Euphemisms and other stories.

The latest euphemism for “restrictions” seems to be “advice”. New “advice” has been issued regarding Greater Manchester and, I think, Lancashire. Basically the North West of England has been lumped together for new “advice” because of the increasing number of Coronavirus cases, and in particular cases of the Delta variant. So people are being “advised” no travel into and out of the area. 

Hmmmm! I know a number of people who have already organised to go off to Wales or Cumbria or the Yorkshire Dales. 

This “advice” sounds a bit like a further lockdown, not as strict as previous ones but still a lockdown of sorts. Nobody wants to call it that because there has been a sort of promise that there will be no more local lockdowns. But extra help has been organised to encourage vaccination and testing. Even the army has been called in, I believe. 

It’s a good job the sun is shining, that’s all I can say! The people I know who are setting off for a holiday in the UK are hoping the fine weather will continue. As they are mostly members of my Italian zoom class they have promised that they will try to participate from wherever they are, assuming they have a good wifi connection. After the fun and games I and another member of the group had on Monday, it is clear that even a well known and frequently used home wifi connection can let you down. And earlier in the week all sorts of things went wrong with big organisations’ wifi. Fingers crossed. My zoom-Italian friends cannot guarantee to join us if the weather is absolutely brilliant but certainly if it rains they will do their best. We shall see.

My weather app tells me it’s 21 degrees. When I set off on my bike this morning before 9 o’ clock the app told me it was 15 degrees but already it felt considerably warmer. We shall see how the day goes. 

 

The fine weather has favoured the growth of buttercups. 

 

Along the edge of paths they have grown tall. 

 

Out and about I see fields absolutely full of them. At first I thought I was seeing fields of rape, grown for animal feed and for rape seed oil, but closer inspection proved them to be fields of grass taken over very tall buttercups. The grass in our back garden is similarly infested but ours are much smaller as they don’t have to compete for sunlight with tall grasses. We find ourselves reluctant to cut the grass as the buttercups look really nice. In any case, our back garden grass is a long way from being what anyone could call a lawn. We long ago stopped calling it by that name; it’s just grass with quite a lot of clover and other plants mixed in with it. It still needs cutting, however. The buttercups will eventually have to go.

In the odd ongoing saga of the rights and wrongs of footballers taking the knee, a Tory MP has made his contribution to the debate, comparing it to a Nazi salute. Here’s an extract from a report:

“In a controversial Facebook post, Brendan Clarke-Smith labelled the gesture "habitual tokenism" and said he was "highly critical" of the team's decision to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement against racism.

He said the group's aims, which he claims include "crushing capitalism, defunding the police, destroying the nuclear family and attacking Israel", go beyond an anti-racist message and reminds him of the fascist dictatorships which emerged in 20th-century Europe - including Nazi Germany.”

Oh boy! As a number of comments I have seen are saying: “If you think taking the knee is a problem, then you are the problem!”

It’s odd what people can persuade themselves to believe.m

Journalist Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett writing about UFOs and how she would like to keep the belief that there could be a Loch Ness monster and a real curse from the tomb of Tutankamun, provided this story: 

“Yet in this world of fake news and conspiracy theory, I realise my desire for mystery is no longer so innocent. It’s as important to cling to rational, scientific evidence as ever. And an answer isn’t always a letdown. The 1911 Moberley-Jourdain incident, which involved two British women who, while walking in the gardens at Versailles, claimed to have seen the gardens as they would have been in the 18th century, complete with the ghost of Marie Antoinette and others, seems to have a plausible explanation. Hilariously, it seems that these ladies may have stumbled upon a massive gay fancy dress party. Marie Antoinette may well have been the flamboyant aristocrat poet Robert de Montesquieu, in drag”.

Such is the strangeness of the world!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!