Today I heard a weather forecaster say ‘Well today, it has seemed rather autumnal’ and so it has been all day. It was certainly drizzling most of the morning and when it came to be time for our daily walk, we have to make a judgement call whether we are going to brave a walk or ‘chicken out’ and go and use the car. The weather, although cloudy, looked as though it might settle and so we decided to brave it and undertake our normal walk down. By the time we reached the park, however, the drizzle had turned into a drip-drip – nonetheless, we met up with our University of Birmingham friend who was fortunately equipped with a large golfing umbrella under which we all huddled. I was explaining to our friend, having worked in a Business School for so many years, that in the Business Studies family, you got a range of subjects ranging from the more mathematical/numeric (Economics, Econometrics, Statistics, Accounting, Operational Sciences) through subjects like Law and finishing off at the ‘softer’ end of the spectrum in subjects like Psychology and Sociology which fed into subjects like Personnel Management. But it was true to say that in some of the subjects with ‘Management’ in the title (I exclude Management Science though) there was plenty of room for what might be pejoratively called ‘bullshitting’ in which all kinds of anecdotal knowledge were passed off as though it were an academically respectable subject. I was explaining to our friend that whereas most of us academic staff  by definition were good at one or two things (which is why we got good degrees in the subject and eventually came to lecture in the subject) our Business Studies graduates were like the grammar school boys who were good in a whole range of subjects without excelling in any one of them. We often used to speculate in our staffroom how well we would have coped in a degree regime which ranged from Statistics, Law, Accounting on the one hand to Psychology and Sociology on the other) We never quite arrived at an answer to this question. Eventually, the rain started to come down in earnest and so we trudged home feeling somewhat wet and soggy. It was a case of ‘coats off and into the garage to dry out’ time.

After lunch, we were settling down for a good read when we got a telephone call from our friend in Oxfordshire. As part of his online business, he was running a webinar on the subject of business ethics so I used as a pilot to help him test out some of his material.  In a range of some ten little scenarios, the respondent was asked to identify in a couple of sentences the nature of the crucial ethical issues involved. What will be fascinating to see when the webinar is actually run is the degree of consensus (or lack of it) in the range of replies. Of course it is quite possible that as a ‘guinea pig’ I might have missed some of the crucial issues that I ought to have identified – and it could be that I have thought of some issues that hadn’t occurred to anyone else. Time will tell when my academic colleague and I have a debrief.

In the early evening, I FaceTimed one of my erstwhile colleague from the University of Winchester. We generally have quite a good old natter about things in the news that have taken our fancy and go down memory lane a little to recall amusing incidents in our academic careers. I felt rather mortified that I had remembered my friends birthday a few days late but nonetheless a belated birthday card is winging its way down to Hampshire.

It looks as though the Government and the authorities at Heathrow are finally tumbling to a solution to a problem that has been staring us all in the face. Travelling destinations have been categorised as red zone (strict quarantine upon one’s return to the UK, amber zones (some quarantine at home) and green zone (no restrictions to speak of). Passengers from all of these destinations may well intermingle at pressure points such as check-in areas, communal shopping, security and so on. The solution to be adopted is as follows. All red zone passengers will be allowed only through Terminal 4, just as soon as this can be operational organised. This leaves the amber and green passengers free to intermingle but at least insulated from the probably highly infective nature of the red zone passengers. This all sounds eminently sensible at this point of time but the question arises why the policy not thought out before the delineation into different zones. And after the loosening of the lockdown restrictions, it looks as though the infection is starting to creep up again and the June 21st date (for a complete end to restrictions) is starting to look more and more problematic.

We knew from the weather forecasts that today was going to be a rainy and a blustery day all day so we made our plans accordingly.  Earlier in the morning, I had telephoned one of our favourite restaurants in Droitwich, just down the road, in order to make a booking for lunch. This was accepted with alacrity – I imagined that this popular  cafe and restaurant might be bursting at the seams but it is difficult to tell in these immediate post-lockdown days. We went by car to collect our newspapers and then made our way to Droitwich where we managed to park in our usual spot. We had intended to make a little shopping trip around Boots and also Wilko (a popular hardware store in the Midlands) but as we walked up through the town we were diverted  into one of the charity shops that has now reopened. I treated myself to a box set of National Trust coasters (can one ever have too many?) and Meg espied a high-quality skirt,lined and made with a brocade fabric which seemed to be just about the right size.  Once we got to the cafe, just about at our allotted booked time, the cafe was almost deserted. I suppose the weather might not have helped. Meg and I had a delicious meal of home-made salmon fishcakes which we consumed with salad and some baked potatoes (which we ask to be substituted for the chips that were on offer) So we had an enjoyable meal and then slowly sauntered back to our car, popping into the local Waitrose to buy one or two things that I knew we were short of and had missed the update of the order which I did yesterday. We knew that when we got home, our Waitrose order would be delivered in the next hour after we had got home. Fortunately, we coincided for a few minutes with our domestic help (and style guru) who admired Meg’s recently purchased skirt and suggested some colours and styles of tops to go with it. The dress was an absolute perfect fit, by the way, which is a bonus when you don’t have any fitting rooms. As it was so windy this afternoon, one of the plants pots on my tall display stand outside my study window had blown over but nothing was damaged. So I availed myself of quite a heavy brick which, when placed in a strategic position, may forestall any more plant pot adventures.

Late on this afternoon, I went down to the end of our access drive to rescue my ‘green bin’ which has to be placed near to the main road for the convenience of the refuse men. After being emptied, the bins are left by the side of the road so I rescued ours and the one belonging to my neighbour who I bumped into as the bin was being delivered. My neighbour told me the good news that he had recently had a medical procedure which had helped alleviate the blood vessels near his heart and this had improved his health considerably. So that was good news for us to share. He also told us that he was planning quite a large birthday party for his wife’s 70th and this would involve marquees and the like in the garden and all of us were invited. Naturally, I offered to help with anything that might be needed e.g,. spare outdoor chairs but we are both hoping that the weather might be fine for us on that particular day.

On the national front, I am actually getting interested in the fact that Boris Johnson wants to give the Australians a zero-tariff trade deal but apparently the cabinet is split down the middle on the issue. If the Australian deal goes ahead as Boris would like then both the Scottish and the Welsh beef and lamb trade would be massively impacted. There is no way we can compete on cost with the Australians for whom land (and pasture) is plentiful and whose welfare standards do not match our own. The cabinet dilemma is this. If the ‘free market’ solution is adopted, then this would be at the expense of our domestic industries that would be decimated. If, on the other hand, we protect our own markets somewhat, then the rest of the world will not find trade deals with the UK so attractive if the UK industries are going to get a measure of protection. So the Brexit slogan of ‘take back control’ means that we lose control of our businesses which cannot compete, or do we keep control of our own industries to the detriment of any prospective trade deals? Is this what is called a ‘wicked problem’? and can the circle be squared? The ardent Brexitreers in the cabinet are conscious that the rest of the world is watching this deal with the Australians and ‘where the ball lands’ may well provide the pattern for trade deals (or the absence of them) with the rest of the world. 

After the traumas of getting myself registered with the NHS IT systems (detailed in last night’s blog), this morning I tried the ‘old-fashioned’ way of talking to a human by hanging onto the end of a telephone. The upshot of all of this was that I can expect a telephone call from one of the senior partners (who I know and respect, as he gave me some ‘hands-on’ treatment after one of my returns from hospital some three years ago now). The phone call is due some time this afternoon so we are having to abandon some of our plans to visit Droitwich today as we need to be near the end of a telephone to receive the telephone call from the doctor some time this afternoon. Whilst on this subject, the doctor did phone through at about4.0pm and whilst I am being referred on as a result of some anomalies in my latest CT scan, it appears (as I suspected) that the radiographers trying to interpret the scan have no idea as to what is really going wrong. Anyway, it looks towards the trivial rather than the serious end of the spectrum so I shall to wait for an appointment and see what another group of medics has to say. But I did get the opportunity to get a referral done for my somewhat knackered shoulder (you will appreciate I am using specialised medical terminology at this point). After a late telephone call this afternoon, i have even got it organised for a session immediately before my Pilates session next Tuesday which could scarcely be better.

Today being quite a fine day, Meg and I followed our normal routine of picking up our newspapers and then making  for the park. Fairly unusually, we did not bump into any of our normal ‘park friends’ this morning but the park seemed to be very quiet, for a change. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful spring day and we enjoyed the ambience.In fact, when we got home we threw together a kind of salad from bits and bobs – bit was still quite a full meal and quite satisfying, nonetheless. In the late afternoon, we had a flurry of excitement as we thought that we saw a fox gambolling in the sunshine at the distant end of our communal green area. Although we all thought we saw a fox, when a striped tail was waved in the air, we realised that is was rather a large ginger cat (not one of our regulars) and at a distance it was quite easy to mis-identify it. As we had rather a ‘chewy’ afternoon, we thought we would see if we get to Droitwich and have a meal out in on of favourite cafes/restaurants overlooking the town square. Tomorrow morning, I need to make a telephone call to make a booking (if that is possible these days)

In the COVID news today, the government have announced the first clinical trials for booster jabs (tweaked to be effective against all of the by now well-known variants?) to take place next month with the hope that a wave of using booster jabs may start in the autumn. Meanwhile, the number of Indian variant cases in the country as a whole has just hit 3,000 and has increased by 28% since Monday. Professor Van-Tam is saying that in the virus hotspots, then people should ‘think carefully’ about exercising their new freedoms – in other words, they should think very carefully about the freedoms that they have, weigh up the risks and be very cautious. This is tantamount to saying that whatever the end of the lockdown in the rest of the country, those in badly affected areas should act as though the lockdown was still in full force.

We are just starting to get some first analyses of the way in the whole COVID crisis has acted as a searchlight into the structural weaknesses of UK society. Broadly speaking, those communities that were already disadvantaged before the onset of the virus have been affected much more severely than the rest of the country. Next week, Dominic Cummings, the one-time influential special adviser to Boris Johnson and the current government is said to have a document which demonstrates conclusively some of the poor decision making over the implementations of the lockdowns. This is all going to be revealed next Wednesday to a House of Commons committee and the ‘trailers’ for this event are saying that these revelations might be explosive. However, one has to say that the highest death rate in Europe and an abundance of incidents of sleaze (contracts at the height of the emergency being handed out to friends with no routine tendering) the government is still far ahead in the opinion polls. It seems that the normal rules of politics have been reversed – whenever inadequacies are exposed in both the timing and the content of the government decision-making, the electorate seem not to be perturbed and allow Boris Johnson the benefit of whatever doubt exists.

We are today the day ‘after’ the relaxation of some of the more stringent COVID-19 lockdown regulations and it is now permitted to attend indoor sports classes and the like. So today was the day in which my Pilates classes were due to resume after a gap of several months. To be fair, the gap was for me but some of my fellow class members had kept going with ‘Zoom‘ so apart from the pleasure of being in a room together, my fellow class members had kept themselves going. As it was, there were only three of us in the class today, the fourth member being on holiday (or visiting relatives) in the West Country somewhere. I must say that after an absence of several months, I did not find the exercises too taxing and nor did I feel too tired immediately after the class had finished. But having come home and had a delayed lunch (and a doze) I am starting to feel a little ‘achy’ at the moment, but this is only to be expected. Earlier in the day, I had received a latter from my colo-rectal consultant advising me of the results of a recent CT scan  and informing me to make an appointment with my doctor to be referred on to a pulmonary consultant to discuss some changes observed in one of my lungs (about which I refuse to be panicked) This is where the nightmare started! I got onto my local surgery but could not remember my username (this is because it was actually my email address which I had forgotten could be used as a proxy for a username). So the website suggested I register directly with the NHS. This required an email address (OK), a password (OK) and then a verification sent to the phone (also OK) Then the nightmare started. The website stated that they needed to know who I was so could I upload a scan of my driving license. This I did but the system told me that it was too fuzzy to be read so I could I do it all over again. This I did and then the system said it was going to scan my face – but the app froze. So I started all over again and at this point, the website could not make a match between its own scan and my driving licence. So I started all over again and this time uploaded my passport – the system ignored a scan of my face and said it was going to make a video of me repeating four numbers. But then I was told by the system that my Apple Mac could not take a video – I should contact the NHS directly so that they could explain to me that my technology would not work that I needed to make an appointment with the doctor – so basically after two hours of trying and retrying the system, I got nowhere. Is it any wonder that patients are not being treated for cancer and other conditions? However, some good came of all of this. My son suggested to me ‘Why not use the NHS App?‘ which I downloaded and everything seemed to work OK. Apart from the fact that I could not book an appointment (because there is nobody manning the system until 8.00am in the morning!), I nonetheless managed to get confirmation of the fact that I have received two doses of the vaccine and I have the QR code to prove it! Tomorrow morning, I shall download the app for Meg and get her into the system so that we have both of our statuses recorded on our iPhones. Moaning apart, how many elderly/confused/non-IT people get no access to the system because now everything (like our banking, groceries, shopping and every other kind of household bill) is now done on the net?

The COVID scene is proving to be entertaining. In Blackburn, Lancs. where the rate of Indian variant is very high, the health authorities on the ground are stretching the rules so that anyone over the age of 18 can receive the vaccine if they can show that they are a carer (who is not?) or have an underlying health condition (who has not?) This is interesting because the ‘official line’ is to vaccinate people in strict age order – but where the rate of infection seems incredibly close, they just want to get vaccine into as many people’s arms as they can! The Health Secretary Matt Hancock said most of the 19 people admitted to hospital with the Indian variant in the hotspot of Bolton were eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine but had not had it. So this raises the interesting conundrum whether the anti-vexers (if we can call them that) are now starting to feel the consequences of their own action/inaction. It seems to me that those who are refusing the vaccine are saying ‘My right not to have the vaccine overrides your right not to be infected by (unvaccinated) people like me!‘ Years and years ago, one had to provide proof  of having had a TB immunisation before one was allowed near patients – the principle is practically the same.

Well here we are at the start of another week and the weather looks to be set a bit more fair than we have got used to over the past few days. We eventually got ourselves going this morning but we knew that our University of Birmingham friend was off playing tennis so we did not rush down to the park. It was quite a delightful day today and, unusually, we did not bump into any of our usual friends down the road this morning. Nonetheless, we picked up our newspapers and had a pleasant sojourn in the park until we made our way homewards a little late in the day. Tomorrow we know we will be on a slightly different schedule as my Pilates class is due to resume so this rather dictates what time to leave the park and I start my walk down into town for my exercise class. After lunch, we should have done some tidying up but to be honest I was quite glad to have a long, slow and relaxing read after yesterday when I had to jump up and mow the lawns.

Today was the day when many of the most irksome lockdown restrictions were being relaxed. In particular, two families may now meet with each and socialise but indoors this time inside and not outdoors. Of most significance is that pubs and restaurants are now allowed to have indoor customers (albeit sitting at a table i.e. not queuing at the bar and with some social distancing still in place) Finally, of course, we are now allowed to hug each other – although the government dare not intervene in relationships between husbands and wives  so presumably hugging has never been off the agenda (but does the virus know that?). So we can now go ahead and hug each other provided we do it ‘carefully’ presumably breathing past each other and not into each other’s faces. Incidentally, I have been highly amused by the supplements in The Times and The Guardian which are full of practical advice as to how couples who have not been able to share intimate moments with each may now do so and to how resolve any difficulties they might encounter (I kid you not!) Mind you, I still have the feeling that the lockdown might have been extended for another fortnight to allow us to gather some more data on the Indian variant of the virus which is now present in at least 86 local authority areas. According to Sky News then: ‘A total of 2,323 cases of the Indian coronavirus variant have been reported in the UK, the health secretary has said. Delivering a COVID-19 statement in the Commons, Matt Hancock said 483 cases have been confirmed in Bolton and Blackburn with Darwen, where the variant is now the dominant strain.’ Surge testing is due to start shortly in Bedford so it is not just Bolton in the North West of England which is problematic. I am still firmly of the view that the government is taking the most massive gamble and all could still go horribly wrong – and who suffers then?

On my IBM ThinkPad, I had installed a fantastic program called NoteTab which I used to use extensively (an therefore with which I am getting reacquainted) Its prime use is as an HTML editor which means that you can code and then see the results instantly in your bowser of choice (which you access directly from the program itself. But NoteTab itself is most famous amongst journalists  as well as academics and other professionals, for having a system which is like a miniature database. How it works is this – using the NoteTab special notation which is very easy to learn – you would make an ‘entry’ and then all of the information associated with it (usually a page full. All of the entries are then shown in a column on the left hand side and on clicking an entry all of its associated information is then shown on the right. In the past, I have used this system to provide me with ‘instant’ information concerning my computing activities as when I have learnt to do something, I make a new entry (such as, for example, how  to add a name tag to a photo) and then I have all of the information I need at my fingertips. You can see what journalists have loved this system – I think the size of one’s little database can extend up to 2GB and the system can handle up to about 5,400 entries (equivalent to nearly 15 years of a daily blog) before you have to start a second file.) The third feature which it has and I have been using today is that you can create a little file with an URL reference within it (for example, external mail programs) Then with only a highlight and a couple of clicks you can access the program directly so instead of loading up one’s browser and then clicking a tab this little system does the same for you but so much more quickly and snappily. Brilliant! (at least for me)

And so the weeks roll by and here we are at Sunday morning again. It seems almost unbelievable that at 12.00pm today (half way through the day) May will be 15½ days old – i.e. half way through the month of May. Meg was feeling a little under the weather this morning so she stayed in bed whilst I walked down to collect the newspapers and then watched the Andrew Marr show at 9.0am Afterwards I wandered down too the park, again on my own, and arrived at our normal bench, meeting our University friend within 20 seconds. We were soon joined by another of the park regulars and we had the most entertaining discussion between the three of us. We were exploring how people navigated the educational system and how examinations were often a poor guide to the intelligence and potential of individuals. We all brought something to this discussion from our own biographies and so ‘a good discussion was had by all’. We negotiated (and discussed) one or two badly behaved dogs and our conversation also included the ways in which ‘man’s best friend’ had learnt to live alongside us for so many millennia. After this it was homeward bound and starting to think about lunch.

Meg and I had intended to pay a visit up to Bolton, Lancs in about a week’s time but we had sent an email to the daughter of Meg’s cousin to help us all assess the gravity of the situation in Bolton. As it appears to be the town worst affected by the Indian variant of the virus and it appears much more transmissible than other variants, we have jointly decided to call off our trip for next Sunday. Instead we have arranged a date in late June in about five week’s time and we suspect that by that time things might be very much better (or conceivably, worse) and we shall have to assess the situation all over again. Tomorrow is the date when we go inside and have a (seated) beer or meal in a pub, hug each other and a few of us meet in each other’s houses. Personally, I would have liked this stage to have been delayed by a fortnight (no time at all!) but I suppose that beer especially brought in for tomorrow would have to be poured down the drain again.

After we had our lunch and a rest, I knew that I had to seize the opportunity to get the lawns cut as the sun was more-or-less shining and the lawns were looking terrible. The dandelions and buttercups had gone mad in the last few days after the amount of rain that we had is I needed to seize the opportunity. The communal green area in front of our houses takes some 40-45 minutes to cut (although I do cut it twice -once North-South and than a transverse cut East-West) which although not strictly necessary does  make the whole look better. At least, with a mulching mower (which is the variant that I have) you do not have to stop to pick up grass cuttings every so often. Then I have a quick 10 minute break and straight on the with the back lawn, before my muscles get cold and this takes some 20-25 minutes. The rain intervened a little on the edge of some clouds as they passed over but it was sufficiently light not to put a damper on the proceedings. I have to say that the front of the house looked a real treat once we had a burst of afternoon sunshine and the newly cut lawns were framed by the trees and shrubs that are now in full bloom.

 According to Sky News, the highest concentrations of the Indian variant of the virus (specifically B.1.617.2) is in Bolton, followed by Blackburn with Darwen, Leicester, Nottingham and Bedford. According to some experts, this situation is serious enough to want a delay to the ‘unlock down’ due to start tomorrow but, of course, Boris Johnson is more concerned with the politics rather than the science (despite protestations to the contrary). It looks as though the government is engaged in a most horrendous gamble by hoping that the number of those vaccinated  will manage to hold at bay the undoubted spread of the Indian variant. Of course, it might be that Boris Johnson is extraordinarily lucky and we get a semi-unlock down with no serious spread of the Indian variant – but it seems almost as likely that the virus will ‘outrun’ the vaccine and we end up in quite a plight. I suppose the fairly evident thing to do is to impose an almost total lockdown on the badly effected areas and to grit one’s teeth to cope with the inevitable political consequences. However, I feel it is almost certain by now that the total end to the lockdown timetabled for 21st June, 2021 will almost certainly not be met as things stand.

It was one of those indeterminate mornings this morning when you were not quite sure how the day was going to turn out, weather-wise. We did not rush for our morning walk having spent some time having a pleasant chat with our daughter-in-law who was busy cooking (or at least preparing food) whilst our son was out at a ‘Diesel Gala’ in the nearby Severn-Trent Railway. Our decision to go down into town was vindicated as the heavens started to open again and we would have got quite a soaking if we had walked all the way. Having picked up our newspapers, we paid a visit to Waitrose from which we needed to pick up one or two cooking ingredients for our daughter-in-law and whilst we were at it, we bought a Cornish pasty to act as the basis for our midday meal. The afternoon was a little attenuated because we usually get ready to go to church at 5.30 which is part of our normal Saturday afternoon ritual.

We knew that today was the day of the FA Cup Final which is something that we do not normally follow, unless there are special reasons to watch it. The Cup Final is typically played on a weekend very close to my birthday and today the finalists were Chelsea vs. Leicester City. Whilst not particular supporters of Leicester City, we did live in Leicester and its environs for 26 years so it was quite easy for us to become Leicester City fans for the day, reinforced by the fact that Chelsea have won the FA Cup some nine times but Leicester have never won it in the entire history of their club. The match started at 5.30 which was just about the time we left to go to church but when we got back home we turned on the TV to discover to our delight that Leicester City were leading 1-0. There was about 30 minutes left to play so this was well worth a watch. They replayed the Leicester goal several times and it really was a stunning strike, struck from a distance and aimed like a rocket into the top corner of the net – their goalie did not stand a chance. The Leicester goalkeeper, Schmeichel, pulled off an absolute stunning flying save some 10 minutes before the end of the match, saving what would have been a draw. Then there was a sustained Chelsea onslaught as you might expect and they did in fact ‘equalise’ with only 1½ minutes left to play. When the goal was scored it did look as though a Chelsea forward was offside – in the subsequent VAR (video replay) then at the moment that the ball left a Chelsea mid-player’s foot for a long ranging pass then the Chelsea forward was offside by some centimetres (about a player’s foot worth it seemed to me) So the ‘equaliser’ was declared invalid and Leicester went on to win amidst signs of absolute delirium (even by football standards) amongst the few Leicester supporters who were  allowed by the COVID unlock-down experimental rules to attend the match. It goes without saying, this result gave us particular pleasure – particularly  as Leicester must have been rated as very much the ‘under-dogs’ before the match.

Earlier in the day, I had engaged in a little bit of computing work in which I think my efforts have been crowned with success. A week or so ago, I had found a Microsoft Outlook ‘clone’ called OEClassic which is a standalone program (i.e. not part of Microsoft Office 365) and which seemed to install and run beautifully whilst preserving all of the classic look and feel of Outlook which for many of us was the de facto standard with which we used in the decades when we were at work. OEClassic (as well as Outlook itself) allows you to not only install a default program but allows for several ‘identities’ when you could install additional copies of your email client or even completely new ones. The point of this, I suppose, is that in a family computer it would be possible for Mum, Dad and each child to have their own ‘identity’ and associated mailboxes  so this would be a way of making sure that everybody’s emails did not collide with each other. A day or so, I had successfully installed another secure mail client  called TopMail as another identity. Today, I took another even more secure and comprehensive email client called Posteo and successfully installed that. You have to get into the documentation of each client to understand the port numbers for both receiving mail (IMAP) and sending mail (SMTP). Then there is a certain amount of tweaking to get things right – if you try and fail, then a ‘Log file‘ of errors helps you to ascertain what you have got got wrong so that you can tweak it and get ir right. Now that I have now got to this stage, I have the inputs/outputs of each of my three email clients all available as separate identities in OEClassic. Things can often go wrong in installing and tweaking programs like this so it is particularly satisfying when you get things to work correctly.

We are still in our gloomy period but at least we are not being actively rained upon at the moment which is beneficial for us. Our domestic help arrived this morning, as is usual on a Friday morning, and we exchanged news of various domestic comings-and-goings which affect all families. Earlier in the morning, I had emailed the daughter of the cousin of Meg’s that we anticipated going to visit in eight days time In Bolton, Lancs. The effect of the email was to say ‘You know the situation best on the ground – let us know whether we ought to pay a visit or postpone it’ and when the situation clarifies, then we shall know whether the visit is on or not. I must admit that I paid particular attention to what Boris had to say at the PM’s COVID-19 briefing this evening. The whole question revolves around the Indian variant of the virus and, in particular, its degree of transmissability. The government scientists seem to believe that it is already more transmissible than other COVID-19 variants and it is quite likely that this will become the dominant variant of the virus in the UK. The particular point of concern appears to be this – if the tranmittability turns out to be high (say 50% higher than the Kent variant) then we could be in for a particularly bad spike which could well surpass even the peak of last January – and this would overwhelm the NHS this time.There are a few ‘India’ variants, but one called B.1.617.2 appears to be spreading more quickly than the other two in the UK. Sources say it is now being seen in lots of places, with few cases linked to travel, and numbers have been ‘grossly underestimated’. The government is seriously worried as the press conference was called at short notice – and then delayed for half an hour. When Boris Johnson was using phrases such as ‘hard choices may lie ahead‘ and ‘I must level with you‘ then it is clear that the ground is being prepared for some choices that are politically unpalatable. When we read inside stories that say that there have been serious disagreements within Whitehall, then this evidently an argument between those who believe ‘we should follow the date not the dates‘ (i.e. probably members of the scientific community) and those who argue ‘we should follow the dates, not the data‘ (members of the Tory right wing who would be absolutely furious if Boris were to depart from the unlock down timetable now). So we have a situation in which next Monday’s easing of restrictions may well occur but an end to the total lockdown at the end of June is now looking more and more unlikely. We are in for a classic race between the Indian variant on the one hand and the rate of vaccinations on the other. It now looks as though the gap between the vaccination periods may be reduced from 12 weeks to 8 to  boost (short-term) some levels of immunity in the general population although the latest scientific evidence seems to indicate that for all vaccines, a 12 week gap between the first and second doses of the vaccine has proved to generate the highest levels of immunity. Another inside story runs as follows:

The decision to delay putting India on the red list of countries, from which travel is heavily limited, and the decision to implement this not immediately but with a gap of just over three days – during which thousands of travellers from India entered the country amid a surge of demand for flights.. will prove to be a grave error.

If this latter story proves to ‘have legs’ as the journalists say, then this inaction may prove to be as costly as the decision to delay a lockdown at the very start of the pandemic. If we have learnt anything in the last few months it is that swift, bold and decisive action – whatever the political consequences –  nearly always turns out to be a better course in the long and and vice versa.

We had a bit of a disrupted afternoon for a variety of reasons. Although we have a ‘house planning board’ so we know what activities are taking place on which day, we had forgotten that our chiropodist was due to visit shortly after 2.00pm. After we had had our treatments and some foot advice for Meg, we had a delayed lunch – only to fall asleep and miss a ‘Zoom‘ appointment with some of Meg’s relatives. We sent off an email of apology and are going to rearrange the same for a few day’s time. Then after our tea this evening, we FaceTimed one of our closest Winchester colleagues and our conversation went on for an hour and a half – time rather flies when we get going. 

Now that we are at the end of one week and starting to look forward to another, inevitably we are starting to wonder what the next few days holds in store for us. If the weather takes a turn for the better, we can start to plan who we are going to see and in what sequence. We have stopped compiling the list once we have got to seven but could no doubt extend it even more.

It really was a very gloomy day today – it looked as though it might rain nearly all of the day and so it proved to be with periods of gloom, interspersed with spatters of rain, followed by quite a downpour from the evening onwards. We have our deliveries from Waitrose on Thursday mornings so this always makes us a little later than normal in the morning. But upon reading my emails, I had some really good news from an ex-colleague from the University of Winchester. Some five years ago, he had suffered from a leukaemia type complaint from which the survival rate is only 30%-40% over five years. Anyway, the five years is now up and my colleague is delighted. He quoted with great approval the dictum of his consultant that ‘There’s no point in curing you if you don’t live a full life….. You can now go away and die of something else.’ So we are all celebrating the good news and long may it continue – perhaps it won’t be too long now before all of the ‘Old Fogies‘ can meet face-to-face and celebrate in the usual fashion.

Today, as Meg and I walked down into town we were trying to remember various family relationships and the connection between them – we wondered if some sections of ‘Meg’s family’ are a little vague about other members of the family. We were trying to work out the exact relationships between ‘x’ and ‘y’ and now we think we have solved the conundrum – at least to our satisfaction. Meg is the first cousin of one family member when traced through Meg’s mother’s side of the family – but also first cousin to another family member when traced through Meg’s father’s side of the family. Now how well these two branches of the family have attended family events in the past is a little unclear to us but when we are next in contact with any of the relevant family members it will be interesting for us to sort out how well each branch of the family is cognisant of the other – Meg is, of course,  the point of articulation between these two branches of the family and the relationships are by marriage. Does this make for ‘second cousins’ or ‘cousins once removed’- having come from a small (i.e. not extensive family and my mother was an only child) then these sorts of relationships are always a bit of a mystery to me (not that I let it bother me one little bit)

When Meg and I got to the park, we were somewhat later than usual but the park was pretty deserted as everyone was dodging the rain. We did, though, bump into one of our park regulars and had quite an interesting discussion about politics and political systems – although we come to our discussions from different philosophical traditions, we are just about coinciding in the middle as it were but no doubt will work out exactly at what points we can agree or disagree when we are not completely rained off. I was speculating to myself whether in discussions of this type one should not seek to dissuade the other party of the falsity of their position but rather the veracity of one’s own.. That’s another discussion point for the next time we meet.

We were in contact with one of Meg’s cousin’s daughters via email to work out how the impending house move is going. It turns out that one house is sold but the new house will not be ready for occupation for about another three weeks until some more legal work has been completed. So tomorrow, we are going to have a ‘Zoom’ meeting when no doubt we can get all of the up-to-date information. It shouldn’t be too long now before we can make a lightning visit over to Derbyshire for a family re-union.

Quite by accident this morning, I stumbled across a mega-secure email client called ‘Posteo‘ and this I am in the process of investigating. Evidently with no income from advertising, a service like this has to be financed through  a subscription only service. I had a quick look at it this morning and it seemed incredibly comprehensive (e.g. with forwarding facilities and so on) so I decided to invest my 12 euros for a year’s worth subscription to see how it works out. If one so chooses then every incoming and outgoing email is encrypted, including the headers, that would make unpenetrable by practically every hacker on earth. But is there a ‘back door in’ for civil authorities trying to track down terrorist or paedophilia type communications? This I don’t know but most of the reviews (and consumer reaction) is incredibly favourable so I will give it a go for a few months to see how it works out. An email account like this is quite useful if you are asked to give an email address for anything you might buy over the net. If you have some aliases (and TopMail give you unlimited aliases) then if you are liable to get spammed you can delete the alias and all of the spammer’s output goes into a black hole (i.e nowhere near your main email account!).

Today, we very much had the feeling of ‘the day after yesterday‘ We had such a wonderful day out on the Severn Valley Railway with family and friends, so today inevitably feels like a bit of an anticlimax. We are always a bit delayed on each Wednesday morning because we have to complete our Waitrose order in time for delivery the following day. In addition, I was sorting out (successfully) a little glitch I had in installing and running a secure email client I had used years before called ‘TopMail‘ and whose virtues I am just rediscovering. This morning, I popped into Waitrose as though it was my local corner shop and bought some milk and also ‘on spec’ a tin of Haggis which is always a bit of an unknown quantity. We then made our way to our normal bench in the park, the black rain clouds having rolled away and giving us some pleasant spring sunshine. We got into conversation with several dog owners not least because some of the pooches under their control think that there may be some food in the offing and come bounding over to see you, with eyes and mouths wide open in anticipation of titbits. Eventually, we made our way home but we were very late at this stage and knew we were going to be quite busy later on the day. At 4.0pm in the afternoon, I was due to Skype one of my ex-University of Winchester friends but between us we could only get Skype working somewhat sporadically (with good vision but very poor sound).  Nonetheless after struggling with the technology  for about 15-20 minutes, we made the best of a bad job and exchanged lots of gossip about computer-y type things. Then promptly at 5.00pm we FaceTimed some of our ex-Waitrose friends and thanked them profusely for the magnificent slab of cake that they had so thoughtfully baked for us in time for Tuesday. We knew that we had to be finished  by 5.00pm because all four of us in the house were due to meet with a financial advisor who was due to advise us on some joint financial matters in which we all have an interest. So we finally set out to watch the evening news starting with Channel 4 at 7.0pm in the evening. In truth, we have quite a busy afternoon not having time even to barely glance at our two dailies, collected earlier.

It looks this evening as though Boris Johnson has bowed to a certain amount of Parliamentary pressure and agreed to a public enquiry into the whole of the pandemic. The track record for proceedings of this type do not bode well – the Chilcot enquiry into the Iraq way took seven years to complete from the end off the war until publication date whereas the ‘Bloody Sunday‘ enquiry took some twelve years to complete. For a government desperate to play for time then an enquiry that takes ten years to complete (11 years from today) could be the best of three Parliaments away. The major interest comes from the fact that key witnesses cab be interviewed under oath, document trails including emails have to be revealed and so on. But the political danger can be minimised by the passage of time and the fact that memories can fade and the public may feel that the issues have moved on. So it is probable that Johnson can wriggle through from any structures that might ensue, particularly if the vaccination campaign continues to be a resounding success.

As from Monday next, some of the lockdown restrictions are due to be raised. The principal item which concerns most of us is that some indoor events will noy be allowed, subject to some continuing restrictions. For example:’Indoor hospitality will reopen, which means that pubs, cafes and restaurants can once again serve indoors. They will not have to serve a substantial meal with alcoholic drinks; nor will there be a curfew. Customers will, however, have to order, eat and drink while seated.’ What this means in practice is that not only individuals but also friends can go for a meal together. So from next week, there are a variety of things that we can do, subject to the vagaries of the weather of course. We may well go to Droitwich and a favourite little eating house that we go to there and we can do various little bits of shopping that we need to do in  a shoe shop and a general-purpose hardware type store – Wilko – that sells all kind of reasonably priced toiletries, stationary and other useful household things!