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!
