On Becoming A Hermit, Sort of ... and does anyone understand what's Happening?

A fully qualified veterinary nurse hand feeding a 2-day old kitten

Whilst the header photo is entirely irrelevant to the main text of this post, it is entirely relevant to a very proud father. In fact none of the writing in this post has anything to do with the photos! But certainly more cheerful than my ranting!

Breakfast with fruits of the garden

It is over a month since I last wrote about the virus, lockdown, political interventions, cases, deaths and how we are all dealing with this. Frankly, whilst B and I are carrying on much as before, with the refreshing addition of the occasional outing, a couple of times to see our son and family ten miles away, as well as for some more adventurous walks with the dogs. However, for the country as a whole, it doesn't feel like we've made any progress at all. We have continued to suffer under a political regime whose only competence seems to be managing their political agenda, manipulating public opinion, applying one set of rules for us to abide by and one set for them! 

We are therefore in the hands of seemingly totally incompetent management, whose response to each turn in the direction and location of new infection outbreaks, is to make it up as they go! Adding confusion to existing confusion as to who can do what, where and when. Our response is to apply our own critical thinking and common sense, of which this government is demonstrating precious little, and continue as we were before. For us this is a relatively easy decision. For those with families to support and jobs to go to, it is a nightmare!

The Conservative Government have managed in ten years to turn our lives upside down and take this country to a whole new level of blatant political corruption, self-serving greed and arrogance. The sheer pejorative, mocking attitude of its leader is made all that much worse by the fact that he clearly could not manage his way out of a paper bag! When things get hard, he takes a break and leaves unelected bureaucrats to manage his yes men, who muddle through and make things worse for us and themselves, perhaps in the mistaken belief that he will then step in like the knight in shining armour to rescue us, only to plunge is into even greater chaos. And all the while, creeping up on us almost un-noticed under cover of Corona darkness, is Brexit!

No deal seems now to be a very likely outcome, following - in my view and that of many more qualified a spokesperson than me - deliberate obstreporous and obstructive negotiating stance all the way through. Their hatred of the EU, which has otherwise been described as Euro-scepticism since we joined the EEC in 1972, and assuredness of their own imperious sense of superiority, has always ensured failure to negotiate a trading position with our closest neighbours. But there is and has been since the referendum on 23rd June 2016 a more sinister undercurrent that seems destined to drag us into a dystopian future, a future in which the great inequalities that exist between rich and poor will become greater still. Are we prepared to submit ourselves to an even more intense darkness just before it dawns on a greater majority of us that we need to wake up and smell the coffee? My view at present is that not enough of us are either willing or able to rock the boat. 

Instead, we are back, I'm afraid, to where (and I make no apologies for using the me word here), where I was constantly repeating my fear that we'd regress to where we were (before the TTIP trade negotiations between the EU and USA broke down over four years ago), but, because we will no longer be a member of the largest trading block in the World i.e. the European Union, in a far weaker position with far less negotiation strength, we will be desperate for a trade deal and the powerful forces of corporate America will walk all over us. Hence the government employed the full force of the Whips in Parliament to put down an amendment brought by opposition parties, that would exclude the NHS from any negotiations with the US. So everything is left on the table, the NHS, our food standards (e.g. the infamous chlorinated chicken), the intensive use of chemical agriculture and probably regulations around employment protections for those who cannot afford to defend themselves against being exploited plus God knows what else! Not to mention the infamous attempts to enable corporations to sue governments, if the latter legislate anything to affect their profits from said enterprises!

This dystopian new world is on the march, and there is only going to be one winner - the oligarchs and corporate America. 

As for the current resident at the White House, though he is way behind in the polls, I still fear that there is no greater risk to the integrity of voting numbers than under the pandemic, made far worse by the POTUS, being a complete delusional delinquent and having a pocketful of greedy corporate backers, who want to recover the economy regardless of the cost to human life. I have no doubt that voter turn out in November will be reduced and an increase in online voting will carry with it an increased risk of corruption of data. I don't think I need to say any more, but it had to be said, because I feel so angry at the injustice of it all. Forget accusations of conspiracy theories. This is not that. It is the application of critical thinking!

Anyway, calming down via a few obligatory statistics. At the close of my last bog post on 1st July, there had been 43,906 covid related deaths in the UK. As at 8th August it was 46,566. That's 2,660 more lives lost; more families deprived a a loved one, a dependant, an earner. Since lockdown began to be relaxed, the steady decline in cases and deaths, has reversed and the death rate has been ever so steadily rising again, albeit not at the catastrophic rates that we witnessed from April through to June.

That's all I'm going to say for now, because it is depressing enough, but also because I want to get on to some music. I haven't looked at Clemency Burton-Hill's 'Year of Wonder' for over a month and it is long overdue. Too many to review, so here is my selection ...

For the 1st July, Clemency chose Erik Satie's very appropriately calming and relaxing Gymnopedie. 

The 5th July brought Charles Villiers Stanford (1852 - 1924), whose "The Blue Bird" I sang in chamber choir a couple of years ago. His "Beati Quorum Via is sung here by my favourite octet, Voces8. 

Then on 7th July, she places this "wrenchingly beautiful love-letter" the fourth movement, the Adagietto, of Gustav Mahler's 5th Symphony, behind which is a wrenchingly beautiful (and sad) love story of his eventual wife, Alma Schindler and their only child, who died in childhood. One conductor observed of this late stage in Mahler's life: "Love! A smile enters his life ". Clemency observes that this "may be just about the best definition of falling in love ever".

The influence of Scott Joplin (1868-1917) on 20th Century American music, not only for ragtime and swing that followed, but also on jazz, rock and classical, is inestimable. So says CBH, and I believe her. So she planted him on 8th July here is his "Gladiolus Rag". He enjoyed little success in his own lifetime, but he sure did ever since his music appeared in the Oscar winning 1974 film, 'The Sting'.

I would go on to add the Adagio from Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, op.85, made famous by Jacqueline Dupre, but I think we've had enough raw emotion for the day!

And this delightful piece to conclude the day: contemporary composer and pianist, Dobrinka Tabakova (b.1980). Her Nocturne is just lovely.

Guide Dog Taz minding the courgettes