Weekend Rage

I didn't expect to spend the pleasant bank holiday weekend raging on twitter, but I did. On Saturday twitter told me that Dominic Cummings, special government advisor, had not self-isolated when his wife was ill, but had instead first, gone to work, and second, driven 250+ miles with his wife and son to Durham to stay with his parents.  And had potentially gone on other trips too.

His explanation for this trip was that with his wife ill and potentially with the illness too he might become unable to look after his son.  Although there are systems in place to help with this, he had friends he had known for decades living close to him, and other friends who were willing to do this.  It's bullshit, he knows it, and thinks we're buying it.

To say I was angry about this is an understatement.  The government has done some pretty abhorrent things in the past 10 years - sanctions on benefits, bedroom tax, starving the NHS of funds, selling off public property like section houses and fire stations (mainly to their own friends), cheating by lying on buses, telling lies, using funds they ought not to have done, using robots and twitter farms, masquerading as individuals or independent groups... the list goes on and on.

But for the last couple of months they have peddled the lie that we are all in this together, and have imposed strict guidelines on the populace which meant that even if we were not infected with the virus, we were not allowed to leave the house or make unnecessary journeys, even if our nearest and dearest were at death's door, or we were.  And in general, the vast majority of people have respected those rules.

There was a lot of weaselly word manipulation on Saturday among those who defended Cummings, it wasn't illegal because they hadn't made journeys illegal.  Tell that to people who have been fined by the police if they haven't explained a second journey to the shops or whatever, and the people who have desperately wanted to visit mothers and grandmothers and haven't.  Tell it to people who haven't been able to go to hospital with their children.

Twitter was furious and so was I.  I read the Guardian articles on the furore, and was profoundly upset.  This man is employed by government to advise on just these guidelines, and he sat on the SAGE committee too.  The MPs were characterizing the episode as "just a father protecting his son" because the excuse given was that Cummings "might" be infected and therefore "might" become too ill to look after him.

This completely overlooks the fact that thousands of people have been in a similar situation and have avoided going anywhere else, even if a single parent.  Faced with the same situation, they have stayed at home and if necessary asked someone else to look after their children.  They have not gone on a long car ride north.

Government issued a short statement claiming that misleading stories were appearing in the paper. They have failed to point out any single example.

On Sunday I was still furious.  And more details had emerged... that he had taken his family to his parents house and it had been his mother's birthday.  That he had not, in fact, needed help with the child, just shopping delivered to his door.  That he had possibly been seen out of the house on April 12, which just happened to be his wife's birthday.

It was announced that Cummings would be holding a press conference the following day to make a statement and take questions.  This is unprecendented for an unelected government advisor.  In fact it breaks the code for government advisors.  The fact that he was allowed to use the garden at 10 Downing Street, gave no real explanation for his actions and seems to have thought that saying he took his wife and child on a 30 mile drive "to test his eyesight" was a reasonable thing to say, seems to mean he is considered special and thinks us all more stupid than he is.

He also claimed to have warned about coronavirus last year, although when people rushed to check his blog, the wayback machine indicated that his premonition had come to him on his return to London after having the virus.

He said that he was being hounded by inaccurate press, but the most inaccurate press of all seems to have been the fictional account by his wife, Mary Wakefield.  Who also had the audacity to retweet government advice not to go out even if the weather was nice...on her birthday and the day they went out to "test her husband's eyesight" in Barnard Castle.

It seems extraordinary that Cummings and his political cronies believe the country is swallowing this rubbish.  I don't hate the man, but I abhor what he did when so many of us were sticking strictly to the letter of the guidelines and the spirit.  Many people have suffered extreme hardship and heartache due to the guidelines that he was instrumental on inflicting on the public and he seems not to see what he did wrong. 

Although his friends are now saying that they probably didn't have coronavirus, despite the fact of his close working relationship with Boris Johnson and others in the cabinet who clearly did have coronavirus.  They need to decide which story they're sticking with, really.  Because if he didn't, there was no justification at all for any of the journeys.

I don't think he can survive this, but if he does, I predict Boris Johnson can't.

Curriculum Vitae

I am actively looking for work I can do from home, like the rest of the UK population.  So I thought I would put a CV on my blog, just in case.

I have long experience as a writer, blogger and editor.  I worked for ten years for Lloyd's Register of Shipping (LR), the classification society, not the insurance market, working on both in-house and external publications.  I wrote articles on shipping and industry for LR, and edited their in-house magazine and was assistant editor for their technical quarterly magazine and annual report.

Since leaving LR, I have written articles, newsletters and provided administrative support for a large number of companies on a freelance basis.

I have a strong interest in home education and unschooling, having home educated my (now adult) three children, and have written for TES and Young Minds magazine.  I also wrote a speech for my then MP, John Randall, which was delivered in Parliament at Westminster Hall.

I have been fascinated by virtual worlds since I joined Second Life (SL) in 2004.  I have been working as a creator in Second Life for 15 years.  I worked for Linden Lab as a freelance creator for five years, and have blogged professionally about the virtual world.

I have been researching my family history for decades, and have helped hundreds of people with their research.  I have blogged and written about genealogy and researching your family. I produce powerpoints for anniversaries and funerals, and I am setting up a website to help other people do this for themselves.

I enjoy crafts such as papier mache, jewellery making, decorating boxes and bottles.  I love composing music, and have recently taken up gardening.

I live in Lincolnshire with my two adult children and their partners, and my dog Tizzy.

Melons growing, courgettes not

My melon seeds have burst into life, while my courgette seeds are stubbornly refusing to burst into life at the moment.  I was given some raspberry canes which I planted immediately and seem to be doing well.

Yesterday my son Tom took down the larger part of a bush that had become a tree and was threatening to push over the wall between my neighbour and myself.  I hadn't realized that it had already dislodged a few bricks which meant they landed in her garden.  We initially thought that just the bough which had damaged the wall would have to come out, but then it became obvious that the tree was growing towards the light and two other trunks of the tree were pressing against the wall.

It was in poor condition, with some sort of blight on many of the branches, and so I don't think it was long for this world anyway.  The previous owners of the house had put a heavy metal drainpipe in as a support for the main tree bough, and that doesn't look very safe either.  It could definitely kill a child if it fell away from the wall.

I like my neighbour, Linda, very much, and I would never want anything on my side of the wall to affect her side of the wall.  It's going to be very strange not having the screen of the tree between us, and I will miss the tree in general - small birds seem to love it.  But safety comes first, and so the tree must come out.  The energy in the garden has already changed, strangely.  It makes a difference to the amount of light too.

It's a shame as this tree, which my plant finder thought was Laurustinas or viburnum, is loved by the birds.  If it IS Laurustinas, it's growing considerably higher than the average - it is at least seven metres high at its tallest. There is a motley collection of bricks and roof tiles underneath the plant, and its trunks are about 20 cm across. I rather liked the dark arch which the tree made with the Forsythia on the other side of the path, but it will lighten up that part of the garden a lot to take it down.

I've been collecting garden lanterns for a long time - I always pick them up in charity shops for a small amount - and I decided to make the best of having an oversized cherry tree in the middle of the garden by hanging lamps from it.  I have a very similar arrangement in Second Life, and the real life version is better.  I'm going to need to buy some more votive candles to put in them.  It's magical.

I've ordered a firepit locally from a maker who recycles metal cannisters etc into firepits.  I'm hoping that we can enjoy the garden together in the summer, and have a few barbecues etc in the evenings if we are still in lockdown.  The weather has been very warm and sunny this week, although the garden could definitely do with some rain. 

We've been enjoying the lilac in the garden, although it is starting to go over now. I've pulled out most of the self-seeded honesty before they had a chance to set seed, and I have planted some erigeron and hydrangea in the places where the yellow loosestrife grew up last year.  I try to keep a balance between the wild and the cultivated, and plant companion plants where possible.  My onions seem to be growing very slowly indeed.

Life at the moment is mostly housework, washing up, gardening and watching Modern Family (Netflix and Now TV).  I'd resisted it until I finished Life in Pieces (Amazon Prime) but then have binge watched Modern Family and it's grown on me. It's easy to watch and doesn't mention Coronavirus once.

Pottering about

I've been concentrating on my garden for a bit, planting seeds and repotting things.  I took the overgrown aloe vera which was becoming very overcrowded in the kitchen and found that I actually had nine aloe vera plants!  I repotted these and have spread them around the house, although I plan to give some of them away.  My daughter has already swapped one with someone locally who gave us two pumpkin plants and a cucumber in return. 

I hastily planted my strawberry plants out and protected them from birds and cats with netting and spiky things.  Then found my dog sitting on three of the plants.  I hope they recover!

I have a lot of tomato plants on the kitchen windowsill, and my lean-to tiny conservatory is full of pots of seeds and seedling spring onions. I paiud a bally fortune for delivery of five bags of compost last week, and now find there is a local supplier selling at less than a quarter of the price.  My daughter is going to go and fetch me some today, as I want to fill the raised beds in preparation for my onions and courgettes being ready to plant out. 

I'm worrying about the tall wall between me and my neighbour, as she tells me that some bricks have fallen off into her garden.  She told me I could come and fetch the bricks any time, but I am reluctant to just barge into her garden.  I do need to check on the wall though, in case it is dangerous.

I have been experimenting with making facemasks.  My initial experiment was really bad, as I sewed the elastic the wrong way round, which meant that when I turned the mask the right way out it had the elastic on the inside.  I was including loops of elastic but I notice that the N95 respirators have bands of elastic which go around the head, and I think this might be more efficient and more practical.

I bought myself a month's access to Find My Past but haven't had the time to use it, which is stupid. I seem to have a lot to occupy me with housework, gardening, sewing and gradually scanning in the photographs I took when the children were younger, which have negatives and aren't digital.

Offering service to others

I have a website about family history, which I set up with the encouragement of others who said that I should make the services I have given to people freely in the past into a business. The trouble is that I love family history research so much that I feel wrong selling it. I haven't kept up the blogging there either, so it looks out of date... and I realise that the wall of text I have on the first page is probably only attractive to other family historians and not the customers. It's on the list of things to do.

Also on the list of things to do is my other site, Recording Angel, which is about recording the personal stories, family histories and memorials for people in the family.  Originally I was again planning to make it a purely business site, offering those services to the community. But the current circumstances mean that so many people are unable to attend funerals, it occurred to me that offering people information on how to do it for themselves would be a service to others, and so that is what I am doing in between gardening and housework: making a website to explain how to do it, and how to go about it.

I'm hoping it will help - it breaks my heart to see people buried without any formal memorial.  I know those can happen in the future, but I think the memorial of the person is an important part of grieving - you want the world to acknowledge that the person had a place in the world and a personality, and to acknowledge their loss to the world.

So if I am a little distracted, forgive me.

Another beautiful day

The weather is just as I like it at the moment, sunny but cool with a breeze, although the tall walls in my garden make it less breezy than elsewhere. Yesterday I put in my strawberry plants when they arrived. I have now received my liquorice seeds, and the ancient seeds I have ordered for old breeds of edible plants.  I'm looking for perennial plants which will have a long growing season. They're in quarantine for 24 hours. I'm probably going to have to wait for my compost to arrive to plant some of them... and some need to be planted and then put in the fridge.

My tomato plants are growing on a windowsill at the moment.  I got excited when I saw my onion seedlings have started to sprout. I have spring onions and onions in seed trays (actually repurposed egg boxes) on windowsills and on a table. I am becoming more and more convinced that we should be gardening - the UK only grows 50% of its food at the moment, and what with Brexit and the coronavirus, we need to be able to grow more. It makes sense for all of us to be growing as much as we can, to leave food in the shops for those who can grow their own.

I'm feeling a bit ashamed about how much I let my garden grow wild while I was away and then grieving last year, although the hum of the bees in the morning makes me feel better.  I may not be using the space - yet, but I am giving the bees things to visit - honesty, dandelions and bluebells at the moment.

One of the unexpected benefits of the lockdown is how good my children are at cookery!  My daughter made a beautiful cheesecake overnight, and I am looking forward to a slice of it later today. My son has been cooking us chicken curries which have been a revelation.  I don't know why I've been cooking the curries or leaving it to the co-op (theirs are very good) when I have a master curry chef in the house!

Cosmo Sheldrake released a new song a couple of days ago. I love his music, and have bought his records. I think this piece is very calming, and it incorporates beautiful film of the bluebell woods, and the song of birds which are endangered. Enjoy!

Sewing scrubs and scrubs bags

I've sewed three scrubs bags for the local maternity hospital (although I have yet to iron them).  I don't think my sewing skills are good enough to make scrubs, although I have sent off for a pattern.

Meanwhile, both scrubs and scrub bags need cord, and this video shows how to make a bias or straight cord without ironing or using a plastic guide.

I will collect any useful information for sewing scrubs here.  There is a facebook group for the whole country here, called for the love of scrubs.

There is a facebook group here for Lincolnshire only, called for the love of scrubs - Lincolnshire.

There is a facebook group here for Market Rasen, where locals are making scrubs and scrub bags etc for the Lincoln Maternity hospital specifically.

Gardening in my pyjamas

As the UK is experiencing California-like weather, with long sunny days every day at the moment, I have been out in the garden trying to get it under control.  I left my garden for about six months in 2018 when I looked after first my ex and then my mother for several months, then spent a lot of time helping to sort out my mother's house.  Then six months after I lost my mother, my partner died, and for the whole of 2019 I hardly did anything in the garden except water - and it shows.

I'm gradually getting it under control.  I've brought in a new compost bin, put in raised beds, and have given up on trying to have a lawn and put paving slabs as a path through what is rapidly becoming a meadow.  It's only small, but it is full of life, my garden, with frogs and birds and insects, lots of worms in the soil and abundant plants.

This morning I took delivery of a dozen strawberry plants.  I argued with myself about where to plant them, but eventually decided to put them in the raised bed.  I banked the soil up, as I am expecting a lot more next week, and put the plants in within a short while of them arriving.  The soil is a combination of well rotted compost and commercial soil, and I'm hoping that it will suit them.

Meanwhile one, just one, of my knee pads has gone missing.  I can't imagine what anyone would want one knee pad for.  Fortunately I managed to do what I needed to do on one knee... but I will have to find the other!

I'm not gardening in my pyjamas today - I was expecting deliveries, and so even put a bra on! But it is warm enough to be out there in a bikini, let alone pyjamas...and I have been out there in my pyjamas this week....

Easter Sunday Thoughts

The theme of Easter Sunday ought to be resurrection, new life, spring and a coming abundance.  These are all symbolized in the egg, adopted from Tammuz worship from Mesopotamia millenia ago. At the moment that's hard to reflect upon, with thousands ill and dying in the hospitals, and all of us locked inside.

I've spent the first part of my morning ranting on twitter, unsure if anything I say gets further than the bunch of people who agree with me and have therefore followed me on twitter. I am leaving that behind though, for today.

Instead, I am practising gratitude for the things in my life.  My family, my house, the garden I have neglected, my dog, all the things in my life I enjoy - my computer, my craft materials and my cubby hole where I research my family history and work.

I'm also grateful for the loving and caring community around me. From today I will be helping with an effort to make scrubs bags and other things for the maternity hospital in Lincoln, along with other members of my community. I haven't much experience in sewing using a machine, but hope that I can help here and there - at the very least with donating duvet covers to be turned into scrubs bags, and maybe with making some cords and bags myself.

I'm grateful that there are people willing to organize and set up such groups, and that we are working together as a group, so that even while we are separated in our houses, we are still forming a constructive community.  It gives me hope for the future, for this is being replicated all over the country.

Maybe a new sense of community is the theme I am looking for.  I hope so.

Good Friday thoughts

The things I will be thinking about this Good Friday are man's inhumanity to man, and sacrifice.

People spend a lot of time arguing about whether Jesus was a real historical figure, and whether he was divine or human. Much more important to me are the lessons that are contained in the gospels about how it is right to live. We are all connected, all part of the same spirit, and how we treat each other matters.

Life has taken an odd turn, with many of us protected from the worst of the current crisis by our gardens, or our ownership of houses, or money in the bank.  There has been a lot of rubbish talked about the virus being a great leveller, as some of the highest in the land have fallen victim to it, but their experience is not the experience of the poor and homeless.

Both high-profile sufferers in the UK, both Charles Windsor and Boris Johnson, have had access to tests which are denied the others and to private medicine. They aren't having to persuade an ambulance crew that they are ill enough to get into hospital, they aren't queuing in ambulances to be seen at hospitals, or lying in corridors. Neither have had to worry that their nearest and dearest would be without food or having to break quarantine in order to get medication or food. 

Arguably, the people who are suffering the most are those who are going into the front line on our behalf, the doctors, nurses, yes, but also the post office workers, the cleaners, the delivery drivers, the shop assistants, the people who work in warehouses and in lowly jobs where they are on zero hours contracts and don't get paid unless they work. People who are forced to leave their houses every day in order to serve us all, and who will worry that they are not protected from the virus and may bring it home to the people they love.

That some people are finding a sacrifice of staying indoors too much to bear is hard to imagine, in the face of that much greater sacrifice, but of course, if you are stuck inside with few resources and very little room, that's an entirely different prospect from being in a large house with a garden. It's easy to judge those who aren't respecting the lockdown, but hard to put yourself in another's shoes and understand their experience.

I am hoping that the appreciation that people feel for the NHS and its workers, will translate into better funding, and more recognition for the work that they do on our behalf. And that the lesson of this lockdown is to appreciate all the people who work on our behalf, from dustbin people to doctors. And fund them, and measures to eliminate homelessness and hunger within the fifth richest country in the world.   

The old people in residential homes, where they don't even get taken to hospital and have been Do-not-resuscitated without their permission.  The homeless, who have nowhere to hide and no family to fetch provisions for them and no money to buy them.

After ten years of Conservative rule, it is odd to see them applauding the NHS that they have starved of money and resources. To see them pouring money into the things that Jeremy Corbyn campaigned to have funded properly.

Wrong science and 3D masks

I've notice a constant downplaying of the crisis in the reported information coming in all directions, and Chris Martenson says that he has too.  He debunks the Oxford report which indicates that most people in the UK have already had Covid-19 and you need to watch his video if you don't already follow him.

Meanwhile, although millions of gloves and face masks etc have been sent out to the people in the frontline, those stocks are not going to last long.  And in any case, the countries who have done the best have not only had a policy of aggressive testing, but have also got the whole population wearing masks.  It's the only way to beat this thing.  Although, clearly, the UK government think they know better.

The media are catching up in the US with the fact that help is needed from the community to try to provide the protective equipment that nurses and doctors need.

I'm as angry as the next person that they have not commissioned tests from those who had the components ready and waiting, and now have commissioned a huge order of ventilators from Dyson, who have never made ventilators before.  And that the government didn't get the memo about the EU ordering for ventilators.

However, concentrating on what can WE do, rather than their shortcomings, there is now an additional role for all those people who have a 3d printer at home.  It is possible for us to print out the bands for face visors, and complete them using the plastic from plastic bottles.  The idea is already rolling out in the US and I see no reason why it shouldn't here.

Do-it-yourself masks for NHS workers and your family

In the US there is a concerted effort to make masks for health workers, social workers and other people who are at risk and don't have access to proper surgical masks.

There isn't a similar campaign in the UK - yet.  But if Italy, which was rated the number 2 best health service in the world could have run out of protective face masks for staff, it is very possible for it to happen here.  Already there are stories that ambulance staff are only allowed four masks for a day, and that they are rationing one mask between two paramedics in some places, with the person dealing with a patient having the mask and the other paramedic having to keep six feet away from someone thought to be suffering from coronavirus.

Let's be clear: these home-made masks are not as good as surgical masks.  The research shown on this page indicates that the sorts of material which allow for a breathable end result are about 60% effective, and surgical masks about 97% effective at blocking the virus.  But they are considerably better than nothing at all, and can be washed and changed to increase their effectiveness.

This page contains information including research about the best materials for making masks, which turn out to be 100% cotton pillowcases or cotton tshirts, for breathability and protection factors to be balance.  It is important to make the outer layer and inner layer a different colour and so someone can see immediately which is which.

This page includes a printable pattern for facemasks, with instructions for making them.  They are rectangular masks, with folds.  There are other designs which look more effective in terms of covering the nose and face, but they are made with different segments of fabric and I think (although I have no evidence) that these may be more porous and therefore less effective.  There is no good research with this design, which makes it difficult to know.

If you have any links to research, to patterns or have suggestions and guidance for less accomplished sewers, please comment or send me an email.  There are now a considerable number of groups on Facebook who are separated physically but banding together to make these for the hospitals and clinics in their area.  You may find information and support from them.  One example is Sewing masks for Atlanta hospitals (Covid-19).

Things to do while quarantined or self-isolating

Many people have been posting ideas of things to do while quarantined or self-isolating.

My first suggestion is with my family history hat on.  Remember how annoying it was when you found a picture of unknown ancestors in a box of photographs and didn't know who was who, because no one had labelled the photograph?  Yeah, well that's about to happen on a massive scale, because hardly any of us identify the digital photographs we take.  Take the time to sort photographs and identify the people appearing in them.

The second is with a view to the fact that we may be in this situation for months.  Why not start gardening?  Even if you only have a flat or balcony, you could be growing lettuce, herbs, maybe some tomatoes?  Bearing in mind that shops are being stripped of fruit and vegetables, if you have a larger space the most useful thing you could do is to plant some vegetables and make your garden productive.

The third is to adopt a local elderly person you can phone and keep their spirits up.

Ok, this list is growing, am reorganizing into subject headings

Archaeology
Course now free on archaeology.
Online course on forensic archaeology.

Creative
Affinity creative apps have given everyone a three month free trial - and they're half price if you want to buy them.  This is a great time to learn new software.

Lectures
Fancy a lecture?  Gresham College has 2500 lectures on a wide variety of subjects to educate you, on history, art, gardening, astronomy, pandemics... maybe give that last one a miss....

Plays
You can watch all the Globe productions on the Globe Player here.

Singing
You can join an online choir here with Gareth Malone - 15,000 people have already signed up.

Virtual tours
This page on travel and leisure.com has virtual tours of museums and parks.

This article in the Independent has links to tours of Rome.

I will add to this page as I find links and ideas.

Information sources

It's clear that there are good, bad and really terrible information sources in this current crisis affecting a large part of Europe and the rest of the world.  I'm going to try to keep this page updated with any I find that seem useful.

The public health England heat map of infections is here.  You can therefore see where the hot spots are, and the figures for infection in your region.

For an international overview, and sharing of information, the man I follow on the Peak Prosperity vlog is here.  He has been vlogging since the end of January and warned what was about to happen in UK and the USA.  I think he is a very good source of information; measured, well researched, not at all sensational.

The NHS website includes the information for what you should do.

I find the Guardian has a good mix of articles and updates. The have a rolling blog of information coming in from all over the world.  They also have a US and Australian edition of the paper.

So does the Independent. They also have a daily update of news you may have missed overnight.

Home-made masks

OK, I've done my whingeing.  We are where we are.  So I am going to use my blog to try to share information and tips for us all.  No use in saying "people affected by the Covid-19 crisis" because we all are.

This is a link to an article showing what materials make the best home made masks and giving information about how good they are at stopping infection.  Don't believe all the stuff about masks not working or making things worse.  YES they will make things worse if you constantly touch the mask while out, having touched other things.  NO they won't if you resist doing that. And make sure you wash your hands before and after taking off the mask.

We need to be resourceful and do whatever we can to keep ourselves and our families, but also the wider community safe. Hopefully this will help.

Protect yourself

It is been surreal this week, watching horror unfold in Italy and Spain, and seeing life continue more or less as normal in Market Rasen.  For weeks I've been shouting into the wind on Twitter, trying to get people in my country to realize how serious the situation is in Italy, and to understand that we are headed for exactly the same meltdown of our services if we don't react and act now.

I don't know if I would have done better to bombard my MP with more emails than I usually send, or to address my complaints and suggestions to the prime minister and his colleagues.  I can only say that it has been bizarre to be shouted at and told that the "experts" advising the government know more than I do, and to find out that was wrong, I was right.  What good does that do?

There is no doubt that I would prefer to have my drugs and doctoring done by experts, and I would not let Joe Bloggs loose on my body if I needed an operation of some sort, but sometimes a layperson can see what an expert requires too much evidence to believe quickly.  We had that example of Italy laid out in front of us, and yet experts modelled our behaviour and infection rate on an entirely different disease (viral pneumonia) and then were surprised that what was happening in real time in our country did not follow their models.

I am very concerned that along with draconian powers to close borders and control people's movements, there are clauses in the new powers that government are awarding themselves to curtail information and to punish people who whistleblow.  I completely understand the need to stop allowing people to sue the authorities if hard decisions have to be taken in the next few weeks about who to save and who to allow to die, but that should not mean that truth cannot be told.

We watched in horror last night on the television as truck after truck laden with dead bodies left the Lombardy area.  They cannot cope with the number of bodies they have for cremation.  Lines of coffins lying in churches.  Exhausted medics nursing their own colleagues, begging for protective equipment, valves for ventilators, ventilators. 

In Spain, it seems that the authorities did not react earlier because they wanted to keep the country open for the festivals which bring in a vast amount of tourism and money for the economy.  Many of the tourists apparently came from northern Italy, and so it is easy to guess that the economic decision which seemed justified a few weeks ago may turn out to be very costly in terms of lives lost and the boom which is about to hit their health system.

Meanwhile, people continue as normal.  A local pub, the White Swan, advertises on the local facebook groups that they are open as usual, but have separated the tables more, to avoid contagion.  I posted begging them to close - I cannot understand why Boris Johnson has not acted to close the restaurants, pubs and clubs and to force them to turn to take away and delivery options only.  It's going to cost lives, in the long run, and won't help businesses that are quickly going to be unable to afford to keep going even if they do that.

Finally, his reluctance to institute a universal income, is meaning that those who have already lost their jobs are despairing.  Half the population is carrying on as normal and wants to be able to collect rents, charge people for things, and the other half has already stopped behaving as normal, is doing their best to stay and home and is watching the other half play Russian roulette with everyone's lives.

I caught the broadcast of a podcast on BBC yesterday, Newscast, which I didn't even realize was a thing.  It's a filmed version, which is going out every weekday on BBC1 apparently.  It featured BBC journalists, including Laura Kuensberg, discussing the days developments, and interviews with a brave journalist in Italy reporting the army trucks leaving Lombardy because they are now overwhelmed with bodies as well as patients.

It was surprisingly informative.  But I still recommend you watch Chris Martenson on youtube.  He's been right for weeks, and is continuing to sum up what is happening around the world.

Like watching a slow-motion train crash

It has been obvious to me for some time that the Covid-19 crisis unfolding in Italy was likely to unfold in the same way here if we did not take the measures of social distancing that other countries have been taking.  Today the government announced that they are advising people to self isolate if anyone in their family has a high temperature or persistent cough, and that we should not gather in pubs, clubs and theatres.

They didn't do anything useful to those business owners like closing the pubs, clubs and theatres so that the owners could claim on insurance.  They just told us not to go there, ok?

It was after the press conference that people posted information on twitter that suggested the government's modelling team had been surprised by the speed with which this virus has spread.  It appears that they have used viral pneumonia in their models, rather than the known variables for Covid-19.  And surprise!  Their model didn't follow the pattern of infection that has been noticed in other countries.

They are now acting to add social distancing, but still not testing people in the community, in contravention of the advice from WHO, who say that testing and contact tracing are the only way to stop the virus.  They haven't closed the schools, saying that it is a mild illness in children.  Of course, those children will be free to infect everyone in their families as people appear to be asymptomatic when they are first infectious, a few days before they develop symptoms.

I had assumed the lack of testing was related to a lack of testing kits, and maybe this is the case.  It seems very strange then that a manufacturer of kits in England and northern Ireland (Novacyt) tweeted that he had the capability to make 3.5 million kits but hadn't had any orders placed by NHS England.

The people most in need of kits for testing are the nurses and doctors who are on the frontline for the treatment of the virus.  It was reported that nurses and doctors who fall ill are being asked to continue to work in some areas and self-isolate in others, without any testing unless they fell ill enough to warrant admission to hospital. 

This is not a sustainable choice.  Without testing, doctors and nurses will either be at home for 14 days unnecessarily, or working with patients and putting them and their friends and families at risk. 

That they are at risk is not under discussion, but the powers that be have recently downgraded the sort of protective equipment a nurse or doctor has to wear when dealing with Covid-19 patients, to what they have in the cupboard. A situation which people are very unhappy with.  And who could blame them.

The procurement procedures being followed at the moment are bizarre in the extreme.  The UK needs ventilators very urgently, and the government said that they had been discussing with Rolls Royce the possibility that they could turn their production lines over to making ventilators - an assertion that was denied on twitter and elsewhere by the company, who said the government had not talked to them. 

I fully expect to read soon that the leading UK manufacturer of ventilators hasn't been asked to supply any, so chaotic and inefficient is the story.

We should be producing hand sanitizer, protective equipment and masks, ventilators, testing kits in very large numbers NOW if we are going to be properly equipped for the catastrophic increase in numbers that can be expected after the disastrous handling of the crisis.  I am very worried that they have let the genie out of the bottle, and no amount of social distancing at this delay of time will put it back in the bottle.

They still haven't addressed the point that there are a lot of people in our society - the self-employed and those on low hours or zero hours contracts - who cannot afford to self-isolate, as instructed.  That there are people who live week to week on their wages and have no savings and nothing to fall back on. They definitely need to do something about that, so that people can afford to self-isolate, before the UK becomes Italy and we are overwhelmed.

They haven't shut schools, saying that children aren't at risk.  Their parents are, though, and their teachers.  And as they may be asymptomatic they will probably infect their parents who will then have to self isolate.  The delay in losing the workforce may not be very long, and it would be far better to close the schools and slow the spread even further.

Boiling frogs

As a genealogist, I've often wondered what it must have been like for my ancestors to have lived through the plagues which have cut a swathe through the population of this country from time to time.  We all have ancestors who did, of course, or we just wouldn't be here. I didn't think I'd live through a plague of the sort now raging in China and Italy and creeping across the world. But here it is.

Of course, our ancestors were reliant on word of mouth and local announcements for information, they had precious little science and very little information to go on.  The rich abandoned their London homes for the country, and left the poor to deal with the piles of bodies. 

I hadn't realized the impact of the most recent "plague", the 1918 flu pandemic, until very recently.  An article by the Smithsonian Institute about the impact of what was called the Spanish Flu (because the Spanish were the only country freely reporting its impact on their population) showed that people were in such fear of it that they dared not attend to the needs of children whose parents had died.

That flu hit the young hardest, where this flu is hitting the elderly and sick.  Spokespeople for the world health organization (WHO) and various governmental ministers around the world have left the impression that the main part of the population need not panic so much as the main fatalities were already old and sick.  Not very comforting for those of us who have high blood pressure, diabetes, or are over the age of 65. 

What is most bizarre for me is having contact with people all over the world in the virtual world, and seeing that locally people have no idea what is about to hit us.  Despite the internet, despite the reports on television, despite the anecdotal reports of ICUs so overwhelmed with patients that triage leaves those who are elderly or with significant health problems to die without intervention beyond some oxygen, people around me are so *not* panicking that life goes on as normal.  Except for a lack of loo paper supplies.

I try not to panic, but I do try to be prepared, and so I have listened to the accounts of those around me in the virtual world, and have read the newspaper reports and scholarly articles about combatting flu in the hope that I can come up with more than "wash your hands".

People *don't* wash their hands properly, something which is demonstrated on Twitter by someone with gloves and ink, and although people on Twitter immediately respond with "medical staff do", I'd say that having spent a considerable amount of time with family in hospital, surgeons may, but most doctors and nurses are no better at washing their hands than the general public.  Even if they are about to perform a so-called sterile procedure.

In the current crisis, people seem to be content to follow the advice of the government, even though there has been a chaotic mismanagement of the advice from the dial-in NHS service in the UK, and pretty poor advice from government health bodies in other countries.  It is natural that people don't panic until it is clear there is something to panic about.  I know the boiling frog analogy has been found to be false - frogs will jump out of pans of water once it gets too hot, they don't just sit there - it seems we are more or less the same, because we wait to see what everyone else will do, before we panic.

This is why it is far, far better for your health if you are going to have a collapse and drop to the ground, if you do it next to one first aider rather than a large crowd of people.  One person on their own will respond immediately.  A group of people will wait to see what everyone else does... and if no one rushed to help you, if they think you are drunk for example, instead of diabetic or having a stroke, they may just step over you and leave you on the ground.

I am acutely aware of the danger, having an estranged husband who is 70 and in poor health, and a son who is immune suppressed.  I have prepared as far as possible for what is to come with stocks of food and a lot of elderberry syrup.  But I fear that we are going to be as shocked as the Italians by the exponential growth of the virus.  As shown by this vlogger who usually reports on the markets, but has switched to Coronavirus for now.

New Year, new thinking

Flooded field in Market Rasen

Bankers

Once, it was simple and easy to see
I had extra bulls and I needed poultry
you had extra chickens and needed a steak
A swap was the easiest way to partake

Someone invented the mint one fine day
Then we could use shiny coinage to pay
I paid you for chickens and sold Bert the beef
And you could buy oysters and prawns from the chief

Thus far it is easy to follow ye ken
I sell you real stuff, you can sell it again
I get a real coin with a value and know
That I can buy other stuff, quick cash and go

But here's what I don't understand any more
The way that it works seems wrong at the core
If I sell my house to a guy and his honey
They get a house and I get the money

But a lot of the markets alas and alack
They sell what they don't have and then buy it back
The banks got our money and some of our tax
And they're using that now to screw us to the max

I'd like to know who is in charge of this mess
The great machine clanks and the people have less
Though the world seems as bountiful as it did ever
The bonuses seem to reach my people never

F. Berry March 2013

Something has gone badly wrong with our economics system.  Farmers can't sell the wool they have, yet wool for a jumper costs more than a ready-made sweater from a shop.  Dairy farmers have gradually gone out of business, and more and more have taken a suicidal way out, when the price of milk has dropped. Meanwhile we have begun importing milk from other countries in the EU.

When talk of Brexit led to discussions about the things which might suddenly become scarce, we learned that we export 40% of our tomatoes... and meanwhile we import 40% of our tomatoes from the EU.  This just doesn't seem to make sense to me - I know that we have decided that the balance of goods out and goods in are an important part of our economic system, but that isn't laid down by some deity in the sky - it is something we can change.  And it seems to me that on the brink of leaving the EU, we should first be discussing whether it is a desirable thing to add miles of travel to the costs of basic items like tomatoes.  For the planet, it has to be a good thing for milk, tomatoes and meat to be grown locally to the places where they are consumed.

I think that one of the things which has gone wrong with our system is that we have allowed people to gamble on the outcome of crops and thus have divorced the cost of things from the actual value of them.  We have also not valued the sustainability of crops or good management in producing them. 

I think we need to stop arguing about whether global warming is man made or part of a natural cycle and recognize that whichever it is, our systems for manufacture, building housing and crop management needs to be realistic and to plan for the changes which may be to come.  We need to stop building housing where floods are likely to happen.  We need to start building to recognise the dangers of flooding in particular areas.

The Netherlands is under sea level in many places, and a system of dykes and flood management measures have kept the country safe from flooding for many years.  We could learn from that experience.

I think that physically, man is meant to be omnivorous, and there are some nurtients that are hard to obtain from a vegetarian or vegan diet, but that doesn't mean that I believe that our current system of industrial food production is good for us or our planet.  We need to return to a time when a very small amount of meat or fish went a long way, and the diet was mostly fruit and vegetables - and we need to find ways of promoting the production of more fruit and vegetables.  Meanwhile, the traditional orchards of England are being converted to wine production, and the land is being farmed out in many places.  We could learn from permaculture, and the innovative ways that food is being produced in inhospitable places - and producing a better and more bioactive soil.

We have politicians who barely look beyond next week, in a situation where we need to be planning for years, if not decades.  If this warming of the planet follows the mediaeval warming period (although experts agree we have already exceeded the maximum point) then it may go on for centuries.  We need to be looking to see what we need to change, and changing it, but currently that is unlikely to happen without pressure from ordinary people.

Our planet will sustain us, but we need to be clever with our resources.  My major argument against exhausting the petrochemical resources we have on our planet at present is not just that the pollution is causing harm and may be driving warming, or increasing it, but that our descendents, far into the future, may need petrochemicals for uses that we cannot even guess at.  Our great grandchildren may curse us for using so many plastics for ridiculous things, if they need the elements we have used for novelty toys and sock connectors. 

We already have a shortage of medical helium, while people are still filling party balloons.  Yes, it may be possible to harvest elements from other planets, but that's a long gamble.  We haven't even reached Mars yet.  And the cost is likely to be astronomical.

There is a tragedy in the way that we have been given a beautiful planet, with enough resources for everyone to have clean water, a home to live in and food to eat, and yet we have chosen to hoard resources and place power in the hands of a few people who now have a vested interest in making war and profitting from the weapons of war.  It's going to be a hard awakening when we find that we have ignored the real fight with the four elements, in order to fight endlessly with ourselves.

I'm going to finish this here.  Rant over.  I hope that you all have a happy and healthy new year, and all consider whether what you are doing, buying, working on, is consistent with love, and with your true self.  I know that isn't true for me, and I am going to work towards making it truer in 2020.