After hiding out for what seems like forever and making a splendid job of it, even if I do say so myself, I had to see a doctor last week. We hypochondriacs have to, you know. We are a bit like train spotters. When the mood takes us, we are sat there outside the medical centre notebook in hand, recording the types and make of doctor as they come and go.
Although I instinctively feel that the majority of people are being lulled into a sense of coronavirus false security by the relaxing of this and that, I, for one, am not. So, I did not relish the thought of laying myself on the line (an old train spotter’s metaphor) by exposing myself (an old hypochondriac’s joke) to the greater risk of coronavirus-catching in one of Kaliningrad’s medical centres.
Whether it is better or whether it is worse, I have no idea, but the medical centres here ~ at least, the ones that I have been too ~ are nothing like the huge great rambling hospitals that we have in the UK. I realise that there are hospitals here as well, but my doctor-spotting experiences have so far, and thankfully, been limited to clinics or centres, all of which have certain things in common.
As with Kaliningrad’s dentists’ surgeries, before you cross over the threshold into the reception area it is mandatory that you don a little pair of light blue, transparent, elasticised protective-shoe thingies over your footwear.
The reception usually comprises a tall counter, divided into numbered sections with three or four receptionists behind it.
You say who you are, reference your appointment and off you go, Dr spotting. What you do not do is head off into a monstrous waiting room full of the world and its wife, and several others, of every ethnic extraction known to person.
No, you set off along a series of little narrow corridors with lots of numbered doors on one or either side. Once you find your allocated door, you take a seat. There are five or six opposite each door. Now, the corridors are rather tight, but there are very few people in them, and every two seats have the third one rendered void as indicated by the presence of a red strip of vertical tape, thus alerting you to the social distancing rule.
All in sundry are wearing masks, naturally ~ it is the New Normal, you know ~ but the nature and layout of the building means that folk are still quite close.
In UK hospitals, in the never-ending sized waiting rooms there is more space but, as we all know, lots and lots of people, so perhaps the two differences equal themselves out.
Coronavirus in Kaliningrad 25 June 2020
We did travel by taxi to the centre, with all windows open and masks on, but we walked back home. On the way we discovered an old German block of flats on its last historic legs and marveled at the existence of such things in a large modern city such as this, and the natural habitat in which it stood, which has to be for me one of the enduring joys of Kaliningrad’s character ~ this place of eclectic contrasts. I am so used to England, where every square foot of land has been built upon and every barn and factory requisitioned for residential housing, and every garden carved up for more housing, and every piece of city space gentrified beyond necessity that to find a large garden which is what it has always been and a leafy lane with a fence constructed out of old barn sides and doors, takes me back to the England of my youth, where Britons were Britons and things were real, not virtual.
As for this old German building, alas, its days are numbered. But we did pay homage to it by taking a couple of photos of the building and its surrounds.
Mick Hart celebrating Kaliningrad’s natural environmentRemains of a Königsberg building ~ Kaliningrad 25 June 2020
On our walk back home I also noticed, with a strange sense of alienation before relief, that there were people sitting eating and drinking in the outside area of one of the Britannica pubs, a phenomenon witnessed again and on the same street at another café bar.
It was grand to see these drinking establishments engaged again, although I am not quite ready myself to return to the café-bar circuit!
Coronavirus in Kaliningrad as at 25 June 2020** 👁2373 people have been infected in the region 👁Of these, 1356 recovered 👁38 coronavirus deaths since the start of the pandemic 👁17 cases of coronavirus infection identified today
We were outside and walking down the street! It felt alien
and wonderful at one and the same time. ‘O brave new world that has such people
in’t!’ And, as I reflected on recent events in the western media, by the
kindness of history, where we were today, no such people innit …
We were on the way first to the post office to post a letter
to my mother and family, which I had started writing in March but had not
posted due to coronavirus close-down, and then our mission was to find the
whereabouts of Königsberg’s Max Aschmann Park.
We knew it was not far away, and we were aware that it is a park of some magnitude, but our objective was to discover the way in, so that at some point in the not-to-distant future we could lessen the more austere effects of isolating by going on a picnic.
It was a beautiful summer’s day and Kaliningrad was at its greenest and, therefore, at its best. On the way we bought a couple of ice creams and stopped off at a small park not far from where we live. In the centre of this park, and a few feet away from where we were sitting, was a Soviet statue. I winked at him. “You’re safe mate,” I thought. “This is not the UK.”
Proceeding from here, feeling extremely grateful that I was far enough away from the multicultural malaise that is now, as Enoch predicted, blighting every aspect of British daily life and threatening to obliterate its cultural identity, we spotted, peeping through a small fringe of trees at the side of the road, another monument. Further investigation revealed that this great carved slab of granite sitting on a concrete plinth and vandalised only by the same natural influence that vandalises our bodies ~ Time ~ was German and of Königsberg origin, dedicated to 100 graduates of the Altstadt Gymnasium who lost their lives during the First World War.
WWI MONUMENT, KÖNIGSBERG (Kaliningrad), IN MEMORY OF 100 GRADUATES OF THE ALTSTADT GYMNASIUM WHO DIED IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR
As the photograph in this post shows, the monument is flanked by two trees which, as the architects intended, have now grown into mighty and impressive sentinels.
WWI GERMAN MONUMENT KÖNIGSBERG (Kaliningrad) MARAUNENHOF SUBURBS
Criss-crossing the streets a couple of times, and feeling a
little foolish asking people ‘do you know where the Max Aschmann Park is?’
aware as we are that the park is huge, our bearings suddenly returned to us.
Olga declared, “We are on the road that leads to the yellow church.” I also
knew that this road led to a couple of café bars, which I also knew, courtesy
of Coro, sadly would be closed.
In the heat of the day, against the green and blue backdrop of trees, shrubs and sky, a reference to this time last year flashed through me. It was a little schizophrenic moment, a duality of emotion, part sorrow, part joy ~ one rooted in grievous loss, the other in poignant memory. For a split second I saw, and quite vividly, our deceased friend Victor Ryabinin walking by our side, as he could well have been in life. The moment passed as quickly as it had arrived, and I was left with that bittersweet sensation to which we are helpless when we miss someone dear to us, something between chasmic wistfulness and eternal gratitude, the longing for yesterday softened by the sense of privilege for paths that could so easily not have crossed on our strange little journey through life.
My wife, being an advocate of predeterminism, saw it as a
fait accompli ~ whatever will be is meant to be ~ and she must be right,
because in next to no time, after a brief excursion into the grounds of an
interesting church, we arrived at the undisclosed entrance to Max Aschmann
Park.
We had never been here with Victor, but Boris Nisnevich does refer to it in his biographical essay An artist that can hear angels speak. Victor cites the park as one of the places that had been earmarked for restoration, although rumour has it that whilst some remedial work has been undertaken the project has stalled.
The Max Aschmann Park
The Max Aschmann Park was named after its benefactor who, in 1903 bequeathed the Maraunenhof estate to the city of Königsberg together with a substantial sum of money to aid in the park’s construction. The 25-hectare park took seven years to complete. By the 1940s the park had been greatly improved and expanded. It was now approximately three times the size of the original and equipped with an elaborate network of ponds, natural habitats ringed and intersected with paths and bridges, woodland groves, sporting facilities, playgrounds, curious buildings and monuments. As with most of Königsberg, the park fell victim to the Second World War and, thereafter, was neglected. Its abandoned status made it the perfect venue for itinerant drinkers and a place to rendezvous for impromptu barbecues, further contributing to its fall from grace. Sporadic maintenance has taken place in more recent years and plans for a more elaborate renovation programme are known to have been discussed. Victor Ryabinin, artist and local historian, refers to such in Boris Nisnevich’s biographical essay An artist /that can hear angels speak, but rumour has it that any plans that may have been discussed have been postponed indefinitely which, if true, is rather sad.
Our meeting today with Max Aschmann would be brief. As I said earlier, we were on a reconnaissance mission. But we followed the winding block-paved road that led to the park and tarried awhile in the wooded perimeter at the side of a large pond, a delightful interlude interwoven with beaten tracks and so natural that you could have been anywhere, anywhere that is except in the suburbs of a bustling city.
WOODLAND POND IN THE MAX ASCHMANN PARK, FORMER KÖNIGSBERG , NOW KALININGRAD
We wended our way home via a different route, stopping off
at a magazin for victuals and, oh yes, a couple of litres of beer. Well,
it was such a nice day after all …
One of these beers, a monopolistic mainstay of the Soviet era, has an interesting history, which, if I can remember anything about it after drinking the beer, I will jot down for your edification.
Musings on the 10 June 2020 ~ or the joy of being TV-free (Part 2)
Published: 10 June 2020
“Threw the television out and it was one of the best things that I ever did,” so said my friend Collin, as I recorded in my previous article.
What ignited
this conversation on independent minds and symbolic images of TV sets tossed
resolutely into rubbish skips, was the mutual notoriety that we had both gained
from the public knowledge that neither of us owned or watched TV. Whenever I
revealed this fact to anyone, I could guarantee responsive shock of seismic
proportions: “What, you haven’t got a telly?!” ~ they would cry in disbelief.
This is not
to say, unfortunately, that I am happily oblivious to what is going on in the
world. In today’s technologically hard-wired world, even though I eschew
ownership of a so-called smartphone, I still use a computer for research and by
which to write, and on this necessary evil the news is but a click away.
When I want to know what is happening, feel the need to know what is happening and/or just feel the need to annoy myself, I go to Google News, that is Google aggregated news, or as I have christened it, Google Aggravating News. And there it is: the whole world and its ills. However, lest we forget, it is the whole world and its ills predominantly filtered through the lens of the liberal left.
At no other time in my personal history of non-TV ownership have I had so much reason to rejoice as recently. I cannot imagine how awful it must be to be placed on a strict diet of coronavirus doom and gloom. I know that there are people out there who suffer from the same inability as mobile phone users ~ they simply cannot turn the telly off. How do such people survive? Do they survive? In this age of news surfeit, with rolling news channels churning out the same disturbing images over and over again, underscored by the same relentless and inevitably biased commentary, it is a marvel we can think at all. We do, don’t we?
Reasons to
be cheerful part 2 was when I heard from my wife, who is an inveterate social
media twiddler, that it was riot season again. No, I am not a liberal
subversive. My joy came from the realisation that as I did not have a TV, I
could ‘tune off and drop out’ ~ that sounds suspicious!
As soon as
I was apprised of the facts, white cop USA kills black suspect, I thought,
‘Hello, here we go!’ I knew as you did,
that we were in for a grand media fest: acres of newsprint and airtime given
over to mob rule, rioting, street unrest, arson, violence, looting. I had, in
effect, one of those distinctly déjà vu moments.
I’VE BEEN WATCHING THE RIOTS ON TV (Photo credit: Michael Lis on Unsplash https://unsplash.com/@mq1?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)
The
following day a couple of articles in the UK liberal press confirmed my
suspicions that the fallout from a crime committed on the other side of the
world was about to be encouraged in the UK.
Naah, I thought, don’t need it. My status as a non-TV owner would grant me some immunity, but in order to batten down the hatches I would need to avoid goggling on Google. One part of me was arguing, surely not. That is to say, that surely people are not so stupid as to start rampaging through the streets in the midst of a pandemic. It was a little ray of logic that I knew was but a straw. Letting go of that, I life-rafted into the comfort zone of where I was located, thankfully far away from the artillery of the western media and scenes of abject capitulation that surely would follow as dark follows light. Alas, my incorrigible twiddling wife driven by her social media addiction, could not help but leak snippets of information to me, which I tried to avoid as if they were carnivals.
With Covid-19 conspiracies cascading around our ears like confetti at a fallen angels wedding, who could blame anyone for entertaining the suggestion that in the matter of the riots extreme liberal factions are at work behind the scenes provoking and antagonising, attempting to disempower law enforcement agencies so that they ultimately lose control of the streets. Or is it all just an epic miscalculation? After all, something similar happened in the UK about thirty years ago with the premature curtailment of stop and search laws, the disastrous result being …
I was just thinking wistfully bring back the Sweeney, flared polyester trousers, thick knotted Axminster ties and proper-job policing, when the words of my old childhood physician echoed in my ears, and other parts of the body. “Clear the decks!” he would say, meaning drop your trousers, which he always asked you to do when you presented with an earache. They’d certainly have pulled his statue down if he had had one erected! Come to think of it, they probably wouldn’t.
With his words ringing in my ears (he never did get to the bottom of my tinnitus) and my trousers still on, it did make me think that it was time to take evasive action before the decks of my mind became strewn with the sort of liberal tat that I would not get five bob for if I took it to Peacock’s auction.
“Wife!”
said I, “Desist!”
I do not
know whether she understood me or not, but the cat did, as he promptly sat on
her mobile phone.
And so it
has been that for the last four to five days I have, how does the expression
go, simply ‘not gone there’, and by boycotting Google News and in fact any kind
of media output, I have harvested the twin benefit of not only avoiding the
ghost of Enoch Powell but also losing
touch with coronavirus confusion. It has certainly been a win-win situation!
Of course,
with Arsebook never far away, my wife continues to sneak information piecemeal
to me, but I have adopted the expedient of placing my hands over my ears. It
cannot be right can it? That they
uprooted Nelson Mandela’s statue in Parliament Square and tossed it into a
cabbage patch? Perhaps it was Lord Nelson’s statue or the statue of Ron Nelson,
a fish and chip man from Scunthorpe … or could it have been …*
*For one night only, due to Rioter’s demands, BBC 1 presents the National Historic Figures Statue Desecration Ceremony live from the Arthur Hall (please note that Prince Arthur is currently being investigated under the Racist Statues of England Act so will not be in attendance. The fact that he died many years ago does not make him less culpable of things he never said or did in an age which is so remote from our own that even a female Dr Who is having difficulty finding it.)
What du yu reckon when it’s gone ~ Martha & The Vandellas?
If you live in a country that has not yet ventured down the road of multiculturalism, pause for a moment. The social experiment comes at a price, and the interest on the debt is something you’ll never repay ~ Source: a man who did not make it into The Museum of Tolerance but was later inducted into the Hall of Sagacious Fame (please note statue removed) and was then prosecuted for inciting commonsense
Musings on the 9 June 2020 ~ or the joy of being TV-free (Part 1)
Published: 9 June 2020
“It was, undoubtedly, one of the best things that I ever did ~ throwing the telly out. To be honest, I did not exactly throw it out; we dispensed with it.” These profoundly philosophical words were delivered to me back in the pre-coronavirus year of 2018 by Colin, a friend and colleague. Although he lived his life free from the encumbrances of a TV set, he was still haunted and persecuted by the dreaded spectre of the TV licence and those who sought to uphold it, come what may. This is his story:
C: We were living in temporary accommodation whilst the property we had purchased was being renovated. The rented house came complete with no TV aerial. We assumed that we would not be living there for long (it turned out that we were in occupancy for a year) and, consequently, arranging for the aerial to be installed was put on the back burner and left there until it just vanished with a poof.
Life without television
C: That was almost 15 years ago, and we have never looked back. Obviously, each year, and multiple times in each year, we would receive those amusing reminders from the BBC Licensing Gestapo. Silly circulars spewed out by computers threatening you with all sorts of Spanish Inquisition-type ordeals to force a confession out of you that yes, yes, it is true ~ I am watching the BBC secretly and without a licence!
C: As I never had a hobby, such as voting Labour, I would amuse myself by collecting each threatening letter, noting how the totalitarian menace escalated from the first reminder, which was a gentle nudge, into strongarm tactics, first informing you that you were ‘under investigation’ and then that any day now you could expect a SWAT team to come busting into your home.
C: My favourite letter was the one that implied that a visit from the Grim BBC Licensing Reaper was nigh. It went along the lines of ‘Will you be in on Saturday 10th March?’ ~ the implication being that this was the day when the Witch Finder General and his torturers would descend upon your home. The obvious answer to that would seem to be ‘no’? And I must confess that I was tempted to write back to these people who were destroying the planet with junk mail, saying ‘No’. But as they are an usually cunning lot those at the BBC, I decided that I would be in on Saturday 10th March but never on any other day of the year. That would teach them!
It’s called watching TV without a licence. (Photo credit: Gaspar Uhas on Unsplash)
C: A friend, well-meaning I suppose, asked me why I did not just write and inform the authorities that I did not have a TV. But, as with most things in life, it was not as simple as that. You see, I did have a TV, an old one, but as far as I knew it was incapable of picking up a broadcast signal. Our sole use for this mechanical contrivance was to use it as a monitor for watching DVDs. But, said I, as if I had been a conspiracy theorist all my life, I have this recurring nightmare, which is that after I have confessed in writing that I have a telly in the house but one that receives no transmission, I receive a visit from the nice BBC licensing man. He listens to what I have to say about the TV having no broadcast reception. Asks me to switch on the set, which I willingly do with a smile. He then thumps the top of the set and up on the screen pops, like some odious PC-revised corrupted historical drama, the BBC in all its biased glory.
“Time to be thoroughly indignant,” I suggested. “I have never given a penny to the Labour party, so why should I be forced to fund the BBC?”
C: Precisely. There were a couple of times in my life when the BBC dragnet closed in on me. One occasion was when I was living in London. I had just stepped out of my front door when I was approached by two officious-looking gentlemen carrying black clipboards.
“Excuse me sir,” one said, “we are from the BBC licensing authority …”
C: What is it about innocence that manifests guilt? For no reason other than, other than …
“Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Imp of the Perverse’,” I ventured.
C: Quite so. I instructed my female partner to ‘run for it’. We dashed across the lawn and hopped into the Range Rover, the two goons armed with clipboards hot on our tail.
“At least you were not in a bubble car,” I consoled. “If you have to make a getaway make sure you do it in style!”
Life without a television licence
C: The second ‘there but for the grace of God’ occasion occurred some years later. There was no telly registered at my address, so you can be sure that even in the middle of a postal strike the only post to get through was harassment mail from BBC licensing, oh, and from the Reader’s Digest.
C: In anticipation of the Devil’s invocation at any moment, I had instructed my son, who was about seven year’s old at the time, not to answer the door at any cost, as it could be a man from the British Bias Corporation. In fact, to help me in this endeavour I had employed to good effect, or so I thought, one of the licensing authorities’ very own letters, which I had Sellotaped to the inside front door as a reminder that at all times caution must be exercised.
C: My son, although he could not entirely comprehend the significance of this act, appeared to understand that this was a red flag, so all was alright there then until, that is, one morning when I was eating toast a knock came at the door. Caught off guard by the Marmite and the sun shining over the defunct TV set, I opened the knocked-on door and who should be standing there ~ yes, none other than the BBC licensing man.
“Hello, Mr X?” he asked.
C: I said ‘yes’ just before I clocked his identification badge. I said ‘yes’; I thought ‘Bugger!’.
C: He then went off into a sanctimonious verse and chapter explanation of how there was no registered TV set on the premises, concluding his officious speech with “do you have a television set” on the premises?
C: Never a borrower or liar be, so I interceded with although I was Mr X I was not the Mr X he was looking for. No, in fact, I was his brother. I was looking after the house whilst he was on holiday. Could he come in? Not really. It would not be right and proper, not with me being a mere house sitter. The officious looking man with his shiny ID badge reluctantly complied, advising me to advise my brother that he had been visited by the BBC television licensing authority and, make no mistake, they would be back. They were never seen again.
The writing’s on the wall …
C: The third occasion of harassment by the Biggus Brotherus Clan took place when I was managing a shop. The shop occupied the ground floor, and we were resident on the top storey.
C: I remember the occasion as if I had seen it on television …
“Which, of course, you had not,” I proffered.
C: Absolutely not. I was in the ground floor office chatting to a customer when I saw on the security monitor a black car pull up outside. After a minute or two, the occupant bounded out of his car and began to walk towards the front door of the shop. There was something about his manner, even though I was seeing him on camera and at a distance, that I did not like, something … bumptious is the word.
C: He arrived at the office door, a young man in his mid-20s, black haired in a black jacket, round faced and already going to seed.
“Do you have a flat here?” he asked.
C: “Why, are you a flat fancier?”
“Sorry?”
C: “I’m sure you should be.”
C: I had spotted his ID badge.
C: He repeated his question.
C: “And who is asking?” I asked.
C: He thought for a moment. His stomach was definitely running towards podgey. Not good in a man of his age. And then, pulling himself up to his full height, 5ft 2, he announced grandiloquently and with great purpose: “I’m from the BBC licensing authority?”
C: “Get away,” I replied, “Well you should be ashamed of yourself. A man of your age should have a proper job.”
C: The smirk vanished: “Do you have a television?” he asked curtly, head swivelling around the office door like an aerial surmounted on a mythical TV license detector van.
C: I replied in the negative, and before he could deliver his next question, he having already taken a deep breath to do so, I added.
C: “Neither can we access broadcast television on the office computer, the radio, the toaster, the microwave, the vacuum cleaner or the lawn mower.”
“What about in the flat?” he snapped.
C: “What about what in the flat?”
“Do you have a TV up there?”
C: “Probably,” I replied, “but that’s the boss’s flat. He lives in London …”
C: This time he interrupted me, concluding my sentence mockingly with “…and he isn’t here at present and you don’t know when he will be.”
C: “That’s about the strength of it.”
“And I don’t suppose you can let me see inside the flat.”
C: “Oh no,” I confirmed, “my mother always told me to avoid strange men and, well, you are something to do with the BBC.”
“BBC licensing authority,” he announced, that little pride
creeping back into his voice again.
C: Well, I had had about enough, so I told him that as I had not invited him into the premises, he had no right to be here.
C: He argued that this was a shop and not a private residence.
C: I directed his attention to a sign which said that the management reserved the right to refuse entry … and now I was exercising that right; adding that if he intended to return he should only do so in the presence of a police officer and don’t forget the warrant.
C: With that, he turned on his heel and stomped out of the shop, cutting a very different figure to the one who had marched in ~ except for the podgey gut. He had hesitated before he had left the car, but there was no hesitation now. On went the engine, into gear went the car, it shot backwards and then, with a flurry of gravel sparking up from the back wheels, off it went and him with it, and it was very good riddance indeed.
The moral of this story is that whilst you should beware of men bearing strange gifts ~ such as a gross of out of date Luncheon Vouchers ~ you need to be equally cautious of anyone wearing strange ID and be considerably alarmed by anyone, man, woman or other, who confronts you at home or anywhere else for that matter and tells you with a misplaced sense of pride that they work for or on behalf of a particular British broadcasting company.
*I am aware, of course, that the accepted taxonomy is ‘TV licensing authority’, but as the license fee purely benefits the BBC, in my opinion, and the opinion of many others, they are The BBC TV Licensing Authority ~ and other things besides.
Have you ever found yourself embroiled in an argument when you are not quite sure what the argument is about?
This is what is happening with us. If it is not a result of being cooped up together in coronavirus lockdown, then it might possibly be another of those mystery symptoms of coronavirus itself.
My wife, Olga’s, stance has always been one of ‘I can’t understand this virus … how does it work that some countries have such a high rate of infection and others don’t? From this position, the question evolves into ‘how is it that countries that are practising isolation, lockdown and social distancing often have more cases, and more serious cases, of coronavirus than those who deviate from the assumed correct procedures (inevitably, given its geographical location, the first example of such deviation has to be Belarus ~ where the trend has been bucked, where life goes on much the same but the stated incidence of coronavirus is relatively small).
Then there are questions relating to the ever-changing, never constant miscellany of theories, suppositions, and half-truths (perhaps sprinkled with one or two no-truths) thrown at us by the world’s media. These questions revolve around the inconstancy, which inevitably becomes the contradictory, and before you can say mass vaccination, we are off down the slippery slope into the sink of conspiracy.
In Russia, as with almost every other part of Europe, the trend has been towards a relaxation or easing of the social distancing rules and associated limitations widely acknowledged as restricting or slowing the spread of Covid-19 based on a day-by-day assessment of risks and the trade-off between those risks, ie the chances of contracting the virus, loss of quality of life and the good of the economy.
Here, the strategies adopted vary from region to region depending on circumstances specific to each region ~ Russia is a big country, so this makes sense ~ and it is up to those in charge of each region to decide whether to lift certain restrictions, persist with them or even, if the situation warrants it, increase them.
So far so good, but the sticking point for my good lady is that in the Kaliningrad region mask wearing, so she informs me, is compulsory on the streets, and of this she is most skeptical.
My get-out clause is that as I travel only from A to B (A being the house and B the shop) rather than to all the other letters of the alphabet, wearing a mask as I stride along the cobbles is not insupportable. Like her, I do not much care for it, as I do not have a demister for my sunglasses, and I, too, am not entirely convinced that masks do more good than harm ~ is a sweaty face a magnet for coro? And the next time you are out and about see how many people are fiddling with their mask, thus touching their face with their fingers and hands, and how many times, for no apparent reason than just because you are wearing a mask, you feel the instinctive need to scratch your nose!
On the efficacy of this imperative it would seem Olga and I find common ground, but where we diverge pointedly is in her accumulative insistence that ‘something funny is going on’ in the world, that is the world of coronavirus. In the all-encompassing, claustrophobic world of coronavirus, this is a constant bone of contention, which is unfortunate if you are, like me, vegetarian, but her main problem ~ apart from me ~ is that she is incapable of accepting that as this is a new virus the situation is an evolving one and that our politicians’, health specialists’ and scientists’ opinions, and it follows their strategies, are subject to revision as and when new circumstances come to light.
The continual race by the world’s media to be the first to report it, does not help. Invariably, some media organisations seem to be one jump ahead of themselves, do not have all the facts or deliberately misinform, the name of this age-old game to sell newspapers and also nowadays to get you to click on their online feeds to satisfy their advertisers.
With their help, and not a little assistance by Facebook Fannies, Olga has stumbled so far into Conspiracy Mire that she has arrived at the most unenviable point, the point of no return. It is a dark and misty place. But wait, who is that ahead of her? Can it be? Could it be? Indeed, it is that man ~ the man who wants to vaccinate the world. Why? Because he wants to chip us all!
THERE IS A CONSPIRACY THEORY THAT THEY ARE GOING TO CHIP ALL OF US!! (Photo credit: Frank Vincentz – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17942659)
In the words of an old song, ‘Oh, can it be that it wasall so simple then‘. What happened to the days when the only chips we had to worry about was the fatty-fry much-lardy kind that came soaked in vinegar and wrapped in newspaper?
With cholesterol, sorry, I mean coronavirus, is it plainly a case of having your chips and eating them? Stay safe but not at any price?
In those moments when we least understand each other, and there have been one or two over the past 20 years, my wife alludes to the difference between the Russian and English mindset. Apparently, the British populace are all too willing to play by the book. They are told to do something, and they do it. I did not like to draw her attention to what I consider to be the Skegness syndrome, namely that at the beginning of the lockdown rules a good proportion of British folk flouted them, preferring a day in Skegness (and other places, no doubt) and to hell with the pandemic. And that, only a couple of days ago, over the Bank Holiday period, hundreds were packing their suntan oil and tinnies for the pleasures of Brighton beach.
I am, of course, aware of a recent article on RT headlined Almost quarter of Russians believe coronavirus is fictional, according to new study1 and note this comment, which appeared at the end of an article about Russians still being interested in foreign holidays: “This is the mentality of Russians — they don’t give up2.”
As I said to my wife, I am not surrendering yet, but where coronavirus is concerned, whatever your suspicions or beliefs, as my old mate Falstaff said when we last had a pint together in the days when Wetherspoon were allowed to open, ‘Discretion is the better part of valor’.
Dear Mr President Trump, Kaliningrad is not closed to tourism*
*With due deference given to the current coronavirus situation
Dear President Trump
I hope you will not mind me writing an open letter to you to advise you that the advice your adviser is giving you is the wrong advice.
I refer to the comment made by US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien1 in which he condemns Kaliningrad as being a ‘closed military base’ and a ‘missed opportunity for Russia and Europe’, the latter reference being in terms of trade and tourism.
Whilst I do not pretend to have an in-depth knowledge of the trade situation, I can state, and quite categorically, that Kaliningrad is not, and has not been for as long as I can remember, closed to tourists. I have been visiting Kaliningrad for almost 20 years and during that time development in the tourist industry has progressed substantially and exponentially, to a point where not to visit Kaliningrad would indeed be a lost opportunity.
Kaliningrad, which, as I am sure you know, was before the Second World War Königsberg, offers considerable insight for people interested in military history, particularly, but not exclusively, with regard to WWII and the Cold War period. Although Königsberg suffered extensive damage in WWII, there are many monuments, excellent museums and various sites of military interest for visitors to see both within Kaliningrad and its surrounding region, including but not limited to the two concentric circles of fortresses constructed in the mid- to late-19th century for Königsberg’s defence, many of which are still intact.
Situated on the Baltic coast, Kaliningrad gives easy access to two former German spa towns, Cranz and Rauschen, now, respectively, Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk, both of which are attractive, atmospheric and thriving coastal resorts, and the once East Prussian landscape contains many hidden gems of both natural and historical interest.
You will no doubt be acquainted with the fact that the Kaliningrad region is the world’s most prolific amber-producing region. The city itself contains the world-famous Amber Museum, housed in one of the refurbished red-brick Gothic forts, and amber shops and markets abound in Kaliningrad and throughout the coastal resorts.
In addition to the natural beauty of the Baltic coast, the southern section of the Curonian Spit, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, lies within the Kaliningrad region. It is an ancient landmark, replete with natural and cultural features, which has been attracting, and continues to attract, many visitors year on year.
Kaliningrad itself is a thriving, bustling, modern city. Public transport is excellent, and the city is amply stocked with all manner of cafés, bars and restaurants, each one infused with its own unique character and diverse enough to cater for every conceivable taste.
The open status of Kaliningrad is further endorsed by the notable presence of the following hotels, each one of international stature: Radisson Hotel, Mercure Hotel, Ibis Hotel, Holiday Inn and so on.
If Kaliningrad was as closed as Mr O’Brien suggests, I think we can quite confidently assume that such leading hotel brands would be conspicuous for their absence.
Art and independent thinking flourishes in Kaliningrad where, as with Königsberg before it, talented people proliferate ~ artists, historians, writers, poets, architects et al continue the Königsbergian tradition of creative excellence and erudition established by the likes of Immanuel Kant, ETA Hoffmann, Friedrich Lahrs, Bruno and Max Taut, Sergey Snegov, Evgeny Grishkovets and many, many more.
Many people of various nationalities ~ German, French, Polish, Dutch and also some Americans ~ travel to Kaliningrad each year drawn to the city’s and the region’s cultural heritage.
For further evidence of Mr O’Brien’s lack of knowledge concerning the region, please go to Google and simply type ‘Kaliningrad’. There you will find all the information you need pertaining to Kaliningrad and its region as a tourist destination. My personal observations of life and tourism in and around Kaliningrad can be found at https://expatkaliningrad.com/
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I am English. I moved to Kaliningrad more than a year ago, and I have only two regrets: (1) that I should have done so sooner; (2) coronavirus has closed my favourite bars (hopefully temporarily!).
If you ever have the chance to holiday in Kaliningrad, take it. I am sure that you will find it not only agreeable but also enlightening. So often truth eludes those whose opinions are poorly informed or compromised by prejudice.
Wishing you, your family and the people of your great nation, all the very best
How do you solve the problem of those who see anti-vaxxers as a problem?
Published: 28 May 2020
Sitting in the doctors waiting room, which I used to do quite a lot in England, I would see these messages popping up on the electronic notice board and their hardcopy equivalents: ‘Have you had your flu jab?’ I had not. And that was that. But then it never occurred to me, even though I am knocking on a bit, that the flu could prove fatal.
Then, in 2018, I experienced one of the worst respiratory illnesses that I have ever experienced. A doctor advised me that I might have pneumonia and recommended a chest x-ray. I ended up putting off the x-ray and settled for a drink instead. The illness cleared itself.
That’s me, I suppose, an indifferent and stubborn old c … character.
The Anti-vaxxer Problem Conspiracy
So, what about the as of yet mythical vaccine for Covid-19? According to my wife, who is slipping deeper everyday into the coma of conspiracy theories, as soon as a vaccine is announced I will be the first in line to drop my trousers, even though the vaccine jab will be administered in my arm.
She is wrong ~ wives always are. As with anything and everything to do with Covid-19, I shall adopt a ‘wait and see policy’. After all, Obama sat on the fence for the whole of his presidential tenure and everyone applauded him, so what was good enough for him is good enough for me!
In recent weeks it seems as if the focus on when will a vaccine be ready has shifted to when a vaccine is ready should I allow myself to be vaccinated, a realignment of faith brought about by the vagaries permeating almost every aspect of the pandemic from origin to outcome. It is, undoubtedly, this abstruseness that lends itself so readily to accusations of obfuscation from which the world of conspiracy is but a short leap.
As far as I can tell, almost all of the conspiracy theories orbiting in the coronavirus firmament eventually come to rest with a very rich and powerful man in the U.S. whom, in the minds of the conspiracy theorists, is inextricably linked with compulsory mass vaccination.
The Anti-vaxxer Problem Conspiracy
Conspiracy theorists have long been used to being put down as fruitcakes ~ and perhaps with good reason. Take, as an example, the terminology used in this recent article by The Guardian, *‘Europe’s Covid predicament – how do you solve a problem like the anti-vaxxers?’
‘Anti-vaxxers’? There is something overtly discrediting and tacky in this monica, is there not? At any rate, it hardly commands the same respect as counter vaccine protestors, or protestors against mass vaccination, or activists against vaccination, such being the kind of terminology that the liberal-leaning media traditionally reserves for street movements to which it gives the green light. But then, as with Brexit, something funny is going on and for them it is not ‘Ha! Ha!’.
The narrative goes that alarming new allegiance lines are being drawn on the strength of the mass vaccination conspiracy, so alarming that those liberals who identify themselves as activists against mass vaccination are being marginalised by their own kind as ‘esoteric hippies’ and ‘esoteric leftwingers’, and if this slight is not enough, there is the ultimate accusation that in making a stand against mass vaccination they are cuddling up to neo-Nazis. Some might argue that enforced mass vaccination is very much a Nazi-type of thing to do, but then I am no conspiracy theorist!
The esoteric problem of being a liberal Anti-vaxxer
The definition of ‘esoteric’ is ‘intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people’. The implication here being that unless you follow the flock you are no liberal! As for the reference to neo-Nazis, this is the old name and shame game, as well as being a convenient labelling ploy, ie the only people who are resisting mass vaccination are neo-Nazis; good people, nice people and proper liberals don’t do that ~ esoteric ones might, but not you!
Anywhere else, and this association by implication would have some clout but not as clouty as it does here: consider the city and country on which this article focuses and then say the word again (but to yourself, very quietly) ‘neo-Nazi’ and, before you close the window to keep out the chill, add Pegida to that vocabulary.
Pegida is, of course, resurrected in this article and, in the given context, turns out to be a most unfortunate choice of comparison: “fears of the movement [anti-vaxxers] growing into a force equivalent to the Pegida protests against Angela Merkel’s asylum policy seem to be shaping the thinking in Berlin’s seats of power.”
You see, the protests against Merkel’s asylum policy were not restricted to Pegida but very rapidly suffused the greater German populace, particularly after the act, when, despite the media’s best attempts to suppress both the calamity that resulted from it and the nation’s growing resentment to it, the protestations gained such traction that it levered support across the channel for Brexit, sent Merkel into media hiding and is arguably one of the most powerful contributing factors to the course of dissolution and wilful self-destruction on which the European Union seems to be set.
Reeling from the Brexit fallout, the waning popularity for almost all its leaders and institutions, fractured and fragmented by the clumsy and seemingly disinterested way in which it is has failed to assist its member states during the coronavirus crisis, a turmoil that has all but completely undermined any credibility it may once have had as a foundation for a United States of Europe, the entire EU project seems to be teetering on the brink.
Anti-who?
The usual means by which governments and their media handmaidens deal with conspiracy theorists is to ignore them, to deprive them of the oxygen of publicity. Think: when was the last time that you saw a head-on TV debate in which ministers, prime ministers, etc sat in a TV studio with a live audience of conspiracy theorists and addressed their fears?
Perhaps this is the best way, and possibly the best way to deal with the anti-vaxerrs is hands off. After all, anything less will expose the EU to allegations that the self-styled crucible of human rights and sovereign upholder of the tenets of liberalism is nothing but a sham.
There is a lot to be said for sitting on the fence. It might not get you the Nobel Peace Prize as it has for some, but the last thing that Germany needs in these discrediting times is for those in the seats of power to be seen to be rushing to change their underpants1 ~ conspiracy or no conspiracy.
MASS VACCINATION? HOW TRANSPARENT DO YOU NEED IT TO BE??
Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 65 [23 May 2020] ~ Trenches & Trees
Published: 23 May 2020
Unlike in the UK at present, there is no sudden uplift in the weather, nothing to tempt and entice one to cast caution to the wind and go wassailing off to the coast, but we were blessed with a gradual hike in temperature, somewhere around 15 degrees, and this blessing, together with a light breeze in association with Mr Blue Sky and a sun that had its hat on at last, were altogether alluring enough to winkle me out of self-isolation for the novel pleasure of stretching my legs.
As part of our exit strategy, we first had to run the gauntlet of passing without mishap from our garden to the road beyond. For the past three to four weeks, our house, and those in the immediate vicinity, have been subject to what I have christened in my diary ‘trench warfare’.
The Trenchmen cometh … I can’t help thinking that we would have been better laying that new block paving later …
Cable-laying has been going on, and a narrow but deep trench, deep enough to dislocate or break should a wrong step occur, dissects the pavement at the front of our abode and at right angles to it, extending along the neighbours’ boundary to the gate at the end of the cul-de-sac, behind which sits a very large dog.
From the vantage point of my bedroom window I have been able to observe (intermittently, you understand, as self-isolation has not left me wanting in occupations of an interesting kind) this work in progress and to chalk up the differences between how a job of this nature is handled in Kaliningrad compared with its UK equivalent.
From the outset, and for most of the work period, the construction crew consisted of three lads and a young woman, armed with a couple of spades, shovels and a wheelbarrow. The young blokes did most of the digging whilst the young woman, with her workman’s gloves tucked professionally in her back pocket, appeared to have an overseeing role, an inference corroborated later when a clipboard appeared in her hand, but praise where praise is due: at one stage in the game, she too rolled up her sleeves and took a turn on the shovel.
Considering that there were at maximum four workers armed with nothing more mechanical than their arms, they did pretty well. Weather conditions ~ lots of rain ~ were unsympathetic, but after a week’s hiatus the original band was joined by a veritable armada of labourers, who were not only trenchers but also there to lay the cables which, as with the aggregate, had been dropped off on the central island ~ a grassed oval section of land in the middle of the thoroughfare overlaying a German bunker built in World War II.
The temptation to go off at a tangent at this juncture and elaborate on the many surviving monuments to WWII that exist in Kaliningrad and the surrounding region is difficult to resist, but as global tourism has yet some way to go before it can get off of the back foot of coronavirus, I will focus for now on my outing.
Green & cobbled streets of Kaliningrad
We had crossed the trench and this accomplished were now walking along the original cobbled streets of Königsberg. Victor Ryabinin, the artist and historian, had assured us that ‘green’ Königsberg was a myth. Königsberg, at least the oldest parts of the city, was never green. The streets were narrow, the buildings high and brickwork and cobbles had been the order of the day. The outlying districts, the suburbs laid down in the early 20th century and developed in the 1920s through to the mid-30s, had been designed with green in mind. The houses and the plots on which they stand have their equivalent in England’s 1920s’ suburbs, where homes were sold on the back of the catchy and appealing advertising slogan, ‘A country home in the city’, or words to that effect. Every home in these outlying districts had a small front garden with a larger plot at the back, and on the streets where these airy new houses stood trees lined either side augmented, where space allowed, with a neat grass verge between the pavement and the road.
Nevertheless, as photographs and postcards testify, though most of the streets in Königsberg’s expansion districts were avenued with trees, they were, of course, saplings, newly planted. In their day, they would have formed graceful vistas but with nothing like the leaf foliage that adorn those selfsame trees now that they are mature.
You see, this is what happens when you self-isolate: everything, every simple detail, every once commonplace and taken-for-granted minutiae undergoes an amplification process, so acutely rendered to senses locked indoors that before you can safely say facemask you cannot see the wood from the trees ~ or, in my particular case, the trees from Kaliningrad’s leaves.
No matter; we had now crossed the road, just in front of that peculiar waterside café, that abandoned monstrosity which, with its fake lighthouse, Captain Ahab perched on the roof doing something over the side and a lot of marine-like crustaceans daubed upon the walls, resembles something sneaked into Russia from an amusement park in Skegness.
I have seen postcard photographs of the building that stood here originally. Admittedly, it, as with the lake and everything around it, was monochrome ~ they obviously did not experience bright sunny days in the early 20th century ~ but even though the world then was black and white (as things used to be black and white before coronavirus) the Konigsberg building had all the ennobling features bestowed by Gothicity and was, in its setting, a sight for sore eyes rather than a sore sight for tearful eyes, which is as good as it gets today.
Across Kaliningrad’s lakes (ponds)
Kaliningrad a Green City
Passing quickly by this ‘thing’, we wended our way, more happily now that it was behind us, along the block-paved path that runs around the lake perimeter. Old photographs show that the lakeside (apologies purists, I mean, of course, pond sides) had banks well stocked with natural vegetation, and trees abounded plentiful. In a black and white world some details are lost ~ atmosphere reigns supreme, but some details are lost ~ but in the photographs that I have seen of this area, it appears as if a small winding pathway, most probably gravel surfaced, curled through the trees at the edge of the lake in the early 1900s. This track has subsequently been lost, replaced through a gentrification process by block paving typical both in colour and character of 21st century urban design. Much of the original foliage, by that I mean the wild and natural, has been dug out and substituted with mown greens and municipal flowerbeds, but although block paving in all its imaginative shapes, patterns and sizes, along with children’s’ play parks, public lavs, and even an exercise quadrangle has colonised what used to be, the Königsberg trees that line the side of the road and the odd gnarled or venerable specimen dotted amongst the newer plantations, some Soviet others millennial, contribute in this neck of Königsberg’s woods to Kaliningrad’s attribution of being a very green city.
As much as I was enjoying and being distracted by that which I am phenomenally good at ~ mental rambling ~ we were on a mission, and this meant putting my tree-hugging propensity on hold and focusing for a moment on finding a wall with graffiti on. Not that this endeavour would be difficult in Kaliningrad. Sadly, graffiti is another of those unwanted imports that has made its way from the West.
Mick Hart with Anthony Hopkins in Kaliningrad
The graffiti we were looking for, however, was not one of your run of the mill deface, vandalise, degrade and then aggrandize as ‘urban art’ jobs, it was truly an original piece, a real work of art, featuring none other than Anthony Hopkins in his role as Hannibal Lecter ~ but more of that on another occasion. We found what we were looking for, and my wife made good with the camera.
There is graffiti and graffiti … Mine’s a vegetarian
“For old times’ sake,” that’s what my wife called it. I wondered what she was asking me?
She wanted us to walk closer to the lake, taking in Flame restaurant as we did so. The ‘old times sake’ was a reference to recent history, which, in the New Normal, is as lost to the world as dinosaurs. Aahh those glorious days ~ so happy and carefree ~ when we would walk to Flame on an afternoon or evening for a meal and a pint of brew. What had become of them and will they ever return?
Like every other pub/bar victim of coronavirus, there stood Flame, dark and extinguished. However, a nice touch, and a reassuring one, was that in keeping with its tradition Flame, although closed to the public, continued to play music through an external speaker system situated on its alfresco area. It was more like an overture of hope than the band playing on as the Titanic hit the watery skids.
Now that the shops ~ some of the shops ~ had officially opened their doors again, we had a small errand to do. As we crossed the road from the lake, emerging at the side of Flame, it was evident that whilst we had been hibernating Kaliningrad’s construction workers had not: the new shopping centre at the end of the city market had gone from being a shell of incomplete concrete pieces and knotted wire to a three or four-storey series of profiled platforms. Ordinarily, back in the days of the old normal, something like this seen on a day-to-day basis would have excited little more than a passing glance, but incarceration, whether self-imposed or not, has a sharpening effect on the mind, so much so that in looking on this building, at its Phoenix-like transformation, I felt a kindred spirit in Rip Van Winkle at the moment of his awakening.
Errand done, we set off on our homeward journey not by retracing our steps ~ I think having to pass Flame again would be more than the drinker in me could stand ~ but with a view towards returning on the opposite side of the lake. This route took us to the busy crossing in front of yet another landmark bar, the one housed in the historic Rossgarten Gate ~ CLOSED!
Luckily, by way of distraction, on the opposite side of the road, on one of Kaliningrad’s large, open WWII monument squares, I saw a man with his hose in his hand. He was leaning nonchalantly from his truck window, playing his hose over some of the prettiest city flower beds that you could possibly imagine. “Hmm,” I thought, “It’s not only the bars that are dry.”
A lovely day on which to have your hose out
Kaliningrad a Green City
Our walk back around the lake was a pleasant detour. There is only so much of novelty in strolling back and forth day and weeks upon end from your kitchen to the living room, and, let’s face it, though unarguably indispensable, the twin water features of bath and bog hardly compete or come close to the natural scenerific beauty imparted by rippling lake under a clear blue sky. And you can be sure that, as on the other side of the lake, there were trees in abundance here and in such variety and of different ages that I amused my obsession for the past for a while in attempting to determine which of the trees had been planted in Soviet times and which belonged to Königsberg.
The wise old trees of Königsberg-Kaliningrad
Trees, lakes, shopping centres rising from out of the ground like mysterious midnight mushrooms, men with their hoses dangling quaintly out of truck windows, a light breeze, a blue sky and off to the shop to buy some tomatoes. Very nearly back home, just now the trenches to cross.
The day after I posted my lastDiary of a Self-isolatorarticle on the coronavirus situation, wearing a mask in public places, including on the street, became part of what the Brits would call ‘The New Normal’ here in Russia’s Kaliningrad region. +An online news report predicted today that the mask regime would be ‘with us for a long time’, which is bad news for those of us who have difficulty in wearing them. Nevertheless, rules are rules and when we went shopping on Sunday we emerged on the street looking like a pair of dentists hunting down an escaped patient, or, possibly, a pair of escaped dentists wanted for mask wearing when it did not really suit us.
In the short walk from our house to the small, but diversely stocked, shopping precinct at the end of the road, I idled away my new-found inability to breathe very well by playing ‘spot the masks in Kaliningrad’.
Now, I am not one to tell tales out of school, but in my estimation I would say there was a 50:50 split on those conforming to the new mask-wearing rule and those who could not, but, moving swiftly on ~ and my word don’t we, these days ~ I turned my face-covered attention to the kind of masks that people were wearing in an attempt to define which type of mask was the Kaliningradian’s mask of choice.
Mick Hart and his wife, Olga, were wearing the lightweight, light-blue coloured thin cotton masks of pleated design, as worn widely by members of the medical profession. Please be assured that this is no endorsement of their efficacy, and neither is it intended to be. The problem inherent in universal mask-wearing is that it does not take long before demand outstrips supply, restricting personal choice to availability rather than comfort-fit or cosmetics.
This factor would account for the swerving variation in masks evident, but a nervous breakdown (that is to say, a breakdown made nervously as I stood in the street observing) enabled me to categorise mask-type together with wearing incidence thus:
Incidence of mask-wearing:
Lightweight, blue pleated masks: 20%
Thick linen black masks: 60%
Homemade masks: 1%
Standard builder’s dust masks: 12%
Superior builder’s dust masks: 7%
Wearing of masks by type
Proper job ~ over mouth and nose: 40%
Loose and baggy like an old pair of pants (please note the use of the word like): 5%
Nose poking out over the top: 5%
Clipped under the chin ready for erection on sight of authorities: 50%
Covid-19 Mask Parade
It was whilst I was standing outside the chemists in a mask-observant mood that, making allowances for the different types of mask identified here, I wondered how long it would be, taking into account that enforced mask-wearing was not likely to go away anytime soon, some budding entrepreneur would cash in and clean up on the market for novelty masks. Who would be the first, I pondered, to register The Novelty Mask Emporium, a company devoted to the design, production and distribution of imaginatively made masks, three or four different types mass produced and styled in such a way as to steer your mind away from the serious reason for wearing them.
For example, for the animal lovers you could have one shaped like a cats face with a long pair of whiskers sticking out on either side; for the ‘life on the ocean waves’ brigade, one shaped like the bow of a boat with some waves painted around the chin piece; and for those who have benefitted from too much plastic surgery and/or Botox one designed like the back of a bus.
You could design the masks in series, and make a ‘guess who’ or ‘guess what’ game of it. For example, you could have the ‘Famous Faces Series’, a mask limited to the mouth and nose of famous people, such as the mouth and nose of Boris Johnson, Donald Trump or, for those with long memories, Tom Jones. To appeal to and capture the errant youth market, you would do far worse than have a series of features built around rappers and hip-hoppers. Each mask could come complete with a free, imitation chunky gold necklace and you could call the series ‘Innit’. There really is no end to the possibilities; the sky’s the limit ~ a mask decorated with craters like the moon, which turn out to be potholes in a road near Scunthorpe, just to appease the conspiracy theorists. Rude masks would be very much in demand, especially in the UK, and masks of Obama’s bum, for example, or shaped like genitalia would be bound to command high prices.
At the other end of the market, above the belt line and sold exclusively in places like Bond Street and London’s Saville Row, upmarket clientele could eschew the off-the-peg option for a tailor-made mask, personally designed according to their own design criteria and made to measure to fit one’s facial contours.
Covid-19 Mask Parade
The biggest bucks lie in one of two directions: (1) Designing a novelty mask and getting it wrapped around the kisser of some celeb or other, particularly one which will appeal to the open credit card mentality of the young; (2) Having your mask operation endorsed by Royal Warrant, ie Mask Suppliers to Her Majesty the Queen of England or Chancellor Merkel of Germany (not quite sure about the latter).
For those of us who are good with our hands and have not yet been arrested for it, the homemade customised option could very well lead to an international coronavirus mask competition, similar in form and cornicity to the long-running out-of-steam Eurovision Song Contest or EU Pong Contest (this one has always smelt a bit fishy). For inspiration, ‘make do and mend’ mask artists would be advised to seek inspiration from the saviours of America ~ no, definitely not the Hilary Clinton mask ~ I mean those worn by comic strip superheroes ~Batman, Spiderman, Bat-Other, Spider-It et al.
For lovers of the Golden Days of Hollywood, there’s your Lone Ranger and Mask of Zorro. OK their masks were just pieces of paper with eye holes cut into them, specifically designed so that when worn even people who have never met you before will recognise you instantly, but they are just as good as any mask if you only wear them under your chin.
We won’t go into the other kinds of mask available as we run the risk of straying inadvertently into the realm of bank heists and BDSM parties (mainly dungeon oriented now on account of the 2 metre distancing rule ~ see my article on Copulating with Coronavirus whilst observing the 2 metre rule [by the way, claiming that the metric system confuses you, as you thought that 2 metres is the same as 2 inches is no defence, and anything else is just boasting].
If you want a lover I’ll do anything you ask me to And if you want another kind of love I’ll wear a mask for you
~ Leonard Cohen
From a personal standpoint, which is a masculine one with no hands on hips allowed, for the well-turned out gentleman, the gentleman of taste and decorum, there is the all-important question of how to wear a mask and still maintain one’s sartorial elegance.
No matter how assertively the mask argument is made in the interests of self-preservation, one is forced to acknowledge that a piece of cloth or moulded chunk of white synthetic material resembling a polystyrene burger box planted on your face is by no means a flattering accessory to either member of sex ~ or the many things in between. And when you have a certain je ne sais quoi reputation concerning standards and manner of dress, well, I ask you, wearing a mask indeed!
In conclusion (or even collusion)
The benefits and disadvantages of wearing a mask in the new Coronavirus Age is one of those hotly debated issues which, like mediocre pop music does not look likely to be resolved in the short-to-medium term, but as Hope Not Hate, who have never got it right, might say, masks come in all shapes and sizes, they do not have to be homogeneous. Masks can be as diverse as fantasy, multicoloured or as black as your hat. Just open the borders of your mind ~ make them gay and wear them with pride.
Mick Hart, Kaliningrad, with matching Covid-19 mask & cravat ~ a must for this summer!
Just because you have to wear a mask does not mean that you have to sacrifice style!
Please note that this article is not affiliated in any way to the coronavirus-shaped masks that are being sold by Bad Joke Inc.
It is official: ‘universal self-isolation’ in the Kaliningrad region is no longer operational1 and many people are back to work. Restrictions still apply for people over 65 years of age and those suffering from chronic diseases, and children under 14 years of age can only leave their homes when accompanied by an adult. These rules apply until 31 May 2020. Anybody arriving from outside the region is subject to quarantine.
The usual precautions, such as social distancing, should still be observed and it is now compulsory to wear masks in public places, shops etc, but wearing masks in the street is optional.
Shopping centres will be allowed to open, but for limited hours, but parks and sports grounds will remain closed and all large events with mass gatherings are prohibited.
At this point I am not quite sure whether cafes, bars and restaurants have been unshackled. My translation of the press report I am reading states ‘Some restrictions remain – for example, on the work of cafes and restaurants, hotels … ‘1
Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 54 [12 May 2020]
The official number of people infected with coronavirus in the Kaliningrad region has risen and today’s figure, at the time of writing (10.56am), is 7722.
“In total, to date in Russia 232,243 cases of coronavirus have been detected in 85 regions. Over the entire period, 2116 deaths were recorded, 43 512 people recovered.” (Source: newkaliningrad.ru2)
“Officials attribute the increase [in numbers of cases detected] to mass testing and detecting asymptomatic cases not always counted in other countries.” (Source: the moscowtimes.com3)
It was also reported today that the construction of a multifunctional medical centre in Kaliningrad is scheduled for completion by the end of this week4 .
My plans are much the same: a once-a-week trip to the local shop ~ oh, and wearing my mask as I do so …
