stayingaliveuk

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Week 24: Sunday 6 September — Saturday 12 September 2020

Image by Wordswag - words by Michael de Groot

Sunday 6 September

We woke up with the news of knife attacks in Birmingham U.K. Another potential blow to U.K. city centres, guaranteed to make people want to stay away even more. I personally have no desire to go back to City Centres.

[embed]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-54045143[/embed]


Otherwise a busy day, cleaning the patio with a jet water spray, which was very satisfying indeed.


Monday 7 September

So one week in using an app called Nutracheck, to measure my daily calorie intake to shift some lockdown weight gain. And it works!

I shifted 0.8 kgs in a week, which is 1.72 pounds. I need to shift 0.9 kgs per week in order to achieve my target by December 22nd, 2020.

A very clever app that tracks many different aspects of your food and drink intake. You can add your own meals too. It is really amazing and I highly recommend it. I will keep reporting on this publicly, which means it keeps me accountable, not just to myself but also to my readers!


Promoting the next Taiko Course by inviting people to come to our Taster Sessions.

[embed]https://twitter.com/stayingaliveuk/status/1302938570752172033?s=20[/embed]


Tuesday 8 September

Humans are indeed THE most disgusting species to walk on this planet. No other animal creates as much waste as we do and we still have no regard for nature around us. Read it and weep. This latest article by Fast Company confirms that we are the worst! No wonder nature hits back with Covid-19.

[embed]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-54045143[/embed]


Wednesday 9 September

Announced last night.

Social gatherings of more than six people will be banned in England under new measures designed to be easier to understand and enforce.

Boris Johnson will say today that meeting in larger groups for fun will become illegal in England from Monday as ministers try to prevent a sharp increase in coronavirus cases leading to a second wave of deaths.

And just as my Taiko Teacher is researching semi-outdoor venues for doing in-person Taiko drumming. Not sure this will happen now. Thank you to all the 18–30 year olds who are the prime increases in cases in the U.K. This was bound to happen as this age group are the most risk-adverse. Happy semi-lockdown again!


[embed]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-54045143[/embed]

My post on LinkedIn refers to a cold call I received from a cold calling organisation inviting me to a meeting with one of their advisors who works for an insolvency practice. Shit I thought, what do they know about my business that I don’t know as yet. So I contacted their MD via LinkedIn. I just sent an invitation to connect with a personalised message and bingo, got a response pretty much immediately. It is really worth doing, I have tried this now several times and every time the senior person of the organisation comes back straightaway.


[embed]https://twitter.com/stayingaliveuk/status/1303613009449938946?s=20[/embed]

Our drive for Taiko drumming online continues. We’re looking for at least a further 45 people to join our course, doubling the number to about 90–100 students.

[embed]https://twitter.com/stayingaliveuk/status/1302938570752172033?s=20[/embed]


Always like a tweet from Mia Farrow, didn't even realise that she was around still! More Trumpisms.

[embed]https://twitter.com/MiaFarrow/status/1302055343028088833?s=20[/embed]


Oh dear Covid19 has still got it’s claws into the human race like nothing else has ever, this tweet confirms how you can believe it’s safe to go back into the water, when the virus will bite you on your bum, the minute you put one toe into that water. The water of freedom that has probably gone for at least 7 years!

[embed]https://twitter.com/YossiGestetner/status/1301634458139979777?s=20[/embed]


Thursday 10 September

Advertisers, I kinda loath them even though I am also in the same industry. They brainwash us and take advantage, they think cleverly, of the current issues on the planet, like Covid19! See my tweet below to explain.

[embed]https://twitter.com/stayingaliveuk/status/1303967530848063491?s=20[/embed]


Oh yes Trump knew, he always knew, but pretended it wasn’t real, duped people, lied and deceived them and still millions of Americans will vote for him in the upcoming Presidential Election. Thank you Kamala Harris for highlighting it to them, just in case some are really truly reconsidering their options on the ballot paper.

[embed]https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1303810810603593733?s=20[/embed]


Wow America’s burning in more ways than one!

https://twitter.com/mikewarburton/status/1303925682221780997?s=20


We got the new rule here in the UK, the rule of six or is it 6? How will this change things? The fines, maybe the jail sentence? Oh yes and the courts can cope with that, with backlogs going out to 2021? But this tweet summed it up for me!

[embed]https://twitter.com/dansodergren/status/1303747543285854208?s=20[/embed]


Friday 11 September

Oh dear, Birmingham U.K. and some surrounding towns are going on a partial lockdown again, the numbers of cases are increasing again. I must have realised when I used a picture of a famous landmark in Birmingham at the top of this article with the words ‘staying away’ and this is after just a few days after an attacker with a knife went on a killing spree.

[embed]https://twitter.com/birmingham_live/status/1304405252716802048?s=20[/embed]


And Trump’s alter ego did another fabulous video sketch. I had no idea what the soup reference was, but after seeing the real Trump talk about it I get it now. He’s getting crazier by the second.

[embed]https://youtu.be/VO7KpblhC7Y[/embed]


And now a story about you, fame, wealth and desire?

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


From the Medium Coronavirus newsletter arrived today.

Political news dominated the coronavirus conversation this week as tapes revealed that President Donald Trump understood the severity of Covid-19, starting back in February, while downplaying it to the public.

With nearly 6.4 million Americans infected and over 191,800 dead, the seriousness of the virus is obvious. That the president didn’t ever fully realize this is unlikely. (You may want to read Andy Slavitt this week — he has thoughts.)

What’s frustrating is that despite a shared understanding that Covid-19 is serious and deadly, the U.S. response to the virus is widely considered to be one of the worst in the world. While Covid-19 directly impacts every country worldwide, some countries are and were more prepared. Contract tracing, for example, is an established part of health care in several countries who have more successfully handled Covid-19.

A new study out this week analyzing how Covid-19 spread throughout the world concludes that “intensive testing and contact tracing could have prevented SARS-CoV-2 from becoming established.” Again, this has been obvious for many months now. Yet whether the U.S. can substantially bolster contact tracing and testing is somehow still a question.

Saturday 12 September

…a busy day gardening, clearing weeds and a bit of relaxation. Covid19 cases increasing in the U.K., looks like we’re heading for a very long winter with many lockdown scares ahead of us. Stay safe everyone!


Michael out.

Michael de Groot