The oddness of seeing a plane fly over the house. And yet, according to this article some 1800 private planes landed in the UK during the lockdown. Who knew? And the occupants were not necessarily tested for the virus or quarantined. Truly, the mind boggles.
Lots of waffle from the prime minister about what went on in care homes. There’s a bit of a difference of opinion about how quickly steps were taken to protect care homes but the prime minister says we should pay tribute to the health staff, so that’s all right then.
It is generally agreed that we need to get testing done more quickly. Well, yes, I would agree with that. And I have just heard the PM say that we are well en route to having a working track and trace system. We shall see.
Today we should have been in sunny Sicily but instead we are in sunny Saddleworth. And today is very sunny and warm. I set off to walk to Uppermill market early this morning in a light jacket - a mistake! The jacket ended up in my bag after five minutes. Maybe we need more of this sunshine if we are all to stay in the UK for our holidays.
There is definitely more traffic on the roads today. And the plant-sellers have returned to the market in Uppermill. Large numbers of people were queueing to buy bedding plants.
By midday the temperature was well into the twenties.
With the sunshine, there are concerns that it will be hard to ensure social distancing as people exercise their right to sunbathe. My brother-in-law sent us a story about a group of people having a baby shower in the open air, complete with about 30 children on a bouncing castle. They ran away when challenged by the police, but not before one was able to comment that as children are going back to school on June 1st they thought it was perfectly okay for them to go on a bouncing castle.
So some parents seem not to be terribly worried about the return to school. Here is a link to another article giving the scientific view of that return.
In this article about Porto coming out of lockdown it seems as though the Portuguese are not rushing back into open spaces. Or maybe it’s just Porto. It could be quite different in Lisbon, for example. Or maybe the Portuguese as a whole are very cautious.
I read that many couples have had their relationships tested by the lockdown. The writer Neil Gaiman decided to relieve the tension in his relationship and to give his wife space by flying from New Zealand to the Isle of Skye, where he has a second home. He has since apologised to the authorities in Skye for being so reckless. So that’s all right then! I just hope he didn’t bring any nasties with him. And could he not find anywhere in New Zealand to escape to? Or are things so dire with his wife that they needed to be almost a whole world apart?
I may need to go and sit in the garden at some point soon. So far my response to the sunshine has been to do a load of washing.
On the menu today we have leftovers of various kinds and a substantial salad.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
Wednesday, 20 May 2020
Tuesday, 19 May 2020
Face masks. Getting back to work safely. Preventive measures. Getting enough to eat.
I ran round the village this morning, donning my face mask to pop into the coop store for some milk. So far I have seen precisely NO people wearing a mask in the village, apart from me that is. The chemist’s has a big notice in the window, however, advertising that they now have face masks and hand sanitiser on sale. (Marks and Spencer, by the way, has been getting some stick for selling bottles of hand sanitiser for £11.50, when similar sized bottles are on sale for around £4 elsewhere. Accusations of profiteering and taking advantage have been flying around!) I wonder how many masks they will sell.
When I go to Uppermill I see more people wearing masks, although still not a huge number, but then, Uppermill is bigger, practically a small town rather than a village any longer. Both in our village and in Uppermill the shops are being very careful to limit the numbers of customers allowed in. I have no idea what the situation is on buses as I have not been on a bus since early in March. Buses are still running in our area. I see them trundling along, mostly empty by the looks of things but presumably some people are still having to get up and use public transport to go to work.
Unlike cafes in larger Uppermill, Edna’s Cafe, the little cafe cum craft shop cum artists’ studio in our village shows no sign of preparing to open anytime soon. Mind you, they closed about a week before lockdown due to bereavement. I never managed to find out who had died - was it the eponymous Edna or her husband? - or what that person had died of. So I no longer stop for a chat with Edna sunning herself on the little terrace, if you can call the bit of pavement commandeered continental-style by the cafe, or with her husband who has spent time in Spain and swops stories with me.
We spent about an hour on the phone last night discussing options with our daughter, who is about the come to the end of her maternity leave just as the thorny question of primary schools reopening is under much discussion. Nearby Bury, another of the boroughs of Greater Manchester, has decided to defy the government and keep schools closed, as has neighbouring Rochdale. I read that since they reopened last week as many as 50 schools in France have been forced to close again after cases or suspected cases of covid-19 have been found. But our council is going ahead with the reopening and our daughter has been devising ways to juggle the time she will have to be in school and the amount of working from home she can incorporate into her week with managing to keep her two smallest out of nursery. She is being very noble and wants to do her bit but she has also become very union-savvy and is doing her best to keep ensure that her working life is as safe as possible. She’s always been union-savvy -she is OUR daughter after all - but I get the impression some of her primary school teacher colleagues have had a fairly steep learning curve.
Another person having to deal with unions is Jacob Rees Mogg, who is doing his best to insist that all MPs return to the House of Commons and give up on virtual voting. He seems to think that they should lead by example in returning to work but the House of Commons can only hold about 50 socially distancing MPs, not a full House by any means. Last Wednesday, Rees-Mogg told the Commons that MPs could not “hide away” while other workers returned to work, raising concerns that the government simply wished to avoid any bad PR they might get for not being seen to be at work. Reports say that the unions will argue that the government is at risk of breaching their own guidance to employers, which states that “employers will need to carry out Covid-19 risk assessments in consultation with their workers or trade unions”.
However some parliamentary veterans doubt Rees-Mogg is serious about a full return to parliament. They claim he is prepared to lose in a fight with the Speaker and the unions so ministers can blame them when questioned why MPs are allowed to work from home while others are told told return to work. “This is a canny move by Jacob, and it is probably done with the sanction of those close to No 10,” said one senior MP.
It would seem to be all about the politics!
Across the Atlantic Mr Trump is reported to be dosing himself with hydroxychloroquine, despite medical,and scientific advisors saying that there is no proof that it will prevent him from catching the virus. The US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has expressed her concern: “He’s our president, and I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists, especially in his age group and his, shall we say, weight group ... morbidly obese, they say,” she said. But Mr Trump himself said: “I think it’s good. I’ve heard a lot of good stories. And if it’s not good, I’ll tell you right. I’m not going to get hurt by it. It’s been around for 40 years.” There you go!
Still in the USA, there is this story about culling poultry and animals such as pigs . It’s one of those strange anomalies that many families do not have enough to eat, many really suffering from hunger, but sources of food are being destroyed because of Covid-19 related slaughterhouse shutdowns. It’s a strange world!
On the subject of going hungry, I have read that our government has sneaked in a change to free school meals, meaning that from now on children aged 5 to 8 no longer have an automatic right to a free lunch. Another example of acting put of concern for children’s welfare I suppose!
Phil and I continue to eat well without problems, for which we are grateful. On the menu today is the chicken in tagine sauce dish which needs finishing off. No fancy dessert but there are blueberries.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
When I go to Uppermill I see more people wearing masks, although still not a huge number, but then, Uppermill is bigger, practically a small town rather than a village any longer. Both in our village and in Uppermill the shops are being very careful to limit the numbers of customers allowed in. I have no idea what the situation is on buses as I have not been on a bus since early in March. Buses are still running in our area. I see them trundling along, mostly empty by the looks of things but presumably some people are still having to get up and use public transport to go to work.
Unlike cafes in larger Uppermill, Edna’s Cafe, the little cafe cum craft shop cum artists’ studio in our village shows no sign of preparing to open anytime soon. Mind you, they closed about a week before lockdown due to bereavement. I never managed to find out who had died - was it the eponymous Edna or her husband? - or what that person had died of. So I no longer stop for a chat with Edna sunning herself on the little terrace, if you can call the bit of pavement commandeered continental-style by the cafe, or with her husband who has spent time in Spain and swops stories with me.
We spent about an hour on the phone last night discussing options with our daughter, who is about the come to the end of her maternity leave just as the thorny question of primary schools reopening is under much discussion. Nearby Bury, another of the boroughs of Greater Manchester, has decided to defy the government and keep schools closed, as has neighbouring Rochdale. I read that since they reopened last week as many as 50 schools in France have been forced to close again after cases or suspected cases of covid-19 have been found. But our council is going ahead with the reopening and our daughter has been devising ways to juggle the time she will have to be in school and the amount of working from home she can incorporate into her week with managing to keep her two smallest out of nursery. She is being very noble and wants to do her bit but she has also become very union-savvy and is doing her best to keep ensure that her working life is as safe as possible. She’s always been union-savvy -she is OUR daughter after all - but I get the impression some of her primary school teacher colleagues have had a fairly steep learning curve.
Another person having to deal with unions is Jacob Rees Mogg, who is doing his best to insist that all MPs return to the House of Commons and give up on virtual voting. He seems to think that they should lead by example in returning to work but the House of Commons can only hold about 50 socially distancing MPs, not a full House by any means. Last Wednesday, Rees-Mogg told the Commons that MPs could not “hide away” while other workers returned to work, raising concerns that the government simply wished to avoid any bad PR they might get for not being seen to be at work. Reports say that the unions will argue that the government is at risk of breaching their own guidance to employers, which states that “employers will need to carry out Covid-19 risk assessments in consultation with their workers or trade unions”.
However some parliamentary veterans doubt Rees-Mogg is serious about a full return to parliament. They claim he is prepared to lose in a fight with the Speaker and the unions so ministers can blame them when questioned why MPs are allowed to work from home while others are told told return to work. “This is a canny move by Jacob, and it is probably done with the sanction of those close to No 10,” said one senior MP.
It would seem to be all about the politics!
Across the Atlantic Mr Trump is reported to be dosing himself with hydroxychloroquine, despite medical,and scientific advisors saying that there is no proof that it will prevent him from catching the virus. The US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has expressed her concern: “He’s our president, and I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists, especially in his age group and his, shall we say, weight group ... morbidly obese, they say,” she said. But Mr Trump himself said: “I think it’s good. I’ve heard a lot of good stories. And if it’s not good, I’ll tell you right. I’m not going to get hurt by it. It’s been around for 40 years.” There you go!
Still in the USA, there is this story about culling poultry and animals such as pigs . It’s one of those strange anomalies that many families do not have enough to eat, many really suffering from hunger, but sources of food are being destroyed because of Covid-19 related slaughterhouse shutdowns. It’s a strange world!
On the subject of going hungry, I have read that our government has sneaked in a change to free school meals, meaning that from now on children aged 5 to 8 no longer have an automatic right to a free lunch. Another example of acting put of concern for children’s welfare I suppose!
Phil and I continue to eat well without problems, for which we are grateful. On the menu today is the chicken in tagine sauce dish which needs finishing off. No fancy dessert but there are blueberries.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
Monday, 18 May 2020
Cancellations. Consequences. Changing symptoms. Criticism. Things coming to an end.
Monday has come round again. I’m not quite sure how that happened. According to a radio news report, today should have seen the opening of the Chelsea Flower Show, another even that is not happening this year. One of the odd consequences of the cancelling of all these events - the Chelsea Flower Show, Wimbledon, Glastonbury, a whole range of music and sporting events - having been cancelled is that there is likely to be a strawberry glut. Who knew that so many strawberries were sold at such events. English strawberries are the best in the world, naturally, and I am rather partial to strawberries. So I hope that the prices come down for us ordinary mortals, not Wimbledon fans or the like.
The government has just added loss of the sense of smell to the list of symptoms to look out for. As I hung washing on the line one of the neighbours told me that she had been suffering from chilblains, which she had heard was some kind of symptom. How odd! Her chilblains have disappeared and so she assumes that she is all right now. I have heard nothing to suggest that chilblains have anything to do with the virus crisis, but it is odd that she suffered from them when the weather was still warm rather than in the colder weather that followed.
According to this article some people have been taking advantage of the ongoing chaos to go out shooting birds of prey. Why they would want to do so is a mystery to me. Red kites are among the species suffering. Whenever we visit our son in Buckinghamshire we admire the red kites that swoop elegantly and ride the thermals above his house. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to shoot them, but some people do such things just because they can.
Around here we suffer more from dog walkers who seem to have decided that lockdown has made it more acceptable than previously to festoon the area with pooh-bags. And this is despite the notices reminding them that there is no such thing as the pooh-fairy and that they should take their dog-pooh home with them.
Over in the USA (former) President Obama has been addressing graduating students and incidentally making some criticism of how his successor has been dealing with the coronavirus crisis. Mr Trump has been rather huffy about this but he remains confident of sorting things out. “So I think we had a great weekend. We did a lot of terrific meetings. Tremendous progress is being made on many fronts, including coming up with a cure for this horrible plague that has beset our country,” said Mr Trump on Sunday. “It was a working weekend, it was a good weekend. A lot of very good things have happened.”
It must be nice to be so confident.
Other things are sneaking their way into the news:- Brexit and the whole deal or no deal, extension or not question is back in the news. I feel quite nostalgic for a time when that was our main concern.
There is also the matter of what will happen to Nazarin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, as this article makes clear. She is currently out of prison on a kind of parole at her parents’ home because of an outbreak of the virus in the prison where she was held, but she could be sent back to prison, perhaps indefinitely, at any time. We mustn’t forget the doubly locked down.
Back in September (at least I think it was September but it seems to have been going on so long it feels permanent) they began repairs to the drainage system along our road. The road was closed to through traffic and diversions appeared all over the place, We watched the works approach our house, give us a noisy interlude while they dug up the road immediately outside our house, and then move on, disappearing from our immediate view. Our stretch of road became remarkably quiet, even before lockdown reduced traffic everywhere. You can walk down the middle of the road with relative impunity. We grew used to the quiet and the cleaner air. It was supposed to take sixth months but it has been longer. It must have been considered essential work for it has continued throughout our house arrest period. And now it’s about to end. What kind of “normal” will be resumed over the next couple of weeks?
But then, life goes on.
Today on the menu we have mushrooms on toast, a fairly simple dish.
Stay safe and well, everyone.
The government has just added loss of the sense of smell to the list of symptoms to look out for. As I hung washing on the line one of the neighbours told me that she had been suffering from chilblains, which she had heard was some kind of symptom. How odd! Her chilblains have disappeared and so she assumes that she is all right now. I have heard nothing to suggest that chilblains have anything to do with the virus crisis, but it is odd that she suffered from them when the weather was still warm rather than in the colder weather that followed.
According to this article some people have been taking advantage of the ongoing chaos to go out shooting birds of prey. Why they would want to do so is a mystery to me. Red kites are among the species suffering. Whenever we visit our son in Buckinghamshire we admire the red kites that swoop elegantly and ride the thermals above his house. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to shoot them, but some people do such things just because they can.
Around here we suffer more from dog walkers who seem to have decided that lockdown has made it more acceptable than previously to festoon the area with pooh-bags. And this is despite the notices reminding them that there is no such thing as the pooh-fairy and that they should take their dog-pooh home with them.
Over in the USA (former) President Obama has been addressing graduating students and incidentally making some criticism of how his successor has been dealing with the coronavirus crisis. Mr Trump has been rather huffy about this but he remains confident of sorting things out. “So I think we had a great weekend. We did a lot of terrific meetings. Tremendous progress is being made on many fronts, including coming up with a cure for this horrible plague that has beset our country,” said Mr Trump on Sunday. “It was a working weekend, it was a good weekend. A lot of very good things have happened.”
It must be nice to be so confident.
Other things are sneaking their way into the news:- Brexit and the whole deal or no deal, extension or not question is back in the news. I feel quite nostalgic for a time when that was our main concern.
There is also the matter of what will happen to Nazarin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, as this article makes clear. She is currently out of prison on a kind of parole at her parents’ home because of an outbreak of the virus in the prison where she was held, but she could be sent back to prison, perhaps indefinitely, at any time. We mustn’t forget the doubly locked down.
Back in September (at least I think it was September but it seems to have been going on so long it feels permanent) they began repairs to the drainage system along our road. The road was closed to through traffic and diversions appeared all over the place, We watched the works approach our house, give us a noisy interlude while they dug up the road immediately outside our house, and then move on, disappearing from our immediate view. Our stretch of road became remarkably quiet, even before lockdown reduced traffic everywhere. You can walk down the middle of the road with relative impunity. We grew used to the quiet and the cleaner air. It was supposed to take sixth months but it has been longer. It must have been considered essential work for it has continued throughout our house arrest period. And now it’s about to end. What kind of “normal” will be resumed over the next couple of weeks?
But then, life goes on.
Today on the menu we have mushrooms on toast, a fairly simple dish.
Stay safe and well, everyone.
Sunday, 17 May 2020
Opening up the country - different places approaches. Cinema. Food.
Well, here we are, busily arguing about the speed of relaxing the lockdown. Tourist attractions all over the place are in a quandary: they want the tourist income but they don’t want the overcrowding and the risk that goes with it. Mostly they are saying they would rather wait a bit longer. Mr. Johnson wants us to be back to normality by July. Does this include tourism? Does this include Britons travelling out of the country? We shall see.
Meanwhile other countries are also thinking about it.
In an attempt to gradually reopen tourist venues, PM Edouard Philippe said France’s residents would be allowed to go on holiday from July, but only within the country. That’s probably not too much of a hardship as in France there is a long tradition of the majority spending holidays in France. In fact, for a long time the Germans and the British have been the greatest travellers for holiday purposes. It’s been changing in recent years but really you just need to look at how Mallorca, for example, caters so well for those two nationalities.
Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, has said several times that Italians will be going on holiday this summer. Yesterday, the government approved a decree which will allow travel to and from abroad from June 3. Free travel within the country’s borders will also be permitted from the same day. An Italian friend of mine is spitting feathers as she feels that opening her country to foreign travellers too soon is a dangerous mistake. And this is despite her own real longing to get back to her beloved Sicily for the summer!
Spain’s foreign minister, Arancha González Laya, warned at the end of April that the country would re-open to tourists only “when it’s in a position to guarantee tourists’ safety”. Everyone arriving in Spain from abroad since 15 May must undertake a two-week quarantine, with new arrivals allowed out only to buy food or medicine, seek medical attention, or on emergency grounds. The quarantine will remain in force while the state of emergency, declared on 14 March, endures – possibly until the end of June. So we’ll see what goes on there. We have a personal interest here as we really need to sort out our Vigo flat. Mind you, even if Spain were to let us in, would the UK government allow us to travel, especially those of us in the 70+ age group? Besides as we usually fly Liverpool to Porto, will there be buses from Porto to Vigo? Watch this space! It’s all we can do.
One country is ahead of the rest in plans to get its tourist industry up and running. Greece has emerged with one of the lowest infection rates and death tolls in Europe after enforcing radical lockdown measures early on. “If things go according to plan, we’ll be open by 1 July,” prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said last week. “Europe’s tourism pie is going to be much smaller, but this summer we want a bigger part of it.”
Meanwhile, the search for a vaccine goes on. Llamas appear in one of the the latest ideas. Apparently llama antibodies have been used in combatting Sars and so might be useful in the current situation. I suppose nothing should be ruled out, within reason that is. Witchcraft and exorcism are both a step too far!
We still hear a good deal about how all the isolation is bad for the nations’s mental health. Here is a writer putting the opposite point of view. And it may well be that there are people suffering from lack of solitude. Not everyone has the space to go and be by themselves for a while. In most middle-class families each child has his or her own bedroom which they can retreat to for a bit of “me-time”. But that’s not the case for everyone. I know what it’s like to share a bedroom with two sisters. You don’t have a space of your own. We used to wait until our brother went off to camp with the Boy Scouts and then take it in turns to have his bedroom. Maybe that’s why I have always appreciated a bit of solitude from time to time. It’s a funny mixed up world.
Now, here is something randomly different. In an article about appreciating the cinema, where famous people reminisced about their early experiences, I found this:-
“A spear flung from the back of the crowd stays dangling on the screen.
Tilda Swinton
1980.
A sheet hung on a tree in the middle of a village in Kitui County, Kenya, a cranky old western screened via an even crankier old projector and its generator, which was all driven round by two geezers from Nairobi in a loop from Somalia to Tanzania and up and over again every two years or so. An audience of hundreds, gathered from a distance of many miles. In the middle of the shoot-out in the saloon, a spear flung from the back of the crowd hits the baddie in the chest and stays dangling in the heart of the sheet right up to the final romantic clinch. Unforgettable. Magic cinema of dreams, you rock us everywhere and always – ad astra and back, ad infinitum and beyond.
Respect.”
Those were the days!
The weather is a bit dull today. Maybe it will put people off flocking to the beach and National Trust places. We are certainly not going far. I ran along the Donkey Line bridle path earlier, when the sun was actually shining. And Phil and I will probably go for a walk later, but that’s it.
On the menu today is a chicken dish with a Moroccan tagine sauce. Maybe a glass of red wine. Our daughter came to beg a bottle of red wine from us yesterday. She has bottles of white wine and prosecco, given to her as presents from time to time, which is ironic as she almost teetotal. Her partner wanted to cook a dish which required a generous splash of red wine. So she asked if we had a suitable bottle, not especially good, a cooking wine. Then followed a discussion as I explained that if you cook with wine you have use decent stuff. There really is no such thing as “cooking wine”. Not for culinary snobs anyway. She laughed as that was exactly what her partner had said to her. So she came a collected a bottle, which gave is a chance for her and the children to stand in the garden and chat - just a little bonus!
Life goes on! Stay safe and well, everyone!
Meanwhile other countries are also thinking about it.
In an attempt to gradually reopen tourist venues, PM Edouard Philippe said France’s residents would be allowed to go on holiday from July, but only within the country. That’s probably not too much of a hardship as in France there is a long tradition of the majority spending holidays in France. In fact, for a long time the Germans and the British have been the greatest travellers for holiday purposes. It’s been changing in recent years but really you just need to look at how Mallorca, for example, caters so well for those two nationalities.
Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, has said several times that Italians will be going on holiday this summer. Yesterday, the government approved a decree which will allow travel to and from abroad from June 3. Free travel within the country’s borders will also be permitted from the same day. An Italian friend of mine is spitting feathers as she feels that opening her country to foreign travellers too soon is a dangerous mistake. And this is despite her own real longing to get back to her beloved Sicily for the summer!
Spain’s foreign minister, Arancha González Laya, warned at the end of April that the country would re-open to tourists only “when it’s in a position to guarantee tourists’ safety”. Everyone arriving in Spain from abroad since 15 May must undertake a two-week quarantine, with new arrivals allowed out only to buy food or medicine, seek medical attention, or on emergency grounds. The quarantine will remain in force while the state of emergency, declared on 14 March, endures – possibly until the end of June. So we’ll see what goes on there. We have a personal interest here as we really need to sort out our Vigo flat. Mind you, even if Spain were to let us in, would the UK government allow us to travel, especially those of us in the 70+ age group? Besides as we usually fly Liverpool to Porto, will there be buses from Porto to Vigo? Watch this space! It’s all we can do.
One country is ahead of the rest in plans to get its tourist industry up and running. Greece has emerged with one of the lowest infection rates and death tolls in Europe after enforcing radical lockdown measures early on. “If things go according to plan, we’ll be open by 1 July,” prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said last week. “Europe’s tourism pie is going to be much smaller, but this summer we want a bigger part of it.”
Meanwhile, the search for a vaccine goes on. Llamas appear in one of the the latest ideas. Apparently llama antibodies have been used in combatting Sars and so might be useful in the current situation. I suppose nothing should be ruled out, within reason that is. Witchcraft and exorcism are both a step too far!
We still hear a good deal about how all the isolation is bad for the nations’s mental health. Here is a writer putting the opposite point of view. And it may well be that there are people suffering from lack of solitude. Not everyone has the space to go and be by themselves for a while. In most middle-class families each child has his or her own bedroom which they can retreat to for a bit of “me-time”. But that’s not the case for everyone. I know what it’s like to share a bedroom with two sisters. You don’t have a space of your own. We used to wait until our brother went off to camp with the Boy Scouts and then take it in turns to have his bedroom. Maybe that’s why I have always appreciated a bit of solitude from time to time. It’s a funny mixed up world.
Now, here is something randomly different. In an article about appreciating the cinema, where famous people reminisced about their early experiences, I found this:-
“A spear flung from the back of the crowd stays dangling on the screen.
Tilda Swinton
1980.
A sheet hung on a tree in the middle of a village in Kitui County, Kenya, a cranky old western screened via an even crankier old projector and its generator, which was all driven round by two geezers from Nairobi in a loop from Somalia to Tanzania and up and over again every two years or so. An audience of hundreds, gathered from a distance of many miles. In the middle of the shoot-out in the saloon, a spear flung from the back of the crowd hits the baddie in the chest and stays dangling in the heart of the sheet right up to the final romantic clinch. Unforgettable. Magic cinema of dreams, you rock us everywhere and always – ad astra and back, ad infinitum and beyond.
Respect.”
Those were the days!
The weather is a bit dull today. Maybe it will put people off flocking to the beach and National Trust places. We are certainly not going far. I ran along the Donkey Line bridle path earlier, when the sun was actually shining. And Phil and I will probably go for a walk later, but that’s it.
On the menu today is a chicken dish with a Moroccan tagine sauce. Maybe a glass of red wine. Our daughter came to beg a bottle of red wine from us yesterday. She has bottles of white wine and prosecco, given to her as presents from time to time, which is ironic as she almost teetotal. Her partner wanted to cook a dish which required a generous splash of red wine. So she asked if we had a suitable bottle, not especially good, a cooking wine. Then followed a discussion as I explained that if you cook with wine you have use decent stuff. There really is no such thing as “cooking wine”. Not for culinary snobs anyway. She laughed as that was exactly what her partner had said to her. So she came a collected a bottle, which gave is a chance for her and the children to stand in the garden and chat - just a little bonus!
Life goes on! Stay safe and well, everyone!
Saturday, 16 May 2020
Lies. Loonies. Not rocking the boat.
Yesterday I had a bit of worry-rant in my blog. A final remark, someone has pointed out to me that public schools are not reopening until after the summer break. Maybe someone should suggest that they be the first to reopen ... on an experimental basis ... and see how it goes.
Anyway, today is another day. Here we go.
I find myself wondering if some members of our government live in a fantasy world when they come out with things like this, from Matt Hancock during the daily briefing:
“I want to tell you what we've been doing to protect people in care homes throughout the crisis. (From 2 March to 1 May 2020, there were 12,526 care home deaths involving coronavirus.)
Right from the start, it's been clear that this horrible virus affects older people most. So right from the start we've tried to throw a protective ring around our care homes.”
Or maybe they just manipulate the truth. I am reminded of some of my former students coming up with explanations about the (lack of) progress in their coursework!
How do they sleep at night?
Then, in the middle of all the other madness going on at present, we have the religious nuts. My friend Colin wrote in his blog yesterday about Somali imams who are saying that muslims are immune to the coronavirus. Well, today I read about American Christians. According to this article “Fifty-five per cent of American believers say they feel at least somewhat that God will protect them from being infected.
Evangelical Protestants are more likely than those of other religious backgrounds to say they believe that, with 43% saying so strongly and another 30% saying so somewhat, while Catholics and mainline Protestants are more closely split on feeling that way or not.”
There are a lot of believers in the USA, some 82% of the population apparently. I really don’t know what percentage of the UK population would declare themselves believers.
Anyway, it seems that about 2/3 of American believers think that with the virus God is telling humanity to change how we live.
Well, yes, I could go along with the need to change bit. I might not need a deity to tell me so.
The virus hasn’t changed people’s beliefs much, it seems, despite its having killed some 80,000 American citizens. 2% say they believe in God today, but did not before. Fewer than 1% say they do not believe in God today but did before.
(I wonder if the virus, and the government’s handingling of it, has prompted any to want change the way they vote - in both the ISA and the UK.)
It’s easy to poke a little fun at the beliefs of other countries. So what about the leader of the Catholic church here in the UK? Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster, has apparently said that Catholic churches should be allowed to open sooner than Pentecostal churches and mosques. This is because catholic believers, he explained, are more likely to want to go in alone to pray.
That smacks to me a little of holier-than-thou. And surely, if your god is listening to you it shouldn’t matter if you speak to him from the church or from your home or from the bottom of your garden!
Okay, enough of that.
The Health Service Journal on the 15 May 2020 reported that NHS staff in London have been warned by national regulators not take part in public protests asking for a payrise. It seems that there was an email about a “spontaneous” protest involving 10 protesters holding a banner which said ‘We saved Boris. Now give us a pay rise’. The gist of the message was that protesting at the current time could adversely affect public confidence.
It’s a bit more let’s-not-rock-the-boat stuff.
We finished yesterday with a nice evening walk, the sun having finally come out after a rather gloomy day.
Today’s forecast suggests that the current gloom might also give way to a bit of sunshine later.
On the menu yesterday was rainbow trout on a bed (as the best cookery writers say) of potatoes, onions and peppers, accompanied by a very nice glass of Albariño wine. Today is simpler: soup and leftovers and salad.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.
Anyway, today is another day. Here we go.
I find myself wondering if some members of our government live in a fantasy world when they come out with things like this, from Matt Hancock during the daily briefing:
“I want to tell you what we've been doing to protect people in care homes throughout the crisis. (From 2 March to 1 May 2020, there were 12,526 care home deaths involving coronavirus.)
Right from the start, it's been clear that this horrible virus affects older people most. So right from the start we've tried to throw a protective ring around our care homes.”
Or maybe they just manipulate the truth. I am reminded of some of my former students coming up with explanations about the (lack of) progress in their coursework!
How do they sleep at night?
Then, in the middle of all the other madness going on at present, we have the religious nuts. My friend Colin wrote in his blog yesterday about Somali imams who are saying that muslims are immune to the coronavirus. Well, today I read about American Christians. According to this article “Fifty-five per cent of American believers say they feel at least somewhat that God will protect them from being infected.
Evangelical Protestants are more likely than those of other religious backgrounds to say they believe that, with 43% saying so strongly and another 30% saying so somewhat, while Catholics and mainline Protestants are more closely split on feeling that way or not.”
There are a lot of believers in the USA, some 82% of the population apparently. I really don’t know what percentage of the UK population would declare themselves believers.
Anyway, it seems that about 2/3 of American believers think that with the virus God is telling humanity to change how we live.
Well, yes, I could go along with the need to change bit. I might not need a deity to tell me so.
The virus hasn’t changed people’s beliefs much, it seems, despite its having killed some 80,000 American citizens. 2% say they believe in God today, but did not before. Fewer than 1% say they do not believe in God today but did before.
(I wonder if the virus, and the government’s handingling of it, has prompted any to want change the way they vote - in both the ISA and the UK.)
It’s easy to poke a little fun at the beliefs of other countries. So what about the leader of the Catholic church here in the UK? Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster, has apparently said that Catholic churches should be allowed to open sooner than Pentecostal churches and mosques. This is because catholic believers, he explained, are more likely to want to go in alone to pray.
That smacks to me a little of holier-than-thou. And surely, if your god is listening to you it shouldn’t matter if you speak to him from the church or from your home or from the bottom of your garden!
Okay, enough of that.
The Health Service Journal on the 15 May 2020 reported that NHS staff in London have been warned by national regulators not take part in public protests asking for a payrise. It seems that there was an email about a “spontaneous” protest involving 10 protesters holding a banner which said ‘We saved Boris. Now give us a pay rise’. The gist of the message was that protesting at the current time could adversely affect public confidence.
It’s a bit more let’s-not-rock-the-boat stuff.
We finished yesterday with a nice evening walk, the sun having finally come out after a rather gloomy day.
Today’s forecast suggests that the current gloom might also give way to a bit of sunshine later.
On the menu yesterday was rainbow trout on a bed (as the best cookery writers say) of potatoes, onions and peppers, accompanied by a very nice glass of Albariño wine. Today is simpler: soup and leftovers and salad.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.
Friday, 15 May 2020
Growing disheartened about the political shenanigans around coronavirus.
I’ve just heard on the radio news that they expect London to be relatively clear of Covid-19 sooner than elsewhere in the UK. It’s certainly recovering faster than some other parts of the UK, such as the North East, and indeed the North West. According to this article it is still on the rise in Greater Manchester.
This difference in infection could perhaps lead to a decision to restrict travel from one part of the Uk to another. Other countries, such as Spain, have had this policy in place and are only now beginning to think of lifting the restriction.
I also wondered if this difference, and especially the prospect of a virus-free capital, affects the decision to relax the lockdown. If your immediate work place is less affected, then you are more likely to say go ahead and open places up. Is Westminster really in touch with the rest of the country.
However, the London area remains a dangerous place for those who have to travel to work.
Which brings me to two other items in the news which have particularly attached my attention: Transport for London’s situation and the reopening of schools question. We have family working on both those areas.
When we were talking to our son last week, he flagged up the probability, nay, the certainty, that Transport for London was running out of money and needed help from the government. Now comes the news that TfL is getting financial assistance but ...
“there will be substantial conditions attached. Which is odd, because EasyJet did not get any. Nor have any of the one million businesses now furloughing staff had conditions attached. And the bounce back and other loans seem to be remarkably condition free. And yet TfL gets them. TfL have also got to put up fares. That can simply be described as a tax increase on London to pay for coronavirus. And the bailout money is being provided as a loan, not a grant. So it will have to be repaid. Which means that there will be more fare rises in future for an event that was beyond anyone’s control and from which no one gained.”
This article, from which the quote above is taken, suggests that there is a political element to this. What a surprise! Is London being punished for having elected a Labour mayor?
Then there is the reopening of schools question. This is being portrayed as being all for the good of our children. On the radio just now someone from the Sutton Trust went on about our falling behind education-wise in competition with other countries, especially Germany who sent their children back to school a few weeks ago. But Germany is having to rethink its lifting of lockdown as virus cases have gone up again. Also, I am not sure that France, Spain and Italy plan on sending children back to school until September.
The Daily Mail brays that we must “Let our teachers be heroes”. The implication is that teachers are all longing to be back in school but the wicked unions are preventing them from doing so. As if the teachers and the unions were two different groups of people.
Clearly it is important to get the children back to school as soon as it’s safe and appropriate to do so – but is June 1st the right time?
Is this a reasoned decision based on the science, or a political decision, mainly based on the pressure the government is under to get the economy moving again, with the useful side effect of creating a distraction by setting up the teachers’ unions as public enemy number one (knowing they would resist a premature return – see the headlines in Daily Mail for instance).
Here are a few items Phil just collected for me:
simon maginn Retweeted
Ash Sarkar @AyoCaesar
We’ve got the highest official death toll in Europe, mass testing is still a mess, and contact tracing hasn’t yet been set up. Can someone explain to me why this is a good time for teachers to go back to work?
Kevin Courtney
#NEU NHS @cyclingkev
6h
The Daily Mail says we are standing in education workers way. NEU had 7.5k new members in last 3 days; 2.4k reps on a call yesterday & 100k response to a survey in 2 days.
Our members want to get back to wider opening. When it’s safe.
Our #FiveTests are responsible & sensible.
“The Department for Education’s chief scientific adviser admitted he has not assessed whether guidance on reopening schools is effective, adding the current advice is “draft” and “will be developed”. Appearing in front of the Parliamentary science and technology committee today, Osama Rahman also admitted the DfE had done no modelling on the impact on transmission rates of starting to reopen schools after the May half term break.
During a hearing that left some MPs visibly bemused, Rahman also suggested the government guidance issued yesterday on safety is a “draft”, and will be reissued after further consultation with Public Health England.
He also said the decision to reopen schools was made by cabinet, not the DfE.”
Later it seems he’s been “nobbled”:.
simon maginn Retweeted
Tom London @TomLondon6
·1h
WHAT IS GOING ON?
Phase ONE Coronavirus is no big deal
Phase TWO It's a killer virus! It's a HUGE deal
Phase THREE Only snowflake treacherous wimps wouldn't expose themselves and our kids to this virus.
Nothing is as simple as it seems. I grow very downhearted but ...
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
This difference in infection could perhaps lead to a decision to restrict travel from one part of the Uk to another. Other countries, such as Spain, have had this policy in place and are only now beginning to think of lifting the restriction.
I also wondered if this difference, and especially the prospect of a virus-free capital, affects the decision to relax the lockdown. If your immediate work place is less affected, then you are more likely to say go ahead and open places up. Is Westminster really in touch with the rest of the country.
However, the London area remains a dangerous place for those who have to travel to work.
Which brings me to two other items in the news which have particularly attached my attention: Transport for London’s situation and the reopening of schools question. We have family working on both those areas.
When we were talking to our son last week, he flagged up the probability, nay, the certainty, that Transport for London was running out of money and needed help from the government. Now comes the news that TfL is getting financial assistance but ...
“there will be substantial conditions attached. Which is odd, because EasyJet did not get any. Nor have any of the one million businesses now furloughing staff had conditions attached. And the bounce back and other loans seem to be remarkably condition free. And yet TfL gets them. TfL have also got to put up fares. That can simply be described as a tax increase on London to pay for coronavirus. And the bailout money is being provided as a loan, not a grant. So it will have to be repaid. Which means that there will be more fare rises in future for an event that was beyond anyone’s control and from which no one gained.”
This article, from which the quote above is taken, suggests that there is a political element to this. What a surprise! Is London being punished for having elected a Labour mayor?
Then there is the reopening of schools question. This is being portrayed as being all for the good of our children. On the radio just now someone from the Sutton Trust went on about our falling behind education-wise in competition with other countries, especially Germany who sent their children back to school a few weeks ago. But Germany is having to rethink its lifting of lockdown as virus cases have gone up again. Also, I am not sure that France, Spain and Italy plan on sending children back to school until September.
The Daily Mail brays that we must “Let our teachers be heroes”. The implication is that teachers are all longing to be back in school but the wicked unions are preventing them from doing so. As if the teachers and the unions were two different groups of people.
Clearly it is important to get the children back to school as soon as it’s safe and appropriate to do so – but is June 1st the right time?
Is this a reasoned decision based on the science, or a political decision, mainly based on the pressure the government is under to get the economy moving again, with the useful side effect of creating a distraction by setting up the teachers’ unions as public enemy number one (knowing they would resist a premature return – see the headlines in Daily Mail for instance).
Here are a few items Phil just collected for me:
simon maginn Retweeted
Ash Sarkar @AyoCaesar
We’ve got the highest official death toll in Europe, mass testing is still a mess, and contact tracing hasn’t yet been set up. Can someone explain to me why this is a good time for teachers to go back to work?
Kevin Courtney
#NEU NHS @cyclingkev
6h
The Daily Mail says we are standing in education workers way. NEU had 7.5k new members in last 3 days; 2.4k reps on a call yesterday & 100k response to a survey in 2 days.
Our members want to get back to wider opening. When it’s safe.
Our #FiveTests are responsible & sensible.
“The Department for Education’s chief scientific adviser admitted he has not assessed whether guidance on reopening schools is effective, adding the current advice is “draft” and “will be developed”. Appearing in front of the Parliamentary science and technology committee today, Osama Rahman also admitted the DfE had done no modelling on the impact on transmission rates of starting to reopen schools after the May half term break.
During a hearing that left some MPs visibly bemused, Rahman also suggested the government guidance issued yesterday on safety is a “draft”, and will be reissued after further consultation with Public Health England.
He also said the decision to reopen schools was made by cabinet, not the DfE.”
Later it seems he’s been “nobbled”:.
simon maginn Retweeted
Tom London @TomLondon6
·1h
WHAT IS GOING ON?
Phase ONE Coronavirus is no big deal
Phase TWO It's a killer virus! It's a HUGE deal
Phase THREE Only snowflake treacherous wimps wouldn't expose themselves and our kids to this virus.
Nothing is as simple as it seems. I grow very downhearted but ...
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
Thursday, 14 May 2020
Fishing. Deliveries. Changes. Getting out and about.
The fishermen were out in force around the millpond this morning. Fishing is one of the sports which is now permitted. I am not sure that fishing is really a sport. It’s not terribly active, after all. And if it’s a competition between man and fish, the odds seem rather stacked against the fish, although often the fish are pretty good at dodging. But you don’t see many fishermen falling in the water, do you?
One thing I note is that fishermen don’t seem to need to listen to music or podcasts as they sit at the water’s edge, unlike the numbers of joggers and runners who seem to need their earbuds in so that they don’t get bored. Personally I like to let my thoughts roam as I run or as I walk if walking alone. Maybe it’s a generational thing but also maybe the fishermen are the last of the great thinkers.
Whatever may be the truth of that, the fact is that fishing is now allowed again - a part of the relaxation of restrictions.
Meanwhile I read that Germany’s infection rate has tripled and Mrs Merkel is going to bring back stricter measures. We should take note and learn from the experience of others. Be warned!
Deliverymen have taken to ringing the doorbell and running. Well, if not actually running, making it obvious that they are getting away as quickly as possible. This is how we ended up yesterday with a package for the house next door. There was no time to check the parcel was actually for us before the young man disappeared in a puff of smoke. Not that I looked at the address label in fact but just wiped it with a disinfectant wipe and opened it up, only to discover something we had definitely not ordered. That was the point at which I looked at the address label! Oops!
The family next door have always had a lot of stuff delivered. Maybe it’s the young people of the family, 22 and 24 years old, who order lots of stuff. Our eldest granddaughter also orders lots of stuff. Where I might think about looking out for an item the next time I went shopping, she just orders immediately whatever she feels a need to acquire. It’s another generational thing.
And yet now we are all becoming online shoppers, for things it would never previously have occurred to me to purchase that way. I have just stocked up on vitamins from the healthfood store Holland and Barrett, whereas normally/previously I would pop into Boots. And I am seriously considering ordering skin care products online from Boots, as well as shower gel and the like from The Bodyshop. If this is what the future holds, I will miss wandering round the shops looking for stuff, maybe being tempted to try something new.
I hear that Michael O’Leary is planning to restart Ryanair flights from July Ist. I don’t know where he plans to fly to as so many countries are putting people arriving straight into 2 weeks quarantine. That could make a two week holiday in the sun into a six week affair: travel to your holiday destination, quarantine two weeks, have your holiday in the sun, swimming and messing about on the beach, visiting interesting places, and then flying home to two weeks quarantine in the UK.
Of course, by July things may have changed again!
However, I don’t think we personally are going very far. Fortunately spring has been kind to us this year and we have fine places to walk to. When we moved into this house, more years ago than I care to remember, our children were aged 8 and 6. Walking around the area, the children and I discovered what quickly became known as “the secret path”, a path off the main road to nearby Dobcross, taking us through a wooded area clearly not very often visited. The path is a bit more established now, with proper steps in steep places, and Phil and I have walked it frequently over the last few weeks, admiring the progress of the bluebells. Here are some photos.
We could well go back there today as the sun is shning nicely once more.On the menu today we have spicy potato wedges and stuffed tomatoes.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
One thing I note is that fishermen don’t seem to need to listen to music or podcasts as they sit at the water’s edge, unlike the numbers of joggers and runners who seem to need their earbuds in so that they don’t get bored. Personally I like to let my thoughts roam as I run or as I walk if walking alone. Maybe it’s a generational thing but also maybe the fishermen are the last of the great thinkers.
Whatever may be the truth of that, the fact is that fishing is now allowed again - a part of the relaxation of restrictions.
Meanwhile I read that Germany’s infection rate has tripled and Mrs Merkel is going to bring back stricter measures. We should take note and learn from the experience of others. Be warned!
Deliverymen have taken to ringing the doorbell and running. Well, if not actually running, making it obvious that they are getting away as quickly as possible. This is how we ended up yesterday with a package for the house next door. There was no time to check the parcel was actually for us before the young man disappeared in a puff of smoke. Not that I looked at the address label in fact but just wiped it with a disinfectant wipe and opened it up, only to discover something we had definitely not ordered. That was the point at which I looked at the address label! Oops!
The family next door have always had a lot of stuff delivered. Maybe it’s the young people of the family, 22 and 24 years old, who order lots of stuff. Our eldest granddaughter also orders lots of stuff. Where I might think about looking out for an item the next time I went shopping, she just orders immediately whatever she feels a need to acquire. It’s another generational thing.
And yet now we are all becoming online shoppers, for things it would never previously have occurred to me to purchase that way. I have just stocked up on vitamins from the healthfood store Holland and Barrett, whereas normally/previously I would pop into Boots. And I am seriously considering ordering skin care products online from Boots, as well as shower gel and the like from The Bodyshop. If this is what the future holds, I will miss wandering round the shops looking for stuff, maybe being tempted to try something new.
I hear that Michael O’Leary is planning to restart Ryanair flights from July Ist. I don’t know where he plans to fly to as so many countries are putting people arriving straight into 2 weeks quarantine. That could make a two week holiday in the sun into a six week affair: travel to your holiday destination, quarantine two weeks, have your holiday in the sun, swimming and messing about on the beach, visiting interesting places, and then flying home to two weeks quarantine in the UK.
Of course, by July things may have changed again!
However, I don’t think we personally are going very far. Fortunately spring has been kind to us this year and we have fine places to walk to. When we moved into this house, more years ago than I care to remember, our children were aged 8 and 6. Walking around the area, the children and I discovered what quickly became known as “the secret path”, a path off the main road to nearby Dobcross, taking us through a wooded area clearly not very often visited. The path is a bit more established now, with proper steps in steep places, and Phil and I have walked it frequently over the last few weeks, admiring the progress of the bluebells. Here are some photos.
We could well go back there today as the sun is shning nicely once more.On the menu today we have spicy potato wedges and stuffed tomatoes.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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