In a land far, far away

FLOW  came home with a packet of Christmas themed face masks yesterday, and it go me wondering which ten items I would put in a 2020 time capsule  for discovery by aliens in 100 years time. So, in no particular order, with some personal and some pandemic wide:

• Christmas themed face mask
• Deliveroo backpack
• Ventilator
• Zoom user guide
• COVID test kit
• Ordnance Survey map of Wirral
• Golf Ball
• Hands, Face, Space publicity poster
• Home schooling guide
• Bat soup recipe

 That should keep them busy trying to work out what on Earth happened all those years ago.

We just need to ensure that the 2021 capsule includes a vaccine phial  and a plane ticket to a sunny destination, fingers crossed.

 

 

Viewers and watchers

 The second round of lockdown is quite interesting here on the Wirral. At the beginning of October we had over 300 cases per 100,000 when the average in England was 23. We entered stage 3 with the rest of the City of Liverpool conurbation where the figure was almost 600 in parts, and at least enjoyed golf and having a beer, albeit one to a table.

Boris then saw fit to introduce the national lockdown but sweetened the pill in Liverpool by using the City to dry run the mass testing initative. It has been restricted to just the Liverpool City Centre but their figure has halved to less than 300 cases now, and Wirral is down to about 180. The National average is now over 200. Quite what will happen in a couple of weeks is anybody's guess but at least we can see some progress 'Op North'. If that means we can return to stage 3 and some people can get out and about more easily, then all well and good.

My golf is now restricted to the back garden ( don't you mean front garden...ed) and I was having a thrash with my SkyTrak when I became aware that Stewart Golf have launched a new remote controlled golf buggy. Bit on the pricey side I thought but on examining my SkyTrak usage I noticed that while I was playing golf I was less inclined to use the simulator so it was sitting there doing nothing for most of the time. When I got it for lockdown 1, I convinced myself that I would sell it on afterwards as they seem to keep thier value pretty well. 

So it was a matter of selling one to buy the other and research showed me that the Sky Trak  factory has sold out and there are no new orders until January, E-Bay here I come.

First basic error I made was not waiting until a special Black Friday selling offer was announced by E-Bay, but that turned out not to be too much of a problem as bids flew at me from all sides, most of which were to buy before the auction finished. I don't tend to do that, and with over 1000 people viewing and over 100 watching,  letting the auction run it's course was the honourable thing to do. All people have their price though, and when somebody made me a very generous offer and said they would pick it up next day, I weakened and closed the deal.

So, Mr Stewart Golf is coming to Wallasey next month subject to lockdown being lifted and I get a personal demo of their new machine. If it fits the bill and copes with Wallasey's lunar landscape then it will be utilised much more than the SkyTrak, and in the months ahead, who knows, the SkyTrak market may depress and I can buy another one.

So a bit of wheeler dealing even Del Boy would have been proud of. Cushty Cushty Rodders.

Kill the witch

When I was working, I travelled a fair bit in the car. Simon Mayo Drivetime was a go to radio show to listen to on the way home. I remember he had a three word Friday phone in, curry for tea, lawn to cut, beers to drink and so on. It is interesting that American politics under Donald Trump  has adopted a similar parlance.

If you cast your minds back to 2016, he had a right old go at Hillary Clinton, her e-mail usage and tax disposition. The chat was there almost immediately, Lock Her Up, Lock Her Up. When Trump was likely to be up before Congress and be impeached we heard Kill the Bill, Kill the Bill although that was also associated with efforts to overturn Obamacare. 

When  Ruth Bader Ginsburg sadly died, there was a debate about whether the incumbent President should replace her or wait until after the election. Fill the Seat, Fill the Seat cried all the Republicans. Now in the midst of one of the nastiest Presidential campaigns ever we are hearing the fairly standard Four More Years, Four More Years chants at most Trump rallies, but as he looks to project himself as a tin pot African state  dictator akin to Idi Amin or  Robert Mugabe we hear chants of Stop the Count, Stop the Count.

Not to be outdone the Democrats counter with Finish the Count but it is a syllable too long to really resonate like the Republicans.. I am sure they will come up with something once Joe has crossed the line though, USA, USA, USA seems to be quite a popular one.    

Conspiracy theory

 Well we are in lockdown II and already the moaning has started. We here on Wirral have been doing all we could during stage 3 restrictions and that had seen infections reduce from just over 300 cases per 100,000 to just below 250, tha'ts a good 16% improvement. That effort has been mirrored across the Liverpool City Region and may be why Liverpool has been offered the opportunity to be the first City to have whole population testing. As I type, 2000 army personnel are arriving to co-ordinate the task.

Rather impishly, and to spark some motivation for people to take a test I suggested successful roll-out would allow Everton FC and Liverpool FC to be playing home games in front of crowds before many of their competitors. I thought that might be a high value gain for people in this football mad City, but how wrong was I?

You see, it's all a conspiracy as far as the 'in the street' scouser is concerned. 'They just want all our DNA, mate' is the line people will feed you' Matches us to crime scene's then, dunnit'. How sad a view people hold on a process which could see them return to normality in time for Christmas.

If you have nothing to hide, why woirry? So let's see what the take-up is and hope that this pioneering initiative supported by Mayor Anderson, does provide the light at the end of the tunnel. That would be the best Christmas present for all of us! 

Even the steering wheel is extra

Regular readers of the blog will be aware that I have a lot to thank BMW for. I have been a BMW driver for probably twenty five years and through their owners club golf links I have achieved many wonderful things. I won the owners club trophy at Turnberry , I qualified for the British final of the BMW World Cup at St Andrew's and I played Wentworth many times the week after the BMW Championships. I also had access to many top flight courses around the UK, not least Hillside, Walton Heath and St Georges Hill. Add in holiday golf in Morocco and Turkey and it's a good portfolio of add-ons.

The icing on the cake though was the opportunity to play in the pro-am tournament before the BMW Championship in Chicago, which at the time was at Cog Hill and formed part of the Fedex Cup finals. I played with Lucas Glover, the US Open Champion of the time, and we followed Tiger Woods and the Mr BMW fourball round the course.

It hurts me. therefore, to share my disappointment at the way the main dealer experience seems to have been degraded and is now no longer the go to service outlet it should be. I gave Williams BMW in Liverpool one last try this week, as my car has done 125000 miles and I thought there might be some parts which may be replaced as routine. The engine also had a bit of a growl which could have done to be looked at.

In the past I have been attended to by a receptionist who was maybe a mechanic who had worked up to the office/PR team. or somebody who was a bit of a petrolhead and at least would know what I was trying to describe as I booked the vehicle in. Sadly now the person I was faced with had no idea about anything other than what the script said, and was more interested in telling me how much the investigation would cost rather than having any empathy with me. 

I picked the car up two days later and I suspect the growl was cured with a component change as part of the routine service, but I will never know. Luckily they only replaced the windscreen wipers and not the windscreen as I had been assured was what I had booked it in for. I will look for an independent next time and hopefully they can keep it running for another 125000 miles.

If the growl was an exhaust problem I was quoted £3200 for a new system. E-bay indicated to me I might be lucky to get that if I sold the car!!

Rainbow support for NHS

Well, the Captains get together at Wallasey went really rather well. The first part of the day saw the final of the individual knock-out trophy which was won in a tight match by Ian Glover from Ashton-in-Makerfield with Ben Johnson from Gathurst being runner-up. at least I can say I was beaten by the winner!!

The rest of the day was formed of a Stableford competition at the home of Stableford, and one group ran away with the prizes for that. All of pour concerns were centred on the weather, but in true Wirral tradition, the worst of it circumnavigated the course to allow almost every member to finish the round as dry as they started. You would not guess from this photo though!

The Covid restrictions were very well observed, and policed by the staff, so it was a fitting penultimate event in a  funny old season .

The week went a bit down hill for me though as I lost two match play competitions on Thursday and Friday, the Friday event being in the preliminary round of the Senior Winter Knock-out, an event I have still to win.

The 2020 Captains will now move on to Childwall for another group event, and I am looking to play at West Lancs and Hillside before hosting the three or four people who could not make the initial date  back at Wallasey in November. whether the clubhouse will be open will all be down to Boris and his plans for lockdown here in the North West.

In an interesting aside to the President of the United States (PORTUS) contracting the disease, we were amused that the First Lady also has an accrynm, FLOTUS, almost like flotsum. With that at the back of my mind I am now considering whether SWMBO should be renamed as FLOW, First Lady of Wallasey Golf Club. The only problem is that they might start calling me Andy Capp!!

Home sweet home

Golf is starting to ease down now as we approach the Winter season and a shortened course at Wallasey. There was still time though for me to tick of another course when I played Woolton with (another) Captain Simon, Ste and Andrew. I now have Wigan, Hyton and Prescott, Lee Park and Gathurst to play after which I will have completed the set. All the remaining courses are inland towards Northest Liverpool and Wigan so I will probably wait until the Spring before ticking them off.

I am hosting the group at Wallasey on Tuesday next week so hopefully the current Covid restrictions will still be valid and we can have some sort of social day as well as play some golf.

I had another presentation to do on Sunday as the club hosted the Frank Stableford Open competition for elite amateur golfers. There were the usual smattering of home counties international players and handicapping was balloted out at 5. Sam Prince from Stockport golf club won with a total of 75 points over the two rounds. He was a +4 player and showed his class as he added the Frank Stableford to the Cheshire Cat he won earlier in the season. Interestingly in 2014 Matthew Fitzpatrick played his last amateur tournament in the Frank Stableford  at Wallasey before turning professional. He has not done too badly has he!!

My highlight this week though has been the opportunity to make the last payment of my current mortgage, and to finally be the owner outright of a property, with SWMBO of course, and be mortgage free. It has only taken about 45 years in a variety of homes. The first was in Upper Norwood in South London, before purchasing on the Tudor Estate in Kingston, Surrey. I lived in Chiswick, West London  for about 30 years, and used the mortgage on that to buy in Waterloo,  Merseyside. We then moved onto the Wirral where we are today. The house itself is 150 years old in 2021. Given we have not had a chance to host our usual barbecue we will make sure we have a right good 'do' next time.