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'*
The Bloody Virus - A comment of wider application that just the UK: The same politicians who focused on locking up an entire country failed to care for those in nursing homes. Spain, Italy, Belgium, France and even Sweden all stand accused of this.
- Good news if you want to fly to Spain from Italy. Well, for some of you at least - Spanish nationals, those with residence here and those travelling 'for essential reasons'
- Mandatory mask-wearing. Sort of.
- Spain's experience is said to offers some lessons on how to deal with the impact of confinement on kids. Salutary reading here.
- María's Comeback Chronicle Day 9.
- Re beaches in Spain . . . I don't go to them much but, when I do, it's either early in the day or between 3 and 6pm, when you could well have the place to yourself. Everyone else either not being up and about yet or having gone off for their main meal of the day. Though this can't be guaranteed. Especially if there's a lot of Germans and their towels in the vicinity.
The EU
- Something here on that Franco-German fund initiative - €500bn of non-loans, without too many strings attached. It's a 'short-term' response, says Frau M. But it will at least settle some feathers in Southern European dovecots. Whose walls aren't as well-lined with euro notes as those of Northern European members. Germany in particular.
- Meanwhile, here's Marshall Auerback in AEP pessimistic mode: The very absence of a corresponding federal political structure is what constitutes the longstanding Achilles heel of the entire single-currency union. It can’t just be wished into existence, or created via judicial improvisation. So, will it ever happen?
- The internet, it seems, is awash with hoaxes, bulos in Spanish. Alleged warnings can always be checked at snopes.com and - thanks to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas** - I've just used this site - maldita.es - to check on this advice re an email about the virus in Argentina. One of more than 500 doing the rounds.
- Facebook at its very worst:-
- The chances are that the coming tsunamis of social, political and economic dislocation will facilitate and indeed demand reconsideration of hitherto unthinkable heretical concepts, says the author of the article below. Who, I suspect, is looking at things from a US standpoint and offering an alternative to Trump's egregious worldview.
The USA
Finally . . .
- Food for thought: Happiness is making big decisions on flip of a coin. Easy. Or hard.
THE ARTICLE
Eating Alone: Keith Godfrey, The Corner
“You eat alone, you choke” is an ancient proverb with origins lost in the mists of time.
In Mafia circles it expresses their family centred, ruthless sense of unity and purpose and celebrates tight-knit self-propelling interest. And yet, as we know even in the best regulated Mafia families every now and then those interests can pull in different directions. When that happens, the family member breaking ranks is said to “eating alone”. The implication is that bad things will soon follow. And worst of all, whether from lack of protection or because of overzealous protection from outside parties, eating alone makes for bad business.
Last week, video chatting to a friend in Hanover describing the Covid-19 induced confinement in Madrid, I casually mentioned my disgust at finding discarded masks and gloves on the streets during my (strictly limited) dog walks. His reaction on hearing this was horrified literal disbelief. Coming from a different culture it was simply beyond his comprehension that at a time like this, anyone could do such a thing, that the Germanic sense of civic duty would make this extremely unlikely if not impossible. [The Spanish sense of civic duty is, I'm afraid, less than huge. Odd for a people so friendly. But thought-less at times]
Cultural differences and civic education levels aside, this matter of carelessly discarding PPE material in the public space while shockingly thoughtless isn’t really important in itself, it only illustrates something far deeper and significant, just how radically our reactions to one singular shared existential problem can differ.
If any further proof were needed the current extraordinary situation confirms the reality of today’s hyperconnected world. We know that the consequences of decisions taken by a health official in a Chinese city are felt in a matter of weeks by a baker in Móstoles. So why do we still cling to the intractable belief in the existence of local solutions for global problems
As the world is going through this (latest) unprecedented crisis, we see governance, financial and economic systems being subjected to what used to be considered “theoretically extreme” stress tests all around the globe. Much of the population is busily engaged in apportioning blame or praise on those taking decisions on our behalf. It makes little difference who they are: the EU, WHO, Trump, ECB, Italy, China, Madrid, Catalonia, the press and mass media, etc. If we obsessed over them before, now we have the perfect excuse to obsess over them even more.
Yet the sheer dimension of the problem and complexity of the variables make it significantly less relevant what country, region or city is taking measure “x” or suffering “y” level of mortality. We are left without a scale against which to measure the effectiveness of our collective response to the threat. Our solutions are tied irrevocably to those of our neighbours, collaborators and competitors. Are we using this distracting blame game because we don’t wish to face up to stomach a difficult truth? When will we admit that global threats require global solutions?
I have heard many say over these past few weeks that along with the spread of a corona virus, we are also dealing with a parallel pandemic of generalised stupidity. I’m not sure I agree. Maybe more than stupidity it is a chronic lack of insight or imagination. And perhaps the Covid pandemic is not parallel to it but actually something that may be influencing it. There are some signs that elements of our widely accepted ideology of “self-interest” has started to be checked by this virus. Ideas and initiatives that only very recently were considered beyond the pale are now being debated and, in some cases, implemented.
The chances are that the coming tsunamis of social, political and economic dislocation will facilitate and indeed demand reconsideration of hitherto unthinkable heretical concepts… an increased role of the state, public intervention in private industry, a universal wage, profound reorganisation and re-enforcement of multilateral cooperation, re-prioritisation of scientific research and medical investigation, meaningful collaborative global efforts on sustainability and inequality, etc.
Any mention of these in 2019 would have been widely dismissed as impracticable liberal fantasy, but circumstances dictate what is deemed viable and what is not… So now in 2020, some ideas no longer appear quite so preposterous. Who now would be willing to predict in what light they are considered in 2021, 22 or 23. Of course, there is no guarantee which way the pendulum may swing. There is historical evidence that such widespread fear, hardship, personal and economic suffering, may point towards even greater polarisation, populism, protectionism and short-sighted self-interest.
But while great crises bring great suffering and uncertainty, they also have the ability to shine light into dark hidden recesses of society which in calmer times we usually prefer to leave undisturbed. Whether we wish to admit it or not, we had ample warning of an eventual devastating pandemic. Government health departments, epidemiologists, environmentalists, stress-test designers and even fiction-writers recognised it as a possibility. Yet our ideologies driven by collective egoism chose to ignore it. It would be equally reckless to deny that even more challenging existential threats lie ahead in the not too distant future.
Even though the Mafia have shown themselves to be able to flourish in this globalised world, I am not sure of taking a leaf out of their book is the best approach. So if you want to use another metaphor, feel free. But let’s ask ourselves the uncomfortable question: What will it take for us to wake up to the fact we should not be eating alone anymore, or do we really wish to choke?
* A terrible book, by the way. Don't be tempted to buy it, unless you're a very religious Protestant
** If Lenox made any money from this, I'd ask him for an annual commission. Click-related, of course. It might keep me in toothpicks for a day.
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