LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 40 – Friday, 24rd APRIL

Years ago, when I was a volunteer on Cardiff AIDS Helpline, part of the duties of the volunteer was to staff the phones so that you could answer questions on the disease from members of the public who were able to ask for information in a safe environment where their anonymity was guaranteed.  It was very rewarding and volunteers were only allowed to take phone calls when they had undergone a fairly rigorous period of training.

     I remember, in one of the training sessions where we were being presented with simulations of calls one of the trainers, after listening to my responses said, “A little judgemental there, Stephen!”  I put it down to my being a teacher where there is an obvious overarching sense of direction and intent in the pedagogic approach.  But, with the Helpline, it was all about the caller: whatever the caller said and whatever the caller talked about, the volunteer had to go with it and suspend judgement.  I found it refreshing!  Whatever the caller had done, was doing or thought about doing, I was only there to give unbiased explanations and to give advice if asked.  I heard some shocking things but I learned not to judge only to supply facts to give the callers the information they needed to answer their questions and to give them clarity in the direction that best suited them.

     In the early days of the AIDS epidemic ignorance was the great killer.  In spite of the eventual mass advertising campaigns, the sometimes-gnomic approach was not direct enough for the basic information to get to the bulk of the population and some of the questions asked showed a shocking lack of understanding.

     One caller asked if it was possible for, “Me to give myself AIDS if I cut myself?”  While another when being told that the AIDS virus could be killed with a weak solution of bleach asked, “Couldn’t you inject that into somebody to kill the virus in them?”

     I was reminded of my time with the Helpline when reading and listening to Trump in one of his latest deranged pronouncements where he seems to be urging the use of internal UV treatment and the ingestion of bleach as a way of combating the Covid-19 virus!  30 years later and still the same level of ignorance, and this time not a random anonymous caller from Cardiff but the so-called leader of the free world who, from the time of his inauguration has spoken, “some weird shit” as Bush put it.

     At one time you could smile at the antics of the Orange Grotesquery, but it has become increasingly apparent that his mangled language simply kills.

The second attempt at Google Meet for our language classes was not an entire success.  The sound quality was variable, to say the least and the pictures confusing.  Having seen Zoom conferences of neatly aligned video feeds and exceptional audio, this experience was a little less than overwhelming.  I do not even think that I managed to get the basic information from our little gathering, but I will persevere and see what happens.

     Our Catalan group is about five or six on a good day, but I was the only one there and will have to relay imperfectly understood information in the hope of getting some sort of on line lesson up and running.  As far as I can tell, the only good thing coming out of the crisis is that we will not have any examinations; for which much thanks!  But it does call into question any certificate that we might be given at the end of the year!  What little Catalan I did have before the advent of Covid-19 has now altogether disappeared.  Every time I open my textbook, it is as thought I am starting from scratch.

     To justify our continued places in the virtual classes we have to do a certain number of ‘tasks’ and submit on line for assessment.  Having looked at the first one, I am even more confused than I was before the meeting, but no doubt, I will cobble something or other together and stagger on in the way that has become second nature to me when it comes to the study of languages!

We have just had a loudspeaker car come around the streets telling us that the normal municipal Friday collection of garden clippings and pine needles has been suspended until further notice.  You may not consider this much of a hardship, until you realize that the constant dropping of pine needles (in an area called after the pine trees) is a major problem.  This is not because of any unsightliness, but rather because of the threat that the accumulation of pine needles poses to the efficient working of our drainage system.  The pine needles block drains and cause floods unless they are cleared from gutters on a fairly regular basis.  Everything is interconnected and ignoring one part of the system will lead in a fairly short time to its collapse.  One wonders what other services have been dispensed with during this crisis and when the end results of this neglect will start showing itself.

     We are now two days away from the release of the Plague Kids into the streets on Sunday.  The rules (as far as anyone really knows them) say that a youngster can be taken out on a short walk accompanied by a single parent.  I simply do not believe that this is going to happen and we certainly do not have the number of police available to make sure that the rules are followed.  But, perhaps I am being cynical.

The sun is out and the sky is cloudless and all is well with the world.  At least, all is well with the world when it is concentrated on the third floor terrace, my private bit of the ‘outside’!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 8

To absolutely no one’s surprise the government is going to ask parliament to extend the period of lockdown, or the extension of the state of the emergency until the 11^th of April, so we have at least another weeks of restriction.   

     I wonder if this piecemeal approach to the lockdown is because the government is not prepared to let us know how long they really think it is going to be – especially for people of my age and generation as we slip neatly into the most at risk category, and therefore we can double or triple the ‘safe’ period for us to be at home?

     As someone who is restricted to a house and a quick circuit of the communal swimming pool, and television in a foreign language it is difficult to get a sense of proportion about the wider implications of an extension to the period of confinement.  But, of course, that is not going to stop me!

     The front of the house looks onto a important road that runs virtually the whole length of the beach part of Castelldefels; the back of the house looks onto the pool and the other houses of our type, together with houses on the first line of the sea and to our left, a block of flats along the main road. 

     So, based on that vastly exhaustive sample of Castelldefels and Catalonia I am now ready to extrapolate from my observed experience from the three floors of our house and pontificate about the future direction of the country.

     The number of people breaking the rules: walking in pairs; using the dog as an excuse to go further from the house than has been suggested; families with kids pushing the boundaries of where they can ‘exercise’; people walking without purpose; people rapidly reaching their tethers’ ends cooped up with kids – the afternoon especially are punctuated with childish howls.  All this is leading to a pressure point where people will rebel against restriction.  We are not supposed to leave our homes except for essential outings and that basically means buying food or seeking medical care and attention.  That is not how people are living their enclosed lives, and it will get worse over time.

    In Spain the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 is now 28,572 and the official death toll is 1,720, which, according to my calculations gives a mortality rate of 6%!  Of course this does not take into account the number of undiagnosed cases of Covid-19 there are in Spain, so the real percentage must be (surely) much lower than 6%? 

     This is the sort of disaster than strains the resources of any health service, even one as good as the Spanish.  We are going into uncharted territory and something will have to give.

On the personal front we are doing well, we have plenty of food, the baker is not far away, Toni is well into his on-line course and I have sighed up for two MOOC courses on Modernism and European Painting. 

     The painting course will be a delight with easy appreciation, while the second is rather more challenging with the readings for the first week of the course including Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Kant!  In translation, thank god!

Yesterday was Sunday, but you would have been hard pressed to have discerned any palpable difference from any other during our samey days ‘inside’.

It has been raining heavily this morning, and Toni ventured out to get the supplies that had been running low.  In spite of the adverse weather, Toni tells me that there were more people in the supermarket and that the experience was made worse because of some people’s inability to obey the restrictions about personal space and distancing.  It must make these social occasions dangerous.  Toni has returned in what I would describe as a disgruntled mood, failing to understand lack of adhesion to simple rules designed for personal safety against death!  But that’s people for you!  In all senses!

Much to my horror, our Catalan teacher from school has contacted me with a proposal to set up an on-line system where we can continue our studies.  I must admit that I was fully prepared to let my school time fade into the general chaos of a society in meltdown, but this (admittedly positive) offer is something that I will not, in all conscience, be able to ignore and consequently the Catalan lessons will be up and running again in some form, and “lo, my fit is come again!”

     As far as I understand the proposal, this will be based on a written form of social messaging system rather than a live face-to-screen experience, but who knows how this will develop?  I will have to knuckle down and get our merry band together and see where we go!

On another cultural tack: I have just finished reading an on-line essay called “The Fabric of History.  Power and Piety in the Pellegrinaio of Santa Maria della Scala” on the Academia website that offers a wide range of papers to read free, gratis and for nothing – though, as ever, there is a premium service that you can access by paying a fee.  I have downloaded two of my own papers on Art History to the site and have read numerous interesting (and sometimes impenetrable) papers in return.  I recommend it without reservation.

     This particular paper refers to a Renaissance hospital building in Sienna that is decorated with a series of murals that reward further study.  This paper takes an historical approach and there is something delightful in having your memory jogged, as one of the essays on a previous OU course that I took concerned one of the panels of this very fresco.  The rivalry between Florence and Sienna; popes and anti-popes; humanism and religion; piety and profit; charity and war; status and death – all are there in the backstory to the frescos.

     It was interesting that I read the paper with an eye that was constantly looking for ideas and quotations that I could use in my own essay.  This would have been very, very useful when I was doing my own work on the frescos and would have made my final mark higher I think!  As it is, I can read through with remembered scholarship and relax.  The paper is worth reading and the frescos are readily available to view on line. 

     And if you have never heard of the place and don’t know the frescos, then I would humbly suggest that given our home-bound existence at the moment, you could profitably spend some time reading and looking!

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