Day 77 Monday 8th June

It was eleven weeks ago tonight that Bozo interrupted Coronation Street to tell us that the United Kingdom had given up on trying to contain the virus, and we were now trying to delay it. He was probably at least two weeks late in doing that.

I’m not sure exactly what phase of our attempt to control the virus we are at now. Ever since Dominic Cummings’ excursion to Durham became known, people appear less willing to observe any type of restrictions.

New Zealand took early and decisive action. At every stage of the process, Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand Prime Minister gave a clear lead and the people of New Zealand knew what was expected of them. Her Health Minister broke the lockdown rules, and was disciplined, in stark contrast to what happened to Dominic Cummings.

Alistair Campbell has a similar opinion to me.

So, all in all, a total failure. Yet still he could say, even as we finally overtook Spain and Italy in the deaths per million stakes, even as the official death toll topped 40,000, and the real one headed towards 70,000, how “proud” he is of the government record on Covid. Still he can talk of apparent success, avoiding tragedy that befell others, blah blah effing blah. Talk about gaslighting.

Alistair Campbell New European

It is probably easier to control the virus in New Zealand than the UK, but the facts are that New Zealand was able to return to normality (with precautions) last week, whereas we are still stuck in limbo.

Because the Bongo went off to its new home yesterday, we decided to bring the B.G.B. over to New Malden. I also made a start on cleaning out the garden shed. I did get rid of a lot of junk, and about three-quarters of my garden tools are now at the allotment so it is a bit tidier in there.

Day 78 Tuesday 9th June

Tuesday, and back to work. But only a two-day week this week (more later). I am getting slightly bored, because I don’t really have a lot of work at the moment. I have always preferred to have a little too much work rather than not enough.

In other things. The reverberations from the toppling and subsequent dumping of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol harbour continue. However, I feel that we have learned more about British involvement in the slave trade in the past few days than we did in the past 300 years. The slave trade was mentioned in my history lessons. I may be misremembering, but, what was euphemistically known as “the middle passage”, appeared to be presented as the logical thing to do. You transport manufactured goods from Bristol to West Africa, where you sell them. You wouldn’t want to have a ballast passage across the Atlantic before you load sugar to take back to Bristol, so what do you do? Fill the hold up with African slaves to sell when you get to the West Indies or the Americas. Then you fill your holds with (slave produced) sugar or tobacco for the trip home. A very profitable business.

Edward Colston was a Deputy Governor of the Royal African Company which at the time held a monopoly on the African slave trade.

The Royal African Company (RAC) was an English mercantile (trading) company set up in 1660 by the royal Stuart family and City of London merchants to trade along the west coast of Africa. It was led by the Duke of York, who was the brother of Charles II and later took the throne as James II. It shipped more African slaves to the Americas than any other institution in the history of the Atlantic slave trade.^[1]

Wikipedia

Day 79 Wednesday 10th June

Our pussycat Duster is a bit poorly. He seems to have got into a fight and has ended up with a nasty wound below his left ear, which has become infected. This necessitated a trip to the vet. This also required getting him into his travel basket. Something he does not like. Even a poorly Duster put up quite a fight. The vet cleaned the wound, gave him an antibiotic shot and gave us some anti-inflammatories to put in his food.

We bought him a new food dish and some of his favourite (expensive) food. Paid the bill and told him that the next time he gets into a fight he can pay his own vet’s bill. We got home and let him out of his basket. He promptly disappeared. We eventually found him under the bed in the spare bedroom hidden behind all the boxes of stuff that live under there. We left him there.

Day 80 Thursday 11th June

I normally work on Thursdays, but today was Diane’s granddaughter ‘Tilda’s third birthday. Her mum decided that with the latest loosening of lockdown conditions that an afternoon tea in the garden with her grand-parents (and me) should be OK. As we hadn’t seen ‘Tilda (apart from on Zoom) for about three months we weren’t going to argue.

First however, we had to take Duster back to the vet to be checked over. He was quite poorly, judging by how easy (comparatively) it was to get him into his basket. Another injection and another bill and an instruction to bring him back tomorrow if he was still not good. He seemed OK, if not 100%, so we left him to recuperate while we went off to party. We took the B.G.B. to give it a run out, and because I like driving it. It was also useful. We had a rather large present, and some helium filled balloons to transport.

We had a wonderful party, and when we arrived home Duster was looking a lot better.