Once upon a time, there were four children named Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy, and they were all sent away to a big country house in Cornwall at the time of the Great Coronavirus Armageddon. The house was owned by an ancient Scottish professor of rugby (as opposed to an ancient professor of Scottish rugby, who would be even more morose) who had had some adventures in his youth that no-one remembered now.
While he wasn’t that excited about bloody kids running around the place, he welcomed them warmly with some half-cooked pieces of cheese and toast, and told them to explore the house and gardens, and to please keep the noise down, and stay out of the way of the occasional tours that took place in the house.
One day it was pissing it down outside, and they decided to play hide-and-seek inside the house.
Lucy ran around the empty rooms, looking for somewhere to hide. She kept hearing voices in the corridor, and so she went on to another part of the house she hadn’t been in before. She pushed open a cobwebby, creaky old door and found herself in a disused, dusty gym with deflated balls, chipped mouthguards and still-smelly unmentionables scattered about.
“This’ll be a super place to hide,” thought Lucy. “Obviously no-one’s been here for years.” But then she heard voices just outside the door again!
“Ah fuck, I’m going to have to hide in one of these lockers.”
She opened the rustiest-looking locker of all, and pushed her way inside. There were old Lions shirts from tours in olden years, and she pushed through them, trying to get to the back of the locker. The locker seemed to be enormous, and it was getting colder and colder.
Much to her surprise, she suddenly found herself in a snowy woodland. It was dark, but she could see a light ahead, so she walked towards it. It turned out to be a lamp-post.
By the light of the lamp, Lucy could see a strange figure with the torso of a man, the legs of a black cat, and horns on his head. “Hullo!” he said. “Are you a Daughter of Maeve?”
“Well aye, my mum’s name’s Maeve, so it is: how did you know?”
“My name is Mr Iknus. You look cold. Please come to my cave for tea.”
Lucy gratefully accepted his invitation (upon my word, what do they teach them in the schools these days?), and listened to Mr Iknus’ tales of the Land of Narnia, for that was where he said she was, while he prepared the tea and scrumptious toast and tea-cakes. He told her that Narnia had been a lovely land, overflowing with milk and honey and excellent, free-flowing rugby matches, until a White Witch had seized control, made it always winter, released a virus in order to impose a lock-down, and cancelled all the rugby, yea even unto the Lions tour.
“Imagine that: always winter and never rugby.”
Lucy shuddered with horror. It seemed all too real to her.
Mr Iknus suddenly sobbed into his hands.
“Whatever is the matter, dear Mr Iknus?” cried Lucy.
“Ah, Lucy, I am afraid I am a bad person. I have promised the White Witch – for money! – to betray any Daughters of Maeve to her. But I cannot betray such a charming young rugby fan. Hush! I will lead you back to Lamp Post and the Corn Wall.”
Mr Iknus was as good as his word, and they slipped silently and furtively (“The Witch has spies everywhere, you know”) back through the woods to the lamp-post. Lucy could see the locker, and pushed her way back through the Lions shirts into the gym.
“Gosh,” she thought, “I’ve been gone for hours. The others will be worried!”
***
“I’m back!” cried Lucy, after she leapt back through the locker, and went racing back to find the others.
“What do you mean, you’re back?” said Peter. “You’ve only been hiding for ten minutes.”
“But I’ve been away for hours and hours, and I found Narnia, and heard all about their Narnian Lions, and Mr Iknus, and….”
“Now, now, Lucy,” said Susan, “You mustn’t make up stories because you got bored.”
Lucy stamped her foot. “But it’s all true, I tell you! I’ll show you!”
“Nah, that’s all right, ta,” sneered Edmund.
Lucy burst into tears. “Well, sod the lot of you rotters; I’m going back to see Mr Iknus, who’s nicer than any of you”, she sobbed, before flouncing off.
Edmund looked shifty and quietly followed her.
Lucy made her way back to the locker, pushed her way through the Lions shirts, and found the lamp-post. There was no Mr Iknus to be seen, but she made her way towards his cave.
***
Edmund had watched Lucy go into the locker and not emerge again. After waiting a few minutes, he decided to investigate.
Much to his surprise, he suddenly found his footfalls crunching on snow, and found himself in Narnia.
“Gosh! I say, Lucy was telling the truth after all! There’s the lamp-post.”
Edmund didn’t see anybody, and started trudging through the snow, feeling a bit sulky that he hadn’t had a warm welcome like Lucy. Suddenly he heard a majestic swooshing sound and, thinking it was a clever long off-load, turned around to catch the ball. The noise turned out to be a magnificent springbok-drawn sleigh bearing an icy-looking woman and some minions.
“Halt!” cried the woman. “What have we here? A Son of George?”
Amazed by the woman’s intuition, yet intimidated, Edmund stammered that he was indeed a son of George. The woman looked at him fiercely, then suddenly changed her manner.
“Poor lad, you look frozen. I am the Queen of Narnia. Please step into my carriage, and I will give you sustenance. Do you like Turkish Delight?”
As it happened, being a thoroughly repulsive character, Edmund did like Turkish Delight. He stepped into the sleigh, and was given a warm fur – yes, real fur – to wrap around himself, and as much Turkish Delight as he could swallow, as well as a lovely drink. The Ice-woman now seemed much more like a beautiful Queen-woman, the most delightful person he’d ever met, and he eagerly attempted to answer all her many questions.
After having covered the basics of Edmund being pro-Brexit and a Saracens fan, she asked him about his associations in the land of Corn Wall. She was particularly interested in the fact that there were four children bonded together, and that they were all rugby fans. She exhorted him to bring them all to visit her, and promised more Turkish Delight if he should oblige – because unfortunately she had run out of the stuff at the mo.
Greedy for more, and feeling all-powerful, Edmund stepped out of the sleigh and made his way to the lamp-post, where he encountered a radiant Lucy.
“Oh, Edmund, so you’ve found Narnia too! I’m so glad someone will believe me now.
“I’ve seen Mr Iknus, and he’s told me that the White Witch, who claims to be Queen, but really isn’t, hasn’t found him out so far. She really is a dreadful woman who hates rugby.”
Edmund said nothing, but followed Lucy back through the locker.
Ovally Balls 
That story about that kid is fucked.
Why pay for someone else to have healthcare?
Basic human decency.
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Enough of your Communism, Craigs.
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Quite enjoying Bomba Estereo
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No health system is perfect and there are always going to be failures but the deliberate ‘fuck off and die you uninsured pleb’ aspect of this stuff gives me the boak.
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Booze and cigarettes banned from sale here. Cue panic buying for the last two days as we start 21 days of isolation. Booze I understand. We have one of the world’s worst domestic violence records, much of it fuelled by alcohol. If thousands of women and kids in SA are to see a post-Corona world, I’m all for it. Cigarettes puzzles me somewhat apart from the obvious health reasons for not smoking. The announcement also had a bit of a swaggering jackboot mentality to it.
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Something something death panels etc.
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Stupid hypocratic oath.
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Deebs – just collect a load of fruit and bread with some sugar and water and put it in a bag and hide it behind a toilet for a few months.
Prison hooch innit.
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Sidestepper’re quite good too, Chimpie. A British DJ who lives in Colombia and lots of Colombians.
i like Humberto Pernett as well. Choc Quib Clun I’ll listen to tonight. Haven’t a listen for a while.
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Waiting for a full-blown pandemic here. Loads of our friends and neighbours have gone to holiday homes or family farms to sit out the isolation period. With that, they’re taking the risk of infection from relatively decent urban medical infrastructure, to rural areas where there is little or nothing to curb the spread or provide treatment for those infected.
In addition, hundreds of thousands of mine workers and casual labourers from rural provinces and neighbouring countries are trekking home taking the same risk with them.
Moreover, a lot of people here are taking a cavalier attitude towards it: either through Darwinesque stupidity, or out of desperation due to their squalid living conditions. The former – like the ones in bars who refused to stop drinking despite the lockdown and were eventually tear-gassed and arrested by the police – deserve the harshest treatment.
Those living without running water or electricity, sharing communal toilets and with no ability to stock up even if they wanted to, I can’t condemn, no matter how risky their behaviour is. What do you do when you live hand to mouth ekeing out a living day to day just so you can feed your family once a day? It’s fucking harsh place to be right now, and I’m one of the privileged. And as a South African, I’m a helluva lot better off than most of the rest of the continent.
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Sadly, that poor Yank kid will not be the last to die because of not having healthcare.
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Good luck Deebs, can’t help feeling there’s going to be a lot of pain coming in many parts of the world unfortunately.
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Wife & Kidz are all facetiming their buddies. Here’s me working [1]. Isn’t it beer / wine / gin o’clock yet?
[1] ‘working’
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Lovely ATL. In case you’re so inclined, The42.ie have got a couple of articles about the 2009 Lions tour (alas poor ROG). Oh and one about Aly Muldowney (probably our POTS in 2016).
At least the sun is shining, even if it all feels a bit like a scene from Earth Abides.
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Chimpie – oh no, love, you’re not alone. I am also working until mid-evening, and then again tomorrow morning.
I’ve opened the wine just now, though. The tricky part’s over.
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Did anyone else watch The Leftovers? 2% of the world’s population mysteriously vanish one day. Coronavirus is essentially that, but slower and less random.
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I was thinking about other health issues affecting populations last night and wondered about the different reaction to the opioid crisis vs coronavirus.
Both indiscriminate and terrible, but one is a definite threat from outside and the other kind of (but not really) a fuck up by the health care systems.
Throw in the crack epidemic as well which wasn’t random at all. People were able to blame the victims then.
I haven’t got a conclusion, just musing. Feel free to add value.
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Sorry all, didnt mean tocadd an extra layer of misery to an already lousy situation. Just our reality here. My hope is that the stretch above is wildly overstated and that we come through it relatively unscathed. Maybe it’ll be the kick up the arse the political elite needs to start delivering proper basic services to our poorest communities too. Silver linings etc.
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Feel free to add value
Well that’s me silenced in one small sentence. I’m being oppressed!
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“I’m being oppressed!”
The least I can do.
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I was asked if I had a gas bbq on a video conference call just now.
Took a lot effort to keep my poker face.
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Craigs………………….interesting topic:
– opiods – a problem embracing bad capitalism, bad prescibing, patient over demanding/consuming and the misery of coming off.
I have just finished consuming Tramadol and it does make one feel vile for a while
– crack epidemic is purely user-optional to begin with (not overlooking coercion) but, again I blieve it is very difficult to come off. A different kind of bad capitalism.
Like most addictions e.g. smoking, alcohol, over-eating, I don’t have a lot of sympathy with most abusers – suffer for a while and then get a new hobby.
There is an element, real or imagined, of user choice which doesn’t exist with coronavirus – it’s invisible, indiscriminate and free – only barriers to infection and the behavior of self and others.
Also, cv is not an addiction – with it’s inherent opt-in element.
It is something that requires community agreement/buy-in to suppress it.
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Slade – re the difference between cv and addiction, many of the people dying from opioid became addicted to the drugs prescribed by the doctors and then have to supplement that with fentonal which is extremely dangerous. Under those circumstances I find it hard to blame addicts for being addicts.
I believe that the crack epidemic had causes in poverty and some of the social policies of the time. So, again, I find it difficult to not have sympathy for the victims.
Either way, people died from these things. You could argue that people getting coronavirus could have been more careful.
I find it interesting how these issues are compartmentalised and separated from each other when the net result is similar.
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Slade – BTW, I hope your knee is getting better
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Marina Hyde’s been reading the blog: https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2020/mar/27/corona-prince-johnson-designated-survivors-
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Difference between coronavirus and opioid addiction is if I get addicted to opioids 2.5 other people don’t also get addicted.
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Full match replay of Scotland vs NZ here:
https://www.scottishrugby.org/fanzone/full-match-replay-scotland-v-new-zealand
or here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/ScottishRugbyonline
Maybe this time Hoggy will make the line!
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Oh hell, the Doddie walk again. Still gives me sniffles.
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This is depressing:
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Apparently two beers is too much according to a small child
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Well don’t give a small child two beers then.
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New Dylan, a 17 minute ballad – probably for after any rugby replay
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I get told off for having one beer because I get to fill my glass two or three times while they’re not allowed another apple/orange juice. They’ve probably got a point, but they can sod off.
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“a 17 minute ballad – probably for after any rugby replay”
Or for during a TMO decision?
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TomP – my jaw literally dropped when I realised who they are. Fucking hell.
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OT is on about giving 0.5 type people opioid addictions, Chimpie is forcing beer down their throats. Not sure this lockdown is going well.
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Me and mine, we’re just sticking with the touch typing.
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thaum, they’ve done a good thing but it’s just not a thing we should need them to do.
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“When we, a tiny company set up to serve a small section of the kink community, find ourselves being sought out as a last-resort supplier to our National Health Service in a time of crisis, something is seriously wrong. In fact, it’s scandalous.”
When this is all over, we need a revolution, no fucking middle ground, root and branch reform. We need to go further than Bevan did after the second world war.
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TomP – completely agree.
But are these scrubs really up to medical standards?
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Ach bugger, we still didnae win.
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@BB – the French have been trying to win that game you were watching the other night for a whole lot longer so I wouldn’t feel too bad about it.
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had a quick look at the Johns Hopkins dashboard – new cases are accelerating:
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
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@Craigs
– i have sympathy, but not universal plus, see OT’s comment about contageon
– joints are coming along fine, i think -really the knee is great and well ahead of the curve but a bit disapponted with the hip – which is having to e-learn to do more – bit painful sometimes but HEY! opioids………….
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how, and why, is donald trump such a turd?
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@BB
It was a great game. Interesting to see some of the personnel. Marfo with his half season of being really good. Dunbar and Jones done by injury since. Brief cameo from Hamilton
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Just the way he is slade
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Whatever happened to Damian McKenzie?
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Torn ACL apparently – last April, so probably won’t be playing rugby for a while even when he gets fit again.
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Chimpie – Hamilton did fine while he was on. He’s gone backwards at a rate of knots since then though. Considering we had to change our back row, AND our front row due to injury, to come within 5 points of drawing the game at least, (plus the ABs did their usual cheating) I think that result should now have Moral Victory next to it.
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