February 28th 2021

09:30 It's a rare morning when we can afford to stay in bed till 9:30 am,  so we make the most of it. Tomorrow is a public holiday in Western Australia, for Labour Day - what madness!!!! But our daughter Sarah, who lives over there just outside Perth with Francis and their 7-year-old twins, Lily and Jessie, wants to do another zoom call with us: the best time for her is 5:30 pm their time of 8:30 am over here, which is brutally early - oh dear! So we decide to luxuriate in bed today to gear ourselves up for it. 

the Labour Day holiday in Western Australia

10:30 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in the first of her sect's two worship services today on zoom.

I look at my smartphone, and I see that daily numbers of coronavirus cases are down at their lowest level for several months, which is good news. Also over 20 million people have had their first jab - they've progressed now down to people in their 40's, so our two daughters' generation. Let's hope that schools starting up on March 8th doesn't upset the apple-cart - yikes!

What a pity that not all the people at "The Independent" news website have yet learnt how to spell the word  "receive", but I'm going to let that one slide: I'm feeling generous today, and - let's face it - it's a small point in comparison to the story itself!

11:00 A lazy day for me. 

I look at the quora discussion website and look at a thread talking about the extraordinarily different types of law there are the world over. I look at the wikipedia article on the subject.

the world's legal systems - what a crazy mixture !!!!

I try to read the key to the different colours, but it's too small to read - what madness! Wikipedia is supposed to be the authoritative guide to life, the universe and everything! How do the lawyers manage to read the colours off if they have an important case coming up, and they can't remember what jurisdiction they're in ???!!!

The blue countries seem to have something called "civil law", where I suppose everything is laid down, the reddish-brown ones (including England) have the familiar (to us) "common law" where lawyers can appeal to previous cases and previous judgments, the green ones have "religious law" - yikes, thank goodness we're not in with that lot !!!!! 

The other colours are mixtures: for instance purple means a mixture of common law and civil law: most of Canada has common law, with just Quebec following French practice and going with Napoleonic civil law. Likewise in the US, it's all common law apart from Louisiana, where again things are a bit Frenchified, as far as I can tell. I think South Africa is a mixture of common law and the Afrikaner civil law. Et cetera.

But who knew that Scotland has a mixture of common law and "Roman and continental" law (which is a form of civil law) ? [I expect a lot of people knew that - Ed]. 

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

Lois and I have heard that juries in Scotland can bring in a "not proven" verdict, which isn't possible in England - here, it has to be "guilty" or "not guilty". We believe that majority verdicts are okay in Scotland, provided there are at least 8 jurors in agreement. We also think that the right to challenge jurors doesn't exist there, which seems strange, but it must save a lot of time, that's for sure! My god!!!!

I should imagine that if you get a "not proven" verdict you leave the court with a certain amount of "stains" on your character, which doesn't sound very nice, to put it mildly !!!!

16:00 Lois and I get on the computer and look at houses we might want to "downsize" to, if we go with selling our present house to our daughter Sarah and Francis, that is, if they decide to move back to the UK. We have lots of problems with this at the moment - I don't think we've decided how many bedrooms we want, and that kind of thing, and other quite basic issues, which we haven't resolved between us. Oh dear, this is going to be hard work!!!

20:00 We watch a bit of TV, the latest edition of "Antiques Roadshow", presented by the charming Fiona Bruce.

A member of the public brings in a picture by WS Lowry to be valued, not a very nice one, Lois and I think, because it's just a man on his own. We like Lowry's pictures of street scenes, where there are lots of matchstick-style, Lowry-type people walking about, but this one seems very dull - just a man on his own. 

The owner bought it for £1,300, but it turns out to be worth between £60,000 and £80,000. What madness, truly!!!

It's still nostalgic for us to see the painting, however, because our minds go back to the pre-lockdown times, when we used to frequent Lowry's Café in Bishops Cleeve, where many of the walls are covered with Lowry reproductions - happy days !!!!!

flashback to January 2020, just before the pandemic arrived -

at Lowry's Café, where many walls are covered with 

WS Lowry reproductions (not shown)

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!

February 27th 2021

08:00 Today is not an ordinary day - it's the 8th anniversary of my much-missed younger sister Kathy's death, aged just 65, in Norristown Pennsylvania, where she lived with husband Steve and with, over the years, a collection of cats, including Katy. Katy survives to this day, which is good, because she provides some comfort to Steve.

Kathy and Steve visited us many times periodically after their marriage in 1985, but on one occasion only, in November 2007,  Kathy came on her own for a few days - Steve wasn't able to join her, I forget what the circumstances were.

(left to right) Kathy, my brother Steve, and Lois, enjoying a drink at the Royal Oak pub

On Kathy's las evening Lois and I and our daughter Sarah dined at the Kings Arms, a local pub, together with Kathy, my late brother Steve, and our late mother.

(left to right) my brother Steve, our mother, Sarah, Kathy and Lois, at the Kings Arms

Kathy's visit ended the following day, on February 24th , when we drove Kathy to the Royal Well Bus Station and saw her off on the bus to Heathrow Airport. 

the next day we saw my later sister Kathy off on the bus to Heathrow Airport

Happy times!

09:00 No peace for the wicked! Lois and I have to be up, washed and breakfasted by 9 am for a zoom call with our daughter Sarah, who now lives just outside Perth, Australia, together with Francis and their 7-year-old twins, Lily and Jessie. Yikes! We haven't really got our "talking heads" on yet, but we do our best! 

The twins keep popping in and out. They have assigned birthdays to all their soft toys and today is apparently Snuff's birthday - and of course the twins are baking cakes for Snuff: how cute !!!!

11:00 After a calming cup of coffee and a digestive biscuit, we go for a walk on the local football field. We investigate the mysterious, so-called "Demilitarized Zone" [you're the only person in the world who calls it that! - Ed], which is a sad-looking mix of mud, ditches, pools of water, piles of sand, portaloos and inactive digger-machines. Nobody seems to know what it's for - what a crazy world we live in !!!!!

the local football field, with the mysterious "Demilitarized Zone" 

on the left of the picture near the clump of three trees

we visit the mysterious "Demilitarized Zone", as it is today,

a zone that still seems to fulfil no useful purpose

16:00 We talk on the phone to our other daughter Alison, who lives in Haslemere, Surrey with Ed and their 3 children, Josie (14), Rosalind (12) and Isaac (10). They are still stalled in their efforts to move to a house a mile or two away in a quieter location, just over the county boundary in Hampshire. Somebody earlier in the chain is having problems with lawyers - what madness!!!! Ed is himself a lawyer and he says the problems are all the result of people who like to "think inside the box" - oh dear!

Alison has been working as a teacher's assistant for a month or so, her first paid job for 15 years. So far she has been teaching the children of front line workers. However if schools resume fully on March 8th as Boris plans she will at last be doing the job she signed up to, i.e one to one teaching of children with special needs.

20:00 We settle down on the couch and see a little TV, the latest programme in Janina Ramirez's new archaeological series, "Raiders of the Lost Past".

Another fascinating programme by the archaeologist Lois and I have got used to calling "Boots Woman", although whatever she wears on her feet now is normally shrouded by some generous trouser bottoms - what madness! But her strikingly "Latino" looks and figure make a stark contrast tonight with the tall, slim, fair-skinned Norwegians she talks to during the programme, that's for sure.

An intact Viking long-ship used in a ship burial at Oseberg was unearthed from a mound at Tonsberg near Oslo in the early 1900's. 

Traces of other ship burials have been found in Norway, also Denmark and even Britain, but Oseberg is unique because most of the wooden ship itself was preserved, thanks to the damp clay and peat it was laid in, kept wet by a small stream - the only snag being that by 1903 all this wood was broken into about 2000 pieces, and had to be painstakingly reassembled, a job that took 21 years  - my god!

At the time of the ship's discovery, the pride of finding it helped to stoke the flames of Norwegian nationalism, because just at the same time the Norwegians were getting ready to throw off the Swedish yoke they had been living under for 4 centuries.

Two skeletons were found buried in the ship, and it was naturally assumed at the time of discovery that these were high status men or one high status man and his high status servant. But much later, in 2007, it was discovered that they were actually women.

Ramirez infers from this that "women were more powerful in Viking culture than had previously been thought". Lois and I are doubtful about this, however - we think that powerful kings would have wanted their queens to be honoured at their death, because it reflected well on themselves. It didn't necessarily mean that the women had any position of power - that's what we think anyway, call us cynics if you like haha!

flashback to May 2013: we visit a Viking ship burial in Ladby, Denmark

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!!

Friday February 26th 2021

08:00 Lois and I tumble out of the shower - my turn to clean today: damn! We otherwise have only one job to do today - to order next week's groceries from Budgens, the convenience store in the village.

10:00 After that we go for a walk in Pittville Park - it's chock full of people but, apart from family groups or couples they're all socially-distancing, which is nice. It's another mild day and sunny, and the crocuses etc are all out.

we showcase parts of the park lake, and also (in the distance)

the Pittville Pump Room, built in the 1820's 

After lunch and a nap in bed, we settle down on the couch with a cup of Earl Grey tea and the last 2 slices of Lois' delicious home-made sponge cake.

We listen to the radio, the latest edition of "Last Word". We try and hear this programme every Friday, so we can find out if anyone has died this week, or not.

The comedy writer Iain Pattinson has died, sadly, at the age of 68. Iain wrote continuity jokes for the comedy radio quiz show, "I'm Sorry, I haven't a Clue".

"When we see pictures of the avuncular Harold Wilson puffing on his pipe in the Cabinet Office, you'd never guess that he was widely believed to be a Russian-funded drug user, who planned the assassination of his political secretary, with whom he was having an adulterous affair. Today, of course, a Prime Minister would never get away with smoking indoors". 

Iain Pattinson

Iain was known for the ability to write deadpan reports that might seem totally innocent at first hearing, but which were capable of being interpreted differently after a few seconds' thought. And he always claimed that this was purely the fault of the listener's disgusting mind, and nothing to do with him personally - what madness!

the "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" team

He was responsible for lots of the programme's so-called background stories, many of them ostensibly about the show's "secretary" and "score-keeper", Samantha. In one of these, he reported that she had "just nipped out to meet a gentleman builder-friend who's come to insulate her roof space": and that she's "very much looking forward to getting felt laid down in the loft".

Or this one: "Samantha's just nipped out to meet a gentleman-bee-keeper-friend. She's just started keeping bees herself - three dozen or so, and she says her friend's an 'expert-handler'. Apparently he carefully takes out her 38 bees and soon has them flying around his head". 

Lois and I didn't know that, although a high school drop-out, Iain was something of a history buff. In one of the many "continuity pieces" he wrote for the show, he reported that "in the 1820's, an Aylesbury man became Britain's first forensic scientist. It was Grisham Elliott who devised a system for the storage and cataloguing of stolen goods, in what we now call the 'British Museum' ". 

When the show was visiting the town of Stoke-on-Trent, he reported for the show that "in the 1550's, most of the county of Staffordshire was given to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who is believed to have been the secret lover of Queen Elizabeth I. Rumours of an affair spread after Dudley's wife suspiciously died when she fell down the stairs. Notes for what may have been Dudley's carefully-formulated murder plot were later discovered. which had Step 1, Step 3, Step 7 and Step 25."

I don't know - what a crazy world we live in !!!!!

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, with Queen Elizabeth I

flashback to February 2015 - Lois and I see a live performance of the radio quiz

"I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" at the Centaur Theatre, Cheltenham Racecourse,

and I come away with a souvenir "Mornington Crescent" mug

20:00 We settle down on the couch and watch a TV documentary, a Horizon Special on "Coronavirus: What We Know Now".

They talk about the debated best time interval between the first and second dose of vaccine. With most vaccines, an interval of some kind seems to induce an immune response of higher quality. When you have your first dose, you activate a whole range of immune cells, some of which are better than doing the job than others. So if you go back and boost within 3-4 weeks, you are boosting all of those cells, including the rubbish ones. But if you wait 8-12 weeks, some of the not-so-good cells tend to die out, so the second dose only has to boost the very high quality cells, which gives the person overall a much higher quality response. Simples!

We all know about the R number, which for this virus would be about 3 in the absence of controls: i.e. the average infected person infects 3 other people. But there's also a K number, which looks at clusters of infections. K is relatively small for coronavirus - and if K number is small, a relatively small proportion of infected people will pass the infection on. For coronavirus only 10% of infected people account for 90% of transmissions - yikes!

The likelihood that you'll transmit the virus to others depends to some extent at least on your individual biology - such things as the thickness of your saliva, how violently you cough, and how loud you speak: my god! Luckily I speak so quietly that Lois can't also hear me when I'm sitting next to her on the sofa.

The most infectious time is the 24 hours before and after you first become aware of symptoms. This makes "superspreader events" very important in tracing programmes. And it would help if we did not just do forward tracing, but did more backward tracing, like they do in some countries e.g. Japan, to see who the infected person has been in contact with previously. Whoever gave you the virus probably gave it to several other people, who ought to be traced.

We hear a bit about ideas for future developments in testing: for example continuous sampling of sewers. When someone has an infection, billions of virus fragments are shed in their urine and faeces, and these get washed into the sewers - yuck! The plan would be that if a particular sewage treatment station sees a surge in levels they can alert the local authority to respond rapidly with a targeted testing programme and hopefully stifle any outbreak.

The good news is that there have been huge advances in our knowledge of how to treat the more seriously infected persons in hospitals, whether by drugs or other means. The risk of dying of the virus in a hospital has decreased from 35% to 15%, and even Intensive Care Unit (ICU) survival rates went up from 58% in March 2020 to over 80%, even by as early as June 2020.

The "herd immunity factor" (H), the proportion of the population needing to be vaccinated, is given by the formula H=(1-1/R)/E, where E is the percentage efficiency of the vaccine. If the vaccine efficiency is 79%, then 84% of the population needs to be vaccinated. However, if the efficiency becomes a bit less, say 77%, then the proportion of the population needing to be vaccinated goes up to 87%. 

There are various unknowns, needless to say. The base rate of R for coronavirus is 3, but new variants could have a larger base R number. Newer variants like the so-called UK variant could have an R number as high as 4 or 5. If R becomes 4, and vaccine efficacy remains at 77%, then the figure for obtaining herd immunity goes up from 87% to 97% of the population needing to be vaccinated, a level which may be unrealistic. 

Something like that anyway haha!

Fascinating stuff !!!!

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!!

Thursday February 25th 2021

08:00 'Bad news on the doorstep' (copyright Don McLean) - yes, New Guy is back, the milkman who hides our milk bottles behind a flower pot, so we have to step out in the cold and/or rain to retrieve them - what madness!!!! It's poor Lois's turn, dressed only in her dressing-gown, to get the milk bottles in and disinfect them, but she does an excellent job, I have to say!

Don "Bad News On The Doorstep" McLean

Let's hope that our regular milkman, Mark, takes over from New Guy again next week. Mark doesn't bother with any nonsense about "hiding" the milk. In 35 years in this house we have never had one single pint of milk stolen from our doorstep. What madness!!!!

09:00 A bit of a wasted morning for me, unfortunately, because I've got to wait for a phone call giving the surgery nurse's report of my annual review, the one they gave me last week: a blood test and blood pressure reading. Oh dear, I've been feeling nervous about this since yesterday - yikes!!

11:30 One of the surgery's nurses rings me - it's the nurse with the voice that makes you think she's getting herself ready to tell  you you've got some terminal illness. But I know what she's like so I discount the gloomy tone, and I'm right to do so - and in fact there's nothing about any terminal illness again, luckily: so hurrah! I live to fight another year haha!!!

our doctor's surgery

I haven't got diabetes, my kidneys are okay, my blood test was normal, my cholesterol level was only 3.9, probably thanks to the statins I've been taking for 4 months - and the statins haven't wrecked my liver either, which is good news - my liver is okay. Only my blood pressure is a potential concern for the future, but I think that for now they've accepted my explanation that it only goes up when I'm with the nurse. I promise to keep taking it at home and keep an eye on it - simples!

so-called "white coat" syndrome pushes up my blood pressure - damn!

13:00 A quick nap after lunch and then at 2:30 pm Lois and I sit down in front of the laptop for our U3A Danish group's fortnightly meeting on Skype.

We have a lot of fun as always, even despite (or maybe because of) all the technical problems and disasters. We can't see Jeanette, the group's only genuine Danish member, and we can't see Joy: but we can hear them loud and clear. Some members can see Jeanette, but like last week, she appears to have grown 3 heads and looks like she's sitting behind a set of Venetian blinds - what a crazy world we live in !!!!

Jeanette promises us that she'll try and acquire a zoom capability by the time of the next meeting. We all think zoom works better than Skype.

Jeanette, our group's only genuinely Danish member:

today she's grown 3 heads again as she appears on Skype - what madness!

On the plus side, Scilla, the group's Old Norse expert, manages to join us this time, thanks to the efforts of her IT support - her son Ben, the personal trainer. 

Scilla is staying with Ben at the moment, down on the south coast in Brighton, where she can apparently see the English Channel from her window.

Scilla (top), our Old Norse expert, and Lois and me (bottom), all trying to work Skype

Scilla appears to be speaking from her son Ben's kitchen table - and it's quite entertaining at times to see Ben wander in to make various elements of this evening's dinner: a cheese sauce or something similar. He has two young children to feed, as well as Scilla, poor chap!!!

16:00 The meeting ends and Lois and I collapse in a heap. We always feel totally exhausted at the end of what we call "a Danish day". It'll be a CookShop ready-meal tonight, that's for sure!

Oh dear, we're really getting old, there's no doubt about that - damn!

18:00 We're completely exhausted, so we just sit down to a CookShop ready-meal, mac cheese, bacon and garlic croutons.

tonight's "post-Danish" CookShop ready-meal:

mac cheese, bacon and garlic croutons - yum yum!

20:00 We watch a bit of TV, the third and final part of an interesting documentary series on Donald Trump's foreign policy, "Trump Takes On the World".

Once again, it's interesting to see the good and the bad side of Donald Trump's way of doing things. He approaches foreign policy issues in much the same way as he has approached his own real estate business issues in New York and elsewhere. This is good to an extent, because he has no difficulty finding the sheer drive to try "getting a deal" by one means or another, perhaps after other politicians would have given up.

Trump's voter base likes him "because he's a businessman", but Lois and I get the impression he isn't nearly such a good businessman as he makes out - he's mainly just an aggressive one who talks himself up a lot (to put it mildly!). 

The big problem is that handling foreign powers the way you would handle rivals in the real estate world doesn't really work. National pride tends to raise its head. I saw in the Danish media last year how much the Danes were offended by Trump's offer to "buy Greenland off them".

In last week's programme we saw how Trump tried to cosy up to the Israelis, to shore up his evangelical voter-base, without foreseeing that this would alienate the Palestinians for the rest of his presidency, and make a Middle East deal impossible.

In tonight's episode, he talks tough on China trade, convincing himself and his voter-base that he's truly going to "kick ass" and put America on top, but then he finds that he needs China's help in order to put pressure on North Korea.

However, Lois and I feel that the main problem with China and North Korea is that "doing a deal" doesn't really work for long anyway, because they'll always be scheming to get round any deal, paying lip-service to it, but postponing doing things, and not giving up their basic aims, as far as they possibly can. Call us cynics if you like haha!

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!