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

    

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 25 – Maundy Thursday in Holy Week, 9th APRIL

Yesterday I was shown disturbing pictures of the build up of traffic in Madrid suggesting that numbers of people were taking advantage (how appropriate that word now sounds) of the ‘holiday’ period to escape from the city to the coast and to second homes.  While I can fully understand the need to find something more congenial than the cramped inside of a city during a pandemic, as someone living in a costal resort, exactly the sort of place that city dwellers target during holidays, I have to pray that Barcelona does not follow the lead of Madrid!

     To be fair, Barcelona does not appear to have followed other parts of Spain, and the indications of traffic flow are markedly lower in Catalonia than in other parts of the country.  But tomorrow, with the Bank Holiday of Good Friday and the whole Easter weekend and Easter Monday, the temptation to get out and take the sun in the freedom of a coastal resort might be too much to resist.  I sincerely hope that Barcelona has not looked at the slackness of Madrid and thought what the hell, what’s good for the goose etc. and determined to come and visit us tomorrow.

     I read this morning that the head of the National Trust in Britain has issued a statement reinforcing the advice of not visiting either the buildings in the Trust or the open spaces.  I wait to see if this advice will be followed.

     Again, I do know that we are privileged in terms of space: Toni can be working on his remote distance learning course on the computer in the living room, whereas I can be working on my computer on the third floor- two distinct spheres of influence!  How many other couples are so fortunate!  The lure of the coast and the sea is strong, and it is tantalizingly near, I can see a scrap of sea (if I try hard) from the terrace, but has been resisted – but we are not cramped together in a small flat.

     I know that for some people the addition of danger adds a piquancy to experience and the idea that something is forbidden adds a kick of anti-establishment adrenaline, but going against the Covid-19 restrictions is more surely akin to drunk driving: you put yourself in danger but you also endanger others.  Like the tag line on the safety belt adverts in cars, “You know it makes sense!”  And, it isn’t for ever.

     But just how long will it be for people of my age?  We Baby Boomers have been speculating how long our isolation may reasonably last and the general consensus is that we will be well into the summer before restrictions are relaxed.  That is a more than sobering thought.

     In a town like Castelldefels, where our USP is a long beach, bars, restaurants and hotels, to lose Easter and a chunk or even the whole of the summer is disastrous.  I wonder just how many restaurants will re-open when they are allowed to reopen.  A few had well established take-away services before the crisis, but the rest will have had to think on their feet and find customers at a time when advertising is difficult.  Even in the best of times, the ownership of restaurants is, to put it mildly, fluid; in times of crisis?  Who knows?

     Our major shopping centre Anec Blau, was undergoing a major restructuring of a mystifying thoroughness.  Most of the shops had had to close causing economic chaos.  Construction has been postponed, the centre is not ready to reopen any time soon and the crisis must have added complications that we can only guess at.

     Castelldefels is not poor.  We have inhabitants who are very, very rich and some who are world famous e.g. Messi – but reconstruction of a thriving seaside resort will take time, effort and imagination.  And money.  Lots of money.  I shudder to think how all of that is going to be managed.

     Still, one has to be optimistic.  The most positive element in this crisis is the way that we have all rallied round the efforts of the services that are working to keep us going and to keep us healthy.  It would be a disaster beyond the crisis if that fellowship is squandered in the remaking of normality after the crisis is over.  Though, it would be wise to remember never to underestimate the stupid selfishness that a population is capable of – just look at the political trash that have been elected!

Today is National Theatre Premiere Day, or rather evening.  This evening the NT At Home is showing their production of Jane Eyre https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/whats-on at 7.00pm UK time and 8.00pm for us and it will be available for the next week, until the next production to be aired.

     I am really looking forward to this production because it seems to be in the tradition of Nicholas Nickleby that I saw in a RSC production in London: an ensemble production which used clever theatrical devices, that only work in the theatre.  It will be interesting to gauge my reaction to genre specific techniques in another media type.  I remember a production of Macbeth with McKellen and Dench which transferred from The Other Place to the much larger venue of the Main Theatre in Stratford: it didn’t work, it needed the intimacy of a smaller venue.  But when the acclaimed production was televised, it worked again because the closeness of the camera restored the lost intimacy.

 The production was excellent, theatrical in the best sense of the word.  A small musical ensemble and a versatile company utilizing the open multi-level simple staging.  The best thing you can say about a theatrical production of a novel is, at the end of the performance, you feel like reading the novel itself.  I urge you to go to the website and see the production for yourself.  And don’t forget to leave a donation at the end of the performance if you have enjoyed it!

Today’s poem is in a half finished state, but what I have was ‘easier’ than the poem yesterday which I cant help feeling is going to be hacked around in the next stage of editing!  But that is half the fun.  If I manage to get something on the poetry blog tonight then it will be on smrnewpoems.blogspot.com

Tomorrow, Good Friday, when in all past years I have made my annual visit to a church.  Not this year.  This year is indeed, different.  So different.