I’ve just returned from an essentials shop at the local convenience store. With it’s checkouts fitted out with clear plastic tarpaulin, aimed at providing employees a degree of protection from the COVID-19 virus, it manifested notions within me I’d inadvertently wandered onto the kill set in an episode TV drama Dexter. On reaching the till, the woman serving me asked me to join her in wearing a mask. When I […]
As world death rates continue to escalate at alarming rates, courtesy of our COVID-19 viral nemesis, I read with interest today’s the birthday of comedian/performer Eric Idle. He the writer of Monty Python’s whimsical ditty Always Look On The Bright of Life; an adage which admittedly isn’t the easiest advocacy to adopt under current circumstances. Some may inquire what’s the big deal about Idle’s song and my flimsy link to an […]
Day ten of isolation amongst the hallowed halls and chambers of chez Strachan. I understand that description is rather grand for a three bedroomed detached house on the Leeds/Wakefield borders. However, the poet within me was loathed to embark upon today’s prose with a deeply unimaginative sentence, such as ‘Day ten of being stuck in this bloody house!’ On this prevailing sojourn, where I constantly endeavour to self-improve at my […]
Endeavouring to impart a little levity during these worrying times, I’ve mulled over various strategies in which I could maybe raise spirits amongst my readership, along with friends/followers on social media. Among these notions the production of recordings, either by video or audio podcasts of some of my narratives. My hybrid Yorkshire/North East accent, and capricious acting skills being thrown out there for either friend or foe to pick over. […]
Commencing this journal, I’m attempting to compute the latest COVID-19 update just witnessed on TV. This concerning news, delivered during the daily UK governmental briefing, informing the British public it’ll be an achievement if, amid our war with the spiteful COVID-19 pathogen, Britain keeps the nations death toll to under 20,000. A truly disquieting best case scenario! To put that into context, the NHS England chief’s forecast, at the aforementioned briefing, indicates […]
As I perch in self-isolation, whilst endeavouring to reduce the risk of contracting COVID-19, I’m pondering who was the metaphorical Pandora who opened the box to unleash this odious coronavirus among the global family. For the uninitiated, in Greek mythology, Pandora opened a jar left in her care which unbeknown to her containing sickness, death and many other unspecified evils which were then released into the world. Though she hastily […]
I like to think I’m a reasonably pragmatic fellow who, where possible, seeks rational solutions when confronted with existential antagonists. Not all of my notions are successful, such as the occasion, while bereft of colander, I misguidedly used a tennis racquet to sieve spaghetti. A foolish culinary strategy in many ways, however, as Bulgarian philosopher Hardov Hearing once eruditely observed “It’s far nobler to try and fail than to do […]
