SpoonfulOfDreams

CoVID-19  Day 38 I know my days see-sawed before the virus struck but the rhythm wasn’t so noticeable. We are all in a Mexican wave rising on the applause for NHS workers and sinking with latest death toll. CoVID-19 has its own rhythm but that’s not what drives our wave. I was up two days ago then down again today. But while our mental health is more brittle under the constant stress of unknowing and lack physical contact, that only explains the rawness, not what drives the moods. Life is a series of negotiations, playing cause against effect and actions against consequences Earthquakes devastate communities but much less so when the building are built to withstand them. When you travel through Greece you see new homes constructed around frames that will move as a unit during an earthquake. When you build something hoping against acts of God you are living in denial; that you are not subject to the same laws as others; that you are a specia

CoVID-19 Day 37 It has rained before during the lockdown but today was a proper day of rain. Though some have wondered if the cleaner air, as a result of the lockdown, was causing us to have such a sustained bout of sunshine still it had to break. True, particulates in the air do allow the precipitation of moisture in the atmosphere but there are natural seeding devices such as salt and sand thrown up by waves and as we live by the sea and near mountains which drive warm air upwards there’s hardly need for pollution. I created myself some masks this evening though I’ve not worn them in anger yet. All it required was a T shirt and a pair of scissors and made a pretty effective mask. There’s no sewing involved so that’s good. And I watched my second conference in 2 days on dealing with racism. Yesterday’s concerned racism within the Labour Party uncovered by the latest leaked report which revealed some awful racism where there ought not to have been any (as if

  CoVID-19 Day 36 Wake up — its dark. Check the time — 4am. Back to sleep. Its getting light — 5am. Its 6am and I’m checking stuff on my iPhone. My eyes are clear because I despatched the sandman an hour ago. I will be tired but am not feeling it now. Hello Monday. My mind is at its best when I wake up. That’s when ideas spark and deep thoughts surface with little resistance. If only I could divide my waking time into parallel lines of meditation and productive action I’d have life cracked. We double account our lives, bemoaning the time we wasted obsessing about one thing when we could have broadened our horizons; and marvelling at that guy who dedicated his life to a singular passion at the expense of a world of experiences. Accepting a 60% failure rate is the gateway to enjoying the other 40% If we’d spend less time worrying about misadventures, checking all the options and comparing our failures with others’ successes we’d live better l

CoVID-19 Day 35 I’ve just corrected my last entry. I marked it down as day 24 (10 days too short). Since I started this diary I’ve written 40 articles (including this one) which is more than a week’s work in just over a month (and its not my job). I’m looking out on an intense sunset marking the end of another day, a day where I recorded one of my own songs written in a hotel room in Atlanta Georgia. Its the longest video I’ve posted because it includes an explanation of how the song came about and what significance each verse and the chorus has. It’s an embellished story of my trip to Tennessee and the country song that came out of it. when you have a home secretary proud of the decrease in shoplifting at a time when most shops are shut Yesterday I recorded a song I’ve loved for 40 years but have only just learned to play. I love playing it and am pleased how the recording came out. I think it sounds professional and that’s significant, not beca

  CoVID-19 Day 34 Two days ago I deviated from my usual format and gave a straight account of my day without political comment or takeaway. Yesterday my entry was pure satire. It was a reaction to a Facebook post complaining about journalists taking issue with the government on the basis that they were being negative when what we need is cheering up. A friend made reference to ‘the left’ typically following this trend and that annoyed me. The truth is that the government have only done what is right because of pressure from the public and the opposition. It doesn’t really matter what the truth is, so long as the narrative can be successfully defended. I took a walk before publishing the satirical piece and was seriously considering deleting it and writing something softer but met friends who reminded me that we are in a precarious position, with truth telling being particularly important at this time. When I got back I re-read what I’d written and concl

Joining the dots As a consequence of the Warsaw pact unravelling in 1990 bitter rivalries that had been buried by communism resurfaced. Grievances that had never been resolved exploded resulting in ethnic cleansing and mass killings. With political restraints removed tribal blood-letting swept through the Balkans and beyond. Glasnost not only opened up political discourse it opened up old wounds for which the liberal West had no answer. Consolidatiion of power often brings with it a faux peace. If you can get everyone to repeat the same mantra or buy into a common message you can smother dissent and if you can get the media to buy into your narrative (other than nationalising it), any dissent then becomes treachery. Many concepts around freedom, liberty and justice become distorted within such a paradigm. People develop a kind of Stockholm syndrome identifying with, and trusting, those to whom they are captive politically and economically. You have more in common with

Covid-19 Day 33 Its that time of the week when you ask “what day is it tomorrow?” and exclaim “thank crunchie its a day with a y in it.” You’d leave work early ready for the weekend except since you’ve only left home in the last month to do a shop or stretch your legs, that’s kind of redundant. Anyway its time to get positive, not for CoVID-19 but about everything else. It’s time to cut the government some slack and get in the spirit of all in it together . Its reassuring to know we have a much better government than the one we had last month Clap for Boris, which is a bit unfortunate after getting the Coronavirus too. But never mind, he’s a fighter and we love him to bits. Poor chap is cooped up with only 1500 acres to exercise in and the nearest corner shop is miles away but I hope some kind soul picks up his Happy Shopper foie gras. We’re with you in spirit Boris. We need you to get better (much better). We are all being enthralled by t

CoVID-19 Day 32 I’ve been writing this diary for over a month now and I’m conscious I’ve largely spoken of my feelings and my reaction to news and events but not gone into great detail about what my day consists of. So here goes: I was awake aound 5.30 this morning and was onto Twitter and Facebook before writing up yesterday’s entry on my iPhone. Writing this takes up a fair bit of time so I didn’t get up till after 7am. I wasn’t writing for all that time, however, I did grab the odd bit of shut eye. So I got up, grabbed myself some cereal and a cup of tea, tarted up what I’d written, copied it to my personal blog and put links in my Facebook timeline and one of my pages. I then got on to working on a client’s website (that I built) for whom I also do customer support. I was working on improving the website’s visibility on Google, hoping to drive more traffic to it. We had an online meeting at 9am with the website being the main talking point. Afte

CoVID-19 Day 31 I’m now stressed because I don’t know what is stressing me. I cleared a couple of items off my worry list and now I have a headache. I’m wanting to be positive but what I’m hearing is that we don’t know what is going to be the most effective way to come out of this so I’m just confused. One thing a crisis does is focus the mind. We don’t perform well in the middle, we need a target to aim for or a hurdle to clear and often neither is in focus. Being on lock down isn’t generally helping but in this alternative bubble we do find ourselves thinking more critically about some of the things we otherwise take for granted or we get away with not paying attention to. there are months ahead of us before we are even out of the starting blocks Most of us know what we need to know about Coronavirus and social distancing and much of what we’re picking up is repetition. Even stuff that should be shocking is becoming part of the new norma

CoVID-19 Day 30 Today, for me, has been about search engines, key words and figuring out how to get people we don’t know who are asking questions we are not privy to find a website they were unaware of. Then asking a developer how long a particular part of the program is going to take to be ready for release. How long is a piece of string? This is the same day we discovered the shipment of PPE from Turkey that was apparently delayed on Sunday was actually a figment of our imagination when that news was announced. We are also discovering that no one has a clue how many people are dying each day from the Coronavirus. will people collectively demand knots be tied in the piece of string, the length of which is otherwise indeterminate On other matters I’ve been getting answers to questions (or part answers) that have been bothering me for days and raising ancillary questions that have lost me sleep. The difference between this and the sham daily press c

CoVID-19 Day 29 I was up really early this morning. I needed a drink and wasn’t going to sleep through. My mind was buzzing and I decided to write. I’d listened to Glen Greenwald last night, the journalist who was instrumental in getting the Wikileaks story supplied by Edward Snowden, published. He’s stood up to South American dictators and certainly risked his life in holding truth to power. He was encouraging left wing activists to stay with the programme despite being shafted over and over again. I have a feeling its going to be a week of sleep walking He was speaking to Americans but I could see the parallel here in the UK so I wrote my piece here on Medium. Its called Hard Lessons for the Left . That took me over 2 hours. I had planned to write for a short while then go back to bed but that never happened. I finally published the piece in Medium on this blog and copied snippets and links into Facebook by 9am when I had a scheduled meeting. That

Home Truths and Family Feuds Let’s not kid ourselves that the recently leaked Labour report is the kryptonite that will automatically kill the power of the Labour right and that of the residual Blairites. The report was to be submitted to the EHRC as part of the investigation into alleged systematic antisemitism in the Labour Party. Labour lawyers managed to stop it being submitted and then it was leaked. You don’t have to be a conspiracy geek to figure out that this action would effectively have buried the report (which is probably why it was leaked) and its hardly surprising that Labour HQ would primarily go after the leakers rather than the sabateurs named in the report. To be fair the party machine should have been expected to attempt to lock down the report and disallow any official dissemination of these revelations pending an investigation and to comply with those instructions is proper. But we also should have expected the membership of those named

CoVID-19 Day 28 My day started with the question, “What am I going to eat?” I had little more than eggs in so I made an omelette with a few non-foody things in it. Sorted. The sky was blue again. Again. It has rained once since the lockdown started and then for only a few minutes. We’ve seen the sky cloud over but that was just to let us know that we are not in a Truman show. It all adds to the strangeness as if there was someone in control of this which, it would appear, is not true. What is obvious is that the government certainly isn’t in control — of anything. The coronavirus might be novel, invisible and strange but its not mindful. Its not trying to outwit anyone or deliberately target certain types. While being more potent than we probably thought, its not omnipotent. Its nothing more than a string of information wrapped in a coat of grease. It relies on host cells to multiply which is why its difficult to fight. Its also very vulnerable to the mos

CoVID-19 Day 27 I walked and walked and walked today. It wasn’t my allotted daily exercise though I guess that got covered. I needed to deposit some cheques and the bank isn’t nearby. The walk there was very pleasant — the walk back, less so as my feet began to rub and one or two joints began to complain. I’m obviously not in shape so there’s something I need to tackle. I had planned to do less social media today. I think I probably did less though I wouldn’t call it a success. I’m not sure what’s best for me at the moment in this respect. It doesn’t get me down but while I was walking I kept finding myself reaching for my phone as if I needed to keep track when I didn’t. Well this diary keeps me posting on Facebook, my blog and here anyway. It can take up considerable time depending on what I’m writing about or how easily the words come to me so my commitment to this virtual life isn’t in doubt.   We cannot allow them to be painted as heroes on ca

CoVID-19 Day 26 You don’t need to want to be a leader but you do need to want to lead when you are one. Someone has pointed out that so many politicians are sociopaths, you can only conclude that there is something natural about politicians having sociopathic tendencies. Its that naked thirst for power that would concern a balanced person and ring alarm bells. But in the world of politics the bells are muted by pragmatism and process. There are many politicians who are driven by service while others are careerist but don’t have an agenda that’s focused on rising to great heights. Many genuinely want to use their position of privilege and influence to help those they represent while others want to steer politics from inside the machine (technocrats). Some set out to lead while others find themselves thrust into the position. But you can’t lead unless you are motivated by being one. It comes down to the difference between leadership and control

CoVID-19 Day 25 I had an extended Twitter conversation this morning (much longer than usual) with someone I’ve been following for a while and whom I tend to agree with on most things political. Where we’ve diverged is on who we supported in Labour’s leadership election. There wasn’t a great divide in the elections as many members weren’t particularly energised — none of the candidates were very compelling. A pendulum must swing its full arc before returning to the normal so must we experience the extent of our grief or disappointment sometimes before making a constructive journey back to the point of equilibrium With so many people calling for Labour’s first female leader (though Harriet Harman stood as interim leader after Ed Milliband resigned) I’ve been surprised that so many women voted for Kier when there were 2 women leadership candidates. This Twitterer voted for Kier Starmer who she felt would be the most electable when it came to a