WELCOME TO THE NEW WORLD

Welcome to my new blog which I’m embarking on after a five year hiatus from my previous  mouthings-off in Mark’s Sparks Will Fly, courtesy of the Wordpress platform. I ended that because it felt overly self-indulgent and irrelevant to the world at large, even to my friends who loyally followed it, but in these wretched times we find ourselves in, I’ve been moved and impressed by the way so many friends and erstwhile colleagues have been in touch with each other digitally, on landlines – which seem to be enjoying a renaissance – and even the darling Royal Mail. Indeed and in the short space of time most of us have been locked down, I found I’ve been spending much of the day talking, texting and emailing just to keep up the much-appreciated communication and camaraderie. So I thought it might relieve everyone who has been in touch, and who I myself have been badgering, to issue a general communiqué every day or so with news, views and possibly a bit of light entertainment – much of it re-cycled from friends and other sources which those of you who can be arsed, can access and read at a time to suit. Or not as the case may be.

So I’ve emailed many of you with a link to this and I gather on this platform – suggested by Dick Pountain as less clunky and more straightforward than Wordpress – you’ll also get alerts every time I scribble something – which of course you can ignore or reject.

Anyway, after all that I’ll keep it short with this first post, merely mentioning a couple of thoughts that have occurred to me this past 24 hours.

Firstly, the shameful unpreparedness for, and confusion in dealing with Covid-19 by our UK government. Today’s shocking news that only 2000 of NHS entire staff have so far been tested for the virus and the constant and supposedly re-assuring platitude we’re offered that testing facilities are being “ramped up” are anything but reassuring. Ditto when it’s applied to PPE and ventilators. I’m sure anyone reading this already shares this dismay and the knock-on effect it will have on the NHS’s ability to deal with sufferers and, indeed, the effects it will have on their morale and ultimately the length and severity of the lock-down. This could be worse I guess, and I’m somewhat glad that I no longer live in America, and my feelings about that are encapsulated by this from the Medium newsfeed that I recently signed up to:

https://medium.com/@ASlavitt/why-trump-is-making-coronavirus-death-toll-projections-d4dd2f207566

But secondly, amidst all the gloom, anger and hand-wringing, there are numerous uplifting moments to be relished and useful diversions and entertainments to be pursued, and here’s a couple of them, the first forwarded to me by Mark E, which moved me almost to tears when I watched it this morning:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/robbie-robertson-the-weight-ringo-starr-video-885980/

And thanks to Jenny W. I was apprised of these 30 minute lectures from artist and National Gallery staffer, Lydia Bauman who each evening at 6pm reveals the stories behind and an appreciation of great works of art, nominally for the enthusiastic but unschooled – e.g. yrs. trly. – which uses the Zoom platform.  It’s a bit clunky and Lydia herself has experienced a few issues setting it up, but they’re absolutely riveting.

https://us04web.zoom.us/j/381394220?pwd=TE5ET0Q4WUMwMzhCNDZ1cnRFU2xKQT09

‘Til next time then – probably tomorrow – thanks for reading and of course I greatly welcome your feedback – ramp it up why don’t you?

Chins skywards, then – Mark