by Lisa MoonCat Stormler

The 4th Industrial Revolution
will not be televised.
It will be archived.
Brought to life in a montage of snapshots
and 3 second videos.
We are suddenly aware of our numbers.
Aware of our unsustainable needs.
Nature dies off before it expands.
Growth is as inevitable as death.
Exponential increase eventually trips
and falls off a cliff.
Hard work gratifies with quality,
when quantity is no longer the goal.

by Greum M. Stevenson

As discussed here previously, Scottish mainstream media made no mention of Craig Murray’s being removed by police from the High Court in Edinburgh during Alex Salmond’s trial. Since then, Murray has published a J'accuse that, in forensic detail, makes a compelling case that there is a conspiracy against Salmond.

And apparently not just Salmond.

Paul Hutcheon, political editor at the Daily Record, has investigated Murray’s home and his personal finances and published a misleading article, without addressing any of his concerns. The paper also published a photo of Murray’s home.

In his article in response, Murray writes:

The key point is not one mainstream media journalist has even attempted to refute the facts of my article J’accuse. It is packed with facts. Might not the political editor of the Daily Record better spend his time researching the conspiracy against Alex Salmond, rather than threatening an independent journalist for the crime of doing journalism? ...What I am now waiting for is all these people to step in and condemn the publishing of my home and the subsequent risk to the security of my wife and family, with as much vigour as they today defended the privacy of the Edinburgh third house of the Head of MI6.

Also posted on Notes from the Northern Colony

Ho, the Quartermaster’s $hoppe is open. We fooled you and opened a day before April 1st!

Have you noticed the shopping cart sign at the top of the page? Maybe you’ve even clicked on it. If you did, nothing happened. But something will be happening soon — our online bookshop, selling DRM-free ebooks in every e-reader format, will be open on April 1. No fooling.

by Greum M. Stevenson

It didn’t take the jury long to decide whether Alex Salmond was guilty of rape, attempted rape, and the other sex crimes he was on trial for at Edinburgh High Court. Deliberations began last Friday, and on Monday Salmond was acquitted of all 13 charges.

Since then, there has been talk of a conspiracy against Salmond. But, in all the news reports and opinion pieces, one thing has been glaringly absent: any mention of Craig Murray, and his being removed from the courtroom the day before the trial ended.

Murray is a former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, turned whistleblower and columnist. He is also a friend of Alex Salmond’s. While Murray is a fine journalist, he tends to embarrass himself when writing in defence of his friends. He covered Julian Assange’s recent extradition hearing, and his portrait of Assange was such cringe-inducing hagiography that anyone who had read Andrew O'Hagan's reporting on Assange’s incompetence, grandiosity and dishonesty would be inclined to question anything else Murray wrote.

It got worse when Murray wrote about Salmond’s trial. In his fervour to praise Salmond’s record as First Minister, and trash Nicola Sturgeon’s, he praised Huawei, and, without offering evidence, cast doubt on Russia’s poisoning a former spy and his daughter in the UK.

But he wrote respectfully about the judge, Lady Dorrian, and had to admit his friend was getting a fair trial.

And then, the day before the trial ended, police removed Murray from the courtroom and told him he was banned for the duration of the trial. The prosecution had asked the judge to remove him because of a “possible contempt of court.” No further explanation was given.

Murray wrote:

To be excluded from a public trial on the basis of something I have “possibly” done, when nobody will even specify what it is I have “possibly” done, seems to me a very strange proceeding. I can only assume that it is something I have written on this blog as there has been no incident or disturbance of any kind inside the courtroom. But if the judge is genuinely concerned that something I have written is so wrong as to necessitate my exclusion, you would expect there would be a real desire for the court to ask me to amend or remove that wrong thing. But as nobody will even tell me what that wrong thing might “possibly” be, it seems only reasonable to conclude that they are not genuinely concerned, in a legal sense, about something I have written.

It was clear from the start that someone wanted to keep Murray out of the courtroom. First, it was announced that only “accredited media” (i.e. corporate and state media) would be allowed in — no independent or “citizen” journalists. Even though Murray’s blog has a bigger readership than some newspapers, and he has been praised by such journalists as John Pilger and Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, this criteria excluded him. When the prosecution had finished making its case and it was time for the defence to begin, the public gallery was opened, and Murray sat there.

Until the police came for him.

Sources say Murray was so depressed by his banning — and the threat of a charge of contempt of court, which can get you two years in prison — that, during the weekend Salmond spent waiting to find out his fate, he was so worried about Murray that he called him to see if he was all right.

When the verdicts came in, Murray was so happy he got too drunk to write about it in any depth. So… not an impartial reporter, and not pretending to be. But, whether you think he’s a truth-teller, a friend blinded by loyalty, or a conspiracy theorist, why has there been nothing about his banning in any mainstream media? Both The Herald and The National have given copious space to theories that there was an SNP conspiracy against Salmond, but Murray’s existence hasn’t been acknowledged.

It’s enough to make you wonder if there’s a conspiracy.


Also posted on Notes from the Northern Colony.

by Johnny Shaw

“Motherfucker coughed.”
“Which motherfucker?”
“That motherfucker right there.”
“He cover his mouth?”
“What do you think?”
“Motherfucker.”
“Does he look Chinese to you?”
“Are there blond Chinese?”
“He coughed though.”
“What should we do about it?”
“We should be heroes.”

“Did you get any on you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m clean.”
“Me, too.”
“That was messier than I thought it would be.”
“Yeah.”
“A stuck pig.”
“Was that the right thing to do?”
“You sure you didn’t get nothing on you. It was messy.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Don’t matter. Clean up.”
“But.”
“Remember to wash your hands for twenty seconds.”
“I don’t think I got nothing on me.”
“Twenty seconds. Flirting With Disaster until ‘I choose my destiny’.”
“I know the song.”
“Just wash them. Better safe than sorry.”
“Okay.”
“Twenty seconds. Molly Hatchet.”
“I know.”

“I need to clear my throat.”
“The fuck do I care?”
“It’s going to sound like a cough.”
“You don’t think I can tell the difference?”
“I don’t know if you can. Better safe than sorry, right?”
“Right. Why do you need to clear your throat?”
“I just do.”
“You getting sick?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t feel sick.”
“I don’t like it. Sounds fishy to me.”
“Fishy? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Nothing. Don’t clear your throat until I’m in the next room.”

“Should we do a jigsaw puzzle?”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“Yeah? About what?”
“How we decided to ride this out together.”
“What about it?”
“It was a mistake.”
“But we bought all that beer.”
“That wasn’t a mistake.”
“We got all the TP before anyone else.”
“Essential, man. I need a thorough wipe.”
“We bought nineteen pounds of cheddar for nachos.”
“Obviously.”
“Then what was the mistake?”
“Not doing this alone.”
“What do you mean?”
“There ain’t enough for both of us.”
“Nineteen pounds is a lot of cheddar.”
“Yeah, but nineteen is better than nine and a half.”
“You know I suck at math.”
“Hey, what’s that over there?”
“Over wh—?”

As so many people are self-isolating, and are consequently short of cash, all Dockyard Press e-books will be free for a month. You can get them anywhere but Amazon, because seriously—and especially now that they’re running warehouse staff ragged without any meaningful additional support while we’re in the throes of a pandemic—the hell with Amazon. All of Barry Graham's  books, all of Bart Lessard's, and the latest from Tony Black, Icy Thug Nutz, and daishin stephenson. The entire list is here.

by Mickey Batts

I write this in Split, where I do not live. I’ve been here since the start of January and due to border closures I will stay well past the date I meant to leave. The Croatians will forgive this, given that the outside world has caught a bug. As of Thursday morning all nonessential businesses were closed. The only places open are grocery stores, bakery counters, pharmacies, and doctor’s offices. I won’t be seeing a cafe or a bar for a month at least.

One place that has remained open, and daily, is the fish market. I have never gone inside. The smell is, to my expat nose, strong, but everything for sale is fresh caught and put on ice. Also, aside from tuna I can’t cook fish worth a damn. Shrimp, though—shrimp I can manage. Garlic, olive oil, a dash of Old Bay, a jot of mustard, a baguette—one can do no wrong. Soon I may brave the stink: it is a pleasant place. The Croatians are only happy to be there. They greet each other, they laugh, they tell jokes, even through a paper mask and a pandemic.

Wintering in a milder climate like this is nice but was never my ambition. Glasgow and Scotland are what I call home—though the Home Office in the UK would disagree—and home is where I would rather be. Twice now, visa limbo has forced me out of Scotland. A stay in Croatia, among other places, was how I made the best of that pisspoor turn. Resources and flexibility like mine are rare. I could never gripe or gloat about that, nor the comforts here, the Croatian welcome.

A friend of mine has been forced to leave Scotland, too. But hers is another rabbit hole, and that one led back to the United States, where both of us were born. Her husband is editor-in chief at Dockyard Press, and marriage to a UK citizen is, in premise, a clear-cut chase. By the rules a spousal application can only be made abroad—whence you come—and it takes time. The US is a bad place for such a wait—far, far worse than where I find myself—and it would have been even before the illness struck.

Croatia was only a lucky choice. Here SARS-CoV-2 is not rampant. Present cases number 113, and 47 of those are in Zagreb, inland and far north. The number cured (5) beats the number dead, at the time of this writing a big beautiful zero. The European outbreak started in Italy, right across the Adriatic. There 33,190 people have caught the virus, 3,450 have died, and 4,440 have recovered. The Italian site lists the dead before the cured, unlike the site for Croatia. This might say something about the prospects, but not about the quality of the Italian response.

It gets luckier. The first cases sprang up in Lombardy and Veneto, and these were promptly closed. I avoid air travel, so bus, train, and ferry were what brought me to Croatia. Guess which way I came? While I bummed without cares in Turin, Milan, Venice, and Murano—sampling the cuisine, climbing the Duomo, drinking too much—the bug rose up in China. Soon people were dead. Less than a month after I had gone, the bug had made the long flight and the same rounds.

The sweep in Italy helped stem the spread elsewhere, particularly here in Croatia. I simply outran it—never knowing it was on the heel—and only just. The response here has been no less mindful, no less kind.

Scotland has that kindness, that capacity for reason, which is a good part of why I love it so. The United States does not. Neither does the class that holds power in the UK, a cadre of braggarts that drowns out the national conversation and sees all the turf as English.

American and English rule have a lot in common. Wane of empire; the rump-state mindset; fear, geopolitically speaking, of a shrinking dick—better commentators have gone there already. No less similar is the response to COVID-19; that is, criminally negligent on either part, though worse across the Atlantic. My friend’s dispatches evenly divide the picture between hoarders and truthers. Neither point of view is any less sick. Here in Croatia there has never been a crush for groceries, an empty shelf. There have been no fistfights at the pump or in the aisle at the megastore. Nor is there any downplay of the problem, much less a pundit’s denial that it exists at all, save as a fiction to make a spray-on president look dumb.

In the US, make-believe prevails. Fact cannot beat opinion, and the political culture is sectarian. It was why I left in 2016 and why, despite visa troubles, I am glad that I did. We have begun to hear stunning stories—stunning foremost in their inability to surprise. ProPublica and other sites will spell it all out, but I can touch on three.

Richard Burr represents the people of North Carolina, Kelly Loeffler those of Georgia; Burr is also chair of the Senate intelligence committee. From all appearances, these two senators used inside knowledge not to protect constituents but to dump stock and warn rich friends of the pandemic. A week earlier, news had come that a bloc led by Mitch McConnell tried to veto emergency aid—this because passage of the bill might, maybe, a little bit, thwart some small part of an anti-abortion agenda. McConnell, what a hero, also delayed passing the coronavirus aid bill by keeping the senate in recess. And for what?

Violence is underway. Such heads as these belong on pikes. This is where my friend is stuck, and where—to no credit of my own—I am not. I get to park an arse and drink Croatian beer, and she gets to search six grocery stores for an eight-ounce can of beans. One of these is a land of plenty.

Eat up, Americans. You voted them in, these blatant cunts. They have no agenda but to rob you. And you have kept them just where they are. You allow the evil, and now, since we’re talking about the spread of a disease, you do so even at risk of your own health and lives—and the health and lives of those nearest to you. A pandemic is beyond “individual choice,” which you tout so much and do not understand at all. National choice—world choice—is where the stakes are now. In due time, and that means soon, Scotland will go its own way, and my friend will come home, rid forever of your deny-or-hoard wasteland.

Some talking heads like to blame what has come on Chinese cookery. They cast it vividly, wet markets full of horseshoe bats on drippy hooks. What strange people those Chinese are. Since we’re talking about food, consider Hannibal Lecter. His cocky screws thought “some damn thing from a zoo” would follow the bribe paid out in the third act—lamb chops, extra rare. Say a bat went to slaughter all you like. Your own mouth is where you put the meat.

by Bart Lessard

“Nothing new, Harry.”

“Okay.”

“Weeds, rake, plus we have to deadhead the flowers. Nobody’s done that for a while and there’s not enough time for more. It doesn’t have to be spotless, just good enough for showings. Of course if it looks like something needs your help go right ahead. You know your stuff. As long as the beds look prettier by Friday, they’re happy, we’re happy.”

“Okay, Sue.”

“We already ran the mower around the house—or we did until they told us not to. If we kill the moss back here there’s no way to get the lawn in shape, not fast anyway. Such a shame. You can tell it was nice. Somebody used to put in time. There are features you can’t see at first. Look at that statue spying on us. Creepy. We can’t use a blower.”

“Okay.”

“The owner’s at home. The caregivers said he doesn’t like the sound—of that and the mower I guess. He’s ninety and bad in the head. If the place is still on the market after he’s put wherever they put him, the trust might have us back to landscape.”

“Okay.”

“Everything is in the shed. There’s water and snacks, too. You have the code. Make sure the gate’s shut at night. Call me if you need anything else. Oh, and there’s a feature tipped over back there. You can’t see it from the driveway. If you can’t get that standing up, I’ll ask Theresa to come out early to help. Please, don’t hurt your back.”

“Okay. Bye!”

Off went Sue in her big Chevy truck, oak tree logo on the door. She was nice. Harry went straight to the shed. Inside were spades, shovels, a grape, rakes, a spud bar, a mattock, loppers, a trowel—new tools, mostly, brought in for the job, but some old and rusty and spun in web. There were also flat packs of water, chips, nuts. He ate a candy bar. The lot was deep, with cedar fence astride the road and stake wire left and right. The house had a river view, snow caps bright as sun and green valley floor beyond. He could only see the roof above the plants. Birds sang to birds or to what birds could see.

To work, pawing with a rake. He would pretend at times but never go off task. Each bed had stones laid around it, and leaves made a heap alongside. Ants frenzied on the rock. To them a range had come up where none had been before—another mountain view, and much closer up. He began to pluck the wilted blooms and pull the weeds. Where dead weight came off the flowery plants stood taller, the garden come alert.

Rhododendron, azalea, wild fern in clutches. Moss had spread, crowding out the grass, climbing trees, a good thick sort that let him kneel without the pads. Harry liked mosses best—the deeper green of them, the softness—but other people wanted grass because they could walk without a trace. Blackberry had overrun some of the beds, the earth between shot through. For those he put on thicker gloves. Close to the juniper he wondered why Sue did not like the statue nestled there, a girl of some angelic sort. Half the face had broken off, lichen scaling thick. Spy, Sue had said, but the remaining eye could not see at all and creepers chained it down in place.

A caregiver’s car came up the long driveway from the house. Harry smiled and raised a hand. The caregiver did not wave or even look. Music inside the car was loud enough to smack the glass. Once gone the caregiver was no less gone from Harry’s mind.

Begonia, camellia, rays of thistle. Halfway through the work day he came in sight of what Sue had told him about. That part of the garden was hidden among the beds, more private. A pedestal birdbath—it had lain aside for long enough to sink partway into the ground. He put down the rake and hunkered down to try the heft. Closer to earth, he saw a bloom in the patch left bare—not a flower but stringy and dead, threaded black.

Harry looked closer. Undone braid—old rope. At a pinch the hemp came apart like dandelion fluff. Something about the look of it held his eye. When it rained earthworms came up so as not to drown. The rope end reminded him of that—that unhappy push for air. It showed to one side of the barren patch, the side opposite the tilt.

Back with a trowel. The rope led straight down. Back with a spade.

The mix was mostly sand beneath the topsoil, easy to shift and shovel, but Harry had to cut roots, layer on layer. The rope came up from beneath. After two feet he widened out the hole, rolling sod so he could lay it back on neat. Fill went to the other side. The rope kept going, fraying as it led, and blackening. He dragged the birdbath to the side  and broadened the hole yet more. Past the width of the bowl where the bath had once stood the dirt was full of bone—hollow, fragile, a shallow layer all around. Some skulls were intact but paper thin. Little birds—and so many—breaking like a dry foam.

The hole grew deep, and the rope took a bend. There were no more roots to cut. At most of a fathom the soil changed all at once—a rich black like the best compost, but it smelled sour. There were no worms in it. Bad for growing, and Harry knew a change of color meant something was close. The dig slowed, spade put aside, fingers in a plow.

To skin, bare and white.

Harry puzzled at the sight of it. He touched the surface with a glove. The give was just like the flesh of his own arm. He scraped, found the outline, brushed back the dirt.

Shin. Ankle. A bare and slender foot. Past sight the caregiver’s car returned, popping gravel on the driveway beneath the thump of music. Quiet again. Harry took off a glove.

Cold as the ground around it, but the foot moved.

Someone was in trouble. He chucked soil to clear the hole. A lady, he saw in short time. Her lap took his sun hat so she would not feel stupid. The rope was wound about a leg from underneath, and at that depth the hemp was black all the way through. Harry saw that there were other fibers, too—clothes long in the bitter ground, fallen to bits. There were loose buttons, a clasp, glimpsed and thrown. The movements of the foot had been slow, lazy, and now that they were dug free the legs were the same. Not struggle, but like coming out of sleep. Reaching the neck, he saw that the rope had been anchored there. On a brush the knot fell away, rotten near to dust, but the skin kept a print of the braid. No bruise, no stain of black, only white. He began to clear the face. The lady did not part her lips to speak or to breathe. But when the cake fell off, the eyes came open just a crack. Her skin was so pale, white like a mushroom, and her eyes were full of grit. She would not be able to see. But Harry saw. The irises were a dull and pale yellow.

“Hi,” he said.

She did not speak but her eyes sought the voice. Her hair was dark with dirt and long, unmade from a style. Beneath the dirt it was as pale as the rest, white on the outside and at the scalp the same dull yellow as the eyes. Being underground had bled out the color. Harry had seen that before, how things long buried turned white. He freed her arms, pulling one from its rest and then the other. She made no try to move. She did not blink, nor even take a breath. All tired out, Harry saw. He felt bad for her. There was plenty of water in the shed. She would not take a drink, so he used his fingers to clean her mouth and face. To flush the dirt he trickled some into her eyes. She gave a wince.

“Sorry,” he said.

After that she could see and watched him with a drowsy interest. He put a hand to her shoulder to help her sit up. She was cold, tired, so he kept the arm on her, even as her chest began to spasm. Out shot black dirt, a plug as long as her throat. Two gouts came from her nose, and the airway was clear. There was no cough or retch but Harry knew how nasty dirt like that would taste. Bottle to mouth, she let a little water in. From either corner a thin mud ran. But soon the trickle cleared and there was a swallow, a deep breath. She did not take another for a long time. She did not seem to need the air but to choose it. After that breaths came steady, in and out with a slow work, each a choice, and she could stay upright by herself. The dirt on her was drying, flaking off. Leaning back against the hole she never said a word. Nor did the stare ever quit.

Theresa came in the van. She always gave him rides when he was too far from a bus stop. She was nice, just like Sue. The van had the same tree but bigger than on the Chevy door. Theresa and Sue were best friends and shared a house.

“Harry, did you forget your coat? Want me to go back?”

“No,” Harry said. “I’m okay.”

The next morning she drove him out again. “What’s in the bag?” she asked early on. He showed her: sweat pants, a T-shirt, a hoodie, all clean and folded, plus a blanket. “Change of clothes? That’s good thinking. Sweaty work.” In his lunchbox he had an extra peanut butter sandwich and banana but Theresa had not asked him about that.

“Hi,” he said into the hole. Six bottled waters had been left in reach but none had been taken, nor any of the candy bars. His chore coat and his hat had been thrown out of the hole. She did not seem to need them, but neither did Harry. He had brought his ball cap and the morning was warm enough to go without more than his woollen shirt. It was funny that she was naked but Harry did not laugh. She had not looked at him yet and was down on her hands and knees. Her palms were pushing at the dirt, moving it around, white fingers sifting. She could move quicker than the day before but was still tired. Harry noticed the smell from the deep black earth. He had grown used to it the day before, crouched so near, but now it was sour in a way that almost hurt his nose.

The dig had put Harry behind on his chore list. At lunchtime he would check on her, give her the sandwich and banana if she felt hungry at all. Lavender, dahlia, rafts of nettle. A still morning—no birds sang, and none had come down to browse the leaves he pulled out into the open. The quiet had a weight that made Harry feel sad. He did not know why. At his back he heard a caregiver’s car go down the drive, pulsing with a tune, and even before it got halfway to the house the plants had drowned the music out.

At noon he took his lunchbox over. Coming close he set it down to stare. Ranks of bone were arrayed beside the hole. Little, so at first Harry thought more birds, but these were from deeper down and not so finely built. As he wondered her white hand came up to set down another shape. Harry saw baby teeth and the grownup row underneath that would never have a chance to sprout. After that came the skull, round and eyeless. She set it down with a love and did not search again. Face to face, a motionless stance.

Harry took off his cap and felt the tears well up. He heard a whisper—none of the words, none of the voice, just a scrape of breath. “Sorry,” he said. When she raised her head she did not look to him. But enough features showed to frighten him. She was not sad. He was glad she had not met his eye like that, with that face. Maybe she would feel better if he helped. Harry went to get a box. In the shed he had seen a wooden apple crate. Not be the best resting place, but the best he could give. He folded the blanket brought from home so that it would fit neatly inside, drape the edges—a baby cradle.

He brought it to the hole. She was not below or nearby. The closest planter bed had a straight line of broken plants, mown down. He could see through to the next bed, where the same had happened, in the direction of the house.

Harry arranged the skeleton in the box—skull up top, jaw below it, then the ribs, the arm bones, the legs. He did not know all the right places but did his best.

At the first shriek he stopped. Muted, but a woman. He stood up to look toward the house and listen. Another scream, much longer. A squeaking gag cut it short. Scared to move, Harry heard the caregiver’s car and turned to the driveway. There was no music behind the glass now but blood in a smear and on the outside of the door. The car went fast and struck a gatepost hard enough to leap. The hood crumpled in and the caregiver’s head and shoulder came through the windshield. The gate leaf on that side fell off its hinges. The engine died with a rattle. No more sound, no more movement.

Until the lady came back through the planter beds, knocking down the branches and the leaves, dragging a weight behind her. At first sight of blood Harry had sat down hard, so he had nowhere left to fall when he saw the old man in her grip.

She had him by an ankle, and his foot hung wrong. His bedgown had come up around his shoulders to show all his withered body—the catheter, purple spots, bed sores. The dragging had torn up his fragile old skin. His bawl twisted up his mouth but made no noise. Harry could not see the lady’s face in the hanging pale hair but knew what it wore. He could feel it now, an anger unlike anger, an anger without limit.

She threw the old man in the hole that Harry had dug out, just where she had lain. Someone else had dug there first, long ago, and filled it up again. He heard the sorrows at the bottom, no word said—a fright too awful for any word, a fright like his own. The lady moved so fast—so strong now—Harry could not see. She had already gone to the far side of the fill. With a gust the mound fell back where it belonged—all the dirt thrown at once, to a deep thud—and a dust was settling.

Harry wept. She was already kneeling before him and he saw the anger close. But it was not for him and had already begun to soften. Right beside him was the cradle for the bones. Cold eyes bled of color looked to it, back to him. Her breath carried the reek of deeper ground. But a hand touched his cheek.

When he opened his eyes she was gone, and the cradle. He heard brush crack, and again. Looking toward the house he saw that smoke was already coming off the roof. Gone home, into a fire. Before the sirens came Harry crept back to the bare patch and began to lay on sod, rolling it neat, and even under smoke grown tall and black, birds sang again, to each other or to what birds could see.

by Greum M. Stevenson

A man in Glasgow's Wyndford Housing scheme has coronavirus symptoms, but has been refused a test and told to self-isolate.

The man, who lives with his wife and two small children, said today, “My daughter had a hacking cough last week. On Monday I developed the same but thought nothing of it as there were no confirmed cases at that point so I assumed it was too early. On Wednesday I phoned the doctor about it and was told it can't be because there isn't community transmission. By the evening of yesterday the government admitted there must be at least 5000 infections, and six people in Shetland were being hospitalised for it, none of whom had any contact with people from affected countries.

“I'm extremely angry. My symptoms have matched the virus, but they are only testing people who present at hospital with breathing difficulties or have been to one of the worst hit countries. The advice is self-isolate for seven days. I've been doing that as best I can, but I can't properly self-isolate until they shut the schools. It's a joke. You can't carry on with a market economy and also expect everyone to just bunker down. I'm keeping my distance from everyone, avoiding crowds and using self checkouts etc and washing hands and surfaces religiously. At the moment I don't know what else I can do as nobody is taking it seriously.”

His daughter, who would no longer be infectious, is back at school. His son now has a hacking cough, and stayed at home today. His wife has a temperature and symptoms of a cold.

Also posted on Notes from the Northern Colony