GrumbleSmiles

There is a new Must-watch soap opera on the  box every day.     It has wiped all its competitors off the screen by requiring them to social distance and isolate all actors over 70.

So now we have a fresh group of characters who could be scooping up all the British TV awards this year.    The initial problem is that they were largely unknown to the general public, before Coronapop came along and threw them into the limelight.     Previous appearances were limited to the BBC parliamentary channel, which only extremely bored people watch on rainy days.

Obviously everyone knows the main star – Bodj – from his celebrated performance hanging off a zip line at the Olympics several years ago.    He only had small parts after that as Foreign Secretary in Mrs MaybeMaybenot’s Cabinet.

Now as Prime Minister Bodj, he is still playing the role of court jester, as he announces a new strategy every day in the fight against CORONAPOP.

The supporting characters are less well known.    Here are some of the emerging “stars”:-

•  Health Minister – Doormatt Handwash – who only has one pink tie, praises everyone endlessly,  feels grief for everyone who has passed away and everyone of their relatives and always looks like a rabbit in the headlights.
• Money man – Richie Havesomemoney – who just loves to give away £billions and make people happy.
• Slippery Micky Grave —- Right about all the things he is not responsible for and solidly behind his colleagues, until he is not.
• Dominic Draab —- who finds no difficulty living up to his name.
• Pretty Hopeless —- assertively, angry about everything, but important —self-important.
• Happysnaps. Transport Minister —- who just seems happy to be here now that all the transport has been stopped in its tracks.
• Gav “the child” who talks like a preacher at a temperance meeting and will grow up when he leaves school.
• Whitty twins — two conjoined grey suited grey people who are expert at saying nothing and making it look intelligent.
• Jenny “um” — who is a nurse or a scientist or both, but who displays her uncertainty by prefacing every thought with an “um””)
• The cameo extras — these are anonymous cardboard cut-out experts, who are rolled in occasionally to divert attention to their specialist subjects — policing, health & safety, testing or not testing.  They rarely speak and nobody asks them questions.
• Dom the puppet master — the backstage director, who never knows if he is cummings or going.

It is a low budget production with just three props —- three lecterns for the daily sermon, which are  bulletproof and reflect questions automatically,   with advertising slogans for the would-be shogans..

Audience participation is provided by a gaggle of irritable journalists,  whose every question is tinged with vitriol hoping for tomorrow’s headline.   They zoom in and out, with the on /off button controlled by the politician of the day.   Sometimes if they ask an especially hard question, they are never seen again🤡

The 5 o’clock time slot used to be called children’s hour, which is probably why they talk to us like children.

SEE NEXT WEEKS THRILLING EPISODE, WHEN CORONAPOP RIDES AGAIN!

The Coronapop storyline is getting more and more tangled in a whirlwind of doctored communication.     Or perhaps I should say “doktored kommunikation”.

Because in my post last week  I said that the Government was moving it’s strategy to give greater konsideraction to the “K”.   Unfortunately they failed to explain what the K was all about.

The term comes from a scientific paper, so you may think the answer is elementary.  K  is the periodic table symbol for POTASSIUM.  Obviously that makes sense ?   But before you rush out to buy vitamin K, think again.    That is not the magik Kure.

I did read something about koagulating blood and klotting, but it’s not about that either.  That’s a Kell factor I think, but let’s not get konfused.

Kissing is definitely a no no, surely it can’t be that.   Although they did have rapid spread in France and they do a lot of kissing there.

It is related to the variation in infected peoples kontacts and the klusters they go to.   People with a low K are the super spreaders.

I hope that’s kleared up the konfusion about K.

P.S.  —— It is not why they are killing all the mink in Holland, that is more to do with the R.

Keep washing your hands in the sink.     Stay off the drink.    Stay alert and think.

And whatever you do, don’t get on a Publick transport double deckker without a mask.

OK

This is a continuation of the Coronapop triplelock story.      Bodj’s first lock down was supposed to last for 3 weeks and then another three weeks, with no remission for good behaviour.        Most people followed the rules  and the sombrero was squashed by about 30,000 people who died, …. or perhaps it was nearer 60,000 people …. “the scientists” couldn’t really agree on the number.
Now we had all flattened the hat, Bodj said we could all be let out on parole, providing we stuck to some new rules.     The rules were very clear providing we all STAY ALERT and don’t move from country because the rules are different in each  country because of the R.

Oh and by the way people over 70 were vulnerable so they have to stay locked in.   Maybe forever !    If you are under 60 you can gather again but only outside and not inside,    And only in groups of 6 or eight or 10.     TWO metres apart although Bodj is looking at that.
It’s good of Bodj to clear that up, because if we don’t stick to the new rules the R could go up and we want it to go down.    It seems there is still some sombrero flattening to do.
If the R goes up there could be a second wave —— not to be confused with a second clap.     Clapping is good for the NHS second waves are not.    If the second wave comes Bodj might have to declare another lock in, or lockdown,  or lock  up …..or maybe all of them.

Now they are starting to stop worrying about the R, so they are letting everybody out.     But, in future we must keep an eye on the K.      Of course they forgot to mention what the K is all all about.       And if the K  gets to be too big, or maybe too small, we are all going to be locked up again.      It was bad enough when we just had to grasp the daily numbers, now we have a Coronapop alphabet to learn👿

And we haven’t yet talked about TEST, TRACK AND TRACE 🤡

and wash your🧤🧤.

And Stay Alert.    And  Protect the NHS.   And Stay Home. —— oops no, don’t stay home , that was yesterday.

Over the grey green grass,

Roll the gathering clouds.

It only takes a single flower,

To lighten even the darkest hour.

Coronapop has got us all in a pickle.   Nobody more so than our once bold Prime Minister Bodj.        In January he was riding the crest of a Brexit wave.     He had liberated us from Europe —- well almost.      A dream start to his premiership.    Then along came Coronapop to turn his dream into  a NIGHTMARE 👿

He has been Bodjing it ever since.    A phoney war to begin with, nothing much happened and he popped of on holiday.      Even  when he came back, the problem seemed far away in China and a bit closer to home in Italy, but Bodj didn’t panic.   We had race meetings, football matches and Steriophonics concerts to go to.
It’s OK to go outside in large groups, so “the science” told us.   OOPS!

Things were starting to hot up a bit when rugby matches had to be cancelled.   Then all these “scientists” started to appear.    Professors of this, that and the other.   Obviously people to follow,  except they often had conflicting opinions on which direction to go.      The data was changing by the day.    That dammed Coronapop just wouldn’t  keep still.   So Bodj took pot  shots at any thing that moved.     He was trying to “flatten the peak”.     Or was Bodj “squashing the sombrero”, which he must have brought back from his holiday.

It is all hard to do without the right PPE.    But most of us hadn’t a clue about Portly People Effigies, or Ping Pong Elephants, or Practically Perfect Exercise, or any other PPE’s.     So we all went out and bought toilet rolls instead.     Then Bodj told us to “Wash your hands” several times a day or more, ——- so we bought soap.

By now we were a bit more confused.     So to stop us all running around like headless, infectious chickens Bodj declared we should “Stay at home”.    Rather like detention at school, we had to write down one hundred times —- “I must stop buying toilet rolls”.

The next thing we know.   We are all “locked down”.    Apparently because “the scientists” now say we shouldn’t be gathering in groups, in fact we shouldn’t be gathering at all.    And even if we did gather,  we should be 2 metres apart, which is more of a   g —- a —- t —- h —- e —- r.

So now we are we are hunkered down in our bunkers, eagerly awaiting Bodj’s daily broadcast on whether  we should be locked down or gathering.   Except Bodj himself  can’t do the broadcasts, because he has Coronapop and has to stay locked down in Number 10.    He had been clearly doing too much gathering.    Shortly after had had to go into hospital.     Probably because he had also been doing too much dithering.

Not to worry, there are plenty of Cabinet Ministers who are more than happy to play Prime Minister of the day and be onTV pretending they’re know what they are talking about.     They can always bring along “the scientists “ to explain any numbers greater than 1.

Our esteemed leaders tell us they have had CLEAR strategies all along.    I agree.

• Bodj started with the “ head in the sand strategy”.
• Then he moved on to “ a knee jerk reaction strategy”.
• When that didn’t work he tried “ the rabbit in the headlights strategy “.
• When the lockdown came it was time for the “kick it down the road strategy”.

As Prime Minister Bodj says “ You can’t say we haven’t had a strategy “

Once upon a time we were all obsessed with the weather.    Waking up each day to find the forecast in the news, on the hour every hour.    It didn’t really matter if it was accurate, in fact it frequently wasn’t, but still we tuned in to see what we should wear.    “Wrap up warm” ….. or “take an umbrella” ….. or “no need for a coat today“.

Now Coronapop has us all captivated in a totally different way every day👿

We all have to learn a new language first.   Take a degree in virology and epidemiology.   Be guided by the SCIENCE.

Then you may have the faintest chance of keeping up with the news.     So long as you understand the difference between DNA and RNA.   And worryingly the infection rate and the case fatality rate.    Most of all you need to know about the R, or is it the RRRRRR   or the ARRRGH!    Which ever one it is, it is definitely important.

But that’s not all.    You need to know about the numbers, lots of numbers that change every day faster than the weather.   Like the spin of a Public Health slot machine.      KA-CHING.     2,345,678 people have now been tested, some of them several times, that is 9876 more than yesterday.     KA-CHING.    123,456 have tested positive for Coronapop up from 93,345 yesterday when the numbers were lower because of the weekend.       KA-CHING.   5,678 have been admitted to hospital  and there are now 30,079 people in hospital 12,876 in intensive care.   KA-PLONK   Sadly 456 have died today, which is 234 less than yesterday.   Got it ?   Of course these figures might not be right because they don’t include people in the community, nor the people in Northern Ireland where the figures haven’t arrived yet.   And by the way these figures may be double this when you add on all the people who haven’t been tested.   Or people whose tests are just false negatives, in which case they will have to come back next week.     SCHHUSH!   Don’t mention the 21,234  “excess deaths”👿

Now you have a grip on the numbers, it is important to understand the military tactics being used to control Coronapop.       Operation “Lockdown” means you shouldn’t go out for three weeks, or maybe 12 weeks, we will let you know in three weeks depending on the R.    Of course you can go out for food and a walk, only a short walk.    And don’t talk to anybody unless they have a mask or a plastic bottle on their head or you are 2 or 3, or better still 20 meters away.    This is called “distancing “.    Until you get back home when you will be “isolating” or “ shielding” depending on how many co-morbidities you have.

It should all be CLEAR to you now, as obviously you can see we are following the science,  FOLLOWING THE SCIENCE!

If for some inexplicable reason you are sill confused, just remember our daily stock phrases:-

• STAY AT HOME  ————– most of the time
• WASH YOUR HANDS ——- all of the time
• STAY ALERT ——————— always
• WASH YOUR HANDS ——- again and again
• PROTECT THE NHS ——— forever
• WEAR A MASK —————- or don’t

👿Just like the weather this advice may change tomorrow👿