290 days of plague: New Year, New Who
Well. When I did my first ten-day update on 27 March last year, it seemed then that we would have a grim few weeks and then be back to normal by late summer. Obviously, that did not happen. And it seems somehow appropriate that 40 weeks after that Friday at the end of the first full week of lockdown, it's New Year's Day and we are as uncertain as we ever were about the end of all of this.
The numbers in Belgium are actually fairly encouraging right now (unlike in some other countries, alas). Confirmed new cases are down 30% in the last seven days, and hospital admissions down 20%. At that rate they will be below the official targets for relaxing the restrictions in two and three weeks respectively. So I may even be back in the office by the end of this month.
I'll be back at work on Monday after a quiet Christmas holiday. I repeated the Christmas dinner menu from five years ago, but made life a little easier for myself by just having quails' eggs as a starter (dipped in salt and pepper) rather than grilled figs, and new potatoes instead of mămăligă as the main course carbs. I also made a Christmas cake uing this Northern Irish recipe - I don't have an especially sweet tooth usually, but somehow this seemed necessary for the times we are in.
And we managed the traditional family walk, this time at Het Vianderdomein. I took a dozen selfied and there was one where everyone was looking in roughly the right direction with reasonable facial expressions.
I suspect that for you as for me this was not a big gift-giving year, but if you want to do something a little extra, can I point you towards the Nuk Je Vetëm online counselling for vulnerable young people in Albania, run by the Foundation Together Albania of which I am a trustee?
I saw in the new year last night in an online fandom party, where I think I was one of two or three people in a Zoom room of several dozen for whom the time zone was right. I made everyone watch the Brussels light show. It was good.
And this evening we had the latest New Who. Given that it was filmed before the current crisis, I thought the message of resistance to a non-human threat was timely. Unfortunately the deranged American millionaire with political ambitions did not completely get his comeuppance. And the departure of Graham and Ryan is only the second time that New Who companions have left voluntarily - Martha is literally the only other example, Rose stuck in a parallel universe, Donna brainwiped, Amy and Rory timeshifted, Clara and Bill both killed off. It was much more balanced in Old Who (involuntary departures: Susan, Katarina, Sara Kingdom, Dodo, Jamie, Zoe, Sarah Jane, Adric, Kamelion, Peri; voluntary departures: Ian, Barbara, Vicki, Steven, Ben, Polly, Victoria, Liz, Jo, Harry, Leela, K9, Romana, Nyssa, Tegan, Turlough, Mel; unclear: UNIT, Ace). I though the whole thing was done emotionally convincingly, and the Daleks' combination of body-horror and racial purification may be not quite what Terry Nation had in mind in 1963, but it's a reasonable evolution.
Anyway. We tried a new Indian food delivery last night, and it was delicious, but once I eventually got to bed I slept very badly with weird dreams. So I'm off to bed now, and we'll be back to the usual book and film reviews tomorrow. Good night. Stay well.
The numbers in Belgium are actually fairly encouraging right now (unlike in some other countries, alas). Confirmed new cases are down 30% in the last seven days, and hospital admissions down 20%. At that rate they will be below the official targets for relaxing the restrictions in two and three weeks respectively. So I may even be back in the office by the end of this month.
I'll be back at work on Monday after a quiet Christmas holiday. I repeated the Christmas dinner menu from five years ago, but made life a little easier for myself by just having quails' eggs as a starter (dipped in salt and pepper) rather than grilled figs, and new potatoes instead of mămăligă as the main course carbs. I also made a Christmas cake uing this Northern Irish recipe - I don't have an especially sweet tooth usually, but somehow this seemed necessary for the times we are in.
And we managed the traditional family walk, this time at Het Vianderdomein. I took a dozen selfied and there was one where everyone was looking in roughly the right direction with reasonable facial expressions.
I suspect that for you as for me this was not a big gift-giving year, but if you want to do something a little extra, can I point you towards the Nuk Je Vetëm online counselling for vulnerable young people in Albania, run by the Foundation Together Albania of which I am a trustee?
I saw in the new year last night in an online fandom party, where I think I was one of two or three people in a Zoom room of several dozen for whom the time zone was right. I made everyone watch the Brussels light show. It was good.
Click to viewAnd this evening we had the latest New Who. Given that it was filmed before the current crisis, I thought the message of resistance to a non-human threat was timely. Unfortunately the deranged American millionaire with political ambitions did not completely get his comeuppance. And the departure of Graham and Ryan is only the second time that New Who companions have left voluntarily - Martha is literally the only other example, Rose stuck in a parallel universe, Donna brainwiped, Amy and Rory timeshifted, Clara and Bill both killed off. It was much more balanced in Old Who (involuntary departures: Susan, Katarina, Sara Kingdom, Dodo, Jamie, Zoe, Sarah Jane, Adric, Kamelion, Peri; voluntary departures: Ian, Barbara, Vicki, Steven, Ben, Polly, Victoria, Liz, Jo, Harry, Leela, K9, Romana, Nyssa, Tegan, Turlough, Mel; unclear: UNIT, Ace). I though the whole thing was done emotionally convincingly, and the Daleks' combination of body-horror and racial purification may be not quite what Terry Nation had in mind in 1963, but it's a reasonable evolution.
Anyway. We tried a new Indian food delivery last night, and it was delicious, but once I eventually got to bed I slept very badly with weird dreams. So I'm off to bed now, and we'll be back to the usual book and film reviews tomorrow. Good night. Stay well.