Yesterday with no alarms set I had a really good night. Last night I managed two hour’s sleep then just dozed fitfully until five o’clock when I gave up trying to sleep.
I made toast, did another (negative) COVID test and scoffed toast whilst watching another episode of “Lost in Space” which was rather good. I then sparked up the lap-top, recorded the COVID test on-line then had a little look-see to find out what I’d missed overnight.
Petty squabbling had reached a new peak of “WTF” when I read a row kicking off one the Facebook groups for Sparks fans. Cats with a black splodge under their noses have been known as “kitlers” for as long as I can remember. I even mentioned this in my very early days of blogging on 23 September 2006. But this morning some idiot had announced that the website “Cats That Look Like Hitler” in some way honours the Third Reich (?) and was accusing anyone of using the term “kitler” of doing just that. needless to say, offence had been taken…
I sent out my birthday video message to a friend. Harry was (is) the older brother of a chap with whom I walked to secondary school pretty much every day for five years; how can he be over seventy?
I had a few emails – someone had walked my “Out In The Sticks” series of geocaches. It looks like at least one of them has gone missing. When I get a spare morning (and when the weather cheers up) I shall walk the dogs out there unless someone else is decent enough to replace it for me.
The Neighbourhood Watch people had also emailed me asking if I had any doorbell-cam or dashboard-cam footage of an incident on the other side of town. I hadn’t, but bearing in mind we seem to have an upsurge in civil unrest coupled with a failure of law enforcement, perhaps all of these dashboard-cams and doorbell-cams might be linked to some central register? There are those who don’t like the “Big Brother Is Watching You” aspect of surveillance. To that I would ask what they have to hide, and point out that there is clearly a need for society to be watched. I’m not saying that having our every move monitored is a good thing (far from it) but (sadly) a necessary thing. Ironically there was a post on Facebook this morning from someone in Hastings saying how crime has gone through the roof since they turned off their CCTVs which had been watching the town.
As I started my drive to work the pundits on the radio were interviewing someone or other (I didn't catch the name) about the alleged parties at 10 Downing Street last year.
If these tales are true it would seem there were flagrant breaches of the lockdown rules last year at the heart of government. Was the Prime Minister at these parties? If so he should resign. If not did he really not know there was a party going on downstairs in his official residence, and do we want our country led by someone so clueless?
There was talk on the radio about grumblings in the Conservative party about replacing him as leader (and consequently as Prime Minister), but will these grumblings come to anything?
And who would he be replaced by? Mind you, the bloke really is an idiot isn't he? Following the utter debacle that his predecessor made of Brexit (and she was probably the worst Prime Minister the country had ever had up till then) he got a spectacular result at the general election that he called. And at the start of the pandemic he made one or two very statesman-like speeches. Had he acted decisive over Brexit matters and given firm orders over the pandemic he could have gone down in history as a latter-day Churchill.
Instead as time went on he rather lost the plot and pissed on his chips. Such a shame.
The trouble with the Prime Minister is that despite being caught out in lies (and having pissed on his chips) so many times, the masses love him. He is charismatic; he knows what words to say. Earlier I mentioned Hitler... I'm certainly not saying that the Prime Minister's policies are in any way like Hitler's but Hitler too was charismatic. At the time the people really did love him. (Don't believe me - read any biography of him).
Or look at the Italian dictator Mussolini - I was once told by my Italian boss (when I worked at the Harbour restaurant in Hastings) that when Mussolini came to power everyone loved him. He was the nation's blue-eyed boy and could do no wrong... he ended up shot by firing squad and his dead body hung from a lamp post outside a petrol station.
One thing that history has tried to teach us is to beware of the charismatic. I suspect that future generations will look back at Mr Johnson and wonder just how he stayed in power... just like we look back and wonder how Adolf or Benito ever got taken seriously today.
A couple of days ago I was wittering on about car's petrol gauge. Having filled the car two days ago it told me I had a range of four hundred miles before needing petrol. I then drove home (twenty-five miles), took the dogs to the woods and back yesterday (ten miles) and the predicted range had only dropped by fifteen miles. As I got to the works car park this morning I saw that the twenty-five miles journey up the motorway hadn't affected the predicted range at all.
I think I've reset the range estimating thingy - let's see if it makes any difference.
Work was work - I worked in something of a sulk having completely forgotten that today was Christmas jumper day. It has to be said that I don't like wearing my Christmas jumper as it is far too hot and makes me itch, but I would rather have been hot and itchy today than have missed out.
I came home and walked the dogs round the block. We had a rather good little walk peering through people’s windows looking at their Christmas decorations. We’ve not gone mad with house bling for some years… perhaps we should…
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