I decided I would go for a walk yesterday afternoon as the weather was nice and for whatever reason (lower back pain) I didn’t want to go out on the motorbike.
I almost didn’t take my camera with me, and thought I might use my phone, but changed my mind at the last minute. This last-minute plan meant that I actually left the house with around 10% on my camera battery. Fortunately enough to take the photos, but not how I generally like to feel “prepared”.
There were a lot of people out enjoying the sun, people swimming, playing ball games, lying around… you’d not think that “the virus” had ever existed, if you were to just look around.
It’s the other areas of life that have changed; home office working has leapt from being relatively rare to being the norm, at least some component. From my side, the lack of conferences and in-person meetings has changed markedly. On one hand it’s perplexing how scientific conferences aimed at furthering our understanding of climate change, aerosol transmission, health, are all relegated to online-only events with all of the stresses and problems that incurs, at the same time I see photos of maskless football supporters, arm in arm, supposedly in a “locked down England”. What lockdown?
It’s hard to avoid this most pointless topic, because it’s the perfect mesh of science and policy. It’s a fast-tracked global warming. Global warming is a problem we are hoping future people will solve, because it’s too inconvenient for us. Same with the virus. Apparently it’s too inconvenient to take appropriate measures, as they’re against “rights” and "liberty”, so half-assed measures are implemented, politics is guided by whimsy and approval and not logic and science, and I am confined to ranting about it on my blog.
I’m supposed to attend a wedding next week, but due to constraints on the number of people permitted inside venues, I, along with a few other unfortunate men, have been relegated to grabbing a beer (or whatever) whilst the actual ceremony goes ahead. So I’ll be attending a wedding without seeing the wedding. Meanwhile bars and restaurants are full, people are attending sports events in thousands, going on holiday, flying around the world.
I guess I will just stay in my apartment for the foreseeable, and take my Nintendo Switch with me to a wedding.
We’re over half way through 2021. I hope these lost years do not turn into the lost decade.
