Yes, we’ve all had to   get used to being frightened to death by switching on the six o’clock news for the latest Coronavirus death toll. But like Eric Idle jauntily warbling on the cross, let’s take five minutes to look on the bright side of COVID19. E ver since a new   and novel strain of Coronavirus emerged from the wet markets of Wuhan, our world has been put on hold. We and all those close to us, now live under the fear of death. COVID19 will go down in history, alongside those other decimating deceases, Spanish Flu and the Black Death. But how can we take any positives   from COVID19 when schools are being closed, people are being laid off, hoarding is rife, staying home is the norm and hospitals are overwhelmed with the sick and the dying? The uncomfortable truth is, a global pandemic was always going to happen. The World Health Organisation has been warning governments for years but they simply chose not to listen. Although any death is a death too many , in the c...

The U.S. now holds the world record for the highest number of its citizens infected by COVID19. If there was a podium at the Olympic Coronavirus Games, President Donald would be standing atop of the tree, proudly taking the applause of a huge, imaginary crowd of his supporters. (Not unlike his phantom inauguration throng!) His view is that America’s 1.5 million cases, together with a staggering 92,000 deaths, is some sort of spiky red ‘BADGE OF HONOUR’? Spinning is winning! Like an expert spin doctor, President Donald tried to explain his country’s Coronavirus record. ‘You know when you say that we lead in cases, that's because we have more testing than anybody else. So, when we have a lot of cases, I don't look at that as a bad thing. I look at that as, in a certain respect, as being a good thing because it means our testing is much better.' Duh! According to an Oxford University scientific publication, the U.S. lags globally behind other countries in testing, on a per cap...

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was a Broadway musical,(1962) and a Hollywood film,(1966).  Inspired by the farces of Ancient Rome’s equivalent of Woody Allen, a playwright called Plautus (251-183 BC). His bawdy tale tells of a slave and his attempt to win freedom by helping his master woo the girl next door. Using puns, slapstick, mistaken identity and satire he comments on the social classes of the time. I wonder what old Plautus would’ve made of the deadly farce entitled ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to COVID19’, we all find ourselves playing a bit part in? Who can we blame? The current Coronavirus pandemic has made us all a tad jumpy. A desperate search for answers has spread across continents, wanting to uncover the reasons for what’s turned our routine-filled lives, upside down. Finger-pointing headlines like ‘Yellow Peril’, ‘Chinese Panda-monium!’ and ‘China kids stay home’, have appeared in newspapers around the world. Our lives might...

It didn’t take long , did it? The school yard bullies of America and China to kick-off the World Finger-Pointing Championships.  It’s a conspiracy theory played out on seperate continents, about who actually started COVID19 and sent the planet into Coronavirus pandemic lockdown. As soon as President Trump got wind that a Chinese official had spread the rumour that the virus had been imported to China by U.S. Army personnel, diplomacy (not President Trump’s strong suit), went straight out of the window. 中國病毒 19   (Chinese Virus 19) In that moment, the virus became ‘foreign’, an invader purposely sent by another power to wreak havoc on Donald’s people and more importantly the U.S. economy. The term ‘Chinese virus’ began to pepper speeches from the White House podium. ‘Corona’ was hurriedly scratched out and replaced with ‘Chinese’ more and more frequently. When asked if this was racist, Donald replied ‘It’s from China. It comes from China. I want to be accurate.’ He mi...