Thursday 29 December 2022

Nollaig shona gach duine, Feliz navidad, eid milad saeid, joyeux Noel, Christmas greetings....

 Nollaig Shona & all the best for 2023🎄


 

My dad made this crib for us kids when we were babies. I sat for hours in front of it every year, mesmerised. If my house caught fire, this is one of few possessions I'd grab. It's the essence of my lovely dad... & Christmas (original everything- including figurines & straw!)



Tweet of the year award goes to......

Greta Thunberg

yes, please do enlighten me. email me at smalldickenergy@getalife.com
Quote Tweet
Andrew Tate
@Cobratate
Hello @GretaThunberg I have 33 cars. My Bugatti has a w16 8.0L quad turbo. My TWO Ferrari 812 competizione have 6.5L v12s. This is just the start. Please provide your email address so I can send a complete list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions.
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Thursday 22 December 2022

SARS-CoV-2 safe birthday celebration: Outside.....in the Irish winter!

Birthday boy: Go Karting with besties 😎 Great craic had by all!



Running rings round the refs 😅

I was 18 when I had him 😀💓


Pizza & toasted marshmallows on the fire pit 💝💖


Cat-a-gorically true👇







Sunday 20 November 2022

R.I.P Vicky Phelan. Mother, Irish cervical smear campaigner, speaker of truth to power, courageous, fighter, inspirational woman

"I am here to tell you now, while I still can, that I don't want your apologies.

I don't want your tributes.

I don't want your aide de camp at my funeral.

I don't want your accolades or your broken promises.

I want action" (Vicky Phelan, 2020).


https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/i-want-action-change-and-accountability-not-your-aide-de-camp-at-my-funeral-39397586.html

Her solicitor sets out actions that remain outstanding👇

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/vicky-phelans-friend-and-solicitor-on-her-last-request-tell-them-i-asked-for-action-not-praise-42158179.html

Ar dheis Dé go Raibh a hAnam

Sunday 6 November 2022

"We are knowingly allowing our children to go into school buildings to breathe in a CDC level 3 biohazard that's airborne" Dr Rae Duncan (Consultant Cardiologist, Long-Covid researcher & World Health Network contributor)

Every parent needs to watch this powerful clip from a scientist who has been studying what SARS-COV-2 does to our blood vessels, immune systems & organs for 2.5 years ⚠. Wear a 😷 & fight for clean air in your children's schools. Where is the outrage at our children being forced to breathe in a level 3 biohazard (4 is the max)? DO. NOT. CONSENT. 

https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxVWm9ME95RsOPqSQb0kC9UPyfgn3xUISi 

Plus: New Zealand government warning citizens of what happens in countries that have let SARS2 rip. Spoiler: repeat infections - increased risk of severe health outcomes. NO "herd immunity" & NO "immunity debt" (that's not a thing - no scientific evidence to support it). Wear a 😷

https://twitter.com/covid19nz/status/1585768460428218370

"With reinfections, your chances of getting mental health issues, such as anxiety & depression doubles".

Also, reminder: SARS-COV-2 is NOT flu: "It's 40-50 times worse & it's a different virus that effects your organs & blood vessels": https://twitter.com/BurnetInstitute/status/1575720053311668227

Wednesday 10 August 2022

I do like to be beside the seaside....& lakes



Half time!

My turn😎



Hang'n with the cuzins on lovely Lough  Errit 🏊🎣🎸

Free rides on uncle Robert's boat: schtyle






Saturday 6 August 2022

Wanted: A few 14 year olds & a teacher for Covid safe school in Galway

Taken from my article in today's Indo👇

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/our-children-are-at-grave-risk-of-covid-as-state-puts-profit-ahead-of-public-health-41893293.html

Read below & if interested, get in touch.

"I’ve been scouring the web to see if any school has managed to prevent outbreaks. I found one – Abrome, in Texas. How did it do it? By ignoring politicians and following the science.


Acknowledging Covid is airborne, mitigations included daily testing, mandatory FFP2/3 masks indoors and outdoors in close contact during surges, distancing, remote learning when cases were extremely high, outdoor learning options, and Hepa filtration in every classroom. If CO2 readings exceeded 800, rooms were evacuated and classes continued in sheltered outdoor spaces, also used for eating. Everyone is vaccinated.


Abrome’s ethos is that of inclusion. A Covid-safe school is accessible to everyone. The sense of collective compassion over mé féinism.


In the same way I would challenge institutional racism, I won’t participate in a system that discriminates against disabled, clinically vulnerable children and those with clinically vulnerable family. Without Covid protections, they are being robbed of their right to in-school education – indefinitely. The Ombudsman for Children told me: “A child rights-based approach needs to inform any decisions in respect of Covid.”


My son never got to know his grandparents because the State put profit before public health. I believe it’s happening again with Covid.


I can’t go to Texas, but I am going to try to create a Covid-safe educational facility here in Galway. All I need is a few 14-year-olds – and a teacher.

Our children are at grave risk of Covid as State puts profit ahead of public health

 My column in today's Indo👇

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/our-children-are-at-grave-risk-of-covid-as-state-puts-profit-ahead-of-public-health-41893293.html

It’s up to parents to risk-assess, but if we’re not allowed to know if the unmasked kid sitting next to ours who was off sick for a few days has Covid and is potentially still infectious, how can we? Nits we need to be informed of, but a highly infectious neurotropic disease that can cause organ damage, disability and death? That’s an ecumenical matter.

Many parents, sometimes emboldened by mental-health practitioners who should know better, interpret the Government’s removal of public health protections as being outside their locus of control and therefore, succumbing to the “inevitability” of infection is best. For many, due to financial or health precarity, exposure to Covid is increasingly difficult to avoid but an infection is not beneficial to mental health because; a) psychiatric disorders are common post-Covid sequelae, the risk of which increases with every infection and b) mental and physical health are inextricably linked.


Pitting one against the other, instead of advocating for both, is harmful. The World Health Organisation’s Mike Ryan recently spoke of the cumulative impact of repeated infections and negative long-term neurological and other health outcomes, warning: “You don’t want to get this disease once if you can avoid it but you don’t want to get it four times, for sure.”


"I spoke to one of Ireland’s leading children’s rights lawyers, Gareth Noble, who said: “I’m concerned we’re creating a culture of conditioning us to think Covid infections and outbreaks in schools are inevitable. They’re not. We significantly reduce risk for our children if we follow basic public health advice such as mask-wearing, contact tracing, air filtration and other measures. Any expert advice from the WHO needs to be considered and actioned. Ignoring it would be negligent.”


Interim chief medical officer Professor Breda Smyth needs to explain why she has not adopted WHO guidance in her advice to government.



Tuesday 19 July 2022

Welcome to Ireland, the Somme of European healthcare

My article in todays Indo👇

Covid in Ireland: Ireland’s Covid war is far from over – but it feels like the generals have already capitulated - Independent.ie

‘It’s like f***ing a war zone. Casualties everywhere, wailing in agony.” Having languished on a trolley in a Covid-ridden hospital corridor for six days, immunocompromised from cancer treatment, 81-year-old Frank insisted on leaving. He would rather die at home in peace than on a hospital trolley.


Welcome to Ireland, the Somme of European healthcare. 


Frank’s daughter, Mary (my friend), and siblings have been limiting social interactions since March 2020 to shield their father. Frank finally caught Covid in the one place sick people can’t avoid: hospital".


To be fair to Frank I've reinstated the F word that got edited out!


"The Government previously brushed off calls to reinstate mask mandates, arguing it “restricted people’s liberties”. In fact, hundreds of thousands of Irish citizens’ liberties have been restricted since March 2020 but as long as they’re old, disabled or vulnerable, that’s acceptable? It’s not. There’s a legal requirement to ensure protected groups are not excluded from accessing goods and services, let alone essential services, such as public transport, school and healthcare.

Removing recognised public health protections, such as masks, is not just immoral, I would even argue it’s possibly illegal. Well-fitted FFP2/3 masks, worn universally and effectively, reduce infection"


"Professor Jack Lambert, who runs a long-Covid clinic in the Mater Hospital, bucked the trend recently by saying it like it is. He described Covid-19 as a scary virus. “It damages the brain and the immune system. I continue to wear my mask. I encourage people to take this virus seriously,” he said".


"Vaccines are waning, new variants are increasingly transmissible, infections don’t confer immunity, long-Covid can result from “mild” doses and unmitigated transmission is spawning new variants and reinfections. We urgently need a Vaccine Plus strategy (masks, testing, tracing, clean air, distancing, paid isolation)".





Thursday 16 June 2022

Jumping off the deep end!

 Great to see the lads making a splash with the auld pier jumping at the top of the boreen (& turn right😁) 💓🏊🏄



Head first 😎💪









Tuesday 14 June 2022

Remembering Grenfell. There can be no peace without justice

 I wrote the blog below shortly after the preventable inferno at Grenfell tower that killed 72 people. 5 years on, survivors remain traumatised and without justice 💚💚


The acrid stench infused the air. The landscape, adorned with messages and memorials, struggled to reconcile the veneration of dignified grief and irreverent, visceral anger.

 I oscillated between both. Grief hung in the ether like a flammable fume. Volatile, toxic, debilitating. The photos of those whose lives were lost. The prayers, the pleas, the eulogies. The human faces behind the headlines.

 Days before, some of the dead and feared dead would have taken the train journey I just took, walked the route I just walked to get there, sat in the park around the corner that I just sat in and exchanged perfunctory pleasantries with the local shop keeper like I just did.

The photo of Isaac caught my eye. He left school at the same time as my little boy that day. He will have had his tea, maybe smearing ketchup on his school jumper, like mine did and went to bed, forgetting to brush his teeth, like mine did. Wrapped in a blanket of love he may have told the spiders lurking in a corner of his room a story, like mine did, before drifting off to sleep clutching his threadbare teddy, like mine did.

 The difference between Isaac and my child is, Isaac lived in a tower block with no fire sprinklers, exposed gas pipes, combustible cladding (cheaper than the non-combustible yet aesthetically pleasing variety) and dodgy electrics prone to potentially lethal surges.

Months later, many survivors were still homeless and dependent on sporadic, demeaning state handouts. A hundred quid here and a voucher for a hotel there. Security firms were employed, at tax payers expense, to “keep them out” of Kensington and Chelsea’s council meetings. Scenes of survivors being kettled into a public gallery, side-lined and silenced, prevented from participating in decisions about their own lives, were a national disgrace. The footage of Tory councillor, Mathew Palmer, mouthing “Don’t let them in” spoke volumes about the Tories’ contempt for humanity, decency and democracy.

 Making my way back to the tube, I was stopped in my tracks by a child. She was surveying the messages pinned to the street railings and was transfixed by an elaborate picture of a dove. She asked her Dad what the text around it said. “I don’t know love, it’s written in a foreign language”.  I squinted to read it, “It says, Suaimhneas stíoraí da anam, which is Irish for, may your souls rest in peace”.

 If the souls that perished in Grenfell and the survivors are ever to find peace, they must first be afforded  justice. The inquiry, now in its final stages, must deliver that, We owe Isaac, and all those who died with him, that much. 

Thursday 9 June 2022

Special delivery: Leaving Cert survival pack!

Dispatched to friend's house yesterday: Chocolate chip fairy cakes & the soft scent of roses to calm the nerves. Ádh mór a ghuí ar rang 2022💟💪😊














 



Tuesday 7 June 2022

Japan: Least restrictions, no mask mandates or lockdowns yet protected lives AND economy. How? Clear messaging & leadership

 


UK ONS study out 6 June shows Japan had the lowest stringency index of measures (least restrictions). They didn't have national restrictions and masks were never mandated. Not only was Japan's death rate far lower than their UK & elsewhere, the lower population level exposure to infection and subsequent Long-Covid, Japan also protected its economy with the lowest drop in GDP among G7. How? With clear messaging & leadership, focusing on airborne precautions (masking, distancing & ventilation) and rigorous contact tracing and isolation.

Meanwhile, in Ireland - following the UK's mass infection/let it rip model:
  • The number of Covid-19 deaths per million people is currently the highest in Europe and the seventh highest in the world, figures from Our World in Data show (Irish Times 8 June 2022)
  • at least 1.3 million people — one-quarter of the State’s population — are on some form of waiting list for health services. The figure includes more than 200,000 people waiting for treatments such as physiotherapy, dietetics or speech and language therapy, with 227,000 waiting for an X-ray, scan or other diagnostics.
  • We are now in our 3rd wave in 6 months with record numbers of our elderly & sick languishing on trollies in overcrowded SARS2 ridden hospitals with no mitigations & no government guidance or intervention.