Still a little of what Earth people call sick. It’s more mere exhaustion now. Probably all triggered by some bad nights of sleep. Or rather bad nights of lack of sleep.
The last few days I’ve been enthusing about what I’ve been watching, which I find very easy. I am a bit of nerd when it comes to movies. Sorry if that startled you.
It’s been so for a long time and started with a fascination for old and obscure horror and sci fi movies when I was a teen. If you press me for a favourite movie, I’ll say Fiend Without A Face, which is a British-produced 1950s sci-fi horror with invisible aliens. It is a great movie and as unintentionally silly as it sounds. But it is genuinely scary and has some surprisingly good special effects of the aliens when they finally become visible as brains propelled by their own spinal cords.
It’s not to be confused with The Brain From Planet Arous (1957), whose antagonist is a giant brain dangled from a thread. Don’t get me wrong, the latter is worth a watch, but more for how silly it is.
Fiend Without A Face.
Meanwhile in the real, present-day world, things are still terrifying and a bit silly. Politically, the British government is fighting itself because, spoiler alert, there seems to be no way rush out of the EU cleanly. It was always going to take time, but the government has felt it has to rush it because people were told it would be quick, easy and instantly going to make the country wealthier. Once you’ve conned people, it’s very hard to uncon them.
The latest big fight is about the withdrawal agreement, which has had a comical history. The previous Prime Minister, Theresa May, spent a long time trying to get the government to vote for it. She tried several times and they kept saying no. Then with a few capitulations on both side, the next Prime Minister got it through, and scoffed at anyone who dare read the small print or vote against it. Now the same Prime Minister is saying it’s not very good. And instead of resigning for pushing through something that is no good, he wants to change an already signed agreement, which from a government would seem a thoroughly dishonest thing to do. But it’s dishonesty which has gotten us where we are, so why change now.
The toddler has taken to putting the tablet on the back of her scooter and pushing it around like some kind of mobile cinema. Which makes up for everything bad going on in the world.
A couple of days ago, we (as a collective culture) lost Diana Rigg. There is always a steady stream of people who are or were in the public eye or ear or mind who pass on. Some hit you where it hurts and others have less impact on you. Some make you think back to your childhood; some make you think about your own mortality; some make you think about beans.
Diana Rigg is someone even younger readers would know due to her doing an excellent job as the matriarch of the Tyrell family in Game of Thrones. Many others will remember her as the only “Bond girl” that managed to get him to settle down (for about the length of a wedding) and, of course, she was Emma Peel.
If “Emma Peel” means nothing to you, then it will take too long to explain. I’d have to go into The Avengers, and then explain that it’s not The Avengers you are thinking of. The one I’m talking about was the archetypal paranormal / science-fiction -influenced spy show (Psy-Spy-fi).
It’s made me intrigued to find and watch a couple. Been a long time since I saw one. It has never been as easy as it is now to find old TV shows. Not that The Avengers would have been a hard one to find, as it was the ultimate in mainstream cult classic and a box set would have been available from shortly after the box set was invented and packaged up In a huge bundle of VHS cassette tapes. Now some of the older, more obscure series can be found for free, while others can often be streamed for a few shekels. And Box sets still exist.
I like the idea of boxsets, but I also like the idea of space in my apartment. Charlie Brooker (I believe it was) described boxsets as tombstones for old TV shows. The final clincher is that my partner hates music or movies on physical media.
Totally self-indulgent list of old shows I have seen (some or all of) in the last year or so…
Hammer House of Horror – TV show by Britain’s best-known horror studio. I never saw any of these as a kid, despite my love of (Hammer) horror. Some are great. Some are terrible.
The Day Today / Brass eye – the greatest spoofs of the TV news business you could ever see. Still holds up today. Seriously, watch them.
Blakes 7 – 70s/80s British sci fi series which even back then you knew the FX were wobbly. I must say I appreciate the dystopian view of the future much more as an adult. And the cast was first rate. This was one I thought rewatching would be ruining part of my childhood, but it didn’t.
Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace – something I missed when it came out. An amazing spoof of bad sci-fi/horror TV.
The Sweeney – tough British cop series from the seventies. Was inspired to hunt some down after watching the excellent Life On Mars. They were well made, and generally not as outdated as you’d expect.
Look Around You – I hadn’t even knows this existed. A joyful spoof of TV education / science shows. (Not everything I like is a spoof, honest.)
Nighty Night – I didn’t get to see this when it first came out. Very dark comedy (not really a sitcom although it has the feel). Great cast of exaggerated and monstrous characters and some very funny moments. Central character is a true monster with a mission.
Ripping Yarns – I saw one when they first came out and then never managed to see one again. Great, um, spoof, of boys own adventure stories by Michael Palin and Terry Jones.
So you can see, I’ve been busy. What else should I watch? Agree or disagree with my opinions? Let me know.
Also, we are not allowed to meet up in groups of six or more in England. A friend from Wales taunted us, but pointing out he could meet 6 or more people. In Wales 6 people is called a town.
The more false the ideas of the inhabitants the stronger the
belief in them when confronted by contrary information. They have the power to
have information shared by everyone, so that the people could be united by facts,
but the devices that share this information shares everything and has very
little to no distinction between truth and non truth.
They consider themselves rational people, but they are far
from it. What they call their rationality ,is an afterthought. The think things
based on emotion and then use their “rational side” to justify their thoughts.
They cordon themselves off into separate areas often marked
by unnatural boundaries and worship the ground they happen to be on as somehow
sacred and more worthy of similar dirt elsewhere. They consider the pieces o
dirt around theirs the most evil and the most worthy of ridicule despite them
and their inhabitants being the most like themselves.
They want to be loved but seem to value those who do not
love as people worthy of exulting.
They scoff at the notion of worshiping money, but it is the
thing they protect the most. It is generally considered to be mark of someone
who is worthy. Perhaps that’s why the word is “worthy.”
Sometimes things are written that are so holy to them, that
despite the ambiguity and anachronism of the words, anything that seems to
contradict these words upsets them to a dangerous extreme. They words can be
simple line in a national declarative text or a whole book to dictate an origin
story and set of rites.
Often the less they know the more certain they are they are
right.
In summary these are a strange people who see themselves
above everything but fail to lose the shackles of scared, squabbling animals.
Toddlers emulate us adults. It’s how they learn by copying us and trying to be like us. The downside is we realise, because we are always telling her what to do and being firm when she doesn’t do things, she has started doing the same with us. She has become very, very bossy. She orders us about and if we say no, she puts her finger to her lips and goes “Shhhh! The baby’s asleep.” This last part is not what we do, but it’s her own interpretation.
It isn’t helped that she watches a lot of Peppa Pig. Peppa is a very entitled, middle-class child that bosses everyone around and acts like the queen of knowledge. She’s a terrible role model, but she’s probably a very typical child.
Our toddler is also very quick to unleash her thermonuclear option, which is a kind of sonic bomb rendering all around her with momentary hearing loss. It’s a high-pitched scream channelled direct from Hades, but instead of an Earth-shattering growl, it’s an ear-piercing scream. A crystal clear ear-piercing scream thanks to her soprano genes. I’m worried it’ll form the basis of some superpower. I’ll be taking your ideas as to what her superhero/supervillain name will be. My thoughts are: Sopra-Noh! Ear Piercer. Siren.
I have no drawing skills so I will not be making a graphic novel of any of these ideas, so feel free to steal.
If you do, after a while, she can team up with other similar super{hero/villain}s. Bari Tony, Alto Native, Bass Lynn, Ten Awe and of course Castrato, who has the most harrowing origin story of any supercharacter.
Day 7. End of the first week. After today we are half-way through.
We are greeted with the news that Sweden is now on the exemption list. I’d have expected to be more annoyed, but arbitrary rule changes are very much the norm these days. The rule is if you arrive from Saturday, no isolation. If you arrive before, you isolate for 2 weeks. I pity the chumps who land Friday night rather than Saturday morning, cos they gotta isolate while their slightly later friends are free. It does seem a little ridiculous.
What this means is that if we had stayed an extra week, we wouldn’t have to isolate next week. But as it stands we do.
It’s a bit like we went on a 2 year thieving spree, and when we turned ourselves in, we got a 2 year sentence. But if we’d gone on a 3 year thieving spree, we wouldn’t have to give ourselves in because thieving suddenly wasn’t a crime anymore.
The news comes just as some of the surrounding countries seem poised for a second wave. However, Sweden might have achieved that fabled goal of herd immunity. Only time will tell.
I think that phrase herd immunity might sound more attractive with a different collective noun. Very few humans want to be in a herd. No one wants to be cattle. Pack immunity, sounds better. As do Collective protection, Community immunity and local resistance.
Sad news, our robot vacuum cleaner – the one the toddler refers to as “the robot” – has reached that point in its life where the battery starts giving up. We hope it hasn’t got the electronic corona. Sometimes it goes for a few centimetres and then starts slowing down like it’s wheezing. It was just as the toddler started getting braver. A couple of times she even approached it as it slept and switched it on. She immediately ran away with that overjoyed / terrified scream, you almost never hear from adults.
Anyway, enough for now. It’s date night, and we’re watching Joker. Yeah, we do romance!
Day 6. “Dag sex” in Swedish. Which is a whole other thing in Australian.
Toddler is putting face “highlighter” all over her hands and face. She now looks a bit like a friendly alien from a 1980s TV show. As I recall, the friendly ones were attractive and shiny and the bad ones scaly and warty. I’m warty.
"I have a specific set of skulls."
So in the UK, groups over six are to be banned from Monday. Unless they take place at work or in a pub or on public transport. Or, no doubt, at Dominic Cummins house. Dominic Cummins, who we referenced before, is the neurotic, self-important man behind the curtain of Boris Johnson’s Blizzard of Boz. Not to be confused with Tony Abbott, Britain’s new trade ambassador and former Australian PM, who is the Weasel of Oz. Or with Dominic Raab, the Gizzard of Owls. Or… I’ll stop.
I was a little unfair yesterday, presenting a very one-sided view of Brexit. Brexit is multifaceted and there are multiple opinions that lead to votes on either side. I’m happy to set the record straight with an analogy from other side. Brexit is like quitting your golf club membership because that is the thing stopping you from playing golf on every other golf club in the country. And the club you just quit will, of course, let you play for free still because you’re the coolest and they just want to hang out with you and they know you’ve still got it. In fact everyone will start paying you to play in their clubs because you are, like, really important and very soon you’ll be the most popular person in the world because the only thing holding you back was that stupid golf club membership!
Actually the toddler has been very contrary today. Resisting almost everything, but also insisting someone be involved in everything she wants to do. Although some of that was fun. But toddlers don’t seem to understand logic such as “you want to spin round and round, so why do I have to do it as well?” They have no concept that you don’t want to do what they want to do. And any suggestion that you might not want to can lead to screams. As I have said before, our child is half soprano and can scream at the top of anyone’s hearing. I sometimes wish I’d been to a few more death metal gigs when I was younger. I might not be able to hear those screams at all now.
On the plus side, I have a new phone. So it also means I can take pictures of me on my old phone. It also has an insane zoom, so you can take pictures of tiny things all the way across the room. I’m not sure why I’d want to, but it’s nice to have the option.
Day 5. “Undirt wah cat sank,” as they say in France.
The toddler is eating jelly and watching one of the many sleep-deprivation-conceived shows for kids. Honestly, young kids shows should mostly be categorised under “psychedelia.”
Baby
Jake has LSD induced dreams interpreted by his older brother.
The other end of kids shows are more educational rather than
make something like the way their brains work. The better ones can also be
enjoyed by parents. There are a lot that cannot be. Peppa Pig is a better one.
Every now and again, they’ll slip in a hint of something more adult or a
reference to classic movies only us older parents would even get. They know a
lot of parents are also stuck in the room when it’s playing.
See 3 mins in for some top refs.
But best of all is Hey Duggee. Hey Duggee sometimes seems
like it’s aimed more at adults than kids. But kids still love it. I know people
without kids who watch it. It is jam packed with references, parodies and well-crafted
humour. It’s also one of the most inclusive kids shows ever.
News here is the usual confusion and buffoonery. The government has had to step back a bit on it’s attempts to reopen the country by banning gatherings of over 6 people in the face of an increase in cases. It’s also going back on an agreement it pushed very hard for and admitted that might mean breaking a little bit of the law. The latter is about Brexit. The easiest test for something being about Brexit is asking, “does this sound like something a 3rd world dictatorship would do?” Cos if yes, it’s most likely a Brexit thing.
For any non-Brits, Brexit is best explained as being like deciding to leaving a (lets say) golf club because you were persuaded that it would save money on fees only to realise you can’t then use the course now without paying each time which will be much more expensive in the long run. Plus, a little bit of you also wanted to leave because you had somehow thought if you left, the Muslim family at the end of the street would somehow move away if you did. There are no good analogies because it’s a complicated web of misinformation, ineptitude, duplicity and complacency.
We’re still quarantined, but work is keeping us occupied. As is a toddler who is half soprano, so thus the loudest screams on anything remotely her size.
As you’ve been good, I’ll leave you with one of the greatest moments of children’s television in recent years: Hey Duggee – Stick Song. A treat for all those 90s kids who now have kids of their own.
Day #4. (Day number four / day hash four / day pound four / day sharp four.)
The toddler is rolling her scooter over bubble wrap because just pressing it by hand won’t cut it anymore.
Yesterday got into some pretty murky theological areas. I realise I compared my child to Satan. Satan is the bringer of chaos, the sender of noise, the destroyer of all that is weak and fragile. So, that stands.
News comes in that the toddlers nanny on his mother’s side (mormor as the Swedish call it) has got some horrendous stomach bug. It’s not the corona, but it is not good. It doesn’t involve hospitalisation, but it does involve a lot of bathroomalisation. It explains why we all have slightly dodgy tummies. The fear is for us it’ll also go full Somme. [You might need to adjust this reference for your own region, by referring to the muddiest, messiest battle you know.]
Don’t worry. We’ll keep you informed of how this goes.
For general cleaning and the fun of it, we have a robot vacuum cleaner. It’s not one of the fancy ones and it’s not that smart. It has about 5 different programs, that it cycles through until a random point in time OR it has hit enough obstacles to give up on that one.
Somehow its programming means it spends most of it’s time under the chair, like a timid pet. Every now and again it emerges, usually with a ball. Under the sofa is a graveyard for balls, Lego pieces and anything else a child might want to throw or kick around. For that read “everything.”
The toddler has a fascination / horror relationship with it. She wants it on and loves to see it move semi-randomly around the room. But, she is terrified of it. She will not stand on the floor when it’s moving. She’ll sit on a chair or stand on a step where it can’t get her. She might still scream with a mixture of fear and joy when it comes close. I hope she doesn’t pursue human relationships like that.
She’s very excited when the robot emerges with one of her toys. Sometimes she’ll be brave enough to run and get it, screaming the whole time. Others, she won’t dare. With three robots, I could probably keep the child herded in the other part of the house. Until she overcame her fear and hopped from robot to robot filled with revenge.
"Take me to your leader."
As for our self-isolation, no one has checked on us yet. Which brings us to Priti Patel, who sounds like a character in a satirical novel, is in fact a frequently inept, pandering, reactionary politician, like a character in a satirical novel. She’s the Secretary of State for the Home Department, meaning she’s in part responsible for things of State and indeed partly responsible for the state of things.
She has said, they monitor 1 in 5 people, which they do by calling them. Not sure this is the best thing to admit. Better keep us being good by not knowing the system rather than allowing people to think, “I ain’t getting calls, so I ain’t being tracked.”
Apparently I was right about one thing – they are mostly interested in the background noise. So never go anywhere where you can’t drown out the ambient noise with a recording of cats mewing, or a serial killer documentary or sounds of porn. But beware of having too many cats in the recording so that you sound like you are at a sanctuary, or that the documentary is at the point of an re-enactment so it sounds like you are killing someone, or that the porn sounds are too real and it sounds like you are actually having an orgy.
Anyway, so no call and apart from a lot of screams over the top of a droning robot, we’ve all still got it together.
Day, the 3. Already I’m reverting to old English (or ye olde Englishe as it’s known).
Back in the day, customs officials were keen to know did you have any illegal drugs or banned fruit. Now they want to know where you’ve been in the last 14 days. Which countries, in particular. If a country you have visited is not on the exemption list then you have to self-isolate. “Not on the exemption list” is effectively a double negative and, so, confusing. Much less confusing to say, “it’s on the inemption list.”
The UK government has a website, GOV.UK. And it certainly can govuk itself.
Fair enough, a country like the UK, which loves itself some bureaucracy, is going to have a lot of forms and documents, but just a little thought could make things easier to navigate. It’s basically just a directory but organised how a civil servant would think. Something most people would describe as labyrinthine, a civil servant would call an in tray.
So even things I found yesterday, I can’t find today. There is a place to log in, but it’s not prominent on every page, you have to dig down and find the right page. The writing style is as dry and verbosely factual as you would expect.
Anyway, on one of these pages is a form to let the good people at Edge Case, Side Liners or Border Force (or whatever the customs people are calling themselves this year) know where you’ve been.
Sweden is on the inemption list. Countries come and go from the exemption list the same way that lockdown rules are relaxed and tightened. It’s the ebb and flow a country / world at sea.
Apparently, they do follow up on this. From some people I’ve heard that there was no checking. Emma is in some Swedish groups and people there have gotten automatic phone calls asking if they are at home. You answer “yes” and they’re happy, supposedly. Maybe they listen to the noise behind you. If it’s a lot of chatter and thumping bass, you might not be at home OR you are breaking the bo contact rules. If it’s the last 30 minutes of Netflix, you’re probably at home. They also do come visit, Emma heard. Some people have had several checks. So it seems that the checks are random or maybe based on some other factor such as age or how foreign your surname is. There’s no data on this.
MILK (Internet slang) - Man I'd Like to Know.
A hundred years ago, there was a similar pandemic, known popularly as The Spanish Flu. How much harder things were then. No internet. No YouTube. No Netflix. No way of remotely arranging food to be delivered unless you were wealthy enough to have a telephone or expendable servants. And even a few years ago, there were no affordable services delivering food or groceries unless you were house-ridden through age or sickness.
But now, it’s very easy to order groceries to be delivered. The biggest problem is that, in these times, the better ones will not have a delivery slot for quite a few days. Am*zon can deliver pretty quickly, but who likes giving money to an actual Bond villain. Of course, it means these delivery drivers are basically visiting all of the people deemed more likely to be sick and are now the potential spreaders. But, they seem to know this, and keep their distance. Leaving the boxes for you to empty at your door and only approaching to get the next one to you.
Self-isolation sounds like it’s a great excuse to not work. “I can’t work from home today, I’m self-isolating.” But, alas it actually means you have less things pulling you away from work. So, Monday morning is Monday morning. At home. Where it has been for months. And where it was for nearly two years before that (for me).
There was the usual meeting in the people-panelled zoom room. And then getting back into doing whatever it is I do, after half a week of good old fashioned rest. I’m lucky in that what I can do can be done from home. I haven’t been laid off or been left without clients. Also, as an introvert, lockdowning and self-isolating are not as hard on me as they are others. I do count myself lucky.
The toddler, however is an extrovert. She’s gregarious and so 2 weeks without daycare or other contact with fellow wee’uns is going to be the toughest part of this. But if Jesus can suffer 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness with Satan, we can suffer 14 days and 14 nights in our living room with a toddler. Not that I comparing myself to Jesus.
Ugh, day 3 and I’m already comparing myself to the messiah.
Day 2. Toddler is scooting across the lounge with a liberated coin next to her on the footrest.
On the behest of a more scientific friend, I have looked up some of the coronadata.
When it comes to this pandemic, there seem are more opinions flying around than actual data. Maybe that’s true of nearly everything nowadays. You’d think the internet would make it easier. After all, everything that ever happened is recorded somewhere on the internet. On the other hand, every lie ever told is also on the internet. Every opinion you have, no matter how ludicrous has a website, group or channel backing it up. It has never been so easy to be wrong.
In terms of Deaths, Sweden is doing better than the UK (meaning there are fewer of them, to clear up any confusion), but that is not saying much. However, it’s still up there in the top part. Their hope is that now it’s all done and dusted and a second wave won’t bother it. We’ll have to see. Its neighbours are much lower down the chart, but in Denmark, according to TV, you are much more likely to die of a serial killer than anything.
It’s odd that despite its high death rate, I have some trust Sweden’s science-led approach. Even though a lot of the science is up in the air and all we have is predictions, and when the dust has settled, we can see what went down. Definitely, I have more trust than in the UK’s response which seems to have been “try all the methods” and is much more spin-doctor-led.
I’ll have to look into what Denmark, Norway and Finland’s methodologies have been for dealing with the crisis, but that’s enough geomedical statistics for one day.
Day 2 and everything is A-OK
The rules for self isolation in England are that you absolutely must stay indoors (or your own garden) except for when you or your pet needs medical attention, if you have to go to court(!), or “to avoid injury or illness or to escape a risk of harm.” So, if the house is falling down or you are a character witness for your best friend accused of serial killing, then you can leave it.
You can also leave if you absolutely need some food you can’t arrange to be delivered in time, which we had to do on the first day due to a milk emergency that meant one of us had to go out under cover of mask to make sure we survived. Believe me. Somethings you can do without as an adult, but there are things without which children become unbearable monsters. Some of these can be bought from shops (such as milk or what ever the little things drink of choice is), others are unique items such as that one special soft toy (out of all the others that are somehow vastly inferior) or that one special blanket without which sleep is impossible except after an hour of tears and wailing.
There are some other specific exceptions / quirks. The people you are staying with do not need to self-isolate. Which is convenient but seems counter to how transmittable diseases work. Also if you are a child, and you have to change houses because it’s the turn of the other separated parent, then you can do that and continue your quarantine there. It doesn’t say whether you should hug your other parent or not when you arrive. It doesn’t say what you can do if you are leading a double life with two separate households.
Finally, you cannot change houses unless “there are exceptional circumstances in which it becomes impracticable [impossible] to remain at the original address.” This is very open and I guess includes your best friend / flat mate turning out to be a serial killer, crocodiles start living in the bathroom or demonic possession of the bedside tables. Feel free to share your own, and we’ll see which is the most likely. (Note: actual most likely are flooding and spousal abuse, but let’s not sully the mood.)
The big question I’m sure is on everybody’s mind is: do the authorities check up on you and your self isolation? Short answer: Apparently, yes. More on this in a later episode.
Did you know episode is an online version of a pisode? This is the state of comedy on day 2. Stay tuned.
So, this is the first day of self-isolation after a trip to Sweden. We knew we’d have to do this, and so prepared. We decided it was worth it to have a break AND bury Emma’s grandma. We’re now stuck indoors for a fortnight.
We planned for it by signing up for one of those services that delivers ingredients and instructions on how to cook a week’s worth of meals. I might mention their name if it works out.
So far it’s fine. But the two of us are ‘lucky’ in that being locked indoors for two weeks does not fill us with dread. The toddler, however, is gregarious and gets antsy if she can’t jump in a puddle every other day.
I’m not completely sure of the exact rules of self-isolation in the UK right now so we have to find out if nipping to the shops is allowed. The rules here change very frequently. I think the government assumes we’ll think they are on top if it if they keep issuing new guidelines. We are in the process of opening things up here, but it seems for every two new things opening up, something (or somewhere) has new restrictions.
It’s a far cry from Sweden. Sweden didn’t do the lockdown thing. They kept things more or less normal, but said, “you must social distance.” Swedes, on being told they had to be two metres apart, had a brief initial panic worried that this meant they could be no more than two metres from other people. Social distancing is what Swedes call socialising. They were the odd man out of Europe, despite the fact they were apparently the only ones who did what they EU scientists recommended and didn’t panic into going full lockdown for everyone except the Prime Minister’s special adviser.
(If you are not from the UK, then I’ll explain that behind the prime minister here is a Rasputin-like figure called Dominic Cummins. At the height of the lockdown, he drove himself and his family on several long trips against all guidelines and, just to show his contempt of everyone with a soul, explained one of the trips was to “test his eyesight.” Driving to test your eyesight is like operative heavy machinery to see if you are drunk. He was quite rightly ridiculed for this, but these days in politics, shame only makes you stronger.)
In the UK, you have to wear one on public transport, shops and anywhere where people congregate. Except restaurants and bars or anywhere where you need your mouth for eating. Which makes sense, kinda. At the airport in the UK, you needed a mask everywhere. But the moment you wandered into a restaurant, and you didn’t need a mask, even though you weren’t any further from people, really.
It was weird, after 3 -12 months (however long it’s been), to go somewhere where practically no one is wearing a mask. I was so used to a certain level of fear, it took a little bit to adjust that to caution. But that’s maybe a difference between Sweden and the UK. In Sweden they hope people see the reasons for rules and in the UK, rules and laws are often fear-based. I mean most of our headlines are fear-based. It makes Britain look like a bunch of scared people all trying to scare us into thinking they should be in charge.
But the fear creeping into Britain is not new. As I said, somewhat jestingly, fear is the main way that some of our most popular newspapers sell their product. Readers of these get at least one big fear for their way of life every day. The rise of UKIP and the further right (racism is always rooted in fear) and tactics used to secure a majority for leaving the EU attest to the power of fear.
Anyway it’s already day one and I’ve gone into the dank corners of politics. This is meant to be a journal of a family in self-isolation (albeit with a family unit), a chance to document some thoughts on this bizarre situation we find ourselves in and a way to force myself to write regularly. Expect 13 more.
With the sad demise of George Michael it has become clear that 2016 is a serial killer. More specifically a serial killer of the type that really only appears in movies. In films, serial killers always have some elaborate system for picking victims and circumstances which eventually the detective, who has spent the first three quarters of the mostly being flummoxed and dealing with a number of personal problems, gains an insight into.
The flash of inspiration came when it was clear it was too much of a coincidence that George Michael, who is indelibly linked to the song “Last Christmas,” died on Christmas day. From then on, it’s a matter of looking at the other key musical celebrity deaths of 2016 and finding a pattern.
David Bowie, who died on a Sunday, did write a song called “Sunday,” and as he seems to have been the first victim, it does make him the “Absolute Beginner.” These might seem tenuous, but this is the clincher: He wrote a song called “Underground” and the 10th of January (the day he died) was also the same date the London Underground first opened in 1863. Let that sink in.
Prince who penned the much-loved, haunting ballad ‘Sometimes It Snows in April’ died in April. Fans soon picked up on what seemed to be irony or coincidence or prescience but we now suspect was premeditation on the part of a rogue, sociopathic, killer year.
Leonard Cohen wrote a song called “The Old Revolution” and died on November 7 which is a Revolution Day in several former soviet countries.
Pete Burns, who perished on the 23rd of October, was most famous for the song “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record).” October 23rd is also the same day that Richard Nixon agreed to TURN over audio RECORDings related to the Watergate scandal, an event Nixon had been SPINning since it started. Did the killer somehow reveal the hidden meaning behind this seemingly fluffy pop hit?
Rick Parfitt died the 24th of December. Although Status Quo did release “It’s Christmas Time,” more pertinently they released “You’ll Come ‘Round” and December 24th is the day that the final of the 13 Icelandic Yule Lad’s (Jólasveinar) comes round. A stretch? Not if you are a deranged serial killer.
People, we are the detective. It’s up to us to work out who is next. We have the clues; we just need to work out who is next and when. We have to stop “2016” before it kills again!
The thing I really had difficulty adjusting to in Finland was the length of the days. Finland is north. Quite far north. In the summer, when I was there, it never really gets dark. It gets toward twilight until about 1am, and then it starts getting lighter again. The first night I woke up every hour expecting it to be morning already.
The following night I got out my emergency eye mask and slept a whole lot better, but would have been easy pickins for any assassins.
In winter it’s the opposite and barely gets light. Those long winters have the tendency to turn the good folk of Finland into Goths. I’ve never seen so many Metalheads, Goths and Emos in bright sunlight as I did that week. Over the summer, every weekend there is a music festival in Finland, and every single one seems to be Death Metal festival. I imagine every weekend, the average Finn throws off the work clothes, Goths up and spends the two free days in a field listening to the delicate strains of bands such as Deathbound, Torture Killer, and Impaled Nazarene.
Famous Finnish folk song.
I was in Finland for a festival. Not a death metal festival. My death metal days are so long ago and so dead, there are probably a dozen death metals songs about them. No, I was in Finland for an improvised comedy festival. For more information about my improv antics you can see the blog dedicated to that.
On the last night there was a party. It was the thing I feared the most. Okay I’m not afraid of parties, in fact quite the reverse. However this one was at a sauna.
I’m not a sauna person. I find them stiflingly hot and can never stay in for long. Plus the fact that the Finns sauna as God intended – i.e. as naked as the day he kicked us out of our mothers’ wombs – makes them especially unenticing.
For those of you who haven’t experienced it, which is most of you, naked I look like a frayed piece of string. Pale, fuzzy with sporadic bits flailing off. Although these days the string has a slight bulge in the middle like it’s a worm digesting a bead.
I don’t really have body issues, but I think people who have to encounter my body will have issues, so I try to keep it covered up. It remains quite covered up even when the sun is out because I can go from white to lobster-red in exactly no time at all.
The Finns have a system for saunaing (check this is the correct form of the verb). They boil their skin in the hot room for an allotted amount of time and then they jump in a frozen lake. Some of the real keen ones then birch themselves with bits of tree.
Well, I did that. All of that. I did it in the reverse order.
So that party was not as I had feared taking place inside the sauna, it was just that there was a sauna in the party location, which took some time to get to the lobster-boiling temperatures the Finns like. At some point someone rushed in and said there was a lake a short walk away. A party full of drunk improvisers, is going to find a lot of people who say “yes” to the craziest of suggestions, and so before we realised it, a group of us were heading down towards the lake with the intention to jump in.
So on the way to the lake, through the trees, someone pushed a branch aside that thwacked me in the face. I didn’t realise it then, but that was the start of the Reversed Finnish Sauna Ritual. I’d been birched.
There is a sting after a twig thwacks you across the flesh, but after that sting is the feint pleasure of relief as the pain ebbs away.
When we got to the lake, we threw off the raiments of mortal men and jumped. This act was dubbed Finny Dipping by international improv playboy Jstar Atlanta.
It was damn cold as you’d expect, but when you’re with a group of people all doing the same, you share that suffering. I was determined to not tough it out. I grimaced and watched as other people left the water until I realised the Finns were still in the water, and not only enduring it, but loving it. They were frolicking and splashing each other. It was time to leave. I was, however the last non-Finn to do so, so there.
When you get out of the water, the relief is amazing. It feels so good that the freezing water is no longer surrounding your lower parts.
People of the Lake. This is 1 am.
When we got back to the party, the sauna was at full furnace. Several Finns tried to convince me to get in. I told them it was not my thing. “I have been in a sauna before.” “A Finnish sauna?” “Well, no…” That was it. I could not convince anyone after than I knew what it was like because a Finnish sauna is different to other saunas. I assume the same way that a French firing squad, for example, is different to a firing squad from any other country. There is a clear difference to students of the whole firing squad ethos, but to the person being pointed at by all those guns, the difference is not apparent.
So I was convinced. I debriefed once more and got in. Yes it was hot. Way hotter than any sauna I’d been in before. The Finns like it hot. It explains that old classic movie, “Suomi Like It Hot.”
As soon as I was in, someone said, “okay, nobody leave for 10 minutes. It’s not warm enough.” NOT WARM ENOUGH!! It was the temperature of an angry sun in there.
But, I held out; I did my time and even went back for a little more, later.
Now, the feeling you get getting out of the steaming room into the (relatively) cool air is amazing. That relief is pure joy.
Finnish pleasure seems to be all about experiencing the extreme and then the pleasure you get from leaving it. I began to think that maybe the Finns don’t really like death metal. They go every weekend to a festival and listen to it for 3 days and then when the come back, put on the radio and listen to some cheery, cheesy Scandinavian pop it feels AMAZING.
Christmas has descended upon us like a plague of tinselly locusts.
At the airport, 3 young ladies in narrow, red dresses were harmonising closely the song Silent Night. (Or "Spent Might" as my phone suggested the song be spelled.) They were very good and Spent Might is one of the least awful Christmas songs, but still this whole endeavour was indicative of the fact that absolutely everything at this time of year has to be tinsellated or Christmasified or ensantanated or whatever it's called.
Every shop becomes a shrine to glitter. Every TV show will have a Christmas special featuring expensive guest stars and more whimsy than a castle full of fairy princesses. Anything that can broadcast any form of sound is forced to transmit non-stop seasonal songs. And if there is enough space for it, people will be forced into herds and made to sing these songs. As witnessed with the red dressed trio at Schiphol. Many of them seem very happy to do it, but I presume they have family members being threatened and if they stop smiling, an uncle will be shot.
I'm not generally a curmudgeon, but there are some things that really do bug me. And Christmas music really does bug me. In fact, the moment I first heard the Coldplay Christmas song (or "a" Coldplay Christmas song as there may be more than one), I very nearly went on a shooting spree.
What's funny is that there are people out there who like Christmas songs. I've met them. People who otherwise seem to be rational, intelligent human beings. People who at other times of the year could be people I'd be more than happy to hang out with. But for several weeks of the year, a sort of mania sets in and they actively wish to hear these tunes. These songs so cheesy it's like Christmas is just one big, giant cracker; songs so cliched it's like the whole season is a direct-to-youtube action movie sequel; songs so joyful, they are clearly hiding some inner trauma.
So, although these three red-bound women at Schiphol taken on their own, are a nice diversion, they are the shiny tip of the great, bloated, glistening corpse of a semi-musical whale that is dredged up every December.
Well, that's a glimpse into my head this time of year. I wish all of you seasons greetings, but I do so in flat tone, with absolutely no musical accompaniment.
A little while
back, I saw
this article in the Washington Post about how people don’t take as
much precautions when a hurricane is named after a woman as when it’s
name after a man. It seems because people don’t feel threatened by
a woman. My first thought was, isn’t this a subtle way of reducing
the number of sexists in the world? But then I also thought, is it
actually sexist to think of women less likely to cause harm to the
world, when statistically it’s true. Whether that’s something to
do with the nature of the female of the species or the fact that they
don’t usually get too much chance to get to a position where they
can do too much damage is up for discussion. But this latest research
seems clear: women are perceived as less of a threat than men. My
second thought was to use this information to make people take the
appropriate amount of precaution. So we name our hurricanes according
to how bad we’ll think they’ll be.
Benign storms can
get “little old lady” names like Gladys or Martha. Then, building
up through increasingly macho names as the storms get more dangerous.
The very top rung we can pull out another prejudice and use
foreign-sounding names. Just to instill a bit more fear into the
general public. Thus Ramon or Abdullah would be great names for
dangerous hurricanes in the US. The trouble is, this doesn’t simply
use established stereotypes and prejudices for a practical purpose,
it also helps to reinforce them. (Plus, people in ethnic groups where
these names are more common, won't prepare as well.)
Meteorologists deny
that Hurricane Bertha caused by Bermuda setting light to a fart.
So maybe we should
take it away from the world of human names and use other categories
to name them. Maybe it’s animals that we should use. Our fear of
animals tends to be related to actually how dangerous they are (well,
somewhat). So we can base the name on how deadly the species is. Thus
Hurricane Mouse is nothing compared to Hurricane Shark. Hurricane
Wombat would be quite small and Hurricane Boa Constrictor would be
pretty darn big. And you should all run and hide when you hear
Hurricane Mosquito is coming. Seriously, look those statistics up.
Or maybe we should
use movies. Small hurricanes can be named after classic, friendly
movies you see at Christmas or on Wednesday afternoons, but the
really big ones can be named after video nasties. Hurricane I Spit On
Your Grave or Hurricane Texas Chainsaw Massacre are definitely ones
to hide from. But you can probably go for a walk during Hurricane
Lassie Come Home.
*Woof Woof*
What's that Lassie?
There's a storm coming? What's it called?
*Woof Woof Woof
Woof *
Hurricane Ramon and
Abdullah Kill Dismembered Slut Spiders and Drink Your Blood! We'd
better hide.
"Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I
said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me."
I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"
He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian, Jew or
Muslim?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too!
Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I
said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said,
"Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or
Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I
said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said,
"Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great
Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist
Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative
Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"
Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region
Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist
Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said,
"Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region
Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over."
This is an old joke but it sums up something about inter-religious intolerance. In that it's often directed to those who are more like you than those who are very unlike you. But in fact this phenomenon goes far beyond religion. You see it in politics, somewhat. And you definitely see it in regional prejudices. The people that are hated in one country are not usually the people from the other side of the world, but usually the people in the country next door. And the reason for that hatred can often be traced back to an historical point of disagreement. It's quite common for people that once were united as one country to now hate each other's guts. Or at least be the butt of each other's jokes.
I would go so far as to say that most major supposed religious conflicts are not about the differences in religion at all but are territorial disputes. They may have become magnified because of the religious differences and because the religious differences aew used to define each side, but often the original dispute is about a pice of land. It 's usually made worse, of course, by something holy being on that piece of land.
The other key source of religious disputesis the one the joke reather nicely exposes. Some age-old decision about the interpretation of some vague or ill-translated statement. Again this is echoed in politics, as can be enjoyed any time Americans 'debate' whether they should arm themselves to the teeth or not.
I've always felt that politics and religion are not so very far from each other. They deal with very different parts of our lives, but they are both attract a similar range of fanaticism and a similar range of (un)willingness to listen to the other side.
It's the sort of thing that can be a bit despairing were there not jokes like these to help put things in perspective and realise you are not alone in thinking about despairing because someone must have written that joke.
I’ve noticed that every year there’s more and more debate about one single aspect of Dutch culture. One figure of Dutch folklore who starts appearing at this time of the year in readiness for his big day. On December 5th, Sinterklaas, the grandfather of Santa Claus, leaves presents in kids shoes in a very similar fashion to his more internationally known offspring, who tends to go for stockings. Instead of the North Pole, he lives in Spain. Instead of a reindeer-drawn sleigh, he has a steamboat. Instead of elves he has a faithful black servant.
The debate about is always about Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) who historically was almost certainly a slave, but is portrayed more as a comedy sidekick. Is it racist, is what the debate is all about. With most people from outside the country saying yes, and many of those who grew up with it saying no.
It took me a few years to get used to it, and now, I must say, I barely flinch when I see a real live Zwarte Piet or a doll-like representation of him which looks exactly like a gollywog, which were dolls we got rid of in the UK quite a few years ago. At least I barely flinch visibly.
My point of view is this. Obviously history is history and the real Saint Nicholas quite possibly had a slave/servant/comedy sidekick who quite probably was black. I don’t have a problem that such a figure still exists in the folklore and has not been replaced by mythical elves or magical reindeer. I don’t have too much of a problem that he is portrayed as being somewhat wayward and a little crazy, slavery isn’t something to help keep up perfect mental health, and as such you should take what liberties you can. The only real problem I have is this, which is at the core of why it’s considered racist: Zwarte Piet can only be portrayed by a white man or woman in black face paint, curly wig and thick, red lips in the style of a minstrel show, something else we got rid of a long time ago.
For me it’s only this offensively stereotypical representation that is what makes my flesh cringe whenever I see it. I think everything else can be kept. Make him blue or say he can only be portrayed by black actors or I don’t know.
But the kids, of course, don’t see it. Piet is a very popular character, mostly because he gives out sweets and so forth. And those adults who grew up with it only to be told later on it’s racist often are quite offended by the suggestion. They make up alternative histories to explain why he’s black - from coming down the chimney. Presumably he scratched his lips all the way down as well and the soot made his hair go curly. It’s only natural to be so defensive of something you grew up with and never saw any offense in. It’s very similar to those Christians who when asked about dinosaurs and their omission from their holy book state that they are a test from God.
I’m pretty sure the debate will continue for a few years yet, but the fact is seems to get bigger implies it will come to a head. As someone who lived through similar issues in the UK some 20+ years ago, I can assure the people of the Netherlands, these sort of changes, although they cause a lot of grumbling and even resentment at the time, are generally looked back upon with an air of, “I’m glad we did that” and without the very fabric of society being any more than ruffled in one corner.
The title of this piece is not some sort of swear word, although it does sound like it. It’s roughly pronounced as “bow-facker” (with bow pronounced as in bending forward or the front of a ship rather than as a fancy sort of knot (English, huh!)). It means “builders” as in anyone who does anything related to the physical creation or maintenance of the structure of a building. Americans tend to call them contractors, which is highly ambiguous.
Builders are remarkably similar the world over and have similar patterns of work. For some reason, builders start work insanely early in the morning. Bakers, we all get why they’re up so early: some of us want our bread when we wake up. But I’ve never been able to work out why builders get up so early. Even having spent months working amongst them, I could never work it out.
The pattern is that they start very early, before most of us would even consider getting out of bed, and then at about the time we would normally get up and/or leave the house they stop and take a long, well-deserved tea break. Why they couldn’t stay in bed a little longer and have less of a tea break, I’ve never fathomed. I do wonder if it’s simply to annoy the rest of us.
Can he fix it? Yes he can, but at 7 am and with the noisiest digger you ever heard.
Builders are in the best position to annoy the rest of us. Most jobs, if they started early, we wouldn’t notice or even care. If an accountant started on the books at 7:30, I’m quite sure the people next door would sleep on, oblivious. If a dentist opened his practice at 7 am, nobody would bat an eyelid. And the dentist would sit there in an otherwise empty room, waiting for the first person to appear in the waiting room - probably it would be a builder wanting a check-up on the way to work. The problem is, none of these jobs have anything that makes any more noise than a flatulent bee in a jar.
But builders have a dizzying array of devices to help them in their job. And every single one of them makes a noise like ten million bees smashing their way out of a million jars and letting forth a thunderous wall of wind.
We currently have painters doing up our building. Painters are very much builders. They start at 7:30 sharp. Before then, there is nothing but the silence of the ageing night. Then suddenly, without warning they let rip with whatever noise-making equipment they can get their hands on. In the first few days, they were scraping, which is surprisingly loud when you are on the other side of the woodwork. Now they seem to have managed to get hold of sanding machines that go all the way up to 11. They do all this until everyone has gone to off work and then they have a nice long tea break.
I feel once they get onto the painting, they should be quieter, surely. However, if I know bouwvakkers, and I do pretty well, I’m certain, right now, they are taking delivery of some sort of industrial, mechanical paint application device that goes all the way up to 12.
