5 Strange Years

In 2016 a lot of strange things were happening, firstly many celebrities started dying; George Michael, David Bowie, David Guest and Prince to name a few. Then we had a referendum in the UK to choose if we leave the EU. The United Kingdom as a whole voted to leave. Later that year, Donald Trump was elected in America, he was also against trading blocks, political unions, and soft borders.  

I got Married in November 2016. 

For five years the UK couldn't decide how they will leave, some leaders wanted a second referendum. Others wanted to cancel Brexit, some wanted us to be part of the common market and leave the political union, some of them wanted a clean break with a follow up deal later. Parliament was pulling itself in different directions for 4 years. It got particularly bad in 2019, they were rejecting all the exit deals and amendments and no party had full control of the house of commons. The Conservatives were in a coalition with the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) to keep control of Parliament, a big compromise in my view. Then a New group of conservative leaders stepped up with a very clear agenda and gained a majority in parliament with a snap election in Christmas 2019. 

Then a Pandemic came along and caused chaos to the whole world. Supply chains were disrupted during that time and many people couldn't work or trade. Inflation and civil unrest became the norm during that time. Many people were killed by the virus itself. 

What will happen now? I don't know. 

Exposure of Sleaze

A common theme of this year is the exposure of  sleaze. We had cabinet leaders having extra marital escapades in their office when they were supposed to be spaced out and have some integrity to their family. We had blue chip companies that put profit before community wellbeing. There were MPs in parliament that were lobbying for companies they were working for at the same time while they were in office. Then there was the Panama Papers. I will say no more. If we have any more leaked documents, I'll have to call the plumber; I know my jokes are dry. 

It is almost as if the Pandemic is acting like a catalyst. It is speeding up events that would have taken years. People were dying before their time. There was a few military coups around the world and insiders have leaked out reports about corruption and sleaze. Everything is happening now in 2021. The world is changing so fast. 

R going up

The Covid19 virus is still around and infecting many people. Here in the UK we measure the transmission rate as "R". If the R rate is above 1 then the epidemic is growing in size because each person infected is infecting more than one person on average. 

Right now the "R" rate is above one, I think it is 1.3. This means that some people are infecting more than one person on average. If the "R" was at 2 then we would be in trouble because the epidemic would grow twice as big every 2 weeks. 

I wonder what will happen in winter when there is less sunlight to destroy the virus particles. The ultraviolet light in the sun destroys viruses, but the days are getting shorter all the time and eventually we will be in winter, this means we will have more active virus particles everywhere. 

What April 2020 means to me

It is the last Day of April and we are in the last third of Spring, much of the world is facing a lockdown to slowdown the spread of the covid19 virus. Many people have been killed by the infection, many people survived the infection but faced critical sickness. 

At the beginning of the month I was exposed to many claims of conspiracy. The conspiracy theories were old conspiracies that had resurfaced and become associated with the Pandemic. For more than a year people have been claiming that 5g radio transmitters are a hazard to health, many people were claiming that the symptoms of covid19 were caused by the transmitters being turned on. I never believed that was true. Some people also believe that the virus was made in a laboratory to cause financial loss, I don't think so, I think the virus came from wild animals. Viruses in wild animals find a way to infect humans all the time and I think that is what happened last winter in China. 

Here I am in my son's second spring, me and my wife celebrated his 1st birthday isolated from all the other Brits and Peruvian family. Just our home, alone. No Cafè, no eating out, no clothes shopping and no hair cut at the barbers. Our town centre is like a post apocalyptic dead zone. There was nothing to do except read and watch and play at home. Jacob is now able to walk with assistance and I think he will be able to walk freely by the end of spring. 

During the second half of spring I saw people around the world criticizing their governments because of the progress of the disease. In my view, you can't compare different countries because some places are more crowded then others and some economies are more brittle than others and no one had the gift of hindsight to start with. I just lost interest in the whole thing to be honest. I'm sick of it all. Sick of all the blaming and the mistrust and anxiety on the faces of other people.