Dawn

Dawn

Thursday, December 31, 2020

Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain: 31.12. 20

 Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable. 

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*  

Covid


The Cognitive dissonance in the Covid narrative is simply ridiculous.See here for the article below this headline.


Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 


Will 2021 really be a hell of a lot better? After cancelling its Feria de Abril, Seville has now done likewise to its even more famous Holy Week processions  


This comment on Prussian society left me wondering what the British, American and Spanish lists of values  would be: The Prussian half-century - in which unification shaded into empire - indelibly moulded modern Germany, for better and for worse. Slowly, a society emerged that shared values such as hard work, punctuality, honesty and precision that came to be seen as intrinsically German.


Whatever Spain's values might be, what can't be taken from them is the label of the happiest nation in Europe. Though not as happy as Indians and some others.


Which allows a segue into 'Spanishness' - In what does it reside? Apparently not in the 'narrative" of Hilaria/Hillary Baldwin. Who is neither happy nor Spanish right now. Unless you've just dropped in from Mars, you'll know that she's the centre of that modern phenomenon, a Twitter shit-storm, leading to 'cancellation'. For falsely claiming Hispanic ethnicity/heritage. Here’s just one of hundreds of articles on this modern tale.


Here's María's Riding The Wave: Day 47


The USA


A mixed week for President Fart:-

1. An extraordinary rebuke from Congress in having his veto rejected for the first time.  A combative and erratic end to his presidency, 

2. Voted, in compensation, The Man Americans Admire Most. Or a small percentage of them at least, albeit more votes than anyone else.


Funny country.

 

The Way of the World/Nutters Corner


Surveillance capitalism . . . So, what's that when it's in town? See a (long) article on it here.


You don't have to subscribe to The Great Re-set Conspiracy to find this rather chilling but it surely helps. This mad conspiracy - originating in the USA, of course - alleges that "Global financial elites" and world leaders planned the pandemic, deliberately letting loose the coronavirus to cause conditions allowing a restructuring of the world's governments. The main goals of the Great Reset are said to be to take global political and economic control by instating a Marxist totalitarian regime and by extension, the New World Order. It is claimed that such a regime would abolish personal ownership and property rights, send the military into cities, impose mandatory vaccination, and create isolation camps for people who resist.

 

Finally . . .


I now see another new road sign has been added, just before the road I’ve mentioned twice, cutting off access to the barrio of Alba, except for residents . . .



I suspect it was financed by the owners of the new house on the right, who don’t want people parking in front of their walls/gate.



* A terrible book, by the way. Don't be tempted to buy it, unless you're a very religious Protestant. 

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain: 30.12.20

 Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable. 

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*  

 Covid


The Astra-Zeneca vaccine has been approved in the UK - paving the way for a mass rollout, beginning on January 4. I wonder if the government can achieve efficiency this time round. The experiences of 2020 render this rather doubtful but vamos a ver. Meanwhile, it's reported that: The UK has ordered 100m doses - enough to vaccinate 50 million people.

 

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 


As part of what seems to be an EU-wide policy, the Spanish government will initiate a register of those who decline a vaccine jab. Presumably this will have, as yet undefined, consequences. I fear errors.


Here in Galicia, our latest Covid restrictions have been announced. Of our cities, Lugo has joined Ourense in having few of these, and Santiago and La Coruña remain in the Medium category, meaning restaurants can stay open until 23.00. But, for reasons I don't understand, Vigo and Pontevedra remain in the worst box, with maximum restrictions. The respective infection rates determine the rules, of course, but why are they so different? And are the measurements really so accurate? 


Here's a comment I happened on yesterday which confirms what I see several times a day - Learner drivers here are taught to go round the entire roundabout in the outside lane. As long as they signal to indicate that they're not intending to leave the roundabout, this is permitted. I'm not sure what the last bit means, as I never see learners signalling anything as they circumnavigate these hazards. Are they supposed to keep their left indicator on until they signal right to exit? Anyway, For those few interested in this perennial subject, there's a Special at the end of his post-


Another nice post from Mac75, on Spain's Epiphany Cake - El Roscón de Reyes 


And here's María's Riding The Wave: Day 46. A failure to learn.    


The Way of the World


There's a nice article below on the return of an old sin . . . Spiritual' pride has come back to haunt a new generation, only this time in yoga pants rather than veils and wimples. 


Finally . . .


On the Smithsonian channel last night, there was a review of the 19th century trial of an American woman called Lizzie Borden. Which immediately brought to mind this doggerel learned - for some reason - as a child in the UK:-

Lizzie Borden bought an axe 

and gave her mother 40 whacks.

When she saw what she had done

she gave her father forty-one

This was written during her trial and is, the say, inaccurate. She was acquitted, by the way. Though perhaps should not have been, it seems.


THE ARTICLE


Be mindful you don’t sound self-obsessed: A new study suggests the modern practices of mindfulness, meditation and yoga feed into some very old-fashioned sin: Libby Purves, The Times 


Long ago, Catholic schoolchildren like me were instructed in how to do a proper examination of conscience. I still have my French school missal with its terrifying lists beginning: “Have I . . . ?” followed by an enumeration of possible sins committed, duties omitted and bad thoughts indulged. Moreover, in the unlikely event of finding yourself clear of all self-accusation, you then had to dodge round the most heinous sin of all: that of “spiritual pride” and exalting in your own humble purity.


Some will tell you that this sort of religious upbringing was abusive, blighting their lives with guilt and “low self-esteem”. Certainly, if you were raised in the sort of school which demonised every childish slip, that could be the result. But in more normal and humane Christian settings that examination-of-conscience thing was actually rather therapeutic. There is no harm in reminding yourself that you are neither perfect nor unique. You’re just another schmuck of a sinner, who hopes to do better tomorrow but is more than likely to fall at one of its moral hurdles.


So it was with glee that I learnt that the more modern creeds of enlightenment — the inwardness of mindfulness, meditation, yoga and cherry-picking mysticism — have embarrassedly rediscovered that hoary old Christian concept: spiritual pride. A wide psychological survey found that people deepest in modern spiritual-training cults were the most likely to be narcissistic and arrogant. Far from banishing the demands of their ego in favour of a higher consciousness, they gave it free rein, albeit with a saintly smile.


The report comes from the Netherlands: Professor Roos Vonk of Radboud University, writing in the European Journal of Social Psychology. This feels fitting. I have sailed often with Dutch crews on the tall ship Europa and I recognise the national tendency to pragmatic, team-minded kindliness, fellowship and gentle scepticism. They were always refreshing people to be with after one had been dealing with some friend convinced that their “practice” made them spiritual winners in a sordid world.


Maybe, at this season of locked-down irritability, there are households at this very moment being annoyed at the way that certain people won’t disturb their sacred hour of mindfulness by helping with the washing up or making that duty call to Aunt Mabel who never stops talking. Even gospel Christians, after all, sometimes roll their eyes in irritation at the story of the spiritual Mary, who sat entranced at Jesus’s feet, getting praised above Martha who did all the damn housework.


Anyway, Professor Vonk first started wondering about this enlightened but unbearable phenomenon when a student boyfriend went to a spiritual training camp for a week. He returned, she says, “with an enlightened, elevated look in his eyes. He had been in touch with what really matters — things he couldn’t explain to me, with my trivial earthly concerns and my analytic scientific reasoning.” Later, she found that others who embraced everything from auras to yoga were similarly “hijacked” into arrogance. The ego is a powerful force, she warns: it watches you seeking enlightenment, then butts in with: “Hey, I’m doing very well, in fact I’m probably doing better than others.”


See? Spiritual pride comes back to haunt a new generation, only this time in yoga pants rather than veils and wimples. In Professor Vonk’s questionnaire the trained self-improvers tended to be keenly willing to describe their own awareness, empathy and spirituality, and had no trouble explaining they had more of these things than most others. Asked whether the world would be a better place if more people had their insight, they agreed.


In the age of Goop and Markle and Instagram yoga, the report squirts acid lemon-juice into the syllabub of performative self-sanctification. There are wonderfully deadly phrases about the human “tendency to distort reality in a self-flattering way” (ah, everyone has an inner Trump). It explains how “self-compassion tends to reduce defensive responses to self-threat”: in other words, being lovingly in touch with your own beautiful perceptions may blind you to the fact that you are being a selfish pig. Genuine reflective and logical meditation is proven to be calming and focusing, but also grounds the individual in reality and duty. But get too soulfully fond of yourself and “spiritual attainments allow room for wishful thinking, thus easily lending themselves to the grip of the self-enhancement motive”.


While the phenomenon of self-absorbed sanctimony has been recorded in anecdote, fiction and drama for centuries, the authors cheerfully point out that this is the first empirical study to confirm the “sovereignty and tenacity” of egotism in this area. We all need some reflection, and perhaps a touch of yoga and a tree to hug, but the report is an awful warning.


It even opens the door to another layer of the old sin of spiritual pride: “Being aware of the risk that my beautified soul might make me arrogant, I have carefully made sure to stay humble. Well done me!” For that, I suppose, the only answer is to rise briskly from your Sukhasana pose, willingly do everyone else’s washing up, make that phone call to infuriating Aunt Mabel and try not to notice how wonderful you are.


A ROUNDABOUT SPECIAL


Key points from this article cited above:-

- Unless otherwise indicated, the person on the right ALWAYS has priority.  

- You must drive anti-clockwise around a roundabout

- Traffic already on the roundabout has priority

- You must only leave the roundabout from the outside lane

- If you can't get into the outside lane [because of a learner coming from your right?], then you should go round the roundabout again. 


I've been told recently that insurance companies won't pay out if you disobey these rules but I don't know if this is true. It certainly sounds plausible. I recently cited the case of the foreigner who offered to pay €200 to cover damage to the bumper(fender) of a Spanish driver who'd hit him from the left. She declined and called the police. They told her she was in the wrong and fined her.


There are DGT diagrams here and here, showing how to drive round roundabouts correctly. Interestingly, although there are only 2 lanes in the approach road, there are 3 on the roundabout and I'm not convinced there are many of the latter in Spain. I don't find the diagrams totally clear but I think one important point is that, if the green car B when exiting at its second exit is hit by car A going all the way round in the outside lane, then B is at fault. Meaning, as indicated, possible insurance problems for driver B. 


My basic advice is, whenever you're leaving a roundabout in Spain look in your wing mirror and check your blindspot to see what's happening on your right.


Oh, and be prepared for a driver in the outside lane who's indicating right, as if exiting, to stay on the roundabout and cut across in front of you. As stressed, you'll be adjudged to be at fault, not the mis-signalling driver coming from your right. This is so even the when there are arrows on a 2-lane road indicating you can go straight on when in the inside lane. We have some of these in Pontevedra city and I approach them with the utmost care. I am rarely ‘disappointed’.



* A terrible book, by the way. Don't be tempted to buy it, unless you're a very religious Protestant.

Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain: 29.12.20

 Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable. 

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*  


 

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 


Another closure of the line between Vigo and Ourense - thanks to falling rocks - is a reminder that investment in Spain's pre-existing rail system has been neglected in favour of the AVE high speed train. Which, ironically, has been incredibly slow arriving in Galicia, being now 27 years late.


DHL continues to unimpress me. My old passport arrived yesterday, one day earlier than I'd been advised but without prior warning. As before, I wasn't asked to sign for it or even to give my ID number. Incidentally, there's a view around that the usual demand for a signature has fallen foul of Covid fears. Could well be true


I tried last night to get to my supermarket via the new road system, only to find the challenge had been intensified by the change of the one-way direction in each of the side roads off the main road through Lérez. When I finally got there - to find the ingress and egress lanes had also been swapped round - I noted there were few customers in the place. Perhaps there were dozens outside searching for the way to the car park entrance. My return home was through the road I mentioned yesterday. Need I say I met a car coming what is now the wrong way. Happily, he or she went into reverse as I approached. Which was good, as I was never going to drive backwards for 300 metres up a narrow road with granite walls on both sides of it.


Here's María's Riding The Wave: Day 45. Reminding us that yesterday was Spain's equivalent of April fools' Day. 


Question for Maria: Before Brexit, could you really get into the UK from Spain without a passport, using only your Tarjeta de Residencia? I didn't think so. I certainly couldn't.


The UK


It's been noted that, while the (Leftish/Remainerish) BBC used to studiously highlight every negative forecast of Britain's post-Brexit economic future, it has equally studiously downplayed the revised forecast of the Centre for Economic and Business Research that sees UK growth outstripping that of EU countries, including Germany's. With the result that the UK economy will be 23% larger than France's by 2035, after it's grown by 4%pa 2021-2025 and by 1.8% after that. Of course, no one really knows how accurate these forecasts are but they certainly make for interesting reading.


The UK & The EU


Richard North on that FTA: We may have broken free of the "coffin lid" containment of EU law, but in our bid for "freedom", we are now bumping up against international agreements which keep us in lockstep with the EU. Ironically, though, this will hardly be noticed as the media is almost totally silent on this aspect of the treaty. As far as the popular press is concerned, we're "free", even if that amounts only to freedom to push at the second coffin lid. 

  

Spanish


I  can't recall if I've previously delighted readers with these 10 Spanish slang phrases you never learn at school:-

Me cago en la leche: I crap in the milk. Spaniards metaphorically crap on all kinds of things when they want to express anger or frustration; from God Almighty (Dios), to 'your' mother (tu madre) and the salty sea (la mar salada). Perhaps the most bizarre thing they choose to mentally defecate on is 'the milk'. All these expressions sound very vulgar in English but in Spanish they're so common most recipients would barely bat an eyelid.

Manda huevos!: Send eggs!. Unless you’re actually in the business of delivering groceries then this is bound to sound a little peculiar. But 'Manda huevos!', which means something like 'Give me a break!', is the perfect expression for when you're fed up or frustrated by something. 

Llevar los huevos de corbata: Wear ones balls as a tie. Another use of huevos but this time not talking about the shell variety but rather male genitalia. To wear your balls as a tie translates as being tense or nervous. In fact, Spaniards will often hold their throat and say 'this is where I have my balls'- con los huevos aquí- when they want to express nervousness or fear.

Que te la pique un pollo: I hope a chicken pecks at your dick. Pretty self explanatory this one. Best reserved for someone who has really wronged you. 

Vete a freir espárragos: Go and fry asparagus. This is a polite way of telling someone to fuck off in Spanish. 'Vete a freir espárragos' is a step down from ¡vete por ahí! (get lost) and three down from ¡que te folle un pez! ('May a fish make love to you').

Mojar el churro: To wet the churro. Yes, churros: those long, thick doughnut sticks we all love to dunk in chocolate and put in our mouths. Like most stick-shaped food, churros are euphemistically used to described a man's privates. 'Mojar el churro' means to have sex.

De puta madre: Of the whore's mother. Best translated in English as It’s the shit/ the best thing ever! There are somethings so great that you can only describe them as de puta madre.  “I can’t believe how good that tastes! De puta madre!”

Matar el gusanillo: To kill the worm. To kill the worm is to take the edge off your hunger. "A ver si con esta tapa matas el gusanillo." - Let's see if you take the edge off your hunger with this tapa.

Pollas en vinagre: Dicks in vinegar. Use this phrase to call out those who are telling porkies. It's the Spanish equivalent of saying “bullshit.”

No seas tan pendejo: Don’t be such a pube. Use this when telling someone not to be such an asshole. 


Finally . . .


Interesting to hear that 25th December was the feast day of Sol Invictus (Unconquered Sun) - the official sun god of the later Roman Empire and a patron of soldiers.


 

* A terrible book, by the way. Don't be tempted to buy it, unless you're a very religious Protestant.


Monday, December 28, 2020

Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain: 28.12.20

 Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable. 

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*  

 

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 


I'm more than half convinced there are folk employed in our town hall with a job description that reads: Your responsibility is to change traffic flows at random every 2 to 4 years, without taking anything at all into consideration.  . . . As I was driving to my parking spot yesterday on the Lérez side of O Burgo bridge, I noticed the back road to my preferred supermarket had had its one-way flow changed to the opposite direction. Meaning that I'll now have to get to it via the main road, increasing the traffic there and adding at least 2km to my return journey. My first thought was it'd be 4km but then I recalled they'd kindly changed the direction of the main Street through Lérez last month,


I cited a job description in the last paragraph but I wouldn't want you to run away with the idea these are common in Spain, My elder daughter has a well-paid job in Madrid but has never had one. Even though she's employed by the subsidiary of an American company. Perhaps they've fallen out of fashion since my day.


Incidentally, the back road I use to the supermarket is the Portuguese camino out of Pontevedra. I fear that Pilgrims doing this for a second time and expecting cars to come southwards, towards them are now likely to be mown down by cars behind them going northwards. Vamos a ver.


Talking of roads . . . As elsewhere in Spain and other countries, reduced human activity has brought wild animals out of the forests here in Galicia. It's reported today that accidents involving wild boars here have tripled, albeit over 10 years. True, this could be from 1 to 3 or 3 to 9 but it's still a 200% increase. Wolves next?


Here's María's Riding The Wave: Day 44     

 

The USA


An interesting article below on What We Get Wrong About America’s Crisis of Democracy. Descent into authoritarianism always happens, claims the author. The interesting question, he adds, is not what causes autocracy but what has ever suspended it.


The Way of the World


I've been known to be amused by pot-bellied Pontevedrans in luminescent lycra on expensive bikes. So, the 2nd article below was bound to leave me slack-jawed.


Finally . . .


Click here  or here to see the Pantone blue shade of the new British passport.


Reader Eamon has asked me to place the new passport on a black background, to show that it really is blue. Make up your own mind:-



Here's the old 'blue' one:-



And here they are together:-



THE ARTICLES


1. What We Get Wrong About America’s Crisis of Democracy: The interesting question is not what causes authoritarianism but what has ever suspended it: Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker

  

Readers of “Through the Looking-Glass” may recall the plight of the Bread-and-Butterfly, which, as the Gnat explains to Alice, can live only on weak tea with cream in it. “Supposing it couldn’t find any?” Alice asks. “Then it would die, of course,” the Gnat answers. “That must happen very often,” Alice reflects. “It always happens,” the Gnat admits, dolefully.


How the Bread-and-Butterfly survives, given the impossible demands of its diet, is a nice question. Lewis Carroll was in part teasing Darwinian ideas, which depend on a struggle for existence in which, eventually, we all lose—nonexistence being the norm of living things, over time. But the plight of the Bread-and-Butterfly comes to mind, too, when we contemplate what is called, not without reason, America’s crisis of democracy. It always happens. We are told again and again that American democracy is in peril and may even be on its deathbed. Today, after all, a defeated yet deranged President bunkers in the White House contemplating crazy conspiracy theories and perhaps even martial law, with the uneasy consent of his party and the rabid support of his base. We are then told, with equal urgency, that what is wrong, ultimately, is deep, systemic, and Everybody’s Fault. Perhaps there is a crisis of meaning, or of spirit; perhaps it is a crisis caused by the condescension of self-important élites. (In truth, those élites tend to be at least as self-lacerating as they are condescending, as the latest rounds of self-laceration show.)


Lurking behind all of this is a faulty premise—that the descent into authoritarianism is what needs to be explained, when the reality is that . . . it always happens. The default condition of humankind is not to thrive in broadly egalitarian and stable democratic arrangements that get unsettled only when something happens to unsettle them. The default condition of humankind, traced across thousands of years of history, is some sort of autocracy.


America itself has never had a particularly settled commitment to democratic, rational government. At a high point of national prosperity, long before manufacturing fell away or economic anxiety gripped the Middle West—in an era when “silos” referred only to grain or missiles and information came from three sober networks, and when fewer flew over flyover country—a similar set of paranoid beliefs filled American minds and came perilously close to taking power. As this magazine’s political writer Richard Rovere documented in a beautifully sardonic 1965 collection, “The Goldwater Caper,” a sizable group of people believed things as fully fantastical as the Trumpite belief in voting machines rerouted by dead Venezuelan socialists. The intellectual forces behind Goldwater’s sudden rise thought that Eisenhower and J.F.K. were agents, wittingly or otherwise, of the Communist conspiracy, and that American democracy was in a death match with enemies within as much as without. (Goldwater was, political genealogists will note, a ferocious admirer and defender of Joe McCarthy, whose counsel in all things conspiratorial was Roy Cohn, Donald Trump’s mentor.)


Goldwater was a less personally malevolent figure than Trump, and, yes, he lost his 1964 Presidential bid. But, in sweeping the Deep South, he set a victorious neo-Confederate pattern for the next four decades of American politics, including the so-called Reagan revolution. Nor were his forces naïvely libertarian. At the time, Goldwater’s ghostwriter Brent Bozell spoke approvingly of Franco’s post-Fascist Spain as spiritually far superior to decadent America, much as the highbrow Trumpites talk of the Christian regimes of Putin and Orbán.


The interesting question is not what causes autocracy (not to mention the conspiratorial thinking that feeds it) but what has ever suspended it. We constantly create post-hoc explanations for the ascent of the irrational. The Weimar inflation caused the rise of Hitler, we say; the impoverishment of Tsarism caused the Bolshevik Revolution. In fact, the inflation was over in Germany long before Hitler rose, and Lenin came to power not in anything that resembled a revolution—which had happened already under the leadership of far more pluralistic politicians—but in a coup d’état by a militant minority. Force of personality, opportunity, sheer accident: these were much more decisive than some neat formula of suffering in, autocracy out.


Donald Trump came to power not because of an overwhelming wave of popular sentiment—he lost his two elections by a cumulative ten million votes—but because of an orphaned electoral system left on our doorstep by an exhausted Constitutional Convention. It’s true that our diagnoses, however dubious as explanations, still point to real maladies. Certainly there are all sorts of reasons for reducing economic inequality. But Trump’s power was not rooted in economic interests, and his approval rating among his followers was the same when things were going well as it is now, when they’re going badly. Then, too, some of the blandest occupants of the Oval Office were lofted there during previous peaks of inequality.


The way to shore up American democracy is to shore up American democracy—that is, to strengthen liberal institutions, in ways that are unglamorously specific and discouragingly minute. The task here is not so much to peer into our souls as to reduce the enormous democratic deficits under which the country labors, most notably an electoral landscape in which farmland tilts to power while city blocks are flattened. This means remedying manipulative redistricting while reforming the Electoral College and the Senate. Some of these things won’t be achievable, but all are worth pursuing—with the knowledge that, even if every box on our wonkish wish list were checked, no set-it-and-forget-it solution to democratic fragility would stand revealed. The only way to stave off another Trump is to recognize that it always happens. The temptation of anti-democratic cult politics is forever with us, and so is the work of fending it off.


The rule of law, the protection of rights, and the procedures of civil governance are not fixed foundations, shaken by events, but practices and habits, constantly threatened, frequently renewable. “A republic if you can keep it,” Benjamin Franklin said. Keeping a republic is a matter not of preserving it like pickles but of working it like dough—which sounds like something you’d serve alongside very weak tea. But it is the essential diet to feed our democracy if we are to make what always happens, for a little while longer, happily unhappen. 


2. The Rise of the Fashion Mamil: Meet the men who spend £8K+ on their cycling gear: Alan Tyers

 

They may have once been the butt of everyone’s jokes, but MAMILs (middle-aged man in lycra) are on now the front pedal – with ultra-niche designer gear, meticulous grooming routines  and bikes worth more than your car. And they are looking good on it. 


A weekday afternoon in a London photography studio, and four middle-aged blokes are happily discussing shaving their legs. There’s earnest debate about aerodynamics, aesthetics, and not getting gravel stuck in your pores if you fall off. But most of all, there is agreement that smooth, silky calves are a badge of honour for the serious amateur cyclist.


Middle-aged men in Lycra (aka MAMILs) have become an easy target, and not just for irate cabbies and lorry drivers. The stereotype was once a portly businessman proving he still had it, squeezed into ill-fitting sportswear, and waving it in your face when he got into the office.


But no more. The story of today’s middle-aged cyclist is about camaraderie, about feeling part of something while still expressing your own individuality, about doing something because you love it and because it’s good for you. It’s about male mental health, about pushing yourself. And for the 4 guys below, it’s about style, fashion, and getting things just right. They and a lot of others like them have money in their pockets, and are prepared to spend it on looking sharp while they ride. With the UK cycling market worth around £1.5 billion annually, and a bike sold every 10 seconds, brands want a piece of these men – and the bigger spenders do tend to be men. Labels like Rapha, Castelli and Café du Cycliste are as familiar to this audience as Paul Smith, Drake’s and Sunspel. In fact, they tend to experiment with, and spend money on, cycling style in a way they might be reluctant to when it comes to non-wheeled looks.


‘Cycling is about propelling a bike, but the aesthetic is of equal importance,’ says the television newsreader and presenter Matt Barbet. ‘Some people just look great on a bike: it’s about riding well, about looking like the bike was made for you, and it is also about the kit. The kit has to match. I love to hunt out limited-edition pieces by brands such as MAAP; I’ll get stuff they do for shops in Japan that people here are most likely not going to have. I don’t want to dress like everyone else. I might spend a couple of hundred on a jersey if it was something I really loved, but it would have to perform well too on a ride.’ Barbet, 43, who will present ITV coverage of the Tour of Britain, which starts today, says there is ‘a tribalism’ to road cycling in Britain, heightened because wider society is not always pro-cyclist. ‘So like any social group, cyclists like to show they know their tribe’s rules.’


And so to legs. ‘Shaving your legs shows that you take cycling seriously,’ says Barbet. ‘It is a non-permanent tattoo. And it looks better: who wants tight Lycra with hairy legs sprouting out? You show off your physique, the hard work that goes into the muscles, and why not? I am not embarrassed; it feels cleaner. And there are all sorts of debates: should you shave up to the shorts or not? The socks, they should start two fingers below the bottom of the calf muscle… Anybody who shaves their legs to ride a bike understands that it is not about physical performance or aerodynamics.’


Emeka Okaro, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, likes that cycling provides him with headspace, a way to be active, and an excuse to stockpile enough wearable textiles to make a Victorian mill owner blush. ‘I got an old bike out of the shed five years ago,’ says Okaro, 51. ‘I did 1.8 miles and I practically collapsed. But I kept with it, and four miles became five miles, and 10 became 20. Obviously there are the keep-fit benefits, less stress on the joints and all that, and I want to be active into my 60s, my 70s. ‘But also I like to look good and feel good about my riding. I have three bikes – my wife would say I have four, but I don’t count one of them because it is a hybrid. I have 25 or so shirts: I like the brand Café du Cycliste. When I first took it up, I didn’t really bother about what I wore, but I wouldn’t go out now without looking the part. I’ll select something depending on my mood and how I want to express myself. I’ve spent a small fortune over the years. ‘It’s about individuality, and also the camaraderie. I ride with my friends, up to about 12 of us, people I have known for years. I would say that we are competitive with each other, but positively. We see improvement as a group and we celebrate that. And my style is an important factor for me in that.’


Britain being Britain, bonding activities that don’t involve several pints of temporary happiness facilitator can be hard to find for many men. For Jamie Dormon, a fashion columnist who has bipolar disorder, cycling is a hobby, a means of expression, and a vital mental-health tool. ‘Cycling shuts my mind up,’ says Dormon, 43. ‘I used to shut it up with drink and whatever, but now I ride. This bike I have today, a fixed-gear, I completely stripped it down. You pedal. To brake, pedal back. I value the simplicity of it; you don’t overthink. It’s all black, apart from the gold chain – that adds a bit of individuality. And I’ll wear a lot of bright colours, pinks or oranges, always coordinated though. Black Sheep and Attaquer I like, and [the range for] Vélobici by a photographer called Scott Mitchell, who worked with Team Sky. ‘I definitely feel faster in Lycra. I love the detail of cycling kit, I think it appeals to the mathematical part of our brains. I am setting up a charity that I’m going to call Manic Bikes, teaching people with bipolar and other mental-health issues to repair bikes. Cycling is great for mental health, because of the quietening effect but also because in a group, if someone hasn’t come for a ride for a couple of weeks, you’d check in with them.’


Jon Evans, 45, who works in marketing, also started five years ago. ‘No underpants,’ he says. ‘That was the big shock. When I first went out, I was with a mate who was an experienced rider. He asked me if I was wearing pants, and then he was like, “Oooh. You are in for some chafing.” The shorts have a pad in, so you don’t want any other fabric. Learnt that quickly. ‘I agree that when I feel my best I ride my best; there’s a mixture of reality and placebo effect. I started off with a bike that cost about £1,000, but your first bike is not your last bike. A £1,000 bike becomes a £3,000 bike and then a £7,000 bike and, well… You see other people with a better one and you think they are at an unfair advantage.’ To Evans, it’s all about the bike. ‘As for the kit, the better I get, the more understated I get. I mostly wear Castelli, low-key. My ideal look would be ninja, really. You should never buy team kit: anyone you see going around dressed in Team Sky is a no-no. You can almost guarantee they cannot ride. And everything has to be tight. Skintight. No sagging, no bagging, because that slows you down. I would have miles more respect for a guy, even if he’s carrying a lot of timber, in tight Lycra, than someone flapping around.’ Like the others, Evans has no problem with spending on the style. ‘I’ve got an account with one online retailer, and they make you a “platinum” member if you spend £500 a year. Occasionally they send a statement, and it was about £1,500 last year on kit. Oh dear!’


All four agree that they dress for themselves, or to be part of a subculture to varying degrees. Barbet admits that there is an element of ‘peacocking’, but none of them feels that they are looking to impress women. Maybe cycling blokes are missing a trick. Lauren Stevenson, 38, who runs Aisle 8 communications consultancy, says, ‘I met my boyfriend when he cycled beside me going up a hill in Ibiza. Cycling is a great way to meet people: you’re outdoors in beautiful scenery, relaxed, you’ve got a shared interest. And it tends to be an affluent sport; guys who will spend five grand on a bike often have interesting jobs or lives. ‘Cycling guys do maybe tend to be a bit older. And I’ve noticed there’s a bit of a progression through the brands they wear: they get into it and get Rapha, and then Castelli, and then the really cool French ones like Chapeau!.’


Lisa Tubbs, 39, a photographer, agrees that cycling is an attractive pastime; she met her husband on a ride with Richmond Park Rouleurs and they are expecting a baby next month. ‘There is definitely something appealing about chasing boys up hills on a bike,’ she jokes. ‘I like that it’s an opportunity for guys to wear bright colours; lots of men seem to love pink on a bike. And while certain physiques might be more aesthetically appealing, I like that guys in all shapes and sizes go for it in the Lycra.’


We live in an era when acceptable and unacceptable expressions of masculinity are debated as never before. Where once the 40- or 50-year-old man might have blown off steam with golf and locker-room chat, or buying a preposterous gas-guzzling vehicle, the switched-on middle-aged man of today wants to spend his cash on an environmentally and socially conscious pursuit; one that is mental-health-positive, physically beneficial, and allows him to express himself. Surely it is time for a hunting ban on MAMILs.



* A terrible book, by the way. Don't be tempted to buy it, unless you're a very religious Protestant.

Sunday, December 27, 2020

Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain: 27.12.20

 Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable. 

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*  

 

Covid


In case you missed it, see yesterday’s post for another good dose of information and common sense from Private Eye's MD

 

Living La Vida Loca in Galicia/Spain 


Here’s something on the history of the bizarre Spanish custom of downing 12 grapes at midnight chimes on December 31.


It's possible Spain has found a winter version of its fineable offence of driving in flip-flops - driving in a puffer jacket. Or, indeed, any clothing the Guardia officer thinks either ‘restricts your movements’ or ‘interferes with the operation of the seat belt’.


Spain already boasts a very wide spectrum of driving offences. If you’re new here - or just ignorant - these examples should interest/worry you:—

- Filling up at the petrol station, if you’re smoking, using a mobile or have left the radio or lights on.

- Having a dirty number plate.

- Washing your car in the street.

- Giving your offspring a private lesson.

- Not putting on a hi-vis jacket before getting out of the car. (If you’re the driver, your penalties will be more severe than those of a passenger)

- Not having a spare pair of glasses in the car.

 

Lenox Napier posts here this bit of satirical doggerel:-

I'm dreaming of a blue passport,

Just like the ones I used to know.

Where I need a Visa,

to visit Pisa,

And there is nowhere I can go.

I am dreaming of a blue passport,

now that we've got our country back.

May our future be dreary

...and shite,

and may all our citizens be white ..


I'd just point out that the new passport I've now finally received ain't blue, like the first one I got at 18, nor burgundy red, like those of the last few decades, but . . . black. Which appears to have upset some idiots. The British government begs to differ on this: The Home Office say the colour is still blue - shade number 5395C, which according to the standardised colour classification chart, is 'Pantone'. You could have fooled me.


Here's María's Riding The Wave: Days 42 & 42. You'll possibly need this definition: Pantagruelian: enormous. As in ‘a Pantagruelian banquet’.  And maybe this.


The UK


Some potentially very good news: British scientists are trialling a new drug that could prevent someone who has been exposed to coronavirus from going on to develop the disease Covid-19, which experts say could save many lives. The antibody therapy would confer instant immunity against the disease and could be given as an emergency treatment to hospital inpatients and care home residents to help contain outbreaks. The drug has been developed by UCLH and AstraZeneca and the UK Regulatory Agency is expected to approve for use in Britain next week.


The UK & The EU


The good news is that: Britons will keep free healthcare access across Europe after Brexit through the European Health Insurance Card.  


BUT . . . I’m confused about things, ‘going forward’. It’s reported that, as of the new year, we EU residents will need the new UK Global Health Insurance Card [GHIC?] but the NHS doesn’t seem ready to hand these out yet. I recently had to extend my old EHIC, as it expired in early December and I’ve been sent a new one. This seems to expire after just a month but might, as reported, last for 5 years from issue. To ensure cover beyond 31 January, I applied this morning for the new GHIC but have been told I can’t have it, as I’m not allowed to have 2 cards. I’m now awaiting advice as to whether I need to make a new application on February 1. 


I wonder if the new card will be blue. Or Pantone black.


Finally . . .


A foto of some time ago, proving that Boris Johnson doesn’t need to look like a scarecrow, and once didn’t . . .




* A terrible book, by the way. Don't be tempted to buy it, unless you're a very religious Protestant.

Saturday, December 26, 2020

Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain: 26.12.20

 Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable. 

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*  


Today is what the Brits call Boxing Day. No one's really sure why.


Anyway, here's a Covid Special - Another good dose of information and common sense from Private Eye's MD. UK biased, of course, but surely of wider interest and relevance:- 


1. Celebrate science 


Whatever your view on the profits of the pharmaceutical industry, the extraordinary achievement in producing Covid vaccines within a year deserves praise. Not only could vaccines save lives and prevent transmission, they could also return life to a semblance of normal. Even countries with far better control of the virus than us will embrace vaccination, though they have bought more time to ponder which of the vaccines they want to use. 


The UK is not in that position. Having failed to act quickly at the start of the pandemic, and with widespread community transmission only partly curtailed by harmful restrictions, we are acting most quickly with vaccinations. If they work, and enough people choose to be vaccinated, it's the UK's best chance of ending the lockdowns, protecting the NHS and care homes, reopening society and boosting employment and the economy. 


Indirectly, vaccination could make it easier for non-Covid conditions to be diagnosed and treated, improve mental and sexual health, end isolation, and allow people to die and grieve with support and dignity. But mass vaccination won't happen overnight. And it isn't harmless. 


2. First do the least harm. Then do some good 


"First do no harm" is my least favourite aphorism. It is widely quoted as a cornerstone of the Hippocratic Oath, notably by people who oppose vaccination. It comes from Latin ("primum non nocere") and is wrongly attributed to Hippocrates, who was Greek. In truth, every health intervention can do harm as well as good. Merely labelling someone with high blood pressure or high Covid risk can have profound psychological consequences. 


This pandemic has taught us that "do no harm" is for the birds. Every public health intervention made in the name of containing Covid (isolation at the end of life; banning funerals; banning social gatherings; closing schools, businesses and sports, hospitality and cultural venues; protecting the NHS at the cost of care homes; national lockdown, regional lockdown; failures of testing, tracing and PPE; etc) has had significant costs and harms. 


Because we were late to act at the outset and let the virus nm free, we have spent a staggering £280bn trying to slow it down. But we can never be sure how many lives have been saved by locking down or how many we would have saved by spending the money on other things, or more effectively. We may never know if we've done more good than harm, but we do know the harm we have inflicted on ourselves is so big you can see it from space. In such a festival of self-harm, not having a vaccine because no one can guarantee it is "I 00 percent safe" or "completely free from harm" seems odd, particularly when you consider the potential good it could do. 


3. There is no 'zero risk' 


Nothing in a pandemic has a better benefit:risk ratio than vaccines. When rare but serious side effects occur, such as severe allergy and anaphylaxis, they happen at the time of administration, which is why vaccines are given where there are resuscitation facilities. Of the thousands of Pfizer BioNTech vaccines given in the UK so far, two people have had severe allergic reactions and recovered with treatment. Both had a history of severe allergy to triggers other than vaccines, and anyone with such a history should not have the Pfizer vaccine. 


When vaccines are given to billions of people, as they will be for Covid, thousands of adverse reactions will be reported. Most will be unrelated to the vaccines, but some will be. Which is why vaccination should be voluntary and all vaccines should be protected by the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme. 


4. Keep vaccines voluntary 


In MD's view, forcing people to have vaccines against their will does more harm than good, and may increase side effects (if you think something is going to harm or help you, often it does). Some people may refuse inoculation because of the warnings of a TikTok celebrity who will happily snort cocaine imported in a mule's rectum but tells his millions of followers a rigorously tested vaccine is dangerously impure. 


In the dark days of medical paternalism, patients were told their tests, jabs, treatment or screening were a 'Jolly good idea" by a doctor or nurse they had no choice but to trust. There was little nuanced discussion about pros and cons. Many patients are still happy to do whatever the doctor/nurse/NHS/Queen recommends, particularly in a crisis. But others want proper informed consent. The government and NHS need to give it to them. 


5. Brains need BRAUNS 


Informed choice for any medical intervention requires BRAUNS. You need to know and understand the Benefits, Risks, Alternatives, Unknowns, what if I did Nothing?, and Safety net if something goes wrong. 


The NHS does not have a glorious history in giving fully informed consent for mass screening, mass vaccination or indeed any new products (eg the vaginal mesh), and regulators don't always protect people when shit happens (read First Do No Harm, the coruscating Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review chaired by Baroness Cumberlege). 


The Pfizer Covid vaccine uses a new technology and the trial safety data and efficacy (available at www.gov.uk) are excellent. However, you never know how a new vaccine (or any therapy) will perform and how long protection will last until you try it in the real world. No severe allergic reactions were reported in the trials, but they happen in real life. 


The chances of having short or long-term serious side effects for existing vaccines is roughly one in 25,000. The chances of having life-threatening side effects is roughly one in 1,000,000. This compares to one in 250 and one in I 0,000 for a course of antibiotics, making vaccines roughly I 00 times safer to take than, say, penicillin. And much less harmful than lockdown. 


6. Scepticism can be healthy and harmful 


Those who do not wish to have a vaccine should have that choice respected. However, they should also be made aware of the potential dangers of not vaccinating, to others as much as themselves. 


We have a long-established, safe and highly effective MMR vaccine. Unfortunately, too many parents still doubt it decades after the Andrew Wakefield autism scare, and the UK has now lost its measles-free status. The Eye got MMR wrong and was corrected by MD (see Eyes passim). 


It is very hard to prove a drug or vaccine is safe and effective (trials have to be large and meticulously conducted). It is also very hard to disprove an allegation of harm, however implausible. Vaccines have done far more good than harm over centuries, but some - or some batches - have been harmful and needed to be called out. We shouldn't put a halo around any intervention, but neither should we smear it with bullshit. Transparency over data and safety reporting is key. The pharma industry has been too slow to put all data for all trials in the public domain, but Covid vaccines are likely to be the most scrutinised in history. 


Herd immunity will require a majority of eligible Brits to be vaccinated. It will also need huge levels of public trust (undermined by the misinformation of the Brexit debate) and a strong sense of the importance of the collective over the individual (not a traditional selling point of the hard Tory right). It may take the Queen and David Attenborough to get it over the line. 

MD's 202 I prediction is that as soon as all the over-50s and high-risk people have been offered a vaccine, and those who want it have had it, the government will cease all restrictions. And there will be benefits and harms.


7. Promote health for all 


Vaccines save millions of lives, but not as many as giving everyone a decent standard of living. The most reliable indicator of health is wealth. Money buys freedom, space, nutritious food, care and escape from adversity, which translates in the UK to ten years more life expectancy and 20 more years of disease-free living compared to the poorest. 


The pandemic, and our response to it, has magnified existing health inequalities. During the first wave it doubled your risk of death, and during the current wave it's adding 20 percent. So the more at risk you are by dint of age, disease, disability or deprivation, the more likely you are to die during the pandemic (and not necessarily of Covid). 


Countries with the highest death tolls were not only poorly prepared and slow to react, but also had very high levels of health inequality, poverty, mental illness, obesity and chronic disease. For example, the "Northern Powerhouse" area has suffered 12 more Covid-related deaths per 100,000 than the rest of England and will also be hardest hit by lockdowns, recession and Brexit. Time to level up. 


8. Health workers are human not heroes 


Most NHS staff enjoyed the Thursday clapping and rainbows, but many (including MD) were uncomfortable with the "heroes" label. To do a very stressful job competently, in the most difficult circumstances, we need adequate training, supervision, sleep, nutritious food, regular breaks and freedom from fear and bullying. We also need adequate PPE to protect us. The idea that we have heroic stamina and invincibility is dangerous nonsense. 


Hospital-acquired Covid infections are now at an all-time high (on 6 December they accounted for 24 percent of the total), and 36 trusts saw Covid admissions increase by more than 20 percent, with 19 days still to go before Christmas. True, winter is always tough in the NHS (four years ago the Red Cross described trolley queues in our emergency departments as a "humanitarian crisis") but 25 percent of the junior doctors in many hospitals (including my own) are currently off sick or isolating as Covid contacts. Some staff over 50 are very unwell with Covid, 650 health and care staff died from Covid this year and 2020 has also been a terrible year for mental health. More GP and consultant colleagues have been lost to suicide. Many doctors are innately self-critical workaholics who hate not being able to deliver a decent standard of care for all their patients. Please think of that when you're complaining how hard it is to see a consultant or GP. We have no heroic power to fix an overloaded system. 


There is light at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel is longer than you think and Christmas will be particularly treacherous. Think carefully before embracing the multi-household bubble-fest. My mum (84) has chosen to have the vaccine but not to have Christmas with her grandchildren. 


9. How we die matters 

The moment sperm meets egg, we join the queue for death. Humans are the one species who know our fate well in advance. Our mortality rate will always be 100 percent; it's how we die that matters. Some people were taken well before their time by Covid, but the median age of Covid death is 82.4 years. 


The greatest trauma is that many people died quickly and unexpectedly, often on their own and with no chance to say goodbye. Funerals have been strictly spaced and limited, leading to even more isolation and grief. Most people would choose a quick death over weeks of wasting away, but for those left behind the loss is more profound if words are left unsaid. 


Of the many cultural shifts of the pandemic (face-masks, elbow bumps, Jonathan Yan-Tam action dolls), the least understood is the extraordinary increase (more than 25,000) in people dying at home. Few had Covid tests, and postmortems have been limited, so we may never know why. Some may have lived if they'd sought help for, say, a heart attack or cancer. Many may have been fearful of catching Covid in hospital without realising they'd already caught it. Some may have wanted to "protect the NHS" when they most needed to use it. There may even be a link between "working from home" and "dying at home". 


Hopefully, some people had decent deaths at home, surrounded by the love of their family, rather than saying goodbye in a mask and visor at two metres or via iPad. Vaccines could end this insanity too. I'll be having mine.  



* A terrible book, by the way. Don't be tempted to buy it, unless you're a very religious Protestant.