Hoovering,
dishwashing, Guardian, tea, muesli, rant at renovations next door: all
done! What a domestic soul I am
becoming. As if.
The sharing of homemade videos is becoming
rampant and the innate lunacy contained within them is becoming more
pronounced; but there is a sort of defiant dark humour that is positively
uplifting in them as well.
The dark humour connected to the virus is
best exemplified by the writing of John Crace, the parliamentary sketch writer,
in the Guardian.
He was a point of sanity throughout the
whole Brexit farrago and he continues to be a guide through the shameful antics
of the so-called government of the United Kingdom. If you have not read his withering
condemnation of the Blond Buffoon and Dom then you should. It might be gallows humour in these dark
times, but it always manages to raise a laugh, yes, that laugh might well be
rueful but it is better than allowing yourself to plumb the depths of disbelief
at what the Conservatives think they can get away with! I recommend him without hesitation, as I
recommend any and all of the books that he has published. Long may his pen show up the vicious
charlatans for what they are!
While we are on the subject of the worth
of our present government, you might like to read the following:
This
is a summation of the reactions of the rest of the world to the way that the
Blond Buffoon and his circus have handled the pandemic in the UK. When this is over, we must hold our political
‘masters’ to account. It is more than
likely that the Conservatives’ policy over the virus has directly led to more
deaths than if they had adopted some of the measures that other countries have
put in place. There must be an
accounting with an independent report that aims at transparency when
apportioning blame.
My jaundiced view has been tempered by the
fact that the renovation next door continues (illegally?) with much banging and
that is the last thing that you need when you have been locked up for the last
nine days – with the prospect of months to come!
Another irritation (if that is the right
word for it) is that I have not managed to dislodge the various earworms of
snatches of the operas that I recommended yesterday. The bits and pieces of “Four Saints in Three
Acts” by Virgil Thomson is particularly difficult not to hear. Stein’s libretto is nonsensical and I pity
the poor singers having to learn some of the sequences that they have to sing,
but it is undeniably (for me) catchy.
When Stein was taxed about the fact that nobody could understand what
the opera was about, she countered with the brave assertion that if you enjoyed
it you understood it! And the opera was
popular and ground-breaking. It had a
black cast of singers in its first performances and the set design used the
newly invented cellophane as part of the decoration: very avant-garde! Well, for 1927 it was! I do urge you to go to YouTube and listen and
look at the fragments of this fascinating opera!
I do also urge you to look at the classic
repertoire as well. It is easy to cheat
your way through famous operas on YouTube as they often give you the famous
bits, in terms of overtures, preludes and arias, in manageable bite-sized
chunks. And you never know what you
might like. I know someone whose first
operatic experience was ‘Tristan and
Isolde’ by Wagner, a long and dense opera.
She loved it and become an enthusiastic operaphile on the spot! It takes all sorts. And it has taken me a long time to honestly
admit that I enjoyed a performance – which I did with the last production of
the Liceu. Some operas, like ‘Eugene Onegin’ by Tchaikovsky I first
heard in a dress rehearsal and instantly ‘knew’. It helped that I knew the dance music from it
that I had given to me as one of my first EPs (extended play discs) when I was
a kid, but operas like that are almost absurdly approachable.
Enough
of this escape into Culture. Back to
reality. We have now been in lockdown
for 9 (or officially 11) days, so that means that we are getting to the end of
the incubation period for the virus and this week may well be one in which
there is a jump in the figures of those who are infected. It has been suggested that people should
think twice about ANY journeys outside the residence (yes, I am talking to you
people next door!) for any reason at all.
Even bread buying, which is an almost sacred ritual in this country, is
too weak an excuse to leave the house!
We are not entirely breadless. We do have individually sealed, square, flat,
wholemeal, calorie reduced, ‘buns’ that seem to last for ever. Whether you can actually convince yourself
that what you are eating bears any resemblance to ‘bread’ is something else,
but in times of crisis it is better than nothing. Just.
We have enough food to get us through to
next week and we can assess the situation then and decide whether it worth
while for (Toni) to venture out again for supplies.
I
have just come in from my morning walk around the pool. The weather is not as clement as it has been
for the past few days and it was more of a chore than usual. As I trudged my way around (varying the
direction) on my lonely circuits, during which nobody has joined me, I felt
like a Rudolf Hesse figure, plodding his way around the empty exercise yard in
Spandau. Having typed that, I realize
that there are too many associations with that image that have nothing to do
with my present situation. But it is
interesting that I did not delete it, but rather chose to discuss its
inappropriateness; or on further consideration there are elements that
illuminate: the sense of isolation in an institution made to accommodate more;
the artificiality of the incarceration; the politics of continuation – and I
think that I am overthinking an image of an aging man in a prison exercise
yard! A bit.
The
number of Covid-19 infected people in Spain has not surpassed that of
China! The largest number of cases is in
Madrid, which is not locked down in the same way as Barcelona. It seems foolish not to be truly Draconian in
a situation of absolute crisis, but that is politics for you!
I
have always taken a ghoulish delight in following the build up to each Olympic
Games. I am not so much interested in
the sports as in the various crises: political, financial, social,
architectural etc that illuminate the via dolorosa from the moment the games are
awarded, to the opening ceremony.
It
used to be the almost comical corruption of the IOC members and the shocking
ways in which the successful city managed to capture the games that added to
the delight of nations. The IOC has
(allegedly) cleaned up its act, a little and there is more transparency about
the awarding of the games, so my prurient interest has to concentrate on
unrealistic timetables for delivery and the corruption in building that seems
an Olympic Event in its own right.
I well remember the tune of the BBC
presentation of the Olympics in Tokio in 1964 - I am humming it in my mind as I
type)
Only
surpassed as an Olympic tune by the brilliant song for the Barcelona Olympics
in 1992
Tokio
2020 has had its share of scandal, but is obviously going to be overshadowed by
Covid-19. If (and it’s a big ‘if’) the
games take place in 2021 they will still be called the 2020 games
apparently. I like quirky things like
that! Does this mean that the next games
will be three years later, not four?
Such considerations keep me occupied.
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