Goodbye & Good Riddance To 2020

For most of us, the year 2020 would be a good one to block out because it hasn't been a good one and considering it began with a threat of war with Iran after the killing of Iranian army general Qasem Soleimani via an airstrike and huge wildfires in Australia and it turned out it only got worse from there.   
In Britain Brexit finally got done and we got a taste of our future when 8,000 lorries parked on the motorway unable to get to the Dover Port but the big news was when someone got spat on by a bat in Wuhan, China and that set the tone for the rest of the year with lock-downs and Boris Johnson's 5pm News Conferences where he would explain his roadmap sorting out the Coronavirus, just that his roadmap took in plenty of Intensive Care Unit's on the route because the man leading the fight was the same one who boasted proudly about shaking hands with Coronavirus victims just prior to falling ill with it.
The UK Government has been awful but it isn't a patch on the United States Government which is run by a man who described it all as a hoax, blamed the WHO and China for his own inadequacies and then told people not to wear masks and to ingest disinfectant, before ending up in hospital with it.
Donald Trump is finished in the White House so thank goodness that's all over although he doesn't seem to think so which just makes it even funnier so we may yet see him outside Fourseasons Landscaping holding another press conference.
2020 was good for some though, right wing columnists, conspiracy theorists, billionaires and fascists did okay and the Pentagon released actual footage of a UFO which didn't get the recognition it deserved because it was in July and judging by the pictures, everyone in the UK was on a Beach after being temporarily released from lockdown.
Mother Nature got a well deserved respite and she dropped enough hints that something wasn’t quite right by increasing the severity of hurricanes, choking us off with putrid air conditions and burning significant portions of forests to the ground but when that didn't work she did the equivalent of sending us to our rooms and the air became healthier to breath, the lakes and rivers cleansed themselves and there was even fish in the canals of Venice for the first time in generations.
So all in all, the over-riding memories of 2020 will not be great but it only means that we can be certain that when we say Happy New Year tonight, we know it should be as we wave goodbye to 2020 with hands that smell faintly of antiseptic hand gel. 

Still Unsure About Meaning Of Efficacy

It is great news that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vacinne has been given the nod although the pathetic jingoism emanating from the Government about British Science being the greatest is nauseating.
For some reason the Government is going ahead with the plan to give two full doses with 65% efficacy rather than the half followed by the full one which gave 90% efficacy which doesn't seem right, even if i understood what 65% efficacy meant.
To my mind, it means that for every 100 people exposed to Coronavirus, 35 will still fall ill but then the Oxford trial figures of 24,000 volunteers taking the inoculation and with 131 still catching Covid-19, even with my dodgy maths skills and inept use of a calculator, that despite receiving the vaccine, 0.5% - 0.6% of the 24,000 volunteers still fell ill, giving it an efficacy rating of 99.95%.
I also made the mistake of taking efficacy to mean the same as efficiency, saying the jab is 65% effective but that's also not right because efficacy means the rate in controlled laboratory conditions, effectiveness means out in the real world where other things may have an impact and the efficiency rate will only be known much further down the line after people have been injected. That told me.
So i am still not certain what efficacy means but its giving me a headache trying to work it out so i am going with two thirds will be fully protected with the remaining third not quite so fortunate and will still fall ill. I think.

Astrology In 2021

At the start of 2020, nobody could have known what a pigs ear things would be by the end of it, well nobody except the Psychics who charge for this sort of information but i can't recall any of them screaming and shouting about what was coming following a bat sneezing on someone in China so a poke in the eye for them but we know what is coming for the UK in 2021 because Astrologer Ann-Louise Holland is telling us.
The problem with 2020, as it turns out, was that Jupiter and Saturn were in Capricorn and influenced negatively by Pluto and having two massive planets together in volatile Capricorn along with Pluto, was always going to spell trouble but in 2021 they are moving out of the troublesome Capricorn and Pluto and join the much more benevolent Venus in Aquarius which is an altogether much better proposition, Aquarius being a thing of change and renewal although it won't all be plain sailing.
The fly in the Astrological ointment is Uranus who is the planet of fast paced change and Mars who are now joining forces in Taurus and will cause sweeping, electrifying changes in all areas so when asked to put it all in a sentence, the message is big change is coming and many will be left behind.   
You have been warned, keep an eye on Uranus.

The Real Evil One In Wizard Of Oz

Every year The Wizard of Oz puts in an appearance around this time but despite watching it a gazillion times, i never really took much notice of just why the Wicked Witch of the West was the baddie and Dorothy the goodie.
Obviously having Wicked in your name is not the best start but as far as i could tell Dorothy landed a house on her sister, the Wicked Witch of the East, and then stole her slippers.
The Wicked Witch of the West never wanted to take them in order to rule the World like a Bond villain, she just wanted the slippers after some stranger had crushed her sibling to death.
Being a Witch, and an evil one to boot, she could have done anything to Dorothy, turned her into a toad, made her break out in boils or even made her head explode but all she did was pine for her sisters slippers.
To top it Dorothy, wearing the slippers like some sort of murder's mad trophy, then kills the Witch which means that in one day, she has not only killed a couple of sisters, one by landing a house on her head, but also stole their footwear so how is she then the goodie and how have i never noticed that before?

Brexit Deal Timing

Maybe i'm just being cynical and it really was a fortuitous bit of timing that the announcement of the Brexit Deal Agreement on Christmas Eve leaves just one day for Parliament to debate the deal being agreeing or rejecting it.
With 2,000 pages to digest, the deal between the UK and the EU is not something which can be glanced at over a long lunch so the full impact may not be known until days after we have left once everyone has had a chance to read it properly but there are some headline things that we do know will definetly happen.
Extra checks at borders for freight and travellers will have an impact immediately so expect pictures of long tailbacks of lorries and peoples at Customs, the European Health Insurance Cards (EHIC) will be invalid once they expire so you will need additonal health insurance when booking a holiday, mobile roaming charges will be charged if you use your phone in the EU and the UK will no longer have access to key security databases and you will require a 'green card' to drive in the EU.
The UK government's official, independent economic advisers have set out some stark warnings on Brexit including economic growth, inflation and higher prices and a hit to GDP of between 4%-8% on top of the already spiralling costs of the Covid-19 pandemic.
I'm not sure if the 52% of Brits who voted for Brexit are still happy with their choice but they will argue that it is still better than no deal but the truth is the best deal we could possibly have is the one which we had and have now thrown recklessly away. 

High Hopes For Oxford/AstraZeneca Jab

Of all the Coronavirus vacinnes being rolled out, i have my hopes up for the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab which is expected to be given the green light by the MHRA this week for meeting their standards of quality, safety and effectiveness.  
The reason i am hoping that the UK made immunisation takes top polling is not out of some jingostic flag waving, but because it is being sold for £3 a dose, the cost to manufacture it, compared to some of the massive mark-ups some other profiteering companies are charging, which means that the vaccine is affordable for nations without the deep pockets of the West and as it does not need to be stored at temperatures as low as the other vaccines, it makes it much easier to store and distribute.
As the Government's chief scientific adviser has warned that with a new Coronavirus variant which is 70% more transmissible, an even more stringent lock-down will be required in January and a Tier 4+ or Tier 5 is being mooted which will pretty much put us back into where we were in March with extensive stay at home orders with only an hour outside for exercise each day so a vaccine cannot come soon enough.
With some of the other vacinnes showing an efficacy rate of 90%-95%, the 62% rate of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was a little underwhelming but it was a happy accident that showed if the first dose is half a dose and then that is followed by a full dose 21 days later, the efficacy rate is 90% which must come as a relief to the government which has ordered 100 million doses of the vaccine.
The issue now, assuming that it will be green lighted this week, is the logistics of actually getting it into peoples arms, since 6 December 600,000 people have been given the first dose which breaks down to approximately 27,300 a day and with a population of 65 million to inject, it would take 2,380 days or 198 months or 16 years to immunise everyone at the current rate 1.8 million a week so to achieve the protection by April as the Government are stating, they will need to find a way to jab 5.4 million of us a week so with this UK Government showing they are the Kings of over-promising, i wouldn't be booking that Summer Holiday in June just yet.

New EasterMas Eve

With lots of people working from home still, the Christmas Party would have been a bit of a slow one although i guess some still would have knocked back some cheap Tesco Prosecco and scanned their own bum on their home scanner but we are now in that awkward bit between Christmas and New Years, it's not a holiday but it a few work days sandwiched between the holidays which is normally used for taking back and exchanging presents but that's out the window this year as the only shops still open are take away's and chemists.
Officially this time is called 'betwixt' but we have mangled that to become 'Twixmas' and if you are lucky enough to have booked these days off as Annual Leave then you can spend the week in your PJ's watching Box Sets while finishing off the last of the turkey in the fridge.
The next Event is New Years Eve which is generally the time to start drinking about 3pm and be on top of a table wearing something daft on your head to ring in the New Year at midnight before having another look in a shop doorway at the £50 worth of booze you had necked as it comes back up the opposite way to how it went down.    
Of course this year it will be sat at home with Jools Holland and some jazz singer nobody has ever heard of instead because Coronavirus has spoilt all that this year but at least we know that 2021 HAS to be better than 2020, well, once enough of us have rolled up our sleeves and been jabbed anyway which the Government is saying should be done by April in which case stay home, stay safe and we can have Christmas, New Years Eve and Easter all at the same time if the Bunny, Santa and Father Time all agree.

Special Guest Blogger: Roland the Farter

Ho ho ho. Okie dokie, my people, are ya having a good time? Watching football and eating turkey and wearing festive jumpers, huh?
I was the Royal jester to King Henry II and my job was to come up with a Christmas Spectacular every year to compete with the Jugglers, fire-eaters, storytellers and acrobats and i tried the usual jokes such as 'Hey Eleanor of Aquitaine, am I pleased to see you or did I just put a canoe in my pocket' but one year i really took it up a level by making use of the large thing between the King's ears, his nose.
I had many talents but as you can guess by my stage name, i am most well known for one of them but you see i was a farter by trade, or Flatulist to give me my proper title, and my artistic manipulation of flatulence included impressions, blowing smoke rings, extinguishing candles, and playing tunes all performed with my arse but for the Royal Court i designed an act which ended with what i called a jump, a whistle and a fart which is exactly as it sounds, all three executed simultaneously.
Passing wind in the Middle Ages was a more complicated act than it is today and a good flatulist could earn a decent living, the king paid me 30 acres of land and a manor and when was the last time your boss gave you a house?
You see fart humor hinges on the unexpectedness of the fart but not just anyone could be a flatulist, it's a skill to be able to trump on cue and also to not produce too much of a stink and to not be so enthusiastic that you follow through and need to change your trousers afterwards, not pleasant.
Unfortunately, you don't see a lot of performance farting anymore, and that's a shame because it was a very underrated art form and there was no cameras to capture me in my pomp which is a shame but as it was all happening in 12th Century, the video would be like my party piece which was silent...but deadly. See, i still got it.

Special Guest Blogger: Saint Stephen

For most people their only knowledge of me is from that Good King Wencheslaus song but the Feast of Stephen is more commonly known as Boxing Day in Australia, Canada and the UK which is mainly the day to return Christmas gifts to the shops and exchange them for the correct size, an alternative to the same value or make up stories about how it was broken when we got it and can we have the money back please.
I was Jewish to start with but religion isnt like picking a football team and you can switch sides whenever you want and i did, coming over to Team Jesus and i was one of seven deacons appointed by the Apostles to distribute food and charitable aid to poorer members of the community but that did not go down well with the Jewish community who said i was not evenly distributing the food, favouring the guys with the foreskins.
They argued with me, i gave a long speech with my central point being my God and Jesus would kick the arse of their God and Moses which was every bit as effective as it sounds and they accused me of blasphemy and dragged me off to a court of Jewish elders who said i had preached against the Temple and the Mosaic Law.
I was expecting to have a debate, then be told to behave myself than back home for a bit of a pray but it was the bit about the many mercies that God had given the children of Israel, and the ungrateful way in which they had repaid him by killing the saviour that really got up their nose and i said i would be sat at Gods right hand but i wasn't expecting it to be within the next 20 minutes as they dragged me out into the street and began stoning me, the other Saints call me the first rock star because a rock hit my head and i saw stars.
The Christmas bit comes in as my remains were found and taken to the Church of Hagia Sion on 26 December, making it the date for the feast of Saint Stephen but as Christians tend to do, they hold part of my right arm at Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius in Russia as a religious relic and us Christians do like a relic.
When you think of a religious relic, you probably picture a golden chalice, a sacred jewel or even a fancy dagger somebody once stabbed a mythical monster with but generally it's a saint's body part that was lopped off and put in a box.
To show how much of a sense of humour the Church has, i am the patron saint of headaches and stone masons and is often represented carrying a pile of rocks or with rocks on my head.
My message then is try also not to be dominated by your hatred and learn to forgive like I have learned to forgive those miserable, sadistic Jews so that you, too, can be inwardly cleansed. That and duck if a bunch of people wearing Shtreimel hats throws stones at you.

A Hallmark Christmas

Last week i was sent from the city to do an assignment on the local bakery in the small town where i grew up as it was celebrating it's 50th, and last, year as the owner, Mr Lassiter, was selling up.
My boss told me that if i put in a good report, i was almost certain to get that promotion to Chief Editor but my report had to be handed in by December 24th so off i drove and i was glad to get away, following my divorce this year i didn't want to be home alone and single at this time of the year.
I arrived in the town and stopped at the small coffee shop to grab a latte and ask directions but i have taken two steps when i was nearly knocked over by a runaway Golden Retriever and then actually sent tumbling by the owner who was chasing it.
It wasn't until he was apologising and helping me up that i realised that it Jed, my old college boyfriend i hadnt seen since i left the town 15 years ago.
He insisted on buying me a coffee as way of apology and we sat inside the cafe and talked about old times and i told him about how i was a big success in the city and almost certain to get that promotion and he told me how he had stayed in the town to run the family book-store after his parents had passed away.
He asked me if i would be around for the tree lighting ceremony on Christmas Eve but I told him about my assignment deadline and i needed to be back in the city by Christmas Eve to hand over my copy but i did say we should meet up again sometime but now i had to go see Mr Lassiter.
The kindly old man at the Bakery told me that after his wife had died, he couldn't face making the Christmas Cookies on his own anymore and she hadn't left him the special recipe for the cookies everyone loved so had decided to sell up to a large corporation who planned to pull down the bakery and build an office block on the site.      
I was sitting in the cafe typing out my report on my laptop when Jed came in and over a Gingerbread Latte, i told him about the bakery closing and he said that he thinks Mrs Lassiter had given his mum her secret recipe for the cookies one year for safe-keeping and it was in an old tin under the stairs.
So off we went and found the tin and spent all evening in the kitchen making the cookies following Mrs Lassiter's secret recipe.
It was during this time that i realised that the Jed i knew at college had actually grown into a great, and beautiful soul and while we were waiting for the last batch cookies to cook, he confessed that he had never really gotten over me and still loved me but he understood that while he had stayed in the town, i had gone on to bigger and better things and had outgrown the town and it's people.
I broke the awkward silence by throwing flour at him, he threw it back and with us both laughing, he chased me around the kitchen and caught me right under the doorway, where the miseltoe was hanging. I admit i did think about kissing him as we looked into each others eyes but the timer on the oven pinged and ruined the moment.
The cookies were a brilliant success, Jed decorated them with handfuls of tiny, silver and gold stars and we both helped out in the bakery shop selling them but my deadline was looming and my boss had already phoned me to ask how it was coming along and to remind me it had to be submitted by Christmas Eve if i had any chance of getting that promotion.
Jed asked me to go to the outdoor skating rink but i told him i really had to get the assignment finished so typed away but all the time i was distracted by the thought of Jed and how much fun we had making the cookies so i shut down the laptop, grabbed my coat and went to the rink to surprise him.
When i got there i saw him laughing and joking with a group of the local people and i knew right there that it would never work, i was a big shot city girl now and he was still the small town boy so to save us both from heartache, i went back to my room and packed my bags and wrote him a note to say that it was the fairest thing for both of us if i left before our feelings grew any stronger.
I pushed through the letterbox of the book-shop as i left and with tears in my eyes, i began the long drive back to the city and pulled in to a service station for some coffee to keep me awake for the rest of the drive home.
I sat in a booth in the corner and thought of Jed as i watched the snow tumble down outside when an old lady asked me if she could sit with me.
She had a dog-earred copy of 'A Christmas Carol' and when i said it was an amazing book, she sighed that she always carried it as it reminded her of how, one Christmas many years ago, she had made the biggest mistake of her life.
She spoke of how her biggest regret was that she had put her career before her own happiness and that had cost her the one true love she ever known and she realised too late that love is based on being yourself not anyone else and the true meaning of Christmas is being with someone you want to be with and how she wished she could go back and do it again, so she could change everything.  
Outside the snow was really coming down hard and i thought about her words while watching a young couple walk past with their arms entwined around each other and when i turned back she was gone, and when i asked the waiter where she had gone, he just shrugged and said he hadn't noticed anyone there anyway.
My mobile phone rang and as i fumbled the phone from my coat pocket, i saw it my boss asking and she would be asking for my story but as i got the phone out, i also dragged out some tiny silver and gold stars which we had used to decorate the cookies with and i stared at them and thought of Jed, him with the flour on his shirt as he chased me laughing around the kitchen, as my boss reminded me that my promotion depended on this assignment.
'I know' i said before adding 'but it's the last one you will ever get from me because i quit' and i hung up before she had chance to talk me out of it.
I drove back to the town and had to fight my way through the crowd who were gathering in the town square for the tree lighting ceremony but i couldn't see Jed and the countdown had begun. 10...9...8...7...through the falling snow i glimpsed Jed standing at the side of the stage and made my way through the crowd.
...6...5...4...
'Jed' i shouted, running over to him.
'I read your letter and thought you had gone home' he said with surprise
....3...2...
'I am home' i replied and as the crowd got to 1 we kissed and the lights came on, illuminating our embrace to cheers from the crowd.
Mr Lassiter asked to go on the stage as he had an important announcement to make and said that he had decided to not sell the bakery but to give it to Jed and I to run if we were willing, as we made such a success of it and he knew it would be in safe hands,
'Of course we will' i smiled and turned to Jed and said 'what a great Christmas present!!'
'You're my Christmas present this year' Jed smiled pulling me tightly to him.
As the snow gently fell, and we held each other, i saw the old lady from the service station stood in the distance, she smiled, nodded and seemed to fade into the lights.       
The crowd began singing 'Silent Night' and it was only then that i noticed the angel on the top of the tree was holding a wand in one hand a book in the other, the book was 'A Christmas Carol'.   
I am sure, as the saying goes, we will live happily ever after.