Giant68 - The Plague Years

What did you do during the plague? Were you someone who thought that measures brought in to control the spread of the virus didn’t apply to you? Did you stay at home but whine about it? Or did you stay at home and follow the guidelines with the good grace of an adult with a sense of compassion and community spirit?

Either way, this virus caused all sorts of fear and panic. Death rates rising, stocks of toilet rolls plunging. Different kinds of rhetoric heard daily on the streets and on the TV.

Me? I was lucky, in a way. I still went to work every day. Mrs Giant68 went to work every 3^rd week, until she managed to dislocate her shoulder while playing cricket on the school field, MiniGiant was furloughed on 80% pay and No.1 daughter was furloughed on full pay.

Myself and Mrs Giant68 were classed as keyworkers and put in a bracket just beneath nurses, along with the binmen and shop workers. I don’t feel that we compared in any way to healthcare professionals, I was just doing the job I was paid for. Yes, I am a little scared of catching some virus that could kill me, after all, I am a 55-year-old man with heart disease and diabetes. But if you let the fear take over you may as well lock yourself away and never venture out ever again.

I am full of good intentions. While I am still working, I have plenty of spare time on my hands. We can't go shopping, or go out anywhere much, so what to do with all that spare time? I can finally get to teach myself how to play that ukulele, I want to learn Makaton, I can sign up for another online learning course….

4 weeks in and, while the garden is now tidy, I have done none of the rest of what I had so naively planned. But I have had video calls with friends far away and nearby. I have watched Starlink satellites float past overhead and photographed the moon and stars through my telescope, renewing my interest in hobbies surrendered to lack of time. So while I have learned not a lot I am still happy that I have come away with something. I reacquainted myself with the peace and beauty of the heavens, the peace and tranquility of a garden on a sunny afternoon and the pleasure of  good book. I hope that you have all gained something.

Although I have seen and heard things that haven’t been so pleasant. I have watched friends fall out over differing opinions, either scientific or political. It seems that in times like this everyone becomes an expert, or knows someone who knows someone who works with someone who…

Everyone seems to know better. Everyone seems to believe the rubbish that is published in the media, regardless of its source. I worry for friends when I see these arguments and I hope that when this is over they will kiss and make up. Me? I sit here and follow the guidelines given through official channels. I believe only those things I know as incontrovertible truths and I wash my hands and only go out for exercise and shopping. I will, however, achieve my goal of the Couch to 5k. Started yesterday and today I am buggered! But I will persevere.

Situations like this bring out the very best in some and the very worst in others. Ask yourself what its brought out in you. hopefully, it is the former and not the latter. Think Capt Tom rather than the Trumpster. 

And it has brought out some amazing examples of the dark humour of the British. I have laughed quite a bit. 

Look after yourselves. Follow the guidelines. Socially distance. It will pass. Things will get better and we will meet in the pub for a pint again. Stay healthy. Love you all.

And I really hope that my friends, newly moved to Somerset, finally see a Starlink satellite...

Giant68 😊

Interesting times at the moment, don’t you think? Virus, lockdown, no pubs, no restaurants, nothing really.

I have been lucky that I can still go to work, others, like Mrs Giant68, have to stay at home and try and avoid going stir crazy.

So what have you all done to try and relieve the tedium? I guess that those with kids haven’t had much chance to suffer the boredom of being home as the young’uns will be taking up most of their time while the rest is spent chucking gin down their throats. But I haven’t done a lot really. I have been off work for a couple of weeks, working in a school I still get the school holiday off this time. I have binge-watched a few things on Netflix and Amazon. I subscribed to the Disney channel so that I could watch The Mandalorian which, I hasten to add, I quite enjoyed.

Back in the 1970s there was a TV program called James Burkes Connections. I vaguely remember watching it and enjoying it. It seemed to be the start of the popular science scene that has lead to Brian Cox. In the program, James would follow a twisting trail linking one scientific discovery to others. It would start with a Roman Chariot and end with the space shuttle, or it would if the shuttle had been around in the early seventies…

I like all this popular science stuff, not that keen on Brian Cox to be honest, but the science is good. I read an interesting book recently that showed that the origin of the production line and mass production goes back to the American War of independence and the musket.  I used to watch Tomorrow's World when I was a kid, I bet a lot of you won’t be old enough to remember that or it’s original presenter, Raymond Baxter. Yes, I am old.

The other day I found a series seemingly based around the concept of the James Burke program. It is called Revolutions, presented by Jim Al Kalili. It shows that the telescope could have been in existence a thousand years before Galileo made one and found that Jupiter had moons and Saturn had rings.

But the most interesting thing I have discovered via this program is that Hedy Lamarr, film star and once voted the most beautiful woman on the planet, was also an inventor. She devised a way of guiding torpedoes to their targets during WW2. She also came up with the spread spectrum method which allows our smartphones to work without clogging up the airwaves.

I am a sucker for trivia like that. These things stick in my brain. For instance, the first traffic lights were in Parliament Square in 1868. Gas-powered with semaphore like flags as well as the red and green lights. Unfortunately, the next year they exploded and killed a policeman.

Voyager 1, launched in 1977 is now in interstellar space, having left the solar system in 2012, and is just short of 14 billion miles from home. In 40000 years it will be near  AC +79 3888, a star just over 17.5 light-years away.

Now, you can’t deny that those facts are fascinating, can you?

What I should be doing is learning the ukulele, something I have been trying to do on and off for a couple of years. Or maybe taking advantage of the many offers of free online diplomas. But where’s the fun in that?

Regards

Giant68 J

I really need to change that profile pic!

I have always been a bit of a social distancer...

So, how are you all doing with this social distancing? The world has become a bit of a strange place at the moment and there is no real sign of normality, at least not in the near future.

In a way, I have been lucky. I am one of those that still have to go to work and, while the threat of this damned virus scares the living crap out of me, I am thankful that I can still get out of the house.

But there is one thing that will keep me sane(ish). And that is my collection of books. I have been an avid reader for many, many years.  I discovered science fiction and fantasy at quite an early age when I found Destination Mars by Hugh Walters in the school library, previous to this I had read all of Willard Prices books. From then on I regularly got criticized by my English teacher, Mr Mouncher, who felt that I should be reading Dickens or Austen; ‘Stop reading that Star Trek rubbish’

Needless to say, I didn’t stop reading it. And I was encouraged by my maths teacher who lent me books by Cordwainer Smith and Arthur C Clarke, thanks Mr Cobley! I worked  my way through the Hugh Walters books, powered my way through Clarke and Asimov and then discovered fantasy, in the writings of Robert E Howard and his creation, Conan the barbarian.

Over the years I collected many books. It wasn’t enough to borrow them from the library, I had to have my own copy. I didn’t read a book and then get rid of it, I kept it to read again. I ended up, a few years ago, with thousands. As you can imagine, Mrs Giant68 was never that impressed.

Then she bought me a Kindle. I think there was hope that I would get rid of all the novels piled up around the house. And I did get rid of them. As I replaced them with the electronic version I would send the physical book to the charity shop. I am now the proud owner of thousands of ebooks. I still have some ‘real’ books, those with some sentimental value and signed copies.

Back to the current situation. While I have been sat, social distancing, I have had a chance to scour Amazon for new books to read. Amazon is a great place for people like me, especially in this day of self-publishing. There is a myriad of books at knockdown prices. I rarely pay over 99p for a book. There is, however, a drawback to self-publishing, and that is that some of them are absolute shite. But in amongst the dross there are some absolute gems and these range from proper ‘pulp’ scifi to some that would hold their own against literary classics. And there are a plethora of sub-genres to choose from, steampunk, urban fantasy etc. In the old days of paying over a fiver for a paperback, I would finish every book I bought. I was going to get my moneys worth. Nowadays, if I have spent 99p on a book and it proves to be crap, I don’t bother. Life is too short to read rubbish books. I tend to avoid ‘zombie’ novels as they all follow the same idea, and I feel that it is lazy writing and authors without the imagination to write something original. Apologies if you are one of those writers but please feel free to convince me otherwise.

Currently, I am waiting for Neal Ashers latest episode from his Jain series, The Human, to hit the shelves. The previous books being absolutely amazing and unputdownable. But then that is what I have come to expect from Asher, as well as Peter F Hamilton.

I have discovered fantasy from the keyboard of Justin Lee Anderson, The Lost War. A story that could rival the writing of David Gemmell.

I am currently reading The Atomic Sea by Jack Conner and loving it. It looks like it is a long series so I am not sure how long I will stick with it before it starts to bore me but at the moment it has captured my imagination with the imagery it contains. Next in the reading queue are books by Steve McHugh, excellent urban fantasy writing, something by Michael Anderle, real pulp fiction but, like the others mentioned here, good for losing yourself in for several hours.

In a way we are in a golden age of writing, more so, I think, than in any other time. The opportunities that the ebook have presented to budding authors seem to be without limits. Anybody can live one life but a reader can live thousands of lives.

I expect that Mr Mouncher, the old English teacher, has long since passed to the great library in the sky but I wonder what he would say to me now.

In the meantime, and while you are self isolating, get along to Amazon and check out the offerings of Neal Asher and Peter F Hamilton for vast, sweeping space operas with complex plots and even more complex characters. Or Justin Lee Andersons Lost War if you are into well imagined fantasy. For the urban fantasy fan, try Steve McHugh and his Hellequin series. I make no apology for plugging these authors, they write some great stories, but remember that Amazon has a vast catalogue of books in all formats, why not try something new?
 Stay indoors. Stay safe. Stay healthy. Read a good book and stay sane.

Regards

Giant68 :-)

The naked and the recovering.

I am a little late in writing this, sorry. We went to Spain in October and it is now February.

So there we were, sat on the beach, and what a nice beach it was too, I was reading my Kindle, and I look up and there are two naked people walking past on their way to the sea. What is wrong with this? I hear you ask. Nothing, apart from the fact that, being English, I am more used to seeing naked people looking like their birthday suit needs a good iron or it has been overstuffed. These 2 were quite good looking, not that I really noticed, or was looking…

I think that the gentleman was affected by the coldness of the sea… Anyway, I went back to reading my book, lets face it, I was recovering from a quintuple bypass.

There is nothing quite as good as blue sky and sunshine to help a recovery from major surgery, or anything, come to think of it. We had retired to the Costas for a week and it proved to be worth it. October ½ term and the weather at Platja D’Aro was mid 20’s, blue sky, hardly any people. We stood on a beach on the first day and were the only ones there. Paradise.

It’s also strange what you can learn about a place if you put your mind to it. There are paddy fields in Spain. They grow rice, who’d have thought it?

We were in a good hotel, quite multinational but mainly Germans. They have weird things for breakfast. I  saw people collect just a plate of eggs, I get that, but then there was the guy who collected a massive plate load of cake and a bowl of milk and proceeded to dunk the cake in the milk, weird but each to their own, or chacun à son gout as the Europeans might say, not that we are European any more but that is another story and not from me.

Spain is a beautiful place but, seriously, who paints a building this colour and puts orange blinds on it??

And then you get views like this:

Do you see why myself and Mrs Giant68 picked this place for the mental recovery from surgery? We both needed it.

Regards

Giant68 😉