Corona Diary Part 2. Friday 27th March to Tuesday 31st March

Preamble:  I'm conscious that whereas Part 1 encompassed 10 days, Part 2 is only 5 days.  I apologise if I seem to have become more expansive.  I would have delayed for another five days, but if anything has become clear in the last week, it is that the author may no longer be around to write any more.  As I'm sure you are all aware, this is not an overly melodramatic statement:

Friday March 26^th

A glance at the calendar.  Another five days of March to go.  Will be glad to be rid of it, but April is likely to be worse as regards Corona in the UK.  Deaths yesterday rose by more than 100 – from 475 to 578.  Strange to think that we were desperate to get rid of February – highest ever rainfall – three times as much as any of the last five years.  But last night was special for the project ‘Applause’.  At 8pm everybody stood outside their houses and clapped.  Buildings and the London Eye were lighted in blue to celebrate the NHS and workers on the front line.

The 7 Brunstead Place film club enjoyed ‘Cabaret’ last night.  This film for the most part stands up well.  Liza Minelli looked slim and charismatic, compared to her later persona.  Michael York was a little wooden but handsome.  Curiously, to me, he looked far more like the young W.H. Auden, who was also in Berlin for the same reasons that Christopher Isherwood was.  The 25-year-old Marisa Berenson was stunning as Natalia Landauer.  I had read many of Isherwood’s books by the time the film came out.  This came about in a curious way.  Our history master (I will not go into details; he is deceased) recommended during a lesson that we read ‘Mr Norris Changes Trains’.  I immediately did so.  Thinking about the history master and his mannerisms, although he was married with two daughters, I do now wonder whether he was gay.  The character of Christopher Isherwood in the film (Brian Roberts played by Michael York) suffered several sexual transitions.  In the film he is bisexual – whereas, as far as I know, Isherwood was entirely homosexual.  Even this was a dramatic switch from the 1966 stage play where ‘Brian Roberts’ was portrayed as heterosexual.  It’s a tribute to Bob Fosse that he gave the film much more bite than the original stage play.  This play, written by John Van Druten, was not a musical, and was based on the Isherwood book ‘I am a Camera’.  It was apparently very poor, and attracted the famous review by Walter Kerr – ‘Me No Leica.’  One of Bob Fosse’s skills in the film was to attract cinemagoers who don’t particularly like musicals, by making every musical number take place within the Kit Kat club.  There is one exception, the famous ‘Tomorrow belongs to me’, sung by a young boy in face shot only, but as the song progresses and the onlookers join in with the patriotic lines such as ‘Fatherland, Fatherland, show us the sign…’ the camera pans out to reveal his Hitler Youth uniform.  As Bob Fosse said of this strategy, ‘I get a bit antsy watching musicals in which people are singing as they walk down the street or hang out the laundry… In fact I think it looks a bit silly.’

A one and a half hour conference call last night, as a Governor of Poole Hospital.  Confidential of course, but there is terrific commitment among the staff, accepting of redeployment, learning new roles, preparing to take the huge anticipated increase in Covid-19 patients.  ‘We are all Intensive Care Nurses now!’

Early morning shopping trip.  I feel a little guilty taking advantage of the 7.30am NHS workers’ time in Sainsbury’s, but I am contributing to the running of the hospital, volunteering to work for them if they need me to see routine cardiac cases if need be – though they will still have to persuade the GMC to relicense me.  There is talk of moving some of the non-Covid 19 work off site to a local private hospital if numbers on the main site increase.  To return to the shopping trip: it’s interesting to see what other people regard as essential shopping.  I’m doing an extensive list for my former colleague and now near neighbour whose wife has had a bone marrow transplant, now some 14 plus years ago.  Understandably she is not going out.  Her husband does most of the cooking anyway.  I disobeyed instructions to buy “Two bottles each red and white wine, £8 to £10 a bottle.”  I told him that I couldn’t envisage him drinking a wine which cost less than his free range chicken.  Hence 2 x Chablis at £12; 2 x Chianti Classico Riserva at £15.  He did have the good grace to WhatsApp me later to say he was enjoying the Chianti very much.  Guess that’s the closest we’ll get to Tuscany for a while.

More domestic chores – high pressure hosing the flagstones.  Evening news has additional spice by virtue of the fact that our Prime Minister, the Health Minister, and the Chief Medical Officer, all have Covid-19 symptoms.  Once again, they seem to be able to get a rapid turnaround of test results within 24 hours, unlike the rest of us.  Laura Kuenssberg, BBC political reporter, whose left wing bias is only very thinly veiled asks challenging questions as to how the PM knows that he is fit to continue leading the country remotely.  Short of suggesting an IQ test or some pelmanism it’s a bit difficult to answer that one, is it not?  Her questioning in the 5pm PM briefings has been overtly hostile, and not at all supportive.  One would need a crystal ball to answer some of the press questions at these sessions.  The short answer to most of them is, ‘We don’t know.’  If you would like some proof of my assertion, consider this: during one of the sudden reshuffles recently; it may have been the departure of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; she was reporting on the hoof with no notes from Downing Street.  Announcing the arrival of various cabinet figures at No. 10, the camera caught Jacob Rees Mogg walking briskly past.  “Here comes Jacob Rees Mogg.”  She stated, “In his pinstripes.”  Now of course that was factually correct.  Rees Mogg was wearing pinstripes.  But this wasn’t a Hollywood red carpet.  Politicians’ clothing is not relevant here.  Her lack of time to prepare revealed something of her inner contempt.  Imagine her reporting from a Shadow Cabinet meeting place, “Here comes Jeremy Corbyn, in his scruffy suit and red tie.”  Do you take my point?  Presumably her persistent and aggressive questioning (she’s almost always the first questioner during the PM’s briefings) is an attempt to justify her >£250,000 a year salary.

Saturday March 28^th

The film club watched Alfred Hitchcock’s 1938 ‘The Lady Vanishes’ last night.  I saw this when very young (not in 1938 of course) and enjoyed it.  But now it’s hard to buy in to the preposterous notion of a secret message about some vital European Treaty being memorised in a song; the too obviously model Alpine villages and trains; and the substitution trick of a heavily bandaged personage being shipped aboard the train to take the place of the old lady that the heroine has befriended and who has vanished.

Another sunny day, though we have had a cold north-easterly wind in the last day or two.  I awoke with quite a striking headache and a bit of a dry cough.  No fever.  Is it Covid-19?  Don’t know but will have to self-isolate more thoroughly.  A pity.  We have enjoyed walks on Talbot Heath, and a deserted Parkstone Golf Club.  Sightings of deer and foxes.

Lindsay gets out a jigsaw!

Sunday March 29^th

All sorts of gloomy titles will meander through one’s head from time to time:

Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Love in the Time of Cholera

A Journal of the Plague Year

La Peste

The Masque of the Red Death

Only three of which I’ve read (though I have now downloaded Defoe’s work from Gutenberg – after 350 years it is after all, free from copyright.)

But again it’s a bright day.  Though the wind is northerly and very cold.  The clocks went forward last night, so we are officially in summer.

The film club watched ‘Lion’ last night.  An inspiring and at times frightening story of a little boy lost in India.  After some time on the streets with a few near misses he ends up in a rather unpleasant orphanage/foundling school.  He is adopted by a Tasmanian couple, and eventually fulfils a need to find where he came from.  This is based on a true story.  It says quite a lot about her acting skills but I didn’t realise until nearly the end of the film that the rather unattractive and angular but sympathetic Tasmanian housewife is played by Nicole Kidman.  I would say that Dev Patel was sort of so-so in the role of the grown up Saroo, but then he didn’t have much to do apart from have a row with his girlfriend and spend his time on Google Earth, or sticking pins in a map of India.  The young Saroo was excellent.

Moving on.  And even more sobering.  This weekend UK deaths reached 1000 and figures from this morning show 1228 deaths, and total testing of nearly 128,000 (19,522 positive; 108,215 negative).  Feel well today.  Apyrexial.  We walk at a distance from all others and I wait while Lindsay does food shopping including more items for completely isolated friends.  Leave it on their doorstep together with an Alco-Wipe.  Other shopping for incapacitated old lady includes chicken jalfrezi, Fisherman’s Friends, and easy peelers.  Obviously the necessities.

Tonight’s presenter at the lectern in Downing Street was the housing minister.  Who will be next?  The Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Jenny Harries, is clear, calm, accurate and deals with the press like an omniscient junior school headmistress.  Well done her.

I was in touch with a colleague in London yesterday who tells me that King’s College Hospital have more than 350 Covid-19 patients at the moment.  His echo team are worried about lack of PPE (Personal Protection Equipment; not a degree course at an Oxford college).  The WHO and ASE guidelines suggest greater protection than the current UK guidelines which only provide for major PPE if ‘aerosol generating procedures’ are undertaken.  It would only take a patient undergoing an echo a moment to sneeze or cough however, and an aerosol would be generated.  This seems to be the major worry of front line staff at the moment, understandably.  Today we hear of a front line consultant in his 50s who has died.  Whether or not future editions of my blog appear would seem to depend on the new sort of Russian Roulette we now play.  For the average person this would be like a revolver with a 50 round chamber and one live bullet.  For me aged 72 and with an IgM paraprotein this could be two or three rounds in the chamber…

On a lighter note (though believe me the subject is serious) a friend has drawn my attention to a journalist’s explanation of why President Trump is not particularly liked by the English.  The journalist is Nate White, and I quote it in full.  Interestingly, the Q&A forum where it was posted, called Quora, has had it removed surreptitiously.  Guess that’s what they (the GOP) can do in Washington:

Someone on Quora asked “Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?” Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote the following response:

A few things spring to mind.

Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.

For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.

So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever.

I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.

But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.

And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.

Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.

Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.

And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.

Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.

He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.

He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.

That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.

There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.

• You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.

After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.

God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.

He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.

In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:

‘My God... what... have... I... created?

If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.

Source: jobsanger: British Writer Pens The Best Description Of Trump I’ve Read

There is concern for the many involved in the fishing industry locally.  The closure of hotels and restaurants has hit demand severely.  Lindsay gets a call from a contact where she used to buy fish for catering.  When she arrives on the industrial estate the amount of fresh fish that they are trying to sell is enormous.  I hope they can freeze it.  She buys some skate and crab meat.  The skate, pan fried in butter with Sicilian capers, is fantastic.  The problem is finding a large enough pan to fry two skate wings.  It’s lovely but we reluctantly conclude that it is easier if a commercial kitchen cooks it.

We think of my colleague at Number 2 whose shopping I did.  His culinary skills are coming on fast, but we wonder if he has thought to make stock with the remainder of his free range chicken.  If not we can make it for him, but the chicken will have to cross the road.

Tonight we have a whisky sour followed by chicken sag masala.  Excellent.  The film club watches the Sally Potter film of Orlando starring Tilda Swinton.  Hmmm.  I found it hard to understand, though after extensive study on Wikipedia and SparkNotes, I am now in the position of the judge who asked the counsel, F.E. Smith if, after his current line of questioning: ‘Will I be any the wiser.’  ‘No my Lord,’  was the reply, ‘But you will be better informed.’

A message from a colleague at Duke links me in to a heartfelt plea from a Cardiology Program Director in New York City.  Their hospital, New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center (NYP) is under severe stress.  Cardiology fellows are being asked to help in Intensive Care.  In just a week their Out-Patient work has gone from <1% video appointments to 99%.  The situation is reflected throughout New York City, and their concerns are just the same as in England.  Not enough N95 masks, not enough testing, shortage of ventilators.  As he says, ‘By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail.’

Monday March 29^th

One other point about the 1918/1919 pandemic influenza (sorry about the non-sequitur).  In the prologue to the book ‘Man Eaters of Kumaon’ by Jim Corbett, he gives the following as the reason why tigers in Northern India became maneaters, which he states was not until 1918.  As everyone will know, the funeral rites of Hindus require preparation of the body on a plinth for cremation.  During the pandemic however, the sheer number of corpses was such that many mountain villagers took the bodies of their relatives to the cliffs at the edge of the village and pushed them off, so as not to contaminate the village with decomposing corpses.  It was then that tigers discovered that this was an easy source of food, and according to Corbett, they developed a taste for human flesh.

I had thought that poor Mary Lennox in the book ‘The Secret Garden’ had suffered being orphaned in the same way, by the Great Flu, but in fact the book was published in 1911, and Mary’s parents and their servants died from a cholera epidemic.  You may remember that Mary was found alone and alive in the house…

There is little to report today.  Inevitable increase in cases and deaths.  Our main exercise is in the evening – shopping for two housebound old ladies – followed by walk around Poole Harbour.  By the time we got back it was rather late.  The film club didn’t meet tonight.  I think Lindsay has been a bit dispirited by my choice of films.

Tuesday March 31^st

Another bright but cold and windy day.  Reported figures from yesterday at DoH are: Tested 134,496; 112,805 negative; 22,141 positive.  Reported Covid-19 deaths 1,408.  This means that the measured mortality from those known to be positive, and presumably displaying significant symptoms is 6% - a lot higher than the 1 to 2% we would have estimated from the original Chinese figures.  To get an idea of the true mortality we would need a lot more data from a background survey of asymptomatic or relatively asymptomatic subjects.  Still, this is a more sobering statistic.

I’m afraid that those who read this blog will find much of it a bit tedious.  All ‘good’ diaries need editing, but I’m afraid that this is a bit of a warts and all account and I have no editor.  There is no florid or determinedly witty writing.  I always try to remember Dr Johnson’s advice to writers: ‘Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.’  I believe Chekhov also advised writers to strike out at least the first two pages of ‘anything you have written.’  Something like that anyway.

Pace to those who are religious.  I cannot help being reminded of the ‘Thief in the Night’ with respect to Corona virus.  Not being a regular reader of the Bible – at least not since the age of 10 – I had to look it up.  St Paul in his letter (sorry, epistle) to the Thessalonians tells them:

‘For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.  For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape.’  As Richard Dawkins would say, these are not particularly consoling words.  I am sure there are American evangelists now who are making hay with the sudden tragedies of the pandemic.  But the image of the thief in the night first occurred to me because of my memories of the wonderful poem by Dylan Thomas, ‘In Country Sleep.’  This poem, perhaps to a daughter, but somewhat (in my view) covertly incestuous in its stance towards the subject, is best read as a lullaby to a child, with the underlying reminder that death comes to us all.  The thief is referred to later in the poem, but at the beginning he is the wolf, perhaps a reference to Red Riding Hood.  Thomas’s lyrical reading of it is wonderful.  If you want to hear him reading it go to:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=fZFDpAgBSkE

‘Never and never my girl, riding far and near

In the land of the hearth-stone tales, and spelled asleep,

Fear or believe that the wolf in the sheep-white hood

Loping and bleating roughly and blithely shall leap

My dear, my dear,

Out of the lair in the flocked leaves in the dew-dipped year

To eat your heart in the house in the rosy wood.’

If this doesn’t immediately commend itself to you, retire to somewhere quiet, listen to the Youtube rendition.  It’s not necessary to understand Thomas’s words immediately; it is more the images and the associations that they create that work the magic.  That and Thomas’s spellbinding voice.  Perhaps it helps to have been to school in Wales like me, though it’s true to say that Thomas’s reputation in Wales in the 1950s was nothing like as positive as it is now.  I think dreamily of happy days in the bay of Lower Fishguard, where the not entirely satisfactory Richard Burton 1971 version of Under Milk Wood was filmed.  I say not entirely satisfactory because he found a completely unnecessary role for Elizabeth Taylor in it.  But his radio recording of it is wonderful.  A friend who sailed, very successfully, an Albacore in all the Pembrokeshire coastal regattas, named his boat ‘Polly Garter’ because he said she was ‘No better than she ought to be.’  She was in fact very slippery and fast, perhaps appropriately.  There is a signed certificate in the pub on the quay in Lower Town to attest to the fact that Richard Burton, Peter O’Toole, and the cast and crew of Under Milk Wood drank the pub completely dry one evening during filming.

We have had a cold and windy bicycle ride today.  The gorse is blooming, the berberis is fading, but camellias, early rhododendrons and some azaleas brighten the scene.

Against these meanderings, a rise of 381 deaths in the UK; total now 1,789.  Spain however, has recorded its worst day ever with 849 deaths.

To counteract the dry content of some of this diary, here are a few images:

Skate wings in the pan - larger pan needed.  Sicilian capers!

Bournemouth Gardens

Bournemouth Gardens

New Bournemouth beach huts - lovely pastel colours - empty of course

The beauty of the empty Parkstone Golf Course

Evening, Whitley Bay, Poole Harbour

Until the next time!
(But I have to add a Stop Press: Lindsay's cousin from Pennsylvania informs us that while liquor shops in PA are closed, gun shops are regarded as 'Essential Businesses' and are open!)

Corona Diary - Monday 16th March to Thursday March 26th, 2020

A preamble:  it seems that many have time on their hands and are short of reading material.  I hope some might find this of interest.  There is some medicine, some history, a timeline, and some trivia.  If anybody finds any mistakes or errors please notify me and I will modify.

CORONA DIARY

16^th March, 2020

A bit late onto this topic, but nonetheless there is still much to write about.

In around 1970 or 1971, as we sat in the small lecture theatre at University College Hospital (before the Clore lecture theatre was built), in the old University Street building, lectures were given on microbiology.  The Professor of Virology (I can’t remember his name, though I can picture him, a slightly overweight individual, gentle manner, grey eyes, probably had significant underlying coronary artery disease in retrospect) gave us lectures on basic virology, and we all went out and bought the Jawetz paperback textbook 'Review of Medical Microbiology'.  One thing was drilled into us while we were discussing influenza.  The history of the original major pandemic, also called ‘Spanish Flu’, a disease which swept the whole world and caused 50 million deaths was rehearsed, and we even conducted an experiment using one of its deadly products, a surface protein called ‘haemagglutinin’ in the test tube.  This demonstrated unequivocally that red blood cells were agglutinated – clumped together, blocking blood vessels and impairing oxygen transport.  But the one clear message was – the next pandemic is a case of ‘when’ and not ‘if’.  Subsequent to 1918/19 we have had several more major outbreaks, the 1957 ‘Asian’ flu; the 1968 ‘Hong Kong flu’; the 2009 ‘Swine Flu’ epidemic.  Back then we were told that the virus probably originated in Asia, and that the reservoirs were most probably in pigs, although it was clear that the original and most fatal virus was probably of avian origin.  All of this was quite prescient at the time, and recently I have mused that it is sad that these Professors are not around now to enjoy the fascinating events that are now unfolding with coronavirus.  There hasn’t been any mention of what if any superinfection is occurring in the lungs of affected patients.  We’ve seen some of the X-rays which do indeed look very nasty.  In earlier epidemics it was acute staphylococcal pneumonia, but nobody seems to have mentioned this this time around.  A consultant I worked for in Nottingham told me that they had a protocol in 1968 – any young person admitted with flu and respiratory symptoms was given immediate IV flucloxacillin, an antistaphylococcal penicillin which only came into use in the 1960s.  A feature of classic flu was the deaths of healthy young men – possibly due to dramatic hyperresponsiveness of the immune system to viral antigens.  Doctors in 1919 reported young people being well at breakfast time and dead by teatime.  A remarkably scary scenario.

Opinions seem to differ on why it was called Spanish Flu.  The answer seems to be that there was severe censorship and news blackouts in the countries engaged in fighting the first world war, and that the first cases were reported from Spain.  Almost certainly however, the virus jumped from birds to mammals (probably pigs) and after transformation, infected humans sometime around and after 1910.  Again, the source was probably China, though it may not have been.  The first cases, at least the first recorded cases, were in Kansas.

Influenza viruses differ from the Corona virus, though they are both single stranded RNA viruses.  Corona is able to serve both as Messenger RNA and as a genome.  In simple terms they use the cell’s own synthetic machinery to manufacture, first, copies of themselves, and then proteins.  Otherwise, their common factor is that they spread through person to person contact; droplets; probably faecal; and what microbiologists love to call ‘fomites’.  This was certainly a new word to us medical students at the time, but essentially it means microscopic transmission mechanisms – particles from skin, dirt from clothing, from fingernails, items that we have handled.  Fomites are inanimate objects that can transmit the organism or virus causing disease.

As of this date we have come a long way from these early reports from Wuhan, a city in Hubei province, China, sometime in January.  The earliest infection seems to have been recorded in November 2019.  Inititally, as you will all know, China tried to suppress this ‘bad news’ story, and the widespread dissemination became apparent just before Chinese New Year, a time when Chinese people everywhere migrate to celebrate with family and loved ones.  By the time the New Year celebrations were cancelled it was probably already too late.

Having started the ball rolling, the Chinese authorities were nonetheless quick to type, and genetically sequence the virus.  Only South Korea seems to have acted with precipitous speed in preparing an antibody test which was rapidly rolled out to enable widespread testing.

March 22^nd

Strange sort of Mother’s Day – what would we do without mobiles, Skype, Facetime etc?  But when Natalie’s Mother’s Day card for Lindsay was slipped through the letterbox yesterday it felt to me like the parcel of silks from London arriving in Eyam in the plague year 1666 (see ‘The Year of Wonders’, superb novel about the events of the bubonic plague in Eyam, and their decision, prompted by the vicar, to self-isolate.  The fatal plague bacterium arrives in Eyam in fleas inhabiting a parcel of fabric from London).

Most of my concerns have now been echoed.  The UK, like quite a few countries, is behind with testing.  A colleague currently in practice points out that it is not quite as simple as that.  It’s pretty easy to identify a Covid patient who needs hospitalisation (I’m thinking of buying my own oxygen saturation monitor), but it’s not easy to identify NHS people who are ill and haven’t recovered – are they still shedding virus?  On the other hand, it’s clear that many people are ill (or say they are) and are not being tested fast enough.  The turnaround time has gone up because of demand.  In the near future it may be that there will be an antibody test so that we can know if somebody has got it and is a risk (IgM – acute phase immunoglobulin) or has had it and has recovered (IgG only).  There is a generalised cry from hospitals that PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) is not being rolled out fast enough, and there was a weepy ICU nurse on TV saying that there was nothing at the supermarket after she had finished a 48 hour shift.  Irrespective of the veracity of that work pattern, she doesn’t seem to have thought of e.g. buying frozen fruit, or thought ahead properly.

The UK has been roundly criticised by other countries for not taking this pandemic seriously.  Its stepwise response seems reasonable to me however.  Every day Boris Johnson appears at a 5pm press conference flanked by Sir Patrick Vallance, Chief Scientific Adviser, and by Professor Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Adviser.  They are dispassionate and clear cut in their answers.  Surely a ‘K’ in the pipeline for Chris Whitty if we get through this.

In the meantime, one local doctor has a Lord High Executioner type list of some hospital consultants whom one might call ‘Flaky’, and it’s interesting that virtually all of them are now ‘self-isolating’ at home for one reason or another.  This contrasts that with my own feeling that I should be in there and helping, and in some ways wish I could be (nothing from the GMC just yet – but maybe I missed the cut; too old; retired too long ago (three and a half years), and maybe others have been called upon.  I don’t know whether to be sad or pleased about this…  I sometimes reflect on the generations of doctors before us who have practised at some time after 1919 who haven’t experienced a true worldwide pandemic.  It’s new for everybody.  Pandemic planning apparently took place in 2013 – how wrong they got it.  On every level, not least financial, with the paralysis of the systems of production.

It's interesting, after two months, to look at how we have responded to the spread of Covid-19.  Here is a timeline, some of this taken from The Independent, some my own:

Wednesday January 22^nd 2020

Public Health England, responding to the news of an explosion of cases in Wuhan, moves its risk level to the British Public from Very Low to Low.  Heathrow starts to screen all arrivals from Wuhan

Wednesday January 29^th

UK’s first two patients are identified.  Two Chinese nationals staying at a hotel in York become ill.  A plane carrying British nationals from Wuhan arrives at Brize Norton and passengers go into 14 day quarantine in Merseyside.  This sort of activity is regarded as a curiosity and we no longer think about it now (late March) that the virus is well and truly in UK.

Thursday 6^th February

Britain’s third patient who has been at a conference in Singapore is identified.  This 53 year old is said to be a super spreader, linked with a total of 11 cases, five of which are in the UK

Monday 10^th February

Health Secretary gives doctors strengthened powers to detain and quarantine people.

Sunday 23^rd February

The Diamond Princess is quarantined off the coast of Japan.  A failure to rapidly evacuate passengers gives it the status of a virus incubator.  Four British nationals are repatriated but are infected.

Friday 28^th February

First British death (a passenger on board the Diamond Princess).

Stock Market crashes.

Wednesday 4^th March

Surge of Covid-19 in the UK.  Biggest one day increase – 34 – brings total to 87.  Possible shutdown of Parliament discussed.  Italy announces shutdown of schools and universities in response to evidence that it is the worst affected European country.  Virus has reached 81 countries; 90,000 confirmed cases; over 3000 deaths.  Significant problem with skiers returning from half term holidays in Northern Italy.

Thursday 5^th March

70 plus year old woman first person to die in UK from the disease.  Now over 100 infected in UK.

Tuesday 10^th March

Nadine Dorries, Junior Health Minister confirmed positive for Covid-19.  Six total deaths in UK, 373 tested positive.

Wednesday 11^th March

WHO announces this is a pandemic.

Chancellor Mr Sunak announces £12bn aid package to help UK cope with financial implications.

Friday 13^th March

Confirmed UK cases of coronavirus rise by more than 200 in a single day.  London Marathon postponed; Premier League football fixtures cancelled.

Sunday 15^th March

UK cases pass 1000.  Health Secretary warns of long duration quarantine for the elderly.  Alarm at escalating panic buying in supermarkets.

Monday 16^th March

First PM’s daily press briefing.  Flanked by Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer, and Sir Patrick Valance, Chief Scientific Adviser.  People urged to work from home and avoid pubs and restaurants.  Whitty and Valance quietly and calmly impressive.

Tuesday 17^th March

Mr Sunak announces additional aid; loans, tax cuts, and grants amounting to £330bn package.  Sir Patrick Vallance announces that as many as 55,000 people may now be infected and a ‘good outcome’ would be if deaths in UK can be below 20,000.

Wednesday 18^th March

Government announces that most schools will close from Friday.  Key workers’ children may continue to attend.

Thursday 19^th March

Numbers of deaths in UK up to 144, a rise of 40% in a day.  3269 confirmed cases in UK.  Sir Patrick Vallance advises against socialising in pubs and clubs.

Friday 20^th March

Historic escalation.  Pubs, restaurants, gyms, other social venues must close.  Chancellor announces that up to 80% of wages will be met by the Government.  Guidelines will be issued to doctors to prioritise who to save in the event of shortage of beds or ventilators.  Some schadenfreude when one hears that the EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has Covid-19.  Apparently (from his Twitter page) ‘doing well.’

Saturday 21^st March

Historic deal with private hospitals.  They will be taken over to care for Covid-19 patients.  UK deaths over 230; cases (known) over 4000.  World figures 270,000 cases, over 11,000 deaths.  Decide no point in drinking bad wine: open bottle of Bakestone Cellars Californian cabernet.  It was Jane MacQuitty who I first heard use the phrase ‘Life is too short to drink bad wine’ but I suspect, knowing Jane, a great self-publicist, that it was not original.

Monday 23^rd March

No 5pm briefing due to COBRA (Cabinet Office Briefing Room A – where crisis response meetings take place) meeting.  At 8.30pm, Boris Johnson announces that isolation will now take place.  All non-essential businesses must close.  This follows a weekend of beautiful weather when huge flocks of people congregate on beaches and in public parks.  West Wittering car park closes after 2,500 cars turn up.  Only workers unable to work from home must now travel.  Fines will be imposed.  One period of exercise per day – away from other people.  This is often difficult for some.

Tuesday 24^th March

This is our first day of isolation.  Building at Crichel Mount Road allowed to continue, thank heavens.  Selfish but as our builder says, there will be huge pressure not to stop the construction industry because so many workers are self-employed.  Golf club send e mail to say that course is closed until further advice can be given.  We are allowed out for one period of exercise per day.  Beautiful sunny weather continues.  Friend starts a virtual WhatsApp wine tasting group.  7 Brunstead Place film club have now watched ‘The Go-Between’ and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.  We failed to watch ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ last night because it lasts 3hrs 38minutes.

24^th March 2020

A parenthesis.  Julie Burchill has written a wonderful article in the Sunday Telegraph today.  I must quote some of it because most journalism is ephemeral – that’s why journalists remain employed!  The clue is in the origin of the name.

But firstly, I don’t know if you, like me, feel a slight sense of unease with these talking heads of workers in the health service addressing you in the sort of ‘we’re here for you’ type of broadcasts.  They’re a bit like Party Political Broadcasts.  The majority of workers just carry on, head down, doing it.  ‘We do what we do’ is a truism.  I got tired of the clip of the weepy nurse crying because the shops were empty after she had finished a ’48 hour shift’.  Sorry, I don’t believe she worked that continuously.  Turns out she is vegetarian.  She obviously hadn’t thought ahead to buy some frozen veg or fruit (plenty available).  ‘Stop it, just stop it.’  She pleaded.  Without going into details, just to take the example of stockpiling toilet paper, for thousands of years humans coped without toilet paper…  Get my drift?  Another tedious news item was various celebrities, most of whom I didn’t recognise, singing (from isolation in their multi-million dollar Malibu properties), a line from John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’; a song that I have also always been uneasy about (see below).  This was one thing that stimulated Julie to write.

And so: back to Julie.  I don’t think I can do it better than to quote her:

…’It could be worse: Smith could have joined the other celebrities treating us to their own stardust-sprinkled version of the ghastly John Lennon song Imagine.

I’ve had “issues” with this song forever, summing up perfectly as it does Lennon’s weapons-grade hypocrisy.  While encouraging hoi polloi to “imagine no possessions”, he and his consort kept a whole apartment in the Dakota building where they lived in New York for the exclusive occupation of their fur coats, just to keep them at the right temperature.  Elton John nailed it in his autobiography: “The various apartments the Lennons owned… were so full of priceless artworks, antiques and clothes that I once sent them a card, rewriting the lyrics to Imagine:  Imagine six apartments, it isn’t hard to do, one is full of fur coats, another’s full of shoes.”

In fact, Lennon was forever ready to take his non-specific rage out on someone, provided, of course, that that person was powerless.  In his actions – as opposed to his statements and his songs – he exhibited largely selfishness and spite during his time on earth.

…But scratch a showboating altruist and you’ll often find an attention-whore; I know, because I’m one.  I get to show off in print and I’m good at it, but performers in other areas can’t do their thing alone.  It’s driving them nuts that no one’s looking at them, hence Michelle Pfeiffer posted a video of herself working out, while Bob Geldof rang up a TV show to announce his own self-isolation.

It’s touching to look at celebrities and see how unconscious they are of their vulnerability; George Michael, who knew about these things, once defined a star as “someone with a little something missing, rather than a little something extra”.

They need their fans – but their fans do not need them, although they may momentarily enjoy their singing voices or good looks.  When the famous attempt to parlay this passing fancy into actual power, it falls flat; each time a celebrity urged people not to vote for Trump or Brexit, it seems they caused another thousand to do so.

And they will be heeded less than ever as we plunge deeper into the plague year.  Gadot said that she had been inspired by the Italian videos of neighbours singing to each other on their balconies; ironically, it’s this development that shows how superfluous stars are.

It turns out that transcendence was just around the corner all along – and we don’t need to pay for it.  Like the tree falling in the metaphorical forest, when a star smiles and no “civilian” watches, does the star still feel happiness?

I’m sure we will see much more of them getting their flashing-fix in the guise of giving something to the Little People before we’re out from under lockdown.

But eventually even these most unrealistic of beings will realise that the achievements of the rich and famous count for nothing in a new world in which those who do the most arduous and thankless labour are – at long last – the most honoured.  We will look back in wonder that we once called dress designers, “visionaries” and disc jockeys “superstars”.

At a time singularly short of silver linings, this must be one.’

Fortunately, black humour abounds to cheer us up.  Some wag has announced that we are only three weeks away from discovering what women’s true hair colour is…

Wednesday March 25^th.

Another beautiful sunny day.  Garden work, cleaning off furniture after a long wet winter.  Also cleaning windows.  Lindsay finds YouTube film of George Formby.  Further rise in cases and deaths.  Halfway through the morning comes the announcement that Prince Charles has tested positive for Corona virus, but has “mild symptoms.”  Wag posts picture of Charles and Camilla on Facebook laughing their heads off in highland attire at the Braemar gathering.  Byline is, “Elderly couple bring Corona virus to Scotland.  This irresponsible couple is thought to live in London and have a second home in the Highlands.”

Surprise – Charles symptomatic on Sunday, tested on Monday, given result on Tuesday.  Another wag says – “Why should you be tested if you’ve got symptoms?  There are lots of asymptomatic Hollywood stars who haven’t been tested yet.”

And while supermarkets provide special protected times for NHS staff to shop, a WhatsApp doing the rounds goes as follows: “I said to the Missus, ‘Come on Love, get this Nurse’s outfit on.’  She said; ‘What do you have in mind?’  I said, ‘Nothing, we need a loaf of bread.’”

Interview with Harry Redknap:  “Coro Naviras?  Yeah, ‘course I know ‘im.  T’rrific little player.”

Deaths as of yesterday in UK are 422.  Total confirmed cases 9529.  Likely number much higher due to lack of mildly symptomatic subjects being tested.  Over 82,000 cases tested but negative.  Still dramatic upsurge in the daily curve, nearly 1500 in last 24 hours.

Our 7 Brunstead Place film club has taken two evening to watch the David Lean film of Lawrence of Arabia.  Lindsay’s choice tomorrow.  After watching LoA I’m not entirely certain that the extraordinarily blond Peter O’ Toole was particularly good.  Many intense looks, amazing blue eyes, and dramatic received pronounciation (he came from Yorkshire and was once turned down at school for a date by Barbara Taylor Bradford when he propositioned her with ‘Eh Luv, would ya laik to go t’Pictures).  Gregory Peck in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird lost out to O’Toole when the 1962 Oscars came round.  A more rounded performance I feel.

Time for bed…

Thursday March 25^th

I return to the subject of black humour.  The general public are often horrified by levity in the medical and nursing profession.  Many don’t realise that this is a coping mechanism, often necessary to defuse an unbearably awful situation.  It’s a truism that laughing and crying are remarkably close together in every sense.  “I laughed til I cried.”  Note the comment by Mark Twain; ‘The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow.  There is no humor in heaven.’

Even in the Nazi death camps, I was astonished to read of the jokes told themselves by inmates.  I first became aware of this when I visited the then new Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. in about 1982.  There was a library section entirely devoted to the black humour that many who were dying or went on to die created.  Those who wish can read a scholarly article by Whitney Carpenter entitled ‘Laughter in a time of tragedy: Examining humor during the holocaust.’  (Easily found in online search.  Warning: this is a serious article and is not for everybody.)

Enough.  Two little parentheses from yesterday:

There is concern for the Rwandan and Ugandan gorillas.  All reserves are off limits.  The reason?  Apparently their DNA is 98% the same as ours.  Food for thought.

It has emerged that the ski resort of Ischgl may have covered up an outbreak for weeks, allowing infected individuals to return to numerous European countries and spread Covid-19 before they admitted they had a problem.  It seems that the first cases in the UK were brought in by a skier who socialised in the ‘raucous’ Kitzloch bar and returned to infect the family and many others in East Sussex.

Another beautiful day.  Seems ironic.

One casualty of the ‘single daily exercise’.  My daughter Katie.  Tripped over a protruding flagstone while running by the Thames.  Severely bruised and a probably broken nose, but in view of the lack of deformity she didn’t go to A&E.  Wise.

Finally for today’s bulletin, a very interesting scientific observation from Holland.  Dutch public health scientists have been examining sewage effluents and extracting Coronavirus.  They think this may be a very good way of monitoring spread.  For example, high concentrations were found in the effluent from Schiphol airport.

Thoughts on the Present Discontents

As suggested by the title, Burke’s ‘Thoughts on the Present Discontents’ comes to mind, but the circumstances are somewhat different in 2020 to 1770.  Edmund Burke was however concerned by the undue influence of the Crown on Parliament, and updated to our age one could possibly substitute ‘EU’ for ‘Crown’.  I have a number of Remainer friends who would object to this but, hey, tough.

‘Tell me one good thing the Coronavirus has done for us?’

Well, that’s easy; where shall I start?  The Duke of York perhaps?  Brexit?  Megxit?  There are quite a few folk who are delighted to be off the front pages for once.

But first, some advice for friends (they know who they are):

Given H’s recent chest problems you would be well advised to remain in your remote bolt hole in Great Elm (a tiny village not far from Frome for those who don’t know) and self-isolate (which is not far removed from self-immolate, though perhaps a more sensible response until we know if we are all ‘doomed, doomed, I tell you.’)

Sunday 15^th March 2020

At the moment we have lounged around at home all day, though following the Government’s advice not to cancel ordinary events we attended the evening quiz night at the Royal Motor Yacht Club on Saturday.  Daughter Katie had announced her intention to visit this weekend and despite a rather dire service from South Western Railways (3 different trains; a bus replacement service from Southampton) she did make it as far as Bournemouth where I picked her up.  There usually has to be a reason for Katie visiting and the ulterior motive here was discussion of the ‘hen do’ for her close friend Katrina.  Not having a better offer on Saturday evening, she graciously accompanied us to the dinner and quiz, and her 90s and 2000s knowledge came in handy occasionally (Spice Girls a specialist subject), such that we came a respectable third, only one point behind the joint winners, which we thought not bad with only three on our team, whereas most other tables had six or more.  Generously, other friends who were on a table of 7 said we should have won, but that’s because they are fans of the Green Party and Proportional Representation.  Sadly, we knew that the friends who came first had a ringer, who knows everything about sport, including the one we failed as to the winner of the Grand National in 1967, when numerous horses were impeded or brought down, and a 100-1 odds horse won the race, having been in 22^nd place at Becher’s Brook.  (I will leave you to look it up – clue: mountain in the North of Scotland).

At the moment, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra concert on Wednesday 18^th is scheduled to go ahead.  Given the average age of the audience, a single corona infectee could probably cause as much carnage as that loose horse in 1967, though in that race only one horse was euthanised and the BSO audience might well be decimated.  (The concert hall holds 1500 people; you do the math as the Americans say).

Last week we also ventured to the cinema in Poole Lighthouse, to see the recorded ‘live’ performance of Cyrano de Bergerac, starring James McAvoy.  Now this is a play I love, having first seen it at the Oxford Playhouse in about 1966 (I can’t recall the cast – do you have the programme MJW?).  Then in 1971 the excellent and rarely revived 1950 black and white Hollywood film with Jose Ferrer (he won an Academy award for it, and the play benefited from some truncation in the movie), and then a superb (NT?) production with Anthony Sher in the late 1990s.  The Gerard Depardieu movie is also a fine interpretation.  When next I see the film (I will probably have the time given the current corona situation) I will have to try hard not to visualise Gerard urinating in the aisle on aeroplanes as he has been wont to do in recent years).  Cyrano is certainly a sentimental fin de siècle piece, but I suppose I’m a sucker for that.  So it was with some reluctance that I agreed to go to this ‘new’ punchy version.  Punchy it certainly is.  I don’t think I have heard so many f and c words since my summer job in the kitchens of the University Arms Hotel in Cambridge.  It is also somewhat bizarre to see costumes which smack of the present day, no swords in evidence, and a broad Glasgow-accented title character.  But the performance by McAvoy is astounding, a true tour de force.  To imitate the lisping pathetic estuary English of Christian and then to revert to original Glaswegian in the same breath has something of the touch of a great ventriloquist about it.  It’s a performance that like the original Jonathan Pryce Hamlet at the Royal Court I’m glad to say I was there.  Hardly unique though – these cinema relays go to thousands around the world.

With regard to the ‘current difficulties’ as one might refer to the coronavirus, events are sadly being cancelled right left and centre.  Whether this will prove a needless exercise or not time will prove.  Of one thing, I am now sure.  The rational and logical discussion with the South Korean health minister (Sunday morning) on the Andrew Marr show indicates that by forgetting pretty much about testing people in the UK, we are missing a trick.  For example, my daughter has a flatmate, a teacher who returned from a school ski trip to Italy, became unwell and was tested.  She and my daughter were told to stay at home in their flat.  It took a whole week before they gave her the all clear.  What a huge and stupid loss of productivity.  If people who become unwell are not being tested but just told to stay home, when the majority of them could be tested and then allowed to go back to work seems crazy.

There has been talk of contacting retired doctors to ask them to help.  Having not received any approach from the General Medical Council I wrote to them to volunteer.  With some ‘hauteur’ they replied to say they didn’t recognise my e mail address (although I had given them my unique 7 figure registration number) and were not sure if I was genuine, and in any case they had no plans to do anything unless the Government invoked the Extraordinary Powers Act.  I pointed out that they might have been more proactive in at least checking with retired doctors whether they might feel able to help if called upon.  No response as yet…

Having rambled on, I return to the main impetus for the above writing:

‘Arlott, Swanton and the Soul of English Cricket’ by Stephen Fay and David Kynaston.  A Christmas present, which I had been reading in desultory fashion, and now the second half finished in an afternoon when I had otherwise more probably been engrossed in the TPC Championship from Sawgrass, Florida.  A ‘worthy book’, one might say, damning with faint praise.  It’s a little bit dry and I suspect it is only a book which somebody of my age would want to read.  You needed to have heard the two title characters in full flow to get the most out of the book.  To imagine those Arlott phrases once again with that unforgettable Hampshire accent brings back such happy childhood memories.  I smiled occasionally, but laughed aloud only twice.  Will I spoil it for you if I quote the passages?  Perhaps, but then you might not read it anyway.

Patrick Collins (on Arlott):

Although he was a kind man, he didn’t suffer foolishness.  I asked him about a fellow commentator who once set out to emulate Arlott by injecting colour into a county match with some absurdly florid language.  Unfortunately it was always the same phrase.  For instance he’d say: ‘The bowler trudges back to his mark as the sun sets slowly in the West.’   Later: ‘And that single takes Somerset to 153 for 2, as the field changes, and the sun sets slowly in the West.’   And later still: ‘The Essex attack continues to struggle, and the sun sets slowly in the West.  Now, over to John Arlott.’  And Arlott took the microphone and announced: ‘The sun is still slowly setting in the West.  And if it should start to set anywhere else, I’ll be the first to let you know.’

And Arlott’s cruel rhetorical question (said only in private): ‘Can you imagine what it must be like to write as much as Swanton did over so many years without leaving one memorable sentence?’  … and some truth also in John Warr’s witty description of Swanton’s writing style as ‘somewhere between the Ten Commandments and Enid Blyton.’

Let me know if any of my readers would like the book.  I’ve probably done it down a little too much and given the reversion to reading which we are now all going to do (feels like back to the 1950s again, doesn’t it?), you may very probably wish to read it.  Were it not for the virus I would probably be donning shorts and popping out to the library, with my three tickets clutched firmly in my hand, for whatever the shelves could throw at me.  On one memorable occasion – I must have been about 12, I returned from the library with an Arthur Ransome, Isaac Asimov’s book on ‘The World of Carbon’, and an autobiographical work by Salvador Dali.  The reason I remember this was my mother’s horror on turning the pages of the Dali book.  There was a section I remember dealing with certain bodily secretions and his wife Gala…

As a parenthesis, Asimov once said he knew how to distinguish chemists from non-chemists: ask a person to pronounce the word ‘Unionized’.  You can work it out for yourself.

Although I now live in Branksome rather than ‘Lake Wobegon’ I think you get the drift of a diary from someone with not that much else to do…

Our Poole Christmas Blog

Dear Friends

Instead of sending cards this year we have chosen a few pictures to show you what we and our family have been up to during 2019.

Most importantly, we pay tribute to Norman Pipler, Lindsay’s Dad, who died on October 6^th at the age of 95.  Here are two of our favourite pictures of Norman; one more recent, enjoying himself with his daughters at Natalie's wedding, and another one, which we would love to have seen, standing nonchalantly by his Spitfire during WW2.

Our grandchildren continue to give us so much pleasure.  Teddy at 18 months is an absolute delight and brings Nick and Catherine so much joy.  We love having Coco and Louis to stay when they can escape from SW12 to the seaside for a few days.  Coco such an angel and Louis a little more challenging. 

Teddy

Nick, Catherine & Teddy

Louis at 2

Coco - first day at big school

Enjoying dressing up as a witch

Nati and Ben looking happily relieved from parental duties...

Anna and Graham have a house in Twyford near Reading.  Anna’s cycling career (apart from working for Rapha) is going well, though with a (hopefully) short term injury at the moment.  Katie is working in the city for Legal and General Investment Branch, and was not too far away from the recent London Bridge incident, so we are thankful that she, and indeed all of the younger generation, remain well.

Anna negotiating the Dolomites

This is what 'bikepacking' looks like

I just had to put this in - so envious

Katie - no prizes for guessing where, but which one of these was supposedly a 'work trip'?

Katie at Lake Garda

Finally, our lovely Joelle turned 40 this August.  James not only arranged a wonderful party for her but followed it up by getting down on one knee and asking her to marry him.  Their daughter Amira is now a gorgeous 18 month old toddler.

Lindsay and Joelle

In February we moved from Bury Road to Crichel Mount Road and in August to a rental property where we will remain for most of 2020 while rebuilding the house at Crichel Mount. As you can imagine, moving house once after 30 years at one address is bad enough; moving twice is – well I can’t really put it into words.

Our most enjoyable times this year have been walking and cycling in places ranging from Sicily to Yorkshire.  During a lovely week in June we also walked, or re-walked, the Jurassic coast from Devon back to Poole.  Just a few days of good weather in Dorset made us realise that exotic destinations are not necessary for true happiness and enjoyment.

The last few days walking the Cleveland Way - Robin Hood's Bay in the background

But our most unusual holiday experience was a visit at the end of a few days’ cycling in the Jura to the Fête des Vignerons, in Vevey, Switzerland on the shores of Lake Geneva. This only takes place every 20 to 25 years!   It’s a pageant lasting about 2½ hours with no interval.  It’s meant to tell the story of the vine, and to honour, in turn, each Swiss canton.  The participants, clad in Swiss traditional costume, parade around the amphitheatre like extras in Ben-Hur.  The music was specially composed for the event, but wasn’t memorable.  What was memorable was the blazing sun and the ambient temperature of 38⁰C.  Belatedly the attendants walked up and down the aisles spraying us with what might have been water from pump action garden sprinklers.  No greenflies on us!  The memorable part came right at the end – yodelling solos and alphorns singing and playing the ‘Ranz des Vaches’.  This is a traditional chant or tune designed to call home the cows.  The most beautiful version seems to be the one from Fribourg.  These tunes have a long history, and induce what is called ‘Schweizerheimweh’, an irrepressible longing to return to the homeland.  I had that feeling myself…  But if you want to encapsulate the experience in a nutshell it would be like the Olympic Opening Ceremony with no other nations allowed, and extra cows and alphorns.  I have written a slightly extended description in another post.

The Fete des Vignerons

Some of the alphorns

Lindsay, Andrew, and our friend Marina on Lake Geneva

Sunset in Vevey

We wish all of you a peaceful and happy Christmas.  Best wishes for the New Year.

Fête des Vignerons in Vevey on Lake Geneva

The Fête des Vignerons is to the Swiss as big as hosting the Olympics.  And it happens five times less frequently!  A maximum of four times a century!  Quite why this should be is not entirely clear.  To some, me included, the words Swiss and Wine when placed together still form something of an oxymoron.  But I'm assured that Swiss wine is on the up, and we have had some good blauburgunder from Maienfeld and obviously good Italian style wines from Ticino.  A friend messaged me to say that we were staying amid the vineyards of Lavaux and that these had an illustrious history dating back to the introduction of the vine by Burgundian monks six centuries ago.

The Jura seem to roll on for ever but eventually we skirted Lausanne and found the hotel Lavaux, a modern, slightly soulless but thermally efficient box on the road and railway at Épesses, just two stops from Vevey.  Joining our friend Marina we relaxed and then walked along the lake to Cully, where we enjoyed a very average and poorly served meal at the Café de la Poste.  The local Chasselas was good however.  In fairness the very hot weather meant that the lakeside villages were heaving with people.  After handing over lots of Chuffs (ChF) we walked home and made ready for Vevey on the Monday.

A new receptionist in the morning informed us that we could have free travel to Vevey and armed with the passes we took one of the most scenic commutes in the world - Épesses - Rivaz - St Saphorin - Vevey.  Sadly a Monday morning in Vevey is not the most exciting day at the Fête.  After assessing the myriad fast food outlets, a few rides for children, and some cows sitting in a tent we decided to take a two hour paddle steamer trip around the Eastern part of the lake.  After a galette we headed back to Épesses for a swim.  Evening found us back in Vevey for a good meal (bottle of St Saphorin) at the Hotel Astra just by the station.  At 9.30pm we were on the lakeside promenade to see the nightly parade.  Illuminated figures, bunches of grapes, birds, and fireworks.  At last there was some festival atmosphere.

Ominously the forecast for the Tuesday suggested that the mercury might hit 38degC.  A croissant and snack in Vevey station Co-op and we were off to the Arena.  'Bon Spectacle' said the gentleman checking my ticket.  We climbed to the top of the stadium and like everybody else took our seats in the full sun.

I think the event is meant to celebrate the story of the vine but there are numerous other themes.  For some reason there were dancing horses, herds of goats, gymnastics, and lots of fish.  I suppose they have to fill two and a half hours somehow.

When I had searched the internet I had been hugely impressed by what I took to be a vocal group called Ranz des Vaches.  I now realise that there is no such group.  The Ranz des Vaches is a series of fairly simple but beautiful songs, either played on the alphorn or sung.  They were meant to call the cattle home in rank or ranz order.  Even Rossini got into the spirit and composed one in the William Tell overture.  These traditional tunes produced such an emotional effect on the Swiss that in times past it was forbidden to play them in case Swiss soldiers deserted or just laid down their arms out of overwhelming homesickness.

After two hours of ceremony with some okay music and a lot of marching it ws time for the massed alphorns and the Ranz des Vaches, the most memorable of which is the Ranz Fribourgeois.  Although not strictly a yodel (I don't know what a strict yodel is) the vocal range was high, a beautiful falsetto sound.  Accompanied by the parade of the cows with the sonorous dissonance of their bells this was undoubtedly the highlight.

So - a must see event if you're Swiss.  If you missed out on an Olympic opening ceremony and you'd like to see extra cows, more alphorns than you'll ever see again, and yodelling, then the Fête des Vignerons is for you.