Blog 69. Mañana

I finished the breakfast fruit salad and placed the spoon down with great satisfaction.
“Thank you, darling, that was delicious. I’m really looking forward to this breakfast”.
I rubbed my hands in anticipation.
“You’ve just had it. That’s it. No food until lunchtime now”.
“But, but…”, my little face fell.”You said yesterday we were having poached eggs on potato cakes today, perhaps with a Hollandaise sauce or a rasher of bacon…”. My voice trailed away, choking with disappointment.
“That’s because I thought yesterday was Friday and today was Saturday. Today is actually Wednesday. No poached eggs, sorry”.
She didn’t sound very sorry.
You see, the weekday diet is back with us and we only have a full breakfast and a proper dinner, with optional alcohol, at weekends. I mention this little vignette to illustrate not only the hard life that I lead, but also the fact that neither of us knows what day it is most of the time. If it weren’t for us changing the sheets on the bed every week then we would not note the passing of the weeks either. I think the month is November. Dear me, this second lockdown is somehow worse than the first one. This is getting serious: the sooner this situation is over the better.

One of the many characteristics of lockdown that is worth recording for the sake of posterity must surely be the Spanish concept of “mañana”, literally “tomorrow”.  With virtually every day the same, and no urgency to do anything except, perhaps, switch off the heat under that pan that is boiling over, it is all too easy to reschedule every task until tomorrow.  This is exacerbated by the winter season, with sunset currently at 1606, that being the point when there is a strong tendency to switch on the lights, flop down on the sofa, and read a book or watch television, exhausted from a whole day of doing not very much.  Taken with sunrise at 0746 it makes for a short day and – well – a very strong inclination to total lethargy.  I confess that I have been tempted, but I put some of my weakness down to my temporary disability and Jane’s lack of mobility.  When both are overcome then I promise we will be active again, exploring the muddy countryside or whittling sculptures of Greek goddesses in seasoned American Cherry.   Honestly.

For those kind enough to ask, by the way, my injured hand (Blog 66) is healing slowly: the dressing is off, the finger has turned black, the smell has improved, and it twinges only occasionally. It still hurts when placed in washing-up water. Jane’s leg is still painful, but is showing signs of improvement. I won’t go on: there is nothing worse than reading, or hearing about, someone else’s ailments (except, possibly, warm champagne).

In an earlier blog (Blog 67) I commented on the dilemma facing anyone who wins the lottery and wishes to share his or her winnings with friends.  I now pose another one: should just anyone enter the lottery or take part in quiz shows?  Jane raised this the other day when reading about the case of a rich retired banker who had entered the television quiz show Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and won (possibly more than once).  Asked what he would do with the winnings, he replied something vague about enhancing his country estate.  Morally, it does not seem right for someone in that position to compete and exclude someone worse off from taking part in the competition, though the rules of the show may well be satisfied.  The same philosophy applies to the National Lottery:  why would you go in for it if you already had plenty of money? But I daresay some rich people do.  On a more down-to-earth level, have you ever come across the person who wins multiple times on a club raffle, and claims the prize each time?  Most people, in my experience, put the ticket back if they win a second time in order to give others a chance, but there is always the exception and I find their philosophy puzzling.  There you are: another moral topic for that dinner party that you are going to hold when all this epidemic is over.

As far as entertaining goes, we love hosting dinner parties for friends and take delight in the, now unfashionable, formality of it all: the exact place settings, the linen napkins, the best silver, the crystal glasses, decanting the wine, the apéritifs, the digestifs, the footmen, and so on (well, maybe not the footmen).  Jane is a very accomplished cook and I, well, I can make a good gin and tonic or Horse’s Neck.  That said, this year we have tended towards inviting friends to luncheon rather than dinner.  In the summer it is ideal, as one can enjoy the sunshine, possibly eat al fresco, and quaff Pimm’s as an apéritif.  Of course, the informal approach also makes us more hip and cool, and in tune with the modern generation and the ‘in’ crowd.  Whatever the season, entertaining guests to luncheon also avoids us having to wash up twenty or more wine, water, sherry and port glasses at one o’clock in the morning while in a zombie-like state and starting a hangover.  Well, now, as a trial, we have extended that lunchtime practice to our every-day lives, making luncheon our main meal of the day with supper being a collation taken in the early evening.  Of course, the downside of this procedure is that the zombie-like state kicks in at about teatime and there is a strong temptation to succumb to a Spanish siesta, but theoretically we are still awake and available for other things well into the evening, with the cooking and the washing up all done.  I am told that a light meal in the evening is also better for the digestion of those of us who (how can I put this) have accumulated more than 570,000 running hours and are overdue for a top overhaul.    Jane and I are still debating the ideal form that the supper should take, though Welsh Rarebit, an omelette or cheese and crackers have featured so far, and I am hoping for Devils on Horseback or Golden Buck in the future.  Wishing to avoid cooking, Jane suggested breakfast cereal for supper the other day and I shuddered with horror.  The daughter of a friend of ours once outlined the five stages of departure from this life as:
“First you move into the bungalow, next you wear bedroom slippers all day, then you stop going out at night and, finally, you start to have breakfast cereal for supper; after that stage you die and are carried out in a box”.  
Dear oh dear, we are not ready for that yet. 

On the Covid front, trials with the vaccine being developed by Oxford University show an effectiveness of 70% (which is better than the flu vaccine) with a potential to increase its effectiveness to 90%.  Although the efficacy is not quite as good as the vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna (95%) the Oxford vaccine has the advantages of being significantly cheaper, not having to be stored at near cryogenic temperatures (fridge temperature is good enough), and being more easily distributed.  No vaccine has received approval to be used on the general public yet. Priority for vaccinations in the UK will be given to those in care homes and their carers, followed by front-line NHS staff, then cascaded down according to age, starting with the old people. As far as the epidemic is concerned, the daily number of new positive tests in the UK has definitely gone over the peak and has started to plummet at 25% a week, but the daily number of deaths is still rising stubbornly, albeit more slowly. Yesterday the number of daily deaths attributed to CV19 in the UK was 521.  The research study being run by King’s College, London has concluded that the rate of infections in England was already falling under the previous tier system and that the current English lockdown was unnecessary. It has been announced that England will return to an enhanced regional Tier System at the end of this lockdown on 3 December, but measures will be relaxed for the whole of the UK for five days over Christmas, during which three households can mix indoors. Hogmanay has been cancelled in Scotland.  Entirely as I predicted, the new restrictions incorporated under the English regional tier system have turned out to be lockdown by another name, for 99% of England has been placed under the higher Tier 2 or Tier 3, both levels banning social mixing indoors or in private gardens, and the “rule of six” applying outdoors. All shops, restaurants, and pubs serving food can open for limited hours under Tier 2, which is about the only improvement from the present lockdown other than, inexplicably, sports events involving up to 2,000 spectators being permitted. The only places in England under Tier 1 – the lowest level – are the Isle of Wight, the Isles of Scilly and Cornwall. It has been stated that the UK is entering its worst economic crisis for 300 years; history will decide if this was a price worth paying to overcome a disease that, overall, the population has a 99.92% chance of surviving. One of the government’s scientific advisors has cautioned,
“Hug your granny at Christmas and she will be dead in January”.  
Such a helpful and catchy axiom,  don’t you find?  I assure you that the scientist who came up with it will be the second one up against the wall when my revolution comes.

Encouraged by some of my seditious and, frankly, disloyal female readership Jane has ordered a pair of “trainers” and they arrived today (Blog 68). They are called Reebok, so I suppose they are of South African origin and will provide her with a spring in every step. Pale grey-green in colour, they have a quick release mechanism on the front to facilitate easy removal. My observation that that was just like a pair of granny’s tartan slippers with zips up the front was not well received. Moreover, the worst has happened, and she has taken to walking out in public in her blue pumps. I walk ahead of her with the expression of a herald presaging the arrival of a serving dish of boiled Brussels sprouts. This and lockdown: what a challenge 2020 has become.

You  may recall the sad tale of my RAF Squadron Leader neighbour, locked in a Portacabin in Cyprus for two weeks without en-suite facilities, booze, Brylcreem, or a television because his wife had contracted CV19 here in the UK (Blog 66).  He is out of quarantine  now, but it seems his privations were even worse than initially reported: it transpires that the shower in his bathroom down the corridor was fed from a polythene bag warmed by a tepid Mediterranean winter sun and the lavatory was an outside arrangement.  If only he were back in the UK where I could empathise with him as one officer to another…Life would be so dull if the Royal Navy could not tease the RAF and vice versa.  His experience reminded me of my very first shipboard single cabin, which was in the aircraft carrier HMS CASSANDRA.  It was a bijou compartment, seven feet by five, located below the waterline.  It contained a high bunk with drawers and a pull-down bureau below, a wardrobe ten inches wide, a folding metal chair, a strip of carpet, a sliding door, and a corner washbasin.  It was what a cruise passenger today might call an inside cabin or, possibly, a broom cupboard. Compact and basic it may have been, but it was my mine, my own little domain for three years, and I was delighted as I took occupation on joining the ship.  I slept like a top on the first night and leapt out of the bunk the next day, ready for a wash, shave and a hearty breakfast.  I was brought up short when I turned to the sink.  Where were the taps?  I rubbed my eyes and looked again:  no, definitely no taps, just a stainless steel quarter basin.  I opened the little door in the cupboard under the basin to look at the plumbing, but there was no plumbing: no water supply, no drains, just a square copper can under the plughole to catch drained water.  At first I thought it might be a joke played on me by my fellow officers, but then I cottoned on to the reason: the cabin was below the waterline, so water could not run out of a drain into the sea in the normal way.  In the cabin flat there was a large utility sink used by the stewards and that drained to a sump that was emptied by a pump operated by a float switch.  In the 1940s, when CASSANDRA was designed, the plan would have been for my steward to bring me hot water in a large jug and to empty the drain-can, after I had used it, into the communal utility sink (very Downton Abbey); in the mid 1970s, when I was in the ship, that sort of service had long gone.  It turned out that, to use a bathroom or the heads, I had to don a towel and flip flops and make my way forward across the cabin flat, up two companionways, forward through two watertight compartments, then down another companionway to an officers’ bathroom.  It took the edge off my initial joy of my first cabin a bit, but fortunately a solution was found: I simply took over the cabin of the chap whom I was relieving, and that was high up under the flight deck, well above the waterline.  That cabin was the same size as the original and was also “inside”, but it had running water and the heads and bathroom were in the same cabin flat: luxury, once I became used to the smell of burnt aviation fuel and the thump and throb of aircraft landing on the flight deck above.

Aircraft carriers are big beasts, and the Royal Navy now has its biggest such vessels ever, though even they cannot match the behemoths of the USN.  At one time, and certainly in my career, the Royal Navy had several aircraft carriers and the two biggest, HMS ARK ROYAL and HMS EAGLE, provided long and sterling service for a combined total of nearly sixty years.  There was a young man of my specialisation who was appointed to HMS EAGLE as his first appointment after training and he relished the prospect of serving in such an prestigious vessel.  On the appropriate day, he donned his best uniform and duly repaired onboard at 0900, saluted the quarterdeck and identified himself.  He was a little disappointed to find that the ship was not expecting him: as a junior officer he did not exactly expect a guard and band to be paraded, but he did think the ship would be a little more efficient.  He showed the Officer of the Day his appointment letter and a light did dawn on the duty officer’s face.  A messenger was summoned and the keen young man was, at last, recognised and taken down to meet the Senior Engineer (Deputy Marine Engineer Officer in modern parlance), then the Head of Department, the Commander (E) (the Marine Engineer Officer).  Both senior officers were most apologetic for their failure to anticipate his arrival – the department had been very busy in the present maintenance period, they explained, but he would be very welcome as an addition to the team.  They had decided that the young man would be the Outside Machinery Officer and, after changing into overalls, he was given a quick tour of his forthcoming extensive department and its myriad compartments all over the ship. When that was finished it was lunchtime and he was taken into the wardroom to meet his mess mates before lunch.  They were all a jolly crowd in very good humour, and he could see that they were all going to get on famously over the next three years.  For his part, after a beer or two, he explained how proud he was to be joining them in EAGLE, for his father had served in her twenty years previously.
“Yes, she’s a fine ship”, said the Commander (E), “there’s no doubt about that and I’m sure you’ll enjoy your time onboard.”
“By the way”, he went on, “this is ARK ROYAL.  HMS EAGLE is moored just astern of us”.
They had rapidly conjured up an enormous hoax when the young officer’s mistake became apparent, and had tipped off the Commander (E) in HMS EAGLE that his new protégé would be a little late in joining.  ARK ROYAL gave him a good lunch and sent him on his way to his correct ship.  I am not sure if he ever lived it down.  All these flat tops look the same when close to, though I would have thought that the name HMS ARK ROYAL in large letters on the side of the gangway, and the ceremonial life ring on the jetty, would have been a give-away.  Apparently not.  Ah, the enthusiasm of youth.

I was waiting for Jane at the osteopath the other day (she can drive, but I felt like a change of scenery) and, as I idled away the time, I pondered on the psychology of car driving.  You must have done the same thing and wondered just what it was that changed a person’s personality after they climbed into a motor vehicle.  Why do some normally decent men become so boorish when they get behind the wheel of an Audi or BMW?  Why do white van drivers drive two feet from your bumper?  Why do perfectly competent women go to pieces when required to reverse their 4×4 back up a single track road?  Why do veterans of 1970 car rallies drive tiny cars and at a speed concomitant with a funeral cortège?  While some of these questions are answerable by logic (for example, White Van Man is on a tight schedule and wants you to be part of it), others defy explanation and I am sure there is an entire PhD thesis buried in there.  My mind moved on to the joys of driving and the fact that it is one of the few areas left in our world today where one can still exercise one’s prejudices.  I don’t mean nasty prejudices like those about race or sexuality, I mean the trivial yet pleasurable and satisfying ones.  A friend of mine once told me that, when he drove his father’s little Ford Fiesta, he had no trouble getting out of his housing estate onto the main road in the rush hour; yet when he drove his own BMW he had to wait ages and ages before someone let him into the traffic queue.  Odd that. 
Yes, we must enjoy these little triumphs while we can, before the woke and the politically correct ban them, like hugs and expressing one’s opinion in the privacy of one’s own home (the last is a proposed new law in Scotland).  
Concluding the motoring theme, I read a wonderful quotation in a book the other day about Audi drivers: 
“Audis: four zeros in front and another one behind the wheel”.  Excellent.

Oh, is that your BMW parked outside?   Fine vehicle, how does she handle?

Psychology and patterns of human behaviour feature highly in our lives, and this is inevitable in a world populated by humans. One perfect example of the predictability of human behaviour can be found in my experience with the PR appointment that I held with the Royal Navy (Blog 68). Our job was to present the case for having a Royal Navy to an invited audience of the Great and the Good (and, I dare say, a few of the Bad) in towns and cities throughout the country. It took the form of a joint presentation or lecture, illustrated by slides, by a Captain and a Lieutenant; it was followed by a Q&A session, with coffee and biscuits or a short modest cocktail party afterwards. The Captain would always have just completed an appointment as Commanding Officer of a warship and the Lieutenant would always be a woman, for obvious reasons; nowadays I expect that that last requirement would apply to the Captain too. We found that, no matter where the event was held, broadly the same questions came up every time and so we had a library of slides on those themes, which could be flashed up to illustrate the answer to the question. Ninety nine times out of a hundred this worked well, but very occasionally we were bowled a fast ball. One day the Captain was asked,
“What effect has the change in gauge on the trans Siberian railway had on the logistic support to the Russian fleet in Vladivostok?”
The Captain repeated the question to give himself time to think, then confessed that he had no idea, but he would find out. He asked the audience member to leave his details so that we could answer his query in due course and, back in the office, we passed the question up to the Ministry of Defence. We eventually received the answer and replied to our original questioner by letter. We could not see that question coming up again but, purely for thoroughness, we included a slide of a Russian train in our library. Several months later, the team was presenting in a totally different part of the country and the Q&A phase was well under way, with the same range of reasonably predictable questions. Our slick response was noticed by one particularly sceptical member of the audience who stood up and voiced the opinion that the questions were obviously planted, because we had the replies and accompanying slides off pat. The Captain assured the questioner that this was not the case, and explained how the questions always followed a predictable pattern.
“All right then”, said the questioner, “here’s one that I bet you can’t answer”. [You guessed it]
“What effect has the change in gauge on the trans Siberian railway had on the logistic support to the Russian fleet in Vladivostok?”
Up came a slide with the photograph of a Russian train and back came the the reply from the Captain.
“OK”, said the man in the audience, totally deflated. ”You win”. He sat down.
Believe it or not, this is a true story. Man: totally predictable (women, less so in my experience).

Following my attempt last week to break the monotony of lockdown by radical expeditions into sartorial standards, I thought I would try a different approach this week.  Jane had commented that we seemed to be getting up later and later, such that no sooner had the day started than it was dark again.  A little “idea bell” rang in my head: clearly, a change in our pattern of behaviour was called for and, after discussion, we resolved to get up earlier.    The next morning I woke at 0555.  Remembering our resolution of the previous day I slid out of bed, cleaned my teeth, and repaired downstairs to make the tea.  I placed the resulting oolong by her bedside and blew gently in her ear.
“Good morning, darling.  Ten degrees and raining”
She opened a bleary eye.
“It’s a bit dark.  What time is it?”
“0620.  You said we should get up earlier”
“Good God!   It’s not even daylight”
“Er, no.  Not as such.  Not for another hour and a half in fact”.
She groaned, but made no further comment.
We lay there companionably, me sipping my tea, she in a twilight world.  I twiddled my thumbs and pondered.
“Jane…as we’re awake and in bed anyway, I don’t suppose…”
“In your dreams, boy”.
She switched off her bedside light and rolled over.  Still, we did get up at 0700 and greeted the dawn in the breakfast room (aka the Garden Control Tower) as planned.  We then spent the rest of the day wondering what to do.

Roll on those vaccines.

27 November 2020.