog walking trainers, insufficient sun loungers, CO alarm and loo flush mechanism) and the sudden desire for things to help me occupy my time.

Maybe the lack of a cruise to spend money on has played a part, along with an inability to get to the mobile home due to quarantine and COVID fear, have just meant the funds are redistributed, and the truth is with no main holiday looking likely this year it has been a good chance for some capital investment in tools and the house and garden. it's been a good chance to get stuff I think I need and do stuff I think needs doing.

But.....I am banking on any winter lockdown being far cheaper though. or just hoping the virus is fucked off or a vaccine or treatment found to mean this crap doesn't happen again, or if it does then has a far less pernicious impact on life.

Later Mugs, GJ

Had enough yet?

Afternoon Mugs,

Blimey, it now seems never ending doesn't it? I said at the beginning of the lockdown that if there was no real end in sight then civil/social disobedience would start to kick in, and sure enough it has. This has of course been accelerated by the confused 'easing' of restrictions by the failing and flailing government who seem to be making stuff up on the hoof.

I would have preferred a single unequivocal statement of 'another 4 weeks' until mid-June of complete lockdown. That way, as tough as staying in and watching TV or doing DIY or whatever seems you would have had clarity and a few weeks to prepare a proper caveated road map of restriction easing. You know, like France, Ireland, Spain and Germany amongst others have done.

Oh, but they're all the EU aren't they and the good old UK can't be seen to be doing the same thing as them now can we? Even if what we're doing is wrong, like some out of control village idiot we will plough our own furrow and the gormless and gullible will follow. On the one hand you have cold hard facts, based in science and an opposition leader quietly exposing the foolhardiness of this government and it's 'out of depth' minister, whilst the great British public would prefer a bumbling oaf who sees himslf as a Winston Churchill character because he uses the phrase 'Great British public' and 'hard working British families'. Its bluff, bluster and bullshit beating down the truth again.

And of course we also have the continuing unhealthy corporate greed of billionaires desperate to keep making billions whilst risking their emplotyees lives, and sport putting its business ahead of the health of participants and staff...you know,,,because the nation needs cheering up. Today the Scottish Premier League have (sensibly) called time on the season awarding positions as they stand. But the English Premier League are desperate to finish the campaign to avoid paying the TV companies millions back...sorry...I mean to lift the nations spirits. And then today they announce the likelihood that the womens super league will be stopped but not the mens .....no sexism or corporate greed on display there then!

I did think at the beginning of this that things might change. We'd be greener as we have the chance to gaze at pure blue skies unsullied by pollution haze...but no, it's all about getting people to work, even to the point of encouraging car use over public transport. Because working with colleagues is so much safer than sitting on a train or bus. Give me strength.

My message is shit or get off the pot. Remove lockdown and be damned and take the consequeneces, or lockdown good and hard and save lives. This government will do neither and we'll be stuck in Vagueness City and Indecision Town for the foreseeable future.

Grim.

Later Mugs, GJ

Funny not funny

Afternoon Mugs

As I sit here recovering from wine lag (replacing beer lag due to the fact I have rediscovered a taste for red wine)  on a quiet work afternoon, I'm watching one of the new breed  of sitcoms. No not the risible Mrs Browns Boys, or the equally dreadful Citizen Khan, but clever, darker ones. Sitcoms that have no laughter track and therefore force you to find the comedy and laugh moments. This all sounds a bit like middle class, liberal elite wankerie  I suppose. However for me the days of laughing when prompted have long gone and it's probably all the work of Ricky Gervais and the ground-breaking series The Office. It was cringe inducing of course, but so beautifully scripted and set up, and followed up by the equally brilliant Extras, Derek and his latest, After Life. I think it's perfectly fair to say he changed the comedy of the sit-com forever, and for the better.

So, on the list of honourable recent sit-coms I've watched and enjoyed are....

Back to Life: Dark, yet gentle humour in this series written by and starring the immensely impressive Daisy Haggard. The sad and yet uplifitng story of a woman imprisoned for murder, and relased 18 years later as she approches her forties.  On iPlayer.

Fleabag: Fourth wall breaking sit-com with outrageous situations, a free speaking star in Phoebe Waller-Bridge, deliciously dark and funny. Not as touching as Back to Life, but in the same vein of centering the series around a strong female character. On iPlayer.

After Life: Ricky Gervais in a stunning comedy/drama about a recently widowed man who's life is in tatters after his wife's death. Doesn't sound funny does it? And yet like the previous two it is laugh out loud funny at times and Gervais loads up the pathos to smack you in the face and drag you to tears both after and before the laughter. Netflix only. 

Breeders: One from the blue for me......recommended by a work colleague for the lockdown. Think Outnumbered with far worse language, less cute and verbose kids, concentrating on fraught parenting and the bparadox of being willing to die for your children whilst simultaneously want to kill them. Martin Freeman, Michael Mckean, the constantly underrated Patrick Baladi  and the lovely Daisy Haggard form the cast.  Cognitive dissonance at its best. Sky One (yes Sky seem to be a bit of a leader in the adult sit-com market!)

Code 404: Not watched this yet, it's on the lockdown list though and starts Stephen Graham and Daniel Mays and I can't imagine for one moment that two such fantastic actors would star in something shitty. Sky One (yep...Sky again huh...who knew...)

Avenue 5: Set in outer space on a fictional equivalent inter-planetary cruise liner. Starring Hugh Laurie, Rebecca Front band Leona Critchley and written by Armando Ianucci (of The Thick Of It fame...one of the finest sitcoms ever) - this was a grower but is a very funny and maybe a currently apt view of human behaviour in the face of a crisis! Sky One.

Curb Your Enthusiasm: I was never a huge fan of Seinfeld, always more of  a Frazier man myself. But this is a gem from one of th riters of Seinfeld, Larry David who plays a parody version of himself. He's probably acting out the stuff that's deep inside all of us, but this series is as strong no as it was from day one. Superb stuff. Sky One 

Thats all folks as they used to say, 

Later Mugs , GJ

 

JFC

Morning Mugs

Despite having more time...it seems I have less time...well for writing. I need to get in the habit of writing daily thoughts  quickly and punchily here. I am also considering a memoir from the earliest of memories, although of course dates from years ago, even years will be mere guesses!

JFC stands for Jesus Fucking Christ, a statement for when you hear, see or experience the most stupid of things from other people.  

JFC - The BBC and their Big Night In. Utter garbage at a time when people need better TV. Davina ShoutyGob is the last thing you need, but adding to her a list of 'celebs' being earnest, pious and trying to mix that with humour came over as patronising, insincere bullshit. I am a big fan of the BBC, but this was an error of judgment and poor execution.

JFC - Disinfectant? UV light? Injections? Irradiation? Seriously America, the man is borderline insane and surely suffering from Dementia of some sort? Don't elect him unless you want to lose the trust of the entire world. Russia excepted maybe...

JFC - Tory 'grandees' or CUNTS as I know them, calling for lockdown to be lifted to restart the economy. If ever there was proof that old school Tory-ism puts lives before profit, there it is.  

JFC - 20,000 deaths and that DOESN'T include care home and other non-hospital reported deaths? The NHS still short on the right PPE for the front line workers? The NHS still not getting the testing resource for the front-line workers? And yet...and yet...the press are still blowing smoke up the arses of this government. We are one fucked up country.

JFC - Kim Jong-Un is allegedly very poorly. And by all accounts might actually die. And yet on Twitter there are people saying that we should have humanity and show compassion for his family. The same humanity and compassion he showed those around him he's had executed and tortured. The same humanity he shows any dissenters and the thousands if not more locked up in concentration camps. Fuck him. 

JFC - people raising money for the NHS. The NHS, a publicly funded jewel in the diminishing crown jewels of the country. I will NOT contribute to any NHS charity because it's a failing of the state if that is needed. Tax people more if necessary, fund it properly from the outset. Every penny raised through charity just allows this government to use that as an excuse to keep on starving it of cash. 

Thats enough JFCs for now ....

Later Mugs, GJ