Lockdown Diary - Saturday 12th December 2020

As I sit and type this, it occurs to me that my life has become incredibly repetitive and restricted.  I suppose in large part because of my wife's illness and extreme vulnerability to covid, I have been taking the same precautions since I was first consigned to working at home (luckily my employer made the decision that all employees should work from home before the Government finally made a decision about lockdown) late in February.

Give or take a few changes, every Saturday has been the same for months. I guess with Christmas coming ever closer, some variety may be introduced. Perhaps.

One thing that was different about today was that son #3 accompanied me shopping for the first time since he went to uni: one thing he did enjoy was grabbing a hot breakfast after the shopping was done.

After shopping, on with the usual chores.

Sons 2 and 3 made lunch whilst I meditated, which was good of them. Whilst I was meditating a very large and heavy parcel arrived for me - I shall maybe say what's in the parcel a bit later. After I'd spent 20 minutes meditating, I returned to the 'team' and we all sat down and watched an episode of 'Malcolm in the Middle', which son #2 has 'discovered'.

Whilst the second or third wash was under way I decided to take time out to read the papers.  Unusually I managed to finish both papers, excluding the stuff on Brexit which I couldn't face reading as it is all far too depressing.

On a far more interesting and enjoyable note, I should return to the parcel: it contained the latest and revised edition of the book 'Galactic Ramble', shown below.

'Galactic Ramble' is a huge book in every sense of the word, with over 900 pages covering most of the rock, pop, folk and jazz albums released in the UK between, roughly 1963 and 1975, containing reviews and images of well-known and extremely obscure albums alike. If you have any interest in the development of these musical forms over that period, this book is indispensable.  I love the book and could spend hours lost in it discovering new music to listen to. Read more about the book here.

Back to reality and chores.  I can't do any more washing today as there's no where left to hang it out to dry, though there are two or three more loads to do. I'll save some of the fun until tomorrow.

I managed to find half an hour or so to sit and listen to music on my own: today's choice was The Amorphous Androgynous & Peter Hammill's album 'We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal'.  It is a fine album but not as good the mix albums The Amorphous Androgynous produced under the umbrella name 'A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble...Exploding in Your Mind' (three double CD volumes plus a fourth focusing on Australian Psych, subtitled 'The Wizards of Oz') It was good to be back - maybe this augurs well for reading? Time will tell.

Film night and son #1's choice.  He's chosen the film 'American History X', which is about American Nazi youth in the Venice Beach suburb of LA. I have to admit it's a film I would shy away from, largely because I find the idea of people, especially youths, being in thrall to, and worshipping the Nazis, totally abhorrent.  

Another excellent choice of film by my sons. It's something everyone should watch, though it does include some very unpleasant violence, thankfully not shown to graphically, though there are a couple of scenes I will take a while to forget. It does illustrate how disaffected youth can be manipulated into hating people when they have so little and when they feel marginalised. It also shows how easily the sort of rhetoric that Trump used during his campaign could be used to make the disadvantaged the scapegoats by playing on people's fears.  The film does offer a glimmer of hope, though not without casualties along the way.  A film I won't forget for some time.

The boys move to playing Xbox games while I retire to attempt to read, then sleep. Hopefully.

Apart from yesterday's choice, a lot of my recent tunes have been quite old. I think it's time to change that. I just heard this song today, though not on the radio, for reasons that will become apparent.  It's by Bob Vylan and is called 'We Live Here' and was released earlier this year. The song lyrics include some rather rude words, so don't say you haven't been warned. After tonight's film, it's probably a bit of an antidote. {More about where I heard this tomorrow!}

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