Larry’s Dairy Week Fifty Eight

Monday

I made a very early morning patrol of the offices this morning and spotted Mickey the Mouse out of his hiding place, but he disappeared behind a huge cupboard, through a gap that was way too small for me to follow. I kept a watch for what seemed aged and he didn’t come back so I expect there is a hole back there that he is using. I gave up and went back to my basket. All this is my excuse for oversleeping and having to be called for breakfast! I’m not sure exactly what is happening but the Felix was chicken this morning, but in jelly not the usual Gravy. Has the recipe changed or is someone experimenting on me? I must try to read the box.

I see the Bozzie and Richie Nik-Nak have been “flying a kite” over the upcoming budget. There have been “leaks” about tax rises, a mansion tax, cuts in overseas aid, spending cuts, you name it, it’s been mentioned. It is all a game. They are trying to get a reaction from the MSM and from you. They want to know what they, the public, will accept and what they won’t. Well, I would say cuts in overseas aid is number one, but will only save a few billion so something else will have to be added.

Today is the last day of “Eat Out to Help Out”. It has only helped pay for 65 million meals so far, that’s one for everyone in the UK, without adding in today’s numbers. But the Government has made it clear that despite it being such a huge success they are not going to extend the scheme, it must be costing too much. However, lots of places are going to run their own versions. Toby Carvery, who also include Harvester, Vintage Inns and Stonehouse Pizza’s, are offering half-price main courses on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Spoons are doing a similar offer even advertising that their burger is cheaper than McDonalds. I suspect a lot of you happy readers would prefer burger, chips and a pint (or 3) in Spoons to a burger, chips and a soft drink in McDonalds regardless of the price.

A ridiculous article in today’s Gruniad, we should all welcome bugs and beasts into our homes as many species are at risk. Don’t squish that spider, learn to live with them. The same goes for toads, daddy long legs, even mice. Bees or wasps in your loft? Don’t call in the exterminator, welcome them. Can you imagine the fuss here if I was to deliberately let the mice thrive in No 10. I would be retire to the country like a flash. Go for your breakfast and find a hole chewed into cornflake box and mouse droppings inside and you can imagine the yelling. Wasps getting in from a nest in the loft and stinging an important foreign visitor and it would be a diplomatic incident. What a stupid idea.

I’m not sure how it has happened but Steptoe has been voted the best prime minister Britain never had! Steptoe was the man who lost two general elections and lost the party leadership amid a row over anti-Semitism. I suppose the answer is it was a twitter poll and they are very easy for activists to hijack.

The opinion polls in the States appear to have taken a huge swing against Sleepy Joe and in favour of the GKP. It’s all happened since the Republican Convention but I’m not sure that’s what’s done it. Personally I think that the ordinary people have got fed up with the riots and destruction and that the Democrats have done nothing to stop them in Democrat controlled communities. In the latest poll the GKP lead in the general vote by 48% to 45%, but in the critical swing states it was 49% to 42 %. At this stage in the last presidential election Killery led by 8%. Landslide to Trump coming?

As usual, a silly story to finish with before I head off to dinner, I wonder what it will be tonight, I bet whatever it is it is in jelly, they seem to have got a new pack of stuff in jelly. Right the story, a lady in Killingworth on Tyneside, who won £2.7 million on the lottery 25 years ago, is still working as an overnight shelf stacker in M&S. She even starts work at 2 am and finishes at 9 am. If I had that money I would be retired and living on Felix chicken in gravy.

Tuesday

I really don’t know what is going on with my food. Why do they think I want to try different flavours and swap gravy for jelly? I am a cat, not a food reviewer. Just give me Felix chicken in gravy, that’s all I need. A cat can live on meat alone (and a drink of water), we don’t eat grain in nature. How many cats have you seen eat a bowl of cereals? A few cat treats now and then is all I ask.

That blinking mouse still eludes me. I was up in the middle to the night to try to get him but no luck. As they are moving a load of staff out to the new “control room” in the cabinet office today they might disturb him (or her). I shall be on high alert as things are moved. I had a wander around the new control room, it’s very flash. Rows of socially distanced desks, with all the fittings for wall-mounted TV and data screens. I wonder if they will try to keep me out.

XR are supposed to be gathering in Parliament Square this morning for the new parliamentary session. They are a strange lot. I think they would like us all to travel everywhere by bike or skateboard and to live in caves lit by candlelight. I’d be OK I could hunt for by food, there would be loads of rats and mice about in their ideal world. You lot, of course, would starve, as farming would go back to how it was in the Middle Ages and the supermarkets would all disappear.

So Micheal Barnier is popping over to London today, for “preliminarily” talks with David Frost prior to the next round of talks next week. I’m not sure why he’s bothering, unless he’s coming over with some new concessions. I don’t think we are going to back down on fishing or the “level playing field” so talks look like going down to the wire. My prediction is that there is no possibility of the all-encompassing agreement that the EU wants and we are going to land up with a number of side agreements.

The NHS is to launch a test programme to try to tackle type 2 diabetes. Up to 50,000 people will be prescribed a diet comprising a mixture of shakes and soups to replace their regular diet. The new diet will comprise all the necessary nutrients for someone comprising about 1000 calories a day for six months. The idea being that this will educate the body to a diet comprising only what is needed and thus coupled with some light exercise lead to weight loss. A similar regime has shown that diabetes can be put into remission and generally improve health. In a test where similar numbers had the diet and didn’t, there was a significant reduction in heart attacks and strokes amongst those on the diet.

Wee Krankie is flying another kite on an independence referendum. She says she is going to introduce draft legislation and a timetable for a referendum. Only one problem the power to hold a referendum is reserved by Westminster and Bozzie has said he has no intention of allowing one. Does Wee Krankie have something up her little sleeve or is she just being her usual self and stirring it up.

Did you see the stupid dog on the news who chased after seagulls on the beach? The gulls took to the sea and the dog chased after them swimming further and further out to sea. In the end, the daft mutt had to be rescued by an inshore lifeboat. The crew reckoned if the mutt had gone much further he would have landed up among the local wind turbines.

Wednesday

Good morning people, still no mouse news. Bozzie was busy reading briefing papers at breakfast today in readiness for his PMQs encounter with Kier Stoma. He only skimmed the papers before dumping them in a heap for me to sit on to read at my leisure when the humans disappear.

I read that the English schools that went back yesterday were pretty busy. It seems they had around 90% attendance. I wonder if the kid’s Mums and Dads went back? I did see the pictures of the scaredy-cat teacher tweeting how worried he was. He was newly qualified and looked petrified and was busy blaming the Government for all his woes. I noticed he was wearing a suit. I thought teachers didn’t wear suit in this day and age, no wonder he was worried, he expected the kids to take the mickey.

Isn’t it strange that the German doctors treating the leader of the Russian opposition leader are treating him for the Novichok nerve agent. It is getting to be a thing that happens to people who oppose Putrid. Of course he will deny it, but it cannot be a coincidence can it?

The Biased Broadcasting Company has made a “U” turn and will have BBC singers at the Last Night of The Proms sing the words of Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory. But of course, it’s not a “U” turn, in BBC own words it is a “reversal”. The term “U” turn is reserved to be used disparagingly of the Government and must not refer to the BBC for them it is the far more gentle term “reversal”. Now doesn’t that just go to prove their bias?

The presidential election is beginning to get very interesting. Not long ago the MSM had Sleepy Joe as the out and out favourite. As I said on Monday, the polls are now swinging against him and in favour of the GKP. Now I see that the bookmaker’s odds have started to move. Now I know that the odds don’t reflect the bookmaker’s opinions, they only reflect the money bet by the punters, but the smart money appears to be going on Trump.

Are we going to see digital ID for everyone in the UK? It seems the Government had a serious problem proving the identity of people during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic. The idea is that everyone will get an online ID which would allow people to do things like prove their age or prove who they are when registering at a doctor or witnessing a signature on a document. But will people accept the Government holding loads of their personal data or perhaps even using the digital ID to control what people can or can’t do? I can see this proposal causing endless argument.

So the EU is worried that a fully comprehensive trade agreement is going to be impossible to reach by the end of the year and are suggesting that in order to reach one the transition period would have to be extended by “several years”. They say only a bare-bones agreement would be possible by the end of the year. Now isn’t that odd, isn’t that just what the EU have been after from the beginning of negotiations, they want to keep us tied closely into the EU jurisdiction, paying into their coffers. But is that what we want? Wouldn’t we be better off with a bare-bones agreement, just a simple free trade, no quotas deal. But the EU don’t want that, they want our fish, to continue running a huge trade surplus and to control us through the ECJ. I think a bare-bones agreement is just what we need.

One last thing as I head off to my dinner and cat basket. I have just had the misfortune to watch a couple of video clips from Sleepy Joe. My God, is he suffering from early-stage dementia? He doesn’t seem to be able to remember what he is talking about from one minute to the next. Then he struggles to read off the teleprompter, even reading out the stage instructions. Is he really the best candidate the Democrats could put forward or is it a plan to get a leftwing black woman into the White House by having him resign within a short time of being elected? If he behaves like this in the presidential debates he will have a complete disaster. Nighty night.

Thursday

Still mild this morning and I sure you will all be delighted to know that I slept so well that I missed the early morning mouse hunt. Breakfast was still that Jelly stuff, what a good way to ruin a perfectly good chicken meal. Still, the sooner I finish it the sooner I should be back to the good stuff. But when you’re a cat it’s not easy to indicate to your humans that you’re not happy with your dinner. I know you can pick at it and leave some, but there are two problems with that, one you go hungry and two the Mutt will eat it!

Ofgem have been trying to push the blame for the exam problems solely on to the Government. Saying they told Williamson they could still have run socially distanced exams. But would that have been fair to all the students? Most schools gave up any attempt to teach once the schools closed. While some made an effort to teach online, they were mainly the fee-paying ones. This would have given candidates who continued to learn a huge advantage over those who didn’t. Don’t forget the exams papers were produced long ago and covered the whole curriculum, some of the students might not have been taught things they were being tested on. Ofgem are being disingenuous.

British manufacturing in August grew at its fastest rate for six years. Up from 52.3 in July to 55.2 in August. Anything over 50 is growth. Most of the growth came from domestic orders but oversea orders grew but not at so high a rate. Duncan Brock, director at the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply said it looked like manufacturing was experiencing a “V” shaped recovery but it would take a few more months to confirm it.

Another coronavirus vaccine went into phase 1/2 clinical trials today. This is the joint venture between the French company Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline. It will involve 440 adults in 11 locations across the United States. The aim is to have the vaccine approved for use in November this year. This is one of the vaccines the UK has contracted to buy should it be successful. In the US there are plans for emergency legislation to allow the use of a promising vaccine before it receives final approval. The CDC has been contacting states across the US in an attempt to get them to remove red tape so that a vaccination programme could begin on 1st November.

Delighted to see The Mogg taking the pee out of the Biased Broadcasting Company by playing a snippet of Rule Britannia on his phone in the Commons today. He held his phone close to a microphone so that everyone could hear it. He earned a jokey telling off by the Speaker and mad a jokey apology. Of course, there were Labour MP’s who didn’t like it and had a moan, but that’s par for the course.

The Biased Broadcasting Company is looking for the employee who has been tweeting anti-Semitic messages to Emma Barnett the Jewish BBC journalist. One Nimesh Thaker has been identified by the Jewish Chronicle and can expect to be hit hard. The new boss of the BBC has told staff, “If you want to be an opinionated columnist or a partisan campaigner on social media, then that is a valid choice, but you should not be working at the BBC”. Will he be clamping down on Emily Mateless and Gary Lineker? Are we going to see a new tough BBC boss?

Friday

I got up at about 3 am looking for that mouse, but found nothing so I popped out into the garden for a quick pee and then went back to my basket for more sleep. Am I getting old having to have pee in the middle of the night? Still stuff in jelly for breakfast, I do hope they get the message that I’m not keen. At least the Little Otter saw me sniffing it and walking around the bowl this morning. She asked what the matter was suggesting I wasn’t well. No you silly human, it’s that I don’t much like it. Please work it out woman.

I see Steptoe’s energy supplier has effectively gone bust. He did a bit of virtue signalling and signed up to Robin Hood Energy for their “green” supply. Robin Hood were set up by Nottingham Council in 2015 as an ethical rival to the big six suppliers. Unfortunately, they have found making money difficult and last year lost £23 million. They then were ordered by Ofgem to pay the £9.5 million it owed under the Renewables Obligation or lose its license. In March this year it was revealed that the company owed £20.9 million and last month it was stated that £45 million of Council money has been spent on it. Yesterday it was announced they are making 250 redundant and today all their accounts, both domestic and business, have been taken over by British Gas. At least British Gas say they will continue to supply “green” power. Mind I would like to know how anyone can tell if their power is “green”.

I see Barnier has finally gone mad. He has said that while Britain will be in full charge of our own waters we will not own the fish in them. I’m not sure how he works this out. The United Nations is quite clear on this. A coastal nation has full control over its waters, their content and the minerals under them out to 200 miles or the median point with bordering nations. This clearly means that any fish in British waters are British. The man’s making it up as he goes along.

Nice to see Bozzie has raised two fingers to the opposition and has hired Tony Abbott to the Board of Trade. He is too radical for the left and both Keir Stoma and Wee Krankie have been at the forefront of the moaning calling Abbott sexist and homophobic. Well, Bozzie has decided that he is the right man for the job and gone on and hired him anyway. We shall soon see who is right.

The SNP’s Stuart Hosier, made a bit of an ass of himself in the Commons today, demanding that the Trade Bill should include protection of British food standards like banning hormone injected beef and chlorinated chicken. Liz Truss carefully explained that under the EU Withdrawal Act these were already in UK law together with the full range of standards that we have been working too for years and that his suggestion was pointless as it would mean double legislation on the same thing. Hosier didn’t seem to understand this and amid laughter from many MPs muttered on about MPs having no vote on standards when they clearly already had when passing the Withdrawal Act. I think I will change his name to Stuart Dozier.

The BBC is catching up on news I thought was common knowledge. It says that scientists think that the main coronavirus test is so accurate that it is picking up on dead virus in people’s systems. People are normally only infectious for around 7 days but can test positive for several further weeks. It says that this could explain why positive tests are still high while the number of patients in hospital and dying is continuing to fall. Earlier this week it was said that for example the number of coronavirus patients requiring a ventilator was down to 66 and falling from 3600 peak earlier in the year. When someone has one of the swab tests the sample is treated with chemical reagents that amplify the virus so that it can be detected. Sometimes the sample has to go through the amplification cycle many times before the virus can be detected. Scientists are now questioning whether this is picking up tiny fragments of dead viruses and should there be a limited number of amplification cycles before a test is declared positive or negative.

Just I was off to my cat basket, I heard a couple of the humans in the office talking about the next round of trade talks. They are saying that Barnier is to be sidelined, that the EU thinks that he has got so used to saying not that it was proving impossible to get any sort of agreement with him in charge. So his being removed is seen by the EU as a step towards an agreement, but I still think they will have to compromise on fishing and the level playing field to get Bozzie onside.

Saturday

Today is a day I always look forward to, my last working day of the week before I can put my paws up tomorrow. Mind, with only a few people in the office on a Saturday it’s usually quiet and I can find a chair with a cushion for me to have a snooze on. Anyway, I digress, still no mouse sighting, but I’m sure he’s around somewhere. Am I going to be accused of being a sexist cat calling the mouse him, for all I know it could be a her or even one of those mice? When I catch it I will have to ask it what pronoun I should use.

Not all the papers arrived for me to read this morning. We were short of the Times and the Telegraph. I understand the XR are to blame. Their supporters built bamboo scaffolding outside printworks that produces several of the national papers and blocked the lorries distributing them. They claim that 80% of British papers are controlled by 5 people whose politics they object to. They think this gives them the right to stop half the nation, and me, reading their choice of paper. Idiots.

The EU really are putting every possible obstacle in the way of a trade agreement, it’s as if they have decided that they don’t want one. They keep dreaming up new things to object to. Now they want to be able to veto any changes to British law that would affect a level playing field. Whoever heard of a sovereign nation giving another country (or in this case group of countries) power over their domestic laws.

The car sales numbers for August were out this morning and they were down a little on the same month last year. But it actually was only by a few hundred vehicles on the last two years in which sales were the best ever for August. I see the MSM are boasting that sales of electric vehicles were up 100%. It is easy to play the percentages game. If one month you sell 10 cars and the next month you sell 20 of course sales are up 100% but if total car sales are 100,000 for the month, sales of 20 are irrelevant.

I have been reading an article that says you should not feed you cat IAMS because it includes lots of cereal filler to make it cheap. Not only that, what meat is in it is said to be poor quality slaughterhouse waste. Cats get all their requirements from meat and don’t naturally eat cereal and it can make us ill. There is another, better, reason for not feeding it to me, I don’t like it. Perhaps I’m fussy, but I must say I prefer the brands with lots of meat in, even if they are more expensive.

Despite cruise holidays in most parts of the world being on hold and anchored cruise ships off Bournemouth becoming a tourist attraction a new Royal Caribbean Oasis Class ship was floated out early this morning. The Wonder of the Seas is the fifth ship of its class and is expected to take over the crown as the biggest cruise ship in the world from its sister ship Symphony of the Sea. Symphony weighs in at 228,081 tonnes and carries 6800 passengers. Wonder is expected to be just a few tonnes heavier and to carry a similar number of passengers. The delivery of the ship has been slowed down by 10 months “because of coronavirus” and is not now expected until 2022.

There are a number of silly stories I could finish the week with, like the 5 year old boy sent home after 15 minutes of his first year at school for wearing the wrong school uniform, or having to ring 111 to get an appointment to go to A&E, great if you’re having a heart attack or the people who covered a car in rotting fish because the owner kept parking it in a private spot. But the story that I liked best was about 48 year old Ryan Leith, who spent days looking for basking sharks off the Shetland Isles. He had just about given up and was swimming when an 18-foot basking shark passed within inches of him. Fortunately, he was in no danger as basking sharks only eat krill which they strain from the water through their huge gaping mouths. But he did get a bit of a shock.

Right, that’s it for the week, I’m off for my dinner, even if it is that stuff in jelly. Night, Night back next week.
 

© WorthingGooner 2020
 

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