Summertime …and the living is crazy

So Covid, Brexit and other stories.

I don’t even know what to say this morning. This last few days have been like we are living in a crazy film. It really has.

Yesterday, In London there was an anti-vaccine, anti-lockdown demonstration. Fair enough, live and let live and all that. In amongst the 5G is a method of killing us all, the vaccine is a tracking device, Covid is a hoax made up by alien lizards who want to steal your children (I might have my conspiracy crackpot theories all mixed up here but hey – they are all pretty much of a muchness) there was this wee nugget, the speaker – one Kate Shemirami – told the crowd “Get their names, email them to me. At the Nuremberg trial the doctors and nurses stood trial, and they hung”.

The crowd cheered! They cheered this woman who refuses the vaccine but apparently is happy to inject her face with Botox according to several sources, they cheered as she suggested hanging health workers for administering the vaccine. What planet are these people on? Don’t answer that yet because I haven’t finished.

Sajid Javid yesterday tweeted that he was feeling much better, he’s had Covid remember. He got just mild symptoms apparently and decided that was enough to tell everyone that we must no longer “cower” from covid-19. Tell that to people who are having to shield again because he and his stupid government have decided we should all be back to normal and it’s a shame some folks might die but meh.

In other wee nuggets of humanity in our post brexit, covid ridden country Lifeboat crews are reporting that they have been abused as they are seen around their local areas. The fact that they save lives which might include terrified people trying to find a way to England in boats, who get into difficulty has made people so angry. Priti Patel and her rotten stinking immigration bill has persuaded people that Lifeboat crews are to blame for the increase in people coming here by boat. Apparently they should ask for a British passport before picking anyone up in the sea who is at risk of drowning. I kid you not!

Warburtons Bakery, the provider of the smell of baking bread which accompanied me on many a walk up Rochdale Road during my youth, disappointed me terribly when I found they donated to the Tory party. They disappointed me further when they said, “Brexit is a very good thing to have happened. We are well out of the rotting corpse of Europe.”. I haven’t bought a warburtons loaf since. Honest to god though this week they said they don’t have enough drivers to deliver their bread. Really? Like Weatherspoons don’t have enough staff for their bars? These people run businesses – massive multi million pound businesses. If I knew this would happen how on Earth didn’t they know this?

At least they weren’t blaming it all on an app. The Pingdemic is the stupidest, most ridiculous bit of political chicanery ever. The government and the newspapers are trying to tell us that the reason everything is in such a mess is that the English covid app is pinging people left right and centre and causing people to have to self isolate. Take a deep breath everyone, be afraid of the app. It’s a menace and a threat to economic recovery apparently. It pinged 600 000+people last week.

The politicians and the newspapers want you to believe it is the app that is the problem. The app. It is not. The problem is that the Johnson Variant of Covid is running rampant through England just now. People are being infected due to the abandonment of precautions following Boris Johnson’s “freedom day”. Stay awake folks.

Meanwhile, in Scotland, We haven’t escaped this complete fuckwittery entirely. We currently have the craziness that is the “Staycation” where people with no clue take over our countryside, try to camp on people’s Croftland and park their motor homes in gardens, set dangerous fires by chopping down trees, and breaking up benches and wee and poo on paths, beaches, in historical monuments, by the side of the road and In school playgrounds. As if that’s not enough, we had our own anti vaccine/anti lockdown protest in Glasgow too. No tarring and feathering, no threats to doctors and nurses though.

The usual peculiar Scottish Twitter weirdness still continues. The obsession with Nicola Sturgeons reading habits was evident this week. Apoarently the fact that Nicola Sturgeon reads books makes some people furious. They like to share that with us and it’s the most amusing thing. She either doesn’t read the books she says she does or she reads too many books – sometimes in the same tweet. She buys books so is a bad person or she is given books so is a bad person. Schrodinger has nothing on Scottish Twitter.

In other news, there was a protest in Endinburgh this week. Where a group of people demonstrated their belief in feminism by cheering Graham Linehan who grabbed his crotch and pronounced “I have a Willy”. This is around their belief that feminism excludes trans women and that protecting trans rights damages women’s rights. It doesn’t but even if they believe that, chanting “we are not worthy” to a bloke grabbing and shaking his penis is a really weird way to profess your feminist credentials.

Finally, Our pinging isn’t a pingdemic here on Scotland. Cases of covid are actually falling here again, thank goodness. However, a row broke out this week after LNER said they weren’t going to follow Scottish rules on any of their cross border services. They changed their minds pretty quickly after it was pointed out that Scotland isn’t England. This in its turn caused some Tory MSPs (those that aren’t hiding cos Johnson is so excruciatingly painfully en embarrassment even before you add in Priti Patel and Sajid Javid ) to lose their shit. Apparently it makes people “uncomfortable” to hear that Scotland isn’t England. It’s divisive to tell folk that Scotland isn’t England but here I have news for you – Scotland ISN’T England.

And I’m profoundly grateful for that!

#YouYesYet?

#Indyref2

Hell hath no fury ….

So, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. A famous quote indeed but in 1697 (when it was written) they hadn’t come across Dominic Cummings.

Dominic Cummings is currently sharing all the secrets from his time in Downing Street. I say secrets, pretty much most of us watching the utter fiasco that WM has been over the last five years have had a pretty good idea as to what’s been going on. It can be summed up as “group of self important wankers act like complete dicks”.

Seriously (although I stand by that description) Cummings has confirmed that no one had a clue whether Brexit was a good idea, Boris has no idea how to be PM and it’s the woman’s fault Cummings is out of a job.

All this would be utterly ridiculous if they were just talking about the Bullingdon Club or some sleazy deal but they are talking about running the country. This game they played – £350 million on the side of the bus to wind up the remainers apparently – is playing with people’s livelihoods and lives. They used disinformation and hate to grab power and increase their own wealth and that of their pals.

That the PM didn’t care about the over 80s dying, isnt a secret. He wanted herd immunity, even last weekend he wanted not to self isolate. He wanted to give contracts to his mates, he wanted to be PM because of what it could do for him, he is a self entitled, self absorbed, self important rich man. That’s it. And he is being outed by another self entitled self important rich man in an attempt to make himself even richer. To read all the details of Cummings “secrets” you have to sign up to his blog for £100 per year.

And in the meantime, the cruelty that this careless misuse of power by people who care only for themselves continues.

Yesterday Parliament passed the Nationality and Borders Bill. This bill removes rights for refugees and asylum seekers and makes criminals of anyone including lifeboat crews, who rescue people drowning at sea as they will be seen by as helping people who have no right to be here. It uses method of entry as a means to determine refugee status – expressly forbidden under UN Convention on refugees. The resettlement scheme that has been introduced since Brexit apparently resettled 353 refugees in 2020. There is no room at the inn for anyone just now, not even children or anyone with family already here.

Our Borders are closed it appears, refugees, EU nationals, Migrant workers.

Meanwhile in Scotland, we can’t close our borders to keep the transmission of The Johnson variant of covid out. We can’t offer the welcome we want to offer to those who want to come to live here, work here, study here, building their lives and our vibrant communities here in an outward looking inclusive Scotland.

We see again and again the worry and stress that Brexit and the cruelty of the WM Government puts on those who have come to live here from other countries. We know these policies don’t work for Scotland but are powerless to prevent them. Unless we are independent.

Independence offers the opportunity to be an outward looking modern democracy. The UK with its insular cruel ignorant racist colonial attitudes to the rest of the world, evidenced by our idiot PM is not that.

Dominic Cummings and his cronies are not the best Scotland can do.

#YouYesYet

#Indyref2

It’s just football ;)

So…. Football….

There’s such a load of shit being talked about football just now. Most of it by people that self confess they have never watched or supported Football. Much of it by people that complain that Scotland fans are not cheering England on and that by mocking up Mancini as a Gibsonesque Braveheart saving Scotland from England’s win on the front of a newspaper, we are somehow shaming ourselves in the international community.

As an English woman, I’m going to cheer England on tonight. As a person who lives in Scotland, I’d rather Scotland would have won but as they arent there any more I’ll cheer heartily for England.
My husband will scowl through the match and won’t be pleased whoever win (he says Italy play anti football????)

I’ll hum Three Lions to irritate my loved ones a bit but tomorrow no one here will care. Even I find the WW2 comparisons tedious, the 1966 replays boring. The analysis of every single match descending into how wonderful the England team are regardless of who is playing at the time is irritating. Telling Scots that they “must” or should be supporting England is patronising and pretty much guaranteed to elicit a “fuck off” and rightly so.

This is a great England team, great in skill and in ethos too. I’m excited to see them win but the hype beamed into every single Scottish home is like Man United fans being subjected to endless pro Man City reporting. On the hour every hour “Manchester City are the greatest team that ever played”.

Do Arsenal Fans go out and buy Spurs flags to hang from their windows, or Rangers fans wear Celtic Scarves at their big matches against other teams? Do England fans cheer on Germany? No they don’t.

Tonight, I’ll sit and cheer the England team and sing along with the crowd and be bloody delighted if England win. Tomorrow I won’t be the slightest bit worried that my Scottish friends hate me because I’m English and they supported Italy in a football match.

It’s a football match, if you don’t refuse to support your biggest rivals – ever – you’re doing it wrong.

(It’s coming home, it’s coming home, footballs coming home)

😉