Life of Pi

 

Social media was awash yesterday with startling facts about a new Covid variant. With plans scarcely in place to deal with the Omicron plague, the WHO has designated a brand new threat Pi (not to be confused with Phi which will not emerge until later in the alphabet). Little is known about the Pi variant at this stage: it may be more virulent than previous variants or it may not. Symptoms could be serious or relatively mild. Either way, world leaders insisted that the public should not panic and continue their life according to current regulations. New restrictions will be imposed in due course, the Department of Health added, reassuringly. Asked about contingency planning for the Pi variant, the Government said that they were very much on the front foot and that Plan C was well developed. It is understood that radical new methods of protecting from Pi have been discovered by Government scientists working round the clock. Apparently, brown paper gives 96.37% protection against the new threat. The Department has begun covert acquisition of millions of large brown paper bags. But, in another humiliating U Turn, the Government has been forced to go cap in hand to the international marketplace since UK production of brown paper bags has been run down by serial Tory neglect. MPs on all sides described the brown paper situation as disgraceful and that Ministers had been asleep at the wheel.  In attempts to calm an increasing sense of panic the UK Health and Security Agency said that enough brown paper bags would be procured to ensure all adults could be protected and there was no need for personal stockpiling. They added that jumping into the brown paper bag and crumpling the top would keep us all safe. However, the public should wait until given specific instructions to enter into their brown paper bags, warned UKHSA, since premature donning would reduce effectiveness by up to 6.73% in lightly waxed paper and even 7.63% in plain paper, according to recent tests at Porton Down. This guidance, of course, only applies in England because Scotland and Wales have already announced contrary restrictions. If in doubt, the public should call 111 and they will tell you exactly what you can do – ever serve you right is our corporate DNA, said UKHSA.

 

 

Channel Crossing Victims

 

I don’t suppose a couple owning mobile telephones with satellite navigation facilities would, necessarily, be denied claiming that they were fleeing from persecution, war, famine and liberal intolerance.  They might well be.  On the other hand, owning a sophisticated mobile telephone and paying the bills, implies some sort of economic independence.  It must be expensive to travel across most of Europe to reach the northern shores of France, conveniently just a few miles from the draw of the United Kingdom.  I expect the insignificant cost of a foot passenger ticket on the ferry from Calais to Dover would have been welcome for the final leg of the long trans-European odyssey but most recent visitors to our channel shores have preferred more unconventional transportation.  Again, I understand, not an insignificant expense but, one assumes, a bargain into which the travellers and the boat providers entered into freely?   I doubt whether tickets for the Channel passage are issued or whether various consumer protections would be applicable in event of vendor default.  In short, if a deal looks too good to be true then it probably is so caveat emptor could be helpful advice to potential travellers in future.

Meanwhile, in UK, the bills mount up: temporary food and accommodation, medical treatment and vaccination, permanent housing, welfare support, education, and, of course, the fat salaries of the army of lawyers generously provided so that none who make it here are ever returned from whence they came, whatever the circumstances.  Indeed, less than one in 1000 of the 45000 or so known illegal immigrants has even been prosecuted  never mind dealt with, in the last couple of years.  Then add the millions we are paying our French friends to regulate their own coastline. We do not hear of the cumulative cost of all this and, of course, we could not possibly have a free discussion about the social consequences.  And yet the tide of migrants/refugees/asylum seekers/economic chancers/potential 5^th columnists, however classified for political correctness, are all, universally, “victims.”  But I just wonder, looking at the respective profit and loss, who are the real victims in this crisis?

Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner

 

It is a polling day today for the election of the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire police area occasioned by the premature departure of the previous incumbent who said something silly.  I sat in and observed the selection process for my party’s candidate.  Mere members were prevented from participation in any questioning or clarification process so each candidate, of the all-female short list of two, enjoyed a session with a single inquisitor whose benevolence afforded both copious opportunity to declare their “passion” for fighting crime and their determination to stamp out this and that and any other blight on society. Assuming the other candidates on the ballot paper are of a similar standard, I see no point in voting today.  I wondered how best to register my disgust with the whole charade and decided that it would be more effective to turn up at the polling station in the village and then spoil my ballot paper, which would, at least, be recorded, rather than just to ignore the whole process.  Anyway, it is a nice afternoon for a walk.  Meanwhile, in a nearby layby, a police constable is eating his sandwich whilst monitoring his speed detection device.