19 April 2020 (Sunday) - Early Shift



Over brekkie I watched more “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness”. It’s a rather interesting show; it never fails to amaze me how so many people are determined not to get along with each other.
With absolutely nothing happening on Facebook or in my in-box at six o’clock on a Sunday morning I set off for work.

Usually the roads are quiet when I head to an early shift on a Sunday, but this morning I might have seen half a dozen other cars at most.
As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking of some on-line concert that was given last night for NHS staff? Whilst it would probably be a matter of the utmost indifference to me, it would have been nice to have known about it. Mind you, the Dribbling Democraps are now calling for all NHS workers to get a bonus of thirty quid a day.  Apparently this is in line with what the armed forces get "when they are deployed on specific operations in "demanding" conflicts". Whilst I'll quite happily take anything that is going (and at the moment I'm taking quite a lot), I can't help but think that all of this thanking and clapping and praising the NHS is getting just a little bit over the top; after all, that's the job we all signed up for, isn't it?

There was also a lot of talk about coronageddon in care homes, and how they are lacking vital necessities.
Should care homes have the same priority for equipment as the NHS? There was quite the discussion on the radio this morning. Care homes are in an odd position. On the one hand they are regarded as an extension of the hospital system. On the other hand, many are not; charging residents a pretty penny for their stay because they are (quite unapologetically) commercial ventures.
I can remember a friend's father mouthing off (in the late 1970s) about how there was money in old people, and when his parents died he opened up a very small care home. This chap now owns quite a few care homes in the South East, and lives in quite the mansion. He has certainly done nothing wrong; he looks after his old people and they all seem to love him. But the nation has let him get rich from the care sector; should we now be subsidising him?

I got to work; I did my bit. I spent quite a bit of the day staring out the window at a beautiful Sunday. Usually I sulk when working weekends during beautiful weather, but not so much today. What with the rest of the world being on lock-down I wasn't really missing very much.
As I checked my work-related emails I had a look at the works intranet, and was rather amazed to see that the Trust has published a whole load of downtime dances on its own YouTube channel.
There are other NHS Trusts where just mentioning the name of the place on social media was once a disciplinary offence... how times have changed.

With my bit done I came home. "er indoors TM" had already walked the dogs round the park. After five minutes excitement as I came home, they were all soon snoring. I spent a little while getting to grips with the Munzee map. There was quite a bit of everyone helping everyone else going on with Munzee-ing. Meanwhile on the Geocaching UK page there was quite a bit of nastiness being bandied about following the cancellation of the big geo-meet that had been planned to be held near Brighton in the summer.

"er indoors TM" boiled up a rather good bit of dinner, then we sparked up the Zoom software and had a five-way gossip. It was good to catch up.

And with aliens up to mischief in Antarctica and Siberia, International Dark Sky Week starts today.
Back in the day I would have got rather over-excited about this. I suppose I could get the telescope out. I wonder where it is?

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