The Guardian has published today this article about the new situation that makes EU citizens living in the UK afraid of having to leave their homes and go back to their countries. The pandemic is attacking everything we have taken for granted up to now.
Asterix has been part of our lives for nearly 60 years, and of mine for nearly 50. I still remember my immediate assent to René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo’s world: it seemed right and fine that a Gaulish village should still hold out against the Roman invader, that combat should be determined by punch-ups in which no one is killed, that a shrewd, plucky and resourceful warrior should be best friends with a big lunk about three times his size. It also made sense that the chief of the village (never named, just “the village”) should be a henpecked figure of fun (albeit as brave as anyone when in a tight corner) and that the druid should be a venerable, white-bearded figure whose wisdom derived, in great part, from a delicious sense of the absurd.
The magic potion that gave the villagers the superhuman strength to withstand the oppressor made sense, too, especially to a child; children are always conscious of how weak they are and a magic potion would turn the tables neatly. I didn’t understand the superb joke behind the druid’s name, Getafix (a stroke of audacious genius by one of the book’s translators, Anthea Bell) for many years, but I did spend the odd summer day bunging leaves from the more interesting plants in the garden into a pan in an attempt to make the magic potion.
What drew me in was Uderzo’s visual style. I loved Tintin, the other half of the comic dyad from my childhood, and I loved Hergé’s clean style, the ligne claire of his pen, but Asterix was drawn as caricature: the big noses, the huge bellies, often being prodded by sausage-like fingers. (Not everyone was drawn like that: Geriatrix’s much younger – and I don’t think ever named – wife was a bombshell, and I fell badly in love with Panacea, who also besotted Obelix in Asterix the Legionary. I am not sure my ideas of romantic love have evolved much since then.)But what I particularly liked was the way Uderzo’s style progressed. The panels of Asterix the Gaul felt rudimentary compared to the later works and by the time Asterix and Cleopatra, the sixth book to be published, came out, you finally felt that this was what they ought to look like. It was an important lesson for a child to learn: that you could get better at what you did over time. Each book seemed to have its own palette and perhaps Uderzo’s best work is in Asterix in Spain. When I first came across the lines “come in under the shadow of this red rock” in The Waste Land, I was immediately transported to the sombre ochre tints of Uderzo’s parched Iberian landscape.
Perhaps the most popular of the Asterix books in this country, though, is Asterix in Britain. How could it not be? This was published out of sync with the French running order, as an understandable enticement to the British readership. Every nationality that Asterix encounters is gently satirised (apart from the Germans: they’re not treated gently at all. I’ll get back to this). But the British are satirised with an affection that borders on love: the worst of the digs are about our appalling cuisine (everything is boiled, and served with mint sauce, and the beer is warm), but everything points to the Gauls’ and the Britons’ closeness. They have the same social structure, even down to having one village still holding out against the Romans; the crucial and extremely generous difference being that the Britons do not have a magic potion to help them fight. Instead they have tea, introduced to them by Getafix, via Asterix, which gives them so much of a psychological boost that it may as well have been the magic potion. I reread this book in the light of the 2016 referendum result and despaired, almost to the point of tears, that such a respectful portrayal of this country was not reciprocated. There are those – Mary Beard among them – who say that the satire in the original French is rather more pointed. I’m not so sure.
My take on the Asterix series, at least during its golden age, when Goscinny was still alive to write the scripts, is that it’s a fantasy on French resistance during occupation by Nazi Germany. This is why the Germans are treated so unsympathetically in Asterix and the Goths, and why quite a few of the books turn on questions of loyalty and treachery. But one doesn’t want to over-intellectualise. Let us salute Uderzo for visualising a world for us. Look at the deftness and care he takes over the oaks, bluebells, mushrooms and dolmens of the forest surrounding the village on one side, the foaming sea on the other, and the great good cheer of the indomitable villagers themselves.
In uncertain times, few spaces feel more comforting than a bookshop.
And, over the past few years, as the world has felt increasingly tumultuous,
indie bookshops – once in danger from online retailers and big chains – have
experienced something of a resurgence, providing a place of solace and sense of
community.
So, it feels especially painful that during this global pandemic,
bookshops – at least physically – have become increasingly out of bounds. As
Covid-19 spreads around the world, many countries are entering periods of total
lockdown, with all but essential services closed and people ordered to stay
inside. Even where official lockdowns are not in place, social distancing and
avoiding unnecessary contact is urged. Many people are choosing to
self-quarantine because they are at high-risk or want to help stop the spread.
All this means bookshops are rapidly closing their stores – some because
they have been told to, others through choice to protect the health of their
customers and staff. Those that have been able to keep their doors open have
seen a significant drop in footfall. Yet, with people stuck at home and in need
of distraction and escape, books suddenly feel more vital than ever – and
booksellers by their very nature are resilient and creative folk. So they are
coming up with new ways to serve their customers and communities, from ramping
up their delivery service and dropping off orders by bicycle, to recreating
their community spaces on social media, recommending the perfect books for
those stuck in self isolation and running virtual events.
Comfort reading
For Mike Gustafson, owner of Literati Bookstore, an award-winning
shop in Ann Arbor, Michigan, shutting the doors was both an easy and a
difficult decision to make. “I was on the phone with our manager about limiting
our hours when my wife walked into my office and bluntly stated, ‘We need to
close.’ We made the decision to close 15 minutes later. And we could be closed
for many months.”
Like many shops, they moved quickly to prioritising online ordering –
hoping that their customers would understand. “We usually get around 5 or 10
orders a day. In less than a week we’ve had over 800,” says Gustafson.
“Everything happened so fast. However, our community has rallied behind us.
They have placed many orders, left overwhelmingly kind comments and boosted our
morale on social media pages. I fully grasp that during times like these, books
are not high on the hierarchy of survival needs. And yet, for so many, books
offer a unique kind of comfort, and perhaps are really needed right now.”
While they work their way through the spate of online orders, they’re
also exploring digital book clubs and online writing courses. “We are taking a
look at creating a community online, so neighbours can still interact with neighbours
about ideas, new voices, art and books.”
On social media, movements like IndieBound are connecting
readers to bookshops, and showing people how they can support their local
store, from ordering books online and buying gift cards to signing up for
newsletters and pre-ordering new releases.
In the UK, Books Are My Bag have led a huge
drive to promote the initiatives of indie bookstores, using the hashtag #ChooseBookshops.
These include Norwich’s The Book Hive, offering curated
self-isolation packs and Bath’s Mr B’s
Emporium – which has called itself ‘Non-Contact Open’, rather than ‘Closed’
– featuring a collection of Staying Home?-themed lists of books on their
website for those looking for inspiration.
Books on wheels
While Amazon has announced plans to temporarily de-prioritise book
orders in favour of household supplies, independent bookstores are stepping up
their delivery strategy. Many booksellers are getting an extra workout as they
dash around town on their bikes – one staff member at Abingdon’s Mostly Books covered 75km in a week
delivering literary packages. South London bookshop Kirkdale has roped in a literary
agent to help dispatch orders while Glasgow’s indie LGBTQIA+ bookshop Category Is Books is delivering by
skateboard, too (though perhaps the prize for most novel delivery method goes
to the Kiruna bookshop in Sweden, which is dispatching
books by kick-sled).
“Booksellers are among the most resilient, warm and resourceful of
people, and bookshops have been swift to adapt to the obstacles of social
distancing and self-isolation to provide incredible services for their
customers,” says Meryl Halls, managing director of the Booksellers Association
of the UK and Ireland. But she says it’s vital to remember that, while many
bookshops are demonstrating pragmatism and optimism, they still desperately
need the support of the public, the publishing industry and their governments
to weather this new landscape.
Dieter Dausien, owner of Buchladen am Freiheitsplatz in Hanau,
Germany understands why his shop has, like all other non-essential retail
businesses, been told to shut down – but it doesn’t make it any easier. “The
worst thing is the uncertainty as to how long the closures will last,” he says.
“We deliver books to customers at home, or leave ordered books in front of our
door for customers to collect, making sure there is no human contact. But it’s
a much greater effort to prepare books for shipping than to sell in store.”
When French bookstores closed after the government ordered the shut-down
of all non-essential businesses, publishers stepped in to help by delaying
release dates and postponing payment deadlines.
In Italy, the country now worst hit by the Coronavirus, things are
understandably tough. All bookstores are closed as part of the national
lockdown. Home deliveries can also only be made by a regulated courier – not
the booksellers themselves – and costs for this are high and difficult for
smaller shops. Yet bookstores have not given up, using social networks and
online tools to keep in touch with customers. In Milan, La Scatola Lilla organises a live
Instagram broadcast each day, with guests discussing books and giving reading
advice.
Children across the UK will be off school for an indefinite period of time because of coronavirus. Some are likely to be anxious, so how can parents help them cope?
No school for the "foreseeable" future. Exams off. Clubs closed.
Millions of children will be looking forward to a spring, and possibly a summer, free of responsibility and routine. But these are not normal times - they're likely to have to spend days and nights indoors with parents or guardians.
They won't get much personal contact with friends and, for teenagers, the cancellation of exams will make a difficult time of year even more worrying.
"It's the perfect storm for parents and children," says Sam Cartwright-Hatton, professor of clinical child psychology at the University of Sussex.
"It's not just the fact that they're going to be cooped up together. Emotions are also going to be super-stressed because - on top of what young people are feeling - parents are worried about jobs, food supplies, paying the next mortgage bill."
Consistent routine
As households begin this forced experiment in enclosed living, Prof Cartwright-Hatton advocates setting a clear routine, particularly for younger children - such as a couple of hours of school work in the morning or a specified time for craft work in the afternoon.
She argues that pre-teenage children "turn inwards quite quickly" if they spend too much time alone.
Parents should play with them and encourage those of an adventurous nature to regard the situation as an "adventure". This approach won't work for the more sensitive children who will need extra reassurance.
Prof Cartwright-Hatton recommends keeping classmates and members of clubs like Brownies, football teams and music groups in touch via Skype, FaceTime, Zoom or other video-conferencing services. This would allow them to share details of their day and play games.
"I would worry about a child who had no-one to play with for six months. We're going to have to get creative in keeping children connected to their peer groups. Kerplunk won't work on Skype, but Cluedo or Monopoly might."
...
Limit the doom and gloom
It's impossible to shield all but the youngest children from coronavirus talk, particularly with parents turning on TVs at 17:00 GMT for the latest government briefing.
But Prof Cartwright-Hatton suggests not exposing under-10s to any news at all, except in tailored forms such as the BBC's Newsround, which consults experts on its likely psychological impact.
Teenagers are better equipped to make their own judgements, but they should not be left in their rooms for hours on end searching the internet or using social media unsupervised, she warns.
For some, text banter has long replaced the intimacy of an actual conversation. But as many are now rediscovering, a call can offer real closeness
Name: Phone call.
Er… Hello? Hello.
Hello! Hello!
What the hell is this? This is a phone call.
Really? Why, what’s wrong? Is there an emergency? Well, no. Apart from, you know, the coronavirus emergency.
Well,can’t you just send a text? Or an email? Because it’s good to talk. Especially now that everyone’s supposed to be confined to their own home.
Since when has it been good to talk on the phone? Ask properly, the Pass notes way.
Sorry. Age: 144 years. The first telephone call was made by the Scottish inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, on 10 March 1876.
Was it to his grandmother, to thank her for the birthday book token? No, to his assistant, Thomas Watson, who was in another room.
And what did Alexander say to Thomas? He said: “Mr Watson, come here – I want to see you.”
Ah, that’s beautiful. I see what you mean about it being good to talk. It was just a demonstration, to show it was possible to do what Bell described as “talk with electricity”. Other conversations are available and have been had since. Back in the day, everyone used to spend hours and hours nattering away on the old dog and bone.
Yeah, but no one does it any more. We text. Often in groups – like written banter. It’s almost like being out. Does it have that personal closeness you get with a proper phone call?
OK, so there’s FaceTime, WhatsApp video calls, Skype and the rest.They’re better stillbecause you get to see the person you’re talking to. True. And, again, they are undeniably brilliant. But there’s a performance involved, distractions, people coming and going. If you want to actually say something to someone, just call them. Nothing beats the reassuring intimacy of a human voice straight into the ear.
What are you wearing? I’m not ... NO! Not like THAT! (Although that is also possible). I’m talking about the importance of conversation. And with social distancing …
Of course, that’s why you called. It’s just about the nicest way of staying connected.
Impossible to deny, it has beenfun. Now pick up the phone, call someone else. Sing to them if you like.
Really? What should I sing? Well, there’s a certain Stevie Wonder song I can think of. A bit of Blondie, maybe. ELO…
Anything more recent? Or you could just talk.
Do say: “Mum, it’s just me, nothing important. Checking in, calling for a chat.”
Don’t say: “Everyone’s going down the pub. Last one there gets the drinks in.”
I know the situation in the whole world is getting worse. I know I live in a country where coronavirus is spreading fast and we are beginning to feel really worried and a bit frightened.
I cannot critizise the way the problem is being handled by the authorities as I know it's an extremely difficult matter and I don't think it's the time to critizise but to help.
I think that the only reasonable thing we can do is keep calm and try to make things correctly in our little world, being responsible and generous at the same time. We teachers have been asked to continue teaching from home but I think this is also a chance to communicate with the rest of the world. I mean, in my case I keep this blog because I like sharing whatever I find interesting or useful with my students. But we have a chance now to open to other people, to other countries, to share our views, our worries and our suggestions with people who are living something similar in other parts of the world or people who will be in our circumstances in an unfortunately not very far future.
Maybe I'm being very ambitious as this is just a humble blog run by a humble teacher of English but I think any occasion is good to share and to help each other.
Experts say the coronavirus has given the Chinese government a pretext for accelerating the mass surveillance
Over the last two months, Chinese citizens have had to adjust to a new level of government intrusion.
Getting into one’s apartment compound or workplace requires scanning a QR code, writing down one’s name and ID number, temperature and recent travel history. Telecom operators track people’s movements while social media platforms like WeChat and Weibo have hotlines for people to report others who may be sick. Some cities are offering people rewards for informing on sick neighbours.
Chinese companies are meanwhile rolling out facial recognition technology that can detect elevated temperatures in a crowd or flag citizens not wearing a face mask. A range of apps use the personal health information of citizens to alert others of their proximity to infected patients or whether they have been in close contact.
State authorities, in addition to locking down entire cities, have implemented a myriad of security measures in the name of containing the coronavirus outbreak. From top officials to local community workers, those enforcing the rules repeat the same refrain: this is an “extraordinary time” feichang shiqi, requiring extraordinary measures.
As the number of new infections in China falls, having infected more than 80,000 and killed more than 3,000, residents and observers question how much of these new measures are here to stay.
“I don’t know what will happen when the epidemic is over. I don’t dare imagine it,” said Chen Weiyu, 23, who works in Shanghai. Every day when Chen goes to work, she has to submit a daily health check to her company, as well as scan a QR code and register in order to enter the office park.
“Monitoring is already everywhere. The epidemic has just made that monitoring, which we don’t normally see during ordinary times, more obvious,” she said.
Others are more emphatic about the future. Wang Aizhong, an activist based in Guangzhou, said: “This epidemic undoubtedly provides more reason for the government to surveil the public. I don’t think authorities will rule out keeping this up after the outbreak.”
“When we go out or stay in a hotel, we can feel a pair of eyes looking at us at any time. We are completely exposed to the monitoring of the government,” he said.
Experts say the virus, which emerged in Wuhan in December, has given authorities a pretext for accelerating the mass collection of personal data to track citizens, a dangerous prospect given that the country does not have stringent laws governing personal data.
“It’s mission creep,” said Maya Wang, senior China researcher for Human Rights Watch. According to Wang, the virus is likely to be a catalyst for a further expansion of the surveillance regime, as major events like the 2008 Olympics held in Beijing or the Shanghai Expo in 2010 were. “The techniques of mass surveillance became more permanent after these events,” she said.
“With the coronavirus outbreak the idea of risk scoring and restrictions on movement quickly became reality,” she said. “Over time we see more and more intrusive use of technology and less ability of people to push back.”
Many Chinese residents see the extra layers of public monitoring as additional bureaucratic hurdles, more frustrating than sinister, that further demonstrate the government’s ineffectiveness in handling the outbreak.
China’s surveillance dragnet, while proudly promoted by officials, is full of loopholes. An ex-inmate infected with the virus managed to travel from Wuhan to Beijing last month, well after quarantine measures had gone into effect, prompting widespread criticism over how she left.
Citizens are particularly critical of a system called Health Code, which users can sign up for through Alipay or WeChat, that assigns individuals one of three colour codes based on their travel history, time spent in outbreak hotspots and exposure to potential carriers of the virus. The software, used in more than 100 cities, will soon allow people to check the colours of other residents when their ID numbers are entered.
One resident complained on Weibo that he had driven through Hubei without stopping but his colour code changed to yellow from green, indicating he would need to be quarantined. “I can’t even go out to buy bread or water,” another in Jiangsu province said, after his code inexplicably changed to yellow following a work trip.
Many described the app as “for appearances,” or xingshi zhuyi, a way for lower level officials to impress their higher ups with added strictures on citizens.
“I have a health code, a pass for my residential compound, and another certificate of health and still I can’t get into my home,” one commentator said. “This is garbage. Please release us regular people,” another said.
Low-tech security measures have been employed as much as high-tech ones. An army of workers guard entry points to public spaces, ordering pedestrians to log their information or questioning residents about their recent movements. Religious sites like mosques have been closed. Many cities and counties have banned group gatherings, including small dinner parties.
In February, Sichuan province officials broke up a group playing mahjong party and forced the participants to read out an apology, captured on video. “We were wrong. We promise there will not be a next time and we will also monitor others,” the group of 10 men said, heads slightly bowed.
Other videos posted online have shown local officials pushing residents to the ground for not wearing a face mask or tying a man to a pole. Local law enforcement in Wuhan were recently fired after a video of them beating a man for selling vegetables on the street was posted online.
An article by the official state news agency Xinhua last week reminded citizens that those who violate virus prevention and control measures could be subject to three years in prison, and up to seven for particularly serious cases, as outlined in China’s criminal code.
“Intrusive surveillance is already the ‘new normal’. The question for China is what, if any, is a level of surveillance that the population refuses to tolerate,” said Stuart Hargreaves, an associate professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong’s law school, focusing on privacy and information law.
Some worry current measures will continue in part because citizens are growing accustomed to them. Alex Zhang, 28, who lives in Chengdu, refers to Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s theory on the state of exception, and how measures taken during a state of emergency can be prolonged.
“This type of governance and thinking for dealing with the epidemic can also be used for other issues - like the media, citizen journalists or ethnic conflicts. Because this method has been used before, citizens will accept it. It becomes normal,” he said.
Place: SUM (Sala de usos Múltiples), EOI Las Rozas
Monday 9 March: 18:30h
Tuesday 10 March: 12:00, 17:00 & 19:00h
CRISTINA MACLAREN: "The United Kingdom. Pieces of a Puzzle: Fitting In On an Island"
Summary: "Seen from the outside, the United Kingdom is somewhat of a mystery. Is it one country? Is it four? Four in one? The peculiar way matters are dealt with over there has sometimes drawn attention from viewers, and raised more than one eyebrow. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, what is the relationship between all four countries? How does the Parliament in Westminster deal with the peculiar distribution of the whole country? What has Brexit brought and how will it affect the future of the nation? What lies ahead? Here are a few key notes to help us understand the ins and outs of the UK's current situation."
On 29 February, about 5 million people around the world celebrate their once-every-four-years 'real' birthday.
For some of the so-called 'leaplings,' being born on 29 February is an excuse to celebrate over two days when it's not a leap year - but for others, getting into nightclubs is tricky when the bouncers think their security is fake.
