I went for a blood test this morning – got off to a slightly slow start as I don’t have to take Julia to work this morning, and nearly missed getting a car parking space. Mental note – remember that the spaces are just about gone by 7.30. Despite notices about it not being a car park for staff several members of staff in uniform were either arriving or leaving as I took the last available space.
Two women, talking about how to handle a booking system on a computer, walked straight into the hospital in front of me without pausing to put masks on. Looks like we are back to ignoring the rules, however, as it’s allowable to stage mass gatherings, despite the law, I don’t suppose you can blame them. Once you see one group treat the rules with contempt I suppose we all think we can do it too. It’s the Cumming’s Effect.
I’ve decided to take a neutral stance on the events in London, by the way. It would have been better if the Police hadn’t been so heavy-handed, but it would also have been better if there hadn’t been mass disobedience to the law. All that happens now is that the Police have to answer complaints and write reports instead of doing their job, while politicians posture and pressure groups make an issue of a personal tragedy. Nobody looks good as a result of this.
Meanwhile, I had a swift blood test but needed holes in both arms to find any.
The morning was quite different to the last test morning, just a few weeks ago. Last time the image I took away was a Dunnock singing its heart out in a sparkling silver birch against the backdrop of a bright blue sky. Today it was a Wood Pigeon cooing on a murky morning – grey bird, grey tree, grey sky.
Some days make it easier to be a poet than others.
(Sorry – the pigeon isn’t in a tree, but it was the first picture I came to as I scrolled down and I need to get off to work.)
Anyway, re the rules on social distancing, yesterday I was in a shop, holding back as it was a bit crowded in the aisle. A shop assistant asked if I was okay, so I explained about giving space and as I was saying this, who should squeeze past me but a nurse. Apart from potential injury to customers and shop staff, what about her patients?
Some of these stories make you wonder what goes on in people’s minds.
I wrote to my MP recently about protests and he sent me a clip of the Clapham Common vigil last weekend. He said that it showed the vigil having been infiltrated by mobsters.
Now, I haven’t watched the clip (or in fact any images elsewhere as I don’t watch TV), so I am actually non-the-wiser. I’m simply sharing this information to illustrate the fact that it is so hard to know the truth of any matter.
I think the problem is that it is all true. In an ideal world the doorstep vigil would have gone ahead and the big one could have waited for later. The Police would have been cheerful, the protesters would have moved when asked and the whole thing would have been about a murdered woman and public safety instead of a near riot and a hijacked demonstration.
Of course, in a really ideal world nobody would have been murdered.
All true!
I got my first Covid vaccination today, the Pfizer vaccine. Yes, we see people ignoring the rules here, too.
That’s good to hear. It’s not the entire answer but it’s good to be vaccinated.
It is a good day when you can confidently say that more or less everyone else is wrong.
I didn’t watch the Cummings show but I gather that he took the view that everyone else was wrong as well.
🙂 I’m afraid I made my mind up about him and am not going to change, so I listened to a few seconds, confirmed my view and went back to writing limericks. They aren’t very good, but bad limericks are far from the worst thing that could happen.
I agree about that.
🙂
After all the horrors that have transpired in my own country in this past year, I’m not about to comment about what’s going on in anybody else’s country. On a happier note…I could almost hear that pigeon cooing.
Yes, the whole world could do with becoming a better place.
You do well to point out the Cummings effect. If you ask me I would say the first act of aggression was turning up en mass flouting the law – akin to delivering an insult with a denying smile. As for the former chief advisor, does he really think anyone could believe his current statements?
Although I’m being neutral, I do agree. And as for that reptilian performance with the select committee – that’s roughly what I said to Julia when we say him on TV.