So, I was wrong about our moving phases today; we
are still in Phase 2, I think that there will be another week before we move to
a more relaxed point in this never ending saga of the virus.
I did not manage to get my slot either
today or tomorrow for my early morning swim and my slot for Wednesday is at 11
am to mid day. This is playing havoc with
the arrangements for my ‘lesson’ with my friend in the pool who wants to improve
his English by having conversation classes with me. Still, I think that the classes are worth
continuing, with benefits for us both!
We went out to lunch to one of our previous (i.e.
pre-Covid) haunts. The seating in the
restaurant had been adjusted to reflect the reduction in allowed capacity and,
as we were quite late getting to the place, we had a pick of the empty tables.
We
chose one in the same approximate place where we usually sit and then we
observed the service. The wearing of masks
by the serving staff was patchy. They seemed
to take every opportunity to remove them or to push them down to their
chins. Even when they were being worn,
some of the staff only covered their mouths and not their noses.
The restaurant
also has a thriving delivery service which utilises scooter riders to deliver
the food. When the riders came up to the
counter to collect the next order (a counter which is also the bar for the
place) they were not wearing masks.
I can
well imagine that wearing masks when doing your job in a restaurant is an
irritating annoyance – but it is also the legal requirement. Toni actually asked the girl who brought us
the menu (shouldn’t it have been a one page disposable thing?) to wear her mask
– she did, but she shouldn’t have needed to have been asked.
Toni became
more uncomfortable as the meal progressed and we saw further casual attitudes
towards the clinical necessity of wearing masks. I do not think that we will be going back, in
spite of the quality and value for money of the food.
Nothing
in the general attitude of people that we see around us gives us any confidence
that this pandemic is going to trail off into memory. Yes, people are eager to find the freedom
that comes with summer. They want to go
to the beach, take a dip and sunbathe, enjoy a drink, socialise with
friends. But if the crowded beach scenes
that I observed last weekend become the norm then we should expect a resurgence
of the virus in a few weeks’ time.
Tomorrow we are going to Terrassa for a Name Day
of one of Toni’s nephews. This will be
the longest trip that we have made for months.
We got the presents in a large supermarket and, apart from the fact that
everybody was wearing a mask, it was like a normal day. And we are nowhere near normality at
all. We are kidding ourselves that each
day brings us nearer to the end of the crisis and a few good, sunny days will knock
the virus out of our lives for good.
The
situation in the Republican states in America; the re-imposition of lockdown of
parts of Peking; the situation in Brazil; the increase in cases in India; the
on-going chaos of the UK; Argentina, Peru, Africa – wherever you look there is
evidence that we have not managed this virus with any degree of authority.
I shudder
for what the next few months might bring.
Obviously I hope that we find a vaccine or at least a treatment; I hope
that measures put in place around the world lessen the impact of the virus; I
hope that the fatal demagogues in positions of power finally begin to listen to
reason; I hope that governments take compassionate measures to protect the less
fortunate and at-risk members of society including the old, the ill and
schoolkids.
The
disruption of the virus does give an opportunity for an inventive and empathetic
government to re-think priorities and concentrate attention on the power-less,
rather than the oligarchs throughout the capitalist world who are urging their ‘puppet’
politicians to maintain the status quo which has given the rich even more
during this time of crisis.
The
real plague is not Covid-19, it is the power structure that allow a disaster to
become a revenue generator for those who already have too much.
In the ‘good
old days’ when Theatre In Education groups came and performed in schools, I was
able to welcome one company to my last Cardiff school, it was called the 7:84
Company, because seven percent of the population of the United Kingdom owned
eighty-four percent of the wealth. Do the
sums, that means that for ninety-three percent of the population that left just
sixteen percent of the wealth to be distributed among them all. The only thing that has changed is that now,
the disproportions are even greater.
And
what about the under-privileged? One
newspaper reported that about 2 million kids in lockdown in the UK have done
little or no school work during this period.
You can bet your bottom dollar that the privileged have been working
assiduously – so the gaps between those who have and those who have not will
become greater. There will be a whole
generation of kids who will be playing catch-up with little or no technology to
allow them to access on-line material.
The
government has already stated that the coupon or voucher system which allows
poorer kids to have a school meal, will end with the end of term. How much has this government poured into the
hands of million and billion -aire owners of firms and industries? But they are not going to feed the most
vulnerable in our society.
It is a
damning condemnation of our society that in the 300 years since the publication
of Swift’s Modest Proposal, there hasn’t been a time when it is more apt
than now. For those of you who haven’t
read it, it is readily available on line.
It is a fairly short work, but the punch that it packs is out of all
proportion to its brevity, and it is sickening because it still describes the
reality of the way that we are.
Some
governments have come or are coming out of this crisis with their reputations
improved; some are still in a slough of their own making.
What
has happened and is going on happening in the UK should be the moment when the
people stand up to be counted and say, “No more!” There has to be a better way than allowing
the hollow man Johnson to kill even more than he and his cabinet lightweight
misfits have already done.
The
decade of Conservative rule has cheapened, humiliated, divided, impoverished
and coarsened, we deserve better!
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