Corona Diary Chapter 19 - January 20th to February 24th, 2021

 

Wednesday January 27^th

 

We have passed through two major events in the last week.  The Presidential Inauguration, and my birthday.  I say that without any acceptance that this is bathos.  Trump boycotted the ceremony, and by leaving early, was able to commandeer an official helicopter to make his way down south to his pad in Florida.  Dramatic change of emphasis with Biden.  His avowed goal was first and foremost to deal with the pandemic, the death toll in the U.S. being not far shy of half a million people.  So for the first time in a while it was good to see Dr Anthony Fauci, from the NIH, on a podium again.  Another good sight on Inauguration Day – Obama, Clinton, and George W Bush all standing and conversing together.  There is something of a collaborative approach between the GOP and the Democrats at the moment; almost a coalition, but don’t expect it to last.  The Republican Party will have its work cut out to move on after Trump, who still has millions of supporters.

Stormy seas and kite surfing against a backdrop of 'Old Harry'
A propos of nothing but evocative of recent weather

 

On my birthday, some friends appeared for a distanced conversation (outdoors), but otherwise it was just a day for the two of us, with some fine wines and simple steak and chips.  Thank you to the friend who gave me the Ch. Gruaud Larose 1998, simply superb; and a small glass of Niagara-on-the-Lake Peller icewine to finish our meal.  There were no major surprises in the present list, but it is the first time that I have been given special protective masks as a birthday present.  Chocolate is of course, never unwelcome.

 

The last few days have been grim indeed, with huge numbers of people admitted to hospital and record numbers of deaths.  On 20^th January, 1820 deaths were recorded in the UK, and the 7 day average figure was around 30% higher than in the April first wave.  Only in the last few days has there been a clear cut fall in deaths.  In the last 24 hours the UK has broken through the 100,000 deaths statistic, and the government is eating humble pie, and by humble pie, it is Boris Johnson who has at least had the grace to ‘take full responsibility’.  Today, the sanctimonious BBC News has largely focussed on the human lives stories of those who have died, and while it is sad to hear these renditions of human suffering, there is a very real sense that the Beeb is wallowing in it.  Indeed, an excellent article in yesterday’s paper by Janet Daley draws attention to the intrusive nature of the in-hospital coverage, some of which feature interviews with patients who subsequently died after being filmed.  Under the byline ‘Manipulative broadcasters are feeding despair’ she writes that ‘this intrusive, emotionally manipulative programming is not serving the national interest.  ‘I am sorry to have to tell you’, she writes, ‘that the delinquents who organise illegal raves and the indifferent who host big parties ARE NOT WATCHING.  They detached themselves long ago from this phenomenon, which, for various reasons, they feel has nothing to do with them.’  She goes on to describe the terror and despair felt by the lonely and isolated, and states that they find it ‘too demoralising and voyeuristic.’  I agree.  I’ve felt uncomfortable with this coverage for some time.  Always accompanied by a sotto voce Fergal Keane-type commentary, which pretends to be sympathetic.  To film an ITU nurse in tears may be a TV scoop, but it doesn’t serve any purpose, as Janet Daley has emphasized.  There are positives.  In the last four weeks over 4 million people have been vaccinated in the UK.

 

Which leads me on to cogitate on the UK’s success and pro-activeness in ordering vaccines from both Pfizer and AstraZeneca.  And this is where I nail my colours to the mast and say that I voted for Brexit (more in a moment), and various friends have been so aggressive in their criticisms that I, like many others of the silent majority, have been cowed into silence.  The EU vacillated over vaccine purchase.  Its cumbersome multi-state involvement mechanism meant that it was too late to the party (if you don’t believe me, this is also the view of the editor of Germany’s Bild newspaper).  Many discussions during the summer of 2020 were not leading anywhere, and eventually, Jonathan Van Tam, the minister charged with dealing with the business, cut loose and pre-ordered the Pfizer and AstraZeneca (Oxford) vaccines in substantial amounts for the UK.  At date of writing, the EU has still not approved the Oxford vaccine and we are far in advance of EU members in our immunisation programme.  Germany have now seemingly tried to order their own supplies, and in an outrageous announcement from Brussels, an attempt is being made to block transport of vaccine (some of which is produced in Belgium) to Britain.

 

Not many people younger than I participated in the first referendum in 1975.  At that time the vote was on whether to remain part of the EEC (European Economic Community).  I certainly did not vote to be ruled by the EU.  Forty plus years of connivance, a terrible CAP (Common Agricultural Policy), poor harmonisation of production norms, the antithesis of free trade, bizarre rules over fishing (nearly 90% of fish caught off Cornwall goes to the EU and is caught by foreign boats), and many, many other bureaucratic anomalies and inefficiencies have made me completely disenchanted with the EU as an organization.  It also seems to be designed for poorer nations to dip into the coffers of the richer ones – often with useless projects where many millions of Euros are wasted.  I think of a fishing harbour on the north coast of Tenerife for example, that would be suitable competition for Malta’s Grand Harbour in size.  When I walked past, what was the number of fishing boats?  About six or seven.  Similarly, when cycling Scotland’s roads, it is easy to tell the ones built with EU money – they are the only good ones!  Euro lovers will say that it brings closer ties among nations, by which they probably mean it’s easier to go there on holiday.  But most of the important ties, whether in trade, or in scientific exchange of ideas have been brought about by modern transport, modern communications, and the Internet.  I’ve been encouraged in my ‘Coming Out’ by an article by Julie Burchill in last weekend’s papers: ‘EU pettiness reminds us every day why Brexit was worth it.’  Julie is never a faint-hearted dissembler.  The article is too long to quote in full and you can probably find it online.  She starts well though: ‘As a youngster on the pop press, I coined the term “non-specific epic-ness” to sum up a certain sort of music that was all bombast and no bite, U2 being the best example.  So it was a match made in heaven when their frontman, Bono, exhibited extreme BDS (Brexit derangement syndrome) on tour a few years ago.  Previously, pop stars had shown us fun things onstage (i.e. Jim Morrison’s genitalia) but the only thing Bono managed to reveal was his barmy levels of virtue-signalling.  There was: “Its values and aspirations make Europe so much more than just a geography.  They go to the core of who we are as human beings, and who we want to be.”‘  And there is much more in that vein, much of it funny.  She ends by saying, ‘Behind all the brotherhood-of-man braggadocio, the EU were only ever a gang of playground bullies, their impotent rage revealed in their spite as we extricate ourselves from their moribund grasp, the end of the Big Sulk (La Grande Boude) nowhere in sight.

 

Wednesday February 10^th

 

Two weeks have passed, and I haven’t seen anything to change my mind about the EU.  Vaccination seems to be the main thing that the government have got right, and everybody is chipping in to help.  I have tried to volunteer (What did you do in the Great War, Daddy?), but when I get to the question about my reduced immunity, the webpage recycles to a sort of ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you’ section.  Two friends, one a retired GP, the other a retired dentist, have volunteered.  The GMC have re-registered her without charge, but the General Dental Council want £1000 to re-register her husband.  So it’s car park duty for him and vaccinations for her.  Some interesting stories though, including the invasion of the car park by an anti-Vaxxer who is shouting ‘Don’t go in, they’re killing people!’  Scary how many bonkers people the pandemic seems to have brought out of the closet.

 

Just over a week ago it was my younger daughter’s 30^th birthday.  She is a well-liked, nay loved, social animal and it would be wonderful if she could have spent time with her many friends.  Fortunately, her partner is a good guy and they both took the day off and went to Richmond Park, followed by Zoom sessions with friends.  An illustration of her network and continuing friendships is an Instagram post wishing her a happy birthday from the ‘Seasonnaires’, the other friends who worked with her in Val d’Isère a few years ago.  For some reason, I think 30 is a major milestone, much more so than 18 or 21, and I write her a letter, detailing some, but not all, details of my 30^th birthday celebrations.  There was the end of a dreadful affair with a girlfriend who told lies, an on-off relationship with a neurotic woman who took industrial doses of Valium and amitriptyline, and so a relatively gentle evening at a dinner party in Clapham with some friends came as some relief.  Following which I spent a night on the floor, sensibly, for once, not driving home afterwards.  21 was a time when the celebrations were rather juvenile, even though we thought we were adults.  I wonder how it was for the previous generation?  My father-in-law had already finished his war by the time he was 21.  His 20^th saw him on operations in the RAF.  How they must have partied, with the ever-present fear of not being there for the next birthday.  Occasional sentences slipped out at reunions illustrating their rumbustious and fancy-free sessions.  I wonder how many Spitfire pilots were in the cockpit with alcohol levels which would see them taken off the road for a year or so these days?

 

The last few days have seen the death (seemingly with Covid) of Captain Tom, the 100-year old who raised millions for NHS charities.  Suitable tributes all round.  After an enormous spike in deaths, the peak being reached on 18^th January with around 1300 deaths, there is at last a substantial fall.  There is much anxiety about the efficacy of the vaccines against the new variants of the virus, now known as the UK variant and the South African variant.  Genetic analysis reveals multiple changes in the protein structure (usually the substitution of one aminoacid for another in the spike or other proteins), and there is in fact, a substantial number of virus variations.  As of today there are over 12 million vaccinated persons in the UK; only Israel achieving a higher proportion of population.  The EU lags far behind.  It is truly an unwieldy bureaucracy.

 

Our book club had an easy choice this last time around.  ‘The murder of Roger Ackroyd’, by Agatha Christie.  Although her second murder mystery, it is the first to feature Hercule Poirot.  Opinions are mixed.  I am a sucker for a plot, and despite the cardboard characters, all sounding like something from Cluedo, I enjoy it.  In the meantime, a friend who shall be nameless has lent me one of the Flashman books, which I feel I ought to return to him in a brown paper cover.  It could not be published nowadays.  It is called ‘Flash for Freedom’, the third in the series, and it deals with slavery.  The n word is used perhaps a thousand times…  I feel reluctant to admit to reading it.

 

So I’ve turned to a book recommended by a Scottish friend.  ‘I am Charlotte Simmons’, by Tom Wolfe.  My first introduction to Tom Wolfe was when I lived in North Carolina, and somebody loaned me ‘From Bauhaus to Our House’.  This is a witty, well-researched, critique of modern architecture, particularly in the United States, though of course it starts with Walter Gropius and the Modernists.  I enjoyed it so much that when Wolfe published his first novel, ‘The Bonfire of the Vanities’, I bought it immediately.  I found it overlong and tedious.  I tried twice but never finished it.

 

My Scottish friend said to me; ‘You were at Duke, weren’t you?’  Have you read ‘I am Charlotte Simmons?  It’s about Duke…’.

 

The University in the book is an amalgam, of several Ivy League-type universities.  University of Michigan, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Stanford, are among those mentioned by name in the acknowledgements (even though these are not in the original Ivy League).  The fictional university in the novel is called Dupont, and the emphasis on basketball as a religion probably means that Duke is at least a strong candidate for the true location.  Wolfe sites his university in rural Pennsylvania and his main character comes from a backwater in the Appalachians in North Carolina.

 

But it’s tedious.  659 pages tedious.  The immersive nature of Wolfe’s research into college speak of the 00’s is endlessly reproduced in the so-called ‘Fuck Patois’, and occasionally ‘Shit Patois.’  One of the few enjoyable scenes in the novel is the confrontation between the President of the University, Frederick Cutler III; a disaffected highbrow lecturer, Jerome Quat, and the redneck basketball coach, Buster Roth.  There are some telling Wolfe phrases.  Of Cutler and Quat: ‘Both regarded Israel as the most important nation on earth, although neither was tempted to live there’.  There is an amusing anecdote about the coach, who has criticised, then belatedly praised his star player for wanting to take a course in Greek philosophy – ‘As Socrates would say, “mens sana in corpore sano”’; said the coach.  An interesting aside is that Wolfe (originally a journalist), has noticed that many older academic Jews use the phrase ‘Jesus Christ’ as an exclamation.  But perhaps Wolfe should have followed the example of another North Carolinian, coincidentally named Thomas Wolfe, whose turgid bildungsroman, ‘Look homeward, angel’ was reduced to a mere 800 or 900 pages by an editor, Maxwell Perkins, who cut at least 60,000 words.  One is left with the feeling that Tom Wolfe was a great journalist and critic but a poor novelist.  I was recommended to read ‘Look homeward, Angel’ by a friend when living in North Carolina.  Somehow I finished it.  My friend’s grandparents had rented a house in Chapel Hill to Wolfe when he was studying at UNC.

 

January weather was unpleasant, with the occasional sunny day thrown in.  Rain left puddles where the diggers and dumper trucks moved endlessly around trying to build a patio and then re-landscape.  Early February began the same, but with a twist.  The ‘Beast from the East’ returned with a vengeance.  The jetstream has curled south of us and cold air is being sucked in from Russia.  It is now dry but chilly, with temperatures failing to rise much above freezing most of the day.

 

What might be a lawn one day, but is currently just mud

Pre-dawn, looking towards the Isle of Wight

A nice jigsaw of Varenna, Lake Como, 'lockdown life'

Whitley Bay, Poole Harbour, very early morning walk

Various sports have continued.  A slight sense of envy – why should Premier League footballers be sacrosanct?  Cuddling and backslapping for goal celebrations.  The same applies to virtually every sport.  Periodically a few positive tests means that fixtures are cancelled.  The England cricket team had to move on from South Africa for this reason.  Our very early mornings have now been enlivened by broadcasts of their series win in Sri Lanka, and in the last few days a superb victory over India in the first Test in Chennai.  Joe Root has been head and shoulders above the rest, now with two double hundreds during this tour.  A stirring victory for Scotland in the Calcutta Cup over England last weekend.  A variety of humorous texts and posts has of course followed.

 

Over 13 million first vaccine doses have been administered in the U.K. as of today.  I had mine (AstraZeneca) two weeks ago.  Unfortunately, I seem to have been one of the three in a thousand who have had a major reaction.  10 hours post dose I had rigors, muscle aches, and a fever of 39.7 deg C.  It took two days for the fever to come down and four days before I really felt back to normal.  Subsequent testing for Covid and for Covid antibodies has been negative.  Apart from filling in the MHRA yellow card, I have kept relatively quiet about this, not wishing to give the anti-vaxxers any ammunition.  Subsequent analysis of safety data by MHRA and the research trials themselves indicate a significant reaction to this degree in about 3 per 1000 people.

 

Monday February 15^th

 

The cold snap (much worse in Scotland – temperatures of -22 C in Altnaharra) has gone and mild weather has returned.  The easterly gale has subsided.  It rained a lot yesterday, but today is a balmy 13 C and merely misty.  Having lost the toss in the second test match, England are now very likely to lose the match.  A second exciting weekend in the rugby six nations tournament sees England win easily against Italy, Scotland narrowly losing to Wales, and another tight game in which France beat Ireland.  On Saturday I had a chilly walk along the beach with the gale blowing, large rollers crashing in, and fitful sun shining through the colours of a kite as its rider skimmed across the waves.  Turnstones, oystercatchers, and an occasional curlew sifted the mud as the tide went out in the harbour.  One unlucky turnstone picked out some delectable worm and was immediately ambushed by several black-headed gulls.  I think it managed to swallow its prey before the highwaymen gulls purloined it but I’m not sure.

 

More ‘woke’ nonsense is going on.  At Brighton NHS trust, some PC person has dictated that midwives refer to ‘chest feeding’ and not ‘breastfeeding’.  Indignant and often funny letters have followed.  One man said that he would ‘need to make a clean chest of it’ but he liked wearing ‘double chested suits’.  Meanwhile, the future of Rhodes’ statue in Oxford looks ever more uncertain as Oriel College, who own it, have made it known that black and minority ethnic applications to their college have dropped dramatically.  Someone informs me that a black actress has been chosen to play Anne Boleyn.  A case of ‘black swyves matter’ I suppose.  This seems to run counterintuitive to the current approved luvvie tenet that roles should be played by those appropriate to them, e.g. gay men playing gay parts.  So, to be completely accurate, the actress chosen should be someone whose sister has been having an affair with the King or the heir to the throne.  This sounds familiar and the House of Windsor may well be able to oblige here.

Some images from Studland; first naturist (not shown) spotted February 21st!

Studland Walks

 

A little while ago, much was made of a first ascent including a British ex-Gurka, of Mount K2 in winter.  Many years ago, while working in Nottingham, a gifted and charismatic neurologist there, Richard Godwin Austen, informed us that the correct name for this peak was Mount Godwin-Austen.  This was because the first person to survey it and to accurately assess it as the second highest mountain in the world, was his 19^th Century ancestor.  Local names for it, Chogori and Dapsang seem less likely to intrude into the public consciousness.  K2 seems the most likely to stick, sadly.  Perhaps Richard’s forebear should have had a snappier surname, like Everest?

 

Tuesday February 16^th

 

Mild and rainy first thing, clearing for the time being.  3.3 mile walk, limited to the beach, around Canford Cliffs, wittily described by a friend as ‘Can’t Afford Cliffs’, and back.  Our lockdown continues, with jigsaws, books, newspapers, sport on TV (disastrous loss in 2^nd Test in India), quiz shows, and occasional news.  Cases of Covid and hospitalisations are falling sharply but we are told that easing of restrictions is some weeks away.  Turned on ITV news for a while this morning and was astonished by the vehemence of the anti-Government stance, or more particularly the anti-Boris stance.  The editor of the Daily Mirror uses words such as ‘incompetent’ and ‘liar’.  He trots out the statistic of over 100,000 deaths, with what in medicine we used to call the ‘retrospectoscope’.  Vacillation has cost lives (my words), but I suspect his ire is largely anti-Tory, anti-Etonian, and anti-establishment.  It would have been interesting to speculate on what would have happened with Jeremy Corbyn in power…

 

Trivial I know, but controversy continues to court VAR, the Video Assistant Referee, now used in football.  A witty letter from Malcolm Tibble in Norfolk suggests alternative interpretations for the acronym:

 

Verdicts Aren’t Rational

Visibly Aggrieved Ralph (possible a reference to the Southampton manager)

Variably Applied Rulings

Vigorous Arguments Rage

Victims Are Relegated

 

 And more trivia – the Duchess of Sussex (Meghan Markle), has just won a court action over privacy against a daily newspaper.  Somewhat contradictory, she and Harry are to appear in a ‘tell-all’ date with American talk show hostess Oprah Winfrey.  And she is expecting another baby.  Well; you didn’t hear it here first.  A newspaper letter points out that this woman who is requesting privacy has just announced to 7 billion people that she is expecting another baby.

 

Read ‘The Thursday Murder Club’, the new book which is selling like hot cakes from Richard Osman, quiz show host.  Very good, in an Agatha Christie-like way.  Slightly cardboard characters, and the plot stretches credulity.  And indeed, it would be incorrect to say of one character who was lethally injected with fentanyl, ‘He was dead before he hit the ground’.  Death with fentanyl is due to extreme sedation and respiratory depression and would not be instantaneous.

 

Everybody is becoming very tired of the current situation.  But when one thinks of how it must have been for those enduring two world wars in the last century, our experience seems minor by comparison.  Given the degree of low-level anarchy present on the streets, one wonders what our life would now be like if this virus killed, say, 30% of us rather than 1%.  The dystopian scenarios of a number of books and films would probably come true, with vigilantes, no law and order, corpses in the streets, and a complete collapse of the economy.  We need to keep those bats at bay!

 

A final thought on those enduring four years and six years of war in WWI and WWII – although searingly hard, poor food or no food, loss of loved ones, restrictions on entertainment and movements; at least people could touch one another, hug one another, and maintain human contact.  This is denied to us at the moment.

 

Friday February 19^th

 

There are times when even the most determined and conscientious diarist loses, if not the will to live, at least the will to write.  I have felt this in the last few weeks.  So many things move on their unchanging and tedious way.  Unable to see and hear loved ones; dark mornings and evenings; wintry weather.  A certain torpor hangs heavy.  For the blogger ‘their currents turn awry and lose the name of action.’  But this morning for some reason, I have awoken from this slumber.  Waking early I decided to go out for a walk, aware that heavy rain would come later in the morning.  As I came down Evening Hill, shortly before 7a.m. the harbour was a dull grey in the half light, with a strong westerly blowing.  It was still dark enough to see the winking red and green lights of the channel buoys, but light enough to make out their position.  A few cars raced towards Sandbanks, no doubt intending to get the first chain ferry of the day which starts at 7.  Turning along the promenade from shore road past the beach huts, the wind built to near gale force and I was bowled easily along (‘Wafted by a favouring gale, as one sometimes is in trances…’).  The lights on the mothballed cruise ships still glimmered, and a few hardy souls, the year round swimmers, were breasting the waves, tugging their fluorescent tracer buoys along behind them.  I thought that the one disappointment of such an urban and beachside walk was the absence of flowers – some snowdrops would have been nice – but on shore road as I mooched along I was suddenly struck by a hellebore which was almost in bloom in a niche in the pavement.  Looking up I discovered there was a hilly slope of a garden above, with many of these plants, obviously a favourite of the owner.  ‘I lifted up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence came my hellebore.’  On the beach, it being first light, there was much activity from gulls and oystercatchers, all ravenous for breakfast after a long windy night, and taking advantage of a receding tide from about 5.30 a.m.

 

‘Wokeness’ continues to perplex, and to amuse.  Michael Deacon yesterday drew attention to an announcement by an Australian University which, in addition to endorsing the notion of ‘chest feeding’ and ‘human milk’ for ‘breast milk’, recommends that ‘Mum’ and ‘Dad’ be reclassified as ‘gestational parent’ and ‘non-birthing parent’.  You couldn’t make it up, to use a cliché.

 

Some friends have recommended a TV series entitled ‘Call my Agent’.  This is a French made series about ASK, a company of film and TV agents, and in the original it is called ‘Dix Pour Cent’.  This may be something of an oxymoron, but it is Good-French-TV.  It’s witty and hilarious.  Note to self: all French women are slim.  There is an article this week hailing the new breed of French TV (previously French TV soaps have been universally poor).  The language is very fast, extremely colloquial, and the subtitles, while accurate, are not always the literal translation from the French.  My scatological French is therefore coming along very well, and in addition to the usual ‘D’accord’ and ‘Desolée Monsieur’, I am now able to tell another Frenchman to do something anatomically impossible, and to lament to my lesbian lover that the batteries on my sex toy have run down and I will have to ‘do it the old-fashioned way’.

 

Finally, and at last I can say this, because Wilfried Zaha, the black Ivorian striker who plays for Crystal Palace F.C. has endorsed it; we need no longer pay lip service to the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement by ‘Taking the Knee’.  As Zaha himself has said, it has lost its impetus and meaning.  Wearing a ‘Black Lives Matter’ badge makes him a target.  He finds taking the knee ‘degrading’.  Well said.  Some of the racist hate abuse is probably from people who are fed up with having the message pushed down their craw, though most of us have been too polite to say so.

 

A reflection of medicine as it is currently practised.  It is impossible to ring up and ask for even a GP telephone consultation.  An online form is needed (eConsult), which includes every time a question about your family history.  They have my records, and do not need to do this, but yes, my father still died of a stroke following Alzheimer’s and my Grandparents are still dead and suffered from TB, vascular disease, and diabetes.  Following some symptoms which I suspect are not serious, I went through this whole rigmarole once again yesterday (being careful not to answer yes to any question which might allow them to say ‘This could be Covid’ and throw you out of the system with an adjuration to phone 111), and this morning have been greeted by a ‘Do not reply’ e mail which says that my eConsult will be passed to the ‘Care Navigation Team’ for further evaluation.  What has medicine come to?  ‘O Tempora, O Mores’?  As Flanders and Swann posed it, ‘Oh Times, Oh Daily Mirror’!

 

Mild weather prevails, and sunshine.  It is nice to see that in sunny weather our house draws nothing from the external electricity supply.  Deaths and cases of Covid continue to fall and we have had a timetable for exit from lockdown issued by the P.M.  From a selfish point of view, the excitement is that golf will resume from late March.  Final exit day is Midsummer Day – June 21^st.  The last 24 hours show 548 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test – down nearly 30% in the last week.  Nearly 18 million people have had at least one vaccine dose.  Both Pfizer and AZ vaccines have now been shown to work in the elderly and to reduce transmission.  So ‘Fromage à pâte dure’  to Emmanuel Macron who has been loth to order the AstraZeneca jab, claiming it did not work in the elderly.  Lockdown exit arrangements as ever are slightly different in Wales and Scotland.  In Scotland the pandemic is currently overshadowed by the internecine struggle between Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon.  I speak at length this morning to an old medical school friend in Edinburgh, whose artistic and needlework talents are burgeoning during the pandemic.

 

Recent walks have disclosed swathes of crocuses and snowdrops.  The year marches on.

Links Road, Parkstone, Poole

Corona Diary Chapter 18 - New Year to January 19th, 2021

 

2021

 

January 2^nd

 

Several days of icy cold have continued more or less since Christmas Day.  At least we are not being deluged with rain any more.  There is worry though that the infamous ‘Beast from the East’ may be back soon.  This is due apparently to ‘stratospheric warming’, causing a polar vortex.  The last one in February and March 2018 brought us very difficult conditions, even in Dorset.  I remember walking round in deep snow to two of my patients to offer food and support.

 

New Year’s Eve was a muted celebration, though remarkably, many firework displays took place, including one dramatic one somewhere towards the harbour from us at 0130hrs.  An excellent view from our bedroom picture windows, which as yet do not have any blinds (long story).  Somebody obviously had ‘money to burn’.

 

One of the highlights for me over the holiday period was the Vienna New Year’s Day concert from the Vienna Musikverein.  This year the conductor (all the conductors are always personal invitees from the orchestra) was Riccardo Muti.  A lovely concert as always, with the intermission a celebration of 1921-2021 as the centenary of the addition of ‘Burgenland’ to the Austrian empire.  This area to the southeast of Vienna looks idyllic, and the sense of yearning to travel again was acute.  It’s very much on the Hungarian border, and is reputed to have the best food in Austria!  A fusion of Austrian and Hungarian cuisines – expect goulash and strudel – can’t wait to go.  The concert was further enhanced as always by the beautiful ballet dancers from the Wiener Staatsballett performing in the Liechtenstein Garden Palace, another exquisite Viennese venue.  I now rarely look at the travel sections of the newspapers, despite their enticing pleas to visit far flung paradises.  ‘Travel Supplement’ seems to me to be an oxymoron at the moment.  I was struck by one photo however, an advertisement for the Maldives.  A drone photo showed somebody doing lengths in a private pool adjacent to their obligatory stilted hut over what looked like a transparent turquoise sea of great beauty.  Presumably the pool is provided for tourists too scared to venture into the big bad sea?  Strange.  To return to Vienna; Riccardo Muti is now 78 and a ‘Grand Old Man’ of conducting.  After the concert he delivered an impassioned speech stating that culture (and music) is one of the essentials of life, and important to preserve in these difficult times.  It was a fine speech.  One is reminded that in 2011, during a performance of Nabucco in Rome, the audience applauded so much at ‘Va pensiero’ that Muti delivered an impromptu speech criticising the Berlusconi government for cutting arts funding, and then conducted the audience in an encore.  A large majority of Italians know the piece by heart – it has become a second national anthem.

 

I have finished Lolita.  A remarkable book.  I don’t think I can improve on my previous comments.

 

Tomorrow is the first real working day of 2021.

 

Monday 4^th January, 2021

 

A rather cold, gloomy, but dry day, at least here in Dorset.  The temperature struggles up to 3 deg C.  The builder and his team arrive as usual at around 0730 and commence work outside on the drive.  In the evening, the Prime Minister announces a total lockdown.  Cases of Covid are hurtling upwards, and some hospitals are very overstretched.  Big fuss made over the first vaccinations with the Oxford Astra-Zeneca vaccine which take place, naturally, in Oxford.  Southampton beat Liverpool this evening in the football, 1-0.  Quite an achievement.  Now we have a race between vaccinations and an upward spiral of coronavirus cases.

 

Some progress - chandelier, our wall hanging, and LED light strips on the stairs

An article in the Times this weekend stated: Let’s not rush to celebrate 2021 being the end of misfortunes, warns Jonathan Healey, a history fellow at Oxford, who makes his point about the twists of fate with what he claims is a little-known diary entry by Samuel Pepys 355 years ago.  “The Year of Our Lorde 1665 hath been such a terrible one for ye plague,” he wrote.  “I cannot wait for 1666, for which I have especial excitement to trye the newe bakery that hath opened on Pudding Lane.”

 

Friday 8^th January

 

An icy cold but fortunately, on the South coast of England, dry week.  The builders working outside on the driveway, car port, and patio have had a brazier going most of the week.  No golf or gym, and just some local walks to try and keep fit.  Yesterday though we had an atmospheric walk in the freezing fog of the so-called ‘Wareham Forest’.  So called because much of it is open heathland, and some of it, beside the causeways, very boggy as it drains very slowly down towards Wareham north channel, drained by the River Piddle (also called the Trent).  It is almost possible to imagine this as one of Thomas Hardy’s heaths, especially when there is no-one around as today.

 

Atmospheric Wareham Forest in the freezing fog

On the world front, the demagogue Donald Trump has incited his followers to meet and protest, though perhaps he didn’t envisage that they would storm the Capitol building.  As one U.S. commentator put it; ‘We spend $7 billion on defense, and the heart of our government is overrun in two hours led by a guy in a Chewbacca bikini.’  Five deaths resulted.  There is no doubt that Trump has blood on his hands.  His first declaration, when asked to make a public announcement was still ‘This election was fraudulent,’ hardly guaranteed to make the mob go home.  I caught some of the world leaders’ condemnations, but the Iranians must be laughing themselves silly – a loose translation of what some bearded Ayatollah was announcing was ‘See where a non-Islamic western democracy gets you.’

 

Wednesday January 13^th, 2021

 

T S Eliot wrote that ‘April is the cruellest month’ but this year January has a reasonable claim on this title.  It’s dark, it’s cold, and life is restricted to a simple round of ‘stay home, save lives’ and go out only for essentials or exercise.  Slight concerns about the invasion of our house by our contractors, but we try to keep our distance and most of the building work continues outside.  The last few days I have had a cold, a headache, and a bit of a cough, so early Monday morning I drove to the Creekmoor site for a Covid test.  Result last night – negative.  Hope to get out for a decent walk today, though somewhat concerned that two women in Derbyshire were issued with fines by overzealous police after driving to a beauty spot to walk.  We plan to go back to Wareham forest because it is so quiet.  The beach and seafront is impossible – frequented by very large numbers of people doing their daily walks, even in bad weather.

 

Time for a change of topic.  A very old friend of my parents, a widowed lady of 87, lives in a residential complex near Charleston, South Carolina, and wrote a beautifully legible Christmas card to us.  Eventually, after fruitless phone calls to the Presbyterian retirement home organisation, I have managed to be in touch by e mail, and it is such a pleasure to re-establish contact.  Please indulge me by reading the back story…

 

In December 1962, Harold Macmillan met President John F Kennedy in Nassau, Bahamas.  As part of this agreement, Britain agreed to buy Polaris nuclear missiles and to be equipped by the USA with a nuclear deterrent.  A by-product of this was the rage expressed by De Gaulle, who wanted Europe to be independent of America for its defence.  Parenthetically, it seems surprising that France, so singularly ill-equipped to resist invasion on two occasions already in the 20^th Century, could realistically take this view.  Its contemporary relevance is of course that De Gaulle famously said ‘Non’ to British hopes to join the European Economic Community.  One muses that De Gaulle was a real troublemaker: for example, he visited Canada, to attend Expo 67 in Montreal, and uttered the famous ‘Vive le Québec libre’ speech.  Churchill was not a fan of De Gaulle.  One day in Westminster, he was walking with a colleague near Carlton House Terrace when a taxi drew up and an extremely tall figure got out.  ‘Who is that?’ asked his companion.  ‘General De Gaulle’, replied Churchill.  ‘What, the General De Gaulle?’  ‘No’, said Churchill.  ‘A General De Gaulle’. 

 

My father was an armaments expert in the Admiralty – later the Ministry of Defence.  Recently appointed to Bath after our three-year sojourn in the wilderness of Pembrokeshire (the armaments base for Milford Haven), he was rapidly seconded to the group tasked with locating and running an Admiralty storage base for the missiles.  Although he was modest about this, his early life in Glasgow, and his love of hill walking was possibly instrumental in the location of the Coulport base on Loch Long.  Ideal for many reasons (deep water; proximity to Faslane submarine base; difficulty to get to for anti-nuclear protesters).  It is hard for people in the third decade of the 21^st century to think back to that time and to realise how real the Cold War was, and how unpredictable and intransigent was the post-Stalin regime in Moscow.  ‘Plus ça change’, I hear you say.  As a part of the Polaris project, some of our friends in the Admiralty were posted to Washington, and similarly, experts in the U.S. Navy and their subcontractors in defence were posted to Bath, and subsequently Scotland.  Some of these experts, such as the Lockheed missile control systems liaison officer, Lyn Jones, were given honorary commands in the U.S. Navy, and sent to Bath.

 

At the age of 15, with O levels, two TV channels in black and white, Radio Luxembourg, and much else on my mind, we were thrust into a world where my parents were expected to entertain the visiting firemen.  This was the era of Americans in Sinatra-style pork pie hats, smart suits, and cocktail parties with exotic drinks suddenly the norm.  Lyn, and his attractive young wife Betty, made a huge impression on an adolescent boy.  Lyn was a no-nonsense archetypal crewcut Texan, with a delightful drawl straight out of a cowboy film.  Betty represented the ultimate in American sophistication; an elegant Southern belle with impeccable manners and a lively interest in us all.  Blonde hair piled in an elegant (of its time) coiffure.  I was dazzled.  She must have been about 30 at that time.  Later, Lyn too was posted to Scotland, and Betty was unusual by American standards in that she cheerfully immersed herself in things Scottish, showing herself to be a true cosmopolitan, and genuinely loved her time in the UK.  They became very close friends of my parents.

 

In 1970, when I left university, with the summer stretching forth for many months, I worked in upstate New York helping a Canadian paediatric haematologist with his research.  At the end of my time there, after a short visit to Hamilton, Ontario, I embarked on the usual 99-dollar one month unlimited Greyhound bus ticket ride across Canada and through the USA.  By this time, Lyn and Betty were back in California, in what subsequently became Silicon Valley.  I had a warm invitation to visit and stay.  Much to my regret, when I reached Cupertino, to the south of San Francisco, Betty was not in town, having gone back to South Carolina to visit friends and relatives.  The upside of this was that Lyn immediately offered me Betty’s car to do my touring in.  The car was a bright yellow Chevvy Camaro, mid 60s style, and nowadays a very desirable classic.  Encouraged by Lyn I drove it all over, visiting the city (San Francisco), Sausalito, Monterey, and the redwoods.  I stopped to watch bronzed bikini clad girls playing Frisbee on Carmel beach, toured Cannery Row, and did the 17-mile drive.  I went to the Golden Gate park, scene of the 1967 ‘Love In.’  Lyn handed me his Exxon card ‘for the gas.’  ‘Just sign ma name; Lyn Dubya Jones.’  At the weekend, he insisted on taking me to the jazz clubs and bars of his youth.  I remember Earthquake McGoon’s for its live jazz, though I don’t remember much else.  Research reveals it was San Francisco’s premier jazz venue, located at 630 Clay Street.  We attended a wedding in a vineyard, and dined with other colleagues of my father’s in Palo Alto, sitting outside in the evening by the pool, drinking mint juleps in the classic iced metal cups.  Having been used to feeding meters with one shilling coins in bedsits in Cambridge, the occasional Mackeson and pint of Cambridge bitter, my San Francisco idyll was a wonderful introduction to the good life, American style.

 

I subsequently kept in close touch with Lyn and Betty.  Years later I enjoyed visiting their lovely home on an old tea plantation outside Charleston, and it was a delight to be back in correspondence with her.

 

Friday January 15^th, 2021

 

Our six mile walk with a friend in Wareham forest was somewhat marred by her car getting a puncture.  She tried to drive it down the road but had to pull off into a holiday park.  Some unpleasant confrontation with the resident park warden who threatened to report her ‘she’s not local, she’s from Poole’, to which I responded that this was a matter for debate.  Ultimately we left the car, despite his grudging reluctance and arranged pickup later.  Our nervousness resulted from the news item about the women in Derbyshire.  The debate centred around whether their 7 mile trip to the walking site was ‘local’.  But they were also clutching cups of coffee and the plods therefore interpreted this as a social meeting rather than an exercise meeting.  The fines were later rescinded.  Boris Johnson was subsequently seen cycling at the Olympic park, quite a long way from Downing Street, and this also occasioned comment.  A nice Matt cartoon showed two Yorkshire farmers standing beside their stone walled fields as a lone cyclist goes by.  ‘That’s Boris on one of his local Land’s End to John O’Groats bike rides’, says one.

 

After a good night’s sleep on Wednesday (post walk), awake at 0430, and unable to sleep.  Listen to a review of recordings of Mahler’s 3^rd Symphony.  Sadly they didn’t mention my Georg Solti/Chicago Symphony recording from the 1970s.  I suspect that you fall in love with the recording you buy and listen to first, so I’m unswayed by their opinion.  Fortunately there is cricket from Sri Lanka to watch, since they are 5½ hours ahead of us.

 

Having focussed on numbers and virology earlier in 2020, I should reluctantly return to the situation in early 2021.  Perhaps prompted by the more transmissible new variant of the virus, there has been a huge surge in cases, with many more in hospital than even at the peak of the first wave in April 2020.  London is severely affected, but even here in Dorset, numbers have gone from a handful of Covid patients in hospital to 250 or so.  Some hospitals have run out of oxygen.  With the latest lockdown there is just the glimmer of a fall in cases, but the peak in deaths is still to come.

 

There is much talk of doctor and nurse burnout.  Staff are obviously stressed and tired.  Around 30% of local hospital staff have now been vaccinated.  My feelings are torn between a sense of guilt at not being there to help, and relief in that I am not exposed to infection.

 

This feeling of guilt at not being involved is not uncommon.  To my knowledge, perhaps the most famous example of this was the Japanese author, Yukio Mishima.  Mishima’s allegorical novel ‘The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with The Sea’ was trendy reading in the 1960s when I was a student.  Mishima was born in 1925 and missed out on the second World War.  When he tried to enlist in 1944, he had a cold and the doctor mistakenly diagnosed it as TB.  He was rejected.  His life subsequently was a permanent attempt to prove himself, a result of his guilt at not being able to serve Japan in the war.  He embarked on relentless weight training; had a mission to restore imperial Japanese values; a wish to live by the codes of Bushido and Shinto; and ultimately formed his own militia.  In 1970 he attempted a military coup, but failing in this committed seppuku.

 

Meanwhile, Joe Root has cruised along to his 18^th Test century, and daylight is here at 0800.  A few weeks ago it was still dark at this time.

 

Saturday 16^th January

 

Rain during the night but a fitful sun with a strong north westerly wind.  Kite surfers are out in force in Whitley Bay in the Harbour.  Walking to the shop for milk and the newspaper I come across the daughter of a friend getting ready for action.  I learned to windsurf on Loch Morlich in the Cairngorms in 1979 and bought my first windsurfer (a Dupont Wing) while living in North Carolina 40 years ago.  Would love to be out with a kite now.

 

Joe Root batted on for a great double hundred.  (I realise my North American friends won’t know what that means).  The match is being played in Gaulle, Sri Lanka, which we visited some years ago.  A lovely place on the edge of the Indian Ocean.  Pondering this and while walking back from the harbour a line from a 60s pop song comes into my head – very apposite for now: “Memories are all I have to cling to”.  The amazing Google tells me that Bobby Darin, writer and singer of this song died of complications of infective endocarditis at the early age of 37.

 

Returning to the concept of guilt for not mucking in and helping during the pandemic, there isn’t really a clearly defined syndrome for this.  I will term it ‘Mishima Syndrome’.  The nearest one can find is the concept of ‘Civilian Guilt’ – not serving in the military during time of war.  This was exploited in the famous ‘What did you do in the war, Daddy’ poster of the first World War (1915).  Civilian Guilt is subtly different to FOMO – Fear of Missing Out.  According to Keir Hardie (Trade Unionist and leader of the Labour Party 1906-1908), the correct answer to the poster was ‘I tried to stop the bloody thing, my child’.

 

I spent a week at a water ski training camp in Florida in 1993.  This was run by Mike Hazelwood, British former world water ski champion.  There was little to do in rural Lakeland Florida.  The bar next to my motel hosted a Karaoke night.  After a beer or two I was encouraged to solo.  I chose Buddy Holly’s ‘Peggy Sue’.  Having run a folk club and sung in Scottish pubs, I regarded this as fairly straightforward.  As my number finished, a long haired Hell’s Angel walked aggressively up the aisle towards me.  He was covered in tattoos and ‘U.S. Veteran’ badges.  On his black denim suit the first thing I noticed was a motto which stated: ‘If you weren’t in ‘Nam you ain’t worth shit’.  In his left hand he carried a bottle of Budweiser.  He pulled his right arm back and I got ready to duck.  His arm came towards me in a flash of lightning, but at the last moment his fist launched toward the ceiling and his palm opened in a ‘high five’ gesture.  ‘Put it there, buddy’ were his immortal words.

 

Tuesday January 19^th

 

Sunday was bright, cold, and clear.  I suggested a bike ride.  Beautiful cold and sunny riding, but ultimately Lindsay got very cold hands and we pedalled back by a direct route from the Stour Valley.  Felt quite tired after 21 miles, but could have gone for longer.  On the same day my daughter cycled 60 miles and her partner 90.  Anno Domini.

 

This week will be drizzly and rainy.  Storm Christoph is expected.  Most of the rain will be in the North.

 

A book which has recently found its way back to me after a near 30 year disappearance is my copy of ‘Catcher in the Rye’.  The neat entry in ink on the flyleaf says ‘Andrew McLeod, January 1973’.  The surprise is that this was the start of the year leading up to final medical school exams – how did I find time to read this in addition to medical textbooks?  Probably as a relief.  It is amazing to think how one’s brain was able to hoover up so much at that age.

 

I mentioned Mishima.  I remember a very urbane friend at Medical School; I think he was from Singapore, reading Hesse’s ‘The Glass Bead Game’.  Again, ultra-trendy.  I never read it.  But this friend, I was totally unaware, was gay.  Gaydar was not even on my radar, and perhaps isn’t even now.  When a House Physician, I naively accepted an invitation from the Hospital Chaplain who took me out to dinner.  No significant advance was made.  Perhaps the ‘hetero’ vibes were too strong?  The hospital actually provided a ‘grace and favour’ apartment for the Chaplain.  Hard to believe nowadays…

 

A dip into the papers reveals so many bad stories: the arrest and imprisonment of the Russian critic Alexei Navalny on his return to Moscow, after almost being murdered with Novichok; the continuing infringement of human rights in Hong Kong and the arrest of protesters; an arson attack on a barn which killed six horses; a man and his dog swept out to sea in a storm; China’s treatment of the Uighurs, Chinese Muslims; child obesity; ‘woke’ restrictions on free speech; attempts to rewrite history and remove a magnificent equestrian statue of General Sir Redvers Buller, V.C. located in Exeter because of his involvement in the Zulu wars; deaths in Sudan’s West Darfur province due to tribal violence; female judges shot in Afghanistan by the Taliban; earthquakes and deaths in Sulawesi; the grim state of Yemen; the same in Somalia – and this is just yesterday’s news.  So amongst this all we must carry on, and be grateful for what we have.  Like so many of you, I seek humour everywhere.  So, my final entry: amusement at the tennis players who have travelled to Australia for the January Australian Open.  If one person on any flight into Australia had a positive test for coronavirus, then all passengers have been forced to quarantine in their hotel rooms without emerging, even for exercise.  Movie footage of tennis stars hitting balls against the walls of their rooms ‘Game, Set, and Mattress’ as one wag termed it.

CORONA DIARY CHAPTER 17: December 3rd to end of 2020

Thursday December 3rd We are now nearly a week the other side of moving. There have been panics and incidents ‘incidents and accidents, there were hints and allegations’, but until today we have been blessed by cold clear dry weather, and waking up before dawn in our bedroom perched on Evening Hill looking at Whitley Bay and beyond it Sandbanks and Poole Bay has been wonderful. The redundant cruise ships, including the enormous Allure of the Seas, which dwarfs Sandbanks, add to the maritime interest. Plenty of rather miserable rain today, rather reminiscent of the early days of the construction of the house. In much of Scotland they have snow so I am sure we should be grateful. The one-month lockdown ended yesterday, and the golf course has been inundated with members getting a first round in, so it has been impossible to book. On our first night in the house, we came down in the morning to find a flood in the plant room, due to a leaking soldered joint. A surprise to the plumbers because they had completed this a long time ago and the heating has been on for a long time to warm up the screed before tiling. Otherwise, the sophisticated system that allows one to control lights, TV, radio, blinds, etc, has had some glitches but we are assured they will be sorted. The main problem has been the extraordinary amount of dust, this time mainly from rubbing down paintwork, but also from tiling. Our furniture is stacked from floor to ceiling in the garage, and is also gathering dust. Lights are hanging out of ceilings and off the walls. Hopefully they will be put back in sometime. A phone call from my consultant in the myeloma clinic this morning. I have an IgM MGUS, with a slight reduction in the levels of other immunoglobulins, which fortunately remains stable. She is concerned about the risk of infection for me and I should probably therefore be more careful about isolating. She was particularly concerned that I have been to supermarkets, though being a non-Woke household, it is true that Lindsay does most of our supermarket visits. A thought occurs. Is it safer to shop at Waitrose than more down-market supermarket chains? I reassure her that I usually go late to the Alder Hills Sainsbury’s because it is much more spacious than others and is rarely crowded at that time, but it does give me pause for thought. There remains huge controversy and anger about the latest lockdown and the emergence into tiers as of yesterday. But the figures for cases and deaths are incontrovertibly in decline since the lockdown, and surely vaccination must come in the next month or two. Advice from my haematologist is not to have the Oxford vaccine because it is a live adenovirus vector, so maybe I will get the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines (advice subsequently rescinded – apparently the Oxford vaccine is okay). Another Tory MP has made a stupid jingoistic statement about our country being better than others. This relates to the MHRA regulatory approval for the vaccine; the first approved in the world. He implied that red tape and bureaucracy in the EU and the USA have prevented them from getting on with the approval process. Understandably there has been a strong reaction. Trump (yes, still him) has reportedly been incandescent that the U.S. has not been the world’s first country to approve the vaccine. I think he has sacked somebody but I’m not sure.

A poignant conversation this afternoon with my younger daughter who has been staying with her mother for the last week to keep her company during cancer chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment. Katie managed her admission to hospital in midweek with fever and sepsis, and I feel rather helpless that I cannot support her. I am surprised to find, for the first time in many years, that I feel really sorry, sympathetic and tender towards her mother, but since she is now two husbands on from me there is really very little I can do other than to support my daughters and send my best wishes for her recovery. As you may imagine I debated long and hard with myself as to whether to write the above, but if a diary is to mean anything, it is also about feelings as well as facts.

Friday December 4th A cold day with a moderate wind. A few patches of sunshine. The north of England and a substantial amount of Scotland has snow. The front page of the Telegraph today has a drone picture of a train crossing the Ribblesdale viaduct, with snow all around. More memories. Happy ones of walking the Dales Way and climbing Yorkshire’s Three Peaks, Ingleborough, Whernside, and Pen-y-Ghent. Our self-isolation amid the pandemic makes such memories seem so much more out of reach and unattainable. The same pang of remembrance came on Tuesday when we watched England play cricket against South Africa in Cape Town. There is frenzied activity in the house so eventually I get out and do a short walk. The fleece hat and gloves are needed as I walk around the harbour and back. The hippy characters who operate paddleboard and kite surfing lessons from vans beside the harbour do not have any customers. The lack of kitchen facilities here in our house has curtailed Lindsay’s creation of lemon drizzle and carrot cakes for our builders, so some shop bought items have appeared from time to time. Yesterday I returned from some essential trip to find iced buns in the kitchen. Like Swann and his madeleines, this immediately conjured up memories of break time at school, when the retired Army C.S.M. who supervised these things produced tray upon tray of them, for I think, about thruppence each. We did not dip them in weak herb tea however, but guzzled them together with our school issue one-third of a pint of milk. Here I could tell a story of the sad fate of the C.S.M., but while true, it might risk libel, so I must refrain. Poor Swann in the Proust novel however took ages and many paragraphs to recover his memory about the madeleines at Combray, but his prose is far superior to mine. While musing on this (of course I had only read the English translation), the topic of mediocrity returned once more. The mere taste of the tea and madeleine gave Swann the following sensation of joy: ‘I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal.’ I wondered, ‘Do the French feel mediocre too?’ Well yes: ‘J’avais cessé de me sentir mediocre, contingent, mortel.’ Time to get back down to earth and go and watch Bournemouth play Barnsley, in a frozen South Yorkshire. Tomorrow morning for the first time for over a month we have a gym class. Are madeleines the cure for mediocrity? To me they are just odd-shaped little sponges.

Monday December 4th Friday night brought some childhood recollections. In the many houses and flats that we lived in as a child, none had any double glazing. The wind and the rain beat against them, the draughts whistled through the cracks and rattled the sash windows, and many a night I was lulled to sleep by a storm, occasionally to wake as the flash of some lightning and following crack of thunder percolated the somewhat threadbare curtains. So it was with some surprise that at 4a.m. on Saturday I was awakened by a southerly storm beating against our bedroom windows. They did not rattle, but the force of the wind was extreme. Dark silhouettes of trees waved violently in the distance. Another Proustian memory perhaps? Deep puddles of undrained flood waters covered the roads, but as Sunday dawned, the temperature dipped and the weather paradoxically improved. We spent much of the day cleaning within the house, pausing to watch some football. The promised cricket from South Africa was called off because of positive Covid tests. An interesting interview with the head of the MHRA, Dr June Raine, with Andrew Marr, was noticeable for her very strong emphasis on the complete safety of the new coronavirus vaccines. I think she must have decided to put herself on the line for this one. Of course no one can state that a vaccine is ‘absolutely safe’, but she has clearly decided to go all out and commit on this. It’s strange how pervasive some old terms are – I was surprised to hear her say when asked about pregnancy and the vaccine – ‘If you do fall pregnant…’. Such an archaic term, and a throwback to an era of blame for women, the phrase ‘fall pregnant.’ Perhaps she decided that the vernacular was required. Prof Jason Leitch, the Scottish clinical director, on this morning’s news (he is refreshingly candid), said it was ‘absolutely a dialogue that people should have’ but the safety data was good and it was ‘a lot safer than having Covid.’

Dense fog covered the golf course and it was closed this morning, so still no golf. Our four members (we were due to play together) dispersed, including one who went to tend turnips on his allotment. How do you tend to turnips at this time of year? Maybe they are ready for lifting. Maybe turnips are his word for ‘Bunburying.’ It is very cold – around 2 degrees C. Quite the antithesis of friendly distanced golf chatter, it was heart-rending to speak to my daughter this morning and to see her in tears as she waited outside the hospital while her mum was having assessment and treatment for cancer inside. Both daughters are in residence. She is very lucky to have them.

Some nighttime listening, a very pleasing selection of restful classical music from Radio 3. It began with an Andante Soave (soft or pleasant andante) on the piano, written by Fanny Mendelssohn. A beautiful piece, as mellifluous as modern pieces by Einaudi, but with so much more purpose to it. I can’t find the review, but a Telegraph musician reviewing Einaudi last year used the word ‘meretricious’ – superficial and false. Another review highlighted his technique as ‘seems to circle around basic left-hand minor chords (in sequences of three or four) decorated with delicate but repetitive right-hand motifs. And repeat.’ ‘When Einaudi finally raised his hands to signal the concert had drifted gently to a conclusion, he was greeted by the kind of rapturous standing ovation that could wake the dead. Handy for those of us who forgot to set our alarms.’ ‘Einaudi has more followers on Spotify than Mozart (not that the late Austrian genius is counting).’

A sad parenthesis. Peter Allis, the voice of golf commentary has died at the age of 89. His presence at a microphone on a golf course brought the same feeling of satisfaction that one experienced on hearing John Arlott, Brian Johnston, or Christopher Martin-Jenkins at a cricket match. And back to classical music. My parents had two records that I can remember before the age of seven when we went to Malta and all items ‘got put into store.’ One was a 10 inch 78 rpm record, on the MGM label (bright yellow), with a recording of ‘Vilja’ on one side and ‘Night’, both from the Merry Widow, on the other. The other was a red label 12 inch disc (HMV – the dog gazing into the sound horn) of Yehudi Menuhin playing the Mendelssohn violin concerto. Despite everything he did for English music and English musicians, I have always had something against the late maestro. When I was at school in Bath, we were asked to go to act as an audience at the Bath Assembly rooms one Saturday morning. The Assembly Rooms had recently being rebuilt in the 1960s after being bombed in the war. We were asked to be a trial audience for Yehudi Menuhin, who was very much involved with the Bath Festival at the time. Dutifully we went; dutifully we sat there – for about two hours. During that time the great master wandered in once or twice, looked around a bit, and then exited. We were puzzled. He didn’t seem to have brought his Strad along. At about midday he wandered in again, spoke to the organizer and then disappeared. And that was the only time I ever saw him. I suppose I can boast that I have ‘seen’ Yehudi Menuhin… Oh, and we also had a recording of ‘Tubby the Tuba’ by Danny Kaye.

Sunday December 13th A gloomy day with high winds and light but severely wind-tossed rain. The distant sea is obscured by a hazy, misty cloud of moisture. Puddles gazing out of the window to where, perhaps next year, we might have a patio. Our frustrations are minor compared to so many others, but why, in the chaos of our move, can I find books entitled ‘Keeping Chickens’ and ‘The Optician of Lampedusa’ but not our address book? Readers may scoff at not keeping it all online, but it was precisely because I was trying to find an address which I know is only in the address book to add it to contacts online so that we can send a Christmas message. A lovely concert this week: beginning with Fanny Mendelssohn Overture in C, then Benjamin Grosvenor playing Chopin Concerto Number 1, then Haydn Symphony No. 88. Grosvenor played a modern Argentinian composer encore too. Concert all done by about 9 o’clock, and no faffing about with an interval, drinking wine which is all but undrinkable at exorbitant prices, and trying to avoid the gaze and conversation of various patrons. The dialogue in the news has shifted subtly, or not so subtly, from coronavirus to Brexit. We are now approaching a possible no deal scenario. About ten, or maybe even 15 years ago, I had a very able SHO who was a no-nonsense, get down to it, stay as long as it took, sort of person. She was distinguished, among other attributes, by a purposeful stride and a permanent ski bumbag accoutrement. She worked primarily for my co-colleague, a lady consultant in cardiology. I knew that the SHO had been going through a hard time in that her mother, who was estranged from her father, had advanced cancer. After her mother’s death, she announced that she was taking a break from medicine for a bit. I asked my colleague what she was planning to do. ‘Oh, she’s going to wander round the alps and do some climbing with her Dad, I think.’ ‘But it’s February, Diane.’ I interjected. ‘I sort of don’t believe it. What is she really going to do?’ ‘Oh, I think she’s quite keen on climbing,’ Said my colleague. ‘And she’s going with her Dad. I think he is quite a well-known climber.’ The penny dropped. Our SHOs’ name was Scott. Her Dad was Doug Scott. I thought of all of them when I read the obituary for Doug Scott this week. He was the first Briton to summit Everest. He was only 79.

Tuesday December 15th More torrential rain storms this morning, and now sunshine. The weather will be unsettled for some time to come. Much activity in the house, mastic, carpentry, glass fitting to the stairs, carpet underlays. We try to keep clear. A new variant of coronavirus has been detected, thought to be underlying the current very rapid escalation of infections. Another possibility is the complete disregard for social distancing, particularly among the stupid and the young, e.g. London’s Westfield Shopping Centre. As a consequence London will be locked down in Tier 3 again in the near future. In trying to keep away, I find time to read a little bit of my Literature Review magazine. A leader from that excellent writer William Boyd describes his one evening with Billy Wilder, in 1983, the director of ‘Some Like It Hot’, that superb movie in which the talents of Marilyn Monroe are allied to Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. Wilder became taciturn and bitter when asked about Monroe. He mentioned that her husband, Arthur Miller, rang him during the shooting and asked if it was alright for Marilyn only to attend the studio after midday. ‘Yes, that would be fine,’ Said Wilder. ‘Except that she never shows up before 4pm anyway.’ From Boyd’s account it is a miracle that Wilder coaxed such genius from his players in the film. I discover today that I have been elected a governor of the new University Hospitals, Dorset, Trust. A mixed blessing I feel. Meetings will of course be in Microsoft Teams as before. One hopes that we can be together in real meetings before too long… When asked to choose the latest book for our book club, for some whimsical reason I chose the novel ‘Lolita’. I remember it as a cause célèbre from childhood. I am sure I was unaware of its initial publication in 1955, but I do remember its film release with those provocative pictures of Sue Lyon, in the heart shaped dark glasses, sucking a lollipop. I was around 14 at the time. The book may have been passed around at school, but it is such a complex and subtle novel, quite different from the explicit ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’, also a much thumbed ‘pass the parcel’ schoolboy book. But Lolita is an extremely uncomfortable read by modern mores, and I am finding it quite difficult. The style and densely allusive nature of the book is quite remarkable, particularly the subtle allusions to Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabelle Lee. Annabelle Lee was also a preoccupation, as I recall, of the virago in Clint Eastwood’s ‘Play Misty for Me’. It is interesting that the best writers of the English language are often foreign born, and therefore better educated. Joseph Conrad is always cited as an example. Little wonder that Lolita was rejected by adolescent schoolboys… There is much trumpeting of the initial rollout of the Pfizer vaccine. Pictures of happy 90 plus year olds receiving the jab. The first male to be immunized was called William Shakespeare. There is some realism though – perish the thought. Quite reasonably, in my view, there is some questioning of whether it is worth giving it to frail individuals in their late 90s who might die of something else within the next year or so. I do hope that there will be enough of the Pfizer product left to vaccinate those undergoing cancer treatment or who are immunosuppressed, who cannot receive the Oxford live virus vaccine, or whether the powers that be at the Department of Health are desperate to protect the caring professions because of the positive publicity. If the vaccine does prevent virus shedding then there will be obvious secondary benefits to the immunization of healthcare staff. Apologies for my solipsistic view of things.

Monday December 21st, the shortest day ‘All changed, changed utterly,’ as Yeats wrote about an entirely different subject, around 100 years ago. Until last night we were planning on how our bubble would work, with the allotted number visiting during a period of five days over Christmas. But now we are virtually locked down, irrespective of tiers, with no-one allowed to stay over any more. The reason – a huge hike (only 20 years ago that word only existed in U.S. English. The correct use of course is to imply a pleasant walk) in cases of coronavirus, and the reluctant admittance that there is a new variant of Covid-19 which is particularly prevalent in Kent which seems to have more transmissibility than plain old coronavirus. As if the continent didn’t hate us enough already, the French (of course) among other nations have blocked the border with the UK to avoid our virus polluting theirs. Five hundred years ago, when syphilis was first brought back from the New World, countries vied with one another to name it after the country they thought was to blame. Hence the ‘French pox’, the ‘Spanish pox’, the ‘English pox’. Nobody thought to blame China in those days… So Christmas is off. Some have filled the shops to buy food, which they thought they wouldn’t need, and some have a surplus which they now cannot share. Added to that it seems dark almost all day; the weather is foul and rainy – the golf course has been closed five days in a row, an unprecedented (that word again) occurrence. A Matt cartoon captures a prevalent meme: Joseph is opening the door of the inn to three men, bearing – toilet rolls; cans of baked beans; hand sanitizer. ‘Ah, three Wise men’, he is saying… Another shows the silhouette of the three wise men on their camels, breasting the dunes and following the star. A bubble comes from the one at the back: ‘Bollocks, I’ve forgotten my facemask.’

I’ve looked at my pictures from the year in order to find some sort of sequence to send in a Christmas card to friends. It has been a fascinating experience, to see us sitting in the sunshine in ski clothes in Lenzerheide in January, mixing with friends, enjoying the most extraordinary early Spring and Summer, and gradually withdrawing into ourselves as more and more things have been cancelled, and a post lockdown period of enjoyment now again so far away. I wish all who may read this a very happy Christmas and a much better New Year. ‘Have yourself a merry little Christmas If the fates allow But ‘til then we’ll have to muddle through somehow … So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.’ Not the original lyrics, but as sung by Max Bygraves on his bygone years Christmas album ‘Sing along a Max’ – somehow appropriate.’ December 31st, 2020 Quite a hiatus. Christmas has come and gone. I have not been able to hug my daughters, or indeed been able to offer them hospitality in our new home. We are proud of it – despite the numerous unfinished rooms, boxes piled high with books and our other treasures, and wires hanging from ceilings and walls. There is a hole in the wall where a washbasin should be due to incompetent bathroom design, and a mountain of instruction books on everything from water softeners to steam ovens. It is pleasant just to be in our own home again, and not to have to fritter away thousands of pounds on house rental. We had hoped to have family to visit, but the lockdown rules were a visit by day and not an overnight, so we got up early on Christmas morning and drove to West Sussex, spending the day with children and grandchildren, and then returning home. Now with more stringent rules we are facing a New Year’s Eve on our own. A friend posts a picture of the wines he is opening for the evening, a Meursault and a Chateau Gloria (envy, envy), and the evening’s TV viewing makes me feel out of touch and old. Lindsay suggests it is deliberately aimed at young people with the aim of keeping them indoors, and there is probably some truth in that theory. Our most enjoyable interlude was a Boxing Day visit to Kingston Lacy, where there was a Christmas light extravaganza, but that was really our only (distanced) social event.

Some views of 'Ignite' at Kingston Lacy

I started this diary with some hesitation – it was clear that it was going to be an unusual year – and with little else to do during the first novel lockdown, maintained a daily entry for some months. Now it will be more fragmented, but I hope to continue. I have not mentioned cases or the science for some time, but there is a huge upsurge in cases here and in many other places. The new variant is said to be much more transmissible. Some hospitals are seriously concerned that they will be overwhelmed. It seems to be a race against the clock to get as many people vaccinated as possible to try to obviate a major prolongation of the lockdown. Two tiny spots of good news – the so-called English variant is possibly only so because of the detailed virology that we do on cases as compared with other countries; and Brexit is done. The signed deal (which will not please everybody) was passed by parliament by an overwhelming majority. Roll on 2021, mass vaccination, and a brighter future. Love to all. Andrew McLeod, BA, MA, MB, BChir, MD, MRCP (Lond), ex FRCP, ex FESC (some of these appellations were earned, i.e. by exams; others were gifted, and the exes I gave away!)