Another dull and gloomy Monday has come around. I refuse to let this get me down. Most days for the last week have begun like this (with the exception of last Friday which began with glorious blue sky but that’s a story already told) but we still managed to get ourselves out for a walk every day. Granted one day we did get caught in a downpour on way back and had to have a change of clothes. So it goes. We could be in a worse situation.
I read this morning about a 25 year old asylum seeker from Afghanistan whose six year old son died when the boat they were travelling in from the Turkish coast in an attempt to reach the Greek island of Samos capsized. The young man is now in quarantine and may not be able to attend his son’s funeral. And now the Greek authorities are charging him with endangering his son’s life. A lawyer defending him said, “these charges are going to be used as one more obstacle to any asylum seeker to actually come here to apply for asylum. If [asylum seekers] know that if you get into a boat with your family you will be criminally charged because you put them in danger, then we create more obstacles for people to arrive here.”
I recognise that it’s easy for the likes of me to criticise those Greek authorities who must be feeling overwhelmed, who must in fact be suffering a kind of asylum-fatigue. We live well inland and are not going to see boatloads of people arriving on our doorstep needing immediate assistance. We don’t have camps for asylum seekers just down the road from our house. But none of that makes it right for those on the front line to delay rescue missions and then put more obstacles in the way of desperate people. Which is what seems to have happened in this case.
None of it is going to be sorted out until we have a proper international and fair system for seeking asylum. We all need to work together to help those who need to escape and to prevent the unscrupulous from making money out of “helping” them travel to another country. And wouldn’t it be a good idea to belong to an organisation where countries could agree to work together on this? Oh, yes! We just left such an organisation! Botheration!
Meanwhile, our Mr Johnson has found another way of hiding from us. It seems he has had a face to face meeting with an MP who has now tested positive for the Coronavirus and the PM now has to self isolate, despite being “as fit as a butcher’s dog” and “bursting with antibodies”. It would be so nice to have a leader of the country who did not talk in florid similes and metaphors all the time! I find it so-o-o-o-o wearing! Anyway, in the midst of resignation chaos at Number 10, the PM will be working from home. Maybe they should have ensured that everyone having meetings there wore masks and kept to social distancing. Maybe they should have had zoom meetings. Leading by example and that sort of thing. Just an idea!
On the subject of mask wearing, there is a shop in Japan which is using a robot to remind customers to wear masks. “Robovie, developed by the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International in Kyoto, is able to pick out customers who aren’t wearing masks and politely ask them to cover up. It can also intervene when they fail to socially distance while queuing up to pay.
The trial, which began last week at the club shop of Cerezo Osaka, a professional football team, will run until at least the end of the month.
Robovie’s developers, who are behind a host of robotic innovations, hope the experiment will reduce close contact between shoppers and staff, adding that they believe most people will feel less embarrassed by being asked to cover up by a robot than by a fellow human being.”
I would imagine it’s a lot harder to lose your temper with a robot and besides it’s not going to be upset if you swear at it. Of course, it may well be that the little robot has emotions programmed in and will go home and cry at the end of a day’s work.
I have yet to meet a robot while out shopping, but then I go in very few shops these days. Central Manchester shops could be crawling with helpful little robots for all I know. But somehow I doubt it!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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