Covid

Unless you are fortunate enough to live in the ten countries that have (at the time of writing) not had any Covid cases, chances are that your life has been affected by the events of the last year. I must stress that the ten countries that are Covid-free are either tiny islands in the Pacific or Atlantic oceans. And if you want to believe lying totalitarian regimes the number is boosted to twelve by North Korea and Turkmenistan. Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, if he is anything like his dad, probably twatted Covid out of the country with a golf club while on his way to another miraculous 18 hole-in-one round of golf. And as for Turkmenistan, well we all know that…well exactly. It’s one of the most heavily-censored countries in the world and as you would expect, a global pandemic hasn’t exactly opened them up to the world.

So just some friendly advice on what to do/what not to do that I’ve picked up over the last ten months:

Wear a mask when required to

It’s not difficult. And it’s fucking freezing at the moment so just think of it as a high scarf. I personally still feel a bit strange putting one on just before entering a shop but this is probably just the Scouseness in me. Up to now, I’ve resisted the urge to scream ‘Everyone down, this is a robbery!’ like a shit Batman villain in Tesco.

Don’t have massive, secret weddings

A fairly easy one to remember. Basically if you are in a big room with 150 other people, there are speeches going on, there is a big cake in the corner and there is a woman in a big white dress in the middle of it all, you are at a wedding. Run away! Preferably before the police turn up or even better, just don’t go in the first place like a big selfish twat. Although I have to say, the recent wedding broken up by police in London was impressive from a logistical point of view. All that organisation, all those people who are in on it, it must have taken a lot of planning. I do wonder what song the first dance was to; Killing Me Softly?

Don’t go off to Dubai for warm weather training in the middle of a global pandemic

I appreciate these tips are getting a lot more specific as we go on. But apparently my advice was a few weeks too late for Celtic FC who decided, in the midst of a national health crisis and having a few days between matches jetted off to Dubai for a break, I mean intense training. Before they went, Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, asked them to reassess whether the journey fell into the ‘Essential’ category. Presumably they did and then went anyway and came back with one player then testing positive for Covid 48 hours after their arrival back in Scotland. A player who was injured anyway so I’m not completely sure what warm weather training he would have done for the six days; lifting two margaritas at the same time? This positive test meant that a dozen more players and staff had to self-isolate.

After getting slaughtered by the media, including a withering attack by their former player Andy Walker, Celtic’s chief executive issued a lukewarm apology. At that point I thought well maybe they are just saving the proper apology from their manager when his isolation period was up and he faced the media. Apparently not. Instead, the Celtic boss launched an attack on Scottish media and parliament, insisting the issue was political. Maybe he knows more than me about the virus but I didn’t think Covid had mutated to a point where it wasn’t just killing people but also purposely damaging relationships between football teams and political institutions.

Don’t decide to go to a tennis tournament in another country and then moan about the hardships of being put up in a luxury hotel while having to self-isolate

Hard to know where to start with this one. Okay, I’ll start with the fact there is even a tennis tournament anywhere in the world at the moment in the midst of the pandemic. An estimated 1,500 players, spouses and support staff jetted to Australia for a tournament. As per current regulations they have to quarantine for two weeks even if there were no positive cases on their flight. I don’t mean they have to quarantine in some sterile medical facility somewhere while getting poked daily; on the contrary they are isolating in a luxury hotel in Melbourne.

This is not good enough for Vanessa Sierra, partner of one of the players, who looking at Instagram can only be described as a pair of arse cheeks attached to a face. In a story that now seems to have completed it’s circle, Ms Sierra, who is a (ahem) social influencer and OnlyFans star (which seems to be some kind of subscriber soft porn service) kicked off about the food at the hotel (‘it’s shit’) and the fact that she hadn’t washed her hair for a few days. She hadn’t washed her hair for a few days because she doesn’t wash her own hair. Someone else washes her hair because she doesn’t. She doesn’t wash her own hair. Her own hair, she does not wash.

Predictably Vanessa reacted angrily to media coverage of the video which she said misrepresented the full video, which was tongue in (arse) cheek and was only meant as a joke. She also said she wanted to show what she thought other people might find interesting, as if people in large parts of the world have not spent a good chunk of the last 10 months staring at their own walls and would be enthralled at the thought of looking at someone else’s walls.

She got death threats (not cool) and then completed the circle by confessing she had suffered from depression a year ago (also not cool). I find it to be a sad indictment of the digital world she must live in where everything is posey and pouty and (in my mind at least) you must get to the point where you think, as she said herself, ‘What the fuck is this life for?’

At least now the food is better after her constructive feedback. Apparently, according to her anyway, the food has now improved at the hotel. The chefs who have spent years learning and honing their craft while getting shouted at by narky head chefs just needed to be told by some arse cheeks that their food was shit and it’s now much better.

It is all part of the Circle of Shite anyway:

Social influencer says something quasi-controversial >

Tabloid media pick up on it around the world and use this as excuse to post loads of photos of her mostly naked >

Social influencer kicks off >

Tabloids post another story with more photos of her mostly naked >

Social influencer talks about her own personal issues >

Tabloids post another story of how serious depression is alongside yet more photos of her mostly naked >

Tabloids get more site traffic, more clicks (including from me!), more advertising >

Social influencer gets more followers.

As Elton John sang, it’s the ciiiiirrrcle……the circle of shite. Everyone is to blame. You might notice that I haven’t included a link to any stories about this tip; that is because there are about a million of them so you can find the shite (and the arse cheeks) yourself. However, to finish on a nice note, this is an article with some reasonable perspective from Nadal and Serena Williams who are also competing at the Australian Open, when it opens. In a nutshell they both say how humbled and lucky they feel to be able to even have a chance of competing at a time when the world is still in the middle of a big shitstorm (I am paraphrasing).

When looking for guidance, listen to the scientists and the government, not musicians

I know it sounds mad, but maybe listen to doctors and scientists who have spent their lives in the medial profession dedicated to saving lives while planning for pandemics. When it comes to governments, of course it’s right to ask questions and criticise but the way I look at Covid is, if it is some kind of global conspiracy, who is making money out of it? Pharmaceutical companies? Perhaps, but at least two manufacturers (Pfizer and BioNTech) have agreed to sell the vaccine at not-for-profit prices. I know there are a million rebuttals to this; it’s only so they can inject you with their truth serums, and so they can inject you with a barcode so they can track you, so they can jack up the price later – read these in your mind in an American yokel voice if it helps.

So while I know the world has its murky corners, I still would take the side of science and government over say, Ian Brown. The Stone Roses frontman is vomiting his tin-hat covered views all over Twitter like a rabid dog that’s eaten a slab of mouldy cheese. It really is a sight to behold. As well as espousing all the usual baseless shite about Bill Gates sterilising/killing/barcoding everyone in the world and the whole Covid pandemic being a hoax, his latest one is the theory that masks cause brain damage (without a shred of self-reflection as to what can cause brain damage like say, loads of narcotics). That must be why all those doctors and nurses who wear masks while working 60 hour weeks all have brain damage.

And in a left-turn you could only have nightmarish dreams about, none other than Jim Corr joined in on his Twitter feed last year to echo his madness. You remember Jim Corr, the one in the Corrs that wasn’t a bird? Was in the background a lot? That one. He is not on Twitter anymore; I assume he was kicked off for posting something mental. His last comments included a claim that Margaret Keenan, the first vaccine recipient in the UK in December was………hang on, this is good this one………………wait for it………………I don’t even know if I can type it………………okay…………………she was an actor! Go on, have a read. She was a ‘crisis actor’ apparently, whatever the fuck that means and Jimbo’s evidence was that there is no one who lives in Coventry under that name. Incredibly, not only is Jim busy spunking out songs with his sisters, he also knows the name of everyone who lives in Coventry! What a guy.

I hope this clears everything up. Wear a mask, don’t have a wedding, don’t go to Dubai on a jolly, don’t moan about being in quarantine if you make a conscious decision to go anywhere and do not listen to rock stars (or Jim Corr). They wanna be ignored.