Lockdown Diary - Thursday 2nd July 2020

Another working day, different schedule. Up early again and ready for work by 8:15 or so.  Trying to get some work started before I head off to the hospital at around 9:15 for my scheduled Covid swab test. 

After about an hour or so of work, I set off for the hospital. They warn you may have to wait for up to 15 minutes, but I was first in the queue.  I had been warned about the test in advance, but it wasn't that bad. The swab up the nose goes rather deeper than you'd like, but I've had far worse things done to me in the name of health!  Apparently they get the results tomorrow: if I'm positive I get a call and if I'm negative I hear nothing. Everything is crossed. Ouch! That's made my eyes water.

Returned home for another day of full-on work, pretty much the same as yesterday and how tomorrow will most likely be. Though I may have an early start for my third yoga session of the week.  Gotta get 'em in, 'cos I won't be able to do them after I come out of hospital, for fear I might split open again!

Work, work, work again with a brief interruption in the form of a call from the dietitian to see how our 'experiment' with my wife's PEG feed is going.

Then more of the same until just before 6 p.m., when I start getting organised for the 'Idler Drink', tonight with the economist Guy Standing talking about universal basic income (UBI). 

Another great talk from the Idler: Guy Standing spoke eloquently about UBI, why it is moral necessity and how it doesn't mean that people decide not to work, but that it engenders well-being by providing a safety net such that people need not worry about having enough money for food and basic necessities in the event of some disaster befalling them.  Once the talk is edited and posted to YouTube I'll share it. It's well worth a watch/listen.  

The Idler talks on a Thursday evening have become a highlight of the lockdown week and they're free and open to everyone.  Don't yet know what next week's talk will be, but I'm sure it'll be interesting - even the ones where I've thought 'probably not for me' have turned out to be fascinating.

Work and, to a lesser extent, getting the Covid swab test done meant there wasn't time for any of 'Ulysses' or music, but I guess the Idler talk was instead of that.

The rest of the evening followed the standard course - son #2 made dinner, we watched an episode of 'Altered Carbon', tidied up, went to bed, read a bit more of 'A New Day Yesterday', then descended into the other world.

Been caught in some retro Cheap Trick loop.  Avoiding the obvious songs that have been played to death over the years, whilst also negotiating the minefield of some of their lyrics from back in the 1970s, I find myself torn between two songs. There are others I like but they don't fit the prevailing wind.  It was a toss up between 'Stiff Competition' and 'Downed'. 'Downed' won. It's from the album 'In Color' (sic) 

[[...as a parrot. Why can't they spell 'colour'? (100,000 lemmings can't be wrong!)]]

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