Friday morning thoughts on reactions to the virus crisis.

This morning I read this article about the Mexican actor Gael García Bernal, who for me is forever a beautiful very young man. And there he is 41 and with a hint of grey in his hair. How did that happen?

And then the post arrived: a letter from the local council reminding us that we are over 70 and giving us an emergency number to ring if we need help. And so, despite all our attempts to convince ourselves that we are forever young, we are officially old! How very annoying!

On the radio I have just heard an item about small businesses having problems with insurance companies, having taken out business interruption insurance, presumably prior to the pandemic, and now finding that the insurance companies are trying hard to wriggle out of making any payments. When is a disease not a disease? Obviously when the weasel words of insurance policies find a way to redefine it!

Not everyone is rushing to make a profit out of the crisis. Some are being very generous.

Andy Murray has just stated that he is donating half of his $45,000 Mutua Madrid Open prize money to the nhs.uk and the other half to the tennis player relief fund. Hurray!

And Victoria Beckham has decided not to furlough the workers in her fashion business after all. She sent letters to 120 staff a couple of weeks back and applied for the government help scheme. And then she received a storm of criticism and changed her mind and withdrew her application for government aid. Now, it seems to me that if you are worth £335m - the Spice Girl turned fashion queen’s net worth - you can afford to pay your employees for as long as is necessary. Apparently she has foregone her salary for the foreseeable future (wow, you have vast amounts of money in the bank and still receive a salary!!) and she and other shareholders are planning to put in more investment to keep the business functioning through the crisis. Good for Victoria, even if she needed her arm twisting a little to do the right thing!

Curiously, people are still buying expensive clothes during the crisis. “Predictions that quarantine would cause seismic shifts in consumer behaviour and snuff out demand for fashion and luxury in the long term are being called into question by recent reports from China. On 11 April, the first day of reopening, the Hermes boutique in Guangzhou took $2.7m, the brand’s highest ever single day takings.”

They say that this phenomenon is being dubbed “revenge spending”.

Talking of possible revenge plans, a lot of people are telling tales on their neighbours. “Police say they have received 194,000 calls “snitching” on people alleged to have broken the coronavirus lockdown, and say the draconian measures are getting harder to for people to observe the longer they go on. Increasing numbers of fines are being issued for infringing lockdown.
In the two weeks to 13 April, which included the long Easter weekend, 4,152 fines were issued in England alone, and in the next fortnight there were 4,725 fines. Two-thirds of the fines are being given to people aged under 34, and eight out of 10 to men. Fines start at £60, reduced to £30 for prompt payment, and further breaches can lead to costs doubling each time, to a maximum of £960. Some 391 people were fined more than once. One person has been fined six times, three people have been fined five times, six people fined four times and 343 fined twice.”

What they refer to as “troublesome spots” are beaches and rural communities in the countryside where people want to walk. And figures vary from place to place. Thames Valley police recorded 649 fines, the highest number, and Warwickshire did best with only 22 fines.

The virus itself is similarly varied from place to place but one fact emerging is that deprived areas have double the death rates of affluent area. Here’s an excerpt from a report:

 “Residents in deprived areas have experienced double the death rates of those in affluent areas, new figures from the Office for National Statistics reveal. Of the 20,283 Covid-19 registered deaths in England and Wales to 17 April an overwhelming proportion of fatalities were of people from the poorest areas. The most deprived area had 55.1 deaths per 100,000 people, more than double (118%) that in the least deprived areas, where the rate was 25.3 deaths.

London had the highest mortality rate with 85.7 deaths per 100,000 people. The highest age-standardised mortality rate was in Newham, with 144.3 deaths per 100,000 population, followed by Brent with 141.5 deaths per 100,000 population and Hackney 127.4 deaths per 100,000 population.” 

That’s enough facts and figures for today.

We have gone from sunshine and bluebells and sightings of the heron in our local millpond to hailstones and rainstorms.



May has begun with the return of the huge puddle to the carpark of the industrial estate behind our house. A day and a night of rain was all it took.

On the menu today we are back to homemade soup, scrambled eggs and salad. How long we can continue to have salad depends on supply. Lettuce is becoming one of those shortage items. Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!