Friday March 26th
A glance at the calendar.
Another five days of March to go.
Will be glad to be rid of it, but April is likely to be worse as regards
Corona in the UK. Deaths yesterday rose
by more than 100 – from 475 to 578.
Strange to think that we were desperate to get rid of February – highest
ever rainfall – three times as much as any of the last five years. But last night was special for the project
‘Applause’. At 8pm everybody stood outside
their houses and clapped. Buildings and
the London Eye were lighted in blue to celebrate the NHS and workers on the
front line.
The 7 Brunstead Place film club enjoyed ‘Cabaret’ last
night. This film for the most part
stands up well. Liza Minelli looked slim
and charismatic, compared to her later persona.
Michael York was a little wooden but handsome. Curiously, to me, he looked far more like the
young W.H. Auden, who was also in Berlin for the same reasons that Christopher
Isherwood was. The 25-year-old Marisa
Berenson was stunning as Natalia Landauer.
I had read many of Isherwood’s books by the time the film came out. This came about in a curious way. Our history master (I will not go into
details; he is deceased) recommended during a lesson that we read ‘Mr Norris
Changes Trains’. I immediately did
so. Thinking about the history master
and his mannerisms, although he was married with two daughters, I do now wonder
whether he was gay. The character of
Christopher Isherwood in the film (Brian Roberts played by Michael York) suffered
several sexual transitions. In the film he is
bisexual – whereas, as far as I know, Isherwood was entirely homosexual. Even this was a dramatic switch from the 1966
stage play where ‘Brian Roberts’ was portrayed as heterosexual. It’s a tribute to Bob Fosse that he gave the
film much more bite than the original stage play. This play, written by John Van Druten, was
not a musical, and was based on the Isherwood book ‘I am a Camera’. It was apparently very poor, and attracted
the famous review by Walter Kerr – ‘Me No Leica.’ One of Bob Fosse’s skills in the film was to
attract cinemagoers who don’t particularly like musicals, by making every
musical number take place within the Kit Kat club. There is one exception, the famous ‘Tomorrow
belongs to me’, sung by a young boy in face shot only, but as the song
progresses and the onlookers join in with the patriotic lines such as
‘Fatherland, Fatherland, show us the sign…’ the camera pans out to reveal his
Hitler Youth uniform. As Bob Fosse said
of this strategy, ‘I get a bit antsy watching musicals in which people are
singing as they walk down the street or hang out the laundry… In fact I think
it looks a bit silly.’
A one and a half hour conference call last night, as a
Governor of Poole Hospital. Confidential
of course, but there is terrific commitment among the staff, accepting of
redeployment, learning new roles, preparing to take the huge anticipated
increase in Covid-19 patients. ‘We are
all Intensive Care Nurses now!’
Early morning shopping trip.
I feel a little guilty taking advantage of the 7.30am NHS workers’ time
in Sainsbury’s, but I am contributing to the running of the hospital,
volunteering to work for them if they need me to see routine cardiac cases if
need be – though they will still have to persuade the GMC to relicense me. There is talk of moving some of the non-Covid
19 work off site to a local private hospital if numbers on the main site
increase. To return to the shopping
trip: it’s interesting to see what other people regard as essential
shopping. I’m doing an extensive list
for my former colleague and now near neighbour whose wife has had a bone marrow
transplant, now some 14 plus years ago.
Understandably she is not going out.
Her husband does most of the cooking anyway. I disobeyed instructions to buy “Two bottles
each red and white wine, £8 to £10 a bottle.”
I told him that I couldn’t envisage him drinking a wine which cost less
than his free range chicken. Hence 2 x
Chablis at £12; 2 x Chianti Classico Riserva at £15. He did have the good grace to WhatsApp me later
to say he was enjoying the Chianti very much.
Guess that’s the closest we’ll get to Tuscany for a while.
More domestic chores – high pressure hosing the
flagstones. Evening news has additional
spice by virtue of the fact that our Prime Minister, the Health Minister, and
the Chief Medical Officer, all have Covid-19 symptoms. Once again, they seem to be able to get a
rapid turnaround of test results within 24 hours, unlike the rest of us. Laura Kuenssberg, BBC political reporter,
whose left wing bias is only very thinly veiled asks challenging questions as
to how the PM knows that he is fit to continue leading the country
remotely. Short of suggesting an IQ test
or some pelmanism it’s a bit difficult to answer that one, is it not? Her questioning in the 5pm PM briefings has
been overtly hostile, and not at all supportive. One would need a crystal ball to answer some
of the press questions at these sessions.
The short answer to most of them is, ‘We don’t know.’ If you would like some proof of my assertion,
consider this: during one of the sudden reshuffles recently; it may have been
the departure of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; she was reporting on the hoof
with no notes from Downing Street.
Announcing the arrival of various cabinet figures at No. 10, the camera
caught Jacob Rees Mogg walking briskly past.
“Here comes Jacob Rees Mogg.” She
stated, “In his pinstripes.” Now of course
that was factually correct. Rees Mogg was
wearing pinstripes. But this wasn’t a
Hollywood red carpet. Politicians’
clothing is not relevant here. Her lack
of time to prepare revealed something of her inner contempt. Imagine her reporting from a Shadow Cabinet
meeting place, “Here comes Jeremy Corbyn, in his scruffy suit and red
tie.” Do you take my point? Presumably her persistent and aggressive
questioning (she’s almost always the first questioner during the PM’s
briefings) is an attempt to justify her >£250,000 a year salary.
Saturday March 28th
The film club watched Alfred Hitchcock’s 1938 ‘The Lady Vanishes’
last night. I saw this when very young
(not in 1938 of course) and enjoyed it.
But now it’s hard to buy in to the preposterous notion of a secret
message about some vital European Treaty being memorised in a song; the too
obviously model Alpine villages and trains; and the substitution trick of a
heavily bandaged personage being shipped aboard the train to take the place of
the old lady that the heroine has befriended and who has vanished.
Another sunny day, though we have had a cold north-easterly
wind in the last day or two. I awoke
with quite a striking headache and a bit of a dry cough. No fever.
Is it Covid-19? Don’t know but
will have to self-isolate more thoroughly.
A pity. We have enjoyed walks on
Talbot Heath, and a deserted Parkstone Golf Club. Sightings of deer and foxes.
Lindsay gets out a jigsaw!
Sunday March 29th
All sorts of gloomy titles will meander through one’s
head from time to time:
Chronicle of a Death Foretold
Love in the Time of Cholera
A Journal of the Plague Year
La Peste
The Masque of the Red Death
Only three of which I’ve read (though I have now downloaded
Defoe’s work from Gutenberg – after 350 years it is after all, free from
copyright.)
But again it’s a bright day.
Though the wind is northerly and very cold. The clocks went forward last night, so we are
officially in summer.
The film club watched ‘Lion’ last night. An inspiring and at times frightening story
of a little boy lost in India. After
some time on the streets with a few near misses he ends up in a rather
unpleasant orphanage/foundling school.
He is adopted by a Tasmanian couple, and eventually fulfils a need to
find where he came from. This is based
on a true story. It says quite a lot
about her acting skills but I didn’t realise until nearly the end of the film
that the rather unattractive and angular but sympathetic Tasmanian housewife is
played by Nicole Kidman. I would say
that Dev Patel was sort of so-so in the role of the grown up Saroo, but then he
didn’t have much to do apart from have a row with his girlfriend and spend his
time on Google Earth, or sticking pins in a map of India. The young Saroo was excellent.
Moving on. And even
more sobering. This weekend UK deaths
reached 1000 and figures from this morning show 1228 deaths, and total testing
of nearly 128,000 (19,522 positive; 108,215 negative). Feel well today. Apyrexial.
We walk at a distance from all others and I wait while Lindsay does food
shopping including more items for completely isolated friends. Leave it on their doorstep together with an
Alco-Wipe. Other shopping for
incapacitated old lady includes chicken jalfrezi, Fisherman’s Friends, and easy
peelers. Obviously the necessities.
Tonight’s presenter at the lectern in Downing Street was the
housing minister. Who will be next? The Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Jenny
Harries, is clear, calm, accurate and deals with the press like an omniscient
junior school headmistress. Well done her.
I was in touch with a colleague in London yesterday who
tells me that King’s College Hospital have more than 350 Covid-19 patients at
the moment. His echo team are worried
about lack of PPE (Personal Protection Equipment; not a degree course at an Oxford college). The WHO and ASE
guidelines suggest greater protection than the current UK guidelines which only
provide for major PPE if ‘aerosol generating procedures’ are undertaken. It would only take a patient undergoing an
echo a moment to sneeze or cough however, and an aerosol would be
generated. This seems to be the major
worry of front line staff at the moment, understandably. Today we hear of a front line consultant in
his 50s who has died. Whether or not
future editions of my blog appear would seem to depend on the new sort of
Russian Roulette we now play. For the average
person this would be like a revolver with a 50 round chamber and one live
bullet. For me aged 72 and with an IgM
paraprotein this could be two or three rounds in the chamber…
On a lighter note (though believe me the subject is serious)
a friend has drawn my attention to a journalist’s explanation of why President
Trump is not particularly liked by the English.
The journalist is Nate White, and I quote it in full. Interestingly, the Q&A forum where it was
posted, called Quora, has had it removed surreptitiously. Guess that’s what they (the GOP) can do in
Washington:
Someone on Quora asked “Why
do some British people not like Donald Trump?” Nate White, an articulate and
witty writer from England wrote the following response:
A few things spring to mind.
Trump lacks certain
qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
For instance, he has no
class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth,
no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no
honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor
Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark
contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp
relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And
while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or
even faintly amusing – not once, ever.
I don’t say that
rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is
particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is
almost inhuman.
But with Trump, it’s a fact.
He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a
crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
Trump is a troll. And like
all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.
And scarily, he doesn’t just
talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a
simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.
There is never any
under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.
Some Americans might see
this as refreshingly upfront.
Well, we don’t. We see it as
having no inner world, no soul.
And in Britain we
traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky
underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.
Trump is neither plucky, nor
an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.
He’s not even a spoiled
rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.
He’s more a fat white slug.
A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most
unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.
That is, except when he is
among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.
There are unspoken rules to
this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all.
He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and
every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the
vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.
So the fact that a
significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does,
listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is
a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given
that:
• Americans are supposed to
be nicer than us, and mostly are.
• You don’t need a particularly
keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
This last point is what
especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his
faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
After all, it’s impossible
to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring
deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso
of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws
have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.
God knows there have always
been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has
stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.
He makes Nixon look
trustworthy and George W look smart.
In fact, if Frankenstein
decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a
Trump.
And a remorseful Doctor
Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:
‘My God... what... have...
I... created?
If being a twat was a TV
show, Trump would be the boxed set.
There is concern for the many involved in the fishing
industry locally. The closure of hotels
and restaurants has hit demand severely.
Lindsay gets a call from a contact where she used to buy fish for
catering. When she arrives on the
industrial estate the amount of fresh fish that they are trying to sell is
enormous. I hope they can freeze
it. She buys some skate and crab
meat. The skate, pan fried in butter
with Sicilian capers, is fantastic. The
problem is finding a large enough pan to fry two skate wings. It’s lovely but we reluctantly conclude that
it is easier if a commercial kitchen cooks it.
We think of my colleague at Number 2 whose shopping I
did. His culinary skills are coming on
fast, but we wonder if he has thought to make stock with the remainder of his
free range chicken. If not we can make
it for him, but the chicken will have to cross the road.
Tonight we have a whisky sour followed by chicken sag
masala. Excellent. The film club watches the Sally Potter film
of Orlando starring Tilda Swinton.
Hmmm. I found it hard to
understand, though after extensive study on Wikipedia and SparkNotes, I am now
in the position of the judge who asked the counsel, F.E. Smith if, after his
current line of questioning: ‘Will I be any the wiser.’ ‘No my Lord,’
was the reply, ‘But you will be better informed.’
A message from a colleague at Duke links me in to a heartfelt
plea from a Cardiology Program Director in New York City. Their hospital, New York-Presbyterian Weill
Cornell Medical Center (NYP) is under severe stress. Cardiology fellows are being asked to help in
Intensive Care. In just a week their
Out-Patient work has gone from <1% video appointments to 99%. The situation is reflected throughout New
York City, and their concerns are just the same as in England. Not enough N95 masks, not enough testing,
shortage of ventilators. As he says, ‘By
failing to prepare you are preparing to fail.’
Monday March 29th
One other point about the 1918/1919 pandemic influenza
(sorry about the non-sequitur). In the
prologue to the book ‘Man Eaters of Kumaon’ by Jim Corbett, he gives the
following as the reason why tigers in Northern India became maneaters, which he
states was not until 1918. As everyone
will know, the funeral rites of Hindus require preparation of the body on a
plinth for cremation. During the
pandemic however, the sheer number of corpses was such that many mountain
villagers took the bodies of their relatives to the cliffs at the edge of the
village and pushed them off, so as not to contaminate the village with
decomposing corpses. It was then that
tigers discovered that this was an easy source of food, and according to
Corbett, they developed a taste for human flesh.
I had thought that poor Mary Lennox in the book ‘The Secret
Garden’ had suffered being orphaned in the same way, by the Great Flu, but in
fact the book was published in 1911, and Mary’s parents and their servants died
from a cholera epidemic. You may
remember that Mary was found alone and alive in the house…
There is little to report today. Inevitable increase in cases and deaths. Our main exercise is in the evening –
shopping for two housebound old ladies – followed by walk around Poole
Harbour. By the time we got back it was
rather late. The film club didn’t meet
tonight. I think Lindsay has been a bit
dispirited by my choice of films.
Tuesday March 31st
Another bright but cold and windy day. Reported figures from yesterday at DoH are: Tested 134,496; 112,805 negative; 22,141 positive. Reported Covid-19 deaths 1,408. This means that the measured mortality from
those known to be positive, and presumably displaying significant symptoms is
6% - a lot higher than the 1 to 2% we would have estimated from the original
Chinese figures. To get an idea of the
true mortality we would need a lot more data from a background survey of
asymptomatic or relatively asymptomatic subjects. Still, this is a more sobering statistic.
I’m afraid that those who read this blog will find much of
it a bit tedious. All ‘good’ diaries
need editing, but I’m afraid that this is a bit of a warts and all
account and I have no editor. There is no florid or determinedly witty
writing. I always try to remember Dr
Johnson’s advice to writers: ‘Read over your compositions, and wherever you
meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.’ I believe Chekhov also advised writers to strike
out at least the first two pages of ‘anything you have written.’ Something like that anyway.
Pace to those who
are religious. I cannot help being
reminded of the ‘Thief in the Night’ with respect to Corona virus. Not being a regular reader of the Bible – at
least not since the age of 10 – I had to look it up. St Paul in his letter (sorry, epistle) to the
Thessalonians tells them:
‘For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so
cometh as a thief in the night. For when
they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as
travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape.’ As Richard Dawkins would say, these are not
particularly consoling words. I am sure
there are American evangelists now who are making hay with the sudden tragedies
of the pandemic. But the image of the
thief in the night first occurred to me because of my memories of the wonderful
poem by Dylan Thomas, ‘In Country Sleep.’
This poem, perhaps to a daughter, but somewhat (in my view) covertly
incestuous in its stance towards the subject, is best read as a lullaby to a
child, with the underlying reminder that death comes to us all. The thief is referred to later in the poem,
but at the beginning he is the wolf, perhaps a reference to Red Riding
Hood. Thomas’s lyrical reading of it is
wonderful. If you want to hear him
reading it go to:
‘Never and never my girl, riding far and near
In the land of the hearth-stone tales, and spelled asleep,
Fear or believe that the wolf in the sheep-white hood
Loping and bleating roughly and blithely shall leap
My dear, my
dear,
Out of the lair in the flocked leaves in the dew-dipped year
To eat your heart in the house in the rosy wood.’
If this doesn’t immediately commend itself to you, retire to
somewhere quiet, listen to the Youtube rendition. It’s not necessary to understand Thomas’s
words immediately; it is more the images and the associations that they create
that work the magic. That and Thomas’s
spellbinding voice. Perhaps it helps to
have been to school in Wales like me, though it’s true to say that Thomas’s
reputation in Wales in the 1950s was nothing like as positive as it is
now. I think dreamily of happy days in
the bay of Lower Fishguard, where the not entirely satisfactory Richard Burton
1971 version of Under Milk Wood was filmed.
I say not entirely satisfactory because he found a completely unnecessary
role for Elizabeth Taylor in it. But his
radio recording of it is wonderful. A
friend who sailed, very successfully, an Albacore in all the Pembrokeshire
coastal regattas, named his boat ‘Polly Garter’ because he said she was ‘No
better than she ought to be.’ She was in
fact very slippery and fast, perhaps appropriately. There is a signed certificate in the pub on
the quay in Lower Town to attest to the fact that Richard Burton, Peter
O’Toole, and the cast and crew of Under Milk Wood drank the pub completely dry
one evening during filming.
We have had a cold and windy bicycle ride today. The gorse is blooming, the berberis is
fading, but camellias, early rhododendrons and some azaleas brighten the scene.
To counteract the dry content of some of this diary, here are a few images:
 |
| Skate wings in the pan - larger pan needed. Sicilian capers! |
 |
| Bournemouth Gardens |
 |
| Bournemouth Gardens |
 |
| New Bournemouth beach huts - lovely pastel colours - empty of course |
 |
| The beauty of the empty Parkstone Golf Course |
 |
| Evening, Whitley Bay, Poole Harbour |
Until the next time!
(But I have to add a Stop Press: Lindsay's cousin from Pennsylvania informs us that while liquor shops in PA are closed, gun shops are regarded as 'Essential Businesses' and are open!)
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