I am
more than ever convinced that my government has no real plan to exit the
lockdown apart from a mystic belief in the ameliorative affect of the calendar,
and hope. I have seen no evidence that
the political leaders have the slightest idea of what they are doing, why they
are doing it and what they hope to achieve.
It is fairly clear that the loosening of
the lockdown restrictions were brought forward to try and combat the adverse
publicity about the lockdown cheat Cummings.
The tracking effort seems stillborn given the information that we have
had for those people who have been ‘trained’ so far. The opening of schools in England seems
motivated by politics rather than by health and education. Every part of the crisis has been made worse
by the way that it has been woefully mismanaged. And people die because of the mistakes that
this government makes, and they will go on dying until a more
convincing/efficient/moral/realistic – well, add your own adjectives, I can
think only of insulting ones for the bunch of incompetents that supposedly run
the country.
Here in Catalonia and in Castelldefels we
are due to move to Phase 2 on Monday.
This unites all parts of the metropolitan area of Barcelona into one
unit and that means that we are able to move about within the whole area. In theory, we think, it means that Toni would
be able to go to his home city of Terrassa and speak to his family, though he
would still have to keep physical distancing when he speaks to them. And I think that they could meet in an open
space. We are not absolutely clear about
the rules.
I have just come back from my evening bike
ride and the area where we used to live when we were first in Castelldefels looked
like a perfectly ordinary Sunday night in late May. Families were out and there were groups of
youngsters on bikes and wandering the streets.
The restaurants were doing a roaring trade and there were queues outside
some. The age range was from babies to
pensioners so, as far as the good people of Castelldefels are concerned, the
restrictions of Phase 1 are well and truly over.
On Monday, if the weather is good, I
confidently expect the beaches to be packed and we will then see if the
discipline of physical distancing extends itself to the sand!
On
the cultural front, lockdown has given me the opportunity via Netflix to watch
an extended selection of episodes of “Family Guy” and it has taken over
(almost) from my predilection for lauding “The Simpsons” as the best thing on
our TV screens.
Admittedly my lack of access to past
episodes of “The Simpsons” means that “Family Guy” has had something of a clear
run in making me a fan, but just as there are episodes of “The Simpsons” that
are stand-out amazing (I’m thinking of the episode when Bart is sent to France
and finds that he is a slave in a vineyard; the one where Marge takes part in
the musical version of “A Streetcar Named Desire” with a chorus number “You can
always depend on the kindness of strangers” or the remake of “Of Mice and Men”)
I have now seen an episode of “Family Guy” that stunned me.
“Send in Stewie, Please” is focussed on
just one character and is an extended episode that I understand was broadcast
without commercial breaks.
The action of the episode is centred on
the obnoxiously precocious baby of the family, Stewie. He has been sent to the child psychiatrist
because, as we eventually find out, he has pushed another child downstairs.
Stewie dominates this episode and through
picking up clues in photographs and other things he is able to give a crushing
description of the live and love of the psychiatrist (voiced brilliantly by Ian
McKellen!) before breaking down himself and revealing The Truth about
himself. It is mesmerizing. It is comic, without being funny and it is a
very polished piece of writing.
It was broadcast in March 2018 and I
recommend it if you haven’t seen it yet.
Whether you will get the full flavour of the episode if you haven’t seen
any other the others I am not sure, but it will still be a horrifyingly amusing
sort of experience!
“Family Guy” is a much more ‘adult’
animation than “The Simpsons” and uses tropes that you would never find in the
latter. It is also famous for its ‘cut
aways’ and these often have ‘real’ film or ‘real’ characters in them. Sexuality is a major theme, in a number of
varieties, sometimes very uncomfortably!
It’s all good stuff and I am thoroughly
enjoying my belated introduction to a splendid series!
For
Sunday lunch we had our traditional meal of chicken from the pollo a last where people are still
maintaining adequate physical distancing and forming an orderly queue. This Sunday the people tried to reinstate the
ticket system where, having taken a paper ticket, you are informed that it is
your turn by an electronic display. For the
last few weeks, because of the distanced queuing it was irrelevant and most of
us had queued without taking a ticket.
This meant that, when the owner tired to call out a number there was
instant rebellion from the queue and the system was dispensed with immediately. Something to bear in mind for next week!
Though, who knows how we will be behaving
by next week! Time now has the quick
slowness or slow quickness that can easily catch you out!
