Four Weeks
It’s almost a month since I last posted any coronavirus links here, so I should do something with the dozens I’ve accumulated before events overtake them.
The Streets
The kids and I went for a bike ride on Friday for our daily constitutional, along to the Meadows, across to Arthur’s Seat, and then back via the Grassmarket and the canal. In places it was quite busy with joggers and other cyclists, although everyone was well-spaced, but the roads were as unnaturally quiet in that part of town as in ours. Here are a few photos, along with one from a walk to Morningside this afternoon, where you can see people’s new habit of walking out into the empty road to maintain distance from other pedestrians.
The Situation
I’ve been wanting to write a longer entry here for weeks, rather than just post Covid-19 links and the like, but the situation has conspired against me. Like millions of other parents, including my wife, I’m attempting to juggle working from home with home-schooling and entertaining two kids, and have had little time or energy to write anything for myself; but it hasn’t just been that. It’s that what I’d be writing about is both too personal, unsettling, and momentous, and, at a time when millions are sharing the same experience, too generic, ordinary, and obvious.
But one day I’ll want to look back over this blog to remind myself what we were all going through and what I thought of it all, assuming I’m still here. So I’ll try to capture some of it.
Coronaverse
More COVID-19 limericks to pass the idle springtime hours.
The uncommon girl’s name Corona is set to become even less common because of SARS-CoV-2. In recent weeks I’ve seen or heard the coronavirus being called Corona, the Corona, the Rona, and Covid, with or without the capitals.
Remain Indoors
Some coronavirus links from the last week, for anyone who’s been living in a cave (and if that’s you, well done on being a model of self-isolation).
Looking for the Remote
A rare digression into talking here about the day job.
A Murder of Poesy
Okay, so perhaps the impulse to make light of COVID-19 hasn’t left me yet…
All Shook Up
There are reports today that Tom Hanks and his wife have contracted coronavirus on the Gold Coast in Australia, where he was filming a movie about Elvis Presley. How distressing for them both, and what a rotten break for a fine actor. But an Elvis movie… well, it’s hard not to enjoy a moment of black humour before the shutters come down, because it turns out there’s an Elvis song for every COVID-19 mood.