An A to Z Coronavirus observational guide. . . Q

Q

Queues

Here in Britain and I suspect in most parts of the world an interesting effect has occurred. Queues have become incredibly long, but may not necessary actually contain more people. This is due to the new two metre (6ft 6 inches) social distancing that most people now observe. This is fine when there is no pressure on space and people can move about in such a way as to remain at the required distance. Where it all goes wrong is where space is limited and the numbers of people trying to get into the space make social distancing impossible. It’s like driving on the motorway; easy to keep your distance when it’s quiet, but scary and dangerous when busy or it all grinds to a complete halt.  So waiting 2 hrs to get into a supermarket was starting to be the norm.

Early on when we all seemed to be in the middle of a panic buying frenzy, I made the decision to avoid supermarkets and the like if it looked manic and rely on the local market and shop and avoid the early rush. It has proved to the right thing to do. We never actually ran out of stuff and some degree of normal is returning to shopping now . . . Well at least for those items we are allowed to shop for. In fact by going to a large supermarket late yesterday afternoon it was quieter than it would have been before all this started and there was plenty of food and the like so it was very relaxed indeed. But will it stay like this who can tell

The cat does not care as long as it has its favourite food

Liberties of London, a small Japanese Sheepdog and Zombies from the Wizard of Oz....

Sundays as I have said before have been very quiet in cyberspace, however this can be good and bad depending on how you think of cyberspace. If you see it as a party in a large hall full of interesting folk and you turn up and find they are all at home and the only person to speak too is a small Japanese sheepdog who has had a bad day and is rambling on about lions, tin robots and straw men. Having first lost his barrel of brandy then the sheep refusing to cooperate, that are now all outside with protest banners saying We Prefer Welsh Sheepdogs; Well then Sunday is not a good day to be wandering about in cyberspace. But if you think of cyberspace as a big store like Harrods or Liberties of London and you have turned up and it is entirely empty except for say a little old lady who is testing umbrellas by stabbing at manikins with them and shouting don’t you come round here with your furry gingerbread penguin ONESIE ASKING if I have seen the Zombie from the Wizard of Oz . . .(sorry distracted a bit there), then Sundays are a great day. Where you can run up and down the aisles doing things like drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa or sending slinky’s  up and down in the lifts to confuse them. Or making Lemon Bon Bon sweet circles so that on Monday morning the staff will assume the store has been visited by aliens, until they see the moustache on the Mona Lisa, then they will blame me…….. They did last time……..

So what did I do today well I re-potted a palm, that’s the plant not the part of someone’s hand; I have worked out that the Ghost Writers car has a hydraulic problem so may not need a new clutch; I dug a small hole and I defrosted a small freezer. OOOoooooo and I ate a pork pie . . . . . . YUM

I also discovered an ancient wooden monument designed to point at the moon in the early evening, I have not worked out what the exact significance of this monument was in the past, although I have reason to believe it was to do with harnessing the power of electricity from lightning strikes which was then used to light flares for the various Micro Gods of our ancestors, ancestors such as little old ladies testing umbrellas who would navigate using the light of the flares to avoid Zombies in ruby red slippers out walking their dog Toto, a small Japanese sheepdog that has lost its sheep somewhere on the notorious Curdsand Way.     

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Cars, Cold and the Dangers of the Amazon

It appears the Ghost Writer is having a bit of a car problem at present as his clutch will not disengage when his car is cold, this is OK in the summer but not ideal when it is cold in the winter. As we are now in December what it means is his car is sulking and it will be heading off to the garage some time next week to be looked at. He has tried sacrificing leaves to Gearboximus the Micro God of Car Parts but to no avail. It does mean all the leaves got cleared off the drive, so dad was very pleased although it was dad who told the Ghost Writer that sacrificing fallen leaves was a sure solution to the Ghost Writers car problems, I was sure it was furry mice you were meant to sacrifice or was it furry dice?

While on the subject of things that are happening at present I have a word of warning for you all that you need to take heed of, particularly if you are a young eccentric child of cyberspace like myself when I remember, I am old I forget these things . . . . . .(DAMN that’s a slip up). Anyway back to the present and my warning, you see I have been looking at Amazon the rather well known online shop of everything (well here in the UK it is) for presents and made a serious mistake. While looking for presents for Dad and the Ghost Writer I made the mistake of typing in Men’s toys as you do, lets face it men like playing with toys loads; it a sort of men’s thing they remain about aged 10 deep down in their DNA and I know these things I’m a chap.

Yes I know what you are thinking Men’s Toys we know the sort of thing that turned up with that search and to some degree you are right but you are also wrong because there are things there that plainly confused me, so I will try and list a few.

My Little Pony Rainbow Dash All Over Print Lounge Pants

Mens Shrek Gingerbread Warrior Costume

Mens Fishnet Tights (Black)

Meerkat Costume - Kigurumi onesie animal suit

BLACK ROADIE BEARD HEAD HAT NOVELTY MENS CHRISTMAS BIRTHDAY GIFT PRESENT

Donkey - Adult  Costume

ADULT ANIMAL ONESIE,PENGUIN... FANCY DRESS COSTUME

Mens Funny Dorothy Comedy Wizard Of Oz  Costume –

Now when it comes to dressing up in a fifteen pounds Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz costume there must be a limited customer base among men, yes I know she is a bit of a gay icon (I think?), but I really don’t think even the gay community will buy a cheap plastic Dorothy outfit in order to look a bit like an escaped Zombie from Oz.   And what is even more worrying is much of this is made in China and what on earth are they going to think, we may be attracting entirely the wrong sort of tourist from this vast land and they may be very disappointed.

Anyway I have abandoned this idea now and they may have to be content with socks . . . .

It was another rather cool looking sunset tonight but is now cold, what I need to keep me warm is a Shrek Gingerbread Warrior Costume  . . . . . . . . OK its not that cold yet.

Elvis, Zombies and a Ferret in a shopping centre (Part 2)

It was 3 degrees C again today, I mention this now because it has been this temperature for almost a year now (OK I know, but it feels like it has), right back to today, and it has happened again today, it has been quiet. The school survey at the shopping centre was far more successful than last time when there was a bit of a stampede when some of the school pupils, I think sort of got confused with Zombies and Freddie’s ferrets went walkabout. I can hear newish readers of my diary thinking when did that happen and to tell the truth I can’t remember it was a long time ago. If you are watching the block buster movie made by that nice Steven Spielberg and it has not happened yet then rest assured I will have complained loads that he has cut out another good bit, just because the film was 15 hours long.  I know that seems like a long time but that Lords of the Rings trilogy is long and nothing actually happens in that, where as loads happens in my film . . . .  the film of me, I mean (films).

Anyway there we were in the shopping centre today going down in the lift (me Freddie and his Ferret) when someone hits the alarm, and it was not me Freddie or his ferret, but everyone on the lift looked at me that is not fair. Then when we get out a woman with a pram, who was in the lift and who pressed the alarm runs off shouting LOOK OUT ITS HIM AGAIN., I don’t know who she was referring too because me and Freddie saw no one except a load of shoppers. And then when we approached the shoppers to do our survey they kept hiding in the toilets or running into Pound Land   and similar places where Freddie and I will not venture into anymore as they are frequented by strangely mad gangs of little old ladies who Freddie thinks are the Zombies Grannies. I agree with that; after all Zombies must have grannies too, well most of them, I know the Steam Powered Zombies that dad makes don’t have grannies unless you include dad and he objects to being called Granny even by a Zombie.

The result of this was after several hours Freddie and I had only surveyed one person, I say person it was Freddie’s ferret and it said it was too busy really to do a survey, so sort of ate most of the answer sheet, and then signed it Elvis Presley so when the teacher queried it Freddie had to explain it was not really Elvis but a ferret and we got a zero percent mark.

DAMN I was hoping to write something about science today and now look what happened, but it just goes to show you should never put Elvis Presley and a ferret in a shopping centre at the same time. Mum has just said IDIOT, not sure if she means me Elvis or the ferret. 

Apparently 15% of all shoppers hate escalators and 2% think seagulls should not be allowed in shoe shops . . . . . . . and one hundred percent of both might be Elvis.  

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The goat, the flower shop and the last orchid

All is well with the power today (so far) and it has also been sunny and is due to be sunny for a few days so WELL COOL, tomorrow is the day to let our electricity supplier know how much electricity we have generated in the last quarter. It is a day dad likes, it is always good to get money from your main supplier of power rather than to give them money, although this last quarter has been a little disappointing for solar panels mainly because we have seen very little sun. The solar panels have been on the roof a whole 12months now and over that period have generated enough power to easily pay for the entire cost of all our power usage over the same period so effectively we have zero energy costs and are energy neutral. This is why dad always smiles on sunny days and chases seagulls away from the solar panels who he says have been hired by the electricity suppliers to shade the sun from the solar panels of all members of the general public, not that it has not been a good twelve months for sun in the UK. It also means we can switch things on without any real worry about cost of energy. Well maybe the latest  50 foot high 1950’s electrically powered robot used a lot of power but then it short circuited yesterday when it malfunctioned and hit a wooden post with a large transformer on and had 11,000 volts arcing out of its head causing a bit of an explosion. Dad thought it best not to tell mum and has told me to keep it a secret . . . . . . . . . . . . . AH DAMN  . . . . . Dad has said IDIOT but luckily mum has distracted him by hitting him on the head with the armadillo toaster . . . . . . . PHEW.

Because it is Valentines Day today Esmeralda thought someone should get her loads of flowers, she asked for volunteers but we all thought it best to runaway very fast and hide. So in an act of rebellion she aimed the steam powered catapult at the flower shop and gave the goat strict instructions on what to bring back, red roses and expensive orchids. Well there were mutterings that this was all going to end in tears and sure enough it did.

I will say Esmeralda has certainly got her eye in with range finding these days and there is no denying that both her and the goat make a formidable force to be reckoned with but there one weakness still is communication. You see no matter how long we have all spent trying to get the goat to speak the English language it still has not mastered a single word, it does not help that the goat always eats all its English language books and its homework. And Esmeralda also is not great with languages either and is something of a traditionalist in as much that if someone does not understand her she shouts at them . . . . . .This is very traditional in Britain particularly is someone is trying to get directions; you would be amazed by how many foreign tourists have gone deaf trying to find the Tower of London.

AH DAMN distracted  . . . . . . Yes the goat and the flower shop, the goat landed perfectly right in front of the roses as planned but then promptly ate all of them, in fact the goat thought flowers were food (goats think everything is food).  So as the goat worked its way through the flowers the owners of the flower shop hit the goat with a large wreath saying GOODBYE UNCLE JACK.  This is water off a ducks back to the goat; he has after all been chased by the entire staff of a large supermarket throwing bar code readers at him.  What was a surprise was goats do not eat orchids so when the goat returned he did have several orchids discreetly hidden about his person (?) so Esmeralda was very happy . . . . . . PHEW.

 However as I said it did end in tears because as we passed the flower shop on the school bus heading home after school the owners of flower shop were very distraught and crying describing a goat to a policeman, as were many husbands who had rushed into to get flowers because they had suddenly thought ******* its Valentines Day DAMN . . . . only to find out all the flowers had been eaten by a goat, although there were several men fighting over the last orchid…… 

     

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Fifteen ferrets a chainsaw and a zombie and a shopping centre..

We are all starting to go down with a cold at home so there is much groaning that means we sound like zombies which is cool, we are walking a bit like zombies too which is sort of OK but I am not feeling well enough to make the most of my present natural zombie state which is not so good.

At school . . . . . . I still have to go and do stuff until the cold becomes full in your face Man Flu then I will be allowed to lie and groan from the confines of my bed, as us men need to do when Man Flu is at its worst. But for now as I said I am off doing stuff, but in a zombie sort of way.

The Humanities teacher took us all to Shrewsbury today to do a survey on the shopping habits of the average shopper when under the stress of the impending shopping Armageddon know to all in the Western world as Christmas.

I was teamed up with Freddie and Esmeralda for the survey mainly because me and Freddie can control Esmeralda a bit and stop her trying to drill holes in the heads of shoppers refusing to do our survey. However I have a cold and was being confused for a zombie, Esmeralda was waving her new interchangeable clip on chainsaw attachment at shoppers and Freddie had brought fifteen ferrets with him that were a bit frisky and were leaping about all over the place.

So it turned out that shoppers were trying to avoid us, to get round this we tried to get them cornered by deactivating the lifts in the shopping centre and using Freddie’s ferrets as sheep dogs (only rounding up unsuspecting shoppers). If only Freddie’s ferrets had been a little less enthusiastic, but I think the smell of that Marks and Spencer’s Christmas cake was the point that they sort of got carried away. Then Esmeralda with her chainsaw attachment at full throttle trying to sharpen her pencil resulting in her cutting a jar of raspberry jam in half which sprayed bright red jam all over the walls, started the riot. It appears the public thought that the raspberry jam was blood and that the ferrets were then eating the blood, and that there was a zombie staggering about covered in blood (raspberry jam) that was in turn being eaten by man eating ferrets (they were just licking the jam off me). Esmeralda was determined that someone was going to answer questions so was chasing the crowd through the centre but the jam had jammed (jam had jammed HAHH HAHAHHAHh hahah hahha hah hhah hah ha) her new interchangeable clip on chainsaw attachment at full throttle so it was very noisy and I was unable to chase her to get her to stop screaming exterminate exterminate exterminate at shoppers.

Unknown to Esmeralda, myself, Freddie or his ferrets, just round the corner at the exit of the shopping centre was the rest of the school group and the humanities teacher who were having much more luck with the survey. Well right up to the point when at least two thousand demented shoppers bust though the automatic doors slipping on the floor by the sign saying beware slippery floor. It was at that point that they got a little trampled on and lost the grip of their survey results which then drifted in the wind towards the river.

The Humanities teacher told the headmaster that the shoppers were out of control and that Christmas shopping is no place for sane rational people and she plans to do all her shopping online and has sent a letter to parents advising them to do the same. Me, Esmeralda and Freddie are keeping quiet particularly as the raspberry jam ruined all the CCTV coverage. So as long as the story does not appear on the internet we are home and dry . . . . . . . . . AH ……. DAMN. Mum has just said IDIOT

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The Comet Store Web Site, the Washing Machine and the Wing Mirror

Have you noticed that when the weather is grey wet and generally not very nice, something that keeps happening in the UK quite a lot on and off, motorists start to get more aggressive.  I assume there must be some sort of deep rooted physiological reason for this that goes back to the days when we were quadrupeds and switching on the central heating or lights or air conditioning and the like were not options. Maybe bad weather instils a need to head for the hills and safety in a sort of dog eat dog way, which when driving a car can be a little scary for the rest of us. I am sure it is not as bad when the weather is sunny, we tend to watch antelope leaping in the fields and ducks swimming in the ponds,  while chatting on our mobile phones and smiling as we drive, which admittedly can be a little distracting on the M6 at spaghetti junction. I think personally if I was in charge I would ban knitting while you drive; all that knit two pearl one slip every fifth and pick up the second of every fourth row is hard to do while changing gear on a roundabout particularly if you are also eating a doughnut with cream.

Dad has resolved getting frustrated by all the bad motorists by leaning out of the widow with a large axe and removing the offenders wing mirror with a well aimed blow then sticking his tongue out at them, sticking his thumb on his nose and wiggles his fingers at them as their wing mirror bounces along the road.  His only error so far was doing this to the local police car because they were not entirely happy but dad put their grumpy behaviour down to a long dull spell of weather.

Myself and the dog have decided to have a bet on whether the new washing machine and tumble drier will turn up on Saturday. You see mum and dad have bought them from Comet, which for those of you outside the UK is a large chain of shops that have sort of got into some serious problems with cash flow. I am confident it will all be OK but the dog is convinced someone has done a runner with our cash. Trouble is the old one is dead and outside and unlike the Undead will not even groan and stagger about a bit so once I am very smelly that will be that.  First thing this morning dad was able to get to the Comet wed site and track his washing machine across the world but by midday Comet had vanished from cyberspace and the help desk says  . . . . . . . We are hiding under a table out of view of the public, please go away. Then it automatically hangs up on you.  In a survey recently by the chain store (they do not sell chains) it was reveal customers very grumpy due to bad weather on the road getting to the store. They are generally out of town stores and a significant number also said they were put off when a madman with an axe attacked the wing mirrors on their car. 

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