{"id":1306,"date":"2020-11-12T21:21:28","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T21:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/?p=1306"},"modified":"2020-11-12T21:21:28","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T21:21:28","slug":"thursday-12th-november-2020-day-241","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/2020\/11\/12\/thursday-12th-november-2020-day-241\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday, 12th November, 2020 [Day 241]"},"content":{"rendered":"

We made an early start today because we knew that I had to make an early morning trip to Waitrose<\/em> in Droitwich (seven miles down the\u00a0road) to pick up my ‘Click-and-Collect’ shopping order. Having picked up my daily ration of newspapers I then headed\u00a0towards Droitwich but as the traffic was so light, I got there twenty minutes before my allocated ‘slot’ time. However, by\u00a0making a slight detour from Waitrose<\/em> I managed to visit my local hardware store, Wilko<\/em>, from where I could\u00a0purchase some screen wash and other car cleaning requisites at very affordable prices. And so I then collected my\u00a0Waitrose<\/em> order without more ado but I knew this was going to be a one-off, occasioned by the fact that on\u00a0the news of the impending lockdown\u00a0Mark II all of the available slots went like a\u00a0flash. I have now secured slots for the next two weeks ahead as well as a special\u00a0Christmas slot and know the system that as soon as new slots are\u00a0released, it is a good idea to order two weeks ahead (which I have now done).<\/span><\/p>\n

Our normal walk to the park was uneventful but it was a beautiful bright but rather chilly day –\u00a0nonetheless, it is always heartwarming to have piece of autumn sunshine to raise the\u00a0spirits. We chatted with our Italian friend (again) on the way home and then proceeded to make the by now conventional curry which is a habit which we have carried over from our student days some\u00a0fifty years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

The COVID-19 news today is quite disturbing as the highest ever one day total (33.470 cases) has just been recorded. However it is being argued that as cases take several days to develop, the spike could only have been caused by infections in the very last days of October.\u00a0The leak which broke the news of the lockdown landed on 30 October, a Friday night, forcing Downing Street to bring forward its announcement of a lockdown to 31 October, a Saturday. So it could well be that the very sudden ‘spike’ has a rational explanation – in the next few days if the rate of infection seems to diminish then this explanation may prove to be correct.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is a massive row breaking overnight in which it looks as though some of the extreme Brexiteers who now inhabit the Downing Street\u00a0fairyland are falling out with each other. It looks as though one ‘Vote Leave’ fanatic (evidently given a position of responsibility with Downing\u00a0Street) named Lee Cain was promised the position of Chief of Staff to try to bring a semblance of order to the Downing Street organisation but this provoked such a severe counter-reaction from some Tory Mp’s and the PM’s own ‘live-in’\u00a0girlfriend Carrie Symonds that Lee Cain has resigned the position before he actually took up the post. If the phrases ‘Byzantine\u00a0intrigue’ and ‘nest of\u00a0vipers’ comes to mind, then this is hardly surprising under the\u00a0circumstances.<\/span><\/p>\n

American politics seems just as byzantine at the moment. Trying to understand what sort of game the Republicans are playing, \u00a0supporting a president who has evidently lost and will never succeed in the courts, then what is their strategy? The explanation I have managed to find is as follows.<\/span><\/p>\n

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‘So the name of the game is patience. They accept that the president has a right to make his claims, give him time to vent his frustration, but figure that there will be no evidence of sufficient magnitude to change the election results.\u00a0<\/em>Through their actions, if not their words, they’re acknowledging that come January, there will be a new president. Trump, too, shall pass.’<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In the late afternoon, Meg and I just happened to be together in our study checking emails and the like when a Skype call came through from some of our Oxfordshire friends. This was so\u00a0much more\u00a0pleasant by being entirely unexpected (a bit like a neighbour dropping by a chat) we exchanged views of the American election and I\u00a0passed on a tip to type ‘http:\/\/loser.com’ into any web browser to see what happens (I think you may be able to predict this, though). Our friends told us several of their stories before I was reminded of an experience of our own. We happened to be\u00a0small bar in Almu\u00f1\u00e9car, southern Spain, reputed to have some of the finest hot chocolate in the area. In the bar, stuffed full of\u00a0locals, a small baby was being passed from bosom to bosom of a group of neighbours – no wonder this (male) child had a beatific smile on his face. I asked an elderly\u00a0gentleman was who was leaning against the bar whether indeed the baby was his. He replied ‘No Se\u00f1or, this is a baby of all the world<\/em>‘ and I could only but agree.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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We made an early start today because we knew that I had to make an early morning trip to Waitrose in Droitwich (seven miles down the\u00a0road) to pick up my ‘Click-and-Collect’ shopping order. Having picked up my daily ration of newspapers I then headed\u00a0towards Droitwich but as the traffic was so light, I got there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1306"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1309,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1306\/revisions\/1309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}