Unconvinced of Higher Downgate

Well, that was, mmm, interesting. The much touted press conference with Dominic Cummings started a half hour late, but it still hadn’t given him enough extra time to tuck in his shirt. The short version of it all is that he’s not apologising, he’s not resigning, and everyone should feel sorry for him. It’s really all the fault of the media for misunderstanding how wonderful, humane and tortured he is. It turns out that his slick and polished media manipulator explanation of the allegations that were made against him was to confirm with a massive dose of self-pity that he did in fact do exactly what everyone has said that he did. We’re so glad that he’s cleared that up for us all.

Watching Dominic Cummings give a press conference to explain his actions in breaking the lockdown regulations was the worst episode of Watch With Mother ever. He’d have done a whole lot better if he’d just strode into the Rose Garden, told the press to f*** off, that he didn’t care, and that everyone could just bugger off and stick their press releases up their collective a*** than to come out with this pathetic attempt at 'poor me feel, sorry for me' drivel. At least then he might have preserved his carefully honed reputation for being a master of manipulation. Instead he revealed himself to be a pathetic and shambling individual, trying to justify himself and failing badly. He showed himself to be incapable of taking personal responsibility, of perpetually seeing himself as the victim, everything was everyone else’s fault. It was all the classic hallmarks of a bully and a coward. It seems that the reason he’s so close to Boris Johnson is because they’re both creatures cut from the same cloth. If this is the most brilliant man in government, it really doesn’t say much for the rest of them.
What made it all the more surreal was that it was being played out to the accompaniment of some peculiar noise in the background which sounded very much like someone had decided that this was the ideal time to learn how to play the smallest violin in the world.

Dominic feels that he did nothing wrong, and if other people think that he broke the rules that’s not his fault because they’re obviously not able to interpret the rules properly like he can, what with his massive brain and everything. He thought that what he did was perfectly reasonable, which is why he’s spent the past two months trying to cover it up. His wife, who is an editor on the Tory house magazine, The Spectator, wrote about her family’s time with Covid-19, but strangely omitted to mention that they’d travelled to Durham where they could go for walks in Dom’s family’s woodland.

Martyr that he is, his first thought after his wife fell ill was to wonder if he could get back to work so he could save us all, what with his massive brain and everything. Although he somehow hadn’t noticed that it says in the regulations that if a member of your household falls ill with Covid-19 like symptoms that you should also go into self-isolation irrespective of how well you’re feeling. A significant proportion of people who become infected never show symptoms at all, yet are still infectious.

He did tell the Prime Minister, but apparently the two of them were so delirious at the time that neither of them can remember the conversation. And then he got into his car and drove 260 miles to Durham. Or something. No, I wasn’t really clear on any of that either, and I suspect that was entirely the point.
We also learned that the only reliable and proper way to check whether your eyesight is safe for you to drive is to get in the car, drive about for half an hour then get out of your car, walk about in the countryside for a bit, get back in your car and then drive home. That’s following the science. The corona virus test drive. It’s quite fitting in a strange way that telling everyone that you went for a drive to test your eyesight turns out to be such a car crash of a statement. Going for a drive to test your eyesight makes Prince Andrew’s claim that he doesn’t ever sweat seem pretty plausible by comparison.

Apparently driving 260 miles was the safest option. That’s because the vile and nasty press had made it unsafe for him to remain at his own home. It’s not his fault that he had to choose, nay, was compelled, to get in his car to drive all the way to Durham for childcare that he later told us he didn’t actually need. He was dealing with exceptional circumstances. Other people who had to deal with his exceptional circumstances got a telling off from the fuzz and a fine. And then he drove to Castle Barnard, and then he drove back to London again. And apparently he didn’t have to fill up with petrol at any point along the route. Can he please let us know the make and model of his car, because we’re all well impressed with the fuel efficiency.

This, by the way, is the statement that Boris Johnson told us all gave him full confidence that Dominic Cummings had behaved “responsibly, legally, and with integrity”. His wife had symptoms but he returned to work that afternoon. Then he took her and their child on a 260 mile trip to Durham without stopping anywhere for petrol. Because his eyesight was impaired he took another drive for 30 miles with his wife and son, quite coincidentally on her birthday, to test just how fit he was to drive, during which he went for a walk in the woods because his son who didn’t need a toilet break all the way from London to Durham needed one after a 30 mile jaunt. And this is the story that made the PM think he should stay? Seems that the real reason that the British Government changed its advice to stay alert was so we should watch out for drivers with impaired vision on the A1.

Back on the moor after lock-in.

The first day of enhanced freedom and we took advantage of this to head to Dartmoor to stretch our legs. The wide open spaces of the moor make maintaining an adequate social distance easy peasy. Quite a few people around so we weren't the only ones wanting to get our fix of the moor.

The route we took was a circular one starting at Nosworthy Bridge, at the top of Burrator Reservoir, out on the moor to Crazywell Pool and then back along the Devonport Leat. Lots of views and lots of interesting features. At just over, 4 1/2 miles, it was a good way of spending 3 hours (including stops!).

Up on the track looking back towards Burrator. Sheep's Tor is to the left and, in the far distance, is Kit Hill. And not a virus in sight.

Crazywell Cross is probably one of a number of crosses that marks the route of the Monks’ Path. This is the ancient name given to the track that links the Buckfast Abbey with those at Tavistock and Buckland. No-one is entirely sure which course the path took to the West of Nun’s Cross. However, considering the number of ancient crosses on this track it is perfectly feasible that it passed this way, via Walkhampton, to Tavistock and Buckland. It's also used as a rubbing post for cattle.

Crazywell Pool is surrounded by superstition. It was thought that it was bottomless and that the water level rose and fell with the tides at Plymouth. This was believed to have been confirmed when the parishioners of nearby Walkhampton brought up the bell ropes from the parish church to test its depth. They tied the ropes together, weighted the end and lowered them into the water, but were unable to reach the bottom of the pool.
Another superstition is that, during the middle-ages, the pool was haunted by the Witch of Sheepstor who used to give her clients a lot of bad advice. One such instance was Piers Galveston who was a favourite of Edward II. She advised him to return to the Court at Warwick where ‘his humbled head shall soon be high’. Taking her advice, he returned to Warwick and was promptly executed. There was, however, some truth in the prophecy in that his severed head was set up on the battlements of the castle.
Other superstitions include the waters calling out at dusk the name of the next Walkhampton parishioner to die. Also, that at midnight on Midsummer’s Eve you can see the face of the next parishioner to die in the still waters of the pool.
In reality the pool, perhaps dating back to Tudor times, was excavated by tinners and may well have been used by them as a reservoir.

The pool is also used by wild swimmers. It's cold and these few did not stay in that long. Faint hearts! Am I tempted? Not in a million years. But it is a great place to sit and contemplate the scenery.

Just up the hill from Crazywell Pool we come across the Devonport Leat. This was started in the 1790s to provide water for the ever expanding dockyard and town of Devonport. Apparently when it was being planned, approaches to Plymouth Town Council to share water from Drake's Leat were rebuffed. Devonport Leat takes its water from a number of sources and is generally accepted to be around 27 miles long. Overall, it has a gradient of 1% which is an incredible feat of surveying and engineering. But there's more to the gradient that a simple %. It was calculated so that the flow was not slow enough to cause silting and not fast enough to cause erosion of the banks. It really was clever stuff.

At several places along the leat were piles of obviously carved and shaped granite. Look closely and you'll be able to make out drill holes. What were they for? The leat was originally built as a trench and was later lined in places with blocks to prevent leakage. I think these blocks were destined to be used as liners but, for some reason, these were spares.

Every so often, the water is controlled by a sluice. And by each sluice is an overflow. In this case, the overflow channel is seen just to the left, in front of the sluice.

And what happens to the water so diverted? Perhaps to 'feed' a farm or homestead? In this particular case, |I think it was diverted into a 'gert' to wash topsoil off to give tinners easier access to the underlying tin-containing strata. What is a gert? It's a deep, open tin working that is considered larger than a gulley, they are sometimes also called 'guts'. The left and right boundary banks of the gert in the photograph are clearly visible.

 The Devonport Leat remains more or less level throughout its course except where it drops down Cramber Tor into the valley of the River Meavy. Known as the Devonport Leat Falls, or the Raddick Falls, the leat having descended the hill flows over a metal aqueduct known as 'Iron Bridge' and then turns towards Plymouth as a 'normal' leat. The metal aqueduct replaced the original wooden launder that took the leat over the river. Why, you may ask, was water in the leat taken from so far away when the Meavy was so handy? The answer is simple: the water of Drake's Leat was abstracted from the Meavy and the City Father's of Plymouth would have been less than pleased if their water had been purloined for those upstarts in Devonport.

Is there anything more calming than the sound of running water?

The ruins of Leathertor Farm. It was first mentioned in 1362 and last occupied in 1924. The last tenant sold out to the Plymouth City Water Works prior to the expansion of Burrator Reservoir. This was the common fate of several farms in the area because of the possibility of farm activities contaminating the water supply. The buildings are being allowed to decay naturally as the buildings are not unique enough to warrant active conservation.

Just down the track towards Leather Tor Bridge, we came across this man-made vooga (fougou) or potato cave. It would have been used for storing root crops, including potatoes and swedes - no doubt for their pasties! An alternative explanation is that it was a sort of tool shed. Nowadays it is blocked off in season to allow Horseshoe Bats to roost.

Leather Tor Bridge. Walkhampton Parish Council decided on 20th June 1833 to build a bridge over Riddipit Stream at this spot (this is the site of the Riddipit Steps stepping stones crossing place). At the next meeting the following month (25th July) it was resolved to accept a tender from George Worth and Wm. Mashford for £26.10s. The seven stepping stones of the old Riddipit Steps are still to be seen, four in situ and three displaced by floods. Alongside the steps is the even older, overgrown ford.  Apparently, this was the last clapper bridge to be built on Dartmoor. Some writers claim that this bridge is a lot older but the fact that clinches the date is the presence of drill marks on some of the slabs of granite. This technique did not come in until the early 1800s.

An infra-red image of Down Tor. Not sure that it adds anything special to it.

And an IR of Crazywell Pool.

British Common Sense - That's us screwed then.

We’ve finally got clarification on the British Government’s advice to the public. We’re all to use good old fashioned British Common Sense. Well that’s a relief. Only it opens up even more questions. Questions which you can be certain that Boris Johnson doesn’t have any answers for. After all, he doesn’t have any answers to anything much else, not even the question “So how many children do you have?” (Sorry, a cheap shot, I know but that's the mood I'm in today).

Sadly for all of us, common sense is very much like deodorant. Those who are most in need of it, never think to use it. The American thinker and political theorist Benjamin Franklin once said that common sense is something that everyone needs, that few possess and none think they lack. He was clearly having a premonition about Boris Johnson and the Conservative party. Albert Einstein said that common sense is the collection of prejudices that we have acquired upon reaching adulthood. He was obviously thinking about the Tories too.

There is the most obvious question, which is "does British Common Sense even exist?"  Because you’d imagine that if it did, then Boris Johnson would never have become Prime Minister in the first place. British political common sense would appear to have led the UK to making the very worst decisions since WW2, so if we are to rely upon British common sense, we’re all screwed. So very very screwed. Sadly, British Common Sense does little to protect us all from Boris Johnson’s lack thereof.

British Common Sense is indeed a deeply peculiar creature, one which people from other places scarcely recognise as common sense at all. As anyone who isn’t British would point out, British common sense is, well, so British. However as any old Etonian, or indeed anyone brought up with the English class system ingrained into them, understands deep down in their heart, British Common Sense is the belief that any moronic inanity magically becomes intelligent if it’s delivered in a posh accent. Step forward, BJ.

Is British Common Sense different from any other kind of common sense? Because a specifically British form of common sense sounds like a bit of a worry. British Common Sense as practised by the British tabloid media is the kind of common sense that tells the world “we won the war you know” and so is founded in the unshakeable belief that the normal rules don’t apply because we’re British. British Common Sense is the common sense that tells a British nationalist that they’re not a nationalist as they wave their union flag and sing God Save the Queen while looking down on lesser nations. It’s the British Common Sense that says that the UK will flourish outside the EU because everyone and their granny will be rushing toward the UK with offers of lucrative trade deals, what with British Common Sense telling the UK that it’s exceptional. May all the gods save us from British Common Sense.

British Common Sense would appear to be the form of common sense that was applied by all those people who were having VE Day street parties last week. British Common Sense was being practised by all those police and members of the public who crowded onto Westminster Bridge to clap for the NHS workers who’d be caring for them after they’d broken lockdown rules, crowded together, and got themselves infected with the virus. British Common Sense was being applied by all those people who were fighting in the aisles of supermarkets over toilet paper a few weeks back. It was only a short while ago that this very same British Government which is now enjoining us all to practise British Common Sense couldn’t trust the British public with knowing even the most basic information about the scientific advice that it claims to be following.

It’s wrong for a government to tell the public to use their common sense because what it really means is "you’ll have to work it out for yourselves, plebs", because the government hasn’t got a clue and can’t give you sensible advice that’s easy to understand and to follow. This is, remember, the very same government which contains Jacob Rees Mogg, who told us that the people who so tragically and terribly died in the Grenfell Tower fire after following official advice to stay put, were not using their common sense. Jacob has been very quiet of late. You’ll not have seen him presenting any government advice or information, and this is a government which is quite happy to stick Priti Patel, Michael Gove and Dominic Raab in front of a TV camera. That’s how low their bar is, and Jacob still can’t clear it. Does good old fashioned British Common Sense mean that we should act like an Etonian and march over to a hospital for a photo opportunity and insist on shaking hands with everyone? This government isn’t going to tell you.

It’s wrong to ask people to use their common sense when you’re dealing with people who voted for Boris Johnson in the first place. It was never common sense to believe in the lies of a habitual liar. But most of all, this is wrong because telling the public to employ British common sense is an abnegation of government responsibility. It’s up to you to intervene with your employer to ensure that it’s safe for you to return to work. It’s up to you to ask your employer to be reasonable if you can’t organise child care. It’s up to you to stay alert and avoid the virus. Not the government. You’re on your own with your British Common Sense. The government won’t take responsibility. Common sense dictates that, in an emergency, it is incumbent upon the powers that be to issue simple and clear guidelines which are easy to understand and easy to follow. That’s how we, as a society, get out of the emergency. The British Government is asking members of the public to use their common sense because it has no common sense of its own. My common sense tells me that we’d be far better off without this bunch of self-serving idiots endangering our lives. But, with no immediate prospect of any changes, let's hope that Keir Starmer can spearhead a more effective opposition and hold the government to account. I recognise that the pandemic is unprecedented and accept that the government is doing the best they can. But, unfortunately, their best isn't good enough. We were never going to be like South Korea but there is no reason why we could not have matched Germany.

A walk around Stoke Climsland Parish

Sunsat afternoon and it's out for our permitted exercise, all of 1 mile from home.

A walk starting and ending in Stoke Climsland. Just over 5 miles in the glorious countryside that is our Parish. We've done this one a couple of times previously and it never disappoints.

Rowden Lane, probably originally an old trackway but now is a bridleway and popular walking route from the village. The bluebells are just passed their best but they are still attractive.

Lichen encrusted headstone in the old graveyard at Downhouse Methodist Chapel.

The most elaborate memorial in the graveyard. The chapel has been long closed but there are still burials in the graveyard.

Looking south-ish towards Kit Hill with its iconic stack on top. In the foreground is a field recently sown with a crop, probably maize, and covered with permeable plastic, which acts as a cloche and aids germination. It doesn't look good but does get better when the crop gets going and breaks through the plastic to cover it in green.

Rotten rafters in an old barn. The last time we came this way there was a Barn Owl's nest here. Sadly, so sign of it today.

Horse Chestnut flowers. Look closely and you'll see that they are pink and yellow. Sweet/Spanish Chestnut flowers are pink.

Named after the month in which it blooms and a sign that spring is turning to summer. I give you the May or Hawthorn flower.

A Bluebell. An English Bluebell. Much better than the dreaded Spanish interloper.

Some rather fine looking cattle. Curious but friendly. Close up they are large animals and I can understand why some people are scared of them.

If only all dog owners would keep their pets under control but they don't. I'm beginning to think that the number of irresponsible dog owners is greater than those who are responsible.

Let joy be unbounded. It's not often we come across one of these. It's a granite trough with, and you'll never believe this, a Prewett and Sprong Mark III Overhead Ball Valve Dispenser. I kid you not. These are so rare, they have almost mythological status in the world of Ball Valve Spotters. Wow, to me at least. Whilst I enjoy paroxysms of pleasure, Mrs P sighs, rolls her eyes and walks quickly on her way, shaking her head.

Ah, that's better. Kit Hill towering over 'normal' fields without the plastic. It looks tranquil, and it is, but this belies the mining and quarrying activity that would have set the area buzzing 150 years or so ago. At least 4 mines and 2 quarries would have been obvious then, with a few more down in the valley bottom. If you know where to look, you just can't make out where we live.

Almost back to our starting point at the Old School. The church is closed, the bells are silent and the clock has been stopped.

And a shorter evening walk the next day. Along the river bank at Calstock and back to catch the setting sun above the viaduct.

Oh to see ourselves as others see us.

Yesterday we had the first Prime Minister’s Questions since Boris Johnson returned from his bout of illness. He returned to a quiet House of Commons, with empty benches as MPs observed social distancing measures. He must be wishing he was still in bed binge-watching Netflix and asking his girlfriend make him soup, because stripped of the baying backbenches of sycophantic Tory MPs, the blonde one was clueless and utterly outmatched by Labour’s new leader Keir Starmer. He kept turning around, looking for a catcall of encouragement from his posse, but his posse was viewing the scene remotely and unable to drown out Johnson’s opponents with a sound wall of derision. The bully was without his gang, and the immature and needy little boy who lurks just underneath Boris Johnson’s very thin skin was on full display. It was really interesting, and quite heartening, to see a diminished Boris Johnson performing in the Commons without his claque on the back benches.

PMQs was on the same day as the official death toll in the UK exceeded the 30,000 barrier and rose to 30,076. This is the number of those who have died and who had tested positive for the virus, but given the low rates of testing for the virus in the UK, many will have passed away without ever having been tested and will not be included in the official statistics. The true number of those who have died of Covid-19 in the UK is considerably higher than the number admitted to by the British Government. By Tuesday the Financial Times had put the estimate of those who have died from the virus in the UK at 53,800. See: https://www.ft.com/content/e32ddbf7-0826-4cf7-9a73-18611eb29c23

Of course, Boris Johnson didn’t bother to present the daily press briefing himself in order to tell the UK that his government’s negligence had allowed its own count of the death toll to exceed 30,000. Two gigs in one day are apparently too much for our part-time Prime Minister. He left delivering the bad news to Robert Jenrick. Yeah. I’d never heard of him either. He’s the Housing Secretary, and he’s precisely the kind of middle management nonentity who’s going to cop the blame for this whole disaster once the inevitable public enquiry gets underway, allowing the Boris Johnsons and Michael Goves of this world to skip away without consequences to their careers or their bank balances.

Johnson doesn’t want us to compare the UK with other countries around the world. This is not unrelated to the fact that the UK is performing so poorly. You can bet your last piece of PPE that if the UK was performing a lot better, then Boris Johnson would be the first to cite international comparisons. So instead let’s look at what other places are saying about the UK’s handling of this crisis. What you will look for in vain is anyone remarking how well the British Government is doing, how compassionate it is, how competent British ministers are.

Across the world, British exceptionalism is being held up as a dismal example of what not to do. The Guardian has compiled its own list of criticisms of the British Government in newspapers in other countries which are looking askance at the UK.  There is no shortage of examples.

An Australian commentator told the Sydney Morning Herald that the British Government had “handled the earliest stages negligently”, producing “a shambles of mixed messaging, poor organisation and a complacent attitude that what was happening in Italy wouldn’t happen here”. The paper reported that the UK is experiencing “the biggest failure in a generation”. See: https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/biggest-failure-in-a-generation-where-did-britain-go-wrong-20200428-p54o2d.html

The conservative Uruguayan daily El Observador tells its readers that the British Government is guilty of three crucial errors which have left the UK the worst affected state in Europe and the second worst affected in the world. The first is that Boris Johnson underestimated the seriousness of the epidemic in the early stages and failed to respond to it quickly. The second is that the British Government attempted to introduce a failed strategy – so-called herd immunity – and only introduced lockdown after the virus had been spreading in the population for over a month. Thirdly there have been issues with testing and the supply of equipment. See (in Spanish - use Google Translate): https://www.elobservador.com.uy/nota/coronavirus-3-errores-que-llevaron-a-reino-unido-a-convertirse-en-el-pais-de-europa-con-mas-muertos-por-coronavirus-y-el-segundo-del-mundo–20205621159

The Portuguese daily Jornal de Noticías agrees that the crucial error of the British Government was to pursue the herd immunity strategy.  However, it considers worse still the attitude of a British Government which was more concerned with its battles with the EU.  It says that even though the British Government officially denies that herd immunity was its policy, this was indeed the policy which the UK put into practice.  The venerable Portuguese newspaper describes this as “the error which put a country in the worst ranking for Covid-19”.  See (in Portuguese - Google translate again): https://www.jn.pt/mundo/o-erro-que-pos-um-pais-no-pior-dos-rankings-da-covid-19-12135387.html

Meanwhile Spain’s El Confidencial describes the UK’s response to the coronavirus epidemic as a “British black comedy of covid” which the paper blames on the Prime Minister failing to introduce restrictions until everyone else in Europe had already done so. See (in Spanish - hooray for Google translate): https://www.elconfidencial.com/mundo/europa/2020-05-06/boris-johnson-neil-ferguson-reino-unido_2582247/

In North America, the US digital publication The Intercept tells its readers that Boris Johnson’s lies are killing Britons. See: https://theintercept.com/2020/04/30/boris-johnsons-coronavirus-lies/ The UK is not the beacon that the rest of the world is looking to that Boris Johnson would have us believe it is.

It’s a pretty desperate state of affairs when you have to look at foreign media in order to find out just how shite your own government is. You’d almost imagine that the British media isn’t as great as it keeps telling us it is.  It has failed to hold the British Government to account, and failed to inform the British public of the true extent of Boris Johnson’s mishandling of this crisis. 

Arguably many lives have been lost due to the negligence of this British Government. It has failed to implement testing, tracing, and isolating and even now, at this late stage, the government is nowhere near meeting its targets for testing. It was slow to introduce lockdown measures and squandered the valuable lead that the UK had early on in the outbreak. It has failed to ensure that PPE is supplied to all those key workers who need it. It has politicised its scientific advice by including political appointees on its scientific panel and then compounded the error by refusing to reveal the “science” it claims to be following. The entirely predictable result is that the UK now has the highest death toll of anywhere in Europe, even when based upon the partial figures of the UK Government itself.

In trying to fend off criticism of the British Government’s appalling mishandling of this crisis, Yvonne Doyle, the Medical Director of Public Health England said at the briefing yesterday, “There are many different ways of looking at death.” And this is true. There’s looking at a dead body on a mortuary slab. There’s weeping as your loved one’s coffin is sent to a crematorium and you can’t attend due to lockdown. There’s dying alone and afraid in a care home because your family aren’t allowed to sit by your bedside.

We need an apology and government resignations. Not merely the resignations of minor ministers, we need the heads the British Government on a plate. Boris Johnson must go. Yes, he was unfortunate in suffering a severe reaction when he was infected and became seriously ill, but even before that he was missing in action. This is a Prime Minister who was far more interested in his complex personal life and in playing to the gallery of British exceptionalism than he was in doing his bloody job. The only thing that the British are exceptional for seems to be the amount of pity and sorrow that we elicit from other countries as they gaze in horror at the British black comedy of Covid.  Some pow’r has indeed gien us the gift to see ourselves as ithers see us But it's a pity that it comes from the foreign press and not the BBC.

Purdah Blog Part 4: Walking around Kelly Bray

The lock-down rubric says that you can drive to a walk as long as the walk is much longer than the drive to get there. Driving a mile to Kelly Bray to start a walk clearly falls within this and it was to Kelly Bray we went. An added advantage of starting there was that we could walk with a friend and, afterwards there was an opportunity to feast on Mrs G's famous cheese scones.

This was the route of one of our walks from Kelly Bray . It was around 3.5 miles and took us through woodland and along quiet country lanes.

A traditional Cornish hedge. A double faced wall with soil in the middle, into which trees are planted. In this case, the trees are beech. Makes for an interesting pattern.

An apple tree near the quarry on Kit Hill. I like to think that it came from an apple stump discarded by an old-time miner or quarry worker. Or perhaps not. Perhaps it came from an anti-social dog walker as he/she waited for their beast to finish defiling the path. Sorry, showing my prejudice here.

The stack at South Kit Hill mine, a tin mine dating from around 1850/1860. It wasn't particularly successful and closed because of a combination of poor yields and a messy legal action over allegations of fraud.

Red Valerian. Not a native plant as it was introduced from Mediterranean climes in the 1600s. It's a good source of nectar from May to October for bees, butterflies and moths.

We've got a pair of Coal Tits nesting in one of our walls. This is one of them on a fuchsia bush (thanks to Mick and Sandy for this).

Another shot of a Coal Tit. They move so quickly that it's quite difficult getting a decent photograph of them. They've obviously got a brood to feed and they are in and out of the nest every 5 or so minutes.

We've no chance of getting to a 'bluebell wood' so this stretch will have to do. Not bad, is it?

Red Campion. Very common but nonetheless attractive for that. A good source of nectar for insects with long tongues.

Looking across the fields at Whiteford towards Stoke Climsland church.

Wild Garlic or Ransomes. Bit of a Marmite plant. You either find the smell overpowering or you don't. I fall into the latter camp and quite like it.

A milestone giving the distance to Callington as 2 miles. I'm not sure what the '+' means. Perhaps St Mary's in Callington is the reference point? This milestone dates from the time when this was the old road from Callington to Launceston via Beales Mill bridge. When the Callington Turnpike Trust was established in 1785 this road was bypassed in favour of the route taken by present day A388 to Launceston via Wooda bridge and Treburley.

A mix of bluebells and Greater Stitchwort.

Doing a Hancock

This is getting to be a habit. This is the UK, where the British Government says something and it turns out to be a lie. On Friday the Health Minister Matt Hancock proudly announced that the British Government had met its target of 100,000 tests for Covid-19 per day. He announced that 122,347 tests had been done. Target met. Tick. Aren't we great? Except that you aren't.

Surprise, surprise. It quickly transpired that the British Government had done no such thing. What? The British Government, being deceptive and misleading I hear you say with gasped breath and shocked expressions? There have been 82,000 tests done, and a further 40,000 have been mailed out or sent to satellite centres but the samples have yet to be taken. These are tests which haven’t yet been used, and indeed might never actually be used. The real number of people tested, according to the BBC, is even less than 82,000. It was 73,191. That’s a long way short of 100,000 but in Toryland it counts as 122,347. Some people have had to be tested twice for clinical reasons, but most of the additional tests have not actually not been done, they’ve not been sent back to the lab, they’ve not produced any results. Most of them will not even have reached their intended recipients. They’ve just been mailed out. This is not an easy test to self-administer, and it’s likely that a proportion of the test kits sent out will not be administered correctly.

Just kick a ball in the general direction of the goalposts and you’re a winner. It’s called doing a Hancock. As with the PPE so with the testing. If you asked Matt Hancock if his real name was Matt Hancock he would deny it if he thought that the denial could benefit him politically and ingratiate him further with Boris Johnson. This is the man who, before Boris Johnson became leader of the Conservatives, told us that under no circumstances would he serve in a Johnson cabinet and said that he thought a no-deal Brexit was madness.

This month I got a notification from HMRC that my tax return is due. I'll do a Hancock. I'll just write them out a cheque but not send it. After all, in HancockLand, it’s the mere fact of writing the cheque that counts as paying your taxes. You don’t need to make sure it actually gets to HMRC. This could become established British government practice, judging by the standards they’re using to count their Covid-19 tests. What Matt Hancock is doing is a bit like claiming that you’re a millionaire because you’ve sent out 100,000 spam emails asking each recipient to send you a tenner. That’s how this works with this government, they’re spamming us.

It is an insult to our intelligence to spin the numbers of tests that have been done in order to make it appear that an arbitrary target has been met. But what’s even more insulting, is to fail to test, in the first place. That’s an insult to our health, our well-being, and our very lives. It’s insulting that the Government pissed about for weeks and failed to address the issue of testing. The UK is an international embarrassment. They’re taking us all to the top of the league table for deaths due to this virus, but then they probably think that makes us winners.

This is a government which shamelessly changes the criteria midway through in order to look at though it’s winning. They did the exact same trick with their announcement of the amount of PPE that they’d distributed. A hugely impressive large number was announced, and then it turned out that each glove had been counted individually, and items like paper tissues and cleaning products which aren’t usually considered to be PPE had been added to the totals in order to inflate them artificially and make this inept bunch of incompetents seem like they were doing some good.

But then the Conservatives have a long-standing problem with numbers. And, for that matter, with truth, transparency, and honesty. We had the promise of an extra 40,000 nurses who turned out not to be extra after all. We had the promise of 20,000 extra police who turned out not to be extra at all. And let’s not even get started on Priti Patel’s promise of three hundred thousand and thirty four nine hundred and seventy four thousand tests. But whether it’s tests completed, PPE delivered, or the total number of deaths, you must ‘be a patriot’, ‘get behind Boris’, remember that ‘we’re all in this together, cheer for Captain Tom, and clap for the NHS, but most importantly of all you must question nothing. The really surprising thing is that 54% of people in the UK still trust the British Government. But then you see the headlines in the news telling you that the UK Government has met its target, and the gushing stories about Boris’s baby, and you understand why.

The first instinct of this Conservative government, Pinocchio Johnson's government, is to lie and deceive. Rather than tell the truth and admit that, although it had made a great effort, and had come close to meeting a self-imposed target which was always pretty meaningless, the Conservatives felt the need to lie and cheat. It’s one thing for us to endure  a government which is halfway competent, honest, and transparent in the information that it gives to the public. It’s quite another when that government has a well deserved reputation for lying, cheating, and deception. All the more so when it’s lying to cover its arse because its incompetence and arrogance has caused the UK to become one of the worst affected countries in Europe.

Once this epidemic has run its course, we must hold the government to account for all aspects of their handling of the crisis. Let's not leave it to Pinocchio Johnson to set the terms for this.