Well, I suppose today is as good as any for a faithful customer to be left to die as far as HSBC is concerned.

Forget coronavirus for a moment and let’s look at the virus of stupidity spreading through our fabulously faceless world of technological brick walls…

We phoned the despicable HSBC bank for help after we got hacked, inexplicably, by a woman we actually know through social media. We know it’s her because she left her name!

The problem was that this ridiculous woman had purloined my Gmail account password for some reason – made off with it like some mad magpie flapping her bingo wings and flicking her tail feathers with her roly-poly arse, and cackled in the dead prairie lands of her life.

Sadly, as I have as many holes in my memory as a tennis racket, I had no idea what the password was .. a bit frustrating as, when I tried to reclaim my Gmail account by changing it, Gmail asked my for my last password!

What!

Well, surely, if I knew my last password I wouldn’t be trying to change it because I’d forgotten it!

So, after many many many failed attempts to remember it, Google banned me.

And one of the unexpected knock-on effects of this ban was that, when I went to do a little bit of on-line banking I could no longer get on there either, yep, because the account was linked to my Gmail account …

Not a problem I thought – we don’t care about the goof-balls at Google, we’ll go straight to the ‘world’s local bank’ .. yes, we could bank on them to get us back up and banking in the bat of a forgetful eye. Of course we can!

An hour and half later we found that HSBC didn’t actually give a flying spreadsheet about its customers either.

The first 30 minutes was spent listening to repetitive tin-can alley muzak occasionally interrupted by a robotic voice berating me over and over for wasting the bank’s time in a world crisis and that I’d have to wait for ages anyway and that we are all going to die and only their brilliantly wonderful working-at-home staff would survive unscathed.

Finally, the music stopped … and Gloria picked up the phone in her chintzy little safe-haven lounge and said: “Hello … how may I help you today?”

And that was the beginning of my HSBC near-death sentence.

Oblivious to what was about to happen, I explained the problem, told her we were in lockdown in a foreign country and needed access to our account to pay rent and buy food. I told Gloria we couldn’t do it because our ‘stolen’ email account was our access to our online banking!

So, we dutifully entered the identification process … she asked my name. I told her.

First mistake … my name has an unusual spelling – basically it’s spelt the girl’s way – so I spelt it out for her.

L-E-I-G-H …

She told me off … ‘I don’t need you to spell it out … “
“Sorry,” I said. “It’s an unusual spelling, I thought it might help to prove it’s me!”

“I’ll decide that,” she said from the safety of the armchair in her lounge as she sipped on her fifth penocolada and absently watched daytime TV.

Then she said: “I have more questions for you but I can only accept your first answer!”

I replied: “I thought we were trying to get life-saving funds freed for me – not taking part in a TV game show!”

She said: “I am doing this for your own protection.”

I said: “You should be helping to get my money to me, not making it more difficult then!”

You could hear her attitude begin to goose-step round her lounge.

“I can only accept your first answer.”

Next question:

Which branch do you bank at? I got it right!

What telephone number is attached to your account. I wasn’t sure .. I opened the account 20 years ago. I took a stab in the dark! WRONG!

The goose-stepping came to a deafening halt and she took aim.

“I am sorry, that is wrong.”

Me: “Oh, it must be this one then … “ RIGHT!

WRONG!

“I am sorry sir, I can only accept your first answer.”

“But that answer was right.”

“I am only doing this for your own protection sir.”

“What! Leaving me in lock down in a foreign country 2,000 miles from home without any money – that is protecting me?”

“I am sorry sir, please stop shouting at me … I am only trying to help.”

Gloria changed channels on the TV, slipped deeper into her armchair and nibbled on a cucumber sandwich.

I sat in my own prison-cell of a lounge and wondered where I was going to get the cash from to buy a loaf of bread.

***

Now, obviously in reality, we aren’t going to die from lack of funds, there are many things we can and did do.

But it is fair to say that in this time of crisis when people have so much on their minds – like staying healthy, like not dying – why is HSBC turning a straightforward action, like changing contact details for online banking in to a tawdry TV game show hosted by a robotic clerk without an ounce of intelligence beyond her robotic script and screen? And telling us how wonderful she is?

HSBC is historically particularly good at this kind of stupidity … a few weeks before we left the now-inclement shores of good old Blighty, I went in to my branch of HSBC, a small leafy country town branch, a town where everybody knows everybody.

This is what happened:

I got to the counter and the middle-aged middle-class women behind it – who has known me for twenty years and says hello to me on the street – said: “Hello Mr Banks how are you today?”

I said: “I’m very well thank you. How are you?”

She replied: “I’m very well thank you… how is Andrea and your children of course?”

“They are all fine thank you!”

“Glad to hear it … how may I help you today?”

“I would like to withdraw one hundred pounds from my account please.”

“No problem, Mr Banks… do you have any form of identification?”

“Well, yes I do … you know me very well.” I smiled.

“I’m sorry Mr Banks I need some proof of identity before I can help you … it is for your own protection!”

What a load of bankers!

October 13, 2011, 5.30 pm, New Delhi:

Night comes in like a disease in New Delhi, mosquitoes bring it in on their backs. As darkness falls stray dogs dodge blaring traffic and beggars melt into the roads. A bear dances for its supper in a stinking alleyway.

Then the lights go out.

Yes, the ninth biggest city in the world has just had its tenth power cut of the day. They say its because the  golden office block in Guargon is draining all the electricity, it is festooned with millions of  bulbs for the Festival of Light after all.  Only it and the Mercedes Benz decal suspended high above the city still  fizz  against air so polluted it chokes out the moon and the stars.  Twenty million of us, beggars and businessmen, travellers and tramps, the gullible and the gurus, scurry like cockroaches in the dark.

This city will make you ill, there’s no doubt; if the mosquitoes or   bats, gone insane because of rabies, don’t get you then the money will. People talk about filthy lucre but their ain’t no money as dirty as a 10 rupee note.

The problem is the lack of sanitation. People go behind market stalls or in the gutters outside the run-down old colonial stores with names like Ye Olde Shoppe, and bring a whole new meaning to hand wipes.  The detritus of life  is    transferred to the cash in their pockets. Ten rupees is worth pennies but in a desperate city like this it buys polluted water and rotten veg.

Ten rupees is the true price of Delhi Belly.

A tuk-tuk  keeps a constant bleat on its horn as  it weaves its way through families, tramps and gurus, sacred cows, pigs and snuffling canines, cars, bikes,  multi-coloured  juggernauts  and sweating rickshaws.

I’m standing on the baking pavement outside New Delhi rail station. I’ve just disembarked from the overnight train from Nepal, I can still  see it steaming like an  old snake by the platform, brittle paint like dry scales.

The skin-and-bone one eyed tuk-tuk driver stops less than a hand’s length away from me and croaks through the dust in suprisingly cultured English: “You would like a lift Sir? I’ll take you where you wish to go.”

It makes sense to escape this cacophony, so I jump on board. In a way it was bound to be  a mistake – the bench seat is ripped and smells of damp, ideal for cockroaches. And immediately one scurries across my lap. It’s as big as a thumb.  The driver reaches over and squashes it between his fingers, a white liquid spurts as he pelicans it away.

“Sorry sir,” he smiles and turns his head to face me, once again he surprises me; he must be a hundred years old!

“I try to keep them at bay, I’m a clean driver.”   I have to turn away, I feel sick to my stomach as he licks the remnants of the cockroach from his fingers.

Then I see that the bicycle tyres taking me to my destination are bald and some of the wheel’s spokes are missing.   Tuk-tuks are three-wheeler bikes with a canopy and motorboat engine and they may be just about the cheapest and most dangerous form of transport known to man.

The driver’s horn bleats like an angry sheep as he begins to weave his way  back into the madding crowd.  I keep one eye on the road and the other looking out for cockroaches …

Driving in Delhi is like the rest of the city, on the face of it it makes no sense at all but underlying it there’s a reason and the reason is symbiosis; everything, from sacred cows to corrupt coppers, fakirs and gods and ghosts rub along. Driving is no different, it is a mercurial waltz, a liquid dance of metal and man, tuk-tuk, car and lorry, bicycle and beast sliding  round each other with a syncopated rhythm – and the constant blasting of horns isn’t aggression, its a beat, a marking of time, it quickens or slows the dance.

We are   weaving our way through Karol Bargh on a multi-lane highway parallel  with the ancient railway sidings filled with rusting carriages, gantries and   rotten derrick cars, craning like the skeletons of giant birds. It’s a sorry sight.

Then I witness the oddest thing; an ancient elephant lumbering slowly through the traffic. Stranger than it being there though is its appearance; it seems diffused, somehow insubstantial, shimmering darkly as if not quite formed. It strikes me instantly that it’s like watching it on the dirty grey screen of the backyard cinema I   visited in Jaipur …

But it is more inexplicable than an old cinematic trick, all at once this creature  is there and yet it isn’t.

I look at the driver, he seems deliberately oblivious, yet nervous about this mammoth apparition.

My attention is drawn away from it for a second as Delhi lights up again – the city always comes back to life after a power cut like this, it returns  like fire, tiny incendiary moments inside the myriad windows of   thousands of towering monuments to high-rise living, the high and the mighty above the despair and dirt on the streets. Phut! they come back on, Phut! Phut! Phut! – one after the other families see the light of the 21^st century again … phut! Banks of street lights, the dark ages are banished for another couple of hours Phut! greasy cafes, Phut! Phut! Phut! commerce comes back on line. The golden office block might glow  dimmer but once again Delhi is a real festival of light.

And the elephant is gone.

I turn to the driver: “Did you see the elephant? Where did it go?”

This time he doesn’t look back at me, just says quietly: “I have  one eye sir, I see only what I see.”

He sounds as ancient as the hills.

August 1947, Delhi

The partition of India and Pakistan is rushed through. The malaria sky is filled with booms, then bangs and flashes, silvers from the barrel of a  gun, violent ends to lives that nobody cares about anyway. This is murder and horror. Connaught Place disappears under riots and refugees.

Delhi has the biggest refugee camps the world’s ever seen,  conservative estimates say that at least 12 million people have been made homeless almost overnight, thousands crowd the Delhi Rail station trying to catch a ride to the South.

More than a million Indians are dead in the streets.

British interference in the world is at its worst.   Viceroy Lord Mountbatten of Burma has reduced the partition process to a   shambles and, while he’s doing it  his wife, Edwina, is having a ‘holiday’ romance with  India’s new  prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.

Everything is chaos and new frontiers like these always attract Men like John Mackenzie Cameron.  John Mackenzie Cameron a dealer of indeterminate age with a frankly-I-don’t-give-a-damn moustache and a diamond as big as a shoe. He was a mad dog in any midday sun.

John Mackenzie Cameron dealt opium and cheap  Stag whiskey to the new colonials and they  loved him for it. And his devil-may-care black patch he wore to hide his empty eye socket. He lived in the   dusty decaying suburb of Karol Bargh with a young prostitute of questionable gender. All night long mad dogs and rabid bats battered against his windows and gates, But he didn’t care, he revelled in the mud and  the dust and the blood and the beer.

His  dented old Buick 6, flying   skull and crossbones on its wings, was driven by Usef, a diminutive Bengali whom, it is said, he beat with a silver topped  cane. However, Usef took Cameron to the places he needed to go, places few white men would ever visit. In Delhi, way back then,  that was where the deals were made, in the shadow of a dancing bear or under the wings of a flying god.

John Mackenzie Cameron was a thoroughly bad lot much needed by his  ex-patriot peers. Oh, and how they must have laughed and raised a glass to his last known act on this earth.  And that was to hang an Indian elephant by the neck until it died.

This is how it happened.

In 1947 the road along side  Karol Bargh was only slightly worse than it is  today. Of course there was no pock-marked multi-lane highway, back then it was a dirt road as bad  as the face of the moon. The dust at night   was thicker than London smog.

The lights on the old battered Buick 6 had failed long ago  but Usef drove at break-neck speed through the gloom   with his master bouncing and raging in the back seat waving his silver topped cane around and making incoherent threats against the night. In this land of fatalism Usef and his master were an accident waiting to happen. And it did.

Something shimmered ahead, as if not quite formed…

… the Buick 6 smashed into the elephant’s   legs like a giant axe smashing into the trunk of an old oak tree. The  elephant bellowed in pain.

Then in a split second of self-preservation and  rage the creature reached down  with its trunk into the car and hauled the driver twenty feet into the air before dashing him down into the dust. Usef’s head burst like a blood-red water melon across the road.

But because   its legs were shattered this  beautiful,  massive sensiant creature crumpled – its great gnarled knees crashed down onto the bonnet of the Buick, its grand and powerful head smashed the windscreen to smithereens and its massive trunk lashed      the interior.

John Macenzie Cameron  launched himself out of the vehicle into the dirt where he lay  as the creature let out a   breath as hot as   steam. Its   eyes   locked on the terrified man’s  one bloodshot orb.   He knew at that moment that he had to remove his car from the scene. And he also knew this elephant would never forget him.

When the sun began to rise behind the dust the very next morning there wasn’t a telltale sign of John McEnzie Cameron or his wrecked Buick 6, it was gone. And Usef’s   life-blood had all but blown away in the warm winds of the night.

***

As the day became alive the tortured, the dispossessed, the refugees and even the colonialists stood together in silent awe. People   traipsed from the centre of Delhi to stand before this  horror.

The injured elephant had been hanged by the kneck  from a rusting old derrick car which   had been  driven   from the   railway sidings across the road. It’s  neck was stretched like leather and its trunk hung impotently. The animal looked for all the world like a child’s knitted toy hanging from the hook on a door. But its eyes were still open …

***

After this story had been related to me by an old chap in a former  gentleman’s club, now a cheap strip joint down an alley off Connaught Place, I went back to New Delhi rail station to see if I could find that ancient  tuk-tuk driver with the  perfect English accent.

But it was bound to be an impossible task … hundreds, maybe thousands of tuk-tuks were scurrying around like busy green ants. The mysterious driver with one eye might as well have never existed.

That the release of a song by anybody at all should make worldwide news during a global crisis is quite simply remarkable.

But who did it? Ariana Grande? Bruno Mars? Or that Justin Bleater?

No!

It was that irascible, eccentric, metal-working, modernist artist, Americana-gathering pensioner who so many people still scoff at, saying he is the world’s worst singer – Bob Dylan!

Oh yes! Long live the crock ‘n’ rollers!

Murder Most Foul is as eccentric as its creator, a dystopian song hung loosely on the bones of the murder of John F Kennedy, a cinematic sweep of American culture more than half a century ago … a laconic look at music heroes from Jerry and the Pacemakers, Wolfman Jack to, in my opinion, the vastly overrated Beatles.

And it is a 17 minute long, arid and dry rendition of a crumbling world performed in a voice rumbling with history.

So, why does the world’s only Picasso of vocalisation, command such a reaction from the jaundiced traditional and not-so traditional media?

Well, firstly he defies age, categorisation, genre and is still, after all these decades, controversial. He is an enigma … people quite simply don’t understand him.

Let’s take a look at some of the bizarre and funny ways His Royal Bobness of Dylan has kept himself at the top of the international news agendas…

Fare tip …

For instance, one way is to get in a decades long war with that goody-two-shoes Joni Mitchell – who appeared chastely naked on her first album cover in 1967.

She so despises him that she still goes around telling people that when she performed with Bob – naughty Joni! – in 1994, “On the third night they stuck Bob at the mic with me … and he never brushes his teeth, so his breath was like … right in my face.”

Joni – who might just need a bit of Big Yellow Taxi-dermy to shut her up … has popped at Dylan over the years, saying, among other things, “I like a lot of Bob Dylan’s songs, though musically he’s not very gifted.”

Service with a smile …

Michael Parkinson is one of the UK’s iconic chat show hosts and when he approached Dylan at a restaurant to tell him that he loved his music, Dylan replied: “Eggs over easy and coffee, please.”

Dumped… but a winner all the same

He once lived next door to Katharine Hepburn in Turtle Bay Manhattan. Victor Maymudes says Dylan let his Bullmastiff, Brutus, “shit in her flowerbed all the time.”

Doggone it ‘far out’ Brutus ...

Not sure if it was Brutus again but Bob’s dog ate Michael Douglas’s caviar! Douglas is quoted as saying: “George Harrison walks in with Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan has the biggest dog you’ve ever seen in your life.” Douglas orders some caviar for the trio, which Dylan’s dog ate in one lathery swoop. “Bob Dylan hadn’t said a word yet,” Douglas recalls, “then finally he looks over and goes ‘far out.’”

Knock, knock, knocking on publicity’s door …

Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics invited Dylan to visit his studio in London, Dave said: “He got my address wrong. He went up to this house, rang the doorbell and a woman came to the door. He said, ‘Is Dave here?’ and her husband was called Dave, so she said, ‘No, he’s at work’ and Bob was going, ‘He’s at work? That’s funny, I thought I was supposed to come around here.’… By the time he got round to my place he was really flustered … he’s a funny chap.”

Streets ahead!

In New Jersey, in 2009, Dylan, who was in town for a concert, decided to take a stroll. Police officers, responding to complaints about a “scruffy old man acting suspiciously” picked up the ID-less singer. He was taken back to his hotel, where the reception staff explained to the officers who, exactly, they’d picked up.

A lonesome hello …

Despite taking solitary walks, concert promoter Bill Graham in advance of a tour in the ’70s, he told the road crew to keep their distance. As he explained in his memoir Bill Graham Presents, the staff obeyed — too well: “In the third or fourth city in the middle of the night, someone knocked on the door of my hotel room. I opened the door and it was Bob. He came in. I could see he had a problem. I said, ‘Is everything okay, Bob? Something’s wrong?’ He said, ‘Bill, why isn’t anybody talking to me?’”

Body shot Bob…

Speaking about Guns n Roses version of Heaven’s Door, Bob said in 1992: “Guns N’ Roses is okay, Slash is okay, but there’s something about their version of the song that reminds me of the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

Okay, okay … we Brits have a reason to be miserable at the moment, just like the rest of the world.

Every man, woman and child on the globe has been thrown headlong into a Dystopian world that we had only ever experienced in movies before.

Yes, Strange Days, Dark City and Mad Max are coming to a life near you SOON!

And the UK is being portrayed across the world as the new Planet of the Apes…

But a recent survey actually came up with these Top Ten reason for the Great being in Britain …

The survey said: it’s easy to get around Britain (well it isn’t really if you want to go by car!) there are 30 UNESCO world heritage sites, 15 National Parks (nice!), we have stunning coastlines and quaint villages, beautiful countryside, elegant seaside towns and fabulous gardens.It’s been quite a well off country too – well it was before Brexit.

• 

So, was it the turmoil of our little skinny-man divorce from the fat-lady-land of Europe that made us fall down the rankings of world happiness in 2016 and remain a grumpy middling island in a vast sea of miserableness today?

We’ve actually come through and survived Brexit itself – but it certainly was four years of dismantling our social norms and our democracy.

And at the same time we saw our Royal Family bashed and battered by their own actions, we witnessed our High Court Judges described as traitors and watched our family courts become the equivalent of child snatchers to a growing army of crying eyes.

But today, in the throes of a pandemic beyond our control we are 15th in the world ranking of happiness, just four steps up the metaphorical ladder from the Czech lands.

And to confirm our unhappiness to the rest of the globe, some of us Brits think it is brave to spit on policemen and elderly couples, threaten postmen and scoff at care workers, throw rotting panic-bought food in wheelie bins, go out to beauty spots to commune with others who probably never realised the old adage of standing shoulder-to-shoulder didn’t mean sharing a deadly disease!

And now the police have dyed one of our blue lagoons a funereal black.

What is it going to take to get that great miserable friendless oaf of Britain to become happy again? Let’s try and help!

Answers please on a saucy seaside postcard to leighgbankspreservationsociety.blog – or leave your comments and thoughts in the message space below!

It was a dark day in Dallas, November ’63
A day that will live on in infamy
President Kennedy was a-ridin’ high
Good day to be livin’ and a good day to die
Being led to the slaughter like a sacrificial lamb
He said, “Wait a minute, boys,  you know who I am?”
“Of course we do, we know who you are!”
Then they blew off his head while he was still in the car
Shot down like a dog in broad daylight
Was a matter of timing and the timing was right
You got unpaid debts, we’ve come to collect
We’re gonna kill you with hatred, without any respect
We’ll mock you and shock you and we’ll put it in your face
We’ve already got someone here to take your place
The day they blew out the brains of the king
Thousands were watching, no one saw a thing
It happened so quickly, so quick, by surprise
Right there in front of everyone’s eyes
Greatest magic trick ever under the sun
Perfectly executed, skillfully done
Wolfman, oh wolfman, oh wolfman howl
Rub-a-dub-dub, it’s a murder most foul

[Verse 2]
Hush, little children, you’ll understand
The Beatles are comin’, they’re gonna hold your hand
Slide down the banister, go get your coat
Ferry ‘cross the Mersey and go for the throat
There’s three bums comin’ all dressed in rags
Pick up the pieces and lower the flags
I’m goin’ to Woodstock, it’s the Aquarian Age
Then I’ll go to Altamont and sit near the stage
Put your head out the window, let the good times roll
There’s a party going on behind the Grassy Knoll
Stack up the bricks, pour the cement
Don’t say Dallas don’t love you, Mr. President
Put your foot in the tank and then step on the gas
Try to make it to the triple underpass
Blackface singer, whiteface clown
Better not show your faces after the sun goes down
Up in the red light district, they’ve got cop on the beat
Living in a nightmare on Elm Street
When you’re down on Deep Ellum, put your money in your shoe
Don’t ask what your country can do for you
Cash on the ballot, money to burn
Dealey Plaza, make a left-hand turn
I’m going down to the crossroads, gonna flag a ride
The place where faith, hope, and charity lie
Shoot him while he runs, boy, shoot him while you can
See if you can shoot the invisible man
Goodbye, Charlie! Goodbye, Uncle Sam!
Frankly, Miss Scarlett, I don’t give a damn
What is the truth, and where did it go?
Ask Oswald and Ruby, they oughta know
“Shut your mouth,” said a wise old owl
Business is business, and it’s a murder most foul

[Verse 3]
Tommy, can you hear me? I’m the Acid Queen
I’m riding in a long, black Lincoln limousine
Ridin’ in the backseat next to my wife
Headed straight on in to the afterlife
I’m leaning to the left, I got my head in her lap
Hold on, I’ve been led into some kind of a trap
Where we ask no quarter, and no quarter do we give
We’re right down the street, from the street where you live
They mutilated his body and they took out his brain
What more could they do? They piled on the pain
But his soul was not there where it was supposed to be at
For the last fifty years they’ve been searchin’ for that
Freedom, oh freedom, freedom over me
I hate to tell you, mister, but only dead men are free
Send me some lovin’, then tell me no lie
Throw the gun in the gutter and walk on by
Wake up, little Susie, let’s go for a drive
Cross the Trinity River, let’s keep hope alive
Turn the radio on, don’t touch the dials
Parkland hospital, only six more miles
You got me dizzy, Miss Lizzy, you filled me with lead
That magic bullet of yours has gone to my head
I’m just a patsy like Patsy Cline
Never shot anyone from in front or behind
I’ve blood in my eye, got blood in my ear
I’m never gonna make it to the new frontier
Zapruder’s film I seen night before
Seen it thirty-three times, maybe more
It’s vile and deceitful, it’s cruel and it’s mean
Ugliest thing that you ever have seen
They killed him once and they killed him twice
Killed him like a human sacrifice
The day that they killed him, someone said to me, “Son
The age of the Antichrist has just only begun”
Air Force One comin’ in through the gate
Johnson sworn in at 2:38
Let me know when you decide to throw in the towel

It is what it is, and it’s murder most foul

[Verse 4]
What’s new, pussycat? What’d I say?
I said the soul of a nation been torn away
And it’s beginning to go into a slow decay
And that it’s thirty-six hours past Judgment Day
Wolfman Jack, he’s speaking in tongues
He’s going on and on at the top of his lungs
Play me a song, Mr. Wolfman Jack
Play it for me in my long Cadillac
Play me that “Only the Good Die Young”
Take me to the place Tom Dooley was hung
Play “St. James Infirmary” and the Court of King James
If you want to remember, you better write down the names
Play Etta James, too, play “I’d Rather Go Blind”
Play it for the man with the telepathic mind
Play John Lee Hooker, play “Scratch My Back”
Play it for that strip club owner named Jack
Guitar Slim going down slow
Play it for me and for Marilyn Monroe

[Verse 5]
Play “Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”
Play it for the First Lady, she ain’t feeling any good
Play Don Henley, play Glenn Frey
Take it to the limit and let it go by
Play it for Carl Wilson, too
Looking far, far away down Gower Avenue
Play tragedy, play “Twilight Time”
Take me back to Tulsa to the scene of the crime
Play another one and “Another One Bites the Dust”
Play “The Old Rugged Cross” and “In God We Trust”
Ride the pink horse down that long, lonesome road
Stand there and wait for his head to explode
Play “Mystery Train” for Mr. Mystery
The man who fell down dead like a rootless tree
Play it for the reverend, play it for the pastor
Play it for the dog that got no master
Play Oscar Peterson, play Stan Getz
Play “Blue Sky,” play Dickey Betts
Play Art Pepper, Thelonious Monk
Charlie Parker and all that junk
All that junk and “All That Jazz”
Play something for the Birdman of Alcatraz
Play Buster Keaton, play Harold Lloyd
Play Bugsy Siegel, play Pretty Boy Floyd
Play the numbers, play the odds
Play “Cry Me A River” for the Lord of the gods
Play Number nine, play Number six
Play it for Lindsey and Stevie Nicks
Play Nat King Cole, play “Nature Boy”
Play “Down In The Boondocks” for Terry Malloy
Play “It Happened One Night” and “One Night of Sin”
There’s twelve million souls that are listening in
Play “Merchant of Venice”, play “Merchants of Death”
Play “Stella by Starlight” for Lady Macbeth
Don’t worry, Mr. President, help’s on the way
Your brothers are comin’, there’ll be hell to pay
Brothers? What brothers? What’s this about hell?
Tell them, “We’re waiting, keep coming,” we’ll get them as well
Love Field is where his plane touched down
But it never did get back up off the ground
Was a hard act to follow, second to none
They killed him on the altar of the rising sun
Play “Misty” for me and “That Old Devil Moon”
Play “Anything Goes” and “Memphis in June”
Play “Lonely At the Top” and “Lonely Are the Brave”
Play it for Houdini spinning around his grave
Play Jelly Roll Morton, play “Lucille”
Play “Deep In a Dream”, and play “Driving Wheel”
Play “Moonlight Sonata” in F-sharp
And “A Key to the Highway” for the king on the harp
Play “Marching Through Georgia” and “Dumbarton’s Drums”
Play darkness and death will come when it comes
Play “Love Me Or Leave Me” by the great Bud Powell
Play “The Blood-stained Banner”, play “Murder Most Foul”

Bob Dylan – at midnight – unexpectedly released a previously unheard near-seventeen-minute new track, “Murder Most Foul”.

There is no clue to when it was recorded but the delicacy of his vocals sound like straight out of his live shoes over the last two years with hints of It’s Not Dark Yet …

He was equally as mysterious about the song’s origins in the note he sent out with it: “Greetings to my fans and followers with gratitude for all your support and loyalty over the years. This is an unreleased song we recorded a while back that you might find interesting. Stay safe, stay observant, and may God be with you.”

It begins like a recounting of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, but becomes a dystopian journey through the 1960s and across the last century of America, backed by piano, violin, and gentle percussion.

“The day they killed him, someone said to me, son, the age of the Antichrist has just only begun,” Dylan sings. “The soul of a nation’s been torn away, and it’s beginning to go into a slow decay… It’s 36 hours past judgement day.”

In its prayer-like final passages  Dylan brings in  DJ Wolfman Jack, John Lee Hooker, Guitar Slim, Bud Powell, Stevie Nicks, Don Henley and Thelonious Monk.

Is this the heralding of a new album?

Massimiliano Martigli Jiang stood blindfolded in the middle of Florence with a sign reading “I AM NOT VIRUS”.

His sign also said: “I am a human being, free me from prejudice”.

Jiang is Italian-Chinese later uploaded a video of his quiet protest onto Facebook and got more than 10,000 shares.

Not many when you consider a dog on a trampoline can get millions … but in its own way his video spoke volumes.

The video showed Jiang standing, masked and blindfolded, with some of Florence’s most recognisable landmarks in the background. Passers-by stopped and took selfies with him.

Jiang said: “I made this video because I felt compelled to convey the meaning of the words I had written on the sign. I was very surprised by the reaction.”

Of course his quiet protest was aimed directly as the racists and xenophobes in the

Western world who have been targeting Chinese people in Italy following the outbreak of coronavirus.

The sad thing is that there are almost half a million Chinese people living in Italy. Waves of migration, often from the coastal city of Wenzhou in the coastal Zhejiang province, have resulted in large Chinese populations in cities including Milan and Prato, Northwest of Florence.

Examples of local xenophobia recently reported in Italian media include two Chinese tourists being spat at by a group of children in Venice, and two Asian people being verbally abused by a passer-by in Florence who called them “disgusting” and “filthy”.

At a bar beside the Trevi fountain, a notice was put up banning customers from China.

These incidents inspired Jiang, aged 29, to make his video. It was publicised by UGIC, an Italian-Chinese youth association, of which he is a member.

“Recently, there has been a lot more racism in Italy, but it has always been present,” said Jiang, who immigrated to Italy from Wenzhou with his parents when he was seven years old and now lives in Florence. “I used to notice it in passing when going out with my friends.

“The coronavirus problem is a worldwide problem. I hope they will find the remedy for this virus as soon as possible.”

***

So, why have people across Italy – and indeed the rest of the world – blamed the Chinese community involved in their fashion industry for the spreading coronavirus?

The answer lies in the connection between northern Italy and Wuhan, China. Two very seemingly distant geographies are actually extremely tied together.

Let’s not forget, Italy was the first country to offer direct flights from Europe to China 50 years ago and was also the first G-7 country to embrace China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Today there are now more than 300,000 Chinese nationals living in Italy, according to Fortune Magazine, and over 90pc of them work in Italy’s garment industry.

Italy was the first country to offer direct flights from Europe to China 50 years ago and was also the first G-7 country to embrace China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Northern Italy has a very prosperous fashion and apparel industry.

Many of the most famous brands around the world from Gucci to Prada originated in the region.

As China has offered cheaper manufacturing for their apparel factories, more and more Italian fashion houses have outsourced work to China, and specifically to Wuhan.

Warring parents are said to be using coronavirus as a weapon to stop their estranged partners spending time with their children. 

On top of this, a leading campaigner against has revealed how many parents are killing themselves because of parental alienation.

Andrew John Teague, from D.A.D.s and NAAP, said this: “I was up until 5am with suicidal members. Then later was told about another dad who had taken his life. I think we could have saved 300 people in the last four years, this is dreadful.

“The courts across the world don’t want to admit there is parental alienation … we need to educate these people in power about what is happening and stop people being forced to feel so low about their relationships with their children that they go to these tragic lengths.

“I have spoken to well in excess of 100 members in the last year who have been suicidal and I know of many who have survived overdoses and self-medication with alcohol. And coronavirus has become a new weapon to push people over the edge with.”

Meanwhile, Prime Minster Boris Johnson’s divorce lawyer stepped in to the arena after being consulted over a case of PA, based on fears of coronavirus. 

A mother approached Neil Russell, a solicitor at the London law firm, Seddons, saying that her children didn’t want to visit their father because they were afraid they could end up not being able to get back to their usual home.

Russell said: ‘I have been doing this for 30 years and I have not seen anything like it concerning money or children.

‘In many situations childcare arrangements may be precarious, and we have a catastrophic pandemic that is unsettling fragile working relationships between separated parents.

‘Where there is already distrust between parents, this virus inflates that distrust.’

Across in America, researchers claim that 22 million adults, and close to 4 million children, have been victimized PA and say that 47% of moderately to severely alienated parents had contemplated suicide within the past year.

Andrew told the heartbreaking story from last year of a 31-year-old mother who had to be taken to hospital after what was feared to be a suicide attempt after years of battling to keep in contact with her children.

Andrew said: “A mum was rushed into hospital very lucky to be alive. She had to be revived. She has endured over four years fighting for her children
“How many more need to go through this? It’s hell on earth for any parent, grandparent and family members.

“And what happens now, because of coronavirus? People who are so depressed could also be victimised for wasting NHS time – or not be able to get taken to accident and emergency quickly enough. It is all very daunting.

Andrew said: “The awful thing is that many parents become alienated from their children because of manipulation and lies and because of the unfairness of it all and anxiety if it all they get depressed – and their depression is used against them by social workers in court to prove their not fit to be parents!”

“How many more parents must die before there is a change to the law?”

And the number of grandparents taking their own lives after being cut off from their grandchildren was highlighted by an MP some time ago.

Nigel Huddleston  said last year that at least ten people have killed themselves following family splits. Campaigners want the law changed so kids have a right to see their grandparents.

Mr Huddleston told MPs of the tragedies at a Westminster debate. Grandparents  have no real control over access  and growing numbers are turning to the courts for help. But for some the battle is just too much.

According to Stand Alone, a UK charity dedicated to providing support for those experiencing estranged relationships, is piloting a new project to support fathers who have been affected by domestic abuse.

The initiative launched n the Welwyn Hatfield District, Hertfordshire, will hold weekly meetings and online support giving men struggling with abuse, the chance to talk without judgement.

They say: “What many don’t realise is that one in six men in the UK will experience domestic abuse in his lifetime and of the two million cases, a third are male victims.

Last year, Project 84, a campaign aimed at raising awareness over suicide, recently staged 84 human sculptures in Central London,  representing the reality of the men who sadly take their lives each week.

The Falkland Islands are so isolated that, even though they have had their own travel restrictions in place, few thought their communities would face the rigours of coronavirus.

But it has arrived and a child is said to be very ill indeed, while others are displaying symptoms.

An official tweet said: “A patient in the Falklands hospital has tested positive for the virus. The patient was admitted from the Mount Pleasant Complex on 31 March with a range of COVID19 like symptoms.”

Now the UK has sent medical cargo to the Falkland Islands and British soldiers are helping out where they can.

In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, isolation was a boon to the Falkland Islands, the British territory 400 miles off the coast of Argentina.

The two main islands in the South Atlantic, and more than 700o other smaller islands — made famous by the 10-week war over its possession in 1982.

Thanks to its remoteness, the community of about 3,000 people has managed to stay well behind the steep trajectories that other countries’ outbreaks have followed. With one, 26-bed hospital and seven ventilators, and being located several thousand miles from the UK in the south Atlantic, the Falklands could not afford to take chances.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has stressed Britain will “stand by” Falklanders, as well as residents of all the British overseas territories as the crisis escalates.

Dr Andrea Clausen, Director of Natural Resources, revealed the Islands were in the process of repatriating a total of seven cruise ships by helping passengers, including many from the UK, to catch charter flights back to the their home countries via Mount Pleasant airport.

Leigh G Banks, writer and broadcaster, has teamed up with Rodney Hearth, from AirTV International, to talk again about the problems, seen and unforseen, caused by the unrelenting coronavirus bug … they are joined this week by Hollywood singer/songwriter Roman Vitkovsky who is holed up in the mountains of Slovakia, composing songs and tending his horse.