Pots, kettles and grimy arses!

Or Journal into the unknown (7)

Monday March 30th 2020

Yes, I’m still here. I’ve not succumbed yet.

I’ve been celebrating my 73rd birthday and my wife and I have been looking back at our 31 years of married life together. Not quite in the way we had planned – hot air balloon ride, boutique hotel in Edinburgh, but, there you go.

So we’ve well and truly hunkered down, thoroughly envious of those previously vilified Doomsday Preppers, and thankful for the support of our immediate neighbours and younger local relatives.

Nothing to fear but fear and Will Self

We’ve just heard that we may have our first case of the virus in our block and suddenly the whole thing has got a lot closer to home. Of course, we and even more so the poor unfortunate concerned, won’t actually know if it’s the virus, because here in the UK we have a totally inadequate testing regime. So, the person concerned, who lives alone, is now holed-up in their flat, hoping for the best.

The rest of us are all rallying round and will no doubt do the best we can, even though there are quite a few of us who fall into “At risk” groups of one kind or another – usually one kind and another, unfortunately!

I’ve just about run out of my local supply of Jack Reacher books, so I’m scratching around for some other source of mindless escapism. Much of the fiction I have to hand is just too highbrow to fit the bill. As I cower from the fear of the Corona virus, I’m afraid books like “The Quantity Theory of Insanity” or “How the Dead Live” really don’t cut it for me.

Language is a virus

It was Laurie Anderson who had this line as a refrain in her song of the same name and there are real parallels here. It strikes me that the world has been suffering from a pandemic of English for centuries. It has had many mutations over the years and some of these are more widespread than the original strain. I guess the main culprit is what we might call “The American Virus”. The world has so far failed to find an effective antidote or even a vaccine so maybe the Corona family will end up ruling the roost in the same way my mother tongue does.

Incidentally, I love that song. It seems to sum up our present day life in so many ways, especially the section that goes:

“I don’t believe there’s such a thing as TV

I mean they just keep showing the same pictures over and over

And when they talk they just make sounds

That more or less synch up

With their lips

That’s what I think

Laurie Anderson , Language is a Virus

It just seems so appropriate in these days of ever-repeating twenty-four hour news cycles with nothing new to say.

So, what has this to do with kettles, et al, I hear you say?

Well, not much to be honest, but I was fired up to post again by a missive from our Glorious Government, Hallowed be their every word, covering their brave efforts to “Crack down on spread of false coronavirus information online.”

Just who do they think they are kidding?

They are deploying Specialist units “to combat misinformation about coronavirus and five to ten incidents are being identified and tackled each day”!

They are “working at pace” to combat “false and misleading narratives” from “purported ‘experts'”, and are based in The Cabinet Office and Number 10. Well that’s handy because they won’t have far to look then, eh?

In my not so humble opinion the scope and volume of evasion, deception and downright obfuscation that emanates from the government – hallowed be its name, and its twisted mouthpieces has to be seen to be ignored!

I ask you to consider Testing, Testing, Testing

and to use your intellect, large or small, to read between the lies.