28th March 2020 - World Leaders!!

Thought for the day :"Does anyone know where people in hell tell people to go?"

It is getting frightening out there ...

and today he is still saying that we do not need ventilators, we will help other countries with ventilators - as numbers reach 100,000 ....

This video is quite long but New York seem to be bidding against other states and Federal Agencies to get necessary Protection equipment... 

These are the people who are lead the world! All the representatives had to fly to Washington to vote for the relief bill because someone decided that they would block a video vote.... So they all had to turn up and sit in the same room to vote !

In other news - Kirk wanted someone to go to the shops...

Poor old Red Shirts !!!

In other news - managed to transfer another large section of the music collection to hard drive ...

Collection is nearly complete.
Need to clear the floor of all the books stacked up and sorted ...

Meanwhile...

Another sunny day thought the temperature is dropping and it looks as though we are in for a cold spat over the weekend as we start getting weather from the arctic...
Another day with the scanner I think ...

Oh - they started a 30 Days - 30 Songs meme - far to easy !!

Cheers !

March 27th 2020 - Welcome return of David Garland Jones

Thought for the day :"What did the Green Grape say to the Purple grape ? Breathe .. Breathe!!"

So, the Bothy is officially off the road - no point in keeping her taxed and insured when you can't use her ... Did the On-line SORN statement this morning. 

And it was the day that David Garland Jones made a come back - after all he is a specialist in isolation - having isolated himself well for the last 15 years ..

Good to see him back ...  Though a little more hairy than before...

A legend in his own lunchtime - David Garland Jones and his Acting Bones..

Vollsanger Sings

Things are getting desperate - down to our last can !!!

I must have had too much time on my hands then ..

Then??  Ahem!!!

Decided to add to the statistics today with a pie chart ...

Cheers !!

Oh - Boris just tested positive for Corvid 19 ....

26th March 2020 - Chilling by the lake

Thought for the day:"Drafting ?? That’s where I draw the line"

So, worked out and sent the documents for BT Basic for Vic today - no new form having been received - so sent the original again with copies of the DWP forms - hopefully it can be sorted.
Also managed to get a late payment fine from Tesco for changing the standing order from "pay Full" to Pay minimum" - the pay minimum did not go through until 7 days later and therefore there was not payment for March - but i got through the call centre remarkably quickly. Was nice operator who refunded the charges and took a payment - sadly the card is blocked for a few days - that may affect the credit rating - will have to  look and see.


In other news - Found this nice picture of the Mona Lisa enjoying isolation in the Louvre now that it is closed...

A bit like us by the lake in the back garden ...

The sun is deceptively warm!!

In other news - decided to SORN (Statutory Off Road Notice) the Bothy and take it off the road. Insurance runs out tomorrow and it seems silly to be taxing and insuring it if we cannot use it.
Will pop up to Tesco and fill her up with diesel - can act as a tank for the other car in case of shortage later.

Barter seems to be the way forward. Had some sprouting broccoli for dinner form No 47 exchanged for a half dozen eggs - and Susie was in the garden trying to clear the brambles and Steve next door gave her a pair of gardening glove, so of course he got a half dozen eggs as well. Girls are laying well at the moment - they can't have my duck eggs though - they are for me !!!

That about sums it up for today ...
Cheers !

25th March 2020 - Misinformation and Real Innovation

Thought for the day :"Is a locksmith a key worker?

So today it seems that the ramblings of a President who is ill equipped to listen to the actual advice and information being given him, has no more validity than "Karen from Facebook" which is quite distressing...

A US man has died and his wife is in critical condition after ingesting a chemical they believed Donald Trump had touted as a cure for coronavirus.

The unnamed couple watched a White House briefing where the US President incorrectly said that malaria drug chloroquine had been proven effective in treating COVID-19.

"Chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine. Now, this is a common malaria drug," Mr Trump said.

"The nice part is, it's been around for a long time, so we know that if it—if things don't go as planned, it's not going to kill anybody."

An Arizona woman recalled chloroquine as a chemical in a parasite treatment for her goldfish.

"I saw it sitting on the back shelf and thought, 'Hey, isn't that the stuff they're talking about on TV?"

The couple in their 60s, who have pre-existing conditions that put them at heightened risk of serious coronavirus, mixed the substance with a liquid and drank it.

Within 20 minutes, they felt seriously ill, and the woman's husband died shortly after arriving at hospital.

In a heavy enough dose, hydroxychloroquine is used as a chemical to clean fish tanks.

Meanwhile, in Nigeria, three people have overdosed on chloroquine while trying to ward off COVID-19.

"(The World Health Organisation) has NOT approved the use of chloroquine for COVID19 management," the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control tweeted.

"Please DO NOT engage in self-medication. This will cause harm and lead to death."

Prices of the drug have quadrupled in some parts of Nigeria off Mr Trump's recommendation.

There are 30 diagnosed cases of coronavirus in Nigeria at present.

The drug has shown some promise in French trials for killing coronavirus.

But many scientists have questioned the rigour of the experiment.

But because of the severe side-effects of using the drug, human trials have not yet begun.

Doctors warn not to use the drug if pregnant, planning on becoming pregnant or breastfeeding.

People with liver disease, hearing problems, blood disorders, certain vision problems and many other conditions may be advised against using it.

Hydroxychloroquine has not been approved by America's Federal Drug Agency for use for coronavirus.

Doctors around the world are yet to determine an effective treatment for COVID-19.

SNOPES :

President Donald Trump misstated the facts when he asserted that the FDA had just approved a decades-old malaria drug to treat patients infected by the coronavirus.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump mis-stated the facts Thursday when he asserted that the Food and Drug Administration had just approved a decades-old malaria drug to treat patients infected by the coronavirus. After his FDA chief clarified that the drug still needs testing, Trump also overstated the drug’s potential upside in helping contain the outbreak.

A look at his claims at a news briefing:

TRUMP: “And we’re going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately, and that’s where the FDA has been so great. They — they’ve gone through the approval process. It’s been approved.”

THE FACTS: The drug, known chemically as chloroquine, has been available for decades to treat the mosquito-borne illness malaria. Technically, doctors can already prescribe the drug to patients with COVID-19, a practice known as off-label prescribing. But Trump falsely suggested to reporters that the FDA had just cleared the drug specifically for the viral pandemic spreading in communities across the U.S. That would mean that the drug had met the FDA’s standards for safety and effectiveness.

Minutes later, FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn emphasized that the drug still needs testing to determine if it can help patients. He said chloroquine would have to be tested in “a large pragmatic clinical trial to actually gather that information.”

Drug trials typically require hundreds or thousands of patients and, even when accelerated, take weeks or months to complete. In his remarks, Hahn reflected on his background as a cancer doctor and warned against giving patients “false hope” before drugs are fully vetted.

While chloroquine has shown promise in preliminary laboratory studies, some experts are skeptical it will prove effective in human testing.

“I think it could be a game changer, and maybe not,” Trump said, discussing the drug.

But the FDA reiterated in a statement Thursday that there are “no FDA-approved therapeutics or drugs to treat, cure or prevent COVID-19.”

___

TRUMP: “If chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine works, or any of the other things that they’re looking at that are not quite as far out … your numbers are going to come down very rapidly.”

THE FACTS: The drugs he is referring to are for treatment in patients already infected. That doesn’t prevent spread of the virus. One study is testing chloroquine to try to protect health care workers at highest risk of infection, because a vaccine is likely a year or more away.

Trump Claims WHO death rate reporting to be false news

A Phoenix-area man has died and his wife was in critical condition after the couple took chloroquine phosphate, an additive used to clean fish tanks that is also found in an anti-malaria medication touted by Donald Trump as a treatment for Covid-19.

Older people would rather die than let Covid-19 harm US economy – Texas official

 

Read more

Banner Health said on Monday the couple in their 60s got sick within half an hour of ingesting the additive. The man could not be resuscitated at hospital but the woman was able to throw up much of the chemical.

“Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure,” the woman told NBC.

She said her advice would be: “Don’t take anything. Don’t believe anything. Don’t believe anything that the president says and his people … call your doctor.”


However,

in more positive news we have a breakthrough in Oxford where a simplified ventilator has been produced and they expect the wiring to be put into a new sold state circuit board by Sony within days
allowing a full production line.
The Oxvent is made using a standard resuscitation bag and valves widely used in the NHS, eliminating the need for 3D printing of complex parts. Compressed air squeezes the bag, blowing oxygen into the lungs, with the frequency of 'breaths' controlled by simple electronics costing less than £100.
Andrew Orr, an engineer at Oxford University, said Sony confirmed that it could turn what is currently a jumble of wires into a printed circuit board - and produce 5000 of them in a week.
"If this is something that we can knock together in a weekend, then mass producing it will be dead simple, he told Sky News.

And in Carmarthen, at Glangwili Hospital Dr Rhys Thomas has developed a "pre-ventilator" something to be used before the patient requires the full mechanical ventilation - which has already been tested in Prince Philip Hospital I understand. 

It was developed and is being constructed in Ammanford.

And in North Wales - the anti-viral Snood - developed over the last few years but now going into production .....

The company hopes to make as many as a million-a-week and plans to reserve part of that stock for the NHS.

"We have been working on the anti-viral coating since 2011 but it's only in the last five weeks that we have developed the snood in response to the current pandemic," said Anna Roberts, of Virustatic Shield.

So ...   Best stay in I think ...
Cheers !

24th March 2020 - Lock Down

Thought for the day :"We were so poor when we grew up that we had Ordinary K."

Well we are officially on Lock down as of 8.30pm last night. I would probably be safe going form the house to the warehouse - but it is not going to affect much of what I am doing and I would imaging that the dumps will be closed to the public, It was manic yesterday at the dump. I of course have been going daily for the last three weeks and with the residency check at the gate it has been fairly quiet. Yesterday was the first real day that people had been told that they should "self isolate" and so of course they all spent the day int he garden or clearing out the garage that they had been meaning to do for the last five years ( a bit like me I know!!)
But when I got there with my standard car full of cardboard and un-recyclable rubbish - there was no-one on the gate and the queue went back to the gate...  Everyone was out - so carefully trying to ensure a 2 meter distance from everyone - I managed to get the rubbish put away. Only one Police Lad at the main site and I could not see the anyone on the JCB's so the skips were not being pushed down and it was getting to be impossible to get anything more into them.

But I managed - but I think if I go to the warehouse I will be moving rubbish form one part of the shed to the other - will have a stay at home day. Susie is clearing out the freezer and we are ordering double food for Vic - and storing half of it here so we do not need to call into the Wiltshire Farm foods and have food in case they close down.

The roads are eerily quiet. The sun is shining and it is the warmest day of the year or feels it.

Decided to have a fantasy day ....    Posted a new profile

Goes with a fine old song...

Let's all be Hobbits

And a profile for self isolating

In other news...

The shut down means that we can only take one walk a day ...

Yup ...

While this is how they do it in Denmark...

Of course if you revisit old records they would also have to distance themselves these days 

Ho Hum - best get on with something valid I suppose..

Cheers !

23rd March 2020 - Maybe too much time on my hands

Thought for the day:"I ran out of toilet paper so I had to start using old newspapers - The Times are rough"

I may have too much time on my hands today. I was looking in my activity log and found that I first started sending birthday cards out from the Crimson Moon on Christmas Day 2008. Further research from the blog shows that the first "thought for the day" with a birthday card was broadcast by Vollsanger  on 1st April 2014.  Some quick sums show that with a few exceptions where I did not post (very rare as most days have "just a thought" if there was no full blog entry) we can calculate the following :

Birthday Cards sent from the Crimson Moon and later Vollsanger = 4,369 (less a few missed)
"Thought for the day" = 2,192.... (less a few missed)

I obviously have too much time on my hands
But happy birthday to those few who always miss - While I am in Germany or a couple of times that I have been at event without internet.... To the rest - "you are welcome"

In other news - I found the emergency supply of toilet roll

People are still not taking the virus seriously but some steps are being taken to make people socially distance themselves ...

Though there can be some temptations ...

Susie was up early this morning and got to Tesco for 7am and there were only a few people there so the message may be getting through at last ... but I doubt it !!
I shall head over the to the warehouse later - sorting some hard disk management. Still a lot to scan and store...

Keep safe out there
Cheers !

22nd March 2020 - Keeping Spirits up and Absent Brethren

Thought for the day :"I'm throwing a quarantine party this evening. None of you are invited"

And so let us have a review of the news..

And on quarntining...

And for the computer geeks...

But there are ways around the isolation if you use technology

But keep your distance !!

and don't forget your mask

In other news - many of my Masonic Colleagues are taking an old tradition int he Lodge to a new level. In my own Province it was always a Ten O'Clock Toast but in many places over the word the Toast to Absent Brethren is always held at 9pm - the time when the hands are at 90 degrees.
At the installation of a friend in Aberaeron Craft Lodge, he requested that I look at and learn the Tyler's Song which preceded the Tyler's Toast in his Mother Lodge int he North of England....
So I did - there was a version on the net of the full preamble and the Toast at the end - but with the rise of the "on-line" raising of the glasses at 9pm - I thought I would cut it to the song alone - and just the last verse as two versions.

And in the Song Book here

Cheers !!