So I went ahead and got my Pfizer vaccine.

It's five days now. In this time I haven't grown two heads, nor have I received a personal message from Bill Gates welcoming me as an honorary ant to the Bill & Melinda Humanity Foundation. So far my DNA appears to be unaltered - it still seems as tangled and erratic as it's always been. And I can't for the life of me feel a microscopic chip implanted into my upper-arm, one that has somehow managed to squeeze its way through the pinprick needle the nice young lady used to put the deadly serum into my blood. I was amazed to see that my vaccinator did not possess those evil eyes of Annie Wilkes, the murderous nurse played by the wonderful Kathy Bates in the film Misery - a truly scary movie adapted from the equally terrifying novel penned by the fist of Stephen King. In fact - even King could not have dreamed up some of the astonishing covid conspiracy stuff I've received from the more wacky of my friends since I confessed to having the vaccine. I've even got dire warnings of doom from people I've never met.

It's become something of a frenzy. Did I know the whole pandemic is a hoax? I've been told I have limited time before I keel over foaming at the mouth, dribbling like a demented halfwit with my brain turned to chicken shit. So far the grey-matter in my head is performing in its usual dysfunctional way, ways that've been worrying me far longer than this Chinese bat virus. I still go to the toilet three times during the middle of each night, I still don't understand those bizarre people who eat celery. So nothing much has changed - though I'm reliably informed I've not given this evil fluid inside my body enough time.

Of course, either the war against Bill Gates, the devil Chinese or the pharmaceutical giants wishing to control the world is already well lost - or this coronavirus is being beaten by the pure wonders of modern science that might be the pinnacle of human endurance - and the best will to survive humankind has yet experienced. Next, it might be that giant science-fiction leap to the stars - perhaps your point of view largely depends upon the stability of your mind. To those of you who say the vaccines have not been tested safely - so what? What does it matter? If evil governments are trying to bend my mind - who cares? Where's your proof? 1984 was only a scary movie that made big money for its producers - the book was hardly read.

Let me tell you this.

For those of you who say this virus is one big hoax - please get real. It's you that's trying to control my mind. Don't try to convince me it's all made up, not when my fit & healthy thirty-two year old daughter lies recovering from the ravages of this SARS-CoV-2 called covid, with her lung tissue scarred and her chest hardly able to breath. If you have the courage to tell me that I'm easily fooled, that I'm an idiot for believing what I was reliably told by doctors who themselves know a thing or two, more than you on your social-media keyboard, then you will need more than a simple jab to see yourself into ripe old-age my friend.

So why did I decide to ignore crackpots telling me over and over that I'm an easily led fool? It's simple and easy to explain. As long-distance ocean sailors we're well used to enormous sea-born risks, we have a keen instinct that warns us when our lives are in danger. This is why we know this vaccine isn't going to kill us and no conspiracy guru, government, president or man in uniform will ever dictate either way. It's a simple question really - when will we again be allowed to sail Sänna from anchorage to anchorage, harbour to harbour, from one immigration official to another? So what's the half-baked answer? Only when we've beaten this vile 2019-nCoV virus, a virus that's done what every virus that's crawled from rotting animal flesh has always done. Was the H1N1 1918 Spanish Flu virus all a clever hoax? Fifty million dead? Did you know that H1N1's remains are still found in pigs to this day? Was HKU1 (beta) Hong Kong Flu all made up? Then there's 229E (alpha) or its near cousins NL63 (alpha) and OC43 (beta) - you know them by more common names, Google them up. And those deadly poxes we call gonorrhoea and syphilis? How about smallpox and ebola eh?

Get the vaccine. It's the only way out of this shitty mess, all of these weirdo conspiracy theories have been debunked. Don't listen to any idiot who might be even remotely stupid.
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Read more about the mishaps and mayhem of Nellie, The Ship's Cat