Coronavirus – Day #53

Another productive day! One radio interview recorded (for next week) and a few hours of Day Job done.

Also the fundraiser is now past 20% of my goal, which is very pleasing. I’m starting to think of all sorts of things I could be doing. Several of them involve food prep of various sorts. It is very annoying not being able to buy flour, and having other things on a long lead time. However, I did order a few products today, including some very famous Australian food. I suspect that some of you can guess what that is.

Our government proudly announced today that the death toll from C-19 is now over 30,000, and we have the highest number of deaths of any country in Europe. Winning! Friday is VE Day, which the Daily Malice has re-named Victory Over Europe Day, presumably in honour of this momentous achievement. The Financial Times, which continues to be the only useful opposition newspaper in the country, puts the death toll at well over 50,000.

I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about too many Zoom meetings, and this morning a friend posted a link to this National Geographic article on “Zoom Fatigue”. Although the headline gives the impression that’s all it talks about, the article goes on to note that Zoom is much less tiring than face-to-face meetings for people on the autism spectrum. I certainly wouldn’t class myself as autistic, but equally I don’t recognise any of the causes or symptoms of fatigue that the article describes. I guess I must be a lucky, in-the-middle sort of person.

Coronavirus – Day #52

That was another fairly productive day. I did several hours worth of Day Job. I did a batch of laundry and cooked food for a few more days. Most importantly I got the One25 fundraiser launched (see below).

I keep recording having done stuff because I still feel very lethargic much of the time. I’m trying not to push myself because I worry about relapses and post-viral fatigue syndrome. There’s very little that is screamingly urgent, but it would be nice to get more done, even if it was only reading.

In the outside world people are starting to talk more and more about things like track-and-trace apps and health passports. Most countries are looking to implement an app of some sort. Most also understand that track-and-trace is useless without a proper testing regime. The UK shows no sign of having the latter. It is also going with a highly non-standard app, the point of which seems either to put a few million quid in the pockets of friends of Cummings, or for some nefarious spy-on-people purpose, or more likely both. Our best hope is that it will turn out to be about as effective as hiring shipping services from a company that didn’t own any ships was.

I expect that most of the people frothing noisily on social media about how they won’t install the app will buckle and do so once they realise that they won’t be allowed to do anything outside their home without it. Personally I’m looking at removing just about every app from my phone so that there’s less for the government to spy on.

Let’s Give It Up for One25!


Some of you will remember that last year I walked 125 miles to raise money for the Bristol charity, One25. Well, they are looking for help again this year, and this time the challenge is to give something up for 125 hours. Thinking of something was a challenge in itself because we’ve been forced to give up so much thanks to the pandemic, but I have an idea I think that you’ll enjoy. The image above is a clue. More on that later, but first, why One25?

One25 are a charity who work directly with street sex-working women to provide outreach, casework and essential resources for their future. 80% of women who street sex-work are homeless. In the strangest of times we now find ourselves in, One25 remain focused on keeping contact with women as much as possible and continuing to deliver services. They are doing whatever they can to make sure that some of Bristol’s most vulnerable women know that they are loved and not alone.

UK-based readers might remember that last year the Sussexes visited One25 and Meghan wrote on some bananas.

As a trans woman I am painfully aware that sex work could easily have been part of my life. Thanks to a great deal of luck and Kevin’s love, I managed to avoid that, but numerous people didn’t. High profile trans women such as Roz Kaveney and Janet Mock have written movingly about their experiences in the sex trade. Each year, when I help read the names of the departed at the Trans Day of Remembrance ceremony, I am painfully aware that many of those women died because they had no choice but to sell their bodies, and therefore had to make themselves vulnerable.

I have done several sessions of trans awareness training for One25 staff and have been very impressed by their openness and willingness to provide support to whoever needs it.

So, what’s the plan? Well, for the duration of the fundraiser, 1:00pm on May 15th to 6:00pm on May 20th, I am giving up living in the UK. I’ve had enough of this staying at home lark, and by the magic of the internet I am going to travel the world. And I’m inviting you to come with me. For each of the 6 days I will visit a different country. I will check out the tourist spots, talk to local people, try the local food, play the local music and so on. You will be able to follow it all on social media.

I have four of the six countries inked in. Australia and California are obvious choices as I have lived in both countries. Finland is next as I have been there so often. I’m going to do Italy because it gives me an opportunity to talk about Romans (again). The other two are as yet undecided. Croatia and Canada are obvious picks as I’ve been to each of them several times, but I’m open to persuasion to go somewhere else. It needs to be somwhere I can do a decent job of visiting. Suggest somewhere.

If you happen to live in one of those countries and would like to help by suggesting places to visit, things to eat, or music to play I would be very grateful. If you’d like to do an interview I would be over the moon. Do let me know.

And, most importantly, PLEASE PLEDGE. My fundraising page is here. No amount is too small. Every penny is gratefully received.

Coronavirus – Day #51

I seem to have been productive today. I finished reading a book. I finished editing next week’s radio show. And I finished doing the Wizard’s Tower accounts for April.

Regarding the latter, as a small press, any month in which you sell over 3,000 books has to be a good month. Admitedly more than half of those were copies of The Green Man’s Heir when it was on sale for 99p at Amazon, but even so it is a lot of readers.

Also we were treated to a fantastic F1 race this evening. OK, it is only sim racing, but Charles LeClerc and Alex Albon put on a brilliant show. There are two major benefits of the sim races over the real thing. Firstly overtaking is much easier because the game doesn’t model the slipstream effects that make it so difficult in real life. And although the cars might appear to be in different liveries, they are actually identical in performance so the race is down to driver skill, not who has the best aero package and engine.

By the way, I have discovered that as a community radio presenter I do actually qualify as a key worker and can apply for a C-19 test. However, my nearest testing station is, I think, at Bristol Airport, which is over an hour’s drive away. I’m very comfortable just staying at home, thank you.

Coronavirus – Day #50

Wow, 50 days. Admittedly I have been to Tesco for food on three of those days, and I have occasionally had delivery men knock on the door, so it hasn’t been total isolation, but that’s quite a stretch of time to have mostly not left the house. I’m starting to feel guilty that I’m OK with this, because so many of my friends are getting more and more wound up about it.

Today is apparently a weekend day. I have a radio show to produce for next week so I have been busy. We are going to be talking about sex and books. Sounds good to me.

Oh, and the Formula E continues to be entertaining.

Coronavirus – Day #49

The first of the month is always an admin day for me, though sometimes other stuff happens too. Today I had an online meeting, and I recorded an interview for next week’s radio show.

The latter was good timing because today is #RadioFromHome day, a day intended to raise the profile of community radio and the work we are doing during the crisis. I’d like to say that it will help encourage the government to offer some money to help community radio stations to stay afloat, but given that our current government is about as loving and friendly as a squad of hungry Humboldt squid that doesn’t seem likely.

Talking of the radio show, this week I’ve had a number of people turn me down for interviews because they are too busy or otherwise unavailable. I can put a show together with what I have, but if anyone has something they’d like to talk about that might be of interest to the women of Bristol and is available to record an interview over the weekend do let me know.

Something interesting has been happening to the official government statistics on C-19-related deaths. They continue to report daily totals that are mostly in the 600-800 range, and which are always less than the total for the same day in the previous week. But that’s because prior days’ totals are being raised. I can’t remember how many deaths were originally reported for April 24th, but I know that it wasn’t 1005 because the daily totals never got over 1000 on any day. Now that isn’t even the highest. We’ve now got 9 days with over 1000 reported deaths, and a peak of 1172. Possibly they are being more honest about the numbers in the past, but what does that say about the numbers we are getting today? Or about the claims that we are past the peak?

Coronavirus – Day #48

Well that was great. Museum from Home was hugely successful. I’m really happy for Dan and Sacha, who have put a lot of effort into this. Who knows, maybe they’ll get their own TV show one day.

In among all the museum and free ebook excitement I found time to sling some chicken curry into the slow cooker, so that’s food sorted for a few more days.

Bozo has apparently announced that the UK is past the peak as far as virus cases goes, and the data is still supporting that. On the other hand, we are still running at well over 500 deaths a day, so if we lift restrictions now things could get a lot worse very quickly. And the government has still not made any significant steps towards managing the exit process.

Coronavirus – Day #47

Today I did the shopping thing. It all went very smoothly and I now have enough food to last me another two or three weeks. Interestingly the food selection in Tesco seems to have reduced somewhat since last time I was there. The cheese selection in particular was very disappointing. This suggests that Lockdown is having an effect on the food economy.

One thing that is plentiful is toilet paper. There was loads of it on the shelves. Some of it was even on sale.

On the other hand, there is still not a spoonful of flour to be had. Why that should be I do not know.

I saw only three people wearing masks. Two of those were Japanese. But everyone was well behaved.

Life continues to be busy. In addtion to the new Salon Futura, I have been working on this year’s fundraiser for One25, the Bristol charity that supports local sex workers. You may remember that last year I walked 125 miles for them. This year I will be giving up something for 125 hours. And no, it won’t be chocolate. There will be more about that next week.

Tomorrow is #MuseumFromHome Day on the BBC. I will be on social media much of the day to support my pals Dan and Sacha. I also have a contribution of my own to launch tomorrow.

And of course tomorrow there will be a new piece of Lockdown Reading.

Phew!

Coronavirus – Day #46

I almost forgot again. Sorry. I’ve been in the middle of an book review that has been very difficult to write.

Last night the cough came back. I have no idea why. Possibly it is something to do with the change in the weather. Anyway, I got rather less sleep than I wanted, and have had a mild headache through the day, but I’ve been fairly productive.

Today also marks two weeks since I last shopped for food. As it was raining heavily I elected not to go to Tesco where I would potentially have had to stand in the rain for 10 minutes. Tomorrow or Thursday may be better. Alternatively I could wait for next week. I’m out of quite a few things, including fresh fruit and veg, but I can certainly survive for several more days. I’m treating this as practice for January, because I am still expecting a hard Brexit and major food shortages. I’m learning a lot about what it is useful to stock up on.

If there’s a break in the rain tomorrow I’ll probably go out. Thursday is Museum from Home day on the BBC and I want to be on social media supporting Dan and Sacha. I’m also a bit worried that the government will relax the lockdown restrictions way too early, and that going out will become dangerous.

Coronavirus – Day #45

I forgot to do a post yesterday, didn’t I. Not that I had a huge amount to report. I was busy.

Today has been much of the same. I have recorded an interview, made a Museum From Home video, and done some Day Job work.

Video editing is hell. So is being in a video. I am so not television material.

Today’s big news, other than Bozo claiming that over 40,000 people dead was a great success on his part, is that doctors in the US have had an idea as to how to help male patients survive the virus. They are going to try dosing them with oestrogen.

This isn’t quite as mad as it sounds. We’ve known for some time that mortality is higher among men than women. This has led to the anti-trans brigade on social media crowing that C-19 is a Y Chromosome Plague that will somehow wipe out all trans women because we are “really men”.

Now there are reasons why having XX chromosomes is good for your health. Having two Xs is a backup strategy. If a gene on one chromosome has an unhelpful mutation, the chances are that you’ve got a correct version on the other. This makes XX people somewhat more disease resistant than XY people. But equally oestrogen is good at helping your immune system and doctors in China have speculated that it might help protect against C-19. It is also possible that it is testosterone weaking the immune system that is the issue. This paper suggests that might be the case (thanks to Julia Serano for the link).

So there’s a whole bunch of different biological reasons why XY people might be more susceptible to C-19 than XX people, and that’s without starting on gender-based issues such as men being more likely to be heavy smokers, work in high-stress occupations, spend more time on crowded communter trains, and so on. But this is a crisis, and we should try everything. Maybe the estrogen trials will work.

Some people on social media have been worrying that if the trials do work then there will be an even worse shortage of estrogen than there is now. That’s certainly likely, though it is easy to make and the recent shortage in the UK was caused mainly by government stupidity rather than a real shortage.

Of course if oestrogen does turn out to be an effective treatment then the anti-trans brigade will start yelling for all trans women to be arrested because we are using valuable medicine that is needed by their menfolk. And despite having spent years complaining that hormone treatment for trans women is untested and dangerous, they will want immediate deployment of it to save people from C-19. Consistency has never been their strongpoint.

In better news the UK has now had a whole week of the number of deaths being lower than they were on the same day in the previous week. That’s a good measure of progress because it eliminates daily patterns in the data. It isn’t over yet by any means, but it looks like we are getting there. Now we have to resist the temptation to all rush back to “normal” before it is safe to do so.

Coronavirus – Day #43

Today is a Saturday. I am sufficiently aware of the calendar to know that. Saturdays are often days when I watch a lot of sport on TV. Of course there’s no in-person live sport happening right now. The TV companies are gamely trying to keep up interest by showing classic matches, but it isn’t the same.

The other alternative is esports. Most sports simulation games that I have seen are deeply disappointing because they are nothing like the real thing. But there is one exception. Motor racing simulations are very close to real racing. Indeed, top flight drivers spend a lot of time practicing in simulation rigs, because running their cars on an actual track is very expensive.

The result of this is that it is possible to stage a simulated motor race that looks almost like the real thing on TV, and which professional drivers can compete in and enjoy.

The Formula 1 races they have had thus far have been more of a PR stunt. Neither Vettel nor Hamilton have risked their reputations by competing, and celebrity guest drivers have clogged up the back of the field. However, Charles LeClerc as proved that he’s the class of the field by easily winning both races held thus far.

Formula E is different. They are running a full 8-race season with two separate championships. The Challenge races will feature a range of guest drivers including up-and-coming drivers and professional esports racers, driving for the usual Formula E teams. Trans racing driver, Charlie Martin, has a seat in the Techeetah team for that. The main championship features the actual drivers from the physical races, driving their usual cars. A couple of them have had technical issues and not been able to take part, but the vast majority of the drivers have competed.

As a spectator, I’ve found the racing just as much fun as the real thing, especially now they have turned on realistic damage. They ran a practice race last weekend without it, and that ended up being more like a fairground dodgem car ride. The drivers themselves asked for damage to be turned on because it would make a better test of their skills.

So hooray for Formula E, who are once again breaking new ground in motorsport. And hooray for Charlie who finished a creditable 18th out of a field of 24. She’s the only woman in the field, and the level of competition is a step up from what she’s used to, so she’s doing really well.

Out in the “real” world, UK deaths are back above 800 again today. The numbers fluctuate from day to day, and they are certainly not growing exponentially as you’d expect from an out of control pandemic. But I think it is still too early to say that we are past the peak.

Coronavirus – Day #42

42 is the answer to the question, “how many days in 6 weeks?”. So that’s how long I have been in self-isolation. I did go out twice to get food, but other than that haven’t left home. I’m not missing the outside world much, though having a garden I could sit in would be nice.

Today was spent primarily at a conference for women Classicists (and allies). I gave a short talk which seemed to be well received. And I learned a lot, particularly about doing online teaching. I have felt for some time that you can’t simply replace a classroom lecture with an online one, and it was good to have that confirmed, and to get some tips for doing online teaching better.

It was an interesting experience spending the best part of 7 hours in an online conference. I thought it went very well, though getting people into breakout rooms in Zoom continues to be an unnecesarily complex process.

I also recorded another interview for the new Salon Futura, and I’ve put a loaf in the bread machine. I think that will do for the day. I’m pleased to see that I appear to have just enough flour for one more loaf. Hopefully it will be possible to buy it again next time I go to Tesco.

I don’t know much about what happened in the rest of the world today, though I gather that the government opened a website for testing essential workers for the virus, and it collapsed after a few hours. That is entirley typical.

Coronavirus – Day #41

Much of today has been spent on the edge of falling asleep. That might be at least in part due to the large quantities of spring sunshine streaming through my windows, but I still feel sleepy now. As you’ll see from today’s other entries, I have managed to get some things done. Not a lot though. And I’m OK with that.

Besides, tomorrow I have to be up, awake and presentable by 10:00am, which is about an hour earlier than I have managed all this week. I blame these lovely people.

zzzzzzzzzzzz…

Coronavirus – Day #40

Today was a cooking day. It was a cheap one too. I had some fresh veg that needed eating, so I went for a classic Southern dish that Kevin taught me: red beans and rice. It is also vegetarian and nicely spicy. That will do me for a few more days as well.

Out in the so-called “real” world, journalists at the Financial Times are claiming that the true death toll in the UK from the virus is over 41,000, rather than the 17,000 that the government is reporting. It is quite bizarre to live in a world in which the FT is the main opposition paper to a Conservative government, but here we are.

And talking of the government, Parliament was back in action again today, albeit with minimal physical attendance in Westminister. The government took the opportunity to set out some of its priorities for the coming months, which it turns out will include starting on the roll-back of trans rights in the UK. It looks like trans kids will bear the initial brunt of their planned cruelty, but it won’t stop there.

Coronavirus – Day #39

Probably the most annoying thing about Lockdown is that, while I am coping well with the psychological side of things, every so often I have a day when my body says “enough”. Today was another one of those days. I woke up with a low-grade headache that has never quite gone away. So although I did get some work done, I didn’t do nearly as much as I’d hoped.

Oh well, thankfully there’s little screamingly urgent left needing doing.

I have a radio show tomorrow. One of the interviews is with my friend Daryn Carter who has had a pretty nasty case of C-19. It it he talks a bit about the rollercoaster recovery process. Relapses are common. I certainly feel a bit like that today.

But relapses affect countries too. The news media were apparently crowing this morning that the UK had turned a corner and beaten the virus, because we’d had two consecutive days when the death toll fell. It doesn’t work like that. Today we are back over 800 again. I was speaking yesterday with a friend who works at a hospital, and they were looking at May for peak load.

Meanwhile people are getting exciting over the Office of National Statistics data on deaths. The ONS has information on the total number of people who die each day, which they can compare with averages going back many years. We are significantly above average. The actual numbers of people dying are much higher than annual average plus offical government virus death toll. This has led to people claiming that the C-19 death toll is 41% higher than the government says, and to government supporters yelling “fake news”.

The first thing to note is that the numbers are not fake. All of those people have died. The official government death toll, currently at 17,337, refers only to people who died in hospital and who tested positive for C-19. That means that thousands more unexpected deaths have occured that cannot be directly linked to the virus.

Those people will have died for a variety of reasons. They may have had C-19 but were not tested. They may have died of other things because they had been weakened by a case of C-19. They may have died from something entirely different that might not have been fatal if the heath service hadn’t been massively overloaded at the time. 16 women apparently died in domestic violence incidents, which is more than twice as many as would be expected in that time period.

So you don’t have to have had a case of C-19 for your death to be linked to it in some way.

Coronavirus – Day #38

Today I have: finished editing this week’s radio show; attended an online meeting (Diversity Trust work); finished writing an essay about a book on trans people in the Classical world; and done a batch of laundry. Pretty much a normal day of working from home.

Out in the supposed “real” world I have seen stuff on social media suggesting that government propagandists, or a marketing company employed by them, set up 128 fake Twitter accounts, purporting to be NHS staff for the purpose of trying to show that doctors and nurses support the “herd immunity” policy favoured by Cabinet hawks. Sadly I am unsurprised, neither by the dishonesty of it, nor by the incompetence with which the subtefuge was implemented.

Elsewhere the price of oil on US markets has gone negative.

Coronavirus – Day #37

Much excitement in the UK media today. With the Labour Party pretty much dead in the water thanks to its own internal squabbles, the Tories feel safe to fight amongst themselves. Thus we had the remarkable sight of The Times launching a full-scale attack on Boris Johnson.

For the benefit of foreign readers, a little explanation is in order. The Times, owned by Rupert Murdoch, has always backed Michael Gove for Prime Minister. However, the Tory right, which is very traditionalist, prefers the Telegraph, for whom Bozo is a columnist. Having The Times attack Bozo is therefore possibly a signal that Gove thinks he can make a bid for power while the PM is still indisposed from his bout of virus.

There are other things to bear in mind, though. Gove probably doesn’t have the support of either the party or the country for a coup. What he can do is fire a warning shot across the bows of Acting Prime Minister, Dominic Raab, to let him know that he has to do what Murdoch wants while Bozo is not around. What Murdoch wants, of course, is the end of Lockdown, and a return to the “herd immunity” strategy, because that is seen as being good for the economy (well, good for billionaires).

The coming week will be an interesting time in Westminister.

Not that us ordinary citizens can do much to influence things. We’ll just have to sit tight and hope that a modicum of common sense prevails.

In the meantime I have been working on next week’s radio show, and I have started on a project I promised myself when this all started. I am planning to watch all of the Studio Ghibli movies on Netflix. Today I watched Howl’s Moving Castle. I am now very much hoping that Lockdown lasts long enough for me to watch all of the others.

Coronavirus – Day #36

So, birthday under Lockdown turns out to be much the same as any other birthday, but with a lot more (virtual) company.

I began the day by doing a trans history talk for a local LGBT+ group (adults this time), which was fun.

I have a fair amount of work of various sorts to do, but I decided to goof off for the day and do some baking. I don’t have a usable oven, so for Christmas I bought myself one of these (cheap in a Clark’s Village outlet store). I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to use it before today.

I decided to make scones (for cream tea) as they are fairly easy. They turned out suprisingly well for a first attempt. They were a little over-done, but machines like this are very precise and now I know to reduce the heat setting next time.

I had sport! Formula E has launched a sim series with most of the actual drivers taking part, plus a side race for other folks. It was actually the side race that interested me most as it had a combination of amateurs, profesional esports players, and young drivers hoping to break in to the big time. Charlie Martin has a seat in the Techeetah team. Sadly she didn’t do very well, but everyone is learning right now so I hope she’ll perform better in later races.

And of course there was WiFi SciFi 2. Only one panel this time, and it devolved into discussion of the writing business which is less of interest to me, but probably more what the punters want.

Next up: dinner, wine, cheese, TV or movie.

World, what world?

Coronavirus – Day #35

I might have overdone things a bit yesterday as I woke up feeling sore and stiff, as if I’d spent yesterday in the gym. My philisophy these days is that if my body says “no” then I listen to it, so today has been fairly lightweight.

I did record a couple of great interviews for next week’s radio show. One is with my friend Daryn Carter from Bristol Pride who has had a pretty nasty case of C-19 and is now starting on the long road to recovery.

The other is with Aled from Brigstowe, a charity that provides support for people who are living with HIV. While we were talking it occured to me that there are a lot of similarities between these two virus-borne illnesses. They are not identical, obviously. They attack different parts of the body, and HIV needs to be communicated through bodily fluids while C-19 is ferociously infectious. But with both there will be questions as to when people are phsyically and medically safe to return to work. Post-viral fatigue is likely to be an issue in recovery in both cases. People are already starting to talk about possible new laws that would require us to be able to prove that we were C-19 free before being let back into ordinary society. And inevitably there will be a social stigma against those who have had the disease, because those who haven’t will be afraid (however irrationally) of getting infected.

The upshot of this is that the lessons that the Queer community has learned over the years in supporting people who are living with HIV to integrate back into society may prove to be invaluable in helping rebuild after the pandemic has been contained.

I’m not the first person to think of his. I understand (thanks Roz) that Dr. Fauci, the US virologist, gained his reputation through working on the HIV epidemic. Also my friend Jonathan Cooper has written this article talking about how the victims of the C-19 pandemic will need to band together and speak out against a government that appears to assume that only people who deserved to die will have suffered.

Quite how one holds a government to account when it has an 80 seat majority and has most of the national news media in its pocket is another matter. But hold it to account we must, because if we don’t they will continue their project of selling off the NHS and dismantling all of our social safety nets.

Coronavirus – Day #34

I needed to cook again today. I made a batch of curry that will do me for a few days, though some of it will go on hold over the weekend due to there being venison steaks in the fridge.

I’ve also put out a new free short story (see below), started on the next radio show, and done some Women’s Equality Party work. I’m mostly keeping up with the email, but I’m sure there’s stuff I need to answer.

This evening I attended Mike Carey’s virtual book launch for The Book of Koli, which is an absolutely wonderful read. I’m afraid I can’t review it, for reasons that Mike explained in the interview, but all of the reviews I have seen thus far have been very positive.

If there is an outside world, I’ve been too busy to notice.