The main news from my walk with ‘Pip the Dog’ was that a dog walker ensured that he ran with his dog in order to get ahead of us on the fields. His dog’s name is Poppie! Wow never thought I would see that during COVID19. Never mind this period on planet earth is affecting everyone in different ways. The only leader in the world who I would vote for to become actually the leader of the whole world is Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand Prime Minister, who called it right very early on and has proven that early action was necessary. Well done to her!
I visited New Zealand in April 2005 and it is in my humble opinion THE most beautiful country on earth. If I had the opportunity to live there, I would move in a heartbeat. Below is a picture I took whilst being on the south island. I was there on my own as a single man at the time, but never felt lonely and drove around 2,000 miles on the south and north islands.
New Zealand — South Island: Lord of the Rings country…
The rest of Monday was spent on Taiko West, adjusting, amending and improving communications in the morning and then in the afternoon, one lesson and another one at 7pm. They both went quite well. This week, we’re teaching the monthly drummers how to play Taiko Online and next week, we’re going live with paid classes, I feel a sense of achievement, although it’s not even my business. I work on the project as if it is though!
Oops it’s raining again, so a shorter walk for Pip and me this morning. Lots of dog walkers leaving their dog’s business on the pavement for other people to walk in, so decided to find a stick. and flick it off the pavement. It always happens down an alleyway where they can’t be seen to not pick up their dog’s business. Grrrrr!
A quiet morning, the usual stuff on a Sunday morning, watching The Andrew Marr Show. Guess what the topic was for the whole show? Yes you are correct, COVID19! Blah, blah, blah…
Clair had to go out and sort out gas and electric meter readings at her eldest son, my stepson, Bradley. Always expect the unexpected with Brad, he tells Clair that he has an ex girlfriend moving in with a dog. Fingers crossed that all works out great!
And at 3pm, we had a Google Meet call with my family, my sister and her kids, who are adults with their own kids and my brother and his wife. So we spent a good hour exchanging COVID19 stories. I had invited a load more of my extended family, but they didn’t show. Maybe they didn’t see the invite? Oh well never mind.
Settled down for the evening to do some TV catch up.
Looks like the drier weather is back, so Pip the Dog and I had a peaceful and sunny walk this morning. Never came across any other dog walkers, just a couple of mountain bikers who were jumping in the small wood that we have to go through to get to the fields with the cows.
The other day, I took some photos of the bike track in the wood. There had been a discarded bit of cardboard that would have carried a six pack of bottled beer, guess what the name of the beer was – “CORONA’’. But it wasn’t there any longer so instead a photo of a can of beer hanging in a tree! You will notice some discarded tools and a bucket, which they use to shape the bike track from the mud in the wood.
Walking back from the fields, Pip and I were walking on the pavement, which is about wide enough for both of us, it was dead quiet everywhere and hardly any cars on the road, then moving towards us, was a road cyclist, but he was on the pavement and I though, well he will stop anytime soon, but he didn’t, he just carried on cycling towards us and last us, within a a few inches of my arm. I was SO angry, I really wanted to curse at him and the words that came up were ‘you f…ing selfish git, seriously?’ But something stopped me, I’m sure he would have been capable of stopping and beating me up, so I didn’t say anything but I could feel the blood rushing into my face with anger, wow that was horrible, thankfully I was walking so managed to walk it off before coming back home, not a nice experience at all.
Today is cleaning day at Clair’s Mum’s, which Clair has been doing every Saturday since lockdown. I usually do a bit of cleaning at ours, so I did some vacuuming, floors washing, bathroom cleaning, study cleaning, obviously washing up etc. Felt a sense of satisfaction after all that.
After that some computer work and a bit of Taiko drumming practice. I managed to master a really tricky rhythm we’ve been learning over the last 2 weeks and felt again a massive sense of achievement with that. The song is appropriately titled “Lockdown”, written by my teacher James Barrow, the founder of Taiko West.
Finished doing the weekly washing and hanging up in the garden and Pip found my garden chair and cushion to relax on in the sunshine, she just loves the sun!
Had some lunch and then it was time to catch up with Jacob Granville, the founder of Distributed Bio, who are working on a antibody drug to treat COVID19. He was featured in the Netflix documentary Pandemic!
Watch his update, which he lived streamed yesterday, 1 May 2020.
[embed]https://youtu.be/Xh1pX-5etHg[/embed]
Last thing to share, which I will share daily from now on, is the U.K. daily charts, it will be interesting to look back on these in years to come.
ps. My part-time business partner on a project I brought to him, has reduced my commission this month, I wrote about this in a previous article. I received the email from Udemy today!
Pip and I did a shorter walk this morning, just to give our legs a rest.
It was a calmer day today so I could get loads done. I did have a call with James of Taiko West to discuss a few things and we went down the rabbit hole of testing Internet speed and I was quite pleased that we were able to conclude that James’ broadband connection is really quite good but the data transfer from the BT OpenReach box is only able to transfer data at 100mps instead of what I’m getting, which is 1Gigabit. So the definitive conclusion is upgrade the router so James can eliminate the DSL box.
After that I went straight into my weekly LinkedIn Lunch event via Google Meet. It’s so funny whenever I’ve done one of these, I’ve always ended up with just one attendee and today was no exception. I was delighted though because we had a really good hour chatting about well-being and of course the current pandemic. It was a lovely chat with Robert.
Thereafter I had a late lunch and caught up with many emails and get in touch with a client and a potential client. I am quite astounded that I may end up with 4 animation projects during lockdown, unbelievable.
Finished at 4pm for the day after helping one of the Taiko online students test their technology.
The fields were very wet from all the rain we had overnight and yesterday, so consequently, the cows who roam the fields and leave their deposits all over the place, we (‘Pip the Dog’ and I) discovered some of them and I stepped in one. When it’s dry, you can see them easier and avoid them, when they’re wet you can’t!
I spent pretty much most of the day, working on Taiko West Taiko drumming stuff. Produced 2 tutorial videos, that James recorded yesterday and uploaded them to YouTube and then uploaded them to the relevant page on the online resources section. The song is called ‘Lockdown’, especially composed by James for obviously ‘Lockdown’!
Below I am sharing the slides that are being presented daily at the UK Government news briefing, which shows that now the UK is number one in Europe and number two in the whole world, when it comes to the amount of people that have died from Covid19, a pretty sad situation.
I remember when I heard the stories coming out of Italy and Spain and we had not had anything as yet in the UK, I was astounded and very shocked about how many people were dyeing every day, but somehow over the weeks and months you get ‘immune’, sorry for the obvious connection, to the numbers, especially in your own country. We have no where near been as locked down as in Italy, Spain and France. My uncle and aunt in France have to take a form with them when they go out, with a note of the time they left home, as they are only allowed out for an hour and to go no further than 1 km from home. Really we’ve had it easy in the UK, but not many realise that!
James delivered a further two live online Taiko drumming classes, the afternoon session went really well, but the evening session was fraught with technical issues caused by several of the attendees. It was really, really hard work. Afterwards I felt like screaming because the success of these online classes is totally dependent on either the IT experience of the individuals or the set up of their equipment and how old it is. I felt totally drained afterwards. And for some reason folks will not listen to simple instructions and they like to test the system to see if it will break and of course it does!
It’s dry but cloudy and felt quite warm out on my daily walk. Seemed quiet as far as dog walkers but seemed very busy on the roads again and the stats from UK Gov confirms that traffic has increased so not just my imagination.
Another busy day with Taiko West. Website issues now resolved by the technical guy who originally has organised the website. Produced a tutorial video for students to learn about Jitsi but will need to make amendments.
Watched the U.K. Government briefing today and astounded at the death toll figures having risen so much due to the new figures from care homes and the community. We’re now on target to become number two in the coronavirus hit parade. Dreadful.
I’ve noticed how they are now trying to bamboozle us with many charts that have loads of data trying to make us look better than we actually are. Every night now we get new charts presented slightly differently. Hmmm yeah bamboozle is the right word.
Haven’t seen proper rain like this for weeks that was a massive shock for sure.
So a very short walk for Pip this morning and she really doesn’t like the rain.
Rest of my work day again spent on Taiko West. Still having website issues though the web pages are just not loading properly and quite a bit of editing, adding audio files etc.
I did finish early today at 4pm.
Oh and I made a Lentil Dahl curry for our meal tonight and for the next few days. Yum it was delicious even if I say it myself. Today I heard that journaling is a good thing to do during this crisis and guess what, that’s exactly what I’m doing!
It was a loooong day. Early start as usual. Dog walk, breakfast, shower etc.
Then the rest of the day was just a blur.
Basically the whole day was spent on Taiko West. Website issues oh my, so frustrating, I detest Wordpress and that bloody Divi, the worst web program I have EVER worked with.
2 drumming classes and loads of producing to do as well.
Pip and I came across 6 dog walkers this morning and she was very well behaved indeed. She also made sure that she didn’t do any business on our way to the fields. My word it was such a beautiful morning, there was no breeze, beautiful sunshine and hardly any traffic on the roads at all. I know it’s a Sunday but even so, it was completely deserted. I believe the weather is changing from later today and in the rest of the week, but super grateful that we’ve had such gorgeous weather whilst in lockdown.
Clair had to do some work for one of her accounting clients and I did an hour of Yoga via Facebook live with a local Yoga teacher who we used to be taught by some years ago at the local leisure centre. It was wonderful to hear her calming voice. She just asked for donations, but it was only £3.75 for the session, which I thought was very fair indeed. So I will be attending this next time. I believe she is doing it 3 times per week.
Then I cut the grass before the rain arrives this evening!
Did some research on the web to help me with Wordpress and that blasted Divi Theme! And I’ve started with Instagram again, after leaving it 2 years ago. But doing to for a very specific purpose, to only upload all our whiteboard animation videos and cartoons. Took some time to format the videos to the ideal height and width. So strange why they have such an odd format, that doesn’t fit to anything standard, very annoying!
Quiet walk with Pip this morning as I decided to just go for a short walk and rest up.
Had to do some work, work on a potential short cut format for my Taiko drumming teacher when he does the verbal notations for his songs he teaches. He didn’t ask for it, but I just felt he needed a potential short cut way for doing it, to save him time. So I worked it out and recorded a short screen share video to show how it’s done.
The Japanese word for Taiko drumming notation/music is Kuchi Shoga. A very cool name I thought.
So after all that, I watched a new blockbuster movie release on Netflix, ‘Extraction’ with Chris Hemsworth of ‘Thor’ fame! It was a wild wild ride and although it was very very violent, not for the faint hearted, I did enjoy it. Netflix are obviously storming at the moment. And then caught up with one of my other thriller series on Netflix, ‘Ozark’.
And shortly after that Clair came home with vegetarian sausage rolls made by her Mum, so I made a lovely salad for us.
And Clair made a gorgeous, apple, pear and rhubarb crumble, with Rhubarb, which she received via a neighbour at her Mum’s and some pears which had been delivered today in a veg box. Yum!
It was a ‘s..t’ walk with ‘Pip the Dog’ this morning. Why? For some bizarre reason she decided to have two poos in the middle of the pavement!! And this was before we got to the fields that we normally walk on! Normally she does a number two (poo) when we get to a small wood that we walk through to get to the fields and maybe another one on the fields, although usually just one is enough. So, two smallish ones on the pavement on the way to the top of the hill, towards the small wood. Normally I take two poo bags with me, to collect her business, so I had already used those on the way to the fields. I really didn’t expect her to do another bit of business, the very second we were back on pavement again. This time she found a bit of grass, but still I had to collect it, luckily for me there was a bin quite close by. But, I had no more bags and the only thing I did have was my glove, yes I have a glove that I use to put on my right hand when I collect her business so that I have double protection in case a bag splits. So I had to collect her third bit of business with the glove and then place it in the bin and at that very moment in taking the glove off, a bit of poo, stuck to my hand, aaaaaaargh!!!
Quick wiped my hand on the wet grass a few steps away and then walked home with my right hand in the air, making sure I didn’t touch anything, even when I got home I made sure I opened the door with my left hand and then rushed to the tap to thoroughly wash my hands.
I know, I know too much detail, but remember this is my personal journal and therefore these COVID19 notes are only for me!
The rest of my day was spent until about 4pm doing bits and pieces of work, emails, tidying up stuff, sending more login details to taiko drummers for Taiko West, adjusting the website, uploading an audio track and other various things.
I finished my work day at about 4pm.
The funniest event of the day was some messages that were exchanged between Luke and his Mum, Clair.
He’s designing a Tattoo and told her that he didn’t realise how unprepared he was during this s..t corona lockdown, stationary wise. He needed, so he explained, A5 paper and paper with small squares, he meant graph paper and also pencils and a rubber. So Clair explained that the correct spelling is stationery with an e, instead of stationary as in ‘the train is stationary at the station’. So we had a real chuckle about this, because Clair is stationery obsessed and likes all sorts of stationery and she told him that she has been waiting for this moment all her life. Of course she has plenty of stock of all of this and as she’s going to her Mum on Saturday, tomorrow, to do the cleaning she will drop off all the stuff that he needs and more in the morning. Clair also does an evening call with her Mum at 7pm every day and explained this story and again there was a huge amount of laughter and I couldn’t help joining in, even though I was sitting in the other room.
After the day had finished I normally have a quick look at LinkedIn to see what’s happening and saw that a recent client, Gorilla Spirits, asked if I could do a small edit and whether I would charge for it or not. Hmmm, what to do.
Hi Michael, I wonder if you could do a small thing for me. I’d like a copy of our video with it to finish after the team slide and before the ‘over to you’ slide. I don’t think there’s much work involved but let me know if you need to charge.
So I responded with:
Hello Andy, thanks for connecting here. Normally there would be a charge, as these things never take just 5 seconds to do. The charge would be £50 + vat. However I would like to be helpful and maybe if you have a future project, I will remember to add the cost to that? I know there are no guarantees, especially at the moment. Will get it done over the weekend. Best, M
And this was his response:
Thanks Michael, much appreciated. I’m sure we’ll do more.
Fingers crossed then that there will be more in the future. 🤞
OMG, couldn’t believe how many dog walkers had congregated near our walking spot, of course it’s not ‘my’ walking spot, but I felt totally over crowded with several dog walkers and 6 dogs all in one place and nowhere to pass them. I had to walk on the road to get past them, so thankful that it’s quiet at the moment with very few motorists out on the roads.
More Taiko drumming lessons today at 2pm and 7pm and also attended an online workshop on how to get more clients in this current world. I had one major takeaway, see image below.
So here I am typing the final sentences for a week of journal entries and I am fading fast, running out of non-sense to write and wondering whether doing this is helpful for me or not.
So a couple of things that may be worthy of mention. This current world definitely brings out the worst and the best out of people. I know someone, let’s call her Sophie (not her real name), who I thought was a beautiful human being with a wonderful like minded soul. She not long ago joined telegram and all of a sudden I am being bombarded daily with conspiracy theory videos. I’m thinking WHAT! How did this happen? Not at all what I expected.
Last night during towards the end of our Taiko drumming class, we paused to go outside and clap for our key workers. This time I used a singing bowl and tapped it with the wooden handle that is supplied with it. It really made a wonderful noise! Will be using that next week.
Today was another peaceful walk with ‘Pip the Dog’ and the weather continues to be super mild and dry! Totally unheard of in the U.K.
Then when I got back I had to produce 6 videos for the Taiko West online resources page on the website. Too me from 9am until 1.15pm, wow a lot of work, but pleased I got it done.
We then conducted online Taiko drumming classes at 2pm an 7pm and they went really well with one decent and positive feedback from people.
A busy day and I was exhausted at the end of it, hence the very short post!
Well, the weather in the UK is just awesome, long may it last! I can’t remember such a long spell of dry weather in years. Could this because of the reduced pollution? I hope so, I hope they prove that this weather we’ve been having can be directly related to the reduced amount of flights, cars etc. on the roads.
A lot less dog walkers out this morning, I knew it, people decided on a Monday they need the early exercise but by Tuesday, they’ve given up. There was one walker we had to avoid, but otherwise quite still. The fields that we visit have about 10 Shetland Cows on it. They have been chosen because of their docile nature. The problem is they have free grazing access to a lot of the fields, which means you always have to be aware of where thy might be, so you an avoid them and also be alert for any ‘cow pats’!
My work was mainly focussed on Taiko West — Taiko drumming — work. I had to update the website, get hold of email addresses of the folks that attended the live online classes, so they could access the practice videos that James recorded and I produced. Add private users to the website, add them to Hubspot and send emails out with user login and passwords.
Late afternoon I had a catch up call with my friend Keith, who is the love man and we had a could catch up call. We had originally planned to go for a walk in a forest on Tuesday 24 March in a location away from people and then on Monday 23 March we had the lock down announcement, which meant I cancelled the walking meeting.
A very very crowded dog walking episode this morning when taking ‘Pip the Dog’ out. It was as if everyone decided they needed exercise after sitting on their butts over the weekend.
If you have read any of my previous journal entries, you will know that ‘Pip the Dog’ doesn’t do that well with other dogs and the annoying thing is, where I walk with her across fields the other dog walkers, let theirs off the lead. And poor Pip stays on the lead. So every time I see another dog walker I have to turn into a different direction.
Today was the big day in terms of going live with Taiko West online drumming classes. It has been 4 long weeks working up to this moment. Pretty much all day was spent on this until 8.45pm. I was totally exhausted, and I’m not even doing the teaching.
But we had terrific feedback from the students and they all enjoyed it very much. More to do on Wednesday and Thursday this week and then repeat the whole process next week. Thankfully the technology behaved, but James the teacher did have some technical issues his side again because of the sound quality etc.
Oh, I’m very late with my journal updates, but I’m sure you wouldn’t have noticed!
So I am writing this on Thursday 23 April, 2020 and now I have to remember what happened last Sunday!
Well, from what I can remember, ‘Pip the Dog’ and I had a quiet walk, not that many dog walkers out and about, I guess it’s because it was a Sunday!
As is normal on a Sunday and in fact every day, we have our super healthy fruit and soaked oats breakfast and then watch the Andrew Marr show. Andrew Marr is essentially a reporter who has is own show on BBC One every Sunday morning from 9am until 10.15am, it has got 15 minutes longer in recent months. He usually reviews the papers, speaks to a few other reporters and then in the main has politicians on his show. To be honest I have no idea why I watch it, because I think that most politicians are total morons, especially the Conservative Government in the UK, well in fact most of Conservatives have no clue about regular life.
Once we finish watching that, we’re still in the kitchen by the way, we watch something on Channel 4, called Sunday Brunch, one of these magazine shows with a couple of presenters, Simon (the chef) and Tim (nice but dim), who have a series of guest articles on. They talk and they cook and they cook and they talk. Pretty mind numbing to be fair. However due to current circumstances, they have to transmit from their homes and fill in the gaps with some clips from past shows. I do believe TV production teams are having to be very creative in so many different ways at the moment and I applaud them, the production teams that is, not the presenters they are still fairly useless!
Then later on Clair used up some Bananas that were going over to make a delicious home made Banana Loaf (Cake). Yum!
Watched some telly in the evening, walked ‘Pip the Dog’ in the evening and that was it!
I love all the promos (NOT) suggesting the business preparation and snake oil strategies for when we come out of this, as if it will be business as normal. But nobody is even remotely touching on the subject of, ‘what if we won’t get back to normal for the next 7 year cycle?’ What then?
The medical science suggests a further 6 months or longer of partial lockdown measures to prevent. potential seasonal re-emergence of #COVID19 🦠.
It’s not about business turnaround, it’s about the resilience of our minds during all this.
It may also be the end of capitalism as we know it, now this might not be such a bad thing. Public health may finally become THE biggest priority we’ve ever witnessed. Clapping and celebrating key workers is all fine and dandy but if we suppress the resources they need and reward them insufficiently for their heroic service we should be ashamed.
This is THE best summary of Donald Trump I have ever read. It is a superb summary of what we think in the U.K.
This was originally answered on Quora by Nat White but for some reason the response was deleted by Quora, nobody knows why. The response was also covered extensively by many publications all over the world. I have searched for Nat White everywhere, Twitter, LinkedIn and the web but have come up with nothing. If you know him or can find him, I’d love to interview him on my podcast, link below. 👇
Someone asked “Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?”
Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England, wrote this magnificent response:
A few things spring to mind;
Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever.
I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.
But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.
And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.
There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.
Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.
Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.
And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.
Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.
He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.
He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.
That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.
There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.
So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.
God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.
He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W. look smart.
In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.
And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:
‘My God… what… have… I… created?’
If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.
Thank you Nate White, I hope you find this piece and share your handle, so I can tag you accordingly. Cheers!
For the first time in 27 days, I’ve had to walk ‘Pip the Dog’ in the rain, which is incredible really, especially here in the U.K. We might get 3 days of dry weather and then it rains. We really have to ask the question, has all this reduction in pollution reduced the amount rubbish in the air, which would normally contribute to bad weather? Not just here in the U.K. but also right across the world.
So we just had a very short walk as neither of us like walking in the rain and we did get soaked! We will make up for it tomorrow no doubt!
The rest of my day was very quiet as it’s Saturday it means Clair goes to her Mum’s to do some cleaning and she ended up doing some cooking for her as well.
So I spent some time practicing Taiko Drumming, which felt great and then afterwards I caught up with some Netflix series I have been watching. I watched the end of Pandemic and was really pleased that Jake Granville and Sarah Ives got the Gates Foundation funding for continuing with their vaccine development. I also watched a couple of episodes of Ozark, which has a great storyline, it’s taking a really strange turn at the moment. I also watched the COVID19 Horizon episode part 1, which was super informative to know how the virus started and how it works, plus how we can fight it. I highly recommend if you’re in the U.K. that you watch it. There’s so many opinions out there and it’s good to know the scientific truth.
Just to remind anyone who might be reading this in the future, this is not supposed to be a news report about what’s going on in the world, it is just a record of my days and a few notes for myself, so when I look back in the future, I get a sense of what might have gone on that day.
I do think it might be useful to record for myself some of the major news items that have made an impact on me during this time. Of course on of the biggest ones is Captain Tom who has been raising funds for NHS charities by walking laps around his house. In case you haven’t heard of him, he’s 99 years old! He has raised over 20 million pounds as of today and says he will continue to walk as long as people are still donating, which of course they will. I’m sure it will continue to rise even further.
The other news story that has made an impact is the shortages of PPE equipment in hospitals and care homes, which is very saddening and also very dangerous for front line staff who might catch the virus as a result. The only thing I would say is that some of the gowns, are able to be cleaned so instead of throwing them away, which is a total waste, cleaning them would be a much better idea as has already been recommended. It does mean though that you need a cleaning process as well, so maybe that’s an issue potentially? Anyway I’m no expert and you can’t always believe everything that’s being reported.
In the evening there was a Corona Live Aid concert raising money for the front line staff. It was mainly about the US and streamed in different places, I watched a small bit on YouTube. Very well produced and all the artists basically recorded their songs at home and they then mashed it together.
The last news item of the day, was about people in the USA out on the streets protesting about lock down and wanting to go back to work etc. No social distancing even with those protests and of course Donald trump promising that some US states will be opened very soon. Unbelievable! But in some respect it will be a good experiment to see what might happen as a result.
So further to my journal entry yesterday, ‘Pip the Dog’ and I walked through the small bit of wood this morning, which is what we’ve been doing for a few weeks now and firstly found a massive pheasant walking ahead of us, Pip wasn’t sure what it was and then we saw two adult men on their large mountain bikes standing around, whilst sitting on their saddles, not actually moving but looking very suspicious. They are obviously the culprits that have been further improving and building the additional mounds and jumps for their bikes. It made me think a lot, should I report them or let it go? Why am I feeling this way, it’s their risk and their family’s risk isn’t?
I had the same feeling yesterday when seeing another different car parked on the road outside our next door neighbours’. They have been receiving regular visitors outside of their own household, something they have been doing ever since the lockdown. Obviously I’m not reporting them but only because you have to give your own details, which I’m not prepared to do, just in case they get told it was me!
Every Friday, except for Good Friday I planned to have an open Google Hangouts Meet, titled ‘LinkedIn Lunch’, open to any business owner who wishes to attend to just chat about what’s going on with COVID-19 and how it’s affecting all our businesses and what strategies some of us may be adopting. Today I expected about 3 or 4 to attend but only one person did, which was fine. We’d been chatting via LinkedIn and email a while ago and we had a wonderful chat about all sorts. Her name is Denise Quinlan and she shared a number of interesting things with me.
Firstly the video below, which is a parody on the song Staying Alive by The Bee Gees. Of course I love this seeing as my company is called Staying Alive UK!
Secondly a webinar hosted by the Institute of Directors, the IOD, where Denise will be talking about how to attract great clients, useful for when we come out of lockdown. Although I do believe it will be a very different world when we come out of that.
One of the things Denise has set up as well is a Facebook group titled ‘SME Force for Good, where SME organisations are sharing free content that might be useful to other SME’s as we all get out of this dreadful situation. You can check it out and ask to join the private group.
I immediately shared a couple of links with Denise she might like to share with other SME’s where I’m giving content away for free. I am sharing those here too.
First one is a Storytelling Workshop Webinar, which I recorded pre-COVID19 and I, giving it away for free. Follow the link below.
Second one is my 14 hours LinkedIn Lectures course on Udemy. Please note the free coupon link below is only valid for 31 days, so if it has expired by the time you click on it, just let me know and I will create another set of free coupons.
