How to test your eyesight after a coronavirus infection

A rather unusual press conference, given by Dominic Cummings, Prime Minister Johnson’s chief political adviser, in the rose garden of 10 Downing Street, informed me that a coronavirus infection can adversely affect one’s eyesight. Mr Cummings, accused of breaking the guidelines he helped to draft for ordinary citizens, justified a drive to a beauty spot with his wife and young child by explaining that he needed to verify whether his eyesight was good enough to drive back to London to resume work, after recovering from a coronavirus infection.

The following solutions to Mr Cummings’ dilemma have occurred to me. I wonder if my readers can think of any others.

1.     Take your wife and child on a 30 mile drive to a pleasant location on your wife’s birthday. If you do not strike another vehicle or kill a pedestrian, and if your passengers return unscathed, your eyesight is adequate.

2.     Take the same drive by yourself, for the safety of your wife and child. Consider driving to a less desirable location. If you do not strike another vehicle or kill a pedestrian your eyesight is adequate.

3.     Call your colleagues the Chief Medical officer or his deputy for advice.

4.     As stated in the Highway Code and the regulations for UK driving tests available by searching the internet: “You must be able to read (with glasses or contact lenses, if necessary) a car number plate made after 1 September 2001 from 20 metres.”

5.     Call the national health advice service by dialling 111.

6.     Stay at your temporary address in Durham and follow the government’s advice, which you helped to draft, to work at home.

By way of context for my non-UK readers, Mr Cummings has been accused of disregarding the rules that we have all been required to follow during the lockdown. Some people have been fined by the police if they have been found to break the rules.

Helpful guidance as to the regulations can be found online, by a simple search, in A guide to the standards of vision for driving cars and motorcycles. The regulations are defined thus:

“The legal eyesight standard means that you must be able to read a number plate from 20 metres. You must not have been told by a doctor or optician that your eyesight is currently worse than 6/12 (decimal 0.5) on the Snellen scale. If you are in any doubt, you should discuss with your optician or doctor. If required, you may wear glasses or corrective lenses to meet both of these standards. If you do not meet this standard you cannot drive on a public road. If you do drive on a public road, you are guilty of an offence. You should regularly check yourself, whether you meet this standard. Also, if the police suspect that you do not have the relevant standard of vision, they can make you take the ‘number plate test’. If you cannot read the number plate, your licence may be revoked and you could be prosecuted.” Driving 30 miles to find out whether you can see clearly is not generally recommended.

 

To fry or not to fry? Food as history.

The ancient Mexicans never fried their food for the simple reason that they had no ready access to cooking oils or fats. There were no animals such as pigs or cows, from which Spaniards made tallow, butter and lard, and no olives to make oil.  The staple crop was maize, from which today we make corn oil, but the Mexicans did not use their staple crop for this purpose. Mexican cooking, therefore, used  two basic techniques: boiling and dry roasting on a flat ceramic plate called a comal.

 

Cooking on a comal, Paricutín, Michoacán, 2018

The Spanish who conquered Mexico in the early 16^th century, became lords of a territory that was several months of hazardous journey from home. Distance, peril and cost did not deter them from importing their favourite foods. They had already brought livestock to the Caribbean islands, so these were quickly brought to New Spain, as they called their new land. As many of the native peoples died from disease, cows, pigs, sheep and goats munched abundant pasture and reproduced rapidly to form enormous herds. Chickens were also brought over, although Spaniards also ate the local turkeys. So, they soon had meat, milk, cheese, cream, and animal fats. Plants were rapidly introduced: 16^th-century documents describe the cultivation of wheat and a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. The documents mention oranges, lemons, melons, radishes, lettuce, turnips, cabbage, aubergines. Grapes did not grow well, so wine had to be imported from Spain, or from Peru where there were soon 130 wineries. Olives and olive oil (from Spain), wine (from Spain or Peru), chickpeas, capers, and other home favourites were transported in ceramic jars called botijas. In no time at all, a hungry conquistador could satisfy his craving for a good old  fry-up.

 

An Andalusian botija (photo by Saúl Alberto Guerrero Rivero(

Huamúchiles

Spaniards did, of course, eat locally produced foodstuffs. You would have to be a food philistine not to enjoy Mexican chocolate, tomatoes, avocadoes, chiles (of many varieties). There were also plenty of sweet potatoes, squash, amaranth (now a trendy super food) and fruits such as huamúchiles, zapotes, pineapples. And Mexico had plentiful fish for Fridays, shellfish, venison, turkey.

16^th-century Mexican cooks were soon making new dishes that combined local and Spanish ingredients. And after the discovery of the route across the Pacific to the Philippines in 1565, Asian foods, spices and methods were added to the mix. 16^th-century Mexicans invented pan-European-American-Asian fusion cuisine centuries before the idea occurred to trendy 21^st-century chefs.

 

We displayed some images from Mexican history and of our family in Mexico

Jan and I were conscious of the ways that food holds a mirror up to history as we prepared our now annual neighbourhood Mexican takeaway to raise money for our son Chris’ charity, Pasitos de Luz. The menu this year was:

 

Tinga sauce

Tinga de pollo, a chicken stew first devised by nuns in a convent in Puebla. The first step is to boil chicken, just as an ancient Mexican would have cooked turkey. A sauce is then made by frying in oil, Spanish style, chopped chorizo, onion and garlic (the Spanish ingredients), then adding plenty of tomatoes (native to Mexico), and chopped parsley and coriander leaves (herbs that originated in southern Europe). The key ingredient that gives tinga its depth of flavour is a generous dose of chopped chile chipotle, a smoked jalapeño chile, one of the most delicious gifts of Mexico to global cuisine. The chopped or shredded chicken is then warmed in the sauce.

 

Ceviche Acapulqueño

The non-meat offering was ceviche Acapulqueño. A white fish such as swordfish, hake or coley is briefly boiled, then left for a few hours to marinate in lemon or lime juice, dried oregano and chopped red onion. The fish is then dressed with a combination of olive oil, tomato juice or passata, white wine, and olive oil. Then tomatoes, pickled chiles, green olives and capers, coriander leaves (all chopped finely) are added. The dish then marinates again for several hours before being served at room temperature with avocado. The ingredients are Spanish and Mexican, but the method of marinating in lemon or lime juice is Asian, imported through Acapulco, where the dish was invented.

Next on the menu was frijoles de olla, beans (a staple of the Mexican diet) boiled with chopped onion.

 

Ensalada de ejotes, plus peas and broad beans (lockdown supply problem)

A salad of ejotes (green beans), pimentos, red onion chopped parsley or coriander, dressed with a simple vinaigrette is a purely Spanish dish.

Jan’s dessert was arroz con leche (a rice pudding, but nothing like the British equivalent). Rice is

Cooking arroz con leche

cooked in water with cinnamon sticks (the Asian ingredient) and a few pieces of lemon peel. It is then cooked a second time with a combination of milk and condensed milk. Because of lockdown shortages, Jan improvised with evaporated milk and coconut milk, to delicious effect. A Mexican chef would add a lot of sugar at this stage (Mexicans have a decidedly sweet tooth), but our taste was about half the traditional quantity.

 

Ready to serve

Neighbours collected their meals in lockdown style, from a table in our driveway, at an allocated time slot, bringing their own bowls ,and retreating while we served.

 

Socially distanced neighbours

We raised a good sum to help feed the needy families of the children that Pasitos cares for, and had enough left over to enjoy ourselves.

 

Delivering food parcels to Pasitos families

For more about the work of Pasitos de Luz go to: https://pasitosdeluz.org/

Coronavirus: daily life in Mexico, and a UK epilogue

We have very personal reasons for watching the coronavirus epidemic in Mexico. Our son Chris, his girlfriend, and her children live in San Vicente, a small town in the Pacific coastal state of Nayarit. The economy there is driven almost entirely by the tourist resorts of the Bahía de Banderas (Bay of Flags). The largest resort on the bay is Puerto Vallarta, in the neighbouring state of Jalisco. We also have close friends in Mexico City. María de Jesús Cevallos de Landera, with whose family I lived in 1974-1975, lives in a colonia (a neighbourhood) just south of the Aztec Stadium. Like us, she is in the vulnerable category.

We all hear the numbers: the cases, the daily deaths, the R etc. In Mexico, the numbers have taken a decided turn for the worse in the last week or so. As of 17 May, Mexico had reported 49,219 cases (surely too low) and 5,177 deaths. Figures for 14 May reported 17,759 cases and 1,075 deaths in Mexico City and the State of Mexico, into which the huge city spills over in crowded settlements. Nayarit, by contrast reported 252 cases and 24 deaths, Jalisco 699 cases and 61 deaths. Jalisco includes Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city. If true, the figures suggest that so far Guadalajara has been little affected.

When I spoke to María de Jesús last week, she had been at home for about three weeks, except for a morning walk around the park in the centre of her colonia, and once a month to pay her electricity bill (online payments are still not common in Mexico). She told me that many metro stations are closed and the bus schedules reduced. There is very little activity in her colonia, but in the next one, with a much more working class population, the streets are full, the shops are open and social distancing does not exist.

Mexico is a federal republic. The state governors therefore have powers and responsibilities and the powers of the president and federal government are, in theory, restricted. However, in practice, the president has always wielded considerable power in all matters of national importance. In the current pandemic, the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), has national responsibility for the public health response. He has, for example, announced that he federal government will buy additional ventilators. His director of the Undersecretariat of Prevention and Health Promotion, Hugo López-Gatell Ramírez, an epidemiologist, coordinates the national response. He has a degree from UNAM, Mexico’s foremost public university, and a PhD in epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University in USA. However, AMLO has refused to talk to state governors on the grounds that they will only ask for money. Therefore, the response to the pandemic has been a mix of national and state initiatives.

About mid-March, the federal government ordered the closure of all schools until further notice. This has meant that Chris’ charity, Pasitos de Luz, has stopped providing therapy and education to disabled children, probably until September. Nor do they receive the three healthy meals a day that Pasitos serves them. Since their parents, already poor, have no work, Chris has now become the food bank coordinator for the neediest families. His colleague who delivers the bags of food attracts crowds of people desperate to know where he was able to get the food. In other words, even those who do not become infected can suffer great hardship.

On 30 March the federal government ordered all non-essential businesses to close for a month. Non-essential businesses include beer makers (only imported beers are now available) and the maquiladoras (assembly factories) along the US border that supply parts and finished goods to US companies. Federal law requires employers to “negotiate” with their staff a revised contract if the business closures result in reductions in pay. In fact, workers have no choice. AMLO urged on employers their moral duty to pay the salaries of idle workers. This may be possible for large corporations. It is much less so for the many small businesses. In practice, the income of many families disappeared over night. Chris has been asked to sign a short-term contract on half pay (he works full time from home). His girlfriend was dismissed instantly from her job in a bar. Many Mexicans make their living in the “informal economy”, earning precarious incomes from selling food or other items on the streets, cleaning windscreens at traffic lights, and the like. If they are lucky they earn a little more than they need to eat. If they cease their activities they will go hungry.

In the case of Jalisco, the state announced on 4 April its Plan Jalisco Covid-19. The plan defined essential businesses: for example, “restaurants, preferably with delivery or takeaway”, bakeries, supermarkets, spare parts shops, hardware and stationers, construction, agriculture, and all medical and health-related businesses. Non-essential designates activities such as department stores, furniture, clothing and shoe stores, gyms, spas, motels, swimming pools, model agencies. All the main beaches were closed. Flights from overseas stopped, so the many businesses that cater for foreign tourists ceased trading or cut back. Bus services reduced because there are fewer passengers. In Nayarit sales of alcohol stopped.

Chris reported that one of the first consequences of the closure of the beaches, was that the many people who make their “informal” living selling to tourists, moved inland to sell door to door. Chris has bought pumpkins seeds, chiles, pozole (a delicious stew) from somebody calling at his door. Barbers closed their shops, and instead offered undistanced cuts at home. It is impossible to tell these people to stay home. The lady selling pumpkin seeds had travelled over 600kms from her home to earn money during the tourist season. If she goes home she will have no income. Nayarit allows small social gatherings: for example, a barbecue at home for four or five neighbours or friends.

With his girlfriend and her children, Chris drove recently to Puerto Vallarta to have dinner at a tapas restaurant. At the Jalisco border, the state police have a roadblock to stop traffic and check the purpose of journeys, if they care to stop anyone, which on this occasion they did not. In Puerto Vallarta, souvenir shops have removed their trinkets to sell face masks: about half the people on the street were wearing masks. The restaurant had given over its first floor to hand-washing stations and sanitizers. A poster informed customers that the staff had passed Jalisco’s Covid-19 training course. Tables were at least 1.5m apart, staff wore masks. Tips will be reduced, so incomes will suffer.

It is more than probable that Mexico will experience a substantial recession. Exports to USA will be affected by conditions there and closure of the maquiladoras and other businesses. Oil prices have plummeted. Mexico has for many years had the foresight to insure its oil production against price falls, which will limit the damage this year. Next year may be another matter. The peso has fallen against the dollar and the pound (by some 14% since we visited last October). Tourism, a large industry in Mexico, will not return for some time.

The social and economic consequences of Covid-19 will be severe, regardless of the rates of infection and death. The public health system is not well funded. It may struggle to cope with the number of infected people. Even after buying more ventilators, Mexico will have one critical care bed per 16,130 people, a figure well below that for the UK (one bed per 11,305 before buying additional ventilators, a provision considered very inadequate by European standards).

An epilogue for the UK:

As I finished my early morning run today I saw a neighbour who is a taxi driver, standing by one of his two vehicles. He explained that he caters to the transportation needs of care homes. One car is adapted for wheelchair use. He now has almost no wheelchair customers: he told me that they have all died. He now transports carers, rather than those they care for.

A Publisher in Prague and Gdansk: Czechoslovakia and Poland After the End of the Cold War

My friend from grammar school days, Jon Crosby, just wrote an excellent account of a student cultural visit to Czechoslovakia in 1972: https://untroubledtravel.blogspot.com/1972/08/czechoslovakia-in-1972.html

Jon noted that the Czech guides who showed his group around Prague freely expressed a deep dislike of Russians. He also met East German visitors who made it clear that they disliked their own country but loved Czechoslovakia. Education was very state-planned and of good quality. The plan educated 30% of students for academic university courses, 60% for technical education and apprenticeships, leaving 10% for unskilled labour. I wonder whether this was rather better than the grammar school/secondary modern system that had sent Jon and me to Cambridge, but consigned many more young people than 10% to a future with minimal qualifications. Jon noted that: “About to start Part 2 of my degree, specialising in Materials Science, I find it interesting that the country has a reputation for high quality engineering and metallurgy, with fast development of plastics and that half of the 7M workforce are employed in industry, including glass, ceramics and leather. This is quite a contrast to the UK, where prospects for a career related to my subject are rapidly reducing.”

Jon reminded me of two visits to Prague in the 1990s, shortly after the end of Communist rule, while Vaclav Havel was president. With a few colleagues I exhibited at the brand new Prague Book Fair. We were fortunate that a colleague, Lucy, who had been one of the editors of The Dictionary of Art, had moved to Prague with her family. Her husband had set up an office there for a British architectural practice, and she spoke Czech. Lucy told us of her husband’s experiences as a businessman in a newly post-Communist society. For example, he had ordered carpet of a particular colour for one of his buildings, but the carpet factory made that colour only at a certain time of the year. It would not be available for months.

My journey to Prague began with a foretaste of attitudes that, I would discover, had lingered on in the newly democratic eastern bloc. I boarded a late flight on Aeroflot from Madrid to Prague on a Soviet-built plane that really did bear a resemblance to a tin can. When the flight attendant brought my dinner, she asked if I wanted anything to drink. I was tired after a long day, and asked for a relaxing whiskey. The response was “You’re not in first class.” I was to learn in Prague that a lack of enthusiasm for customer service was a feature of post-fall-of-Berlin-Wall Czechoslovakia.

While I was enjoying Aeroflot hospitality, my colleagues had already arrived in Prague and had bought tickets for the opera. These were remarkably cheap, but the printed price had been Tippexed over and a new price (presumably much higher) written in by hand. This was obviously common practice, since nobody at the opera house questioned the validity of the tickets. The racket was remarkably unsophisticated. The Tippexing was crude, and the ticket touts had not researched their market: my colleagues would happily have paid twice the inflated price.

The Czechs who came to the book fair were literate, enthusiastic and spoke good enough English to hold conversations with us. We noticed that when we asked people what they did, they would sometimes answer, rather cagily, that they worked for the government. We were told that this usually meant that they had worked for some branch of the government’s secret security services.

Our friend Lucy spoke Czech. She offered to make us a reservation at a restaurant which had been a favourite of the members of the politburo under Communist rule. This gave us an opportunity for a stroll over the bridge the Charles Bridge with a good view of the castle. Shortly after we had been seated at our table in an otherwise empty restaurant, a well-to-do American couple arrived and announced that they had a reservation. The waiters checked and informed them that they had no such reservation. The husband insisted that his hotel had made the reservation and that they did have a reservation. The discussion continued until the waiters decided that they had given the couple a hard enough time and sat them at one of the many unoccupied tables.

The second year that we exhibited at the book fair, I was invited to talk at one of the sessions. I forget the exact topic of my talk, but I do remember that one of my fellow speakers was Vaclav Havel’s sister or wife (I forget which). Lucy had told me that Czechs tend to speak in very even tones. The result can be that they sound disinterested, even bored, to the foreign ear. Naturally, I did not understand a word of Ms Havel’s talk, but was glad that Lucy had alerted me to this idiosyncrasy of the Czech language, since to my ear she sounded distinctly uninterested. I am sure she was not, to judge by the applause she received.

My other sortie to a former Iron Curtain country shortly after the end of Communist rule was to Poland. I had been sent to Gdansk, with William Shepherd, a veteran educational publisher, as my consultant. We were to visit a new company that was producing educational materials on CD-ROM. We were booked into a hotel on a beach on the bay of Finland. William and I imagined fat politburo members lounging on the beach with their plump wives. Here again, service was expertly disobliging, as we discovered in the bar where we were grudgingly served a night cap.

Our putative business partners were remarkably young. They explained, with disarming frankness, that the technical university in Gdansk turned out large numbers of highly trained software engineers. They demanded much less pay than their equivalents in other countries (this was some considerable time before Poland joined the EU). They had also not yet understood copyright law, so the proprietors of the company easily persuaded them to sign contracts that vested all rights in the company.

The videos and other materials on the CD-ROMs were of a very high quality. Unfortunately, the two clever young men who discovered that they could pay their workers very little and own the copyright had not thought of two important factors. All the people in the videos were white. This was not acceptable in any country in which the students were not likewise all white. The science videos showed experiments very clearly (better than in her in-person class at school, my colleague Ruth commented). However, school curricula are very prescriptive. Any textbook or video must show the prescribed experiment, with the prescribed safety procedures. The young Polish entrepreneurs had not realized this.

The next day we boarded a nearly empty flight back to London. Across the aisle from us was another business type, who took out from his briefcase a large plan: it was for a Tesco supermarket in Gdansk. Capitalism was clearly coming to post-Communist Poland at speed.

Shortly after the reunification of Germany, I met, in Berlin, two German musicologists, one from a university in the west, the other from the east. The east Berliner explained that his university had a much higher ratio of staff to students than his western colleague’s institution. He seemed optimistic that things would remain the same in the newly unified Germany. I was not so sure. Whatever their many faults, the Communist states of eastern Europe seem to have supported excellent education systems. I wonder whether the rush to capitalist freedom destroyed not just the oppressive apparatus of the Communist states, but perhaps swept away the good things at the same time.

Sunninghill iconography update and different ways to reflect on VE Day

Artworks concerning the coronavirus pandemic have been supplemented in the last week with visual displays related to the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. The latter, as you will see have ranged from the simply patriotic to more thoughtful responses to our current predicament.

The window of one house in Lower Village Road has become an art installation that changes weekly.

The first iteration was painted directly on to the glass: rainbows, flowers, clouds and a pot of gold.

Next, for Easter, came a mixed media installation in the window, on the fence, and on the road was a hopscotch game. The iconography in the window is more complex: spring flowers and bees, Easter eggs, a rainbow and a cheery sun. The Easter theme continues on the fence, with another rainbow. The eggs on the fence include the words of  a song used to accompany a child's exercise session: "Heads, and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes".

A week later, the Easter eggs remain on the fence, but the window installation has changed. Spring has matured. The tree has all its leaves. There are still bees, and flowers, a rainbow and the sun, but now we have two hot air balloons.

A week later, the previous window display is gone. Now we have a large dinosaur.
I think the dinosaur may be included in the home schooling curriculum. He was replaced on VE Day by union flags, that were removed the next day. I am waiting to see what comes next.

On Oriental Road, two artists have used all four windows on two floors. This work is signed: Moe and Larry. Moe and Larry's theme is two colourful giraffes.

Friday 8 May was a public holiday to commemorate Victory in Europe Day. Some homes displayed purchased patriotic flags or bunting:

One displayed a dual identity, British and Scottish:

Another took a hand-made approach and showed more imagination:

A nearby neighbour avoided the risk of jingoism with a simply decorative approach:

This home had the navy on its mind. There is a symbol of remembrance (the poppy), and messages of thanks, but also expressions of a desire for peace (the logo of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament):

 Some windows express a more current concern:

For ten years the party currently in power reduced spending on the National Health Service in real terms, for several years froze the pay of health workers, and reduced their pension benefits. The current cabinet has suddenly discovered that it loves the NHS and has promised to increase funding substantially. We have been encouraged to stand on our doorsteps at 8pm every Thursday and applaud health and care workers. We do so because one of our neighbours is a nurse in a general practice and a niece is a matron in Ipswich Hospital. However, the rather slipshod management of the pandemic has undermined confidence in at least this household on Exchange Road. The slogan reads: "I can't eat applause. Maybe vote for someone sensible next time, eh?"

We in the UK are all told "Stay home, save lives and protect the NHS". Our neighbour, an NHS nurse, tells me that there are signs that she has seen signs that addvise Conservative voters what to do at the next election: "Stay home, save lives and protect the NHS".

Blue Roads of America: an Englishman in Texas

The state of Texas has a population of 29 million in a territory of 695,662km². The gross product of the Texan economy is US$1.8 trillion. About 11.1 million Texans are classified as Hispanic. This is hardly surprising. Texas was part of Mexico until 1836, when the short-lived Republic of Texas was formed by English-speaking men who had (frequently in breach of Mexican law) already settled in the sparsely populated territory. It is not a harsh, nor unfair, observation to say that, in 21st-century Texas, the Spanish speaking population are second-class citizens, perhaps more accurately third-class, since they tend to occupy the jobs that in other states might be done by majorities that in Texas occupy a rung slightly above Hispanics on the social and economic scale. If my accent ever made me incomprehensible to a waiter in  McDonalds or a chamber maid I could easily make myself understood with my Mexican Spanish.

When I worked for Thames & Hudson, I spent a lot of time in Texas, because it has a very large further and higher education system with enormous enrolments. My textbook, Gateways to Art, made a small fortune in Texas alone.

My strategy in Texas was simple and shameless. No other publisher was represented by an Englishman wearing a suit and tie, with an accent that Texan professors found endlessly fascinating. I received their undivided attention, and they always seemed pleased to see me when I returned with a sales person.

One of my favourite bases was Dallas. Dallas is a big brash city. It merges with Fort Worth and Arlington into the Dallas Forth Worth Metroplex (DFW). My friend Milan Hughston, who was for many years the librarian of the Amon Carter Museum of western art in Fort Worth, recommended to me the Warwick Melrose hotel, in the Oak Lawn district. Oak Lawn is the gay district of Dallas. The clientele of the Melrose was, therefore, a colourful crowd, especially in the bar late in the evening. I discovered that I could have a quiet dinner in the restaurant, and then, in ten minutes, drive to the symphony hall or the opera house, have my car parked by the valet service, and settle in for an evening of music. And then return to the Melrose for an entertaining night cap. I recall once calling the symphony hall to buy a ticket for the Berlioz requiem, a thunderous work involving an orchestra, a huge choir and an organ. I bought a front row seat for $18. Texans, it seems, prefer to pay more to not have to look up at the musicians on stage.

Turtle Creek

The hotel is also a convenient walk to Turtle Creek, an exceedingly wealthy neighbourhood, good for a pleasant stroll after a day on highways. When we published Gateways to Art, a party was held for Debbie Dewitte, as the Texan of the three authors, in the apartment of a lady who was the first female partner of Goldman Sachs. Debbie told me that when she was introduced to the guests she would politely ask “And what do you do?” This question caused great puzzlement, until Debbie realized that these people did not do anything. The real question to ask was “And what do you own?” The answer might be an airline, an oil company, etc.

DFW just loves culture, especially if it affords plenty of opportunity to display wealth at the same time. Luckily for me, art museums fit that bill perfectly. The Meadows Museum, at Southern Methodist University, has an exceptional collection of Spanish Art, from Renaissance to modern masters. There are some wonderful Velázquez, Murillo and Ribera paintings, Goyas, Picassos, Mirós, Juan Gris also. Downtown Dallas has several art museums, but cannot compete with Fort Worth’s glamorous trio: the Amon Carter, the Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art and the Kimbell Art Museum. The Kimbell is a small museum with a simple but extraordinary collection policy. It collects only works that are exquisite examples of their kind.There are no rooms filled with the works of one artist, period, or style, but simply beautifully arranged works that please the eye.

 

The Kimbell Art Museum

Fort Worth Rodeo

This was once cattle country, and Fort Worth still has the stockyards to which cattle barons would have brought their stock for sale. The stockyards are now the location for the annual rodeo. When I was publisher of The Dictionary Art (Macmillan, 1996), I attended an Art Library Society North America meeting in Dallas. Milan Hughston organized an outing to the rodeo, where I fear that we librarians and publishers looked a shabby crowd. Texans turn out for the rodeo in their expensive cowboy boots, designer jeans and Stetsons. The young women had big hairdos and figure-hugging jeans. We all stood for the national anthem, and then settled down for the competitions. Alas, the finer points of bronco-busting, steer-riding and lassoing were lost on me, but the events were entertaining and I did plenty of people-watching. One unfortunate steer rider was gored in the thigh.

 

Fort Worth Rodeo

The Rachofsky House

Another exhibition space in Dallas is the Rachofsky House (1991-1996), designed for a wealthy bachelor by Richard Meier. The interior of the house is mostly open plan: from any one vantage point you can see almost all the spaces in the house, with the necessary exceptions of the bathrooms and the bedrooms. It seems that when Mr Rachofksy married, the new Mrs Rachofsky disliked this lack of private place, so he had another home built and turned his bachelor pad into a space to display art. I paid a memorable visit to the house with the three authors of Gateways to Art, Debbie Dewitte, Ralph Larmann and Kathryn Shields.

 

Rachofsky House interior: the Minimalist sculpture on the left is a Donald Judd piece

Just in case you think I spent all of my time, in symphony halls and art museums, I did go to many less glamorous places for purely business reasons. One frequent destination was Paris, Texas, because it has a community college with a large art department, which at that time was run by a painter, Cathie Tyler. Cathie and I got on well and visits were always a pleasure. Paris also has an Eiffel Tower, built by the local metal workers’ union. It is 65 feet tall and, being in Texas, a red Stetson sits on top.

 

Paris, Texas, Eiffel Tower

Cathie was President of the Texas Association of Schools of Art. She invited Debbie and me to give a talk at the association’s meeting in Abilene. The conference hotel served free margaritas between 5pm and 6pm. As Debbie and I sipped our first margarita, we noticed a large stone on which the Ten Commandments had been carved. Debbie wondered whether it was proper to be drinking in front of the Commandments, but I assured her that Thou shalt not drink was not one of them. After a day or two, I noticed that I had not seen a single bus as we moved around the town. Abilene occupies 290km², but has no public transport. In Abilene it’s the car or else. There are three universities (we visited their  art departments): Abilene Christian University (Churches of Christ), Hardin-Simmons University (Baptist) and McMurry University (Methodist). Art education poses some challenges in faith-based universities, not least of which is how to conduct life drawing classes. Solution: the models wear swimsuits.

Debbie and I did not do any life drawing, but we did, collaboratively, make our first sculpture. We were given two blocks, which we were to carve and then join together to make a mould for an iron pour. Debbie carved one side and I the other, so our sculpture had an author’s side and a publisher’s side, or as Debbie’s daughter saw it a Mummy side and an Ian side. We discovered that our sculptural talents were limited, but were excited, nevertheless, to break the mould when the metal had cooled.

The conference outing in Abilene was to the Old Jail Art Center in Albany. The town’s stone jail building, complete with iron bars on the windows, has been expanded to house the best art collection for many a mile. Fort Worth is 140 miles, Austin over 200, and El Paso almost 500. Here the collection policy seems to have been to acquire works by artists’ with high name recognition: Rembrandt, Picasso etc. But, whereas the Kimble, would have a Rembrandt only if it were outstanding, the Old Jail simply must have the Rembrandt it can get. Nevertheless, for  a town of little more than 2,000 people, the collection is remarkable. I asked the museum’s director how they managed to acquire works by such famous artists. She suggested I visit the local airport to see how many private jets are parked there. She explained that the people who own the jets give the museum its money and they want to see big names in their town museum.

The Sweetwater rattlesnake roundup

That evening I chatted with an Abilene professor who lived in Sweetwater, about 40 miles to the west, and home to the world’s largest rattlesnake roundup, in March every year (yes, even in March 2020). According to the roundup website, in 2019 the total weight of snakes caught was 4,195 pounds, of which the champions, Andy’s Pest Troopers, scored 1,015 pounds. The winner of longest snake was Eric Timaeus, who also won in 2018 and 2016. In that last year his snake was 75^1/2 inches (the record is 81 inches).

 

Keeping the rattlesnake score

The Smokestack Restaurant, Thurber, Texas

On our way home from Abilene to DFW, Debbie and I stopped for lunch in Thurber, a former coal mining town, that from 1881 to 1921 had a population over 10,000. Thurber’s coal fuelled the locomotives of the Texas and Pacific Railway until oil-fuelled locomotives were introduced in the 1920s. In 2010 the population was 48. Over lunch in the Smokestack restaurant we met a prison guard, who told us that one of his duties was to accompany psychologists who tested whether prisoners were insane. He claimed to have observed the tricks prisoners used to dupe the psychologist. He claimed once to have had a girlfriend who was a psychologist and to have persuaded her that he was criminally insane.

Texas really is not like any other state in the USA. One of the curious facts I learned about Dallas, for example, was that it has one of the highest arrest rates for driving under the influence in the USA. A possible reason is that planning regulations require all bars to have a minimum number of parking spaces.

Lessons from Coronavirus

I do not claim any epidemiological expertise, but simply as a locked down observer, I have begun to draw these lessons from the current crisis. My intention is not to criticize the many scientists and others who have had to make extraordinarily difficult decisions in an appalling crisis. These are simply observations of things that the crisis has brought into sharp relief.

1.     United Kingdom:

·      The Conservative Party, in office since 2010, contains a powerful faction that favours a radical reduction of the size and activities of government at national, and especially local levels. In my own borough, Windsor and Maidenhead, the council has ceased to run almost all services directly, instead outsourcing them to private sector providers or arms-length companies. Austerity created the perfect environment to achieve that goal. This ideology ignores a simple fact: in a crisis only the state can take the actions necessary to protect the population. This was true in 2008 and is especially true in 2020. Austerity has deliberately weakened the ability of the state to respond.

·      There is a simple truth in British politics: since the 1980s the funding of the National Health Service is reduced or severely squeezed, at least in real terms if not in nominal terms, when a Conservative government is in power. Labour governments tend to increase spending in both real and nominal terms. We have had more years of Conservative governments than of Labour governments. The net result is that the UK’s health spending per capita is low compared to many European countries.

·      All governments of all parties have ignored the need for a robustly-funded and adult social care system, integrated with the NHS, to support the elderly and infirm, and younger adults with care needs. Policy has distinguished between health care and social care, which results in the care sector being organizationally separate from the NHS. The result has been that the NHS has far too many elderly people in hospitals than in care settings. Whether in health or non-health settings, care is quite simply care and the two should be integrated and properly funded. This had further weakened the NHS when the pandemic occurred.

·      Our political class became preoccupied for more than three years with Brexit. Our politicians paid attention to little else. Pandemic preparedness received no attention at senior levels.

·      The current government was elected because it promised one thing: “Get Brexit Done”. Mr Johnson appointed to his government only politicians who would subscribe to his version of Brexit. They were required to chant, in response to “What are we gonna do?”, “Get Brexit done”, like children at a pantomime. They were also told that their careers, and keeping their cabinet positions, depended on demonstrating the utmost zeal in achieving this one goal. While the disease began to spread in the UK, the warning signs were not noticed as quickly as they might have been because all attention was on Brexit.

·      The Prime minister’s political brand is a breezy optimism. Telling hard truths (indeed, when it suits him, telling truths at all) does not fit the brand image. As a consequence, it took time for the grim reality of the pandemic to be heard loud and clear at the most senior level of government. Popular events attended by large crowds were allowed to continue as the disease spread. In the first weeks of the disease’s spread he left his ministers to take charge of the response. The Prime Minister boasted of shaking hands with health workers, just days before ordering the lock down. His focus was on other matters.

·      Our government ministers continue to behave as if they are campaigning for office or to retain office, rather than leading an emergency response. Too much time is spent in self-justification, telling us that they are “working 24/7” or “night and day”, rather than explain how a problem is to be addressed. One of the most pressing needs has been the lack of sufficient protective equipment for medical and care staff. The Health Secretary took time out from coordinating the response to the virus to be filmed with his shirtsleeves rolled up (a sign of “working night and day”) with soldiers loading boxes of equipment on to a lorry. Faced with a lack of testing, The Health Secretary announced a target of 100,000 tests per day by 30 April. This led to a focus on expanding test capacity, and regular announcements that ever larger cohorts could now apply for tests, rather than on the logistics of directing the increased capacity to test at those who most needed tests. To his credit, the testing capacity expanded substantially, although the target was reached by counting both completed tests and tests sent but not completed. However, by no means all those who most need the tests are receiving them. 

·      The crisis highlighted sharply how many of our fellow citizens’ lives are marred by inequality and insecurity. Now many more of us understand what it means to wait five weeks for the first universal credit payment. We know that statutory sick pay is a very modest £95.85 per week, lower than many other European countries. We have learned that some who find themselves ineligible for financial relief from the government suddenly have no income at all. The use of food banks has increased enormously above the already high levels. In short, many of our compatriots have come to learn just how harsh has been the treatment of the unemployed, the disabled, workers on zero hours contracts, refugees, asylum seekers. After 2010 the Conservative government justified austerity by distinguishing between strivers and shirkers, between those who left early for work in the morning while their neighbours slept on behind drawn curtains, living on benefits. Now we all discover how easy it is to become “a shirker”. And now the government calls on a social solidarity that for years it undermined in order to maintain itself in power.

·      There is also inequality in terms of rates of infection and deaths: the poorest are more likely to be infected and are dying in disproportionate numbers. This is not just a public health issue. The cause is social inequality and poverty, both a direct result, knowingly caused, of austerity.

2.     Mexico:

·      There is a curious parallel between the administration of president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) and the government of Prime Minister Johnson. The Mexican equivalent of “Get Brexit Done” is the 4T (4^th Transition), an AMLO concept derived from his reading of Mexican history. The 4T promises to end corruption, to combat criminal violence by creating employment through social programmes and large infrastructure projects, and the creation of a new National Guard. A vote for AMLO was a heartfelt vote for an optimism that corruption and organized crime could be abolished, or at least contained. Like Mr. Johnson’s Brexit, AMLO’s 4T depends on maintaining that optimism, even when the facts suggest it might be misplaced. The coronavirus certainly does not fit the 4T narrative.

·      With majorities in the Congress and Senate, and control of the governorships of many states, AMLO wields almost unquestioned power and insists on unquestioning loyalty to the 4T, just as Mr Johnson insisted on absolute loyalty to “Get Brexit Done”. Critics are dismissed as corrupt, conservative neoliberals.

·      In terms of state finances, AMLO’s doctrine is “republican austerity”: no additional government borrowing, the reduction of the salaries of government employees, the elimination of many government jobs. In short, what in the UK we term “austerity”. The Johnson government  has responded to the coronavirus lock down by abandoning austerity in favour of a “do whatever it takes” huge fiscal stimulus. AMLO has pledged to do whatever it takes not to increase spending to levels that require an increase in debt. Many Mexicans in their nation’s equivalent of lock down need social support even more than poor Britons. They will receive very little indeed.

·      So intense is AMLO’s faith in the 4T that he was reluctant to believe that the coronavirus could be a threat to it and to his nation. He told the people that he is protected by amulets, he continued to holds mass political gatherings. On 5 April, he told Mexicans that “the culture of our people … has always saved us” from natural disasters, epidemics, tyranny and “from corruption, which has been the most tragic and dreadful of Mexico’s diseases and calamities”. He also assured his people that Mexico has the lowest infection and death rate, as a ratio of population, in the world, with the exception of India.

·      In the UK Mr Johnson extols our inalienable right to go to the pub (reluctantly suspended). AMLO has assured Mexicans that very soon they will be able to gather in public spaces once again to exchange abrazos (hugs). At the moment, Mexicans need food rather than abrazos.

·      AMLO tends to dismiss anything that contradicts or is not compatible with the doctrines of the 4T. He offers no state help to those left unemployed by stay at home orders. Rather, he urges employers to do the moral thing and continue to pay inactive workers’ salaries from their reserves. Many Mexican businesses are small enterprises with no reserves.

·      Before the coronavirus crisis, AMLO had expanded access to the public health system, without increasing funding, which was in any case inadequate. There had also been acute shortages of medicines. AMLO seems to trust that the system will cope. It may not. In early April, Mexico had one critical care bed per 19,640 Mexicans. AMLO announced plans to increase beds to 7,824, or one bed per 16,130 people. The UK’s equivalent figure before the recent increases in beds was 1 bed per 11,305. In the UK’s more robust NHS this was considered inadequate. Mexcio’s expanded provision may not be enough.

·      The structure of Mexico’s economy makes effective stay at home policies and social distancing very difficult to implement. A large proportion of the population makes an extremely precarious living in the “informal” sector. This includes selling goods on the street, street food stalls, cleaning windscreens at traffic lights, entertainment (juggling, fire-breathing and other tricks) at intersections. These people work to earn each day’s food. They will not eat if they stay at home or keep a social distance.

3.     USA:

·      One of Mr Trump’s appeals to his supporters was a promise to “drain the swamp”. This spoke to a profound distrust of the federal government. The president has been entirely consistent in insisting that federal agencies endorse his views and in demeaning or dismissing those who do not. For example, there are many federal agencies that carry out research related to climate change, but they are forbidden to use the term. As far as preparedness for a pandemic has been concerned, the Trump administration has reduced the funding and capacities of the Centers for Disease Control, the key federal agency that, as its name states, controls disease outbreaks.

·      Mr Trump’s winning formula is to convince his supporters that a variety of dangerous enemies is out to do them harm, for example Mexican immigrants, Muslims, irresponsible Democrats, and that Donald Trump alone can protect them and Make America Great Again. Like Mr Johnson, therefore, his brand depends on optimism and convincing his followers that he can deliver a wonderful future for them. Bad health or economic news are bad for Mr Trump. At the start of the outbreak, therefore, he was keen to dismiss the disease as no worse than the flu. Like Mr Johnson and AMLO, his attention was distracted from the pandemic.

·      America does not have an NHS. The healthcare system is fragmented, and national coordination of provision in a crisis is therefore much more difficult. Responsibility for public health, including contact tracing, tends to be devolved to a very local level, often to county officials. Some counties are tiny and provide very limited public services. Therefore, the public health response is very variable and difficult to coordinate.

·      There has been confusion and disagreement as to whether responsibility for testing and other aspects of the response to the disease are federal or state responsibilities. Mr Trump has made contradictory pronouncements in this respect. He has also demonized certain Democrat state governors in the states he needs to win in the November election. This has not been consistent with leading a national effort to address the pandemic.

·      Employment protections and welfare provision are, by European standards very low. Employment is typically “at will”. Staff can be dismissed summarily with little or no compensation. Union protections are limited. Most healthcare is provided by employers: the unemployed get no health care insurance. Provision of welfare is similarly limited. Lock down and social distancing are, therefore, create great hardship for many people. Where the British government targeted funding at keeping workers employed, even if inactive, the US stimulus package has been directed mostly at supporting companies, not their workers. Companies have been given no incentive to keep inactive workers in employment. Unemployment has therefore increased by million every week.