Music, running, global pandemic
My classic album of the week last week was The Gilded Palace of Sin by The Flying Burrito Brothers. It was pretty fun, though I’ve had a distracted time. The Spotify blurb claims these guys basically invented country rock. I did notice some solid late ’60s lyricing in A woman's only human/This you must understand/She's not just a plaything/She expects love just like a man. Not just a plaything.
I also listened a lot to Leonard Cohen’s last album before he died, You Want It Darker. It’s good stuff, very gravelly voice, a lot of Bible stuff, to the point that you’re never clear if he’s talking about a lover or God. That’s probably the point. Knowing that he died a couple of weeks after this came out puts lines like I'm leaving the table/I'm out of the game and I'm ready, my Lord into perspective.
Meanwhile, my ongoing hip injury is kind of OK? I ran half an hour last Saturday and it was fine, but then I did fifteen minutes on Sunday and it was bad. I think ice is the key. I did another half hour this morning without trouble (and used ice). I’m so out of shape though. The Paris half marathon has been rescheduled for September 6 (though they’ve not actually emailed any of the participants yet to tell them this), and I expect I’ll be fit by then. What’s left of the world remains to be seen.
Yeah. Coronavirus. COVID-19. It doesn’t feel like it’s really kicked off here in London. There was a run on toilet paper, and there are no grocery delivery slots for days at a time, but I still went bowling in central London last night. I’m spending a lot of time furiously washing my hands like the government and the bus stops tell us to do. Ireland has just shut down all the school, colleges and cultural institutions, and the UK must be close behind. The country is obviously run by morons - how the fuck long has Nadine Dorries been health minister? I thought I was on top of things - but even they probably don’t want everyone to die. Particularly the 70+ demographic, their core vote. There’s rumours in work that they’ll spring a compulsory work from home tomorrow to see how ready we all are to do it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it stayed like that for a few weeks.
Working from home will be a challenge if the schools and childcare facilities shut down, because my “desk” is the living room table, and I don’t think having a two year old milling around asking me for biscuits and what that noise is will be too compatible with robust API design.
Football will probably stop soon. I feel a little bad for Liverpool.
We’re all supposed to fly to Dublin in three and a half weeks for Easter. I guess if both countries have the plague, then it doesn’t really matter which one we’re in.
There’s also a massive economic crash happening almost in the background, and today is my birthday.