Jim Stewart's Blog

Weeding time today. I try to limit the use of chemicals – I tend to use flame, particularly for weeds growing in cracks in paths. I also had a good collection of dried weeds ready to get rid of. It was just too tempting.

It managed to get the neighbour to peer over the fence. And then came the confession. He has 100 toilet rolls at home and 500 at work. He finally told me that it wasn’t because he was hoarding, it was because he made a mistake with the ordering system – he thought the unit was a toilet roll when in fact the unit was a pack of 48 toilet rolls. So I guess I can stop worrying about him trying to steal my toilet roll.

On the other hand he did admit to being short of hand sanitiser. Must remember to electrify my fence to stop him getting at mine

This week is back to a normal work week. Still as busy as ever. The world is still turning as far as transport is concerned. Still, managing time to read the latest crazy theories. Strikes me that one thing about the virus is that people feel the need to blame somebody. It could take the form of a secret lab or a government response, but blame needs to be appointed.

I think that is one thing I really liked about visiting Greenland. There was an acceptance that there are things outside our control – when people arranged to collect you in a boat at a time they would often add “immaqa”. In a sense this means maybe, or perhaps “god willing”, but it really conveys the idea that there are forces we do not and cannot control. Perhaps the need to blame is linked to a deep desire to feel we can control this virus.

In a sense we can control it on a national basis, but at an individual level there can be a sense of no control. We can’t see it, and if we get it we have nothing to fight it, there are no drugs. So we blame somebody for the lack of control, or we invent magical cures to give us control, and suddenly we are in charge of the world again.

I remember talking to a colleague from Japan a year before the Fukushima accident whether they had considered massive natural disasters like 15m tsunamis – his reply was “We are not God”. He later thanked me when I reminded him about this. This wasn’t a religious reply – it was a scientific reply – an acceptance of the limits of human control. It can be hard to accept we are not omnipotent, but sometimes we need to face up to it. I would dare to suggest that the social gatherings in parks are part of this reluctance to accept our individual impotence. Oh, and my colleague from Japan designed equipment that sat on a dock and survived the tsunami – he didn’t design to meet a safety rule – he designed on the basis that he couldn’t predict the future.

Talking of Greenland there was one encounter that sticks in my mind. I was visiting a village that the guide books said had a part time cafe. I walked around the village and finally found the building that housed the cafe. It was closed. There was a guy sitting at the door. I walked up and started talking to him. I asked “When is the cafe open?”. His reply was “Sometimes”. I like that way of living.

I know HRH Donald wants to loosen the controls for Easter, but I have set my goal as early May for the first relaxation of the controls. Why? Well the government has said they will review every three weeks, and the warning of potentially tougher controls today tells me the review next week is not likely to be positive – so the earliest they will relax things would be early May.

This isn’t a prediction of the end of restrictions, it is just my way of managing the isolation. One of the things that gets to people is not having any idea of an end date, setting one for yourself can help because it gives a sense of stability, it helps you plan. And just like the government I’ll review the date every few weeks.

So today I had a series of Zoom meetings. I invited groups with a mixture of people – some knew each other and some didn’t. One of the things I got out of it was the idea that we are experiencing the same things in different parts of the world. I heard that San Francisco had to close parks because of too many people gathering in them. I guess stupidity is a global phenomenon.

It was really good to see some people that I have not seen for many years (some over 20 years). It does make you re-evaluate the things in life that have got in the way of more regular meetings. Were they really that important?

I think I have found a solution to my toilet paper storage. And they can deliver IT in three days! It should be good enough. I almost had a disaster on the toilet paper front last night. I would normally store spares under my sink. I discovered a pool of water on the shelf they normally sat on – good job I had hidden them elsewhere. No idea where the water came from, all the pipes were bone dry. Wondering if it was left by somebody that was using a cunning hydraulic attachment that was leaking – trying to search under my sink for toilet paper.

There is clearly no doubt about the cause of this virus. The source is obviously one of the alien species inhabiting the earth. The question is which one? It is targeting the followers of one of the other species.

The problem is working out which one is doing the attacking, which one is being attacked. And of course the big question is whether any of them have a solution. Which planet should we side with?

Crazy? Well there are actually people out there that believe things like this – and some of the theories being shared on-line are as bad as this. You might think you are safe from the virus if you lock yourself in your house, but not if you read and believe the Internet.

How much of this is down to Russian fake news farms we might see in the future. they certainly were busy before the virus started, and people were locked in to following them (following the particular bots that spread the lies they wanted to support).

Today was my Saturday off from isolation – I took time to chill out and relax. I looked through some old photos on CD and found some interesting ones I had not loaded on to my computer previously. Some of them I couldn’t remember taking. These all go back to the days of film cameras – I used to get a scan done when the films were developed – some go back about half a lifetime.

I think I’ll set up an on-line album for people to look at and tell me what was going on when the photo was taken.

Just seen the advert for the Ring Door View cam – see who is at the door no matter where you are. Yes, if you are in the living room, the kitchen, the bedroom you can see who is at the door and make it look as though you are at home when you are at home.

Went for my post-midnight walk last night – fantastic time to get exercise – nobody around. The world is no longer normal, so why behave as normal in time? Yes, I know we need a routine, but why does it have to be based on a pre-lockdown routine? Time to think out of the box, because maybe the box will be gone for a while.

Today we were not advised to stay indoors, we were instructed to stay indoors this weekend. Is that a bit OTT? What would one day matter?

I’ve seen lots of graphs plotting trends with nice curves. I must admit to being a bit puzzled over the choices of what different newspapers and TV news have decided to show. People seem to be trying to match up the lines to see where we are going based on the history in other countries.

Truth is, matching the past data is likely to mean the future of the lines will diverge. There are so many different variables that plotting a graph on your number counting software just will not work. This is why it has taken a complex model by Imperial to get a realistic prediction for the UK. That isn’t to say plotting the data is bad – the problem comes when you try to match one country to another. Different countries have very different infrastructures, different traditions, different responses, different population profiles and even different genetics.

So what does the UK data show? Well, the death rate is growing at a fairly steady rate. And the numbers are on a fairly steady curve. The daily death rate is doubling about every 3 days. The reason for this is that the lockdown takes time to show in the death figures.

The new case figures also are showing a steady increase. A couple of weeks ago this was also doubling about every 3 days, but the latest data is showing it is doubling every 8 days – much better. Our actions seem to be working. We just need to wait to see that translate to a slower increase in death rate.

But the numbers are still increasing. Yes increasing slower, but still increasing. We need to get the number of new cases to reduce.

The big question now is whether we can have a day to relax – to see the sun. What harm can that do?

Our “best case” scenario is that 20,000 will die from this virus. Just one day relaxation could result in an additional 4-5000 people dying. Two days of ignoring the stay indoors rule could see the number of deaths increase by 10,000 overall.

That is how the numbers work. Right now we need to really work hard at keeping a lid on things. The numbers are still increasing – we need to keep the pressure on and turn them round. So stay indoors and count the sheets of toilet paper. No messing!

I’ll be sending out invites for a few on-line meetings for Sunday. You might get an invite, you might even know some of the other people in the meeting – but I will not guarantee it. But here is a really crazy idea. I have paper, and I have lots of pens. If I were to write things on the paper with the pens it would give me something to do – and I could even send it to people to give them something to do. I think it could be called “words” – or maybe calling it “letters” might be better.

Well, I am now off to do a post midnight stroll to get exercise when there is very little chance of meeting people. The advantage of walking at night is that it is so quiet that you can hear the toilets flush – so you get an idea of where the toilet paper stashes are.

When I took early retirement I wrote down a list of jobs to do. Today I finally got round to one of them – sorting out my digital photos. I think I have about another 2 weeks work sorting them all out. I may not be able to complete my walk along the Liverpool to Leeds canal, but at least I might get one item ticked off the list.

The down side is that occasionally I will pause on a photo that makes me daydream about the places I love to visit.

Looking at the other jobs I wanted to do was putting some of my records on to computer. Copying my records – just getting rough copies will take a month. Probably will not get round to it during the shut down – a bridge too far.

My nose was still burning this morning. Really must improve my hand washing.

Spent a few hours chasing up a train delay refund refusal. They had calculated that arrival at 19:58 on a journey planned to arrive at 19:28 was on time. I suppose if you round to the hour that might be right.

I heard the coronavirus advert by Prof Chris Whitty while I was looking away from the TV. I thought it was Simon Cowell for a moment.

I hear Mic has finished his first toilet toll – so he posted on Facebook. Wondering if this is another ploy. You need to take care with these so called innocent Facebook posts – people can be looking for personal information if you post replies. Now he can scan the replies to his post to work out which of his friends admit to having a large supply of toilet paper and make good targets.

But on a serious note – there are currently loads of social media posts asking you to complete a list. Before you start to fill one in ask yourself – is there information I am putting in this post that is the answer to a security question on an internet account (for example your favourite colour, or the name of your first pet).

Serious, serious error today. I got to 8pm before I realised I had not had any coffee. How did it happen? Am I ill? Is this a new symptom of COVID-19? I am now topping up on a few cups otherwise I will never get to sleep. That was a minor error though, but more about that later.

First job today was a bit of spring cleaning my computer room. Dusting air vents on the desktop, clearing everything off the table and discovering all the hidden dust traps. Tomorrow will be dusting my hard disk – getting rid of all those duplicate files stuff I will never use again. Apparently if I spend 1 second looking at each photo on this computer it will take me 2 days to go through them all.

I then moved on to seed planting. I decided I would stick to 40 plants this year, that should be enough to keep me busy. I went for a mixture of tomato and pepper. One part was removing seeds from dried peppers. And here was my second mistake.

They say that proper hand cleaning is helped if you imagine your hands are covered in hot pepper. Well, I did wash my hands afterward, twice, 20 seconds each time at least. I then made the mistake of touching my nose. It made me realise just how hard it is to remove contamination from your hands! Hot hot hot – burning nose. I’m just glad I touched my nose before going to the toilet.

Topped off the day by planting a few onions. Be interesting seeing how well they take in sandy soil.

I remember driving in America in an area where there were few radio stations. The only station I could get was a conspiracy station. Remember all the stuff on the X-files, well they were reporting it. The black helicopters of the UN being directed by the secret bar-codes on road signs were a real and present threat. This is one reason some Americans need guns (although I would argue that holding these beliefs is evidence that they are unsafe with a water pistol).

I visited Roswell and met somebody that told me about the implant he had found in his head, and how he had remembered his abduction after it was removed.

Near Area 51 there is a village called Rachel – I met somebody that made alien T-shirts there. He said that there was no work there, so he encouraged alien rumours to keep sales up. He collected stories from people that came there to see aliens.

Last time I was in hospital I met a guy who was suffering from Alzheimers who was sure he played in a support band for the Beetles. It made him happy – so why tell him he was too young – sometimes it doesn’t help to prove people wrong.

I remember one letter to Tony Blair that I had to answer that was written in a spiral – and the content was also pretty much going round in circles. People with odd ideas exist all round us, and many of the ideas make no difference to the world. Do I care if somebody in Roswell wants to tell people he was abducted by aliens? But I need to care about people preaching against vaccines – because they kill children.

It’s all pretty harmless stuff. There are also the chemtrails bunch (you know – governments are in league with airlines to spread chemicals from aircraft to control us). They tend to be linked with people that are sure vaccines damage people. Actually, vaccines do damage people, the UK has a compensation scheme which has paid out about 1000 times over about 35 years. At the same time vaccines save millions of lives. On balance vaccines save lives, but are imperfect like many medicines.

A smattering of truth helps to give the anti-vaccine story some weight, but if you look at the details you will see it is filled with factual inaccuracy. Personally I call it lies. And no matter how often you try to point out facts the faith of the anti-vaccine people is such that they continue to try to proselytize.

And now we see a whole madness movement appearing on social media, there are magic cures, there are conspiracy theories (the Russians say Trump is behind the virus). But now the potential for harm is really significant. It might be encouraging people to behave in an unsafe way, or it might just be creating fear (some people are really struggling with fear at the moment). But this virus is like a full moon – it is bringing out strange behaviour. In this case the behaviour does risk harming people – how do we deal with it?

And talking about strange behaviour and the moon – there is a really good film being offered for free at the moment which deals with the whole issue. I recommend watching it, – The Insatiable Moon – free during virus season. It deals with the balance between acceptance and rebuffing the “crazy” ideas people have.

In other news my grass is now short and the dead mouse that was inside my lawnmower fell out before it was diced. I managed to burn most of the bits of tree I had cut down during the winter, so everything smells of smoke. As predicted my nose is streaming. I did start to think about the moss in my grass – it seems to have a much lower importance these days.

Tomorrow is the planting day. I have so many seeds to plant. I have a few seeds for Sweet Banana (peppers) – sounds interesting. If anybody would like some random seeds then PM me. I’ll send some seeds with some instructions, but will avoid telling you what sort of plant it is so you can have some suspense.

Supply survey – I think I have enough ingredients for about 40 liters of soup.

Working with young people I know the battle some parents have over screen time. They set time limits for youtube for their children. Today I went online two or three times – and I have never seen so many of my friends online at the same time! Come on kids, limit the screen time. Set yourself on-line times.

Yesterday I had three Sanity Sunday Zoom meetings – set up at the last minute. The idea was to bring together some random people in a Zoom meeting to break up the solitary. More to come next week. Entry cost one toilet roll.

Tomorrow will be grass cutting day. Not looking forward to it – I always end up with a streaming nose and sore throat after cutting my grass. So if I follow rules grass cutting leads to 14 days isolation. Never mind – I was going to be indoors anyway.

Had a phone call today which meant I ended up in a room I don’t normally enter during the morning. Big mistake – the sun was in a really bad position – cob web discovery time, leading to a small crack in the plaster to fix, leading to the need to dust a shelf that is way over head height…. and so it goes on.

I must admit I am a bit worried about doing too much gardening. I can’t remember where I buried my stash of hand sanitizer. I need to remember not to dig too deep.

I have some bird peppers to try to grow this year (chiltepin). Going to be a challenge, I have to grow them from dried peppers. Never grown this type before – advice welcome. Apparently they are only 50,000 Scoville units upward, but the upward can be a long way. A sort of Russian Roulette pepper.

What is it with this point in lockdown that has encouraged so many of my friends to go for a major hair restructuring on the same day? Colour changes and style changes – okay, maybe this is just envy because I can’t take part.

For the duration of this lockdown I have agreed to share work with a colleague so we both have something to do and neither of us go stir crazy. One week on, one week off. It’s odd – he normally just covers for me when I have something to do that stops me working. So next week is my first week sitting around in the house with nothing to do for a week since, well, probably a few years. I’ve decided my first job will be to cut my hair.

Thanks to everybody giving me a warning about the ISS passing over – I got out in time to see it. I think my neighbour saw me outside looking up over their roof and might have thought I was trying to see where they were hiding their hand wash. Oops.

I was interesting hearing the interpretation of the Prime Minister’s letter today. He says it will get worse before it gets better. And the interpretation is that the restrictions will get worse. A spokesperson mentions 6 months and we will obviously have severe lockdown for 6 months. No – that isn’t what it says. When Boris says it will get worse he is telling us to get ready for that curve of infections and deaths to rise a lot further. When she said 6 months she also said she wanted to be clear that she didn’t think lockdown would last for 6 months.

It is odd that “bad” has been interpreted as the restrictions – maybe a sort of me, me, me attitude. I’m not sure, it can’t be the fear thing, because the increase in death rate would be the thing that would cause most fear. If we are not changing the curve then by next Sunday we will be seeing 800 deaths a day. That is what getting worse means. Keep an eye on that number, that is what tells us if our lockdown is working

Today I should have been the owner of a house in Spain. Unfortunately I have had trouble getting there to sign the papers. It makes me wonder when I will be able to get there and buy it, and then do all the fixing up and decorating. But this is life as we now know it. Still looking forward to someday relaxing in the sun.

There are a lot of people who have had their income cut short, but the government are managing to support many of them. But there is one group that are without support. not only that – but if they choose to continue to work they are taking enormous risks. That group are burglars – house breakers.

Just think about it – with everybody staying at home they have a stark choice. They can stop earning as one option. But the other option is to risk waking the inhabitants of the house, who may be infected. And it gets worse – the pubs are closed, so how do they pass on their stolen goods?

But there is a serious side to this. There are sub-cultures in our society that are outside of “normal” legal behaviour. Some of them are at much greater risk because of it. There are people who have a habit that they have been unable to break (and I am not taking about cigarettes). During this crisis they will still be trying to feed that habit, and if that is on the wrong side of the law it will be very hard to social distance. If you want to know something about how they are being looked after in Swansea keep up to date with https://twitter.com/ZacsPlace?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Eembeddedtimeline%7Ctwterm%5Eprofile%3AZacsPlace&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zacsplace.org%2F

The numbers across the country keep rising. Sometimes it can seem surreal, like a movie (yes I watched Contagion the other night and it did look like it was modeled on what is happening). Then it happens, one of the numbers is changed to the name of somebody you know and it isn’t a movie anymore. This is happening to a lot of people right now, and it will happen to a lot more. Get ready for it. This isn’t just about people dying, this is about friends and family that you cannot be with when they are ill.

One thing I have decided to try is to set up a few on-line meetings for Sunday called Sunday Sanity meetings. So you might get an invite from me this week or next week to join. I can’t guarantee you will know the people in the meeting, but hey – this could be fun. PM me if it piques your interest.