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!

Don't forget to visit my 'new' poetry blog at smrnewpoetry.blogspot.com 

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 7

The first week completed; I would feel some sort of sense of achievement, if it wasn’t for the information that this is likely to be the first week of months of lockdown to come.

     We were first told that this Draconian form of self-isolation would last until the end of March.  My school said that lessons would probably resume on the 30^th of March.  People were geared up for a couple of weeks of ‘hardship’ before something approaching pre-virus normality was restored.  That now seems like a fond, self-deluding fantasy.  Some people have talked of a whole year of confinement!

     Although we have been told not to expect a vaccine for at least a year or more, we can look forward to some sort of treatment for the virus in a very much shorter time.  This may be metaphorically putting out the fire rather than ensuring that the fire never starts, but it is better than nothing.  If things go according to plan we ‘at risk’ group should be able to look forward to some sort of augmented flue jab by the autumn and some sort of treatment if we are actually infected and, who knows, perhaps a vaccine in short order too!

     But what will be the real costs of this pandemic extending through spring, summer and into the autumn?  Taking the worst of the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain) group of countries first, what exactly is going to happen to Greece?  Economically Greece is the basket case of Europe, and it was before the virus, so where does that place it now?  And Italy?  After (and during) the extended disaster of the virus on the country what is going to be left on which to build?  Portugal was a frail economy, what adjective can describe it now?  All of Spain’s hotels are closed, the tourist trade is dead; restaurants, bars and shops closed: how are they going to recover? And when does the recovery process start?

     From a personal point of view, I am one of those lucky buggers to have been able to retire at an age when I could take full advantage of an income-linked pension.  Even when I started to draw my pension, the government was belatedly panicking about how to pay it in the future.  The raising of the pension age was a (belatedly) desperate decision to put off the day of reckoning when the sums finally would have to be worked out.  A shrinking working population supporting a growing population of pensioners simply doesn’t work.  What those ‘sums’ are going to be like when this crisis is finally over is not something which makes me feel confident about my future finances.

     ‘Confidence’ and ‘Fairness’ are two key words to bear in mind when thinking about the short and long term consequences of the virus.  As with payment of pensioners, there will be questions about payment of workers who, because of the self-isolation policy, not working.  The government will be paying out and not getting anything like enough coming in to pay for it all.  OK, the interest rates on available money are almost insultingly low, so governments can borrow at more than attractive rates – but that money eventually has to be paid back.  It will be hardly surprising if people start to question the apportioning of scarce wealth in the coming months, and difficult questions will be asked about those to whom the limited wealth is given.

     Our politicians are fond of using war imagery during crises, and in Britain there is often an appeal to some sort of mythical national characteristic that is at its best in times of threat.  The appeal to ‘The Spirit of the Blitz’, the cheerful resignation, the make do and mend, the we can take it syndrome that will see us ‘muddle though’ and allow us to look back on national catastrophes with a wry smile and a slightly disbelieving shake of the head.  That’s the fantasy.

     The reality is supermarket shelves stripped bare as the outward sign of the vicious selfishness that is a far clearer marker for ‘national character’ than any of the mythic positive qualities of the past.  The ignoring of government recommendations to stay at home, to close pubs and clubs, to avoid travel and all the other ‘suggestions’ that the Blond Buffoon’s government were too cowardly to make into instructions when they were needed.

     British people, we have been told, have flocked to the seaside, are still gathering in dangerous groups, a still having a drink are still, in other words, doing all those selfish things that ensure the spread of the virus.  Modern Britain is generally, a glaring reflection of the selfish negativity that gave us the Brexit vote.

     I know that this negativity does not apply to the whole population.  My cousin in London has said that she has been overwhelmed by the number of emails and offers of help that she has received, that her street has an active and positive on line group that ensures that people in the at-risk group are never alone.  There will always be good people doing the right thing, but with a virus, all it takes is a tiny minority of irresponsible people to create havoc – and the minorities are hard at work doing exactly that in Britain today.

My walk around the pool was a more social event than it has been over the last few days.  This time, there was a fellow walker – not I rush to add in the same area as I, but in the next door’s tennis court, safely apart from our pool.  A young lady, with earphones securely inserted walking with brisk purpose around the court, their pool and back again.  We gave each other a quick, smiled “¡Hola!” as we passed.  I was waved to by two of our neighbours who leaned out from first floor living room windows.  But, if more people follow my example and perambulate around the pool, then I will stop doing it, the risks will increase and I will be confined to the third floor terrace.  That should be no problem, as we have been informed that someone has run a full marathon on a 7m balcony!  Where there is a will there is a way.

     But I do not think that the will is that strong.  Already you can see signs of ‘fraying’ as people buck against the unnatural confinement.  People want out!  And who is going to stop them?  And that is where I see the real problems lie.

     Talking to a friend in Britain, he said, “There will be riots in three weeks, if this keeps up!”   People will not be confined, and it will take police and the armed forces to keep them in place.  I think that social unrest is almost inevitable.  I was shocked to learn that in northern Italy people are not keeping to the strict restraints of quarantine.  In northern Italy the most toxic centre of the virus in Europe!  50,000 people turned up to see the Olympic Flame in Japan!  What part of contagion do these people not understand?  If rules continue to be flouted what is left for government, but enforcement?  And then god help us all!

Well, having thoroughly depressed myself, I will now turn to something a little more uplifting.  Um . . . ur . . . um . . .

I joined the MOOC (Massive Open On-line Course) with a university in Madrid looking at a series of paintings from the Renaissance to the death of Goya. (European Paintings; from Leonardo to Rembrandt to Goya – Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)  Although the course is ‘free’ there is a massive attempt to get you to pay $50 to have an augmented experience and be able to do the multiple answer ‘exams’ and to get a certificate at the end of the course.  The course is in English and it comprises a series of short videos and an on-line forum.

     I have looked at the first few videos for the course and, as far as they go, they are fine and dandy and aimed fairly squarely at those with little or no experience of art history: they are an engaging introduction and there is a standard choice of artists to consider.  I will ‘follow’ the course, but I’m not sure that I will learn a great deal, but there is much to be said for revision!  And I am looking at other courses that will be more stretching, and I have already found one on Modernism that looks promising!

A reminder that drafts of my new poems are available on my blog smrnewpoems.blogspot.com