When you don't know it's Sunday, its time to think!

 New Lockdown, thrid week, Sunday.

 

 

 

 

In theory this morning, I should have been surrounded solely by my fellow citizens of Castelldefels as I went on my accustomed bike ride.  During the weekends we are legally bound to keep within our municipalities.  Yesterday there was a police control on one of the roads coming off the motorway checking, well, asking people where they were from.  When we were asked and replied, “Castelldefels” w were further asked where in the city we lived.  Having given the answer, we were waved on without further ado or any checking.  To be fair, my car windscreen does have a Castelldefels parking permit, which could have been an indication that we were telling the truth.  Policing of the lockdown restrictions where we live has, you might say, been somewhat unobtrusive.

     Today is a bright, sunny morning – just the sort of day when you might feel like visiting the seashore and walking along our extensive paso.  There were no police in evidence anywhere along my ride at the key points where access roads from ‘outside’ allow entry to the beach area of the town.  And if we are relying on trust for these restrictions to work, then information and graphic videos from around the country and the world show just how ineffective relying on people to do the right thing can be.

     I did note today that although a majority of people passing me were not wearing masks (and I include those with the mask under the nose and one the elbow!) the minority who do wear their masks is slowly getting nearer to parity.  Perhaps by the time the first vaccines hit, we might actually have made 50%!

 

 

 

Cummings fall from grace echoes other ‘over mighty’ counsellors like Cromwell, More and Wolsey, with somewhat less fatal results.  Which some might bewail.  And I think that I will leave the last sentence there with its nice ambiguity!

     Cummings’ influence has been truly poisonous and it is difficult to feel any sympathy from a person who has shown so little in the execution of his duties.  The fiasco of the illegal lockdown trips for ‘child care’ and ‘eyesight testing’ had a direct influence on the way that the restrictions were perceived, and emphasised the ‘one law for them, another for us’ syndrome that is so clearly in evidence here in Spain too with the kid glove treatment of the criminal activities of the so-called king emeritus and his corrupt financial dealings.  At a time where unity of purpose is essential, establishment figures seem to go out of their way to undercut acceptance.

     Cummings should not be the story; Covid and its management in the UK is the essential narrative that we should be concerned with, though Johnson must be terrified that he is going to become the intense focus of attention, and he will have to step up and take some sort of responsibility for the chaos that characterises his method of ‘government’.

     To be fair to Johnson, I do not for a moment believe that he has any ethical rock or ideological motivation.  It is, of course, unreasonable to expect a narcissist to be anything other than self-regarding and as, by definition, he cannot be wrong, he will continue to find others to take the blame for his own deadly incompetence. 

     All Johnson has to do is look over the Atlantic to see a master class in the survival game that he wants to play.  Trump’s reasoning is, “If I am losing an election then it must be rigged.”  Simple, elegant and criminally deranged. 

     This is the game plan that means that the population of the UK has to be blamed for the increase in Covid infection and not the people elected to manage its containment: the greater the numbers the more at fault those being infected are!  There is a sort of evil elegance to such reasoning.  And, of course the PBI not only get to suffer but also get to pay for their suffering! 

     Modern Conservatism to a ‘T’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Daddy, what did you do during lockdown?”

     Yet another re-working of the First World War recruitment poster is an accusation to those of us with time on our hands to think about what we have made of the extra ‘space’ imposed on us.

     I should be writing.  I know that I am merely by keeping this blog up to date, but the writing that I am thinking about is what starts in my notebook and is sometimes worked up into poems.  As I have explained before, my routine has been shot by my not being able to go for a swim and then to have my reward of a cup of tea in the pool café, where I then write in my notebook.

     I know that it should be perfectly easy for me to write in it at any other time – but it just doesn’t work out like that.  So, my writing has been a little desultory.

     I have therefore decided to do something different and (for me) interesting.

     I am going to compile a Catalogue Raisonné of the art works that I own.

 

 

 

 

     Not only is a Catalogue Raisonné something which is necessary for insurance purposes [that sounds a bit forced, but at the same time there is an element of truth to it] but also it will, I am sure, bring to the surface some ‘art works’ that have been unduly neglected over the past few years. 

     What, for example, am I going to class as artworks?  The small penguin figure made by a youthful Pat Giles in Rumney Pottery and bought by me as a present for my grandmother, will certainly count.  But what about the Coty bunny (without the bottle of Coty L’aimant in its little paws) bought as the final present my mother recognized getting from me?  Surely, that counts?  If Duchamp can have ‘readymades’ then I should be entitled to ‘bought objects with emotional charge’ as part of the catalogue!

     From where I am sitting typing this I can see four, framed ‘works’.  The first (and largest) is an ink drawing that I bought when I was a student in Swansea; the second is a page from an artist’s sketchbook; the third an elegant ‘joke’ birthday card where a penguin (a recurrent visual theme in my life) is treated in the style of various modern artists; the fourth is four framed medals of my paternal grandfather from his time in the British Army in The First World War.

     The great thing about a Catalogue Raisonné is that it has nothing to do with monetary worth (the ‘insurance thing’ was just a ploy to get me started and give a facile ‘purpose’ to the enterprise) but the written description that accompanies the objects can hint at the true non-monetary value.

     Then there is the question of my watches – not one of which is truly (or in some cases even remotely) valuable – but they do have a sort of worth and many have excellent design and they are worthy of consideration.

     So, far from being something which is static and visual art fixated, my Catalogue Raisonné will be dynamic, its scope changing with its development and how I look at what I possess.

     I’ve just thought, what about my (pitifully) small number of first edition books?  (Peake, Coward, Huxley) and my older tomes, like Swift – and when I say like Swift, I mean just Swift.  They too have a place.  And it will be fun finding out exactly how the condition of these books is described and replicating the language in my personal catalogue!

     The first thing to do is begin to take photos of what I have and then put them in the inevitable booklet that is my default position when confronted with a visual and writing project.

     I will start at once!

Lockdown lite? Really?

 NEW LOCKDOWN Day 2, Saturday

 

 Bit of an anti-climax, my bike ride, this morning.  There was I expecting to be stopped at the border by masked police as I dared venture into the ‘Sitges’ part of Castelldefels – and, nothing.  No even the sight of a police car.  Instead, joggers, cyclists and walkers (with and without dogs) and the vast majority of them without masks.

     Yet again, I wonder at what news broadcasts these people are watching, as the ones that I see add incrementally to the supressed terror with which I regard ordinary life in the Time of Covid – whereas, for those mask-less people they either have secret supplies of the Moscow vaccine or they are living in a fools’ paradise, in which infection only happens to other people.  On my bike ride I counted (because I do) 150 people who were not wearing masks, in an area where we have a new lockdown and where there is a curfew.  Logic seems to be in short supply.

     But enough of the constant bewailing of the idiocy of the general population; the sun is shining and I know that the real blame should be laid on those who have the PAID RESPONSIBILITY to consider our safety and to encourage us to abide by clear instructions for our SURVIVAL.

     I am convinced that the incandescent ineptitude shown by the governing classes will finally have allowed the status of politicians even to sink beneath the previously accepted nadir of human activity, estate agency. 

      

Trump (Dump him!  Dump him!) used to be an outlier for idiotic mendacity but, alas, he is now seen as more of a patron saint by bumbling politicos throughout the world.  Those sad imitators must be terrified by the prospect of Trump’s political demise, as they will no longer have the shield of his in-post awfulness to make their deficiencies seem moderate by comparison.  I wonder how Johnson is contemplating being called the British Bolsonaro?  Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it does it?

     Taking of U-Turn Johnson, it seems as if it is likely that there will be a pronouncement early next week that England will have a stringent lockdown, a firebreak, to contain the appalling increase in infection.  Perhaps Johnson should also U-Turn on the provision of free school meals at the same time in the hope that the reaction lockdown will cover any (further) fall-out. 

     I wonder what Brain Box Cummings (the Master of Forecasting) will have advised.  Cummings’ past performance puts him on a par with a pop ‘clairvoyant’ in one of the trashier teenage magazines and let’s face it, he only manages to preserve his ‘reputation’ for being far-sighted by retrospectively doctoring his past posts.

 

I have delayed posting this until after The Blond Buffoon spoke (eventually) to the British Public in his waffling, bumbling, ‘ur’-heavy delivery, and looking all the time as though he would rather be somewhere, anywhere else.  This is his umpteenth U-turn - is anyone keeping count?  Like Trump’s lies we need to have a Radio 4 programme like ‘More or Less’ keeping tabs on Johnson’s vacillation, and calling it out as such as yet another glaring example comes out of his mendacious mouth.

     As an example of speaking to the public it was an inept performance; as a way of rallying the troops and explaining clearly and carefully what we need to do and why we need to do it – well, Johnson has never been any good at that sort of thing.  And frankly, after Cummings’ various jaunts in defiance of the rules, it is very hard to take anything Johnson says as having even the faintest stamp of moral authority.

     In other words, we were treated to yet another public embarrassment of stuttering ineptitude by a public servant (sic!) who looks bored by the effort of having to do what he feels he has to do to keep the rule-following population that elected him quiet, or at least,  quiescent.

     For how much longer is anyone’s guess: and that covers not only Johnson’s position, where the people in suits are prowling around seeking whom they might kick out, but also the attitude of the British/English people, and their ability to keep from open rebellion against a distant elite that seems daily more remote from their concerns.

 

Today was sunny in Castelldefels and the paseo was crowded.  In theory all the people I passed on my bike ride today should have been from Castelldefels, but I very much doubt that that was true.  Every weekend we get an influx of people from the surrounding area and today was no exception.  I saw no evidence of an increase police presence checking family-filled cars coming into the coastal part of the town – and without that visible presence (going on the experience of the last lockdown) people will behave as if irksome rules are not for them.

     I await further developments in our fortnight (as planned at the moment) of restrictions to see how the situation develops.

 

Know me and die!

Mao Zedong, he of the rotting teeth, lice infested body, venereal diseases and mass murders, had a succession of young women for sex and he regarded their infection as a sort of honour bestowed by his sick wonton largesse. 

I thought back to that disgusting dictator when Covid-riddled Trump appeared on the veranda of The White House and took off his mask so that he could infect those in his immediate vicinity who had not already fallen prey to his super spreader tendencies and who, alas, would not have access to the experimental, rare and expensive medical treatment that his 750 dollars of annual tax would come nowhere near to covering.

It is astonishing, humbling and terrifying, to watch a dedicated narcissist doing what he does best: thinking solely of himself in the glorious exclusion of everyone around him.  There is a sort of Neronic magnificence to his almost complete lack of empathy, humanity and consideration.

As I watched him gibbering away in his debased form of English, he also made me think of Samuel Butler’s strange anti-Utopian novel Erewhon (1872) where illness is considered a crime and where crime is treated as an illness.  This, almost perfectly, fits the world view of Trump where for him illness is just for ‘losers’ and crime (as illustrated by so many characters in the harlequinade of depravity that constitute his entourage) is regarded as something that should be treated with leniency and understanding and is easily excused and even pardoned.

Trump’s brush (as he would like us to consider it) with Covid merely shows that all you need is strength of character to defeat the virus.  The 210,000 (and growing) dead Americans were weaklings.  And didn’t have helicopter access to the 24/7 state-of-the-art medical attention that Trump had.  But that is a minor point compared to the element of confidence that is so much more effective against viral infections than any mere medication.

After four years of not believing the degradation and mendacity that have been keynotes in the dystopian presidency of Trump I am exhausted by disgust.  I find it hard to keep up the level of contempt that Trump so richly deserves as yet another parody of leadership is beamed into our homes. 

The lies, the contradictions, the weasel words, the insults, the corruption, the vulgarity, the sheer worthlessness of the whole Trump enterprise with the loathsome Republican reptilian political power junkies that acquiesce in his continuing pollution of his role are all draining.  I know that four more years of this buffoon will be insupportable and I sincerely hope that Biden and Harris manage the landslide that they, that anyone other than Trump and his discredited troop of filth, deserve.

The trouble with the Dumping of Trump (please god) will be that all the attention, at least from my point of view, will then be focused on the end of the year and Brexit and our own home-grown liar and narcissist trying to spin it as anything other than a disaster.

Trump and Johnson are united by their lust for power and attention and by their complete lack of something coherent to do with it.  Neither has an ideology, apart from the glorification of themselves, they don’t really know what to do.  This is why Cummings is so important to Johnson because he can supply a mirage of possibilities that Johnson assumes (he is far too lazy to question and understand) will give enough direction to focus his pitifully short attention span and make him look as though he has vision.

Johnson’s linking of the present dangerous times to the post war Labour government’s belief in making a New Jerusalem is an insult to the cross-party endeavour that looked beyond the end of the war as the time to put brave plans into operation. 

Johnson has read a speech.  He hasn’t thought about what society he wants at the end of this pandemic.  He hasn’t worked on ideas, sat down with experts, felt the enthusiasm that something better must emerge from a time of struggle and danger.  Johnson uses words like thin glue on a fragile house of cards: he knows nothing and believes nothing to make plans realities.

Trump and Johnson were presented with a disaster.  Their job as leaders was to keep people safe.  They have both failed.  Failed spectacularly.  Hundreds of thousands of people have died because two empty chancers have not cared enough to give time, thought and determination to do the basic parts of their jobs.

Mao killed millions.  The only thing stopping Trump and Johnson from doing the same is opportunity.  Unchecked, shoddy populists like them will whittle away at our freedoms, will act with growing autocratic assumption and will destroy.  They have already been devastating in their negativity.  At least with Trump there is the opportunity to dump him and to start the process of normalization, with Johnson he has years and an 80 majority and Brexit. 

I weep for my country and pray that our institutions are hardy enough to withstand the onslaught that the political griffon of Johnsummings is likely to wreak on everything that I thought was secure and good.

 

I really can write myself into an apocalyptic frame of mind, typing fingers dance to depression.  So, let me lurch out from the darkness and find something lighter on which to end – whoops, there is a negative word if ever there was one.

I was phoned today by a very pleasant lady from the Liceu who gave me some details of how the new opera season is going to happen.  We have previously been told that there will not be as many people in the theatre and that we will not have to sit next to anyone and we cannot be guaranteed ‘our’ normal seats. 

It will be like joining the audience for a little-known ‘difficult’ modern opera where most people vote with their feet and reject any attempt to experience anything about the more esoteric and atonal music of the present day. 

There is always an audience when I go to the opera because I have a season ticket and therefore all the other holders of Torn A are in their seats whatever the opera actually is.  The first opera (actually on my birthday) is not obscure at all, it is Don Giovani and therefore it would normally have a full house.  It will be odd sitting in a performance of so famous an opera with Christopher Maltman as the Don with a sparse audience, it will be interesting to see if the ‘spaciousness’ affects the experience.

I cannot say that I am entirely jocose about going to the theatre at all.  The cases of Covid in Spain and Catalonia are, frankly, terrifying and I find it difficult to imagine how the Liceu is going to organize things so that they are even marginally ‘safe’.

To take a single example: the average age of opera goers is high and that puts us in the ‘at risk’ category and, most importantly, we also need to pee.  The toilets for our particular section of the Liceu are small and are usually crowded during the period before the performance and during the intervals.  Quite how this is going to be regulated without increasing the risk of infection (and middle-class violence) is going to be fascinating to observe!

As we will have to wear our masks during the performance, it will be important to chose a mask that is comfortable to wear for long periods of time and one that doesn’t steam up my glasses too much!

But these are problems that have a gloriously musical ending, so I don’t care too much, and look forward with what positivity I can muster to enjoy myself.