STIR - Issue 2 by CoronaSTIR

CONTENTS

Welcome to Stir

p.2

A View from My Window by Annie Anderson-Wallace, Rita Says, Em Anderson-Wallace,

Roland Denning, Mike Stubbs, John Watts

Ursula Rucker

p.3-10

p.11-12

What If We Tore Them All Down by Roland Denning

p.13-14

101 Leisure Activities by Sally Kindberg

On My Mantlepiece by Lesley Davis & Dulcie Andrews

p.15-16

p.17-20

Cake Recipes

p.21-22

Stained Glass by Philippa Hayes

p.23-24

Good Year for the Roses by Dulcie Andrews

p.25-26

Faultless Felines

p.27

Yin Yoga by Gail Stephens

p.28

Giving the Clap by Murray Anderson-Wallace

p.29-30

Lockdown Safety Hendon GP

p.31-32

Review - Homecoming by Lesley Davis

p..33-34

Lockdown Doodling by Eva Pentel

p.35-36

Lockdown Precautions The Ministry of Truth

p.37

The Other Side of the Flap

By Lazlo the Wonder Cat

p.38

Photo courtesy of Philippa Hayes

June 2020

WELCOME TO STIR Thank you so much for all your fabulous contributions. It has been a joy putting this issue together. If you would like this publication to continue, please distribute to friends and family and ask them to get creative

What Now? How are you all coping? The last couple of weeks have been tricky for me. Learning that we have the greatest death count of all comparable countries was a psychological blow. If the government has been so inept at controlling the pandemic, how can it possibly cope with the aftermath? Lockdown makes me feel I have become both inviolable and vulnerable. I sometimes feel caught in a paradox – ensconced in my own world but uncertain, with limited agency. My initial surge of domestic activity has temporarily subsided owing to a lack of interest or urgency, television is a tool for sending me to sleep and I periodically mourn the world as it was pre-pandemic. The loss is not straight-forward. Not only have I started to miss aspects of my familiar life, I have sneaking doubts about the new world. Apparently, it takes six weeks to form a habit and I fear I may have got a little too used to my own company. If social

distancing is to become a longterm reality (and I accept that it might), then the things that I loved doing no longer seem as appealing. Normal activities that are no longer entirely ‘normal’ can be fraught. As society opens up, I sometimes fear living in a facsimile of the world where everything is almost as it was, but not quite, which is unnerving. It is for all these reasons, for me at least, that there must to be a reckoning. Surely having experienced such a high level of disruption, we need to take something fundamental from it. Change is both difficult and exciting. It is how we harness these emotions that is, although challenging, potentially very powerful. On a personal level, I may have tired of box sets and left the bedroom window half painted but I am writing, walking and thinking more. In some ways, I feel more alive.

I like to think that we are at a crossroads and, as my mate Amanda is always keen to stress, ‘If there is a fork in the road, take it’. In spite of personal doubts (and that Amanda means it jokingly), I believe in the profundity of this statement. Equally true, however, is the notion that we always regret the road not taken. That, my friends, is where I find myself at this moment. These feelings will inevitably change. Now and, on some level, it seems the five stages of grief may be being played out. Stage 1 is Denial – which, in my case, meant purchasing endless tins of tomatoes and indulging in some manic DIY. Stage 2 is Anger. I’m now waiting for the Bargaining stage keen to swerve the Depression and way off Acceptance. Have a great month – Next deadline for submissions is 8th July. 2

A VIEW FROM MY WINDOW COVID Chronicle

By Annie Anderson-Wallace

Mild dispassionate interest in something far away Keeping an eye on it A new topic of conversation In the greengrocer – none of the customers had heard the word, ‘Coronavirus’ when I mentioned it Then more focus, a growing unease Still far away – Playing with touching elbows Nasty scenes in Wuhan But it stayed ‘over there’ last time, didn’t it? Italy – that’s when it really hit home This was coming our way Death, fear, panic on every news channel On all the airwaves On everyone’s lips Disbelief, numbers, graphics and graphs Then lockdown and sudden, deathly quiet Apart from the shouting birds Like a thick blanket of mufLling germ had been thrown over our world Dark discussions about wills, and love for each other Goodbye letters written on that bleak and terrifying morning When one woman’s words on the Today programme tore my heart apart Previously scattered family groups thrown together again, all around the neighbourhood Laughs and Mexican evenings and too much alcohol Daily walks, trees come into leaf, bluebells and birdsong Quizzes galore Frenzied Zooming with all and sundry Before everyone realised that nothing but blank time had actually happened that week and there was nothing more to say Seeing our loved one’s lives as they knew them dissolve Plans disappear into viral ether as reality hits, bit by bit From older parent to grown up child Almost the hardest thing to bear So now we slog through the days Trying to summon up the energy to do something meaningful In the Covid-19 quagmire That is life in May 2020.

L’ Amour Fou. By Rita Says

When you've read this text, make it into a paper dart and throw it out of a window….throw it out in the vain hope that someone else will read it. This simple act will enable you (even if only slightly) to have some insight into how I currently feel. Feeling cut off from human contact is of course nothing unique. Especially now. I'm being selfish, typically self obsessed in the face of so much general suffering, I'm failing to see all the good things I have, all the love that I'm given, my relative emotional comfort and security in a world in the grip of a major pandemic. But the heart wants to speak of its own pain. Fact: I want something from someone and I can't get it, and it's probably a really bad idea to push any further in an effort to get it. Because all I'll do is push them away and drive myself mad in the process…….I need to just stay connected to them without being oppressive and to make a mental effort not to be obsessive: If I don't get what I want I mustn't hate them for it. I have to carry on liking them anyway…….REGARDLESS……. I'm not sure if any of the above is true: I'm losing the ability to think logically. But still the heart says: “There's nothing wrong with liking someone, is there?”

Pause By Em Anderson-Wallace Am I allowed to say that quarantine agrees with me?

On Tuesday, I woke up at 10-to-9. I checked my emails in bed, then got up, did a daily yoga practice and showered. I chatted to some colleagues, did some admin, then worked in my comfortable clothes for the rest of the day. At around 5, I logged onto a London-based life drawing class I’ve wanted to do for a few months - which, for obvious reasons, has now gone virtual. Works for me. I sketched away for an hour, then came down to my family and had a non-alcoholic beer and a game of Rummikub before dinner. I called my girlfriends and, after a bit of technological navigation, we watched our favourite film together through the magic of Zoom.

My sister joked that she couldn’t believe how well suited I was to lockdown.

I’m aware that I’m in a wildly privileged position - I’m lucky enough to have a home to hole up in, a secure job that doesn’t overwhelm me, few caring responsibilities, and a family who never fail to envelop me with warmth, respect and humour. I do not take these things for granted. I don’t wish to dismiss or trivialise the trauma that has plagued families and communities over the past few months, nor do I ignorantly assume that I will in some way be immune. It goes without saying that I’d rather we weren’t in this position. But I find myself guiltily content.

I can’t remember a time when I’ve been legitimately allowed to stop. From the age of 10, I’ve been told, repeatedly and from all sides, that to slow down is to lose my edge. What I really need to do, they say, is keep going, keep growing, keep building. Keep bettering yourself. Keep active, keep fit, keep slim; keep pushing, keep climbing; keep networking, keep creating content. If you aren’t moving forward, you’re moving backwards - and you’ll quickly be so far behind there’s no way you’ll make up the lost time. No-one else is going to stop, so you shouldn’t either.

I didn’t realise how tired I was until normalcy was suspended, and I was left with a soft tranquillity I didn’t know I craved.

In my little bubble, surrounded (virtually, in part) by family and friends, my day-to-day life is pretty delicious. The things that caused me stress, that made me anxious and depressed, have been eliminated. Not forever, I hope - I know that what accompanies the stressors of daily life are those moments of unfiltered joy, and I miss them as much as the next person. But in this strange liminal time, where a day feels like a month and a week feels like 3 hours, stillness and peace go a long way. I didn’t expect it, but this isolation feels a little like a soothing balm has been applied to an angry rash I hoped would just sort itself out.

My girlfriends and I, having splintered across the country in recent years, are finally sticking to a weekly catch-up, which fills my heart every Monday night and reminds me how lucky I am to have people that make me feel valid and loved and whole.

I’ve been talking to my grandparents far more regularly, chatting about all things great and small - who they’d have at their virtual, time-travelling dinner party, for example, or how to work FaceTime. I feel like I’m more present in their lives than I’ve been in years.

The creative community, my community, are brilliantly showcasing their generosity and the internet is flooded with free resources for all. Friends are enjoying shows who haven’t been to the theatre in years, experimenting with activities they never had time for before lockdown began. People are showing their best side and I for one am basking in the warmth of it.

As cliched as it sounds, I feel like I’ve finally found a reset button - I just wish it hadn’t taken a pandemic to locate.

TIME AND SPACE IN THE LOCKDOWN MOVIE Roland Denning The frame has got stuck in the gate. The celluloid is melting. The present is in pause. Acting in the here and now - that’s the hard thing. With all the time in the world, why do anything now? We live in the past or we dream of the future. We flashback to a film noir world of bars, cafés, and clubs, packed and sweaty and mythically smoky. We imagine an uncertain future, when all this is over, where one by one the masks come off, the black and yellow stripes and white markers gradually fade. The optimistic think of celebrations and endless parties, the pessimists of shops still shuttered and poverty, anger and despair. Maybe the air will be free of pollution. Maybe zombies will roam the streets. In our heads, we all make sci-fi movies of the future. The here eludes us too. For, like time, our location is also tentative. We have nowhere to go, our exercise routes are circular, the places we pass too familiar to appreciate. We lack direction. We meet and talk in a place once called cyberspace, but that term, fringed with the thrill of science fiction, no longer fits these mundane encounters. We are used to disembodied voices, but disembodied faces, lined up in a half-smiling rogues gallery, where everyone looks outward and no one looks to each other, is fundamentally unsettling. A primary element of cinema is the look that bonds two people: the reverse angle, the reaction shot. A character looks to the left, cut to the next face looking to the right. This is the rule of eyeline, the imaginary thread that connects the lookers, and if the camera steps over it, the illusion is smashed, our actors no longer face each other. Online, not only are we devoid of touch or smell, the illusion of meeting is broken from the start: our eyelines never quite match, we look at the face or we look at the camera, but we can’t look into each other’s eyes. The edit is clumsy, our narrative is fractured. Many profess to enjoy this suspended animation. Perhaps we all have moments when the quiet and the absence of the fear of missing out is something to be savoured. We can lose ourselves in thoughts or chores or hobbies. In pastimes. But just talking about lockdown assumes a position of privilege. It excludes the many who were never offered the option – not only, of course, the doctors, the nurses and carers but the bit players, the postmen and the dustmen, the bus drivers, the delivery bikers, the warehouse stackers, those who tend to the jungle of cables that twist beneath our streets or the data that flows through the air. The extras have taken the key roles. When all this is over, will there be a resolution that makes sense of what has gone before? What will we have learned? That the lowest paid and the overlooked are the people we depend upon? That there is such a thing as society and, more than that, there is community and our instincts to help one another have not gone away? That the market will not solve our problems, and government intervention is a necessity not an intrusion? That austerity really does kill, and cutting back to the bone means our services became skeletal? That the birds sing more loudly than ever and the air can be clear? That travel is a rare and wonderful privilege? That we need to touch each other and real human contact is irreplaceable? And that sometimes we just need to be still, and rest, and think?

While we wait for The End.

Roland Denning

THE WORLD WITH FRESH EYES By Mike Stubbs

perceptions awaiting a supposed ‘new normal’? What have we learned that might want us to ‘remix’ our situation in a positive way, before this feeling evaporates? Like the qualities of a good remix of a favourite record, what happens if we apply the principles of re-editing (re-combining folk with hip hop) to our perceptions of place through a more diverse cultural lens? The urban environment means different things to different people, but over this time we share greater common understanding. What can we do to live and work and recreate our town and how would we re-make and re-assemble it to enable free expression and collaboration?

During this disturbing Covid-19 period time slows down and our perceptions of the world go through a surreal (if unsolicited) shift. For those self-isolating, working from home or resting from delivering essential services, our senses are heightened and we observe the world around us through fresh eyes.

In the absence of traffic, we hear birds sing so acutely, and may have the time to differentiate their shrill tones. I watch a squirrel from a window and observe how it ‘knew’ the branch to which it leapt could afford its weight. I notice this detail and it becomes a metaphor for the symbiotic relationship between different species co-existing in the same eco-system. We are as much part of the ecology as the squirrels and the trees. In critical moments like this, what do our fresh eyes reveal to us about the place of humans in the world and nature? As we count and grieve, what do we learn about our society? What would we like to change or re-imagine? We hang onto these changed 8

Excerpts from the diary of John Watts

Life in a Homeless Hostel during the time of Covid

I live in a microcosm of a far larger community. The Homeless. There are forty eight residents and rooms in my hostel. Each with en- suite bathroom and twelve cluster kitchens. There are around a dozen staﬀ with various roles and responsibilities. Some are ‘nine to five’ while others are on shift rotation. The building is beautiful and situated on a crossroads in Bloomsbury behind the British Museum. It used to be a hotel until the Salvation Army took it over, and after a fire a few years back, it was restored to its former Victorian glory. Security is very tight, which is a good thing, a bit like a hotel with a reception desk to get your keys which have to be handed in every time you leave the building. These same keys open the cluster and kitchen and to your own room. This only private space is where we all have a table, a chair, a small and large cupboard and a bed. I was given an exception and was allowed to bring my own bed with what they call a ‘memory’ mattress, just in case I forget that I have Chronic Cervical Spinal Disease and a few other traumas. There is now a ban on all visitors, the only exception is health workers.

In terms of health, the homeless are one of the most vulnerable groups in the country. In normal times, life expectancy is forty eight for men and forty two for women! It will get a lot worse. I am a volunteer with a homeless charity and last weekend we got seven hundred people oﬀ the streets. Why did it take a pandemic to achieve this? Deaths among the homeless are starting to mount up, luckily there has been none here so far. I hate to say it, but we here know it’s not a question of ‘If’ the epidemic comes to our little microcosm of a community, but ‘When?’.

6.4.20

How to describe what it feels like with the lockdown in place? Most people are dealing with it quite well. All the petty squabbles and quarrels have been abandoned. It used to be, on average about once a week, that someone would kick oﬀ either against the staﬀ or other residents and, sadly sometimes, some would just howl their pain at the moon and the demons in their heads. But now it’s all so calm and ever so quiet. Let’s hope it’s not the calm before the storm. On that point we have started calling ourselves inmates instead of residents. Those who have been forced to isolate before, having been in prison or like minded institutions, are fairing best. They know the importance of having a strict timetable to your day, never multi task, just take one thing at a time, that way it fills the time. All the homeless know what it feel likes to be isolated, and when you come to think about it, homelessness is the ultimate form of isolation. But it’s the young who are having the hardest time which is hardly surprising, it’s all new to them, and they don’t have enough past experiences to lean on. Strangely the addicts, alcohol, drugs etc are also rather sedated. I have been reliably informed that they stockpiled just like the rest of the country and all of them know their way around the dark web. We seem to be getting more post than normal.

There may be a reason for this, because within my own cluster of four rooms and a kitchen, two have gone to stay with family and friends for the duration, only returning to keep up there tenancy by paying the service charges. Also the seventy two year old Colombian gentleman who has been my neighbour and friend for the last two years has been ‘moved on’. Camden Council oﬀered him a flat in the Borough of Haringey. For those who don’t know, when you leave one borough for another, all the obligations of the former are lost forever. Camden has been pushing this ‘Lebensraum’ or as they like to call it, resettlement, for years. But since the government’s advice that the over seventies are supposed to be all self-isolating, Camden is still more concerned with moving people on than protecting their lives. They told him he had to view the flat as it was part of the contract that he he had signed with them. Just like the DWP gets you job seeking, so Camden imposes accommodation seeking. Anyway, he went and viewed the flat and liked it. He moved in two days later but was a little concerned when he found out that the previous tenant was an elderly gentleman who they suspected had died of Coronavirus.

Strange developments in my homeless community. In general people are spending more and more time in their rooms. And when I go for my constitutional right of exercise in the morning in the park opposite, I very rarely see any of the other inmates. Just the occasional one at reception. When the ‘Red Cross’ parcels of food arrive, usually at the beginning of the week, there used to be about four or five of us, but now just one or two.

12.4.20

Things are getting very ‘eerie’ in my homeless hostel. Meeting someone on the stairway is now rare. The lift is for the disabled only - something about maintaining social distance. There’s also been strange developments in my cluster. Mo, a Somalian refugee, returned for a single night. In another life, I used to teach him English at Arlington House, the largest hostel in London. He stayed one night and went back to his wife. It’s complicated as they say. The young lad opposite, isolating somewhere else, has had his room visited by a team of four, two in police uniforms. All I got out of his key worker was that he is a ‘client of the state’ and that his ‘residence’ at the hostel was on-going. Make of this what you will. The room unoccupied since my Colombian friend moved on, has been turned down twice, but staﬀ weren’t very forthcoming about exactly why. It is rather galling when you lack basic information about the comings and goings of where you live. This doesn’t help the growing sense of not really being in this crisis ‘together’. So, at this time of writing, I’m in the same situation I was a week ago. I still have a cluster all to myself but am living, as are so many others, an increasingly surreal existence.

20.4.20

On the homelessness front, I’ve started to receive some disturbing news, both anecdotal and factual. Like in Manchester; for example; 25% of those housed have left, disappeared or been kicked out. I hear that London is no better. I also receive almost daily horror stories about Universal Credit. As I keep saying, we have won some battles but to hold the ground gained, we must face the fact that this war will be long and bloody - and I’m not talking about the virus, but the real enemy who denied us basic human rights on Housing, Welfare and Health, and not least, the right to life.

27.4.20

Let’s start with my cluster in my hostel, a microcosm of the homeless community. ‘Mo’ returned for Ramadan. He seems he can’t handle watching his child and partner eat while he can’t. I cooked him some chicken which sadly he couldn’t eat for a couple of hours but at least he didn’t have to watch me stuﬀ my face. We have a new resident/inmate finally in the room of my friend, the Colombian. I haven’t met him yet, he keeps himself to himself, but something strange happened. His fridge, we all have our own fridges in the kitchen, disappeared. I reported this to reception and they replied ‘no comment’. Maybe he took the fridge and ran, nothing would surprise me any more. And by the way, the young lad opposite that was a ‘client of the state’ is, well, still a ‘client of the state’.

URSULA RUCKER

SPOKEN WORD RECORDING ARTIST

PHILADELPHIA

black pain and anger and wailing and moaning and teeth-gnashing makes people nervous... people seem used to black people just taking it on the chin and keeping it moving, huh? you know...all long-suﬀering n everything... like the slave-genre type ﬂicks many people seem to love so much... you know...black misery sells...right? 11

â&#x20AC;&#x153;look at those black people maaaaaan...they take a licking...and just keep on ?ckin! they can take anything! wow. knock â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;em down...n they just get right back up. awww man those black folks...theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re so resilient.â&#x20AC;? đ&#x;¤Ź đ&#x;&#x2DC;¤ đ&#x;¤Ż đ&#x;&#x2DC;Ą does my guEural pain and anger...my peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s guEural pain and anger...make you uncomfortable? make you nervous? make you want to pat our heads and tell us everything is going to be ok? make you want to take up arms and stand beside us to fend oďŹ&#x20AC; these devils who dream and fantasize about our demise and suďŹ&#x20AC;ering? does our guEural pain...frighten you? does it make you moan and lament and wail and languish and gnash your teeth in real true solidarity and communal mourning??? đ&#x;¤&#x201D; đ&#x;¤&#x201D; đ&#x;¤&#x201D; would you rather me and my people HIDE our pain and anger...you know...so you could feel less guilty...and more comfortable??? you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want me to ruin your Saturday morning...your toast with coďŹ&#x20AC;ee...your breakfast table conversa?ons about shit you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know anything about and have never cared to learn, right??? you know...muddy up your safe morning with all my pain and anger n shit, right??? you have no idea what this pain and anger feels like. you have no idea what this pain and anger feels like. you have no idea what this pain and anger feels like. you have no idea what this pain and anger feels like. you have no idea what this pain and anger feels like. you have no idea what this pain and anger feels like. you have no idea what this pain and anger feels like. you have no idea what this pain and anger feels like. you have no idea what this pain and anger feels like. (9x...for the almost 9 motherfucking minutes that monsterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s knee was on George Floydâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s neck bringing him closer to his fucking mama ?l he called out to her as his life was draining out of his body on the fucking street in front of all...like a fucking side show act!!!!!!!) but you want us to not emote too much right now, right? you want me to be nice right now, right? be â&#x20AC;&#x153;all-inclusiveâ&#x20AC;? right now, right? you know...like weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been doing...and now we here. well...RIGHT NOW...many of us...would much rather...EMOTE...than VOTE. I will always keep LOVE & COMPASSION as my greatest defense and protec?on...but I ainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t buying those ONE WORLD type â&#x20AC;&#x153;wolf ?cketsâ&#x20AC;? right bout now. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll make a bonďŹ re...and eďŹ&#x192;gy ďŹ&#x201A;ame...with those wolf ?ckets today!!! I feel betrayed. mawnin...from the full belly...of Mama America...who eats her young...most especially the tasty black ones.

Used with kind permission of the Ar?st 12

WHAT IF WE PULLED THEM ALL DOWN?

by Roland Denning

When the statue of Edward Colston was toppled and dumped into Bristol harbour on June 7th, the majority of voices I heard were jubilant. This was not an erasure of history, this was history being made! Of course, I was listening within my virtual echo chamber, but I sDll heard a few voices of dissent. Not arguing so much that the statue should have remained, but the way it was pulled down – through the passion of the mob rather than balanced discussion; OK if it’s Saddam Hussein, maybe, but for a ﬂawed but philanthropic Englishman? Others asked are we trying to purge our guilt by erasing the past? What about all the other symbols of oppression? Are any of the great leaders of the past totally virtuous? What if we pulled them all down? Edward Colston was Deputy Governor of the Royal African Company, founded in 1660 by Charles II (his statue stands in Soho Square) and his brother The Duke of York who later became James II (his is in front of the NaDonal Gallery). Both Samuel Pepys (near Tower Hill) and John Locke (outside the Royal Academy) invested in the Company. The Royal African Company shipped more African slaves to the Americas than any other insDtuDon; it transported around 212,000 human beings as cargo, shackled and packed as Dghtly as possible. 44,000 died on route. Many were branded with iniDals ‘DY’ which stood for the Duke of York (there’s another statue in University College, Oxford). At the height of the slave trade in 1740, James Thomson (memorials in Princes Street, Edinburgh and Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey) wrote ‘Rule Britannia’, which includes the line Britons never shall be slaves. When sung by Union Jack draped jingoists at the Last Night of the Proms, an extra two ‘nevers’ are added. What appears to some as jolly and harmless patrioDsm obscures the truth: our colonial power and arrogance came from brutality, not racial superiority.

It was not unDl 1833 that slavery was abolished throughout the BriDsh Empire. The act provided for compensaDon, not to the slaves, but to the slave owners, of £20m - 5% of the GDP at the Dme. The loan from the banks to cover this compensaDon was not paid back unDl 2015. Many of those families who received compensaDon are now deep-rooted in the establishment and remain fabulously wealthy; I don’t have the Dme, space or inclinaDon to menDon all their memorials. But the slaves have none. But where do we draw the line? - ask those ohso-reasonable voices. If we pulled down all the statues to those who gained their power and riches through what today seem immoral ways, the monuments to all the insDtuDons who supported them and the ﬁgures of state who allowed it all to happen, would there be anything lej? Part of me shouts ‘who cares, pull the fuckers down!’ and let the voids that are lej be spaces for us to imagine a greater future. Beker, perhaps, to leave some, to cover some up, to move some to museums, to capDon and contextualise others, to do whatever takes to make us think and understand about how we got here. There have been arguments in Bristol about what to do about the Colston statue for many years, about how to change the plaque to make it appropriate for the current day, but no one could agree on what the plaque should say. In the end the people (and call them a ‘mob’ if you prefer – I really don’t care) took it upon themselves to toss the statue which, ajer all was just a lump of metal, into the waters where so many human beings had been reduced to spoilt cargo. I, for one, was delighted.

101 LEISURE ACTIVITIES by Sally Kindberg When mundane activities are isolated, in both a formal and temporal sense, they may become mysterious. The activity and/or the importance of the objects involved is exaggerated and meaning is questioned. How many times does an action have to be repeated before it is seen as excessive? Does its function become obsolete? How many everyday activities are manifestations of an obsession? Are they necessary to reassure us that we have some control over our lives? How important is our own commitment to everyday rituals?

16 Copyright remains with author

ON MY MANTLEPIECE

As anyone I know will tell you, I am obsessed with light fittings. It is not surprising, therefore, that the first item on my mantlepiece is a clear and green resin light with a slightly battered flock paper shade. I bought it shortly after I moved into my flat. I was, at this time, in my usual career fug and working temporarily for my cousin. One fine Friday, my cousin announced that we were closing the office and going to The Brass Rail in Selfridges for lunch. It was such an unexpected, and illicit treat that, in a surge of sunny optimism, I decided to treat myself to a lamp I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need and could barely afford. Oh well, I still really like it in spite of the fact it no longer works. Leaning against it is a postcard with a picture of a resplendent Lord Byron. Behind the lamp is a gold sacred heart shield. I bought this in Columbia Road on one of my relatively regular Sunday ambles with close friend, Philippa. As a devoted atheist, it seems that I have an uncontrollable predilection for Catholic iconography. For some reason of aesthetics, it appeals to my magpie nature. Next to the shield is an oval mirror in its ornate wooden frame featuring two carved cherubs. It belonged to my parents and is not necessarily something I would be drawn to, but

I do love it and it reminds me of home. Next to that is a glass and brass Modernist wall lamp that was once part of a pair and bought for the bargain price of 30 Euros from an Italian market. I bought them, not because I had anywhere to put them, but because they appealed and because they were obviously a worthwhile investment. I then proceeded to smash one of them! We then move on to an ostensibly bizarre collection of objects. A hand, a birthday present from a dear friend, A fabric-wrapped, seriously foxed, French mirror made by a brilliant Stylist called Hew. The mirror is too high to serve any useful human purpose, but staring into the glass are two deer, one standing on the mirrored base of a previously shattered glass dome. Nonsense, I know, but I find the whimsy comforting. The strange papier machĂŠ head sporting a muslin bonnet is, I have been told, just plain weird and possibly even sinister. I love it! The minute that I spotted it, I knew my life would be incomplete without it. Three of my very best friends presented it to me on my birthday which, in itself, endows it with meaning. 17

The seal light (a black china seal balancing a ballshaped shade) at the other end of the mantlepiece was sort of stolen. It is a complicated story featuring a break-up so I won’t go there – suffice it to say, I don’t think there is any lingering animosity. My house is strewn with animal imagery – and animals come to that! I like them even more than Catholic iconography. Talking of obsessions, please don’t read too much into the two crowns and the raven. I just needed them. Finally, there is rather a strange black and white photograph of people ballroom dancing. One man’s face is foregrounded in a very peculiar way. I have not a clue as to who any of these people are. The photo was bought at my brilliant local junk shop and is quite mysterious in a Graham Greene sort of way. Above the fireplace is a framed photograph by the lovely and talented Red Saunders whose dedicated political activism brought us Rock Against Racism. The model is Red’s dog, Finn, wearing ethereal feathery wings and is another treasured birthday present. Oh, I forgot to say that the seal light, like the resin lamp, doesn’t work. It seems that I am a devotee of the Blanche Dubois school of lighting. As a friend of mine never tires of saying ‘For someone who cannot stop buying light fittings, your home just gets darker and darker!’ Personally, I prefer to think it gets

CURIOUSER

& CURIOUSER By Lesley Davis

BY DULCIE ANDREWS Above my mantelpiece is an oil painting of a cliff in Cornwall - I don’t exactly know where but it is a very typical view. My parents bought it when I was a baby and it always hung over the fireplace in our home, no matter where we lived. The painter is G E Treweek who was born in 1869 and is quite well known for painting the Cornish coastline. Somebody who knows about art told me that the painting could be quite valuable but that it is also very dirty due to hanging over a coal fire for many years. I would never part with it. The other traditional family mantelpiece item is the candelabra which is an oddity made by my mother’s father’s metal foundry in Birmingham around a century ago - it is a bit bent and wonky!

the 1970s and a Caithness paperweight which I gave to my mum for her birthday one year as she loved Caithness glass.

I love green glass as you can see - the tall glass vase was left to me by a very dear friend and looks wonderful with lilies. The other glass vase is a boot sale find (cracked) and has roses in it which I stole from next door’s garden (they are away for the duration) and the red ones smell amazing. The three green balls are (biggest to smallest) a float from a lobster pot without its net, a doorstop from my Dad’s shop in

The two cards at the back are proud winners of the Christmas Card Competition which my daughters and I hold every year where we pick our joint favourite - the glittery deer from 2018 is from Lesley - a big moment for her when we announced that she had won!

The beautiful seagull light is a gift from my friend Lesley and much treasured. The two big seashells are there because I like them and my living room has quite a seaside vibe. There is also a bit of a peculiarity shells and a seahorse preserved in plastic (broken but mended) which I was given as a holiday present as a child. I saw it in a seaside gift shop and wanted it sooo badly! The scented candle is by Oh James - they make a range of fabulous scents and do a trial pack so you can sample them all to chose your favourite (good gift idea).

Finally, there are my rose-tinted spectacles through which I like to view life and the TV.

CAKE RECIPES TO KEEP YOU SWEET

Peanut Butter Cookies MAKES ABOUT 40 140g/5oz butter 110g/4oz caster sugar 110g/4oz soft light brown sugar 1 large egg, beaten 110g/4oz crunchy peanut butter 2 teaspoons vanilla essence 200g/7oz plain flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking powder

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/35O°F/gas mark 4 2. Cream the butter and both sugars together until  smooth and soft. Beat in the egg, then the peanut  butter, and add the vanilla essence. 3. Sift the flour with the salt and the baking  powder into the mixture and stir until smooth.  Do not over beat or the dough will be oily. 4. Roll the mixture into small balls with the  fingers and place well apart on 3 un-greased  baking sheets. Flatten with the prongs of a fork. 5. Bake in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes  to an even, not too dark, brown. 6. While hot, ease off the baking sheets with a  palette knife or fish slice and cool on a wire rack  Once completely cold and crisp, store in an  airtight container. 21

Julia Sutton brings us scrumptious

GĂ˘teau Lockdown A wickedly gooey chocolate cake made with ground almonds in place of difficult-to-find flour. I never ice this cake, preferring to drizzle it with warmed apricot jam immediately before serving. You will need about 6 tbsp of jam for the whole cake. Or, if you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t wait, eat it as it is. For the cake you will need: 180g dark chocolate (70 per cent cocoa) 175g softened butter (either salted or unsalted) 125g unrefined sugar 200g ground almonds 4 eggs, separated. Heat the oven to 150Âş C and line a 25 cm push-bottom tin with baking parchment. 1. Break the chocolate and melt the pieces in a bainmarie. ( i.e a bowl over a pan of simmering water) 2. Cream together the butter and sugar till pale and soft. Add the ground almonds, egg yolks and melted chocolate and beat until blended evenly. 3. Whisk the egg whites until stiff enough to stand up in peaks, and quickly fold into the cake mixture with a large metal spoon. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 35 minutes. 4. The cake is finished when a crust has formed on the top, but a quick pierce reveals that the middle is still a little bit squishy. (Not unlike a giant brownie.) Leave to cool a bit and carefully remove from the tin. (I usually leave it on the metal base, but remove the parchment from around the sides, so that the warm jam can run down.) If you really must ice this cake: simply melt 100g dark chocolate (70 per cent cocoa) with 50g of butter in a bain-marie, and while still warm, drizzle over the cake and leave to set.

Lockdown Pursuits â&#x20AC;&#x201C; A Stained Glass Window By Philippa Hayes

One of the positive aspects of lockdown has been the newly found time and space to revisit old hobbies. Making stained glass windows and panels was something I used to love doing. So I decided it was time to unearth those dusty boxes of glass and lead that have been languishing under a worktop for years and see, if, like riding a bike, the process would all come back to me. Here is the process and the result.

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Good Year for the Roses 25

By Dulcie Andrews

Faultless Felines

The very adorable Iris Beloved Jarvis

Pasha - messing about on the river.

Sid - t h Hamp e scruďŹ&#x20AC;y an stead d irasc s he is f ed by tray. In case ible the wh ole ne you worry, ighbou rhood .

One of the best things that I have done during lockdown is to begin a Yin Yoga practice with Gail Stephens. Here she discusses the many benefits of the practice. (Ed: with newly liberated hips)

“Between the stimulus and the response there is a space, and in that space lies our power and our freedom” (Victor Frankl)

By Gail Stephens

Apparently, the best way to catch a monkey is to take a pot, one with a small opening, and put inside it something which is delicious to monkeys – perhaps some peanuts. The monkey will put in its hand and grab the peanuts. But, to take its hand out of the pot, the monkey has to let go of the peanuts……. The pracDce of yin yoga can be described as the pracDce of lemng go. As we come into each posture, the invitaDon is to find your edge – just the right amount of sensaDon, not too much and not too likle (think Goldilocks here); then come to sDllness and commit to hold the posture over Dme – usually between 2 and 5 minutes. We climb inside the posture, lingering here to allow the pracDce to do its work. NoDcing as well what happens, what changes – and what that feels like. Exploring into how it feels when we stop pushing and pulling, trying and doing, finding the space for the body to just be. What happens as the addicDve ‘doing’ part of the brain, with its craving for ever more sDmulaDon, comes into sDllness. In our yin yoga pracDce, we are working with the fascia; the interconnecDve Dssue which is omnipresent throughout the body. At first discarded as packing by the early anatomists in their quest to map out the musculature of the human body, the fascia is now recognised as perhaps the richest sensory organ – our sixth sense. If we could – like the hippopotamus in the Just So stories – take off our skin, we would stand sheathed in a white net body stocking of fascia. Fascia exists deep inside the muscles, in the muscle spindles, around each muscle, intertwining with ligaments and tendons; creaDng long chains of myofascial units so that the whole body is one systemic interconnected enDty.

with each other. They also carry awareness of internal sensaDons from the skin and the viscera, so that we have an understanding of our emoDons as visceral experiences. That nagging sense of overwhelm, where can you feel it? Perhaps it’s that tension in the neck and the jaw, which in turn inhibits the hip flexors and impacts on the way in which we hold the body and walk. Perhaps it’s the knot in the centre of the chest which causes us to hunch forward, weakening the muscles in the chest and altering the way we breathe. PropriocepDve and interocepDve informaDon is sent to the brain via the spinal cord for processing, so that we can make sense of sensaDons that have arisen for us, and take decisions based on preexisDng informaDon, beliefs and expectaDons. It is, of course, possible to mis-read sensory data and become stuck in repeDDve, maladapDve and/or addicDve pakerns of behaviour. Within VedanDc philosophy, this exploraDon into a sense of ‘who am I’ and ‘why am I’ comes from an understanding of the Pancha Koshas, the five sheaths (or bodies) which make us who we are. The physical body (anamaya kosha), and the energy body (pranamaya kosha), send informaDon to the mind body (manomaya kosha); the aspects of the mind body, manas (thought or data collector), buddhi (logic), ahamkara (ego) and chika (memory) build a percepDon of self and the world, and influence our behaviour and interacDon with ourselves and those around us. The science of ancient philosophy, the mystery of modern science.

The fascia is rich in both propriocepDve and interocepDve receptors, sending fast messages from the body to the brain, creaDng our awareness of self, our body image. These messages carry the sense of where the body is in space, how it relates to other objects, and how diﬀerent parts of the body interact 28

Giving the Clap - A Personal Reflection

Murray Anderson-Wallace

As the final “clap” took place last night, I paused to reflect on the depth of my ambivalence about this, the most prominent pandemic ritual. Why would a simple idea that I know has brought forth such a crucial sense of comfort, unity and collective appreciation to so many at a time of national crisis, provoke such a deep sense of discomfort in me?

As I watched COVID-19 tear its way through Italy and Spain; racing toward our green and pleasant lands with

alarming speed, the many public expressions of solidarity emerging across Europe seemed to symbolise the fortitude of our fellow human beings, a feeling we all wanted to emulate as the pandemic struck.

And sure enough, the “clap for carers” emerged, and for 10 weeks people stood together, united against the pandemic; clapping, banging pan-lids and generally getting to know the neighbours they had never met, enjoying seeing people in 3D.

As someone who has worked in and around the NHS for more than 37 years, the “clap” made me feel immediately uncomfortable. Aside from the fact that I had always thought that giving someone “the clap” was most definitively to be avoided - and if not avoided, something certainly to be quickly treated- I was confronted with a diﬃcult and painful paradox.

On the one hand, the Thursday “clap” was a clear symbol of an anxious and grateful nation, seeking a way to show solidarity with healthcare workers who have tended the sick and dying sometimes in almost impossible circumstances. It has symbolised the shared high esteem in which the public holds the NHS, and the underlying values upon which it is founded; socialist principles of fair access to healthcare regardless of the ability to pay; emphasising that the health of the nation is a matter for communities and for the state, and not for shareholders and the market.

At the same time, the “clap” has become a symbol of a Government heavy on spin, sound-bytes and empty rhetoric; people more than happy to use the anxiety of the public to satisfy their insatiable appetite for validation and self aggrandisement. As one senior medical leader commented to me during week 3 “Never mind the fucking clapping, we just want adequate rest and the proper equipment to do our jobs safely”. Moreover, many healthcare professionals do not want to be seen as “heroes” or “angels” - indeed, it usually makes them cringe. They want to be seen for what they are - hardworking professionals doing their jobs under very

diﬃcult conditions that were arguably avoidable and should have been foreseen. For some shaking oﬀ the simplistic public fantasies of their working lives has taken decades. In my own specialism, this is a very real safety issue as years of learning from clinical error has been undermined by the narratives of infallibility and perfection, propagated and sustained by the “hero” narrative; creating a culture of silence, shame and denial.

The harsh reality is that the NHS in England has been subject to legislation that since 2012 has expanded the healthcare “market” and turned it into an increasingly fragile system that has struggled to consistently provide high quality care for all. It is a system that has been “hollowed out” by years of austerity and the increasing demands arising from growing health and social inequalities; organisationally crippled by the dead hand of central bureaucracy, short term-ism and political interference.

Despite protests to the contrary, successive Governments have maintained the overall position, allowing some quiet subversion of the legislation, and in the process haplessly created a bodged soup of policy ideas. More dangerously perhaps, this ineptitude and inertia has encouraged a culture of silence, rather than the need for an open conversation about the inevitable change that most insiders know is required.

And so, to me at least, the “clap” also represents the dishonest, cynical manipulations of a Government that will be shown to have lied and cheated its way through the Pandemic.

LOCKDOWN SAFETY THE INTERPRETATION OF A HENDON GP

My thoughts on what the messages from government mean. It sounds vague but that’s partly because people are all in diﬀerent situations, and because to some extent people can do what’s right for them and their families within reason. Many countries have allowed people to use their own judgment rather than impose laws about lockdown.

It means keep your distance. There won’t be sports events, pubs, restaurants, theatres, weddings and shopping centres for now but maybe it’s ok to visit a friend outdoors.   And a few more people can go back to work.

If you compare this to your normal number of interactions with people it remains vastly reduced. No crowded tube to work, walking through city centre crowds, busy oﬃces and hot-desking, lunch in a pub, dinner in a restaurant then a concert or club but it’s ok to meet a friend for a walk.

We don’t know what a perfect plan for the UK looks like as we are in uncharted waters. Both for bringing in lockdown and for lifting it. The virus quite possibly follows the same pattern whatever restrictions are in place. Death rates reflect a multitude of factors including age, population density, air quality, weight, diabetes, race, genetics, vitamin D levels and no doubt factors yet to be defined.

It means that we have to stop seeing everyone as the enemy and recognise that of course it would be nice if this endless Bank Holiday paid for by the government/tax payer/our children’s economic future could continue but realistically it can’t.

Comparisons with other countries are hard to make as so many factors are variable including genetics which can aﬀect how immune systems function. People keep bring up New Zealand but it’s an almost nonsensical comparison given its small population, low population density, and isolation from the rest of the world. Just think how many Brits travelled abroad and how many tourists to the UK there were from December to March. Our international population travelling to visit family and for holidays at Xmas and half term is like stirring the world with a massive wooden spoon centred on London!

Lockdown has achieved what it set out to do and last months social media hysteria about rationing of ventilators, old people left to die because of lack of beds etc has not come to pass. We flattened the curve and did not run out of hospital beds or ventilators, or oxygen. It was tight in places at times but the NHS was not overwhelmed and no one died as a sacrifice to rationing of care.

Lockdown aﬀects people diﬀerently and vast swathes of the country live in tiny, unpleasant accommodations with no out door space. Many people will not survive financially, physically or mentally if things don’t start to ease up.

Some people are clamouring for tighter restrictions like those in other countries, but at the same time are vociferously against things like ID cards, mandatory registration of change of address, or mandatory tracking of your movements which those countries use.

So what do today’s modifications to lockdown mean? I agree ‘Be alert’ seems an odd slogan. We have to be alert for unattended packages on the tube. I think I would have gone for ‘Be sensible’.   Roughly translated it means we need to use common sense, pragmatism and learn to live with uncertainty.

It means we have to start getting more of the NHS moving again. Not all, not like it was, but looking at how we can get operations done for example, as many people are suﬀering in pain while they wait. Some are waiting for heart operations which means that their current cardiac function is not good making them more at risk of complications of covid or other infections than they would be once the heart is fixed. These are diﬃcult balancing considerations.  31

It means staying home not mixing in society is creating a new pathology, a hysteria that sees the outside world as life threatening and everyone else as the enemy. There was always a risk if you step out the front door that you would be at risk from vehicles, nogoodniks, diseases, your own clumsiness and poor choices. There was never a cast iron guarantee if you stepped outside the door that you would make it home alive and well. Granted this is on a whole new scale.

Stop expecting cast iron guarantees. There are none. Stop thinking that there ever was one course of action the government / country could have taken that would have meant no one got sick and no one would die. There never was. Every death is awful and dying a lonely, maybe painful or breathless death in hospital separated from loved ones has brought previously unimaginable levels of suffering to the dying and those close to them.

It means we are happy to clap NHS workers but are unwilling to do our bit (teachers refusing to go back to work at all even if adaptations are brought in like overseas and despite the evidence that children don’t seem to be dangerous vectors after all). Plenty people have continued working throughout and not just NHS and carers: drivers, mechanics, builders, plumbers, electricians, gardeners, supermarket and grocery staff. There are people picking crops, cooking in the places you are getting take aways from etc etc so it has never been 100% lockdown.

Could things have been done differently? Undoubtedly. Might the outcomes have been different? Maybe. We are not through this pandemic yet. It’s far too early to draw conclusions. Countries that appear not to have been badly hit may just be earlier on the curve. Death rates? We will never know for sure because in the UK we have not tested in the community and testing is still patchy. Where I work in Hendon, like other parts of NW London, was hit early. Colleagues clearly had it but before testing for HCWs ( health care workers) was brought in, huge numbers of our patients have clearly had it and no doubt many more who didn’t call us. None have been tested so they don’t count in the stats.   Unless the scientists can develop a reliable antibody test and we test the entire nation apart from those who had a positive test, we won’t know how many people had it and what the 30,000 + fatalities represents. Even the death certification is unreliable as many deaths that occurred in the community early on only mentioned covid if it was suspected and it may have been listed as a cause based on clinical suspicion rather than a test, so again unreliable.

You are scared? We’re all scared. We have to learn to live with an extra element of fear now. But we have to live. For those without added risks, it’s time to put a toe in the water. Not yet time for a swim!     It’s time to ease it a little bit more. A few more people mixing with a few more people.     But be sensible ( alert does seem an odd word ) wash your hands after going shopping or filling up the car or visiting your parents. Many people are already doing garden visits but taking their own refreshments etc    It’s also a reality that different parts of the country are in different parts of the curve. London was hit early and new cases are reducing but other places are not there yet. Geographical variations could be an option but doesn’t seem to be being suggested ( beyond the four ‘nations’).

Anyway dear friends, take a deep breath as we move onwards. Try not to let your fears rule your head and your heart. Try to find some perspective and some balance. Be sensible, pragmatic, and imaginative. Be safe and don’t get swept up in hysteria.

Review

by Lesley Davis

Although Homecoming may not relate directly to the Covid19 pandemic, it is about transition. A stylish and evocative production with mythic resonance, it makes us question the shifting nature of reality and the inherent unreliability of human character.

Homecoming is, in essence, a mystery. The first series is quite a lavish affair set in a transitional facility for Veterans where Counsellor, Heidi Bergman (Julia Roberts), is employed to help soldiers come to terms with their experiences so they can return to active service. Traumatised war vets are encouraged to sever themselves from the past in order to embrace a new future. The ‘patients’ have every aspect of their life controlled and monitored by the employees of the shadowy GEIST Organisation which is headed up by a charismatic and elusive maverick, the aptly named Leonard Geist (Chris Cooper). It is only in the second series that we actually get to meet Leonard - a familiar contemporary stock character - who is fascinating and repellent in equal measure. In Series 1, the authority figure is Head of Facility, Colin Belfast (Bobby Cannavale). Colin is full-on Corporate man - manic and intimidating with, one suspects, his own

murky agenda. The central Veteran character is Walter Cruz (Stephan James), a likeable soldier, who is wary of the mode of his rehabilitation. Although he ostensibly complies with Heidi’s therapeutic methods, he is not averse to playing subtle mind games. One senses that he remembers more than he is prepared to let on. Moving between past and present, we struggle to understand why the highly polished corporate staffer, Heidi, left the facility to live with her mother and work as a waitress in a diner. The characters are intriguing because their experiences and life choices are hard to decipher. What they wish to achieve and to what end is not self-evident which in many ways aligns our experience as viewer to that of Walter’s and Heidi’s. We get the overall gist but we don’t quite trust anyone’s testimony or motivation. 33

As we move to Homecoming 2, it becomes even clearer that the series is playing with notions of truth, identity and memory. If experiences are re-framed through therapy or, we suspect, other more sinister means, does trauma give way to something equally disconcerting – the sense that part of our core has been erased? The series plays on our general paranoia and fears around monolithic corporate culture and how it chips away at our very being. The second series is an epilogue to the first. Diverging radically in style from Series 1, it offers up far shorter episodes and revolves around Alex or is it Jackie? (Janelle Monáe). Heidi, the Julia Roberts character, has vanished in much the same way that Janet Leigh does 20 minutes into Psycho. The series initial pull (and most significant actor) simply exits the stage – a McGuffin. Instead our central protagonist (and importantly the person that we identify with) becomes Alex/Jackie a woman who finds herself, in the initial sequence, floating in a boat in the dead of night. An overt visual metaphor reminiscent of Arthur Penn’s existential last shot in Night Moves, both she and the audience are disorientated, have no inkling as to her identity or how she came to be here. Together, we follow the visual clues in the eternal hope that they are not all red herrings. The style of Homecoming is pure Hitchcock. Dialogue is sparse, colours are often sumptuous, music is atmospheric and the audience is misdirected and kept in a state of permanent suspense. Particularly satisfying are the long end credit sequences; showing people simply going about their business, they appear extraneous.

Accompanied by a music-less sound scape that is muffled, dreamy and far away, each episode simply fades out leaving the audience discombobulated and frequently none the wiser. The world and its inhabitants are rarely what they seem. As we drift back and forward in time in this strange temporal landscape, we gain understanding of how the two series connect. There is also a cathartic payoff although this cannot allay all our uncertainties. We are never clear whether the denouement signifies destruction or the hope of a psychological re-set. The characters, archetypal in nature, are united in their capacity for self-delusion and concealment. In this world peopled by opportunists, careless pragmatists, corporate fixers and self-styled leaders, we side, inevitably with the everyman, Walter Cruz. To all intents and purposes, he is as the struggling underdog who, having tried and failed to go native (echoes of Huckleberry Finn), must return to seek moral recompense and closure. Interestingly true to literary notions of the American Dream (think Gatsby), Homecoming is on the side of those with conviction, however questionable or misguided. Those driven purely by ambition or lazy expediency are severely relegated. They, it seems, are the real villains of the piece. Whatever it is they are forced to endure, Boy, did they have it coming.

Homecoming Series 1 & 2 is currently available on Amazon Prime.

Lockdown Doodling

by Eva Pentel

STYLE DURING CRISIS Even in times of crisis we can wear the clothes that bring pleasure! What do you like to wear for your exercise walk?

Original approaches to soft furnishings can be a welcome distraction in these hard times. Your walls may not be padded, but at least they can be softened!

Luckily the local community is on hand the remove any unsightly graffiti as you go about your daily exercise walk. Can you tell us what was written on the wall?

Gas can come in almost everywhere - through the windows, under the door, down the chimney, up through the floorboards, even via those strange holes at the top of the wall. Luckily, gas is easy to see. Look for the small red arrows. When you find one, turn it around and the gas will leave the room as easily as it came in. Tell gas it is not welcome here!

You should always have a scoop and hoe by your side. You never know what might come through the window. What other uses can you think of for the scoop and hoe?

Please be aware: Lazlo’s perspective on the world may not coincide with yours; he is a cat and you, most probably, are not

The other side of the flap Lazlo, like all of us, is in lockdown. Unlike us, he can go through the flap any time he wants. What are his predictions for life when all this is over? 1. Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings will be locked up together in Battersea. Suitable owners will not be found so they are likely to die in their cages, drowning in their own litter. They will continue to claim they have not broken any rules and believe they still command respect. 2. Cats will be allowed to operate drones. Humans have had their share of fun making cats chase laser beams, it is time to get our own back. The first experiment at Gatwick last year was a great success. 3. Vladimir Putin will be elected President of the USA in November. He will confirm that there has been no collusion with this or previous US regimes. Few will notice the diﬀerence. Note from Editor: We not sure whether this is Lazlo’s attempt at satire, or if he is merely confused. 4. The law restricting cats to 5 Dreamies a day will be abolished. Note from Editor : yes we know there isn’t really such a law, but please don’t tell Lazlo. The restriction is for his own benefit. 5. Catnip will be legalised. Note from Editor : yes, we know… see above. 6. French poodles will continue to wear yellow vests and make a lot of yapping noise. We will let them believe they are changing the world. (Note from Editor.: Lazlo’s political alliances are unclear at times – like all cats, he is reluctant to join public protests and is fundamentally a bourgeois individualist). 7. Brexit negotiations will continue until the dogs and the other ardent Brexiteers die oﬀ. Once the barking has ceased, no one will remember what it was about in the first place. 8. I'm bored now and need a nap. Wake me up when you’ve found the Dreamies.

RIP George Floyd 14.10.1973 - 25.05.2020