“A good news story at last…struggling Westminster family rescued from ‘John Lewis nightmare’ by generous anonymous donor” (Barry Sheerman)
The English Langwage
Waking in the bright early dawn Monday, I turned over and slept ‘til 9. Jeremy Vine featured a campaign to make English words easier to spell. It had us in stitches. Examples included ‘wosh’, ‘Receev’ and ‘guud iedei’. Wondering who’d come up with this guff, it turned out to be the result of 3 years intense coffee-cupping by The Spelling Societyi. Inspired, we came up with our own, without the need for umpteen focus groups. E.g.: langwage; alfabet; soop; shop-bort; komershull; vakseen; actchewal; dementure.
After blog posting and grotty chores, I grouted the tiles on the bathroom cube and planted wild garlic bulbs. Uprooted by accident when picking, we now had 6 plants in tubs. I’d forgotten I’d made a pile of detritus 2 weeks ago and filled a black bag with it, while a wasp annoyingly buzzed round my head. Hot and thirsty, I retreated indoors for water and a lie down.
Vaccinations reached 43m, of which 33m were first and 10m second jabs. As cases in India still soared and the majority of the 103 variant cases in the UK were linked to travel, New Delhi went into a week’s lockdown and the whole country went onto the travel red list. Effective from 4.00 a.m. Friday, Boris was forced to cancel his trade trip. The European Super League confirmed late Sunday night, the big 6 English clubs were set to join along with 3 Italian and 3 Spanish teams. Much condemnation and consternation ensued. Greedy owners were lambasted by ‘legacy’ fans. UEFA called it ‘disgraceful’ and ‘self-serving’. JP Morgan underwrote loans for The Super League Company who instigated legal action so UEFA couldn’t stop players partaking in other international competitions. Number 10 looked at options such as fan ownership or clawing back Covid loans and Jose Mourinho was sacked from Spurs. Rishi Rich announced a digital currency taskforce, denying it meant the end of English cash. Perseverance flew the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars. The two NASA bots endearingly took photos of each other.
Phil had struggled with his vision all day making him quite depressed but perked up in the evening. Watching our customary Monday night film, I could hardly keep my peepers open. Hoping for a decent night, the droning generator meant it took ages to get any sleep, even with earplugs and the meditation tape. Wakened by an almighty crashing and clanging at 4. 50 a.m., I was absolutely furious. And then it was only 3 hours until the engineering works re-commenced!
Tuesday morning, I felt back at square one with extreme fatigue and a headache. At the end of my tether, I fumed in bed while Phil fetched breakfast and tried to cheer me up. I forced a chuckle as he pulled funny faces. Wobbling downstairs for chores and writing, I opened the living room window for fresh air to promptly re-close it as the incessant din reached a crescendo. The forecast good, we’d planned a walk but the sun disappeared and I wasn’t up to it anyway. Desperate for respite, I took valerian before a siesta. Slightly chilled out, I didn’t fully relax, gave up and placed an Ocado order.
On the campaign trail Monday, Keir was invited to the Raven in Bath by one of the co-owners. In a rage that Labour hadn’t opposed lockdowns, the other owner, Rod Humphris, screamed: “get out of my pub!” The sociopath came on Jeremy Vine Tuesday morning saying ‘look at Sweden’. It was incredulous the likes of him still got a platform to spout their nonsense after a year of suffering and death! Lucy Moreton of the Immigration Services Union said 100 fake covid passes were detected at UK borders every day, airports were breeding grounds as arrivals from different countries were confined indoors and mixed in queues with no social-distancing, and there was no way to know if they quarantined as required.
English Pastimes
The night quieter, I anticipated noise disturbance any minute but it didn’t come until 8.20 Wednesday morning; mercifully not as loud as the previous day. A communique on the mayoral elections did nothing to change my opinion of the motley crew. Most were Leeds-based, the English Democrat candidate’s address wasn’t even in Yorkshire, and Reform UK (nee The Brexit Party) were anti-lockdown nutters (no wonder Anne Widdecombe was in it!) Similarly, the fruit-loop Freedom Alliance standing for the local council, spouted a load of conspiracy guff. A leaflet pushed through the letterbox later in the week had literally been hand-rolled on a Gestetner. The reek of old-fashioned ink took me back to early anarchist group days!
After the inevitable happy birthday to the queen, Keir led PMQ’s by referencing texts from the Bumbler to James Brexit Dyson. In response to Dyson’s lobbying, the PM personally promised he’d fix an issue over the tax status of workers returning to make ventilators at the start of the pandemic (which never materialised). Days later, Rishi announced workers coming to the UK wouldn’t have their tax status changed. “One rule for those that have got the prime ministers’ phone number, another for everybody else.” Keir railed, “if a nurse had (his) phone number would they get the 4% pay rise?” Boris replied: “I make absolutely no apology at all for shifting heaven and earth…to secure ventilators for the people of this country.” Keir batted back with accusations of tax breaks for tory chums, pushing colleagues to help Greensill and dodgy PPE deals. With new allegations every day, it was “sleaze, sleaze, sleaze…all on his watch!” Boris typically evasive, played the old Captain Hindsight card. A labour spokesman later said there was evidence the ministerial code was breached and further ammunition came from Transparency International UK who identified 73 crony contracts, and possible criminality.
For the first time since cafes and pubs were allowed to have seating, we had lunch out. It looked pleasant from indoors but as we set off, the sun hid behind clouds and a cool breeze whipped up. We sat outside the Turkish café for a chilly al-fresco lunch – a very English pastime! German Friend came by and asked me to share pre-diabetic tips sometime. She’d booked a table at the pub on the square for herself and a mutual friend (whom we’d last seen March 2020; just before she went into hospital at the start of lockdown #1). I went in the sweet shop for some non-essential shopping while Phil loitered outside the animal charity shop. We perused a seemingly interesting display of kitchen gadgets but came away empty-handed.
Stopping to say hello to our friends outside the pub, they persuaded us to join them. The two women sat opposite each other at the far end while an old fellow pub mate sat at the other end, leaving plenty of space for us. Before getting stuck into a one-time regular pastime of supping ale, I nipped across the square to finish errands before enjoying an hour in company. Although fun, it felt odd being with other people and the staff flitted between tables far too much for my liking. Comparing notes on the various lockdowns, we had a laugh at the geese and corvids taking over during the first one.
After 1 pint, we felt really cold and said our goodbyes. Phil still had one more purchase to make. I strolled homewards until he caught me up and persuaded me to take a bunch of free sage from a table in the lower street a very English herb.
Daily press conferences by Boris scrapped, Oliver Dowdy was wheeled out to defend the decision to use the room in Downing Street, specially refurbished at tax-payers’ expense, for ministerial press conferences instead. Indian cases and deaths still rising, hospitals were full, the number of variant cases in the UK doubled, and 200 people a day arrived to beat the Qs before Friday. Boris announced a Covid-19 taskforce to find effective anti-virals. More legislation muted to foil the European Super League such as changing competition laws, the big 6 English teams all pulled out, as did Inter Milan. Was the move in anticipation of changes to the Champions League which the big clubs didn’t think went far enough, or a ruse to get more money out of the FA? John Barnes appeared on BBC Breakfast to say it was. As Derek Chauvin was rightly convicted of the George Floyd murder, it emerged teenager Ma’Khia Bryant was shot by a cop minutes before the verdict. Would anything ever change? After a Tesla car missed a turning, crashed into a tree and burst into flames killing the 2 occupants, police said no one was driving. Evil Musk tweeted: “Data logs recovered so far show autopilot was not enabled” A likely story seeing as 27 crashes in the past month were being investigated in the USA.
English Mythology
Frost gave way to sunshine on Thursday. Phil wanted to find more mythical archaeology and I agreed to go in search of a standing stone near the hilltop village. We caught a bus up to the boundary with the next hamlet, utilised a picturesque bench to eat a pasty lunch and consulted directions before looking for the mystical stone. On eventually finding it, we realised we’d past it several times on the way to the crags. How did we miss those huge holly bushes? Inaccessibly set into a wall and obscured by barbed wire, we peered over to realise a line of stones crossing a horse field led directly to it and mused on possible links to structures on the moor. Continuing down, a trio ascending considerately attached their dog’s lead. At the bottom, we turned onto the leafy road for an easy walk back. The trio with the dog re-appeared and asked for directions to town. Near home, we chatted to my old art teacher. He’d had a family holiday in Cornwall the previous week. Postponed from last year, they’d had a good time but found it impossible to eat out in the evenings. (For a fuller description of the walk, see Cool Placesii).
On another quiet night, I struggled to sleep. My mind full of the day’s findings, I recalled a neighbour once told us the whole town was surrounded by a stone circle. Was it true? Was that why we kept finding mysterious stones? It would be awesome if so – like the mythical Wiltshire village of Avebury!
95% of over 50’s now vaccinated, Margaret Keenan looked forward to a jolly. Covid passports promised soon, she could go to desperado Spain and wear a mask on the beach. The Cabinet Office were probing the source of the leaky texts between Boris and Dyson. Labour wanted a Commons Liaison Committee enquiry. The Good Law Project court hearing on PPE scams unveiled a VIP route to the PM. Civil Servants had complained of drowning in a quagmire of contract requests that didn’t pass due diligence. Hapless drug dealer Ali Hilmi was hilariously convicted after trying to get into the Projekt Nightclub, Burnley with fake £20 notes that said Poond. Phil discovered they could be bought on Amazon but had sold out. The misspellings harked back to the daft spelling society campaign, but the English pronunciation was Pownd, wasn’t it? Maybe he was Scottish, like Les McKeown of the Bay City Rollers who died suddenly.
The English Saint
Woken again by engineering work Friday morning, I battled heavy limbs and a headache for a trip to the co-op, luckily quiet and stressless. I took a break from writing in the afternoon to embark on a ‘deep clean’ of the bathroom, expunging mould from the back window and evicting a family of spiders from beneath the back cupboard. Through the open window, I heard a child calling “pappa!” Not even the English middle-class used that word. They must have been proper posh! I suspected they might be slumming it in a camper van recently parked up on the street below. That evening, we spotted the shed people returning from a game of golf – no-one knew why that was a popular pastime!
Local news wished us happy St. George’s Day. Rather pointlessly, seeing as no special events were allowed and he wasn’t even English. Some sage bods said vaccines did a lot of the ‘heavy lifting’ so we could forgo face-masks over summer but may need them come autumn. 1 dose of AZ or Pfizer gave 74% protection according to the latest study, while the EU planned to sue AZ over ‘contract failure’. The PAC inquiry into supply chain financing revealed that Camoron bombarded BOE gov John Cunliffe with letters. Treasury PS Tom Scholar said he arranged 9 meetings with Charles Roxburgh as it was ‘natural’ to talk to an ex-PM. ONS figures showed the public deficit was 14.5% in the last fiscal year, the highest since 1946. A computer chip shortage caused by people working at home halted car production. Post Masters were acquitted of theft convictions as crap Fujitsu Horizon computers were proven to be responsible for discrepancies. Having covered up the scandal for years, and not telling the accused they weren’t alone, former PO chief Paula Vennells belatedly apologised, resigning from her roles on the boards of Morrisons and Dunelm and as a church minister.
Getting clean clothes out Saturday morning, a drawer in the fitted cupboard collapsed. Annoyed at taking everything out to find the cardi I wanted wasn’t even there, I bad-temperedly hurled woollens on the bed and covered them with a dust sheet before Phil fixed the offending article with glue and screws. It seemed a good time to wash bedroom rugs and I hung them outside to take advantage of fine, breezy weather. Young student neighbour appeared, seemingly overdressed but denied being hot. She was returning to uni soon. Due to royal charter, Cambridge had special term-times over which the government had no authority. I popped to the co-op for a couple of items to find the shelves stripped of salads and dips. Maybe everyone was having barbecues to belatedly celebrate the not-English patron saint. Next-Door-But One’s fella waited for me to come back up the steps. Conversing for the first time ever, he turned out to be even more neurotic than me about the effectiveness of vaccines and said the whole household had shielded and not even entered a shop for over a year. I didn’t mention spotting them going places in the car. Young Student came by and declared “I’m off to the pub,” marking a dramatic change in attitude. Maybe she believed herd immunity was now sufficient to protect us oldies. I scrubbed the bathroom floor and installed the newly-tiled cube, then set about upcycling an old Ikea table. Found a couple of years ago, the garish pink thing spent a summer outside until it became warped in the rain. After some bodging, it occupied a corner of the living room, covered with a cloth. More fixing required, Phil got the glue and screws back out. I considered tiling the top for outdoor use but calculated I’d need loads and decided painting would be easier. By then, my back ached and I’d had enough so.
Fallout from the fast-failing Euro Super League continued. Pundits from across Europe on Football Focus said football wasn’t viewed the same on the continent. To them, it was just 90 minutes whereas the English saw the game as essential to life. Apparent that rich owners didn’t understand its cultural importance, player and fan involvement was seen as the only way forward. Former PM Gordy Brown called the episode a turning point, after which “people will not support greed.”
In spite of backache, Phil consented to a Sunday forage. Pretty sure the garlic patch our Walking Friend mentioned was the place we visited a year ago, we climbed up the ridge. I tried to trace likely lines of the fabled stone circle surrounding town. “But why would anyone bother?” asked Phil, “it was a muddy bog in ancient times.” “Good point.” In the dark wood, we found the crop larger than last April, but top leaves looked dusty. We each filled a bag and rested on a mossy rock beside a twisty path and walked between gnarly trees to arrive at a path last trodden in autumn. Now both flagging with back pain, we had to stop again on the way home. I began to give the leaves a thoroughly good rinse to find Phil’s haul full of grit and left it for him to tackle. Over coffee and cake, I came up with a haiga based on Thursday’s walkiii.
Whingeing on the Marr about Brexit, Sturgeon promised no border if Scotland became independent – well, we all knew how well that went in Ireland! The Indian crisis worsened: the number of infections broke the world record 4 days in a row, hospitals ran out of oxygen and Modi was blamed for slow vaccine roll-out even though they made loads. Stephen Reicher criticised a group of ‘siren scientists’ calling for lifting of measures while in Germany, restrictions would last ‘til June. Anti-lockdown demos in London were attended by mayoral candidate and all-round wanker Lawrence Fox. Clashes led to 2 cop injuries and 5 arrests. Hard to figure what they hoped to achieve with lockdown almost over, on Jeremy Vine the next morning, Beverly Swivel-insisted protestors acted responsibly unlike pub-goers in Soho – I rest my case!
The Scumbag reported to be the Chatty Rat who leaked the Bumbler/Dyson texts, he denied it. He also refuted claims he’d leaked full details of lockdown mark 2 before the official announcement, via a WhatsApp message from Downing Street and accused Boris of wanting to stop an ‘embarrassing’ inquiry into the real source. Boris phoned news bosses to sprag on his former spin doctor, a move destined to backfire. Allegations that The Bumbler used tory donors to pay for renovations to his flat were dismissed by Liz Truss as ‘tittle-tattle’. She was more concerned with trade deals than this petty stuff. Apparently Carrie Antionette insisted on a revamp after Theresa May left ‘a John Lewis nightmare’. Most people considering John Lewis upmarket, not to mention it smacked of yet another piece in the cronyism jigsaw, the comments showed how out of touch they really were. Barry Sheerman joked on twitter: “A good news story at last!”
The night quiet but bright with an almost-full moon, I revelled in a semi-stupor until I fell into a deep slumber only to wake 2 hours later with snippets of dreams flitting through my mind.
References:
i. The Spelling Society: https://www.spellingsociety.org/; http://spellingsociety.org/uploaded_views/traditional-spelling-revised-personal-view.pdf
ii. My Cool Places blog: https://hepdenerose.wordpress.com/
iii. My haigas: https://wordpress.com/posts/mondaymorninghaiga.wordpress.com
The Corvus Diaries 