If you live in Australia and New Zealand, it’s time to thank your COVID19 lucky stars. While the Antipodes is flattening the curve, in other parts of the world, the pandemic is not fading away but actually accelerating. This extremely bad news was delivered by  the World Health Organization (WHO), reporting that new Coronavirus cases were reaching new heights. Millions more infected.   In the first three months of the pandemic, one million cases of COVID19 were recorded. It took just eight days to reach the next million cases! With a worldwide total exceeding a staggering nine million, the death rate in some countries doesn’t make for comfortable reading. Donald Trump’s America tops the charts with a lamentable figure that’s heading towards 130,000 deaths. Brazil leads the way in South America, with a thousand Brazilians losing their lives every day. Brazil going nuts! Governments seem to be choosing between lives and livelihoods. Brazil’s President declared social dista...

Mary Ann Evans , under the nom de plume of George Eliot asserted, ‘ Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music.’ An Ancient Greek, known as Plato pronounced, ‘Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.’ The visual feast that is Marilyn Manson claimed, ‘Music is the strongest form of magic.’ Elgar in his pomp and circumstance declared, ‘ My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us; the world is full of it and you simply take as much as you require.’  Here’s another 20 tracks to get you through the virus, formally known as Corona. Gotta Be Patient – Michael Bublé, Barenaked Ladies & Sofia Reyes I Can’t Stand the Rain - Ann Peebles Level of Concern - twenty one pilots You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet - Bachman Turner Overdrive We Are Warriors - Avril Lavigne Isolation - John Lennon Get Up – Kings Daughters *feat. Brian May David Bowie - Heroes Not Alone - Fleur East   Everybody...

Certain points in history have tested the mettle of American Presidents. Washington had armies of posh, pesky Brits to battle. Lincoln had to out manoeuvre chicken eatin’, cotton pickin’, slave drivin’, secession seekin’ Southerners. FDR stared down squadrons of suicidal, Zero-flying, empire building Asians.  President Trump, who at first underestimated the power of this invisible enemy, has in election year, upgraded his presidency to that of a ‘Wartime President’. Declaring the COVID19 pandemic a war zone, as well as a destructive disease. War on COVID19! Former White House right-hand man, Steve Bannon came out in support of Trump’s assumption, ‘We are at war and now by necessity he is a ‘wartime’ president. Churchill rose to the occasion and secured his place in history. Trump’s moment is here, to grasp or to lose.’ Churchill and Trump used in the same paragraph? Now there’s something you don’t see every day. Doctor Donald & Mr Trump? The President continues t...

President Donald Dump pointed out way back in 2016, that all the woes of America were the fault of one woman and one woman only: Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton. This of course, includes the Coronavirus known as COVID19. Has the President been off his meds again? ‘At first I didn’t believe it because I did not think a woman could spread a virus. Hillary, she must be a cyborg; they’re totally nasty. Cyborgs. Nasty.’ Donald has even upgraded his handle for his former Presidential rival from ‘Crooked Hillary’ to ‘COVID Clinton’.     Hillary, Me Old China. Hillary was always going to return and be a thorn in the portly side of the President. Now she’s back and has really rattled Donald’s cage, ‘Guess who spread the novel Coronavirus around the U.S? ‘COVID Clinton’. I have handled this whole thing perfectly. Everything that went wrong in the U.S is because of her.’ Trump then tweeted an explanation of sorts, ‘I have a lot of different nicknames for Hillary – ‘Evil Pantsuit W...

Should Donald Trump’s re-election campaign line be, ‘May The Farce Be With You’? In the run-up to the presidential election in November, the U.S. is quickly descending into farce. In Georgia, traditionally a Republican stronghold, the Democrats chances of winning a special election were scuppered by COVID19, George Floyd protests, ballots failing to arrive, voting machines malfunctioning, provisional ballots running out and Uncle Tom Cobley and all! Carry On Up the Ballot Box! Questions, questions! Will President Trump actually make it to November? The U.S. now has a record 2 million cases of COVID19, with a death toll of over 115,000 and rising. Civil unrest, with ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests are reminiscent of post Martin Luther King’s assassination, in 1968. As Trump’s tenure in the White House lurches from one crisis to another it will be viewed by history, as a low point of the Republic. Is the System broken? Rumour has it that Republicans are prepared to lose the White House, ...

Nietzsche  exclaimed , ‘Without music, life would be a mistake.’ Kerouac  muttered into his  margarita, ‘The only truth is music.’  Tolstoy   maintained , ‘ Music is the shorthand of emotion.’  While  Austen insisted, ‘Without music, life would be a blank to me.’   A frazzled locked down Billy Bob  Shakespeare  would’ve screamed, ‘To hell with Coronavirus, music is the pot noodle of luuurve baybee, so turn it up to ELEVEN!’ Here's 20 grooves for a luuurvin' lockdown. #SING4LIFE  – Bono, will.i.am,  Jennifer Hudson & Yoshiki Five Years – David Bowie What Difference A  Day  Makes  – Dinah Washington I Believe That We Will Win – Pitbull Clampdown – The Clash Living In A Ghost Town – The Rolling Stones Bad Guy – Billie Eilish Lean On Me – Beverley Knight, Joss Stone, Omar… Imagine – John Lennon We’ll Meet Again – Katherine Jenkins & Dame Vera Lynn Three Little Birds – Bob Marley Someday We’ll B...

The first shots of a second American Civil War may have already been fired. COVID19 ravaged cities across the United States, still have George Floyd protesters on the streets, weeks after he was killed. Is indifference, bitterness, grievance and good old-fashioned hate, dividing America enough to mobilise combatants to a second American Civil War? Telling Tweets. The Orange Man in The White House recently turned on his own Social Media Channel. Accusing Twitter of liberal bias, after they had the temerity to fact-check a Trump Tweet. ‘Social Media Platforms totally silence conservative voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down.’ Spookily, the most telling Tweet wasn’t tapped out by small orange fingers but came from an Evangelical, Pastor Robert Jeffress. ‘If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office, it will cause a Civil War which our Country will never heal.’ Scary s***! North verses South? Not this time. So, who’ll be fighti...

The killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, was the straw that finally broke Black America’s back. They collectively screamed, ‘Enough is enough!’ In the six years since Black Lives Matter, went from a hashtag to an International Movement, has anything really changed in the America of Donald Trump? For George Floyd, there’s an endless list of names you can replace his with. Breonna Taylor, Armaud Arbery,  Eric Garner,  Jamar Clark, Marcus Golden, Cordale Hardy, on and on it goes. So, when will the killing of black people actually matter and when will it stop?   Coronavirus: The other knee on Black America’s neck. George’s televised death coincided with a Coronavirus pandemic, that goes out of its way to devastate Black America. With African Americans only making up 14% of the population, one third of U.S. COVID19 deaths come from their community. Why is this? For a start Black Americans hold down dangerous frontline jobs. Then they go home to densely populated a...