Tragedy: the ice machine is broken. No more gins and tonic, no more Horse’s Necks, no more Pimms: not unless you like your drinks warm. This is truly a disaster. Well, we have had that ice machine for at least 15 years, so I suppose it has had a good innings. I could tell that there was something wrong with it when I noticed the rust among the ice cubes (just brushed it off without telling her – a little iron in one’s diet will do no harm). Later, I found a rusty mild steel bracket in there and I knew then that our loyal and trusty servant had coughed up its last ice cube. Out it went onto the pile of junk that awaits an opportunity to visit the recycling centre; into the freezer went the old-fashioned ice trays that you can never extract the ice cubes from. These are desperate times, and needs must. We have, of course, immediately ordered a new ice machine and it is due this week. Warm gin and tonic? I don’t think so – it could be the end of civilisation as we know it.

The ice is important because the warm sunny weather in England continues without a break (26C [79F] today). Jane is fretting over her garden because the ground is like concrete and her precious charges are gasping for water. The rainwater butts emptied yesterday, so all that rain that we collected over the long wet soggy winter has now gone. The hose has been rigged and it is only a matter of time before Jane asks for the sprinkler to be deployed; already, Horatio’s highly sophisticated Hozelock drip irrigation system for her pots and hanging baskets has been brought into operation, and soon that little gauge in the water meter will be spinning like a top. Before long, I dare say, a hosepipe ban will be brought in to add to the everyday restrictions of our lives.

All this lovely weather and we are still stuck at home, but there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon: outdoor markets, car showrooms and some schools will open on 1 June, and other ordinary shops will open two weeks after that. Predictably, a whole host of restrictive practices are being mooted to accompany the opening up process, such as shoes that have been tried on being quarantined for 24 hours, closed fitting rooms, and sofas in furniture shops being cleaned after anyone has sat on them. Paradoxically, Joe Public, who is apparently terrified of returning to work, is flooding the beauty spots, parks, beaches and promenades with no social distancing at all. I have come to the conclusion that people can be grouped into roughly three camps: those who are genuinely terrified of catching and dying from CV19 and never cross their threshold; those who think that the virus is little worse than influenza and think that restrictions should be lifted immediately; and those with an open mind on our vulnerability to the pandemic, but who are conforming broadly to the law for a quiet life. At one point early on I thought the three camps could be defined by their age group, with the older generation featuring high among the pragmatists; however, I have now come to the conclusion that the camps cannot be defined by age alone. It is all most curious and, when this is all over (as it will be), psychologists will have a field day analysing it all. As I write, the number of CV19 cases in hospital stands at just over 8,000, and daily deaths from CV19 in the UK stands at 134, both figures still falling. My own trend curve, based on regression of an exponential form and data since the peak at mid April, indicates that the daily total of deaths will fall to zero somewhere near the end of July, all things being equal.

Saints be praised, some other creature has stepped up to the line to replace me as Public Garden Enemy Number 1. Mr Pigeon now has the top slot in Jane’s mind. Mr Pigeon sits on Jane’s plants and squashes them. Mr Pigeon (and not I) is responsible for broken stalks and flowers. Mr Pigeon sits and poops in the bird bath and tries to steal seed from the bird feeder to the detriment of the little song birds. Mr Pigeon is hated and, if he is not careful, will soon be gracing our dinner plates as a dead pigeon. I tried to point out to Jane that Mr Pigeon is one of God’s creatures and is only looking for a home for himself and Mrs Pigeon, but the argument did not cut the mustard with the Head Gardener. That Pigeon has to go. She is already reaching for the air pistol.

I may not have mentioned before that I have other duties in the Shacklepin household as well as the onerous one of Executive Command. My secondary tasks can be summarised by the four Ds: Drinks, Decks, Dhobying and DIY. “Drinks” I have covered in an earlier blog and “Decks” (swabbing and vacuuming thereof) are self-explanatory. Dhobying, however, is worth an expansion as it brings with it so many credit points in the memsahib’s little black book: I do all the washing and all the ironing, tasks that she detests. I enjoy ironing because it enables me to don sound-reducing headphones and listen to audiobooks, radio plays or language courses in my own little world. Naturally, this state of self-imposed incommunicado drives Jane mad, for she hates me being outside her sphere of influence, rather like when the lunar module is detached from the mother ship to visit the far side of the moon. Of course, she dare not express her frustration overtly: to do so would risk her being landed with doing the washing and ironing herself. Instead, her annoyance manifests itself in her trying to talk to me when I am shut down (so to speak). She will wait until I have a complete incommunicado ironing operation under way with all its impedimenta, then she will direct a question at me. This I will be unable to hear because of the sound-reducing headphones and a man telling me how to conjugate verbs in French, but I will know that it is a question for me because of her body language in my sightline. A response requires me to stop ironing, grovel in my pocket for the iPod, drop it, pick it up, stop the programme, unhitch the headphones, and ask her to repeat the question. She will then apologise profusely for interrupting my listening session, state that the question was unimportant, and carry on with whatever she was doing before (with, I suspect, a secret smile to herself that she has re-established the pecking order of who has priority for my attention). This process carries on in a do-loop with a frequency period of about ten minutes and continues until the ironing is finished. It is for this reason that I have never been able to get beyond the past imperfect in French.

My allusion to credit points in the last paragraph refers, of course, to the relevant section of The Book. Regular readers will recall from Blog 43 that The Book is Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps by psychologists Allan and Barbara Pease, and it explains the differences in how men and women think. In The Book, the authors postulate that women keep a subconscious record of plus and minus points tallied against their husband’s behaviour. Naturally, they will deny this because it is a subconscious act, but it does happen apparently. As an experiment, the authors asked couples to keep separate written tallies of credit points against items of male behaviour ie the wife recorded her tally, and the husband recorded his own assessment of his own actions. At the end of a month they compared the two assessments. On one occasion, the husband had spent an entire Saturday helping his son assemble a model of a B17 Flying Fortress, and duly awarded himself ten points. When he compared this task to his wife’s score for the same event, he found she had awarded him just three points. He was baffled: he had missed an important football match to do that bonding session with his son. Why so low a score? She replied that she had only given him three points because, despite the task taking up a whole day, he had enjoyed doing it. Yet, bafflingly for him, she had awarded him nine points in her own record for presenting her with a posy of wild flowers, something he had awarded himself only two points for. The reason? Because he had taken the trouble to pick the flowers himself. Yes, that dhobying and ironing is worth so many credits points. Let’s face it, I have a lot of demerits to make up for.

Well, the new car is going well. Or as well as I can judge from the few times that I have been able to use it. We only bought the mighty machine (a new Nissan Leaf) on 5 March and lockdown descended on us on 23 March, so we have hardly driven anywhere other than the supermarkets. Being all electric, it excels at short trips and I derive immense smug satisfaction from my green credentials. Actually, that is not the reason why I bought it (heaven forbid): I just feel, as an engineer, that one should have as efficient a system or machine as is possible and I love the way the car regenerates energy when braking. I hate wasted energy (hence my aversion to sport). Our previous car, a Volvo with a petrol engine, barely reached operating temperature on our shopping trips and – consequently – rarely achieved better than 30 mpg on short journeys; with this new vehicle, of course, the distance covered is unrelated to its efficiency. The other great thing about the car is that you can pre-condition it before going out: you can tell it what temperature you want the interior to be before departure and it will duly deliver, hot or cold, using power from the grid. On sunny days we charge the car for free because we have photovoltaic panels on our roof; on dull days we charge the car off-peak during the wee small hours. Driving the electric car takes a little getting used to at first. You have the option to select ‘Eco,’ which limits the acceleration to the benefit of battery range; or ‘E Pedal’, which maximises regenerative braking; or both. With ‘E Pedal’ selected you can drive the car solely using the accelerator pedal: lift your foot off and the car comes to a stop, like a Dodgem car at the fair; you rarely need to use the brake pedal except in an emergency. Of course, the whole set up is geared towards the driver minimising all energy losses and driving economically. Deselect the ‘Eco’ switch and the ‘E Pedal’ switch, however, and the car takes off like a dingbat when you accelerate. I cannot recall the precise figure, but I seem to recall that she will do 0 – 60 mph in about 7 seconds; it certainly feels pretty fast to me. Range is probably the main concern with electric cars. This varies with the ambient temperature, how you drive the car, and the number of accessories (including heater and air conditioning) that you have running. With heating and air conditioning shut off, the present indicated range of my car at 23C is 172 miles; take seven miles off that if you switch on the climate control. I have yet to put it to the test. Charge time on a fast charger, such as is found in motorway service areas or public carparks, is 45 minutes to bring the battery up to 80% charge. Again, I have yet to put it to the test. Watch this space.

You can put away your tin hat and re-emerge from that earthquake shelter. Assume Third Degree of Readiness. Jane’s passport application (Blog 46) has been approved. Hallelujah.

We had quite a scare on one of our walks the other day, when I was convinced that I was coming down with the virus. It was shortly after the government formally recognised the loss of taste as a symptom of the illness and we had just completed an arduous climb. The memsahib had recourse to break out the emergency ration of boiled sweets in order to restore our blood sugar and, to my horror, I could not taste a thing. I tried to keep calm as I drew Jane’s attention to the problem, not wishing to alarm her (the loss of her Chief Dhoby Wallah and Shirt Presser Boy would have been a serious blow to her horticultural ambitions).
She was puzzled, as her sweet tasted fine.
“You did take off the clingfilm I presume?”
“Oh”
It seems she had wrapped the sweets individually before our departure in order to avoid the sweets picking up fluff and other detritus from her trouser pocket. Well how was I to know? I had not been properly briefed. This was very poor, I expostulated. She just rolled her eyes: dumb insolence. What her poor father must have had to put up with.
The boiled sweet, sans clingfilm, was very nice – thank you for asking.

I leave you with a prayer:
“Please God, after you have made me more tolerant of my fellow creatures (or maybe before that if at all possible), please send these noisy little beggars back to school. Please”.

28 May 2020

“Alexa, play Classic FM”
So begins our breakfast on most days, and I mention it because it exemplifies the valuable contribution that classical music has on one’s mood. It can lift one up (Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams), or bring one down (Mars from the Planet Suite by Gustav Holst). I also mention the ubiquitous Alexa because she provides that extra degree of control, the digital bluetooth equivalent of the television remote control mentioned in the last blog: as soon as the advertisements or a particularly raucous musical piece comes on, the command is,
“Alexa pause”.
It gives me an immense sense of power to give an order and have it instantly obeyed; it makes for a taut, happy ship.
If only life itself were so simple and we could shut off the things we do not want to see or hear: men wearing shorts in winter or socks with sandals; women with piercings in strange places; people with tattoos; folk wearing dirty white gym shoes instead of polished shoes; gratuitous music from car sound systems; Audi drivers….the list is endless. Alas, we are stuck with peoples’ little foibles, just as they are stuck with mine. But returning to that classical music, it really can make a difference to the day and I would venture to suggest that the radio station I mention has played an important part in maintaining the Shacklepin morale. Of course, there are other radio stations, not all of them classical, but this one is our favourite. Having said that, if left on her own, Jane has been known to go off piste and play the more contemporary music of her youth: the music of the late 1960s and the 1970s that is played by Smooth Radio. I know this because, when I am working in my study located above the kitchen where she is dismembering dead animals, all I can hear is THUMP-THUMP-THUMP of her music. Is it called “heavy metal”? I have no idea. I also get a taste of her music when she drives the car, for we have yet another rule in the Shacklepin household: the driver of the car gets to decide what (if anything) is played on the radio. That person, the Driver, is invested with Special Command as defined by the Queens Regulations (Royal Navy). As the driver, I favour the spoken word, such as BBC Radio 4 or BBC Radio 4 Extra; Jane favours music, usually Smooth Radio. That is not to say that I do not like Jane’s choice of music, for usually her taste chimes with mine; it is just that I find classical music or the spoken word less distracting when concentrating or when offering my profound views on the latest revelations in the news.

Our other indulgence in the panoply of entertainment is to listen to The Archers omnibus on Sunday mornings on the wireless, a pastime that is, alas, no longer available to us in the present Emergency.  For the benefit of any readers who are not British, The Archers is the world’s longest running radio drama which is normally aired for 15 minutes every weekday.  Originally “a tale of everyday countryfolk” it was introduced in 1951 as a gentle way of re-educating the public and the farming community in agriculture, and reviving British farming after WW2.  It is now more of a contemporary drama set in a fictional rural setting.  The acting is very good and some of the issues that emerge as part of the drama are thought-provoking, though I still preferred it when it was more gentle and agrarian.  It is the only soap opera that Jane and I follow and, even then, we are not rabid listeners and sometimes we miss a few episodes.  It is the sort of programme that you can easily dip into or out of, yet soon pick up the thread.  That said, The Archers has always had its hard core of devotees.  In the mid 1950s my father was serving in a ship passing in thick fog at night through the Straits of Dover, a very hazardous waterway even in clear visibility.  Lookouts were closed up on the fo’csle and bridge wings, the siren blasted long every two minutes, the rudimentary radar was manned: it was all very tense.  Suddenly, at 1900, the Captain exclaimed,
“Oh!  The Archers!”
Whereupon he shot off the bridge and down the companionway to his cabin, where he remained for the next fifteen minutes.  The First and Second Mates, the helmsman, and the spare deckhand were astonished, having found themselves literally at sea; but they soon came to realise that it was just one of those little eccentricities that all Captains of ships seem to have.  Of course, the Captain returned when the show was over, and carried on as if nothing had happened.  They did not hit anything.

I used to play on my father’s ships regularly in harbour and, from the age of nine, would sometimes travel with him on trips to London (he served in coasters up to 1968).  It was a grand childhood.  My father (who was the First Mate) would just leave me to it: I would board the ship, which usually was moored midstream to buoys, by swarming up a long rope ladder from the ship’s Jolly Boat; I would cox the Jolly Boat on my own; I would visit the ship’s holds or engine room; I would go everywhere.  My father taught me coastal navigation, stability, knotting and splicing and boat handling.  No lifejackets, no safety briefing, no supervision.  Today, the Health and Safety lobby would have a fit and I would not be allowed anywhere near a ship; then, in the 1950s and 1960s, the term had not been invented.  I was seasick on every trip with him and, no doubt, was a burden too, but he still took me to sea with him every year and it never put me off a maritime career.

It’s a funny old thing, but when our health system does something well, such as giving patients first class care and treatment in the present Emergency or building a temporary emergency hospital in just a few days, then the NHS and Public Health England are “the envy of the world” and are praised to the hilt.  When the system does something badly, such as failing to have sufficient stocks of PPE for just such an emergency as the present one, or ordering sub-standard items, then it is the government’s fault.  It is a bit like the comment on your local football team’s performance: “we won”, “you lost”.  I am concerned that we are beginning to deify the NHS and sister organisations to the point where no criticism will be tolerated.  Currently, many houses have signs in their windows with that pretty rainbow picture next to “NHS”, and we clap the staff every Thursday.  The fact is, the NHS is a vast organisation with a budget of about £130 billion for England alone.  It certainly performs a vital and enviable service by providing free healthcare for all in Britain and it is manned by dedicated staff; but it is not perfect by any means, and we should not allow our gratitude to the medical staff to cloud our judgement of its efficiency.  The NHS is not God.  We should also be consistent in our praise and criticism.  As to the Thursday night clap, it is good to thank the medical staff  for their care and dedication, and I believe it is much appreciated (though I see that the clap has now become a thank you for “key workers”, a vague definition that dilutes the gesture somewhat).  I only hope that now, with only about 19% of available ICU beds actually occupied, and all other medical care in our hospitals put on hold, the burden on medical staff has eased somewhat and that many of them can take some well-earned rest.

For posterity, I should record here that the number of deaths in the UK each day is dropping by roughly 15% daily and stands at 363 as of 20 May.  Hospital admissions in the UK are at the lowest level since the crisis began.  A “track and trace” mobile phone app is promised for June, but I am not holding my breath.  Various agencies are working flat out to develop a vaccine and there are tentative signs of progress in the USA but, even if that proves successful, a vaccination programme will not get under way until mid 2021 at the earliest.  I think we must prepare ourselves, chaps,  for the possibility that this virus will always be with us in some form, rather like influenza, and that it is something we will have to live with.  We certainly cannot carry on the way we are with the present restrictions and with virtually no economy to fund our current lifestyle.  As I set out in the last blog, we are going to have to start living with some small risk.

The last time I was an inpatient in hospital was while I was still serving and at a time when the Armed Forces had their own dedicated hospitals.  I had viral pneumonia and was very ill for two weeks. I always remember a friend visiting me and, against my advice, insisting on looking at the contents of the little pot by my bedside into which I discharged my sputum and phlegm: her face turned the same colour as the contents of the pot. However, the experience of having pneumonia was tempered by my having my own room in the Sick Officers Block of the Royal Naval Hospital, Stonehouse in Plymouth and by being looked after by some gorgeous Naval Nurses in their starched uniforms.  The Nursing Sisters were classified as officers and were very authoritative and terrifying; the ordinary Naval Nurses were classified as ratings and called you “sir”, which was most gratifying.  It was the nearest I have ever come to having my own hand maidens. What a difference that privacy and eye candy made to my recovery.  I could almost have wished to stay in a little longer.   It was the Navy’s policy to issue every patient with a bottle of Guinness every night to aid their recovery (Guinness Is Good For You), but this was modified in the Sick Officers Block by the issue of a gin and tonic every evening instead.   The naval hospitals have long gone, alas, though the buildings are still there.  The starched uniforms and black stockings have gone too and all medical staff now dress in sterile shapeless scrubs, such that you cannot tell doctors from Sisters, Sisters from nurses, or nurses from cleaners.  Sigh.  I served at a great time.

Incidentally (naval history lesson Number 3 coming up, but it will be brief), the Royal Naval Hospital in Plymouth was built beside Stonehouse Creek in Plymouth in 1758, its location chosen to allow the Fleet, which was anchored in The Hamoaze, to ferry sick sailors ashore by boat for medical treatment.  This process became so established that, to this day, the phrase “to catch the boat up” is a euphemism in the Royal Navy for, ahem, having an antisocial disease (ie STD).  These sailors.

Just to conclude the medical history theme, it was discovered centuries ago that if one took a pill made from the metal antimony, then it had a laxative effect with the added bonus of  the pill being expelled, undigested, afterwards.  It would then be recovered and reused as necessary, being passed on within the family and from one generation to the next.  I dare say it was given a rinse and a bit of a wipe before being reused.  So there you have it: an early form if recycling, now long forgotten until you read this.  Tip: if you want to practise this at home then make sure you use the metal antimony, not the metalloid arsenic.

We are still going on walks into Barsetshire, but have now daringly expanded the expeditions by taking the car to a suitable spot and then walking from there, thus expanding our portfolio.  We embarked on a favourite one yesterday, starting in the nearby village of Carton and climbing up along the side of the river valley then dropping down and following the meandering river back.  It would have been perfect if it were not for the fact that others, clearly, had the same idea.  This was very poor: hadn’t they been told that this walk was exclusively for our use?  On previous occasions we have met no-one; this time, every man and his (several) dogs seemed to be out.  I noticed one party of three behind us and, not wanting to meet anyone (even in healthier times), I suggested we increase the pace to lose them.  We ended up with a pace that would not disgrace The Royal Green Jackets, but whenever we paused at various summits to look back, the party was still there.  It reminded me of that scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when the pair are being pursued by Pinkerton and Red Indian trackers, and are unable to shake them off (“Who are these guys?”).  As we belted up a particularly steep hill, my auxiliary heart having cut in on cold suction, I did suggest to Jane (between gasps) that we should just wait somewhere and let the people past, but she replied, paradoxically, that they might then dawdle and hold us up. We did lose them eventually but, all in all, the walk – while pleasant and taken in beautiful weather – turned into a six mile route march completed in record time.  Not exactly the SAS you understand, but you get the gist.   This was not really what was intended, but next time I will send out a memo in advance to warn members of the public that Cunard Platinum Badge Holders will be using that walk, and to stand clear.

I must tell you about The Numpties.  The Numpties are our neighbours directly behind our house, who moved in a year ago.  They are a couple in their late twenties or early thirties with two yappy rats on sticks as substitutes for children.  We call them The Numpties because they are harmless, with no malice,  yet they are totally unaware of how their actions might disturb or offend.  On the very day that they moved in, Jane went round to introduce herself and found that the Numpties had hacked back one of her roses in our side flower bed with a chain saw.  They thought that the flower bed (right next to our house) belonged to them (“Oh, sorry about that”).  A series of noisy outside parties distinguished the Numpties’ first few months in their new home until, after being driven indoors on the hottest evening of the year, I went round to complain.  They were quite apologetic (“Oh, sorry about that”) and turned down the music, but it had never crossed their minds that others might be disturbed.  The Numpties are night owls and take their dogs for walks at 0100: nothing wrong with that, but their behaviour also manifests itself in him doing DIY at 2100 or 2200.  Mr Numpty is very fond of his electric plane and circular saw.  Mr Numpty also has a very loud voice and can be heard all through the day either bellowing on his mobile telephone, or talking to his chum and Mrs Numpty in the garden; Mr and Mrs Numpty  do not believe in the lockdown.  Finally, Mr and Mrs Numpty do not like gardening (hence the chainsaw incident) and have converted their backyard into a slate and artificial grass haven, decorated with a bar (twin burning torches, as on an altar), kegs of cider and (yes, another) a hot tub.  The last is lit by a red light all night, as if ET were about to depart to the Planet Love with the Numpties at any minute.  Mr and Mrs Numpty are civil servants who cannot work at home, but somehow the government is managing without them.  They are, after all, numpties.

The other morning, Jane was catching up on her emails and I was sipping my coffee to the sound of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, both of us having consumed an excellent breakfast of poached egg on crushed avocado and sourdough toast. Suddenly my peace was shattered.
“WHAT!”, cried the Head Gardener and matriarch.
I spilt my coffee.
“Problems dear?”
“They have rejected my passport photograph!”
Oh dear, I thought privately. Stand by for turbulence, and fasten your seatbelt.
Just before lockdown the memsahib had put in for a new passport, the old one being close to expiry and the bait being a nice new blue United Kingdom document instead of the hated burgundy coloured European Union one. But the really tasty part of the bait was the opportunity to have a new passport photograph. You see, Jane hates her existing passport photograph because it shows her without spectacles and she thinks she looks ugly in it. It is true that it looks nothing like her, but she is not unattractive in it: it is, after all, that other woman with whom I sleep every night. Determined, this time, to rid herself of this hated image, Jane vowed to be photographed for the new passport with spectacles on. She duly fronted up at our local photographer’s and had the deed done, taking care to make sure that her photochromic glasses had not gone dark for the process, and she was pleased with the result (cost of professional, £6). She duly scanned the photograph, filled in the forms online, and waited for the new document with lively anticipation. Then lockdown came. Since 23 March she has been bemoaning the non-delivery of her passport, with many aspersions being cast on civil servants in general, and Passport Office staff in particular. The fact that she cannot use a passport at the moment has been dismissed as a trivial detail. She wanted that passport with the pretty face. And now, today, the authorities – having stirred their IN trays a few times – have concluded that her photograph is unsuitable because of the tinted glasses, and Jane is spitting venom like a benzedrine puff adder.
“Look at it! Look at it!”. She thrust the photograph at me. “What, I ask you, is wrong with that photograph? It’s ridiculous…stupid people…ought to be shot…”.
She went on for some time, spread over several days – you are reading the concise account, believe me. Actually, she was quite right: there was nothing wrong with the photograph of her in glasses, and her eyes were entirely visible, but, as the Americans say, you can’t fight City Hall. She wanted to make a formal complaint: to write to our MP; to the Secretary of State; even to write to the Palace perhaps…but I said it would be far easier just to give in, pay another £6, and resubmit a photograph without spectacles. Yesterday, still chuntering, she went off to the local supermarket where they have a photo booth. After a lively session during which, apparently, she took various pictures of, first, the top of her head, then pictures of her neck (she could not read the instructions because, well, she had no glasses on), she eventually achieved success and showed me the result, which she thought not too bad. What did I think?
Remembering that incident with the vomit-coloured outfit (Blog 42), I replied,
“You look absolutely super darling. Just like a film star”
“Do you really think so?”
“Yes, Jane Wymark: that actress who plays Barnaby’s wife in Midsomer Murders”
“Hmm…”

Did it work?  Well, she resubmitted the photograph on line and the automatic program came back and said the photograph was too bright.  She has overridden the automatic response and resubmitted it.  Watch the news: if you hear of an earth tremor in southern England in the next few weeks then you will know the result.

Time for a late breakfast, I think. Have a good weekend and keep taking that pill.

21 May 2020

She has confiscated the remote control.  I don’t mean the remote control that guides me down the stairs to make the tea while half asleep every morning, I mean The remote control: the one for the television.  I am bereft.  The remote control for the television has always been placed on the left arm of the Command Chair,  ready and available for instant use by the Master and Commander.  It is from this central control position that I determine all television programmes for the household: which ones to turn off, which ones to mute, and which ones not to select in the first place.  In the democratic republic of Shacklepin there is, of course, a degree of consultation before any executive action is taken.  We are not running a dictatorship, you know.  Jane and I do discuss which, if any, programmes we are going to watch on a particular evening; I am merely the humble vessel that executes the decision of congress.  No, the confiscation has arisen because of my policy of surfing the channels whenever there are advertisement breaks, in the hope of finding something more interesting to watch during the interlude.  During this process our television makes a bleeping noise, so every ad break is characterised by BLEEP-BLEEP…BLEEP-BLEEP-BLEEP…BLEEP-BLEEP-BLEEP-BLEEP…BLEEP… like some demented tortoise practising Morse code.  Sometimes I do mute the sound during this process out of selfless consideration to Mrs S, but it has been to no avail apparently.  It seems that the entire surfing habit has been driving the memsahib mad for many years, and she finally cracked two evenings ago.
“Right.  That’s quite enough!  Give me that.”
And with that, she snatched the remote control from me and returned the selected programme to its origin.  She then (and this will really shock you) retained the Control, took over operation for the rest of the evening, and is now claiming droit des commandes as la maîtresse de maison for all time, like some medieval matriarch.  I am shocked.  For a start, she hasn’t done the course.  It could be dangerous.  We have already had several unwanted dives into the unknown depths of our Smart television’s many capabilities and have been faced with a blank screen on several occasions.  One screen showed a boring programme with some weird couple in a living room doing nothing and it took us quite a while to realise that it was – in fact – us, on camera.  Sinister.  I shook my head at her foolishness,
“Never send the baby to fetch the beer”.
For some reason, this seemed to strengthen her resolve.  So there you have it. A mutiny (or it would be if there were two or more people being insubordinate).  I am not sure how to handle this one, nor am I sure which is worse: having to watch and listen to television advertisements or losing control of the ship household.  

This incident may be but a small part of a growing and insidious revolution.  You see, she had previously banned me, not only from surfing the channels on the bedroom television, but from watching the television in the bedroom, full stop.  It had been part of my morning routine (see Blog 39) to surf the early morning television offerings as I lay in bed sipping my tea, while she gradually came up to periscope depth.  Unlike the situation with the television in the drawing room, the surfing on the bedroom television makes no noise.  I am very fond of Everybody Loves Raymond and Frasier, and know almost all the scripts by heart now, but I am always on the lookout for a new programme to entertain me in my pre-breakfast loneliness.  This avenue of pleasure has now been closed off to me and I am not sure why.   She can be a hard mistress; but the perks are good.  That reminds me: I see that the Defence Discount Service, which advertises discount deals for members of the armed forces and veterans, is offering a 15% discount deal on bondage equipment (look it up if you don’t believe me).  It takes all sorts.

[Post Blog Note: since writing these early paragraphs Jane has relented on the Remote Control Policy, and a coup d’état has been avoided. It seems that my innocent habits of fidgeting, whistling or talking to her when she is trying to sleep or play on her iPad have proved far worse than me surfing the channels in advertising breaks. Stability has been restored]

Well, it looks like that “ease springs” I referred to in the title of the last blog was a little too optimistic. Although the number of cases and positive tests continues to fall, and deaths on 13 May stand at 494 and falling, we are still confined. However, a plan has been drawn up for returning to normal and this is supported by a colour-coded system, like health warnings on the ingredients of a packet of crisps. We can now meet one person, who is not part of our household, on a one-to-one basis outdoors and two metres away (who will be The One in my case?). Garden centres are open and the building industry is returning to work with extended hours to 2100. All workers are encouraged to go to go back to work if they can, and to use a bicycle or walk to work rather than use public transport or a car. This might be fine if you live and work in a big city like London or Manchester, but I am not sure how you will get to work in rural Barsetshire without a car; ride a horse perhaps. Few people in the shires use public transport to get to work, for it is totally impractical. Here in Melbury, for example, we have only one bus an hour to our nearest Big City, with a similar number of trains a day to the next nearest Big Town. The government advice is very metro-centric. All the relaxations above, by the way, are laid down by the United Kingdom government, but apply only to the people of England; for reasons that I have been unable to fathom the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish are doing their own thing – I suspect more because their leaders want to show that they can than for any logical reason. I know which government will get the blame if it all turns to ratchet. It is a pity that we cannot act as one nation in a crisis, like we used to.

As I have said previously, it is going to be a very uphill struggle to get the British workforce back to work again: they are either genuinely terrified of dying from a horrible disease or have grown very comfortable sitting in the sunshine on compulsory paid holiday. Judging by the number of people around here nibbling at the rules and socialising already, I suspect the latter more than the former. For what it is worth, I think the main obstacle to returning to normality is the two metre rule, which makes any form of public transport and many forms of normal work totally impractical. The distance is, in any case, arbitrary: the World Health Organisation [WHO] recommends one metre; the Canadians recommend one caribou. Abandon that distance rule for the non-vulnerable, and urge people instead to be sensible when in proximity (perhaps wearing masks and gloves), and all the pieces will fall into place for a return to normality. It will not happen, of course. The trade unions are already muttering about unsafe working conditions. The teaching union is even advising teachers to minimise the existing current teaching on-line, and not to do any grading work. Just in case you haven’t guessed, I have added the teaching union to The List.

One surefire way of encouraging people to return to work with suitable precautions in place would be to turn off the tap.  I thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer had recognised that when it was mooted that he was going to reduce the current subsidy on wages from 80% to 60% on a sliding scale over time.  However that is not the case, and the 80% subsidy to wages (“Furlough Scheme”) is going to continue to October, with a review in July.  Most unwise, but then what do I, a simple sailor, know?

Judging by a few of the questions being asked by members of the public, some people seem to have lost their common sense and want precise instruction and laws on what they can or cannot do, detailed to the nth degree. The concept of using their own judgement, based on general guidance, seems to be beyond them. To add to this, there is a section of the population that appears to be risk averse in the present crisis: it is almost as if they are terrified to leave their houses, let alone return to work. It would seem that the UK government has succeeded in lulling the populace into a false sense of total fear. Some folk cannot grasp that all life is a risk and that all events have a probability. Even staying in the house offers a risk. In the UK there is a 4.1% chance of having an accident in the home in a year, a 0.24% chance of being injured on the roads in a year, (currently) a 0.35% chance of catching Covid19 and a 0.075% chance of dying from it. All life is a risk and we will never be free of it. I was expounding on this philosophy to the memsahib at supper the other day and thought I managed to get the point across. However, when I moved on to Bayes Theorem she stood, collected the plates and started to prepare the pudding. I might have over-egged my own pudding there.

Strange times bring strange practises. What is this reference by the BBC to “the four nations” instead of saying the UK? It sounds like we are part of a Navaho and Sioux reservation or something. And what is this “furlough” nonsense when they mean “paid leave” or “gardening leave”; have we become the 51st state of the USA? The other term that always annoys me (while I am at it) is “naval ship”; do they mean warship? Numbskulls. The BBC really does need a major shake up. Going back to “furlough”, there is a natural reluctance to use Americanisms in Britain just as, I dare say, there is a reluctance to use British terms in the USA. I fear we traditionalists are fighting a losing battle. What makes it worse is that, when you analyse English you often find that Americans write more correct or more original English than we do. For example, collective nouns or organisations are singular, so correct grammar is to write, “Harper Collins is publishing a book …”. We in Britain tend nowadays to write, incorrectly, “Harper Collins are publishing a book…”. If you read Bill Bryson’s excellent book, Mother Tongue, you will find a whole host of words and terms that are common in the USA, deplored in Britain, yet were once common in the mother country and may be found in Shakespeare: “got”, “gotten”, “trash”, “fall” (for autumn) are four examples. I am not sure about furlough, faucet, or rubber. So there you are: our American cousins are right after all. How embarrassing. But I do wish they didn’t refer to British English or London, England. Every time that last pops up on a film I shout at the screen, “Yes, thank you, I do know where bleeding London is”. That big place with Tower Bridge is hardly going to be London, Ohio is it?

While we are with the Wild West theme, there has been an outbreak of cattle rustling in Barsetshire.  Sheep rustling has occurred from time to time, but now the thieves have turned to large bovines.  How on earth do they get away with stealing a herd of cows?  Surely someone must have seen or heard a large lorry loading up cattle in the middle of the night?  Not only that, how do they dispose of them?  Abattoirs, farms and the very beasts themselves are registered and closely monitored.  The Barsetshire countryside is hardly Texas, and the farm across the road where we get milk is hardly The Ponderosa.  Most odd.  Still, I suppose it keeps the Barsetshire Police occupied and makes a change for them from turnip poaching and leek slashing.

Yesterday we completed a good walk around the public footpath that passes through the nearby Beechwood Estate, the Marquess of Cranford’s pile: eight miles altogether. It was delightful and I really don’t know why we have never done it before. We are well in with the Marquess already, by the way, because we attend Evensong in his private chapel once a quarter. We heard about these religious extravaganzas through the good offices of a friend who shares our enjoyment of the more traditional style of Anglican service. Jane and I are from the conservative right wing of the Church of England, you see. We are members of a hard core of Christians that favours “thees” and “thous”; that avoids the Creed and Lord’s Prayer in modern English; that deplores cymbals, guitars, karaoke, clapping and overt enthusiasm; and that shies at the hugging and handshaking of the Sign of Peace. We are English: a polite smile and a nod to fellow worshippers on arrival, a similar acknowledgement and a shake of the vicar’s hand on departure, are quite sufficient. Anyway, returning to that Evensong at Beechwood House: a hymn book and the Book of Common Prayer (stamped “Beechwood House”) are issued by the butler on arrival, the service is conducted by a visiting priest or bishop, and wine is served in the gallery or library afterwards. One meets such nice people. It is a sung service (the clue is in the name) and there is tremendous scope for vocal individualism, depending on the quality of one’s voice and how well one knows the Psalms. The Books of Common Prayer that are issued vary in antiquity and are an entertainment in themselves: the last one I was given offered prayers not to the present monarch, not even the one before her or the one before that, but to Queen Victoria. In the back of the prayer book was a fascinating list of people whom a man could not marry, starting with his mother and ending with (if I recall correctly) his sister’s daughter. My mind boggled. Oh yes, Charles (the present and ninth Marquess) and I are well in, and chatted about boats last time we attended. Heaven knows when we will be able to go again.

Communication has been an important antidote to the present restrictions and how lucky we are to be blessed with the technology of the 21st century.  It must have been truly grim for people during the Black Death and Great Plague epidemics of previous centuries against a backdrop of rumour and ignorance.  Come to think of it, perhaps it is not much different from today, with its social media.   We had never used FaceTime before, but we have now completed three FaceTime conversations with our friends in far-flung places and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  In one, we consumed an entire bottle of wine, at our end, in the process.  I was, at first, reluctant to indulge in these experiments for I do not come across well vocally or face-to-face.   I avoid the telephone at all costs and use Jane as a proxy whenever I can.  At least one friend has commented that I am brusque on answering the telephone, and they will postpone a conversation until Jane is available.  (They commented once that it always sounded as if they were interrupting something when I answered the telephone; I replied that they probably were). To overcome this failing I have been practising politeness and charm on the telephone, but I fear it probably comes across as if I am being sarcastic – a mannerism that I never indulge in.  Far easier to use Jane or send an email.  My economy with words may be the result of my Service upbringing: the Royal Navy never wasted a paragraph when nine words would do (look at Nelson and “England Expects That…).  A formal manner was always encouraged on the telephone.  I always remember the experience of a friend of mine in HMS CASSANDRA when we were taking on fuel at sea (known as a RAS [Replenishment at Sea]),  a complex and tense manoeuvre that required very careful control.  He was monitoring the rate of fuel and had occasion to call the bridge to provide an update.  The telephone was answered with a cheery,
“Hello?”
“Answer the phone correctly!”, bellowed my chum.
“Bridge.  Captain speaking”, was the reply.

I have never seen someone’s face drain of colour so fast.  There was much spluttering and grovelling of course.  A delight to watch and listen to.

Well that walk round Beechwood Estate has really whetted my appetite.  I quite fancy myself in a country house, far from everyone, perhaps with a moat, and a high wall topped with barbed wire beyond that.  All I need is a few million.  To this end, Jane and I have entered numbers for the UK Lottery for the princely sum of £2.  Reassuring the memsahib regarding our chances, and drawing fountain pen, paper and calculator towards me, I calculated the odds based on a combination of 6 numbers drawn out of 59.  Oh dear: 1 in 45,057,474 or a probability of winning the jackpot of 0.0000022 %.
“But someone has to win it”, said my wife with perfect logic.  
Of course, she is right, as always.

Tell you what, if we win, we will cut each reader in for a tenner.  Can’t say fairer than that.

Now do excuse me.  I must give some thought as to who will be The One: the lucky person outside the household with whom I will hold that face-to-face conversation.

14 May 2020

“Heave ho, heave ho, lash up and stow!  Come along, golden girl, show a leg!”
Thus, I dragged Mrs Shacklepin from the arms of morpheus at the unbelievably shocking time of 0820 this morning.  I did soften the blow with a hot cup of tea, though she fell asleep again and let it go cold.  It is the first day of rain and Jane had decided yesterday that there was nothing to get up for today.  Of course, I wasn’t having any of that defeatist talk: a pandemic is not an excuse to let standards slip.  As it was, I had given her an eighty minute lie in. I, myself, had been up since 0630 and had conducted a complete set of rounds of the house, had sterilised all surfaces, and had swabbed and flogged dry the decks.  

As I lay there beside the slumbering beauty, sipping my own tea, I reflected nostalgically on my wakening phrases.  “Lash up and stow”, of course, refers to lashing up one’s hammock and stowing it.  I slept in a hammock when I was a Cadet in HMS SKEGNESS, and it was very comfortable, being immune to the rolling of the ship.  What many people do not realise, is that the naval hammock included a mattress and bedding, and it could not be left hanging during the day: it had to be taken down and lashed into a huge sausage by seven half hitches (one for each sea), using its own rope or clue.  This heavy and unwieldy burden then had to be stowed in the hammock stowage, a corralled compound about four feet square in the corner of the messdeck: no mean task in a pitching and rolling ship.  In sailing ships the hammocks were stowed in the hammock netting on the upper deck to air, and doubled as a form of armour in action; in modern warships up to about the 1960s they were also used to plug holes in the ship’s side after enemy action or collision.  Contrary to what one sees in some country gardens today, hammocks should be slung taut, ie almost horizontal, unless one wants a bad back.  Mine was slung on designated hammock bars welded about six inches from the deckhead.  Climbing in and out was easy, but one had to be careful – when climbing out – not to put one’s foot in a messmate’s breakfast on a table below (we did not have a ship’s dining hall in HMS SKEGNESS, food was collected from the central galley and brought back to the messdeck to eat).  No, it wasn’t 1805, it was 1970.

And “Show a leg”?.  This was to prove sex in Nelson’s navy.  Women officially were banned in HM Ships, but some captains turned a blind eye and there were often doxies or what were delightfully termed “Portsmouth brutes” onboard warships in those days, especially in port.  There are several recorded incidents of women impersonating men and fighting the ship too; heaven knows how they got away with it in the confines of a warship, though there were no showers or baths in those days.  The lavatories were open to the weather and consisted simply of seats with holes in them placed either side of the bow (hence “heads”, or in the USN, “head”).

A piece of history for you: this is the first time that English churches have been closed since the reign of King John in 1208. The churches were closed in 1208 by Papal Interdict in response to King John declaring the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury an enemy of the Crown, and taking over the See of Canterbury. The Interdict forbade the holding of all church services and effectively withheld God’s offices from the people of England for six years. John was unfazed by the punishment (it wasn’t he who was being punished): he used the time to rob the Church and the Jews, to the benefit of his own wealth, and to beat up the Welsh, Irish and Scots. The pope then excommunicated him, but he still wasn’t bothered. The Interdict lasted until 1214, during which time babies went unbaptised, marriages were unblessed, and bodies were buried in unconsecrated ground. It is typical of the time that it was the people who suffered and the king who benefitted. King John was not a nice man.

Hammocks, Women at Sea and Papal Interdicts: see the wide range of topics and the degree of erudition that you find here.

It is a Trousers Day. I don’t mean for me – I always wear trousers – I mean for the memsahib. I was pointing out to her a 1950s film on the television yesterday, in which the lady of the house appeared wearing a dress with full skirt, stockings, pearls and court shoes, and I suggested that this was the appropriate rig for the wife of a retired naval officer of my rank and standing. She made no comment, but appeared this morning wearing corduroy trousers, a sweater, socks and flat shoes. She said something about it being wet and cold outside. Very poor excuse, in my view, but I shall bide my time before saying something.

It is C-O-L-D. After weeks of continuous sunshine and highs of 24C (77F) the temperature has dropped to about 5C (41F) at night, and typically 10C (50F) during the day, with a cool breeze. We were glad to get back indoors after our pre-breakfast trip to the milk farm this morning. It has rained almost all week. And some foreigners wonder why the British talk about the weather so much. On the plus side, we no longer have people and their children outside making a racket to disturb my peace and harmony, and the garden has a smile on its face; on the minus side we are stuck indoors. Come to think of it, no change there then.

Well, I suppose I must write about this pandemic crisis, if for no other reason than to maintain a historical record. Where are we now? I believe the UK officially instituted lockdown on 23 March 2020, though there were “recommended” restrictions before that. So that makes us just over five weeks in. It feels more like five months. Paradoxically, however, each individual day seems to just wiz by; no sooner have I piped Call the Hands, then it is Pipe Down. The UK has passed the peak for CV19 deaths and the curve is definitely dropping: only 586 deaths were recorded for 28 April, but one third of these were in Care Homes for old people. It is beginning to dawn on people and the Press what has been obvious to me for some time: the virus is taking the vulnerable and the old folk, either directly or, more likely, indirectly (their existing conditions are not being properly treated). The government has changed the goal posts on its reporting method and now includes non-hospital deaths on its charts, pushing the UK mortality figures up accordingly (much to the relish of the Press). In terms of deaths per million population, we are seventh in the mortality league at 326 deaths/million, behind San Marino, Belgium, Andorra, Spain, Italy and France. Belgium is suffering particularly badly at 642 deaths/million. The USA figure is 178 deaths/million. Boris is back, though he still looks a little rough round the edges, and we were hoping that this would herald a modest change in policy, a gentle restoration of some normality. Alas, as I write, the indications are that we will remain in lockdown until June at the earliest. We also have some good news in the arrival of Boris’ new-born son, though this has heralded some incredibly spiteful comments from some left-wing politicians, much to their discredit. The media, inevitably, were moaning that the country was rudderless when the prime minister was ill, but that is nonsense: the UK is not a republic and the prime minister is not a president. The country is a parliamentary democracy governed primarily by cabinet decision. Jane and I think Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, was fine in his newly acquired title of “First Secretary” and some of the other ministers have been quite impressive too. It is nice to have the prime minister back, however. One does need a figurehead.

Boris and, indeed, his government, is not popular with everyone of course.  It would be a funny, and even worrying, old world if that were the case.  But his illness has brought out some very nasty sentiments in some quarters.  There were those who openly wished he would die from the virus, yet those who claimed his illness was a sham for publicity purposes; there were those who said he was taking up a valuable NHS bed that could be used by the poor people, yet those who said he was getting special treatment; and there were those who said he was loafing and should get back to work, yet others who said he should not be using his “second home”, the official UK prime ministers’ country retreat at Chequers, to convalesce.  There are some very unpleasant people out there, and we should pray for them; to harbour such bile and bitterness in their hearts must be a terrible burden.  A difference in politics, creed or belief is never an excuse for discourtesy, disrespect, ill will or malice.  Fortunately, the nasty people are more than offset by the genuine good will and altruism demonstrated by the vast majority of the country.  My assessment is that we are in good heart, but keen to move on. 

We received that Tesco delivery dead on time last Friday night. It is a measure of the state of things that such a trivial event should merit comment. The shopping list remained a dynamic one until the very last day, that is to say, items already ordered alternated between “available” or “unavailable” seemingly on a daily basis. In the end, we did receive almost everything we had asked for with the exception of flour. What is it with the flour? It appears to have taken over from toilet rolls as the new “must have”. Half of the numpties who are buying it probably cannot bake or make bread and, in any case, there is absolutely no shortage of bread or pastries in the supermarkets. The unavailability is not a big deal for us, but Jane’s favourite hobby is making cakes, so she is frustrated. Today we received a notification that there was a delivery slot available from Iceland (the frozen-food supermarket, not the volcanic country) so Jane is beavering away thinking of things she still needs. All in all, I think it would be fair to say that the groceries logistic situation here is now pretty stable, provided you don’t want flour or disposable rubber gloves. Mind you, I see from the news that there has been a run on egg cups now – apparently folk are starting to eat a proper breakfast for the first time. When I first read the story I thought it was just a yolk, but – no – it is genuine. Fancy not having egg cups; they will be saying next that they don’t have napkin rings and napkins. Our washable face masks, which we ordered from that hosiery firm that has changed its production line to meet current needs, have arrived. They do not meet surgical standards, of course, but they are functional and will satisfy the requirements that are sure to come after lockdown. They can be laundered after use at the Thermal Death Point of 60C. I was impressed that the straps of the masks were coloured red and green, apparently to fit with port and starboard ears, before I discovered that the masks were ambidextrous. Jane wore hers to visit the doctor’s surgery today for a blood test and grumbled that it messed up her hair, steamed up her glasses and made her look ridiculous. Otherwise all right then. I think the blood test must have been to check that it is still blue: Jane is the first cousin, thirty one times removed, of William the Conqueror you know (which, frankly, explains a great deal).

Well, the memsahib has recovered from her labyrinthitis and is stable once more (physically, anyway). Now she is complaining of an ache in her lower chest and she initially was convinced that she had a broken rib. As she has not suffered any impact damage, fallen over, or otherwise been involved in a collision with another vessel my diagnosis was that she had either pulled a muscle doing her gardening or her wired brassiére was too tight. Ibuprofen cream on the painful area, supplemented by paracetamol and a period sans brassiére, has been prescribed by Dr Shacklepin and this is slowly working. I have further informed the patient that there is room for only one valetudinarian in our household and that that person refers to himself by the perpendicular pronoun. To add to this, Jane is going deaf. All my verbal overtures now (admittedly sometimes conducted across several rooms or decks) receive the initial response,
“Sorry?”
Further evidence of this malady came the other day when I was explaining to her the difference between centripetal and centrifugal force at breakfast, while seated only one metre away, and she showed no response whatsoever. She will not be able to get a hearing test in the present state of things, of course, and even if a hearing aid were recommended, she would not wear one. Vanity, vanity. I told her I would make her an ear trumpet, but all I got was,
“Sorry?”

While I remember, it has occurred to me that there may be some terms or expressions that may not be understood by everyone – they may be uniquely British or uniquely naval or uniquely Shacklepin. For that reason, I have added a Glossary section to the main page. If you have found it already then take a gold star.

“What are you doing?”
“I’m watching you work, darling. I am empathising and bonding with you”
“You are lurking. And I don’t trust you behind me. Go away”
She continued decapitating carrots and waved the kitchen knife in a threatening manner.
So ended my attempt at bonding as recommended in The Book. The Book is a text book on psychology called, Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps by psychologists Allan and Barbara Pease, and it explains why men and women think and behave differently. The title is probably deliberately eye-catching and provocative. Some friends reading this blog will be all-too familiar with The Book, as I have been known to quote from it ad nauseam. It contains The Hidden Mysteries of Men and Women and I wish it had been written, and that I had read it, 50 years ago. So much is explained for, behold, the half was not told unto me. In the present Emergency I have taken to re-reading The Book during my periods of, shall we say, early morning isolation and ease from which I emerge with further quotes or advice for the benefit of my fair wife (“Oh, not another quote from that damned book…”). On this occasion, I had read that the hormone oxytocin, known as the “cuddle hormone”, is released when someone’s skin is gently stroked and it increases feelings of bonding. I had been about to stroke Jane’s neck with my nose as an experiment, the better to improve her mental health and feeling of being appreciated. Also, I was bored and looking for an outlet. That I had not got past the first hurdle was a pity. I explained all this to her from a safe distance, pointing out that The Book also said that a woman wishing to pleasure a man often scratches his head, caresses his face, rubs his back and tenderly brushes his hair. I observed that she had never done any of that for me. She replied, with a snort,
“You haven’t got any hair!”
Oh, how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless wife!
I do have hair. It is full, and blond and luxuriant. Well, it used to be. It is now grey, understated, short and distinguished. Like me.

30 April 2020

“Covid deaths in UK 429 in the last 24 hours”, screamed the headlines in Apple News at the weekend (I gave up reading the BBC News some time ago in order to keep my blood pressure down). What the headline and follow-up did not say was that the number of deaths was 36% down on the previous day and that it was the second drop in succession. The daily death toll has since gone up slightly but, overall, the trend of UK deaths from CV19 is definitely downwards, albeit a gentle slope. Well, that’s Apple News added to my list of alarmist media, a list stretching now to several pages. We are still watching the government Daily Briefing at 1700, but have taken to switching off at the first stupid or inane question by the Press (usually it is the first one, which is always by the BBC). At a time of national emergency we are still getting carping and point-scoring. Imagine this lot after Dunkirk:
“Prime Minister, is this government ashamed by this debacle and are you going to personally apologise to the families of the soldiers killed or injured on those beaches…?”

How times have changed. Start polishing those bullets.

The charts on deaths, as measured against other countries, are, in any case, not a lot of use. Countries with a large population (eg the USA) can be expected to have, proportionally, more deaths each day and the graphical curve will have a higher gradient (as is currently the case). Charts of deaths per thousand population would help to normalise the data, but even that would not take account of the population density. Sweden, for example, with a large land mass but relatively small population, can reasonably be expected to have fewer deaths per thousand per day. Such a debate could go on forever (and probably will, long after this is over), but I still say that looking at the absolute number of daily deaths is not helpful; relative and normalised trends are far more useful.

Jane and I are still ticking along and the sun is still shining, though there has been a cool breeze from the north east. The temperature reached 21C (70 F) yesterday. We embarked on another expedition into the bundu on Monday (I think it was Monday…), another circular walk with the customary flask of coffee and Christmas cake at half-way point. Seven miles altogether, over the hill and far away. It is amazing how well the crops have come on in just a few days and after that rain: the Big Dusty Field has become the Big Green Field and the Straight Path Near The Stables has become the Straight Path Overgrown With Knee-high Nettles. Back at headquarters, the grass seed I sowed on the dead patches of the lawn still has not germinated, but the rest of the lawn is verdant, lush, and growing like topsy, demonstrating a strong sense of self-preservation not normally to be expected in organic ground covering. That threat must have worked.

One of the positive aspects of this pandemic – and there are positive aspects – has been the enormous growth of creative art that is circulating. I don’t mean that squiggle on the bike shed wall, I mean the jokes and videos being passed round on email or being presented on YouTube. The quality has been high and the humour ranging from subtle, through droll, to hilarious. The memsahib was in stitches yesterday over a video demonstrating how [not] to make a face mask if you are not into sewing, and I haven’t seen her laugh as much as that since our honeymoon night. Humour is very important at times of stress and it is good to know that there is so much talent out there. I am not a great fan of graffiti (as you will infer from my previous blogs), but I did hear of this example, found in a ladies’ lavatory:
“MY MOTHER MADE ME A LESBIAN”
And someone had added underneath,
“IF I SEND HER THE WOOL WILL SHE MAKE ME ONE AS WELL?”
Very droll though, when I first heard of this example, I was shocked that ladies wrote things on lavatory walls. I have led such a sheltered life.

I was reiterating (with some strength of conviction) one of my earlier blog points the other day, regarding the inconvenience and impracticality of continuing the two metre distance rule after lockdown, when I was conscious of a silence and a distinct air of incredulity from the other side of the supper table.
“ What?”, I said.
“And when, pray, have you ever queued anywhere, with or without a two metre gap?”, she said archly. “You just wait in the car in the supermarket car park”
This, of course, is irrefutable. In my defence, I had to remind her that the current rule is for only one person in the supermarket per household, alas. Also, the last time she let me do the shopping on my own, I came back with celery instead of celeriac, several packets of very expensive Duchy Original biscuits, a handful of beans and was followed by a large giant. She grunted in reply, which I took to mean grudging acceptance of my argument.

Now, about those Women. When my godson married (interesting diversion from CV19 here), I wrote a valedictory letter to him containing sage advice about women; I wrote a similar letter (but about men) to his sister, my goddaughter , when she married too. Heaven knows, I had failed the poor children in my sacred oath throughout their infancy, and this was a last desperate attempt to make good before my Day of Judgement. Of course, the drawback was that I have never really understood my fellow man, and what I know about women could be written on the back of a postage stamp in Times New Roman, 12 point. Take the case of my dear wife (peace be upon her). I never take her word at face value now. Some years ago – it would have been the Year 11 or the Year 12 I think – we were shopping with friends in our nearby Big City. Our perambulation took us past several ladies’ dress shops and, inevitably, we were drawn into one of them like the Starship Enterprise caught in the tractor beam of a Romulan Bird of Prey. Once inside the belly of the beast, the memsahib took a fancy to a particular outfit and went off to try it on. I hung around, as you do, trying not to look like a pervert among the red knickers, black bras and bits of string in the area, until she eventually reappeared in the new gear and gave a twirl.
“What do you think?”, she said brightly.
Now here is the crux of the story. Never reply honestly. I looked at her in horror.
“Oh no. Oh good Lord no. It looks awful. It’s almost the colour of vomit”, I said.
Well. I had read the word “flounce” before that, but I had never before seen a woman actually do one. Jane flounced. She shot back into that changing room, left the outfit and returned in her normal attire. And said nothing. In fact, she said nothing to me for the rest of the afternoon. I read in a psychology book once that women punish you by not speaking to you, but that men take – on average – nine minutes before they realise they are being punished. I eventually cottoned on after about twenty minutes when my wise and worldly friend, who was with us and his wife, took me to one side, shook his head sorrowfully, and said to me,
“Horatio, Horatio, Horatio… That was most unwise. You never tell them the truth. You say, ‘Oh, my dear, that looks positively splendid. You simply must have it – a wise choice for the more mature and handsome woman you have become, and so flattering to your fuller figure’, or something similar, and let nature take its natural course”.
And here is the thing. I tried back-tracking. I suggested that Jane try the outfit again so that I could reconsider. It was curtly refused (with a toss of the head). I begged her to go back and buy that outfit. I begged her for two weeks. It took a whole month of grovelling and toadying before, in the end, she grudgingly went back and bought that skirt and top. How did she do that?

Returning to the present, I must be doing something right for all is rosy in the Horatio garden. I actually overslept the other day, after taking a sleeping pill and descending to 100 fathoms, and Jane brought me a cup of tea in bed. Yesterday, after we visited the farm across the road before breakfast, she cooked me a full fried breakfast with local farm sausages, organic tomatoes, mushrooms, free range egg, fried potato and – the piece de resistance – fried bread. I think she may finally be realising my worth, charm, sensitivity and loving nature after all those years. Either that or she wants that fence finished. In this, I am reminded of the story about the captain of a Roman galley who, out of character, gave his galley slaves a day off to swim in the warm waters of the Aegean and followed it up with steak and an amphora of wine for every one of them. A Senator, who was onboard as a passenger, watched this spectacle and remarked to the Slave Master what a lovely gesture it was and asked if, perhaps, the Captain had found a new religion. “No”, replied the Slave Master, “it’s just that the weather is fine at the moment and the Captain wants to go water skiing tomorrow”.

So it is now revealed that only one third of schoolchildren are participating in their online lessons at home. Quelle surprise. Judging by the number of people we see exercising every day, most of their parents are not doing a lot of home working either, and they apparently see the present situation as a national holiday rather than a national emergency. Yes, I know I’m not working either. I am different. I am retired. I am on the cusp of being vulnerable. And a war veteran (sort of). Be that as it may, the government is going to have quite a job getting this lot back to work, as some of them are beginning to enjoy themselves, and that will never do. Persuading the self- employed to return to work will be easy, as they have yet to receive any government grant and – indeed – I see signs of little jobs restarting already (the Great Hot Tub Project down our drive will be under way again next Monday). For the rest, who are still being paid 80% of their salary via a government subsidy while enjoying a mortgage holiday, inertia may be harder to overcome.

It is worth sparing a thought for those people still working a normal week and providing an essential service. The NHS gets a good clap every Thursday, but there is little appreciation for those working for the police, fire brigade, refuse disposal, water services, electricity generation, gas distribution, the vast logistic and food organisation; for mariners, fishermen, farmers, the administrators of government and – last but not least – our armed forces. Because of the contribution by such a wide range of occupations I do wonder if it is just a little bit invidious of us to be clapping only the NHS every Thursday. Perhaps instead we should have an enormous picture of the Corona virus that we can shout “Hate, Hate, Hate” at once a week. Didn’t someone write a book about that?

There is a certain management technique practised by the Commanding Officers of HM Ships that runs on the general lines of:
(Self) “Right sir, my team has screwed the starboard propeller back on, we’ve pumped out the After Machinery Space, the shipwrights have welded a patch over that hole in the port bow, I’ve found a cure for the common cold and I think I may a have a solution to world poverty”
(CO) “Yes Horatio, but have you sent off that defect list yet?”
I was reminded of this approach this morning before breakfast as I assembled the impedimenta for painting the other side of the fence later (yes, there is no getting away from it). While the memsahib was doing Things in what we are pleased to call the Dressing Room, I decided to steal a march on proceedings by clambering up into the garage loft to collect tubs of fence paint, brushes, the paint mixer and overalls (General Service. Officers. White Cotton), such process not being helped by being caught short in the middle. As I finally emerged, struggling, from the garage balancing these items, an upstairs window was thrown open.
“Have you remembered that we change the towels today?”
“No dear” (through gritted teeth).
“I’ve thrown them down the stairs”.
“Yes dear” (catching two paint brushes just as they fall off the pile).
“And I will thank you NOT to widdle on my geraniums. It scorches the leaves”
My God, how did she see that? My wife is like Mr Pinkerton: The Eye That Never Sleeps.

As I write, sipping my coffee, the sun is shining into the Garden Control Tower and three goldfinches are feeding away on the bird feeder. The garden is bursting into flower and all is (almost) right with the world. Jane is toasting the bread in preparation for its anointment with her home-made marmalade (January 2019 vintage).
“I’m ready for my coffee now!”, comes the cry with, perhaps, just a hint of censure. “Are you writing that blog again? You’d better not be putting me in it”
No dear. Truthfully. Past tense; you are already in.

Drinks Person leaping to attention to operate the Nespresso…Just another day blooming in the Shacklepin household.

23 April 2020

Well, as the title says, here we are three weeks in and still hanging on. And I am embarrassed to say that, frankly, for us, it hasn’t been that hard. There has been a certain freedom in having no commitments each day: nothing planned, no entertaining, no visits to Marks & Spencer, not spending money, and not even a need to get up. We haven’t gone down the route of the last one, I hasten to say: I have maintained a strict régime in the Shacklepin household, with Call the Hands still at 0700 and Turn To at 0800. Jane really joins into the spirit of this with gusto as she greets each day with a mumbled, “Wha’s the temp’ature…” and gropes for her first cup of energising Oolong, brought in by her doting husband, who moves on to thrust the curtains aside and declare the day officially open.

I say Turn To at 0800, but that only applies to me.  Jane just takes forever transforming herself from the closed sleepy little green shoot into the full-bloomed flower that enlivens each day.  I don’t know what on Earth she does up there for 45 minutes.   While she is doing Things, I am employed in cleaning out the fire grate, humping up the coal, emptying the chamber pots,  stoking the boiler, emptying the dishwasher, chlorinating the door handles, playing with the jigsaw, and making the coffee.  The red china coffee cups (note, ‘cups’ not ‘mugs’) are placed just so on the breakfast table in the Garden Control Tower, the handle of Jane’s cup turned just right for her hand, the stevia pill already in place.  We have a demarcation, you see: I do Drinks (and, by association, drink receptacles); Jane does Food.  We are still arguing about soup.

The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba heralds a complete changeover. I sit morosely with my coffee, doing the crossword while Jane prepares the fruit salad and other delectable titbits for breakfast (the food here is excellent). Breakfast, as I have stated previously, is not a sociable meal, but Jane still insists on talking to me. I think it is a deliberate counterattack for the 0700 wakening. Right on cue, as I write this, she has asked,
“Sorry, can I talk to you?”
Patient sigh…Stops typing.
“Yes dear”
“What are you writing?”
“My blog.  It’s all about you”
Eyes narrow.  “It had better not be…”
Nay, nay my dear. Perish the thought.

One morning, some years ago, I thought I would give her a break and prepare the fruit salad while she was beautifying herself.  How hard can it be?  This could be worth so many credit points.  Fruit, especially exotic fruit, is not really my thing, but I thought I was jolly well going to give it a go.  I chose a pinky round thing and hacked at it, but it had some sort of rock in the middle that made dissection difficult.  I tried an alternative yellow round item and had a go at that, but that had some sort of core.  Time passed by and slimy mush and juice oozed over the chopping board onto the work surface, then slid onto the floor.  This mysteriously distributed itself around the kitchen and onto my clothes.  I also seemed to have cut myself, and bloodstains added to the general impression of the Valentines Day Massacre.  There did not seem to be a lot of fruit in the bowls.  Suddenly, my concentration was disturbed by a voice at the door.
“What, in the name of God, are you doing?  Look at the mess! And that chopping board is for vegetables.  I chop onions on it!  Look, just sit down.  Give it here”
I retired, hurt, to my crossword.  The fruit salad, when it came, was – it is true – not quite up to standard.  It seemed to taste of onion, for one thing.  And as to the fruit I had been mutilating? I have no idea to this day.  Far easier just to stick to Drinks.

Mind you, Drinks can be hazardous too.  Yesterday I found that I had just cleaned all the door handles, keys, kettle, and paper money with Plymouth Gin instead of dilute bleach.  The bottles were very similar, you see, I having used an old gin bottle to hold a mixture of Milton and water as a potent virus killer.  It could have been worse: I could have mixed a Milton and tonic.  On the plus side, that £10 note in my wallet seemed very happy as I put it away to sleep it off.

Spring has come here in Melbury. We have had a succession of sunny days, with temperatures around 23C (73F) and it has been absolutely splendid. I have just seen Jane’s legs and painted toenails for the first time since 2019. We have continued to get out into the hinterland for walks and one benefit of lockdown has been that we have discovered more good walking routes available direct from home. We are probably the fittest we have been for years. Armed with our trusty vacuum flask and sandwiches we have pushed back the frontiers of Barsetshire and conquered new horizons. Not exactly Davy Crockett, you understand, but you get the gist. It is amazing what lovely countryside is available just half an hour from our doorstep, and we have revelled in it. One such expedition took place on Wednesday when we embarked on a circular walk starting at 1100. At 1730 we were still walking. A huge dusty field lay in front of us and we trudged on, one foot in front of the other, heads down, like Captain Scott and Oates desperately seeking Base Camp in Antarctica. The coffee and Christmas cake had been consumed long ago after a particularly arduous climb and Jane was muttering in an insubordinate manner (something about the walk not being supposed to be greater than six miles), but I soon quelled that mutinous behaviour. All those years in the navy were not wasted. Finally, we reached home and collapsed on the doorstep. I looked at my GPS. Eleven miles, not counting the hills, the brambles, the wild roses, the collapsed trees, the bogs and the streams. Jane looked at me with some disapprobation. I confess, we did hit the Pimms after we had had our showers and drunk a bucket of water each. It seemed only fair.

It is a curious thing, but despite the government warnings – and even threats – the social isolation is not being strictly adhered to.  Our walks occasionally take us on a nearby narrow lane sometimes used as a rat run to get to the motorway.  The last time we walked along it we counted 36 cars travelling down the short  lane in ten minutes, not counting ‘working’ vehicles such as tractors, Land Rovers or vans.  They could not all be people popping out to the shops to buy essential goods, especially not the single young men in BMWs and Audis.  Jane was furious (she, it was, who counted them).  I did point out that people sitting in their cars on their own were contaminating no one.  But she had a point: the general traffic around where we live, especially on our nearby bypass, is as heavy as ever throughout the day.  Where are they all going?  Is their journey necessary?  We could become busybodies if we are not careful.  Paradoxically, pedestrians are following the guidance religiously, sometimes literally falling over themselves to keep two metres away as they pass.  I wished one passer-by a cheerful  “Good Morning” the other day and he recoiled from me in horror, despite being about ten metres away.  We are allowed to speak. And good manners cost nothing.

The Thursday “clap for the NHS” at 2000 is now well established and it also gives us a chance to see our neighbours.  These things can be quite inspiring, and it was nice to do the clap thing for Boris too, earlier in the week.  I confess to being a bit self conscious doing the clapping at first.  Rather like the Sign of Peace in church, it is not an English thing to show emotion in public and it can feel artificial. The two-minute silence on Armistice Day is usually as far as we get.  There is a danger, though, of ostracising anyone who does not conform to the Thursday clap (‘through ignorance, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault…’) just as there is for condemning anyone not displaying that child’s rainbow picture in their window (I thought it was supporting the LGBTQ community; it turns out it means ‘we love the NHS’.  I really am behind on the curve).  I gather, though, that the clapping is very much appreciated by our medical staff, even though they do not always witness it, and that makes it all worthwhile.

“It’s awful that Carrie Symonds has caught the virus, especially as she’s pregnant”, said Jane last weekend as we munched our toast at breakfast.
“Yes”, I replied absently, “she won’t be singing ‘Nobody Does it Better’ for a while”
There was a silence.
“Come to think of it”, I continued, ”isn’t she getting on a bit to be pregnant?”
Jane looked at me as if I was being wilfully stupid.
“Who do you think I’m talking about?”
“Carrie Symonds.  Singer.  ‘You’re So Vain’. ‘The Right Thing To Do’ ”,  I replied proudly with a metaphorical flourish, displaying my progress in the CPD (Continuous Pop Development) programme that she had started with me last year.
“That’s Carly Simon, you idiot.  Carrie Symonds is Boris’ girlfriend and partner.  God, you’re hopeless”
Oh.  Yet again, while progressing along the Snakes and Ladders game of life, I had trodden on the snake and had slid back to square one in my wife’s estimation.  I do turn out a good wooden bowl on my lathe though, and make a mean gin and tonic.  Especially the sodium hypochlorite version.

Hey ho.  Must get on.  The coffee things need to be tidied away and Jane needs some advice on baking that cake.

9 April 2020