A range of rants

 

 

A double vaccinated member of my Catalan family has now contracted Covid and will have to self-isolate, emerging from this on the 22^nd of December, just in time for the Christmas Celebrations.  At the moment he has flu-like symptoms, and we are hoping that they do not develop any further, relying on the expectation that the vaccination will limit any serious consequences.

     What it does do is emphasise that the pandemic is nowhere near over, and we are still very much in the dark as far as any coherent view about what post-pandemic life may be, and when we might be experiencing it.

     At this moment in time, all our planned celebrations for the three days from Christmas Eve are still in place, though these same plans become more brittle with each passing day.

     In spite of the growing fears about the Omicron variant, there does not seem to be a great deal of concern about the progress of the pandemic, and the rules that are already in place do not seem to be widely followed. 

     For example, we are now supposed to show Covid vaccination certificates in restaurants, bars, gyms etc – the policy is, shall we say, being loosely applied.  Today in a restaurant we were not asked for our certificate, and I saw no one who came into the restaurant asked.

     If this laxity is indicative of the approach here, then it is only a matter of time before the pressing need for more taxing restrictions are brought in because of an exponential rise in infection.

     I count myself partly to blame because, until Toni mentioned it this evening, it didn’t even cross my mind that the regulations had not been followed.  Life goes on as normal, and one is easily seduced into forgetting the reality with which one is surrounded.

     I know that it is wrong for the government to expect members of the public to act as their surrogates in getting policy delivered, but it is in all our interests that the very reasonable precautions that should be taken, are taken.

     I resolve to show my certificate even if I am not asked for it, and that might provoke the right behaviour.  I shall be more vigilant in future.  In a future that looks increasingly bleak as the news of the spread of the Omicron variation looks unstoppable.

 

 

Yet again I ask myself what the Conservative Party has to do to get people to stop voting and supporting them!

     It is an exhausting job merely listing the scandals that Johnson and his rag bag government have racked up.

     Just in the last week or so we have had the revelations about the last year Christmas parties that were held (or not held) in 10 Downing Street, with Johnsons categorical (eventual) denials having all the force of the ‘do not tumble dry’ instruction on clothes (image courtesy of John Crace or Marina Hyde in the Guardian).  Basically, if Johnson says something it is a fairly secure rule of thumb that the exact opposite is true.  So, while the rest of the country was obeying the strict lockdown rules, No 10 was flouting them.  And now lying about them.

     Coupled with this is the “apology” for failings in the Grenville Tower disaster in the administration of building regulations.  Tell that to the dead.

     Today we heard graphic descriptions of the disorganized chaos in the Foreign Office with the deadhead Raab presiding over a dysfunctional and deadly, inefficient, badly led, disaster of a department.

     And the final and grotesque garnish to the vileness of the government is the revealing of the lies that Johnson and No 10 have talked about the evacuation of pets before people.  I am a staunch believer in the fact that people who do not care about animals, will care little for humans as well.  But people must come before pets, and if resources were diverted to help a pet sanctuary rather than help the people who aided the mission in Afghanistan AND that Johnson lied about his involvement, then surely disgust and repugnance is the only appropriate attitude to have towards him and the low life that supports him.

     And that lot is only what has been brought to us today!  It is exhausting despising the worthless chancers who rule us.  With Thatcher (whom I hated and continue to hate) I didn’t feel this drained and depleted by my loathing.  Thatcher was a person and not a cult.  Johnson is a populist with, as far as I can tell, not a shred of ‘ethos’ motivating his actions apart from his narcissistic self-regard.  He demeans the country, politics, and himself.  He is a disgrace – but he will not and indeed cannot see that.  To recognize his own fatal limitations will mean his instant evaporation.

     It will be instructive to see what happens to the Conservative majority in the next by-election.  If the Conservative Party senses that he has or will become a liability, they will be ruthless in their elimination of an obstacle to their continued grip on power.

     I can look forward to Johnson’s fall from grace (though he certainly did that a long, long time ago) but I shudder at the ‘slimy things with legs’ that will slither their way out of the sewer of sleaze and corruption that is the Conservative Party at the moment and try and shin their way up the greasy Tory donor money painted pole to power.

     God help us all!

Bits of paper!

The Open University





It’s thinner, but more colourful; my name printed rather than hand lettered; it has an impressed stamp like the other, but as a sign of the times, also has a holographic stamp too; it’s A4 portrait on paper rather than landscape and card – it’s my degree certificate.

            A repetition of my first degree (right down to the class) though via rather different subjects.  It is difficult not to look at the piece of A4 paper and not think about the money that such a degree now costs to students studying in many UK universities.  Even without taking living expenses and the cost of textbooks, you are looking at twenty-seven thousand pounds.  I wonder what 27K would have got me when I did my first BA in 1970s – certainly more than Room 816 in Neuadd Lewis Jones in Swansea University, and all my textbooks rebound in leather with my personal monogram embossed in 24k gold on the front!

            OU degrees do not cost as much, but the cost of the courses has increased exponentially since I took my first course over thirty years ago: what was a couple of hundred pounds or less is now a couple of thousand.  Such costs are a reflection of political insistence, especially on behalf of the Conservative party which was a vociferous opponent of the whole concept of the OU.  It has forced the OU to become more financially commercial with the result that its courses have become further and further out of reach to the very people they were designed and intended to serve.  It is still a wonderful institution and I am very proud to be a graduate.  At last.  Only taken thirty years!

I have been reading “Great Lengths” by Dr. Ian Gordon and Simon Inglis, which is a pictorial survey of the historic indoor swimming pools of Britain.  This was an inspired Emma birthday present to me as it fits well with the work that I did on the comparison of Hockney and Guevara’s paintings of swimming pools which was the subject matter for my extended essay in the OU course on Modern Art.

            There is still some discussion about the exact location of the swimming pool in Guevara’s paintings and I am hoping that some of the information in the book will allow a more precise identification.  There is a bibliography as well, so there is the opportunity for further research.

            The history of indoor swimming pools in Britain is not such an arcane area of knowledge as you might think.  The impetus to build such pools in the nineteenth century reflected the growing concern with public health and municipal pride.  Pools were divided into classes and the structure of entrances to the pools reflected the need for division of the classes so that they didn’t mix.  When you add concerns about lady swimmers and what costumes both sexes should use you have a complex history of social manners that delights!

            I have only just started reading the book seriously, but it looks like something to which I will return for future research.

            It was also poignant to see pictures of the Empire Pool in the centre of Cardiff opposite the bus station.  It is now demolished; an act of barbarism which I am not inclined to forgive.  I used the pool (only a trolley bus ride from my home in Cathays) when I was a kid and I used it until adulthood and only stopped when Cardiff built a series of new leisure centres which gave access to decent facilities in neighbourhoods outside the centre.

            I ended up using the David Lloyd Centre situated on what is laughingly called Rumney Common (you have to look very closely to find any vegetation finding a way through asphalt and concrete there now) and it had the advantage of being on my way to and from work.  I would sometimes debate, after a long and tiring day, whether I actually wanted my second swim, but I usually found that the car made the decision for me and while the debate was still going on in my head, the wheels of the car had followed the well worn metaphorical ruts and I was in the car park of the centre!

            It is much the same in Castelldefels.  I was a member (I still am, ah the stickiness of a standing order!) of a municipal pool on the other side of the town, but to get to it I had to go out of my way.  The nearest pool was only open air and, while that is more than acceptable in summer, it is a completely different form of masochism in winter!  When the local pool was reformed with a retractable roof I joined the centre and it is the one that I have used ever since.  My only desertions have been during the times the pool is closed for maintenance- and what happens then is a completely different story for another time.

Meanwhile, I am about to meet an ex-colleague from Cardiff who has come to visit Barcelona and we are going out to lunch to give her the opportunity to explain (as if an explanation were necessary) why I made the right decision to retire from public education!  The stories I am hearing about the administration of my last British school are heart-breaking, not only because of the misery of my colleagues but also because of the way that maladministration will make a difference to the way that the kids are taught.  It is at times like this that I remember that I am being paid money simply for being alive.  Even with a streaming cold that is something to warm the cockles of my heart!

And I’ll drink to that!