Lockdown day #52

Today should have election day - but the elections have been postponed until next year.  In 2021 we shall be fighting the 2020 elections AND the 2021 elections ... I hope those who have bungled dealing with this virus are punished in those elections!  There is talk of relaxing the lockdown, but I feel that it is too soon.  All the British press seem delighted by the prospect - will they be so delighted when there is a second peak of Covid-19?  Of course it will never be "their" fault!  These are today's headlines:

I began the day by watching a Live Osprey Nest Cam, from Loch Arkaig.  It is fascinating watching!

I watched the episode of Fortunes of War set in Greece, and the film Women of the Night on YouTube.  The film Women of the Night was quite a bizarre film, set in Shanghai between VE-day and VJ-day with some Germans still serving there and planning to restore a "Fourth Reich".

I received an email from the Liberal Democrats with their updated Safeguarding Policy, and in the post details of the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway PLC Annual General Meeting (I am a shareholder) - the second AGM I am being asked NOT to attend!

... and thus to bed ...

Lockdown day #35

It is strange how the most mundane things have become an "event".  This morning I got some bin bags of rubbish to the dustmen ... it got me out of the flat, so that was something (and it cleared some clutter ... which is also good).

Opening my e-mails I read Dr Mark Pack's "Liberal Democrat Newsline".  I have to admit I would normally just scan this, but today I took an inordinate amount of time reading each article in it.  There was an interesting article on how normally liberals would be up in arms at the loss of civil liberties and free movement, but these unusual circumstances have seen instead criticism of the government for not imposing lockdown earlier.

On Facebook my friend James Baillie had published his original song "Hair Still Grows Fast (and it's in my eyes)" - very witty and fun to watch.

I am continuing to read downloadable books to do with buses and transport and this morning I read the Prestige Series book on "Bedwas and Machen", a small bus operator located near to Caerphilly in South Wales.

Later in the day, whilst browsing on Facebook, I happened across the opening clip of the film "55 Days at Peking", the clip where all the legations are raising their flags and playing their national anthems.  It had never occurred to me before, but the first anthem in the film was the Russian anthem - "God Save the Tzar!".  

I then searched on YouTube and found a lovely rendition by the Mikhailovsky Theatre Orchestra and Choir, performed at the State Hermitage in St Petersburg on 6 March 2013. I also loved that some of the audience stood for the royalist anthem of Russia - could there still be royalists in Russia today?

Having had a taster of the film, I went and watched the film on YouTube.  It is surprisingly relevant to today ... there is a line in the film, a quote of Napoleon "let China sleep for when she awakes the world will tremble" ... 

The other "event" today was I had another living person inside my flat - for it was the time of the annual boiler check ... and so the boiler man cometh - I couldn't really see him for all the PPE he was wearing.    In the evening I took some exercise in the local cemetery - lovely and sunny still (and quite warm at 6pm) but the wind was cold and brisk.