Hello in There Over There

Hello in There · Bette Midler - John Prine

Looking out into the day

Life in the city presents a window of observation both literally and figuratively. If I cranked my neck looking out to the right, I would see the main road, full of traffic, the missing Venetian blinds pulled down by those who are not gentle of touch might offer a spectacle in flagrante delicto of things better kept out of view.

On occasions, where I have been asked about the weather, a predilection to Miss Havisham’s shunning of the public might suggest that one is unaware of where the sun or the clouds might have come to an agreement about what day they want to show.

Left to my own devices, I will know nothing of what happens in my city until after the event. A hermit untouched and unknown, yet conversant and connected in isolation from sensual interaction.

A part of apartment life

Then, so much information filters in like sunrays on a brilliantly sunny day. From the fourth floor of the apartment block opposite and across the street, I know they are in because they open the window that reflects a blast of light into my living room. Should I wave to them?

For the past two days, the first-floor apartment across from mine had the blinds drawn. They are on holiday one must presume for nothing in the weather of the past couple of days supports the need to shelter from enjoying the elements. They appear to be a partying lot, not that I might haphazardly identify them on the street. They are a function of the apartment in which they live, as I might have been an operatic revue of the unspeakable that excites chortles and giggles.

Old people maybe not lonesome

To the left on the second floor, at the breaking of the dawn, an old man sits at the window looking at a world that his youth once participated in with verve and vigour. The lady who sometimes sits with him might be the wife of decades of marital bliss, a companion of life and experience, with whom living out the rest of their days might stretch to a time beyond record.

The stories in those faces, the memories that fetch fresh waters from wells of existence we could not begin to fathom. They could be parents, likely grandparents, never doubt them being great grandparents, but no little girl’s face has replaced the visage that has met my gaze.

Maybe they see me when I see them, if they ever noticed; for I have watched that window from my desk for years, I could wave at them to say, “Hello! In there”.

Coronavirus streets on my mind - LII

On the advent of the pandemic

In a way, I want to reflect on my experience of this Coronavirus pandemic; it has been troubling, difficult, and long. If I dwelt on the incompetence of my government that has marshalled and shepherded a death rate still unrivalled amongst its peers in Europe, I would find myself a misfit amongst other things, but I have to think for myself and those in my immediate community.

When the pandemic started, I was first classed in the highly vulnerable cohort and required to shield, but the British HIV Association came out with an update advising that those of us with an undetectable viral load and a CD4 cell count above 250, should not need to shield.

That did not make me any less vulnerable as anyone with HIV is immunosuppressed to a degree, we still need to continue our medication regimes and attend our scheduled check-ups. I had returned from South Africa by mid-January 2020 and within 2 weeks I was down with a water infection that required an albeit short hospital admission and weeks of weakness that took a while to recuperate from.

The choices that chilled

If that illness had happened in April, I would have been asked to stay at home and hope for the best when intravenous antibiotics and two sessions of electrolytes would have been needed to get me back to normal. The thought that doctors had unilaterally placed Do Not Resuscitate on a whole swathe of vulnerable patients on their register to apparently save the NHS sent a chill down my spine.

Blog - Thought Picnic: From chills to thrills in health updates

I for one kept isolated as much as I could, wore a face mask everywhere, avoided crowds and enclosed places. I even took to walking exercises as I longed for the opportunity to return to South Africa to be with Brian and that was not until mid-December. If I had not left in the week that I did, I would have been caught by the lockdown in the UK that fuelled another wave of infections and deaths.

Personal precautions, all the time

In South Africa, we had a lockdown too, with a curfew and an alcohol ban, though we could not visit the beach, we could the parks and botanical gardens which we took advantage of. Everywhere we went, we had to don facemasks, had our temperature taken, sanitise our hands and leave our contact details for track and trace purposes. There was a variant on the loose, but we were not careless about our health and welfare.

The only time we ended up in anything like a crowd was when we had to take fitness to travel PCR tests, for at that time, only one laboratory offered reliable tests accepted for travel purposes. This was before there was a vaccine and when we had not yet been offered the option to take it.

On return to the UK, I had to self-isolate at home for 10 days, but I was invited on the 5^th day for a test that proved negative and so earned an early release from my isolation. All the while, I was working from home and doing my best to thrive, despite the circumstances.

Every measure for safe living

Through this year, I had my first Pfizer jab in the last week of February, the Delta variant turned into a community threat from April into May, requiring another lockdown and in the first week of May, I got my second Pfizer jab. Much as we planned for another rendezvous in South Africa, it was beginning to look like we might not meet until the end of the year.

I had my hospital consultations for HIV in April and October, my annual flu jab and then took my third Pfizer jab or the booster shot in the second week of November. From October, we had decided December was the earliest we could meet again, and I put in my plans for holiday for the whole of December and the first two weeks of January. I would suppose I was granted the time compassionately with respect to my circumstances and the agency has provided a stand-in for the time that I am away.

Much as we are vaccinated, we are not throwing caution to the winds, as the same precautions we observed last year when there was no vaccine, we have observed diligently even as many we see on the streets seem to care nothing about the pandemic that has hardly gone away.

Calm in the face of turmoil

Just a week before my departure from England, South Africa and neighbouring southern African countries were placed on the red list that required any returnees to the UK to take up exorbitant hotel quarantine for 11 nights regardless of vaccination status, it could have scuppered our plans, but as my absence would be for 6 weeks and we were still learning about the Omicron variant, I felt that things would change during that period. I had to field many enquiries about my plans, but I remained calm and sanguine.

I changed nothing about my plans and flew out on the 3^rd of December, I am glad to note that the red list has been completely depleted from this morning and it is my hope that no radical changes occur for the rest of my sojourn here. Despite what the governments in many countries think they should be doing regarding this pandemic; I think they should be giving us advice and full information about the state of the pandemic.

Not getting too smart about it

However, I think it is now down to personal responsibility to take the utmost and particular attention to one’s health, to get vaccinated, to take precautions, and to navigate out Coronavirus streets with moderation, common sense and every safety measure to avoid contracting this virus.

Much as I cannot understand the inclination for vaccine hesitancy from the unlearned, talk less of those in the health services, I can only wonder how they expect to fight a virus with a naïve immune system, but each to their own, I know, I need vaccines against many things and some I cannot take like the yellow fever vaccine because it has a life though attenuated virus.

We are making the best of the time we have together and that is also for our health, our wellbeing and most importantly, our mental health too.

Blog - Quarantined in my self-isolation

Mascara on my lips

A bag of brushes

A brush with a cultural setting in celebration of a golden jubilee became the clean sweep of observed notions defined from one’s perspective in need of a broader discussion we rarely get to have much as it is necessary for defining identities cosmetic as they might seem on the surface.

The party gifts got inadvertently split and now there is a mirror before which to make up a story, for I cannot dare an anthropological or sociological study as one is not so qualified.

Cosmetic brushes

(1) Powder brush

Prominent as it is in the cosmetic bag that it could not be ignored for its usefulness, the converse could not be discounted to the purpose of useful advice when it was obvious that circumstance, situation, or necessity agglomerated a coterie of generously plus size ladies outnumbering the others.

The long-term consequences are dire if remedial action is not taken to shed the impactful interactions for gravity. And whilst this presents a cultural attractiveness or what some find as a form of beauty, for reasons one may not fully understand, the avoidable is best prevented than to face afflictions and infirmity resulting from such appearances. Fine adjustments for entrenched attitudes can do a lot.

(2) Blending brush

In the collision of colours, the contrasts need to be invisible to the eye and this is where the blending brush diminishes the checkerboard illusion of disharmony and apparent absence of deftness. As we so easily congregate for similarity and affinity, our communities begin to isolate from predominate host nations, people, customs, and culture.

It baffles that one can meet with people abroad having resided herein for decades who rarely have local friends or acquaintances at their functions except in work and formal settings. Speaking for oneself, it is likely that exposure to broad diversity from childhood has made the idea of separateness alien and probably anathema. To blend is to deign to escape our comfort zones to explore different things and discover new things. Whether it is a thing of courage or daring, one cannot tell.

(3) Lip gloss applicator brush

The deep knowledge of Brian is understanding the use of this brush is only too welcome. It can be messy and so this brush brings a sense of refinement, though not a brush, but more like a mitre-shaped sponge.

Tasty the cake was, compacted without a spongy feel that one opined about Nigerians baking cakes and one could appreciate the beauty of the structures whilst being left without the enthusiasm to invite the baker for one’s function. The icing on the cake was neither of icing sugar nor marzipan. It was a macadamised thick layer of milk chocolate. A first for me and a tradition for them, I suppose.

(4) Pencil brush

This would suggest an artistic touch to the broader application of make-up depending on where the makeup is being applied. Around the eyes, on the eyelids, delicate helps finesse apart from knowing what brush pertains to which function.

Alfresco style as stated on the invitation would have suggested consideration for the weather for which canopies were provided as we were outside, a garden party for us and a bouncy castle for the kids. Yet, the unfortunate faux pas of the shoes worn made mishap after mishap seek comedy timing for which we desperately exercised restraint.

Stiletto heels, no matter how good your shoes are just not it for a garden party, those are meant for firm floors or red carpets, but some came to till and plough the ground for a late planting season. Wedges, platforms or flats, nothing pointed, but that requires a better sense of awareness. In this case, the shoes should match the venue long before they match the event or the dress. You have to see what I saw.

(5) Lash and eyebrow brush

This the battle-axe of eye adornment and presentation and I doubt I saw more than was naturally grown. Surprisingly, no one lashed it one to bring too much to the flicker or the focus of the eye.

To one, apart from the company of who attended with and brief chatter with the celebrant, I could well have been invisible, and cliques and claques conversed loudly in imponderables expressing expertise in areas where they obviously had none.

The absence of engagement helped one observe, review, and appreciate why we owe more to helping our offspring find a better footing of self-assurance, self-esteem, and integration is societies that would look more different from the ones we grew up in.

The basics of imbuing them with confidence would not come alone from achievement but by engagement with a broader stratum of society whilst at the same time attempting to venture beyond the cocoons and bubbles that gave us belonging and comfort for so long. 

Quarantined in my self-isolation

No fun in this

If I am to be honest, I am not enjoying the sequestration, quarantine, self-isolation, or social distancing rave of the moment as part of the scheme to limit the spread of the Coronavirus. Much as I am a confessed hermit, I still like social interaction with other people and more on the physical than the virtual.

This social interaction is the equivalent of the grooming observed in a band of gorillas, we are all social beings. At least, I have not developed the ability to commune with inanimate objects and by that derive the benefits I would otherwise gain from seeing fellow human beings.

Obviously, I have to calm myself down and relax, there is another week and a half left of this matter and it could be extended. I would hate to think of what effect it would have on those of us who live alone at home or are used to social events that were so suddenly snatched away.

Sacred cows of our society

In our society, we lose objectivity when anyone suggests a cause is for charity, we are unquestioning and quite generous to charitable causes. You only have to watch the money mountain grow at nightlong television events like Sport Relief in the spring and Children in Need in the autumn, we have been had in a cult and many exploit it.

One other cult is our beloved and revered NHS, founded in 1948, we would not have anyone touch our National Health Service, yet, it has been raped, pillaged, starved through the decades, shedding many of its social underpinnings for the profit motive, but it is being called upon to fight this Coronavirus epidemic hobbled, restrained, underfunded, under-resourced, under-equipped and radically politicised.

A disservice to the NHS

It is not enough to throw money at the problem, someone should be solving the problem of throwing the NHS personnel in the middle of a pandemic without Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) against a virulent and highly contagious pathogen. Much as we applaud the NHS, we cannot justify sending them on a suicide mission for that is not what they signed up for.

They are there to save life and it only behoves the authorities to provide tests, protection and tools for them to perform excellently without having to be kamikaze heroes. Medical personnel are dying, many are gravely ill, and others are in isolation away from the battlefront where they are needed, because of failings in the system.

Exploiting our NHS love

To heap insult upon injury, NHS staff are being threatened with disciplinary action if they voice the dangers in their working environment, that is just unconscionably evil and whoever suggested that action should be booted out of the NHS forthwith.

On the message to the public, it was easy to attach the need for us to stay at home to the cult of the NHS. We are to stay at home to save the NHS, yet, the NHS staff are not given adequate protection and support to save themselves from ever-present danger at work and being vectors that take it to their homes. The government has been utterly derelict in their duty. Lest we forget it was used to drag us into the madness of Brexit that has consumed this country for 4 years.

If only we could see

I remembered reading books by Lobsang Rampa in my late teens which covered paranormal and occultic themes. In one of his narrations, he was in a physics class where electromagnetism was being demonstrated with iron filings used to visually show electromagnetic waves. He told the class he could see electromagnetic waves and he apparently went through a test of his assertion with him being able to tell when the waves were present or not.

Won’t it be wonderful to have that kind sight to see where the Coronavirus is, in the air and on surfaces and by that be able to navigate the world without interacting with it except when found in enclosed places with others or when someone expels droplets by sneezing or coughing?

Back to my feeling at the beginning of the blog, this self-isolation is having the effect that I want to further isolate and extricate myself, I feel I am losing the mental capacity to call up people and engage, I am tired.

Selling their discretion, dignity and honour

The death of discretion

It is now institutionalised; our armed forces do not have to live by the old English tenets of honour, courage, discretion, dignity and valour.

In fact, this might as well be the whole sum of 10 years of Tony Blair in government, the fact that everything that was traditionally British in terms of conduct and decorum has been jettisoned for the cult of personality.

After the naval personnel were released and had flown back to motherland, they lamented the fact that they were blindfolded, kept in isolation and interrogated.

The fact of captivity

One is left quite gob-smacked about what else was to be expected; surely, if anyone captures a group of military personnel in seemingly criminal activity like in this case allegedly plying the waters of Iran.

Any self-respecting intelligence outfit would isolate the members, disorientate the individuals and introduce elements of mental anguish and disinformation to discover in reality what that team was up to.

This is serious business, and what was to say that the British personnel under the guise of UN inspections were not trying to gather other intelligence about Iran?

The Iranians having captured the seeming enemy had to ensure beyond reasonable doubt that not one of all those captured had a specific assignment to do something different from what the team as a whole believed was their purpose and assignment when they presumably strayed into Iranian waters if that really was the case.

Preventing group-think

Beyond that, isolation was necessary to prevent a case of group-think where the captives would parrot out an agreed view rather than allow the intelligence people to piece together each story to see if they indeed match up.

It is something used everyday in crime-fighting, evidence gathering and basic interviews or interrogation, there is no reason for the Iranians to have been foolish about this.

That aspect of group-think came out in one of the interviews when some of the personnel said they all agreed that they would confess that they had crossed into Iranian waters - this is the kind of thing isolation and disorientation through blindfolding is supposed to prevent.

Smart and dumb

The supposed outrage at this treatment is a bit over-stated, we are at war in that region, and some really hard things are happening there just as we learnt of the death of four of our soldiers in Iraq on the day the naval personnel flew in to be reunited with their loved ones.

The only really smart thing the naval personnel did was not to adopt the folly of bravado in resisting the overwhelming power of the force that took them captive in the Iranian/Iraqi waters a few weeks ago.

Sell, sell, sell

Now, this is where I have abandoned hope about the discretion of the English, however, one must say, this more the exclusive preserve of the well-bred and properly schooled; that sort of breeding seems to have been exhausted at the Ministry of Defence when they gave permission to the naval personnel to sell their stories to yellow journalism newspapers, village rags and tabloids.

I really feared this development in an earlier blog but against hope really thought that reason and discretion would prevail on those in authority that was not to be the case. Publicists are now working overtime in an auction to determine who would pay the most for stories that were neither heroic nor commendable.

This is going to end up worse than some Big Brother tripe, the first to get their story in might get the most views and who better than the propaganda bait Leading Sea(wo)man Faye Turney to break all records and precedents of serving military personnel set lose to tell tales?

Nothing good will come of this

Each consequent story from other personnel would have to trump the previous till the whole thing becomes too incredible to believe because it is unlikely that each story would be interesting without suggestive prompting and reckless analysis as they egged on by editors without conscience or restraint.

The worse case scenario as I have already predicted is if and when anyone else gets captured anywhere in the world by our enemies, beautiful smiling faces would we not see, that is if they end up living to tell the tale - it could really become that serious, because no enemy would want to be portrayed a fool after their captives are released.

The clear and present danger to those left on the battle field cannot be exaggerated, not to talk of the possible recklessness of others who might see being guest of the Islamic republic as a ticket to earning a cool big packet of cash - at last reckoning Mrs. Turney was being offered GBP 100,000.

Even if the fees were to go to charity, the damage would have been done and it would have done irreparable damage.

No Great in Britain anymore

I am sick to the stomach not of the opportunity and the benefit, but of the fact that the whole infrastructure behind our military personnel could not provide emotional, mental and financial succour to the victims of a seeming injustice and captivity that they think being able to sell their stories would provide the best treatment for their trauma.

The ones who then have nothing interesting to sell would probably be left more damaged for not looking good enough to be fed to the British public as the next "Jade Goody" of ignoramuses who are in cahoots with Tony Blair in taking the Great out of Great Britain.

References

Dismay as crew told they can sell stories | Breaking News | News | Telegraph

Woman sailor sells her story in lucrative deal | Uk News | News | Telegraph

BBC NEWS | UK | Captives' media fees spark fury

Taking the "Great" out of Britain