Good piece by Margaret Atwood about… what everything’s about, these days.
Any child growing up in Canada in the 1940s, at a time before there were vaccines for a horde of deadly diseases, was familiar with quarantine signs. They were yellow and they appeared on the front doors of houses. They said things such as DIPHTHERIA and SCARLET FEVER and WHOOPING COUGH. Milkmen – there were still milkmen in those years, sometimes with horse-drawn wagons – and bread men, ditto, and even icemen, and certainly postmen (and yes, they were all men), had to leave things on the front doorsteps. We kids would stand outside in the snow – for me, it was always winter in cities, as the rest of the time my family was up in the woods – gazing at the mysterious signs and wondering what gruesome things were going on inside the houses. Children were especially susceptible to these diseases, especially diptheria – I had four little cousins who died of it – so once in a while a classmate would disappear, sometimes to return, sometimes not.
This video on how to deal with your food shopping is good. I’m alarmed to hear that some coronaviruses can live frozen for — two years, I think he said? So buying open bread from the bakers and freezing it is probably not as safe as I had thought.
Oh, here’s The Guardian talking about the government’s mass text:
UK mobile firms asked to alert Britons to heed coronavirus lockdown
As I imagined, it’s not like there’s a massive database with everyone’s numbers. They just asked the operators to send it to all their customers.
I just got a text from the government about the new regime. I assume everyone did. I didn’t know they could do that. It just has this link.
Crazy Rich Asians, 2018 - ★★★½
In considering how rich families try to control who their progeny marry, I found it interesting to see if this mapped on to Pride and Prejudice at all. Only if if you stretch things quite a lot. “Darcy” and “Elizabeth” are already together at the start, after all.
It’s a fun enough romp if you don’t mind the fantastical displays of fabulous wealth. Interesting too, to see Michelle Yeoh as a controlling mother rather than a kickass starship captain.
Venturing Out: A Status Report from Hackney
I had cause to go to Westfield in Stratford the other day. It looked like this at about noon:
The Levis shop was open. I was picking up some jeans that had been in for repair. That’s a good note for when this is all over, incidentally. If your Levis wear into holes or get torn, most of their shops offer a repair service now. They may have done for years; I only learned about it a month or so back. But it means that for significantly less than a new pair of jeans, I have two good-as-new pairs, including the ones which were already my favourites. One antidote to fast fashion.
There was almost no-one around, and no-one was getting very close to anyone. In Lakeland I was able to get a refill (really, replacement) for one of our SodaStream CO2 cylinders. But they didn’t have any new ones. It seems unlikely that those have been panic-bought, but I was thinking of getting an extra one in case it becomes hard to get replacements, so others might have been ahead of me.
In and out within half an hour, and the parking was the least I’ve ever paid at Westfield: £3. I wouldn’t normally drive if I wasn’t buying much, but getting on the Overground would have been the opposite of social distancing.
Or maybe not, if it had been as empty as the mall.
But just yesterday I gave my daughter a lift to a friend’s house — same idea, avoid the bus — and up in Stamford Hill at around 4:30pm it was really busy with pedestrians. A lot of cars on the road, too. Maybe that was normal or less than, for that time on a Tuesday, though.
Dropped into the wee Sainsbury’s on the way back. No fresh fruit or veg at all. Most tinned goods and bread gone — no toilet rolls, obviously — plenty of snacks and crisps, surprisingly. Either panic-buyers prefer healthy options, or Sainsbury’s are quicker at getting unhealthy supplies back.
I have to confess to feeling a small amount of smugness at having stocked up over the last year or so. Brexit was the initial trigger, but I soon realised that having a supply of non-perishable items is actually pretty useful. If you can afford to buy a bit extra from time to time, and you’ve got the space to store it all, of course.
On the other hand, meals are going to get dull really fast without a regular supply of fresh things.
But if that’s the most we have to worry about, we’re doing better than many. I hope you are coping OK, dear reader.
Bajrangi Bhaijaan, 2015 - ★★★★★
I loved this film more Than I can possibly say. Sure, it’s sentimental as hell, but if you can watch the tale of a mute Pakistani girl who gets lost in Delhi, and looked after by a Hindu Indian guy, without a tear in your eye, then you have no heart.
Some thoughts on using Instapaper, from Dan J: Doubling Down on Instapaper – Dan J’s IndieWeb Headquarters.
Quite similar to my own experience (though with more note-taking).