Those "sexy"(er) parts of Paris:
It was a beautiful day, cool and brisk with fine sunshine and a blue sky and I walked into the "Alesia" area of the city. Not exactly the Champs Elysees or Trocadero, but ... the nicer apartments in the nicer buildings there still unaffordable for some people 😉
It was bustling. Shops open and people back and forth. Sadly most of the cafe-bar-restaurants closed, other than those offering take-away, and it is easy to see why establishments on large boulevards could never get away with the speakeasy activity of the comfy little places we know of, on smaller, quieter streets. They are just too visible. It was sad to see a grand brasserie that we traditionally go to for New Year's Day lunch, all closed for now.
Most people were wearing masks but I was not in a minority of one, wearing just some stubble and a smile. (Unmasked Parisian ladies were not wearing stubble, I hasten to add.)
But the strangest thing I saw ... and the main motive for writing this update ... was a ... well ... I would name it a HAT.
No relation to the fetching fedora I was sporting, this is a Hypochondriac Alert Tent.
A large white tent on the sidewalk at the fulsomely named Place Victor et Helene Basch where, if you are worried enough, a person in a white hazmat suit and hair-net will poke a stick up your nose and smear whatever comes out on some receptacle and ... at some point will tell you, with dubious reliability, if you are carrying a virus that is largely harmless for over 99% of people, and mostly incurable to a small vulnerable minority.
The scene reminded me of M*A*S*H
And which made me wonder if suicide is painless compared to Covid-hysterics. But, no. I was still smiling, unmasked, and the flower shops had some lovely Christmas bouquets.
Back to HAT, I also thought: "goodbye to medical privacy". I have escorted quite a few ill people to quite a few tests. In those olden days of yore, not even hospital staff wore masks. But, beside that, I would deliver my charge to the door, and then the medical practitioner would take them in, and some minutes later emerge with them, the examination concluded. Not now. Not in this Covidassic Age. Anybody walking up and down the road can see someone with their head pushed back and a character out of a sci-fi movie poking their nasal passages. A B-movie producer would have clipped such a scene.
I may need a few glasses of fermented grape juice to soften the memory.
Other than that, it was a great trip and I managed to make it to one of the few M&S shops in Paris to stock up on those items the French cuisine is unaware of: mince pies, chutney and, of course, sourcream and chive pretzels.
Merry Christmas everybody.
(Speaking of which, Le Figaro was running an online poll to see how many people would respect a government recommendation of only six for Christmas meal. Last time I checked a sliver over 37% were saying "non").
All travel between France and Britain has been cut for "at least 48 hours".
This, I believe, is the first time such a thing has happened, since Dunkerque.
[context, people, context]
The story here is that all of this is for "evaluation" based on the declarations of the UK government. Nobody is saying they believe or not what Generalissimo Hancock and his lieutenants are saying, but they are taking precautionary measures.
I say it is Hancock who is in charge because, well, obviously he is and since the Supreme Court even refused to hear the Dolan case, Hancock can use and abuse the 1984 Act just about how he likes. He is more powerful than the PM.
The bitter joke here is that this teenage mutant ninja virus is called the "Brexit virus" because folks here think the UK government announced all of this to set the scene for rupture.
This is another conspiracy theory I do not adhere to. I do not believe that Generalissimo Hancock or his ADC BoJo, or Gove or any of these people, have the brains to have foreseen any of this. They rolled out the teenage mutant ninja virus story (which I believe is just as good/bad as their other virus stories), purely with an eye on short-term domestic manipulation of the political narrative, and it never crossed their limited intelligence to contemplate what any further consequences would be.
On the real world level: a lady we know here was looking forward to seeing her son tomorrow, coming for Christmas from university in the UK. She has not seen him for 6 months. When will these people pretending to be political leaders be kicked out and arrested?
I believe they no exactly what they are doing and are fully aware of intended and possible unintended consequences.
It strikes me both Hancock and Johnson have to be removed from office.
If the so called new variant has actually been known of for some time, then clearly it has only been used now to justify the Christmas lockdown, a violation of people's human rights. Conversely if it is genuinely a new concern (which l doubt) then not enough is yet known to make the judgement call to justify the Christmas lockdown, and therefore they have panicked the nation and cancelled Christmas without justification, again a violation of people's human rights. Either way they are culpable are have to be removed immediately!!!
It strikes me both Hancock and Johnson have to be removed from office.
If the so called new variant has actually been known of for some time, then clearly it has only been used now to justify the Christmas lockdown, a violation of people's human rights. Conversely if it is genuinely a new concern (which l doubt) then not enough is yet known to make the judgement call to justify the Christmas lockdown, and therefore they have panicked the nation and cancelled Christmas without justification, again a violation of people's human rights. Either way they are culpable are have to be removed immediately!!!
Exactly.
The whole BoJo gang has to go. And Sage needs to be gutted and rebuilt.
The stables need to be mucked out.
(And this coming from someone who did muck out stables at a young tender age, but the horses were so lovely compared to these creatures.)
