Earlier in the week I fell foul of my own sage maxim outlined in Blog 75 namely, “never trust instruments alone”. For this, I blame the influence of that latter-day Eve, Jane, who had enchanted me with her siren song on health. It was Day 3 of my quarantine with CV19 infection and still no symptoms. Over breakfast, I was discussing with her (or rather hailing the masthead, as we were still far apart) that I thought the heart monitor on my new exercise bike was reading too high: the alarming figures it displayed did not match my observations from measuring my pulse on my wrist. She suggested I try measuring my pulse using her rinky dinky wrist fitness monitor (are they called a Fitbit?) and she slid it forward across the gulf between us. Regular readers will recall that this device was the beast that kept telling her that she had had an awful night’s sleep when, in fact, she had completed a deep dive to 500 fathoms and had resurfaced, free of barnacles, as if a new woman. I put on the bracelet, ignoring the helpful advice of my dear wife telling me, “you strap it to your wrist” (thank you dear, I managed to work that out). I tapped the Heart Beat option and, after a minute or so, it came back with the totally unsurprising news that the old positive displacement pump was still going and that it was ticking along at idling speed of 72 beats per minute.
“Try the pulse oximeter, try the pulse oximeter”, she urged.
“ And what will that do?”, I sighed.
“It measures your oxygen level!”, she said conclusively, as if that were the knock-down drag-out final answer.
“Well, I’m breathing. That must be a good sign”.
She looked at me in that way of hers.
“OK, OK”. I tapped the option. Back it came with a reading of 93%.
“So what does that mean?”
“I don’t know”, she said.
This reminded me of a time when we went walking with friends near Dartmouth and were ascending a very long, steep road that reached far into the sky, disappearing into the clouds (or so it seemed). We paused to recover at every lamppost and my friend, a very keen fitness fanatic, said,
“When we get to the top, you must time how long it takes for your heart to return to normal speed”.
Knowing nothing about the subject, but always being willing to take advice on matters fitness provided it required no effort on my part, I took this onboard. When we eventually reached the top of the hill I duly stood there with the rest of the party, gasping and heaving (some gasping and heaving more than others). I monitored my pulse as advised and finally came up with the recovery time.
“Right”, I said to my friend who, I noted, had recovered quite some time ago. ”My recovery time is six minutes” (or whatever it was). “Is that good?”
“I don’t know”, said my friend. “It’s just something you should do, I think…”
Ever since another friend, a personal trainer, told me you could eat as many scones with jam as you like after taking exercise, without any detrimental effect, then subsequently vehemently denied the statement, I have been a bit dubious of what these fitness experts tell me; this further piece of evidence added to my scepticism. Why, I read the other day, that these people get a ‘buzz’ out of running for several miles, and travel abroad to take part in marathons. Are they mad? Why on earth do they think we invented motor cars? There is definitely something wrong there. I tell you reader: beware these fitness addicts: they live in a parallel universe and wear jock straps and sports bras.
Post paragraph note: I wish I hadn’t mentioned those scones and jam; I feel hungry now.
I thought afterwards that I would pursue the business of the blood oxygen level (I had nothing else to do) so I went on the internet – that well known source of gloom, doom and misinformation – and discovered that, at 93%, my blood-oxygen reading indicated that my body was fighting an infection. Oh dear. I immediately felt off-colour. Then I remembered reading an article somewhere about buying an oximeter for monitoring your health. Excellent! An opportunity to buy yet another new gadget and monitor my deterioration at the same time, thus killing two birds with one stone. I reached for the trusty iPad: ah yes, there was an oximeter on Amazon for £26, much recommended and bearing a CE kite mark. A ‘Must Have’, I suggested to the Head Nurse and ordered it forthwith. It came the next day. You have probably seen these things: they are like a big clothes peg that you clamp on your finger; you press a button and it tells you your heartbeat and blood oxygen level, all very nifty. I clamped mine on and waited in trepidation: 72 beats a minute and 98% blood oxygen level. Perfectly normal, the British Standard Healthy Human in fact. I immediately felt well again. Jane, of course, felt that she should be in on all this, so she tried it. Her reading was 32 beats a minute and 97% and this immediately gave her cause for concern (and so it should have – she apparently was fading away even as I sat there looking at her). We took the risk of me taking her pulse in her wrist, but she had none. I think she must have been alive as she was still standing there and giving vent to her concern that she must be ill. I took her pulse from the carotid artery in her neck and used my watch in the old fashioned way, like Hattie Jacques in Carry on Nurse: seventy beats a minute. Still nothing wrong with her, but – mark you – there is something odd about someone who never has a pulse in her wrist, can rarely yield a blood sample, and whose body defies precision medical equipment recommended by the ambulance service. I think she may be from the planet Venus and should not to be trusted. I also think that, maybe, I need to get out more.
My first day in purdah dawned with a knock on the bedroom door at 0745, shockingly fifteen minutes before “Turn To”. I had been awake for an hour and was gasping for a cup of tea, but I had been ordered not to contaminate the kitchen utensils or crockery, so lay rigidly in my bed awaiting room service. My original plan (see Blog 78) had been to take to bed the little handbell used in our household by the Sick and Dying to summon help in time of need, but the Head Nurse saw (and heard) me surreptitiously picking it up the night before and I was challenged before I even reached the stairs:
“Just where do you think you are going with that?”
I resisted the involuntary urge to protect my bottom with my hands.
“Well, I thought I would take it into the bedroom in case I needed a paracetamol or a cup of tea or something…”
“You will not! Kindly put it back, please. This is my opportunity for ten nights of undisturbed sleep and natural wakening. I’m not having you ringing that damned bell at six o’clock in the morning”.
I replaced it, abashed.
Anyway, to return to the present, there was a knock on the bedroom door, but no tea. I tried calling, “Enter!” but, strangely, no one came in. So I padded across and opened the door. Outside had been erected a little trestle table and on it was my tea, with Jane standing behind it in her fluffy No 2 dressing gown (Gown, Officer’ Wife, Size 10, Arctic).
I adopted my best Pathetic Sick Person stance and passed the back of my weary hand across my (un)fevered brow.
“Why, thank you darling”, I said, while thinking she really was taking this isolation seriously: surely she could have held her breath as far as my bedside table and back. I awaited the customary concerned enquiry; the sympathetic look, perhaps; the yearning in her eyes that said she had missed my masterly presence last night, and would be devastated if it were gone forever.
“Well, thank you very much!”, was the greeting from the Concerned Enquirer. “Turning on that hall light at a quarter to seven! It woke me up! I had only just managed to get of to sleep at five o’clock”.
I was mystified. I had done no such thing. Indeed, I had not been downstairs that morning, and I said so. Then I realised what it was: the hall light comes on automatically at 0645 (fifteen minutes before “Call the Hands”), the better to light my way as I proceed to make the early morning tea in more normal times. I explained this and she grunted in response before retiring to The Lady Boudoir in a dudgeon while I returned to my dungeon.
“Hmmm”, I thought, “this is going to be a long ten days in semi-isolation”.
Everyone is concerned about me. Periodically I receive a telephone call from the Test and Trace Team, who ask how I am coping then mention, casually, the swingeing fines that will be imposed on me if I cross the threshold; this is followed up by text messages on alternate days saying the same thing. Concerned friends have called, asking after my welfare. It is all rather touching (I didn’t think anyone cared) but, the truth is, dear reader, I am one of the lucky ones and am loafing. Apparently the PCR test is pretty accurate and the likelihood of me being a ‘false positive’ is not great; however, as far as I can gather, around 20% of those people tested positive have no symptoms at all. I guess I am one of the latter, but the mystery of how I caught the virus while Jane remained untouched, remains a mystery. Maybe it does not affect Venusians.
There are perks, of course. One must always look on the bright side. I am now excused all duties and have, for my personal and individual use, (a) the electric blanket; (b) the bedroom television with access to Clint Eastwood films; (c) the en-suite bathroom and shower; (d) the en-suite lavatory with seat left up; (e) the electric toothbrush and (f) the power to go to sleep or to get up whenever I want. It is quite heady stuff. Jane, for her part, has the spare bedroom (negative electric blanket and Warm Man); the main bathroom, shower over bath, lavatory seat in lowered position; and the downstairs lavatory, ditto lavatory seat status, designated The Lady Toilet. No contest really: no wonder she’s grumpy – she misses me, bless her; I can tell. As I write this, by the way, it is Day 9 of quarantine and I am still perfectly healthy; it must be the way she looks after me.
My isolation ends at 2359 GMT on Saturday and Jane has a bottle of bubbly on ice to facilitate the celebration. I did suggest that Jane sneak into my bed at 0002 GMT on Sunday in a sort of pretend lovers’ tryst to spice up the ennui, but she said she would be asleep at that time. She had a twinkle in her eye when she mentioned Sunday morning but, when I enquired further, it turned out that she was looking forward to me making the early-morning tea again. That’s married life for you.
Oh yes, I forgot to mention that we completed our month of ultra-strict diet on Monday and, at Weigh In, I had lost 5.7 kg, or 13 lb in old units, during January. We have reverted to to the 5:2 diet now, with the “2” bit (two days of only 800 calories) kicking off next week. We had cottage pie on Monday night followed by, in Jane’s case, a choc ice. That meal was divine.
Well, the new robot vacuum cleaner has arrived from Austria, having been ordered on 31 December. I think it must have come here under its own power judging by the delay though, to be fair, the tardiness was because of Brexit and the resulting paperwork involved. The machine works an absolute treat. The old one lasted for about 15 years before giving off its last spark and refusing to move further than one foot from its charger. This one really is whizzo dizzo and it talks to you occasionally to tell you to pull your finger out and empty its dirt bin. Jane is very taken with it, not least because it is relatively quiet after its predecessor, which used to wind up like an RB211 on take off. The new one is an iRobot Roomba 980 and I have called in Marvin to make it feel part of the family.
The rapid implementation of the Covid 19 vaccination programme appears to be having a good effect, such that the rate of positive tests is now dropping at 25% a week, as is the rate of hospital admissions (22%). Weekly deaths are also falling, currently at 13%. The overall absolute figures remain at a high level, however, and there were 1,014 deaths in the UK in the last 24 hours. Evidence has emerged that vaccination reduces transmissibility by nearly 70%, which augurs well for the lifting of social distancing, but the government – perhaps rightly – is a little wary of relaxing lockdown earlier than March or April. Concern that the scientists and the government may be moving the goalposts on the criteria for lifting restrictions (Blog 77) continues and the matter has been raised in Cabinet. I see that the Isle of Man has not only come out of its own brief lockdown, but has removed all social distancing measures entirely: pubs and restaurants have opened, theatres are putting on plays and life has returned to normal (the island has its own government and is not technically part of the UK). Of course, the Isle of Man closed its borders some time ago and remains closed to any visitors.
Looking back at my early blogs from Spring last year, I see that I was conscious of every week of lockdown, counting off the weeks like a prisoner doing porridge. Almost a year later I sense that we are all becoming inured to the situation now, taking each day as it comes with dull lifeless eyes and grateful for any crumbs that the government throws to us. We are beginning to suffer a kind of Stockholm Syndrome. That is why I think that, when all this is over and the POW camp gates are thrown open, we will still want to stay inside the compound, wearing our comfort face nappies and afraid to go out or go near anyone. Rehabilitation will take quite a while, I fear. It is interesting that, in the Isle of Man, the Manx government has asked residents to be tolerant of those of its citizens who may choose to continue with their own social distancing measures such as wearing masks. I infer from this that some Manxmen are emerging from their holes with considerable caution. I will not be following their example when the time comes.
The late naval author John Winton once said that a typical wardroom argument in HM ships took the form of a flat statement, followed by a flat contradiction, followed by personal abuse. I think that that could now be expanded into many sections of society ashore today, and we are beginning to see a lot of it at the moment: the strategy of playing the player not the ball. This is evident in all areas of social interaction, but is none more obvious than in our present situation with Covid 19. Putting to one side the arguments of the conspiracy theorists who think that the Corona vaccine contains a microchip that will be used to monitor and control us, there do happen to be members of the scientific community out there who disagree with the current strategy to tackling the virus. Their qualifications may be just as good as the official government advisors and their arguments may be just as valid. There may also be members of the public who are perfectly capable of reading the government statistics, analysing them for themselves, and coming to a different conclusion from the official line. At the very least, the matters they raise should be heard, examined and debated and, if appropriate, rejected based on logic. What we have instead is that anyone (appropriately qualified or not) who challenges the True Faith, founded on the shrine of Lockdown and celebrated by the communion of The Face Mask, is personally vilified, labelled as a crank, and their advice or views are dismissed out of hand. Worse, learned papers are simply suppressed without peer review or are deleted from history as being inconvenient. No attempt is made to examine any evidence put forward, to talk about it sensibly or to consider that – occasionally – these people might just, possibly, be right; instead we have the 21st century equivalents of the witch hunt and being burnt at the stake to cries of ‘heretic’. It is as if we have learned nothing from the Ancient Greeks who took pride in practising debate, rhetoric and logic, and brought us democracy: we, as the human race, are the poorer for this current narrow minded zealotry.
Of course, in writing that last paragraph, I freely admit that it is contrary to the views that I put forward early in the epidemic in Blog 44, in which I advocated One Official Strategy and declared that this was no time for fannying about with debate. But then, there you have it: the perfect balanced argument.
Now tell me: why can I not buy a decent pair of trousers anymore? The ones on sale either have ‘stretch’ waists to kid the owner that he is not really putting on weight, narrow bottoms like the drainpipe trousers of the 1960s, or a truncated fly opening. Of all of these drawbacks, this last is probably the most irritating. I first came across the phenomenon on a third-party basis some years ago when I was in a public lavatory, pointing silently at the porcelain as we men do. I was considerably disconcerted when I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, the bloke next to me undoing his belt and starting to drop his trousers. “Oh my God”, I thought,”It must be my hairstyle that attracted him”. Thankfully, the disrobing stopped there and the bloke carried on as if things were perfectly normal. I tackled a friend on this and asked if he had had a similar experience. He explained that it was because some trousers now came supplied with only half the length of fly zip; consequently, undoing the whole garment was the only way to – you know – gain full access to the equipment. Now I find myself in possession of just such a pair of trousers with half a fly zip and it is, indeed, a lengthy operation to perform what used to be a quick and easy natural function. What is the mindset on that? Are the tailors saving money on zips? Come to think of it, the shirt tails aren’t as long as they used to be either, but perhaps that is in order to serve those members of the male community who choose to walk around with their shirt tails hanging out like errant and defiant schoolboys (I suppose it does hide their pot bellies).
The Beast From the East is expected to return this weekend after a relatively mild spell in the south of England (14C at one point). I use the term ‘England’ advisedly because poor old Scotland has not had much respite from the freeze (-12C last week in Altnaharra in the Highlands). Although we are a relatively small country we still encounter quite a difference in weather between the extreme south of England and the extreme north of Scotland (about 700 miles). I remember when we lived near Glasgow and I had business in London. I left a very cold and flooded Scotland to fly south and found, in London, people sitting outside pubs and restaurants in the sunshine and in their shirt sleeves. A few years ago I was asked to give a lecture to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) in Thurso (about as far as you can go north on the mainland) and I opted to do it in April when I thought the weather would be reasonable. Thinking we would make something of a holiday of it, Jane and I stayed with friends who very kindly put us up in Cullen (home of the Cullen skink), roughly two thirds of the way up Scotland and due east of Inverness; I reasoned that the trip to Thurso from there would be a half skip and jump. How wrong I was. The rickety train journey from Inverness to Thurso, on a single rail track with a passing place in the middle, took forever and passed through just about every type of winter weather system going. At one point the train ground to a halt in the middle of a wilderness that would have done justice to a scene from the film Braveheart. We wondered what the problem was, but then I saw the guard walking along beside the train carrying an enormous crowbar. He and the driver then set-to on the points, which had become frozen and jammed. This little DIY job seemed to work and we were eventually on our way, but in order to make up the time the train driver decided to miss out Thurso from one of his stops and carry straight on to his final destination in Wick; passengers for Thurso (including us) were dropped off at some tiny halt in the middle of nowhere to await a minibus. We unhappy few huddled in the tiny waiting room (which, thankfully, was heated) for over an hour while day grew darker and the sleet and snow lashed at the windows like something out of an Agatha Christie murder mystery. Eventually an old minibus taxi turned up and we piled in to be driven across the highlands, the vehicle frequently veering across the road as gusts of wind blasted across the heather and glen. We made Thurso eventually and it was freezing, but the lecture went well: I suppose me turning up was the only excitement the engineers of the IMechE had that year. Thurso: nice place, nice people, but go in July next time. Cullen, after that, was positively tropical (or so it seemed).
The snowdrops are coming up and Jane was out in the garden yesterday, talking to the other plants and making a mess. Daylight is increasing at two minutes every day. Soon, I am sure, we too will be blossoming out into the human beings that we once were. Roll on Spring.
5 February 2021
"A Very Vintage Chap..." 
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