Jim Stewart's Blog

Nice to have Martin Joseph in concert tonight. I decided to go the whole hog and plugged in the hifi and projector – worked really well.

They built some new houses just along the street. One condition was they had to add a bat box to the end of the house nearest me. One of the conditions on getting approval to remove trees in certain areas is a bat survey. Watching the film “contagion” recently it is based on an idea that a virus spreads from bats. So if this imaginary virus really came from bats why would we protect them?

The answer seemed clear in the pre-virus days. On this small planet there is a complex inter-relationship between all of the plants and animals, and killing off one species can have a massive effect. We need to protect this planet and all the species on it.

Our relationship with nature is incredibly complex. Just imagine how hard it is for scientists to predict the spread of this virus in people. Then add in all of the other species and viruses and the potential for mutation. How amazingly complex is that – perhaps we are not so God-like in knowing the effects of our interaction with nature.

Maybe changing the eating habits in Wuhan would make a difference, or maybe not – another virus could appear some other way in some other place, maybe from pigs in the USA. I still see a semblance of the idea that we can be like Gods in our response to the virus. Maybe we need to re-learn that we are not Gods.

Rain is due this week – I am tempted to drive to a supermarket just to sit in the car to see how the outside queues behave. This will be a big challenge to lockdown, probably worse than sunny weekends. Quite fitting for Britain.

News today is that people are being a bit dumb and using roads as racetracks. The good news for the drivers was they were sarcastically breaking the law to make a point to the police – so obviously they can be forgiven.

Today was a busy day. First the garage was tidied up to get ready for the high point of the day, then I emptied my new shed and old shed – spreading everything out on the lawn (I notice from Facebook I wasn’t the only person to do this today). I then managed to store everything back in the new shed – ready to demolish the old shed.

Then came the high point of the day – the Morrisons delivery. The first stranger to visit my house in 40 days. I arranged for the delivery to be made to the garage (now tidy). One item was substituted, but sadly my San Pelegrino was not available, nor was an alternative. So what is it with everybody buying sparking water? At least all my veg arrived. At the moment I have another two deliveries booked from different supermarkets to test them out – that works out as one shop every three weeks. I can live with that for most things, but really would like more regular vegetable deliveries. Monday will be time to call the local greengrocer to see if their deliveries are sorting out.

No toilet roll in this delivery, however I have identified a secret store of hand sanitiser that others do not seem to know about. I managed to pick up 2 litres for £9. If I ever get out of the house I should have enough for a couple of years now.

The remainder of the day was devoted to the garden until the light failed. I managed a post midnight walk – interesting how quiet it is late at night.

Anyway, back to sarcastic comments. Lets take him at his word – he was only joking around with journalists. How does that make somebody suffering at home feel, or somebody that has lost somebody they love? Or maybe we could believe he actually believes the Genesis II religion and their MMS “medicine”. That would be even more worrying. Any group that claims the virus is fake, but you can take bleach to cure yourself is a group that, in my opinion, is hard to believe, and having a leader that believed it would terrify me.

There are a lot of conspiracy theories going around – some further out there than others. It is worth asking how these things change the world, will they change government action or are they just hot air (miserable hot air at that)? We see similar stuff in newspapers. The virus is damaging the health of people and killing a lot. But during lockdown one of the things that affects more people is the anxiety, the stress, the worry. It makes their life miserable, and maybe in some cases even worse.

The way I have taken to judging things is to consider how they change my mood. Do they lift me up or pull me down? I understand (but don’t excuse) newspapers that are trying to sell with the shock horror probe approach (interesting seeing that a couple of them seem to be getting desperate for sales), but world leaders need to build people up at this time.

That has to be the main job of a leader – to build people up – the response to the virus is the job for people that understand the science.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

Having a chat with another semi-retired colleague from Germany today. It was quite interesting comparing how we are getting through our to-do lists that we made when we retired. Strange thing is, mine seems to be longer now than it was when I started. A to-do list that is longer on the inside than on the outside.

I have an old shed in the corner of the garden that I need to demolish. I was intending to use the base to mount some decking. But I have got to thinking – I could make it into a raised bed. It is in a perfect position for maximum sun. Quite tempting, but a lot of work. Especially since I would need to move all the soil through the house one bucket at a time. Any views?

Just been watching Shaun of the Dead. Why do Zombies always want to eat humans?

I’ve spent the day tidying up (when I wasn’t working). A lot of the stuff today I was repair tools and decorating equipment. I started thinking about the “stuff” I had in the house. It struck me that the bigger the house I have the more stuff I need for the upkeep. I think I am becoming more and more interested in a tiny house.

Anyway the interesting thing about my to-do list is how everything seems to be inter-connected in a sort of circle. I need to work on about 20 things at the same time – sort of A depends on B depends on C depends on D depends on A. As a result the house currently looks like a disaster area. I guess I have avoided this list because of the need for an extended period of free time to finish it – you know – not the sort of thing you can do for an hour a day because of the mess it makes.

I can’t demolish my old shed until I have somewhere to put the contents. I need to tidy my new shed to make space. I need to tidy my garage to make room for things from my new shed. I need to move some things from my garage to the loft to make room. And that is just one of the items on the to-do list.

But I still think all of this work is because I have over-complicated my life with stuff. I wonder if I should set myself a stuff removal goal instead of a to-do list.

Today I got to open my letter from Germany – with three packets of mystery seeds in it. Looking forward to seeing what pops out of the ground. I wonder if I can eat them.? Nice getting these little surprises.

Reminds me of when I shared a house with a guy from overseas that had just arrived in the UK. He had the habit of popping in to the old fashioned greengrocer on the way to work to pick up some fruit or veg to eat at lunch. One day he arrived with some daffodils and the secretary asked who they were a gift for. The old fashioned greengrocer was also a flower shop – and he hadn’t understood that daffs were not edible. I can’t really blame him – how crazy is it that a shop sells vegetables and flowers?

Tonight I went online to see if there were any delivery slots available – you need to book about three weeks in advance. And suddenly a slot opened in two days. Another pleasant surprise.

It’s amazing how little things can really make a difference to how you feel.

Forgot to add toilet paper to my order – and hand sanitiser. Really must remember I do more than just eat. It was interesting looking at what was out of stock – not sure we have learned much over the last few weeks.

Tonight was another clap for the NHS night. It was a nice idea, and a couple of times an ambulance has driven past during the clapping. I’m sure that little effort meant a lot to them. But I was wondering – are there other little things we can do? One of the things the NHS is good at is producing lists of addresses of clinics, doctors surgeries, hospitals, wards. How about picking one or two at random and sending a thank you card?

And how about doing that for friends? If you are as crazy as me you could even just pick a house a address at random and send them a card wishing them well. There are so many little things we can do.

My first planting of onions are now 10cm above ground. My Rhododendron are starting to flower, and all of my chili varieties have germinated. That includes a Mexican desert chili (probably an illegally smuggled chili from Cesar – but he is Mexican).

It does seem that I have green thumbs. Even weeds grow when I touch them. It made me think about both of my grandfathers. I never knew them, but I heard stories of them and their growing exploits.

I was told about one grandfather trying to develop a new fruit by grafting different plants together. The other one was apparently trying to develop a blue rose. I don’t know if the tale is true, but I was once told a story about this – the roses opened while he was at work, but came out white – so my grandmother apparently got some blue dye and dipped them in it (maybe another trait I have from her).

I remember my mother was always fascinated by China, and now I have looked at her family history I have discovered her ancestors had a lot to do with the shaping of modern China. She never knew that. I don’t think I believe in the concept of memories being passed from generation to generation through genetics, but I do think there are factors we are not clear about that influence us to be similar to our ancestors, that provide hidden links.

Before the 2nd world war there was the Spanish civil war where the fascists actually won and stayed in power for decades. Brits were not allowed to fight in that war, I guess as much because of appeasement of Herr Hitler. My mother had a cousin who went there as a medic.

I was helped by Alan Warren to track his journey in Spain. We know he was captured and then appeared back on his own side of the lines recuperating. We found the building he was based in during the Ebro assault. He was then wounded and ended up in a hospital in Tarragona just before the International Brigade left. He died there. Where his body ended up is something I have not found out. There are a number of unmarked mass graves in the area, although he could have been thrown in a rubbish tip.

There is no grave, and no memorial to him in the UK. If you know where to look in Spain there is a rough dirt track that you can just about drive up to the top of a remote hill where he gets a mention. There is something about not having a memorial that just doesn’t sit right with me.

There are a lot of people at the moment that have family that are ill, or family that have died, and they are unable to travel to visit them or their funeral. We are still allowing funerals because experts recognise the need for people to say goodbye. At times like this the family links become more important to us.

I do wonder about the effect of this. We have been a nation of people that for a long time have “got on their bike” (to quote Leon), but there does seem to have been migration as a family until recently – where we have been happy to live relatively long distances away from family because of the ease of travel.

Will we see a trend in families moving closer together after this?

I’ve started to put together a list of the things I would want to buy if I went shopping. What have I used a lot of? The new rues say you can only shop if you are buying essential items. You can buy luxury items if they are also in the shop. Likewise you can buy DIY supplies to make essential repairs, but you can’t buy things to make improvements.

Quite a thin line to walk really. So when I did my list I thought I would go over it and mark the things I would call essential as opposed to luxury. This will vary for all of us, for example vegans are unlikely to mark meat products as essential. So I guess there is a bit of personal in the essential.

After I finished the process I was quite surprised at how few items on my list really were essential. On the DIY front I really would like some topsoil or compost to improve the soil quality (my garden becomes a sand pit over time) but there is that word “improve”. So does that make it wrong – I mean it would be to produce my own food?

One of the things I remember from my trip to Nicaragua was that the audits of the villages (before support) showed that several people lived off around 5 staples. They didn’t have a rack of spices to season their food, they just had a small number of things they ate day after day after day. It wasn’t essential to go for a big Mac because there was no Big Mac to have. Such a limited diet was not healthy, but then it does question just how much of what we eat is not really essential.

This fits in with my attempts to re-use things. I have bought plant pots before, but actually I have also thrown away tubs that could just as easily been adapted to become plant pots. I can still remember my father using old window frames to build cold frames to bring on seedlings.

What is really essential in my life? Not as much as the pre-lockdown me used to buy.

Aside from that I also had a surprise package today – now sitting in the de-virus zone for two days. Looks like a package of seeds from Germany. Looking forward to opening it and discovering what I have to plant. Hoping there is a toilet paper plant in the packet.

My planting has gone well so far this year – my onions are growing at a really impressive rate – they clearly like the sandy soil. Only two varieties of seed have still to germinate . both chili plants. I am determined I will get one variety to grow – the Mexican chipotle (this is a challenge from Cesar who likes the taste of home).

Slowly I am getting re-arranged ready to dismantle my old shed. I wonder if I could use the parts to build a cold frame?

Today was an interesting day. Half way through the day I discovered that Peter Banks was going to attempt to do a live stream covering some of his early keyboard exploits.

It was a small audience, a very intimate session. I dare say there would not have been a live session like this without the lockdown. It really brightened my day.

Then there was an email I got from my email provider – they are closing down the email address I have had for over 25 years. A bit annoying at first, but as I worked to transfer all of my contact details to a new email address I realised it was an opportunity to organise things a bit better, and I ended up with that just-showered feeling afterwards. Without the lockdown I would have found it hard to make the time to do this on-line spring clean.

On top of this I had a call from Snowy to chat about life – and to get bullied by him in to connecting with other people that I had not seen in over 20 years.

Overall the day was better than it would have been without lockdown. Strange.

I also noticed today that the last cruise ships were returning to their home ports today to disembark their passengers. It reminds me of a paper I gave at a conference a few years ago at IMO, looking at ship safety in the future (since Fukushima had just happened they wanted to get a nuclear input). The issue I chose to talk about was the problems of the economy of scale. We build bigger and bigger, then get really shocked when the accidents are so big.

If you think about it – if a large cruise ship has an accident (or an illness spreading fast) how many ports can deal with it – certainly none on the remote islands some of these cruise ships visit. The ship just docking had just under 2,000 passengers – and had been visiting Pitcairn where the population was 50, and the Raratonga in the Cook Islands where the population was around 10,000. Imagine how hard it would be for those islands to cope with even a small number of casualties or sick people from the ship. Raratonga hospital has only 80 beds.

There are many other examples where the size of our creations has contributed in some way to the death toll. Think about the World Trade Center – how many less would have died if there were four buildings half the size? Or eight buildings a quarter of the size.

We build bigger because it is cheaper. The economy of scale. An easy way to think about it is to think about a dam to store water. If you have a dam 1m high and it fails then you get wet to the waist. If you have 10 dams 1m high and they all fail at the same time (much less likely) then you still get wet to the waist. But if you use the economy of scale and build one dam 10m high and it fails then there is a good chance of drowning.

How much of our world has had the economy of scale driving the way we develop? Our large cities are an example, with their poor air quality and now the fast spreading of the virus. Will the new runway at Heathrow be a future example?

I guess I am just thinking along the lines of the tower of Babel story, where we attempt to promote ourselves to the position of gods with our technical prowess. Maybe smaller is more expensive, but maybe it is a better way to live.

When we were trained about a pandemic we were told to expect a lockdown of six weeks. The reasoning behind this was not some magic length of time that would be needed to get rid of the problem, but more about the ability of people to live in quarantine. That would put it two weeks away on the 4th May. However, I get the impression that we may well have moved to eight weeks these days, suggesting people will be able to cope until 18th May.

I’m not so sure about the eight weeks. Today I could see from my window two groups of people that were getting together in multiple household groups. Only four weeks in and cracks are starting to appear. Similarly there are rumblings in the USA. European nations are coming out of lockdown (after about six weeks).

Quite sad that our society has such lack of control. Irrespective of the number of amazing examples, like the nurses and doctors, or like Captain Tom (currently over £25M – or 50p for every person in the UK), there are people at the other end of the spectrum who seem to live their life based on the “I want” principle.

So my suggestion is that you take the 5 pillars for ending lockdown with a pinch of salt – my suggestion is that you watch the transport graph in the daily briefings – how many people are moving around – because that will tell you when we have decided to stop being locked down.

Today I took time to put together two plastic bottle plant pots with different designs. I’ll see which works best. I have set up one with a tomato plant, and in the other I am going to try to grow an onion. It will be interesting seeing how they work. The advantages are that the environment inside the bottle is warmer and the moisture stays in the bottle, it needs a lot less watering. My guess is that it will also be a good way to grow things outside the main growing season.

I decided to cook a bread based pizza today – still cam’t go to bed – must remember to halve the amounts next tine I try one.

One of the problems about a job that involves a 24/7 response is that sometimes it does occasionally mean working outside the normal Monday to Friday 9-5. Today was one of those days. 5 am (the other 5) on Sunday morning and just finished work. Looking forward to sleep – so this will be short.

Today has been a spring clean day. My house has four loft areas and one of them is harder to use than others, so this is the first time I have ventured in for a couple of years. There were things I discovered that I thought I had thrown away ages ago. It left me questioning why I still had them.

It isn’t hoarding, I just hate the idea of throwing away something that still has a usable life. And to be honest a couple of the things I found are now back in service. Over the past few years I have been getting more and more concerned by our disposable society. I used to live beside a 90+ year old woman in Vienna who never used a litter bin – she had lived through hard times and had learned not to throw anything away that could be used.

So I am using this lockdown to explore how much re-purposing I can use to cover for the closure of some of the shops. I like the idea of using bottles as propagators for plants. I’m not sure the designs I have seen are the best, so next week I’ll try to make a couple of different designs. We need to change how we live.

And surprise, surprise, not only did I find some toilet paper – but I also found some hand sanitizer. You might wonder why I have stuff like that in long term storage – I had a small camping bag that had gone in to store without being emptied fully. So another two days toilet paper supply obtained…

Unfortunately I discovered why I don’t use that loft much. Even small head wounds bleed a lot. Putting on a plaster in a mirror is an interesting skill to have.

Interesting listening to a couple of select committees today. One discussed the suggestion coming out of one USA study that we will need a degree of lockdown until 2022. Could we really live like this for another 2 years? People are already getting restless in the USA. The discussions were very revealing about the reason the UK reacted later than others.

There was a recognition that an earlier lockdown would have saved more lives if it was maintained for a very long time. Accepting that we (the public) would not be able to social distance for years meant that introduction of lockdown had to be delayed to be most effective (to cover the peak). The balancing act is one I would not want to be responsible for.

The scientists were not the best at explaining their views, or perhaps understanding that society is perhaps less reliable than a scientific experiment. I did enjoy the Austrian government explanation of why they have insisted on masks in shops – the science was not conclusive but the masks provide a reminder to people that there is a medical emergency – sometimes you can’t depend on science to make a decision. Very pragmatic.

One thing that was explained was that the numbers being published each day that we are using to see if we are being successful with lockdown are not the numbers being used by the scientists.

One thing that is becoming clearer is that the number of deaths being reported is only one of a large number of factors affecting decisions (okay, I knew that anyway – but it is now becoming clearer from public information) and most of us are not privy to more than a small fraction of the information needed to know how to manage the response. No amount of “Internet Research” will help us to judge whether government decisions are right, we can’t judge the answers, because we don’t even know the questions.

Even if the government tells us the answer is 42 we can never really judge it unless we know the question. We can believe the answer is right or wrong, it makes no difference. In the end this is a sort of faith journey, and whether we have faith or not we have no option but to travel on the journey. I guess this must be easier for people that are religious, not because they find faith in politicians easier, but because they have an alternative to faith in politicians. Maybe not the best time to be a left-wing atheist.