Saturday 9 May 2020

State of Alarm - day Fifty Three

I continued working on assembling tomorrow's audio files as I received the vital components from my trusty lesson readers. I'd like to extend the range of voices, but that relies on people having the confidence to read into their smartphone as well as they read at the lectern on Sunday. I must rely on others to recruit volunteers for this, not having had the opportunity to get to know the full range of worshippers who might be pleased to be asked. The limitations of being a locum!

Getting started early any morning isn't easy. I wake up at first light and then go back to sleep, then I listen to BBC news, curious to see what's going to be said about the relief of current restrictions and by whom. I find myself vexed by BBC news presenters who persist in asking the heads of devolved national governments in Britain why their announcements on restriction impositions or relaxations run days or hours ahead of those made by the UK Prime Minister, and may indeed vary. Each time the interviewee has to explain that under law, devolved government has policy responsibilities that that also mean timetabling decision making independently of central government. 

This given fact could easily be explained in an introduction to any interview of this kind, rather than repeatedly have a presenter interrogate their guest. It reflects badly on the centralist bias of London based journalism. It's as if they don't believe Wales and Scotland ought to be able to exercise their own judgements unless it's done in lock-step with the chaotic crew running the Westminster show, pursued by lobbyists and fag-ending journos.

Listening to the Queen's VE commemoration day broadcast after breakfast was a comfort. Economy of words and images, the sense of continuity and the affirmation of the virtues that enabled Britain to survive five terrible years of continuing and deadly crisis during the Second World War. 

Yet again I was late starting and finishing my morning walk, as I had a load of washing to get started. I found another lane along which to walk parallel to the main road to Cala de Bou. On the return leg, I spotted a hoopoe flying through the pines at the side of the road. It was early evening before I emailed the audio files I had been working on for Dave to upload. It took me longer than I expected., as I try look for new music to include which won't over-inflate the file size.

Then, before supper, I walked down to Cala des Torrents and back. It's good exercise as there's quite a steep hill from the town up to the Es Cuco store. The variety of terrain is good for stretching my legs, as much of the walking I do is almost on the flat. Several families with young children were playing on the beach, and a handful of small boys were splashing in the shallows. I don't know if this is permitido under the lock-down relaxation rules but there was no sign of enforcers anywhere.

I got around to making hummous again before supper. I've been promising myself to do that since I cooked the chick peas some time last week. Last night I cooked a kilo of diced chicken breast. It'll do me four or five meals along with vegetables. Next advance cooking project is a big pot of lentil and butternut squash soup for Monday.

BBC 3 broadcasted an old recording of a performance of Janacek's opera Katya Kabanova from the Met this evening. Beautiful music, familiarly sad story, though I'm not sure we saw it when WNO performed it nine years ago.
  

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