I do try to be ahead of the curve and yesterday, I was behind, ahead and totally beyond the curve all at the same time.
I started off by heading up as Day 88 when it should have been 89. If some of you read the same blog twice and thought that I had finally got repetitious, then apologies. So, that was behind the curve. Then I told you even before the papers printed it, that America had bought up the world supply of some vaccine. Now, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and my knowledge of science and medicine is so teensy-weensy that when I write about it, then in my hands, on my page, it becomes a veritable nuclear device. And a little bit of news in my ear is even more dangerous, because when the news is on, either I walk out of the room or I multi-task and try to blot it out. It’s never good. Nobody does a 10.00 pm news item on BBC 1 about cute bunny rabbits having babies and lolloping about the garden. Or swans in the park keeping all six cygnets alive ( of which I have seen photographic evidence ) It’s all doom and gloom.
So when I was on my exercise bike yesterday with the excellent new ‘ Haim ‘ album playing (three lovely Jewish girls from LA who once came to our house to eat their meal prior to the start of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement for my non-Jewish readers and a Fast day where everybody stuffs themselves full the night before ) I thought I had heard that Trump had bought up all this vaccine and nobody else would get a sniff ( or a jab ) till October at the latest. Now, that is where I went beyond the curve, almost into the realm of Fake News. But, not quite.
What Trump did do ( sounds like a title for a book that, like “ What Katy Did “ … or was that a porn film ? ) is buy up barrow-loads of remdesivir. In fact he bought almost the whole global supply for the next three months, although it seems we do have a fair bit here. It’s been around a while, my ex-pharmacist wife tells me, and it’s anti-viral. It lessens symptoms and the duration of an illness, but unlike a vaccine ( which definitely does not yet exist ) it doesn’t stop you catching the Big V in the first place. It’s still a pretty nasty thing to do on the part of America, but we’ve come to expect that nowadays, haven’t we ? Opening the door, holding it open and saying , “ After you, Claude “ just doesn’t happen in the States,
It’s like when you check into a hotel in America and you are greeted by the receptionist or a manager who says, “ If there’s anything we can do for you, then just let us know. “ And there is something they can do and you do let them know and they do SFA ( Sweet Fanny Adams ) I do wonder who she was so if anybody out there can enlighten me on that, then please do so. She does sound a nice type of girl and not one whose name might appear in the title of a porn movie. “ Fanny Adams Does Dallas. “ No, I don’t think so.
A nation which is polite is the Japanese. I’ve mentioned that before. A lot of door-opening there and a lot of bowing to boot. Well, they don’t bow quite to boot level, but it’s not far short. And of course, the Japanese tourists in London have always worn face-masks. One of my friends was once asked by a group of Japanese tourists for directions and pointed them in totally the wrong direction. I did berate him and he replied, “ well, they didn’t have any trouble finding Pearl Harbour, did they ? “
When we visited Japan we really liked the country and the people, who made us very welcome and were coming to terms, just like Germany and Berlin in particular, with their recent past mis-deeds. But, what we noticed was that everybody was very law-abiding and obedient. Nobody dashed over the road on a red light, cars didn’t hoot if you hesitated at a traffic light, staff in restaurants were, if anything, over-polite and refused tips. The subway in the rush hour is a bit of a scrimmage ( they even have “ pushers “ to heave people into already over-crowded carriages ) but it’s all done with great manners. The only bit of aggression we saw was a group of geisha girls charging into an elevator scattering all and sundry aside.
Now, why am I so interested in the Japanese culture all of a sudden? And no, it’s not to compare them with the Chinese . When we went to China we felt very uncomfortable and that was over ten years ago. It’s the Big V statistics again. With a population double the size of our own, the Japanese are so way down the medal table for deaths, that they aren’t even in the top fifty. About a thousand have died out of one hundred million people living there.
So, was there a tougher lock-down? Were there Japanese soldiers patrolling the streets with samurai swords ? Were Sumo wrestlers flattening people if they left their houses or apartments ? The answer to all those questions is a very loud, NO .
The fact of the matter is that the Japanese decided to do it for themselves. They self-imposed a lock-down. They revere elderly relatives and from February ( yes, February , on ) they stopped visiting them. They love to shop and they didn’t. They love their restauarants with sushi and beer and saki and they stopped visiting them too. So, today, Tokyo is thriving. Everything is open. Everything is back to normal. And yes, they are still wearing their face masks.
Mind you, Trump now approves of them as well. Somewhat belatedly. He says wearing one makes him look like The Lone Ranger. He doesn’t say what he might have thought about having the Native American Tonto as his company and I am not sure that Silver the Horse could have taken his weight.
On the subject of America ( back to seamless links, you see ) I am delighted to see that the good folk of Mississippi are reading my blogs and taking notice. There I was banging on about the Deep South and Confederate flags still flying and now, they aren’t. Mississippi has got ( or should I say in Southern drawl gotten ? ) rid of its State flag which was the last in America to bear the Confederate standard. Those Fifty Shades of Grey ( can’t get the soft porn theme out of my mind today… once met its author on a train and she was a very large, motherly lady who took two sugars in her tea, as I recall ) are no more.
You might have thought the flag came into existence between 1861-65 the years of the Civil War ( didn’t get that ‘S’Level history prize for nothing ) but, no, it was 1894 when it was adopted. Racial tolerance is a pretty slow train coming in America. I can still remembers segregated Universities there a little over twenty-five years ago. Anyway, I can claim that my blog managed to lower the Confederate flag when all the Union forces failed.
On a lighter note, there was a department store in Canada which put on a sale this week and then had a computer glitch. Which meant that every item anybody bought came up as “Mr Potato Head “ and at its price. Nice surprise if you were buying your wife and expensive perfume, I guess, although if she saw the receipt before the gift you might have been in a bit of trouble. Back to the song, “ Thank you Baked Potato “ which I featured regularly in early blogs. Can’t keep a good potato down.
Onwards and upwards. Lots to do today so have a good one and stay safe and if we are spared see you all tomorrow. Am into the nervous nineties now. Can I make my century ?