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Taking stock but always in vain

When the time comes to look back over the course of UK’s coronavirus crisis – and possibly the world’s too – one aspect that will need examining in depth is the general degree of public semi-madness, concern and anxiety generated by the endless amounts of rumour, speculation, fantasy, [...]

May 5, 2020 // 0 Comments

VE-Day commemorations and something quite different

With the 75th anniversary of VE Day coming up on Friday (8th May) I had in advance ‘scheduled for recording’ last night’s 8.00pm offering on Channel Four of VE Day in Colour – Britain’s Biggest Party but then watched it as it went out anyway. As it happens I found its mix of colour and [...]

May 4, 2020 // 0 Comments

It’s all going a bit weird

When I went out for my one per day exercise walk yesterday I was both surprised and dismayed by what I came across – and that’s allowing for the fact that it was early afternoon, possibly a peak time for others to be doing similar. To be blunt it was as if I’d been asleep for a month, there [...]

May 3, 2020 // 0 Comments

A man on a mission

Michael (Lord) Ashcroft, 74, is a British born entrepreneur/businessman estimated in March 2020 to be worth £1.7 billion and a man of many parts. He officially lives ‘off shore’, retains dual citizenship with Britain and Belize, and his tax status has been a source of controversy most [...]

May 3, 2020 // 0 Comments

Hancock’s half hour

The ridiculous controversy over Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock’s highly ambitious announcement that the Government would be doing 100,000 coronavirus tests per day by 30th April – and specifically as to whether the Government had achieved its target or not when the [...]

May 2, 2020 // 0 Comments

You win some … and lose some

Listening to the radio overnight I thought I heard that sales of jigsaws – according to one interviewee, a representative of that industry – have soared over 800% since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, particularly among the 24 to 35 age group. This figures, because – if [...]

May 2, 2020 // 0 Comments

Yesterday was a Thursday (I think)

Yesterday – just another in lockdown, albeit with a variation supplied by the inclement weather – gave me the opportunity for a touch of rumination on the future and life after the coronavirus crisis, if and when there is some. Over these past few weeks not a few I have spoken to have [...]

May 1, 2020 // 0 Comments

We are where we are

Last night at about 7.40pm by chance – not long before my standard bedtime – I joined the BBC1 broadcast of its long-running news & current affairs investigative programme Panorama (season 29, episode 17, entitled Has The Government Failed the NHS?) in which reporter Richard Bilton [...]

April 28, 2020 // 0 Comments

A momentary diversion …

For any Rusters unfamiliar with it, Saturday Night Live is a decades-old American broadcasting institution. My half-baked effort at suggesting a British equivalent might be a mix of the very best entertainment segments of the Graham Norton and/or Jonathan Ross chat shows combined with a human [...]

April 27, 2020 // 0 Comments

There are always some, aren’t there?

It would seem that – no doubt fuelled in part by the media’s constant thirst for news stories and general frustration at three weeks of lockdown – the number of UK Covidiots is gradually increasing. See here for a vivid example, as reported by Colin Dury for – THE INDEPENDENT Amidst the [...]

April 26, 2020 // 0 Comments

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