Incredulous! This I Would NEVER Do!

I will always remember when Alex and I took our firstborn daughter to the seaside. At one of the stalls were a batch of helium-inflated dolphin balloons which was lighter than air, and so had to be retained with a cord to keep it from rising skywards. I then bought one for our daughter. Amazingly, it lasted for quite a long time.

The material which the dolphin was made of resembled coloured tin foil, if I remember, so had it accidentally come into contact with a sharp object, it wouldn't have burst with a loud POP as with a traditional balloon made of thin stretched rubber. Instead, the noise it would have made would be something like:

Psssssssssssweeeeeeeeeeeeeffffffffsssssssffffsssssss!

As the sound slowly fades, the skin begins to wrinkle as the balloon loses its buoyancy, and instead of rising, it begins to drop to the ground beneath it. A sorry-looking sight it becomes which would have been enough to make my daughter cry.

The one we bought was slightly smaller.

And so I was thinking back at that balloon as I visited a GP, asking whether I can have my breast examined to see whether it might be cancerous. Not that I believe that I could have cancer. I always believed that this disease was strictly for women. We men suffer prostate cancer instead. Come on, give me a break! Isn't prostate cancer enough to worry about? But on Alex's insistence, I checked the internet. According to a reliable health website, we men are not immune from the male version of the disease.

Thus, I lifted my tee-shirt at the doctor's request to expose my chest. He felt around the nipple and asked if I felt any pain. I answered that I didn't, but there is a sense of tenderness when touched. He also asked whether there has been any discharge. I was glad to reply No. But the doctor did notice a swelling directly under the nipple which gives it a sunken appearance - the very sight which startled Alex, my beloved, causing her to panic and basically ordering me to make an appointment for a visit to our surgery.

And so I'm due for an ultrasound scan at a hospital at the start of next month - right on our wedding anniversary, actually - of all the days of the year. Although I'm convinced that I don't have cancer, nevertheless, after the hospital appointment was set up on his computer, he then asked whether I had my annual flu jab, being over 60 years old. I replied that I hadn't, and he asked whether I would like a jab here and now.

"Yes please," I answered.

"Wait here, I need to check for supplies."

After a few minutes, he returned. 

"I have someone here with me who is about to graduate as a doctor. I need your permission for her to watch the procedure," he announced.

"Go ahead, that's no problem," I replied.

"She had never performed an injection before," the GP concluded.

As the doctor proceeded with the jab at my deltoid area and under the gaze of the post-graduate, I thought:

Oh for crying out loud, she just a short hike from being a qualified medic. And with all her training, she hadn't yet administered a jab?

I thought all this was rather incredulous! Because when my wife had breast cancer (hence her panicking over my pap condition) followed by a mastectomy, then with chemotherapy and radiotherapy, to avoid a daily call from a home nurse, I had to administer a special drug through an injection on her belly, one on alternating sides each day until the course was complete. A special yellow disposal bin was also provided to keep discarded needles away from all other household waste.

Although with the very first one, I administered the injection under supervision at the hospital oncology dept. After that, I had no problem giving her the jab at home on a daily basis for three months. And you know what? She did not deflate as that balloon dolphin would have done. And neither did I when the doc injected me. Hence my fascination at that trainee's lack of practical experience. As she watches, perhaps she was hoping I won't pop!

Incredulous? Maybe, but not the threat of a second wave of the Coronavirus pandemic which is casting a shadow over the UK. With new infections rising at rapid speed, hospitalisations are also increasing, with admissions doubling within the last week or two. It'll be interesting to watch whether the mortality graph will start rising in keeping with the other two graphs.

Poor Boris Johnson our Prime Minister! Stranded between a sea spout and a whirlpool, either he ushers in another national lockdown as he did in the Spring and watches as the Economy disintegrate with a massive rise of job-loss, or do next to nothing as he watches the Economy continues to grow alongside a ravaging spread of the virus to uncontrollable levels. Therefore he came up with something of a halfway house solution - not to gather together for more than six at a time. That means, with a large family, say one of five (Dad, Mum, with their three children), for example, if two relatives from another house were to visit, they would already be breaking the law.

Okay, I can handle that. In our house, there are just two of us. That means friends or relatives up to four people can still come to visit. But it was Home Secretary Priti Patel who came up with an idea so incredulous that I could not help gasping - and partaking in a discussion about it on Facebook. That is to contact the Police if your neighbour has more than six people gathered together.

That, to me, is snitching. Is it like acting as a gooseberry towards his friend who has just met his ladylove and is trying to get in between? No, it's much worse than that. Surely, as I see it, only the most miserable, nasty, jealous and despicable individual would turn a happy group to the police because there happen to be seven or eight of them together. And yet the Home Secretary herself admitted that she would do just that as if attempting to set an example.

Home Secretary of State Priti Patel.

Here, I try to put this into practicality. Let's say that my next-door neighbour has invited some guests for a garden barbeque. It's quite noisy with happy chatting filling the air backed by music. Therefore motivated by jealousy and an element of bitterness for not receiving an invitation, I go outside, and since there are no holes in the dividing fence, I have to lift my head over to count. As discreet as I try to be, I was seen by one or two in the party as I quickly popped down to hide behind the fence. I had counted seven people. And there could be more indoors. Gleefully, but with a touch of fearful anticipation, I phone the police to let them know that there is a party going on right next door with more than six people present.

After a short while, the police siren could be heard as the vehicle approaches. They alight, rush to the house and pound on the front door which is quickly answered. At best, the crowd is dispersed without further ado. At worst, the host receives a fine. After the police had gone and all is quiet, my neighbour knocks on the door, his face stern, like thunder. He doesn't hit me but gives a warning that he'll never talk to me again. Also, the key to our back door - which I gave to him should Alex have a fit whilst I'm out - is thrown back at me. It just skims past me as it lands at the far end of the hallway with a noise. He turns and walks away. Neighbourliness turned into bitter enmity.

Or on another occasion, on my way home rather late one evening. From a house in our street, several doors away, loud music could be heard. And so I knock on their door. A man in his mid-twenties, partially intoxicated, as I can smell in his breath, answers the door with the question,

"Yea? Whaddaya want?"

To which I reply:

"In obedience to our Government regarding this coronavirus pandemic, I have come to check to make sure that there are no more than six people in your house."

The host suddenly turns around and shouts back into the hallway.

"Hey - Bill, Ray, Larry, Des, we've got a snitch here. He's going to grass us to the cops!"

Five men suddenly appear whilst I could see up to half a dozen females within, with one or two following the men to where I am standing. Two or three of those guys then run out of the door to encircle me so I couldn't run away. 

"Let's duff him over!"

And so fists fly, pummelling me into a mass of bruises and bleeding wounds and even tearing my clothes in an uncontrolled frenzy. Some of the females cry and begs the assailants to stop, for I have been beaten enough. But the pummelling goes on until I lay unconscious. Finally, a kick was delivered to my head. They all run indoors and the door slams shut, leaving me lying outside. A neighbour, aroused by the commotion, calls both the police and ambulance. Eventually, arrests are made and the ambulance rushes me to the nearest hospital. 

One casualty, his distressed wife, some guys confined in police cells - none of these would have occurred had I returned home minding my own business. 

And yet, according to a Facebook discussion, one bloke indicated that he would snitch. He reminds me of the moralist who would rebuke another person aloud in public for swearing. Such a person exists and there's good reason to believe that he'll snitch on someone too. Both are Christians. And just as I believe Priti Patel's advice to be a very bad one, so these Christians should be very careful with the road they may be tempted to take.

Christians are being called to be the Salt of the Earth by their Lord Jesus Christ. By this, he means that just being present, evil is checked, just like salt applied to meat helps keep it fresh and avert putrification. But snitching does not keep evil in check, instead, it does the opposite, to stir up evil. And the fear of repercussion is never far away. And this can come suddenly, totally unexpectedly, even weeks or months after the grassing was made.

The pandemic is here and we have to live with it. Yes, I do wear a facemask when in an enclosed space, whether in a shop, a superstore, on a train or bus or as recently, whist at the doctor's surgery. Indeed, I dislike wearing it, but in obedience to the Government according to Romans 8:1-8, I wear it when required. Its purpose is to help protect others as well as myself. It's a far, far cry from grassing on someone in an attempt to keep the virus from spreading.

And as such, bad things can be thrown at us, it's part of life. But there has always been worse things, such as war and the diseases, and sometimes starvation which often follows war, all with a massive total of deaths. Or to end up as victims of a natural disaster. Like when my best friend, whilst holidaying in the Neapolitan area of Italy, went to visit both Pompeii and Herculaneum. These were cities wiped out by the AD 79 eruption of nearby Mt Vesuvius (although to the Romans, it was Monte Somma, greater in height than the present volcano.)

I have been to Pompeii myself and I too have looked upon the plaster casts of those who died in their attempt to flee from the city. But I have never been to Herculaneum, simply because during those days I was unaware of its presence. But my friend has just returned home after visiting the site. 

What he saw was some boat sheds which once looked out to sea, but now facing a high wall of pumice and volcanic ash laid by the AD79 eruption. Fronting the sheds is a manicured lawn. This was once the beach. Indeed, looking at it, it's very hard to believe.

But it's what is inside these boat sheds which tells a sorrowful, devastating story. In some of them, skeletons of those who tried to flee from the heat of the pyroclastic flow turned and entered the boat shed in a vain hope that they would escape from the intense heat. Instead, their flesh was instantly boiled away, leaving the skeleton intact, some even in a sitting position they were in when overtaken. One victim even had his brain literally metamorphosed into a piece of glass.

Skeletons in a boat shed, Herculaneum*

When taking such mortality into consideration, by comparison, our Coronavirus crises seems very mild. Unlike that of a volcanic eruption. Go too near an eruption and you're dead, regardless of age or state of health, whether Black, Asian or Caucasian, slim or obese. But the virus seems far more selective, its mortal victims tend to be among the elderly, those who already have an underlying illness, also among the obese and higher among the non-Caucasian. Indeed, taking responsibility is the duty for everyone. But for snitching or grassing up on somebody under the false cloak of Christian responsibility is a definite no-no. Go and pop a balloon instead.

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*Photo was taken by Dr Andrew Milnthorpe PhD, September 2020.