Fate and me and an unsnapped photo

Was Fate laughing at me on Monday when I journeyed through the ghost town of London and on three ghost trains to Tilbury docks, over on the Thames north shore, determined - Corona nightmare or not - to photograph the docks where 70 years ago to the day the family sailed off to the other side of the world.

 I clutched my Kodak box Brownie, very unwilling to agree to parental prompts for it to go into our luggage.
Perhaps it was the early journalist in me, but the determined lad was going to photograph our mighty vessel, the 20,000-ton Orontes, as we left Noble Albion if it was the last thing he did.
‘Darling, it will be dark,’ my mother prompted. I pretended not to hear.
As a little lad, I was very aware of the importance of the departure, as hopefully my school uniform freshly pressed and tie knotted neatly in the approved way showed. 
This week a mighty ship stood where the Orontes was docked, and seventy years ago we passed through the self-same buildings that Cruise and Maritime Columbus’s passengers will be using.
Continues on my blog site here ...
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Lockdown hits more than just the living

WHO WOULD HAVE IMAGINED that our unimaginative Confined to Barracks government ruling is affecting more than our way of life, and very much of our lives in almost every way, but also those who are no longer living.

It's probably a good bet that cemeteries and their occupants are experiencing fewer visits by relations currently.

 However, the proof I see involves that astonishing memorial for a promising young sportsman beside the ultra-busy A3 near New Malden, just north of Kingston.

 For the first time since the memorial to 22-year-old Joey Evans was erected on pedestrian railings - on the London-bound side near the turn-off for New Malden - following his death in a crash there 15 years ago, the almost daily floral tributes have stopped. …
Continues of my blog site for Sailing to  Purgatory at
http://sailingtopurgatory.com/index.php/feeds/510-lockdown-hits-more-than-just-the-living

The modern answer to the plague: sleep on it

I LOOK UP ON THIS GORGEOUS SUMMER’S DAY, enjoying the flying antics of a wide variety of birds seeking mates, food, perhaps inspiration, and yet not one

of the shiny big birds of our jet-age world is to be seen.

I live just a few miles from Heathrow and usually fleets of these magnificent machines fly over day and night.

Perhaps I ought to appreciate a possibly positive side of the current household imprisonment.

Cleaner air

I can breathe deeper and enjoy the cleaner air. Yet who could relax in the madness of closing down the world because they – our lords and masters, perhaps – can’t think of an alternative?

Surely it’s close to insanity to shut in, imprison, people in their homes in these politically inspired lockdowns, to change the lifestyle of perhaps almost every one of our species – all 7,800,0000,000 of us.

Doesn’t that one dictate ensure the obesity and unfitness of at least the majority? Continues on my blog site for Sailing to Purgatory, http://sailingtopurgatory.com/index.php/feeds/509-the-modern-answer-to-the-plague-sleep-on-it

The story behind the virus. What virus?

WHO ARE WE TO TRUST of those offering worrying theories about the virus that seems to be ending our normal way of life, whether we live here, across

The Pond, in India or in God’s Own, Down Under?

Wikipedia lists some of the odd notions and yet puts its views in a way that hardly help our concern.

It says that misinformation related to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic consists of conspiracy theories and disinformation which can be spread ...

‘... through social media, text messages, mass media ...

'As well as the state media of countries such as China, Iran and Turkmenistan.' It states that they may be propagated by celebrities, politicians, or other prominent public figures.

‘Some misinformation and disinformation claimed the virus was a bio-weapon with a patented vaccine, a population control scheme, or the result of a spy operation.

State involvement

'Some of these misinformation and conspiracy theories may have state involvement.

‘Some world leaders have also downplayed the threat of the virus and disseminated misinformation,’ Wikipedia reports.

Not really helpful, I’d say. However, whoever, and whatever, the virus has certainly found the cleverest way of changing our lifestyles, our way of managing our daily lives.
Continues on the blogs for my recent books Sailing to Purgatory …
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