Restrictions and rules and being careful, whatever you do!

Preston has been put into extended restrictions, like the ones imposed on Greater Manchester. A ban on mixing in homes and gardens, came into place from midnight and will stay in place until August 14th at least. But a lot of people in the area have said “they expect many of their neighbours to ignore the renewed coronavirus restrictions imposed in the city.”

I rather like the wording of that statement, suggesting that those speaking are good, law-abiding citizens but that they believe their neighbours are not!

One good citizen commented: “I was happy the restrictions were brought in because I think we do need the police to get involved. The pubs around us were still 30 or 40 deep outside last night.” Certainly the pubs seem to be filling up and staying open late, if the one next door to our house is anything to go by. I woke up for some reason at about 1.30 this morning and could still hear loud and animated conversation from the pub garden. A little bit of summer and the British become continental in their social habits, chatting and drinking into the small hours. I predict that things might be a bit quieter out there at 1.30 in the morning in mid-December!

Personally we have been a bit careful to obey the rules. Or rather, our daughter has been quite strict about reminding us that if we let the children play in our garden or invite Phil’s brother in for a cup of tea we could find ourselves facing a largish fine. Would our neighbours report us? I certainly hope not.

Yesterday most of the family - our daughter and her gang and my brother-in-law - met up for a rather hot walk to Diggle chippy for a fish and chips picnic lunch by the duckpond and a return walk along the canal towpath.

We were impressed by the log-sitting ducks and the boldness of the robins.

After we said goodbye to the younger end of the family, we risked inviting my brother-in-law to have a cup of tea with us before he set off for home. After all, I had gone to the trouble of baking a gluten-free cake with him in mind. I don’t think anyone noticed. And besides, the younger members of the household next door seemed to have invited guests themselves in the early evening, setting up a barbecue in he garden.

In between reading updates in the Coronavirus crisis status I have occasionally read other odds and ends. Among that stuff I found something about the writer John Boyne, who wrote “the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. His new Novel, “A Traveller at the Gates of Wisdom”, ranges from AD1 to the twenty-first century and at one point involves the narrator trying to poison Attila the Hun. The ingredients for the poison include “Octorok eyeball” and “the tail of the red lizalfos and four Hylian shrooms”.

Now, it seems that these come straight from a popular video game “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild”, a game quite unfamiliar to John Boyne as he does not play video games. Another writer, Dana Schwartz, pointed out his accidental “borrowing”:-

“if those ingredients look weird to you, it is because they are straight of out of the Zelda game Breath of the Wild”.

She suggested that John Boyne might have simply done a google search and found these odd components.

“He found a site listing monster parts and accidentally put them in his Very Serious book. I am very embarrassed for him and this is my nightmare but it’s also very funny,” said Dana Schwartz. “Anyway. Let this be a lesson to all novelists to read the full context of the things you’re looking up for your books but if you do make mistakes, at least let them be hilarious.”

John Boyne decided against changing his book but decided to add the video game to the acknowledgements page when the book comes out in paperback.

It just goes to show that you have to be careful in all things.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!