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Graduating degrees of crazy

I’ve been on Twitter rather more than is good for me this past two years, and I’ve followed lots and lots of people I didn’t before. Oh, dear readers, I have followed some doozies. There’s a chemtrails lady and a flat-earther (I honestly haven’t worked out if this person is serious or blowing smoke up my bum). There’s even some nutballs who think the governments are working independently and honestly to do the right thing during a dangerous pandemic.

I haven’t posted much about it because it’s honestly a firehose of crazy and I didn’t want to get any on me. Just for funsies, though, let’s list the COVID-19 theories. I was going to say “in ascending order of lunacy” but couldn’t make up my mind how to rank them.

Did I miss any? I refuse to say which nutty theory, if any, I personally believe. Some of them naturally go together, in sets.

It’s coming to something when the least frightening and mind-blowing idea in the whole list is “greedy drug companies selling billions in unnecessary vaccines.”

The picture, by the way, is from here: a clever take on the old flat earth theory.

November 30, 2021 — 8:12 pm
Comments: 19

Now whadoIdo?

Masks in shops are coming back, as of tomorrow. Shops and public transport, but not in restaurants. Right?

I’ve heard the loonies on Twitter say a “new variant” will crop up right before Christmas, causing a holiday lockdown. Hello, new variant. So far, the loonies are batting 100%.

I’m really torn on this one. I agree that mass civil disobedience is the only way to make the government listen.

But I’m an immigrant. I believe immigrants should make a real effort not to be assholes. You go live in somebody else’s country, you don’t bitch about how they do things.

I have a feeling there’s a lot of ‘not going into shops at all’ in my future.

p.s. Picture is not my work. I tried to find out who made it, but it’s just a Twitter orphan.

November 29, 2021 — 8:13 pm
Comments: 10

Good weekend!

Storm Arwen is apparently beating up the North pretty badly. Down here? Eh. Nothing much. We might see some flurries tomorrow, which would be nice.

Still, we’re tapped out in front of the fire, warm and dry and we ain’t even had leftovers yet. Good luck getting me to move.

Have a good weekend, all!

November 26, 2021 — 8:04 pm
Comments: 11

Happy Bird Day!

Lookee what we’re getting for Thanksgiving weekend – a named storm. Actually, it doesn’t look too bad. Wind and cold, and not even much wind by our local standards. It be windy here. But I rolled my eyes we’re naming storms after Tolkien characters now.

I am NOT looking forward to Tropical Storm Shelob.

Just finishing the T’day prep – we have it as an evening meal. It’s just us.

We have a neighbor who grew up in the States and used to try to do a group Thanksgiving do some years, but it looks like covid has put a stop to that.

Thank goodness. She prays at the alter of Betty Crocker.

Hope yours is everything you want in a feast of excess! I’m grateful for you all!

November 25, 2021 — 5:49 pm
Comments: 9

Look! The shed has a shed…

This is a house listing in Fernhurst. That’s it on the left. I mean, that’s the whole house.

It’s a former telegraph exchange built in 1959. The owner managed to cram in a loft bedroom, a kitchen and livingroom area and a bunk for guests. It’s near the South Downs National Park. It has a garden.

To be honest with you, I’d probably love it. I have a thing for trailers and lofts and other tiny accommodations.

It would have to be *awfully* nice to rate £225,000, though.

November 24, 2021 — 5:23 pm
Comments: 12

Last of the season

A red sweet pepper. There may be more green ones to come, but this is bound to be the last to ripen this season.

How he does it at all is a mystery to me. I am informed that sweet peppers aren’t viable this far north.

Far north, you say? If you look at a world map, the South of England aligns with Hudson’s Freaking Bay.

Anyway, he manages to coax out a few peppers for me every year in his greenhouse. This variety is an F1 hybrid called Gogorez. It’s a squat pepper with a thick flesh, which makes it perfect for stuffing.

Stuffing as in stuffed peppers, not as in turkey-and-stuffing, I mean.

November 23, 2021 — 7:48 pm
Comments: 11

Ha HA! Nice try, overlords!

We have a roast chicken every Sunday, and every Monday I spend a few hours boiling the carcass and plucking the meat off of it.

I hate this process so much. All those slippery bones and muscles and sinews. I know how they all fit together to make a chicken. It haunts me. And I get it on my hands.

I’m funny about touching food with my hands.

But I get at least three splendid chicken-based meals out of it, so I feel totally compelled.

Anyway, I was doing this unpleasant job earlier and it made me wonder (not for the first time) if I would be able to raise meat chickens. I sincerely believe they’re going to push this anti-meat thing until we all eat less meat whether we like it or not because we can’t afford it.

We have neighbors with sheep and neighbors with cows, so we can avoid those meat taxes if they don’t impose them on the farmer hisself.

We don’t have a good place for a pig, but I’d consider it. I got one as an adorable pet when I was a teenager and by the time he was old enough for the butcher, I was ready to hustle him onto the van with my own two hands.

He was an escape artist and whenever I managed to trace him down, he bit me. Hard. Get in the van, piggie.

But chicken. I really like eating chicken. But I really like chickens.

I’m going to have to be pretty hungry before I go there. I’m soft like that.

November 22, 2021 — 7:32 pm
Comments: 16

Decomposing nicely

Come November, I put my pumpkin at the end of the drive and spend the winter watching it implode. It gets creepier and creepier as it collapses from the inside. My own personal memento mori.

The climate is so mild here, you’d be astonished how long it usually lasts. The first really hard freeze shatters it, but we only get one or two of them and that later in the season.

Surprisingly, no – no-one has ever smashed it against the house.

Speaking of decomposing, wanna spend the weekend with me watching Wisconsin burn?

November 19, 2021 — 7:14 pm
Comments: 11

The last of the bonfires…

That’ll go up a treat.

It’s the last of the Sussex bonfires this week. Then Thanksgiving (no, Brits don’t celebrate Turkey Day, but *we* do) and then we slide right into Christmas.

I am so ready for it. Not Christmas so much, more the days getting longer again.

At present, the chickens put themselves to bed at 4. In a month, they’ll be going in at 3:30. Add to that our weather has been relentless grey and dim and dark and I’m developing a stinking case of Seasonal Affective Thingummy.

November 18, 2021 — 8:06 pm
Comments: 14

Journalism today

You’ve probably seen Miriam Margolyes in something. She usually plays the whacky old lady, crazy aunt, witch. She was in one of the Harry Potter films. She’s a dreadful old lefty luvvy, but they all are, aren’t they?

Yesterday she was on Good Morning Britain. Seconds before the end of an ad break, she lifted a buttcheek, let rip an enormous fart and said, “that’s better.”

When the cameras rolled, the hosts were in tears.

Is this news? Is it important? Folks, I will never let a fart story go.

This is my pledge to you.

November 17, 2021 — 7:30 pm
Comments: 5