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Showing posts with label Phase 3. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Phase 3. Show all posts

Friday, June 19, 2020

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - Day 95 - Thursday 18th June


My day was defined by the late nature of my swim.  It seems really petty, but when you are used to a routine, any deviation from it is irritating – especially when your general living is determined by the dictates of a pandemic.
     We are now in Phase 3 of the measures that we are supposed to be taking.  No one really knows what they are exactly, but we feel that we are getting closer to the New Normal, which in turn means that we are freer to do what we used to do, but we are also more worried by the fact that the progression towards this New Normal is being driven by economics and not by an reasoned, scientific rationale.
     There are still deaths and new people being infected.  We have not real idea of the true extent of the virus in the population and we do not have adequate test and trace measures, but, what the hell, the sun is shining (generally) and people need a little vitamin D to bolster their immunity levels so, so, so.
     In the UK the latest U-turn of a government prone to reversals (in all senses of the word) concerns the mobile app that that man Johnson told us would be “world beating” or some equally meaningless burble that is about all he can manage these days.  The app has now been rejected as if it had never existed.  The app that was an essential part of the uniquely English way of dealing with the virus is no longer apt.  It is a dead app.  It has never been.  And of course, people continue to die!

We went out to our favourite restaurant this evening to have the tapas that they do so well.  We were able to eat inside, indeed we were able to eat at ‘our’ table, but the feeling was not quite as it was.  A selection of tables around us were bedecked with striped tape to ensure that the tables ‘un-taped’ were the regulation distance apart.  It made the interior of the restaurant look more like a crime scene than an elegant place to eat.  But the food was well up to standard and if you didn’t look too closely you were able to kid yourself that this was just another evening meal in a decent restaurant.
     We even went to a fairly newly established ice cream shop where we always have a good conversation with the owner.  He is now trying to make a going concern of a place that is trying to make economic sense from an Easter and Summer season compressed into two short months.  The ice cream was excellent, and I enjoyed it while I could!


The NT Live production this evening was Small Island adapted by Helen Edmundson from the novel by Andrea Levy.  The direction by Rufus Norris using the set by Katrina Lindsay was elegantly seductive.  The movement around the set and the unpretentious coups de theatre were a joy.  The use of film, music and actors was a delight to watch.  There was a tautness about the dynamics on stage which constantly delighted.
     From time to time I found myself wondering about the basic narrative and there was an element of the over-contrived in the way that disparate elements were linked.  It was stagey in a completely satisfying way, but I sometimes found the very slickness of the narrative a tad condescending.
     The acting was excellent and there was a real sense of ensemble in the performance.
     Although the play deals with harsh reality and some sickening prejudice, it is at heart a feel-good production and, although ‘loved’ is the final word of the play, there is also a sense in which the ‘solution’ to the various strands of the story line of the play are not so easily explained or coped with by a single positive emotion. 
     But, perhaps that is the point that the play is making: the play is historical and the attitudes it portrays are not those of 2020.  Yes, racism is still a glaring element in our daily news with the resonance of “I can’t breathe” reverberating around the world.
     The Black Lives Matter movement is not looking for the ‘salvation’ of a single person, it is arguing that systemic prejudice must be tackled by systemic change: causes need our attention, not merely ameliorating the problems on the end results.
     An engaging play which certainly worked with the live audience and gave some pause for thought for the viewers too.
     I urge you to watch it for free while you have the chance!

Tomorrow another odd start for my swim, I must remember to check when I have to get up before (that is the key) I let my head touch my pillow!