I slept like a log until half past two from when I just
dozed fitfully. After a few hours I finally gave up trying to sleep and watched
an episode of “After Life” as I scoffed a bowl of Tesco’s muesli.
I then sparked up my lap-top to peer into cyber-space as I
do most mornings. Nothing really exciting had happened overnight, so I told the
world about my ninth choice of movie and had a look at my emails. Netflix were
recommending that I might like to watch “The Vicar of Dibley”. I loathe
and despise that show.
I spent a few minutes on my Coursera course “Finding
Purpose and Meaning in Life”. This morning I was taught a “Loving
Kindness Meditation”, but it wouldn’t let me do the end of week assessment
unless I paid forty quid. Oh well…
I set off to work listening to the radio
as I went. The pundits on the radio were talking about the possibility of
lock-down coming to an end in the next few days. Judging by the huge amount of
traffic on the road today, lock-down is already well and truly already over.
There was also talk of how the
government recently bought close on half a million surgical gowns from Turkey.
After endless delays the RAF were sent to fetch them only to find that the
things aren't actually fit for purpose, and they are now languishing in a warehouse somewhere whilst
the government haggles to get its money back.
Good luck to them - have you ever haggled with a Turkish salesman? They
don't muck about.
But this is the problem that the health
care sector faces at the moment. The market is being flooded with all sorts of
personal protective equipment from legitimate suppliers, unscrupulous fly-boys
and well-meaning well-wishers, but much of it simply isn't fit for purpose.
There were those on the radio who were sneering at the requirements of British
Standards, but those requirements are there for a reason. There's no point in
wearing a surgical gown if the thing falls off half-way through the operation,
is there? And surely everyone has seen the diagrams of how to bodge the face
mask ties with paper clips because the home-made ones are giving people sores
behind their ears?
The pundits then wheeled on some
financial expert or other who seemed obsessed about the recession that
coronageddon will invariably cause. It would seem that we are on course for a
financial melt-down the likes of which the world hasn't seen since the days of
the South Sea Bubble three hundred years ago. I can't help but feel that this
just shows the ultimate futility of the capitalist system which is based
entirely on greed. It doesn't really work at a time when we need something more
compassion and care based, does it? Or am I still just a naive old leftie?
For some reason I headed off to
Maidstone this morning when I should have been going to Tunbridge Wells. Woops!
But I turned the mishap to my advantage by stopping a few times to remotely zap
"Points of Interest" Munzees which I needed to zap as my
contribution to the ongoing team (clan) effort as I came down the A26.
I got to work with a few minutes spare,
and thought I might treat myself to scrambled egg on toast in the works
canteen. I had the last of it, much to the dismay of the chap in the queue
behind me. He was not happy I'd had the last of the batch. He flatly refused to
wait for two minutes for more to be brought out, and made a point of glaring at
me as he ate a bowl of dry cornflakes to demonstrate his chagrin and disgust.
Silly sod.
As I got on with my work so my phone
beeped. "er indoors TM" wasn't happy. I'd left the margarine out and
one of the dogs (Pogo?) had eaten it. Not just had a lick or a nibble,
but had scoffed the lot. Woops!
My phone also beeped with a message from
"er indoors TM" as I drove home. She’d been to the
vet’s to get more tablets for Fudge, and when she went back to her car so her
battery had died. That was a pain in the glass. I arrived with her just after
the nice man from the RAC got there. Fortunately he carried spare batteries.
Unfortunately they weren’t cheap.
As I got home I was surprised to see that
some scratter had dumped a broken vacuum cleaner in the front garden. That was
nice of them. When once all the locals would stand out there clapping the NHS
workers on a Thursday, now one of them has dumped their knacked vacuum cleaner
into the garden of one of the people they used to be clapping.
The NHS workers didn’t get a clap this
evening up our street; the novelty has worn off. But it has been revealed that
those in the prison service have had pay enhancements of up to four thousand
pounds each
during this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Being clapped and getting
about-to-expire Easter eggs was all very well, but I for one would rather have
had four thousand pounds in cash. (Is that ungrateful of me?)
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