Missives from the 6th Floor

Yesterday, after much foreshadowing, Boris revealed a four stage plan to ease and end UK lockdown restrictions.

Dawnise and I watched him read the prepared statement to a small group of MPs.

The plan targets the end of July, by which time his goal is that every adult in the UK has been offered the vaccine. It seems cautious and rational. The dates are “no earlier than”s. The delays between steps are driven by how long it takes to see and measure the impact of the previous change on the key metrics.

It’s the sort of plan that should have proposed during the first lockdown. Or the second. I’m trying to say “better late than never” with a straight face.

And really, as much as my rational mind approves of a plan that (finally) “follows the science,” I’m struggling to keep perspective, and to stay positive.

Put a fork in me. I’m done.

Telling people they maybe might get most of their lives back at the end of June is like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown saying “this time, for sure.”

I’m fully expecting it to get yanked away, leaving me flat on my back.

And yet… I’ve been wrong before. Take the frankly amazing progress in creating and distributing vaccines.

A year ago if you’d offered to bet that we’d have multiple highly efficacious vaccines, that over two hundred million people would be inoculated, and that vaccination would actually reduce serious illness… well, I’d have certainly bet against you.

And happily I’d have lost.

Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it.

You know those mornings when you wake up more tired than when you went to bed?

Before the holidays I was scraping the bottom of my proverbial barrel of fucks. I took some time away from work and, like many of my colleagues, came back feeling not the least bit refreshed. If I was scraping the bottom of the barrel before, at this point I’m digging furrows in the barrel head.

I need to do something about that.

In other news… well, there’s very little other news. We remain healthy, and aside from a sometimes overwhelming sense of cabin fever, mostly sane.

It was Dawnise’s birthday a couple weeks back. I found a west end hotel (The Chesterfield Mayfair, for locals who might be interested) that was offering afternoon tea home delivery.

We’ve acquired most of a tea set (minus a multi-tier stand, which are very pretty but almost never really useful and always a pain in the arse to store) in a V&A Alice in Wonderland pattern – so we broke out the fine china and made an event of it. I put on a shirt and coat. Finger sandwiches, scones jam and creme, and a selection of patisserie containing more sugar than anyone should really consume. Oh, and tea, of course.

In another welcome break from the sameness, we got a dusting of snow last Sunday. We got bundled up and went for a walk. It turned into rain later in the day, and by the next morning no trace remained.

On a positive note, vaccination progress in the UK is a ray of light through the omnipresent gloom, and an all-too-rare example of competence in an otherwise lackluster and uneven government performance through this crisis.

But the pandemic, as they say, ain’t over ’till it’s over.

And just as when I wrote a month ago, an American, throwing stones on the subject of government dysfunction seems a bit like claiming a shiny new ocean liner is unsinkable.

My memory of the pandemic will be punctuated by haircuts.

Dawnise and I had just come out of our local Waitrose and she noticed the barber across the street was open, and seemed not to have people waiting.

“You should get a haircut” she said.

I started to demur – wanting to help her home with the groceries and figuring I could “do it later” – but a little voice and her side-eye glance won out, and I walked over to get a haircut. “Cut it a little short,” I said – “no telling when I’ll be back.”

That turned out to be the last day barbers were open for a while.

When restrictions were relaxed I went back to the same barber and had him reprise his performance.

The next lock-down was a bit more telegraphed, and I made sure to get in before the curtain came down, and I went back again when it came back up.

When London was abruptly put into Tier 4 just before Christmas I missed my attack of opportunity*.

So… I could use a haircut, but given the case counts, and their trajectory in London and the south of England, I’m betting it’s going to be a while before I get a chance.

In other news, as of this morning the UK is “really, really out” – split from the EU. Boris and his government did ultimately “get Brexit done” – the deal coming down to brinkmanship and 11th hour negotiations, which should surprise no one. The UK had precious little leverage, and both sides seemed to recognize it, though both sides were careful to limit how bluntly they’d say it aloud.

This emergent power dynamic wasn’t a foregone conclusion. When the referendum happened in 2016 I think it’s reasonable to say that the future state of the EU was “hazy,” as the Magic 8-ball might say. Over the intervening four years the EU seems to have stuck together, while the UK has fractured under stress. I’d give 6/10 odds that Scotland holds a referendum to leave the UK in the next few years. And 4/10 odds that they in-fact do. Watch this space.

Since at least the run-up to the referendum it has been nearly impossible to unpick underlying economic and government sovereignty arguments from the falsehoods, misrepresentations and xenophobic fervor. Yanis Varoufakis’ Adults in the Room helped to convince me that there were absolutely legitimate arguments to be made in support of breaking ties, but I continue to believe that teams are stronger than heroes – and think while the UK exiting the EU diminishes both, the damage to the UK will be more severe.

Time will tell.

Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy.

And as an American at this moment in history, I’m not picking up any stones to throw.

In 20 days it’s highly likely (>9/10) that Biden will be inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States. And a significant number of Republican elected officials, and several million Republican voters, will reject him and his presidency as illegitimate. They’ll continue to believe in systematic and wide-spread voter fraud, despite a lack of evidence so preponderant even Trump’s toadying Attorney General decided he couldn’t say otherwise, and coincidentally “stepped” down shortly thereafter.

None of the evidence, or lack of evidence, matters. We believe what we believe, often without even fully knowing why – and we wrap those beliefs so tightly around ourselves that they become us, so we react in self-defense when our beliefs, and thus our identities are questioned, or threatened.

All this often gets wrapped up in a phrase like “identity politics” which, like gerrymandering, sounds almost cute – and utterly fails to capture the toxicity of the concept.

It’s hard to change a belief or opinion about something when that change threatens your sense of self – who you and others think you are.

There’s a quote, oft attributed to Lao Tzu (but maybe it was Buddha, or perhaps even Margaret Thatcher):

“Watch your thoughts. They become words. Watch your words. They become deeds. Watch your deeds. They become habits. Watch your habits. They become character. Character is everything.”

Regardless of who said it, seems they were very nearly right. But when they said “character” they meant “self.”

Another of my favorite quotes is this exchange from Dogma:

Looking for a new year’s resolution?

Maybe try holding your identities up to the light, and being deliberate about which ones you keep.

I didn’t realize when I set out on a run this morning that today was the public Boxing Day holiday.

I just assumed that the streets being zombie-movie deserted were ’cause Dawnise and I were among the few who didn’t cram onto trains to escape the city before the stay-at-home order went into effect. (I do wonder how many of those people “escaped” to places that came under the same restrictions a few days later, and how many of them contributed to that outcome.)

If I’m honest, it being a holiday makes a lot more sense, and explains why my Monmouth order placed before Christmas hasn’t yet arrived.

The 21st was our wedding anniversary (twenty four, but who’s counting). The DVSA finally acknowledged on Sunday evening that my Monday morning driving test was canceled, so with no need to leave, we spent the day at home. We had managed to buy each-other the same gift – each snagging a tricky-to-find copy of Horrified, so we punched out a bunch of cardboard chits and spent a while saving the villagers from Dracula and The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

For the past few years it’s been our tradition to have anniversary Beef Wellington at the Goring Dining Room. Of course, our booking for Sunday evening also fell victim to Saturday’s “Tier 4” announcement, so after considering delivery, we decided to have a go at making it ourselves. Dawnise watched a couple helpful videos, friends helpfully pointed me to Turner & George where I picked up a Chateaubriand sized for two, and we got the needed bits via Waitrose delivery and a quick trip for remainders. The result might not have earned a Michelin star, but it wasn’t far off, and was absolutely delicious.

We exchanged a few gifts on Christmas day – including more two-player friendly cooperative board games. A copy of The Captain Is Dead: Dangerous Planet, which we played (and lost) the other night, and a copy of Mysterium, which I expect we’ll play soon.

Though not strictly intended as a Christmas gift, I got her a copy of Superliminal, which she’s taken up and is enjoying even as I type.

I’ve taken off work through the 4th – and have been spending time reading, playing aforementioned games, and thinking a bit about work – what’s going well, what could go better, and how I might nudge things in that direction in the new year. I finally read Dune, after multiple aborted attempts in the past. I’m glad I did, but feel no particular compulsion to read the sequels

In other news, case counts in our local area are trending in the wrong direction, and I expect the current restrictions to be maintained or tightened when they’re reviewed in a few days. I don’t see a path to relaxing these restrictions that doesn’t involve acceleration vaccination, which in turn seems to hinge on the ongoing review of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.

This is likely my last note of 2020, and with it we send our best wishes for your new year to start well, and to improve on 2020 in every meaningful way.

Stay healthy, stay sane.

Moments ago it was announced that London and much of the south east of England will enter a newly created “Tier 4” starting tomorrow morning, with restrictions largely matching the previous national “lock-downs.”

The oft-discussed plan to relax restrictions for the days around Christmas – clearly a concession to what people wanted and not driven by any rigorous rational reasoning – have been scrapped in areas in the new highest tier, and restricted to “just Christmas day” for less restricted areas of the country.

I’m waiting for the seemingly inevitable confirmation from the DVSA that my driving test Monday morning has been canceled. It’s fine. I’ve only been working on it since July.

London has put on its holiday cologne.

I noticed it the other morning when I left for my run. A smell that hadn’t been there a few days earlier, and then was. It took me a moment to realize it was familiar and strongly associated with being in Europe over the holidays.

I’m not sure what it is. My guess is it’s the smell of home fires burning. We live in a smoke control zone, but smokeless doesn’t mean odorless.

That’s not the only sign of the holidays. Christmas tree lots have sprung up around the city, and trees of all sizes can be had at your local market. And Christmas trees are being erected and lit in public spaces and in private windows. A welcome bit of cheer.

We normally get a tree early in December. We broke with that tradition last year – we were traveling in the run-up to Christmas – and got a tree just before my sister, brother-in-law, and niece arrived for a visit. (Aside: how can something seem both mere moments ago and ancient history?)

We had an appointment on the other side of London the last day of November, and not knowing how long we’d spend in transit I had told work I’d be out all day, so when we got back, we took the attack of opportunity and got a tree.

The tree lot we found last year and liked is about a mile away – so we trundled over, picked out a suitable specimen, and for the second time had the slightly surreal experience of carrying a 2 meter tall Christmas tree down a major thoroughfare in central London to our flat.

We didn’t bring many holiday decorations when we moved, and we sorta expected to be back in Seattle before this holiday for a visit and be able to retrieve a few more. That obviously didn’t happen, but that hasn’t stopped Dawnise from sprinkling the place with Christmas.

Since we can’t go to the Christmas markets, we’re going to bring bits of them to us. We’ve bought the bits to make glühwein, and the “upgrades” to make feuerzangenbowle. Sorta surprisingly we can’t locally source individually sized zuckerhuts (sugar loaves) – and shipping from amazon.de is pretty ridiculous, so we’re going to “make do” (that’s British, right?) with some rough cut sugar cubes. They’re the wrong shape, but once the over-proof rum gets involved, the shape won’t matter.

After brunch this morning we took a stroll to Konditor and got some mince pies.

So we’ve laid in the critical bits – booze and baked sweets. I figure that should keep us, at least ’till we have to sort out Christmas dinner.

Happy Holidays. Stay healthy, stay sane, take joy where you can find it, and we hope to see you in the coming year.

I started to title this “Home Is Where Your Stuff Is…” It sounded good on paper, but what if you have stuff in two places?

It turns out that on reflection most of the stuff isn’t that important. If we need something we already have in Seattle, we can usually just buy another one. Yay mass production and global distribution.

The cats on the other hand… well, that’d be tricky to say the least.

Hence: “home is where the cats are.” Seems legit.

We’ve been in the new flat for just over three weeks, and overall it’s gone well. Better than we had any right to hope for, really, considering we decided to move, found a flat, and arranged movers in the span of a couple weeks.

We had to buy a dining table, which arrived a week or so back, and the rug we picked to go under it arrived Friday.

How did we do these things before the internet?

As expected from a place that’s been empty for a few months, there’s been a small punch list. Just little things that need fixing. The property management company so far is “typically British” – they do their best to ignore me and the problem until I shake their cage. I’m pretty good at being a demanding customer, and not afraid of fixing thing myself, so ultimately they’ll either they’ll fix it, or I’ll fix it and deduct the cost of repairs from rent.

Despite all that, we’ve quickly settled in. Our last flat was purpose-built as a rental. The new place was lived in by the owners, who remodeled it a handful of years ago before moving abroad (and kept and left nearly all the manuals, I love these people already). The contrast is significant – the space, the storage, and the kitchen are just that much more usable. Like someone, you know, gave a crap.

Dawnise and I agreed that despite the short time we’ve been here, it feels more like a “home” than the last place, though neither of us can quite put our finger on why.

I’ve run into our neighbors, once while they were taking their two kids to school, and once while they were going down to collect their milk delivery. We exchanged names, and I’m hoping to be more properly introduced once lock-down relaxes.

The weather recently has been what you might call “variable” – some beautiful, clear crisp days (12C/mid-50’sF), some downright chilly (2C/mid-30’sF), and occasional driving wind and rain. So far all the rain has stayed outside, which was really the point of this, after all.

This morning I walked to our favorite local cafe and picked up “take away shakshouka” for breakfast. The owner hadn’t done take away before, but decided to make a go of it this time. Chatting with her while waiting, I was happy to hear it’s been going reasonably well so far.

The same can’t be said, I’m afraid, for COVID in the UK generally. Case counts, hospitalization counts, and death rates are all still trending up, though our immediate neighborhood seems to be in reasonable shape for the moment.

These worrying trends, combined with the news last week of the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine, suggest that continued conservatism is a sensible course. Not gathering with friends and family over this holiday season will suck, but getting sick now – while medical systems strain under the load and a vaccine is “on the horizon” – means that the “downside risk” is increasing at the same time as the “investment horizon” shortens.

If that’s all gibberish and jargon, another (intentionally provocative) way to say it is “no one wants to be the last soldier to die in Vietnam.”

Stay safe, stay healthy, stay sane.