Evening, early June, Castelldefels.
There should perhaps have been a fourth part to that opening sentence, something like, “during a Covid-19 pandemic”, but there again, why should I add that?
From what I could see as I cycled along, it was a normal, a perfectly normal Saturday evening in a seaside resort. Traffic jams with parking spaces all filled. The early days of lockdown where the air quality took on a surrealistically pure smell and look is now a thing of the past. All the old aggression of an overcrowded resort surfaced, even down to drivers losing patience at being held in a queue and abruptly turning off the main road in a savage breakaway from the barely moving line of cars and neatly knocking down a pedestrian on a crossing. How to ruin a Saturday night!
I would estimate that about 5% of the people I saw were wearing masks and there was little obvious physical distancing. There was no observance of the timed slots for different age groups, they were all there metaphorically (and in some cases literally) rubbing shoulders with each other.
What this attitude does suggest is that the dreaded “Second Wave” of the virus is almost certain to strike, and the social, political and moral fall-out is going to be severe the second time around.
The USA at present shows what happens when you are hit by a pandemic and, in the middle of that you are faced by a fully justified howl of outrage at yet another killing of a black individual at the hands of the police – and all while you have a person who is supremely unfitted to be the President in the time of crisis. From the black (if you will pardon the use of the word) farce of his inaugural speech, through the first lies (of the 18,000 or so that have been noted so far in his ‘presidency’) about the size of his crowds to his appalling references to George Floyd, Trump has made me search for new ways to describe the depths that he has plumbed in his degradation of the office of the presidency: however low our expectations, he manages to fall to depths previously unexpected or indeed dreaded.
I now look back at my fears about Barry Goldwater running for the presidency in 1964, as little more than hysterical scaremongering on the part of my fourteen-year-old self! Compared to Trump, Goldwater was a bloody statesman and I feel slightly ashamed that I was scared about the prospect of his winning. Look at the terrible reality of 2020 and the unfeeling charlatan who now holds the office!
Still there is some evidence that even parts of Trump's fanatical base are now responding to the reality of his complete mismanagement of virtually everything and the sobering fact that with his response to the virus and how to treat it, he is in a very real sense, trying to kill them off!
The same goes for the imitation Trump that we have as our prime minister. A friend phoned me today and said, “One of things that I don’t understand is why the wearing of face masks on public transport is going to be made compulsory on the 15th of this month! Why not now, if it is a necessary measure?” And that, is unanswerable, like so many of the normal, sensible questions that government ministers are asked every day. Unanswerable. And people continue to die and be infected.
The one sensible thing that I read today is that the Inquiry into the management of the crisis should be completed as quickly as possible so that we are prepared if there should be a second wave. We do not want to make the same mistakes again. Not with over 40,000 dead – so far. And the ‘real’ number is well over 50,000, and counting!
In the same telephone conversation with my friend, I mentioned again that there should be a charge of Corporate Manslaughter against Johnson and his cabinet over their mishandling of the crisis, to which my friend replied, “No! A charge of murder. Pure and simple. Murder!” And I tend to agree.
I am looking forward to my first swim in months with almost child-like enthusiasm. I am sure that my legs are in fairly good order with all the cycling that I have done, but my arms have not had the same workout and, having booked for an hour, it would be shameful to stop before my allotted time!
I usually take about 40 minutes to do my 1,500m or sixty lengths of the pool. We will have to see if my performance is still up to standard. Monday will tell.
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