If you've been with me in this blog for any length of time, you know that I just don't like to go to India.  The people themselves are fine, but the government is a mess. Let me start with something almost trivial, but typical.  All of India has the same time, but at  UTC +5:30.   You'd think that a ship going east would lose an hour every time it passes a certain zone.  But no....one night we had to advance an hour, then the next half and hour, and tonight we gain half an hour when we leave India. The bureaucracy is both a joke and total pain.  Try getting a visa, especially when you're in some countries.  We had problems in the U.S., but if you're from the U.K., India penalizes them a lot more by having to go through all kinds of hoops.  This is payback for the country making in migration difficult.  For example, after you get the India visa, you end up with two pieces of paper that you need to show three times leaving and returning to the ship.  Or six times, p

The Pandemic continues, and the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants are now dominating.  The  New York Times  answers the following questions for you, like about long COVID.  Just click on any question of your interest. What are the symptoms of an infection with BA.4 and BA.5? How often can you be infected with the coronavirus? Is reinfection more common with BA.4 and BA.5? Does my mask protect me if nobody else is wearing one? I tested positive. Now what? What antiviral treatments are available and do I qualify for them? What is long Covid? How will I know if I have it? Can vaccines protect against long Covid? Do I need a booster shot if I’ve already had Covid? Growing up I can recall that people seemed to be more religious.   According to a series of  polls by Gallup , just updated last month, in the early 50's nearly 100% ( 98% ) of Americans believed in God.  In 2022, this belief percent dropped to 81.  Still rather high.   However, you can expect a continued decline because only