I've not posted lately, largely from lack of matter, or rather of motivation (coruscating squibs about the political situation project a continual firework display against my cerebral cortex, but I mostly don't share them because to point out the criminality of people committing crimes in plain view seems otiose), but also because my life in the ( Read more... )

One of the regular topics of conversation with my Japanese friends over the last few months has been the relative scarcity of COVID-19 in Japan, compared to the West in general and the UK in particular. I've had similar conversations with Haawa in Uganda, where the death rate is precisely zero. Of course this could all change, and there have been ( Read more... )

The government seems to be doing everything it can to encourage a second wave of Covid-19 ( Read more... )

Another Purdown walk yesterday. That place has been a real godsend during the pandemic - just 10 minutes' walk away, but so pretty: I don't know why I haven't gone there more often in the past. After a certain point it becomes Stoke Park Estate, and you can tell that you're in what used to be an eighteenth-century park, though run a little wild, ( Read more... )

I've not said much about the politics of the virus in recent days, but since there's a lot of misinformation and history rewriting about, I want to make a few notes here before I get sucked into the spin cycle. Some of this is just copied over from Facebook, but that's an oubliette. I'm not offering much commentary, just a few things that I've ( Read more... )

Yesterday the total of Coronavirus deaths in the UK exceeded 10,0000, and the chief scientific adviser said the country would likely be the worst-affected country in Europe. Predictably, the headline writers and the BBC chose to focus on Boris Johnson sitting up in bed and managing to peck at a piece of toast. Tough call, I know ( Read more... )

Waa! Jessie's eyeball has burst. I had no idea that such a thing was even possible. Her behaviour today was sedentary, but honestly no different from normal - pottering to her food bowl, clambering blindly up the sofa to find the little ramekin from which she likes to drink, standing beside me waiting to be scooped onto my lap - the usual habits of ( Read more... )

I hear that Ireland has introduced a 2Km limit on how far one can go to take a Covid constitutional. I imagine most people have some bit of countryside or park within that kind of radius, though a substantial number won't. Bristol is well served, with many large parks and surprising fingers of countryside that reach deep into the folds of the city ( Read more... )

I still have a few masks that I brought back from Japan in 2016 as a souvenir. I bought a few more last month, thinking that if I, my daughter and her boyfriend were in Kyoto then it would makes sense to have some - not so much for protection as because three obvious foreigners not wearing them might draw glares in this febrile time, especially on ( Read more... )

I'm a cynical old soul who find orchestrated displays of emotion rather cloying, so I don't suppose I'd have participated in yesterday evening's unfortunately named "Clap for Carers" had not all the neighbours I happen to know best been medical professionals. As it was, I was roused from my computer at 8pm by the sound of saucepans being rattled ( Read more... )