Thursday November 25th, 2021
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| Winter dawn from Crichel Point |
‘…we are here, as on a
darkling plain
Swept with confused
alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies
clash by night.’
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) wrote ‘Dover Beach’ shortly after
his marriage, in 1851. The personal
romantic feeling in the earlier stanzas is eventually replaced by a pessimism
about the world, and a more realistic reflection of one’s insignificance in
it. But in November 2021, with the
coronavirus pandemic refusing to go away, we have seen the clashes of ignorant
armies in Belgium and Vienna, as passionate antivaxxers and right-wingers who
prize personal freedom above other societal considerations have rioted, clashed
with police, and torched vehicles and public buildings. There has been a substantial rise in cases in
some continental countries, particularly Austria, where there is now a complete
lockdown and a mandatory order to be vaccinated in the absence of any
contraindication. There are many
personal freedom espousing Brits (‘My body, my choice’ is the usual rallying
cry) who object to vaccination. In
France, the imposition for mandatory vaccination for healthcare workers has
seen the vaccination rate jump from about two thirds to ninety-nine
percent. Belatedly, this will be the
norm in the UK, but only from next year.
Letters in the papers point out that as children, we were all routinely
vaccinated against smallpox without demur.
Many countries in the past refused entry to those who were not in the
possession of a yellow fever vaccination certificate.
All scientific advances bring problems with them. The internal combustion engine, for
example. The identification of nuclear
fission. But the internet, the pace of
data exchange, Facebook, Twitter, have brought to moronic millions the same
misinformation, the same tribal fears, that characterised the inquisition and
the Salem witch trials. It seems
extraordinary that in this modern world there are so many deluded people.
This segue leads me on to a favourite writer, young but
highly skilled at the art of satire. One
could argue that he learned it as a parliamentary sketch writer, where so much
is risible, Michael Deacon of the Daily Telegraph. His ‘Way of the World’ column extends the
gentle art of politician baiting to the world outside Westminster. He writes:
COLUMNIST
13 November 2021 •
7:00am
“Student activists come in for a lot of flak
these days. Personally, though, I think we should try a little harder to
understand why they behave the way they do. Because they deserve our sympathy.
It may sound hard to believe. After all,
practically every week we learn of some fresh outrage they’ve perpetrated. A
no-platforming here, a cancellation there. In the past few days alone, we’ve read
about a mob of activists trying
to intimidate the Israeli ambassador after she gave a guest lecture at the
London School of Economics. Meanwhile, a debating society at Cambridge
thankfully abandoned a proposal to create a “blacklist” of visiting speakers.
Recently we’ve seen a professor at the
University of Sussex, Kathleen Stock, driven out of her job by student
activists who wrongly accused her of transphobia. There are countless more
examples, but in particular I think it’s worth recalling the time Amber Rudd,
the former Home Secretary, was invited to address a society at Oxford – only to
find her appearance cancelled just half an hour before she was due to speak
after objections from Left-wing students.
All these developments are troubling.
Ultimately, though, I don’t think it’s the students themselves who are to
blame. It’s whoever encouraged them to go to university in the first place.
The sad truth is that these days, our
universities contain far too many people who shouldn’t be there. People who simply
aren’t cut out for higher education, and who don’t understand what it’s for.
People who aren’t capable of participating in the free exchange of ideas, or of
grasping an opposing point of view. And yet they’ve been raised to believe that
they must go to university, no matter what.
Frankly, I feel sorry for them. Sending
these poor morons to do a degree is cruel. It’s like making a bear learn to
dance. Yes, with sufficient training the bear can just about do it, after a
fashion. Fundamentally, though, it’s an affront to the bear’s dignity – and the
experience is liable to drive it mad.
This, I suspect, is what’s happened to these
student activists. Unable to adapt to a world that requires intelligent
discussion and critical thinking, they lash out, by holding furious
demonstrations against lecturers, and trying to smash the car windows of
visiting speakers. The poor creatures can’t help it. They don’t know any
better.
In my view, it’s time we ended this cruel
practice of sending morons to university. As for the activists who are already
there, the kindest thing we can do is to expel them all at once. They’ve
suffered long enough”.
Breeze and sunshine in Poole Harbour
Late night view of Poole Harbour entrance; Brownsea Island and castle on the left
Sunday November 28th
We have a new variant of coronavirus, the omicron
variant. This has slightly different
clinical characteristics, and multiple mutations in the ‘spike’ protein, and
was first picked up in South Africa. Two
planeloads of arrivals in the Netherlands from South Africa identified over 60
positive cases – about 10% - what on earth is happening to this ‘testing before
travel’ policy? We await further news,
but there is a reintroduction of facemasks in shops and on public transport
from Tuesday. The naming of the variant
is intriguing. The last one I heard of
was delta, so where have epsilon, zeta, eta, theta gone? (Showing off my knowledge gained from Greek
‘O’ level). Apparently the next names on
the list were ‘nu’ and ‘xi’, but nu was thrown out because Americans couldn’t
distinguish nu from ‘new’, and xi was felt to be a little close to
home, being the name of the Chinese leader.
A wry distinction.
Saturday December 4th
It is hard to know where to start. The lockdown diary was an everyday
activity. Life is more or less normal
these days. There seems so little time
to record the many happenings.
Perhaps best to start with the big things. Christmas is coming and we are usually
assailed (should that be wassailed?) with warnings how few shopping or posting
days there are until Christmas. Graham
Norton (comedian) announced last night that President Joe Biden has stated that
there are only ’20 more sleeps until the end of the day’. And ‘Sleepy Joe’ is seen as such a soft touch
by world leaders that Putin (Russia) has amassed, almost without comment, huge
numbers of troops on the border with Ukraine.
This is possibly the most directly worrying situation. What will NATO do about this? Hard to second-guess it. In the early 1960s, General De Gaulle wanted
to pull out of NATO. He mentioned this
to Dean Rusk, U.S. Secretary of State.
‘I want all U.S. Military out of France as soon as possible’, he
said. Rusk replied, ‘Does that include
those who are buried here’?
There are disastrous famines in Northern Kenya. Ethiopia is virtually in a state of civil war
after Tigrayan incursions.
Let us start on a different tack. ‘All institutions outlive their
usefulness’. Discuss. A feeling I have had about the Royal College
of Physicians for a number of years. The
College has recently weighed in with its advice about the management of M.E.
syndrome. M.E. stands for Myalgic
Encephalomyelitis, a term which only doctors can understand. M.E. is a puzzling entity, which probably
encompasses a number of causes for the fatigue, lethargy, loss of energy and
‘get up and go’, together with difficult to describe aches and pains that
characterise sufferers. Sceptics
generally accuse sufferers of ‘lack of moral fibre’ or say ‘Get a grip’. There are sufficiently well-attested cases to
show that there is some, as yet undefined, reason behind this syndrome. One of the most famous is of course, Clare
Francis, yachtswoman, author, businesswoman, high achiever, whose life went on
hold for a number of years after experiencing M.E. Our medical assessment organisation, NICE, the
National Institute for Clinical Excellence, has recently announced that
exercise programmes are not recommended for M.E., despite testamentary evidence
that some sufferers find it helpful. The
Royal College of Physicians has countered this statement with the delightfully
obscure advice that sufferers should have a ‘Person-centered Energy Management
Programme’.
The Royal College, a bit like the Royal family, tries to
reinvent itself from time to time. ‘Ars
longa, vita brevis’, is its motto. ‘The
art is long, the life short’, is the translation. The College usually invokes the Latin, rather
than the original Greek from Hippocrates:
Ὁ βίος βραχύς,
ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή,
(The meaning is the same).
When I gained the Membership of the Royal College, in 1975,
after paying the necessary fees, I attended the welcome dinner for new members,
at which the President, Sir Cyril Clarke, pointed out that this was the only
thing we were likely to get for free from the College (he was right in this, at
least). He welcomed all of those who had
got there by their own hard work, rather than the ‘Pappworth’ short cut. Maurice Pappworth (1910-1994) was a gifted
physician, ethicist and teacher who was denied advancement in Medicine,
initially for anti-Semitic reasons, and eventually had to set himself up as an
independent consultant in London. He
established a coaching and training programme, which dramatically enhanced the
pass rate for the MRCP, and wrote an excellent book, ‘A Primer of
Medicine’. Practical examination,
interview, and clinical demonstrations were a part of his technique. Nowadays this sort of training is regarded as
essential. Pappworth further distanced
himself from the establishment by publishing ‘Human Guinea Pigs’, a book
detailing unethical medical research.
These efforts eventually led to better surveillance of research applications. Even in 1975, he obviously remained persona non grata, but his methods are
now copied by the college and commercial teaching companies. He was eventually awarded an honorary
fellowship – a year before he died.
A rather obscure, but good record from the 1960s, has
surfaced as an advertisement on TV for something or other. Lesley Gore’s ‘You don’t own me’. The lyrics:
‘You don’t own me, I’m not just one of your many toys’
clearly prefigure the more trumpeted ‘Girl Power’ era of the Spice Girls in the
mid-1990s. There is nothing new under
the sun.
To return to omicron.
Doom and gloom pervades. The
Prime Minister has announced mandatory mask wearing again on public transport
and in shops. Hospitality is exempt (I
suspect this is because of difficulties with enforcement). Germany is reportedly considering the
introduction of mandatory vaccination.
But there are many who feel that omicron is unlikely to represent a
significant change in threat level. A
colleague whose wife is an emergency care doctor tells me that she has eventually
succumbed to the frustration and exasperation of dealing with yet another
anti-vaxxer being admitted with serious complications of Covid-19. Last Christmas there was a late announcement
that forbade us from staying with family.
There is nervous expectation about this Christmas.
But, on another note (forgive the pun), I attended a
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra concert at which the new artist-in-residence,
Felix Klieser, was due to play the Mozart 4th Horn concerto. I hadn’t read his biography beforehand. I, and many of the audience, were astonished
when Klieser accompanied the conductor to the podium. He had no arms. Seated in a chair, his horn mounted on a
fixed bracket, he slipped off the clogs he was wearing to reveal bare
feet. He used his left foot to operate
the valves. Remarkable and
inspirational.
Wednesday 8th December
There is ‘trubble at t’ mill’, or rather, at Yorkshire
Cricket Club. In fairness, this is now
an old story, having been reverberating in the cricket world now for weeks. Azeem Rafiq, a Pakistani cricketer who was
under contract to Yorkshire has detailed multiple racist remarks and
victimisation by Yorkshire and Yorkshire players. Many Yorkshire administrators and coaches
have resigned or been sacked. Michael
Vaughan (ex England captain) has been accused of saying ‘There’s too many of
you lot’. And yet it emerges that Rafiq
himself was guilty of anti-Semitic texts some years ago. The response smacks of slightly
disproportionate ‘wokeism’. Cricket fans
have been wont to call teams by nicknames – the Aussies, the Poms (that’s us),
the Windies, the Banglies, and, heaven forbid, the Pakis. Taken logically, Paki is a reasonable term –
the short addition ‘stan’, meaning the place where the ‘Pakis’ live. But used in an individual sense, e.g., as a
term of abuse in the U.K., viz ‘Bloody Paki’, the name is clearly abusive and
inappropriate. There is a certain sense
of helplessness here when one tries to negotiate these terms, and Pakis is now
on the red list of terms which have come to be regarded as the same horror as
n----r. I’ve only got one grudge against
the Pakistanis – spending a whole day in July 1967 at Taunton cricket ground
watching Hanif Mohammed accumulate one of the slowest centuries on record
against Somerset C.C.C. Apart from a
slight tendency for active Pakistani terrorist minorities to attack buses of
cricketers, that is. Wokeism remains
rampant. John Cleese (comedian) has
cancelled himself from universities, before he was cancelled by them. Henry Morton Stanley, the explorer and
colonial administrator, has narrowly escaped having his statue removed from
Denbigh, after allegations were made that he employed slaves (it seems this was
not true), but more seriously because he explored the Congo region as an agent
of Leopold II of Belgium. Again, it
seems that Stanley had no foreknowledge of the atrocities, which would be
perpetrated by the Belgians. A narrow
squeak for Stanley, but Edward Colston will not regain his plinth in Bristol,
and Colston’s School will be renamed next year.
Carving of the 'Green Man', English Oak vineyard, Lytchett Matravers, Dorset - walking group walk, Friday 17th December
Tuesday 14th December
Writing this in the very early morning after waking at
0430. It’s not full moon for another
four days, so there is no obvious reason for being wide awake. For the UK, omicron is the only story at the
moment. But the USA has suffered a
tornado in Western Kentucky, which was more devastating than any ever seen
before. A 200 mile swathe of destruction
has killed many and completely destroyed towns in its path. Global warming again, perhaps? Current events certainly give one a sense of
human insignificance in the face of global forces. We used to joke about the extinction of the
dinosaurs, but now that seems a bit close to home. Nonetheless, to plow on with life on earth,
or in our patch of it: the Government (viz Boris Johnson) has announced a
return to working from home if possible, or ‘Shirking from Home’ as one
correspondent wittily dubbed it. Most
hospitality venues, despite being officially open, have seen large numbers of
cancellations. The omicron variant is
more transmissible than others, and the doubling time for UK infections is now
only two to three days. A Machiavellian
response to this has been the conjecture that maybe the exposure of most
anti-vaxxers to the virus will at last bring about a herd response and
substantial natural (herd) immunity. The
variant is allegedly less severe than delta, but already the first UK death
from omicron has been recorded. An
almost impromptu address to the nation on Sunday night by the prime minister
has urged people to get booster jabs and announced a massive roll out of action
to facilitate this. Unfortunately, the
website to get lateral flow tests crashed, as did the capacity to book jabs. Great idea, but the logistics failed to keep
pace. Can’t understand why our local
surgery has still not asked me to attend to vaccinate, despite having jumped
through all the hoops required, even including signing a contract (but see
below).
The Government, or at least the Johnson coterie, has
seemingly been riding roughshod over its own rules of late. The rumours of an industrial fat-cat
bankrolling the redecoration of Boris’s private apartments have (almost, it
seems) been substantiated. Allegations,
and some video evidence, of parties in Number 10 at Christmas last year, have
surfaced, together with an embarrassing video of the press secretary, Allegra
Stratton, joking about it. She has
resigned in tears. An amusing Instagram
post shows Boris in front of Number 10, Downing Street, denying the rumours while coloured
lights and music play in the windows behind him. As usual Matt has the best take on this:
Any public servant, including even my role as a public
hospital governor, has to adhere to standards of behaviour, enshrined in the Nolan
principles, put forward by Lord Nolan in a government task force in 1994. These are: selflessness, integrity,
objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, leadership. Quite a lot to live up to. A letter in the Telegraph suggests that
Boris’s knowledge of the Nolan principles is limited to asking when the
sisters’ next reunion tour is going to be (for readers outside the UK, the
Nolan Sisters are an Irish group who grew up in Blackpool and pioneered the way
for many girl groups to follow. They were
most prominent in the 1970s and 1980s but have reformed sporadically since).
Thursday December 23rd
And more party pictures – this time of a summer garden
party, with quite a few present, including Carrie Johnson. Protestations that this was a working
meeting, but dubbed by some – a Cabernet Meeting.
First day of vaccinating for me, at an Army Reserve
Centre. An interesting experience, and
good to discover that sticking needles into people is a bit like riding a bike;
one automatically remembers how to do it.
Interesting mix of vaccinators – a medical student, some Royal Marine
Commandos, a couple of Army professional doctors, and a local GP. Efficient use of the Army squaddies, with
vaccine being diluted, drawn up, and a syringe appearing magically at your
right hand like a white rabbit from a conjuror’s hat. A walk-in clinic, though not that many
attendees, it being two days before Christmas. Most of the clients are for booster jabs, but one elderly gentleman attended for his first ever vaccination.
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| An apposite Private Eye cartoon - it is Christmas after all |
Trouble with Lindsay’s knee, which is very limiting, and her
MRI scan exhibits a substantial catalogue of pathology. Our Christmas present to ourselves is
therefore an exercise bike. As
encouragement one can watch the screen while pedalling over various hills
worldwide, and be shouted at by a woman with a Californian accent who instructs
you to ‘Get up out of your seat’ (I remember the Evangelist Billy Graham used
to have that as a catchphrase) and occasionally to ‘floor it’. After a session or two, I chose to link my
phone to it and enjoyed listening to Peter Phillips talking about Renaissance
Polyphony.
Covid-19 is really worrying people now. The omicron variant is much more
transmissible than others, with a doubling time of only two or three days, but
it also appears less virulent. After
days of deliberating, the government has announced that there will be no new
restrictions at Christmas time, allowing families to gather and to be
together. There are newer anti-Covid
therapies available, and a combination of dexamethasone and spironolactone
seems useful in reducing risk of severe disease. We have known about dexamethasone since the
early days of the Covid clinical trials, but the addition of spironolactone
(the combination is known as Spidex) seems helpful too. The rationale for this is that spironolactone
binds to and is an antagonist of angiotensin II receptors – and it is these
cell surface receptors that the virus spike protein hooks on to in order to
gain cellular entry.
I’m ending this pre-Christmas blog by not only wishing all a
peaceful and happy time, but by making a plea for Paul Simon to get the same
recognition as Bob Dylan – namely the Nobel prize. Perhaps Paul Simon’s lyrics are not as
deliberately obscure as Bob Dylan’s (obscurity is beloved by Nobel committees),
but they are as skilfully and memorably constructed. Look at the lyric of virtually any Paul Simon
song – it is fantastic. Here is just one
memorable first line, and if you are not an aficionado of guitars please Google
‘National Guitar’, especially the Tricone design dating from 1927. ‘The Mississippi delta was shining like a
National guitar…’ Unfortunately, one
often gets beguiled by the music (tune) and fails to pay attention to how
memorable the words are. This is a point
that can rarely be applied to some of Dylan’s dirges. To be fair to Dylan, very early on in his career,
academics – chiefly Professor Christopher Ricks of Oxford and sundry other
universities, have been rhapsodizing about his way with words. But it’s time for us to stand up for Paul
Simon. Paul Simon is a true poet. It is the way of the world for authors who
are popular not to achieve major prizes.
John Betjeman is a good example. As
regards Nobels? See October 8th
entry re George Bernard Shaw. Happy
Christmas everybody.
