From ABC News: "Russian President Vladimir Putin is being protected from coronavirus around the clock."
In unrelated news: sudden unexplained rise in deaths from the common cold leave Moscow medicos baffled!
Articles from Cheeseburger Gothic
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Cease and desist
Mr Zhao LijianForeign Ministry SpokesmanPeople"s Republic of China
Dear Mr Zhao
Back home
I've been back in the country for a couple of weeks and working on a long post - "What I did on my holidays". Turns out mostly what I did was avoid catching the coronavirus. I was actually in Milan about a week before everything blew up. The city was crowded, busy, pumping. Even though the weather was cold, grey and drizzly. It's odd to imagine the streets empty and most of the businesses shuttered just a short time later.
I have forgotten how money works
I landed in Rome a day and a half ago and have been reacquainting myself with the city. Some things have changed. The Romans now obey the traffic signals, which is great. And some things haven"t. They still refuse to queue in an orderly fashion for anything.
One thing that"s changed about me; I"ve forgotten how to use cash. There"s no real contactless payment infrastructure here. Credit cards and eftpos, yes. But no PayPass as we"d recognise it.
Deadline Psyche
I"ve been on deadline for a couple of weeks now, hammering away at the keys, croaking into the dictation rig, all aimed at finishing THE SHATTERED SKIES, the second book in the Cruel Stars series, before I get on a flight to Rome on Monday.
No way am I finishing that book.
But that"s okay. I knew there was no chance I would ever finish it in time, because...
NARRATOR VOICE: The deadline was coming from inside his head!
Cue Wilhelm Scream.
Tradies and deadlines
I've written before about the inevitability of losing fitness when on deadline. It seems unavoidable. Extra hours at the desk. Fewer hours at gym. More snack food.
I'm on a self imposed deadline at the moment. One I'll miss, for sure. I set myself the goal of finishing a first draft of the sequel to The Cruel Stars by next Monday, because on Monday night Jane and I catch a flight to Rome.
Jason Lambright's 1917 review
I won't get to see this one big screen because of my deadline, but I had been looking forward to Jason's take. His review, like the film, does not disappoint.
I"m suing Samsung
I totally invented their projected keyboard on a cafe table in Weapons of Choice.
The New York Post reporters:
In the realm of traditional technology, CES 2020 continues to deliver gadgets both revolutionary and bizarre.
A land, once mighty, now in thrall to pissants and cowards
Not that I want to change the Burger into the Climate Change Blog, but I do have this piece running at The New Daily which compares the strange disconnect between the Right's rhetoric on military preparedness, with the same people's rhetoric on a more immediate existential threat.