The Coronavirus – a brief guide

Sol beer sml 2Unlike people, viruses are smart and evolve quickly, making them a challenging adversary.

Scientists are racing to perfect a vaccine, but in the meantime what can you do to protect yourself and your loved ones?

Here’s the handy halfbananas guide to the (almost) pandemic.

 

Avoid drinking Corona beer, a possible source (allegedly) of infection. You’ll be safer with Sol!

One meaning of corona is a crown, so it makes sense to avoid royalty at all costs. They travel a lot, spreading all sorts of nasty bugs.

Cheap surgical masks are not very effective, but add a few drops of chloroform and voila! You can stay home and take a nice nap instead of going out and risking infection.

Viruses can be disrupted or destroyed by heat and possibly by certain sound frequencies. Initial lab results show promise, especially with Christian rock music and anything by Vanilla Ice.

There are numerous conspiracy theories in circulation, and many believe it is no coincidence that the virus has a crown-like appearance. Perhaps further proof that the royal family are indeed alien lizard beings here to conquer the world. The truth is out there.

A cold bottle of Sol with a wedge of lime might not cure the coronavirus, but boy it goes down well after a long hard day of worrying about it.

Many wonder if crystals might be a solution? A combination of amethyst and clear quartz is said to reduce tiredness in bees, and may also offer some protection against werewolves. But so far they have proved ineffective in pretty much all other cases.

Homeopathy has also been touted as a way of fighting the virus and other ailments. Putting your faith in little bottles of expensive magic water seems unwise. Placebo effect aside, these remedies have been widely debunked as just more snake oil. Although snake oil is probably more effective.

Alcohol however, has been shown to eradicate the virus. It is not known if Sol beer counts, but it certainly can’t hurt to try!

At the end of the day, the best protections are simply good hand hygiene, avoiding sick people and a fully functional underground bunker/lair in the desert.

For more detailed (and reliable!) information about the Coronavirus outbreak, see the WHO’s information page here

In the immortal words of Mr Spock, “Live long and prosper”.

This post could be (hopefully) brought to you in partnership with Sol beer – the lager of pandemics.

© Copyright Jason Lennick 2020

Photo by Iago DL on Unsplash

The not-so-holy grail

Indiana Jones

Hello! Yes Half Bananas is back from the dead, or at least a rather long hiatus. This may be my first post in a while, but hopefully not the last.

So, what’s been happening in your world over the past few months? I hope it’s been full of fun, adventure, and at least a few nice surprises.

Of course most of us don’t lead lives full of fun, adventure and surprise. We may try to, but somehow we seem to end up with days that mostly consist of routine, frustrations and lots of annoyances we could do without. Perhaps we need be on our guard and challenge ourselves to avoid those ruts, brighten up our dull days and boldly go where no one has gone before. Or at least where we haven’t. Easier said than done. But this year I have been making an effort to ring the changes. And if the changes are not answering, well I’ll just leave a message.

But then again, boredom can be a great motivator. It is, after all, thanks to extreme boredom with his humdrum job that Albert Einstein dreamed up the revolutionary recipe for making Marmite. Although sadly for him, some other scientists had the exact same idea and he had to be content with the theory of relativity and all that other sciency stuff. Poor Albert.

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Sunday supplement #3

I think we can all agree this week had more than its fair share of tragedy, farce and gloom. Clearly the whole Pokemon Go craze suggests people need a break from the relentless bad news and the hard-working halfbananas team are only too happy to get on board with providing some light relief. But first, some fruity facts..

Nietzsche_count_bananaBanana facts of the day
Bananas are one of the world’s most popular fruits, with over 100 trillion of them consumed every second. They are named after famed explorer and inventor count Otto Von Banana, who brought them back from an expedition to south America in the 1600s. His other major claims to fame are inventing the walrus moustache and a hat that doubles as a canoe.

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Great Danes

Little Mermaid statueFor such a small country (Pop. 5.5 Million) Denmark has quite a high profile in the international media.

Frequently topping best places to live polls and best quality of life surveys, some see it as a land of milk and honey where contented citizens live in a socialist-inspired utopia.

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A few of my favourite things

KittenRaindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favourite things

So sang Julie Andrews in the smash hit film Revenge of the Surfboarding Killer Bikini Vampire Girls. Or was it The Sound of Music? I always get those two mixed up. Anyway I thought I would share with you some of my own favourite things. Not all the weird, kinky or illegal ones, but just a few that make me happy. Continue reading

Captured by a Viking

Viking shipThey say in life we all have to make sacrifices. As a kid I may have taken this advice a little too literally, when I whacked my brother Damon over the head with a hammer. I don’t remember exactly, but I might have been attempting to offer him up as a sacrifice to the Norse god Thor, a character I knew well from his exciting Marvel comic adventures.

Of course it’s equally plausible I was mimicking my Dad, a man of almost legendary carpentry skills, and simply trying to reshape my brother’s head into a more aesthetically pleasing form. Needless to say he was not impressed by my unsanctioned DIY efforts and many tears were shed. Fortunately there were few lasting ill-effects, although during thunderstorms he does develop a lisp and a terrible craving for walnuts.

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