Relaxing during lockdown?

A lot of people who are getting paid to stay at home have said how relaxing it is.

I'm afraid I can't agree with that. Reading is about the closest I get to doing nothing at home. (Outside the home, sitting in the cinema eating a small portion of popcorn is the closest I get to doing nothing.)

When I feel like watching something on YouTube or on UK TV, then I have to do something. Here is a selection of things that I've been doing since the restrictions have been in place. If you want to see a bigger photo, click on one of the photos and you can just use the mouse wheel to 'flick' through all 51 larger photos.

OK...this lot was all done by the end of February, but they were too nice to leave out. A mix of 'reading blankets' and 'baby blankets'.

And by the end of March, I had completed this lot. 

This is often the state of my table. Mind you, this is neat compared to what it can look like.

In mid-March, I started embroidering cotton shopping bags. The patterns all came from old issues of Labores del Hogar.

 I'd like to add that each bag took 8 to 10 hours to embroider. It's not something you can do in a hurry.

 I was using up odd bits of wool to make what I call 'spectacle cocoons'.

 And here you see me making face masks out of two old M&S pillow cases. I had planned to turn them into bags. Wasn't it lucky that I am so lazy that I hadn't got round to it in the last two years or so. All in all, I made 5 face masks from this stripey material and 2 from the pink material I made the bags with. See below. And all sewn by hand, I might add.

Then I decided to embroider a bag for a French acquaintance of mine whom I hope to meet again on Mallorca this year. Shopping is much more fun with bags like this. Again, the patterns came from Labores del Hogar - from various issues, combined by me.

Then I got the sewing machine out, for about the 4th time in the 20 years I've had it.

And this was the result. I've had the material in my sewing cupboard for at least two years. Thanks to these restrictions, I've finally got round to doing what I originally intended.

And then yesterday and today, I got round to making two new teddy bears for the twin granddaughters of my old Japanese boss in London. The one on the right, in red velvet, is one of the first ones I made around 20 years ago. He lives in my wardrobe and looks as fresh today as he did when he was 'born'. All bears are sewn and stuffed by hand and I crochet their scarves, too.

The hardest thing is ensuring they have a friendly, smiley face.

What a cutie!

And these are the things I've completed this year. Other things are in the making. Oh, I forgot.. there were some cross-stitch pictures. I shall have to make photos of them, too.

Edit: This morning, I realised that I hadn't photographed these three blankets that I made when non-essential shops re-opened and I could get three more big balls of yarn from Woolworth. These have all been made so my eldest cousin can give them as Christmas presents to elderly people in care home who don't have family to give them a present on Christmas Day.

The UK lockdown

Here are some figures presented by another Guardian reader about the differences between the lockdown in Greece and the UK.

How the UK government can claim to be proud of what it's done during the crisis, I really don't know.

IfItsMagic 

8m ago

Reminder: the lockdown was introduced the same day in Greece and in the UK (23 March 2020).

That day Greece had 17 covid-deaths, the UK 336.

20 times more. (UK's population is only 6x bigger)

Result:

Total cases in Greece today : 2,980

Total cases in the UK today: 300,000 = 100 times more than Greece

Total deaths in Greece today : 180

Total deaths in the UK today: 40,465 (50,000, 60,000?) = 3000 TIMES MORE THAN GREECE

What have the Tories ever done for us?

You might recognise the question as being a variation on the classic line "What have the Romans ever done for us?" from The Life of Brian, Well, thanks to a Guardian reader, I can give you the answer to the title question:

doge

11h ago 

Tory Promises/achievements. Remember these???

1000 sure start centres closed.
780 libraries closed.
700 football pitches closed.
Food bank use up 2,400%. Now more food banks than McDonalds
Homelessness up 1,000%.
Rough sleeping up 1,200%
Bedroom tax caused mass evictions.
Evictions are running at record highs.
35% of U.K. kids live in poverty.
Student fees up 300%.
Student debt has risen 150%.
Eradication of EMA (education maintenance allowance).
National debt has risen from £850billion to £2.25tn
Deficit has doubled in 2019 to £43bn.
Emergency Brexit stimulus from BoE in June 2016 of £175bn.
Brexit related fall in national revenue £500bn.
£700bn lost to offshore avoidance and evasion.
GDP growth has fallen to near zero.
GBP fallen by circa 15% versus EUR and USD.
Manufacturing in recession.
Construction in recession.
Services in recession.
25-30% cuts to all govt departments.
25-30% cuts to all councils, mainly centred on Labour councils.
Half of all councils are facing effective bankruptcy.
185k extra deaths attached to the political ideology of austerity.
25,000 fewer police officers.
20,000 fewer prison officers.
10,000 fewer border officials.
10,000 fewer firefighters.
10,000 fewer medical professionals.
Highest teacher leaving rate in a decade.
Teachers paying for school supplies.
Schools sending out begging letters to parents to pay for supplies.
Free school meals slashed.
Legal aid slashed.
20% of crown courts and magistrates courts closed.
Police, ambulance and fire stations sold off to property developers.
NHS satisfaction fallen from 83% to 60%.
A&E targets down from 95% to 83%, even after the Tories altered the targets.
Increase of 200% wait in hospital corridors.
25,000 fewer bed spaces for mental illness.
OECD calculates there’s 3 million hidden unemployed, the rate is really 13%.
Creation of 1.3m jobs only, mainly temporary, self employed, gig economy and ZHC.
Only 30,000 full time employment positions have been created.
Close on 50% of workers are self employed, ZHC, or the part time precariat.
25% cuts for disabled community.
Mobility allowance cut by circa 30%.
Closed Remploy.
40% of working households have (practically) no savings.
75% of households have less than £10,000 savings.
80% of households can only survive 3 months without a wage.
Nearly half the working population (17m) have an unauthorised overdraft.
Household debt has reached a new peak, despite emergency base rates.
Increase of 50% in hate crimes.
Increase of knife crime by 150% to 22,000 per year.
Increase in teenage suicide by 70%.
Suicide up 12% in the year 2018.
Self harm among young women up 70%.
Council home building down 90%.
200k social homes lost since 2010.
Zero starter homes built, despite the Tory flagship programme promising 200,000.
One million families on council home waiting list.
100,000 increase in the council home waiting list since 2010.

I think we should have held onto the Romans and not let them leave the British Isles in 400 AD. This is what you get when you let the foreign Anglo-Saxons in.

Whatever happened to car names?

Yesterday evening, on a fruitless search for buckwheat flour to make gluten-free pancakes, I passed a large, black SUV, proudly displaying its name in large letters on the boot: DUSTER.

I imagined someone asking the owner what car they drove, and him or her replying, "I drive a duster."

A duster? A duster is a cloth you use to remove dust. Not a car.

My dad drives a 'Yeti'. Yeti? For me, that's a hairy being that hides out in the Himalayas. What next? Will we have a car called the 'Sasquatch' one day?

You only need to poke around the Internet to find more ridiculous car names, such as

1 Nissan Friend-Me....
2 Mazda Bongo Friendee. ...
3 Daihatsu Naked. ...
4 Mitsubishi Carisma. ...
5 Hyundai Trajet. ...
6 Gaylord Gladiator. ...
7 Dodge Dart Swinger. ...
8 Vauxhall Adam.

See this article for the complete list of 24:https://www.driving.co.uk/news/the-worlds-worst-car-names/

And if you think that's all, this website - https://www.motorbiscuit.com/the-most-ridiculous-car-names-in-history/ - has even more, such as the King Midget, the Chevrolet Citation, the AMC Gremlin and so on.

That last website also cites the Ford Fiesta, but compared to Yeti and Duster, I think that is relatively harmless. I'm even fond of the Ford Mondeo, despite the derogatory connotations of 'Mondeo Man'. At least the name conjures up ideas of belonging to the world at large rather than a hairy Himalayan mythic being.

But things have come a long way since the elegantly named Rolls Royce Silver Ghost (which was going to be called Silver Mist until they realised what 'Mist' in German meant [dung]).

I can't remember all the cars my father has had, but one that stands out was the second-hand Hillman Avenger, which my father painted himself. 'Silver Fox' was the name of the shade of paint he used. I quite enjoyed driving around in a 'foxy' Avenger as the name put me in mind of The New Avengers, a TV series that included the characters of sleek Purdey (Joanna Lumley) and dashing Gambit (Gareth Hunt). Which young girl didn't want to be as elegant and beautiful as her or to have an attractive man in their life like him? (Answer: probably quite a few - but those exceptions didn't include me.)

In any event, being ferried around in an old Avenger was loads more glamorous than driving around in a modern-day Duster or Yeti.