(30 January 2021) For me the last weeks of January I always feel a little gloomy. Christmas is over, all the decorations have gone, I have had my birthday and the weather is usually rubbish.
This year is even worse with death stalking the streets, unable to socialise and Brexit biting.
There is hope with the vaccine but it is worrying that there is uncertainty on the best time period for the booster and whether or not the vaccinated can still be infectious. I fear the appearance of the Chicken Theory so that people feel happy with one (though it is not perfect) rather than having the rapid booster.
Also, some joy at the USA electing an ordinary mainstream, slightly kind gentleman rather than the alternative.
My current thought was formed from a recent newspaper headline quoting the Prime Minister that the new Covid variant was “30% more deadly”. Frightening news.
I read the article. It stated that the death rate for old Covid as 10 in 1,000. That is 1%.
The new variant had an estimated death rate of 13 in 1,000. That is 1.3%. Therefore, the death rate has only gone up by 0.3% – concerning but not a cause for panic. Always do the sums.
A resolution for this year is to take at least one photograph every day and I will publish a gallery for each month (if I manage to get galleries working). Below a picture summing up the end of festivities.
The colour changing mug has its last cup of tea before hibernation.
(8th December 2020) Finally I awoke on a Saturday with football anticipation; though joy was tempered with anxiety because the club, quite rightly, made me complete an online questionnaire to ensure I was Covid free. However, I had to print out the confirmation that they had decreed I was safe. Submitted at 11.00- it did not come through until 15.03, thus eventually relieving tension.
The match kicked off at 8.00 pm, not a time I had experienced before; I was setting out in the dark for the first time since lockdown. The journey to the match (healthy backstreet walk, short tube journey) did not feel like a journey to the match; it was more akin to the semi-dystopian post-apocalyptic anxiety dreams we all (or I do anyway) experience from time to time.
The pubs were empty and not inviting to me (I’d had my dinner). No away fans in their northern trousers congregating outside a particular pub. Almost no one on the tube and no indication of any spectators just masked passengers maintaining an even greater distance from me than usual.
At the ground entrance was secure. I produced my printed ticket, printed “from what you said you have not got Covid” email (which somewhat excludes people who are not online and or don’t have a printer) as well as producing my passport to prove I was me (also excluding those who do not have a driving licence or a passport). They scanned these and photographed them (useful for track and trace I guess).
Then my temperature was taken where they detected that I was a vampire with a forehead temperature of 5 degrees Centigrade. They tried a different machine, then a third (which I assume worked).
Next the bag check (I had none) and I had to open my substantial coat- presumably to demonstrate that I was not smuggling in a person of restricted growth.
I was obviously (and sensibly) wearing a mask. My glasses had steamed up giving that authentic London fog experience.
This blurry picture below shows the above.
I was in!
Flashing my ticket at a machine I was let in.
Normally the concourse is full of people; beer, noise and colours. It was sparsely populated with masked and sensibly wrapped up fans; the lack of a buzz of gleeful anticipation was marked, it felt like the survivors of a disaster waiting for rescue.
A palpable lack of excitement
Everywhere the messaging was highly prescriptive.
Instructions to obey
My seat was clearly marked- only green blob seats were in use, the blob next to me was vacant as my bubble was not with me.
A green blob marked my spot
The most disorientating element was my not sitting on my usual side of the pitch as well as being much lower down (and the tv feed on the screen showing the view from the other side). Further my glasses were still steamed up.
But, then The Liquidator” boomed out and we all stood, our gloved hands clapping only slightly off beat in a reggae/industrial mash up.
Once the game started, I dispensed with my glasses as the slight lack of focus was better than fog.
I enjoyed the game- the full drama of them scoring first, clawing one back then getting two more in the second half to make a nice victory. They even played “One Step Beyond” (only played after special games) and I jiggled along with the rest in my non syncopated way.
Did I enjoy it? Yes, though I missed S who sits on my left and the three manly excited hugs when we scored. I also missed J who sits on my right, not just for his calming and sensible influence when I get too tense but also his warm and comforting bulk keeping out draughts.
And what I missed most was the pub afterwards with my football chums.
Taken in warmer weather my beer is brown
Here is the music. (If it works; I have had a few technical problems)
(4th December 2020) As the weather worsens the coming vaccine is good news. The priority order seems reasonable.
However, what does a 40-year-old rich person do? They will be down the list. Nevertheless, I am sure that there will be clinics in Switzerland who will oblige, for a fee.
So here is an idea based on three known facts.
There are wide levels of income inequality in this country.
The vaccination programme will cost a lot of money-eventually paid for by the taxpayers (us).
The rich are in the best position to minimise their tax payments (see Lady Green who owned Arcadia taking a £1.2 billion dividend) a few years ago and paid no tax on it.
Thus, a logical idea- given that people drafted in to give the injections are paid the curious figure of £ 11.32 per jab (call it £15.00 to allow for admin and NI), we could set aside 5% of the jabs for people to pay to jump the queue. I suggest £5,000 which is probably cheaper than going to Switzerland twice. This would pay for 332 ordinary people to have injections.
Assuming 100,000 rich people took up this offer it would pay for over 33 million jabs. Given that the top one percent of the adult population would number over 400,000 people this is a modest proposed take up. (If Lady Green had paid tax of 30% this would have covered nearly another two and a half million jabs).
Suggest this to anyone you know with power and influence; I wonder what the Daily Mail would think?
( 26 November 2020) The weather gets chillier, the new tiers cause tears and I continue, slowly, to build up food stocks; mitigating the shortages we will experience in January.
The government have fudged Xmas so that they cannot be accused of abolishing it (leading to all the train companies stopping their cheap tickets for the period). They will then blame us for hugging and snogging when the virus surges in January (though we won’t worry as we will all be in long queues outside the food shops brightly mumbling that “At least we’ve taken back control”
On a positive note I have discovered that you can recycle properly the annoying plastic holders they put around 4 packs of canned beer (and presumably other drinks as well). There is this nice company who will send you a label; you fill an envelope with the items and hand it in to a UPS agent (my local newsagent is one). Simple, only expense, if reusing a large envelope, is a bit of sticky tape. It also is better than mixed recycling because a firm who have a quantity of identical material can do something with it. Here is a link.
I see that Mr Trump is slowly realising that he has to go away-however I do fear that his constant denigration, of what appears to be a slightly strange democratic system anyway is seeding the ground for an authoritarian uprising/downtreading.
Fortunately, he has not bombed Iran. Yet.
Let’s not forget that in 830 AD the Persians had invented algebra and how to solve quadratic equations. We were in the Dark ages.
So when someone said “Ull you’re late” this was chastisement of a tardy peasant.
In Persia when this was requested the recipient would utter a loud, usually protracted, high-pitched, rhythmical sound especially as an expression of sorrow, joy, celebration, or reverence.
Here is an example
And there is always hope (this is a rare picture capturing the secret sun)
(13th November 2020). Somehow Mr Trump remains President of the USA. I do not understand their system. I imagine it also means he can still launch a nuclear war-on Friday 13th should I be worried?
At least Mr Biden seems an ordinary “proper” politician which is encouraging.
Today I, again, praise Microsoft. A week ago, an update caused all sorts of errors. I found much of my software was not working and was plagued with incomprehensible error messages. Then I discovered there is a nice option in settings “Reset this PC”. I set it off; it kept all my data and my bookmarks . I just had to spend a while reinstalling software, updating “drivers” (whatever they are) etc. But it worked; a handy tip (but backup all important documents just to be on the safe side).
So, thank you Microsoft. It is used by over 90% of all the computers in the world and only hated by a hard core of Apple users and the 5% of users who care about operating systems. The rest of us don’t, we just want to use our device.
Lockdown continues to imprison us; the government is trying to spin a way of not going down in history as the one that abolished Christmas and Brexit looms dangerously. Plus Cummings and goings in No 10. Though no expert I am not sure this is the way to govern a country.
I am steadily building up my stocks of non-perishable food for January’s Lockdown 3 along with a 90% decrease in imports.
(29 October 2020) I have not been thinking much recently as dank autumn merges with Covid tedium. Then, on Saturday, while taking the dog for a trudge round the rec, I bumped into someone I had not seen for quite a while. He asked me how I was. I happened to glance at my watch and noticed the time. It was exactly when I would have left the pub to go to the match that afternoon. A gust of sadness (or a chill wind) washed over me and I realised how much I miss football.
I know they are playing in empty stadia but I don’t subscribe to sports channels (as I would only want to watch my team) and watching in pubs is never totally satisfactory at the best of times. At the moment to leave the pub having seen my team lose while amongst a crowd of crowing opposing fans is never nice and along with that, I might well have become infected.
Having had a season ticket for over thirty years it is a gap in my life, Or rather two gaps.
First, there is still that childish expectation of waking up on a matchday, anticipating joy and pleasure though tinged with a shadow in the corner that hints that it could all go wrong (a lesson for hope in general), It is that taint of disaster that distinguishes football from other activities,
If I am going to a concert in the evening, I still tingle with anticipation but I know the outcome will, at least, be “good” and hopefully “excellent”- not the case with football.
Whereas at the match the world becomes a simpler place; no ambiguities, grey areas, “listen to the alternative view”. Everything that happens is “good” or “bad” and clearly so; it is quite refreshing.
I also care unreservedly, without fear and with an intensity not often experienced in the rest of life. I can also shout with joy and anguish (in a non-discriminatory or offensive fashion of course) and let my emotions loose.
After the match finishes an emotional bubble remains. After a good or significant victory, a bubble of happiness filters my perception of the world- the fellow fans in the pub seem like demi-gods and for a day or so everything is positively enhanced. I feel warmer towards my fellow humans and tolerate the irritating ones more (I would still not kiss Donald Trump though).
But for every Yang there is a Yin. The inept performance, the biased referee, the dreadful error, the broken shoelace all create a dark and gloomy bubble that lurks in my psyche despite my best attempts to push it away. The bitter tastes bitter, the weather colder, people uglier.
The bubbles do not last and I check my diary for my next fix.
However, as they say at JML, there is more..
The second reason I miss football is the associated chumship.
Over the many years a large informal community of individuals, mainly with monosyllabic names (Bev, Dev, Kev, Mev, Trev), (some names changed to protect individuals) have clustered around the team (and real ale). As well experiencing the joys and pain of supporting the team we have lightly supported each other through births, deaths and diseases (amongst other things).
A day at football is greatly enhanced through walking into a bar ( rubbing your head)) then seeing friendly faces and having a chat.
After the game there is always a requirement for beer, to celebrate or commiserate, in likeminded company.
It is this social aspect that is lost. However, I do not claim to have unique feelings on this.
In the 2018/2019 season the top four tiers, just for league matches, the total attendance was 41.800 million. Ignoring corporates and tourists that is thirty-five million people having pleasurable chumship (or possibly thirty million excluding solipsists).
Add on a nine million watching top level club rugby union, another couple of million for Rugby league, games in Scotland and NI and all those other sports that I assume have regular spectators,we are talking about a lot of people all of whom have an absence of social contact in their lives.
(29 September 2020) Autumn arrives and the government state that all hospitality venues must chuck everybody out at 10.00pm, thus ensuring streets, buses etc are full of people. I am not sure how this assists “social distancing”; my uncertainty demonstrates my ignorance and the cleverness of the government and its advisors.
It is noticeable that there are issues around “Track’n Trace” (who sound like a 60’s light comedy act), which is needed to identify who requires testing. While it made sense (to the government at least) to build new testing capacity, rather than using all the labs around the country I reflected on the future.
Assuming we have not all succumbed to the disease and hoping those who refused the vaccine are regretting their decision there will be great over-capacity in testing facilities.
With this in mind and noting that early identification of a potential medical problem is often the best way to prevent it developing through early interventions there is an opportunity to use this capacity for a large cohort to have regular blood testing.
The simple point is that measuring blood over years not only trends in an individual’s health would be monitored but the large data set would be incredibly useful for research. I will write to Mr Hancock and share his reply.
Here is a picture of the police dealing with a curfew breaker.
Lucerna Magic Lantern Web Resource, lucerna.exeter.ac.uk, item 5145521. Accessed 29 September 2020.
(8 September 2020). I have been thinking about exams a lot recently-hard to avoid really. The fundamental problem is that the government appeared to have an obsession with “Grade inflation” i.e. if results are “better” they seem to assume it is because exams are getting easier rather than pupils learning more. (This seems odd as in other areas of life improvements such as the population improving in health, or less children in poverty are seen as positive). They also consciously discriminated against clever pupils in deprived areas.
I reflect that this is because they (and previous governments) have never made clear what they expect from the exam system.
In any widely taken exam a decision has to be taken on how to set the grades. There are two choices.
Norm referenced tests – For these a simple decision is made that, for example only 20% of candidates get an A grade (and so on throughout the divisions). This is honest and straightforward particularly as results are used for entry to further education and employment. It does, of course, mean that an individual’s grades are related to the quality of their cohort.
Criterion referenced tests-For these a standard is set and the number who achieve a given grade is entirely based on their abilities. Thus, the numbers getting an A grade will vary but will reflect individual’s abilities and the input of teachers.
I prefer the latter system though it should be clear which is used. Write to your MP about it
In the UK, typically, “A levels are currently neither fully norm-referenced nor fully criterion-referenced”. As parliament was told some years ago.
As a footnote I am also puzzled why there are five different commercial organisations offering GCSE exams (with a further two just offering A levels). To me it would make sense to have only one organisation setting exams as is common in most civilised countries. This is how I feel.
(8 September 2020) Following on from last week’s thought I got a rapid reply from the supermarket. Unfortunately, it missed the point. However, to be fair I wrote back and further explained the issue and I then got a rapid and helpful reply- see below
(Dear Mr Fraser,
Thank you for your response.
Yes, this makes sense and is a good idea in my opinion so I appreciate you bringing this to our attention.
I can certainly pass this on to our pricing team so that it can be considered for implementation should there be a review of process in the future.
I apologise that I did not grasp the concept initially and would like to thank you once again for your feedback regarding this).
We will see what happens.
(4 September 2020) Apologies for the silence recently- not only have I been dumbstruck by the news (all of it) I have also been away from my PC.
Undecided what to focus my thoughts on I happened to buy some baked beans.
On the shelves were single cans and six packs which were much cheaper per tin. ((Without panicking my readers, I am slowly stocking up for the Brexit chaos in January). The tins werewrapped in (unnecessary) plastic. See below the discard.
Unnecessary wrapping
In the same supermarket there are many “special offers” for example on beer where buying four specified individual bottles gives a cheaper overall price. They often offer a “discount” if you buy six bottles of wine etc.
At the till the machines recognises these offers and applies the saving. So why do they wrap baked beans in plastic? I have written to the supermarket and will share my answer.
While we wait here’s a picture of me on my holidays.
I won’t have access to the internet for a couple of weeks; I hope you will manage.
I have (probably) installed an option to “subscribe” i.e if you do you will be automatically emailed when a new thought appears. This is on the right hand side.
With pubs now a bit open here is a picture of one of my hobbies.
