It’s a very still sort of Friday around here, one of those cloudy days when the air doesn’t seem to move much. It’s all an illusion, of course; the wind turbines on one of the hills are spinning like crazy, so there must be some wind up there. According to the weatherman, tomorrow is going to give us heavy rain and thunderstorms but today seems very quiet. The most that is happening here is that a neighbour’s cat is invading our garden. This cat was abandoned by the tenant of the basement flat next door when she had to move out. Chester the moggie just refused to be caught and be put in a cat basket. His owner promised to return for him and he was adopted in the meanwhile by another cat-loving neighbour. And at least five years on he’s still around.
Out in the wider world, Israel and Palestine are going crazy. We find ourselves shouting at the radio and television during news broadcasts, which seem very biased towards Israel for the most part.
Closer to home, while all over England numbers of Covid infections are falling, in fairly nearby Bolton they are rising alarmingly, with a large number of new variant Covid, the Indian variant. Some sources suggest this is because of travel between Bolton and the Indian subcontinent. If that is the case, who permitted such travel? And how is it that Oldham, which as far as I know has the same kind of ethnic mix as Bolton, has not had the same problem? I am very grateful we don’t have the same problem, naturally. Having worked in Bolton, I have a number of friends there. They have been under almost permanent Covid restrictions of one kind or another, mostly very strict, since this whole thing started. I really do not know how they have coped with it all.
Bolton’s not the only place in the country suffering increases at the moment but Bolton is the worst. And now there is talk of localised lockdowns, which everyone wants to avoid just as we are all planning what to do with our new freedom.
Amidst all the conspiracy theories that abound at the moment, I came across reports of US diplomats, spies and defence officials suffering from what is called Havana syndrome. There have been more than 130 incidents recently of unexplained brain injury attributed to this syndrome. It’s not new. “The 2012 intelligence information indicated that this weapon is designed to bathe a target’s living quarters in microwaves, causing numerous physical effects, including a damaged nervous system.” In fact cases emerged in the 1990s.
Now, I know they have some clever scientists and doctors in Cuba but microwave weapons sound a bit farfetched to me. I might be wrong. I probably am. I am not a scientist. But it seems to me that if such a thing really exists then there would be no need for anyone to go smearing Novichok on door handles and the like! Just a thought!
I hear that Prince Harry (can we still call him Prince Harry?) has been talking in interviews about his toxic childhood and how he wants to break the cycle of difficult childhoods in his family. Good for him. I hope he gets to enjoy his children and to bring them up as normally as possible. However, maybe he should stop talking about it and just get on with it. Surely he and his Meghan have enough money to live quietly and to get on with the good works they want to do without having to be in the limelight all the time. The best way to prevent your children from being victims of media pressure is to quietly slip out of media attention. Just another thought!
To finish off, here’s a feel-good story about a cat:-
“A Chicago cat has survived after jumping out of a fifth-floor window to escape an apartment fire.
Chicago Fire Department personnel were taking a video of the exterior of the building as firefighters were extinguishing the blaze when a black cat appeared through billowing smoke at a broken window. The feline briefly tested the side of the building with its front paws, and then jumped.
Onlookers gasped as the cat fell. But it missed a wall and instead landed on all four paws on a patch of grass, bounced once and ran away.
“It went under my car and hid until she felt better after a couple of minutes and came out and tried to scale the wall to get back in,” said fire department spokesman Larry Langford.
The cat was not injured, Langford said, adding he was trying to track down its owner.
No injuries were reported after the fire, which was confined to one apartment. The cause of the fire hasn’t been reported by officials, nor how much damage resulted.”
A lucky moggie!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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