Travels of a Fish Nut

Almost 18 months ago I wrote about the uselessness of the British government when it came to their advice regarding masks. At the time we had seen some of the highest rates of coronavirus infection and death in the world - 303,110 confirmed cases and 42,589 deaths - and yet were in the process of reopening non-essential shops and services. Since then we have gone through a further two lockdowns and have had, to date (21/11/21),  9,845,492 confirmed cases and 166,730 deaths . In the last seven days over 1,000 people have died of coronavirus. Those numbers are shameful. Every single one of them represents a failure of our government to protect us. And a huge part of that failure is due to their woefully inadequate messaging and inability to follow the science. When I wrote my original post I avoided discussing the research around coronavirus. Mostly this was because it was irrelevant to the piece but partly it was because I'm not a virologist or epidemiologist and didn't feel ...

  “PM Heralds Vaccine Victory for Care Homes”, “Vaccine rollout to care homes complete”, “UK Breaks Vaccination Record with 600,000 Jabs in a Day”, “9M Jabs… On Our Way to a Great British Summer!” All front-page headlines from today's papers . All deservedly praising the amazing rate of vaccinations in the UK. But these papers are portraying this as a triumph for the government and for Johnson in particular. Yet this is not a triumph for the government, nor for Johnson, and we must not buy into the propaganda. Instead the success of the vaccine roll-out highlights just how badly Johnson and his government have fucked up at every step of this pandemic.   How, you ask?    Simply this:   The vaccine roll-out is not being run by the government, but by the NHS . It's their long-standing organisational and logistical skills that are being used to get this vaccine out to so many people so quickly. The government has (at last) taken a hands-off approach and left the exp...

James O'Brien has a podcast called Full Disclosure in which he "hosts a series of compelling conversations with fascinating people". According to the blurb on Apple Podcasts ,  These are revealing interviews with people who rarely give in-depth interviews, be it from politics, entertainment or news. It sounds like a great podcast and I began listening when it started back in March of 2019. The first interview was with Tony Blair, not exactly someone who shies away from the limelight but certainly a coup. Then it was Ricky Gervais, a comedian who seems to thrive on controversy. Then it was Simon Amstell, another comedian and TV presenter. The fourth interview was with Dragon's Den "dragon" Deborah Meaden and I realised that this was the first interview with a woman. Four interviews and only one woman. Huh. That sort of gender imbalance is getting increasingly noticeable and not in a good way. But maybe it's just a case of scheduling and there'll be m...

This is, as the title says, a rant. I'm throwing any claims of objectivity, balance and calm out the window. I'm angry. In fact, I'm fucking furious. I'm furious about the way the government has responded to the coronavirus pandemic. And this isn't because I'm a liberal leftie who would be furious with anything a Conservative government does. The Australian right-wing government - currently headed by a man who once brought a lump of coal to parliament in a strange attempt at allying the concerns of opponents of fossil fuels, and who handled the bush fires so badly he was told to "piss off" by victims - has managed to successfully lead their country through the pandemic with only 102 deaths and around 7,000 cases out of a population of about 25 million. This isn't about Left vs Right, this is about Competent vs Incompetent. And our government has been incredibly incompetent. That's not just my opinion, statistics bear this out. We currently ha...

Oh look, it's time for another 'let's spread awareness of breast cancer by not saying anything about breast cancer' Facebook meme. Normally I ignore them but after spending the last year and a bit being hyper-aware of breast cancer and its consequences I've had enough and now I'm striking back...

--> I don’t normally comment on celebrities because, beyond a certain level of rubbernecking that I think is pretty normal, I just don’t care. But the saga of Johnny Depp, Amber Heard and their dogs has been bothering me since it began and the latest comments from Mr Depp have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.  

I've been away from this blog for a long time and it's strange to think about what's driven me back to it. It's not exciting adventures or silly mishaps or even cool fish. It's the government. Before I get going I should say I will be trying, if I can get momentum, to post more here and those posts will be better sourced than this one which is going to have no links, no references, nothing but the words that I need to get out right now. I hate this government. This government is destroying our country and everything that made it great. They're destroying the NHS by stealth. Privatising small portions so we won't notice until, like an infection, it's spread so far that removing it would kill the whole thing. They're destroying our schools. Allowing academies to flourish while cutting funding to local authorities and forcing struggling schools to be converted, whether the students, staff or parents want it or not. These academies don't have t...