LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 39 – Thursday, 23rd APRIL

 

We seem to be trapped in a never-ending news cycle that endlessly repeats itself: statistics and excuses.

     It is fairly obvious that the present front bench is no longer truly concerned about how this crisis works out in terms of the human cost, but rather in who is going to be blamed for the way in which the crisis has been managed.  They can already see the various paragraphs of blame in the conclusions of the inevitable public inquiry and they are thinking, as always, only about their own survival and that of their discredited party. 

     If I was a member of the group of scientific experts that have had any contact with the Conservative politicians I would be engaging a lawyer now to keep a watching brief for the time that the Tory scum begin to put all the blame for their actions on the selective scientific advice that they will claim that they always followed.

     I think the case for corporate manslaughter charges against relevant ministers is almost overwhelming and I would willingly support a crowd-funded appeal for funds to prosecute the perpetrators of the fatal self-serving dithering incompetence that characterised the management of the crisis so far.

     The story of the PPE supplies get more murky by the second, with the Turkish connection being more akin to farce than competent procurement.  We have utilized the RAF to fly to Istanbul to get a partial cargo back!  The PRIVATE firm that our government has used to store the PPE stockpile has been sold to another firm during the crisis!  You couldn’t make this rubbish up, but is par for the course for a government that can pay millions to a ferry line with no boats.

     All this and Brexit too!  The bunch of third-rate incompetents still have the desire to take us out of the EU with no deal.  Weeping is not enough!

     The papers are taking a little time to consider who might be the scapegoat for the fatal disaster of crisis management.  The obvious candidate is Matt Hancock the man without fixed ethos, who swallowed his previous beliefs for the tempting offer of a seat in the sort of cabinet that he would have shunned previously.  But, what the hell, in the dregs of ability that is the present Conservative Party, he is some sort of star.

     With what has happened so far in the debacle of the crisis he has said things and made claims that cannot all be true.  He has therefore said the thing that was not.  And there is the question of the 100k tests that he has promised by the end of the month which are clearly impossible to deliver.  So that will be a resigning matter.

     With a fragmented cabinet in the absence of the Blond Buffoon and with the in fighting that must be going on, poor old Beckett must be wandering around with a selection of knives sticking into his back! 

     I have zero sympathy for him.

The talk of exit strategies is gaining ground, though we are not getting very much clarity about what they might be.

     Here in Spain I think that the weekend relaxation for the isolation of kids might be a way of the government seeing how well or how badly the population runs with this.  If it is a disaster and people take advantage then perhaps there will be a swift reversion to a stricter lockdown; if it goes well, perhaps it will be a start of a series of relaxations.

     The Scottish parliament is saying that some form of social distancing will be in force until the end of the year, at least for the at risk sections of the population.  We are not dealing with any definite information; there is no way that plans can be made for any events months ahead.  When is flying to and from Spain going to start again?  No idea.  And no idea about when we might expect to get an idea.

At least the sun shone for some time today.  I’m thankful for that.

    

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 37 – Tuesday, 21st APRIL

 

It’s still raining.  It has been raining solidly for three days.  This is not what I paid up to join when I moved to Catalonia!  Where is the sun?

     Poor weather merely forces one to take even more notice of the news, and that of course drives one back to the weather once again.

     The scandal of the non-appearing PPE in Britain and the way that statistics are being thrown around concerning testing make me angry.  Politicians seem to equate hopes with hard statistics, as with the Turkish PPE that were talked about as supplying the NHS and they are still waiting.  In exactly the same way the Health Secretary was talking about the availability of tests for Covid-19, but the key question is how many tests have actually been administered?  From Beckett’s answers this evening, it is obvious that he is going to weasel out of resigning when he fails to get to the target for testing at the end of the month.

     While the supply of PPE rumbles on and with of course hospitals and care homes and health workers failing to be adequately supplied, the earlier part of that scandal has come back to haunt the government.

     Some time ago Britain was invited to join other EU countries in uniting forces to source supplies of PPE using the buying power of bulk purchase.  Though invited, Britain did not sign up.  Why?  According to the Conservatives, it was because they didn’t see the email.  According to a senior Civil Servant it was a political decision taken to placate the Brexit idiots.  According to the Conservatives, it was a single email that was missed.  According to other official is was a series of invitations that were not acted upon. 

     I have to say that I am inclined to agree with Philip Pullman who has written that he thinks the entire government front bench should resign at once, and if it can be shown that they ignored the invitation because of Brexit prejudice then they should be charged with manslaughter.  The Conservatives have issued a detailed refutation of the story in the Sunday Times that questioned their record and their motivations – but this story will haunt (as it should) the Government and the way that they played the early stages of the crisis.

Here in Spain and Catalonia there is almost terminal confusion about the government’s plans to loosen the lockdown to allow children to leave the house when accompanied by a parent.  The details of who, what, when, where, how often, how far, how old, how many and on and on are all bubbling up and there is no real authoritative governmental voice giving the sort of clarity that needs to be in place if there is not to be utter chaos when the policy comes into play.

     Like the masks that each citizen is entitled to.  On the first day of the distribution of the masks via the pharmacies the system crashed and so the television news carried stories of chaos rather than the extension of protection for us all!

     There are too many stories of chaos and too few of planned competence.

On the lighter side, I have received my parcel from Pound Shop.  It seemed to me that that could be a way of getting essential supplies through via the UK.  It all depends, of course, on how you define ‘essential’.

     In order to make the delivery charge worthwhile I had to spend about fifty euros and what I ended up with was a positive lucky bag of questionable goodies ranging from ‘chip shop curry granules’ via Cross and Blackwell baked beans to dark chocolate Toblerone. 

     In times of isolation, one needs one’s treats!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 34 – Saturday, 18th APRIL

 After ‘Moppy’ had done her work; the Guardian Quick Crossword had been completed; my blend of Earl Grey and English Breakfast tea drunk, it was time for my walk, accompanied by the comforting fatuousness of ‘Saturday Live’ on BBC Radio 4.  I also had a purpose other than gentle exercise.  I was looking for raw material to serve as ‘illustration’ for my PIHW Chapbook, Coasts of Memory.

     As I have often bewailed in the past, I have little technical ability in drawing or painting and so I have to rely on photography to get me out of illustrative predicaments.  The situation is made somewhat worse because of the lockdown that obviously restricts my range of subject matter.  I have therefore taken the ‘pleasure in small things’ approach and told myself that I am perfectly capable of finding variety in restriction: from the terrace on the third floor to the far wall of the communal swimming pool, my area of activity might be limited, but it is (I tell myself) rich in illustrative possibilities.  I have therefore taken photos and they await my ruthless editing!

The one shining light of Trump’s ‘Presidency’ is that he is terrified of being a ‘one term’ holder of that office; every other thinking person’s terror is that he should be anything else, after all it is going to be difficult enough to sort out the human, reputational, financial, moral, institutional, legislative, aesthetic and political morass that he will have left after a single term, let alone the horror of his being allowed to play with the USA for an extra four years!

     It is obvious that Trump has decided to stop at absolutely nothing in his aim to retain power and the latest horrific indication of the depths to which he is prepared to sink is evidenced by his encouraging demonstrations against some states’ lockdown restrictions. 

     Trump’s base ‘base’ is essentially rural rather than urban and with his encouragement of the grouping of extreme right sets opposing health and science predicated lockdown, he is hoping for a conflict that he thinks might show him to be the champion of the voice of freedom against those (Democratic) governors who are seeking to repress the true liberties of right thinking Americans to court death and carry guns – and you can scatter as many quotation marks around in that last sentence as your liberal sensibilities dictate!

     That in a time of a catastrophic pandemic the Presidential Egoist can think of fostering something like Civil Disobedience if not Civil War would be unbelievable if it were not Trump.

     On an incidental note: if (please god) Trump is a one-term President, can you see him attending the inauguration of the new Democratic President?  Can you see him visibly handing over power?  What excuse will he make not to attend?  How will he even be able to get through the transition period when he should meet his successor?  If you think back to the intensely embarrassing meetings with Obama when he looked like a naughty schoolboy with a stupidly long tie, what are the ones going to be like with the person who beat him?  My mind finds it difficult to place Trump in any meetings that emphasise his failure to hold on to office.  How can anyone as thinly narcissistic as he bare it?  The thought is something that keeps me warm at nights!

     Talking of narcissists, how long is it going to be that our airwaves are going to be free of the bumbling banter of the virus courter?  He has signally failed to resign because of his dereliction of duty in wilfully becoming infected and I dread to think of the fawning adulation of the gutter press when he bumbles into view, bravely leading our country to destitution and ignominy, after the searing affliction of his virtually self-inflicted illness.

     Meanwhile we have the political chancer, Matt Beckett, the ethic-free (give us a job!) pitiful holder of the Secretary of State for Health portfolio refusing to give straight answers to the almost criminal shortages of PPE for our front line health workers, or indeed anything else of crucial interest to the remaining virus free part of the population of the UK.  I wonder how he is going to convince us that there are 100K tests by the end of the month?  We can dispense with truth, that has never bothered him in the past as he has changed his principles as often as his underwear, so how is he going to square the circle so that he can keep his comfy job.  His past record shows that he is capable of the most egregious U-turns, so I await his contortions.  Resignation will never come easy to one who has swallowed so many of his scruples to get where he is at present.  In some ways it could almost be funny to watch his antics, but people will die because of his incompetence, so smiles will be inappropriate.  Perhaps they might be allowed as long as they are sardonic!

After a fairly glum start to the day there are brief periods now when sunshine is squeezing out from behind the clouds.  There are distinct patches of blue and that bodes well for a sunny later afternoon.  I live in hope.

The PPE situation now seems desperate in the UK.  The weekend is the time when certain medical institutions will run out.  This is an utter disgrace and if it does happen then the Health Minister must resign immediately and the rest of the tossers in the so-called bloody government.  And the fact that worthless trash like IDS and the unutterable David Davis are pontificating about the present crisis after their assiduous cheerleading into the last one over Brexit is more than depressing.

     I am very well aware that trying to get anything like efficiency and normality in a crisis situation is difficult and there has to be leeway for the unexpected, but the necessity for basic supplies is fundamental and that is where this so-called government has failed so signally.  Why are our deaths so high?  Why did we wait so long before instituting the lockdown?  Why are basic materials in short supply?  So many questions to which our political leaders have no real answers.

     Why do we tolerate them?

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 29 – Easter Monday, 13th APRIL

In the best traditions of British Bank Holiday Mondays, it is pouring with rain here in Catalonia.  The one difference, I have always maintained, is the lack of spitefulness in holiday weather in Catalonia so that there is always a possibility of seeing some sunshine during the day – it may not be much, but it will be there.

     Today is the damp calm before the invisible storm as the majority of the working population in designated but non-essential jobs are urged to go back to work, taking what ever microbes they have with them into the crowded metros and buses and trains as they commute. 

     The fatal proof of this economic pudding will be in a couple of weeks time when the mortality figures for Covid-19 will be examined to see whether this ill-thought out initiative has been as deadly as feared.

     It is a salutary experience to discover that in purely economic terms, we citizens are merely collateral damage, acceptable wastage, the angels’ share, surplus to requirements or any other mealy mouthed form of words to cover up the judicial execution that such a policy is going to mean.

     ‘Mean’ is a key word for something linked to the crisis that I hope is fake news, but have been told is actual fact.  In Catalan history the year 1714 is a key one.  On the 11^th of September 1714 Catalonia surrendered to the Bourbon King Philip V after supporting the Hapsburg Charles in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714): Catalonia lost its distinctive independence as it was subsumed into the Bourbon Crown; Catalan was demoted as the language of government; the walls of Barcelona were destroyed; Catalan territories over the Pyrenees were lost.  And all round disaster; but, in the typically Catalan way, 11^th September became the National Day of Catalonia and 1714 a date which is constantly seen, I have a hoodie with the year on the back and the Catalan flag on the front!

     It is therefore pushing coincidences a little that the National Government of Spain sent Catalonia exactly 1,714 thousand masks to be used in the present Crisis!

     There is no love lost between Madrid and Barcelona and the measures that are going to come into place tomorrow have met with stiff opposition from Catalonia and the Basque Country, with the Catalan President asking Sanchez, the Spanish Prime Minister, to send him the documentation of the scientific advice on which he based the decision to allow people to return to work.  Catalonia is in favour of a continuation of the strict lockdown, and I have to say that I think that is the more persuasive approach.

     Politicians should be increasingly nervous about the inevitable Public Inquiries that are going to take place when this crisis is over.  Their mismanagement is killing people and they should be held responsible.  And please, do not accuse me of pre-judging: hospitals without equipment are a simple fact; hospitals continuing to be poorly supplied with PPE are a simple fact; people dying are a simple fact.  The Conservatives have been in power for a decade: the fault lies with them – and they must pay.

The Poems In Holy Week (PIHW) period is now over and I have managed to write drafts of poems for each of the days, all of which can be found at smrnewpoems.blogspot.com  This year has been obviously different as we have been under strict lockdown and the ‘holiday’ aspect of the period has been a little ‘abstract’ to say the least.  It is a continuingly odd time as we are surrounded by literally deadly danger, yet continue to lead ordinary, safe, if isolated lives.  It is not like the Second World War where even my childhood home in Cathays in Cardiff was graced so I was told, with one (unexploded) German bomb: something tangible from the air raids.  But for us in Catalonia, at least where we are, it is like a continuing Phoney War; we go on with our restricted lives, and the medical horror is taking place elsewhere, out of sight, though vividly alive on television screens.  I think the unreality of it all is what is most obvious.  Yes, I know that the virus is real and the deaths and illness are actual, but our direct experience is limited to our own little inconveniences, not to a mortal struggle.  It’s odd and, as I’ve said, something where the actuality is difficult to take in.

     I have now printed out a draft booklet of the Poems in Holy Week and have done a few edits to get me going on the revision that they all have to undergo before publication.

     I have not yet decided on a title, but I’m working on it!  The most difficult part, I find, is writing an introduction for the collection – it forces me to look at the collection as an entity and write something that makes sense of the totality rather than individual poems.

     I also have to think about illustrations and that is always challenging.  Still, if nothing else, I do have time to consider these challenges!

The police in Spain have said that the ‘return to work’ for non-essential workers when off normally.  An interesting choice of word for anything but normal times where, surely, normality is not the way to respond to the extraordinary!

My faith in Catalonia took a knock today.  The poor weather lasted the entire day and I was not graced with even a moment of proper sunshine.  I am prepared to extend my faith to tomorrow – but anything after that and I will slip into heresy!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 27 – Holy Saturday in Holy Week, 11th APRIL

We are waiting to hear what the traffic flow is like.  Spain and the UK have both emphasised that no one (except of course for Conservative Ministers) should travel during the Easter weekend.  We should all stay at home.  So far a large number of fines have been imposed on those who attempted to make the journey to second homes or to the beach.  The story of a group of people form the UK attempting to go on holiday to France via private jet both shocks and also doesn’t surprise: the rich assuming that rules are only for the poor.  Again.

     As I keep saying, I do realise that I am in a fortunate position being in a spacious home with access to a communal pool for my solitary walk – though today there was an entire family of parents and little girl in the tennis court next to our pool: on parent walking while the other played with the kid.  We even said, ¡Hola! to each other.  At a safe distance.  Such is community: you best show community spirit by shunning it!

The number of deaths reported in the UK continues to horrify and I have little faith in the ability of the government to organize themselves with sufficient efficacy to limit the growth in the numbers.  The distribution of masks and other PPE seems limited and the testing is little short of scandalous.

     In Catalonia we are entitled to a free mask, allegedly waiting for us in our local pharmacy, with the option to buy another mask.  Toni will have to find out if this is true by calling in to the pharmacy when he gets fresh bread.  It will at least be a small step in the right direction in coming to terms with the reality of the virus.

     Some firms in Spain are asking their workers to come back to work after the Easter Bank Holiday.  This is essential for the recovery of the economy, but I do not see how this can be done with any real degree of safety without adequate testing in place.  Some workplaces are simply not conducive to social separation and, with the best will in the world, people forget to be paranoid all the time and allow recently learned essential behaviour to slip.  Wearing a facemask is unpleasant and wearing it with glasses is clumsy and therefore all too likely to be pushed down or up rather than used constantly.

     You can sense, even in isolation, that people have a natural wish to ‘return to normality’ but if that totally understandable wish is allowed too soon, the end results will be deadly.  And, why should we expect or even want previous ‘normality’? 

     This virus and its progress and particularly the way that it has been dealt with by the politicians would seem to me to indicate in a blazingly obvious way that things must not be the same after this crisis.  The measures, financial, social and political that have been brought into play to cope with the crisis illustrate as clearly as possible the inadequacy of the previous financial, social and political measures.  Why should we return to proven, failed ways of life?

     You think of measures like guaranteeing a working wage; of housing the homeless; of supporting the NHS; of protecting people with disabilities – all the things that our austerity government previously said were unaffordable: now funded.  Failing railways renationalized; small businesses supported – no Socialist idea rejected!  If it can be done now, it could have been done then.  If it can be done now, it can go on being done.  If we pay money to keep airlines alive, then we own them.  We have already had the obscenity of Tesco receiving a governmental emergency handout and then paying a dividend to their shareowners.  How long do we go on encouraging with our money (and though I live in Catalonia I pay British taxes too) those who boost the inequalities in our society, giving ever more money to those who already have?  It seems to me that the message of one of the badges that I used to wear god knows how many years ago of “Eat the rich!” is more relevant now than it was then!  And what a condemnation of our political ‘progress’ that is.

     We cannot allow the billionaires and the big companies to pretend that they have nothing to do with the situation in which we find ourselves, not obviously in the making of the virus (though in my more paranoid conspiracy theory moments, I have my doubts!) but in the way that the government was equipped to deal with it.  Private Enterprise does not, essentially, care for us.  It is driven by profit and not by concern.  In times of crisis, it fails and allows government to ride to the rescue, and then, when things are better, it goes back to doing what it does best: exploit!

There is cloud cover, but intermittent sunshine – I’m not sure what this encourages on a population that really wants to get out and about.  Perhaps if it was blazing sunshine it would be more of a temptation, this neither one thing nor the other encourages people to go back indoors and watch something else on Netflix.  Probably.

Well, back to my daily poem.  I have an idea, its now just the working it up to be something that I can call a draft.  Check out what I have already written this Holy Week on smrnewpoems.blogspot.com