Sunday 28 June 2020

THE WEEK THAT WAS.

21 -28 June 2020

The week started off well enough with Father’s day, then an illegal march and then, pow, my daily blurb on Wednesday was banned by the FB police…read on Macbeth.

Sunday 21 June

It was Father’s Day in southern Africa today, the one day of the year where the hard working daddy can lie in, get breakfast in bed, receive some tremendous gifts that show his worth, be taken by limousine to the golf course for a quick game and then back again for a sumptious feast at home. The afternoon would be spent having a relaxing nap and then a sundowner or two before being carried to bed after a manicure/massage.

Well, that’s how it should have been today, but ‘twas not to be. It does appear that many of the children I know (and all their mothers too for that matter), believe that father’s day is every day except for that one lonely 24 hour period named Mother’s Day. Gobsmacked as I was to hear those words, I bit my tongue so as to suppress some words of wisdom, and manfully decided to see out the day with a smile. Possibly a false smile, but still a smile. You all know how I smile all the time so no hassle there.

I waited in my bed for a breakfast delivery from Wimpy but after an hour of zero movement anywhere was forced to get out of bed and make my own coffee and marmite and toast. Better than nothing. I did peek outside to see if perhaps a gift in the form of a Lamborghini was parked there. Oh no, the 50th year in a row of no such gift for dear old daddy. Me is running out of years…

Golf. Forget it. Getting on the golf course at the moment is quite a mission. Got back into bed, sulking.

Then it was lunchtime! Yay!

And it was good – steak egg and chips washed down by a quiet beer and a nip or two of brandy to ward off the Chinese virus. Not allowed to mention where I had lunch in case I get arrested. Perhaps some others will as well because remember, we are in Lockdown, and despite the fact that one can go to casinos, cinemas, get in a packed taxi, eat in a restaurant (shortly), etc, one cannot visit family or friends for a meal or a drink.

So I have to say I was all alone…hee hee hee.

Monday 22 June

Welcome to the land of the living dead.

It feels as we are living in a world that is hovering between life and death, as if we are waiting for something to happen – whatever that something might be.

It is a strange feeling. About the only thing that has not changed is the weather despite the forecasters doing their damndest to make us fret for the future with their dire predictions. I mean, this situation we are living through, if it can be called living, was never forecast by anyone was it now? Was it?

The sun comes up, we get up and do our daily early morning chores. Those of us who have work go there or operate from home. We drive there or catch a taxi, no trains yet. We have our tea and lunch should we be so fortunate to have cash flow, and then we go home again. Or we have stayed there all day. We are allowed to go shopping but still cannot do much in the line of entertainment. What entertainment there is has a long list of rules of containment. Then we cook and eat should we be fortunate to have food in the house, should we be fortunate enough to have a house or home.

In fact, at this stage, everything we do is controlled to a certain degree. Have you noticed that or not? You may think you are ‘free’ to do whatever, but you are not. Everything is controlled. I am not even talking conspiracy theories of which many abound.

What brought this muttering about was witnessing what appeared to be a media controlled demonstration late this afternoon at the Honoured Dead Memorial in Kimberley. There were six demonstrators, all dressed in black, none wearing masks or social distancing themselves, toyi-toying away with their placards and singing away merrily. Are they aware that black is a sign of mourning?

They were smartly dressed so it appears that they have access to funding in one way or another, and I have no idea what they were dancing about but presume it was something to do with pulling the massive 2000 tonne Sir Herbert Baker designed monument down.

The self-same monument that is a graveyard containing 27 bodies of soldiers who fell in battle. Good to tear down cemeteries, yes? Desecrating graveyards is definitely the way to go.

Back to the dancers.

Despite being an illegal gathering, these six dancers in black singing and high stepping their way down Memorial road towards Cape Town were preceded by a similar amount of media, all running backwards and attempting to take photographs at the same time.

You see, the media needed the memorial in the background, dancers in foreground, a well-designed photograph in other words. The media telling the dancers what to do. Later tonight some social media would already have had a story or two doing the rounds and by tomorrow the print media will have story, and the Diamond Fields Advertiser, late as usual and even worse now as a weekly (weakly?) paper, will no doubt have a story on Friday. With photograph.

Have the media nothing else to write about? It does appear that they support unrest and perhaps even anarchy.

Once they have gotten rid of the colonial and apartheid era monuments and memorials and statues, which include all the diamond and diamond related history, there will be nothing left for tourists to see.

Do remember that the colonial and apartheid eras stretch from 1652 until 1994 so it does not leave very much left standing. Well, certainly not in Kimberley anyway.

Which brings me back to how this blurb started. It appears that we are living in this big bubble that is about to burst. We within are controlled in virtually everything we do at this stage – see all the rules and regulations brought about by this Chinese virus if you do not believe me.

Ground hog day combined with the horror of the living dead – is that us? Or merely me?

Perhaps it is only me ambling through each day, sun comes up, sun comes down. Wear your mask, sneeze into your elbow. Drive on the left, don’t stop at traffic lights or four way stops. Toot your hooter at every one, cannot visit your family for a meal. Have a beer. Do not have a cigarette. Have some dagga, do not have a knee operation. Same old, same old, same old. Nothing new.

It is great being a sort of communist and socialist combined. Fascism and a tinge of extreme nationalism sneaking in too. Interesting combinations here.

But we all need money to survive but it is not there, and if it is, it is not getting to those who need it the most.

Weep the Beloved Country, weep.

Wednesday 24 June

Announcement

May my four known readers be aware that my ‘blurb’ for Wednesday 24 June 2020 has been removed (censored) by Facebook because of ‘hate speech’ in regard to certain people and the interesting food that they eat. This was at roughly 11h00. I am not allowed to mention certain people, what they eat, or to mention interesting curses. I shall repost soon with the passages censored.

Herewith the uncensored original.

Lockdown Wednesday 24 June: Day 90
(With sincerest apologies to Gerald Durrell.)

My family, friends and other animals

I wonder if the above, slightly modified since Gerald Durrell’s wonderful book was published, is politically correct? I mean, would not the animals object strenuously to being identified with my family AND friends in the same sentence?

I await the animals reply in due course…if they have not become an exotic meal in the far east.

These interesting times we are living through are certainly bringing that ancient Chinese curse to life. You know the one…”May you live in interesting times.”

Businesses are all suffering – other than the supermarkets who have been allowed to stay open the entire lockdown period – but has anyone thought of the many various charities and charitable organisations that have also stayed open because they have to? And their source of funding has dried up dramatically and considerably. There are many.

Here I have to mention Hospice and the SPCA as they are the two mostly in the media forefront of fund raising ventures. I can only talk Kimberley but am sure it has affected charities both nation and worldwide. Another organisation that has been hammered locally is the MOTH, the Memorable Order of Tin Hats, whose Centre is next to the Honoured Dead Memorial. These old soldiers raise funds specifically to assist women and children in need. They cannot hire out their hall – nor can any others with a hall – because of the Chinese virus rules and regulations, and this will probably continue until the middle of next year.

Thursday 25 June

My oh my oh my.

What a Day!!!

My daily blurb was censored and banned! Who would have believed that possible? I mean, as it is, I am quite severe with self-censorship.

I then took out what I believed to be the offending words/passages and reposted the story which so far has remained uncensored. These ‘words’ I shall now repeat but individually and not in any sequence. In theory it is difficult to ban/censor words not used in a sentence.

There are of course ways and means of circumventing these social media rules and regulations inflicted upon us. Is ‘inflicted’ a safe word? Will find out I suppose…

The words that I believe offended either a computer, or a real live person, are:

Exotic.

Chinese.

Far.

Politically.

Virus.

Meal.

East.

Obviously several were used in a sentence which you may now try and put together. Others were merely in a sentence. Consider it one of those challenges that pop up on social media quite regularly. There are no prizes for guessing correctly and please refrain from posting these words on my blurb!! We do not wish to be deleted again do we? I am trying to be a good boy. Which is of course quite easy as I have been a good boy for nearly 64 years now…

I do think a real “live” person was eventually involved in the censorship because it took 12 hours to delete the post.
One of my four readers too, may well have been unhappy and reported my use of these terribly bad words. How sad if that is true.

Today I just wish to emphasise certain facts in connection with the Covid-19 virus, SARS-CoV-2 to give it the official name.

Ignoring all theories and sticking to facts, the first time the virus was noticed was in the city of Wuhan.

The date was December 2019.

This city of 11 million people is situated in China. It is the ninth largest city in that country.

The virus somehow made its way to China’s international airports and travelled easily and swiftly to other countries in the world. I am not a medical speciallist so cannot comment on how these things travel.

I think I am safe in posting the above, it all comes from various websites recognised as being truthful. Even by certain countries that I shall not name.

In that no name brand country the taste of the citizens, with more than a few million I am led to believe, is unexpectedly exotic and very unusual to most occidentals. Not in that particular country however where it is considered normal to chew on things an occidental would not even think about.

It is believed, according to many honest and truthful sources recognised by many, many countries as being just so, that the virus began in something that was once resident in a market place. It may well have been bought there, or perhaps was merely a snack to nibble upon while perusing the menu.

I do hope that all four of my readers can understand what I am writing. I know I went to Umtali Boys High School but it does not mean I can write and am therefore educated!

I am not going to waste my time writing anything more about what happened today in case it all comes tumbling down.

I shall just wait and see…

Should it again be censored and banned I shall be forced to do only book reviews and travel stories and fairy tales from Africa.

Should be safe on those.

Have a good week…

 

By Managing Editor

Highly respected, Writer, Blogger, Wildlife Conservationist, Hunter and Father.......

4 thoughts on “SOS – Steve on Sunday.”
  1. I sympathetically agree with you. Much if not most (all?) of this physical-cum-mental plus journalistic sequestering for public good is, by increments: boring, immensely restricting, & conflictedly confusing. Such as, it’s risky to public health to meet with others in genial, normal conditions such as family or restaurants, etc.–but not in riots if you are an active participant because rioters’ hearts are pure and thus protected from epidemic scrourge, since good revolutionaries are blessed but counter-revolutionaries are cursed.
    1 Corinthians 14:33a says “God is not the author of confusion but of peace. ..”
    Here in USA frequently can be seen masked individual occupants driving their cars, self-quarantining from themselves so as to not self-infect, so successful has become the social conditioning. 1984’s ” memory hole” is not just a cleansing, flaming apperture of a hand’s breadth, but is really an industrial Bessemer-furnace portal of hell wherein cranes and crowds of history-erasing idiots toil at ropes to eradicate the monuments to those from whom they have inherited–unearned– so much. Once national historical memories have been eliminated, the opposition to worldwide oligarchic tyranny will have been effectively undercut, leaving ignorant masses to be herded like cattle from bureaucratic holding pen to sorting pen to slaughterhouse. One won’t need money–universal credit, not cash, will fully be king, disbursed to worthy serfs via electronic thumbprint housed in right hands & foreheads. Those left living will have few or no choices. And all the lovely, fast Lamborghinis–well, think of Fred Astaire in “On the Beach” film version, sitting in his garaged race car cockpit with that last Grand Prix trophy in his hands, as he punches the pedal for his final asphyxiative sprint.

  2. Hello Steve, I confirm five readers!
    Very much enjoying yours and Hannes’ posts- a breath of fresh air in these unusual times. Very well written and therefore a pleasure to read, and with the subtle humour that I grew up with to round it off.
    Keep up the good work!
    Cheers, Ed Weakley (UBHS also tried to educate me..)

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