On Becoming a Hermit, Sort of ... Day 39

Day 39

(Friday, 24th April 2020)

A singularly ordinary day, if any day in the midst of a lockdown occasioned by a global pandemic of a virus, for which there is, at present, neither preventative vaccine nor cure, can be considered ordinary.

In other news, the lockdown has been extended for at least another three weeks and government is gently ramping up the likelihood that we are in this 'for the longer term', almost certainly beyond the end of the 2020. And social distancing may become a feature of life for the foreseeable future.

The worldwide death toll from Coronavirus is now rapidly approaching 200,000 people, whilst 2.8 million people are know to have been infected by it. That's a case fatality rate of 7%. Crudely, that's a one in fourteen chance of dying from it. The UK government's aim of 100,000 tests per day, is failing big time. There's high news about various political bureaucrats getting involved in and having a commending influence on SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies), which is a committee convened to advise government, at the moment on the pandemic and which should comprise solely of scientific specialists in measuring and reporting data on disease spread and control, epidemiologists, psychologists, psychiatrists and other social and welfare specialists. However, it is reported notably the infamous Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson's Downing Street adviser, has been sitting in on this committee since early this year and has reportedly taken a more 'commanding' role in its proceedings! Political input is not usually permitted on SAGE, because of the risk of political bias. Cummings is, in my view, a manipulative, controlling influence on Johnson and all those around him. I also suspect he is not a force for good, as far as the wider population of this country is concerned. A view not dimmed his his personal associations with Ben and Marc Warner, the latter of which runs Faculty, a UK based data mining company, which itself is associated with the US company, Palantir Technologies, who are also deep into data mining. This information is a worrying development. Maybe more of this later ... unless those sinister forces manage to suppress this tea of news ...

Meanwhile, B and I continue to keep up our daily routine of Tai Chi together in the morning, followed separately by an array of our other activities, including gardening, canine entertaining, walking, writing, singing and video calling with various of our children and grandchildren. Life could be considerably worse. 

We finished our day in a a very pleasing way, enjoying the National Theatre's production of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night", streamed live on line, with Tamsin Greig as Malvolia. It was a fantastic piece of theatre and we enjoyed it all the more because both B and I had studied this play for our English Literature 'O' Level at school. 

And here's the music for the day from the "Year of Wonder": "Symphony No.5 in C minor,  Op.67 4: Allegro - Presto" by Ludwig van Beethoven.

However you may be affected by anything I've written about, do leave me a comment below or, if you prefer not to, talk to a loved one, a friend or someone you trust.