I Had It Coming

          Well, I finally caught covid, just as I was beginning to feel smugly invincible. In which case, you could say I had it coming. Fortunately, the symptoms have been nowhere near as severe or frightening as they once might have been – thanks, I suppose, to vaccinations and a milder strain of virus. In fact, for anyone who can remember the ‘flu, (a disease that has not crossed my path since routine inoculation became available for elderly folk like me) my symptoms were similar – give or take a sniffle. And so, as I revel thankfully in the luxury of feeling better each day, I also contemplate what might have been, remembering March 2020, when the slightest hint of a Coronavirus symptom was liable to bring on a panic attack in the middle of the night.

          I also spend too much time trying to work out an impossible puzzle: how and where I became infected. I mean, my defences were formidable – four shots of Pfizer’s finest, two brazil nuts a day, plenty of fresh air and exercise, endless face-masks and bottles of sanitiser cluttering up the coat-cupboard – and my risk-taking minimal, with avoidance of strangers in crowded, ill-ventilated places studiously observed. Up to a point. And all the while, not a peep out of my NHS track-and-trace app. (I assume it still works?) I suppose an element of complacency played its part. That and a three-week sojourn in London that involved a fair amount of socialising. While it’s true that I was one of the few tube travellers who took the trouble to mask-up, it counted for nothing when I spent the rest of the evening maskless like everyone else in the pub/club/restaurant that must have counted among its customers plenty of aforesaid maskless tube travellers. Speculating about exactly where and when I ‘caught’ the virus is pointless, since its ideal environment for transmissibility is as just described. Yet still my mind will not cease trying to perfect its own track-and-trace algorithm.

          I actually felt the symptoms within 24 hours of getting back home, where, while unpacking, I found a leaflet in a jacket. It warns of the dangers of mRNA vaccines, particularly if administered to children. At first glance, I assumed it to be propaganda put about by ‘anti-vaxx conspiracist theorists’ with a propensity to get carried away but, on reading it I discovered a more considered and informative point of view than I expected – especially insofar as child-vulnerability is concerned. The argument centres on the ‘novelty’ of the mRNA type and the fact that the trial periods are years shorter than would normally be demanded of such medications before being granted approval for public use. But I got suspicious when, at the end, the blame for this dereliction of duty to public health was laid at the door of greedy, manipulative pharmaceutical companies. Now, it is true that this kind of thing goes on (Purdue and the opiod epidemic in the USA e.g.) but it seems unlikely that governments all over the world would conspire together to harm their entire populations so that a few pharma companies could make easy money. Therefore, a little background reading into the leaflet’s poster-boy, Dr Robert W. Malone, seemed in order. It soon becomes clear that conspiracy theories are rabbit holes down which no busy person wants to disappear – unless there’s money in it, perhaps.

          Anyway, I am determined to spend less time on historic track-and-trace and more on future calculations involving complacency, risk and gain. It seems to me that, with the risk of serious illness waning, it’s time to pick up the social threads where possible. By now, we all recognise that there is potential harm to our mental wellbeing when we endure prolonged social isolation. And there’s certainly no vaccine for that.

 

Bonhomie

          Two days after I had bought a pair of return tickets for a long-distance train journey, the government announced (in yet another obvious attempt to distract attention from its incompetence and lack of moral rectitude) that such tickets would be offered at half-price for the next month! Since the train companies are subsidising the sale, I am minded to cancel my booking and start again, though it’s probably best to wait until the stampede is over.

          I suspect the train companies have had their arms twisted in this instance. Nevertheless, there is something else going on, insofar as they seem lately to have adopted a general ‘be nice to passengers’ (or should that be ‘customers’?) policy. I offer as evidence my experience with three different operators within the last ten days. The services have been punctual, the carriages and toilets clean and the employees, without exception, good-natured, patient, polite and, sometimes, funny. Perhaps it’s because train operators put their prices up in March and are now on a damage-limitation campaign to prove that riding with them is a pleasurable experience, regardless of cost. If this is the case, their employees have certainly been sent to a good charm-school. Boarding one train a little early, I had to step aside for the cleaner – or ‘Train Presentation Team Member’, according to her tabard – to clean the table with an anti-bacterial wipe, which she did with an enthusiastic flourish, followed by a smiled invitation for me to take my seat. On another journey, diverted by engineering works, the guard/conductor/ticket collector/train manager or whatever his title is, explained the diversion good-humouredly to every passenger that needed reassurance. It was as if he loved and treasured us all.

          But this outbreak of joy may be down to more than company policy. It could have something to do with the fact that this past week has seen warm, Spring-like weather arrive in time for the Easter holidays, a happy coincidence that more than doubles the enjoyment value of both – the natural event and its religious counterpart. The resulting feel-good factor is strong enough to have percolated down to those who are obliged, like the employees of train companies, to work through the holidays. Even though I am presently in London, the joyful signs of nature’s rejuvenation are never far from the doorstep. Every little patch of greenery is glowing with vigour, every blossom is in its prime and every determined sun-worshipper has bared their arms and legs and is slapping along the pavements in flip-flops en route to who-knows-where, but not the office.

          The last of my train journeys took me from London to St. Leonard’s, to visit my brother. We revelled in a classic British seaside experience – a walk along the promenade in the sunshine and lunch at a café right on the beach, where the menu boasted locally caught fish and locally made cider. It felt too good to be true. All right, the background music was a bit iffy, but it’s early in the season and they have time to perfect that. Oddly, the one thing missing was the tourist throng. Come to think of it, there were only three of us on the train from London and the news is full of congestion at the airports, so I should not have been surprised. Smug, yes. Surprised, no.

          The journey back was just as relaxed – apart from a moment of anxiety brought about by the inspector’s troubled look as he scanned my ticket. He shook his head, almost imperceptibly, then settled himself down into the seat opposite to explain that my ticket was valid only for a particular train, which was not this one. “I suppose you didn’t read the small print,” he said, “people often don’t”. And with that gentle caution and in the new-found spirit of being nice to customers, he smiled, winked and let me off scot-free.

Madding Crowd?

          When I mentioned to a neighbour that we were going away for two or three weeks, he asked politely “Anywhere nice?” “London,” I said. “Oh dear!” he replied. Whether he spoke from ignorance of the city’s attractions or trauma suffered at its hands, I don’t know (we are only recently acquainted) so I responded by saying that I have friends and relatives there and, satisfied by this explanation, he nodded sympathetically and urged me to make the best of it. Which is what I’ve been doing since.

          Nor am I alone: the tourists are back and I’m vying with them for pavement space, bumping into them as they stop in their tracks to take selfies, then spurning them as they queue for the mainstream experiences. What, I ask myself, motivates them? It’s a rhetorical question, of course – especially as I am as keen a tourist as any – but seen from the perspective of one’s own patch, it’s a valid one, especially if you want to encourage them to keep coming, whether for economic benefit or cultural exchange. People come from afar, at considerable expense, to gawp at us and our habitat – often without any prolonged engagement with us individually – and we do the same to them. Is this behaviour driven by an appetite for foreign-ness, a quest for exotic experiences, an impulse to photograph what has been photographed millions of times before? Or is it just straightforward human nosiness? Probably all these and more. Still, I can’t help feeling that I would like, occasionally, to volunteer my services as an impromptu guide to those who look lost, bewildered or, best of all, enthusiastic. Not that I am qualified or expert in any way, but I do empathise with the spirit of tourism.

          Of course, the easing of Covid-related restrictions has opened the floodgates to the pent-up impulses of all who want to get out and mingle again, myself included. It could be that it’s been so long since I experienced a joyfully crowded pub, that the one I had a pint in last night in Soho seemed especially joyful and crowded. Was it like this on an ordinary week-day BC (Before Covid)? In fact, the streets were full of evening revellers, so much so that my companion and I had a job finding a restaurant that could offer us a table for supper. Yes, there were tourists among the crowds but also Londoners, all of whom must surely be about to feel the pinch of inflation as the news headlines proclaim a ‘cost-of-living crisis’? Are so many people insulated financially from its effects (Soho is not cheap) or did I mis-read the mood? Far from being a celebration of the return to ‘normal’, was it in fact one of desperation, a 'last chance to dance’?

          Perhaps, like me, many folks are bingeing on London while they can. For the past two years, I have kept up my subscriptions to the National Trust, the National Art Fund and English Heritage, despite their assets being mostly unavailable. Now it’s pay-back time and I’ve been assiduously checking the options near me. Needless to say, many are overrun by tourists, which can be a bit of a nuisance, but the art show at the Barbican Centre, Postwar Modern, is an exception and the work of British artists on display there and the context in which they were created can be fully appreciated in a calm, relaxed manner.

          Next day, back in the tourist melee of Borough Market, I met up with an old friend. We bought sandwiches, then searched for a picnic spot. As often happens, we did not have to stray far from the tourist honeypot. If you’re ever down that way and feel the need for a peaceful haven, look for Red Cross Garden, created by the social reformer and co-founder of the National Trust, Octavia Hill. It’s a gem that’s not hard to find. But please, don’t tell the tourists about it.

The End of Times

          During a fifteen-minute taxi-ride the other day, I was given an interesting lecture by the driver, whom I took to be Levantine, judging by his accent and formalised manners. But his ethnic origins were blurred by his subsequent monologue. He declared that “the war” was going well, because Ukrainian Jews were migrating to Israel, as had been predicted in some vaguely specified writings emanating from the Middle East around 5,000 years ago. This is a long time before Ukraine was a nation and even before Judaism was established, but I didn’t object, as I was by now more interested in where this was going than I was in the route to the station.

          He was emphatic about his “studies” of ancient writings and the conclusions he had drawn from them. Everything seemed to hinge on a dream that some Mesopotamian king had had and which, with the help of a paid flunkey, he then presented as a revelation, a vision of the future, whereby East and West would face each other in unreconciled opposition at the end of the world. “So, the war is according to the prediction, you see?”, said the driver. I had already sensed that argument would be futile, as it usually is with people who believe what they want to believe. Besides, he had given me no opportunity to comment. But as I was paying the fare, he finally asked me what I thought of his studies. I said that basing geo-political theories on some ancient despot’s ‘vision’ was as about as flawed a line of enquiry as I could imagine. He started to scratch around for corroborating evidence for his theory, but I had a train to catch.

         By way of setting some perspective, I was later at the British Museum’s exhibition The World of Stonehenge, where I learned that 5,000 years ago in what is now England, the culture that culminated in the building of Stonehenge was flourishing. Writing was not one of its accomplishments, however, so we rely on archaeological interpretations for the story. But, if the rest of ancient writings – and their subsequent interpretations – are anything to go by, this is arguably a more reliably factual starting point for historians. The evidence is dug up, not dreamed up.

          Experts generally agree that all early civilisations, on whatever continent, sought some explanation for the forces of nature and, in the absence of scientific evaluation, were easily persuaded by a good story. The all-powerful sun was a popular choice since its effects are tangible and indisputable. In Egypt the sun became a god called Ra and subsequent rulers appointed themselves as Ra’s intermediaries, thereby acquiring the despotic powers by which they commissioned pyramids and other fantastical monuments to themselves. The question of who ordered the erection of Stonehenge, our home-grown tribute to the sun, is unanswered, however. There is no evidence of a supreme ruler with a subjugated or enslaved workforce at their disposal. Was it simply a communal enterprise, a voluntary collaboration? If so, this would fit quite neatly into the story that the British are naturally averse to tyranny. After all, didn’t we suss long ago that the word ‘monarch’ is a euphemism for tyrant/despot/dictator/autocrat? Didn’t we strip our own monarchy of its ‘God-given’ rights?

          Maybe so, but beware complacency. Where others have Putin, Bolsonaro, Modi, Orban, Kim Il-Sung, Xi-Jinping (it’s a depressingly long roll-call), we have Johnson, a cuddlier but just as deadly threat to democracy. His proposed legacy projects, which include bridges, airports and tunnels, may have failed for lack of autocratic wherewithal, but he continues to chip away at democratic freedoms with sly, Trump-lite moves to curtail the independence of the judiciary, pack public bodies with stooges, mislead parliament, sell publicly owned TV stations to friendly media barons and gerrymander the electoral base. Better watch out for any ‘visions’ he may conjure up to convince the gullible.

So Many Causes

          In Exeter city centre last Saturday afternoon, I had the experience of being loudly and extensively abused by a large, angry, red-faced bloke. It’s one of the less desirable reactions you can expect when you take on a ‘public outreach’ role in support of an XR action – in this case, an entirely legal (for the time being) unfurling of banners in a public place. We were bringing attention to the ill-advised continued investment in fossil fuels by Barclays Bank but this man, for one, did not want to hear reason. The sum of his argument was “You’re all a bunch of idiots”, which he shouted repeatedly. I know better than to provoke passions by raising my voice, so I responded passively, knowing that the best outcome I could hope for was that he would run out of steam and venom before he burst a blood vessel and/or physically attacked me.

          Meanwhile, a few meters away, the World Wildlife Fund had a whole marquee erected to bring attention to the plight of animals whose habitats have been and are being eroded by the Anthropocene era. He didn’t shout at them: because, perhaps, as I discovered later, it was “his” bank that we had offended. The plight of the planet was, apparently, the concern only of a few “idiots”. Normal people bank at Barclays and must not be awoken from their sleepwalk into disaster.

          But, while outing Barclays as a culprit of eco-irresponsible investment was the focus of the action, my part was to offer a way for people to do something positive about it – and at neither cost nor inconvenience to themselves: switch banks. And for this, I was thanked by many more people than chose to abuse me. One chap, for example, declared at first that he didn’t care which bank he was with, as long as they looked after his money. But when I asked whether he cared about the planet, he replied “Of course I do. I live on it.” He could not then refuse the leaflet I proffered, or to promise to look at switchit.green. His wife gave him a sceptical glance, but I chalked it up as a small but sweet victory.

          Busily scanning the crowds for likely punters, I did not notice how well the WWF people were faring, nor the Palestinian support group nearby. What struck me, however, was the thought that there are so many causes to represent, it must be difficult for people to rank them in order of importance. Well, not that difficult if, say, you are a Palestinian and the immediate existential threat you face is geo-political rather than environmental. If I were to argue that the overarching cause we should all embrace is that of the climate crisis, it could be countered by those who say that a changed environment would not be the end of the world, but one to which nature would have to adapt and evolve, as it has in the past. So, the question of which is the most important cause remains relative to personal circumstance. When there is a row of charity shops available to browse, Cat Rescue is never my first choice.

          Does the same apply to active involvement? My own history in that respect has been patchy: I used to sport a CND badge, but the logo was quite cool and fashionable at the time; and I once made a well-intentioned appearance at a rally to stop a neo-fascist march, though my efficacy may well have been diminished by the fact that I had gone solo and so lacked the bravado a band of brothers might have afforded. My latter-day semi-active participation can be explained by my circumstances: a combination of intellectual conviction, a surplus of resources and peer-group pressure. The public display of passion was never likely to be a driver since shouting is not my forte.