by The snow I mentioned last time pretty much melted away, but now the white stuff is coming down properly.
Dad sent me a great video about Fen skating. The Fens – the pancake-flat part of East Anglia which I lived on the edge of – regularly floods and sometimes freezes. Before the half-arsed winters we get now, the meadows might be frozen for weeks, and people would skate on them, especially Bury Fen, near Earith where my aunt lives. I had a go once or twice, but was just about talent-free. The Fen skating tradition dates back at least a couple of centuries, and racing was serious business that drew bumper crowds. The men in the video are getting on a bit now; they reminisced about the famous winter of 1962-63 and three successive harsh winters in the 1980s – people came in their thousands then to participate or watch. They said that another deep freeze could revitalise the tradition, but I’m not so sure. Even the eighties are a world away now. Back in Romania, temperatures are forecast to dip into the double-figure negatives, so the Bega might freeze as it did during my first winter here. There was even ice fishing.
I watched the replay of Dad’s cousin’s funeral. The video only lasted half an hour, and a good part of that was music before and after the service. I couldn’t see very much. He was a potter, and much of the focus was on the relative fame he achieved in that sphere. He was a PR man, he gave lessons, he talked pots, he was all over social media, he met the great and the good of the potting world on his travels, and he blew his own trumpet loud and often. The complete opposite of my father, in other words, who can’t stand any of that stuff (you can see where I get it from) and has always preferred to let his paintings speak. He was described in the service as being curmudgeonly, cantankerous, and always right. Surly is the word I would use. I think he was actually quite friendly though if you got to know him (I never really did).
Coronavirus deaths in the UK have reached 100,000. Yesterday 1562 deaths were recorded. (On a per capita basis, this is equivalent to almost 8000 in the US.) People are often dying alone. Bodies are piling up in mortuaries. This level of excess death hasn’t been seen since the Second World War. It’s a tragic toll.
Last night’s Musicorama was dedicated to Joan Baez, who has just turned 80. What a voice, and what an incredible life she has led inside and outside of music. In the winter of 2015, just before I started this blog, I found myself playing Diamonds and Rust over and over. On Monday’s show that a variety of artists including Sting. Why do I like his All This Time so much, I wondered. Ahh, because it sounds so much like Paul Simon.
