When it comes to the pandemic I like many others feel that the Government got a lot of things wrong and a lot of things right. Overall if I was grading their performance it would probably be a B-.
But what we need at the moment is some national unity and some kindness. Fluttering through my letterbox this morning came a leaflet for the local elections on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. Rather than make me vote for that particular party, this leaflet has had the opposite effect, ensuring that I don't vote for them.
It's an ill-thought out leaflet that does nothing but attack with emotive and unnecessary language. Here are just a few examples.
"It's time for Norfolk to rise up" - this is a headline. Admittedly the text below talks about our county being underfunded with lack of support but that heading is incendiary at a time that we are suffering riots in Bristol that could move to other parts of the country. The suggestion with that headline is that local people should rise up and fight. In fact it's not just a headline but also the name of the Lib Dems' campaign and they even have a website with that name.
The other side of the leaflet has another nonsensical comment "The truth comes back to bite you." What on earth does this mean? What is the truth referred to and why will it come back to bite us?
On the inside we have the same old and now to be expected attack on the party in power: "You deserve so much better than the Conservatives." Another comment that has absolutely no meaning.
I'm afraid this leaflet has gone straight in the bin where it will probably be joined very shortly by one from the Labour party attacking everything and one from the Conservative party telling us everything they have done and achieved over the past five years. I take it all with a rather large pinch of salt.
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Talking of appalling journalism. I commented a few days ago about a newspaper entitled The Truth which denied that COVID exists and that the pandemic is all an elaborate plot to undermine everything and control us.
I wonder then how they explain last night's television documentary about presenter Kate Garraway's husband Derek who has been fighting COVID for the past year and who is still in hospital and likely to be for some time.
It was a loving portrait of a tightly-knit family with plenty of joy mixed in with the sadness. I was captivated by it and Kate's obvious honesty in wanting to tell her story.
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For some reason I get news feeds popping up on my laptop. I must have subscribed to these somehow. One yesterday intrigued me. I was told: "Zara Tindall Gives birth To A Baby." I felt a sense of relief at that. Had she given birth to a horse, zebra or giraffe I would have been a touch concerned.
I may have mentioned before that I am a trustee of the Norfolk Family History Society. We have been looking at ways of increasing our membership. Our current numbers are very healthy at just under 4,000 from all over the world, but we are still keen to reach out to more people with Norfolk backgrounds.
One of the things we have wanted to get into are talks via social media and it will be very interesting to see how these go. I think even after lockdown these kind of talks will continue. We have members living all over the world and this gives them the chance to feel more of a part of the society.
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I am continuing to enjoy putting slide presentations on my You Tube channel and the number of views is going up (albeit slowly). Yesterday I spent some time taking photographs of the outside of St Remigius Church and just a few are below. If you want to see them all pop along to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04zUlA7BOcs
Finally today a picture of what is now Kett's Kabin charity store when it was Hethersett DIY. I remember this shop well. It was one of those places like Thorns in Norwich where you could get virtually anything. Hope this picture from the Hethersett archives brings back a few memories