- Not the most eventful of weeks. That’s probably a good thing at the moment.
- Work continues with a small ethical quandary and, still, some rather long days.
- Yesterday 1.2% of the adult population received their first vaccine shot. That is incredible. But this week the UK surpassed 100,000 deaths, which is utterly unforgivable.
- How will people remember this time, when it’s all over?
- I will remember Heather, a family friend who died this week at just 46, and my uncle’s mum who passed the week before.
- I will remember thinking about all my friends in New Zealand and Taiwan who went back to life as normal from June 2020.
- And breathe.
- Mixing together a virtual choir recording of Snow Patrol’s Run using Logic Pro has been a surprisingly lovely escape, and I’m getting reasonably fast using the editor. 33 audio tracks and my computer is barely breaking a sweat. Back in the day, this would have been Crashy McCrashtown and/or submix galore.
- Finished It’s a Sin. I’m still as emotional as I was about it in last week’s post. The last episode in particular. Why it got squeezed from an eight-parter to a 5-parter I’ll never understand.
- Enjoyed Julie, a National Theatre remake of the 1888 play by August Strindberg. The themes of class and power are timeless and the acting is utterly brilliant but the script sticks out quite a lot in a number of places. I really enjoyed the staging too.
- Also watched Valley of Love, starring Isabelle Huppert and Gerard Depardieu grieving in Death Valley. It’s beautiful and ridiculous and flawed and I would watch it again.
- Accidentally watched the end of Independence Day again while eating some crisps. Sometimes empty calories are the best.
- Slowly allowing some zoom socialising into life again – made better by trying to be more natural; chatting to friends while fixing a drink, doing something else, but still interacting. Continuous partial attention rather than full attention.
- My bike is, I have suddenly realised, a wreck. While fitting some new mudguards, I realised that everything is rusting, the chain feels strained and the derailleurs are temperamental at best.
- Booked it in for a service at the local place, whose website suggests they are fighting for survival because commuters have gone.
- London Zone 1 really is on its knees.
- Put the winter duvet on, two thirds of the way through winter, and realised just what I’d been missing.