There is no doubt now that 2020 will be forever characterised as the year of coronavirus or as the year of pandemic, but not as the year of Covid-19, for all that such a label might be more accurate. We are beginning to see the parallels with a hundred years ago and the 'Spanish 'Flu' outbreak, so much of which is the same. Europe, in the second half of this year, is coming to terms with having had a wave of disease and is hoping not to have a second wave, but the balance between the apparently conflicting demands of public health and the national economy is not an easy one to achieve. In all respects the UK seems to fare badly, suggesting to me that it is high time we overhauled our accepted institutions, including our version of democracy.
The stumbling of UK.gov towards the disaster that is, and will continue to be, Brexit, ran through this half year, mmuch as it has done since 2016 but with an end of sorts in sight. Whether what results is an end rather than a continuation, we still wait to see, even on December 10th, where yesterday BoJo the PM was indicating that a no-deal (what he calls an Australian deal) is steadily more likely. Given his quite unbelievable lack of statesmanship, I'm expecting one of the worst case results to occur.This collection is larger than previous, partly because lockdown drives one to sit at a desk more often. For the first time I have inserted Snippets, which I think may be the first of a series, collelcting small points observed but not, at the time of first noticing, worthy of a page to themselves. That page, 313, generated five of the 38 for this half-year, which suggests it is a working method to continue. We will see. Well, given the frequency of visitors to this site, probably only I will see. Not an issue here.
