How is it that the time from March through to September took about four years to pass by whilst September itself took about three days?
And, before I continue, may I be allowed to acknowledge a moment of schadenfreude derived from the news that Trump has tested positive for Coronavirus.
When I attended the performance of Mahler 2 back at the beginning of March, I didn't think that the impact of Covid would be so deep or last so long. So, it was good to be attending a live music event after about some seven months even though it felt like four years.
We entered into the spirit of things with ample social distancing...
...and face masks.
When Roland and I booked for this concert, the conductor was meant to be Joshua Weilerstein. In the event, Mr Weilerstein was caught out by Covid travel restrictions and was replaced by Thomas Jung.
My only previous encounter with Mr Weilerstein's conducting left me underwhelmed so I was more than willing to give Thomas Jung a trial hearing and by goodness he was good. I don't think that it was merely the joy of live music making me uncritical either.
Programmes for this series of concerts have been chosen to last around an hour and are to be played without interval and with limited platform movement. With the change of conductor, there was also a change of programme with Copland's evergreen Fanfare for the Common Man being replaced by a more substantial piece by Arvo Pärt.
All in all, it was a wonderfully enjoyable evening of music making, well worth a shout at the end from the socially distanced hall.
Mozart's Divertimento in D is (and was intended by the composer to be) a slight piece but it was given with both attention to classical detail and with fun and so was a perfect aperitif. I'd not previously heard a live performance of Arvo Pärt's Fratres for violin, strings and percussion. Thelma Hardy played her heart out. And it was sublime, crystalline perfection - a meditation on pain, loss, companionship, support, suffering - perfect for these times. And then Beethoven's Symphony No.4 bounced us through to the end of the concert with swing, dash and verve. Yes. Well worth a shout.
Everybody got 'complacent' over Covid? What an effing cheek!! Everybody did not get complacent. My family certainly didn't and nobody in my immediate circle did. And I would guess that that statement applies to most households. Certainly, there have been some from the offset whose behaviour has been cavalier. But everyone? I think not.
Maybe the everybody our Prime Minister refers to are those within his own circle. There's certainly one candidate who many people would point to as having set a very poor example.
There is, mind you, strong evidence to show that a loss of taste is a prime indicator of Covid-19 infection.
Liverpool Football Club appears to be taking some of the brunt of Covid humour at present.
Here's my footballing prediction for the year: no-one will run away with the league this year and half a dozen clubs will still realistically remaining in contention by Easter.
I think the look on the black guy's face really tell you all you need to know about this cataclysmic failure of tone.
Just when I thought that I had a grip on the current set of restrictions, our Prime Minister pops up on public broadcasting and completely muddies the waters with his endless stream of optimistic flummery and bluster. I'm simply fed up of him and wish I could get a gagging order. Weasel words such as "we also advise" abound. Is what follows is, therefore, part of the rules or not? I would assume not. I would assume it's guidance and to be followed according to circumstance. But am I right?
Roland got himself tangled in knots by trying to be forensically logical about it all. I'd suggest that the most reasonable approach is to be thoughtful (I reject the label cavalier as it throws too loaded a word into the mix). I don't think it's about rule breaking - that's a real red herring. And, being honest, I have an historically arrogant relationship with rules.
There is little logic in any of the current advice, guidance, rules when it comes to the public versus the private life. A teacher may spend all day with 100s of young people and colleagues, an office worker with dozens of colleagues at work, a shopper with many others whilst shopping but we have a rule of six when it comes to friends and family. Oh and I must suppose that logical families are families and covered by rules - I mention in passing all those adult friends of parents referred to as aunts and uncles.
Speaking to the BBC's Andrew Marr, the PM said there was "hope" in beating Covid, but called on the public to "act fearlessly but with common sense".
My understanding compass is currently spinning as though an AC magnetic field were generating massive interference. In the context of keeping Ross safe, sane and reasonably serene, I'm finding the undisciplined wash of contradictory messaging from central government most unhelpful. I ask the world at large...
I don't know if this is fake news or not. I could check to see if there have been any such government announcements but, to be perfectly honest, I can't be bothered any longer.
Our current government has prevaricated, lied, misled, obfuscated, recanted, refused, u-turned on its u-turns so much and so often in the past six months that I am quite happy to go with the working assumption that this is a likely truth because it fits the pattern of over-selling and under-performing that has underpinned their efforts.
And in further news on software, it would appear that much of the Test, Track and Trace data has been lost because the quantity of data involved broke the Microsoft spreadsheet on which it was being held. I'm sorry but £12bn for a broken spreadsheet. I ask you.
Drilling down a little further... Who specified Excel as the appropriate tool for an industrial scale data processing job? Or who didn't specify anything and left it to some poor minion to go with the office tool they were familiar with without being aware of the consequences? The lack of basic project management skills among the big data people being used currently is quite appalling.
And tangentially, since it is still about databases, House of Commons research briefings are quite clear that the UK will continue to drive wedges between itself and the EU on a purely dogmatic rather than pragmatic purpose.
Currently, there is no provision for the UK to access the ECHA's REACH database - containing detailed information about the intrinsic properties of chemical substances, for the purposes of human and environmental safety - thereby increasing the likelihood that this information will need to be re-registered on a UK-only database.
I wonder how many of Dom's crony consultants will need to be employed at £7,000 per day to input all of that data. In any case, it looks as though another industry is being prepared to go tits up. The post post-industrial employment landscape in North East England is looking bleak. I wonder how many Nissan workers regret voting to leave.
Mum went for an eye test and was pleased that her glasses are fit for purpose. Linda commented that she was "eagle eyed" which caused her to respond that "there's a lot of bad in the world". It took a while to explain that the word was eagle not evil. Hearing test is next on the agenda.
Mum was also delighted by the assessment that she had the eyes of a 70yr old. She was not so keen on being told that she could hold a pilot's license given that she can't drive.
And here in splendid clarity is a photograph of Manchester City's young star, Phil Foden, copping a crafty glance at the glory that is David Brooks' arse.
