Post pandemic

[MANICHAEAN]

Post Pandemic.

As we are informed in the UK that the peak of this pandemic should be on or about Easter Sunday, there arises the question of when we attain something like a scenario of normalcy, what will we do?

Although still fearful and cautious, I must confess to enjoying the overall tranquility and harmony in the present lockdown. No more bloody bickering over bloody Brexit; people showing extraordinary compassion and concern for their neighbours, especially the older and more venerable. Less pollution, traffic, crime, nuisance cold calls; and you can even have a bath without the fear that someone will ring the doorbell in the middle of your ablutions!

It might also be a wakeup call for those as of yet not retired, as to whether they are prepared to embrace and enjoy the prospect, or whether not working will drive them up the wall.

For myself post pandemic, I look forward to:

A coffee outside Simmons bakery in Hatfield watching the world go by. (This towns answer to the Via Veneto in Rome.)
Getting a haircut and beard trim from the local Kurdish barbers. At the current juncture with the prospect of another ten-week lockdown, I will likely emerge rather like an Old Testament Patriarch ready to part the Red Sea.
A trip up into the countryside to both the Woodman & the Candlestick to imbibe good beer in the summer sunshine.

Anybody else wish to add future longings of normality?

[Danik 2016]

Looks as if the peak in UK ist likely to happen more or less at the same time as our here in São Paulo.
Let´s see, what will I want to do when normality is restored?

Firstly: be able to walk the streets again without mask down to the grocer´s which is only a few paces away.
A haircut would be a good thing. I prefer to silence about its present state.
Go to places without having to maintain a protocolar distance from other people.
Take things home without having to wash or disinfect everything.
Just walk around.
But I guess this will take some time.

[Ecurb]

Here in the Pacific Northwest, drinking good beer is hardly hindered by social isolation. There's only so much TV one can watch without some minor inebriation. Last night I watched "Mrs. Miniver", the Academy Award winning British Homefront drama from 1942. Greer Garson won the "Best Actress" Oscar for her role, and the film won "Best Movie". However, I learned some interesting tidbits about it (I'd seen it before, but not for years).

Greer Garson came late to acting. She acted on the stage beginning at age 29, and her first movie was in 1938. when she was 34. She starred in Pride and Prejudice in 1940, and in "Mrs. Miniver" in 1942. It was on the set of Miniver that she began a romance with her own son, whom she married. This was, of course, her movie son, Richard Ney, who played a young Oxford Man who joins the RAF. Garson was 38 and Ney 26. The marriage didn't last.

The movie was justly feted; it's very well done. However, 3 or 4 beers are recommended so the viewer can become appropriately lachrymose. So much for not drinking alone.

My hair is growing long and unruly, Manichean, just like yours.

I've already cancelled one Yosemite trip -- but solo backpacking this summer should continue unhindered by any viruses, living or not.

[tonywalt]

So proud of my favourite Nordic country, Sweden, for not acting like sheeple, they never locked down and are on the downside of this media hysteria. Oh, don't worry, the media and social media will pummel the hell out of them, and that's just fine with them, given their stoic nature.