Tag: COVID-19
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Basket Cases
The power of social media: a critical care nurse makes an emotional video about empty shelves in stores. It goes coronaviral. Major stores decided that we needed to support our NHS staff, so they introduced NHS hours for staff to shop where there are replenished shelves. Of course, staff work shifts, so not everyone can…
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Closure Ayes
If you’re panicking at the prospect of a few months of social distancing, spare a thought for your friendly neighbour burglars and junkies, who will see the window for opportunist crime closing down faster than a Rolf Harris comeback tour. They’ll probably be able to apply for Universal Credit, though, and we should endeavour to…
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Keep Calm and Cory On
A brief stroll through the town centre yesterday, and I had to check my watch to make sure it wasn’t 1st April. At first, I thought I’d encountered a cardiologist cycling club charity ride, what with all the people pedalling about with their green surgical masks. You almost don’t know where to begin. The panic…
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It’s All About the Money, Honey
Every day is bringing fresh computations of hysteria and nitwittery. People used to cough to cover up a fart; now they’re farting to cover up a cough. But back to the bug and more pertinently, the government’s fiscal stimulus. It was never going generate a Joker-strength smile for everybody, but then again, the money pit…
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Just Checking the Smellprint
I’m getting nostalgic for Brexit. This whole corona-clown cluster is withing touching distance of peak buffoonery. Helpfully though, because anti-inflammatories suppress the immune system, we have been advised not to be taking ibuprofen. That’s a relief. Mind you, it takes a Kofi-Annan-grade negotiation just to but a few packets under normal trading conditions, so it’s…
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One Harm Banditry
Well, I would have washed my hands of it all, but there is no longer any soap or hand-sanitiser in the shops. We have well and truly lost the plot. We had initially embarked on a sensible, balanced strategy that is now being corroded by social media delirium. Everybody’s advancing their own crackpot theories based…
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Jolly Rogered
I probably should just wash my hands of the whole coronavirus business. We’ve become engulfed by viral hysteria to the extent that the nation has misplaced its rational compass. Let’s hope common sense kicks in before we do ourselves some serious damage. And by that, I mean crippling economic carnage long after the last coughs…
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Bug Chasing
Tom Hanks has become the highest-profile person to confirm a COVID-19 diagnosis, so it’ll be fascinating to see him as a man battling a stigmatising disease. Mind you, he’s already survived World War II, Vietnam, a plane crash, being cast away on an island, being stranded in space, jumping into a volcano, and a kidnapping…
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A Long Spoon
One person who may be counting his blessings about the coronavirus may be Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, who had in the past month been unceremoniously defenestrated by the Irish electorate. With not even a coded telephone warning from Sinn Fein, old Leo has been bounced from inner-circle EU acolyte to has-been dead man walking. Although…
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Cyrus the Virus
Italy is in complete lockdown for 14 days, and Donald Trump is facing his toughest presidential fight yet. Not from the coronavirus but from boy-who-cried-wolf syndrome. After dining out for years on the battle against alleged media froth, he’s now being screwed by real fake news, if you get my drift. Well, that and the…
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