LOOKING BACK IN ANGER - WHERE WE WERE A YEAR AGO AND WHERE WE ARE NOW

The latest figures from the ONS are at the end of this article. Please do have a look.

Here is the blogpost I published on 7 January 2021:

'THIS PRIME MINISTER LED US INTO THE WORLD OF HERD IMMUNITY - WE ARE NEARING 100,000 DEATHS

 The responsibility for our carnage lies primarily with the prime minister and his special advisor - Johnson and Cummings - who made the wrong decisions back in February last year. Their actions and inactions then are part of the sequence of neoliberal Tory misgovernment that followed. 

I have spent my lockdown charting this tragedy in Dying to Know and am now back on the familiar path of finding a literary agent/ publisher. My book is well worth reading. I am the historian by academic training and I have become a fledgling scientist and economist for the purposes of my pandemic tale.

I hope you find this BLOGPOST worthwhile. It would help my path to publication for my book 'Dying to Know' if you would press the Follow button at the top of the blog post (on a full screen) - 29 followers to date. Thank you. 

 

Here is the latest twist in this sordid story, courtesy of SKWAWKBOX today:

'Former Tory MP Matthew Parris appears on Sky to exonerate catastrophic PM - while MP Lucy Allan quietly deletes 'like' of tweet calling for abolition of NHS

'Operation Absolve Boris' has begun. The Conservative party, which can never quite disguise its contempt for the Labour-founded NHS, has sloughed off even more of the facade to start its campaign to water the idea in the public consciousness that the blame for Boris Johnson's appalling and frankly murderous handling of the pandemic crisis rests with the NHS, not the Bullingdon boy.

Johnson's 'battle' with the pandemic - with grateful acknowledgements to Martin Rowson, cartoonist at the Guardian

Former Tory MP Matthew Parris was on Sky News this morning (thanks, reader and Labour activist Val Colvin for the pointer) - and Parris not only suggested that the latest scandal of slow vaccine roll-out was the NHS's fault, he 'jumped the shark' and suggested that he

LOUISE DONOVAN AND HER TEXTILE ART EXHIBITION AT THE CRYPT GALLERY IN NOVEMBER 2021 - PART THREE

 In this final part of the three-part series, I want to focus on the pieces of textile art in the exhibition that were produced between December 2018 and January 2020 - Louise's creative work between the ending of her first exhibition at the Crypt (November 2018) and the arrival of the coronavirus (February 2020).

Press this link here for access to the first part in the series.

And press the link here for access to the second part.

Louise Donovan in Hora, Patmos - 2018 

 

There were seven works in the show that were completed in these thirteen months. Here they are, in no particular order: 

                                                          TRIBUTE TO MONDRIAN

 

One of the works in Louise's Crypt exhibition in 2018 was 'My Mondrian Moment'. Louise was first introduced to the work of Mondrian in a serious way back in 2010 when Louise made the long

LOUISE DONOVAN AND HER TEXTILE ART EXHIBITION AT THE CRYPT GALLERY IN NOVEMBER 2021 - PART TWO

In this second blogpost in the series, the focus is on 'Interconnections' - for Louise one of the most important pieces in the show. Press here for the link to the first blogpost, published last week.

'Interconnections' - Louise Donovan (2021)

And here is the guide (with some illustrative fleshing out!)

Interconnections

 

Silver grey – with fifteen face masks

With movement restricted and friends unseen, Zoom became an important part of my life at times. This has been a period to reflect on who and what is important in my life – and what better vehicle

STARMER ATTACKS JOHNSON FOR LYING - AT LAST - BUT OPEN TO SEE THE POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK

 Keir Starmer attacked Boris Johnson's honesty and trustworthiness in PMQs today, saying Johnson's pledges 'aren't worth the manifesto paper they're written on'.

Starmer was right: whether on the pensions triple lock, the test and trace disaster or anything else, 'Bozo' is a con artist.

I have spent many hours blog-posting on Boris Johnson and the horror-show he has orchestrated in the UK since he became PM. I have explored his inadequacies from so many different perspectives. The man is toxic and deserves to face charges for his malfeasance in public office. Here is a link to the page on my website which is well worth exploring:

http://www.robdonovan-author.co.uk/TheRoadToJustice.html

Such a brilliant cartoon insight

Tragically for the nation, so is Keir Starmer. He has trampled over democratic rights in order to remove the threat of socialism within the Labour Party. In much the same way as Johnson eliminated any threat from

A CORNISH COVER-UP - JUST DON'T MENTION THE VIRUS - WHAT HEALTH CRISIS?

 In May of this year, 2021, Cornwall had one of the lowest rates of Covid infection in the country, as it had done since Johnson and Cummings allowed the pandemic to strike with such deadly force in February and March of 2020. The infection rate in Cornwall on the 6 June 2021 was 2.8 per 100,000 people.

But the Man in No.10 had thought of a bright wheeze. 

"We are hosting the G7 summit this year - let's run the show in Cornwall, right down at the bottom where it will be more difficult for the demonstrators to get to and where it will be easier to control them. Yes, that Carbis Bay Hotel will be an ideal site - marvellous photo opportunities for Carrie and yours truly!"

And so it came to pass. 

Between the 11-13 June, the G7 weekend arrived with world leaders accompanied by around 20,000 officials flocking to Carbis Bay, near St Ives. 

Plus some 5,000 police officers from across the country. 

Even before the event, during the build-up, Cornwall's infection rate had risen to 81.7 per 100,00, compared to the UK average at the time of 77.4 per 100,00.

By the time the G7 was over and they had all gone home, the Covid rates of infection were now up 5,000 per cent compared to the weekend before the G7 show. Since all this infection was happening in our own backyard, so to speak, I do remember thinking 'Why on earth did you not do this show on Zoom?!?' The rate of infection in St Ives now stood at 905.7 per 100,000 people, compared to the UK average of 93.7 per 100,00. 

The leaders and their immediate circle 

The graphs showing this surge in infection had made their way into parts of the media. I published a blogpost about the awfulness of it all. But what is so remarkable is the

SKWAWKBOX CELEBRATES - SO DO I

 ANNOUNCEMENT

COMMENT

If you really want to annoy the likes of John Mann, watch and share this video

Steve Walker - the founder of Skwawkbox

27/11/2021

on If you really want to annoy the likes of John Mann, watch and share this video

As Skwawkbox has written, an attempted attack on Skwawkbox and The Canary collapsed in chaos this week when an ‘academic’ report paid for by Mann that tried to those two publications with the extreme right – along with yet more supposed ‘evidence’ submitted by its authors – was rejected in full by IMPRESS, the UK’s independent and only Leveson-compliant press regulator.

The right and the Establishment would love to see the demise of new left media, so seeing them thrive will be the best revenge. If you’d like to annoy those who want to end the left, please watch and share this short video:

The links for those who wish to support and are able to do so without hardship are:

• GoCardless
• PayPal

Skwawkbox thanks its readers for your continued solidarity and support.

Louise Donovan and her textile art exhibition at the Crypt Gallery in St Ives - November 2021 - Part One

 Louise's exhibition was called 'A Textile Art Journey Through The Pandemic And Interconnections'. It ran from Saturday 13th to Friday 19th November this year. There were 147 attendees and 22 comments were left in the visitors book. Here's a flavour of those opinions: 

"A very strong show."

"I love the use of colour in these pieces. They work together so well."

"I love the shapes, the colours, and the sentiments attached to the pandemic project."

"What extraordinary work! Beautifully displayed." 

"Thank you for sharing the beauty of your work. The meditative quality and the challenging thinking is inspirational."

And here is the artist herself:

Louise Donovan - April 2021

The pandemic series of nine pieces was begun in March 2020 and completed in the summer of 2021. Here they are with their story:

My Pandemic Journey - 1

About This Quilt

My Pandemic Journey 1 - by Louise Donovan.

Silver-grey and red – plain black quilting thread – triangular, spikey designs in the quilting. The silver-grey represents normality and calmness – but within this calm the warning signs in red appear – the red squares