I read the news today oh boy! Page 2,150

Breaking News - Australian home affairs minister Peter Dutton also tests positive. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, is being tested after an aide tests positive. I'm sorry but in addition to what we have been told about members of the Iranian Government, the British Government, the Spanish Government, the Canadian Government, and a football club owner who was a Greek MP, this is becoming totally - totally - implausible. That's unless Angelic It is a lie based strategy (B) Coronavirus affects members of Governments literally millions of times more than it affects other people or (C) at least, say, 1% of the population of these countries already has it unknowingly too in which case it is in millions of the public here already. Why? Because the percentage of Government ministers to members of the public anywhere is absolutely tiny - far, far less than 1% - and few Governments in which at least one member has proven positive comprises as many as 100 known people.

Quote: A Horseradish @ 13th March 2020, 8:52 AM

I suggest a likely combination of cock up and conspiracy. .

The trouble with conspiracy theories is that they see who benefits from a tragedy or catastrophe as conclusive proof of a broader conspiracy. They offer no evidence merely that this benefits so and so, therefore X is definitely responsible. And invariably, the people who proffer conspiracy theories, tend to use them to attack the groups they don't like.

Quote: chipolata @ 13th March 2020, 9:41 AM

The trouble with conspiracy theories is that they see who benefits from a tragedy or catastrophe as conclusive proof of a broader conspiracy. They offer no evidence merely that this benefits so and so, therefore X is definitely responsible. And invariably, the people who proffer conspiracy theories, tend to use them to attack the groups they don't like.

I think I agree with you but I'm not sure who you have in mind. The likes of David Icke? I am not quite on his page although I see some reasoning in it. I do think that if mostly it is the young who survive, the world they will be living in will not be the same as the one before this virus commenced. It is easier to change that world if they have been required to change their ways first because of the virus and have largely accepted that change for a period of very many months .

That's while many of the folk who say "but it isn't how we were in the war" are no longer around to muddy it. My 90 and 89 year old parents are back at the supermarkets today. It's every day, it's bloody minded, they can't help it and it will kill them. Seeing that I am living next door to them. somehow I've got to find a way of stopping them from killing me. It probably means stopping seeing them. I have ordered food for us all and tried to set them up on skype but it's all dismissed as an affront to their sense of independence. There are millions of these people, at least for a few more weeks.

None of that means it was deliberately started. The world was always going to be different anyway what with climate change and gawd knows what else. But it does speed it all up. And in that way, I do agree with Icke that its aura is somewhat Orwellian. I realised yesterday that "1984" was called "1984" because it was a reverse of 1948 when it was written. Well, how many years were there between 1948 and 1984? 36. We weren't quite there at that time. And how many years are there between 1984 and 2020. Yep. That's right. 36 again. We could almost be there now, ie he was half right.

Aside from that light curiosity, where I do see a conspiracy (which is partially well intentioned) is in the absolute belief in science. I also note that science enables politicians to blame the scientists when it all goes wrong. Or it's something weirder as the percentage of the elites who are affected is light years above or several planets away from what they say the percentage is for the public. For some reason, something is awry. I don't trust some of the commentary/advice.

Quote: A Horseradish @ 13th March 2020, 9:59 AM

My 90 and 89 year old parents are back at the supermarkets today. It's every day, it's bloody minded, they can't help it and it will kill them. .

It is only one virus, Horseradish. So they could catch it, get ill and recover. But if you have parents who remember Mafeking you are probably in the dangerous age group as well. People can't help but be sociable though.

Quote: Paul Wimsett @ 13th March 2020, 10:24 AM

It is only one virus, Horseradish. So they could catch it, get ill and recover. But if you have parents who remember Mafeking you are probably in the dangerous age group as well. People can't help but sociable though.

Yes, I understand. I love them dearly and it comes at an awful time as my mother is 90 tomorrow and it's totally messed that up. But then a lot of people are having to be in really, really, diabolical positions and there is little they can do about it. We have choices. It turns out that their choices are different from mine. One of the difficulties is that everyone is saying she looks, sounds and behaves more like 70 than 90. They are not being kind. They are being real. She does. It's uncanny. Having got through a double heart bypass with ease at 86 to the amazement of surgeons, she's not for being reined in.

Quote: A Horseradish @ 13th March 2020, 9:59 AM

I think I agree with you but I'm not sure who you have in mind. The likes of David Icke? .

I like Icke as an entertainer, but his theories do tend to basically throw everything into them. Such as his belief that the moon is a hollowed out space station projecting holograms down onto earth. Or that shape-shifting reptoids are behind everything. Now I love The Matrix and They Live, but I recognise they are just fiction. And I've always wondered why reptoids would want to bother going to all the hassle of dictating all human events on Earth - I don't really see what's in it for them.

Although I don't fault Icke for this, as he has amassed millions promoting his theories. Way more than he ever would have made as a snooker commentator on the BBC.

Quote: chipolata @ 13th March 2020, 11:48 AM

I like Icke as an entertainer, but his theories do tend to basically throw everything into them. Such as his belief that the moon is a hollowed out space station projecting holograms down onto earth. Or that shape-shifting reptoids are behind everything. Now I love The Matrix and They Live, but I recognise they are just fiction. And I've always wondered why reptoids would want to bother going to all the hassle of dictating all human events on Earth - I don't really see what's in it for them.

Although I don't fault Icke for this, as he has amassed millions promoting his theories. Way more than he ever would have made as a snooker commentator on the BBC.

Thanks Chip for your comments.

I do mainly agree with them.

Matt Hancock -"The Thick Of It" character???? He always looks to be on the verge of tears, even before the current crisis.

This coronavirus shit is so depressing. Gonna cheer myself up with some Joy Division, Sylvia Plath and Ingmar Bergman.

The Church of England says that weddings will, for the foreseeable future, have to involve no more than five people who, in most circumstances, will be the officiating minister, the couple and two witnesses.

It would, therefore, be a good idea for anybody who is aware of a just impediment to their marriage to get married in a Church of England ceremony before the coronavirus epidemic begins to subside.

Just pick a couple of witnesses who know nothing about that impediment and you're all set!

Surely you could have invited thousands as long as they know nothing about the impedent? What about funerals? You can't delay them.

Quote: Paul Wimsett @ 19th March 2020, 5:51 PM

Surely you could have invited thousands as long as they know nothing about the impedent? What about funerals? You can't delay them.

There won't be any funerals.

Funerals are petulance.

An adolescent sticking of two fingers up at the Government's proven strategy for seeing off death forever.

I love the way Rome expresses its anti- coronavirus optimism with a John Lennon quote. 'Everything will be fine.' Does 8 December 1980 mean anything to you? Hopeful.

Quote: Michael Monkhouse @ 21st March 2020, 8:23 AM

I love the way Rome expresses its anti- coronavirus optimism with a John Lennon quote. 'Everything will be fine.' Does 8 December 1980 mean anything to you? Hopeful.

Haha.

You are in fine form with your posts this week.

Interestingly, a retired emergencies planner was saying this week that the current measures are much in line with the ones prepared for the visit of the Pope to Britain. That is, if anyone attempted to harm him. Pubs closed down, schools closed down, roads closed down, churches closed down, that sort of thing. For God sake, if anyone gets through this period, don't invite him back. All it would take is one loose nutter and we would all be back to the same situation again.

On a different matter, I am surprised in view of the role of cocaine in the financial crash that no one has asked if all of the world's leaders share hard drugs. I'm sensitive to life's inputs and my head tends to reflect what is generally around. The last time my head was made this drug like was in 1968 as a five and a half year old. It was caused by psychedelic rock.

Spreading faster than my mother's legs.