Blog 81. There’s Never a Python Around When You Need One.

It was the water-jet flosser that started it.  You must have come across one of these things: they are battery-powered devices that you fill with water and then use to pressure-wash your teeth before brushing them.  They obviate the need to floss your teeth or fine-clean them using those little TeePee brushes.  They take a bit of getting used to, but they are very effective and save quite a bit of time and hassle if, like me, you otherwise have to use three different sizes of inter tooth brush and tend to break the brushes in the process anyway.  I yearn for the old days when I just brushed my teeth by hand perfunctorily, night and day; now I am a prisoner to my electric toothbrush, which forces me to clean for exactly two minutes each time, and to my dental hygienist who harangues me twice a year if the slightest bit of plaque is left on my teeth.  Anyway, to get back to my story.  Jane and I were doing our separate things in our small en-suite bathroom one morning, me cleaning my teeth and she climbing into the shower and grumbling about people being in the way (“people” = one person, me).  The water-jet flosser, while worthy and effective in so many ways, is somewhat wanting in the ergonomic department and the controls are not of the best (I write as an engineer).  It just so happened that I accidentally pressed the ‘ON’ button as Jane was pontificating about the crowded bathroom and a thin stream of cold high-pressure water may possibly have shot out and hit her between the eyes.   Fearing immediate retribution, I immediately apologised profusely and explained the delicacy of the controls.  However, in my terror and nervousness (always present when Jane is at the First Degree of Readiness), my disabled finger (see Blog 67) gave a twitch and sent out a second stream, this time onto Jane’s, err, chest area.  I’m afraid that triggered the conflict.  Now, a word of advice: if you are going to engage in a fight (intentionally or accidentally) then always ensure that you have the biggest weapon and the best armour.  In the Blue corner was me: partly dressed and brandishing one small hand-held makeshift water pistol firing a 0.5mm jet of cold water, magazine ¾ empty; in the Red corner was Jane, naked, brandishing a large shower spray firing a deluge of cold water, magazine unlimited.  No contest really.  In the melée that followed I was totally soaked, the bathroom was awash, and Jane was no wetter than she was to start with.  Eventually an armistice was agreed, though my explanation that the whole thing was an accident caused by my disability was rejected.  My protestation that I was traumatised after being discriminated against as a war veteran (sort of) and one who was digitally challenged was also dismissed.  I was given the job of mopping up the floor and replacing the sodden towels.  My clothes were soaked and had to be changed.  Sometimes you can see how wars are started.

I am going to break with tradition and write something that some readers may consider to be insensitive or hurtful (no change there then): from the moment we were born into this world, it was inevitable that we were going to die – not ‘pass away’, not ‘go to sleep’ , not ’cross the bar’ as we sailors would have it; we are all going to die.  Some of us will die in great pain or while disabled; some of us may die earlier than we would wish; some of us will have to watch our friends, children or loved ones die and the mental pain and bereavement will be almost unbearable.  We will also get ill in the course of our lives and that may be a very unpleasant, painful or debilitating process.  These two things, death and illness, are facts of life and we should face up to the fact. 
Why then, in the present Covid 19 epidemic, is it the apparent aim of the UK government to try to eliminate illness and death, specifically to eliminate all Covid 19 infections and Covid-related deaths entirely?  I refer of course, to the fact that – as predicted in Blog 77 and Blog 79 – the government has moved the goalposts in terms of the criteria for lifting lockdown and returning to a normal life.  The original approach to tackling Covid 19 was a sensible and pragmatic one: to achieve a situation in which the UK hospitals were not so overwhelmed by Covid patients that they could not function properly.  The stance recognised that, in the majority of young healthy people, Covid 19 could be very unpleasant, but would be overcome after bedrest at home for about two weeks.  As part of the overall strategy, the newly-developed vaccination programme prioritised that section of the population that was most likely to need hospital treatment or die in the event of being infected, namely the older people and those with underlying health conditions, and the programme has been a great success.  So far so good, and infection rates and deaths from Covid 19 are falling rapidly.   Now, the government has allegedly changed its plan.  The aim now would appear to be not solely to ease pressure on the hospitals, but to achieve a far more ambitious goal of achieving fewer than (it is speculated) 1,000 Covid 19 infections in a UK population of about 67,000,000 people. The acceptance that some people would catch the virus, but overcome it naturally while acquiring herd immunity, is apparently no longer valid: it must be stamped out entirely.  I am certainly not medically qualified, but it does seem to me that that goal can never be achieved.  Like all viruses, this one has mutated to several different forms already and it will continue to do so.  We cannot even stamp out the Common Cold or influenza.  The existing vaccines have, or will have, various degrees of effectiveness on each mutation but, in any case, they do not guarantee complete immunity even from the original strain; they may merely reduce the severity of the infection if you catch the disease.  The truth is, we are stuck with this virus just as we are stuck with a whole host of others such as HIV, measles, chickenpox, pneumonia and – yes – influenza: all potentially lethal diseases in certain circumstances.  We are going to have to live with Covid 19 and accept that it is now endemic.  We cannot continue to live like this: locked up and isolated; neglecting those who are ill from other causes; leaving whole generations uneducated;  miserable and distrustful of others; separated from our loved ones; and – significantly – not making money to fund our very existences.  By all means lift lockdown in stages and on the basis of data rather than according to a timetable: that is very sensible.  But let us be pragmatic and philosophical in our approach and set reasonable criteria for a return to normality: we cannot eliminate all illness, and the suggestion (by one scientist) that people should not be going to work if they have even a cough is not realistic or practical.  We cannot lock ourselves away forever.  It will be interesting to see what the prime minister proposes in his review and broadcast to the nation on 22 February (a relaxation to allow us to sit on a park bench with a member of our household and a flask of coffee has been mentioned – I can hardly wait.)

Having said all that, realism, practicality, common sense and – dare I say it – irony are not strong qualities in 2021.  The chairman of the UK accounting firm KPMG has been suspended after his staff complained that he had told them not to stop moaning about the pandemic and to get on with life – strong words that must have really upset the poor little snowflakes.  Elsewhere, a member of the City of London’s governing body has come under fire for saying that staff at the Barbican Arts Centre should stop feeling sorry for themselves as at least they still had their jobs.  Meanwhile, in Wales, a board member of the supermarket chain Iceland has been sacked for making tongue-in-cheek comments about the Welsh and their language.   Even the highly successful and entrepreneurial founder of Pimlico Plumbers in London has attracted some criticism for telling his staff, “no jab, then no job”.  These are all symptoms of the modern belief that everyone has a right not to be offended.  Good grief: I am offended almost every day, sometimes by watching or listening to a current affairs programme on the television or radio, by reading opinions or letters in newspapers, or (rarely) by people I meet in real life; I do not demand that the people who offend me be sacked or eliminated.  I have said it once and I say it again: I would never last five minutes in today’s workplace.  And as I have also said before, “Get a grip out there for God’s sake”.

In a recent survey in the UK, 49% of workers said that they would look for another job if their bosses did not permit flexible working hours after the current epidemic.  Given that 10% of the UK working population is currently unemployed or is “furloughed”, the option of changing jobs may not be available to them.  We are very cosseted in the 21st century, and times have moved on since we stuffed children up chimneys to clean them or since wives with turbans around their hair beat their laundry on stones in the stream by the Harton Dye Works.  This, on the whole, is a Good Thing (though, note, that we never had any graffiti when boys were put down the coal mines).  The downside, however, is that we have become – well – soft, and blind to the hazards of life that still exist: people fall off cliffs, then relatives complain that the local council did not put up railings or signs telling people not to walk off cliffs; folk go on safari then seem surprised when their nearest and dearest is eaten by a lion.  To illustrate my point, let me relate a story told to me by a naval Surgeon Commander.  He had been attached to the Royal Marines at one point in his career and accompanied a group of reservists who were to undertake jungle training in Belize.  They had been told to rig hammocks to sleep in as it was not wise to lie on the ground at night; they were also advised to keep themselves well covered up in their sleeping bags because of the various creepy crawlies that abound in a jungle.  One marine reservist had a particularly fitful sleep, not least because he was hot and uncomfortable: he tossed and turned all night and flung his arms out to cool off.  Eventually he woke fully and could not get back to sleep; his arm felt heavy and had gone to sleep, and he flexed it to get the circulation going.  What followed was an experience that, no doubt, stayed with him for the rest of his life.  He looked over is shoulder down at his arm and there were a pair of eyes looking at him from six inches away.  He focussed further down, and his arm was not there.  A large boa had swallowed his entire arm and was working its way up to swallowing the more difficult bit, namely his shoulders, head and the rest of him.  Of course, he went ballistic and screamed the place down (wouldn’t you?).  The rest of the team rallied round, killed the snake, and cut the thing off him. In the light of a torch, they found that the boa had digested his combat jacket and the epidermis of his arm, and the stomach acid was making inroads on the dermis itself.  The man had to be given tranquillisers to calm him down as well as pain killers to ease the trauma.  My doctor friend did not say whether the man’s arm recovered.  Now that, I put it to you, is what I call being traumatised.  Compare that to the experience of students at Exeter University who were recently advised by the president of their debating society of a list of resources that they could consult if they had been traumatised by a university debate with the motion: “This house regrets the rise of the snowflake generation.”  You never have a pet snake around when you need one, do you?

As I write, the number of Covid infections in the UK has dropped two thirds since January.  Positive outcomes to Covid 19 tests over the last 24 hours stand at 12,027 (dropping 20% weekly); deaths from Covid 19 over the last 24 hours stand at 533 (dropping 28% weekly) and the number of hospital admissions in the last 24 hours was 1,490 (dropping at 24% weekly).  This reflects falling statistics in much of the rest of the world, so may not be entirely attributable to our lockdown and vaccination programme, though I hope it is.  About 17 million people (over 25% of the population) have been vaccinated and the immunisation programme is currently tackling those aged between 60 and 69.   There has been much debate about the concept of a “vaccination passport”: a document that would confirm that the holder had received the Covid 19 vaccine and which would permit them to enter cinemas, theatres, restaurants etc or to travel abroad.  The attraction of the “passport” is that it might enable the country to open up, and people to work and socialise early, as well as encourage the take-up of the vaccine; the disadvantage is that the concept goes against the principle of civil liberties and might be discriminatory. I am inclined to favour the idea, but then I am biased because I have had the jab and would do almost anything to get back my freedom to roam at will without a mask again.  Many things in life are “discriminatory”, such as having to have a driving licence to drive a car or having to have a medical degree to practise as a doctor.  I have to have an international vaccination certificate for  Hepatitis or Yellow Fever before I can go to certain countries; how is this any different?  Perhaps a compromise would be to introduce the “passport” for a temporary period in the transition to normal life, but then drop it after a pre-defined period.

Jane and I are still hale and hearty after our first (Oxford) vaccinations.  I had some very mild cold-like symptoms for three or four days, but I sorted that out with a couple of paracetamol; Jane had no reaction at all.  Here in Melbury our climate has moved on from the cold spell reported in the last blog and is now going through a fickle mild phase (something to do with warm air from the Mediterranean and the Sahara), with mixed sunshine, strong winds and showers at 10C.  Jane has brought some of her seedlings, saplings and shoots inside and they are now taking up residence in the Garden Control Tower where they are leaving little muddy trails on the windowsills.  She talks to them and gives them a drink every day. Yesterday, in the sunshine, she was back in her beloved garden doing Things (I am not sure what) and so she was very happy.  I have finished my major project of making a large model ship for the grandson that I will never have and am now pondering on what to make next.  The garage workshop now boasts a fan heater, a kettle and the makings for tea, so is rapidly developing into the Man Cave that (almost) all males aspire towards. Meanwhile,  Jane wants a sink in her garden shed, despite the fact that (a) there is nowhere to put it, (b) there is no water supply and (c) there is no drainage; I think she will have to whistle for that one, but I may offer her the use of my kettle.

Imagine a world in which you get up in the morning and it is freezing cold.   It is pre-dawn and so you turn on the lights, but nothing happens.  Muttering about another power cut, you wrap your dressing gown around you and pad through to the bathroom to clean your teeth, but no water comes out of the tap and the lavatory won’t flush.  The landline is down and so is your computer access to the internet.   A bad dream?  A scene from some dystopian science fiction television series?  No.  It is what has happened to some people in Texas, where the state is suffering heavy snow and very severe weather that has cut the electrical supply.  People have died from carbon monoxide poisoning as they huddled in their cars with the engine running to get warm; others have just died in the street from the cold.  Part of the reason for this situation is the dependence on electricity as a main source of energy and the vulnerability of that supply to weaknesses in distribution: as a huge country, the USA delivers a lot of its electricity on overhead power lines, which are vulnerable to severe storms; moreover, apparently Texas is supplied by its own electrical power grid, independent of the rest of the USA, for historical reasons that might loosely be summarised as wishing to remain semi independent as the Lone Star state, and to avoid control from the federal government. While the UK does suffer power cuts from time to time, they are seldom long-lasting or life-threatening except in those rural districts where, like in the USA, overhead power lines dominate the distribution system for economic reasons.  We are very lucky in that regard.  Now, I mention all this because two items of energy-related news have appeared in the UK press over the last few weeks.  The first is that the UK government intends to phase out the use of gas boilers to heat new homes by the mid 2030s (ie in fifteen years or so);  the second is that a study has claimed that open fires and log-burning stoves are said to triple indoor air pollution, with the result that the UK government intends to ban the sale of coal, wet wood, and certain types of fire, from this year.  It is amazing that huge swathes of the older UK population, including me, are still alive and healthy after being warmed all our lives by these sources of energy.  Putting aside the enormous psychological and thermodynamic advantages of warming one’s backside on a solid-fuel fire or stove, the new UK policy puts an enormous dependency on electricity for our heat, light, communication, water, sanitation and power.   In other words, there is a great danger of us putting all our eggs in one basket.  Our electricity grid is already in urgent need of an upgrade in order to cope with the impending huge demand from charging electric cars (and now electrically-heated houses), a situation aggravated by the shutting down of obsolete or coal-fired power stations and a much delayed nuclear power programme.  Soon, if we are not careful, the lamps will – indeed – be going out all over Europe and it will be us, not just the Texans, who are freezing to death or washing ourselves with baby wipes in the absence of water.  Lest you feel I am being anti ‘Green’  in that prophecy, I should point out that I consider the avoidance of pollution and minimising man’s contribution to climate change to be very important and worthy goals; however, they have to be tempered by the pragmatic engineering problems of how to generate enough electricity in a small island when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing.  An old friend of mine once said to me,
“Take away the modern public’s iPads and iPhones, their social media platforms, their Xboxes and their Netflix, and they will burn babies in the power stations if that’s what it takes to get the electricity back on”. 
And you thought I was a cynic.  It is a somewhat blunt viewpoint, but I hope you will concede the point he was making about our modern world, being ignorant on how electricity is produced and the practical limitations of Green policies. Let’s hope those babies in Texas are safe.

I hope you noticed that I did not write “Texas, USA” in that last paragraph? I was very tempted to do so in retribution for all those irritating American films that bear the caption “London, England” on scenes of our capital or “Rome, Italy” on scenes of the coliseum. But that would have been childish and petty, wouldn’t it?

Now this is interesting (stop moaning at the back).  I see from The Times that a computer expert in Japan has developed an on-line mapping program that allows people to report anti-social behaviour in their local area.  The dorozuko (road tribe) has become particularly popular at this time because so many people are required to work at home, and all noise can be a distraction.  So far, the system has drawn reports about “children running around and playing in a group making strange cries”, “noisy neighbours and smoke” at a barbecue, and the racket from skateboards, bicycles, street football and barking dogs.  The site has, apparently, proved very popular with the Japanese as a guide to where not to live or rent, and has attracted many favourable comments.  It might even act as a deterrent to noisy neighbours.
I am thinking of moving to Japan.  Now where’s that vaccination passport?

19 February 2021