Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 10 [29 March 2020]

Published: 29 March 2020

‘People are people everywhere’ is an expression the meaning of which we can quite confidently assume is that, irrespective of country and culture, hopes, fears, joys, sorrows and other defining proclivities shared by human kind are more or less the same the world over. From this precept stems a universal truth, and one which I am sure a certain philosophical gentleman would ratify if his remains at the side of Königsberg Cathedral allowed, which is that among the common characteristics that we the people possess there lies in equal abundance attributes many of which we can be proud and, by default, flaws, shortcomings which, whilst they cannot promise to dismay some, those who are wanting in commonsense, will certainly dismay if not confound others.

Article 1: Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 1 [20 March 2020]
Article 2: Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 6 [25 March 2020]
Article 3: Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 7 [26 March 2020]
Article 4: Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 8 [28 March 2020]

Staying at home in Kaliningrad

For example, events as they unfold in the new coronavirus age beg the question, what is it about the simple phrase ‘Stay at home’, that is not so easily understood? Is it so difficult, so impossible to comprehend? Perhaps it contains some encoded subliminal message, such that when uttered by governments, medical services and scientists it immediately translates, albeit to a minority, into ‘please hop into your car and sail off down to the seaside’.

Staying at home in Kaliningrad & everywhere else

Life, as they say, is too short (and is getting considerably shorter) to dwell too studiously on matters so abstruse, which is possibly why I have been whiling away my self-isolation time with place-name wordplay, taking the name of that well-known and popular British seaside resort Skegness, and integrating components of it with Svetlogorsk and Zelinogradsk. The result is not that bad: Skegogorsk still has a must-go there ring to it and Zelinogness is quite blissfully irresistible, whilst Skegness certainly increases its pulling power as Svetlogness, and Skegnogradsk is somewhere you would have to go to even if you didn’t and especially were told that you shouldn’t.