Sharp Scratch

            No blog spanning the Covid-19 crisis would be worth its salt without a mention of my vaccination. At this stage I have had one of two injections. I am 45 years old and that first vaccination was on 28th April 2021.

I booked both appointments online on 16th April and had a choice of places I could go to. I’d tried to secure appointments before that but could only get the first one and the system wouldn’t allow you to just have one, so I had to give up and try again a week later. This time the choice of clinics (for want of a better word) was different and there was more choice.

The place I picked was Whalley Range Tennis and Cricket Club in South Manchester. It’s about a twenty-minute walk from home and I chose it because I didn’t know there was a tennis club in Whalley Range and I was being nosey.

As usual, I set off early and marched there with the help of Google maps. Also, as usual, I arrived early. I thought I’d just hang around outside, take some pictures, and wander aimlessly, but as I approached the gates to the club’s grounds a masked woman approached me and asked if I had an appointment.

            “Yes, but I’m fifteen minutes early,” I explained.

            “Dun’t matter,” she replied. “Come on in. The more the merrier!” From the way her eyebrows lifted and the cock of her head, I assume she was smiling. But you never know these days, do you?

I fished a blue paper mask out of my pocket, stashed my headphones away, and entered the building. 

            “Just stand on the red dot,” she called after me as I went through the doors.

Another (possibly) smiling woman sat at a computer. She greeted me. 

“Good morning,” she said enthusiastically.

“Hello,” I replied, conscious of how far away from her I was standing.

“What name is it?” 

“Richard Douglas,” I called over.

“Date of birth?” I didn’t like the idea of yelling all my personals across a room. You never know which horrors are going to steal your identity while they’re having a Covid jab.

“It’s alright, you can come closer,” she offered.

I noticed they had rebranded the whole place as a vaccination centre, and not just by putting a few posters up. The walls were not the walls of the club but new walls that had been shipped in to create a clinic. They had brought the desk in, there were cubicles with curtains and retractable barriers to guide you in the right direction which had no place in the Whalley Range Tennis and Cricket Club.

Information proffered, the woman pointed towards the barriers which formed a snaking line of only a few feet towards a couple of shallow steps. 

“Follow the line,” she said, “and stand on the red dot.”

I did as she asked me. It occurred to me that this must be what sheep must go through when they’re getting ready to be dipped. 

A third masked woman approached me and asked me a question. I forget what it was now because I was distracted. It might have been if this was my first or second vaccine, it could as easily have been had I eaten this morning or what my star sign was. By this stage, though, I was fixated on the booths. There were five of them with curtains, and behind each a clinician and somebody receiving their inoculation. I wanted to hear what they were saying, and I wondered if I was allowed to take photographs. I decided that I probably wasn’t, so I then began wondering how I could take pictures without anybody noticing.

The third masked woman asked me to go down the two shallow steps which faced the booths and stand in a separate section the size of a cardboard box which separated each of us from the others and helped them keep track of the sheep dipping order. 

“Stand on the red dot, please,” she said.

            This was my chance. The tiny little area I stood in was shielded sufficiently for me to snap a photograph. With hindsight I can’t say it was a complete success, but I’ll now never forget the shade of beige of those curtains. Just as I got the pic, masked woman three walked towards me again and I pocketed my phone. 

“You’re next,” she said. I was sure she’d caught me and I detected an almost imperceptible squint in her eyes. If I had to, I’d put money on her judgementally curling her top lip at me from behind the mask.

“Next please,” came a voice and masked woman three looked at me, nodded towards a curtain and said, “Please.”  

Inside the booth was a tall black man. He put his hands together as if praying and bowed a tiny bow to me.

“Hiya,” I said, too enthusiastically.

“How are you?” he asked.

“I’m great thanks, how are you?”

“Very good,” he replied smoothly. I couldn’t quite put my finger on his accent, African with a bit of French, which doesn’t narrow it down very much at all. 

“Which arm would you like it in?” he asked.

“Does it matter?” I replied then immediately thought I should just choose left because I’m right handed and I’d heard the stories about dead arms..

“Are you right-handed or left-handed?” He’d beaten me to it.

“Right,” I confirmed. “Shall we go with left then?”

“Very good,” he replied. I didn’t see his eyes roll, but I could sense it.

I don’t have a problem with needles, in principle, although the ones my dentist uses I’m sure are as thick as drinking straws and not only go into my gum but through my jaw bone before poking their way out of the back of my head. Dentist needles notwithstanding, I was fine, still, I don’t particularly like watching them go in so I pulled my tee shirt sleeve up above my shoulder, offered him my arm and turned away.

“Sharp scratch,” he said. “There, that’s it.” 

I didn’t even feel it, never mind a sharp scratch. Had he even injected me, or was I to be some kind of experiment? The one person they didn’t vaccinate as a test to see if Covid is merely psychosomatic. 

“Oh, is that it?” I said. “Thank you.” I put my jacket back on, the clinician put his sharps away, turned to me and once more bowed, his hands pressed together at the palms.

I drew the curtain back and flinched as I saw masked woman three standing in front of me again looking up at my face. “This way,” she instructed. “Follow the red dots,” before abandoning me to go back to her sheep dip duties.

I wandered through a waiting room towards the doors at the back of the club, where yet another masked woman accosted me.

“Did you drive here?” she asked. I guessed she wasn’t offering to bring my car round.

“No,” I replied, “I walked. Very quickly as it happens, I was fifteen minutes early.”

This woman definitely squinted at me before saying, “If you drove you need to wait fifteen minutes before you leave.”

“Right,” I said cautiously. “But I walked.”

“Five minutes then,” she said. “You can wait in here or go out there.”

It being a lovely morning, weather-wise, I thought I’d wait outside. I exited into a covered marquee with lots of chairs and a few tables. A handful of people were sitting there, all at a minimum of two metres apart, one of them, an enormous man, hunched over, staring at the ground and puffing away on a cigarette. I decided that I’d go to the actual outdoors instead of what had become a temporary smoking shelter, so I grabbed a seat on a park bench and reached in my pocket for my phone.

My surreptitiously snapped picture of the booths disappointed me, and I chastised myself for not asking the bowing clinician if I could take a photograph with him. I forgave myself when I realised he had better things to do than pose for a selfie with me. 

I switched on Duolingo — if I was being forced to wait for five minutes I might as well be productive and carry on my Spanish lessons. I got as far as typing in ‘Mi gato es muy bonito’ when masked woman four came over.

“First or second?” she asked. “Jab,” she clarified.

“First,” I replied. “Why do we have to wait here afterwards?”

“In case you have side effects.”

“Oh, like fainting?”

“Yeah, or a blood clot or anaphylactic shock.”

“Goodness.”

“We’ve not had any,” she reassured me.

“That’s lucky,” I said, and we fell into silence.

She drifted away and collared another exiter. “Did you drive here?” I heard her ask.

The giant smoker hauled himself up and lumbered past on his way out. And with that I thought it must’ve been five minutes for me by now, so I left too. I bid goodbye to masked woman one at the gates and began my walk home. I got to the main road and, while waiting to cross, my mind started whirring. What if I left too early and I have a blood clot incident? After all, I'd just had the Astrazeneca vaccine, and they were changing the advice for the under forties, which was only five years past for me. I’m young at heart and I tell people I’m twenty seven all the time. Maybe this is the universe’s way of fixing my poor attitude towards age. I’d be the oldest person in the UK to have a blood clot from a vaccine and what’s worse, I was going to die in the suburbs of Whalley Range! Why couldn’t I die in Chorlton instead? Or, if we’re going to choose places to die, why can’t it be in Tuscany?

I crossed the road and carried on walking, convincing myself that I was suddenly light-headed and this was an anaphylactic shock on its way. Was I short of breath? Am I going to fall over? Can I at least make it back to my own neighbourhood before I keel over?

Eventually I made it home and satisfied that I had neither an allergic reaction nor a blood clot, I began waiting for the side effects. When Chris had his first Covid injection, he felt like he’d come down with the virus all over again. He sweated, he shivered, his body burned up, and he even went to bed early. He had three days of it. I wondered how long my reaction would last and just how dramatic it was going to be. 

After two days, I stopped waiting. The only thing I felt post vaccine was a small and invisible bruise on my arm where the needle had gone in — it wasn’t a scam after all. The feeling was akin to someone poking me, with medium intensity, once or maybe twice, with their index finger on my arm. I was both relieved and disappointed. I wanted a story to tell.

Chris had his second vaccination on Sunday and again suffered some side effects — though less severe this time, he just felt drained and wanted to sleep a lot this time. He attended his appointment at the Etihad Campus’s Tennis Club in Bradford, East Manchester. That’s where his first had been before all the smaller venues popped up, so he returned there for his second. 

We went there, en route home after a lovely Sunday lunch at my cousin’s house in Marple. He’d planned on dropping me at home, then going out again, and I suggested he should just go directly there. There would always be something to do if he couldn’t get in straight away, I reasoned. We arrived an hour early but buoyed on by my experience of walking straight in when I was a quarter of an hour early to my appointment, he thought he’d chance his arm. He didn’t even tell them he was early when he checked in, and they processed him immediately. 

Apparently it’s a far bigger set up there than the one I went to but that’s to be expected as it was one of the earlier centres and I think they used it for mass vaccinations a few months ago. Our friend Charles had described it as being like a science fiction movie — of course the first thing that sprang to my mind when he said that was E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, and I had images of stumpy green goblins scuttling about with pot plants and glowing fingers.  

I waited in the car for Chris and thought I’d get a good session in on Duolingo. Yo necesito una falda verde, I typed in wondering when I’d ever need to know how to say such a phrase. No matter; I continued. La universidad tiene dos bibliotecas. Not ten minutes after Chris had left the car did I see him again, striding through the car park towards me with a leaflet in his hand. He opened the door and got in the driving seat.

“Hang on a minute,” I said. “What about the fifteen minutes?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“For the blood clots and the anaphylactic shock.”

“What?”

“In Whalley Range they tell you to wait. Five minutes for walkers and fifteen minutes for drivers. What if you crash on the way home and we die?”

“They don’t do that here.”

“But, what if?”

“It’ll be fine,” he said. “Turn this shit off.” He flicked the switch on the radio, silencing my beautifully crafted Spotify playlist in favour of a bunch of local radio adverts.

So it seems they do it differently in different places and I wasted five minutes of my life sitting in the sun at the back of the Whalley Range Tennis and Cricket Club. Neither of us has died yet, nor have we mutated. We have, however, started beaming 5G waves from our heads and I understand Bill Gates has full visibility of my movements now.

If you’d like to listen to my Spotify playlist called, I’m here live; I’m not a cat, you can do so here.

Pure Cremation

A few weeks ago, on a Sunday morning, my dad phoned me.

“I’ve seen this thing on the telly,” he opened with — no greeting or small talk, straight to the point. “It’s called pure cremation.”

“Oh, right,” I replied.

“What they do is, when you die, they collect you from your home, burn your body, then send the ashes to your loved ones. No fuss, no service, no nonsense. What do you think?”

I didn’t really know what I thought. I’d been out the night before, getting drunk in a friend’s garden, and had a shocker of a hangover. There was no thinking happening that morning.

“Erm,” I stalled, “well, I suppose I’d need to mull it over a bit.”

“I want you to talk to your brothers and find out what they think.”

“Okay,” I agreed, cautiously. “How are you, anyway?”

He ignored the question, “I want to get it all sorted and paid for and this is the cheapest way of doing it.”

“Right,” I paused. “What do you think about it?”

“I don’t care, I’ll be dead,” he replied bluntly. “Like your grandpa used to say, ‘for all I care, you can dump me on the side of the road.’”

“I see,” another pause. “So what’s new? Aside from pure cremation?”

“Nothing,” he said matter-of-factly, “nothing at all. I’ve done nothing, I’ve been nowhere, I’ve seen nobody.”

“You’ve seen nobody? What about your carers?”

“Well, them I suppose.”

“And has Philip not been round.”

“Yes, he brought me a sandwich.”

“Excellent,” the conversation was stalling already. “Well, I’ll talk to Robert and Matthew then.”

“I know what they’ll say.”

“Oh? What do you think?”

“Rob ’ll say it’s my choice and I can do what I want, and Matt ’ll say he’s against it and I should be buried with your mum. But it’s okay, you can scatter my ashes on her grave and we’ll still be together.”

“I see.” I find ‘I see’ is a good all rounder when you need a response. It’s non-committal, non-confrontational, and it ends a conversation with little fuss. I didn’t see, but I agreed to talk to my brothers and get back. I told him I needed a few days — I rarely speak to my brothers, most of our communication is done by text message and I didn’t think this was an appropriate subject for WhatsApp. Also, I didn’t know how long this hangover was going to last. It was pretty sinister. 

My dad has changed in recent years. I suspect much of the change is to do with his physical health, which has without doubt affected his mental health. He does very little for himself nowadays. Carers tend to him four times a day, there’s a morning visit (too early as far as dad is concerned) when they wake him up and help him to the bathroom before propping him up in bed and leaving. At noon they come back and hoist him out of bed with a contraption that looks like a huge pogo stick, wheel him to the sitting room, and leave him in his chair in front of the television. Someone comes back later to make his dinner and there’s a last visit at about eight o’clock when he is hoisted from his chair and delivered back to bed, again too early in his opinion. He can’t walk on his own, so he spends his life in bed and in his chair. If he needs the loo he has to wait till a carer arrives and in the interim has a couple of bottles on a table next to his chair which he can pee into.

He’s stopped reading and his only vice - whisky - is rationed to two a day, which I understand is watered down after going down a very slippery slope with the booze a few years back. He never leaves the house. From most people’s point of view, it’s a miserable existence so I can appreciate why his mind has wandered to cremation.

Dad was always a thoughtful type. He used to spend a lot of time talking and asking questions; he was genuinely interested in what people had to say. There’s less of that now, and I can’t help but think about a visit I made to him a couple of years ago when he was in hospital, a two and a bit hour journey each way from Manchester to Lytham, when after 45 minutes of awkward chat he said, “You don’t have to stay. You can go if you want.” 

People keep saying he’s given up. I’m not exactly sure what they mean by that, but suspect they think he’s ready to die. As I’ve pointed out to them and him, he’s only 71 years old, he could have twenty years in him yet. Another twenty years of sitting in a chair watching crap TV and peeing in a bottle. 

He doesn’t seem particularly interested in self care, maybe that’s what they mean. Last time I saw him I took him a new jumper as part of a birthday present because the one I’d seen him in the time before was holey and falling off him. I unwrapped it for him. He looked at it and said, “A jumper? Stick it over there with the other four.” Cheers, dad. I then asked him what was going on with his glasses — they only had one arm, which was Sellotaped to the frame, and the bridge was also taped. 

“These are my telly glasses,” he said, oblivious to the fact they were falling apart and precariously balanced on his nose and one ear. 

“Which optician are you with? I’ll find out what the prescription is and we can get you some new ones.” He told me but said he’d not had a test for years, so I said I’d arrange for someone to come to the house and test his eyes. He seemed to think it was a lot of fuss over nothing, but agreed all the same.

He has been eligible for a Covid-19 vaccine for yonks now, but when invited by his doctor to get it he told them he couldn’t get out of the house. They said they’d get the district nurse to deliver it, but months later when I asked, he still hadn’t had the jab and seemed disinterested in following up. He did finally get it, only a week before I had mine.

Several professionals — nurses, doctors, consultants — have said there’s nothing medically wrong with him and he could walk again if only he’d try. He says otherwise. 

Despite what anyone says, there are obviously some things wrong with his body. He broke his hip a few years ago after falling off an office chair and put his back out badly whilst recuperating. He takes warfarin to thin his blood after an earlier deep vein thrombosis which resulted in a pulmonary embolism. He has some arthritis which prevents him from picking things up and he struggles with his phone, and he mentioned a trapped nerve too. 

I’m sure there is an element of fear at play here. He’s fallen several times and been alone on the floor for hours, waiting for help. He has an emergency call necklace now, nevertheless, the last time it happened he fractured his arm. With the potential of that happening, I imagine I would be worried about trying to get out of bed too.

I’m not sure what I can do. To be honest, I’m not sure if there's anything I should do. He’s compos mentis, and he’s resisted any suggestion that he move to sheltered accommodation, preferring (if that’s the right word) to receive help from carers at home. I’d gone to great lengths to find a brilliant place, close to where he lives now, that I thought would be ideal for him to move to. It was a self-contained flat in a building where there were a team of carers on hand round the clock and communal areas — a canteen and a lounge room — where he could meet other people if he so chose. I never imagined him choosing to spend time with a bunch of strangers, but it was all academic anyway when he said, “I’m not moving to Fleetwood, it’s a dump!” I considered highlighting the fact that he wouldn’t be going outside anyway, so it didn’t matter all that much, but thought better of it.

He doesn’t ask for much — apart from the occasional thoughts on funerals — and I don’t think he wants much. When it comes to his birthday or Christmas, he’s quite clear when I ask what if he wants anything in particular as a present: “Whisky. Nothing else. Just whisky. Bells.” I suppose I should have listened to him when I bought him the jumper, which he dismissed.

We’re not especially close, but we talk every now and again on the phone, and I think that suits both of us. People have told me time and again that I should talk to him more often, but I reckon we’ve found our level, an equilibrium of sorts. All I do is make sure he knows that if he needs anything from me he can ask, and every now and again he does, usually on a Sunday morning while I’m grappling with another hangover.

Roseanne Barr

    In seven days time it will be twelve months since I started writing this blog again after a hiatus of nine years. I started writing it again to keep a record, ostensibly for my own purposes, because I've got a terrible memory and I suspected 2020 was going to turn out to be a notable one. 

    In that post I wrote: "Yesterday the Prime Minister urged the British public to avoid all non-essential contact with others. While at present it feels a little over the top I'm confident that in the near future we'll see this as sage advice and suspect this is just the beginning of a long haul." 

    So here we are, almost a year later, and what a long haul it's been, with 140,000 people having died in the UK with Covid-19 registered as one of the causes on their death certificate. Even with the question of excess deaths that I was wondering about in my last post, it's a pretty sobering situation.

    The positive news—for there is always something positive to be found—is that nearly 24 million people have had their first dose of a vaccine, another 1.8 million have had their second, and the rates of infection and deaths are dropping. Here in Greater Manchester the rate has fallen below 100 positive tests in 100,000 people for the first time in months, with only three of the ten boroughs counting more.

    There are reports of folk choosing not to have the vaccine—fine I say, it's up to them—and the odd case of evangelical anti-vaxxers who rather than just saying, it's not for me, are intent on using the powers of social media to convince the rest of us that we're sleep walking into some kind of dystopian future where we'll all be killed by our own governments.

    As far as I know my dad, who is just over a week short of 71 years old, has yet to be vaccinated and last time I asked he didn't seem especially concerned or in any hurry. Like I said, fine, it's up to him.

    In other news, I've had a couple of moles removed, one from my left ear and one from behind my right ear, which was loads of fun. I contacted my doctor about something else entirely and during the phone consultation (because during a pandemic everything is done remotely) I happened to mention that I'd like him to look at some sun damage on my skin. He asked me to upload some images via a hyperlink then called me back to say the one on my cheek was a common or garden liver spot—I thought they were something old folk got—the one on my nose needs some attention, but wasn't anything to worry about, and the one on my ear needs an urgent consultation with a dermatologist. 

    Shortly after I received a text message from the health centre confirming the referral process and of course they used the word cancer which was somewhat disconcerting. I next received a letter to give me my appointment date and thirteen days after my initial call I went to get them checked out. 

In the interim Chris pointed out another mole on my head, behind my right ear, which of course I had no idea about because I couldn't see it. I discussed the moles I'd mentioned to my GP with the dermatologist and also asked them to look at the newly revealed one as well. The long and short of it is that the thing on my nose was some kind of vessel damage and they zapped it there and then with liquid nitrogen to burn it off; the one on my ear they weren't hugely concerned about but because it was dark they said it was best to whip it off; and the secret, surprise mole was of some concern because it was of an irregular shape and looked suspicious.

The remains of the frozen nose thing.

    A few days after the consultation I received another letter inviting me to have the two suspect moles surgically removed.

    Two days later, in her consulting room, I chatted with the dermatologist about that favourite lockdown pastime: going for a walk, and she regaled me with a story about stumbling on a secret garden village in the heart of Burnage. We then passed the time of day discussing books: I'm reading The Little Friend by Donna Tartt and she's just finished Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton, which she recommended and I've since bought. We talked about the imminent excision, almost in an abstract way, as if she was teaching me how to do it, then I signed some documents and, lulled into a false sense of security, followed her to the next room.

    The anaesthetic was pretty straightforward, though a needle going into the edge of my ear stung more than I expected, then I lay there while it did its magic. The two women assisting the consultant tried to distract me and keep me entertained. Will you be going on holiday this year? What's your job? That sort of thing. They were pleasant enough but I think they could learn a thing or two about their patter from a hairdresser. Chit chat about city breaks only goes so far when international travel is all but banned.

    All numbed up, the consultant slipped around my side, weapons of choice secreted upon her person so I couldn't see what she was about to cut me with, and said, Can you feel that?   

    No, I replied. 

    And that? she asked as she jabbed me in the side of the head. 

    No. I could not feel anything, happy days, the anaesthetic had done its job. 

    I'm going to start on this side, she said, indicating the big one behind my ear. You'll just feel a bit of tugging.

    To begin with I sensed the work being done and the mopping of blood, a strange sensation, accompanied by the dulcet tones of the three women trying to get me involved in a discussion about their favourite comedians, a distraction technique if ever I've heard one.   

    With the benefit of hindsight I'd say it was about a third of the way through the procedure when I realised the anaesthetic hadn't flooded all the way across the flesh that was being cut out. 

    That was sharp, I thought.

I didn't say anything obviously. 

    Ouch! Shit, that hurt.

    Everything okay? asked one of the butchers as I unclenched my fists and wiped the sweat on my jeans.

    Roseanne Barr, I replied, she's hilarious.

    Roseanne! I'd forgotten about her, said the consultant, and carried on slicing me up.

    Had I known the pain was going to continue for as long as it did I'd have said something but I thought, just get it over with, it won't be long, it's not that bad. So I gritted my teeth and tried to focus on something else: the drawers with paperwork in them, the pile of swabs on the counter, the crinkle of the protective paper I was lying on, the OH MY GOD SHE'S SEWING MY HEAD UP!

    And she was. The offending mole had been removed, they'd talked over the works of Miranda Hart, and the wound was being sewn up. I couldn't tell whether what I was feeling was the needle going in or coming out but I knew I could feel a hot puncture in my skin followed by tugging and instructions in secret medical talk to do something to each of the stitches. One, two, three, four in turn. 

    All done! she eventualy said, chirpily, Just the little one on the other side to do now.

    Thankfully while the bloodbath behind my right ear was occurring it had given my left ear sufficient time to numb properly and all I felt was the tugging previously promised. The consultant was done in no time. She assured me that the flesh would be lab tested for cancer and I'd receive the results in two to three weeks. She then scuttled off back to her office leaving me in the capable hands of the other two women who briefed me on stitches etiquette. 

    Don't get them wet for three days; book yourself in at your health centre to have them removed in two weeks; and don't lie on them when you go to sleep. Followed by a moment of realisation as she appreciated there were stitches either side of my head and that might make sleeping tricky. Maybe you could... Er... I'm not sure how you're... Well you could try...

    I tried to help her out by saying, If only I had one of those hard little pillows Geishas sleep on so as not to mess their hair up. She looked at me like I was mad. I'll find a way, I assured her and left, light-headed and with a handful of leaflets.   

Stitches behind my right ear.

Stitch in my left ear.

Bitter Orange Tart

Three weeks into the new year and 2021 is already weird. Coronavirus continues its rampage around the world, the UK is in another national lockdown and has essentially closed its borders to the whole of South America, Portugal and South Africa because of new strains of the virus. Not that there are many people flying at the moment anyway. 

At the same time the amazing news is that we are now working with three vaccines in the UK and more than four million people have had their first injection. Vaccination centres are popping up everywhere and at the speedy rate we’re going it looks like everyone will have been inoculated much sooner than predicted. Mid-July keeps being bandied about as a possible date, though there is also talk of people having to be vaccinated again in the autumn. I wonder if it might become an annual thing like the flu vaccine – time will no doubt tell.

Alongside these headlines are those of the number of deaths happening every day which reporters bark at us, albeit with a sympathetic tone, every time the news comes on the television. Something that I’d like to look at though is how many people died of covid rather than with covid. Given that hospitals fill up in the winter anyway, and the headlines every year include stories of bed shortages and the struggling NHS, I wonder why the difference in winter deaths this year compared to previous years isn’t being highlighted. That to me would be a better indication of what Covid is doing. But then the headline: 1,600 people die with a Covid diagnosis in the worst day yet of the pandemic, doesn’t have quite the ring to it as: 300 more people died this year to last.

I’ve been tracking Covid 19 rates in the ten boroughs of Greater Manchester since the beginning of October and this second wave, as it stands, hasn’t reached the levels of November, and what's more, rates are dropping again now. The increase could be attributed to mixing at Christmas, though I think the majority of people followed the guidelines closely, and the downward turn of the graph could be attributed to the national lockdown. It’s difficult to say, especially when you consider that the November restrictions were heralded as a success in Greater Manchester despite the fact that rates were already decreasing when they were imposed. 

What I have noted however is that Greater Manchester rates, whilst following national trends, have been significantly below London rates and also well below England rates. Make of that what you will.

So whilst all this rumbles on, as it has for almost a year now, we look across the pond to the United States where today – 20th January 2021 – Joe Biden will be inaugurated as the 46th President and Donald Trump will leave Washington. This wouldn’t usually be of much concern to me, I’m not especially interested in American politics, but this is going to go down in history as a notable transition of power. Firstly because (of course) Covid 19 is having an impact and the crowds of hundreds of thousands that normally attend the event are being asked to attend virtually instead. Deaths from the virus in the United States have surpassed 400,000 as of today so it’s simply not safe to have people gather in large numbers. A field of flags will represent the people that would usually be there and this will be one of many changes to the ceremony.

In addition to the crowds another notable absentee will be the outgoing President. Trump has said he will not be attending in a snub to Biden and a continuation of his belief that the election was fixed and he should have won. The Vice President, Pence, will be there in his own capacity and not a representative of Trump.

There are concerns over safety in Washington DC today so security has been massively boosted, beyond, it seems, the levels normally seen at an inauguration. This in the most part is a reaction to the events of 6th January when, in scenes you’d expect from a developing democracy, a tyranny or a totalitarian system, the American Capitol building was stormed by protesters. Congress were gathered to confirm the electoral college vote and confirm, once and for all, Biden’s success when, egged on by Trump at a rally, hundreds of people forced their way into the building in an attempt to disrupt the process.

It was truly shocking to see politicians and staff fleeing to escape, and rioters marauding through the building. Tear gas was fired by the police as they tried to regain control and workers barricaded themselves into offices to avoid the protestors. Five people died including one police officer who was hit over the head with a fire extinguisher.

I won’t labour the story as news of it was reported around the globe, however I will say that it revealed the passion, disillusionment and dare I say it, hatred felt by one side of what is essentially a split country.

So back to the UK and Nigella Lawson has chosen today to tweet her recipe for Bitter Orange Tart as recipe of the day. Coincidence? Who knows but if you fancy giving it a go here it is: https://www.nigella.com/recipes/bitter-orange-tart 

Gas Giants, Brexit, Mutant Viruses and Christmas 2020

It’s the day after Boxing Day. The month since I last wrote has whizzed by and the world again seems to have been tipped on its head. I suppose that’s one thing you can say for sure about 2020 – there’s never been a slow news day.

At the end of the last lockdown the tier system of restrictions was restructured and strengthened. In Manchester, which remained in tier 3, pubs and restaurants didn’t reopen but some shops did. Rules about Christmas gatherings were announced and as expected they were to keep it low key. It was all a bit gloomy.

Then followed the news that the MHRA had approved a Covid 19 vaccine for use in the UK which was a massive breakthrough. Within a matter of days the first person in the world received that vaccine in Coventry, on 8th December, and to date around 800,000 people have been inoculated. I suspect that because of my age and good health I’ll be quite low down the list and may get my chance in late summer.

As we’ve come to expect from 2020, with the good news comes the bad. Reports of a significant mutation in the virus were hot on the heels of the vaccine. It appears to have originated in Kent and infection numbers in the SouthEast began rocketing. The new variant which was identified in September and sequenced in October, transmits faster and is more infectious than its predecessor. The increasing numbers prompted the Government to put London and a chunk of the SouthEast into a new Tier 4 with almost immediate effect. Christmas plans were scuppered for millions and the capital essentially shut down, but not before thousands of residents, keen to get to their families for Christmas, rammed train stations and a mini exodus out of town took place on cramped trains.

Countries around Europe, fearful that the new strain might land there, immediately banned flights and ships from the UK. Most noticeably France, simply because so many cross border goods go through Dover and Calais. The channel tunnel was closed and Dover port became a car park with hundreds of drivers stranded there over Christmas. I read reports of locals lowering food packages down to them from motorway bridges and skirmishes with police as drivers who wanted to be home for Christmas became increasingly frustrated. I suppose the travel restrictions were to be expected but I suspect the mutant virus (as the papers refer to it) is already on the continent given that it was seen so many weeks ago and it’s been recognised in Brazil too. On top of that, a third strain has been noted in South Africa leading to further flights being grounded from that country.

There have been other UK restriction changes in different parts of the country as of Boxing day, though Manchester remains frozen in suspended animation as it has been for months. Infection rates across all ten boroughs have begun to creep up again, but not at the same rate as they have in the SouthEast. In fact rates seem to be on the increase across Europe generally as well as in parts of Asia and it feels like there’s a race between Covid and the vaccine. A second vaccine, developed at Oxford University and with AstraZeneca is due for approval imminently and as it’s easier to handle and transport than the Pfizer vaccine it’s hoped that the programme will speed up.

In the meantime Christmas has come and gone. For many it’s understandably been a quieter, pared back affair, though the Government did authorise mixing of households for those not in Tier 4. We had Chris’s folks round, as we have done many times before, so it didn’t feel all that different. 

Outside of the pandemic – for there is still a world out there – and just in time, a Brexit deal has finally been agreed. Boris Johnson addressed the UK on Christmas Eve to tell us that trade deals have been agreed alongside fishing rights, a move away from the European Court of Justice, agreements on data security, policing and travel. Naturally there is still a split between those who voted to remain in the EU saying we’re in a worse position than we were before and those who voted to leave saying we now have the freedom to chart our own course. Time will tell who is right though I reckon it will more than likely be a mix of the two. I for one am optimistic about the future – let’s see what happens eh?

And in celestial news, on 21st December, the winter solstice, Jupiter and Saturn, two of the solar system’s gas giants, were in alignment with the earth in what is known as the Great Conjunction. Their positions, so close to each other in our skies, made them look like one bright body and while this happens about every twenty years it seems they were closer than they have been for some for eight centuries. Typically it was cloudy in Manchester so we didn’t see a damn thing.

Bananadrama

It is lockdown law that you must make banana bread and so, four days into 'Lockdown 2: The Revenge' as I'm calling it, I've made a banana loaf. I've had two slices so far and they've landed heavily on my stomach. I used four massive bananas in the mix which I think was too many. The recipe says four bananas but it didn't specify what size and it's very heavy. Don't worry though, I'll be eating more before I go to bed tonight.

In other news, the United States has finally got itself a new president. I say finally because it seemed to take such a long time from voting day to the announcement but I suppose when you have 140 million votes to count it's going to take a longer time than it does here with a mere 32 million ballots cast.

It looked like a very close call for a long time but then Biden pulled ahead in a number of areas and, despite what Trump had to say about it, he won.

Traditional and social media were alight with opinions and protestations and even now, the glee is palpable in many quarters. In the UK (at least in my experience) there don't seem to be many – if any – people mourning the loss of 45. The 'be kind' folk on the left would happily see him hunted down, killed in cold blood, and left rotting in a ditch, and even those of us right-of-centre feel a sense of relief at his dethroning. I think the main difference being that the former can't bring themselves to see a single thing he has done in the past four years as positive whereas the latter, recognise that he's a dangerous live-wire with a lot of power.

These opinions (of which I'm massively generalising) are not particularly surprising when you consider that Trump's approval rating in the UK dropped to around 15%. I think it's important however to recognise that he's still incredibly popular on his home turf, the United States, and to try to understand why. 

Like many people around the world I've read a lot about the President, his challenger, and the American 2020 election during the campaigning period. I'm aware of course that I can't possibly have read everything and there will be holes in my understanding and appreciation and I'm also aware that much of what I've read is opinion (but then what isn't?) and point of view. 

That being said, I'd like to note down here some of my observations for posterity and because I have a shocking memory and I'd like to remind myself in the future, when we can see how the world has panned out. I think it's worth noting that these observations, whether they're true or not, robust or flimsy, will no doubt have influenced millions of eligible voters across the pond one way or another.

Before Covid 19 swept across the planet and turned everything on its head the United States was doing very well, economically speaking. Unemployment was at a fifty year low and wages were increasing, Trump had imposed tariffs and brokered trade deals which protected American businesses and jobs, and he was practically the only authority to have stood up to China in terms of their aggressive manner of trading. I can understand why people would vote for someone who was, to all intents and purposes, responsible for increased prosperity and more money in their back pocket.   

I read somewhere that the Latino vote was not necessarily influenced by the appointment of another conservative, Catholic into the Supreme Court but more so by the outcry from the left of centre media about it and her views on abortion and same sex marriage. If important teachings in your religion are under attack in the press and from incredibly vocal liberals, then how does that make you feel? I'd imagine it would make you feel personally attacked on some level, I know when I hear folk banging on about how same sex marriage is an abomination to the church and God it gets my back up and I'm neither religious nor married. I suspect we miss the importance of this in the UK because our abortion laws and same sex marriage are so wildly different here and well protected, and as a country, religion is far more discreet. Of course I read somewhere else that there's no such thing as the Latino vote so who the hell knows?

The Black Lives Matters protests – which in America particularly erupted into riots across the country – would, I'd say, have played into Trump's hands too when it came to the election. Ordinary people don't want to live in a place where riots happen, where they might not feel safe on the streets because of them, or where their businesses and even homes might be under threat from looters and arsonists. The left (I'm generalising again), seems to me, to have metaphorically shrugged its shoulders and said 'yeah I can understand that,' whereas Trump said enough is enough, we can't allow it. Granted he was heavy handed but ultimately he protected a lot of people's livelihoods and safety in the process.

There are just three things I picked out that helped me understand why, despite losing, Trump did so well this time around. And that doesn't even cover the international accomplishments he made such as standing up to China about its treatment of Hong Kong, stamping down on chemical attacks of civilians in Syria with targeted bombing (alongside the UK and France), brokering peace in the Middle East and meeting Kim Jong-un in North Korea.

Now it's practically all over I can already hear assumed reasons floating around as to why people voted for Trump in such large numbers again. They are a lot of the same reasons I still hear about those here who voted to leave the European Union in 2016 – they're stupid, they're uneducated, they're racist, they were duped and lied to, they're gullible or they're simply xenophobic. I think they're lazy assumptions used to sweep things under the carpet and they miss the crux of what's going on in the lives of millions upon millions of ordinary people in what is a strangely divided country. Divided not necessarily by class or wealth or race or even political ideals, but divided by those who are caught up in the momentum of a country and a world undergoing immense shifts and changes, and those that feel they've been left behind and forgotten. Sounds familiar, eh? 

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have voted for Trump had I the option, and I don't think he'll go down as a good president, but I think it's worth trying to get another point of view on these things and understand why he was so popular. You don't need me to bring to mind all the outrageous things he's done and on balance I think it's a good thing he's gone – if he ever concedes and buggers off that is.

Covid comes home to roost - Tier 3 for Manchester, a positive test and a national survey.

Back in August I started writing about the situation surrounding Covid 19 and never finished. I wrote: 

The country has been creaking to life for over a month now but is still far from normal. Here in Manchester we've had new restrictions in place for a couple of weeks meaning two households aren't allowed to come together either at home or in a public building. Some venues are only just opening – theatres for example – but are doing so with all manner of precautions and restrictions in place.

We ate at a restaurant for the first time the week before last – Croma our regular haunt – which was nice but again a weird experience. The staff, many of which we know, were all in masks; we weren't supposed to be with someone who wasn't in our household so we said that our guest was a lodger; and tables had been removed. We'd been to a pub a couple of weeks before that.

And that's where I stopped. Interrupted and never to return. Until today... 

I'd have hoped that by now, in the second half of October, things would have improved but sadly not. We seem to have gone the other way.

A week ago the Government introduced a tier system for areas and regions in the UK whereby restrictions designed to slow the infection rate of the virus would be imposed dependent on its severity in that area. I've never heard the words 'Tier three' so many times before in my life since then.

This is a screenshot of today's (21 Oct) Manchester Evening News website with every mention of Tier three circled. See what I mean?

It's understandable, I suppose, when you appreciate that local representatives in Manchester have been negotiating (or fighting, depending on your viewpoint) with central government for a package to support the people that will be affected by the regulations when they are imposed and we move from our current position in tier two.

The new restrictions will mean that pubs cannot serve people drinks unless they are having a meal, this coupled with the ten o'clock curfew which has been in place across the country for a month (21 Sep), and the table service rules feels like another nail in the coffin for the industry in this area. There will inevitably be a knock on effect beyond the pubs and bars that simply have to close – taxis, cleaners and takeaways spring to mind, not to mention the supply chain. Additionally households are still not allowed to meet indoors and now in some outdoor settings too. Travel restrictions are also in place – though I don't think they are actual bans, more recommendations. 

It's become quite confusing for a lot of people, what they can and cannot do, and I can see how it's affecting people's state of mind too. With a full lockdown then three months of restrictions behind them, and now being told it's about to get worse for the foreseeable future, people are getting lockdown fatigue and stress levels are rising.

The way I see it is that the rise in infections has correlated with the return to the city of students, the opening up of schools, and the inevitable mixing that they have been doing. I understand the evidence of infections happening in pubs to be weak at best. 

I've been in a number of pubs over the last few weeks and in each you're expected to register yourself either with the government tracing app, or write down your information for them to hang on to in case there's an outbreak and they need to contact you. You must wear a mask when you're not sitting down – even to go to the loo. Ordering, on the whole is done via your mobile phone on apps and through websites. There are one way systems where feasible and there's sanitiser and warnings everywhere. 

Each and every place I've been to has been managed well and to the regulations. I struggle to see how closing these places down will make a significant difference to infection rates. If anything, the curfew has been more counterproductive as town and city centres across the nation are suddenly flooded with pissed people just before the clock strikes ten.

The wrangle between Manchester's Mayor, the Town Hall, and the leaders of the ten boroughs, and Central Government has been big news and my position on it has changed a number of times since it began. 

I'm not a fan of Andy Burnham, nor was I in favour of introducing city mayors when that happened a few years ago, that being said I was generally supportive of his response to Government saying that the city needs robust financial support to help the people that will be adversely affected by the new restrictions and who will only be entitled to two thirds of their salary, as opposed to eighty percent under the furlough scheme. I was in agreement more so when he suggested a scheme of protecting the vulnerable and allowing others to carry on in the current manner – something I would like to see across the country.

There have been moments when he's appeared to be showboating, he's also been accused of political grandstanding and using the situation for his own interests. I think his intentions are genuine but I can also see a grain of truth in these suggestions. Regardless, he is being hailed as a hero by many and we are now in a different place.

Yesterday the Government took the decision to end negotiations and impose the Tier three restrictions with a fraction of the financial support Burnham et al had requested. There has been a public backlash against this already and in an city not know for its favourable view of the Conservatives, I suspect this decision will ring in people's ears for a generation, much like decisions made by the Conservative government of the eighties did across the north. But time will tell.

Manchester is not the first area to have these restrictions in place, Liverpool was the first, then Lancashire and it now looks like Sheffield and South Yorkshire are doing the same with West Yorkshire and parts of the North East in line next. New Tier two restrictions have been introduced in London, Birmingham and parts of Essex.

To be clear though, whilst rates of infections have increased, deaths involving covid 19 are nowhere near the levels they were earlier in the year. This is down to a number of things including increased knowledge, improved treatment, more testing, and I dare say, the ages of people that are picking it up is currently lower and younger people are less likely to suffer badly from it.

That brings me onto a more personal note. My dad, who is seventy and currently in hospital, has been diagnosed with Covid 19. 

He fell at home on 5th October and after using his magic necklace to alert the emergency folk was taken to Blackpool Victoria hospital where he stayed till last Thursday. When he fell he fractured the very top of his arm, near his shoulder. The recovery situation is complicated by the fact that he uses a frame and with the fracture he can't grip it properly so can't walk. On Thursday he was moved to a place called The Arc which is a hospital where they work on getting him back to a state where he can leave and live independently. Apparently this could take five or six weeks.

At some point between Victoria and the Arc he's picked up a dose of the coronavirus. Currently he's asymptomatic and we're hopeful he'll stay that way but it's a bit scary. On the other hand, he doesn't seem at all bothered by it. He's being isolated for eight days which, as he's already in a room on his own, isn't much of a difference. He's probably seeing more people there than he did at home. So we'll keep phoning him – after all we're not allowed to visit – and see what happens.

Another new turn of events that's been brought on by the pandemic is Chris's work. He's taken on a temporary job which involves delivering and collecting covid tests and surveying people about their recent activities. It's part of a survey for the Office of National Statistics and whilst it's not the most challenging thing he's ever done it keeps the wolves from the door and him out of mischief for a few months.

So the world as we once knew it is still massively disrupted. I'd go as far to say that it feels more disrupted than during the full lockdown but, that being said, we still have friends, and work, and family and things to keep us entertained till the dust settles and we can all get back to some semblance of normality, which I expect will now be in the spring.