The Post-Virus Diaries Diary I | Friday 26th June 2020
The Garden of Earthly Delights is a huge painting by 16th century Dutch artist Hieronymous Bosch. It depicts Earth, Heaven and Hell in a nightmarish and surreal Tryptich and serves as my inspiration for this piece on the state of play in Britain today.
What better way to “make a Splash” than to pick the hottest day of the year to announce the re-opening of pubs after the long months of Lockdown sacrifice endured by the stoic British People. Once or twice a month our POTUK makes a regal appearance at a podium and issues not announcements, but Proclamations – politically motivated to bring cheer, goodwill to the British People and a clear goal-mouth in which he can personally kick the Brexit Ball which is far more important than actual peoples’ lives. Speaking of lives, over 65,000 more have been lost in the last three months of this year compared to the same period last year, so the best way to put a stop to that statistic is to stop the Daily Briefings which gave a running tally on infections and deaths. President Trump has said as much, so why shouldn’t our very own Trump-like POTUK use the same technique of virus suppression – Suppress the Truth.
The British People, we are oft reminded, are an exceptional race, sequestered as we are upon this sceptred isle. We, the children and grand children of the Greatest Generation Ever, look back upon their sacrifice, and with amazing goodwill and obsequious obedience, we gladly battened the hatches against the invisible enemy and endured. We endured and endured, against all odds we endured – no shopping, no nipping out for a quick half down the boozer, no holibobs on the Costa – we endured the harshest of semi-lockdowns – for three long months. Hardship and Hell can now be rewarded with hi-jinx and hilarity. We are free at last. Free from the shackles of COVID-19; free from the bully-boy frog-eating Commie dictatorship that is the EU and free from the destructive, anti-semitic, influence of Jeremy Corbyn upon whom was laid the daily 24 hours of Hate, sponsored by the handful of billionaires that pay the wages of a handful of soul-selling editors who approve front page headlines written by Trolls who live under bridges, shape shifters disguised as Journalists.
Modern Democratic Government in the 21st Century has reached peak governing efficiency using the tried and tested method known internationally as the “Lies, fear and carrots on the End of a Stick Method”, also known in the UK as Parliamentary Kleptocracy, where everything is up for grabs, including the sovereignty of Parliament itself. So successful is this method of government that the official LOTO (Leader of the Opposition, for those unfamiliar with my acronyms) has adopted similar methods – known in Labour circles as the “Laxative Tactic” or Leftist Purge. Not content with the 24 hours of Daily Hate, the Lies, Fear and Carrot Method, and the Catch 22 Ploy where a foreign state uses its money, influence and impressive spy network to physically and shamelessly undermine the previous LOTO. Speaking of which, it is a pure coincidence, albeit laden with Old and New Testament analogies, that they metaphorically crucified said LOTO AKA JC on the alter of PC and AS, thus saving future generations the hassle of living in a more equitable society with great public services. Indeed, not content with any of that, the Noble Knight, Wearer of the Garter, Groom of the Tory Stool, Saviour of the Centre, has also taken the head of the only disciple of JC left in the new Cabinet of non-Opposition, that fiesty Salford Lass RLB – hoisted by her own retweet of an article published in the once independent Independent by her mate and fellow JC disciple, Maxine Peake, who made the outrageous accusation that the same country that is currently kneeling on the necks of its own indigenous population has trained brave police of the Almighty USA to do the same – outrageous to suggest that the land of illegal settlements, where illegal settlers burn centuries old olive groves, bulldoze breeze block shacks that some call home and subject those same indigenous people to daily humiliations that we here cannot even mention. Injustice is no longer unjust.
Meanwhile, after the hardship comes the reward. And don’t we deserve it hey? Our heroic forebears who endured those six long years of war, lived with the threat of bombs falling from the sky, slept in fear of jack-booted Germans goose-stepping up the High Street, who sent their youth to fight on the beaches – they were rewarded for their stoic resistance by a concerted government effort to eradicate the Five Great Evils of society – Want, Disease, Squalor, Ignorance and Idleness – giving the nation such bounties as the National Health Service, improved education and a welfare state that gave the poor a backstop against poverty. So we deserve a prize for being good too! And what better reward to bestow upon the children of the Victors than a free pass to behave like a nation of total fuckwits. At each incremental easing of our Lockdown, our people rejoice in an ever more carefree manner. We leap fearless and joyously from the 200ft cliffs of Durdle Door Beach as massed crowds of beach denizens cheer, and despite breaking our backs and requiring rescue helicopters, a good time is had by all. And what better way to emerge from forced hibernation than a day at the races, the sport MOST beloved of our still fully functioning Queen and the mythical Dido Harding. But our POTUK knows how to please a crowd of Poms if he knows nothing else: Maybe it’s because he a Londoner, or maybe it’s because he’s a Yank but opening the pubs on the Fourth of July, is a masterstroke of complete wank.
Cast your minds forward, past the gaps left by the now discontinued Daily Briefing, wade through the puddles of ‘Scientist Tears’ shed as their combined centuries of expertise is utterly ignored; follow the already peeling and worn oneway pavement stickers and yellow and black two metre lines, stopping first at a Tesco to pick up a six pack and a pizza and head on down to your nearest over-crowded beach for a bit of post-lockdown Costa replacement therapy and a swim in the piss and spit that gathers in the still water shallows of an overcrowded British beach. Then as the afternoon wears on and the evening beckons get yourself and your mates down to the newly reopened Boozer for a right 4th of July piss-up, but don’t forget to bring your ID cards, just in case, as we now have a World Beating Test and Trace App© which we don’t even need anymore, just in case.
We walked the dog earlier than usual this morning, in the big local park where we always go, with it’s fields, woods and river. From a distance the green sloping meadow sparkled in the morning dew, close-up the sparkle was nothing more than light refracting off the discarded bottles, cans and pizza cartons, the residue of a good time had by our Lockdown frazzled, blitz-spirited Liberal Peasants who, despite their everyday poverty and hardships, still prefer to vote for a posh POTUK who makes them giggle and lets them do naughty things like risk their own Nana’s life by getting pissed, eating pizza and quite possibly swapping fluids in a field. There are reports from Bournemouth Beach this morning of several tonnes of litter being collected and several pizza boxes conveniently used as a place to deposit a poo, seeing as there are no public loos open, or if there are they are reduced to one shitter ever 2 metres and you can piss in those lukewarm shallows mentioned earlier.
Thunder and lightning is forecast for the weekend, a fitting end to a week of hot and humid hi-jinx, both on the beach, in the park and in front of a lecturn in Downing Street. Facebook and the Twittersphere are on fire, the LOTO is in ‘sack ’em all mode’. The soap is being kicked across the shower block floor, but who will bend over to pick it up with so many pricks hanging around. Fuck it I’m going to grab a coldy and go sit in the Garden of Earthly Delights, waiting anxiously for the day that hell freezes over.
Aussie Mick's State of Play 