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With the covid cases apparently increasing exponentially, the various levels of government are finally trying to get to grips with the problems they created by relaxing the rules over the Christmas period. The junta has taken an arbitrary figure of 1 in 200 for the number of cases per head of population, and decided to use that as the trigger for its "tiers" of lockdown. It has also used the case rate over 14 days as the other factor. Why? Who knows? Their own site vacillates between 7 days and 14 days for the first-case data it displays. It is generally accepted that the best way of preparing the data for analysis is by presenting it on a rolling average over a number of days, but the term "rolling average" does not appear anywhere in their blurb. No one knows whether it is Monday´s or Tuesday´s figures that encompass the previous weekend. But as they don´t work at weekends or holidays it is all very amateurish. Do they think the virus stops replicating at those times? (A bit reminiscent of the pollen count report which stopped over summer during the university holidays!) So the base data is difficult to find. Personally I would prefer to see the raw daily data as it comes in, then work on it myself, but that is not going to happen and they can actually show whatever they want from the "statistics department". What I have to follow is the data as they present it (and be careful to watch for 7 or 14 day stats), but if I follow the same reports I can make my own assumptions (actually, if I record their reports, as they do not present any historical data). Basically, what I can see is the trend - and that is not good. They are obviously unsure of what they are saying and find a need to check it - so, typically, they do a bit of population sampling. Last week they invited a "random" thousand people from Mijas to go to a fairground / car park to be tested. Only 400 of those people turned up (no one knows what percentage actually saw the SMS message as there was no response option) and of those 400 only one tested positive. It seems to me as if that 1 in 400 has much stronger validity than a statistical "greater than 1 in 200" plucked from their data. .... and that is assuming the tests are valid anyway. A recent quote in the Telegraph caught my eye -"Even a ‘perfect’ test cannot guarantee that individuals will not become infectious in subsequent days. This is an intrinsic property of the biology of Covid-19. Even a ‘perfect’ test for infectiousness could rapidly become out of date if the individual is incubating the infection or is about to contract it." and John Hopkins University quote"Results may also be affected by the timing of the test. For example, if you are tested on the day you were infected, your test result is almost guaranteed to come back negative, because there are not yet enough viral particles in your nose or saliva to detect." Unfortunately they don´t give a time period for when results are likely to be accurate. A pal told me tonight that some friends of his had eaten in an, otherwise deserted, restaurant and were called the following day to be told that "one of their waiters had tested positive". They tried to get a test the following morning, but the testing stations told them that their selected day was the one when the previous positives came in for a re-test, so it was not advisable. They later tested negative, but as that was all within 4 days, I am not clear, what was the point. What is the incubation period? Does anyone really know? So based on dodgy testing, dodgy data and dodgy statistics, we are about to go into a "municipal" lockdown. But then don´t worry, it doesn´t start until tomorrow night - and there is a meeting of the junta to change the rules before that happens anyway. What the hell. Lockdown is definitely safer than "travel where you like and meet with your family and friends".

This is an update to the second post about how the site is developing and some of the issues I (and you) might be experiencing and follows the original post ("Moving On") about the site development. I have a feeling I have sorted most of the proklems, but welcome comments if not. One of the things I hadn´t really paid much attention to when I started using WiX was this issue of mobile v "static personal computer" displays. I vaguely remember it was an issue in the early days of Wordpress, but not something I had bothered about. Now it is - and the biggest problem (for me) is switching between devices to see whether it is working as I want (apart from the fact it isn´t if you see what I mean). Things I have noticed on mobiles : - it doesn´t go straight to the first post you click on, but is OK on the second (if anyone bothers to keep trying) OK now I think -it seems to add space that you have to scroll through to get to some content OK now I think - anyway workd on my iphone - please let me know if you see other problems In other areas, I am frustrated at not being able to use "strike though" as my preferred method of showing what I really mean! I have found a cumbersome workaround using html boxed text, but it isn´t perfect by any means and puts random blank lines at the start - as well as having a character limit and requiring scrolling in that small section. So, as below, and it is messy in the extreme at present. Grrr (and now I see that text goes to full screen width - not what I want on a mobile) Given up on that - put it in as an improvement request Ha Ha Another issue is the captions under the photo gallery. Actually, my issues are more to do with my understanding of how "gallery" works, so I need to put a bit of effort in on that to make it more user friendly. I seem to have got the cats bit right (by accident) so I will start from there. OK now I think I also noticed as I wrote this that there does not seem to ba a way of "linking" to another post from within one - you just have to link the posts so the old one appears after the one you are writing. Not very elegant. OK now I think The bottom line about this is that, like me, WiX is not perfect. In reality, I am a user who happens to be able to find ways of making applications do what I want - OK, usually by bludgeoning them with a large technological hammer to make them do what I want (despite their not being designed for that functionality). I guess you could call it "IT bodging" - and bodging is one of my skills. + just for info, when I add something to a previous post, I am putting a "+" in the header

A few years ago I was talking to a couple of old golfing pals who had just bought villas in Ibiza. The villas were side-by-side on a cliff overlooking a cove. Very tasty properties indeed. We were discussing maintenance issues and one of the guys said the first words of spanish he had learned were "deme dos" (give me two), as whenever he needed to buy anything for the house, he automatically bought two as he knew his pal would need one too. I do something very similar, but with me (and G it has to be said), it is the expat thing of not knowing when you might see them again, so you buy two (usually food, but also clothes and handbags and Porches). G and I do not often go shopping together these days, but she has reverted to calling me "buy two" when we do go to the supermarket. To me it seems silly to just pick up one jar of tuna or pack of tinned olives. We know what we use on a regular basis and we have the storage space, so what the hell. This week, however, I took it to a new level as I decided to buy a spare filter for the pool pump. Not in case it broke, but just to make cleaning it easier. The filter is a plastic barrel, perforated to allow water through, but intended to catch larger pool debris just before it reaches the pump. On our pool, it really needs cleaning a couple of times a month (but the ex-poolboy managed to leave it to once every 3 months - or let me do it when it created problems). There is a filter on the "skimmer" which catches most large floating things, but the "sump" drain has nothing "fine" at the pool end, so stuff goes down it. Anyway, I cleaned the pool during the week, but didn´t really have the time or energy to do the filter as it is real pain. The bits it gathers are the usual mix of bits of leaf, grass and unlucky beasts, accompanied by bits of pine tree which are like a thin elasticated chicken wishbone. These damn things get in the filter and do not get out (ok, I know that it is the point of the filter), and when you are trying to clean the filter these things are very difficult to dislodge, even with tapping, hosing or cursing. The reason this becomes an issue is that while the filter is out, the system sucks air in, and it can take 5 or 10 minutes of dry-running from the pump to get it flowing again (not good for the pump). So, I decided it might be a cunning ruse to buy a spare filter which I could put straight into the pump and allow the other to dry out and be cleaned "at leisure". Anyway, put the theory to the test this morning and managed to swap in the new filter in seconds - in fact so fast that the pump didn´t have to do any hunting at all. Success! - and at only 9€, a snip. (but at some point I do have to clean the other one before the next cleaning session). Some days are diamonds...

An article in the press caught my eye this morning, but I had to read it about three times to even start to believe it. It was about a someone "gaming the system" in my view - about a peson who had flagged an issue to her superiors, who had failed to act upon her comments. She had flagged them elsewhere in the company, but received no support, but the management obviously decided she was a problem and started to give her a bit of grief, so she went on sick leave with "stress". Three years later she won a court case against them for mis-management of her complaints (reported the paper), wrongful dismissal I would guess in reality. What was most surprising was the issue she flagged. It was reported that she told her management that women being called at weekend about work issues were being discriminated against on grounds of gender, as "women were more likely to be managing childcare at the weekend than men". Stop and read that again. She wanted them to call men instead of women (sorry, female child-carers) at weekends. Now that sounds like discrimination against the men to me - and a realistic gender issue, but not the way she wanted it. Her line management obviously felt the same and started to manage her "sideways / outwards" (and managed that badly too, or there would not have been a case). Somehow, she won her case and 20 grand, but they refused her costs, which probably came to much more. I actually heard of something similar when a worker reported harassment to her superiors (long before there were any "woke" codes about it), made an issue of it, then went off with stress - and sued them. She apparently received a bundle, but as the person telling me the story put it , the company got off lightly because it was the issue that got them to implement new policies to protect the staff from such treatment (read, save the company from being sued again). Did I mention she was supposedly a lawyer with experience of American-style discrimation case payout? Hence my scepticism about the case related above. Oh, I forgot, one of her other issues was the culture where managers shouted at staff. Give me strength. I wouldn´t last a day in these woke times. Oh, and don´t even start on the real discrimination I / we experienced. When you don´t have kids, you are the mug who gets the out-of-season holiday times and are always first to be scheduled for working over events that other people want off for family time. And then there is the being a male WASP - but I have mentioned that before

We have something other than covid to think about this week, and, as is typical for us Brits, it is the weather. Actually, not typically British weather (or Spanish for the matter) as the weather service is predicting ten inches of rain for us over the next four days, coupled with easterly winds of up to 70kph. Now that is the general forecast for the area, but as I may have mentioned before, our little area has a micro-weather system, largely as a result of living part-way up a mountain. Thus we tend to get what everyone else gets, but in spades. Accordingly, I went out at sparrows´this morning and checked that the drain holes in the walls were unblocked, that there was a stone by the gate to deflect any major stream way from the garden and finally. to move the carpets and equipment away from a line in the north part of the basement to the side door. We had already put the towels by the doors on the west side last night, as that is usually where the water tries to get in. SWMBO is out on caring duty this a.m., so it will be interesting to hear her views on my added precautions. There are of course areas where we can do nothing, as really heavy rain causes chaos on the smaller roads with landslips and wash-aways. A couple of years ago, I found a bloke shetering in his car at the top of the road - he was trapped by landslips either side of his route (ie past our house) and was waiting for the council diggers to clear the way. I gave him shelter and tea (aah, nice) and eventually he was able to go on his way. It may well be the wind is a bigger problem than the rain, as it is going to be from the east, pretty much the opposite of normal, so my regular precautions are not quite so sound - but luckily we only have one door on the east side and that has a roll-down shutter on it. (Just remembered I have a rubber roll that goes across the bottom of the garage door, which is also east-facing). It may all be a waste of effort, as the weather forecasting app has a somewhat varied success rate with rain. At this time of year, it regularly predicts really heavy rain about a week ahead, then weakens the forecast on a daily basis until we get a light drizzzle. This time, though, it is committed. 5 consecutive days of heavy rain can´t be magic´d away (unless a large Atlantic storm decides to completely change course faster than a tanker can turn around). Survivors will may report in on a regular basis . + well, we had 2 inches on Wednesday night, then just drizzle yesterday. Took a delivery of leña (firewood) and the guy was telling me that they had been deluged with rain in AlHaurin, about 5 miles west. However, last night it hit us and rained steadily all night and all this morning. The pool is now full, so that´s about 5" so far. I think that is enough. ++ but Saturday dawned clear and bright and the pool overflow tube has already cleared the excess and the patios are dry enough to be brushed down (and that usually has to wait for two days at least)

I mentioned last year about how I was trying to source some light switches and similar fittings, but the hardware store man said they were now obsolete and impossible to find (certainly weren´t there in his store), but then I went to the aladdin´s cave ferreteria in the centre of the pueblo and Antonio found me plenty of them in his tardis-like back room. Then I had the same issue with the hinges and his wife found some that were available either-handed. Now our house was totally refitted with doors, electricity, tiling, etc about 20 years ago, but still spares and replacements are difficult to find. I say difficult to find, but some things are impossible to find. When more than 50% of the local properties use the same sort of equipment, what goes on? I remember reading, probably 30 years ago, about the japanese using "planned obsolescence" for equipment - this was particularly in IT but rapidly spread to cars. It is all very well offering a 7 year warranty, as some do, but when the lifetime of each and every part is planned to be 7 years, it doesn´t bode well to buy an old one. And knowing the japanese, the planning will mean that certain parts are "down-graded"to that 7 years in manufacturing if they can be made cheaper at that level. (I always remember the legendary Quality story about someone in the UK ordering parts from Japan and specifying a failure rate of 3 per thousand. When they got the order, there were 997 parts plus 3 wrapped separately. When they queried why, they were told they were the 3 failing ones and the rest were perfect. They knew what they were doing and had faith in their quality!) We all know about HP making money out of cartridges and Kodak from their film, well Apple do actually make money from their hardware, but only by making it redundant due to software changes (mind you, that gave me a job in the old days). My issue with Apple is that they produce really fantastic quality hardware that has a life far greater than their support. My generation really do not like throwing away things that (should be) are still usable, but software compatibility is just another method of planning obsolescence. And why these stories now? Well, one of the cisterns has developed a crack down the front. I spotted it last night, and spent the night worrying whether I would awake to a torrent down the stairs). This is actually the second one of the (5) cisterns to develop this fault at 20 years old. And the biggest problem is, that Roca, the biggest porcelain manufacturer in Spain, has stopped making them in beige (which is a bit of a bugger when all your five bathrooms have beige fittings) as they only seem to do white. In fact, every time I see "new life in the sun" the properties have beige sanitary ware, so it must be a business decision to push people to get everything replaced - or maybe most people aren´t as anal as me about re-matching colours. The joke is that back in the seventies when I bought a new flat, a white bathroom suite was considered very unusual and was charged as a "special additional option".

I thought it a good opportunity (the only real opportunity) to show the sun going down on 2020. A year which will not be missed. Well, right now it seems like we are in the middle of the proverbial "month of Sundays" at the moment. As ever, the post office has taken a slight opportunity to remain closed (Saturdays stopped in March at the first sniff of covid) and it was closed on Christmas eve and New Year´s eve (and many days in between). Today is supposedly Friday, but it sure feels like a Sunday - and strangely, the supermarkets are actually open this coming Sunday - Go Figure. Of course, the spanish festivities are still in full swing, as the "Reyes Magicos" don´t do their rounds until the 6th of January, but here in Casa D, the Christmas spirit lasted until first light today - then we started purging all the decorations, lights, cards etc. We did make one concession though, as we will be having turkey again tonight (and probably for most of the weekend). We did make the effort to stay up and even went out on the top balcony at midnight as is our (irregular) custom. G even took out a couple of sparklers which we reckon must be more than 20 years old. They actually lit, so I have orange rings burned on my retina for the next month. Along with our sparklers, half the costa had decided to let off fireworks (but nothing "official", so we watched and listened for half an hour (actually they were still going at two in the morning). Not a great ´photo, but it is a screenshot of a snapshot of a video I took. Hmm.

Well at least the year ended with some good weather (if a little chilly). Now all say "aahhh poor things" I went out to brush the top patio, and it was so clear and beautiful, I felt moved to take a photo and post it. Temperature about15ª in the shade, so very pleasant in the sun. The reason for my burst of activity was to prepare for tonight´s festivities (not) whereby if I am still awake / sober (delete as required) we will probably go out and let the new year in there. In a normal year, there would be firework displays from side to side of the costa, but this year I doubt it. That is except for the fact that, despite mega-lockdowns being in place since March, and, much like the UK, the powers-that-be have relaxed travel rules and extended the opening hours for bars from 2000 as before to 0100 tonight - and people just have to be home by 0130. Why do they pander to the stupid end of society so much? I will guarantee that the local squares will be full of drunks at midnight, trying to eat a grape with each bonk / bong*. God help us all. As appears to be the case in most of the world, there is quiet majority trying to conform to the rules, but an inconsiderate minority causing most of the problems. The following is a (slightly updated version of) the email I sent out to most people, but, what the hell. If you are here, you have found me anyway! I can tell you that I have given up on the old WordPress site as the guy who hosted and managed it failed to fix some problems he himself created after he fixed an attack on the server that hosted my site. I gave up waiting for him to get it sorted and have now started this new site (it has the same password, but note the “-“ in the middle ). I have moved over some of the content, but pretty much started afresh. Well, that will give me a chance to repeat some of my favourite stories as if I was in a bar! One issue with WiX is that you have to sort out a main (PC) site and another set-up for mobiles. The mobile one has been giving me a headache, but I think it is about 80% right now We all have been living in a strange situation since the advent of Covid early in the year. Spain is much as we read about in other countries - government indecision and U-turns, a health system working under constant strain and no one really understanding exactly what is permitted as restrictions change from week to week. There have been a variety of different severities of lockdown, with the financial ramifications causing them to be lifted every so often, before another lockdown is brought in. Luckily everything is still available in the shops - and most of the parcel delivery companies now have our address firmly embedded in their systems! Despite my predilection for my blog (which I justify by making it inaccessible to “Google” and behind a privacy “wall”), I hate the whole “social-media” circus and believe you can probably lay a large amount of the world´s woes at the door of that technology as it gives the small minority of weirdos and nutters a loud voice - which gets amplified by the printed and/or tv media ( and whoever would have thought that “influencer” would become a “career”). By the way, has anyone else noticed how lazy the press have become, basically reporting on what they see on social media, not real life?. One thing that President Trump definitely got spot-on was the impact of “fake” news. These days you have to check with 3 or 4 sources to get the truth on any story. Brexit ceased to be a major issue as its significance faded against the pandemic. Interestingly the “buggeration” anticipated from the Spanish side has actually mostly come from British financial institutions, but 2021 might bring as yet unforeseen issues. We had read the signs over the last couple of years and made sure we had all our documentation up-to-date (and in Spain, there is a lot of documentation). Typically the final piece was just dropping into place with an appointment to collect our new “extranjero” identification cards, when the police station was summarily closed half an hour our before our slot due to a covid alert (10 day quarantine for their staff, and back to the tedious online booking system again for us). Anyway, at 2300 UK time tonight (our 2400) the UK will finally be out of Europe, so, one way or another, we will be out tonight The hospice stopped accepting day-care patients in early March, almost before the crisis really took hold, and thus made both of us redundant (and pretty much made one of our cars redundant too, which was a bit of a bummer as we had replaced one with a new one in January). G has still ended up supporting a variety of people who needed some sort of assistance, but she really misses the regular interaction with the day-care patients. The hospice still managed to bring her out of “furlough” to put up their Christmas decorations, but they were a bit muted compared to normal years, so she has been had a bit more time to prepare Casa D (Grizzwalds, eat your heart out). In the true spirit of the festivities, G has told me the lights can stay up "into the New Year", so I guess I may be taking them down at 0100 tomorrow morning. We have obviously had a lot more time for the the house and garden and, after almost a year of waiting, we finally managed to get the balcony rails and posts replaced (shown in photo, but probably unnoticeable to averyone in the world but us), which is a major improvement and provides us with a “new” place on the top patio to sit in the sun and watch the world go by. The pool became my responsibility as the reliability of the cleaner became a “bit problematic” at the end of last year - and I have to say I actually enjoy doing it (that and the fact that the wind and leaves usually happened the night after it had been cleaned, so I would have to do it again myself the following day anyway). G maintains the garden in great shape (with me on cutting, pruning and shifting duty). My work should be ameliorated slightly next month though, as we are having the “small” back lawn patio´d-over (now I have found a good little builder, I might as well make use of him!) Actually it makes us realise how long we have been here when our original “set” of tradesmen have mostly retired and we are having to go through the process of finding reliable people for a second time. One really good find was a local company making curtains and blinds, so early in the year, and before the pandemic, we managed to get most of the curtains and blinds in the house replaced. The blinds are quite strange, as we can see out through them, but even with the lights on, it is difficult to see in. Perfect in my opinion. On that note, I spoke to the new gardener at the house above and he showed great acumen in offering to come down and see whether he could be of use to us. He has been once already and cut the grass and edges and even understood what weeds were (a first for spanish gardeners I have met) and started on G´s beds (I was told to keep him away though, as the beds and planst are "hers" = where she goes to avoid me) There were some family and friends who were scheduled to come over here during the year, but that all went by the board and socialising with friends has become an “online” event using Whatsapp, e-mail, or the plain old telephone. G has used Zoom a couple of times, either for the family or hospice presentations - not for me (and Skype even suspended my accountant due to lack of use). Eating out pretty much stopped as most restaurants and bars were closed for months - and that sort of socialising has never recovered (although we do know some people who still get out every week). Entertainment now comprises watching any old series that takes our fancy on iptv - that is for the evening, but we have also been purging and painting the basement, with the golf gear being the first casualty (amazing how much space that freed up!). Despite the lockdown, we managed to meet a couple in Iceland café for tea and toasted tea-cakes this morning. They (Iceland) seem to operate a good cleaning regime for the furniture - and the tea-cakes are good too. Shame it was too early for a chupito really. Other than that tea-party, and socialising in restaurants may have stopped, but we are still eating and drinking (too) well. I managed to put back on all the weight I lost on my mega-diet over the last two years. Luckily the wine warehouse has stayed open. That and the almost impossibility to access medical services means that my doctor cannot give me a dressing-down! It is my intention to reimplement my Dry-January (coupled with a diet) - something I started back in the 70s during previous periods of over-indulgence. Notwithstanding all the world´s problems, we are very lucky in so many ways - and we do appreciate that. Let us hope that 2021 brings us all a change for the better. Have a good New Year * as you can see. this WiX site does not allow me the "luxury" of using strike-through for the odd joke. I am working to improve it

I was slightly surprised to see an article in the Guardian (of all papers) this morning, wherein the writer referenced an increase in the consumption of Anis in spain during the past year. Partly this was put down to its use in easter delicacies (?), but principally due to consumption by "old men in bars". Now can you imagine the editors´ red pens had the article referred to consumption by black men in bars, muslims in bars, transgender people in bars, young women in bars (basically make up your own "-ism"). They are red-hot on sexism, racism, transgenderism, nationalism or any other trendy cause of the last 10 years - except ageism. I actually don´t give a toss that they lump me into an age group, as it is something about which I can do nothing - but so are all the other labels. What no one ever says is that people are a product of their age, upbringing and environment. People over 60 have inbred views that will never match those of the "woke" liberals under 40. They talk about entrenched racisim in the UK (well, the BBC "champion of diversity" on £75k for a 3-day week did as part of her publicity drive for her new book), but it is all about the environment in which you were brought up. Generations born in immediate post-war Britain were, almost exclusively, white, hetro-sexual, Christian, class-conscious, nationalist, pro-empire - and were brought up by a generation that were probably more-so. No amount of Guardian censorship will change that. Nothing will change the woke views of the young. Just suck-it-up. Especially the anis.

Fast brain, fast mouth, no filter. Probably the definition of a smart-ass, and pretty much sums up my life from a very early age - probably right through to now. It got me in trouble with any and all people in positions of authority, school masters, policemen, et al- it also got me into trouble with the local yobs, where a smart comment was never appreciated and usually met with threats of violence. This personality trait (some would say defect) was compounded by my lack of respect for any sort of authority that wasn´t based on logic or merit - read most people in public life and almost all management in businesses such as Shell. I really can count on the fingers of one hand the number of charismatic people I met in my career, a similar amount whose ability I respected, and maybe just a few more who gave more than could be expected in order to achieve results. This obviously offers me a hell of a lot of "other" people at whom to "have a go". I found out later in life that my mother harboured ambitions for me to go into the army - although it is a moot point whether that was because she thought I would thrive or, more likely, to get some sense beaten into me and tighten my loose mouth. It would probably have been the shortest military career in (peacetime) history. My problem has always been that a smart comment that springs into my mind just has to be uttered - irrespective of the situation or potential fall-out. My mind is always working on arrays of options to almost anything that is happening (probably being the basis of my project management skills), but when it throws up a coincidental connection that appears funny - out it is blurted. I think my first foray into this sphere was when I was about 7 or 8, and my mother and an aunt were discussing some lady who was thought to be a bit "fast". They obviously thought I wan´t listening, or that even if I was listening, I wouldn´t understand. They had also mentioned that she was a lawyer - and were absolutely amazed when I put lawyer and loose woman together and "innocently" asked if that meant that she spent most of her time soliciting. Innocent face, innocent voice and swift exit. That stunned them completely. I had found my metier. Actually, that was probably the only time when I came up with a smart comment when I wasn´t already in trouble... and let me tell you, when you make such comments to a teacher, policeman, line manager or any other official when they are being bombastic, it exaggerates the impact many times over -and usually ends in an explosion. I have lost count of the number of times I have been reprimanded for being facetious, which tended to be the term used by "management" - ie people who realised my jocular comments were actually barbed and aimed at them. You might think that being in a foreign country and only being partially fluent in the language would have cured me of my failings, but sad to report that this is not true. In some ways it is actually exaggerated, as spanish words can be swiftly connected to other spanish words or situations and a situation contrived. Of course, a lot of it falls on stoney ground as people who are struggling to understand your limited command of the language are totally unprepared for any jokes or barbs - although the locals do seem to understand the when you are getting at them just from the cynical look or tone of voice. So, basically, sarcasm works across borders. As a friend observed on an early trip to spain, the language is easy - you just add an "o" to the end of the english word. Just call me El Sarcastico!

It doesn´t really matter which country you are in, the handling of the Covid outbreak is, and is seen as, a shambles. I personally cannot believe how negative the press are (and I mean everywhere), constantly slagging off the efforts being made. Do they not realise this is a once in a century crisis which no-one can manage with confidence? Even worse is when the politicos grind their part-political axes instead of trying to help their nation. Some labour tosswit was on UK tv tonight comlaining about what the goverment were / weren´t doing about Christmas and New Year and citing many other european countries as having done much better and been decisive in stopping things happening - and even citing spain as one of those countries. Well, he is wrong. Spain is just as bad and just as stupid. Despite infection rates rising again, they have decided to relax restrictions over the holiday period - and, let me tell you, the spanish have as many selfish, inconsiderate tossers as they do in the UK and they will all be out partying, mixing with extended families and spreading, spreading, spreading. In the UK, I even heard some woman complaining yesterday about the government forcing her to make her own decision about what to do over Christmas. Are people so stupid they need telling everything? (of course they are, it is part of the "blame someone else for everything" culture) ... and while we are at it, has anyone actually worked out how fast they can vaccinate 55,000,000 people? Simple arithmetic suggests that you will struggle to do more than one every 6 minutes - so 10 per hour, for, say, 10 hours. 100 per day per worker / vaccinator. Put 10 of those people in a "site" and you will get through 1000 per day. Create 200 of those "sites" around the country and that gives you 200,000 per day. With 55million, that takes 275 days, consecutive days without any time off. To do that sort of effort would require at least 3 or 4 shifts of workers and at least an equal number of support staff. So 80 staff per site, or 16000 workers. That is absolute best case. Halve it and you might be getting close, but are still wishful-thinking. Better still, think (end of) second half 2022 to vaccinate everyone in the UK without any hitches, strikes or whatever (and assuming they move to a single-jab vaccine too). If I could invest in anything, it would be a "diabetes-style" blood test meter that would give you a positive or negative result within seconds. That would resolve a huge amount of the confusion about who can do what and where and with whom. But.. Don´t hold your breath .. or rather, do hold your breath if you are near anyone else.

This is an extract from a post I put up early in the pandemic: One result that all the governments seem to be in agreement upon is the concept of "home-jailing" all the old-fogies (like me) to "protect us". Thanks, but if we don´t have it to spread, surely it is up to us to make the judgement on what activities are so urgent that we are willing to risk our lives for them (going to the Niño high on my list). They can´t really cite overloading hospital resources as most governments also seem to have adopted a "sod the old" triage policy. I actually find that highly amusing, as at our last medical appointment, my doctor actually refused to discuss the spanish version of "Do Not Resuscitate" which is an incredibly complicated system named "Advanced Health Care Directive" - that starts with an online form (solely in spanish) which has to be discussed and I think approved) with your doctor, then registered with the province and nationally. The concept is that any ambulance paramedic will check your name against this list before trying resuscitation if you drop in public. Ha bloody ha. There is apparently some weird opposing law that they "must" give the corpse an hour or so of chest-banging, irrespective of age, medical condition, personal wishes or possibility of "success". A friend witnessed this in acion on an elderly gentleman who had dropped dead in the street. Just when you thought you had made a perfect peaceful and painless exit, some jobsworth starts trying to pry your hands off heaven´s gate. I have always made my wishes known on this matter, and have now gone as far as to write it up in my notes on my ´phone (in English and Spanish), but whether the people wanting to save me will agree is open to question. Whose bloody life is it, after all? ... and just to add to the incongruity of it all, I read in El Pais this week that the spanish government has, in principle, given approval to start to allow euthansia in this country. I have lost count of the number of pet "owners" who have told me how they saw it as a duty to euthanase the animal when it was in distress and beyond help. They all also echoed the fact that they would prefer it if the same sort of thinking could go into their end too.