That Was The Week That Was

Quite a week. Got Covid. Missed out on my sister's fiftieth birthday party, because of the Covid. Saw a bit of the party through the pixel storm of a camera phone. A lot of faces I hadn't seen in a decade. They still remembered me. They even seemed to like me, despite the drunken roasting...

It was my uncle's funeral. My cousin John gave a remarkable eulogy. Of course, I missed it because of Covid. I watched the live-stream. The second live-streamed funeral I've seen in a year. Crying in my living room in my dressing gown, watching a funeral on a phone. I liked Leo. He was the uncle we saw most of growing up. He was a nice bloke. 

There's war happening in Ukraine. The president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is six years younger than me, but looks twenty years younger than me, has donned a flak jacket and is facing off against Russian troops. So far, Ukraine appears to be on its own. Other countries have sent guns and food, but no one is pitching in. He remains brave and resolute. He is owning the culture war, at least. Imagine anyone in our government doing this. There would not be a fridge big enough for Boris Johnson. Bejam couldn't contain him. 

There are reports on the news of fleeing Ukrainians not being admitted to the country because they don't have a visa. And this is a war that the government are nominally against...

A Tory MP has suggested they might be admitted it they agree to pick our fruit. They're not properly evolved, are they. Tories, not the Ukrainians fleeing an unjust war...

The world (not China) has imposed sanctions on Russia. They have been told they can't compete in Eurovision. Putin has been dropped as honorary president of the International Judo Federation. Low blows abound, man. 

I don't know where this is going. War in Europe. A proper war. People are changing their Facebook statuses to express their solidarity. I mean, why not? I'm not in a position to judge. I've done nothing. I've stayed in the house, coughing. Watching the news. As scared as any member of the Cabinet. 

The family home has been stripped of everything. My brother Barry got a team of men in to empty it. On the family's behalf - it wasn't just a whim! My Basingstoke base is getting farther and farther away. Barry sent pictures of the denuded house, the rooms suddenly enormous, the accumulated bricolage of forty years of human life ripped out, leaving only dirty walls, scars in the plush of the carpet describing wardrobes, beds, tables. All gone. Ghostly ruts. His photos had his beautiful daughter, Carmen, in them, jumping and spinning and grinning in each sad, empty room. It's a remarkable contrast: her vitality inside that grubby, ruined shell. The spark of life going down through the generations. Sometime soon it will be someone else's house, contain other, unknowable lives. Our lives will be elsewhere. They already are. 

Another of my Facebook friends has died. I didn't know him well, but he seemed like a nice bloke. One of those virtual nodding acquaintances we all have now. He was no trouble at all, and seemed the perfect illustration of the maxim that punks are nice people pretending to be horrible, and hippies are horrible people pretending to be nice. RIP Nicky x