Tuesday 5th May 2020

Back to work, non-audit stylee.

After the stress and just sitting around listening to other people talking, it was back to normal with just sitting around!

No, I earn my money, I am sure of it. My bank manager told me to stress that, and what an important cog on the machine I am.

Oh yes.

I wake to hear Jools' faint footsteps from down in the kitchen. Once I am awake I know my dainty own footsteps will be a signal for her to put the coffee pot on.

Which is what happened.

Once up, I go down to drink the coffee, and knowing that with each minute, phys gets closer.

And once Jools goes out, I go up to start, least I change my own mind.

It was a hard session, time drags, which it does sometimes. But I do the whole session, and once done I see that I have about 20 minutes to do before the odo clicks over to 1800, I would reach that milestone on the afternoon session, if there was one.

I some calculations, and find out that between us, Jools and I have spent 37 and a half hours on the cross trainer since the end of January.

That's a working week! For most people. Ahem.

Jools returns, packs her stuff for the day, and I make breakfast, coffee and put the office back together. Just like every other day. But in a change(!) after clearing out some of the stock from the fridge, I find two punnets of strawberries, which is what I have for breakfast. Not both, but a good bowlful. With yogurt. And was very yummy indeed.

I just finish before the morning meeting. I dial in. We're all still well, which is nice.

We chat for half an hour, then we go to our various daily tasks, and I am alone once again.

So, the day progresses. I update the program and the audit database too. Log some working hours, for a laugh, and make a fresh brew.

The day is flying by.

I find myself having lunch at ten, wash up and with it looking fine outside, I go out and am hit by an arctic blast from the north.

Jeez, that's cold.

I go back in and put a jumper on, and felt better.

In the afternoon, I do go out for a walk. I made the mistake of taking the jumper off, as I assumed that it would be warm once I got walking. But what I failed to realise was that the walk over the fields to Fleet House was into the teeth of the northerly wind.

I quickly decided that I would reach Fleet House and turn back down Collingwood to home, not much seen in the way of flowers, and the femail Orange Tip was being swung from back and forth on a flower stem by the wind.

I do get a snap of her wing, though.

The walk back was fine, a tail wind which felt like there was none.

I see a few people walking, including a man with two friendly dogs, neither of which I felt happy about stroking, as it is unclear if we can pass it to our four-legged friends.

The doggie is sad and follows me not understanding why I would not pat his doggy head.

Back home, I have a brew, look at he plank page that is today's task, to describe in management speak about the dark art of change management. I might be here some days.

At four, I pack away and do a second session on the cross trainer. And this was harder than the first!

I was really hard to do the last 5 minutes, I count each second down until I could stop and collapse onto the spare bed.

Mulder jumps up and asks, in the most polite way: "meow?!

Meow indeed.

I go for a shower, and then get dressed, and time to get dinner ready: salmon fillets marinated in sweet chilli, creamed spinach, stir fry veggies and curried rice.

All yummy and very nice. Which I was sown with some red wine. Of course.

And then, as usual, it is the evening. With coffee, music and internets.

And an early night at nine, with it not being quite dark.

European leader

Before Easter, Government Minister Robert Jenrick broke lockdown rules by traveling over a hundred miles, twice, to visit his parents.

He was not forced to resign or face any kind of censure.

Before then, Government scientific adviser, Neil Ferguson, almost two weeks after recovering from COVID-19 infection, met with his mistress.

Then yesterday, on the day the UK officially overtook Italy to have the highest number of deaths, the Daily Torygraph broke the story about Ferguson, causing his to resign, and make that the big daily story, not over 50,000 deaths.

As was always going to happen, the scientists were going to be thrown under the bus.

That the story in the Torygraph was broke not by a jobbing reporter but the Deputy Political Editor and Chief Political Correspondent. I mean, just who could have leaked the story to them, what with them meeting politicians and Ministers all the time?

And the story broke just before the Government daily briefing, where Dominic Raab tried to mitigate the numbers by suggesting the UK was worse because we count better than the Italians.

Quite how Johnson is still in a job, I assume he's in the job, he has not been seen for three days now, in almost any other circumstances, any one of the numerous mistake and policy errors would have finished any PM.

But not Johnson.

I find it sickening that The Torygraph, The Sun, The Metro, The Mail, The Times, all lead with the Ferguson story, not the huge number of deaths. There is something rotten at the heart of the country, when the deaths of tens of thousands of people are ignored in order to protect ministers who made the policy decisions, not the scientists. But clearly, the error of judgement in meeting his mistress is strongly linked to the decision in imposing the lockdown.

The people who won the newspapers are willing to let 3,000 new infections a day be a sacrifice for breaking the lockdown, and with a mortality rate of 1% or more, well, you do the maths. And it was suggested that UK workers preferred to be paid for doing nothing rather than working and that the furlough is unsustainable beyond the end of the month. Each death has a monetary cost that our billionaire tax-avoiding newspaper magnates and Ministers are will to let us suffer.

Nice of them.

Earlier in the day, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer admitted in evidence to a Select Committee that the reason for the change in policy regarding testing and tracing in the middle of March wasn't beacause "the science changed", but because testing capacity had been reached. Sadly this is rather different to what she said that the daily briefing at the time.

She and the Health Minister are still in post, Neil Ferguson is not.

Monday 4th May 2020

Star Wars Day (©thehouseofmouse 2020).

And back to work. And a day I should have been waking up in The Granite City, aka, Aberdeen. But the virus and travel restrictions meant I was still at home, though the audit was to go ahead, but with all attendees using MS Teams. Nine hours, it was going to be a very l o n g day.

See what I did there?

All of which means I had to be up, drunk coffee, phys, make breakfast, drink second coffee and have the office all set up for half seven, and possibly be there at five in the afternoon.

Oh dearie, dearie me.

Jools makes coffee, I check the news, then as she left the house for her walk, I go upstairs and do 20 minutes.

Cool down.

Get dressed.

Top up the bird feeders.

Make breakfast.

Second coffee.

And am sitting down at twenty past seven, all ready for the virtual water cooler meeting.

And then to the audit.

We all log in, I am observing, so not much pressure. But I have prepped the site and auditee, so I hope for the best.

And, well, not as bad as feared, and there were breaks through the day. Time to get some fresh air, stretch my legs, check on the garden plants, make a brew or lunch. And back to the meeting.

It finishes at four. And my brain is mush, but I'm sure Andrew is feeling worse, but the lad done good.

I make chicken and shrimp stir fry, with my own recipe for stir fry sauce: a splash of this, two splashes of that, a smidge of the other, some cornflour and whizzz.

It works really well, and turns out there is enough for Jools' lunch on Tuesday.

The evening was spent the usual way; computing, radio and coffee drinking.

Another day in the morning, but a four day week.

I pack away after thanking Andrew, go upstairs to do a session on the cross trainer, feeling shagged out after another twenty minutes, with the cats looking on waiting for their tea.

Oversight and scrutiny

Yesterday, Parliament "debated" and approved the five and a half week old SI that the Minister for Health passed, which had the effect of removing many basic rights; freedom of movement, assembly, work and so on.

I put debate in quotation marks, as it seems the system used by Parliament don't allow for interventions, so Ministers and MPs conducted one rambling speech after another.

Not that the lockdown wasn't needed, but the removal of fundamental rights, and their continuing suspension is a cause for concern. A cause for concern, because as we have seen through the Brexit process, and now this pandemic, Parliament is apparently viewed by large parts of the Conservative Party and Government as an inconvenience, something to be avoided and circumvented if possible.

Even now, with hundreds dying a day, most oversight is via the daily press briefing, where the Minister presenting gets to choose who he takes questions from, and no follow up question to any mealy-mouthed answers is allowed.

The decision not to continue with mass testing in the middle of March means that since then the Government and health officials literally have to guess at how the virus is spreading through the country. Mass testing is critical if and when the restrictions are lifted, so that region be region, city by city, town by town, any increase in infections can be identified as soon as possible and restrictions reimposed.

So that 8,500 officials to trace contacts is now being sourced, hoping to be active by the middle of the month. This should have been in place already, and indicates piss poor planning by the Government, with no clear plan on how to exit the current lockdown.

The Government has been more concerned with "grand gesture" politics, rather than policies for the good of public health.

Take the "Nightingale" "hospitals": the London one is to be mothballed, with it only ever using a tiny fraction of its capacity of 4,000 beds. Others have had no patients at all.

Really.

Because, it seems, there is more to a hospital than beds in a building; it needs staff and equipment. The London Nightingale might have had 4,000 beds, but if there was only staff for 50 patients or less, then it is an empty gesture. Headlines today, and the news cycle moves on and gets forgotten. Rather than ask where the staff to run the hospitals came from; an ICU bedded patient needs 1:1 care from a specialist nurse. No extra nurses, no extra capacity! If only the compliant media had thought to ask!

Rather than participate in a pan-European PPE and ventilator purchasing program, why not get companies that had never made medical equipment design and make them? Great headlines as the contracts announced, and when they are approved and save lives, more Great British headlines. But the Government sent the wrong specifications out to the manufacturers, took so long to make and could not get approval. The scheme was quietly dropped. But the Government got great headlines for a week, and meanwhile people died in their thousands.

Johnson lauds his Government's apparent success. Yes, the word "apparent" doing a huge amount of work, possibly the hardest working thing in the UK now, except frontline NHS staff, and the rest of the underpaid and undervalued people who have kept the country running, red and clapping at eight on Thursday.

Releasing the restrictions too early, or without mass testing and tracing will just result in a second, larger wave. And more deaths. So the very same people who screwed up so badly in January, February and the beginning of March, that made the 50,000 deaths inevitable, will be the same that decide how and when the lockdown ends.

Be very afraid.

Sunday 3rd May 2020

2nd day of the weekend.

And, with the forecast being changeable, swinging between warm and sunny intervals and light cloud with a strong breeze, it was hard to know what to do.

But in the end, orchids ran out winners, and the plan was to repeat the walk along the cliffs so I could survey the tiny Early Spiders.

That was the plan, and it was mine.

As before Jools would drop me off and drive back to the village, then walk to meet me somewhere around Fan Bay.

That was the plan.

Worked last time.

Anyway. The weather decided to be overcast and cool, which meant taking my own supply of sunshine, the ring flash. But this also meant carrying the camera, macro lens and flash. It was like carrying a small child, but with less tantrums.

Jools dropped me off at the NT place, still coned off and with more warnings than a Falkland Island's mine field. I get out, gather my camera and off i go.

The overview down to Jubilee Way and to Dover is as breathtaking as ever. A cyclist had stopped for a breather, out of puff after cycling up Castle Street, past the Castle and to here, before the final push to the top of the cliffs on the way to St Maggies.

We agree with each other that it is a fine morning to be out.

I go down to where I knew there were spikes and rosettes from earlier last month and previous years, but I see none.

And along the narrow path, where there should be spikes, I see none there as well.

So, down the path to the cliff road, and on either side there were tiny spikes, most gone over, but a couple worth stopping and snapping for. And again, up the cliff road, if you look carefully, more tiny spikes, some in good condition, but each with just the one open flower. I snap all of them.

Down below, the port is almost empty. Less than a dozen trucks and lorries wait for a departure, and again there are no cars waiting to board.

At the top of the cliff road, two tiny spikes were clinging to the edge of the cliff, with the waves lapping far down below, I try to get shots without tumbling over. In my head there is a panicked NZ accented voice telling me not to get too close to the edge.

I get my shots.

My back is feeling slightly better, not happy, but not as bad as some times, so instead of following the cliff road, I take the up and down path to Langdon Cliff and Hole. This is because i wanted to search the cliff edge for more orchid spikes, really. Of which I find none.

But it is so special to have such places to yourself, it is magical to peer over and surprise a kittiwake on its nest. It flew off in disgust.

Up the last steep slop to the top of Langdon Cliff, fissures showing the sheer drops to the sea far below.

I should be able to see Jools by now. But no.

So, I press on, past the area that looks like a huge cliff fall is about to happen, but it has been like this since before the war.

Anyway, along the cinder path to Fan Bay and still no Jools.

Oh dear.

Worse case is that if I do not find her, I will have to walk all the way home.

Could be worse.

I walk to the access road, expecting Jools to be walking down it, but still no sign. I walk to the wartime road that still links the old radar and observation posts: still no Jools.

So I walk back towards Dover for a few hundred yards, and with there was no sign, I turn round, and there is the sight of Jools in her warm jumper, striding ahead.

I call to Jools.

She fails to hear my calls.

So I try to speed up, call some more, and she just hears me, stops and waves. I wave back.

We meet up, then walk towards South Foreland Light together, and it appears we had walked in a great circle round Langdon Cliff, at opposite sides, so we were both out of sight.

Anyway, all was well.

We make good time into the village, across the last big field, past the village hall to the car, then a quick blast down Station Rad to home.

Back home we have breakfast of fruit, and a well earned coffee.

And two hours or so later, we have a fine lunch of the second shepherd's pie and left over grillin beans.

Which was rather splendid.

Jools pots up plants, I, well, do something that takes all afternoon. Some of the time included eating an ice cream, but that did not take four hours.

Anyway, nice just to fritter the day away in a non-productive manner.

I had made bread at lunch. Well, mixed the dough, then waited through the afternoon to make it into a loaf, wait for it to rise again, then bake it.

It was a white load, but with lots of seeds added and coated with poppy seeds on the outside.

It was also splendid.

I make sandwiches with the bread, the bread was so nice, I use the loaf and all the ham, meaning we each had a plate of sandwiches, of which we had no chance of finishing.

So, we left two each, so lunch on Monday was taken care off.

But there is the way the crust is so crispy, something you never get with shop bought bread.

Phew. We were stuffed.

The evening was filled with internet stuff, posting, writing and messing about.

And just like that, the weekend was gone, but we had done more this time. And who knows, next weekend is a three day weekend, and already I am planning orchid hunts, to no ones surprise.

Breach

Just for the record, putative UK breaches of legal duties in relation to own Withdrawal Agreement so far include:

1) deliberately misrepresenting nature of UK obligations under NI Protocol = breach of Article 4(3) TEU + Articles 5 and 127 WA (esp as clarified by European Council)

2) unreasonably refusing EU request to operate premises in Belfast as required for effective implementation of UK obligations under NI Protocol = breach of Article 4(3) TEU + Article 5 WA read in the light of Article 12 IRL/NI Protocol

3) failing to notify EU of problems with "settled status" scheme, due to virus crisis, warranting automatic extension of deadline for applications = breach of Article 4(3) TEU + Article 5 WA read in light of Article 18(1)(c) WA. As far as I know: happy to be corrected if they did.

Remember: ECJ remains primary dispute settlement body for all problems arising during transition period (arbitration panels only start after end of transition). Maybe Commission should be thinking: use time to start building up caselaw on what "good faith" means for UK Agreement?

https://twitter.com/mdouganlpool/status/1257306840246829057

Slippage

On Friday the Government announced that over 100,000 COVID-19 tests had been carried out. Not factually correct, but it was an effort.

Yesterday the total was down from 122,000 to 105,000, so still above the level. Now remember, this is the level is should be from now on.

Sadly, today the number of tests was down to 76,496. Even with their manipulating of the figures.

This shows that they were just chasing headlines than actual public health. It has been suggested that some of the kits mailed out didn't even have a return address.

Shameless.

Remember, they had to carry out huge numbers of testing per day from now on, and identify those who failed, and trace those who they have been in contact with, and all carry out isolation.

Without this, there can be no safe relaxation of the lockdown.

The Government is falling back on a phone app: an off the shelf app was offered by Apple/Google, but the contact data was stored on people's smart phones, and the Government want to store the data centrally.

To arrange this, the Government, made up of most of the Vote Leave team are getting Palantir, companies related to Cambridge Analytica, and who knows what they will do with the data. Ministers have already said that the data, initially would be anonymous, but Ministers could, if they wanted, identify where all data came from. Mass surveillance dressed up as public health.

And today, another 350 people dies, or their deaths were confirmed, though at least 100 of those took place in April. With data so out of date, how can the Government hope to accurately plan going forward?