But we didn't notice

COVID news live: Boris Johnson holding news conference on booster plan amid 'distinct possibility' Omicron has been spreading for months

Coronavirus latest as mask wearing becomes compulsory again in shops in England; PCR tests for fully vaccinated travellers return; Moderna boss says vaccine effectiveness will likely drop against Omicron variant; Boris Johnson to hold news conference from 4pm.

Doesn't sound too scary if we didn't notice. Reminds me of that bad cough I had but didn't notice.

But this fear is witless

Yes, my dear Lucilius; we agree too quickly with what people say. We do not put to the test those things which cause our fear; we do not examine into them; we blench and retreat just like soldiers who are forced to abandon their camp because of a dust-cloud raised by stampeding cattle, or are thrown into a panic by the spreading of some unauthenticated rumour. And somehow or other it is the idle report that disturbs us most. For truth has its own definite boundaries, but that which arises from uncertainty is delivered over to guesswork and the irresponsible license of a frightened mind. That is why no fear is so ruinous and so uncontrollable as panic fear. For other fears are groundless, but this fear is witless.

Seneca - Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium c. 65 AD


I’m trying to work up some panic about the Omigod variant but it isn’t easy. I don’t know if it’s a missing panic gene or something, but I can’t find my panic anywhere. Maybe I should watch more television.

Crystal Balls

Healing CRYSTALS cured my STAGE FRIGHT! The stars who can't sparkle without their crystals!

As far as celebrity trends go, healing crystals is certainly up there with the wackiest, but also one of the most reliable.

These are the stars who need to have their healing crystals to hand in order to deal with anything life throws at them...

Merely casual interest this, but a chap is bound to wonder if there is any overlap between celebrities who believe in magic crystals and those who preach at us about climate change. Possibly not, but it would be an odd mix, magic and atmospheric physics.

Imagine The View

Sarah was not a snob, but it was a time when the middle classes thought of the peasants as of another world from themselves, like dogs or cats or horses.

Hugh Walpole - Rogue Herries (1930)

Snobbery is an ancient aspect of social reality, but it is worth reminding ourselves that the establishment still looks down on ordinary folk. It is also inclined to view us in the main as somewhat deplorable.

It was a familiar enough attitude in the days of servants, silk hats and the local squire, but the outlook is still with us. Hillary Clinton gave the game away with her basket of deplorables comment, but it is an extremely old status game. The aristocracy and upper middle classes have always looked down on the peasants.

Yet Brexit plus the election of Donald Trump seem to have made the dislike and distrust between establishment and deplorables much sharper. So much so that it must be worth asking ourselves if woke political games are an attempt to counter what is seen as deplorable culture.

The establishment just doesn’t like us we might say. From what I see, this simple viewpoint has cropped up in a number places recently and it does seem to explain recent political insanities.

They don’t like us, they look down on the way we live and are entirely comfortable with policies which undermine everything from healthcare to education, from housing to transport, from the energy market to holiday destinations, from diets to hobbies.

It’s a long list, yet it is easy enough to see what may be going on. Take a walk around a shopping centre as the dire consumer frenzy we call Christmas looms large. Listen to the crappy music, do some cynical people-watching then imagine yourself wafted into a higher sphere where money and taste abound. 

This is not to say that political and social trends are rooted in snobbery and little else, but the contempt one social class may feel for another is not difficult to understand from either situation. I don’t occupy a higher sphere where money and taste abound, but it is easy enough to imagine the view.

More snow

 

This afternoon I took this photo of a new snowfall here in Derbyshire. To my mind it emphasises an important point about the climate emergency. 

Although our previous snowfall had almost completely melted by this morning, having more snow fall this afternoon merely highlights how relentless the warming is.

Totalitarian TV

James Bembridge has a TCW piece about The Jeremy Vine Show on Channel 5. Not on my radar at all, but for an outsider it makes interesting reading. I certainly hope the number of Channel 5 viewers is small and trending downwards.

EVERY day at 9:15am, an intense and unshakeable sense of doom begins to surge through me. It is, of course, the time at which The Jeremy Vine Show begins to air on Channel 5.

To give you a flavour of the show’s output, here are three questions it recently served up as points of national discussion: ‘Should we lock down the unvaccinated?’, ‘should pubs ban mobile phones?’, and ‘should we mandate vaccines?’ – In short, the show now caters for fools and fascists.

Worth reading as a reminder of just how ghastly people can be when offered the opportunity and a modicum of what could appear to be official approval. 

The things we miss by not watching television. 

Snow

Had a light covering of snow early this morning but it has virtually all gone now. The grandkids enjoyed the snowball fights though - it was damp enough to stick together easily. COP26 just missed it, although their version would have been due to the climate emergency or something.