New Norms

          Whilst virus control has become paramount, still it has been feasible to go out for a walk if heedful of the required precautions, which is just as well since it would have been hard to resist the lure of this past week’s spring sunshine. A morning constitutional enlivened by a coffee stop is one of life’s pleasures, though lately we have all had to get used to being served a takeaway with no form of companionship except for moments of determined carry-on-camaraderie expressed in exchanges of smiles through improvised serving hatches. But even that has now come to an end. Yesterday, all remaining hatches were battened. At one coffee shop, all that remained as testimony to its popularity was a series of sticky-tape crosses on the pavement, safe queueing points meticulously marked out, then abandoned in apparent haste with no time taken even to fix a notice of regret to the door.

          Still, looking for something to buoy the spirits, motor traffic has almost disappeared, resulting in lower levels of air and noise pollution. We can breathe clean air and marvel at birdsong, both of which are unusual attractions in the city centre. Perhaps this is how the teams of traffic wardens are passing the time while they pointlessly patrol the conspicuously vacant parking bays. It’s time they were sent home, surely?

          But they might prefer to be out and about. Confinement at home is not necessarily a pleasure. There are many for whom such an imposition presents difficulties and hardships. But for the lucky ones, like me, it is no hardship at all. Having long since been liberated from the daily commute to a place of work, I am well prepared for being at home, where it’s almost business as usual – apart from one or two modifications to routine necessitated by the altered circumstances outside, the closure of cinemas being one. Thanks to the DVD rental and streaming outfits, so there is no shortage of material. But, since it had become my habit to go to the cinema during the day, a psychological glitch presents itself. Whereas entering a darkened cinema during daylight feels like a legitimate if louche pleasure, drawing the curtains at home feels more like the violation of some deeply ingrained ethic of one’s upbringing. So, unable to cross that line, I wait until evening before I let the credits roll.

          This leaves cinematic gaps in my day, which allow more time for the ‘legitimate’ daytime activity of reading. But getting to grips with the backlog is no mean feat. I made a start by tidying and re-organising my den, resurrecting books that had gathered dust while they waited their turn and scrappy lists of titles yet to be acquired. Most divertingly, I uncovered a forgotten publication, one that I had stashed long ago with good intent and which promised to help me with the daunting task ahead: Read Better, Read Faster. The essential guide to greater reading efficiency (published 1965). Like a writer who sharpens pencils rather than committing words to paper, I determined to work my way through the manual as preparation for tackling the reading itself. I got off to a good start but nodded off halfway through Exercise No.5 and subsequently decided to impose a discipline, limiting study periods to one hour per day. But, by day three, with my score clocking ‘average’, competitiveness reared its head and heightened my concentration so that I am now enduring stretches of almost two hours.

          This morning, after Exercise No. 9 (in which I surpassed the average score) I took a break and confronted the new normal – DIY coffee at home. It was a miserable experience: coffee, like BBQ, is an event or it is nothing. So, tomorrow, I might establish another new normal, by tackling the taboo and watching a few trailers over my cafetière.

Thank You, Aneurin Bevan

          Earlier this week I happened to be at a local hospital, the one at which, on 5^th July 1948, Aneurin Bevan inaugurated the NHS. There, in the half-empty car park, stood a temporary Covid-19 testing station not in operation, which surprised me considering the extent to which coronavirus is raging. But the disease has spread quickly since then and a long queue may well be forming right now.

          That same evening, I was out with a friend for drinks and supper at a couple of pubs (we had decided that the risk was minimal). There were no crowds, but then it was a Monday, so the situation seemed normal. We finished up at a tiny pub where we got talking to the landlord and his regular drinking buddies, one of whom said, on leaving, that he would not be coming back until the virus was gone. It seemed overly dramatic at the time but, since that night, pubs, bars and restaurants have been obliged to close their doors to customers. Indeed, being out in the city streets today one feels like an extra on the film set of a disaster movie. We have all seen images of deserted foreign cities but how sympathetically have we reacted to the plight of their inhabitants, people to whom we are not close? Perhaps, by experiencing the same at home, we might, at last, feel a degree of empathy, if only fleetingly.

          One morning, despite mounting pressure exemplified by the impending compulsory closure of schools, I ventured out to a normally buzzing coffee shop. There were just two other customers. The staff were at pains to assure us that hygiene was strict – they were no longer handling keep-cups and had placed sanitizer on the counter for customers’ use – and, since they had nothing much else to distract them, the coffee they made was excellent. However, it didn’t go down with much relish for all that. What spoilt it was the feeling that we might all be acting selfishly by taking the risk, however small, of spreading the virus. Which raised a couple of questions: is it wise to allow unqualified individuals, however well-informed, to assess such a risk for themselves? Should we leave it instead to government dictat and, if so, would that incur other kinds of risk – such as being manipulated by self-serving regimes and allowing the responsibility for our actions to be removed from us as part of a stealthy erosion of our civil liberties? And, finally, was I over-thinking my coffee break? Still, left to their own devices, people’s judgement is influenced by factors such as fear, ignorance and selfishness on the one hand as well as knowledge, practicality and philanthropy on the other. For example, the proprietor of a local convenience store is asking an extortionate price for sanitizer, whereas some brewers and distillers have switched production to making sanitizer, which they are distributing free to those in need.

          In times of crisis, such as this, populations look to their authorities for planned and controlled solutions, not suggestions. This is when so-called ‘big government’ should come into its own, with its public resources ready to meet the challenge. However, the hollowing out of institutions by advocates of ‘small government’, like the Republicans in the US and the Conservatives in the UK, can leave states inadequately equipped to protect their citizens from disasters, while the private sectors they foster remain well placed to profit from the provision of solutions only to those who can afford them. It’s been 72 years since the NHS was founded, which is surely long enough for any government of a supposedly civilised society to admit that it is the best, if not the only way, to ensure the welfare of all its citizens.

How Green Is Your Valley?

           Last evening, I attended a citizen consultation session hosted by a group of city councillors who, having declared a state of ‘climate emergency’, are now obliged to take appropriate action. But emergencies, by definition, demand immediate action and this is where things get tricky. In the realm of infrastructure, for which the council is responsible, changes will take time, inevitably. For example, exhorting people to use public transport is futile unless you have first provided it and made driving less feasible. In the realm of personal behaviour, where changes can be encouraged or nudged by official policies, results can be achieved more quickly but there is an irrationality factor to take into account. How do you persuade people, for example, to look after their personal health and thereby ease the burden on the NHS? Many just don’t, despite the clear consequences to themselves, never mind the NHS. The obvious conclusion is that peoples’ actions are dependent upon the proximity of perceived threat to themselves. Some individuals are exceptions, of course, like those who are at the rational end of the spectrum of human behaviour. (They are easily identified by their refusal to stockpile toilet paper.) The fact that Covid-19 is an immediate threat to all citizens and all economies, has resulted in drastic measures being imposed – and largely accepted – to curtail the contagion. The fact that eco-disaster poses an even greater but less instant threat has resulted in postponed, half-hearted and often reluctant attempts to avert it.

          1974 was, for me, a significant year: it was when I migrated to Manchester, where I have remained since. But in that same year, of course, much more important things occurred, among them the establishment of the Centre for Alternative Technology, set up by a group of determined pioneers in a spent slate quarry near Machynlleth, Wales. Would that I had been in their visionary company, but I chose the conventional, consumerist life, unconcerned about sustainability and only vaguely aware that others had seen the light and were busy working towards a greener future. Nevertheless, I have visited the CAT occasionally to see how things are progressing, most recently last week. The complex has grown, thanks to the determination of its founders and the support of like-minded individuals and organisations. It has a sophisticated ‘visitor experience’ and is a grand day out for families who are looking for an educational theme park. There is a display showing its first electricity-generating wind turbine and photo-voltaic panels alongside information describing the efficiency of the latest, commercial models of each. It must be gratifying for the staff to have learned, this week, of a report claiming that wind and solar electricity generation will soon be cheaper than coal, in all major markets, and that even the building costs of the structures will be less than the running costs of coal-fired equivalents. If anyone is entitled to say “I told you so,” it is this lot. And they fought long and hard to prove their point, with no help from the establishment. This is what they were up against: “The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun” (Ralph Nader).

          Earlier that day, in the town of Machynlleth, the former capital of medieval Wales, and home to the first Welsh council to declare a climate emergency, I had dropped off my partner at a redundant chapel, where she was attending an Extinction Rebellion event (albeit with zero support from the council). I then identified a likely-looking coffee bar – nay, roastery – and went off in search of a copy of the Financial Times. My search was fruitless but, in the process, I did notice there was no shortage of toilet rolls in the shops. From this I deduced that, either Machynlleth has lost all vestiges of former power and influence or its priorities are different from other towns when it comes to panic buying.

Tamarind Paste

          Until recently, the only thing I knew about tamarinds was that they feature in a schoolboy joke (Question: can you name three fruits that begin with the letter “t”? Answer: tangerines, tamarinds and… tinned peaches.) but the time has come to take this fruit more seriously. My growing preference for a plant-based lifestyle, which encompasses not only cleaning products but also dinners, has led me to re-visit the lentil and vegetable-based cuisine of my semi-hippie youth, albeit with the stimulus of some contemporary recipes, one of which requires a teaspoon of tamarind paste. No problem, I thought, given that there are two oriental supermarkets on our street, which is in Chinatown. However, the stuff is only available in a rather large lump of not so much a paste as a sticky, compressed pulp, which, after some messy experimentation, I discovered to be soluble in hot water and thereby manageable. I am still not sure what taste it added to the dish but am left with a large quantity of it. (War babies do not throw away leftover food.)

          It may have occurred to some of you – as it has to me – that living in Chinatown increases the likelihood of contracting covid19 but, this is not scientifically asserted. Moreover, because I don’t frequent the restaurants and I don’t have any Chinese mates, I don’t feel particularly at risk. Certainly, the neighbourhood is less busy of late and not just because there are fewer visitors. The fishmonger, who drives here from the coast every Sunday to set up his stall in our street, is feeling the pain. Whereas he normally sells out by early afternoon, his numerous and enthusiastic Chinese customers have been staying away. I spoke to him last week as he sat in his van, sipping coffee and staring disconsolately ahead. “It’s been like this for three weeks.” He said. “Maybe you could diversify,” I said. “What about setting up shop in one of the fish-less suburbs?” “By the time I’ve got a licence to trade there, it could all be over,” he replied. “I’ll stick it out and see what happens.” I don’t know how deep his pockets are, but I do know he’s not alone in his predicament.

          As of now, prevention of the spread of covid19 is top of the agenda in most countries and it is questionable to what extent our various governments will succeed in their efforts to contain it. The People’s Republic of China, as an authoritarian one-party state, appears to have an advantage in this respect: it can enforce drastic, unilateral measures as it sees fit. Normally, I would deplore the type of government that allows no dissent but, in this instance, my criticism is muted – though I do take a grim pleasure in the fact that its latest Big Brother project, face recognition by means of AI, is likely to be stymied by the sanctioned wearing of surgical face-masks. But let’s not gloat: the CCP has shown signs of mending its secretive and isolationist ways, if only, perhaps, as it has come in this phase of its existence to accept that its economic prosperity relies on an acceptable interface with other powerful nation states.

          Meanwhile, I count my good fortune in being able to carry on almost as normal. I go to the cinema during the day, when it is empty. (This week, I saw Portrait of a Woman on Fire, a love story portrayed in a very stylised setting, and The True History of the Kelly Gang, a tale of desperation told from the losers’ point of view.) And I cook at home, pushing the lentil boundary and experimenting with things like tamarind paste on toast, a dish I cannot recommend. Apparently, however, it’s good for polishing metal.