Coronavirus streets in Manchester

Politicians polluting prospects

These Coronavirus pandemic times appear to invade every aspect of life and quite inconveniently for all. That it is fronted more by politicians that need to manage the message rather than experts who deal with facts does not make it any easier.

For instance, without any supporting data, Boris Johnson was suggesting this whole matter would be over in 12 weeks. I guess in the absence of any good news you throw something out there and leave everyone who really heard you scratching their heads in incredulity.

It does not engender confidence, it is as reckless as it is irresponsible, it is no time for soundbites from an inveterate japester. We want to send the virus packing, but it would take more than standing at a rostrum japing and genuflecting. [The Guardian]

Shut up, Donald

Over across the pond, Donald Trump stepped up to suggest Hydroxychloroquine was the panacea to the Coronavirus and the drugs was ready to be ramped up for prescriptive use. The FDA had not approved the drug as it was still being tested and was still being accessed for viability.

Various drug regimens are being deployed to this disease, many still unproven and inconclusive to determine what works and Donald Trump simply jumped the gun with the risk of forcing the system in a direction that could prove completely impulsive. [Daily Beast]

Those of us who used quinine compound drugs for the treatment of malaria in childhood experienced maddening side effects of severe itching of the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet. No one who experienced it drew any comfort from that knowledge especially when antihistamines did not reduce the itching.

Since sliced bread disappeared

I stepped out earlier to get some shopping, as the last time I was out, there was no sliced bread on the shelves, they are literally run out of eggs and all the toilet rolls were invisible. I am still at a loss as to why toilet rolls matter so much for the Coronavirus pandemic, I have not noticed acutely incessant diarrhoea as one of the major symptoms of contracting the virus. Then I don’t use hand sanitiser, I just use soap and water.

Today, at noon, sliced bread, toilet rolls and pasta were missing from the shelves, though I have enough food at home, it is worrisome that panic buying belies the lack of useful assurances, prevarication, and indecision from the government. The messages are mixed when pubs, restaurants and public places should be closed forthwith, and the government put in ameliorating steps to support businesses through these uncertain times.

Coronavirus streets

Leaving my local Sainsbury’s, I walked down to the low-budget Spar to see if I could get a loaf of sliced bread when I noticed to my left that the Grade II listed Refuge Assurance building that became the Palace Hotel and changed to The Principal Manchester, three years ago has now become the Kimpton Clock Tower Hotel. I have not noticed a building change names that many times in such a short while. [LiveAndLetsFly]

Obviously, there is some interest in the historic building within the hospitality industry and I suppose each new offer has been impossible to refuse. I am not holding my breath; I give it another couple of years, and it might be called the Changeling Hotel. [Historic England]

Further on, Starbucks was open but without seats and tables, having transitioned to a Grab-and-Go coffee shop. It looked quite eerie from outside. There were people on the streets, masks on many apparently from the Asian subcontinent, though long before this pandemic, many did plod our streets with masks. I did get my loaf of sliced bread from Spar and I made my way home. [Business Insider]

Incredible India: Streets Flummox GoogleMaps and Rotten Middlemen

Pains for trains

It was probably a wild thing to choose a Christmas morning for adventure by my standards. The opportunity had come to travel to Agra by train and I was so up for it.

Apparently, the tickets had been arranged and booked by a colleague though I became a bit suspicious when it appeared the night before things were more tentative than planned.

The schedule was a pre-dawn pickup from three locations for the train station but things began to go awry from that point. It suddenly became apparent how inscrutable the street and house numbering system was in New Delhi.

Beyond GoogleMaps

Apart from the major roads which had names and buildings with numbers; the residential areas normally known as Nagar; the houses were on plots with a numbering system that seems to have bedevilled GoogleMaps that they have not even bothered to assign names to the roads.

I found it incredible that so-called taxi drivers were clueless about the numbering system; in fact, it seems those who know; know their way by rote rather than by joining up the dots as they go.

At this time of the day, most roads were gated, fenced off and locked with Delhi Police barriers; we felt we were caught in an interminable maze as we tried to negotiate our way round the neighbourhood.

Recessive Geography Gene

What struck me more was how guards, workers and presumed residents could not help when asked for directions, it was as if the intricacies of basic geography that allowed for knowing where you were and charting where to go even in close proximity to your location had been so underdeveloped in their brains it had become a handicap.

Eventually, we packed into the taxi, overcrowded by one and made for the railway station only to get a confirmation from the railway officials that our tickets were literally duds. Thankfully, we had not paid for them yet.

Then a tout came in useful, he took us to “government registered” travel agent who said our tickets were not confirmed reservations but on a tentative waiting list with no guarantee that we might get to travel. Beyond that, we were also at the wrong station to use the tickets; one of the bureaucratic conundrums of India would have meant going another 20 kilometres to the appropriate station.

The middleman dirty man

In the end, we could not get a train, one was fully booked and another had been cancelled but we had the option of a four-wheel drive cab with high backs and head rests – the journey would definitely be a lot more comfortable than the one I had the week before.

It took 10 Indian minutes for the cab to arrive which by my watch was nigh on 40 minutes, at one point the issuing of an ultimatum with the threat to cancel the deal seemed to move things forward a bit and cab arrived. What we learnt off later on when we returned was the travel agent had earned a 33% commission with a 3-minute phone call and was ready to have us dumped at the point of embarkation close to midnight rather than ensure we were safely delivered to our hotels.

With a colleague of mine, I walked into his office and told him in clear terms that I will brook none of that nonsense, I guess he was taken aback at the forcefulness of my rebuke and our revelation of what his agency had creamed off to the driver that he had to ensure the driver took us back to our hotels.

That is just common courtesy, in all places where I have been picked up anywhere for tours, I have always been delivered back to my hotel as part of the deal.

It seems many businesses are able to get away with treating tourists to India shabbily with the impression nothing will come of it. Well, that will end with me, I have obtained the business cards of all these businesses and I will be publishing a list of people and businesses for tourists to avoid when in New Delhi.

We did it

My second journey to Agra had begun, this time with the possibility of doing the Taj Mahal, the Agra Fort and Akbar Tomb in Sikandra.

Whilst all the arrangements did not seem to fall into place, the day might well be quite eventful nonetheless and it was.

Memories I'ld rather forget

Thought back without flashbacks

I have been fortunate not to be plagued by flashbacks to harrowing and terrifying events. I am exceedingly thankful for that.

Was it when a parade of armed robbers who had already gained entry to our house in Nigeria some 18 years ago before asking us to open the door as a gesture of cooperation or when three happy Moroccans kicked me as a rag doll just over a year ago?

In both cases my life was at serious risk, though the first was in company of family and in the latter, I was alone.

The armed robbers carted away every valuable they could find, and when the sergeant asked the colonel to shoot us, he retorted that we have been very cooperative and so there was no need to do us harm.

I think it was 3 hours after that event that my legs literally gave under me, the sudden realisation that it could have been a lot worse.

However, when I got beaten up by those fellow African brothers in a well-lit street in Amsterdam, the moment I got up, I just said to myself – many do not get up from events like this, I have gotten up and I am fine, I would walk away from this and put it all down to experience.

The next day, I went back to the scene of the incident that I could not get the police interested in because I wanted to report it event at the Police Station outside the hospital where the only emergency first aid service in Central Amsterdam is (more to the East really) rather than the one closest to the scene of the crime.

Go figure! I needed treatment first, but do not do logic with the police, sometimes law enforcement is not about the common sense approach to issues but donkeys driven as monkeys who see, speak and hear all evil and give no good.

Drink fuelled violence

However, this represents the bane of our Western societies where people after a few drinks and fuelled on drugs can attack, injure if not kill fellow human-beings, unprovoked and unintended.

So, imagine what went through my mind when, suddenly in Cologne four Turkish guys pulled down another man and were kicking and punching him without restraint. Then a broken bottle and another; no flash-backs just plain horror as I watched tongue-tied.

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The difference between Cologne and Amsterdam

+        Over 20 people saw the incident, in Cologne everyone within sight shouted and railed to upset the attackers, in Amsterdam, they were like voyeurs; the only noise I could hear was the one I was making from the blows I was receiving

+        At least 10 people went out of their way to separate the fighters and calm things down in Cologne, the ones in Amsterdam must have been thinking of the man who intervened a few months before and ended up dead

+        The police were there within 5 minutes of the event in Cologne all parties involved were arraigned. In Amsterdam, the police were uninterested, the boys have probably ganged up on another person just like they did me, for kicks

What really amazes me is just how anyone can really enjoy kicking another man ferociously and be ready to do such serious harm with a broken bottle and not even recoil at the thought. I probably live in another world – I prefer it there.

The contrasts between Cologne and Amsterdam might just reveal the changes in society and community, where in Amsterdam people might their own business so much so that things can happen unchallenged around them that they are inured to the evils and wrongs of others.

Some might call it tolerance, but I think it is utterly intolerable.