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 Keep Calm and Sing

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Temperance
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PostSubject: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptySat 14 Mar 2020, 10:23

BBC Breakfast this morning showed scenes from Milan: people there are standing on the balconies of their apartments and singing to keep spirits up during the current health crisis. This seems to be something of a tradition in this city:


Singing in the Street and in the Home in Times of Pestilence: Lessons from the 1576-78 Plague of Milan.





This essay examines the ritual of the plague procession as a response to the problem of collective sin, using as the focal point a series of well-documented processions held by Carlo Borromeo, the Archbishop of Milan, during the city’s outbreak of 1576–78. It will first explore the ways in which music, as a central component of the procession, interacted with other elements of the ritual to facilitate corporate worship while strengthening the civic bonds of the processional community. However, large congregations of people in processions exacerbated the very real threat of contagion and contravened medical and civic rules for isolation. The second half of this essay will investigate how Borromeo coped with this struggle between piety and public safety by relocating the procession off the public streets and into private homes when parishes were placed under quarantine. In Borromeo’s ad hoc program of devotion, most ritual elements were pared away, leaving music as the primary tool by which the Milanese were able to maintain their corporate devotional activities and to erase the boundaries between public and domestic worship...


...Conditions deteriorated throughout the autumn on both the medical and the civic fronts. Trade and commerce faltered, and it became difficult for the government to provision the city with goods from uninfected regions. The city’s plague hospital quickly filled to capacity, and more temporary straw huts for the sick were needed than could be built. Increasingly draconian measures were enacted – such as the purging of infected homes, closure of non-essential shops, and a general quarantine – all of which further exacerbated the city’s financial troubles.





I was fascinated reading the article, especially about the efforts of Carlo Borromeo - someone I've never heard of. And the "Pestilential Processions"! Not so sure they would go down too well these days: apparently the UK population is coping by watching Netflix ad nauseam and doing jigsaws.

But has got me wondering this morning how other communities have coped with epidemics in the past.

PS On a lighter note - one friend of mine has confessed that her main fear is that, if she dies, her shameful hoard of loo rolls (54 at the last count) and 16 tins of Heinz Baked Beans (a plague essential in the UK) will be discovered. I told her we would put a packet of Andrex on the top of her coffin as we send her to meet her Maker.
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptySat 14 Mar 2020, 12:02

In his book, 'The Decameron', Giovanni Boccaccio descibes how he and the 'honourable company' of his friends sat out their two-week isolation from the Black Death in a secluded villa just outside Florence, by telling stories. To pass the evenings, each member of the party told one story each night, except for one day per week for chores, and the holy days during which they do no work at all, resulting in ten nights of storytelling over the course of two weeks. Thus, by the end of the fortnight they told 100 stories altogether (which Boccaccio recorded and susequently published).

Temperance wrote:
On a lighter note - one friend of mine has confessed that her main fear is that, if she dies, her shameful hoard of loo rolls (54 at the last count) and 16 tins of Heinz Baked Beans (a plague essential in the UK) will be discovered. I told her we would put a packet of Andrex on the top of her coffin as we send her to meet her Maker.

I wish I could get a hoard of loo rolls and beans. Although there's been absolutely no panic buying here and the shops are all still stocked with everything, my problem is that I've no money to buy anything. Last year was a financial disaster (the telephone line went down in July and still hasn't been repaired) and so in January I arranged to cash in some investments in the UK and transfer the money to France to keep me going. I'm still waiting for the money to arrive. Since February I've essentially been in isolation, not because of any virus but because I've no money to buy anything nor any need to go anywhere. It's been no problem as I've always maintained plenty of food stocks and so I've been living off them for the last two months. But now they are starting to run low just when it looks like we might be locked down in a few weeks time. I've still got food (and loo rolls) enough for me, with some strict rationing, to last another couple of weeks, but I'm nearly out of dog and cat food. I can survive on a vegetarian diet but the dog, and especially the cats, need animal protein, so while I'm already relying on last years frozen garden produce, pasta and dried beens, leeks from the veg plot and nettles from the hedgerows, the animals have been dining on fish, chicken and rabbit. I went to speak to the bank yesterday to try and get an advance but they were closed for training. So I scratched around the house and down the back of the sofa and found four euros in assorted coin with which I bought a small sack of dog croquettes - accordingly I'm covered for the next few days but after that I'm stuck. But hopefully on Monday the bank will allow me a small amount of cash to buy food, loo roll and soap etc. Meanwhile I've finally received an email to say the funds from England will be transferred on 1st April - I'd obviously prefer sooner but at least I can now work out my daily rationing until that date. And all this is before any enforced isolation is put in place. But at least, having now been living in almost complete isolation for the past eight weeks, it's effectively been a successful dry run (literally as the booze ran out weeks ago) for what may be enforced. And if necessary, as there are no neighbours very close to hear, I can always resort to loud singing in the garden.

Sorry, moan over.
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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptySat 14 Mar 2020, 12:21

MM - please see PM.


Last edited by Temperance on Sun 15 Mar 2020, 10:40; edited 1 time in total
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptySat 14 Mar 2020, 12:23

Thanks for your kind offer but it won't be necessary: I have guests arriving Monday for two days (croissants, bread, coffee etc already in stock) and so they'll be some money from them, preferably cash.

Temperance wrote:
A tee-total, vegan diet for you must be hell

I'm not that bad - while I do like a glass of wine now and again I don't actually eat that much meat you know.

Temperance wrote:
How do you safely transfer euros to France? I have no idea.

On line bank transfer from my English to French bank accounts, it's very easy.
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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptySat 14 Mar 2020, 12:37

Didn't mean to imply you are an alcoholic carnivore! Just we all associate fine dining with your establishment, and you are always offering us drinks in the bar here (or rather you used to be when that place was thronging with customers!).

Glad you have some guests coming. Sorry if I overreacted - just had terrible visions of a lean and hungry Doggy-Dog!
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptySat 14 Mar 2020, 13:45

Returning to your thread, Boccaccio in his preamble to The Decameron, in addition to describing the the practical measures and cures that were attempted to combat the plague - largely without much success - also mentions the attempts to address the "divers apprehensions and imaginations [that] were engendered in the minds of such that were left alive... ". Some put their faith in cultured divertissments, others to simple carrousing, but both groups used song and music to raise their spirits:

"... there were those who thought that to live temperately and avoid all excess would count for much as a preservative against seizures of this kind. Wherefore, they banded together, and, dissociating themselves from all others, formed communities in houses where there were no sick, and lived a separate and secluded life, which they regulated with the utmost care, avoiding every kind of luxury, but eating and drinking very moderately of the most delicate viands, and the finest wines, holding converse with none but one another, lest tidings of sickness or death should reach them, and diverting their minds with music and such other delights as they could devise. Others, the bias of whose minds was in the opposite direction, maintained that to drink freely, to frequent places of public resort, and to take their pleasure with song and revel, sparing to satisfy no appetite, and to laugh and mock at no event, was the sovereign remedy for so great an evil ...".
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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptySun 15 Mar 2020, 09:52

I am really annoyed by the continual use of that panicky word "lockdown" at the moment. It is an imprecise and emotive word - we are not prisoners being locked in our cells! Such emotive language in the media and elsewhere simply adds to the "divers apprehensions and imaginations" that are being daily engendered in the minds of us who are coughing badly. Quarantine is surely the correct word? I didn't know this before this morning, but apparently the practice of quarantine as we know it began during the 14th century in an effort to protect coastal cities from plague epidemics. Ships arriving from in Venice from ports known to have an infected populace were required to sit at anchor for forty days before landing. "Quarantine" was derived from the Italian guaranta giorni which means forty days. But why forty, I wonder? 

How did the sailors cope - land so tantalisingly close, but having to be cooped up on board (especially after a long time at sea)? Being stuck on a ship at anchor in the Mediterranean heat for over a month must have been dreadful.
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptySun 15 Mar 2020, 10:23

Why forty days?

At a guess it was just because it was the 'standard' biblical time for something to happen, probably in turn because of some ancient religious significance associated with the number forty. For example: it rained for forty days and nights during the Flood; the Hebrew people lived in the lands outside of the promised land for forty years; Moses spent forty days on Mount Sinai before he received the ten commandments; Goliath challenged the Israelites twice a day for forty days before David defeated him; Christ's fasted forty days in the desert; Lent consists of the forty days preceding Easter; the period from the resurrection of Jesus to his ascension was forty days etc.

And of course for plague the forty days quarantine worked. According to current estimates the bubonic plague had a maximum 37-day period from infection to death, therefore a forty day quarantine would have been highly successful in determining the health of crews and isolating potential carriers from the port. Several Italian cities tried the same formula to check the spread of syphilis in northern Europe after it first appeared in 1492, but that has a far longer period before sympoms become manifest and so for that the forty-day quarantine it didn't work.


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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptySun 15 Mar 2020, 10:31

I suppose we have to be careful (thinking of Temperance mentioning the 'lockdown') without being silly.  Anyone can have a sing at home of course.  I looked on the interactive tool search about Covid-19 virus this morning (on the BBC news page) and it said there were 4 cases in Staffordshire but I couldn't see that they mentioned whereabouts in the county the cases were - like was it in a hotspot - were the cases spread out.
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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptySun 15 Mar 2020, 10:45

Ah - you've added a bit to your original post. I thought forty days - although a popular biblical number - seemed a very long time to keep cargo on board before unloading, but your point about the thirty seven day infection-to-death plague cycle makes sense. I bet there was a fair bit of quarantine jumping, though - especially with perishable cargo.
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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptySun 15 Mar 2020, 16:31

Perhaps all the old folk should be allowed to quarantine calmly together at their local golf club. Golfers can cope with anything. What, after all, is a nasty bug compared to the Luftwaffe? No loo roll emergency in 1940 - or so we like to believe...



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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptySun 15 Mar 2020, 17:30

Actually there was a shortage of paper in general. Notes written in exercise books were first in pencil then the book reversed and upside down and more note written in ink. Toilet paper was of nasty crisp sheets in a box for some bit for most threaded squares of news paper. In some schools it was given one sheet at a  time if asked for. I wonder who was playing golf anyway. 
One man in our town got a bad name for apparently skiving off too often to the course from his job as canteen manager at a vital factory. he had been a butcher until rationing...…. and he was also the leader of 6 men in  a top secret resistance group run by Cole Hill. Few locally still know of it. Their dug out ops room was close by the golf club. This had been made at night by Canadians trucked in at night who had no idea where they were/  I know the detail and more because they lived 30yds from us...… and as a child playing with the son of the family once happened on an arsenal of weapons......but we never told anyone because we should not have been in that part of the house.
There was a degree of pragmatic decision making even for a child. Half way to school and the siren goes... mmm, home seemed the better option  if it was a bomber. (Fighter craft were apt to strafe so lying still was best) And we could tell the difference.  Five yeas of that and  some more wars abroad later on there is another trial and drawing on common sense. It is a bit like staying in if street riots are bad..... and always being prepared for a 3 day (min) curfew.  Local plagues were harder to duck despite taking precautions, I caught and nearly died from dengue fever..... no cure. So here is another back hander at least I am not responsible for the lives of many others as I was for 30 years and that's a relief. Sorry, boring again, but there is becoming a crystallised view of wartime life here which is not quite right because circumstances everywhere were different.
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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyFri 20 Mar 2020, 09:37

I hope MM reads this to Doggy-Dog.

Besides singing, the beleaguered people of Italy are coping by borrowing dogs.

Apparently, Italians in quarantine are only allowed out to buy essential food and medicine - and to walk their dogs. Dogless people are borrowing neighbours' pets in order to get out and have a bit of exercise. The valiant dogs of Italy are now exhausted! Even normally boisterous and exuberant labradors are hiding behind sofas when owners approach, leads in hand. The message is: "I've had ten walks today already - no more please!" 

Seriously, I do hope all Res His posters - and their dogs (and moggies, of course) - are OK and coping.


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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyFri 20 Mar 2020, 10:06

Likewise here in France, if you need to go out to buy food or go to a doctor's appointment, you have to fill in a form available on the government website swearing on your honour that your brief journey outside the home is important. There's a fine for not having the correct paperwork dated for the day you are outside, or for not having a good enough reason. There are apparently police roadblocks to enforce this, but as I haven't been out I don't know if they are doing that in our sleepy little town. 

Another valid reason is for "déplacements brefs, à proximité du domicile, liés à l’activité physique individuelle des personnes, à l’exclusion de toute pratique sportive collective, et aux besoins des animaux de compagnie". So dog walking is allowed, although I didn't bother to fill in the form when I took Doggy-Dog for a wander up the lane this morning ... we saw some deer, but not another human being.

And talking of DD, being a retriever he often brings trophies into the house: sticks, stones, fircones, children's toys, or towels from by the swimming pool etc, but last night he really surpassed himself. He came in very gently carrying a live hedgehog in his mouth! It was a bit of a battle to get him to put it down and to get it back outside without him thinking it was a new game and he was supposed to fetch it back in again. After about ten minutes sitting tightly rolled up in the garden, the hedgehog unrolled and trundled off as if nothing had happened.
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyFri 20 Mar 2020, 10:26

I suppose singing is something we can do which doesn't cost any money - and if we are in isolation it doesn't matter whether someone has a good, bad or indifferent singing voice.  As shifting the catflap (which I had placed too far to the left when I repaired it) is something I can do while partaking in social distancing I have done stage 1 - taking the cat flap off the door.  Tilly is able to use it pro-temp while it is a simple 'gatera' just a hole in the door.

I have learned that there has been a 'spike' in Covid-19 associated deaths in Wolverhampton (my town is situated between the 'Black Country' and the Potteries).  Of course the metropolitan West Midlands is the second largest conurbation in the UK so it seems understandable that there should be a proportionately high number of instances of the disease there.  Still not very nice for the people who have passed or their families.

Temperance when nordmann posted something for you on the What is Art Thread yesterday I expected it to be something about a cat!  Tesco deliveries are full up until end of 26th March and I will need to eat before then.   Not having a car I normally buy little and often.  I might do into the town centre (which I've avoided for several days) to do some shopping (the local Co-op doesn't have all that much in the way of gluten free fare though of course now is a time I can start putting my intention to cook from scratch into practice.


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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyFri 20 Mar 2020, 10:52

Nordmann doesn't believe in cats, LiR.  Smile


MM - so glad the hedgehog was OK - tell DD off from me!
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptySat 21 Mar 2020, 08:48

I thought the whole point of having massive personal stockpiles was that you kept them secret:

Keep Calm and Sing Das-bilder          Keep Calm and Sing Sunday-times

I am intrigued though why people get the idea that they have to buy toilets roll? Of all the things that might run out, it's one of the easiest to work-around - the entire Indian sub-continent must be having a right old chuckle at our expense!

I have enough essentials for a couple of weeks, and of course the supermarkets are still open, but I was starting to worry about seeds and young plants for the garden, seeing that all garden centres and nurseries have been closed. Without any guests I've turned the dining room into a greenhouse and have trays of seedling tomatoes, peppers, chilies, pumpkins, courgettes, lettuces, beetroots etc on all the window sills, but that only covers the spring/early summer plantings once my broad beans and leeks have been harvested in another month or so, and so I'll need to get other things started off soon for later in the year. Luckily while everyone else is swamping ebay and orcado for home deliveries of yet more toilet roll, I've managed to order all my seeds of french beans, swedes, brussel sprouts, cabbages, carrots and what have you on-line for delivery in a week or so. I've ramped up seedling production compared to last year and had intended to build some more raised beds to increase the area under cultivation, but with garden centres and diy stores all shut, that plan's on hold for now. Nevertheless I'm getting into full Dig for Victory mode and in a few months should have plenty of fresh veg, although at the moment we are still in the hungry gap.
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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptySun 22 Mar 2020, 12:43

During the outbreaks of Sweating Sickness in Tudor England, and during the Great Plague of London in the following century, those who could decamped in panic and left the capital. Aristocrats retired to their country estates and, in 1665, the King and the entire court fled to Oxford, a city that, oddly enough, was little affected by the sickness.

We are seeing a similar phenomenon today: the affluent London élite are flocking down here (Devon and Cornwall) to their holiday homes: they are buying all our loo-rolls and are bringing their London-incubated bugs to our beaches. We are not amused. Seriously, most worrying is that the hospitals down here won't cope if this sudden influx of visitors (they and money are normally welcome) end up needing critical care.

‘The town grows very sickly, and people are afraid of it’. 
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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptySun 22 Mar 2020, 13:18

Deleted - security thing.


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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptySun 22 Mar 2020, 13:52

Temperance wrote:
During the outbreaks of Sweating Sickness in Tudor England, and during the Great Plague of London in the following century, those who could decamped in panic and left the capital. Aristocrats retired to their country estates and, in 1665, the King and the entire court fled to Oxford, a city that, oddly enough, was little affected by the sickness.

We are seeing a similar phenomenon today: the affluent London élite are flocking down here (Devon and Cornwall) to their holiday homes: they are buying all our loo-rolls and are bringing their London-incubated bugs to our beaches. We are not amused. Seriously, most worrying is that the hospitals down here won't cope if this sudden influx of visitors (they and money are normally welcome) end up needing critical care.

‘The town grows very sickly, and people are afraid of it’. 

Temperance, overhere it isn't allowed anymore to go to your second home (I haven't one). And those, who are still in their seocnd one, have to return to their "domicile" address. Is that the more "socialist" trend from the continent Wink?

Kind regards from Paul.
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyMon 23 Mar 2020, 10:58

M&S have allotted the first shopping hour on Mondays and Thursdays to pensioners. Went this morning,
 no large crowds and shelves well stocked. Everything was fine.

Apart from this:

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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyMon 23 Mar 2020, 11:06

Causes of death in London, 1632: Cancer AND Wolf!!!!!!!!

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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyMon 23 Mar 2020, 11:07

Good ones, Trike, there are times when perspectives are needed!

Edited because of crossed posts.
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyMon 23 Mar 2020, 11:10

Ideal for indoor exercises:

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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyMon 23 Mar 2020, 11:11

Triceratops wrote:
Causes of death in London, 1632: Cancer AND Wolf!!!!!!!!

... and thirteen were struck down by a pesky planet!

Seriously though, I wonder if "wolf" didn't mean lupus, ie lupus erythematosus (SLE) an autoimmune disease in which the body's immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue in many parts of the body, and superficially a bit like cancer, at least to a 17th century physician.

Welcome back Trike, you've been sorely missed. Cheers
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyMon 23 Mar 2020, 11:22

I watched this film yesterday, Roger Corman's production of Masque of the Red Death, based on the Edgar Allen Poe story of the same name. Quite good. A group of dissolute aristocrats in medieval Italy, isolating themselves in a castle to avoid the plague ravaging the countryside.

Jane Asher and Vincent Price:

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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyMon 23 Mar 2020, 11:30

Death by Worm?! 

Imagine a worm pandemic! Uggggh!

Welcome back, Trike! Where on earth have you been (apart from M&S Food Hall)?

PS Love the horse thing - I can just imagine Sir Henry having a Dowton Abbey-type conversation with his wife as he pretend-gallops about on it.


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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyMon 23 Mar 2020, 11:31

'Masque of the Red Death' sounds like it might be a bit too close to home, Trike. I prefer to take my mind off things, so my isolation reading list will include  Gabriel García Márquez's 'Love in the Time of Cholera', Thomas Mann's 'Death in Venice', and Albert Camus' 'The Plague'.
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyMon 23 Mar 2020, 11:33

Temperance wrote:


Welcome back, Trike! Where on earth have you been (apart from M&S Food Hall)?

Temp and Meles, thanks. Sheer laziness on my part.
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nordmann
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyMon 23 Mar 2020, 11:51

Meles meles wrote:
'Masque of the Red Death' sounds like it might be a bit too close to home, Trike. I prefer to take my mind off things, so my isolation reading list will include  Gabriel García Márquez's 'Love in the Time of Cholera', Thomas Mann's 'Death in Venice', and Albert Camus' 'The Plague'.

Reminds me of the interview on national TV news here last week in which a sociologist was being asked by the presenter about the effects of social distancing and staying indoors etc. Being the good little patriot in straitened times as she was the interviewer made the observation "I suppose this then is the perfect opportunity for people to actually catch up with their reading, and maybe start with all the great Norwegian literary classics?". To which the sociologist replied, "Oh no, it's important now more than ever that people look after their mental health!".
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyMon 23 Mar 2020, 12:15

That's a bit like the recent French TV news item discussing ways to reduce infection and to boost the body's own defences. A psychologist on the panel had said how it was important to remain optimistic and keep one's morale up and that music, song, board games and humour were all useful. The interviewer, laughing commented with  "ha, ha, so laughter really is the best medicine", at which the rather dour clinical physician on the panel promptly chipped in with "well, it's ok, but if you get bacterial pneumonia you really need strong antibiotics".
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyMon 23 Mar 2020, 13:18

Meles meles wrote:
Welcome back Trike, you've been sorely missed.  Cheers
 
I join MM. Welcome back you prehistoric beast.

Kind regards from PauL
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyMon 23 Mar 2020, 13:35

I was thinking of ordering "La Peste" in French as a lockdown mental gym. I read it in translation years ago. I'd need to order a Grade 6 truss to "Stay calm and sing" this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQfN7AyAGlo
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyMon 23 Mar 2020, 14:49

Meles meles wrote:
'Masque of the Red Death' sounds like it might be a bit too close to home, Trike. I prefer to take my mind off things, so my isolation reading list will include  Gabriel García Márquez's 'Love in the Time of Cholera', Thomas Mann's 'Death in Venice', and Albert Camus' 'The Plague'.

MM, while you spoke about Gabriel Garcia Márquez. I thought I had read La Úlcera (the ulcer) from him. But now I learned it was from Juan Antonio Zunzunegui

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Antonio_Zunzunegui
As usual on internet after a lot of research I found always the same synopsis: (under "resumen")
https://quelibroleo.hola.com/la-ulcera

But that don't coincide at all with my memory.
The memory is along the narrative of a man visited regurlarly by a doctor and thinking his ulcer is deadly and he is so convinced of it, that he, at the end, despite all what the doctor says, indeed pass away.

Some, was it nordmann, spoke here about psychology...

PS; Now in the eigth day of my quarantaine after the turmoil on the airfield of Tenerife and not yet anything about Corona. I said it today to our doctor when I rang about something for my partner. And as he know me, because I said I had some pain in the troath... if you passed already 8 days...Yes he is right...at the end I will have psychological side phenomenons from all my thinking...and by the way, to have fear to go dead, is that a psycholgical inconvenience  Wink ?

Kind regards from Paul.
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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyTue 24 Mar 2020, 11:08

One of my friends has just emailed me this: it is a letter from Scott Fitzgerald who was stuck in quarantine down in the South of France in 1920. I thought the Spanish flu virus was over by then - or were people still being very careful? He doesn't mention loo-rolls - just his stash of booze.


Dearest Rosemary,
It was a limpid dreary day, hung as in a basket from a single dull star. I thank you for your letter. Outside, I perceive what may be a collection of fallen leaves tussling against a trash can. It rings like jazz to my ears. The streets are that empty. It seems as though the bulk of the city has retreated to their quarters, rightfully so. At this time, it seems very poignant to avoid all public spaces. Even the bars, as I told Hemingway, but to that he punched me in the stomach, to which I asked if he had washed his hands. He hadn’t. He is much the denier, that one. Why, he considers the virus to be just influenza. I’m curious of his sources.

The officials have alerted us to ensure we have a month’s worth of necessities. Zelda and I have stocked up on red wine, whiskey, rum, vermouth, absinthe, sherry, gin, and lord, if we need it, brandy.

 Please pray for us.

You should see the square, oh, it is terrible. I weep for the damned eventualities this future brings. The long afternoons rolling forward slowly on the ever-slick bottomless highball. Z. says it’s no excuse to drink, but I just can’t seem to steady my hand. In the distance, from my brooding perch, the shoreline is cloaked in a dull haze where I can discern an unremitting penance that has been heading this way for a long, long while. And yet, amongst the cracked cloudline of an evening’s cast, I focus on a single strain of light, calling me forth to believe in a better morrow.

Faithfully yours,
F. Scott Fitzgerald
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyTue 24 Mar 2020, 11:23

I wrote an email to my sister last night; quite a long email, carefully written and certainly not just a simple factual list of news as I hoping to give her a smile, but I confess Fitzgerald's descriptive prose is a lot better than mine:
Quote :
It was a limpid dreary day, hung as in a basket from a single dull star. I thank you for your letter. Outside, I perceive what may be a collection of fallen leaves tussling against a trash can. It rings like jazz to my ears.

I guess, as they say, I shouldn't give up the day job. Unfortunately, though, at the moment ,my day job has rather given up on me.

On a brighter note, I ventured out to the local supermarket this morning. Not many people about and generally plenty of stock other than a few specifc things, and there was fresh fruit and veg' in abundance. Also plenty of booze, so Scott Fitzgerald and his amis would have been alright here.


Last edited by Meles meles on Tue 24 Mar 2020, 11:30; edited 2 times in total
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyTue 24 Mar 2020, 11:29

Got a whole new take on Trike. So what's this 'sheer laziness' thing? Last time I saw that was for a negligee - of the 'for wafting about in filmy thing  glowing with expectations,' sort.

Too much information, Trike. Regards, P...…. loved the 1900 Parisian film. Thank you.
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyTue 24 Mar 2020, 13:34

"Bone idle", does that sound better, P??

Covid-19,
I don't have it, none of my relations have it, or any friends and neighbours. Anyone on the board personally know someone who has it????

And here we have Corvid-19

Keep Calm and Sing 225px-Corvus_corone_-near_Canford_Cliffs%2C_Poole%2C_England-8
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyTue 24 Mar 2020, 13:40

Went for my government sanctioned walk this morning. Very quiet compared to normal, but public transport still running, post office vans motoring about and a few construction sites still active.

Not quite yet at this stage:

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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyTue 24 Mar 2020, 14:22

BTW,

Stay Home and Stay Safe

from the RoSPA site:
Every year in the UK more than 6,000 people die in accidents in the home and 2.7 million turn up at accident and emergency departments seeking treatment.
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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyTue 24 Mar 2020, 14:23

Trike wrote:
Covid-19,
I don't have it, none of my relations have it, or any friends and neighbours. Anyone on the board personally know someone who has it????

Yep - one of my friends teaches Chinese students in a nearby town - all really nice kids, but, like most teenagers these days, they tend to sneeze all over everything and everybody. He got sneezed on a while back, and very soon developed a very bad cough, high temp and general malaise. He also had earache, but at the time thought it was "just a virus". He's now convinced it was the bug, and he is not one to be dramatic. I am consequently lurking at home, but feel fine - touch wood. I had a runny nose and a bit of a cough last week, but I don't think runny noses are a symptom? I am an allergic person, so it's probably something in the garden that's got up my nose. Hope so. I shall have an antibody test when they become available: if I have had it, I want a "I Beat the Bug" Flu Peter badge.

EDIT: Kids had been to London to meet relatives at Chinese New Year, so it was a bit worrying!
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyTue 24 Mar 2020, 14:39

I think you should be OK, Temp. NHS website gives the following as symptoms:

Continue to stay at home if you have either:
•a high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)
•a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)

My wifi has cut out twice in the last half hour. Maybe its' got Covid.
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyTue 24 Mar 2020, 15:37

I don't know anyone personally who has the virus, Temperance.  There was something on the newsabout Covid-19 in Staffordshire about a nurse in Stoke-on-Trent who was quite young (about 36) being very ill  with the disease.  There have been cases of the virus (including some fatal cases) in northern Staffordshire and southern Staffordshire.  I'm in central Staffordshire but bearing in mind some people commute to Stoke/Wolverhampton/Walsall/Birmingham we have to be alert.  I was going to go to the launderette today but my hay fever has been playing up so I did some washing by hand and stuck the washing on the line.  I don't think I have the disease but I'd feel terrible if I was mistaken and I passed it on.  I read something to the effect that people who have the disease in a mild form sometimes suffer loss of taste and smell.  My smell and taste are fine.   That said, I'm not suggesting what I read online can be taken as Holy Writ.
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyTue 24 Mar 2020, 20:10

Triceratops wrote:
And here we have Corvid-19

Keep Calm and Sing 225px-Corvus_corone_-near_Canford_Cliffs%2C_Poole%2C_England-8

Like it Trike. And how about Corvid-20:

Keep Calm and Sing 5be3414162_50065316_3518-64bae5125c

1720 that is. A plague doctor's outfit from the Marseilles peste of that year. Note the gloves, the neck band and the 'social distancing' stick. One for the plus ça change thread perhaps.
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyWed 25 Mar 2020, 07:09

Deleted - see nordmann's post below.  It seems that I may not be the only person thinking of sewing a pattern (in my case the one for a corset) that I bought the year before last or maybe the year before that because I ordered some plastic boning online and the online shop only had two packets left.  My back often aches when I do weeding so I was thinking of trying to give it some support.


Last edited by LadyinRetirement on Wed 25 Mar 2020, 12:06; edited 3 times in total
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nordmann
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyWed 25 Mar 2020, 08:21

It's better this thread is not used as yet another internet venue for sharing bad information. I have a natural antipathy towards this site being used to propagate non-historical misinformation at the best of times, especially that which veers towards the woo, and in the case of coronavirus this is particularly important.

I realise that is not your intention, LiR, but I urge you to be a little more circumspect and cynical regarding what you glean from the internet, especially related to this topic, before you bring it here.

On the question of "masks" ask yourself what is the function of this device? If (and in the case of home-made masks a very big "if" indeed) one even manages to construct an effective filter that actually traps incoming viruses (use the internet to actually research the chemistry and size of these and then compare this to the apertures in the mask allowing air to travel through) then what one ends up with after a trip outside is a high concentration of potentially lethal particles on a surface which you are bound to touch in the act of removing it. Then ask yourself what do you do after you remove it? Especially if you have not manufactured enough masks to be instantly disposable. And what protected your eyes against air-borne particles while the mask was ostensibly protecting your mouth and nose?

The internet is a good source for some eminently practical advice regarding infection, how it works, and how best to minimise the chances of being infected. But, as with everything else in this general medium, the ratio between good information and bad is horrendously disproportionate.

Bottom line at the moment - if anything you source on the internet such as the above is not to be found on the excellent WHO website then please ask yourself why the WHO has seemingly "overlooked" such advice, and if you cannot answer this immediately please by all means research further online (carefully) before you elect to relate what you've found to a third party.

The virus is potentially fatal and good epidemiology dictates that we all strive to understand the vectors involved in its transmission and even pass that understanding on to people less well informed. In cases of viruses attacking humans, misinformation is as much one of these vectors as any other - and thanks to the internet probably a major one in this case.
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nordmann
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyWed 25 Mar 2020, 09:39

If you haven't found Dr John Campbell on YouTube yet, maybe you might have a look at his generally excellent daily bulletins. Clear, concise, informative, and dependable. He's UK based.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Campbellteaching/videos

This one from three days ago addresses the issue at hand (stress on hands!)

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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyWed 25 Mar 2020, 10:53

After todays perambulation, the construction site which was working yesterday is now at a standstill. Banks and Building Societies still open. Buses running, but practically empty. Both corner shops I passed are still open, as food retailers even on a small scale. I thought Takeaways were still open but two Fish and Chip shops had notices saying they were closed for the duration, one Chinese Carryout had no notices, could be operating normally, while another is home delivery only.


This from a couple of days ago:
live BBC newscast from Leicester Square. Guess what turns up in the background;

Keep Calm and Sing ETkgwqhWkAAqCXN
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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyWed 25 Mar 2020, 11:11

I am trying to keep my nose hot.

Oh LiR, you are now firmly ensconced on the Res His Naughty Step. I dread saying anything here now in case I too transgress. Nord is right, of course, but one does sometimes feel one has had one's knuckles rapped - or wrapped - as Minette use to say. I do miss Minette. Hope she is OK.

I have a big bottle of Vitamin C with rosehips: according to Doctor Campbell I have wasted my money. Out to get some sunshine and Vitamin D now. Alas, not many weeds left in my garden after a week of isolation - I'll be weeding the field by next week.
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PostSubject: Re: Keep Calm and Sing   Keep Calm and Sing EmptyWed 25 Mar 2020, 11:17

Charlie has tested positive for Covid at his holiday home in Balmoral.

Keep Calm and Sing ET8xDrPXYAA1ExX
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