Self-discipline and creativity during the lockdown

Having a hobby or pastime is crucial during the lockdown; your day must have structure - there are things to be done to keep the mind and body from atrophying. The connected computer helps - there's no excuse for not seeking answers to the questions that intrigue and pique one's curiosity. Runaway trains of thought can run through points and on to branch lines to ever-more obscure and fascinating destinations. Follow them!

In Derbyshire, my brother has rallied to the Victoria & Albert Museum's call to build a collection of homemade signs and rainbow drawings created during lockdown. This rainbow was created from small plastic pieces, detritus, objets trouves, broken toys, all threaded together.

The number of people who have died from Covid-19 in the UK over the past two and half months is now comparable in scale to the number of civilians who died in the UK in WWII. The eight month-long Blitz killed 20,000 Londoners; across the UK including all the other cities hit by the Blitz, the civilian death toll was 43,000; to the end of the WWII, including the 'Baby Blitz' and the V1 and V2 flying bombs, the civilian death toll was 62,000. Yesterday's excess deaths figures for England and Wales from the ONS have shown that more than 49,600 more people have died in the eight weeks from 20 March to 8 May this year than the number of deaths for the same period averaged over the past five years. 

The pandemic will go into folk history, it will not be overshadowed by a Great War, it will spawn creativity, with luck an inflection point for the better like the Renaissance after the Black Death or the Enlightenment after the Great Plague.

In a slightly more flippant burst of creativity, I channel Scotland's worst poet, William McGonagall: 

Ode on the Covid-19 Pandemic

'Twas in the year of the Lord, Twenty-Twenty,

Mankind had matters to vex it plenty.

There was Brexit and Trump to ire us,

And then from China came a deadly virus.

It spared the young and took the old,

Though the opposite story has also been told.

In London, our Premier's robust word, 

Was we should 'take it on the chin' like a cattle's herd.

When asked to respond with something stronger,

He replied you should all wash your hands for a few seconds longer.

He shook hands with patients - almost as a dare

And ended up in intensive care."

Feel free to send me more couplets to add!

This time last year:

Russia's Far East on road maps

This time two years ago:
Heavenly Jeziorki

This time  six years ago:
Why are all the shops shut today? 

This time seven years ago:
Jeziorki at its most beautiful

This time nine years ago:
Useful and useless in my wallet

This time ten years ago:
In search of the dream klimat - remote viewing made real

This time 11 years ago:
Zakopane to Kraków in 3hrs 45min

This time 12 years ago:
The year's most beautiful day?