Tag Archives: Covid-19

on Ukraine

consider profits
manufacturers' heaven
economic boom

~

n.b. Does the UK government truly want to support the Ukrainian people, or does it see ‘leading the West’ as an instant way to boost the post-covid, post-Brexit economy?

The promised £1 billion of support goes not to Kyiv, but to arms factories in UK. Ukraine gets the weapons, fights the fight, continues to bury its children, (as do Russia’s mothers).

Is this why there is no talk of talks from the besieged of Downing Street?

Russia must be stopped, but who seeks an end to the slaughter? Does this proxy war have to be fought until the last Ukrainian?

Or must this war become a direct confrontation, risking mutual mass destruction, for it to be halted?

The Cuban missile crisis and the Berlin airlift took that risk. Just arming Ukraine prolongs the agony, puts off the inevitable moment, when Russian soldiers stand face-to-face with NATO soldiers, either in Ukraine, or at its border.

When will someone stand up to the bully? Why is the child being repeatedly told, stand up for yourself, we’ll hold your coat? Martyrs of Hungary and Czechoslovakia know how this turns out.

Is Russia’s alleged poor weaponry, still too great a match for suit-wearing, vote-needy politicians? Politicians who see money in war and hope for votes from money?

Day 141, the start of week 21. Ker-ching! Can you hear the cash register?

CLP 16/07/2022

on time

we would jump on board
be in Paris in three hours
just catch memories

~

n.b. Time was when the passing Eurostar was a symbol of freedom, opportunity and hope. Now it is simply a relic of days when Europe was a place we shared with our Continental cousins, a symbol of loss.

CLP 30/1/2021

on time

there's plenty of it
lining pockets filling cups
its the dark I hate

~

CLP 31/08/2021

Not Venice (Yet)

Let us not pretend

virus is only problem

time to regrow fins

~

CLP 07/04/2021

L3 (Day 55): In The Post

I receive an invitation to attend a Covid Vaccination Centre within the next week or so. The nearest centre offered by the NHS website I am directed to is 36.7 miles away. Meanwhile, 500 metres up the hill here is a Covid Vaccination Centre.

It was brassic today, the weekend was clearly a Fools’ Spring. We bathe in cold light caressed by winter’s freezing fingers.

~

CLP 02/03/2021

L3 (Day 54): In The Cold

The shift from yesterday’s promising warmth of sunshine to this fog threatening existence was brutal. No wind as such, but bitter cold, bitter.

The numbering of days in this lockdown is moving on so fast. Best not to look back to what has been left behind, or left undone, but to look ahead, to plot a course. Heaven’s light our guide.

~

CLP 01/03/2021

L3: (Day 52) Under the Moon

Brightest of night’s lights!

As this dusty disc bowls past

who polishes your heart?

~

CLP 27/02/2021

L3(Day 51): Norfolk

Out into the broad expanses of Norfolk north of the city where the land is flat and the rivers are still young, we went. There vast swathes of open land devoid of hedge rows to protect the lanes from cold cross winds.

There are lines of ancient oak trees along some field boundaries, some showing signs of age, some of weakness, but the majority grey, stolid witnesses to the continuing changes in farming practise.

In one field machines were planting potatoes, in another despite the strong wind, spraying was taking place.

Where there was protection from the cold wind, the Sun was able to penetrate the February air and make it pleasantly warm.

At a stop for drinks, I queued behind behind a rotund man who spent nearly £50 on tobacco. Behind me a man had come in to buy lottery tickets. Outside at the chip shop a queue was forming along the village street. Friday for fish and chips?

On the way back a farm has reclaimed an area that had chainlink fencing and large areas of concrete aprons and old runways from the time of the Second World War. The nearby church of St Peter’s, with its round flint tower, had a sign stating that it was a site of Commonwealth War Graves. Here lie the remains of air crew from that conflict.

Passing through Norwich city centre on my way home, I was not surprised to see so many people walking in the bright February sunshine, but I was a little taken aback to see that several people seemed to be walking in groups, rather than alone, or in couples. There seems to have been a relaxation of the physical distancing rules all of a sudden. Have I missed something about Covid-19 not being able to infect people in this city?

I am increasingly aware of people being affected for significant periods of time by the symptoms of Long Covid. I am also aware of an attitude that some people who now having been vaccinated losing interest in what is going on with pandemic. Meanwhile teachers and school staff, police, prison officers and supermarket workers are being asked to work on without being repaid for their year-long public service by early vaccinations.

Teaching staff in the UK have suffered a death rate from Covid-19 of around a quarter more than the general population and still The Great Clown wants to make them wait by age for vaccination. Bad mouthing the teaching unions as he goes. If children’s education is so important, why has he not working with the workers’ unions to get a decent plan? Dead teachers can’t teach.

It is late. I am tired.

~

CLP 26/02/2021

L3 (Day 49): In Shorts

Seventeen degrees

Out to the broad. Quick cup of tea

Sunshine on me knees.

~

n.b. The warmth held until around 5 p.m. despite a strong breeze. See the striations in the late afternoon sky. A lot of wind for weather forecasters to talk about today: they talk a lot about the wind.

~

CLP 24/02/2021

L3 (Day 47.5): Norwich

I was shocked and somewhat disappointed to learn that my neighbour, in the apartment below, has only had his heating on for a total of two days this whole and quite cold winter! How selfish can you get? No wonder it’s been chilly up here. I was relying on the tight-fisted so-and-so to keep me warm and save me some money.

~

CLP 22/02/2021