I woke up this morning feeling the blues

Yet there are antidotes for the blues. Sunrise and sunset (left), the dawn chorus, all-embracing music, the beauty of storytelling and art and also the counting of daily blessings however small they might seem to be.

Another cure is to ignore news or switch it off after a few headlines – so as not to be labelled an ostrich with its head in the sand.

The news comes in endless torrents. In this electronic age there are those who argue the world has always been unravelling but it didn’t have the media to tell everyone.

Likewise, climate change sceptics also say there have always been natural calamities of heatwaves, freezes, floods, changing sea levels, melting glaciers, tornadoes and the like but no-one was told of them and the planet managed to survive.

What about newer industrialisation, non-degradable plastics, deforestation and environmental erosion from human population pressure and polluting engines?  Economically embattled Zimbabwe alone now has 1.5 million cars among its 15 million people.

Been to the seaside recently? Plastics and filth everywhere and ocean life is dying in the shallows and in the deep.

No wonder the blues won’t always go away. But …

In this image image there’s an age warning, it’s full of sax and violins. (sex and violence.)

In Australia, don’t drive like an anchor starting with the letter W. (wanker)

Meanwhile …

Troops on the street in Zimbabwe, a show of force during intense political rivalries in the ruling party. Groups who support President ED Mnangagwa are known as teachers4ED, driving instructors4ED, nurses4ED, Vaporosta4ED (an apostolic church), all of whom receive different benefits or none at all, like that teacher in rags.

You’ve got to be a big man to be a sheriff, not woke, not gay and not trans for the chap who is “right about everything.”

If you have switched off the news and belong to any ‘fandom’ you can always follow your superstar favourites online.

South Africa’s superb Benoni-born Charlize Theron, 50, one of the highest paid Hollywood actresses, admits on Youtube that she had a one night stand with a 26-year-old fella and it was “really f******g amazing.”

In her new album Life of  a Showgirl, Taylor Swift has included what fans – Swifties – call an inoffensive  “phallocentric” song about her macho Kansas City Chiefs fiance Travis Kelce’s manhood.The gossip columns say he has been coy about the lyrics in the track Wood.

Last but not least, thank your lucky stars you are not in Gaza, Ukraine or Kkayelitsha, Cape Town.