Planes ... and banners. Opening the pubs. Water. Art work.

Airlines are tentatively opening up their services although some of us are reluctant to try out air travel just yet. But planes have featured in news items we have come across.

As Manchester City and Burnley prepared to play a match last night the players took a knee in support of the Black Lives Matter protests. And then a small plane flew over the Etihad Stadium trailing a banner which read “White lives matter Burnley”. Someone must have some spare money to make that possible. The leader of Burnley Council has made public statements deploring the banner and declaring that Burnley Council does not support the sentiment expressed.

Trans World Airlines bedeck the tails of their planes with the letters TWA. Phil found a picture someone had tweeted of the tail of on such plane with the caption, “the repainting of Boris Johnson’s plane is almost complete”. I leave that to your imagination.

Mr Johnson assures us that it is now safe to ease the lockdown. From the 4th of July the social distancing rule will be changed. Where possible we should still remain 2 metres apart but where this is not possible we should keep 1 metre + apart. The + apparently indicates taking care to make conditions as safe as possible, presumably wearing a face mask and so on. We’ll see how that goes.

When Mr Johnson announced the reopening of pubs and restaurants, albeit with restrictions, a cry of Halleluyah went up from MPs! Some people have clearly been missing their pint.

I noticed the pub next door to us seemingly taking delivery of beer this morning. They are getting prepared.

Some places where restrictions have been lifted have seen local spikes in cases of the virus. In Texas they are not letting this make them close down. Even the wearing of masks in advisory rather than mandatory. We’ll see how that goes as well.

On the subject of the USA, I read an article about the numbers of families living without a water supply or with an unreliable, probably unclean water supply. This is the 21st century and this is happening in the richest country in the world. Of course, poor families and predominantly people of colour are the ones suffering the most. How can this be happening? Who cuts off families’ water supply? Even Soy-Muy-Pobre, the young woman who used to beg outside our supermarket in Vigo, Galicia, never complained to me that she had no water supply. After reminding me of how poor she was - hence the nickname I gave her - she might well tell me that she had no gas bottle and therefore could not cook food for her son, and then ask me to give her €10! But she never asked to buy her a bottle of water. There was never a question of her not having clean water to drink or not being able keep herself, her family and her home clean!

Another story of amateur art restoration making a mess of perfectly good works of art has emerged in Spain. This time it was a copy of a famous painting by Murillo, the Immaculate Conception. The owner apparently paid €1200 to have restoration work done. Unfortunately he gave the job to a furniture restorer. Big mistake! Who thinks a furniture restorer would be the ideal person for such a job? Maybe the furniture restorer was related to someone in the owners family and was given the job on those grounds - a family favour! And a perfectly fine painting was thus ruined.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.