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 38 – Wednesday, 22nd APRIL

An unconvincingly dry start to the day, where the most you can say about the weather is that it is not raining.  I will, however, take the opportunity to go for my walk in the dry, or dry-ish conditions, about which I will not complain – for fear the rains return!

     At times such as these one takes pleasure in small mercies, so I am truly thankful that I was able to complete my regulation walk unaccompanied by the lashing rain that has been such an obtrusive feature of the last three days.  And I had to wear a jacket, as the temperature was nowhere near the twenty-one degrees that my London cousin told me would be the norm where she was!  Still, I will bide my time and as we move nearer to the summer, I think that the balance of warmth will tip back in my favour!

Spain is going to ask for a two-week extension to the lockdown, putting its possible end some time in May.  Although the curve is flattening, there are still deaths and new cases of the virus and I am not sure that we have a convincing exit strategy.  It would be tragic indeed if the loosening of restrictions resulted in a virus spike towards the end of May.  I suppose the government is putting a great deal of hopeful expectation on the summer heat doing more efficiently what they have failed to do.  God help us all in the autumn!

     In Britain the controversy over the non-joining of the EU bulk buy initiative to get PPE shows no signs of calming down with the Civil Servant’s mea culpa letter being scrutinized stylistically in a way which would have done credit to the reading of the runes that used to go on in the gnomic pronouncements of the old USSR during the Cold War.  I do agree that paragraph three in the letter is one of Mandarin double-speak and the refutation of what was a clearly stated ‘fact’ that Brexit was the root cause of our non-participation is far less than convincing.

     It is depressing to realize that the government is more concerned about getting away with questionable statements, or maybe downright lies, in the short term in the hope that the inevitable inquiry in the longer term will be bad, but people will have moved one and memories are inevitably fickle and we will probably be back on the old territory of Brexit chaos to take people’s minds off what happened all those weeks ago.

     In the USA Trump is demonstrating on a daily basis that consequences are for little people and that lies, blatant and proven, are no hindrance to a narcissist’s grip on power if his base is indiscriminating enough.

     I feel very much the same about those people who voted for the present Conservative government and feel that the “Vote Conservative!” badge that I used to wear years ago is still more than valid, as around that injunction in smaller letters it had, “Young and stupid?  Old and selfish?”  Some things never change.

     Our ostensibly “socialist” government here in Spain, propped up with left wing parties’ support, is a little less than impressive and, apart from moving the corpse of the dictator Franco, it is difficult to point to any real achievements.  Admittedly, Trump has set the bar absurdly low for competence in crisis for a so-called democratic government, but his fatal dithering in the early days of the crisis has been mirrored to an extent in other governments in Europe.

     It remains to be seen how the releasing of the Plague Children into the community works out.  It has been said that kids can be unwitting carriers of Covid-19, so without testing allowing youngsters out from lockdown is something of a gamble, especially for the more senior parts of the community – in which category I firmly place my good self.  I can’t help thinking that there will be a whole age group re-watching Chitty-chitty-bang-bang and thinking that the figure of the ‘Child Catcher’ is one whose time has come round at last!

The story of the EU Bulk Buying Scandal has taken a further turn with the EU detailing when and how many times the UK had been informed about the whole thing.  One, or all of the front bench ministers is/are lying, as the ‘missed email farce’ is not really gaining any traction, while the 'Brexit Prejudice Pantomime' is seeming more and more like the truth.  So these unutterable bastards put the absurd foot-shooting of Brexit before actual people’s lives.  Who would have thought that Conservatives would have done something as despicable as that?  Well, I for one!

     This is obviously a resigning matter.  At a time of national crisis there might be some who might say that to change the people at the top would be counter productive.  Fair point.  But what if the people at the top are a bunch of vicious incompetents whose actions have killed people?  Surely getting rid of them is an act of self-preservation?  And don’t forget, the first to offer his too long delayed resignation should be the Blond Buffoon for his dereliction of duty in ostentatiously going out of his way to mix with Covid-19 carriers and thus become infected and deliberately taking a NHS bed that could have been used more profitably for those who, in spite of taking every precaution, caught the virus.  Vile man.  Vile government.

The Spanish government has now (again) come round to the point of view of the Catalan government over the question of the Plague Kids and how free they should be in the Great Breakout for this weekend.  The untramelled liberation of the Plague Kids has now been modified to bring it more like the Catalan suggestions that stipulated that kids under 12 would be allowed to accompany a parent for recreational short walks but not NOT going to places like supermarkets and places where real human beings could be infected.

     It remains to be seen just how the population interprets this relaxation, though I do not think that people are going to be too scrupulous and if they are not, then we are looking at more deaths later.

On the more positive, cultural side, I have, at last been able to print out a copy of The Coasts of Memory – though I think that there is more editing to be done before I am satisfied!

    

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 CASTELLDEFLS - DAY 36 - Monday 20th April

It’s still raining!  This is the third day; I may as well be in the Britain – except I understand from resentful looking at the weather forecast for Cardiff that it has had the temerity to be fine in my native land!  What is the world coming to!

     I did manage to take my walk in a brief interlude of dryness between showers and then spent the rest of the day trying to edit my new chapbook, Coasts of Memory.

     Every time I read through the thing I find something else that I want to change.  I don’t mind the substantive editing where I am actually changing words, it’s the technical editing that always gets to me.

     I do have something approaching a final working draft, but I am nowhere near finished with the final product.

     The real problems have developed with the printing.  As I am trying to produce something in-house I am relying on one of the printers that we have to do my bidding.  This would be fairly straightforward, but I print out my chapbook poetry in A5 format, which means that I double side a page of A4 so that the final book is put together using multiples of 4 A5 pages to one double sided A4 sheet.

     The last time that I tried to print out a booklet I failed, but I failed with the expert help of technicians from Microsoft, Epson, Brother and Mac.  At one time I was getting on-line advice and help from three continents!  It was truly amazing how uselessly helpful true experts could be!  The end advice?  Buy another printer!  Honestly!

     The final resolution to the problem was to transfer all the files that had failed to my ever-trusty MacBook Air and print from that!  A solution that I am still using.  No matter that I have a state of the art printer in my study, it finds my up to date version of Word too difficult to work with!  Don’t ask!  I don’t understand either, but I do have a solution that works with a ‘vintage’ laptop and I am prepared to go with that.

     As I have added photographs to the chapbook, my current problem is that the printer refuses to print them in colour.  We have given up trying to get satisfactory solutions in the damp dark and I will wait for the bright morn to attack the recalcitrant printer.

     Toni has said that the reason the printer is not working is that I have bought a new Roberts Internet Radio to replace the white junk in the kitchen and the printer is sulking that I have a newer piece of gadgetry than  her!  Given my experience with insane pieces of electronics, I find that explanation for the non-colour printing of the document eminently sensible!

As you might be able to tell, I have embraced the problems with the printer as a way of thinking about something other than the Covid-19 crisis.  But alas, it has only partially worked.

     At the moment I am not convinced that any country in the world has actually got a convincing handle on how to deal with this situation.  I realize that we are in a dire situation: people are dying and are resenting social separation and while we are dealing with the medical crisis, the economic and social crises are gaining traction.  The story of the Great Depression is not an encouraging one, and neither is the long slog out of the Depression.  What is going to happen when the three months of government paying 80% of wages stops?  How far is this government prepared to go to ease the inevitable hardship that the complete dislocation of economic activity is going to continue to produce?

     The economy must be up and running as soon as possible, but at what cost?

Our Catalan class is stumbling towards some sort of new existence: I await developments with interest.

It looks as though it is going to be raining tomorrow as well!  I will have to lose myself in technical resolution.  So to speak.

     Tomorrow the colour many not be courtesy of the weather, thought I hope it will be courtesy of my printer!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 35 – Sunday, 19th APRIL

It’s raining. 

     I am disinclined to go on my circuits of the communal swimming pool in the pouring rain. 

     I am further depressed by the reading in the Guardian about Goblin Gove’s typically mealy-mouthed, unconvincing response to a series of allegations in The Sunday Times that the Convalescing Clot missed five consecutive emergency meetings of COBRA in the build up to the Covid-19 crisis and that the government shipped PPE to China in February. 

     That would have covered the period when our part-time Prime Minister was hidden away in Chequers, a prime minister who notoriously “didn’t work weekends” according to an unnamed senior adviser!  Once Bullingdon Club always Bullingdon Club: the lazy sense of entitlement of the rich and the privileged; let the lesser breeds without the law do the hard graft while the Johnson jonson sets about adding another child to the unnumbered brood.

     I am more than prepared to believe that the lingering poison of Brexit mixed with the euphoria of the Conservative right wing after the crushing electoral victory led the ‘government’ fatally to mismanage a coherent approach to the Covid-10 crisis. 

     The typical Tory inhumanity of the ‘herd immunity’ approach to dealing with the crisis, complacently accepting hefty deaths will be remembered, together with the astonishing U-Turn when it was suddenly abandoned in favour of approaches that more nearly matched virtually every other government in the world.

     The position of the Health Secretary is becoming more and more untenable – or at least it should be becoming more and more untenable as more and more avoidable deaths will be laid as a memorial to his incompetence.  Yes, efficient supply is difficult in times of crisis, especially in a cash and equipment and personnel starved institution like the NHS that is in its present state because of the cruel austerity practiced by the Tory government for the last decade. 

     The empty platitudes of support that Tory ministers mouth for Health Workers are cruelly ironic given their attitudes towards the NHS over the past years.  These are the same vile folk who cheered after a pay increase for Nurses was defeated in the House of Commons!  They disgust me.

     And, as I typed that last bitter sentence, the rain outside has grown appreciably heavier.  There is nothing like the Pathetic Fallacy to cement misery in place!

In an effort to escape the gnawing resentment contained in the paragraphs above, I have turned to something more creative.  My chapbook of poems written in Holy Week called Coasts of Memory.  I have been working on illustration and made a decision to use only photographs taken within the lockdown confines.  This means that the house, the garden, the communal pool and what I can see from the terrace and windows are all fair game for my camera!

     I spent yesterday evening playing around with the raw material that I had and started placing individual pictures in what I considered to be appropriate places in the chapbook.  I am constantly frustrated by petty mechanical problems with images and sometimes it is a case of printing what fits rather than fitting what I want to print!

     There is also the problem of he disappearing fonts.  I save what I do fairly religiously; I have been caught out too often and too painfully when documents develop a missing life of their own not to remember to save.  But I am often frustrated by the way in which complex documents do not always retain formatting. 

     The latest example of this concerns by choice of a fairly exotic fort used as a title.  This font did not transfer when I sent the document via email rather than copying it onto a memory stick - in spite of my avowal of the very latest in technology, I can be whimsically old-school from time to time!  The font is space greedy, so when it transfers as something altogether more prosaic it means that everything else on the page is out of place and that has a domino effect on all the pages afterwards.  As I was going to use that particular version of the book for detailed editing, it might turn out to be self-defeating if I have to redo everything with the ‘correct’ font in place in the final document.  Such things are sent to try me, and at least I can have a direct effect on what I do there, as opposed to whingeing on about what my government is doing or not doing in this crisis!

In the way in which the petty becomes important: Toni is going out to get bread!  An event for which he dresses up like an Inuit and wings the desolate abyss between our home and the bread shop that is a few streets away.  I enjoy the results of these little excursions as we usually have a little treat from the patisserie as well as mere bread – by which alone, one cannot live!

     This time, as well as the bread, Toni is going to attempt to get some chicken from the pollo a last, this will be our first ‘bought in’ meal since the lockin began.  However, if there is a queue, or there are too many people there then the meal will be called off and we will have to settle for the bread.  And treats.

There are increasing accounts in the media of the possibility of no vaccine being produced in the short term, or even ever.  We have the example of AIDS, where, in spite of extensive research over a number of years, we are still without a vaccine.  Treatment for the disease, yes; vaccine no.  That is a very sobering thought.  It means that we will be dealing with the virus as an ever-present threat well after this initial surge is over and it also means that for people in my age group the restrictions are going to last for the foreseeable future. 

     This is a more than depressing thought!

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 33 – Friday, 17th APRIL

After all my mocking denigration of hapless teachers who fail to come to grips with modern technology, I was hoist by my own arrogant petard.

     This afternoon was the on-line meeting of the ‘delegates’ from our cancelled language classes in Spanish and Catalan.  I don’t really know why I was dragged into this in the first place as I am not a ‘delegate’ but, ever the willing drudge I accepted my responsibilities and offered to join in.

     The meeting was held in Google Meeting and was by invitation, a click on the link and you are there, sort of thing.  That bit went fine, it was when I tried to speak that there were problems, well, one problem: it didn’t work.  My Firefox thingie was apparently obstructing its working and, try as I might, and even by going on to the systems part, I still failed to transmit my voice.

     As the others seemed more than happy to speak in reasonable Spanish I felt that my enforced muteness was something of an advantage for the preservation of my reputation, even if it did little to develop my language skills.

     The end result of this one sided meeting was that we are going to be offered a lesson a week on line, with tasks to complete and if we complete the tasks then we will be able to get our certificates at the end of the course.

     Meanwhile I have to do a little administration in getting our classmates together, explaining and getting information to the teacher.  It will be interesting to see how this all works out, and if I am able to get my microphone working!

The various scandals of the virus continue to frighten.  Now we are told that many hospitals are going to run out of PPE by the weekend in the UK.  The number of tests being carried out are still in the teens of thousands and we are expected to believe that 100k will be carried out in the UK by the end of the month.  The daily press conference in the UK is a time of almost unmitigated depression as politicians steadfastly fail to answer questions of ultimate importance.

     I do not feel that any of the politicians in power are telling us the truth about the real length of the crisis and the real consequences of what is happening now.  It is disturbing, no, not disturbing, more frightening that the UK does not appear to have an exit strategy from the crisis.

     The longer this crisis continues the more disturbed I get about the way that it is being managed.  I do not think a day has gone by when I have felt confident about the people who are making life and death decisions about our future.

     And talking of the future, it can only be a matter of weeks before the Blond Trumpian Mini-Me bumbles his way back into national life and the idiocy of Brexit is added to our woes!

Ah, me!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 32 – Thursday, 16th APRIL

 

Trump, in times of crisis, has his uses.

     It is immensely comforting to know that, at the click of a few buttons one can get the latest up-to-date news concerning the present President of the United States.  And one can also assume that whatever one is likely to read about what the President has done, and certainly about what he has said, it will be something that, with all one’s liberal sensibility, one can reject utterly.  He is (in more telling ways that I had considered before I thought of the comparison) the Apartheid de nos jours.  He is, in his actions, his thoughts and in his speech utterly, bigly, rejectionable.  He is the secular anathema of our times.  He is what we are not.  Simples.

     The most effective showing up of Apartheid was when opponents said to the then South African government, “If you think that Apartheid is the right system; then just follow your own rules!”  The point being, that Apartheid as a corrupt and corrupting system could only work if the rules were bent.  The system was build on lies and therefore it only ‘worked’ by corruption.  It was the same sort of approach that workers used against unreasonable bosses when they ‘worked to rule’, obeying all the petty restrictions that grow up in workplaces and are usually ignored in the service of efficiency and ‘reasonableness’!

     Trump really believes that he has achieved what his little-me British impersonator wanted as a kid, to become ‘King of the World’ and he speaks and acts as though his thoughts are fiats. 

     How well are Americans living in the Trumpian vision of America that he is forging?  Ask the dead.  Ask the jobless.  Ask the hungry.  Ask the sick.  Ask the disenfranchised.  Ask the victims.  Ask the women.  Ask the blacks.  Ask the refugees.  Ask the undocumented.

     Of course you would get a very different picture if you asked billionaires, CEOs, polluters and fascists.

     When is the Republican Party going to recognize that Trump is a dangerous embarrassment and that the stench of their support for a man clearly unsuited to high office will cling to them for the rest of their lives?  Dump him and his pernicious party – as if Trump has any clear idea of what the wider Republican Party was, is, or even stands for!

     But for liberals he is the standard against which they can be measured.  Every day, every bloody day, he says or does something that is quite clearly wrong, and junky-like, every day I am drawn to that section of my on-line Guardian that lets me see and hear his latest outrages against truth, the WHO, China, the EU, decency, the English Language, morality, history, NATO, UNO, postal voting, or whatever else Fox News brings to his attention.

     But Trump has achieved immortality.  His (please god) one term presidency will be written about for the foreseeable future.  As a leading candidate for the worst president ever to be elected (by a minority of the popular vote) his car crash of a presidency will fascinate and appal forever.  His Trump Presidential Library (leave aside the sick irony of that concept) will be packed with books detailing his lies and narcissism and his fatal mismanagement of the Covid-19 crisis.  His presidency has rocked the very foundations of The Republic and virtually obliterated the moral force of the USA in the world.  It will be a very long road back from the damage that he has done.  And that road back will be in the aftermath of the virus, and clearly he has none of the qualities necessary to unite and rebuild the country.  His campaign slogan rings hollow and every day it gets more hollow and fatal.

From our tiny section of Castelldefels that we see and hear on a ‘normal’ day, i.e. one during which we do not make any excursions, it is difficult to judge exactly what is going on around us.  But, I suppose that we have become accustomed to picking up smaller details in the repetitive daily life that we have and we use those to flesh out a wide picture of the general response to our continued lockdown.

     To me it seems as if there is greater movement around us, as you might expect when the government has said that construction workers and other non-essential workers can go back to work.

     As we are on a sometime used flight path for Barcelona airport, it is usual for us to have the sound of planes from time to time: we have had none, even though, as far as I know, the airport is still open for some flights.

     We are not on a main road in terms of though traffic so our immediate neighbours own most of the cars that we see.  The most traffic we get is pedestrians walking their dogs, usually illegally as they are far too far from their homes.  There is greater noise of kids, who must be getting beyond stir crazy in their enforced incarceration.

I cannot see any real changing of the lockdown well into June.  And that is a sobering thought.

    

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 31 – Wednesday, 15th APRIL

A sign of the times: I went out for my walk around the pool, no sooner had I started by circuits when the pool person appeared to clean the pine needles and add chemicals to the water.  I did not have my mask (he did) so I went back into the house.  Even though social distancing would have been easy, I did not take the chance.  I can tell myself that it was practical, he is using one of those blower things to sweep up the pine needles and you are likely to get a blast of needle-air if you walk anywhere near – but the real motivation for returning home was justified paranoia!

     I feel that I am on the verge of turning into one of those comedic older persons who takes every opportunity to bring in age in the conversation.  As a member of the generation that is now officially ‘at risk’ during the pandemic, my age has become something of a distinguishing mark, perhaps the next step would be to oblige us all to wear a badge so that crowds part in front of us and a respectful distance is maintained by all the Plague Children who frolic with the virus rather than succumb!

I have attempted, and failed, to get a space to have a home delivery from one of our larger supermarkets.  I am registered and I note that a few years ago I actually did have a home delivery: the delivery and the items that I bought are still there for me to see on my account site.  It makes you wonder about the total amount of information that supermarkets actually have on individuals - so much raw material! Countless billions of bits of information about our buying habits!  Best not to think about it too closely.  Anyway, no matter how sophisticated the collection of data might be, the practical problems of getting a timed space to have a delivery means that the likelihood of not having to risk my physical presence in a shop is small.  God alone knows how you actually get a space, but I will persevere, as I much prefer to do our weekly shop remotely than personally!

My Catalan classes have been stopped since the lockdown (just before we were scheduled to have an examination!) and there seemed to be no real prospect of their continuation before the end of the term, both Easter and Summer, but I have had communications that suggest that some form of remote learning could take place.

     There is to be a meeting of ‘delegates’ in a day or so’s time via Google Meet when the arrangements for the Summer Term are presumably going to be considered.  I do not think that I will be interested in any physical meeting or actual classes until the start of the Autumn Term, and I am not convinced that there will be real gains in any virtual classes in the remainder of this year.  But I wait to be persuaded.

     Our classes are highly subsidised and therefore the financial loss is negligible and can be written off easily.  We had to buy two books for the course: we have completed the exercises in one of them and there are still a number of units to be completed in the other.

     It will be interesting to see what the school offers.  I suppose that the teachers will have to offer something to justify their continued salaries, but remote learning is an entirely different form of teaching from the one to which they are accustomed and for it to be achieved successfully there will be a disproportionate amount of work for the teachers to do as well as coping with the inevitable frustration that comes with new technology.

     In the rough and tumble of an ordinary school the most sophisticated piece of technology that has a reasonable chance of survival in a well-used classroom is the Over Head Projector (OHP) – virtually any time that anything more sophisticated is used it leads to frustrated disaster!  There is much to be said for ‘Chalk and Talk’ as the main way of getting a message across!

Life goes on.  This morning I had notification by the Royal Mail of the new issue of stamps on 7^th of April celebrating The Romantic Poets.  Usually the publicity is some time before the date of issue rather than a week afterwards, but it is encouraging to find that the new stamp issues are going ahead.  It is probably a reflection of the amount of automation in the production that we are allowed to get the stamps.  I collect first day covers and I am sure that no human hand actually touches the stamps, envelope and insert until it is actually put through my letterbox!

     The designs by Linda Farquharson are based on linocuts with an extract from a selection of Romantic poets, including John Clare, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake, Walter Scott, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Wordsworth, Mary Robinson, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, John Keats and Lord Byron.  They form an elegant set and each individual stamp is interesting in its own right – and they look right.  Too often, in my opinion, British stamps try and get too much in what is a tiny space.  I like stamps that make an instant impression and still look like something worth seeing even at a distance when the detail is not clear: these stamps work on both criteria.

     I wonder how many people will actually get to see one of these stamps.  Even in what used to be ‘normal’ times most letters were franked rather than having stamps.  Now, in these ‘abnormal’ times the issuing of a new set of stamps looks like spirited defiance rather than utility.

     Perhaps we should have a special Covid-19 issue with a part of the price going to the NHS.  I will write to the Philatelic Bureau and suggest it.  I wonder if they will reply!

The treatment of old people in Care Homes is rapidly gaining traction in the scandal stakes as the numbers of residents and care workers seem to increase with insufficient care and attention from the government or rather governments as the problem seems to be a common one for Britain and Catalonia.  As usual the cliché that you can judge a society by the way its treats those who are the most at risk seems, yet again, to give our way of life low marks!

     On the other hand I have just returned from my daily trip to the open window of the kitchen to show my appreciation to the front-line staff in the health system and essential services and it is heartening to be part of a chorus of applause!

It appears that Bromo (my name for the PP corrupt ex President of Spain Rajoy) has habitually been breaking lockdown and going for his habitual ‘quick walking’ odd hobby sport outside the house whenever he feels like it.  He has been reported by his neighbours.  Fine the bastard, at least that way we can get some of the money back that his corrupt party stole from us during his disgraceful time in power.

Always a good thing to end with a rant!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 30 – Tuesday, 14th APRIL

We may be in uncharted territory now, where the rigid restrictions on lockdown have been eased for certain businesses to open even though we are still in the crisis with significant deaths and increases in the numbers of the infected.  How this policy is meant to work in curbing the virus’ spread I do not understand.

     The Government maintains that the lockdown is still in operation; but businesses are open today: how are these two compatible?  How are they going to explain the increase in deaths?  Sanchez, the Spanish President, does not have the mindlessly fanatical following of the Orange Outrage in the US.  Sanchez has a minority government, his so-called Socialist party bolstered by other minority left wing parties – who are going to be electorally tainted by participation in what is an unfolding disaster – and he cannot afford to act without a weather eye on the threat of yet another election in our chronically divided country.

     In a frightening development in the US in an even more jaw-droppingly awful public performance, Trump has claimed Absolute Authority – perhaps the logical extension for an unfixed populist demagogue.  Virtually everything that Trump has done has pushed at the limits of what The Founders feared when they wrote the Constitution.  The very federalist foundations of the US state are being tested and we know which way Trump would have voted when the title of ‘King’ was considered for the leader of the new American state!

     The fascist roots of the “America First” slogan are revealing and limiting; just as the petty-minded Brexiteers with their “Britain First” ideology underpinning their xenophobic, nationalistic, narrow-mindedness have led to Britain not participating in an EU led attempt to use their clout to purchase PPE at advantageous rates.  Virus does not respect national boundaries, I would much rather be part of the widest effort supra-nationally to combat a common danger than to be apart and weaker.  How many times must it be reiterated that nationalism and narrow, insular politics will lead to unnecessary death?

My second trip to the shop.  Singular, it is only one, we don’t go to a few, just the one and then home.  What isn’t there we don’t have.  Simple.

     I truly hate wearing the masks and the wearing of glasses seems to add to the irritation of the experience.  In deference to Toni’s stern strictures of not touching the face once one is out of the safety of the house, I was considering some form of elastication to keep them from slipping down my nose, but then I remembered lenses.  So, for the first time for a long time, I put my lenses in.  I do like the range of focus that lenses give as opposed to glasses, but I have bifocal needs for my eyes and therefore I need reading glasses with lenses – though I can usually make do if the print is not too small.  I am used to living in a variously out of focus world, so I can accept clarity that is approximate for most of the time!

     Given the fact of Sanchez’ loosening of the lockdown, though he claims he hasn’t - in the face of the facts, there was appreciably more traffic on the way to Lidl and more I could see when the road crossed over the motorway.  But still, markedly down on a normal (whatever that means nowadays) Tuesday.

     Lidl’s too was fuller than on my last visit, but that might have been because I was later in the morning than my previous jaunt.  Most people were wearing masks, and I have to say that those who were not were, how shall I put it, obviously noticed by the other people in the shop.  People are, quite clearly, wary of each other.

     Social distancing, where possible, was observed, though passing in aisles was sometimes more intimate than one would have liked.  The Checkouts were well done with distances pasted on the floor to keep us a reasonable distance apart.

     Most of the stuff that we wanted was there, though this time I didn’t even look for radishes, so who knows if they are now back on the shelves.

     Most importantly for me, the 15 month matured Cheddar cheese was there and so I bought a few extra to freeze.  I know that defrosted cheese is not quite the same as the natural type, but it is a bloody sight better than nothing.

     In the way that irony happens, as soon as I got home and Toni started unpacking and wiping the purchases before putting them away, there was a buzz on the doorbell and the 2kg of award-winning local cheese was deposited on the wall for me to collect.  Well, as I, though indubitably not Toni, would say, one cannot have too much cheese!

     So, apart from fresh bread, we are now set for another week of isolation.  At least today, the depressing rain of yesterday has vanished (though not entirely evaporated) and the sun is shining down.

My ‘Poems in Holy Week’ chapbook, now entitled Coasts of Memory, is taking shape, with a number of fairly substantial edits in the drafts that you can find on my poetry blog: smrnewpoems.blogspot.com   

     As usual, the technical layout aspects taking up an inordinate amount of time, but as Toni says, “You love it!” and there is something deeply satisfying is seeing a book (albeit a fairly short one) take professional shape.  Or at least as professional a shape as I can make it!