MORE FRUSTRATIONS AND EVENTS

 

Dec 2021

I have just discovered that I started a blog back in September and failed to finish it. I have escaped UK and am now in Thailand. Lots to report from here, not least the hassle involved in getting here. But before I do, and with time on my hands, I belatedly complete the September issue! Somewhat 'old hat' but I've started, so I will finish!

This rather sums it up.

 

No journal entries for a few months thanks to the complicated, rip-off and pointless Covid testing system, continuing changes in 'rules' and the fact that the places I want to go to won't let tourists in. I just ain't been anywhere worth writing about. The world has gone stark raving paranoid bonkers and there is no real end in sight, yet. Sanity might return one day, but who knows. 

So, to pass the time and let off a bit of therapeutic steam, I thought I would mention my current favourite gripes. The list seems to be forever growing! Some may ring true with a few of you. 

1. Road works. For reasons I won't bore you with I have to travel regularly to London Heathrow airport. I drive down the M4 motorway. This motorway has been undergoing 'roadworks' for at least the past 6 years and seems no nearer to being completed. I begin to think it is merely a 'job creation' scheme. Thousands of bollards line the road where nobody ever appears to be working. I suspect that is just cheap storage space. Speed restrictions vary, seemingly at random, no doubt designed to trap motorists into paying fines.

2. 'Wokery'. In general, involving:

    a. Obsession with 'racism' and the BLM nonsense.

   b. Historic #Metoo allegations, indeed all 'allegations' where the alleged against is automatically considered guilty without trial.

  c. Anti-colonial issues regarding our statues, houses, ancestors and impressive history.

    d. Hoohah about transexuals (who cares?).

  e. Policing of speech involving de-platforming of speakers (usually by pathetic emotionally fragile students and supported by their feeble academic 'leaders').

    f. 'Eco-warriors' with their unrealistic demands to stop all fossil fuel production in UK. Which would put thousands out of work and leave us to import more expensive gas/oil/electricity from less abstemious nations (ie Russia!).

  

3. Face masks.  My bête noir. Not only uncomfortable and de-humanising but I am increasingly convinced that they are not effective in reducing the spread of this virus. Also, if not used correctly, are merely 'bug collectors' which actually help spread it! They certainly spread anxiety.  I have read several papers on the subject which confirm this. Indeed, my highly scientific video demonstration (Single  Life, 5 blogs back, 23rd March) shows why to my satisfaction.  Unfortunately the ever unthinking, unquestioning and compliant public have been scared into wearing them. They like to conform with their peers (the Bandwagon Effect). They merely serve as 'comfort blankets' or a form of 'virtue signalling'. I have coined a rather rude acronym, 'TIMs', for those who continue to wear them, especially those who do so in the open air where there is a non-existant chance of contracting the virus. It stands for 'Tw@ts In Masks'. I shall be refering to them. Are you a 'TIM'? 

4. Hand sanitiser. This revolting sticky gunge is forced upon you at various places nowadays. I'm sure it does your immune system no good and, again, merely a signal that you are being virtuous. I don't know how the human race has, up to now, managed to survive without it. We used to be content just to wash our hands. Some people, as with face-masks, have become robotically conditioned to accept it as normal.

5. Rip-off Covid Testing.  If required at all it should be free on the NHS. After all, the NHS has just been given another mind-blowing £39 billion of our money. I don't know what else they have, or will spend it on? I suppose it does keep many, sometimes dodgy, testing companies well remunerated so, along with face-mask and hand-sanitiser manufacturers and all the Big Pharma companies there are many beneficiaries from this 'panicdemic'.

OK, enough of my happy whingeing. At the beginning of September I went to a 'Game and Country Show' at the Newbury Showground. This was a very jolly ocasion and well attended (it was in a period between lockdowns. Happy days!).

There were several jazz bands (left) and a multitude of bars, eateries and stalls selling all sorts of 'country' gear, together with laser, paint-ball and clay pigeon shooting stands. Craftsmen were demonstrating carving large trees into intricate statues using chainsaws. There were gun dog 'obedience' displays which, on several occasions, amused the crowd by showing how disobedient they were. Stage fright no doubt.

As always, my poor photography does not do the proceedings justice. There was a large enthusiastic crowd but my photos don't really show it. In between 'displays' I spent some time sitting drinking ale and just people-watching. It is the first sizeable event I had been to in years and I was amazed, indeed concerned, that so many of the spectators were so fat! Obese even. Maybe the preceding lockdown had something to do with or, as I suspect, we have just become a very 'fat' society. Not healthy (and I'm no paragon of virtue here!).

Right: Pony racing. There were two races over small jumps which were fiercly contested.

Left: An intriguing sign. 'Hamsters this way'. I hope hamsters can read. Anyway I went to have a look.

How educational! having taken little interest in hamsters during my life I hadn't realised there were so many varieties. Maybe you can tap on and enlarge this to read. I bet you are fascinated.

Left: Live specimens were on display and, for a price, children were encouraged to pick one up and 'cuddle' it. Do they bite? 

The only similar creatures I have come across are guinea pigs, especially in Peru  (Cuy) where they are bred to be eaten. I suppose there is not enough meat on a hamster to make it worth the effort. An 'amuse bouche' on a cocktail stick maybe?

Notice the 'hand sanitiser'. Perhaps necessary here?

Right: Cuy chactada 'n chips.

Left: Meant to read: Portsmouth Reptile & Amphibian Society. Live exhibits now on display include snakes, lizards, spiders, frogs and something beginning with 't'.

Yes, I went to look at various reptiles which, for the most part, were hiding in straw at the back of their cages. Snakes were available to be picked up. I didn't. We were told that there were no venomous ones present. Pity.

Right: A motorcycle and quad-bike daredevil display team called something like 'The Suicide Squad' performed some interesting aerobatics. One display had motor bikes leaping increasing distances over a parked van. This pic was only at mid-range. Nobody crashed. Quite impressive.

Left: This lunatic kept setting himself on fire and running up and down the arena.

Right: Ultimately he was put out. 

Left: Not to be deterred, he than set himself alight again and jumped from a platform into a safety net. I wonder if he had an unhappy childhood? With this inclination he must have been a worry to his parents. 

I'm not sure I would want him to visit my home, or at least I would keep the matches well hidden.

OK, lots more was going on and I missed the stock car race and tug of war competion. All in all a good day out.

Right: Some of you may have read the account of my trip to the Island of Lulok (May/June 2020). Having installed a flagpole at home I got hold of a 'rare' Lulok flag..........

,,,,,,and flew it!  Not many people in the UK will have done that, I suspect.

Right: Curious! Apropos of nothing,  I was wandering back from the shops and saw this lonely shoe on the footpath. It sort of intrigued me for a moment. Who could lose a shoe, seemingly in good nick, and not notice? There must be an obvious answer. Maybe someone had just lost a leg?

Having acquired the flagpole, it was decided to make some use of it. So, on Armistice Day (11/11/2021) we, a suitably senior (doddery) gathering, held a ceremony which involved a reading, a bit of bugllng (by the lady in red who normally plays the cornet for the Town Band), observing the 11.00am silence, the raising of a flag and, of course, plenty of refreshments.

The pics below should explain all.

Excuse the top hat. Just showing off that I have one.

Below: Norman the Gnome. Fitted with CCTV, he is my diligent sentry.

Right, that has taken us up, vaguely, to the end of November! I will now concentrate  on the task at hand and set to on reporting from Siam, or whatever they call it now.