...I always think of the National Health nurse in her fifties featured on a BBC documentary going behind the scenes showing the battle against this ghastly virus.

Ventilated by tube for several weeks, her throat became ulcerated and the breathing tube lodged inside her throat, necessitating surgery to have the tube removed. We saw a camera tracking down her throat and it looked like a nightmarish scene that only someone like H.R. Giger could have dreamt up. Thankfully, after several weeks in intensive care, she was allowed to go home, an emotional round of applause making her departure from hospital. I doubt if she thought what she endured was a "gift from God".

Trump got off incredibly lightly.

According to the front page of the Sunday Times this morning

1. Stiff your creditors (i.e. don't pay up the £39 billion payment already agreed on for the UK to leave).

2. Bully and browbeat your creditors till they back down (i.e. refuse to talk until the EU dismantle the deal negotiated under Theresa May)

Now where have I heard these tactics before?

I don't think the EU will budge a millimetre, FWIW.

From the latest cringe-inducing episode of 'This Time' featuring Steve Coogan as hapless TV presenter Alan Partridge last night. A lookalike Alan from Sligo, in the Republic of Ireland (great splitscreen work with Coogan in a double role) hijacks the show and belts out some highly inappropriate pro-IRA songs (Come Out Ye Black And Tans and The Men Behind The Wire) while seated next to a Daniel Craig lookalike.

"Oh my God, that was like an advert for the IRA" remarks Partridge to his co-host.

The Irish lookalike turns to 'Daniel Craig' "Double-O feckin' bollocks"

Jawdropping stuff on a mainstream TV channel.

https://twitter.com/DannyMcElhinney/status/1107768164262313990

Former UKIP leader and pro-Brexiter Nigel Farage's 'March To Leave' began from Sunderland, in the North-East of England with the end destination being London. Sunderland was one of the first cities to declare in favour of Brexit on the night of the vote. Formerly an city of heavy industry, it has gone into decline since the 80's. Nissan opened a car plant in 1984 and the plant now employs 7,000. On 12th March, the company announced a scaling back of production on two of its models.

It wasn't the most auspicious start for the march today. Farage (who charged everyone £50 to take part !) declared he wouldn't be participating in the whole march. (Too fond of his home comforts and the booze and Havana cigars at his gentlemen's club) also, as can be seen here, the weather was absolutely atrocious. I live about 6 miles from the city and would have gone to take a look. but gale force winds and lashing rain put me off - I like to put my feet up on a Saturday morning !

The marchers are being tailed by a Remain protest, organised by the 'Led By Donkeys' group.

I think we can safely say that if Brexit does not take place, given the scale of protest here, there will not be civil war on the streets of England.

https://twitter.com/EmmaKennedy/status/1106844863729946624

UPDATE : Farage marched for an hour - then got on the a bus - and left !

https://twitter.com/Otto_English/status/1106934326879535105

Totally misconstruing the comments by the Judge that this case in particular wasn't about collusion. I give it a couple of hours.

I think Trump sees our forthcoming Brexit as some sort of fire sale where not only can he inflict this cheap food on the British public but force us to accept much lower food regulatory standards. Looking at Woody Johnson's Twitter feed (he had an article on this subject in the Daily Telegraph today), people aren't too keen on the idea.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47426138

Why, after the last break, were there a string of questions from Democratic representatives, not alternating like before, and why did the Reps just offer up newspaper articles as a response?

Please help out and report him to Twitter again if you have a moment. One new account has already been shut down by Twitter.

Here he is whining and bemoaning his fate

https://twitter.com/JacobWohlAlt/status/1100507330272157696

The temperature reached 21.2 C (70.1 F) in London today beating yesterday's record of 20.6 C, making it warmer than the Spanish holiday resort Ibiza. Average temp this time of year should be 7 C - 9 C (44-48 F). Even here in the usually chilly North-East of England (all those cold winds coming in off the North Sea) it reached 18 C (66 F). Something is definitely amiss here - the lawn is beginning to grow and I don't like the prospect of having to drag out the mower in February ! I hear it hit 86 in parts of Florida this week too.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47374936

Just over two months after setting up the GoFundMe to build the border wall, donations have virtually dried up, given that people can donate nationwide, in the last 24 hours, only 124 donations were made, raising just $6,200. It seems like 'everything Trump touches DOES die', as ever since Kolfage claimed that Trump had given his fund his blessing (even though there is no documentary evidence to back this up), donations have fallen off a cliff. After huge donations at the start, the total has been stuck at $20m for weeks now, with only a vague promise that building will start in 'a few months'.

Probably not a great time for Kolfage to launch a merchandise range associated with the fund, but that's exactly what he has done. How much of the fund has been used for that I wonder - and how much for the 'Town Hall' event held this week with new board member Steve Bannon? Their 'board of directors' really is represented by the elite of MAGA-rascals.