Authors Electric

The 21st of May, one month to freedom (or so our rulers say). Three full lockdowns, two stolen years to stop us all from dying (or so our rulers feared). A single day equals fifty-three million  masks in landfill, as many unseen smiles and muffled protests (that our rulers suppressed). Enjoy your new normal! Six people in a soggy bubble drinking alfresco from takeaway cups, fully vacc'ed yet tracked and traced (our rulers say just in case). While behind locked doors, the lonely seek solace from Facebook friends never met and scammers they don't suspect, conspiring to explain what makes zero sense in this infinite emergency. Five virus deaths today (subject to change). Statistics are fantastic! Mightier than words when used on the innumerate to frighten and control (as our rulers well know). One month to unlocking when the truth will hit the fan. Might need to open more slowly, find a positive spin for economic meltdown, negative interest rates, a million new variants, mental he...

‘Happy New Year’ - how many of us stayed up, let off fireworks, made resolutions, or toasted 2021?   Did anyone still think we’d be rid of the Pestilence, which seemed to’ve been celebrating its own capacity for moving into what we call a ‘New Year’? Enthusiastic about its own persistence, and whether human beings would stick to their resolutions? New Year’s Eve, someone was defying any gloom: fireworks which began at 11.00pm banged and boomed, illuminating the sky until 12.00pm.   Will this be the year we escape into ‘normal’ life, the Year of the Vaccine? I rather think that display was for something else… something a bit divisive… the 21st century looks to continue divisive and conflicted, set with clashing cultures, discontent, instability, and powerful urban myths.   In January 2021, looking back on childhood, adolescence, early adult life, there was none of this. Refugees (now officially labelled ‘migrants’) were people we supported by holding ‘Jumble Sales’.  ...

What is your personal mask policy this summer? The official advice keeps changing, and will probably have changed again by the time you read this, but at the moment masks seem to be compulsory on public transport in England, and also in some shops, cafes and bars should you choose to get a bit closer to people - although you can presumably take yours off to order drinks, devour a quick sandwich and catch up on gossip with the friends you haven't seen since March, or how will anyone ever do what they went to the cafe or pub or shop to do in the first place? And how will you survive a long train journey sitting next to a (masked) stranger? Forget snacks or drinks. Or actual conversation. In fact, why not spend the entire journey staring at covid statistics your phone? I live in a seaside town and up to now haven't seen many masked people around - let's face it, a mask on the beach would leave you with a serious suntan line. But I have noticed a few older people wearing the...

So I started writing this bog in early March, conscious of my failure to come up with the goods in February. Early March, when reports were coming in and the world was just starting to wake up to the fact that this Chinese Thing might be something we ought to take seriously … Sunday 5 th  April. And the world as we knew it has changed forever. Which might sound a bit over the top, but personally I don’t think things will ever be the same afterwards. If there even is an afterwards and this pandemic isn’t something we will have to learn to live alongside. Too many people have already lost their jobs and livelihoods.  Have we done the right thing? I have to admit I’m in the camp which thinks that the cure may actually be worse than the disease and that more people will die from the economic impact than the virus. But we are lucky – we are healthy, we still have jobs and can work from home. I suspect that over the coming years, the post-apocalyptic novel will be the Nex...