This is really dragging on, isn’t it? I am bored! I do love my family very much indeed, but it would be quite nice to spend a little time with people who don’t share the same surname as me.
We are lucky that we have been able to create a little shielding bubble at Spring Grove Farm with our neighbours who have been following the same regulations as us. So the kids have other kids to bounce off a bit and we can get pissed with some other grown-ups but, like everyone, our horizons do feel severely restricted and it has been a long time. As I have said before, us having some space puts us in a very privileged position, so I shouldn’t grumble. I suppose it would be like living in some far-flung outpost on a homestead with one other family and with only the occasional visit from a travelling salesman (Amazon delivery) or a friendly neighbour trekking out to check you are alright and to bring you some choice produce (Steve bringing Nutella and bagels).
And on the not grumbling front, I had a full week off last week and completely disconnected from work. What with the amazing heatwave we had here, it really felt like a proper little summer holiday. I cracked open my beachwear that hadn’t seen the light since Lesbos last year. I wandered around barefoot, communing with nature. Fo has revolutionised the garden and we now have flowers and vegetables. My role in this transformation has strictly been only on the level of the day labourer – I shovel shit and I dig holes and then I shovel the shit into the holes that I have dug. Thankfully it is work that needs little expertise, which is just the way I like it. Similarly, we repainted sections of the outside of the house – I did the broadbrush stuff, while Fo did the nooks and crannies round the windows and so on.
I did do lots of barbecuing and we had the neighbours round – cracked open the Rosé and the Limoncello to rock that Mediterranean vibe, see pics below.
So, yeah, that’s all great, but then again, we are all going to hell in a handcart, which, all things considered, is kind of not so great. I am writing on the day that the numbers of deaths in the UK from Covid adds up to more than all the EU nations combined. I was going to write “all the other EU nations combined”, but ya’know, we aren’t part of that anymore. Weren’t we supposed to be the special ones, who had to strike out alone so as not to be dragged down by these good-for-nothing Europeans types?
I tried writing a political blog post the other day, as I know everyone loves them so. But when I noticed that I had described Dominic Cummings as a c**t for the third time, I thought I should put it down and return to this topic when I could at least vary my vocabulary a little and say something interesting.
For he is, of course, a cunt, but that really is not a particularly interesting thing to say. These are interesting times but he is not a particularly interesting person. He is just a bit-part player in this moment that we find ourselves in. And what to make of it all?
I was going to say that I have managed to steer clear of politics on this blog for a while now, but then I scrolled back to check the veracity of this claim and it turns out that I wrote a pretty ranty post way back at the end of April. Even way back then I was getting riled about the UK sleep-walking into a No-Deal Brexit under the cover of Covid. But it somehow feels that we have got beyond politics. Where 2019 was the most political year that I can remember, 2020 seems to have transcended politics. All the devious political machinations that got Boris Johnson in Number 10 have proved useless in the face of a global pandemic.
I hope I have generally steered clear of a simple Johnson = Trump equation but I don’t think it is a surprise that countries that are governed by men who entered politics as essentially a vanity project are the countries that have the worst death rates in, respectively, Europe and the World. And while we are at it, let’s throw Bolsonaro into the ring, one of their type, who governs the country in Latin America with the worst death rate. These people are not in the business of public service and so, it is hardly surprising that they are not serving their publics.
I don’t think it is only me, but time does seem to be playing funny tricks with us – where an hour seems an age but a week can fly by in the blink of an eye. Both Otto and I were astonished to realise that today was Thursday. We had both dreaded getting back to work on Monday after our sun-drenched break – we tap on our respective devices in adjacent rooms – him with his school work online and me with my workwork online and the day feels like an eternity and then all of a sudden it’s Thursday and the weekend starts tomorrow. Hurrah!
But while we are stuck inside this bizarre time vortex, the world swirls madly on.
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen”
Lenin
I think the Lenin quote above has been bandied about quite liberally to describe the time we are living through but it is strangely apt.
Here in the UK, people have been arguing that our politicians have been failing us over the past few years and the same case can be made in many countries. But over the past few weeks, it feels like it is not just our politicians who are failing but the whole political apparatus. Boris Johnson and his government have been flailing around promising 100,000 tests by the end of one month and trace and tracking apps by the end of a different month but as no one actually knows what month it is, the whole thing seems irrelevant.
Their latest angle seems to be that we should “apply good old British common sense”. I don’t think that common sense has a nationality but from what I have seen people everywhere seem to have been applying common sense in ways that our leaders have not.
For instance, Jacob Rees-Mogg did… actually sorry, before I go any further, we do need to draw breath a moment and reflect upon the fact that I am about to continue this paragraph with something about how Jacob Rees-Mogg did something, because he can do something, because he actually has his hands on the levers of power. It’s the same gut-wrenchingly awful sensation you get when you write Dominic Raab/Priti Patel did…, what the fuck are these people doing doing anything? Who the hell put them in charge? Why oh why are they holding the great offices of state?
Anyway so what JRM did was to rule that parliament could no longer meet online and vote virtually. He demanded that they all troop back to Westminster and vote properly, in person, like they had been doing since he was a child and Lord Palmerston ruled the waves. And whaddaya know, right in the middle of a speech a minister started sweating profusely and had to be dragged off for a Coronavirus test. So while everyone has been scoffing at the Black Lives Matter protests and how they are going to be virus hotspots, our own dear Parliamentarians are creating their own little hotspot and are about to return to their constituencies around the country having rubbed up against the sweaty minister.
And so to #blacklivesmatter… no I shan’t. What this world in crisis probably does not need is a chubby little middle-aged white bloke pronouncing on this.
Read this blog post from an old friend of mine. Or watch this video from the brother of Roifield Brown, who I do a podcast with. And if you do like podcasts, you can find ours here on Spotify, or iTunes or Acast. Hey, there’s no promo like self-promo.
Well, I should probably sign off here. And while we are all undoubtedly bored, fed up, frustrated, worried and angry to one extent or another, I think we have also glimpsed some potentially amazing things during this crisis. We need to identify these and try to hang on to them and build upon them in the months and years ahead.
Random picture of Ava-Jane being hilarious:
Random picture of me and AJ having a cuddle in the garden:
I am sure it doesn’t mean anything but I have been listening to ‘The End’ by the Doors repeatedly as I write this post.
Misliterature 