Some recent bits and pieces

Evening looking north from our house

This week I want to give you a tiny flavour of the things that occupy my waking hours, jotted over the last few days on Facebook, so FB people may have seen all of this before, but there are one or two new angles.  This all comes from reading and viewing pictures online, but also from my own photos taken locally - there are links to articles and photo galleries, plus some other transcriptions and translations.  My aim was always to make this blog a resource for my friends who don't use Facebook, but it's all freely available.  I put things here because they are important to me, or make me smile, sometimes both...  Sadly, many important things are more likely to make me cry than to smile.

I checked the rain gauge this morning - 2 mm, the first this month, but enough to soak Mary falling as it did just when she took the dogs for their walk.  The photographer Régis Domergue publishes among many other things, a stream of wonderful photos (click link) of the area where he lives, near the Pic Saint Loup - once you start delving into his site it is hard to stop.  Only a few Km from us here, and the origin of much wonderful wine of the same appellation too!

 Much of what I am posting this time has something to do with viruses, which are constantly on our minds and in the news.  It's tempting to think that the current epidemic is unique or unheard of, but there have been past emergencies, as the polio one described in The man in the iron lung  reminds us.  Rumours abounded then as they have this year with e.g. 5G - then  “some people refused to talk on the phone out of concern that the virus could be transmitted down the line.”  That gives a new meaning to ‘fake news’.  I read this astonishing story in The Week.

Some things are worse than viruses - another clip from Facebook

On another subject, it seems mad that laughing gas is on sale openly.  We’ve seen abandoned cartridges around here, let alone in bigger cities.  Here is a headline from a press report of this recent dangerous craze.  apparently the gas is sold to make chantilly cream - it would be good if it were less easily available to young people

As the football season in the UK comes to a breathless close without spectators, I have shared the pleasure of several friends at Liverpool's triumph in the Premiership.  I read that Liverpool have a throw-in coach; they certainly seem to be coaching crosses and scoring from free kicks in their own box pretty well.  A fitting climax to a wonderful season. 

We live in a crazy world - António Guterres, the UN secretary general, says. “When two diplomats meet, there are at least six perceptions to manage: how the two perceive themselves, how they perceive each other – and how they think the other perceives them”.  So what hope is there when some of the parties trying to get agreement are megalomaniacs, fantasists or liars?

Back to epidemics and disease.  I read this article on using antibodies to treat coronavirus and it sounds like good news.  When this emergency recedes a bit we may find some useful new scientific tools in disease control.  But we, and researchers even more, need time to do the work thoroughly.  The understandable cries for results and solutions may drown out calls for caution.

Some lighter relief in the Covid world 

This girl is a keeper!!!! It happened at a New York Airport. This is hilarious. I wish I had the guts of this girl. An award should go to the United Airlines gate agent in New York for being smart and funny, while making her point, when confronted with a passenger who probably deserved to fly as cargo. For all of you out there who have had to deal with an irate customer, this one is for you.

A crowded United Airlines flight was canceled. A single agent was re-booking a long line of inconvenienced travelers.

Suddenly, an angry passenger pushed his way to the desk. He slapped his ticket on the counter and said, "I HAVE to be on this flight and it has to be FIRST CLASS."

The agent replied, "I'm sorry, sir. I'll be happy to try to help you, but I've got to help these folks first; and then I'm sure we'll be able to work something out."

The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that the passengers behind him could hear, "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO I AM?"

Without hesitating, the agent smiled and grabbed her public address microphone. "May I have your attention, please?", she began, her voice heard clearly throughout the terminal. "We have a passenger here at Gate 14 WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him with his identity, please come to Gate 14".

With the folks behind him in line laughing hysterically, the man glared at the United Airlines agent, gritted his teeth, and said, "F*** You!"

Without flinching, she smiled and said, "I'm sorry sir, you'll have to get in line for that, too."

Life isn't about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain...

Most of my music posts end up in the music blog, but this is partly about unappealing world leaders, so I put it here...  Just listening to the final duet of l’Incoronazione di Poppea - why has this poppe(a)d up in our consciousness more frequently on Radio 3 in this strange year? - and as always I cannot help reflecting that two of the most horrible and ruthless characters in opera should engender some of the most sublime music.

 

 

Another music-related post, showing that people are trying to assess the risk of singing together in confined spaces, an article in the Guardian.  Let’s hope this kind of research sheds light on an apparently risky actvity - at the moment I feel pessimistic about rejoining my choir.

Life, illness and ill health all go on despite as well as because of the pandemic.  There are some people who seem almost indestructible, as if they'd live for ever, but not so of course.  My life had been entwined with that of Ted Milligan, Edward H Milligan who was Librarian of the Society of Friends at Friends' House in London from 1957 until 1985 and my 'boss' there for several years from 1973; but as significantly at that time, my friend and mentor when we worked together on the Constitution Review Committee, and a little later played a key part in my wedding to Mary.  He died today, an irrreparable loss and  a wonderful life model for me and many others.  RIP Ted.

I began this blog listening to the gripping climax to the second Test - M revising as Aggers and Tuffers strut their commentator stuff.  This is definitely not the brittle WI side we became used to at the turn of the century.  I am finishing as the series nears its climax, either side can win, Broad and Anderson the undisputed best pair of fast bowlers in world cricket now or probably ever.  We all need to revise our field positions!