The Diary of a Country Bumpkin

With all the recent scaremongering about the Coronavirus COVID-19 I thought I might try to allay your fears on the matter and am able to with the help of the rather splendid Dad’s Army stamps from the Post Office as illustrations.

Last night the first case was confirmed in the UK but contrary to what appears to be popular misconception I feel we are not all doomed.

Unfortunately it seems this virus does target the old and infirm and those with a pre existing health problem so Private Godfrey would be well advised to go home and keep a low profile for the duration.

I haven’t been shopping recently but according to the news reports word is spreading of great shortages of goods in the shops one of the prime articles being toilet paper and when word gets out there is a rush to hoard yet more of the stuff.

I haven’t as yet heard of any black market profiteering and I would hope the authorities would stamp down heavily on any such practices.

There has been a considerable drop in the numbers of people who are travelling abroad and obviously caution should be exercised here as you wouldn’t want to go to an obvious Coronavirus hot spot for you summer holiday.

I think we have to blame the newspapers and television news for spreading fear unnecessarily and those in charge should know better, for causing panic is a very foolish action in times of war.

As the old saying goes, “will the last one left turn the light out” which is all well and good when we get to that situation but I have to point out that at this moment there are considerable numbers of us still here.

For those of you of a nervous disposition do not panic, here are some statistics which may help to put the situation into perspective.

Global cases.  97,841

Recovered.     53,786

Died.                   3,347

Whilst it is tragic that just over 3000 people have succumbed to this virus well over half of those who contracted it have survived, furthermore maths is not my strong subject but even I know that 3347 deaths from the total world population of  7.7 Billion people is an infinitesimally small percentage.

I hope these facts have assisted in calming most people’s fears of this Coronavirus and will enable us all to Keep calm and carry on!

Today is World Book Day and apparently children are supposed to dress up as their favourite character from a book they enjoy, might I suggest young Nobby Brasso.

Regulators from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) have banned one of these adverts on the grounds that it objectified women and yet it found the other one perfectly acceptable and no more than mildly sexual.

Now I rather suspect that like me, you will be hard pushed to decide which of these adverts is acceptable and which is objectifying women, I did ask my wife and female children and none of them could tell me which was banned.

The ASA said of the advert which was displayed on a train platform in November, “we consider she (the model) would be seen as being in a state of undress and that the focus was on her chest area and lower abdomen rather than the clothing being advertised.

Having received complaints from the public they also said of the model’s pose “that her head was tilted back, with her mouth slightly open and her leg was bent and raised.” “We considered that the sexually suggestive styling and pose would be seen as presenting woman as sexual objects and because the ad objectified women it was likely to cause serious offence.”

Now, I’m guessing you are still none the wiser as to which advert was banned, it was in fact the one on the left although I would have thought the ASA’s description could have described either.

Personally, I saw nothing wrong with either photo except for the fact that the model in the banned ad seemed to have put her seamed tights on back to front!

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Latest news just in, the snowflake generation are apparently as thick as treacle and don’t blame me for it wasn’t I who said it!

Rather worryingly they seem to think that we fought the French in World War Two rather than the Germans and it lasted until the swinging sixties.

I would have thought that one of the most ingrained pieces of history especially where Great Britain is concerned is that the British fought the Germans in World War Two and the most important fact about this conflict is that WE WON! Furthermore we also won World War One, these facts are often used to balance out the equation whereby we have only managed to win one World Football Cup.

I wonder what the truth of the matter is regarding the resignation of top civil servant Sir Philip Rutman and his disagreement with Home Secretary Priti Patel?

One imagines that the Civil Service by definition should be precisely that, both civil and an obedient servant who when asked to do something should carry out that task without the need of any unnecessary shouting.

Could it be that the civil service is a tad set in its ways, I am thinking of the image of a  middle aged man in a slightly shabby suit standing with his hands clasped behind his back staring out of the window with nothing more pressing on his mind than when the tea lady will be round and whether to have a digestive or a ginger nut.

I may be doing these people a disservice, who knows but it has been suggested that it is best not to ruffle the feathers of the civil service as they will surely have their revenge in the end, we shall have to wait and see.

Great news that America has signed a peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan which means that the American troops will be able to come home.

This seems like wonderful news except I’m seeing a slight flaw in the plan and I’m wondering if anyone else has noticed the problem.

Americans pulling out of Afghanistan and leaving the country to the mercy of the Taliban, now I can’t be the only one who is thinking, I wouldn’t trust the Taliban as far as I could throw them! Just a thought.

I just came across this interesting statistic that hundreds of houses in Essex have been built on flood plains and have very little to add except my comment below the figures.

New homes in Flood Zone 3 areas

Between the years 2015-2018

• Castle Point – 47 per cent, 185 homes
• Thurrock – 18 per cent, 401 homes
• Harlow – 12 per cent, 104 houses
• Maldon – 10 per cent, 65 houses
• Tendring – 8 per cent, 113 homes
• Colchester – 7 per cent, 193 homes
• Chelmsford 0 7 per cent, 206 homes
• Rochford – 6 per cent, 36 homes
• Epping Forest – 6 per cent, 57 homes
• Brentwood – 5 per cent, 22 homes
• Uttlesford – 2 per cent, 43 homes
• Southend-on-Sea – 1 per cent, 18 homes
• Basildon – 0 per cent, 5 houses
• Braintree – 0 per cent, 2 houses

SHOULDN’T THE ANSWER BE ZERO HOUSES BUILT ON FLOOD ZONES?

Does anybody remember the good old days when we had hosepipe bans, happy days eh!

There has been a bit of a hoo-ha in the press just lately concerning the House of Lords basically complaining that there are too many of them and that they do bugger all for their vastly inflated salary.

As with everything there are always two sides to the argument and I have to admit you can’t argue the case that there are too many of them as the Lords is now at over 800 second only to the Chinese peoples congress.

Now for the argument that they can earn £300 a day for doing nothing which is quite clearly not true as we constantly see images of these Peers asleep in the chamber no doubt exhausted from their hard days labours.

I don’t like change for change’s sake and I think this is where we went wrong with the Lords, as they say “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” When the chamber was filled with hereditary Peers you could hardly say there were too many of them for you had to wait years until your father died before your turn and in the mean time many of them succumbed to death from drink, drugs, gambling or killing the family nanny before they got anywhere near the place.

It has been said that the Lords is a little like a gentleman’s club in that one can arrive in the morning, meet friends in the bar before a rather splendid subsidised lunch with a couple of decent bottles of wine, a little nap in the chamber and then home for teatime.

I’m beginning to warm to the idea of leaving well alone, especially as I have recently purchased my “Lord Joe Wells” title from the Principality of Sealand, I think I’d fit in like a glove!