I am lost in a WordPress fog. As if Coronapop wasn’t bad enough.
What used to be simple yesterday seems to be complicated by an ” upgrade”.
It must be something to do with that horrible little symbol that appeared from nowhere. Origin uncertain rather like Coronapop. Perhaps I need to do “Test, Track and Trace.”
Is there a treatment for or do I need to wait for a vaccine ?
Strange times.
My new old friend Alok Sharma is in the news again. I haven’t heard from him since November last year. . ( You can see our exchange in the Archive. ). He was doing sterling work at the Department of Buisness, Work and Energy, where he did so well at closing down business and eliminating work, that we didn’t need so much energy.
As a result of his great success, particularly with energy conservation, prime Minister Bodj promoted him to a new role leading the way on climate change. Britain is to host a world conference on climate change in November this year and Alok has been charged with championing the UK’s leadership role in showing the rest of the world how to do it. His new official title is President of COP26, so it sounds like he will be putting in a few shifts for the Metropolitan Police from time to time.
So far he is off to a good start, with a little help from Coronapop.
Alok has another idea too :-
Bodj electric cars will be offered free to the world.
This will revolutionise travel everywhere, especially now that the car has been modified by Sir James Dyson to run on 4 triple A batteries. Of course this does limit its range to 550 yards, so you will need to carry some spares until you can get to a corner shop.
A complimentary armoured one is being given to President Biden to cement our ‘special relationship’ with the United States. Ones are also being offered to all European leaders provided the learn to drive on the right side of the road.
Bodj has taken a year to find his stride, but now he has got it all figured out. Brexit is sorted after a fashion. A non-detailed Bodj sort of way.
For 2021 he has come up with a brand new driving forward slogan ……………
This is the Bodj ‘Stop Start Stop Start ‘ strategy to keep everybody guessing what his next move will be. Since Bodj himself doesn’t know what his next move will be until it happens, it seems like a good idea.
So here goes For 2021 :———-
RED. RED means STOP. A total lockup, put everybody under house arrest, except we will call it ‘Tier Ten‘ then it won’t sound like we have changed our minds. It is a National Hibernation, which may become an annual event, if Coronapop comes around every year.
It will have a firm end date of early Spring , or maybe late Spring, or Easter: although we may need to put back Easter until the Summer this year.
AMBER. AMBER means hold on a minute ! In the start of a Cabinet reshuffle, AMBER RUDD has been appointed the new Cabinet TRAFFIC CONTROLLER, because of her ability to turn on a sixpence and keep a straight face.
GREEN. This is for Bodj’s big new world beating announcements for the Green New Year, all designed to get him re-elected for the rest of the century :-
Only go out in a Boris car, And not far!
We are the First Green Family. Follow Karrot’s advice ….
THERE WILL BE MORE IN BODJ’S NEW GREEN VISION FOR BRITAIN.
Now that Bodj has solved Brexit he has decided to give the irradication of Coronapop his undivided attention for the last few days of 2020.
Bodj thinks he has found a few little loopholes that all his Cabinet Ministers and all the scientists and epidemiologists and immunologists and every kind of other ologist has missed altogether.
Here are the extra new rules for 2021 :-
THAT SHOULD DO IT !
As with every Boxing Day, it is a time for using up all the left-over Christmas vegetables. At Number 10 it is no different, especially now Carrie has decided that as the First Family. they should set an example to the whole country, and the rump of Europe …….. and maybe even the whole world…… by becoming vegetarian. She was sure that was what Boris ment by going green.
Of course for the New Year, Prime Minister Bodj says there is going to be a New Years resolution like :- “EAT YOUR GREENS”
……… or is that a revolution like :- “GREEN ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING”
……..or perhaps it could be a revelation like :- “I’M THE JOLLY GREEN GIANT”.
Bodj thinks it’s time for a Cabinet clear out, since they took so long over ‘getting Brexit done’. Oh! And that virus thing hasn’t gone away.
I started my decluttering rampage four years ago, although it soon fizzled out into more like a ramble. Then I slowed to an amble and eventually it became a shambles. Rather like the story of Brexit.
Take the example of bank statements which I blogged about 4 years ago on Christmas Day! ( You can find it by clicking on the Archive for December 2016) Maybe I didn’t get any presents that year ?
I thought I had sorted all the bank paperwork once and for all and saved another Amazon forest, but I was sadly mistaken. I declined to bank on line so the bank statements kept coming and coming and coming. Now Prime Minister Bodj is having to spend billions of pounds planting trees to combat climate change and it is all my fault !
I didn’t mean to do it. I have even reluctantly started to use contactless cards, which means I quickly lose track of how much money I have spent. That’s why I still need the bank statements !
So here I am 4 years on still getting bank statements in the post every month. I need a new plan :-
Decluttering bank statements is becoming a Christmas tradition, A bit like mince pies and games of Monopoly.
🎄 Happy Christmas 🎄
This post is the sequel to the slipper story in my previous post.
So now due to my wife, Mo’s generosity, I am the proud possessor of two identical pairs of suede slippers. The light tan pair for ‘indoor best’ and the brown pair for walking the 10 yards from the back door to the greenhouse. Before I change into my gardening shoes.
This does make gardening a bit of a logistical nightmare, especially when regular cups of tea are needed from the kitchen during a normal gardening day. Four cups of tea requires 48 shoe changes. Not surprisingly I sometimes get it wrong and end up with a gardening shoe indoors, or an indoor slipper outdoors. A sudden April shower driving me quickly in from the garden and the kitchen can look like shoe shop.
Then one day I somehow lost one of my outdoor slippers. That ment I needed to use one of my ‘best ‘ indoor slippers outdoors. I knew this would lead to trouble. Before long my right indoor light tan slipper started to look the colour of my left outdoor slipper. Now the logistics had gone completely out of the window.
I couldn’t let a few slippers get in the way of my gardening, but I suppose it was inevitable that sooner or late I would loose another of my luxury mules. It just slipped away quietly and no foot noticed.
Unfortunately, what I am left with is one indoor light tan luxury left slipper and one outdoor not so luxury brown left slipper. Still walking like a donkey is easier and Mo always says I have two left feet.
ROLL ON CHRISTMAS.
Two years ago my wife Mo gave me a lovely pair of slippers for Christmas. It wasn’t the only present she gave me, but it was definitely the one I used the most from then on, because they were so comfortable. They were expensive tan coloured suede, sheep skin, fleece-lined, slip-on slippers. So much much more fashionable than my grandad style check pattern slippers with the Velcro straps, that I had previously; or the hotel-liberated flip flops that I used to ware around the house. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if David Beckham hasn’t got a pair.
They took a bit of getting used to because they were mules, which means that you have to grip them with your toes to stop them sliding off. I guess that is why they are called mules, because you tended to walk like a donkey with slow plodding steps. They would be more accurately called slip-offs, than slip-ons. Still they were my pride and joy, so I threw out all my old unfashionable slippers and give-away flip flops.
That’s when the problem started. The 10 yards between the kitchen door and the green house. That is where I keep my gardening shoes. Obviously I needed to keep my new luxury slippers for ‘best’, even a step outside was a risk. Suede does mark very easily, particularly light tan suede.
I did tip toe to the greenhouse extra carefully for almost a whole year, but gardening is a muddy business especially in the spring. So it wasn’t long before my new slippers started to get marked. which caused a few glaring glances from Mo, every time I came in from the greenhouse. You can brush the dirt off the slippers in the summer, but by autumn in the wind and rain, brushing them makes the marks worse. Just in that 10 yard sprint, my tan slippers became a dark shade of brown.
So what a lovely surprise it was when the very next Christmas Mo gave me another identical pair of luxury tan coloured slippers, with strict instructions that they were ‘indoor’ slippers. In future, I think slippers might become a regular Christmas present, like pants and socks.
To be continued ………. in the next post.
Right now everyone in Government is focussed on the two big issues of the day, either Coronapop or Brexit. Well almost everyone.
The Rt Hon Oliver Dowden, the Minister for Digital,Culture, Media And Sport is looking into betting. He is considering banning betting companies from sponsoring sports clubs. He has clearly lost lots of sleep over this. No matter that sports clubs are strapped for cash right now. Dowden is pressing ahead.
The key question is where do you stop with banning betting ?
It is all a form of betting. Where do you stop ? Do you gamble responsibly ? What on earth does that mean ?
No doubt sports Minister, Nigel Huddleston, will tell us what we can do, when he has concluded his investigation. Because of all the lost tax revenues if betting were banned I don’t expect anything much to change.
But I wouldn’t bet your shirt on it !
The Government are beginning to look ahead to the blue sky of the future beyond Coronapop and Brexit. The land of milk and honey just over the horizon.
The first appointed spokesman to bring some cheer to farmers everywhere is a happy little fruit farmer from Cornwall, who also happens to be the Secretary of State for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affaires. The Honourable George Eustace MP. ( I wrote about George in a earlier blog which you can find in the Archive – 16 August 2020 ).
I suggested that his Department be scrapped in order to save £2.1 billion since most of our food was imported. Obviously George didn’t agree with me and has come back with a counter proposal to spend an extra £2.4 billion !
George is not too bothered about food, he is more interested in re-wilding the countryside. His subsidies will go toward planting more trees, millions of them, maybe even zillions. An Amazon forest in the heart of England. Then there are the sparrows to think about – 13 million of them have been wiped out in the last 10 years. George is really upset about the sparrows. He has plans to protect the hedges and get the sparrows back and the hedgehogs and field mice. Oh! And red squirrels and a few family friendly wolves.
But, the best and most innovative aspect of George’s Grand Plan is to use beavers to build dams all along our rivers to stop them flooding everywhere. “This is free labour and I am sure it will work”, George told the BBC.
Unfortunately George forgot that farming is about food, but at least the wild animals will be happy, while we all starve in a re-wilder nature reserve !
P.S. Watch out George, it is just a matter of time before an animal rights group decides that this will be slavery for beavers and asks for beavers to be included in the Modern Slavery Act …. or at least be paid the National Minimum Wage for their damming work.
GrumbleSmiles 