Well, having reached the second of the government's milestones for re-opening the country to a more regular state of business, all was pronounced well.
Certainly, in the Liverpool City Region, the figures are all moving in the correct direction aided and abetted by the onset of warmer weather and brighter days.
I've also been doing the right thing as a citizen and Ross and I both obtained our lateral flow test kits from the testing centre up by Crosby Library. Both of us tested negative and so it is unlikely that we are infectious at present.
I used my "Get Out Of Jail Free" card so that I could visit mum in her room at the Old Vicarage. We had a very good first half hour where we looked at all sorts of photographs from the year so far so that she could see what various members of the family have been getting up to. Then, mum suddenly went all business like and started talking about what she wanted done with her money once she was dead. None of which was news but it was conducted under the assumption that either Linda and I were about to fall out and scrap over it or that there would be a conspiracy of some sort to access all or part of the sum. Maybe such worries are a part of being 93 but I have to say that it was wearying and upsetting.
Then I did my second piece of good citizenship through my membership of UK Biobank. I opted into a study they are running which detects those people in the population who have enough antibodies in their system to demonstrate that they have contracted and fought off Covid-19 and have not simply received an inoculation. Once again, my test proved negative so I've been successful with my observances of Covid safe practices so far.
Taking cautious advantage of these new freedoms, Ross and I have already sat outside Storyhouse in Crosby Village for a cup of coffee on a couple of occasions now. I've also been up to Formby with Roland for a drink at The Freshfields pub. I find that Continental style lager tastes fine out of a bottle but you cannot beat the taste of an English beer hand pumped from a cask in the cellar. There is a quality to that taste which can't be bottled.
I also met up with some Quakers on Crosby Beach which was lovely.
And I finally made use of some of my Christmas money to purchase a portable desk so that I can easily set up camp in the back garden to write this Journal. Its absolute main advantage is the ease with which I can shift location to both track the sun and keep out of Ross's way whilst he's gardening.
I also took the opportunity to catch another of the Met's online broadcasts - Shostakovich's The Nose based on a short satirical piece by Gogol. I've seen the piece one time before at the Buxton Festival twenty years' ago in July 2001 and I would say pretty much the same about the piece (lively, interesting, cabaret style) now as then.
Roland and I came to the conclusion, on that occasion, that we had been glad of the opportunity to see the work but that "we would never seek out another performance in our lifetimes". Well, I suppose you could say that this dropped in my lap rather than called for me to seek it out: nevertheless, in twenty years' time, when I am 87, I really don't think I'll be feeling any urgent need for a third encounter.
Paulo Szot was fabulous as Kovalyov (who loses his nose) and Alexander Lewis was equally fabulous in an entirely different way as the Nose itself. Pavel Smelkov conducted a vigorous big orchestra reading of the score which was a virtuosic achievement in itself but probably very remote from anything that Shostakovich had intended or heard in his own head. I would also say that I really would have preferred to hear the work sung in English for that extra dimension of contact with the drama.
William Kentridge was responsible for the production of Berg's Wozzeck which I saw at FACT just a short while before lockdown commenced last year. This production had some of the same directorial signatures of a very busy and well populated stage with large deconstructable structures composing the setting all overlayed by rapidly changing video graphics. Russian Constructivist stylistic tropes were much to the fore. Mostly, this all worked well. There is a Lulu of his out there somewhere which I should like to catch if I can.
I liked this new take on an old style joke format.
And I liked the video accompanying the new release by Brockhampton (Count On Me) which featured Lil Nas X and Dominic Fike.
I know nought about any of these performers (well I was aware that Lil Nas X had recently released a video for a song in which he gave Satan a lap dance) but the narrative of two lads driving out into the country dropping acid and making out was utterly charming (as it turned out was Lil Nas X lap-dancing Satan). Dominic Fike is a bit of a looker as well.
And this has nothing to do with anything above really but it caught my attention with some horror.
I'd like to see a similar graphic for, say, Europe as a comparison but I don't imagine that there would be that many mass shooting incidents in, what, three, six, twelve months as there are here in just one. How can any civilised society be that indulgent of that level of slaughter on its streets?