Boris on Donald

Boris Johnson on Donald Trump pre-Presidency:

"I think Donald Trump is clearly out of his mind" 
"Beholds a quite stupefying ignorance that makes him, frankly, unfit to hold the office of president of the United States"
"I wouldn’t want to expose Londoners to any unnecessary risk of meeting Donald Trump"
"I wouldn’t go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump" 
"What he’s doing is playing the game of the terrorists and those who seek to divide us"  
"I am genuinely worried that he could become president"

Boris Johnson on Donald Trump during Presidency

"I don’t see why he’s any less of a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize than Barack Obama"
"He has many, many, good qualities and is making America great again"
"He is having results, and we should pay tribute to that"

Boris Johnson on Donald Trump post Presidency:
"Glad to see the back of him"

More faces than a clock factory but then we always knew that anyway.

Pound Being A Dick Over Tokyo Olympics

I do love watching the the Olympics and Paralympics even if it is on at stupid o'clock due to be playing out in some far flung part of the globe but the draw of watching the second heat of the 200m butterfly at 3am means a heavy caffeine and nicotine next day and i'm fine with that.
The 2020 events were to be held in Japan last year until the Coronavirus pandemic put paid to that idea and it has been pushed back to this year but the rise of several new Coronavirus variants and the steep jump in cases in Japan which reported a record number of cases this week, means that there are murmers that the 2021 version could be pushed back again or even cancelled altogether.
In a survey conducted amongst the Japanese population, 34% believe the upcoming Summer Games should be postponed further while 34% want it scrapped completely due to Covid-19 concerns but the Japanese Government are insisting that there was no truth in the claims they are considering cancelling it and are determined to see the event take place.
Having spent £20 billion on constructing sporting venues, infrastructure, and other preparations for the event, you can understand why they are keen to do the damned thing, the sponsorship and TV rights alone would go some way towards balancing the books and the cash is probably behind the desperation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to get the athletes running, jumping and throwing this summer.
What has been suggested and has been firmly WTF'd by most people is the idea that nations find a way to vacinnate the athletes first so that the Tokyo Games can go ahead safely in July.
While insisting that they are not calling for athletes to 'queue jump ahead of the vulnerable and key workers' the IOC called for exactly that with the unfortunately named IOC Vice President, Dick Pound, saying that her thought that the public would probably be okay with it  if athletes did jump the queue if it ensured that the Tokyo Olympics could go ahead.
To their credit the British Olympic Association and UK Sport have said: 'The priority has to be the people who need it most, frontline workers, the elderly and the vulnerable. There will come a time, hopefully ahead of the Olympic Games, when the athletes can be considered for vaccination but we’ll only do that when it’s appropriate'.
Good for them and i hope more nations come out and say the same because keeping people safe should always trump a sporting event, regardless of much money it will lose if it gets cancelled or at the very least, pushed back to whenever it is safe to be held.

Climate Change Didn't Self Isolate in 2020

There was quite a lot going on during 2020 but something that didn't stop and self isolate was our warming Planet and unfortunately there is no vaccine for what is coming.
The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere reached record levels in 2020, hitting 417 parts per million in May and the last time CO2 levels exceeded 400 parts per million was four million years ago. Humans have piled 100ppm in the last 60 years alone, an amount that it took Nature 10,000 years to increase it by at the end of the last ice age
The year 2020 was 1.2C hotter than the average year in the 19th Century, Europe had it's hottest year ever and the World experienced it's joint hottest year, tying with 2016 as the warmest triggering the largest wildfires ever recorded in the US states of California and Colorado, and the fires in eastern Australia which turned the sky black.
The temperature reached 38C in Siberia, the hottest ever recorded within the Arctic Circle which saw the sea ice area at its second lowest on record which has the knock on effect of less area of white to reflect the heat from the Sun back out into space, leading the Arctic to heat twice as quickly as the rest of the world and more sea means more absorption of heat, fueling global warming further.
Across the northern hemisphere, there was less ground that remains frozen all year round which has released billions of tonnes of CO2 and methane which is usually locked away in frozen ground, further clogging the atmosphere.
The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in his State of the Planet speech that we are at the threshold of wrecking our own Planet but the Planet won't care because to be honest, without us, it's job would be much easier without us messing it up.
It isn't in the business of keeping us alive and stop us from doing stupid things like poisoning our own air and water, we are very low down on it's list of things to give a toss about.

Biden Saying All The Right Things For Now

Put to one side all the jingoism and God blessing of America that seems to come with any American pomp and circumstance, the Joe Biden inaugural speech was a good one, he said a lot of stuff about unity and the line about repairing alliances by 'leading not merely by the example of our power, but by the power of our example' was a great quote and we can only hope that America does because America hasn't been great and that was before Donald Trump came along and turned it into the global laughing stock it became since he took office.     
Inauguration speeches always sound out hope for a better future and i don't particularly care what Biden does on America, it is the foreign policy we look at outside of the American borders.
He has promised to immediately re-sign the Paris Climate Accord, the Iran Nuclear deal and rejoin the World Health Organisation making the World a slightly cleaner, safer and healthier place but Trump, for all his many considerable faults, never sent his nation to war unlike every President back to Jimmy Carter in the 70's.
Trump promised at his inauguration that 'American carnage would stop now', which is not quite what came to pass considering the carnage on American streets at his prodding, the promise to 'drain the swamp' lasted days before Kellyanne Conway was urging American's to 'Buy Ivanka’s stuff' from a homeware product line endorsed by the President’s daughter.     
He even promised to 'free the world from the miseries of disease' although with 400,000 dead Americans dead from a disease he ignored, ridiculed and dismissed, it didn’t quite work out that way.
So America has a new President, one that has to be better than the last one mainly because nobody can be that bad again, and he is saying all the right things but we don't want the America we had before, we want a new, less warmongering and arrogant one so time will tell if we get that from the 46th President or it's business as usual.

Taxi For Trump

 A taxi pulls up outside the White House and Donald Trump puts his bag in the boot and climbs inside and tells the driver to take him home.

'I thought i recognised that dodgy barnet, hiya Mr Trump. I'm glad i got that suspension reinforced on that side. Where's that you say? New York? I don't usually go that far north, I'll tell you that for nothing. The traffic's a bit slow today around here, lots of people, certainly more people than the last inauguration, Oi Darling! This is a street, not a bleeding waiting room!
Don't get me wrong, Mr Trump, it's not that I have a problem with your type, Republicans i mean, I'm not prejudiced nor nothing, some of my best fares are awful racists, but we don't have many one term Presidents round this way. To be perfectly honest, the last Republican wasn't very good either so if somebody offered me the choice of having my knackers slammed in the car door or another four years of you, i'd be nursing some heavily bruised plums right about now if you know what i mean. Right, watch me cut this muppet up. Lovely.
So you and Melania got to move back to New York now then, don't blame you for leaving Washington DC, too many Trump supporters there wrecking the place after you told them to. Bit of an own goal for you that one wasn't it, who would have guessed so many of your supporters were such violent morons. Oi Sweethreat, pick a lane why dontcha.  
'Ere, maybe you can have a medical to get the ol' noggin looked at. You might not want to mention your idea about the bleach treatment in front of them though. I don't mean to get personal, but what do they do in those medicals? Do they shove anything up you? I wouldn't have it, I'll tell you that much. They can stick their probes up their...blimey, get a look of the bumpers on that!
Hey Donny, can i call you Donny? Donny, so do you think that you lost because most of your supporters were the ones saying there was no such thing as Coronavirus before dying of Coronavirus? ... Bless 'em, bunch of Muppets. C'mon luv, you could drive a bleedin' tank through that gap.
Your very quiet if you don't me saying, i thought you would be more chatty, at least throw out a few lies about how great you were, especially as you can't tweet anymore, you being a danger to people and all that. Look at this idiot...Oi, where you learn to drive you clown!
What happened to your wall then? My mate reckons if you had spent less time dicking about on your phone and playing golf you might have built it, your golf game must have improved brilliantly while you was President, because you sure wasn't spending much of your day doing Presidential things were you. Worst President ever i hear but c'mon, there's been 40 odd so at least one of them must have been worse than you.     
Here we are then, Mr Trump, New York. I would stop, but I don't trust these New Yorkers with my alloys. I do have to ask you though, Mr Trump, what are you going to do now you ain't the main guy anymore standing in front of crowds of people? My brother-in-law was in a band in the 80's and used to play in front of thousands and he says it's not all it's cracked up to be. You can ask him yourself... 'Ere, I had that Barack Obama in the back of my cab once, huge hands he had, massive they were.
What? No tip, you tight fat basta....

Blue Monday

Blue Monday usually falls on the third Monday of every New Year, and is considered the most depressing day on the calendar due to temperature, days since the last pay day, days until the next bank holiday and the average hours of daylight and today is the third Monday so try to have too much of a miserable day everyone and watch out for those unpredictable mood swings.
Despite all that's going on, everything is going to be OK. I promise. Don't worry, i wouldn't lie to you, trust me, everything is going to be OK, even though it's not.
Things are scary, but they could be worse. Actually, they're going to get worse but i did say i wouldn't lie to you. Nope, i won't do that. Glass half full and all that but then it doesn't matter if the glass is a glass of cold sick.
Everything is going to be OK. There will be these moments when everything works out brilliantly and the secret is to not over analyse everything that happens in your day, imagine the events in your day like a cheese and pickle sandwich, taken altogether you have a huge plate full of cheese and pickle sandwiches and they are all yours! Savour them and eat them all up. Yummy.
Now consider that when you're out of sandwiches, you will cease to exist. Gone in a poof of smoke so slow down eating those sandwiches, chum!
Take tiny bites. Enjoy but eat your cheese and pickle sandwiches wisely. Live each day as if it could be your last, screaming and crying and begging because holy Christ on a pogo-stick it's your last day so on second thought, live each day as if it was your second to last. Yes, that's much better.
Hug your loved ones, tell your friends how much you appreciate them, make love or paint a picture, watch the sunrise and leave the screaming and crying and begging until the following day.
Everything is going to be OK. Never lose hope, there's always hope although hope doesn't mean things will actually turn out for the best but remember that despite everything, someone, somewhere, is having the best day of their life, not you obviously but you can still embrace the day, enjoy the cheese and pickle sandwich and defiantly knock back that glass of cold sick and say i am here World whatever you throw at me, even if we really have jiggered the entire effing lot, well done us, i will carry on because life seems pretty good from here.
Ok sometimes it's like an orgy with virgins, i mean it sounds like a good idea, then you get in there and you're kind like, no, don't put that there..., anyway, you get my point, i'm chalking today up as a win or a score draw or even a respectable loss but whatever, Blue Monday can sod off, everything will turn out well because despite everything, i have a glass half full of cold sick and just like every other day, i will wing it in the desperate hope that something better will come along, right? Right...?

Was Trump And His Supporters Fascists?

Using the George Orwell essay 'What is Fascism' as a guide, i previously mentioned that according to his agenda, Donald Trump comfortable satisfies the Fascist criteria of scapegoating and demonising other groups to gain a common enemy to unite against (Mexicans, the media, Muslims), refer to a glorious past and wish to return to it (Make America Great Again), not allowing dissent or challenge (75 members of his staff who have either been sacked or resigned under pressure), rid their Government of the laws and decisions of previous leaders, to create their own, (roll back of Obama's laws and policies), use the nations resources to build up the military to which they threaten weaker and smaller nations (threatened to destroy North Korea and Iran, discussed sending the military to overthrow the Venezuela leadership while significantly increasing military spending from 2.4% to 4.7% to $750 billion) which all seem pretty conclusive.
Understandably, the right wing object to the word 'fascist' to describe them and the man at the head of their cause but it is not easy to find another word to describe them.
Their case isn't helped by Trump saying he won the election he lost and then incited brainwashed followers to storm democratic institutions to overturn the election result, followers who included men dressed in 'Camp Auschwitz' T-shirts, waving Confederate flags and making 'Sieg Heil!' salutes.
I think most people who have reflected on it will agree that Trump is sociopathic, self serving, manipulative and amoral who has traits of a fascist, i suppose you could argue about how far along the fascist line Trump went but definetly a far right authoritarian white supremacist and to me that sounds, smells and looks like a fascist, albeit a failed one as he slinks off defeated.
The worry for America is the 74 million supporters who could now be looking for a leader with the same fascist tendencies who is a bit smarter and competent than this one was.

Happy To Help Joe

Interesting fact on the News earlier that there are more US Troops protecting Washington DC then there are US Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan combined which should give American's pause for thought about just what has happened to them over the past four years after voting a moron into office although it probably won't, 70 million American's looked at what the idiot had done during his spell in power and thought hmmm, so he may have admitted being a sex offender, he may have dismissed a virus that has killed over 300,000 of us so far and put us in a position to suffer more from climate change and backed racists and fascists but i think i will give him another go.  
I said here that now that Joe has beaten the laughably awful Trump, his first day should be spent on the phone to Paris to returning to the Paris Accord on Climate Change, Tehran to rejoin the Iran Nuclear Deal and Geneva to beg the World Health Organisation to take America back.
Today, Biden has outlined his plans and agreed with me that he will sign a series of executive orders in his first days in office, attempting to roll back damage done by Donald Trump, which includes returning the US to the Paris climate accords and the Iran nuclear deal and although he did not mention rejoining the World Health Organization specifically although he previously mentioned it would be a priority so maybe that one slipped his mind, he is 78 remember.
Ever since the Democrats got my lightbulb changed last year, i have looked favourably upon them and they are obviously reading this blog so my next suggestion after the phone calls and sorting out the Coronavirus that Trump allowed to ravash the country while he played golf, my next suggestions would be sort out your bat shit crazy gun laws, don't invade anyone, stop backing Israel in their genocide of Palestinians, move the date of election and the date you take over closer together, ditch the pardon rule which makes a mockery of your justice system and pass a law that David Boreanaz HAS to be in every single TV show you sell to Britain.  
You are very Welcome America.

Vitamin D And Coronavirus

It was very early in the lock-down so probably end of March, start of April time, that a medical person was on the television discussing why so many BAME people were catching Coronavirus and they wheeled through the usual suspects such as the type of work they do and more interaction within their community when the doctor threw out that it could even be a Vitamin D thing as BAME people's darker skin meant they took in less of it from the Sun.
I thought at the time that made sense and then promptly forgot about it until someone else mentioned the other day that research shows that up to 80% of people admitted to hospital with Covid-19 are deficient in this vitamin.
A quick Google search brings up a The Lancet article published in August 2020 that explains how Vitamin D supplements in the shape of Cod Liver Oil was used in the prevention or treatment of acute respiratory infections dates back to the 1930s and trials conducted from 2007–20 revealed protective effects of Vitamin D against acute respiratory infections. It then goes on to use lots of medical terms such as Vitamin D supporting 'innate antiviral effector mechanisms, including induction of antimicrobial peptides and autophagy which regulate immunopathological inflammatory responses in the context of respiratory infections' which may have well been written in Latin for as much sense they made, but it ended by saying that there were ongoing trials to see if the Medical Community could follow up the initial trials which showed taking Vitamin D might reduce the impact of COVID-19 in populations where Vitamin D deficiency is prevalent.
In the Summer, the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin advised its members to take the nutrient, advising that although it is not official policy: 'We believe that vitamin D3 deficiency is a major risk factor for severe Coronavirus infection, for which there is accumulating evidence' the letter said. 'People born with darker skin receive less UV light in the deeper layers where D3 is made, and so are prone to more severe D-deficiency at the end of winter in northern latitudes than their fairer-skinned counterparts'.
Government Minister David Davis, holder of a molecular science degree, urged the health secretary, Matt Hancock, to review the evidence and consider a free supplement scheme to reverse vitamin D deficiencies, citing the letter sent by the BAPIO which was duly ignored but since then studies conducted around the world have been building evidence of vitamin D’s efficacy was growing.
Studies in France, South Korea, Spain and Singapore have made similar reports so there is growing scientific evidence that an effective, cheap and easily obtainable treatment may have been hiding in plain sight all along.

Dead Or Alive

Having the medical knowledge of a house brick, i always assumed like most people, that a vaccine contained a weakened, harmless version of whatever it was you was trying to be inoculated against so the body would generate the required anti-bodies to overwhelm the weak disease and would then stand guard ready in your body in case the full blown thing happened along.    
Rather kindly the scientist didn't slap his forehead and mumble under is breath about being surrounded by idiots but patiently explained that it is a harmless version of the disease, actually completely harmless because it is dead and one of the laws of medicine is dead things don't come alive.
Putting aside questions about how could he then explain the coming Zombie Apocalypse, i just looked confused instead so he went on to say that the body will recognise that this new thing shouldn't be there and is attacking the body, albeit dead, so it sends it anti-bodies to attack and nullify it and then makes the decision that the anti-bodies had better hang around a while in case there is another attack and over time, as the threat of another attack resides, the anti-bodies go off to do whatever unused anti-bodies do.
Nodding as if i understood what the hell he was talking about, he then said that actually they do sometimes use weakened versions of whatever it was they were inoculating against also for the same reaction which i realised as i was driving back to work meant that i was kinda right all along, go me.
Makes me glad i never asked about the Zombie Apocalypse after all.