Coronavirus takes a hero:
Adkins is credited with killing 135 to 175 Vietnamese in a nearly four-day battle while being wounded 18 times and helping fellow soldiers to safety. For those acts, former President Barack Obama presented Adkins with the Medal of Honor in 2014.
"I have to be honest, in a battle and daring escape that lasted four days, Bennie performed so many acts of bravery we actually don't have time to talk about all of them," Obama said during the ceremony.
In the last 24 hours, 63 more coronavirus-related deaths among the Smurfs were recorded.
Among the latest fatalities were national hero Shooter Smurf and ceramic cereal bowl artist Bunnykins Smurf.
The Smurfs' coronavirus death toll now stands at 104.
Papa Smurf has imposed a village-wide lockdown, which prompted angry protests by Dickless Smurf and Columbine Smurf, who smurfed guns while defying the lockdown. Papa Smurf later tweeted that he supported the protests, igniting renewed speculation that he is dumb and his subjects are dumber.
Quote: Kenneth @ 18th April 2020, 4:20 PMIn the last 24 hours, 63 more coronavirus-related deaths among the Smurfs were recorded.
Among the latest fatalities were national hero Shooter Smurf and ceramic cereal bowl artist Bunnykins Smurf.
The Smurfs' coronavirus death toll now stands at 104.
Papa Smurf has imposed a village-wide lockdown, which prompted angry protests by Dickless Smurf and Columbine Smurf, who smurfed guns while defying the lockdown. Papa Smurf later tweeted that he supported the protests, igniting renewed speculation that he is dumb and his subjects are dumber.
Bunnykins Smurf. I had her. Lovely memories. It was my first time doing it in a water fountain. On Powis and Jenrick. Yeah. OK enough. As my old Nan used to say following an average edition of Morecambe and Wise and we agreed - "oh but didn't they all do their turns lovely". And yes they did. All two of them - but then again we really, really liked them.
Ministers and health experts are still not getting questions on sex at these events. All I saw was a newspaper thing which said the exchange of bodily fluids was safe so long as it wasn't saliva but no one acknowledged that with a two or four metre rule the distinctions were irrelevant. Mind you, it doesn't affect me. But I would have been interested to hear if the figures in lock down on Peeping Tom voyeurism were increasing and also on irrational narcissistic activity like sticking your willy through your own letterbox and mooning in anticipation of the great British lunar moon on the longest day.
According to reports this morning, British schools will shortly reopen and in most of them many hundreds of youngsters will be milling around within inches of each other for several hours every day of what used to be the working week.
The worst-case scenario is that every day, countless youngsters across Britain will become new hosts for the coronavirus and will transport it from the school back to their homes and their parents who will in turn transport it to everybody else they meet as they frequent our newly opened shops, pubs and restaurants.
Sticking with the worst-case scenario, people are going to be dropping like flies while the over 70s, safely ensconced in their own homes under lockdown (for at least a year, according to predictions) will look through the windows of their lonely living rooms to see younger souls dropping dead in the street in front of their houses.
Of course, that really is a worst-case scenario but it's not entirely devoid of truth.
The reopening of schools is, as far as the virus is concerned, the reopening of the floodgates.
As I write these words, I can hear trillions of little coronavirus organisms giggling gleefully and singing, "I believe that children are our future".
They're not wrong.
Since the introduction of compulsory lockdown in Britain, a great many people are finding themselves at a loose end - with nowhere to go and nothing to do.
My personal solution is Netflix but a great many other people are apparently turning to drugs and alcohol.
Drinking more alcohol means spending more money on alcohol (obviously) but when it comes to drugs, the situation is rather more complicated.
Not only does consuming more drugs mean spending more money on drugs but wily dealers are increasing the supply in line with increasing demand.
According to reports, the street price of cocaine in the UK has tripled since the introduction of the lockdown.
It shouldn't be allowed!
Oh, wait - it isn't. But you know what I mean.
I'm consuming more tea and biscuits than any other time in my life
Drugs? Pah!
In Manchester yesterday, two people were charged after a police officer was assaulted while breaking up a party that was in contravention of the Coronavirus Act 2020.
After asking those who didn't live at the property to leave, a policewoman was kicked and bitten on the hand.
Now, I wasn't at this particular party but I don't think many people in the world have ever been bitten on the hand by another person unless that hand was already in the vicinity of the biter's mouth and regarded by the biter as an unwelcome intrusion into their personal space.
It seems likely to me that the policewoman did a little more than "ask" people to leave.
In the last 24 hours, the UK coronavirus death toll has increased by 596 to 16,060.
That's the official hospital toll and so it's thought the actual total is around 20,000 dead.
It's also thought that doctors are being encouraged to airbrush coronavirus off the death certificates of many people who die in care homes so, in reality, God alone knows how many are dead after contracting the virus.
It makes me laugh how this government are so nicey nicey about the nhs and nurses during all this - lets give them all a clap
When austerity begins again - the nurses wont get a pay rise for 10 years and will go back to being treated like crap as per the norm
I know what you mean lofthouse but I would expect a growing shortage of qualified nurses and a rising demand, so the worm may turn.
I think this corona virus started on mums.net as a scheme to get teenagers to wash their hands, and now it got out of control. I blame mums.
Ooh, it's the chronically overrated Gavin Williamson.
I saw him in one of my previous lives. He was "Prime Minister in waiting" John Moore.
Moore marked an A Level essay of mine and told me why I had come a good third.
(Cheers, mate)
But when I was Prime Minister myself, luckily he wasn't a media leaking sneak plotting behind my back.
Mind you, he was using a different name then and I was calling myself Theresa May.
(So Jenny, so, so you're so fine, so, so, so, you're so fine, so, so, so, so, you blow my mind, so hey Jenny, so, so Jenny)
Quote: Rood Eye @ 19th April 2020, 2:15 PMNow, I wasn't at this particular party but I don't think many people in the world have ever been bitten on the hand by another person unless that hand was already in the vicinity of the biter's mouth and regarded by the biter as an unwelcome intrusion into their personal space.
During my shortlived career as a babysitter to the spoiled brats of wealthy potentates, I was occasionally bitten on the hand without first shoving it at the kid's mouth.
The people I most respect - and envy because I would like to have done what they do - are these people.
Good luck Chris and my favourite woman in Britain for the last several years, the wonderful Ruth : hope you are able to move on again soon.
Houston. We have a problem. I have just realised that those of us who need much more proof that this is a virus along the lines outlined and probably will never ever get it have already said goodbye to freedom of movement and future health support. This is to say that if both in 18 months time will be dependent on having a vaccine and we don't have the vaccine because the evidence remains too flimsy then we are effectively going to die early in permanent miserable lock down.
I made a decision today. I am preparing to accept the latter option - ie death - on the basis that I don't want to live in a society which requires vaccination without sufficient proof that it is needed. I don't deny there is an element to this which is virus. I am not especially an anti vaxxer in principle either. But the more I have read, the more I have become convinced that it is all a bit King Canute with a few people ready to make millions at the risk of smashing our country and many others to smithereens. I feel they already have done and it is not MPs' fault. They look like well meaning patsys to me.
For anyone who doubts me, and that's fine - I am sure nearly all of you are lovely people - get this. Sweden is now claiming that it thinks it is close to herd immunity and in its view herd immunity makes everything pretty normal again. Scientists on the same day are saying that having had whatever it is once is probably no guarantee of immunity, we will be living with this thing for years and possibly decades and may just have to get used to it like flu. If that is not enough to convince you, the Belgians - I mean frankly, what have the Belgians ever done for us - think that the cure is to be found in the bodies of llamas. Yeah right. About as plausible as being clubbed to death by a 5G mast. Bring on the jellyfish.
It's all so mad and dangerous and bogus I am still convinced that most who are sadly dropping dead are doing so from some reaction in the body to stress, mass hysteria and probably societal schizophrenia, not that I have anything against schizophrenics. I run close that way myself while not being one. Then I think that good process because it is in overdrive is getting mixed up somehow with toxins that are already in the body and sending people's bodies to a toxic death.
In the last 23 hours, the Smurf coronavirus-related death toll has increased by 482 to 589.
That's the official toll from Poodle Smurf and so it's thought the actual total is around 10,000 dead.
Papa Smurf, continuing to try to deflect attention from his early mishandling of the pandemic, is now claiming that Gargamel smurfed the virus in his lab in an effort to exterminate the Smurfs. Gargamel, who was recently sentenced to 20 years in jail for sex crimes, says he was only trying to make a magic potion to enable him to hold out against Roman invaders.