Now that the authorities are easing the restrictions imposed
in March to address the Covid-19 crisis, the question is - how we have got on?
With fewer aeroplanes in the skies, reduced commuting, no
travelling to cinemas, concert halls, gyms or night classes, the air that we
breathe felt much better.
Not just that
but precious time and money were also saved.
In turn, this provided extra incentive to reclaim the great outdoors on
bike and on foot.
Encouraged by the charity Co-Operation Ireland’s “spin it
out challenge[i]”
and a free weekly gym class in Essex,[ii] I walked or cycled most
days. Funds raised were donated to the
Kings College London phone app research[iii] and to Northern
Ireland’s NHS workers[iv] appeal fund.
And as important as the environmental and economic
aspects, the pandemic has compelled us to make our own entertainment and
amusement, unintentionally encouraging the productive occupation of time.
Apart from obvious stuff like DIY, much of my
free time was spent listening to music, attending on-line events and composing
a series of blog articles about life in lockdown.
Now that we are in transition with many cherished facilities
becoming available again, it would seem like a good idea to hang onto these
positives that got us through the worst.
Even though the reduction of lockdown’s
constraints means an unfortunate rise in people’s carbon footprint with more
vehicles on the move, the natural instinct is to welcome the return of the
minutiae of daily living. All of a
sudden we see the prospect of more choices.
The return of many aspects of normal life reminds us of what we can too easily
take for granted.
The gym that I attend[v] reopened on 10 July. I waited for a few days, venturing back to a
yoga class four days later.
The
reduction in class size was a joy for a couple of reasons. One was the enhanced space and distance now
available; the other was that I had bought a new yoga mat a week previously.
A couple of days later, I attended two consecutive
classes, flushed by the novelty of claiming something back. The session was a 60-minute weights class
(body-pump) followed by a 45-minute spin (indoor cycling).
Both events attracted fewer attendees than
even the reduced numbers now being allowed.
As with the yoga, it was pleasing to experience the space and distance
compared to four months previously. These improvements coupled with the
noticeably upgraded cleaning regime signalled that management is acting seriously
on environmental health standards.
To these, add on the happiness at greeting pals unseen
for fifteen or more weeks.
A fortnight
to the day after being allowed to open, gyms were given permission to open
their swimming pools and showers. So to
celebrate this added bonus, I visited my gym in the afternoon of 24 July and
managed 20 lengths, a first swim since early March.
It was exhilarating to have another option
returned.
A different commercial facility that many people have
missed and whose return is being welcomed is hairdressers.
Never before have I had to make an
appointment for a haircut.
Two weeks
after booking – that’s the scale of the barber’s on-line[vi] waiting list – I arrived
on time and there was no queue. At noon
on 13 July (a public holiday) one other customer and I were well distanced
occupying the two available 30-minute slots.
Previously there could have been up to ten people waiting.
The barber was wearing a face-mask and she
provided me with one as well.
Despite a 4-month absence of revenue, the expense of
substantial internal renovations and the purchase of protective equipment, they
still provide a concession price for OAPs.
The reopening of this sadly-missed essential service featuring respectful
customer care together with the spotlessness of the premises and no queuing
made the previously unremarkable event of going for a short back and sides a memorable
occasion.
Familial separation has been one of the less pleasing
aspects of observing the stay at home rules.
If it wasn’t for the weekly family quiz on Zoom, our direct contact with
our married children and our grandchildren would have been more severe.
My wife had visited our youngest daughter’s
family in the south of England days before the U.K.’s belated lockdown in late
March. We had to wait until the week
ending 26 July to welcome our second daughter and family home from Scotland –
the joy of reunification.
Needless to say, the reopening of restaurants and the
delight in dining out for the first time this summer has been a huge bonus.
I have to acknowledge the variety of activity that has
sustained many people during lockdown, much of which seems to be continuing in
one guise or other. Before I mention
music, I must applaud classes that emerged on-line.
One was a twice-weekly yoga class presented
by a teacher[vii]
at the Glasgow School of Art; another was a Sunday morning boot camp[viii] directed by the owner
of a gym in Essex.
In music, for example, we were spoiled by choice both in
quality and in quantity. This means the
best orchestras in the world.
First out
of the blocks was the Berliner Philharmoniker whose traditional Easter Festival
in Baden-Baden was cancelled.[ix]
Rather than sit back and do nothing, they replaced that
event with an on-line festival. This was
achieved by using clips of major performances from the orchestra’s digital
archive and interspersed with live small chamber music recitals.
Each of these concerts was presented from
their home stage over three weekends. At
the time of writing, these broadcasts are still available to view at no cost.
When they ended, I could not believe my luck as the
Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam likewise was faced with the cancellation
of a Mahler Festival scheduled for 8-17 May.
Just as the Berliners did, the Dutch orchestrated an on-line Mahler
Festival from their digital archives.[x]
For nine nights in a row, I was able to binge-watch
every one of Mahler’s epic symphonies.
It was organised like a proper festival with day-time events featuring a
mixture of lectures and documentary films all about the composer, all setting
the scene for the night-time extravaganza concert.
The Concertgebouw subsequently performed two live
concerts in their beautiful but empty concert-hall as experiments with the new
social distancing rules (observing 1.75 metres between players).
What a treat to watch two live performances at
no cost.[xi] One was Beethoven’s 7th Symphony
streamed on 3 June and the other Dvorak’s 8th Symphony performed two
days later.
That, I was thinking, might be it. Where am I going to get a musical fix?
Into the breach stepped Valery Gergiev and
the Mariinsky Orchestra all the way from St Petersburg.
Having observed the quality of the recordings and the
digital archives of the Berlin Phil and the Concertgebouw, I have been
mesmerised at the scale and breadth of the Mariinsky’s organisation.
Its nightly streaming of concerts featured
not only music concerts but also included a large number of ballets and operas,
and also children’s music shows as well as a couple of brass band events.
After about 4-5 weeks of watching this free
entertainment from Russia, the Mariinsky published this notice:-
“The
videos from the Mariinsky Theatre archive and live streams have reached a new
point of 100 million views. We’ve shared selected recordings and streams at
Mariinsky.tv and social media for four months and now feel so thankful for your
interest to our concerts and stage productions.
Even today (14 July) as the theatre comes back to live performances we
go on broadcasting our events with new programmes and scheduling. Just stay tuned.”
It turns out that what I thought was Mariinsky’s 5 weeks
of free nightly ballet, opera orchestral gigs has been available for even
longer. What a fantastic facility to
share internationally.
And, even as
lockdown eases, every evening at 5 o’clock (7 in that part of Russia) I still
receive a message of live streamed performances as the Mariinsky returns to
work.
Yesterday’s alert (25 July) revealed that the orchestra
would play two of the best known pieces of classical music – Chopin’s first
piano concerto and Beethoven’s sixth symphony. This was not archived material
since the audience and musicians were using social distancing, another free
live performance.
The work rate of the Mariinsky is outstanding; and as for
that of its chief conductor Valery Gergiev, the word workaholic is an
understatement. He appeared as conductor
in almost all of the music concerts, operas and ballets.
If there were awards
for person of the lockdown, I’d give the top prize to him.
It was he who brought the Mariinsky Chorus to Omagh’s
Sacred Heart Church a year or so after the town's awful bomb atrocity. On that occasion they performed Rachmaninov’s
Vespers.
In the same week as hearing that Queen’s University Belfast
night classes will not resume until 2021 (subject to Covid-19), the Irish
Times broadcast a 4-night Summer Nights “festival
of conversation, culture and ideas.”
This on-line event comprised of interviews with authors, a film
director, politicians, a jazz singer, an architect, a beautician, American
academics, a sportsman and an economist - 11 in total.
This was a brilliant event and a fine advertisement for a
progressive and outward-looking Ireland.
It was the first time that this leading newspaper has done such a festival.
The next day as a paid-up patron, I
received a link to watch again or to catch up on any missed events.[xii] Prompt service and good attention to detail.
In retrospect the Irish Times festival reminded me a little of attending events
at the Edinburgh Fringe. Our Scottish
kith and kin’s informal and hugely successful festival arrange all kinds of
comedy revues and other events in smallish venues across the Scottish capital
over a three-week period.
Punters must
rush out of one gig to get to another venue often with little time to grab a
coffee in between. All part of the
excitement.
The Irish Times programme was a microcosm of that
festival. In the absence of concerts, cinema
and night classes, this new festival filled a void with a variety of 1-hour
talk-shows providing a pleasant and thought-provoking alternative at home for an international audience.
The lockdown has been difficult for everybody, especially
for those who have been bereaved, for the cocooned and for the diligent health
workers.
This makes the solidarity
between friends and nations during the pandemic all the more remarkable and appreciated.
©Michael McSorley 2020
Postscript:-
This Covid-19 series now comprises of 7 articles to
date:-
Part 1 (24 March 2020) A Test for Elected Leaders[xiii]
Part 2 (11 April 2020) Coping with Contagion, a Survival
Strategy.[xiv]
Part 3 (30 April 2020) The New Vocabulary[xv]
Part 4 (21 May 2020) Following the Science[xvi]
Part 5 (11 June 2020) Beautiful books[xvii]
Part 6 (25 June 2020) Stone Circles[xviii]
Part 7 (26 July 2020) Finding positives in a global crisis
BIBLIOGRAPHY
[i]
Ack Winnie Orr CoOperation Ireland
[ii] Ack
Sam Lee Parke Saffron Walden Crossfit https://www.bearwaldencrossfit.com/bearsathome/#1585350232075-9cf3f64d-ac0a
[iii] https://www.kcl.ac.uk/mobile
[iv] NHS Charities Together supporting
the NHS Charities COVID-19 Appeal https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-display/showROFundraiserPage?userUrl=ClapForOurCarers&pageUrl=2
[v] https://www.dwfitnessfirst.com/about-us/about-us/
[vi] https://www.fresha.com/the-cutting-edge-barber-shop-ybjr6i1y
[vii] https://www.nicolemcmahon.co.uk/home
[viii]
https://www.bearwaldencrossfit.com/
[ix] https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/53220
[x] https://www.concertgebouworkest.nl/en/mahler-festival-2020-online
[xi] https://www.concertgebouworkest.nl/en/concertgebouworkest-back-on-stage?fbclid=IwAR3MXZRCHxyrZ-GtsM45SF5KUfq4lVsKo9kZbz5knAH1AEJQW0-BdW2hb48
[xiii]
https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/03/a-test-for-elected-leaders.html
[xiv] https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/04/coping-with-contagion-survival-strategy.html
[xv] https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-new-vocabulary.html
[xvi] https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/05/following-science.html
[xvii]
https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/06/beautiful-books.html
[xviii]
https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-archaeology-of-stone-circles.html
