Salut!

Covid-19 Diaries. London: (3) abscess and abstinence - and the series so far

 

 

It's just past midnight so thank God it's Friday. And here's a hearty thank you to all my contributors - Bill, Richard, Pete, John, Sue, Tim, Malcolm, Tony and Julian (look to your left for links) so far - for making Covid-19 Diaries so fascinating. One or two others are considering offering their thoughts so there is no immediate plan to wind down the series.

The response has been encouraging, too. Salut! goes through occasional spells of inactivity and therefore toddles along on very low "hit rates" until I publish something, plug it as best as I can on social media and watch the readership levels grow again.

Covid-19 Diaries. London: (2) reasons to be cheerful

This mini-series of coronavirus ramblings from around the world will continue as long as they keep coming my way and people keep coming in sufficient numbers to read them. Covered so far: Toronto, Madrid and London. All my friends dispersed around the world are warmly invited to join in. If you don't already have my e-mail address, leave a comment below ...

The human cost of the pandemic continues to appal and distress.

Over at the Daily Mail, the wizened old columnists, Brexiters to a man and woman (though some have to go home to confront sullen Remoaner kinfolk), are becoming fractious.

Dominic Lawson rubbishes the sort of thinking that inspired part of the headline for this series: "Please can our politicians stop calling this a war? It's nothing like it." But Stephen Glover worries, in a way he didn't when energetically promoting the dangerous gamble of Brexit, about the future of our youth: "The old may be most at risk from coronavirus, but I fear the young are set to pay a heavy price for the financial cost of fighting it."

Luckily, there is humour, too, and assorted reasons to be cheerful.

Covid-19 Diaries. London: (1) a mea culpa and the need to leave

One of those great covers Private Eye routinely produces. Buy the magazine as I do; it may be the best read in British publishing

My heartfelt thanks to Bill Taylor and Richard Pretorius for their superb contributions from Toronto and Madrid to this series on life under Covid-19. Here's my own first offering as a reluctant Londoner ...

Just over three weeks ago, I thought we might be sleepwalking into an unnecessary economic crisis.

I posted this sarcastic message at Facebook: "‪This is the moment to put aside partisan thoughts. In these dark times, let’s salute the Government’s valiant efforts to call an emergency Cobra meeting and then hold it only three days later. Let’s also salute the courage of 66m UK inhabitants who are going about their daily lives as if nothing much had happened. And may we also wish speedy recoveries to the 40 who’ve got Coronavirus?‬"

It can now be seen as utterly crass. Mitigating features? Plenty of highly intelligent people, including doctors known to me, at that stage shared my cynical outlook, arguing that ordinary decent winter flu was by far a greater threat, and one that never went away. The Government's own dallying over the timing of that "emergency" suggests similar thoughts had crossed ministerial minds.

We now know the crisis was not imagined and that, while many still seem to see no need to change their everyday lives, coronavirus is every bit as real a menace as suggested by one friend, Michael Smith, in his reply to my Facebook post back on March 2: "I tend to agree but I am assured by my neighbours, both senior NHS personnel, that it really is much more serious than it seems."