This afternoon, as I was hunched over my phone composing a draft of a tweet, I paused over what word I would use to describe the COVID-19 events of the past few weeks.
Shenanigans? Malestrom? Crisis? Hilarity? Tragedy? Nonsense? “This COVID19 business”?
I began to realise that, in our discussions about the virus, we all seem to be able to slide effortlessly between gravity and frivolity. We can at once be deeply affected and concerned by the death, illness, and risk to our frontline workers on the one hand; and sharing memes about day-drinking and homeschool #fails, on the other. We all seem to be experiencing a sort of mass cognitive dissonance. Continue reading
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Jillian C. York writes a short thread on looking presentable for video calls.
Some pro-tips, from an actual pro (not the @nytimes), on how to quickly look presentable when presented with a surprise video call:
— i’m just a girl living in captivity (@jilliancyork) March 27, 2020
This reminded me of a passage in Infinite Jest where David Foster Wallace describes the phenomenon of Video-Physiognomic Dysphoria, the anxiety at having to present yourself on a video call. Continue reading
So, voluntary self-isolation becomes a mandatory lock-down.
Plenty of people have been discussing relevant films, TV shows and literature that deal with pandemics, deadly diseases and the like. GIFs from Shaun of the Dead, and all the other zombie movies, fill my timeline.
As for me, I have found that my mind keeps wandering back to three books I read in recent years, which all include moments of apocalyptic lock-down.
Continue readingSome good news! Remember the local campaign against propsed feeder schools? The Langley Park Learning Trust responded to the consultation, and have decided not to proceed.
I spoke to Monica Charsley, Bromley and Bexley correspondent at the News Shopper, about the decision:
Robert Sharp, a spokesperson for the Fair Access Langley campaign group, said: “We are delighted with the decision.
“So many people worked hard to raise awareness about the consultation, and the number of people who responded was a factor in the decision.
“But it is also pleasing that the trustees have engaged with and accepted the social, educational and environmental arguments raised by the community.
“However, we remain concerned that the Trust chose to consult in the first place.
“We urge them to be transparent about their reasons for doing so, and to reassure the community that they will not re-consult on this issue in the near future.”
I want to say something quite precise about the nature of the ‘debate’ about transgender rights. It is not about the substance of the argument itself, but about how we are arguing about it.
The prompt for this is last week’s furore over a Suzanne Moore column in the Guardian, and the No Platforming of the historian Selina Todd. But it could just as easily be about any of the other controversies that have generated news media coverage and social media heat over the past few years.
First, did you notice how I put apostrophes around the word ‘debate’ above. I do that to acknowledge a point that transgender rights activists make constantly: that their right to exist should not be up for debate.
Continue reading