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- Family service
In keeping with the family tradition of helping out, G´s sister has been volunteering at the local vaccination centre in the North West. Despite snow and freezing conditions (see photo´ of her all warm-layered and high-viz´d up), she has been putting in her shifts giving advice and guidance to the (presumably mainly elderly so far) citizens who have turned up for their jabs. I guess she was also reassuring any nervous "jabbees" too, but that might have been a bit of a fraud, for when she found it it was her turn to get the jab today, she admitted to being (more than) a bit nervous. G was, of course, very reassuring to her - so it shows it is a family trait to give reassurance even when you aren´t quite so self-assured, as G would always be the last one in any queue when the jabs were offered (and boy have we had some jabs in our time in countries where they had diseases you have never even heard of). Fortunately it all went well for Anne, so now she can honestly reassure the next wave of patients that roll up. I can already hear her saying "I have already had mine and I can promise it will only take a moment and will not hurt".
- Shenton´s Pig
There is a lot of stuff in the UK press this week about a zoom meeting that got out of control and ended up on the web. It was for councillors on the planning committee in Handforth in Cheshire, councillors who fell out about who was in charge and what they should be discussing - and apparently the woman who was most voluble was not even a member of the committee which was having the virtual meeting. I have an interest in this, as I once had a flat in Handforth and actually got involved with the local council. My pal and I had adjacent flats and another guy who worked with us lived down the road. We used to meet for a beer in the Railway pub (next to the station, as you might imagine). One time when we were there, there were some people talking about the Ratepayers Association and looking for people to help them with their canvassing to get someone from their association on the council. Seeing as we were ratepayers and working shifts - which gave us plenty of spare time, we agreed to get involved and spent some time either at meetings or delivering pamphlets and canvassing support on our estate. The ratepayers actually already had a councillor and were looking to get this lady elected as well. Anyway, came the day and somehow she failed to get in. At the next meeting, there were all sort of rationales put forth, but then the chairman summed it up by saying, " It´s our fault as we were too complacent and didn´t put enough effort in - we were thinking that we could get one of Shenton´s pigs elected if they were on our ticket, but we were wrong". Unfortunately, the unsuccessful lady candidate was present, and to try to cover his gaffe, he added "No offence meant to you Mrs Brown". We nearly wet ourselves and shortly decided we were not really suited to local politics.
- Consequences
I had to laugh when I saw an article today wherein "civil servants" (or whatever they call them in spain) were complaining about the "closure" of our provincial capital of Malaga - and demanding that something be done about it. The reason is that Malaga hit the threshold of 1000 cases per 100000 people last Monday, thus must go into the most severe state of lockdown closure, which demands that all "non-essential" businesses be closed. Why, even Ikea has had to put out notifications that its megastore is off limits. The reason the bureaucrats were upset was because the numbers went over the limit on Monday, but quickly went back down again. Unfortunately for them, the rules are that any municipality that hits the threshold has to implement severe lockdown of businesses for 14 days. This 14 day period was an arbitrary addition as they realised that a lot of the small municipalities would be in and out of lockdown on a daily case with just one case being registered - and that was too silly for words. And why has this come about? Well, in my opinion, it is due to the idleness of the reporting system that doesn´t operate over a weekend - thus last Monday actually had an "uptick" of cases from Friday through to Monday - thus 3 days worth of data. By Wednesday, the anomaly had passed into the 14-day rolling average, but it was too late. I think this sort of thing is nowadays known as the "law of unintended consequences", but I think that it is more accurately entitled "not thinking it through beforehand", thus victims of their own poor planning. Actually, I shouldn´t laugh - we are probably going to have the same problem next weekend in Mijas (unless they change the rules by then).
- In full retreat
Went to my first Buddhist "retreat" at the Benalmadena stupa over the weekend and it was totally Ying / Yang as you´d expect. First evenings session very good, second day session close to being a waste of time. Talk about not being able to organise a p-up in a brewery. They had posters up showing two different start times, but then started later than either of them specified; there were people wandering in and out as they felt the need (literally, as the toilets are 100m away); they ran for 4 hours at a stretch (on presentation skills courses they suggest 1 hour per session max); there were no handouts and no introduction as to what it was and who it was for - and to top it all the guy spoke in English, a translator made notes, then she repeated what he´d said in (intermediate) spanish. Craziest thing was he was working from an iPad, so it would´t have been hard to give her some notes in advance. Most (all except me?) were spanish, and what they got out of it is definitely problematic. The concepts are hard enough to understand in English, but loosely translated into spanish they´d be "mystifying" I would think. There was something in stuff I read beforehand about dress modestly, but the women obviously missed that bit as most were skimpily clad and some even had to resort to knee-shawls to preserve their modesty due to short skirts, "tights" or short shorts. If one of them spent the session playing with their hair (shaking it out, winding it up into a bun, combing it out with their fingers), then a dozen did. One spent an hour giving her boyfriend a neck-massage. To my surprise, there were a similar number for the second day´s session, but amazingly a good number of the attendants were different people! The subject was supposed to be the Four Dharmas of Gampopo (which I had found and read up in advance), but the guy only managed to cover the first two. I was obviously not totally au-fait with the sanskrit words and Buddhist terminology, but felt that my personal readings and practice had me ahead of most of the content (ah, pride!) I went up afterwards and asked about a part he´d missed about mantras and got a definite put-down, with his offhand comment about me being a long way from even getting near that stage. Part of the session was about what not to do, but I think I just about broke every karmic law there is during the sessions with my pride, arrogance, cynicism and judgemental attitude. Didn´t quite commit murder, but if I could have got the fly buzzing around me, I probably would have. Think there is a long way to go for me (but it has at least got me going into a lot more depth about buddhism). Perhaps the most quotable thing I learned was "find your own way". I think I will have to.
- Down to the "local"
A Christmas "tradition" which I have tried on a couple of (disastrous) occasions, is the trip to the local for a couple of pints before Christmas dinner. Of course this was back in the day (when we lived in the UK) so 30 years ago (wow, really that long? - Yes). The times I tried it, the result was always the same - half-ratted and half-full before the main feast began. Nowadays, I tend to restrict myself to champagne / cava and smoked salmon (poser) - but I always think back to the "local" pint. This year I got to musing on locals I have frequented. Basically a local to me is a pub (not necessarily the closest) where you are recognized and where you normally choose to drink. A proper local should also have a landlord who knows your name (and vice versa). Basically it is a bar you can go into on your own and expect to feel at home with the staff or other customers. My first one (and pre-age requirements) was Jackson´s Boat in Sale. It was on the banks of the Mersey at the bottom of Rifle Road - also on the route I cycled to school from our house on Broad Road! The landlord was a lovely guy named Les Christopher and the beer Tetley´s. The locals reckoned the beer was at it´s best for a few weeks after the Mersey flooded the cellars - a fairly regular event. I vividly remember going in one day and Les pulling a pint with shaking hands - "try this John lad" - "wow, that´s perfect, how much?" - "nay lad, with beer that good, you give it to your friends"! All that at about 17 years of age - no wonder I became a boozer! About that time, I also used to go to the Temple in Sale Moor, where I was taught to play "3-card brag" and "Don" - also to play "round the board" on a log-end "Manchester board" using "wooden" darts. A good training establishment, but never my local. Next (and once mobile) was probably the Griffin in Bowdon as the assembly point before the weekly hunt for a party to crash. Amazingly, we never went in the Boddies pub next door, despite it having better beer! After that it was Withington. There were loads of pubs around there, with three colors of Lions for starters, but we always used the Red Lion. During the early SMBP years in the computer centre, we always used the Portway, managed by Billy Young. We used to send "runners" before the coffee break and meal breaks to get a few rounds in. Friday late-shift could entail someone ordering about 40 pints just before time was called (which was when the shift actually finished). Flo would spot the computer centre runner over the sea of people at the bar, raise an eyebrow and receive a hand signal for the number of pints of mild. Boy could she get them poured at some speed! We often used other pubs in the area (notably the Birch and Andy Black´s) but the Portway was our working local and where we could extend "drinking-up time" beyond all normal expectation. I knew I was a real local when Billy eventually gave me a tour of the cellars. I´d never seen vats so large. Nothing like the Boat´s wooden barrels. A variety of other watering-holes came and went during the rugby-club and traveling to work for ICL days (the Bells of Peover springs to mind for Sunday evenings), but basically most of them were rallying points or meeting points at weekends, not somewhere you would normally go to through the week (another consideration). Next, and best of all, was the Davenport Arms (known to all who went in there as the Thief´s Neck) in Woodford. The Hallworths, John, Ray, June and (John and Rays´s parents and children) all served at one time or another. I used to drink Robbie´s bitter at first, but eventually June persuaded me to switch to mild as it didn´t blow you away after 4 or 5 pints (not uncommon, as a quest for a quickie "early doors" on the way home from work, often turned into a mega-session). Oh, and don´t forget the loaned bottles of booze for the ad-hoc post-Sunday-lunch sessions at someone´s house. Thus a mild-drinking, dart-playing, regular - with the ultimate badge of recognition being the invite to the Christmas "do" - a nod and wink as it neared closing time, then sneak through to the family´s rooms, then a lock-in with free bar and food. You really knew you had arrived at that point. After we left the North, I became an occasional-regular at my local (100yds away) in Ingatestone - the Star. Haunted by the ghost of a dog (whose head was affixed to the bar), beer tapped straight from the barrel, wonky flagged floor that made you feel seasick as you moved gently out of the way of other drinkers, and a fireplace half the size of the bar - all that and loony Roger the landlady´s barman son. Great place, but drinking Abbott meant that 2 pints was the limit before you got hallucinations (hence the ghost I guess), so never really managed any extended sessions (and left many a 3rd attempted pint behind the curtains). After the UK, whither? The Golf Club in PDO was more than just a local (Arthur shouting "Vargees, gie us a drink") for the fellow workers and golfers - and some Omanies. I vividly remember Mohamed al Wahabi´s fabulous rendition of 10 green bottles in Arabic - it took us ages to twig what he was singing. Brunei was dry when we arrived, so my house became quite a local for my team and pals. So much smuggled booze came past or through our relatively quiet and "hidden" house for all and sundry to later collect, that one Christmas the smuggler gave me a hamper in thanks! In the Hague there was Der Smoozer. Not far from our apartment and the centre for all the ex-Wythenshawe Shell expat lads after work. (All that and the Canton - the best Chinese restaurant ever next door). For some reason, there were no real bars in Syria (!!) but the staff club was always jumping on a Thursday night. Thence to Spain. I have avoided Brit bars for most of my stay here, but eventually started to go to Roger´s "Village Inn" a few year´s ago to watch the United matches when no other options were available. I was even inveigled into throwing a few darts for the bar too one season. Now he´s gone, the place is usually empty and even the attached Indian restaurant has closed. So now I have the Niño, where Juan is always very friendly and usually comes over for a chat. Unfortunately it is usually a place I go solo, unless G and I go for a bite at the weekend. Coffee and a chupito of anis dulce on your own isn´t quite the same as a few beers in a bar with a friendly clientelle, but needs must when I have to go out. Realistically, all that´s left now is the memories of all those haunts, staff and customers. Now I have a predilection for champagne at home and I´ve probably found the perfect local in my lounge. It just took over 50 years of testing other places to find it out.
- Wet February? +
Well, I managed the whole of January without alcohol, but can´t say that I really noticed any improvement in my overall wellbeing in the way I slept and felt. I actually lost 4 kilos, which wasn´t a lot I don´t think, but I was impressed at the way my blood sugar dropped to practically normal and my blood pressure also went into the normal zone. I suppose I should keep going forever, but forever might come soon if we are not careful, so think the whisky might be on the bar tonight. As I may have mentioned in Dry January , I was the one who invented this period of abstinence back in the 1970s, but then it was quite a thing as I was working with the Univac "Exec Team", who were renowned as the biggest p***artists in the company - mainly as we were working late into the evening at least a couple of times each week, so we took the additional hours worked as extra hours on our lunch breaks. Poor old Monty joined us from a company in Swindon and learned the very hard way - as he had to navigate his motorbike back down to the south after joining in one of our sessions (at his interview!). He fitted well. In the 70s, it was hard-going being the only one on the wagon, but I used to do it. Then, when we went to muslim climes, I switched from January to ramadhan (mainly as the company used to close the club bars then, and there was absolutely no point in doing it twice in a year)! Anyway, this year it just slid by, with a glass of water in a whisky glass at the bar at 1800 being as good as it got - but as previously mentioned, having a lockdown with shortened hours at all the local bars also contributed. That and the locals´ inability to maintain distance, masks or vocal volume once they got inside the confines of a bar. During January, the cases of Covid escalated alarmingly after the "freedom" allowed over Christmas with all the spanish meeting friends and family with seeming impunity. It wasn´t all locals either. The expats were at it too, with the golfers meetings and playing (and socialising) as before. Now the c**p has hit the fan on that too, and I know of a few golfers who have caught it - and many more who now realise they have been exposing themselves a bit too freely. I have a horrible premonition that it will spread quite quickly amongst the expat golfing set now it has taken hold. Going back to the "diet", I existed mainly on dry biscuits, mixed nuts, crudités, porridge and my homemade lentil soup. When I say soup, it is actually more like a spicey dal, with garlic, chillis, cumin, turmeric, coriander and ginger added without a care - needless to say, G will not go near it. When I eat it without turning a hair (and actually adding some strong sambal chilli paste), I do wonder if I have a mild covid that stops me tasting the heat! ... and if you are wondering about the ´ photo, I have always said that life looks better through the bottom of a glass - that is, unless the glass happens to be empty as here. + ... and just heard this morning that a friend with whom we used to go out every couple of weeks has tested positive (that was only up to the start of covid though). He is dumbstruck and trying to work out how he caught it (but one of his current golfing society is in hospital with it, so there is a clue). He had been on antibiotics for a chesty cough and the doctor decided to send him for a PCR test rather than just continue the pills. Tested yesterday morning, results received within 24 hours, so at least that system works. He and his wife will (both) have to batten down the hatches in their apartment - never easy I´m thinking - but I have offered to get their shopping and drop it off (but not quite sure whether they are allowed as far as the gate), so how that would work is still unclear.
- Dry January
Today is (yet another) another beautiful day down here, blue sky and only a little breeze. The temperatures are pretty grim though, max of about 13 in the sun and zero and minus predicted overnight during the next week. Luckily a log-fire keeps us reasonably snug indoors. OK, I suppose it is better than the 6" of snow in the UK. I spoke to my pal in Disley yesterday and his wife had to call him in from clearing snow off the path. Needless to say, he laughed at our idea of cold temperatures. And resolutions? I have already alluded to my proposed "dry-January", but have cheated already by allowing myself to extend the festive period to run up to and including Sunday 3rd, but then mega-diet, no booze, lots of exercise bike. Also planning to try to do a bit more meditation too. Until the roll-out of any jabs, I guess we will be in quasi-lockdown for the first few months. .... and just to reinforce the idiocy that prevails down here, yesterday at La Cañada, which is in Marbella and probably the largest shopping mall around, some shop decided to set up a stage and sound system and get some "personalities" to play the parts of the Three Kings - all the while broadcasting it live on some channel or other. Well, what a surprise, hundreds of people showed up - to such an extent that the police were called and the show had to be cancelled. The main blame must lie with the organisers, who should be fined heavily, but when there are parents who will take their kids to something like that, knowing it is "illegal" and fundamenally anti-social, what hope do the rest of us have?
- In the Zen Zone
I had been thinking of penning an article on Zen Buddhism, but that is probably the worst way of going about it. When you look for Zen, you will not find it - you need to approach it in an oblique "wu wei" manner. Try finding out what it is, and you will be disappointed. The documentation is very limited and almost every article references the (obviously seminal) book Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, by Paul Reps and/or Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Sunryu Suzuki. Essentially Zen is about enlightenment, usually through meditation or (as is probably better known), by sudden awakening. Zen is regarded as an offshoot of Mahayana Buddhism and was introduced to China about 500 AD by Bodhidarma. It is a blend of Chinese Buddhism and Taoism and is known in China as Ch´an. It is practised mainly in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam and was brought to the western (read Californian) attention mainly by Suzuki . His Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is a collection based on his lectures and showing the path of Right practice; Right attitude and Right understanding. To quote Suzuki “The true purpose of Zen is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. Zen practice is to open up our small mind” Personally I prefer Alan Watts “Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes”. So be "in the zone", whatever you are doing - and most of us have experienced that at some stage or other in a sporting-type of endeavour, when you do particularly well, but can´t remember what was in your mind as it all seemed so natural and easy at the time. Rep´s book is actually four books in one. There are 101 Zen stories about Zen teachers and their method; a copy of the Gateless Gate, John Murray´s translation of 49 Koans; 10 bulls - woodprints and poems suggesting a journey to enlightenment; and Centreing - which is an extract from ancient Sanskrit texts which Reps suggests may be the origin of Zen and has 112 "one-liner"answers to Devi´s question of Shiva about reality. His final section is a single page entitled What is Zen? which he suggests is Consciousness - which I take as Awareness. I personally love one of his final comments in his introduction to Centreing wherein he writes "Surely men as inspirators,.., shared a common uncommon discovery. The Tao of Lao-Tse, Nirvana of Buddha, Jehova of Moses, the Father of Jesus, the Allah of Mohammed - all point to the experience. no-thing-ness, spirit - once touched, the whole life clears." I agree that the truth is in them all, but the teachers frequently obscure the message, so you need to find it for yourself
- I´m (still) watching
Well, flushed by the success of my QZT purchase, I decided to add another one to cover the back door and patio. Because it is on a different LAN, I can´t see the camera on my desktop Mac, but so what? I have a 10 year old iPad that Apple suggested they would scrap for me when I checked re a trade-in. It may be old, but it works ok and I can put it on the "foreign" LAN and the cameras show up on it - even set in a neat group or as solo pictures. An elegant (and mobile) solution, which actually is an improvement as I could never get the mobile part of the Mac App to work. Now with the imminent demise of the front gate camera, I decided to get (yet) another QZT to cover that area. I might point out that they are a bit like these "ring" doorbell cameras, but without the bell, as they have two-way microphones built in, so you can talk to people - I guess they are really a sort of "gate-cam". Anyway, I went on Amazon and ordered one at the weekend, and it was supposed to arrive yesterday. Then late-on, I received an email saying there was a problem with delivery and they would not be sending it and would refund the money. I was not too surprised as I had ordered one the same as my original camera and had noticed that the model had been upgraded when I received the second one. I went online and checked the screwed up order was the camera (I had a couple of other things on the way too - great value this Prime) and (I swear) it was the camera that was not coming, so I ordered another, and later model, from a different supplier. As an aside - and in all the rush, I had forgotten the cameras need a micro-SD card installed to show video. G was going shopping, so I asked her to pick one up from the local electrical outlet named Worten (where I had bought them before). She went in, but found only empty shelves, so it looks like our largest home-entertainment retailer might be going out of business). Never mind, El Corte Ingles is much more my style - but so is Amazon, so I ordered one online. Late this morning a white van came to the gate, so I went out to get the goods - and it turned out to be the original camera order (I knew immediately as it was a different colour as well as model). What the hell. I set to to install it, but immediately ran into problems. Guessing it might be the ethernet cable (supplied solely for set-up purposes), I changed that - but still no joy. Took off the (also supplied) power line extension and it finally worked. Trouble is I now only have a short lead and need about six feet (in old money, that is). Tested the extension and discovered that it was one of the end connectors that was duff - and typically the socket-one for which I do not have a replacement, so I was now in a position where I would have to do some cutting and splicing (never easy with thin cable). I installed the camera anyway, just to test it out you see, and found it was good - so I really mounted it and used the extension with it´s (now removed) dodgy end. Oops. I now have my beautifully mounted camera and tucked-in cable, but I realsie I do not know which of the two strands would be the postitive (and that is important!). I toyed with tossing a coin, but then thought I should be vaguely professional and looked on the web to see if there are any standards, as one of the identical black wires had some vague grey blotches on it. According to my research, that means it is the positive, so I connected it up that way. But then, being a suspicious person, I wasn´t totally convinced of the web info, so undid part of the cable installation to check the polarity. It was good. All installed. Working. Sending alerts of movements. In camera group on ancient iPad. Brilliant. Now I just have to add the microSD when it arrives. .... and work out where to hide the additional camera which may well appear tomorrow! .... and then source yet another microSD card for that one
- I´m watching
For some time I have had a security camera system comprising a Mac app connected over the LAN to some Foscam cameras. In my time I have had four of these babies, but they come at a cost - they are chinese and not very good quality (despite their 130€ price tag), they are a bitch to set up and the security video app (sold by an american guy) does not like Foscam, so makes it almost impossible to find models which will work with his system. He has a complex about wifi cameras not being as good as network connected ones too, but wifi makes their installation so much more flexible. You might, reasonably, ask why I have such a tricky installation - well, about 10 years ago, it was the first of its kind I ever saw and installed in a local wine -seller (and cellar for that matter). I bought the system based on what I had seen working , so knew it was viable. I had a couple (ok, three) installed, but then accidentally bought a new one which I thought was the same as my existing ones, but I had transposed two digits in the order and it would not work. It cost me about 25€ to send it back. American guy was proved correct in one respect as they seem to last less than a 2 or 3 years, so the quailty is poor and repair is impossible. His alternatives are nearly all US branded (branded, but still made in china I will guarantee) and cost even more, plus they are not available in europe, so there is the additional transport cost. Not a ot of positives really. I have, therefore, been on the lookout for an alternative, working on the plan that when the final Foscam drops off its perch (3 gone already) I will implement a more modern and simple system. Just for fun, I bought a QZT camera which was about 40€ - working on the concept that, if it worked I was quids in, and if it didn´t I hadn´t lost much. Well, it didn´t work with the Apple app, but worked stand-alone - and actually had most of the features of the original system. I also had a cunning security wheeze, as these chinese cameras have a bit of a reputation for being insecure (think Huawei), so, instead of putting it on my main LAN I attached it to my VPN service - a separate wifi that thinks it is in Timbuctoo or somewhere like that. All very good, so that one got mounted in the back passage which has always been a bit of a dead-zone (in security terms). Unfortunately, one of the Foscams on one of the front gates went belly-up recently, so I was reduced to one "road cam" and that has started to be a bit temperamental. Time for Plan "B" (or "Q" in reality).
- Advaita, Zen, Tao
Advaita On Zen And Tao by Ramesh Balsekar This is pretty much where all my interests lie and encompasses the three philosophies that contribute to my way of thinking (pun intended). Balsekar is something of a controversial figure, but I have found his thinking and writing very much in tune with mine. In an early part of the book, he writes the following which is as good a description of Advaita as I have read: a) ‘You’ are not the body-mind organism that is composed of the five elements; you are that Consciousness which has provided that inert body with the sentience that evokes the senses to function in relation to their objects. It is sentience which makes the psychosomatic apparatus work as a unit. b) ‘You’ are not the physical organism but Consciousness which works not as some entity in charge of the operations but merely as the Witness of the operations. c) The Witness cannot be the doer of any action. With this understanding, you can detach yourself from the wrong identification with the body, and then you will naturally assume your true position as the Witness of whatever happens through any body-mind organism as the functioning of Consciousness, and not the doing by any individual entity. d) Just as sunlight makes objects in a room perceivable but is not concerned with what happens to the objects themselves, it is in Consciousness that all phenomenal objects appear, and such objects are perceived and cognised by Consciousness through the sentient beings. But, Consciousness is not involved in what happens to the phenomenal objects, including human beings. e) The state of being disidentified with the body, as the doer of any deed, is the state of witnessing. And that, indeed, is the state of liberation which is sudden and immediate.” ... and I noticed that I had saved this same passage when I first read the book a couple of years ago, so its relevance has obviously stayed with me
- Tittle-tattle
Last week, I was talking on the ´phone to a friend in the US who was in Oman with us in the nineties. She was saying how having been there during the gulf war, and having previously been in Iran during the revolution, she felt she was better prepared than most US citizens for whatever the pandemic might bring. Interesting and true, as one thing I learned from the gulf war was that there were lots of people ready to spread panic by broadcasting fake news. People were "quoting" sources saying that the Iraquies had already passed through Saudi and were in northern Oman, and suchlike stuff. It was all rubbish of course, and the sources did not stand up to scrutiny. I quickly learned to ask people where their information had come from, and if it was word of mouth, to discount it immediately. The key was to establish who was putting out the real news, then only to follow that. Today I received a message from a friend telling me that Mijas was about to go into a local lockdown. He actually quoted a newspaper, but on reading it, I could see that it was just alarmism - and, as I pointed out to my pal, the junta are so idle tthey don´t produce or correlate statistics over the weekend, thus nothing was likely to change until next week anyway. The actual data shows the trend is still upwards towards the point where they impose such a "local" lockdown, shutting all non-essential businesses, but the whole point of the current measures is to try to stop that happening. I double checked by going to our local councillor´s website, only to find a rant about the number of irresponsible people spreading news about an imminent lockdown, when that could only be implemented at national level (see screenshot). Well, at least he does share one viewpoint with me.