Wu Flu Update:

Several countries and states across the Australia and U.S. have eased COVID-19 restrictions in recent weeks and life has seemingly returned to normal in many places – but neither federal government has signalled that it isn't prepared to declare an end to the pandemic.

Well, you can’t be too careful: Ian Macfarlane and David Corrigan are prepared for anything, as they showed on a Vocational Visit to Epworth Hospital a few years ago. Who knows? They look ready to scuttle back to the Isolation Room.

“Play it again, Sam”

Your Editor loves mis-quotes, and this one is among his favourites, up there with 

“Water water everywhere, but not a drop to drink”, and “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”. 

“Water, water, every where/Nor any drop to drink” was coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. 

William Congreve originally wrote, "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned/Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."

We’re sure you all have your own favourite mis-quotes.

item 20 in Jane Drury’s wordplay caught my eye:

“20. I'm trying to organize a hide-and-seek tournament, but good players are really hard to find.”

It reminded me of a body found under the stair of an ancient house that was demolished in Dublin. The Coroner found it to be the missing Irish hide-and-seek champion. 

The outcome of closing down lunatic asylums

A recent article in a UK’s Metro News about a woman who stripped naked on a train featured a photograph of the perpetrator who looked suspiciously like a man. 

Trisha Clifton also shouted ‘kill all the Muslims’ while gesturing as if she was holding a firearm, a court heard.

The 49-year-old launched her tirade of abuse on April 1 when an inspector asked to see her ticket.

She began undressing and told train staff ‘don’t make me get my two handguns out’.

What were readers to do? Should they believe what they were reading? Or should they believe what they were seeing?

The Trans Journalists Association has produced a style guide to help media outlets provide ‘more accurate, sensitive coverage’ of trans issues. They are insisting (or trying to) that news reporting becomes more and more removed from reality.

ISLAMABAD — Burqa Ban

The Taliban announced Saturday that an all-covering head-to-toe burqa will be mandatory in public for women in Afghanistan, the latest in a set of curbs the Islamist group has imposed on women’s rights in nine months since returning to power.

Photo:  Miss Afghanistan with her two rather ugly sisters. 

The war on cars

Like all the worst ideas in British politics today, this one hails from Scotland. Stefanie O’Gorman, who sits on the Scottish government’s Climate Emergency Response Group, said last month that the construction of houses with double garages drove her ‘bonkers’. She told the Edinburgh Science Festival that owning two cars ignores ‘the social and cultural changes taking place as we adapt our lives to live more sustainably… we can’t afford for everybody to have two cars’.

Officials within the European Union are now being drafted into environment-focused “mindfulness” courses to help alleviate their climate crazy anxieties. It was noted that participants often experienced strong emotions such as deep sadness, frustration, guilt and lack of hope when being told certain pieces of information in relation to climate change, and that the “Inner Green Deal” courses have helped them better “regulate” those feelings.

Grandad Mark Gilbert shared an image containing the flag of the patron saint of England in celebration of St. George’s Day. Instagram tagged it in violation of their policy against “violence or dangerous organizations.”  

Gilbert plans to appeal. 

A Canadian space law amendment allowing for the prosecution of crimes committed on the Moon passed Canada’s House of Commons at the end of April, Euronews reported on Thursday. The legislation would extend Canada’s criminal jurisdiction into outer space.

A British university has reportedly instructed students studying to become midwives on how to deliver babies from “birthing persons” with a penis. A “skills workbook” produced by Edinburgh’s Napier University has drawn criticism after it was revealed that it had initially instructed midwifery students on how to assist biological males in giving birth.

The teaching resource, which were obtained from students by the feminist website Reduxx, stated: “It is important to note that while most times the birthing person will have female genitalia, you may be caring for a pregnant or birthing person who is transitioning from male to female and may still have external male genitalia.”

The manual went on to instruct the midwifery students that they should be familiar with how to use catheters for “both female and male anatomy”. It added that because, they claimed, both men and women can give birth, it would be referring to those in labour as a “birthing person”.

The Priti Patel-led Home Office, which has broad responsibility for policing, national security, and border control in the Boris Johnson administration, is said to have announced it will be sending 1,500 migrants to Linton-on-Ouse in Yorkshire, which has a population of only around 700, without any prior consultation with residents, parish councils, or even the District Council.

What Britons really think about the afterlife

 Sponsored by a company that sells ghost hunting gear, so there may be a vested interest here. A survey of more than 1000 people in the UK found that 50% believe in an afterlife, and of those who do, 60% believe we all experience the same thing after death. Of those who believe in heaven or hell, 55% believe they’ll go to heaven, but 58% still worry about going to hell (and yes, assuming you don’t have conflicted people knowing they’ll go to heaven but are not really sure, that does make 113%). In any case, 40% believe they’ve seen a ghost, and 33% have actively attempted to contact the dead. Comfortingly, 40% believe they’ll be reunited with their pet after death.

Happy Mother’s Day

MORRISTOWN, TN—As an expression of love, devotion, and infinite gratitude, local husband Jerbis Dorvney waited until after midnight on Mother's Day to ask his wife to change their kid's stinky diaper.

"My wife has done so much for me and the children," said Dorvney, hopping into bed at 12:01 AM while his wife took the malodorous toddler into the nursery to change the now-leaky diaper. "I couldn't think of a better gift than giving her a day free from dirty diapers while she prepared a Mother's Day meal for all of us."

TTFN