Week 16: 12 July — 18 July 2020

Image by Wordswag - words by Michael de Groot

Sunday 12 July

It was a beautiful day today. We’ve had a load of rain in the past week, so it was nice to see and feel the sun again. As we did last week, we went to a local farm shop to purchase fresh cherries and at the same time enjoy a little brunch, whilst sitting amongst the orchard.

When we went into the farm shop to purchase cherries and a few other items, we met a lady coming out of the shop, who was wearing a face mask. She noticed that we were both wearing a face mask, as we were about to walk into the shop. She turned around and said how delighted she was to see someone else wearing a face mask and how astounded she was that there was nobody else in the shop wearing a mask.

It was nice to know that others feel the same as us. Wearing a mask protects me, but it is also a sign of respect for you.


So Trump releases his friend Roger Stone from a prison term. He hadn’t actually gone to jail as yet.

[embed]https://twitter.com/mittromney/status/1281937795616067586?s=21[/embed]


To mask or no to mask, that is the question! 😷

[embed]https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stayingaliveuk_to-mask-or-not-to-mask-that-is-the-question-activity-6688340980787097600-coPg[/embed][embed]https://twitter.com/stayingaliveuk/status/1282575695387009024?s=20[/embed]


Monday 13 July

I attended, virtually through MS teams, the STEAMhouse conference. Unfortunately it was full of presentations, introductions, jargon. The same story as I’ve heard many times before in this current period during Covid19.

Quite disappointed as the story just seems to be the same over and over without any specific action happening. Am I being too critical about the project and is it because of Covid19 that things are not progressing further?

They state that Cohort is key. I am still waiting for things to happen, several months on after being accepted onto the programme, my second time around. Not sure what’s going on, or even what’s going wrong?


John Di Domenico Trump with his latest rant on his siter Mary (Loser) Trump.

[embed]https://youtu.be/nI9XnQsi4rg[/embed]

And his latest mask parade. The other people should be wearing the mask. I am not the problem!

[embed]https://youtu.be/LEcgC9WiosM[/embed]


Now we learn the the UK government had their data wrong when it comes to people being tested. It was just a con, to make us all feel better about the progress that was being made. Wow, I am not surprised!

[embed]https://youtu.be/ZO51CwYKT2c[/embed]


Oh dear Florida.

Florida has recorded the largest single-day increase in coronavirus cases in any US state since the beginning of the pandemic, with over 15,000 new positive tests.

According to state Department of Health statistics, 15,299 people tested positive for a total of 269,811 cases.

California had the previous record of daily positive cases at 11,694 four days ago, while New York had 11,571 on April 15.

The numbers come at the end of a grim, record-breaking week in Florida, with 514 fatalities.


Mental Health = Mental


Tuesday 14 July

[embed]https://www.instagram.com/p/CBNmTVZsDKS/?igshid=1udwmho14wa69[/embed]


Pip the dog definitely has the right body language for this period we’re going through.


Wednesday 15 July

Sarah Cooper is at it again.

[embed]https://twitter.com/sarahcpr/status/1283499165935378433?s=20[/embed]


[embed]https://twitter.com/sarahcpr/status/1282974881064206336?s=20[/embed]
[embed]https://twitter.com/robertwhitejoke/status/1282632178615164928?s=20[/embed]

The tweet above is in relation to the UK government changing its guidance on mask wearing and especially some members of parliament saying, it should be up to the people to use common sense and then in the end the guidance has come out that it’s now compulsory from July 24th in shops and yet in the clip below, you can hear that some of the people in charge aren’t clear themselves.

[embed]https://twitter.com/JimMFelton/status/1283684943776878594?s=20[/embed]


This following tweet explains further in a really great quote that delaying the masks for over 1 week seems to be a stupid idea, basically why don’t do it straight away?

[embed]https://twitter.com/mrmarksteel/status/1282923962763292673?s=20[/embed]


This following story is about a Twitter connection’s son who was misdiagnosed but nevertheless ended up in hospital where he witnessed first hand that the Covid ward was apocalyptic!

[embed]https://twitter.com/DonaldClark/status/1282986767998648320?s=20[/embed]

Thursday 16 July 2020

Twitter and celebrity accounts were hacked by a bitcoin scam that actually worked! This tweet was a great explanation of the twitter security measures. How did it happen? Some celebs are unhappy that they weren’t hacked!

[embed]https://twitter.com/datsmenagesh/status/1283644709273874433?s=20[/embed]


Mary Trump, Donald’s niece is doing the rounds publicising her book. Could this be the final nail, I don’t think so, Donald is like Teflon to his supporters.

[embed]https://twitter.com/sarahcpr/status/1283909441457356802?s=20[/embed]


At just before midnight, the doorbell went. I never heard it but my wife did. Neither of us wanted to get it, it can only be bad news. Then my wife got a phone call from her eldest son, saying he was at the front door with the police. Oh my god what’s happened now? Turns out he was walking home at half past 11pm and got harassed by 3 youths who then proceeded to attack him, beat him up and rob him. As he walked through the door he just said that he had been mugged.

So the next hour was spent him giving a statement to two police officers, one male and one female. The next day he was due to carry out community service, his fine for beating up someone in the street outside our house earlier in the year. So it was ironic, this now happened to him.

Of course he spent the night with us and I took him to his community serice to make sure he gets the hours done, then I took him to the minor injury clinic to get his bruises, aches and pains checked out. All seems to be fine, the biggest bruise I think is to his ego. He now is desperate to move away from where he lives, he blames the area. To be fair you can be mugged in any area of any town or city. Walking on your own with a back pack, which happened to be filled with booze, late at night you are a target. He was lucky that they didn’t have any knives on them.

Phew, it’s never boring at the de Groot’s household with these boys, although they don’t live with us.


Friday 17 July

Was spent mainly running around for my stepson, community service, collecting gear from his apartment and collect stuff from our home and then dropping him to his friends, in the town he hates now. This too will pass…


If birds had arms, hysterical!

[embed]https://twitter.com/Curlykidlife/status/1283825426251603976?s=20[/embed]


Saturday 18 July

The best article on aerosols from Covid19 I found on Vox.com. This is important, very important.

[embed]https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stayingaliveuk_to-mask-or-not-to-mask-that-is-the-question-activity-6688340980787097600-coPg[/embed]

Lydia Bouroubia’s lab captured this video of all the droplets unleashed by a sneeze. JAMA

Incredible Trump continues to believe his own stories.

[embed]https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1283034261969403904?s=21[/embed]


That’s probably enough for this week.

Michael out…

Michael de Groot