CORONA/WAR DIARY CHAPTER 27/CHAPTER 1 - FEBRUARY 8th 2022 to MARCH 10th 2022.

 

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 8th, 2022

 

Time to record the first swim since New Year’s Day.  Freezing – well, it was 8 degrees C.  Just for the record, you understand.  Nothing else to add.

 

MONDAY FEBRUARY 14th, ST VALENTINE’S DAY

Valentine cupcakes, courtesy 'Maggie the Seaside Baker', q.v.

Advice and a 'handshake' from Maggie the Seaside Baker

 And I have Covid.  After nearly two years, at last, it has come to this, or at least come to me.  The Omicron variant (which I suppose I have – I have not lost my sense of taste or smell) is rife, and it may become harder to miss it than escape it.  Almost certainly acquired at our recent book club meeting (a member recalled that this person, whom medically we call the ‘Index Case’ (!) had such vigorous views on the ‘Fall’ biography of Robert Maxwell, that phlegm and spittle might have landed on the cheese board, which is an unpleasant thought, but it was not I that thought it).  The index case was asymptomatic, but symptomatic the next day.  Two days later I noted a dry cough, and tested negative.  Three days later the cough was incessant, with headache, malaise, and some fever, and the lateral flow test strip lit up like a beacon, as they say, within minutes of the pregnant droplets falling upon the well.  Two rather rough days and nights followed, but I am on the mend.

Bingo!

Google knows where you are and what you are doing.  Evidence that I did isolate for the period when I was Covid positive.

 

There were two images that came to mind.  The first being the Edgar Allan Poe short story, ‘The Masque of the Red Death’, where Prince Prospero, his Kingdom devastated by the pandemic of the Red Death (evidently a sort of haemorrhagic fever, such as we know as Lassa or Ebola), takes 1000 of his healthy high born courtiers and subjects into his Royal Apartments and bids his armourers seal and weld all doors.  Of course (spoiler alert), the Red Death gets in.  Perhaps, for Prince Prospero, one should substitute the name Jacinta Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand?

 

The second, more subtle illustration, is from Dylan Thomas.  ‘In Country Sleep’ is one of his later poems.  In the poem, written in Italy, and generally thought to be addressed to his daughter Aeronwy, ‘the Thief in the night’ threatens to get in, no matter what precaution one takes.  In the first stanza, the Thief is described in nursery rhyme terms as the ‘wolf in a sheepwhite hood’, but later, more specifically, ‘Be you sure the Thief will seek a way, sly and sure’.  And, ‘Ever and ever, he finds a way, as the snow falls, As the rain falls, hail on the fleece…’  These lines sound a little prosaic, taken out of context, and without that wonderful voice reciting them.  Do listen to Dylan reading it.

 

Who is the Thief?  Multiple critics have attempted to answer this, with surprisingly different results.  Who am I to better their attempts!?  Thomas himself gave several interpretations, sometimes depending on whether he was feeling paranoid about Caitlin’s possible dalliances, or whether he was drunk.  Paul Ferris, in his biography of Thomas (p212) rehearses some of these.  But generally, the Thief is assumed to be Time or Death.  We know that Thomas took his compositions very seriously, at least at this stage of his life.  The working sheets for a poem written at a similar time, ‘Over Sir John’s Hill’, are complete, are preserved in Harvard College Library, and run to 47 sheets of paper, and this poem is less than two-thirds the length of ‘In Country Sleep’.

 

So, at last, the Thief of Covid-19 has found a way, and it doesn’t profit to imagine whether my illness would be different if I hadn’t had a total of four vaccinations.  It was unpleasant enough…

 

So much for the self-indulgence of talking about oneself.  As for Dylan Thomas, and attempts to analyse him, best to leave the last word to Cyril Connolly: ‘At his best he is unique, for he distils an exquisite mysterious moving quality which defies analysis as supreme lyrical poetry always has and – let us hope – always will.’

 

The reader will realise that I have had, for many years, a huge affection for the poetry of Dylan Thomas.  It’s interesting that his contemporaries were also attracted to him, despite his many faults.  He borrowed and never paid back; he stole; he was frequently drunk and incapable; he was faithless; he told lies.  His first poem, at least the first poem for which he was paid, he sold to The Western Mail, and is entitled ‘His Requiem’.  Many years later, in 1971, someone found the poem, written by a Miss Lilian Gard, in a ‘Boy’s Own Paper’ of 1923.  Perhaps it is because I first heard of him, when at the age of ten, I was condemned to, or granted the benison depending on your point of view, of living in Fishguard, in rural West Wales from 1958 to 1961.  Richard Burton promoted Fishguard as the inspiration for ‘Under Milk Wood’, and directed his film version of the play there.  The film crew took over the last little cottage on Lower Town quay and converted it into Blind Captain Cat’s cottage (where Peter O’Toole sat).  The townsfolk complained of the disruption, but at least the Ship Inn did well out of the heavy drinking actors.  A note signed by Burton and others states that on a certain date (1970 or 1971?) the cast and crew drank the pub dry.  Burton was also kind enough to write in the visitor’s book at Fishguard Bay Yacht Club that it compared favourably with the Royal Thames Yacht Club.  As regards the location of Llareggub, it seems more likely that New Quay, north of Cardigan was the inspiration, though the many churches and chapels of Fishguard, and his origins in Swansea are also possible amalgams of the town.  But in 1958, few in Fishguard, five years after Thomas’s death, had a good word to say for him.  Now regarded as one of Wales’s finest poets; at that time he was regarded as something of an embarrassment.  Naively (aged 11) I asked a dinghy sailor at Fishguard Bay Yacht Club, why his super-fast fibreglass dinghy, with which he won all the races, was called ‘Polly Garter’.  ‘Because she’s no better than she ought to be’, he replied.  My mother refused to explain this.  It stimulated an obvious attraction for the creator of Polly Garter.

 

I return to an issue that remains the elephant in the Covid room – ever since the location of its origin emerged, or even since Donald Trump referred to ‘The Chinese Virus’, a possible clue as to the correctness of the laboratory-created virus theory has always been that the nearest animal relation of the virus carries a genome similarity of only around 95%, whereas other viruses passaged through and identified in animal species tend to have a much closer homogeneity to the virus responsible for epidemics or pandemics.  So to create the SARS-CoV-2 virus implies a substantial, and possibly engineered difference in the nucleotides coding particularly for the spike protein.

 

The most recent piece of the jigsaw comes from an unlikely source, as reported by the Daily Telegraph (Sarah Knapton).

 

The University in Budapest had soil samples taken in Antarctica in 2018 and 2019.  In December 2019, these were sent to Shanghai (Shangon Biotech) for genetic analysis.  The samples were subsequently found to be contaminated with a previously unknown variant of SARS-CoV-2.  This variant has a genome which shares features with both the nearest previously known bat coronavirus and the earliest Wuhan strain.  Other findings in the samples contain hamster and monkey DNA traces, perhaps pointing to growth of the virus in animal cell lines, such as would be undertaken in a laboratory.  Sangon Biotech is often used by Chinese researchers for sequencing.  If the work was undertaken before the end of December 2019, this finding would be evidence for a laboratory leak.  If afterwards, it might just be contamination, as scientists in Wuhan struggled to identify the virus.

 

Monday February 21^st, 2022

 

This is the first day that I have felt substantially better, and the lateral flow test is pristinely negative.  A little stroll round Whitley Bay and back.  Still very windy.  We have had three named storms in the last four days – Dudley, Eunice, and Franklin.  Most of these major depressions move further northwards than Poole, but Eunice was unusual in having its highest wind strengths on the south coast.  122mph gusts were recorded at the Needles, Isle of Wight.  Some major branches down from trees and a lot of debris, but otherwise the new house stood up to it.

Fun in high winds in Poole Harbour

 

My illness, from which I am still fatigued, has at least allowed me to read the new biography of George III, by Andrew Roberts, a recent birthday present.  Weighing in at over 750 pages including the notes and bibliography, it is a welcome re-evaluation of George III and his role in 18^th and early 19^th century politics.  During almost all of his reign, Britain was at war with somebody, whether France, Spain, the American Colonies, or other sundry nations such as Denmark.  Mindful of what had happened to Charles I, George was careful not to overstep his Royal prerogative, though this also allowed him to put blame on his ministers and parliament, who with the exception of the Pitts, were generally hopeless.  The corruption, and the violence and rioting which characterised the time, were appalling.  (The Police Force was not established until 1829).  George was one of the few Hanoverians who was guided by moral principles.  He was lucky to escape hurt during various riots, and also survived several assassination attempts.

 

Perhaps most interesting to me was the reassessment of George’s illnesses.  Soon after I became a medical student, the papers and book by Dr Ida Macalpine and her son, Dr Richard Hunter, provided what seemed to be conclusive proof that George suffered from acute episodes of  (variegate) porphyria.  I believed this theory, even to the present day.  Alan Bennett’s play, and Nicholas Hytner’s film promoted this too.  But meticulous re-examination in 2010 by Dr Tim Peters and Dr D Wilkinson strongly suggests that George suffered from acute hypomania – what we would now call bipolar disorder.  I can’t do better than quote from the abstract of their vigorous rebuttal of the Macalpine/Hunter theory:

 

‘The diagnosis that George III suffered from acute porphyria has gained widespread acceptance, but re-examination of the evidence suggests it is unlikely that he had porphyria.  The porphyria diagnosis was advanced by Ida Macalpine and Richard Hunter, whose clinical symptomatology and historical methodology were flawed.  They highlighted selected symptoms, while ignoring, dismissing or suppressing counter-evidence.  Their claims about peripheral neuropathy, cataracts, vocal hoarseness and abdominal pains are re-evaluated; and it is also demonstrated that evidence of discoloured urine is exceedingly weak.  Macalpine and Hunter believed that mental illnesses were primarily caused by physical diseases, and their diagnosis of George III formed part of a wider agenda to promote controversial views about past, contemporary and future methods in psychiatry.’ (History of Psychiatry, 2010)

 

The appendix to the present work demolishes the porphyria theory completely.

 

Of some interest, in view of my previous comments about rapacious doctors, is the account of the various famous physicians who controlled and maltreated the King in 1765, 1788-9, 1801, 1804, 1810-20.

 

During the King’s last illness, the most famous physician of his time, and even to this day the longest serving president of the Royal College of Physicians, Sir Henry Halford (PRCP 1815-1844), together with Sir William Heberden, Henry Dundas, and Henry Reynolds, were chiefly in charge of the King’s care.  Four major works on the treatment of insanity were published between 1806 and 1809, yet when questioned by parliamentary committees, it emerged that these distinguished physicians had read none of them.  Halford in particular was doctor to four monarchs, including Queen Victoria.  A medical historian (Sir Roy Porter) wrote: ‘So suave was his bedside manner, that some aristocratic women were said to prefer dying with Sir Henry than living with lesser physicians.’

 

Robert Willis, having some experience of treating the insane, is treated relatively kindly by Alan Bennett in his play.  Yet a ditty of the day went:

 

The King receives three doctors daily –

Willis, Heberden and Baillie:

Three distinguished clever men,

Baillie, Willis, Heberden;

Doubtful which more sure to kill is,

Baillie, Heberden or Willis.

 

(Quoted by Roberts from a British Medical Journal of 1914)

 

Finally, it should be noted that the doctors continued to charge huge fees.  By the time the King died (January 1820), the amount spent on them since January 1812 totalled £271,691 and 18 shillings (almost £34 million in today’s money).

 

The last time I was ill for so long a period was a genuine episode of influenza, which prostrated me some thirty years ago.  It allowed me to read ‘The Lord of the Rings’ in an uninterrupted sequence.  I had been looking forward to it, having read The Hobbit many years prior.  In the event, although the story started well enough, I found it tedious, and nothing like as enjoyable as The Hobbit (could it be that reading the one in one’s teens and the other in one’s 40s had something to do with it?).  It was during my time in Cambridge, in the late 1960s, that TLOTR became a cult.  There was a club which called itself ‘The Hobbits’ and to get into it one had to be interviewed and answer correctly searching questions at random from the books.  Life seemed too short, especially when studying Medicine, and Groucho Marx’s remarks about clubs come to mind.  I do remember a very successful discotheque during my time there called ‘The Desolation of Smaug’.  Well, anybody who can read TLOTR which contains a geographical feature, key to the story, called ‘The Crack of Doom’ without breaking into ribald laughter ranks in the same category as Charles Dickens’ readers, of whom Oscar Wilde wrote, ‘One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.’  I have sympathy with the Oxford don (Professor of English, Hugo Dyson) who, in the Merton SCR, listening to Tolkien declaiming his latest passage from TLOTL, said, ‘Oh no; not another fucking elf, Ronald?’

 

Thursday February 24^th

 

The above seems rather trivial, compared to the news today.  I have not felt so uneasy since Nine-Eleven.  Vladimir Putin, or rather Russian forces at his command, has invaded Ukraine with simultaneous attacks using helicopters, aircraft, and missiles, aiming to neutralise any Ukrainian armed response.  Images show Russian military vehicles crossing borders without any attempt to stop them.  After 22 years in power, as one correspondent stated this evening, with effectively no opposition, Putin considers himself invincible and it appears he has a Messianic mission to avenge Russia’s humiliation of the 1989 fall of the Soviet bloc.  As mentioned before, Ukraine is a NATO partner, and not a NATO member, so there is no armed response from the West.  But it seems likely that Putin may target Poland or the Baltic states next, and they are among the 30 members of NATO.  The response from the UN is predictable – a rather pathetic ‘Please Stop’.  Sanctions are being announced, with the USA response expected later tonight.  These will not have any short term effect however.

 

So, relegated to the second division are discussions about Partygate, and even Covid has taken a back seat.  Prince Andrew can relax for the first time for months.

 

The charming Laura Kuenssberg has tweeted that now Tories are worried about mass immigration from Ukraine… later in the day however she seems to be covering the story in a more considered manner, though she has jumped on the news that many MPs including Tories do not think the sanctions against Russia go far enough.  In my own cynical way I wonder whether Putin has delayed striking against Ukraine until now to allow his Russian athletes, masquerading as ‘Russian Olympic Committee’ to win all their medals at the Winter Olympics.  (Note added 3.3.2022: there is a credible intelligence source suggesting that President Xi had been in touch with Putin over exactly that scenario).

 

Feel a bit rough again post Covid, with a sore throat.  Time for bed.

 

Thursday March 3^rd, 2022

 

It has been a week of unremitting horror in Ukraine.  At times in the past I have counted my blessings, relieved to have lived such a long life untainted or unthreatened by war.  I have idly wondered how my parents felt – my father at just 21, my mother at 19, when the Second World War was declared; their lives altered irrevocably by one madman.  And now here we go again.  This is the iPhone war, the TV war, and awful images are now commonplace.  During my life we have had single, powerful, and frozen in time images to tell us that war was taking place – the little girl running naked down the road in Vietnam after a napalm strike; Syria, Afghanistan, the Falklands, and many others.  These seem to recede into the distance compared to what is now going on in Ukraine.  Already, one week in, one million people have fled the country.  Males aged 18 to 60 are not allowed to leave – their families joining the 40 kilometre queue at the Polish border.  Putin speaks bizarrely of ridding the country of Nazis.  Many feel that his personality has changed; some question his appearance as evidence of some inner pathology.  A Matt cartoon last week in the Daily Telegraph shows a sign outside the city of Salisbury – ‘We warned you about him’.

 

At the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra concert last night, the CEO read a message from our Ukrainian chief conductor, Kirill Karabits, thanking us for our concern for his country.  The lights changed to blue and yellow.  Kirill is in France at the moment, but is due to conduct here in Poole in two weeks’ time.

My wonderful original 1960s purchase of the DG 12" LP of Sibelius violin concerto.  Worryingly, Finland is not a member of NATO

 

As I write this evening, it seems that Putin’s tactics have changed to an altogether more barbaric strategy.  His forces bogged down on the ground, he has resorted to pulling back and just raining destruction on Ukrainian cities – indiscriminately targeting residential areas.  Russian involvement in Ukraine before, and in Syria has focussed on completely levelling the cities.  Safe, many miles away, his commanders can merely press the button and send cruise missiles or other ordnance in to destroy.  It seems possible that President Zelensky will call for surrender rather than allow so many more defenceless Ukrainians to suffer.

 

Meanwhile, in the United States, many, many miles away, President Biden gave his State of the Union address.  He was applauded for promising to help Ukraine, but to many critics he appeared fuzzy, and did not help himself by saying ‘Putin… will never gain the hearts and souls of the Iranian people.’  Conservative commentator, Ann Coulter, observed ‘That’s a relief!’  More than half of Americans polled by ABC News/Washington Post do not believe that Biden has the ‘mental sharpness it takes to serve effectively as President.’

 

It seems to me that Ukraine’s invasion is entirely analogous to Hitler’s invasion of the Sudetenland, part of sovereign Czechoslovakia, on the pretext that many native Germans lived there, and that it should be Germanized again.  At that time, our line in the sand was Poland, and only when Hitler invaded Poland did we declare war.  This time it is the Baltic States and other members of NATO (or OTAN) in Europe.

 

I had so many other things to write about – the detection of the antianginal drug trimetazidine in a urine sample of a 15 year old Russian ice skater; a remarkable observation about cricket; more about Dylan Thomas – but these will have to wait.

 

Parenthetically, it seems reasonable however to mention Covid.  A paper in the New England Journal of Medicine, today, March 3^rd, is a review of the efficacy of vaccinations against the Omicron variant – and it is nowhere near the effectiveness displayed earlier to the first coronaviruses.  There is some protection, but with various combinations of primary and booster doses, it’s difficult to tease out which is best.  Protection is at best around 60%, and has been shown to wane with time.  It seems to bear out my experience.  I still have paroxysms of coughing, and sleep late most mornings.  (Added note: further NEJM papers bear this out in other countries – omicron is less well protected against, but nonetheless there does appear to be protection against serious illness and death).

 

Yet again, the Wuhan story has been re-examined and some scientists have suggested that the origin was indeed the Wuhan wet market.  The paper has not been peer-reviewed and will obviously bear further assessment.

 

Sunday March 6^th

 

More articles questioning how on earth we were so gullible as to allow London to become ‘Londongrad’ for so many corrupt Russian businessmen.  Party donations, visas for sale, a process it seems dating back to John Major, but just in case any left wing readers feel reassured, substantially endorsed by Tony Blair and his successors.

 

Cold, bleak winter sunshine.  Strong north-easterly winds.

 

This next paragraph may jarringly intrude, but for many, the death of Shane Warne, cricketer, greatest leg spinner of all time, from a suspected heart attack at the age of 52 has come as a massive shock.  Rodney Marsh, greatest Australian gloveman, has also died from a heart attack.  Warne lived life to the full, but his diet of junk food and cigarettes obviously caught up with him.  As another evidence of the naivety of successive generations about history, a friend recently told me that his grandson asked him, ‘Dad, what franchise did Donald Bradman play for?’  I am not going to go into the details of that for American or Canadian readers, only because it would take too long.  They may guess from his dates of birth and death – 1908 to 2001.  Note to American readers – cricket is our baseball, though there may be a social class difference.

 

I feel very sorry for all the Paralympic athletes.  Apart from the occasional minor news item that tells us somebody from GB has gained a medal, the interest in the Winter Paralympics must be almost zero.  The BBC does not cover it – it appears on Channel 4 in the middle of the night.

 

Covid is no longer the main topic of conversation.  Whitty and Valance, so important in the early pages of this diary, are nowhere to be seen.  Instead, current and recent figures from the Armed Forces deliver our briefings these days.

 

This diary will now become the ‘War Diary’, not the Corona Diary.  Will it ever see the light of day?

 

Thursday March 10^th

 

The war has continued for two weeks.  The obscenities of it are almost unspeakable.  An image of a small girl in a pink padded jacket lying dead in the gutter.  Yesterday the airstrike or missile strike of a hospital for mothers and children.  How long can the West tolerate this?  The fear of escalation and the fact that we have no commitment (officially) to Ukraine stops a European/NATO/US response.  I still think this is the Sudetenland moment and there will be more to come.  It is remarkable how many BBC reporters seem to be in Ukraine (chiefly in Kyiv, though also elsewhere).  The unmistakable New Brunswick tones of Lyse Doucet who seems to be in every war zone.  We also have the familiar sound of Fergal Keane.  A dedicated reporter, and highly respected, Keane nonetheless possesses the ability to lower one’s spirits just in the tone of his voice.  I am sure if he read P.G. Wodehouse to us it would sound equally depressing.

 

A moment of history yesterday – Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian President, became the first head of state to address parliament in person, by satellite link.

 

It is very hard to focus on other matters.  I had to look on my phone for some pictures to remind us that life goes on, so here they are.  Some daffodils, the early morning sunlight shining through; boats on the hard at the Royal Motor Yacht Club, waiting for Easter and launching.  Our Ukrainian flag flying from our flagpole.  Is this just bourgeois breast beating or a meaningful symbol of solidarity?

Spring approaching

'Weapons of Happiness', yachts awaiting Spring launching, R.M.Y.C.

Carp, Luscombe Valley lakes, Parkstone G.C., Poole

Our Ukrainian flag - solidarity at least

Some years ago, inspired by all the boats of various shapes and sizes that one can see in various drives and in front of houses, I felt that I should create a montage of the more colourful craft, and enter it into the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition under the title ‘Weapons of Happiness’.  The title is taken from an awful play by Howard Brenton which I went to see at the National Theatre many years ago.  Apart from its left wing sermonizing tedium, and the fact that a motorcycle appeared on stage, I remember nothing of it apart from the clever title.  I believe it comes from the Bible: ‘All the bright weapons of happiness wait only for a sign’.  Apposite to the war perhaps, but in my context it contains the pregnant happiness that awaits the launching of boats in the springtime.

 

Research fails to find the biblical quotation; I only remember the context from Brenton’s introduction in the programme.  If it is not from the Bible, perhaps it could be Karl Marx?  Brenton is or was a Marxist.  Research also indicates that the cast was stellar – Frank Finlay, Julie Covington, Michael Medwin, Bernard Gallagher.  It was the first new play commissioned by the National and premiered in July 1976.  David Hare was the director; Peter Hall the artistic director.  My view of the play is shared.  Most reviews were unenthusiastic.  It has only been revived once, in 2008, in a peripheral theatre, and was not well-reviewed.

A propos of 'Google knows where you are', I received this heatmap of my wanderings over the last several years - golf in Ireland, cycling the North Coast 500, cycling the Hebrides, walking the North York Moors, walking in Cornwall.  Parenthetically I wonder - does Vladimir Putin have a similar heatmap?  And might it be useful?

 

At this point, unless some other important issue comes forward, I think it appropriate to cease my Corona diary.  I will continue to write a diary/blog.  In a more skeletal form it may reappear.

 

I close by giving you two meaningful entries from newspapers, in 1853, and 1969 respectively.  Do not read the name of the first correspondent until you have read the article:

 

‘…These vital interests should render Great Britain the earnest and unyielding opponent of the Russian projects of annexation and aggrandisement…Having come thus far on the way to universal empire is it probable that this gigantic, swollen power will pause in its career?  With the Albanian coast … she is in the very centre of the Adriatic … It would appear that the natural frontier of Russia runs from Danzig or perhaps Stettin to Trieste.  As sure as conquest follows conquest and annexation follows annexation, so surely would the conquest of Turkey by Russia be only the prelude to the annexation of Hungary, Prussia, Galicia and the ultimate realization of the Slavonic Empire.  The arrest of the Russian scheme of annexation is a matter of the highest moment.  In this instance the interests of democracy and of England go hand in hand.’

 

From the New York Tribune, 12 April 1853, by its European correspondent, Karl Marx.

 

This was written shortly before the start of Crimean War, an anti-Russian alliance of Great Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire, and Piedmont-Sardinia which achieved eventual victory, at some cost.  The Treaty of Paris (1856) effectively barred Russian warships from the Black Sea.  Putin seems to have a long memory.

 

And with regard to military or national leaders, perhaps Putin should also take note from two entries to The Times, on 3^rd September 1969, in the In Memoriam section.  Depending on the results of his current incursion into Ukraine, will he be regarded in the former or the latter category?

 

 

Oliver Cromwell, 25^th April 1599 – 3^rd September 1658.

Lord Protector, 1653-1658.  Statesman, General and Ruler.

            ‘Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered’.

                                                                                                -Psalm 68, verse 1.

In honoured remembrance.

 

 

Cromwell. – To the eternal condemnation of Oliver, Seditionist, Traitor, Regicide, Racialist, proto-Fascist and blasphemous Bigot.  God save England from his like. – Hugo Ball.

 

 

I freely confess that I found these entries in my copy of the Commonplace Book of John Julius Norwich, 1971.

 

Those who are interested in following someone with a huge amount of experience, an ex-Diplomat, non-partisan commentator (though you might not think it from her contempt for the current government), should take a look at the writings and Tweets of a distant ‘friend of the family’, Alexandra Hall Hall.  Her hashtag is:

@alexhallhall.  What she says is usually worth reading…  She has far more international experience and far more intelligence than virtually any inhabitant of the ‘Mother of Parliaments’.  Even that title is a misnomer, if you visit Iceland and go to Thingvellir, the true Mother of Parliaments.

 

Good bye.

 

Andrew McLeod

 

 

 

 

 

Corona Diary Chapter 24 - September 15th to November 8th, 2021

CORONA DIARY CHAPTER 24

Friday September 17th

 Ring-a-ring o’roses

A pocket full of posies

A-tishoo Atishoo

We all fall down

 When training in medical school we were told that the rhyme had its origins in the fear of typhoid fever – the characteristic rose red spots of severe typhoid being found on the anterior trunk, perhaps in a ring distribution.  But every reference I can find to the rhyme indicates a link with the plague, and I can’t find any reference to typhoid.  The rash of the plague is not a ring however, and plague antedated this rhyme by several centuries.  Sneezing is not a strong feature of either illness, but the myth persists.

 

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.

 

Early morning, Branksome Chine

Tuesday September 21^st

 

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.

 

Early morning mist over Parkstone Golf Course, 22nd September

Wednesday September 29^th

 

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 Ėric-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 30^th

 

‘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 8^th

 

“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 10^th

 

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.

 

3rd October.  0400 in Poole Park, the start of my friend's walking virtual London marathon.  Looking across the lake to Poole Hospital

 

And the finish line, 26+ miles later, in the afternoon

Tuesday October 12^th

 

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.

 

 

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 21^st, 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 (21^st 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.

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 18^th 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.

 

With TV star 'Maggie the Seaside Baker'

Kouign-Amman, courtesy of Maggie the Seaside Baker

Monday November 1^st

 

‘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.

Remember, remember, the First of November...

 

Sunday November 6^th

 

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.

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.

 

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 8^th

 

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’.

 

Another dawn

18th Hole, Red Course, Berkshire Golf Club, November morning

6th Hole, West Sussex Golf Club, Pulborough, October morning.  The swan never moves...