Niamh Walsh’s Manifesto
Time to rein in yobbos in f ight against coronavirus
‘WE are all in this together,’ said Leo Varadkar on St Patrick’s Day.
Well, kind of ‘all’. While most people are separating to stand together, a small minority of very sick people have decided that coronavirus is an acceptable weapon of social and political protest.
Teenagers were reported to have spat on gardaí as they asked them to break up groups they had gathered in. And Minister for Health Simon Harris was left stunned when a man and woman coughed loudly at him as he walked to work earlier this week.
These are just two of a number of incidents being reported where louts and lunatics think it is okay to cough or spit on figures of authority as they risk their own health and work all God’s hours to try to contain the spread of Covid-19.
And it’s not just here. In America a supermarket had to throw away $35,000 of food after a woman deliberately coughed on it.
Gerrity’s Supermarket in Pennsylvania described the woman’s actions as a very twisted prank that left the owner, Joe Fasula, ‘sick to the stomach’.
But our legal system could take a lesson from the American police in how to handle this sort of repulsive behaviour.
The woman has been charged with terrorist threats, threatening to use a ‘biological agent’ criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.
With 400,000 extra people claiming social welfare – through no fault of their own – perhaps the Department of Social Protection should look at the benefit payments of anyone caught and convicted of attacking gardaí and politicians in this way.
As for the ‘bored little lambs’ who continue to congregate in parks and street corners because they believe coronavirus will be no worse than the common cold and ‘they’re too young to die’, parental responsibility needs to be enforced.
They have parents receiving the children’s allowance. While it may be unconstitutional, it would be an idea to withhold all child payments to any family whose children are found to be breaching the rules.
And, yes, it is a human rights issue. It’s the fundamental human right of all of the rest of us to be able to go about our vital work, or our daily life – such as it is now – without fear or, in some cases, the reality of some yobbo spreading a virus that could kill any one of us.
Armchair experts a plague on us all
I’M well past my peak of mild amusement and slight annoyance at social media pseudoscientists who, through a combination of ego, ignorance and plain old idiocy think that they can out-smart, outpunch and out-playact politicians.
Paddy Cosgrave, who has been dubbed a ‘partyplanner for geeks’ in a€900 woolly jumper, has been fighting the coronavirus from the safety of his MacBook Pro. Cosgrave has, with abandon, been attacking Dr Tony Holohan and the HSE with all the gusto of a kid with an Xbox and ‘advising’ them of all they are doing [in his Google-learned opinion] wrong.
Next is Conor ‘coronavirus, I’ll bleedin’ kill ya’ McGregor – whose bizarre address to the nation saw him struggle to string together a coherent sentence, despite it being written for him on an autocue screen. He’s now out to flattin’ that feckin’ curve.
And last but not least is Love/Hate actor, chief of the aggrieved and self-appointed political leader of the People for Pity-Parties, John Connors.
Connors appears to consider himself the people’s political adviser and has been bombarding the Taoiseach with unhelpful and unsolicited advice.
He is also directing the usual mob at Leo Varadkar who, let’s face it, has enough to be doing without Connors coming at him.
Classic f ilm makes me press paws
IN A world that is now so dark, there are always dogs. But this week, as bleakness took over, I socially distanced myself along with three rescue dogs, in my bedroom and we watched Disney’s new and reimagined classic Lady & The Tramp. And it provided 90 magic minutes of canine cuteness and capers.
Lying by my side was my very own Lady, my little Ruby, who was cruelly dumped in a ditch to die. Ruby is a picture-perfect Cavalier puppy.
Like Lady, Ruby was bred to be a Christmas present for a partner or an excited child. Unlike Lady, Ruby’s fairytale turned into a nightmare when physical deformities due to unscrupulous breeding became apparent.
Ruby was then dumped in a ditch in rural Limerick and left to die when her deformed legs and spine rendered her commercially worthless.
Luckily a passer-by heard her pitiful whimpers – she was in tremendous pain, starving and barely able to crawl. After many operations by the wonderful staff at Village Vets, Ruby, while she has a long road still to go, is now back on all fours and she is loving life.
So if you have a dog, a cat, a hamster, parrot, heck even if you don’t like dogs, take a break and watch the film. You’ll lap up every lovely minute.
Meg’s Disney escape raises questions
ONE Disney movie I won’t be watching is the new Disney+ film Elephant which is narrated by Meghan Markle.
Like all Disney princesses Meghan’s many wishes have come true. Elephant is her ex-royal highness’s first role – it streams online from April 3 – since she stepped down from the legal drama Suits to marry Prince Harry back in 2018.
Meghan’s movie news dropped this week and has got everyone talking. But not about what you might think. With Prince Charles testing positive for Covid-19, many are questioning why his son Harry hasn’t returned to his own herd in the UK.
And maybe taking inspiration from Disney’s most famous elephant Dumbo, who could flap his ears and fly to the sky, the Sussexes have also taken flight as they fled their private island bolthole in Canada for California.
The couple have set up a new home close to Hollywood with their 10-month-old son Archie.
So if Disney teaches us anything, it’s that princesses, flying Dumbos and modern-day magic rides through the skies really do exist.