Winter of Discontent by Mark Antony Raines

in the pandemic To quote fully from William Shakespeare

(Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of inYork;

And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;

Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;

Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,

Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.

Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;

And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds

To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,

He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber

To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,

Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;

I, that am rudely stamp'd and want love's majesty

To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;

I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,

And that so lamely and unfashionable

Those dogs bark at me as I halt by them;

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,

Have no delight to pass away the time,

Unless to spy my shadow in the sun

And descant on mine own deformity:

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,

To entertain these fair well-spoken days,

I am determined to prove a villain

And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,

By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,

To set my brother Clarence and the king

In deadly hate the one against the other:

And if King Edward be as true and just

As I am subtle, false and treacherous,

This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,

About a prophecy, which says that 'G'

Of Edward's heirs, the murderer shall be.

Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here

Clarence comes.)

Back in the seventies when I was just a young lad going to school it seemed my country of birth Britain was going through the worse of times which unknowing to me would prepare me for the events in the now twenty twenty-one, I can see you looking up at my writing this and thinking what are you on about you old dinosaur.

To which I going first to relate my memories of that time in the seventies when it seemed Britain was very much on the verge of collapse.

In no particular order as I could cheat and use Wikipedia for reference but I doing this from my own experience so dear reader please forgive me if I get the timelines wrong but are we not all human.

Right, that gets on with it before you lose interest in my writing, first vivid memory I have is the bread strike when the only thing available were crackers, which were a bit dry and not as filling as bread.

Then I remember when the government brought in the three day week which lead to power cuts and playing table football in the dark with only the flicking flames from candles for light.

There was also a series of strikes that lead to rubbish piling in the streets, shortage of petrol leading to hikes in prices, firemen going on strike so the army had to step in with the green godnesss, a small fire engine in a kind of deep green colour.

The economy was in dire straits we were in a state of depression and unemployment were high.

I  come back to this present time of 2021 and I explain the reason why lots of people including myself relate to the current situation it seems the 70,s are repeating almost like the consent repeated television programmes from that decade.

Not only are we still suffering the virus known as Covid 19 which is now approaching its second year,I may be wrong on that fact, and still living in a state of Doom and gloom on the media but now winter is rearing in the plutonium darkness we have events remaining us of the winter of discontent back in the late seventies, Lack of food on the shelves for the following given reasons, lack of lorry drivers due Brexit which seemed to stop foreign drivers from European Union from driving over here,  pindemic which due to an effective app showed people who possibly had Covid 19 so had to take ten days off work, which I believe to one If the real reasons for food supply and other goods problems is the fact it must have affected the factories production along with the lockdown s which also affected the situation.

Next due to furlow ending, this was a way of giving people who worked at least 80% of their wages to live on, plus 20 pounds a week for those on certain benefits, side note I only got my standard payment from benefits.

Now gas prices have gone up affecting the production of CO2 gas which is used to help cull animals and for preserving food.

I think I read somewhere that the unions are thinking of going on strike for more money and better condition, but I could be wrong.

Yes, times will be hard but we will survive we had it worse during world wars.

So I off to listen to glam rock, punk, eat some ice cream sponge and a prawn cocktail and put on my flares,

70 to 79 

Here I come.