I’m a controversialist and catalyst, quietly enabling others to develop by providing different ideas and views of the world. Born in London in the early 1950s and initially trained as a research chemist I retired as a senior project manager after 35 years in the IT industry. Retirement is about community give-back and finding some equilibrium. Founder and Honorary Secretary of the Anthony Powell Society. Chairman of my GP's patient group.
If, as the government says, there is plenty of food in the supermarkets …
… how is it that today’s supermarket grocery delivery had half the items unavailable and most of the other half substituted?
We got no tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower, greens, potatoes, aubergine, fennel, parsley, onions. And that’s just the salad/veg.
Then there’s no bread, bread flour, baked beans, tinned kidney beans, milk, eggs.
But we did get chicken, duck, steak, sausages, smoked salmon, ham, butter, cheese and ice cream.
We’ll not starve, but so much for 5-a-day and a balanced diet!
So time for something slightly more light-hearted than most of what’s happening currently: our monthly round-up of recently encountered quotes, some thought-provoking, others amusing.
A cover up? Certainly not! It is responsible discretion exercised in the national interest to prevent unnecessary disclosure of eminently justifiable procedures in which untimely revelation could severely impair public confidence.
[@YesSirHumphrey on Twitter]
Thrice-called banns might be a public torment, for example, for those cursed with unfortunate names. Was it this which persuaded Miss Pleasant Love to marry by licence in Nottinghamshire in 1710, Avis Urine to seek a licence in Sudbury in 1712? It is noticeable that in the index of names to the volume of Suffolk licences from which the last example was taken two of the largest entries relate to the families of Prick and Balls. It is also noticeable that they were conspicuously successful in avoiding each other in the matrimonial market.
[RB Outhwaite, “Age at Marriage in England from the Late Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century”; Transactions of the Royal Historical Society; Vol. 23 (1973), pp 55-70]
I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is. I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute.
[Rebecca West, 1913]
Women are people, and people are more interesting than clichés.
[Helen Lewis; Guardian; 15 January 2020]
Don’t be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn’t do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn’t know what you know today.
[Malcolm X]
Never let a serious crisis go to waste: it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.
[Rahm Emanuel, President Barak Obama’s Chief of Staff]
At first glance, hand washing is an act of self care. Frequent hand washing protects us individually from contracting the virus. But it is also an act of community care; we help protect others when we help protect ourselves. So too with the recommendation to stay home when sick. Although there is definitely a level of privilege in being able to take time off work, it is clearly important to take care of our communities by preventing the spread of illness.
[Gesshin Claire Greenwood on Medium]
Interdependence is a fundamental law of nature. Even tiny insects survive by mutual cooperation based on innate recognition of their interconnectedness. It is because our own human existence is so dependent on the help of others that our need for love lies at the very foundation of our existence. Therefore we need a genuine sense of responsibility and a sincere concern for the welfare of others.
[Dalai Lama quoted by Gesshin Claire Greenwood on Medium]
It’s only quarantine if it comes from the Quarré region of France. Otherwise it’s just sparkling house arrest.
[h/t Alden Tullis O’Brien on Facebook]
Splay the legs as wide as possible, and then make sure they’re fixed in position with the wing nut.
[Instructions for setting up an easel quoted by @19syllables on Twitter]
At least some elements of the Labour Party are saying we need to have a National Income Guarantee Scheme, to ensure everyone continues to have the money to live. This is, in my view, the correct humanitarian response. But also one which should force the wholesale rationalisation and simplification of the benefits system.
People’s ability to survive has to be supported and protected, and not just by protecting them from the disease. This protection has to come ahead of bailing out business. If people survive, business will survive. Without people there is no business.
If people have secure income, companies are expendable. If businesses don’t survive, they can be rebuilt as long as there are people who survive to do it. Hence people must come first.
No, I don’t care if every (passenger) airline goes out of business. Or every manufacturer of TVs. Or every theatre and pub. They can be rebuilt later. But we do still need to be producing food and medicine – and moving it around.
Ultimately that is where the effort has to be: protect the people and the food supply chain.
Along with this I have seen it suggested that there should be a 0% interest rate on all personal/household debt. My guess is that this would need to last at least a year. I can see the logic behind this, although it would no doubt also mean 0% interest for savers. A reduction in debt interest would not affect us (our only debt is a relatively small amount on credit cards); but no interest on savings would hit us – although not hard because heaven knows we already get little enough interest on our savings.
This is all very fine, but one has to ask where the government finds the money for this. The government doesn’t have a money-tree. The only money they have is what they collect in tax or what they can borrow. They have already borrowed more than it is going to be comfortable to ever repay. Where does the tax come from? Your and my pockets: either directly (income tax, national insurance) or indirectly (VAT, excise duty, corporation tax). If we don’t have any money, the government collects no tax. Without tax income there can be no income guarantee scheme, no bailouts, and no NHS. This is the economics of the capitalist system we live in. Chicken meet egg.
OK, so were some days into … well what? … variable amounts of everything and nothing; huge amounts of existential worry and threat.
We’re effectively being told to stay at home permanently (almost under house arrest) although the supermarkets are open – with special hours for geriatrics and the invalid, which are reportedly more crowded than normal and seem a good way to kill off the unwanted. But if we do stay at home we could starve as supermarket deliveries are booked up weeks in advance.
Everything is feeling very fragile, demoralising and really frightening. It’s very much how the Black Death must have been back in 1349: one never knows where it’s going to hit next, if I’m going to succumb, or where one’s next meal is coming from. And, yes, we could get there! If we go into full lockdown, then there could well be issues with the food supply chain and access to supermarkets – on top of what we’re seeing now. Remember, with schools closed from tomorrow, there could well be people who can’t go to work because they can’t find alternative childcare, and that could hit all sorts of hands-on businesses which includes the whole of the food supply chain.
Am I being extraordinarily pessimistic? Well maybe, or then again maybe not. I know I always say “don’t worry about things you can’t control”, and we can’t control a lot of this. But when it comes to having food and drink one is threatening the very substance of existence, and reactions become especially visceral. Recall Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:
At least in western society we’re all used to working near the apex of the pyramid; certainly in the top two layers. But what’s happening now is sending us rapidly down a helter-skelter. The middle “love and belonging” layer is currently coming into it’s own. But some are already going to be down in the “safety & security” layer and any disruption to the food supply chain could leave people with a great deal of uncertainty about their very ability to survive. And once one gets down nearer to the bottom two levels people feel increasingly threatened and start to get nasty as they try to protect their existence – just as any animal will.
I have no idea what is going to happen, but I fear the worst; I’m pretty sure it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. And it looks like being a long haul: if we get away with anything much under two years I’ll be highly delighted.
Two years! Yes, because although we have protective restrictions now, once the infection rate drops and the restrictions are lifted it is highly likely the virus will rebound and we could go through a (say) six-monthly cycle several times before things settle out fully.
[Incidentally there is some good modelling of a number of possible interventions from the highly-regarded team at Imperial College, London; and it is this which appears to be influencing the UK’s current thinking. The paper is actually quite readable.]
None of this is at all good for those of us who already suffer with depression, or any other mental health issue. I, like I suspect many other people, feel totally disconnected from everything; completely isolated, both socially and physically; and scared about my ability to come out the other side of this.
But all we can do is to try to keep going as best we can.
Although I’ve been retired for 10 years, I worked from home for most of the last 10 years I was working. And I still work from home on most of my current community give-back activity.
There are now a lot of people around the world who are having to work from home for the first time, and maybe wondering where to start.
There are a lot of website out there which tell you how to work from home, but I have to admit I wouldn’t be finding their hints and tips always very useful – at least initially.
Working from home isn’t rocket science, but it does need a little bit of organising and discipline. Most of it is common sense, but not always obvious common sense. So I thought I’d put together a few of my thoughts in the hope that they may help some of you. Here goes …
Working from home is brilliant … Until the cat throws up on your laptop or your neighbour decides now is the time to rebuild his house (don’t laugh, the latter happened to me!). It won’t be long before you wonder why you ever bothered going in the office.
Basically you need to treat your home workplace up as if it is your regular office.
Have a set workplace. It doesn’t matter whether it is your study, the basement or the kitchen table, as long as it is always the same place. Resist working from your bed or sofa; or in front of the TV. I used to work at my desk in the study; this became my office when I took my laptop out in the morning; and it became mine again when my laptop was put away.
It doesn’t matter whether you get dressed, spend the day in your nightshirt or even nothing, as long as you’re comfortable and aren’t having a videoconference with your group director. However some people feel more professional and work better if they’re wearing reasonable day clothes.
If you’re spending the day in your pyjamas, don’t go out in them! If you need to pop to the corner shop, the post-box or to collect the kids, do please put on jeans and a t-shirt.
Know when to “log on” and “log off”. Try to have a regular start and stop time. If possible use the same schedule as you would in the office; you’ll probably stretch it a bit at both ends but you should still get some extra time to yourself as you’ll not be commuting. I used to start about 8am and stop no later than 6pm. Do not be tempted to either lie-in or keep working into the evening; you can prevent the lie-in by having 9am team conference calls.
On the other hand you do have the flexibility to work when you’re most productive, whether that’s 5am or midnight, although this must not be an excuse to work longer hours. You’ll still need to be available during office hours, so you still need that regular schedule.
Remember, if you’re sick, then you’re sick and shouldn’t be working – just like you wouldn’t go in the office.
Keep to your normal time management method; this will help you keep focus. If you’ve never been taught time management, find an online course and start now. Try to avoid taking a quick break to do the laundry/bath the cat/pop to the supermarket/whatever. It all too easily becomes an hour and a half.
You might want to have a separate phone number for your work – possibly a second mobile. Likewise a separate laptop and email address.
If you don’t have the technology you need (whether it’s a new laptop, or printer, or a piece of software) nag your boss until you get it. Without it you will not be optimally productive.
Communicate, communicate, communicate. In fact, over-communicate. Ensure your boss and your colleagues know you’re there, and you’re being productive. All it needs is the odd phone call, an instant message or two a day, or emailing in that special report you wrote.
Keeping in contact with other humans is allowed – preferably by phone or video, rather than just by email. If nothing else my wife and I talked briefly on the phone at some point most days. Instant messaging can also help a lot, especially if everyone you need to talk to is on the same platform. But voice is best.
Don’t be frightened of phone/video meetings – they’re just like normal meetings, with maybe a bit more discipline, except you can’t spill coffee in Sharon’s lap.
If you’re having a phone/video meeting, remember that you need to circulate any papers in advance by email.
If you’re having a videoconference ensure you know how to share your screen so you can display your visuals and the whiteboard.
Look out of the window. I found I did this quite a bit during 1-2-1 phone calls (and boring teleconferences) and I did quite a lot of garden birdwatching (no, feathered kind!) this way.
In my opinion do not have music on, or the radio, or the TV. Despite what you might think you will concentrate better if it is quiet and there are no distractions. If you must, catch up on TV news at lunchtime.
Do not be tempted to look at social media. I found that easy as I had a separate laptop and mobile phone.
Do take proper breaks; refill your tea/coffee/juice; and go to the loo. Just ration the biscuits!
Also ensure you stop for lunch, if only for 20 minutes. But do not waste time preparing and cooking a meal: either have a soup or sandwich type lunch, or prepare food the night before. This was something I found hard too do; with no-one to sit with at lunch it was too easy to grab some bread and cheese and eat it at my desk.
If there are other people at home with you, set some ground rules, ensure they respect that you’re working, and they know what your routine is. If they’re children, make sure you work out in advance how to keep them amused and out of your hair. Do have joint lunch or breaks, but keep them to a normal length.
Those of you who are seasoned home workers will doubtless not agree with everything I’ve said, and have different things which help you. That’s good. The moral is that ultimately you have to find the way that works best for you – for me that was being totally focussed. YMMV.
Over the last weekend I started writing what I hope may become an occasional series of comment/diary entries emanating from the current mess known as Coronavirus. Here’s what I wrote on Sunday (lightly edited).
Sunday 15 March 2020 – Ides of March
This Coronavirus (Covid-19) is getting a grip of everyone. It looks like we’re in for a long haul, and a very messy one. Few of us trust the government’s strategy, which is at total odds with what the rest of the world are doing (except for the USA, and President Trump is an even bigger moron that Boris Johnson). The strategy may protect the over-70s for a bit, meanwhile it will rip through the rest of the population. Then the over-70s will succumb as soon as the restrictions come off, creating a second (and third etc.) wave before we’re near to having any treatment or vaccination options – don’t expect those within a year. Anyway it is now much too late; the genii is out of the bottle and in my estimation has been since probably mid-December (because the first case is now thought to have been in mid-November, but not recognised for what it was). So we needed to impose draconian social distancing measures very early, like back at New Year, if we really were to nip this in the bud.
I’ve already cancelled one of our doctor’s patient group events for this week, and my meeting the same morning with the Practice Manager. More will doubtless follow over the next few days. Others organising events I’m involved with as far ahead as mid-May are discussing cancelling them too.
Unfortunately I’m also minded to cancel my fortnightly massage sessions: not only because it’s a risk to me but also because my masseuse is newly pregnant and others working in the same practice are at significantly high risk. That makes me really sad as I enjoy the massage sessions and the chat, and it does help keep my back going. But we need to consider others in this as well as ourselves.
Amongst all this I’m really frightened and depressed. I’m almost 70 and with diabetes, obesity and sleep apnoea so I’m in a high risk category for serious complications if I do get Covid-19. And if I do I fear that it will kill me – either because my immune system is too compromised or because the hospitals won’t be able to cope and I’ll be a low priority for treatment.
I know the chances of me succumbing to this are relatively small, but that doesn’t make it any less frightening. So I feel my best hope is not to get this and be around long enough for either a good treatment or a vaccine.
But then I’m worried too that Noreen will fall ill. She’s not far behind me in age and she does have a long-term hereditary condition, although that doesn’t seem to affect either her immune system or lungs. Indeed her immune system, hitherto, has been so good it keeps many things under: she’s a Typhoid Mary. If Noreen does fall off her perch before me I know I shall be absolutely sunk: not because I can’t do what has to be done (although that may not be easy) but mentally; the depression will be completely overwhelming. Equally I know Noreen will struggle without me.
But what can we do? Both of us being risk averse as we are we’re inclined to behave as if we’re over 70, and self-isolate as much as we possibly can. Luckily we can (for now, at least) get grocery deliveries – not ideal but OK – and we have the reserves we built up against Brexit to help.
Even before all this I was beginning to feel my mortality and realising that I likely have only a few more years. The thought of not being here leaves me feeling deeply sad and almost terminally helpless. I’m starting to understand how, in his last years, my father just gave up the will to keep going.
It’s also interesting to start to really appreciate how frightening in must have been for people during the Black Death of 1348-9, the Plague of 1665, and the Spanish Flu of 1918-19; especially given that they really didn’t understand how any of this worked and what they could do to mitigate the diseases. In that sense at least we stand half a chance.
This year our Ten Things series, on the tenth of each month, is concentrating on things which are wackier than usual, if not by much. From odd road names to Christmas carols by way of saints and scientists. So here goes with March …
Ten Entries from Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary
Chop. A piece of leather skilfully attached to a bone and administered to the patients at restaurants. (right)
Dentist. A prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth, pulls gold from your pocket.
Cannon. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.
Noise. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.
Cat. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.
Envelope. The coffin of a document; the scabbard of a bill; the husk of a remittance; the bed-gown of a love-letter.
Hand. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody’s pocket.
History. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.
Opera. A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes.
The first half of the article crystallised what I’ve been thinking for a while: that although there are rare instances of intersex individuals, to insist that biological sex is a spectrum is erroneous. Supplanting biological sex with a subjective and fluid “gender identity” arrived at “by the whim of the owner” (my deliberately slightly irreverent words) is unrealistic and impractical. To quote just one paragraph of the article:
There is a difference … between the statements that there are only two sexes (true) and that everyone can be neatly categorized as either male or female (false). The existence of only two sexes does not mean sex is never ambiguous. But intersex individuals are extremely rare, and they are neither a third sex nor proof that sex is a “spectrum” or a “social construct”. Not everyone needs to be discretely assignable to one or the other sex in order for biological sex to be functionally binary.
From here on I dislike the tone of the article which to me sounds very right-wing, misogynistic and derogatory. Added to which I’m far from convinced the authors’ arguments follow logically.
That is not to deny (a) that some individuals’ biological sex is ambiguous, nor (b) that some individuals may self-identify to a different gender than their biological sex. While I will admit to not fully understanding this (cis-hetero male privilege and all that), it seems to me that the disconnect between an individual’s biological sex and their gender identity begins in some way as a psychological process. My gut feeling is that the medicalisation of this to sex reassignment is not sufficiently controlled or counselled (especially in adolescents), and is thus somewhat dangerous – as the quoted article goes on to imply.
This is also not to deny the psychological stresses that those affected go through in coming to terms with their situation, leading up to gender-reassignment, and that they encounter during transition – this latter is something I’ve witnessed in a work context and which was quite disconcerting even to a completely uninvolved bystander.
So basically I’d say: by all means gender identify however you please, but in the vast majority (not all) of cases biological (anatomical) sex is binary, not a social construct. Yes, gender reassignment surgery is possible, and some require it. However it is not something I’m personally comfortable with – just as I’m not comfortable with IVF etc.
As with so many other things, while I may not agree with you or be comfortable with your views, I would defend and support anyone’s right to gender identify however they wish. It’s your life, not mine.
Today my late father would have been 100. Unfortunately he died in May 2006 at the age of 86. He was surprised to make 86.
He was about 67 when my parents moved from my childhood home in Waltham Cross to the outskirts of Norwich – somewhere my father unexpectedly found he didn’t like. I don’t recall my mother ever saying what she thought – she was one to just get on and make the best of what was there – but Noreen and I were delighted as we both love Norwich.
He didn’t expect that he and my mother would have more than a few years there. So they made their bungalow comfortable, but he admitted later that had he known they’d have almost 20 years left they would have done a number of things to adapt the bungalow more to their liking. This, plus the fact that he never adjusted to having a stoma following bowel cancer surgery in his late 70s, made his last few years exceptionally miserable.
In many ways Bob was a “miserable old git” who believed that life and everyone were out to get him and his money. If there was a negative take on anything, he’d be right there. Whether this was because he was depressive, or vice versa, or both, I’ve never worked out. His depression could have been partly genetic as his father was also depressive; and his fairly awful childhood through the depression preceding WW2 would only have exacerbated it all.
Probably because he’d never been allowed to achieve academically, despite being able, in retrospect he put a lot of covert pressure to succeed on me as a kid. This, together with the depression and general angst, left me with a very negative attitude and has doubtless contributed to my depression. Luckily I managed, in my 40s, to somehow (I still don’t know how) to a large extent overcome the negativity and let much of the annoyances and stupidities of life just wash over me.
Me (centre) with my parents in the early 1980s
Bob also viewed me as profligate, lacking in common sense and a failure – because his values and common sense didn’t match mine as I beat my own path through life: I didn’t get a proper academic job, refused to be a teacher and sold out to the commercial world.
Having said that he was clearly loved when he worked, for a few years in the early 70s, as a personnel manager, and went out of his way to support his staff – even in one case where one of his junior staff got pregnant out of wedlock and he gave her support against both her parents and his colleagues. In that sense he was quite progressive – indeed my parents were decidedly bohemian, as evidenced by the fact that they lived together for two years following the war while my mother’s divorce was settled. And that I was encouraged to call them, and anyone else, by their first names.
I also have to appreciate that I was encouraged (by both parents) to read, to think, to know about history, and to understand natural history and the environment. There were books in almost every room when I was growing up, and none were off-limits. I recall he bought Lady Chatterley’s Lover as soon as it became available; I read it in my very early teens and found it terminally boring. There was also a copy of Havelock Ellis on the living room shelves, which I devoured at 16/17 when I had my first serious girlfriend.
I’ve never quite forgiven Bob for the effect of his overriding negativity on me, and the constraints (I felt were) placed on me as a kid; although I recognise that he was doing the best he knew how, and I am extremely grateful for the very open, liberal and bohemian upbringing. All of this clearly shaped me, and once I managed to throw off the worst of the negativity, has made me the slightly maverick thinker I like to believe I am today.
Happy birthday Bob, wherever you are!
Eccentric looks at life through the thoughts of a retired working thinker
