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 
Nope, it was a pre-season game against Munster. Think it was a triple fracture. Not sure if it was the same type of tackle that did for Thom Evans against Wales.
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Nasty. I think I remember that, now you mention it.
My job might sometimes not be good for mental health, but physically it’s a case of ‘maybe get a blister on your finger’, or more likely, ‘develop a lard arse and a pasty complexion’.
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Brilliant Craigs! The end is the cherry on top!
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To put another angle on the opioids versus C-19 debate, Mrs. Deebee and I were discussing the lockdown and social distancing in a South African context this morning. Lots of crap – usually with a racist undertone or at best a complete lack of understanding of poverty – doing the rounds on social media showing people in the townships and informal settlements going about business as usual.
The question nobody seems to be considering, is that we have an unemployment rate of at least 40%. Millions of urban South Africans simply live day to day, hand to mouth, putting whatever food they can on the table with whatever resources they eked out that day. There is no capacity to stock up for 21 days. Hell, not even for a week of the most basic necessities.
Communal toilets, no electricity and lack of adequate water and sanitation are the daily reality for millions here. Once functional water treatment plants have been left to rot, in some instances deliberately so that politically connected scum can get contracts to truck in water, at crippling expense. Small towns and the townships connected to them look like post-war disasters, with most infrastructure not having been maintained in years (if ever in remote rural areas).
To expect families and communities living in these dire, sub-human conditions to suddenly lock down in an orderly fashion is as stupid as it is callous. It simply won’t happen. Parallel markets will thrive, again at the expense of the most vulnerable, people will risk arrest simply to get soap and water, or maize meal and stock cubes to feed their kids.
If nothing else comes from this horrific situation, maybe it will be that the political and business elites will get jolted into actually trying to create a more just society.
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“If nothing else comes from this horrific situation, maybe it will be that the political and business elites will get jolted into actually trying to create a more just society.”
I don’t think that has ever happened in human history, Deebee, all change has come from the bottom-up, organised dissent is the only thing that ever forces hands
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I guess much of Africa will be in a similar situation to the townships in SA, as will many areas of South America
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In cheerier news, the number of volunteers here has increased to over 750 000
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Ticht
it is good news, except that it kind of shadows your earlier comments and Deebee’sstory from SA:
– a rich western society totally underfunds key services and then relies on ‘heroes’ to get the leaders out of the holes they create, without changing much for the better thereafter – shite, really.
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Oh and excuse me……………………………Morning All!
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Very true, Slade.
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Ticht, the problem in SA is that all the parties that ‘represent the poor’ don’t actually give a fuck about them. Not the ANC, EFF, assorted lunatic fringe ‘leftist’ parties who’s policies would sink the country faster than it is already is or the ‘liberals’ of the DA.
The unions are in hock with the ANC and almost every union is corrupt to the core. They’ve all had so-called investment vehicles that have used worker contributions to simply provide slush funds for the union bosses.
What we actually need is an imbizo (gathering of elders, roughly) that equates to the political transformation we had in the 90s. Strip out all the crappy ideological rhetoric from all sides and look at actual policies that will create a functional and equitable society. Anyone who mentions the ‘national democratic revolution’ and socialist transformation on the one side, or ‘the markets’ on the other is shot on the spot.
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I’m only half joking on the last point. Sorry about the rant. In SA we tend to meander and bumble through life until a crisis hits, deny it flatly for as long as that covers up the issue, then blame everyone else and finally attempt half-arsed solutions when history has already left via the back door. I really hope that this crisis changes things and attitudes. Aluta Continua!
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I’m afraid that in the UK it will all go back to the same old shit soon enough once this is over. Hope to be proved wrong…
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CMW, pretty sure we will too…
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We’re already there, CMW. There’s a double-page spread in the M… o. Sunday today asking whether Barnier gave Johnson the Coronavirus.
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Please tell me you’re kidding TomP? Although I know the answer already.
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Nope, he’s not kidding, Deebee:
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For those wanting a rugby fix, Leicester vs Glasgow is here:
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Even better is the “Johnson: He’s not as good as Churchill but he’s no Hitler” article in the same rag.
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@ticht
Yet another example of people pulling together and selflessly putting others before themselves in these difficult times.
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CJ’ll be pissed off. He paid top dollar for his course(s).
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“We believe this tool can help:”
Well quite.
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It’s my mother’s birthday on Wednesday. Hoping to buy her some flowers.
This pile of shite is on the Interflora website:
10-quid voucher for the local petrol station it’ll have to be.
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Especially as next available delivery date is May 1st.
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She might squander it on giant cans of Faxe Lager though.
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As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “On my birthday nothing makes me feel specialer than a Ginsters pasty from the Wild Bean Cafe”
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*specialler*
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Anyone seen yos? He got a bit upset. Hope he’s not one of the infected.
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I hope Yos is building a rocket to the stars in his attic. And that he is well of course.
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Gogs – North Walians – are … um, is enterprising the word?
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“CJ’ll be pissed off. He paid top dollar for his course(s).”
He’ll have got a rebate when Craigs signed up.
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CMW – I wrote the course material.
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Step 1. Clean your room
Step 2. Never deviate from Judeo Christian norms
Step 3. Work hard, get married, have babies
Step 5. Accept your biologically determined constraints.
Step 9. Happiness.
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Trump has tweeted that he is a success because the White House briefings on the pandemic have attracted a lot of viewers – “akin to a prime time sit com” according to the fuckwit.
He says “President Trump is a ratings hit..”
I shit you not
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Ticht – I don’t know if you’re a fan or not, but Mary Chapin Carpenter is doing a series of songs from home on YouTube. Although Angus the Golden Retriever is the real star of the show.
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I do like her, BB, thanks for the heads up.
There is actually too much stuff to keep up with at the moment, it’s not that I don’t appreciate all these musicians giving up their time and efforts for free, I really do, but there is a heck of a lot of it.
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I don’t know if this will translate, but I just laughed very hard at something. A guy i knew from rugby centuries ago just posted a video of himself playing a few Shetland reels on the accordion, he was a professional player at one point, but got a “real job” as opposed to a “reel job” (soz)
Anyway, I haven’t seen him for thirty years almost, but there he is, playing brillant music, despite the fact it’s the first time in ages he has picked up the accordion.
His daughter’s comment below the vid was “Fanny”
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That Trump stiff s just part of the brand, ticht. He’s relentless, the wanker.
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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/30/astrophysicist-gets-magnets-stuck-up-nose-while-inventing-coronavirus-device
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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/30/astrophysicist-gets-magnets-stuck-up-nose-while-inventing-coronavirus-device
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Damn you Thauma.
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It’s snowing……………………….
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That brightened my morning up a bit
“My partner took me to the hospital that she works in because she wanted all her colleagues to laugh at me”
Harsh but fair.
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““I accidentally invented a necklace that buzzes continuously unless you move your hand close to your face,” he said.”
A GCSE physics student needs to tell him about a NOT gate.
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The whole thing was impressively inept
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““I have some electronic equipment but really no experience or expertise in building circuits or things,””
No shit Sherlock
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weeeeelll….he was trying to do something useful……………….
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Anyway – there is a dog……..
Cummings has tested positive
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Slade – the twat’s probably infected about 55 people by now.
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