You have to marvel at the idiocy on display in Trafalgar square yesterday, the so called "conspiracy march" looked like more a festival of losers and frauds. Speakers included "lizard man" David Icke and the dimwitted older brother of Jeremy Corbyn, the climate change denying Piers. Listening to some of the deluded drivel being spewed really does make you reconsider a policy of compulsory sterilization; although most of them would probably claim that the government was already doing that! Piers Corbyn was banging on about his pet theory that Bill Gates is planning to kill people using a Corona Virus vaccine in order to halt climate change (which Piers claims isn't true), you really couldn't make it up; I'm so relieved that his dippy brother didn't get into power, those genes look highly suspect to me. Someone ought to remind Piers that Bill Gates helped eradicate Polio from Africa, a monumental achievement, announced as recently as four days ago. We might ask Piers what he's managed to achieve recently?
Of course the main target of this loony tunes gathering was the virus, or rather the claim that it's all a hoax dreamed up by the Illuminati in order to control our minds or something. Not only is this utterly stupid but highly insulting to the families and friends of people lost to Covid so far and those who died trying to help others. From the look of the photo's of this march, and the lack of PPE on display, it looks like these people don't give a shit about anyone, the arrogance and ignorance on display here beggars belief.
Even so, I do wonder how our island society will ever recover from the division caused by this single act, it's very difficult to find common ground on a binary issue. I suppose there are historical precedents for such division, we did have a civil war after all! I guess we should never forget that as a nation, we are quite able to support stupid, irrational, even evil things. The Atlantic slave trade, partitioning of India, the Irish famine, Rupert Murdoch, the restoration of monarchy to name but a few, of course it's difficult to apply the morality/rationality of today to historical events and usually highly subjective (and fruitless), however that doesn't mean that we shouldn't learn from our mistakes and try to use evidence and reason to make decisions rather than emotion and propaganda.
Read an interesting paper on alcohol consumption during the "lock-down". The conclusions were, as they say, inconclusive due to the paucity of qualitative data. Anyway it spawned a conversation around our dinner table over the weekend and we tried to work out if our consumption had increased or decreased. In the study they reckoned that around 20% of people had increased their consumption and around 35% had decreased it. Our conclusion was that overall ours had decreased, but not hugely, mainly due to the almost complete lack of pub outings, meals out and dinner parties over the Summer. But, we also reckoned that our quantity of exercise has roughly doubled over the same period due mainly to new daily walking/running regimes as a consequence of working from home, and a desire to shop locally (via walking) rather than driving to larger (busier) out-of-town supermarkets etc. I wonder if people will slip back into their old routines once this is over or if they'll keep hold of any positives gained, I personally can't see myself going into the office five days a week ever again, but on the other hand I've also learned to never underestimate the power of peer-pressure, we shall see.
I wonder how much longer the rail operators will be able to afford to maintain the infrastructure around the capital and by how much all our pension funds will be affected by reduction in value of all that office property? I can just imagine the big funds writing down big chunks of their asset values unless we get a vaccine pretty soon and even then I can imagine that people won't feel the need to commute all the way into town when they can work just as efficiently from home. Interesting times ahead, might be prudent to do a little diversification work on the retirement fund.
So, so grateful for the woods near our house. With temperatures hitting the mid-30's around here for several days on the trot we're having to retreat to the shade for our daily outdoor exercise, even so, it's pretty common to lose a pound or two in weight after a 5 km run in this heat and humidity. Can't complain though, first world problems I guess, got a few days off next week so it's roughly 100% likely that it will pour down!
Had this lush looking juice-bomb over the weekend, it's a collaboration between Siren (Finchampstead) and Kings & Daughters (Hood River, Portland, Oregon, USA) The name of the beer gives it's secret away, it's called "Oats on oats on oats", so it's got a lot of oats in it then! If you didn't know any better you'd think this was a glass of fresh orange juice (from the colour) but it's most definitely beer! Just a hazy, soupy flavour bomb of an unfiltered beer. Stunning aromas and tastes but with a sting in the tail, 8% ABV but you wouldn't be able to tell, no alcohol burn at all, just hops, hops, hops all the way down.
Spare a thought for the poor German geezer in this picture, he was happily minding his own business doing a bit of nude sun bathing (as Germans do) in a park in Berlin when a wild pig swooped in and nicked his bag! Unfortunately for him it contained his laptop and so in a desperate attempt to retrieve said article he ran after the pig weaving in and out of the assembled picnics and sun worshipers. Apparently the chase was successful and no one was injured, just a few shocked old ladies and scared horses, cue jokes about chipolatas!
I must confess I'm a bit confused about the whole "bubble" thing now, there are too many possible dimensions, for example the household you belong to, indoors or outdoors, distance apart, sleeping over or not sleeping over, in a pub or in your house, masked or unmasked and so on. We've reverted to simply doing what we think is sensible on a case by case basis, but I'm sure our teenage kids are pushing the boundaries with some of their mates. This is all such fun (not!) oh what a year 2020 is turning into...
