A Sincere Request From Someone Who Has Spent Her Entire Adult Life Wishing People Had Kept Better Records…

(Author unknown)

To the tune of “Modern Major General”

I am the very model of effective social distancing!

I listen to the experts on the topic of resistance-ing;

I know that brunch and yoga class aren’t nearly as imperative

As doing what I can to change the nation’s viral narrative.

I’m very well acquainted, too, with living solitarily

And confident that everyone can do it temporarily:

Go take a walk, or ride a bike, or dig into an unread book;

Avoid the bars and restaurants and carry out, or learn to cook.

There’s lots of stuff to watch online while keeping safe from sinus ills

(In this case, it’s far better to enjoy your Netflix MINUS chills)!

Adopt a pet, compose a ballad, write some earnest doggerel,

And help demolish Trump before our next event inaugural.

Pandemics are alarming, but they aren’t insurmountable

If everybody pitches in to hold ourselves accountable.

In short, please do your part to practice prudent co-existence-ing,

And be the very model of effective social distancing!

I loved Knives Out, and I also loved the posters.

Nearly 130 public libraries closed across Britain in the last year

Almost 130 public libraries have closed in the last year in Britain while an extra 3,000 volunteers have been brought in to run remaining services, as the decade’s austerity pressures see local authorities continuing to apply swingeing cuts to budgets.

The annual survey of British libraries by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (Cipfa) has revealed a similar picture each year since 2010, with the number of branches and paid staff falling every year.

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Shamelessly yoinked from facebook, but it’s hard not to see our current pandemic panic in these words from C.S. Lewis:

“How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.” … “the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. 

They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”

From “Present Concerns” New York: Harcourt, 1986

National Theatre At Home

26 March 2020: It’s happening, kids: National Theatre: At Home is coming

Released weekly on YouTube here

Every Thursday, the NT will be releasing a play from their NTLive archive to watch for free, for everyone, for 7 days.

First up is:

One Man, Two Guvnors (2nd April)

Jane Eyre (9th April)

Treasure Island (16th April)

Twelfth Night (23rd April)

Further productions to be announced.

Oh my God

I did it. I finished it!

Months and months of on and off hard work, this period of time included my last exams of my master degree, my planning for a South Korea university trip, the cancellation of said trip, and the first days of this quarantine all we Italians are living..

But this is an incredible result. The original picture is a work of art, and I loved it to the point of spending the last half of a year reproducing it

Now, what's next?

Bees?