Архив метки: Mick Hart Self-isolating

A new QR code era in Kaliningrad

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 579 [14 October 2021]

Published: 14 October 2021 ~ A new QR code era in Kaliningrad

ON THE 9^thOF OCTOBER, the day after the QR code restrictions hit Kaliningrad, Olga and I walked through the atmospheric autumnal streets of Königsberg and then whizzed off by bus across the other side of town on an errand.

Having alighted from public transport, we decided to stop for a coffee. If we had attempted to enter a café, restaurant or bar today, we would have had to produce a QR code, but because we were buying refreshments from a pavement kiosk, we were, at least for the moment, QR exempt.

Subliminally, the advertising gimmick had worked. I saw a giant cup and a cup of coffee I wanted.

As I waited for my brew, I could not resist contemplating what it must be like to go to work each day not in an office, school, fire station, police station, on a building site or in a city bar but inside a giant coffee cup ~ and an orange one at that!

Through the little glass windowed serving hatch it did not look as if there was an awful lot of room inside the cup, and I began to imagine some of the more expansive people whom I knew in the UK working there. I concluded that they would not be so much inside the cup as wearing it.

Coffee can be bought from kiosks during a new QR code era in Kaliningrad

Joss, my brother, could live in it. I could see the place slowly converting before my eyes. It had a television arial on top, a satellite dish on the side and protruding from the roof a long metal chimney that was smoking like a volcano. Outside, there was a crate of empty beer bottles and a pair of old pants and socks, both with holes in them, hanging on a homemade line strung across the front of the cup, looking like last month’s tea towels.

If this coffee cup was for sale in London, it would be described by London estate agents as ‘a most desirable property’, well-appointed and almost offering commanding views over the road to the bus stop. You certainly would not get much change out of a million quid for it. Five miles outside of Dover, with a 5-star sign above it, the cup would be housing a boat load of migrants. Why Nigel Farage is gazing at it from a hilltop through his binoculars the British government will never know ~ and don’t want to! But this is hardly surprising, as Nigel has a reputation for waking up first and smelling the coffee!

With no one any the wiser as to whether we had a QR code, a bar code, a one-time code, a code that needed verifying or a code that was Top Secret, we took full advantage of our incognitoism by finding a spot in the autumnal sun in which to savour our brew.

Giant pavement-side coffee cups, even bright orange ones, do not as a rule run to tables outside, but just at the back of this one there happened to be an old, long, green Soviet bench, where one could drink one’s coffee whilst ruminating upon the good old days when the proletariat sitting here would have been comfortably unaware that the USSR when it folded would eventually be replaced with coronavirus QR codes. This long and sturdy bench also facilitated my admiration of the pretty and well-stocked flower bed and enabled me to keep an eye on the plums.

Plums! What plums? Whose plums were they? And how had these plums got there? They weren’t aloft growing on a tree these plums but scattered upon the ground. Someone, I conjectured, must have sworn bitterly, perhaps a bit stronger than blaher moohar, when the bottom of the bag that they had been carrying split, plummeting plums all over the paving slabs.

The who and the why of the plums, whilst inspiring at first, soon gave way to the far more exciting realisation that by observing people’s reactions to the plums, I could play the psychoanalyst and categorise them according to plum personalities. Of course, the way they approached and dealt with the plums would not help me to determine whether or not they were in full possession of their QR codes, were evading pricks or considering vaccination at any moment, possibly when they least expected it, but when all was said and done the experiment would be an interesting one, and, besides, I had a cup of coffee to drink.

Twenty sips or so into my coffee and a substantial cohort of pedestrians later, and I had been able to determine that there are basically four types of plum approachers.

1. Those that spotted the plums and walked around them, giving them a particularly wide berth. Any wider and they would have needed a visa, not to mention a coronavirus test or six, as they inadvertently crossed the Polish border.

2. Those who spotted the plums but carried on walking anyway, chatting casually to their companions as though they were no strangers to plums in public places, yet who picked their way through them gingerly as they would a minefield on their way to buying a Sunday newspaper.

3. Next came the sort of people that you would not want to walk across a minefield with, since, seemingly oblivious to their feet and where they were putting them, they inevitably stepped on one or two plums, immediately looking down in alarm at the squish beneath their shoes, no doubt fearing that the lack of fines for Fido’s indifferent owners had landed them in it yet again.

4. Finally, it was the turn of “I’ll give them plums on pavements!” This category was mostly comprised of manly men; you know the sort, either their arms don’t fit or they have gone and grown a beard, not knowing why they have done it and because, quite obviously, it certainly does not suit them, it was the last thing on Earth, next to deliberately stepping on plums, that they should have gone and done to themselves, unless it really was their intention to make themselves look like a bit of a dick.

This category saw the plums but chose to pay no heed to them. They juggernauted along as if plums grew on trees and these boots were made for walking. Unbeknown to them, however, plums can be slippery customers and more than once were the over-confident nearly sent arse overhead. They would step, squash, slip a little, look around really embarrassed, hoping no one had seen them, and then hurry on their way, leaving behind the priceless memory of a bright red face burning like a forest fire in a beard to which they were both ill suited, as well as a boot-imprinted trail of squishy-squashy plum juice.

So, what I had learnt from all this plum gazing? Not a lot. It had been a different way of occupying one’s mind whilst drinking a cup of coffee, although it had made me wish that I was 14 years’ old again, so that I could shout, “Watch out for the plums!” or simply “Plums!” But you can’t go around doing silly things like that when you are (ha! ha!) a ‘mature person’, especially not when you are in somebody else’s country. I bet Adolf Hitler never shouted “Plums!” when he was cruising about the streets of Paris. Boat migrants to England certainly don’t. They just shout, “Take me to your 5-star hotel and give me benefits!” And liberals, who always find something to shout about, would, on seeing the black shiny plums in their path, have been unable to resist the wokeness of going down on one knee whilst crying, “My white knees are in trousers, please forgive me, I am too privileged”.

Conkers on the day of A new QR code era in Kaliningrad

Young boy: They ain’t plums!
Me: I know. But I just wanted to show that in Kaliningrad at this time of year there are also a lot of horse-chestnut tree …
Young boy: You put those there because you ain’t got any pictures of plums …
Me: Why you cheeky little f …

I finished my coffee, wished the entertaining plums good day, and off we went to complete our errand.

On the way, on this second day of QR codes, giant cups and plums (plums, no less, my friends, which had fallen by the wayside), we overheard a lady at a bus stop complaining loudly to anyone who had a mind (or not) to listen.

It was quite evident by her excited, ruffled and animated manner that she had recently undergone a most traumatic experience. Apparently, she had ventured into a small café to buy some jam and was horrified to discover that not only were most of the people inside the shop not wearing masks but, as far as she could ascertain, none had been asked for their QR codes. “I shall report them! I shall report them!” she wailed, shouting so loud that had her mask been properly in place, which it wasn’t, it would have fallen from her nose, like plums from a wet paper bag, to end up uselessly wrapped around her chin. It was fortunate, therefore, that such a calamity could not occur, as that is where her mask was anyway ~ swaddled around her chin protecting it from coronavirus.

On completion of our errand (there has to be some mystery in this post somewhere!), whilst sitting on the bus with my mask strapped to my elbow, I drifted into contemplation of the feasibility of QR codes extended to encumber access to the city’s supermarkets.

I wondered: “Does it mean that if you do not want to get vaccinated you will have to buy your own shop?” And: “What is the going rate for one of those giant coffee cups?”

Mick Hart on Day 2 of A new QR code era in Kaliningrad

If it does happen, if they do impose QR code restrictions on shops, I can see some astute entrepreneur, some Russian equivalent to Del Boy, quickly cashing in on the act. It is not difficult to imagine a fleet of shops on wheels whipping about the city from one estate to another, selling everything from buckwheat to outsize, wooly, babushka-made socks.

Alternatively, we could convert our garage into a Cash & Cart-it Off. Our garage stands at the end of the garden, some distance from the road, but in these coronavirus-challenged times what once might have been regarded as a commercial disadvantage could potentially be transposed into a positive marketing ploy.

All that was needed would be to install large glass windows in the sides of the garage, stack shelves behind them full of sundry goods, position two telescopes on the side of the pavement, preferably coin operated so as to make a few extra kopeks and, Boris your uncle, Svetlana your aunt, you’re in business!

Potential buyers viewing our wares through the telescopes provided could place their orders by Arsebook messenger. On receipt of their orders we would select the goods, load them on the conveyor belt and ship them from store to roadside before you could say, who’s making millions out of the sales of coronavirus masks? What could be better than that? Accessible shops, you say?

Come to think of it, there are probably not a lot more inconvenient places than shops where QR codes could be implemented, except, of course, for public lavs.

Imagine getting jammed in the bog turnstile unable to get your mobile phone from your pocket to display your QR code whilst the call of Nature grows ever more shrill!

This situation, difficult though not insurmountable, would stretch both the imagination and the resources of even the brightest entrepreneur, who would be faced with the daunting prospect of rigging up some curious contraption or other, consisting of a series of pipes, funnels and retractable poes on sticks.

On a less grand but no less adventurous scale, my wife has suggested that we plough up the lawn at our dacha and use it for growing potatoes, which is not such a bad idea, as it would mean no longer having to mow the lawn. But would it mean that we would have to get a statutory dog that never stops barking as a deterrent to potato thieves and to ensure that our neighbours are completely deprived of peace? “What is the use of having a dog that don’t bark? An intelligent lady once said to us. Answer: about as much use as one that never stops barking! Or about as much use as a dog owner who allows its dog to incessantly bark.

Whilst a constant supply of beer and vodka would not be a problem as we could always convert our Soviet garage back to what it was obviously used for when it was first constructed, alas ploughed up lawns will not grow washing sponges or cultivate tins of baked beans. And the last thing that I would want, even if my potato patch was the best thing since Hungary stood up to bullying EU bureaucrats, was to own something so useless that all it does is shite on pavements and bark as if a potato thief has thrust a firework up its arse before leaving the garden with a sack on his back.

Of course, all things considered, it would be far easier and, perhaps, far wiser, certainly less embarrassing, just to go and get vaccinated. But if you do that, will you be tempted to go out every night to the city’s bars and restaurants, just to say that you can? And if so, can you or any of us for that matter, be 100% sure that, even after vaccination and thirty years of boosters, whichever vaccine it is and from wherever the vaccine comes from, will we, the little ordinary people, be guaranteed at some point, preferably sooner than later, a return to the life that we had before? Er, or any life, for that matter. >>‘This statement is false!!!! (See G Soros’ Fact Checker). You will now be redirected to the neoliberal globalist version, which is as honest as philanthropy and almost twice as honest as the EU parliament ~ which is not exactly difficult (Source: An Open Borders Publication}’<<

Plough a straight furrow or walk a taut tightrope, whichever path you choose to take, do ‘Watch out for those plums!’

ON TOPIC>
A trilogy of games by that renowned board-game maker John Wankinson: the perfect way to unlock, unwind and vaccinate whilst taking your mind off coronavirus and the interminable elusiveness of returning to normality:
UK Lockdown New Board Game
Exit Strategy Board Game
Clueless ~ a World Health Board Game

Image attributions:
Yapping dog: https://www.clipartmax.com/download/m2i8Z5H7G6A0N4H7_barking-dog-animal-free-black-white-clipart-images-yap-clipart/
Plums: http://clipart-library.com/clipart/539028.htm

Hotel Tchaikovsky Kaliningrad is Nothing to Sneeze at

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 272 [11 December 2020]

Published: 11 December 2020 ~ Hotel Tchaikovsky Kaliningrad is Nothing to Sneeze at

Psychological problems resulting not from contracting Covid-19 but from the social prohibitions orchestrated and, in some instances, enforced in the name of spread containment and personal safety appear to have affected some people more than it has others. Indeed, scientists and health professionals alike, not to mention conspiracy theorists, postulate that ‘extreme measures’ such as lockdown and diminished social interaction have had and are having serious adverse effects on the mental-emotional well-being of a large cohort of people who feel that they have better things to do than imprison themselves in their respective homes playing John Wankerson’s Clueless for the rest of their unnatural lives.

Speaking for myself, the restrictions, self-imposed by ‘informed guidelines’ and/or edict, have left me bamboozled (What’s that? You’ve never experience it? You don’t know what you are missing? Vote Labour and find out!), the puzzle being, am I really responding as I perceive I should be to the exigencies of the pandemic or, as time goes by (good song that!), have I allowed my guard to slip?

Yes, I know, here I go again, getting myself into a mucking fuddle about whether my coronavirus precaution corollary justifies me calling myself a bona fide self-isolator. I would like to think that the ambiguity is simply a matter of semantics ~ self-isolator, social-distancer, reluctant mask-wearer, anti-social misanthropist using coronavirus as an excuse to hermiticise myself, whatever ~ but the crux of the question is, are divergencies allowed? Does one have to be an either/or? Either self-isolating or not self-isolating? Or can one be self-isolating some of the time but not others? A sort of part-time self-isolator or one on day release?

For example, given the reported rising tide of coronavirus cases, I am still inclined to err on the side of caution, and, in fact, I continue to do so by resisting all temptation to frequent the bars and licensed premises that I would normally have patronised a couple of times a month was it not for coronavirus. Whilst this inexcusable retreat is as injurious to Kaliningrad’s hospitality trade as the decision to close or restrict the opening hours of pubs has been to the UK’s equivalent, I have worked out, even with the handicap of a Grade 9 CSE in maths, that from a purely economic standpoint my bar-patronising reticence has put a smile on the face of my piggy bank.

However, as I have confessed in previous posts, my self-inflicted isolation falls somewhat short of perfect and, insofar as restricted social contact is concerned, I know of a number of people who are far holier than thy in their fastidious observation of the social distancing rule.

There are occasions when it is not impossible but is still difficult to swerve in the opposite direction to the norms and mores that bind us, where, just as it was in the pre-coronavirus age, we find ourselves obliged to proceed in a manner not entirely in keeping with our own convictions, and, at such times, are compelled, I am afraid to say, to throw caution to the wind.

Thus, it came to pass, a few weeks ago, that a strong gust in the form of a birthday celebration and the traditional expectations that such engenders, whipped my caution away like an unstuck toupée, and I found myself faced for the first time in umpteen Covid months with the arguably risky prospect of dining and drinking out.

Hotel Tchaikovsky Kaliningrad

The occasion was my wife’s mother’s 80^th birthday. We had discussed with her how she wanted to celebrate this milestone in her life, and she had shown great favour in the suggestion of going to a restaurant. The idea was that three other friends of hers, roughly of the same age group, would join us, all of whom at the outset expressed an interest in doing so. However, come closer to the day, as news began to percolate of escalating Covid cases, one by one these friends dropped out.

Admittedly, their example made me think that perhaps it would be best if we followed suit and instead of the restaurant settle upon a quiet celebration at home, but my wife’s mother remained unphased. She still wanted us all ~ what there was left of us ~ to go to the restaurant, and so the restaurant it was.

My wife, Olga, had chosen the Hotel Tchaikovsky as the venue. Hotel dining rooms tend normally to be less populated than restaurants per se, so I could see the logic in this. Of course, going anywhere without first strapping on our muzzles would have been so 2019 don’t you think? And as I had not dined in a restaurant for quite some considerable time, I found myself wondering how exactly one would be able to eat one’s food with a mask slapped about one’s kisser?

As my wife’s mother is in her 80^th year, walking, cycling or running to the restaurant were less obvious options than taking a taxi. I remember the time when travelling by taxi was looked upon as an innocent luxury as well as the best expedient, but in the coronavirus age taxis, as with every other mode of transport requiring third-party involvement, is where the risk-taking starts.

Hotel Tchaikovsky Kaliningrad

The Hotel Tchaikovsky is situated on a Königsberg street, which backs onto the city’s Zoo. It was a cold, wet and inhospitable evening, so my observations of the hotel’s exterior were minimalised by the need to get inside. There, it was light, charming and warm. Not only that, but there was something, whilst not exactly ‘decidedly’, vintage going on. In the hallway leading to the main reception, an impressive array of old suitcases had been stacked, two rows and several high, the uppermost cases garnished with clocks, and there was an upright parlour piano standing in the corridor. Vintage was going on at the same time as something almost antique, and also almost classical, as reflected in the reproduction 19^th century furniture, impressive walnut servery and glass chandelier-style ceiling pendants.

**Something vintage this way comes: the reception room at the Hotel Tchaikovsky in Kaliningrad, Russia**

Even with the threat of coronavirus hanging over us like the proverbial Sword of Damocles, I was still able to take this in, whilst applying disinfectant to my mitts from one of those pump-action dispensers, which had been strategically placed on a small console table prior to the dining-room entrance.

The hotel dining room consisted of two rooms, which was handy Andy, as between each there was a pair of glazed French Window-style doors, which kept things bright and airy whilst enabling the hotel management to comply quite handsomely with coronavirus distancing rules.

The first room had one engaged table, a family gathering, the adult occupants of which glanced apprehensively at us as we strolled in, passing within millimetres of their social distancing space. But they need not have stressed themselves. Two waitresses in regulation mask attire were ushering us courteously but firmly and swiftly into the adjoining room, where there was nobody else but us.

Since every table was unoccupied, it made the task of choosing where to sit virtually impossible. Each and every location was appraised and, by the time we had settled for the seats in the window, I felt as if we had sat everywhere else simultaneously.

The window seats turned out to be the perfect coronavirus cubby hole. They were literally seats, together with a table, placed inside the special dimensions rendered possible by a rectangular bay window, and being given to private corners of this type, I would have chosen to have sat here even if coronavirus was not half the threat that we have been led to believe.

So, we sat down, Olga’s mother done up to the nines, sporting her best jewellery and looking far more relaxed than we could ever be, even though every other table was only almost occupied by us and nobody else. We had no beef and Yorkshire pudding with that; only Olga’s mum seemed disappointed that the rest of Kaliningrad was not in the same room. I do wish that she had not said as we entered the restaurant, “There’s not many people here. It can’t be that popular”. But if you cannot insult the hotel management on your 80^th birthday, when can you?

It was about this time, as we were sat there, in the bay window, with only us and our reflections as company, that I heard the ghostly voice of my long dead auntie Ivy saying, “Hold hard, Michael!” (How I wished she could have used a different expression!), “What about the cutlery and glasses?” And she was right, we had not brought those antiseptic wipes with us for nothing! So, out they jolly well came, and yours truly set to with a vengeance wiping the wipes around the ends of the eating implements and around the rims of the glasses. That should do the trick! ~ none of us believed.

We were alone long enough for me to talk myself into the fallacy that I was still, technically, self-isolating, when a young waiter-me-lad appeared, wearing his mask in a Constructivist fashion. He took our order and scooted off to the kitchen. This was the real test, I thought: kitchen and kitchen staff coronavirus cleanliness.

It is quite frankly amazing how a couple of swift glasses of vino can transform melodrama into maladits (perfection!). By the time the waiter reappeared, bringing with him my vegetarian dish and Olga and Olga’s mum’s meaty options, apprehension had almost completely given way to restaurant rhapsody. The wine was excellent, if not a tad expensive, and we would soon discover that the food at the Hotel Tchaikovsky was crisp, fresh, first class and delicious.

With such culinary conviviality going down, and Olga having ordered three glasses of apricot brandy, which was sympatico, Covid, or rather the morbid dread of Covid, had been well and truly kicked up the arse.

Somewhere, at some time, during the indulgences, auntie Ivy had spoken again, and, in compliance, I had whipped out the wipes and shot them around the brandy glass rims, but no repeat performance was forthcoming as regards dessert spoons and later the shot glasses brimming with vodka.

Hotel Tchaikovsky Kaliningrad is Nothing to Sneeze at

Amidst all of this post-normal abandon and frivolity, a couple had come into the room and were occupying a table to the outside right of ours. They were over a metre away, so niet problem there then, but suddenly, with no warning, quite out of the blue, Olga’s mum developed a sneezing fit!

The first rendition had my head shoot round at a nervous pace. There was a pause, and there it was again, a second sneeze! I shot a glance at our neighbours. It was alright, they had not noticed it or, if they had, they had not reacted. I think they were secretly restraining themselves, preferring a diplomatic reaction to demonstrative rebuff. Then came another sneeze, then another and another, during which the potential recipients of this respiratory outrage had begun to look rather less comfortable.

At first, I had tried to placate their unease in that embarrassed way that we English do, by giving them an insouciant smile, which, by the second eruption, however, had tightened itself into a gritty-toothed grin. Meanwhile, Olga’s mum was holding a tissue to her nose, as if it was a white flag, but the performance was not yet over. There came a sneeze, and another, and within seconds ~ it must have been the wine ~ I was doubling up with a fit of the giggles. I did not know what to do. I would have put on my mask, but it was not big enough to hide behind, and yet I felt certain that in the current climate of fear and dread we would be frog marched out at any moment by several men in protective suits armed with pump-action spray guns and there, in the carpark, disinfected.

The crisis past, however, as crises often do, without further ado or incident, and the young waiter, who had obviously taken cover behind the bulky servery or piano in the corridor, now emerged not with the carafe of vodka that we had ordered earlier but with three of those nice tall glasses which hold a lot of vodka. It had been I who had suggested the carafe since the vodka was all for me, and I thought it would look better, would make me look less of a lush, presented in this fashion. But I ended up with three large glasses in front of me and the most surprised, amused and delighted look on the face of the youthful waiter ~ well, let us rephrase that and say in his eyes, as I could not see his face for one of those blasted muzzles!

I was just getting into my drinking stride when out came one of the senior staff to inform us that the witching hour was nigh. Apparently, coronavirus has got a thing about infecting you after 9pm, so they had to close the restaurant.

With about five minutes left at my disposal, I had to down three big glasses of vodka as if I was a real Russian vodka drinker, instead of a sipperoonee anglichanin.

Apart from the hurried exit, which was no fault of the management as they were just following orders, we all agreed that the service, fare and atmosphere had been top notch. It was a shame about the sneezing and Olga’s mum’s last words as we ambled off the premises, “There wasn’t a lot of people. It can’t be that popular.” Well, if you can’t say that on your 80^th birthday, when can you say it?

The toilets in the Hotel Tchaikovsky, Kaliningrad, are atmospherically located in the basement of the building. The arched red-brick ceiling and walls are exposed in all their original glory, and the loo interior has been sympathetically constructed to preserve and highlight its historic ethos. Note the copper-bowl washbasin, matching distressed-framed mirror and the reflection in it of the no-longer distressed Englishman, who had just downed his first glass of vodka.

For a self-isolating experience with a difference, including good food, good wine, good apricot brandy, good vodka (in tall glasses) in an elegant ambience and with good service, dine out at the Tchaikovsky Hotel, Kaliningrad.

Essential details:❤❤

Hotel Tchaikovsky
43 Tchaikovskogo Street
Kaliningrad, Russia

Tel: +7 (4012) 67-44-43
Email: reception@tchaikovskyhotel.ru
Web: https://ageevgroup.ru/hotels/tchaikovsky/

Self-isolating & Lockdown

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 6 [25 March 2020]

Published: 25 March 2020

Day 5 of self-isolation and I am as happy as a pig in …. What is the expression? Ahh, straw. Of course, it is early days and there is a slight difference between five days and, how long has it been suggested in the media, 18 months? But I am confident that come what may I can do my time.

Self-isolating & Lockdown — (photo credit: publicdomainvectors

The hypocrisy inherent in that statement compels me to admit, however, that people like myself who have been working from home for years do have a distinct advantage. For us it is a way of life: self-isolating, social distancing, cuh, it is as easy as mugging somebody and blaming it on a deprived background. Over a period of time ‘working from homers’ cannot help but develop all of the essential skills isolators need to survive. We end up being Robinson Crusoes of our time, man; Friday or any other day, it is all the same to us.

Previous article: Diary of a Self-isolator (Day 1)

Self-isolating & Lockdown

I appreciate that the situation is somewhat different, somewhat more irksome should you by nature be a get-up-and-go, over-energised, gung-ho, physical-expending type or by vocation a manly man or manly woman doing heave-ho type of work. Self-lock-up, like voluntarily chastity, cannot be easy (they say it can be fun?) if you spend much of your life running marathons, getting sweaty down the gym, chopping down trees, digging holes or mountain climbing, but you do not need to run around your house with your chopper in your hand, tunnel your way out as if you are in Colditz or find yourselves climbing the walls, and the same applies to keeping fit and making your trainers pong. These things can be just as effectively transacted at home as in a posy, rip-you-off sports centre. OK, nobody is going to see you in the ridiculously expensive gear you bought to show off in, but if that worries your ego, why not just take a ubiquitous ‘selfie’ and post it up on Facebook.

I reverted to home workouts years ago during an eight-year spell when I was working a 70-hour week, when it was just not feasible, and when I certainly did not have the inclination, after rolling home late on an evening to look out my gym gear, pack it (forgetting your towel, naturally), travel to the sports centre, jump around, shower, pack up your kecks in your old kit bag and trundle all the way home. Home exercise saved an awful lot of time and made even more sense ~ it was a good way of saving money, too.

Admittedly, as on many occasions I elected to workout before I travelled to work, which meant dragging my sad and sorry arse out of bed at 5am (always difficult if you have had five pints of glorious ale the night before), it was difficult, but very good for self-discipline ~ Ouch! ~ although the combination of hard exercise, sleep deprivation and, if you are foolish enough to imbibe the night before, shock detoxification can produce an effect that is almost out-of-body. But there is really no need to follow my masochistic lead. Just choose a time of day when exercise suits you best ~ that is the beauty of working from home, indeed just being at home!

Keeping occupied whilst incarcerating yourself, or being locked down by the State, is another matter and depends on what you are used to and how adaptable you are.

“Be an opener of doors” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

This blog, my diary, a biography that I am editing and a couple of other projects keeps me very busy. I have a Lada-load of books that I want to read and, when all of this becomes too wearing on the eyes and as Poirot was fond of saying, the little grey cells, I can always put my pinny on and pretend I am a housewife before the days of the gender wars.

To say that there is nothing to do and that ‘I’m bored’ is an alien concept to me. As my late friend Victor Rybinin the artist and historian said, “I can only imagine what boredom is!”. This is the internet age, dammit.

Self-isolating & Lockdown

We might live in the misinformation/disinformation age, but when you cut through the crap on the internet there is really quite a lot of good stuff out there. If you look hard enough, you can learn all sorts of new things. My ex-SAS friend, who is currently on lockdown in London (why not, he has been locked up everywhere else), is biding his time between unarmed combat training, learning how to make soufflés , and another chap I know, who once registered his employment as a professional burglar, has started a new business on eBay selling all sorts of home appliances, jewellery and things that he has collected over the years.

You meet a lot of interesting people when pub-crawling is your hobby, er although possibly not at the moment!

If the truth be known, that is the only thing that I am missing in this new isolation age ~ my weekly trip to the boozer. Somehow, it is just not the same, drinking with friends whilst on Skype.

However, being optimistic (very by the look of the news), come summer at least we can invite some friends around for a drink. My new social-distancing socialising plan is called relative socialising. How it works is that having disinfected ourselves and made sure that the wind is blowing in the right direction, we, my wife and I, sit on the terrace and drink ~ the terrace is on the first floor ~ whilst they, the guests, sit outside in the garden. We can hold conversations by shouting to each other over the railings and/or use our mobile phones if and when the mood should take us. This is also an excellent way of keeping your mind occupied and stopping you from reading Google News. If you do not have a terrace set-up like us but have two rooms, you could always knock a hole in the wall, fill the gaps with facemasks or, if you have been farsighted, bog paper, and with you in one room and they in the other converse through this homemade filtration system.

There is really no end to the things you can get up to whilst you are self-isolating or in government lockdown.

Yesterday, for example, I read on the Kaliningrad news website that there had been a substantial increase in the number of condoms sold in Russia since the outbreak and spread of coronavirus. It really is quite amazing what people will store in a time of crisis. I suppose with all this time on their hands, and elsewhere, some enterprising couples are making their own rubber gloves.

Tomorrow, Day 6 of Self-isolating, we brave the great outdoors!

Self-isolating in Kaliningrad

Published: 17 March 2020

With no broadcast TV, no social media accounts, no newspapers and trying to ween myself off Google News, I was, as the lyrics say, “Happy in the haze of a drunken hour …”, until, that is, our neighbour asked my wife, in the context of coronavirus, whether I was still frequenting Kaliningrad’s bars. I came down to earth with a jolt.

I have no problem with self-isolating or social distancing, I have always been anti-social, but after all these years, a lifetime in fact, of shunning at-home drinking for the unparalleled joy of the pub or bar, it is more than one can bear.

As far as I am aware, to date we have five cases of coro in Kaliningrad, and about 450 self-isolating, some at home some under observation. Many schools here have switched from attendance-learning to distance-learning. The Polish and Lithuanian borders are closed, except for freight*, and there will be ‘no entry for foreigners from 18 March to 1 May’ . So, apart from a transit corridor through Lithuania, allowing people to return to their homes, which is scheduled to close on 19 March**, this small tract of land will be virtually cut off from the rest of the world.

Whilst there seems to be less people on the streets and on public transport, I have yet to hear of anything akin to the bizarre events unfolding in the UK, namely hordes of people descending on shops like locusts on laxatives to devour the shelves of toilet paper. I can only imagine how these people’s mind’s work. Perhaps they are thinking, he who laughs last laughs longest, and when the dire moments comes (let’s hope it is not the diarrhoea moment!), when the rest of the nation is down to its last piece of tissue, begging and imploring them to sell at any cost a 2-inch square, they will turn the other cheek. What an absolute bummer!

We have two small supermarkets in our locale, which I usually let my wife use, as I would not want to impinge on her leisure time, but, out of curiosity, I accompanied her recently. And when I got there the shelves were not bare (I feel a touch of poetry coming on.).

I have noticed, however, a funny thing. Your reflection in the window, you all cry. Well, that too, but more unprecedented is that whenever I go to these shops (which, as I have said, I don’t do very often because it’s a woman’s job, isn’t it), security always sidle off to form a cordon around the bog-roll shelves. Hmmm, they must know I am from England.

This blockade was unnecessary, however, as my only purchase interest was in medicine, which I was able to snap up, using my 25% discount sticker⁺, for the bargain price of two quid.

Self-isolating in Kaliningrad — **Self-isolating First Aid kit**

Prevention is better than cure, as they say, but just in case I bought some beats as well, as Russian borsch is highly recommended as an effective ‘morning after’ pill.

Sources
Accessed 17 March 2020:

*https://www.dw.com/ru/закрытый-калининград-из-за-коронавируса-российский-эксклав-оказался-в-изоляции/a-52796414
**https://www.newkaliningrad.ru/news/briefs/community/23609508-na-karantine-po-koronavirusu-v-kaliningradskoy-oblasti-nakhoditsya-450-chelovek.html

Note
⁺Some supermarkets in Kaliningrad present you at checkout with a little slip of paper on which are adhered reusable sticky labels. These are discount stickers, each sticker marked with varying percentage discounts. Off you go with your stickers and the next time you visit the shop, you can run round and stick these on the items of your choice, thus cutting the cost of your favourite drinks, I mean products. Promotions don’t usually work on me, but this one does!