CORONA DIARY CHAPTER 24
Friday September 17th
A pocket full of posies
A-tishoo Atishoo
We all fall down
A recent interview with a musician has related how pleasant
it is to go to a concert and not to be assailed with coughing and
sneezing. When concerts opened up after
the first lockdown, the slightest cough or sneeze would be enough to have the
entire audience look at the perpetrator accusingly. Social distancing, lack of transmission of
‘flu and other viruses, together with the most vulnerable – coughers,
asthmatics, COPD sufferers not attending, have all contributed to a blissful
listening experience.
The weather continues calm and the early morning swimming
has become quite addictive. A bit like
running, the endorphin release afterwards is a pleasurable experience.
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| Early morning, Branksome Chine |
Tuesday September 21st
The equinox. The
weather remains beautiful. A visit from
a relative from the U.S. yesterday sees us enjoying lunch outside. A small reminder of climate change: he has
not lived in the U.K. for many years. He
observes how strange it is to see grown men walking around in shorts in Britain
in September. Today the walking group
met near Badbury Rings and enjoyed five or so miles of countryside walking in
warm weather with the oblique sunlight and long shadows from the trees and
hedgerows creating a blissful rustic idyll of sunlight bouncing off the small
stalks of the harvested wheat. The burry
heads of the wild clematis (Old Man’s Beard) top the hedgerows. A final circuit around one of the ramparts of
the rings, dating from two and a half thousand years ago and we are back to
modern life, waiting beside the racetrack of the road through the avenue of
beeches to cross back to our starting point.
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| Early morning mist over Parkstone Golf Course, 22nd September |
Wednesday September 29th
I wrote before about alternative scenarios; the dystopian
novel, etc. The book club is reading
HHhH by Laurent Binet. A book about
Reinhard Heydrich, the chief of the Sicherheitsdienst, the German ‘Security
Service’. The style is extraordinarily
irritating. A historical novel, more
faction than fiction, where the author breaks the Fourth Wall on a regular
basis. But the French perspective on
many aspects of WWII is interesting. He
quotes a book by Δ–ric-Emmanuel Schmitt, ‘La part de l’autre’, in which Hitler
passes his art diploma instead of failing or dropping out. “From that instant, his destiny and the
world’s are completely altered: he has a string of affairs, becomes a
promiscuous playboy, marries a Jewish woman with whom he has two or three children,
joins the Surrealists in Paris and becomes a famous painter”.
The author expresses his disgust of realistic novels. His girlfriend finds a quotation from a
French author’s life of Bach. ‘Has there
ever been a biographer who did not dream of writing, “Jesus of Nazareth used to
lift his left eyebrow when he was thinking”?
‘Yuk’! He says.
Anybody who reads this might accuse me of being one of the
musicians on the deck of the Titanic, reading minutiae, ignoring the important
matters of moment that preoccupy the nation and indeed, the World. But it is in the small pleasures, the tiny
details, the ‘plaisanteries’ that we
live our lives, and many of us are grateful for that. We have food, we have enough to get by, we
have good partners and friends. We
cannot be perpetually worried about the world order, like the Labour Party, who
are meeting in Brighton at the moment.
Michael Deacon, the parliamentary sketch writer, has drawn attention to
Sir Keir Starmer’s plans to tax the Public Schools (private schools), and
withdraw their charitable status. They
will go bust. ‘Where will the next
generation of Labour leaders come from’?
Deacon asks, enumerating the very long list of Socialists who attended
fee-paying schools. Where indeed?
And after some torrential rain, it is once again sunny,
though the morning dip was slightly more chilly than of late.
Thursday September 30th
‘The big ship sails on the Ally-Ally-O,
The Ally-Ally-O, the Ally-Ally-O,
The big ship sails on the Ally-Ally-O
On the last day of September’.
The children’s nursery rhyme becomes an ear-worm as we
congregate at the beach again for another 0730 swim. As I gurgle along in my pathetic front crawl,
I remember the last verse… ‘The big ship sank to the bottom of the sea, the
bottom of the sea, etc’.
Friday October 8th
“I can forgive Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a
fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize”.
George Bernard Shaw, who also rejected a knighthood,
attempted to refuse the Nobel Prize for literature in 1925. It was the financial award that particularly
irked him; he pointed out that he had more than enough to get by. It is Nobel time of year again, and there was
much discussion on Radio 4 last night as I drove home from the beautiful West
Sussex Golf Club. The presenters were
firmly of the opinion that the pioneers of the mRNA vaccine should receive the
Physiology and Medicine and Chemistry awards, though I believe that Emmanuelle
Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna were responsible for much of the gene-editing
technology and were recognised in 2020.
A spokesman for the Nobel Committee merely said that, to paraphrase,
off-the-cuff awards, in response to public opinion, were often not the best
decisions. Aforementioned: ‘Political
satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize’
(Tom Lehrer). One of the worst, perhaps,
among many, was the 1918 Nobel award to German chemist, Fritz Haber, who
synthesized ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen gases, paving the way for
agricultural fertilizers. Sounds
appropriate, yes? Except that Herr Haber
was an enthusiastic proponent of and adviser on the application of poison gas
utilization in World War I. And there
are many more.
The literature award for 2021 sounds particularly ‘woke’, an
author called Abdulrazak Gurnah. Born in
Zanzibar in 1948, Gurnah lives in the UK and has for many years lectured at the
University of Kent. The citation states
‘uncompromising and passionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and
the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents’. But in looking at the list of laureates from
inception to the present day, there are only a few eyebrow raisers – authors
hugely popular in their time but not so frequently read today. Galsworthy, Saul Bellow, William Golding,
Mikhail Sholokov (His book ‘And Quiet Flows the Don’ was on the list of 100
‘must reads’ from my headmaster before we left school). Kipling (recipient 1907) probably wouldn’t
get a look in nowadays since he is branded as an unreconstructed colonialist
(not my view). The more I have read
about Gurnah, the more it sounds as though he has been quietly ploughing his
own furrow, and the shock of such recognition has come as a complete
surprise. His work sounds interesting. I will order ‘Paradise’ which was a Booker
shortlisted issue in 1994 and sounds a good one to start with.
There was euphoric praise also on the radio for Cush Jumbo’s
portrayal of Hamlet at the Young Vic theatre.
Fortunately, very few people read my blog, but to criticize the glowing
statements about the production (first black female Hamlet) and Cush’s charisma
seems churlish without my having seen it.
It will be streamed soon, so I should try to watch it. Some may know of my addiction to Hamlet,
which was first stimulated by performing a small part in it at school in Bath
in the 1960s, and watching John Oliver, in my opinion one of the best ever
poetic verse speakers, play the role.
John (sadly deceased), became a minister in Cape Town, South
Africa. I can imagine that to hear him
speak in church was profoundly inspiring.
On searching for his official title (merely Fr John Oliver), I can see
that he was such a revered figure in South Africa that a series of lectures is now
given in his honour, the first lecture in the series being delivered by the Rev
Peter Storey, a long-time fighter against apartheid, and a key figure in the
Cape Town Interfaith Initiative, which was I believe started by John. It seems unlikely that the major religious
figures in South Africa will read this blog, so I will retail the unfortunate
fact that John would give us readings from a variety of ‘smutty’ books in the
Senior Prefects’ room during lunch breaks, because we loved the sound of his
voice. I must add that this was very
much at our behest. ‘Candy’ by Terry
Southern and ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ were particular favourites. I can still hear his beautiful voice saying,
“’Oh gosh’, said Candy”. Fortunately,
John moved on to more spiritual recitations.
I cannot leave Hamlet without stating that the best ever version of it
(again, my opinion), is the 1964 Russian film starring Innokenty Smoktunovsky,
filmed in black and white, using the fortress of Ivangorod on the
Russian-Estonian border for the castle scenes.
The play is cut (to good effect – original performances of the entire First
Folio, or amalgamations of the Quartos and Folios run to well over four hours;
it is Shakespeare’s longest play). The
powerful music is by Shostakovich, the translation by Boris Pasternak, and the
director, Grigori Kozintsev spent 10 years working with and producing the
Pasternak version on stage and then on film.
The dialogue is in Russian, which has a magically poetic and resonant
sound, and the Shakespeare text appears as subtitles. Wonderful.
Even Olivier acknowledged Smoktunovsky’s performance as better than his
own. See: https://thescriptlab.com/features/screenwriting-101/7555-story-behind-screenplay-grigori-kozintsevs-hamlet-1964/
Sunday October 10th
A friend who has recently vacationed in France, where his
sister-in-law lives writes in condemnatory fashion on Facebook about Britain’s
poor pandemic response compared with France.
He’s also clearly not a fan of Boris.
But leaving Boris aside (who seems determined to repopulate the UK with
white Anglo-Saxons entirely on his own), it is never easy to tease out the data
correctly. Disraeli’s old saw about
statistics (‘Lies, damned lies, and statistics’) seems apposite. Britain is doing more testing than other
countries, so it is therefore highly likely that we will find more cases. But there are more serious issues afoot. The rise in cases in Britain is almost
entirely due to cases in young people, particularly secondary school
pupils. Case incidence remains low and
is not rising in older people. Of over
51,000 deaths occurring in the first six
months of this year, the proportion of those who were double vaccinated made up
only 1.2% of all deaths. Deaths in
doubly vaccinated people are vanishingly low compared with unvaccinated subjects. In other words, the usual suspects, cancer
and vascular diseases are responsible for the vast majority of disability and
death. As if that were not enough, an
example from Dorset shows exactly where the strains in the hospital service
are: within the last week, the total number of Dorset hospital beds occupied by
coronavirus patients is 38; the total number of ‘bed-blockers’ is 200 in East
Dorset hospitals alone. It is not
politically correct to call them bed-blockers nowadays. A little while ago we described them
euphemistically as ‘delayed discharges’, but we now call them ‘Patients
remaining in hospital who no longer meet the criteria for secondary in-patient
care or treatment’ (or at least something similar). So for a typical 30 bed ward, we have over
five times as many patients who need social care as Covid patients. Governments talk the talk about social care,
but the problem is as yet unsolved.
Given that we have one of the lowest rates of bed provision per 100,000
population in Europe (cost-cutting strategies), one can readily appreciate the
seriousness of the situation.
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| 3rd October. 0400 in Poole Park, the start of my friend's walking virtual London marathon. Looking across the lake to Poole Hospital |
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| And the finish line, 26+ miles later, in the afternoon |
Tuesday October 12th
Where to start with recent news – there is so much of
it? In general terms for the UK, the
most pressing problems of late have been a fuel shortage and a 250% rise (I
still can’t bring myself to call it ‘hike’) in natural gas prices. The fuel shortage has been due to the dearth
of HGV drivers, and the result has been panic buying and shortages at the
pumps. Some fuel stations have limited
supplies to essential workers, e.g. in the NHS.
The driver problem has been exacerbated by (but is not exclusively due
to) the Brexit-induced return of many foreign drivers to EU countries. Falling numbers of drivers has been an issue
for a long time. The gas scenario
reflects a failure to buy ahead (and thus effectively tie in to a contract) by
power suppliers, together with a somewhat Machiavellian strategy by Vladimir
Putin, whose second pipeline into Germany avoiding Ukraine has been stalled. It seems he has reduced the amount available
to push up prices. Multiple labour
issues affect many industries: the shortage of abattoir workers and a reduction
in Eastern bloc demand for pork has meant that we have a glut of pigs, which
cannot be ‘processed’.
The issue of GP appointments, or lack of them, continues to
surface. A nice cartoon (see below)
cleverly juxtapositions two of the current problems.
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Today it emerges that the data submitted by GPs giving the
frequency of face to face contacts is flawed because many of the telephone-only
consultations have been included.
Lindsay has had a pain in the knee, very severe at times. Following the usual ‘e-consult’ the ‘Care
Navigation Team’ got in touch and offered at some future date, a ‘telephone
consultation with a physiotherapist’. As
a friend said, ‘That sounds like an oxymoron’.
The Conservative party conference has ended with what was
apparently a barn-storming speech by Boris Johnson, which many critics feel was long on style but short on substance.
In the meantime, I report that beautiful autumn weather
continues, tempting us to continue swimming, and even tempting my daughter to
visit for two days of off road cycling with some friends. She has recently cycled the TNR (Turin-Nice
Rally) with them. So we are introduced
to Lael Wilcox, and her wife, Rue. I
have heard through Anna that Lael, who hails from Anchorage, Alaska, is
sponsored partly by her company, Rapha, and somewhat naively I ask what she
does. The answer is ‘cycling’. They all set off for some fun over in the
Isle of Purbeck. Somewhat embarrassed
later to Google the said Lael to find that she is without much doubt the best
Ultra-Endurance cyclist in the world.
Her biggest achievement seems to me to be winning the 4,200 mile
Trans-Am race, beating not only all other women, but all other men as
well. See: https://www.bicycling.com/racing/a25729046/lael-wilcox-best-ultraendurance-cyclist/
Friday, October 21st, 2021
After dramatic storms the last two days have brought
sunshine and strong winds. The water
temperature is now 15 deg C, but we haven’t swum for a while because of
Lindsay’s bad knee. Today the
Rheumatologist took us through the MRI scans which show some degenerative
cartilage changes, tibial separation, bone bruising, and a ruptured Baker’s
cyst – none of which would have been visible on plain X-ray. The knee has now been injected with local anaesthetic/steroid
mixture and the hope is that conservative management will settle it down. It seems clear that vigorous physiotherapy
would have exacerbated the pain and inflammation, though presumably the
proposed ‘Care Navigation Team’ management from our GP, which was only a
telephone call from a physiotherapist, would at least not have made it
worse. How did we manage cases before
MRI?! I suspect that empirical injection
of the knee would have been the strategy anyway, so hopefully the end result
would be the same…
If one writes a diary, the same preoccupations come round
every year, and I see that a year ago I wrote about Trafalgar Day (21st
October), so I won’t revisit, except that a friend whose father was a Naval
officer in Malta displays several different rums that she plans to sample to
celebrate.
Newcastle United F.C. have been in the news recently. The fans have been delighted by the news that
a Saudi conglomerate, at least partly bankrolled by the Royal Family of Saud,
have bought the club from Mike Ashley (Sports Direct) who has owned the club
for 14 miserable years. Others are not
so pleased. The murder of the journalist
and critic Jamal Khashoggi was laid at the door of Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman. The involvement in U.K. Football
is seen as an example of ‘sportwashing’.
A ‘funny’ on Whatsapp from a friend says that Steve Bruce (Newcastle
manager) is likely to be the first premier league manager to be stoned to death
before Christmas. He is of course
sacked, but Newcastle’s dire form continues.
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| Bournemouth footballers warm-up before a game, soon after the announcement that their Number 7, David Brookes, has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. All with Number 7 shirts 'Together as one. Stay strong Brooksy' |
My thoughts on the disaster which is primary care were aired
by James Le Fanu in the Daily Telegraph on Monday 18th October. At least the criticism is now propounded by
someone who himself is a GP and primary care provider. James mentioned my name so now I must wait
for the hate-mail to arrive…
Twitter is the ultimate ego-fest for celebrities. A 23-second movie of her legs walking is
today published (Tweeted) by a TV personality who has recently had a mastectomy
for breast cancer. Why? It seems to me to mock the thousands of
experiences of less famous women who are themselves recovering and
recuperating. Had she chosen to provide
some charitable purpose to the video I would have been more impressed. A few days later and she has posted a picture
of the bra she’s been recommended to wear.
All this while a G20 summit in Rome and the COP 26 global warming
climate conference is starting in Glasgow.
Two weeks ago we endured a difficult drive to London
(various roads closed) to take part in the filming of ‘Great British Bake Off –
an Extra Slice’. This is a spin off
programme from the GBBO itself. The
reason – our friend, ‘Maggie the Seaside Baker’ as she is now styled, had been
in the show and was booted out the previous week. TV programme makers love an iconic disaster,
and Maggie had provided one by forgetting to include flour in her sticky toffee
pudding mix. The programme is hosted by
comedians Jo Brand and Tom Allen, and lasts an hour, though we were actually at
the studios for nearly six hours.
Multiple retakes, rehearsals, etc.
Maggie is determined to maximise her 15 minutes of fame and is regularly
on the radio and social media doing charity bakes, emerging from the sea at
Sandbanks clutching a cake, etcetera.
Maggie is baking fit to bust, and in response to a request from me for
some ‘kouign-amman’ (Breton butter cakes), appears with a tray of six beautiful examples.
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| With TV star 'Maggie the Seaside Baker' |
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| Kouign-Amman, courtesy of Maggie the Seaside Baker |
Monday November 1st
‘It’s Double Summer
Time! The hawthorn called’. Charles
Causley (1917-2003) wrote these words in his poem Hawthorn White; and they come
to mind today as the clocks went back yesterday, so I am up betimes, to use an
archaic phrase, and start back into writing.
Double Summer Time was a world war two strategy to increase the hours of
working daylight, and stopped in 1945.
Friends from Frome (what alliteration?!) visited this
weekend, and we went to see Ralph McTell at Poole Lighthouse. Nearly 77 he is still touring, and has
released a new album, ‘Hill of Beans’, with some of his clever and poignant new
songs on it. All with an autobiographical
touch, and gently and whimsically introduced.
A fine acoustic guitar player, and a voice that remains reasonably
strong. He performed songs influenced by
two of the great blues/ragtime players, namely Robert Johnson and Blind Arthur
Blake. This is stuff on my
wavelength. Eric Clapton called Johnson
the greatest blues player who ever lived.
His death (cause disputed) at the age of 27, could possibly be said to
have started the legend that revolves around musicians who have died at that
age… Anyway, thoroughly enjoyed Ralph.
Yesterday morning saw the strongest storm that we’ve
experienced since living here. I watched
as a fairly heavy patio chair slid across the deck for about 10 yards before
being whirled onto the grass. Torrential
rain. Trees down throughout Dorset and
Hampshire. Today is a calmer day, and
our friend wants to go swimming in the sea.
The website tells me that the sea temperature is now down to 14.2 deg C.
COP 26 is starting in Glasgow. The city has narrowly avoided a refuse
collection strike, and is apparently plagued with rats. Extraordinarily some Labour politician has
blamed this on Margaret Thatcher (who was last in Government in 1990 and died
in 2013), but more considered opinions lay the blame at Nicola Sturgeon’s door
in Edinburgh. There is an obvious grudge
in Glasgow at the Lothian-centric approach to Scottish affairs. The other day, some clever lip reader worked
out that the Queen had said to some ladies she was visiting that she would be
more impressed if they (Governments) did less talking and took more
action. In this, she surely echoes the
thoughts of the nation. How can they
glibly talk of reducing carbon footprint when it seems that there are something
like 25,000 delegates at this meeting?
No doubt more to come on this.
England, having destroyed West Indies and Australia in the
World T20, today see off Sri Lanka, though not without some difficulty. Magnificent 101 not out from Jos Buttler with
a six off the last ball of the innings.
Sea swim – probably the last for this year. Vigorous waves following the recent storms.
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| Remember, remember, the First of November... |
Sunday November 6th
Yesterday evening a new first. Golf at night. Invited by friends to participate in a
tournament at their 9 hole golf club. I
was intrigued to see how this worked.
The balls are similar to golf balls in size and weight but made of solid
translucent plastic. A central core
carries a miniature glow stick, which is inserted just before starting. The course is shortened and the tees and pins
are lit with glow sticks as well. A head
torch helps to see the ground and away you go.
The match was played as a Texas scramble so the scores were good, and we
managed level par (not enough to win).
Good fun though, and accompanied by the occasional crackle and firework
from the surrounding countryside.
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| Luminous golf ball, pink tee marker, head torch. What can go wrong? |
Much comment about the COP 26 hypocrisies: world leaders flying
in in private jets, etcetera. There
seems to have been some agreement about reducing deforestation, but a lot of
empty rhetoric.
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| Another Matt comment from The Daily Telegraph |
I have had a booster jab, and a flu jab. There is a new drug (which is made again by
Pfizer), called Paxlovid, (and there is another produced by Merck,
molnupiravir) which, given with a standard combination antiviral ritonavir,
reduces the risk of severe Covid-19 illness or death by 90%. The drug is a protease inhibitor, which
inhibits intracellular viral replication.
I’m reminded of the space race, and other endeavours, some
sadly due to wartime priorities, which create spin-off technologies to benefit
mankind. It could be that Covid-19 will
galvanise medical research to cure many other diseases. There is even some new treatment (antibody?)
which prevents and cures malaria, which is responsible for millions of annual
deaths.
With regard to the pandemic, it is important to note that
daily testing numbers remain relatively static, but actual Covid cases have fallen 13% in the last week, and deaths have fallen by 7%. The majority of course are in the
unvaccinated, but the concern is that over-70s with a history of double
vaccination are still succumbing to the disease. As ever, it is ‘watch this space’.
Monday November 8th
Clear night last night but by the morning it is overcast and
the temperature is sufficiently high that working in the garden feels hot. It’s time to publish, so I will end with a
comment from a Telegraph reader who expresses concern that the BBC is likely to
lose the rights to televise the London marathon. ‘The only two international events left for
it to cover (he says) will be the World Paint Drying Championships and the
World Grass Growing Championships. I do
believe that if we can get through the heats we have a good chance of gold in
both’.
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| Another dawn |
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| 18th Hole, Red Course, Berkshire Golf Club, November morning |
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| 6th Hole, West Sussex Golf Club, Pulborough, October morning. The swan never moves... |
