Life imitates art – unfortunately (Pandemic Journal, May 19)

Albert Camus: not only did he know his stuff when he wrote The Plague, he was goalie for a footie team and knew how to look cool. But he isn’t in charge of the UK. Sadly, Boris Johnson is.

Last week I re-read The Plague, the Nobel Prize-winning novel by French Absurdist Albert Camus, covering almost the same subject as that which currently concerns most people in the world.

The similarities are startling, in fact – and I wanted to describe them for you in an article (or several).

The first aspect of the novel that hits home to today’s reader should be the abject unpreparedness of the characters for any kind of epidemic illness in their midst.

I should explain that the story is set in the Algerian town of Oran, whose citizens are mostly concerned with making money. Some may see a similarity with the UK under the Conservative government! At the time in which it is set (194-, as these novels invariably describe themselves), Algeria is a French colony and major decisions about Oran are made by the colonial authorities.

The plague – bubonic plague in this case, or at least, that’s how the doctors consider it – first manifests itself in the appearance, all over the town, in increasing frequency and ever-greater numbers, of dead rats. The human beings who encounter them simply pick them up and get rid of them, without considering any repercussions – making themselves easy prey for the contagion, which at first manifests itself in individuals (of course).

The protagonist, Dr Bernard Rieux, calls up a few other doctors and discovers around 20 similar cases over a few days – almost all of them fatal. So he asks Dr Richard – president of the Association of Doctors in Oran – if new patients can be isolated.

“There’s nothing I can do,” Richard said. The measure would have to be taken by the Prefect. In any case, who told you there was any risk of infection?”

“Nothing tells me that there is, but the symptoms are disturbing.”

However, Richard felt that “he was not qualified”. All he could do was to mention it to the authorities.

If he indeed goes through with that, the authorities do nothing. Isn’t that similar to the situation in the UK? Boris Johnson was notified of the existence and potential harm likely to be caused by Covid-19 as early as November 2019 (if not before) and did nothing.

As long as each doctor was not aware of more than two or three cases, no one thought to do anything. But, after all, someone only had to decide to do an addition, and the tally was disturbing. In barely a few days the number of fatal cases multiplied, and it was clear to those who were concerned with this curious illness that they were dealing with a real epidemic.

The Johnson government would have been made aware of similar disturbing figures via SAGE meetings (among others) during the early part of the year. But nothing was done. Why? Perhaps my next quotation alludes to the reason – a speech by an older doctor, Castel:

“I don’t need tests. I spent part of my life working in China, and I saw a few cases in Paris, twenty years ago – though no one dared put a name to it at that time. Public opinion is sacred: no panic, above all no panic.”

Do you think that’s what happened here? That the government refused to address the facts of Covid-19 because Johnson and his cronies didn’t want to cause a panic? We know they were – and remain – highly concerned with the economy, and seemed desperate to keep everybody at work until absolutely the last minute.

Moving on, Rieux succeeds in persuading the Prefect’s office to appoint a health commission. Still the public are being kept in the dark:

“It’s true that people are starting to worry,” Richard agreed, “and gossip exaggerates everything. The Prefect told me, ‘Let’s act quickly if you like, but keep quiet about it.’ Anyway, he is sure that it’s a false alarm.”

And how about this:

“Do you know,” Castel said, “that the departement has no serum?”

“I know. I phoned the warehouse. The manager was flabbergasted. It has to be brought from Paris.”

So, in the book, the characters had no medication with which to treat the plague. The authorities were unprepared – just as the Johnson government failed to prepare for Covid-19 – despite years of warnings – and did not stock up on ventilators, personal protective equipment, and testing kits or make sure the NHS had the capacity to handle an outbreak of the magnitude Covid-19 eventually became.

I like to think that the discussions in the book, among those who are aware of the plague at this point, may have been similar to those in SAGE and the Cabinet, viz:

The Prefect was pleasant, but nervous.

“Let’s get started, gentlemen,” he said. “Do I have to summarize the situation?”

Richard thought there was no need. The doctors knew the situation already. The question was merely to decide on the proper course of action.

“The question,” old Castel said bluntly, is to decide whether we are dealing with the plague or not.”

Two or three doctors protested, while the others appeared hesitant. As for the Prefect, he leapt up in his seat and automatically turned towards the door, as though checking that it had really prevented this enormity from spreading down the corridor. Richard announced that in his opinion they should not give way to panic; all they could say for certain was that it was an infection with inguinal complications; and it was dangerous, in science as in life, to jump to conclusions. Old Castel, who was calmly chewing his yellow moustache, turned his clear eyes towards Rieux. Then he looked benevolently over the rest of the company and announced that he knew very well it was plague, but that, of course, if they were to acknowledge the fact officially, they would have to take stern measures. He knew that, underneath, this was what held his colleagues back and as a result, not to upset them, he was quite willing to state that it was not plague. The Prefect got annoyed and said that in any event that was not a sensible approach.

“The important thing,” Castel said, “is not whether the approach is sensible, but whether it gets us thinking.”

As Rieux had said nothing, they asked his opinion.

“It’s an infection, similar to typhoid, but with swelling of the lymph nodes and vomiting. I lanced some of the bubos. In that way I was able to have an analysis made in which the laboratory thinks it can detect the plague bacillus. However, to be precise, we must say that certain specific modifications of the microbe do not coincide with the classic description of plague.”

Richard emphasized that this meant they should not rush to judgement and that they would at least have to wait for the statistical result of the series of analyses, which had begun a few days earlier.

“When a microbe,” Rieux said after a brief silence, “is capable of increasing the size of the spleen four times in three days, and of making the mesenteric ganglia the size of an orange and the consistency of porridge, that is precisely when we should rush to do something. The sources of infections are multiplying. At this rate, if the disease is not halted, it could kill half the town within the next two months. Therefore it doesn’t matter whether you call it plague or growing pains. All that matters is that you stop it killing half the town.

Richard felt that they should not paint too black a picture, and that in any case there was no proof of contagion since the relatives of his patients were still unaffected.

When Dr Richard appears in the novel, I can’t help but picture Dominic Cummings.

“But others have died,” Rieux pointed out. “And, of course, contagion is never absolute, because if it were, we should have endless exponential growth and devastating loss of population. It’s not a matter of painting a black picture; it’s a matter of taking precautions.”

Picture Boris Johnson being told this, back in February/early March. We know what he said, don’t we?

However, Richard thought he could sum the situation up by saying that if they were to halt the disease, assuming it did not stop of its own accord…

Herd immunity, anybody?

… they had to supply the serious preventive health measures provided for in law; that, to do so, they would have to acknowledge officially that there was an outbreak of plague; …

And isn’t this exactly what Johnson brought in after his (and Cummings’) herd immunity nonsense was shown up for what it was?

… that there was no absolute certainty on that score; and consequently that they should consider the matter.

…

Richard hesitated and looked at Rieux.

“Sincerely, tell me what you think: are you certain that this is plague?”

“You’re asking the wrong question. It is not a matter of vocabulary, but a matter of time.”

“Your opinion, then,” said the Prefect, “is that even if this is not plague, then the preventive health measures that would be appropriate in the event of plague ought none the less to be applied?”

“If I really must have an opinion, then that is it.”

Wouldn’t the UK be in a far better situation now if, when the government was still arguing over whether and how Covid-19 was affecting the nation, it had adopted the appropriate preventive health measures in good time – as (for example) New Zealand did?

(I note in the news today that New Zealand appears to have eliminated Covid-19 entirely).

As it is, in the novel, no decision is reached (just as, in the UK, Johnson didn’t impose the appropriate preventive measures).

In the midst of general annoyance, Rieux left. A few moments later, in a suburb which smelled of frying oil and urine, a woman screaming to death, her groin covered in blood, was turning her face to him.

The day after the conference, the Prefecture print up some posters and post them in “the least obtrusive corners of the town”. These posters play down the seriousness of the situation but suggest preventive measures which, “if they were interpreted and applied in the proper way… would put a definite stop to any threat of epidemic”.

It advised the inhabitants to observe the most rigorous hygiene…

Remember when Boris Johnson was telling us all to wash our hands and keep our hands away from our faces?

In addition, it was obligatory for families to declare any cases diagnosed by the doctor and agree to isolation of their patients…

Self-isolation, anybody?

(In fact, in the book, it’s isolation in special hospital wards – but these soon fill up.)

Moving on…

Rieux had a meeting with Castel. The serum had not arrived.

That’s like PPE, and ventilators, of course.

The measures that had been taken were insufficient, that was quite clear. As for the ‘specially equipped wards’, he knew what they were: two outbuildings hastily cleared of other patients, their windows sealed up and the whole surrounded by a cordon sanitaire. If the epidemic did not stop of its own accord, it would not be defeated by the measures that the local administration had dreamed up.

Is this not parallel with the situation in the UK, right before the lockdown was announced?

Sure enough, in three days the two buildings were full.

Richard thought that they could requisition a school and provide an auxiliary hospital.

Nightingale hospitals, anyone?

As the plague progresses, the Prefect decides to seek instructions from the State government, so Rieux provides a report that could be sent along with a request for instructions, in which he includes a clinical description, and statistics.

The Prefect steps up measures being taken:

Houses of sick people were to be closed and disinfected, their relatives put in preventive quarantine…

I take it back. This is self-isolation!

Oh, and the serum turns up! There’s enough for the cases currently being treated, but not if the epidemic were to spread. In response to Rieux’s telegram, he’s told the emergency supply is exhausted and that they have started to manufacture new stocks.

And that’s exactly like the situation with PPE and ventilators!

At more or less this point, the Prefect receives an official telegram:

DECLARE A STATE OF PLAGUE STOP

CLOSE THE TOWN.

Lockdown.

The similarites between the book and our life, here in the UK, now, are striking, aren’t they?

We may conclude that Johnson and his government had plenty of warning about what would happen if a pandemic infection hit the UK and they were not prepared for it.

Johnson himself is supposed to be literate, so why didn’t he have the sense to heed the warning of this novel? I studied it as a teenager so he has no excuse.

Except…

Ah yes…

The author is French and Johnson is a notorious racist.

The Box (Pandemic Journal: May 14)

The box: this is just a representative image as I did not see the actual box myself.

It appeared out of nowhere at the end of their drive: the box.

Unheralded.

Unlabelled.

Square. About yay high.

Nobody else on the street had one.

Nobody could say what it meant or why it was there.

The family, on whose drive it had arrived, regarded it suspiciously.

They found no distinguishing marks and it was sealed, so they couldn’t see inside.

They listened to it. Not a sound.

Eventually, from a safe distance (minimum of two metres) and using a broom handle, they even poked it.

It didn’t explode so they took it into the house.

The family in question had been grateful for the distraction as life had become difficult recently.

The son, having had treatment for cancer which had devastated his immune system, was on the “high risk” list after the coronavirus pandemic hit the UK, and his parents were likewise banned from leaving the family home for at least 12 weeks.

This made the weekly shopping trip for groceries something of a challenge.

A neighbour had offered to do it for them, but had fallen ill recently, meaning the family had to try to get a delivery slot with a local supermarket.

This was more easily said than done. At first, all available slots were taken.

Then, when one became available, the son was told he was disqualified because his NHS number did not tally with his other identity details.

(This took a while to sort out and, inevitably, it was the officials who were wrong.)

Finally, just when they had given themselves up to starvation once they had scraped the dregs from the bottom of the freezer, they were contacted out of the blue.

A slot was free and they could have it. Deliveries would start the following Tuesday.

The box arrived that Friday.

Having carried out all the tests they could conceive, short of bringing in the bomb squad, the son took responsibility on himself, and opened it.

It was a government food package.

And it actually had a decent variety of food, in fairness.

But it was typical of the UK government, in the midst of the pandemic lockdown, that no effort had been made to identify who was intended to receive this parcel, who it was from, or indeed what it contained.

Slapdash.

Unprofessional.

And, ultimately, rendered pointless by the efforts of people who had been led to believe that no help was coming.

What a shambles.

‘What did YOU did in the lockdown?’ (Pandemic Journal, May 9)

Blossoming: Mrs Mike, being disabled, doesn’t have much of an opportunity to develop a new career – but she has been doing her best to make our garden look good. I don’t think she’s alone in this during the lockdown. Here’s a (rather poor) shot of the results of some of her efforts.

How many businesses – or indeed industries – are going to go bankrupt because of the coronavirus lockdown?

Quite a few, one suspects.

I know many owners/managers of hotels and pubs are in fear for their future because the longer the lockdown, the less likely they can afford their overheads.

I’m a big fan of comic books but the specialist shops are in trouble because there are no new comics coming out. You can read about what this means for that industry and efforts to minimise the damage here.

And of course we know about the usual big-business scroungers who have been trying to get the UK’s Tory government to give them a bung so they don’t have to spend any of the money they’ve been squirrelling away (in tax havens?) for the last few decades (rather than paying their taxes?) – Richard Branson springs to mind, after he got out his begging bowl for his airline Virgin Atlantic, after paying no tax for 14 years.

Forget all the rhetoric over the last 10 years of Tory rule – it is people like this man who are the real scroungers.

The point is that a lot of people may suddenly find themselves without the jobs they had when the lockdown started in the middle of March.

What are they doing about it?

The good news is that some of them are finding other things to do.

This Writer’s good buddy Jack has started a YouTube channel (called 12 for reasons best known to him) and is making inspirational video clips, which he is posting at the rate of one a day. He admits he’s on a learning curve but who knows – by the end of the lockdown he might have a bright new career ahead of him.

Here’s his first (published) clip:

As an online journalist/blogger, of course, my own career is doing quite all right, thank you very much. I had a slight dip in income last month – but that is the usual seasonal drop that I tend to get around Easter (it lasts until August) and it hasn’t been anything like as bad as it has been for the last two years.

I started the online journalism – and I dare say Jack started vlogging – because there was an opportunity to do something more interesting than the usual 9 to 5.

I remember some good advice that I was given many years ago, which I’ll paraphrase here: it was that very few people start out in life doing the job they really want to do; they get stop-gap jobs that pay the rent while they try to find something better for themselves.

The way to find something better is to work on it in your spare time – not all the time, mind (I’m sure all work and no play would make Jack’s vlog a dull experience in no time). But a couple of hours’ effort every day isn’t going to kill anyone.

And we all have a bit of extra time at the moment, right?

So what do you want to be?

The coronavirus lockdown could be the biggest opportunity you’ve ever had to make a difference in your life – and possibly the lives of the people around you (these things all have a knock-on effect, even if we don’t notice them).

Perhaps it’s time to dust off those old ideas you had, read through them again and see what you can do to put them into practise as the restrictions start to get lifted.

It’ll be better than waiting weeks on end for a Universal Credit payment (that will probably never arrive)!

Uncertainty and guilt (Pandemic Journal, May 5)

Public Health Wales has reported that the number of coronavirus deaths in Wales has reached 997, with nine here in Powys.

But the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the number of deaths in Powys by April 17 alone was 35.

Public Health Wales was recording only hospital deaths, but the variance here is huge, as the ONS said 18 people had died there of Covid-19 – by that date more than two weeks ago.

The ONS reckons 16 died in care homes and one at home.

The figures are alarming as they mean we can’t trust the daily numbers we’re seeing from the national public health agency in Wales.

And it makes me concerned for my friends.

Despite the pandemic and the lockdown, I am still working – news-related websites like mine aren’t affected because we still have access to the information we need and we still have the means of production that get our service out to users.

So I don’t have much time to check up on friends and family. This was brought home to me a few days ago when one of my oldest remaining friends – who I haven’t seen for the best part of 20 years – contacted me and said he had spent two weeks in bed with Covid-19.

He’s a teacher in Oxfordshire and had been working, looking after children of key workers.

He told me: “Had mild symptoms. My son too. My office manager too. ”

Was he not getting regular tests, then? “I know many people who work at John Radcliffe hospital and they and their kids get tests. Teachers not.”

Fortunately, his earthy sense of humour survived the experience: “It gave me the flu and the shits. No sense of smell still. Although… I farted earlier and smelt it.

“It was like a major moment. Who needs a test when you can smell your own farts again?

“Last Thursday at 8pm my entire street clapped for my farts.

“Special community moment.

“You appreciate small things. I have never been happier to smell my own wind again.”

He said several of the key worker children at his school had Covid, “and they want to reopen schools soon”. So I think we can work out his feelings on that topic!

But when did the opinions of people at the sharp end matter?

“Seriously,” he stated, “how do you socially distance primary kids? They carry and spread it rather than get ill. All my staff are worred and want PPE.”

Good luck with that, I thought.

Later in the conversation he said, “Well, if corona teaches us one thing… When this is over we should meet up before one of us dies.”

He’s right and I intend to.

But the comment flared up a bit of guilt. One of my oldest friends died a few years ago, when I had been unable to get away and see him and I have to admit a nagging sense of guilt about that.

Now, thousands of people are dying, locked away from their friends and loved ones, and I think my guilt may soon be in very good company.

Who was it who said everybody is tied to everyone else by guilt? Oh yes – Douglas Adams.

(Well, actually he said we were all tied to our places of birth by it but I think my version is more accurate in this instance so I’ll paraphrase.)

He wrote: “Most of the things which stir the Universe up in anyway are caused by dispossessed people. There are two ways of accounting for this. One is to say that if everyone just sat at home, nothing would ever happen. This is very simple.

“The other is to say — as Oolon Colluphid has at great length in his book “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Guilt, But Were Too Ashamed To Ask” — that every being in the Universe is tied to [everyone else] by tiny invisible force tendrils composed of little quantum packets of guilt. If you travel far from your [buddies], these tendrils get stretched and distorted.

“This compares with an ancient Acturan proverb. However fast the body travels, the soul travels at the speed of an Acturan Megacamel. This would mean, in these days of hyperspace and Improbability Drive that most people’s souls are wandering unprotected in deep space in a state of some confusion, and this would account for a lot of things.

“Similarly, if your [friends are] destroyed then these tendrils are severed and flap about at random… And these flapping tendrils of guilt can seriously disturb the space-time continuum.”

I think there will be a lot of guilt sloshing around the world after the Covid-19 pandemic eases off.

It would be encouraging to think that it could be used to achieve something useful – for example a consensus opinion that we all need an up-to-date, well-equipped, publicly-funded health system that puts people ahead of profit at all times – to ensure that the stupidity that has already cost so many lives in the United Kingdom alone can never happen again.

And that’s just for a start.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (The Sivier Review)

“Sanctuary!” Charles Laughton as Quasimodo (right, as if you didn’t know) and Maureen O’Hara as Esmeralda in the 1939 movie version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

There’s a lot more to this than Charles Laughton shouting “Sanctuary!” in the famous movie.

Victor Hugo’s great travelogue of 15th-century Paris, and tragedy of mistaken identity. The Archdeacon of Notre Dame is actually an alchemist. His adopted son, Quasimodo, is thought to be a devil but is (of course) the most noble character in the book. The captain of the guard is thought to be noble but is a womanising liar. The Bohemian gypsy Esmeralda is something else entirely. The King of France is more interested in his money than his subjects. And Notre Dame itself is not just an edifice but also a book – the story of its inhabitants etched into its stones.

It’s a simple story, given epic scope by the way the writer ties it into its setting and historical context – and quite an easy read.

Be warned that if the Disney cartoon is all you know of this story, you may have a few surprises.

Lapsing into lassitude (Pandemic Journal: April 19)

Mrs Mike, burning all my possessions. This coronavirus lockdown is murder on relationships!

I’ve been having trouble motivating myself lately.

The lockdown seems to have deprived time of its meaning, and I’m not the only one feeling that effect.

So although I started with many good intentions, it is proving hard to follow them through.

I set out to clean the house – carefully, making sure I did a good job. While I took a week to scour the master bedroom, it has taken two to finish off the bathroom, and I’m not completely satisfied with it.

It has proved increasingly difficult to keep up with developments in politics and the news, despite them being my business; no sooner did I try to get to grips with one development than another reared its head.

Or – worse – the latest news was almost entirely similar to what I had already reported. How many times can a writer interestingly describe the government’s failure to provide proper protective equipment for medical staff fighting the coronavirus?

How many times can one convey public frustration with an administration that insists it is doing a good job, then confesses that more people have died every day – including medical staff who had contracted the virus due to the lack of protection?

At least, last week, we had the diversion of the leaked Labour Party report on how right-wing factions among that organisation’s staff had interfered with its affairs in order to corruptly affect the result of the general election in 2017 (last December’s was not covered by the report).

But coverage of this story was hampered by strident denials on the part of those mentioned, and by a certain lawyer who asserted that he would sue anyone discussing the report, on their behalf.

It’s an empty threat. The Labour Party is well within its rights to publish the contents of emails written and sent via its network, and the publication of WhatsApp chats is also protected; whoever did it is a whistleblower who passed on information that may refer to criminal acts. It is a crime to corruptly influence the result of an election.

The combined effect, to me, was similar to that of wading through treacle; it felt as though I was getting nowhere and the effort made me feel dirty.

I’ve been trying to keep myself from going to fat by weight training at home, with the result that I have developed a strong pain in my right knee.

I read a book! However, I should admit that my enjoyment of Very Good, Jeeves! by PG Wodehouse was facilitated by the fact that I had the Audible spoken-word version – I listened to it while I was battling to clean the bathroom and struggling with the weights. Now I have started The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo. I’m around one-sixth of the way through, again with the help of Audible.

I have tried to keep in touch with my friends. There is a group who maintain constant contact – strewn with profanities and lewdness – online and via video chats every few days, but I didn’t have the stamina for the most recent call because of my recent illness, and I have found it hard to get in touch with others. It feels like intrusion.

And yes, I have been ill. It came on around April 16 – a malady of the stomach that has caused me a large amount of discomfort and made me considerably more irritable than usual, hence the image [above] and its caption.

And the government has announced that we must have at least three more weeks of this. Will we survive?

Last train to Mornington Crescent (Pandemic Journal: April 12)

Top-class comedy: Tim Brooke-Taylor with fellow Goodies Graeme Garden (left) and Bill Oddie (right).

The death of a family member due to the coronavirus undoubtedly brings its implications home to anybody affected – but the death of a “household name” who has brought joy to millions over decades… perhaps that brings us all together.

This morning, comedian Tim Brooke-Taylor died of the coronavirus at the admittedly grand old age of 79 and I confess, it hit me like a brick wall.

Tim had been a member of the UK’s comedy establishment since the 1960s, when he appeared on the radio in I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again with future Monty Python John Cleese and both the other future Goodies, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie.

Moving to TV in 1970 he, together with Graeme and Bill, created one of the most popular and successful sit-coms of them all, The Goodies – playing a “conservative, vain, sexually-repressed, upper-class Royalist coward” (as Wikipedia puts it). The series was enormously popular – but then strangely fell out of favour as certain critics dubbed it the children’s version of Python.

The show is responsible for the only incident I know of a person being found to have died laughing at a television comedy. On March 24, 1975, Alex Mitchell sat down to watch the episode Kung Fu Capers, in which a kilt-clad Scotsman with his bagpipes battles a master of the Lancastrian martial art “Eckythump”, who was armed with a black pudding. After 25 minutes of non-stop laughter, Mr Mitchell died of heart failure.

His widow later sent The Goodies a letter, thanking them for making his final moments of life so pleasant.

Some might say his greatest contribution to comedy was as co-writer and performer of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, with John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman, originally for At Last the 1948 Show! on ITV. The sketch went on to become a fixture of Monty Python‘s live shows, generally performed by Chapman, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin.

But it is as a panellist on Radio 4’s I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue that Tim should, perhaps, be best-remembered – adorable but slightly inept, with demonstrations of this ranging from his inability to string together an “ad-lib poem” to his undeserved reputation as the world’s worst player of Mornington Crescent, according to long-term team-mate Willie Rushton.

Now the last train to Mornington Crescent has pulled away, and Tim has gone to join Willie (who passed away in 1996) and former chairman Humphrey Lyttleton (2008); and we have another reason to hate the coronavirus and our government’s pathetic response to it.

Unlike so many of our own nearest and dearest, the person might be gone, but the recordings survive. I’ll be spending some time listening to Tim’s greatest comedy hits over the next few days – and I’ll try to drop a few of them here for you too.

Hey you! Get some culture! Patrick Stewart is reciting Shakespeare’s sonnets on Twitter!

I’m not sure how interested people will be but I think this is a lovely idea.

Sir Patrick Stewart – best known as Captain Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Professor Xavier from the X-Men films – has been reciting a Shakespeare sonnet every day since around the time we all went into coronavirus lockdown, on his Twitter feed.

It’s a far more accessible way to get to grips with the Bard’s poetry than I ever met before – although that may not be saying much; the language is dense, and it takes a bit of work to get to grips with it.

But, I don’t know, I think it might be worth the effort.

Here’s Sonnet One:

2. When I was a child in the 1940s, my mother would cut up slices of fruit for me (there wasn't much) and as she put it in front of me she would say, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." How about, “A sonnet a day keeps the doctor away”? So…here we go: Sonnet 1. pic.twitter.com/kDoMNhdqcI

— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) March 22, 2020

And why not have Sonnet Two, too:

Sonnet 2. This is one of my favorites. #ASonnetADay pic.twitter.com/aQBzrsETKv

— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) March 23, 2020

1,001 Songs number 15: Need a Little Sugar In My Bowl by Bessie Smith (The Sivier Review)

Dirty blues? This is pure filth!

Listen to the lyrics and have a think about what she means!

1,001 Songs number 14: Minnie the Moocher by Cab Calloway and his Orchestra (The Sivier Review)

This is a blow for all those 60s hippy bands who filled their songs with drug references, thinking they were being original – Minnie the Moocher is full of them!

And a lot more fun than most of ’em, too.

Most of you will know it from the version in The Blues Brothers:

But here’s the original: