WordPress seems to have got rid of its classic editor, and I have no idea how to use its new one, so this post will likely be a complete mess. I can’t seem to indent anything. Or add any tags.
In the latest hint that Trump’s condition may be more serious than his doctor and his team have let on, NBC News is reporting that the president has developed “shortness of breath” on top of the other symptoms listed earlier by his doctor – including a low grade fever.
Shortness of breath was what I had. Some days I was panting for breath for hours. It’s one of the Covid-19 symptoms. I had several other symptoms as well: e.g. diarrhoea. And I also now have a heart condition associated with Covid.
But that was back in January. What was I doing back then with Covid symptoms? The virus had been spreading in China for several months, but didn’t break out in the rest of the world until February.
My own belief is that, somehow or other, I was an early contractor of Covid-19. But how? I live alone, and don’t go out much, and hardly ever visit pubs (particularly in January now that smokers like me have been expelle). I was very unlikely to have got it
Either I got some other bug, or Covid was galloping round the world much faster than anyone knew.
If the latter, then it looks like the whole world got Covid at the same time, and that it wasn’t initially transmitted from person to person. It’s the sort of thing that would happen if the virus arrived from outer space, as suggested by Chandra Wickramasinghe.
I get the impression that the medical profession is completely foxed. They offer contradictory advice. Wear a mask. Don’t wear a mask. Lockdown. Don’t lockdown.
I haven’t really recovered from whatever it was I got. In fact I was in hospital for two weeks back in May. I don’t have as much energy as I used to have: it’s why I no longer post daily like I used to.
It’s said that Boris Johnson hasn’t really recovered from his bout of it either (see Mark Steyn talking to Tucker Carlson).
If so, it seems quite likely that Donald Trump won’t either. And he’s just 30 days away from an election.
Who’s next?
…
God I hate this new editor.
Frank Davis 
It’s different, Frank, but I’m starting to get the hang of the new blocky editor from WordPress. If you choose ‘classic’ for the first ‘block’ you add, you can use the editing options you’re use to.
Well i hope you keep going Frank and i wish you well. I look forward to your posts. I wonder what happened to the Bolton Smokers Club ?
His wife died. He said he was going to carry on posting, but he never did.
Thanks Frank. Great shame.
Due to the lengthy silence, I did a bit of investigation to see if anything had happened to Junican.
Sadly, I found this, which I believe to be him: https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/announcements/deaths/deaths/18065426.James__Watson/
Good investigative work. I liked his blog, that’s where I first found out about the McTear case, where the anti-smoking camp had the opportunity to show evidence/proof that smoking causes lung cancer, and they failed miserably. https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/search-judgments/judgment?id=c77c86a6-8980-69d2-b500-ff0000d74aa7 everyone can read the evidence pro/con smoking and decide for themselves.
Same here about the McTear case.
I found his blog an interesting read, whether it be about growing his tobacco plants or playing late night chess games against young tourists outside bars in Magaluf.
Thank you for this. A great shame.
Junican’s last comment on my blog 2019/06/21 at 6:17 pm
Thanks for investigating, smofunking. Unfortunately, I believe you are correct. RIP, Junican.
So sorry to see this. I believe Raedwald, a Scriblerus blogger and a favourite of mine, also died recently.
RIP Junican.
RIP Raedwald
“My own belief is that, somehow or other, I was an early contractor of Covid-19. But how?”
A year before Covid mess I had a strange cough what lasted for two month and disappeared just the same way like began without any reason. I was not alone, my upstairs neighbor had just the same. It had nothing to do with me as a smoker, because he does not smoke and he is younger and healthy, sporty and so on. Maybe even a vegan(?)
I rarely get sick (and based on personal anecdotes discussed many times in this comment section over the years, smokers, in general, seem to get sick less often than non-smokers, contrary to what Tobacco Control wants everyone to believe, but I digress). I get a mild/moderate cold on average once every two years, and it normally lasts about a week. However, in March of 2019, I came down with what seemed like a strong cold or mild flu. It lasted about a week. The following week, mostly recovered, I traveled for work. After I returned home a week later, I became sick again, and I did not fully shake whatever it was for another 3+ weeks. I’m not sure if it was the same illness and my body hadn’t completely fought it off and the stress of traveling caused a relapse, or if I picked up something entirely different while traveling (I spent the week at a convention attended by people from around the globe, many from Asia). Since the COVID-19 hysteria started ramping up earlier this year, I have been wondering if this coronavirus strain has been in circulation longer than the “experts” claim.
I too wondered if I had this bug way back a bit before you, Joe – in February 2019. Now I never, ever get colds, coughs, flu, bugs etc, but come last February I was hit by a flu that confined me to bed for three days solid (unheard-of) and I didn’t feel fully back to proper health for about three weeks afterwards. I started to wonder if it was an early version of Covid when I read that, apparently, many more men than women have been knocked sideways by it this time around, whereas when I got sick, virtually every other female friend or acquaintance of mine had had it just as bad as I had. Our male partners, on the other hand had developed a mild, and mildly irritating, cough for a couple of weeks which had then vanished without developing into anything more. So I wondered whether all of us girls had got our immunity in that first, early “wave” and thus weren’t getting the bug as much as our male companions are in this – effectively second “wave.” Mind you, in a recent Covid blood-test at work, no sign of antibodies showed up (in fact, no contact with the virus at all showed up, despite my working solidly right through lockdown and beyond). But then if, as Leg Iron describes it, these viruses change their genetic makeup pretty quickly, I guess today’s blood tests might not be looking for viruses (or antibodies) with the genetic make-up of their antecedents of over a year ago. Just a thought ….
Frank,
All you need to do is add the Classic Editor plugin to the site and you will have the Classic editor available again. Iy also allows you to set it as the default editor for the site.
Admin-Plugins-Add New and search for Classic Editor
https://wordpress.org/plugins/classic-editor/
I use wordpress.com, which is different from wordpress.org.
Yes, I can see that from the url, but this is an ‘official’ plugin created and maintained by the WordPress Team.
I’d suggest asking the question of support?
add new post used to be all I needed to do.
Now
add new post
+
add block
classic
seems to restore the classic editor
A bit painful, but as long as it works :)
On the ‘non .com’ i.e. self hosted WP versions there are also ‘Default Editor’ selectors in Settings-Writing and in User Profiles.
But they’re probably dependent on the Classic Editor Plugin
Another nice one from zerohedge, Frank:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/big-pharma-criminal-influence-research-exposed-secret-recording-lancet-and-nejm-editors
Great to see the corruption getting exposed! Now we can only hope something will actually be done about it. Why do I have a feeling this won’t be reported on by the mainstream media?
We know that Progressives are self-righteous and full of themselves. The current trendy topic among the “woke” (once again) is racism. I stumbled on this recent article which is basically a Progressive circle-jerk:
Anti-Tobacco Activism Has Nearly Eliminated Lung Cancer Racial Disparity
Seems like they’re trying hard to breathe new relevance into Tobacco Control by tying the Antismoking crusade to the “social justice” movement.
However, the author seemed to conveniently leave some critical details out of this brief puff piece, because the study–like every other Antismoking study–doesn’t seem to be very scientifically sound, as described in this article:
Racial disparities among lung cancer diagnoses have nearly vanished, new study finds
So, to summarize, black people appear to be developing lung cancer less in recent years. They have no empirical evidence to suggest a cause for the decline, but they really, really, really want to attribute it to a decrease in smoking rates because of the Antismoking crusade, so they twisted some vague statistics to support the claim. However, we also know from multiple recent studies that lung cancer rates are on the rise among young, never-smoking women. Is that also due to a decrease in smoking rates because of the Antismoking crusade? That wouldn’t even be considered. Instead, it’s deemed a “mystery.” This corrupt pseudoscience is entirely based on cherry-picking statistics when they support the predetermined conclusion, and ignoring them when they don’t. And we all wind up losing because true scientific discovery and medical advancements won’t happen because “Smoking Causes Lung Cancer”–no debates or questioning is allowed and funding is only welcome if it helps advance this narrative, not it if helps discover other potential causes for the disease.
God, I’m sorry you’re having after effects and complications. But yes, I believe the virus was circulating before its official debut. I know someone here who had a bad bug in December and felt flat for a long time after. About to have an unrelated operation in May, she was told to have a bunch of pre-op tests in which a CT revealed she had lung changes that bore the earmarks of her having had covid. She also mentioned that she knew two others who were initially sick in December who had the same reports. And who really knows how anyone gets it.
A friend who’s a doctor thinks, from currently available evidence, that there’s a 25% chance that Trump’s case may wind up as fatal but a higher chance that he’ll have serious lingering damage. That said, a diagnosis based on bits from CNN is hardly conclusive.
Frank, speaking of your condition – you might be right about your getting over that Covid. I had very similar syphtoms a bit later than you, namely a flu and… an immense fatique later. And there was also a time when my heart was getting very weak, which almost never happened to me before. Yes, I think that I, too, had that bug. I think it was in Malaysia in late February. The flu was already in Moscow, literally 3 days after arrival.
But: we both got it in a very mild form, because we smoke. It did not seriously affect our lungs. And, one more thing – my lady doctor, whom you might remember, is saying that EVERYTHING WILL COME BACK. We’ll gradually get better, and I already feel it.
In my case I ascribed all my problems to a shock over that totally ugly situation with the lockdowns. I’m not used to playing a querilla under enemy occupation, but still I was fighting the lockdowns with my pen (computer) and voice. And I even suspect that we won. Fighting is tiresome, though.
I also suspect that my country house, containing a wonderfull Russian bath (state of art), helped to get the bug out of the system.
I still have a bit less energy that before, but still the lady is right – IT WILL COME BACK, TO YOU TOO.
(Today I was showelling stones, digging earth and planting roses, and I’m still alive).
It did not seriously affect our lungs.
It didn’t affect my lungs at all. But pretty much everything else was affected.
EVERYTHING WILL COME BACK
.
I hope you’re right. I actually feel perfectly OK in myself, just not much energy. So maybe things are gradually coming back.
Glad to hear that you’ve recovered too.
Frank, the “experts” have been pushing dates back as to when they believe COVID-19 began circulating. As it stands today, they have found evidence that it was present in Italy at least as early as December. If true, it is absolutely possible that it had made its way to the UK by January, when you fell ill.