Isolation III:I Think I'll Call It Morning.

"I'm gonna take myself a piece of sunshine and paint it all over my sky. Be no rain. Be no rain. I'm gonna take the song from every bird  and make 'em sing it just for me. Bird's got something to teach us all about bein' free" - I Think I'll Call It Morning, Gil Scott-Heron.

With a three week, and surely longer, lockdown now in force most of that sunshine and most of those birds are now going to be seen through our windows but we can't let go of Gil's words, we've got to remember there is sunshine, sky, and birds and one day soon, in the grand scheme of things, we will walk freely, and without fear, among them again. Not only that, we'll appreciate them more than we ever did before. Most of us anyway.

The measures announced by Boris Johnson at 8.30pm last night were tough. But they were necessary. Overdue if anything. Some have complained they weren't clear and, indeed, they could have been made clearer - but most of those who aren't acting in accord with them are exploiting that lack of clarity far more than they are confused by it.

Mike Ashley initially said he'd keep Sports Direct open as it provided an 'essential' service in keeping people fit. Keeping fit certainly is important but people can just do it on their old running shoes and jogging bottoms for now. Lots of people do buy exercise gear in Sports Direct but mostly people go there for giant mugs to drink oceans of tea out of and for grey marl joggers that certain men actually choose to wear out socially despite the fact that it reveals an often unflattering outline of their cock and balls.

Mike Ashley knows Sports Direct aren't an essential service. He just likes making money. It's good he's gone back on his original decision. It's a shame that it took bad publicity as opposed to public health concerns for him to do so. Let's remember what sort of person Mike Ashley is after this and give Sports Direct a berth even wider than the six feet we should now be giving everyone. Let's not give any more money to people who would, quite literally, kill your parents or grandparents to line their own pockets.

It always seemed likely there would be people complaining that the government has gone too far with this lockdown but you might have expected them to come from the libertarian left rather than megarich free marketeers. An upside down world we live in. Leading left wing commentator Owen Jones tweeted "never thought I'd be relieved to be placed under house arrest along with millions of people under a police state by a right wing Tory government". I never thought I'd read an Owen Jones tweet that said anything like that, but he's captured the mood accurately and succinctly as the form demands but so rarely achieves.

The lockdown mainly came about because advising, or nudging, people into staying home was, patently, not working. Photos showed people on the beach in Skegness, up Snowdon, in Richmond Park, in Victoria Park (at a farmer's market, ffs), and crowding into a Tesco in Hull this weekend. These caused understandable outrage and led to the inevitable social media shaming. All of which, I imagine, pushed the government towards their decision.

An article in The Spectator (not something I'd normally read, strange times result in strange behaviour) by Isabel Hardman made a reasonable point that a great deal of these people would have gone to Snowdon or the beach because they thought there'd be nobody else there. Trouble is, huge numbers of other people had exactly the same idea.

None of us have lived through a global pandemic before so we're still learning how to behave. There will be mistakes along the way. As Hardman said, we shouldn't be shaming these people with the equivalent of white feathers (to symbolise cowardice) or calling them idiots or wankers for making an honest mistake, but trying to educate them.

Further division won't help. Although if they turn up on the beaches next weekend then, fair season, they genuinely are idiots and wankers and should be arrested. My mum's friend Jean is neither an idiot nor a wanker but she's in her seventies and has continued working in her local shop. She says it'll be fine. There's no way she can catch the coronavirus. She has a glass of warm Ribena every afternoon and she hasn't had flu for decades.

It does sound idiotic but she's got no computer, no access to the Internet, and she hardly watches the news or reads any papers. She'll only believe this is real when she, or the sick and elderly brother she lives with, gets seriously ill.

Or dies. As many around the world still are. Since I dropped my last Isolation blog on Saturday the global death toll has risen from 12,900 to 16,500, deaths in Italy are up from 4,825 to over 6,000, in Spain from 1,378 to 2,696 (almost doubling), and in the UK from 178 to 335. There have been deaths in eighty-nine different countries so far. From Guatemala to Gambia, from Azerbaijan to Argentina, and from Indonesia to Iceland.

It's making it very very clear that nobody, no nation, is exceptional in anyway. We're all the same. We're all humans. We're all susceptible to not just the same health concerns but the same loves, passions, anxieties, and desires. The historian and author Giles Tremlett wrote a wonderful and frightening article for The Guardian in which he incisively outlined the dangers regarding the concept of exceptionalism at the time of a health crisis.

"Ideas of cultural or national superiority are the greatest risk factor of all at a time like this. Nowhere is that a more serious danger right now than in the United Kingdom and the United States – two countries especially prone to such delusions" were, to me, a particularly powerful pair of sentences that showed that empty slogans like Make America Great Again, Unleash Britain's Potential, and Get Brexit Done have sold a myth to many who live in these countries that, for some reason, we are better, stronger people and an accident of birth can save us from the ill fortunes and even ill health that affect others.

Even with a stiff upper lip, you can die in intense pain on a hospital bed or, due to the lack of them, in a hospital corridor on a trolley. Tremlett ends his article by saying that "when this is all over, we will count the dead and discover which governments did the best job of protecting their people. Ideas of national superiority will have to be buried with them".

I agree with every word he says. It makes for uncomfortable reading - but uncomfortable reading is required now. Heads in sand won't work. We must be informed and we must be informed reliably. Not by those peddling agendas or conspiracy theories. But we must keep our spirits up too - and mine, so far - surprising even to me, are quite high. All things considered.

Today is my tenth day in a row staying in my flat. I live alone, I've got no garden, and, other than necessary trips to the shops, I've not seen a single person. I've been writing blogs of couse (I find writing enormously therapeutic), I've been eating a lot of macaroni cheese, I've been drinking lots of tea, I've been watching TV (Noughts + Crosses, Simon Reeve, art programmes with Andrew Graham Dixon and Waldemar Januszczak, and Monday night is quiz night:- University Challenge, Only Connect, Mastermind), I've been doing crosswords and sudokus, I've been playing Words with Friends (with, er, friends - and one stranger), and I've been listening to a lot of music.

Music has always been a salve and, now, I'm finding that more than ever. While I'm writing this blog I'm listening to Cannonball Adderley, I heard his Mercy, Mercy, Mercy on the radio and it just moved me, just felt right for my mood. Gil Scott-Heron's I Think I'll Call It Morning hit home too (hence its position at the top of the blog), and so did Return to Forever. Jazz fusion not being an area I'm overly familiar with and may have backed away from in fear in the past.

I've always loved reggae and those songs of defiance in the face of struggle seem more potent than ever now. So much so that I've embarked on compiling a personal top 100 reggae tunes and posting one to Facebook each day (as I've previously done with The Fall and David Bowie) in an attempt to keep mine, and friends, spirits up and give us a daily talking point that isn't the coronavirus.

But the coronavirus, COVID-19, seeps into everything now, and music is no exception. This morning I read the news that Cameroonian saxophonist, vibraphonist, and all round funky dude Manu Dibango had passed away in Paris, aged 86. Not the first name musician to die of coronavirus (a couple of jazzers have too) but the first one that was known to me and the first one I was a fan of.

Very sad. Another well known person who has contracted COVID-19 is Harvey Weinstein. Dibango devoted his life to bringing joy to people. Weinstein's main contribution to the world was ruining young women's lives so it's hard to feel sympathy for him. To put it lightly, 'social distancing' was never his strong suit and he probably thought Covid was some hot starlet, that 19 was her age, and that she was just yet another woman he could rape.

He got a test though which is more than most Brits or Americans are getting. Most of my friends are in good health and good spirits but one or two are getting concerned and, at this time, we need to listen to people's concerns, take them seriously, not tell them they're over-reacting, and to find time for them. As a note to friends reading this, I'm at the end of the line whenever you want to call.

It's good to see my friends recommending films and music, arranging a Saturday night virtual get together (hopefully, with beer and curry), setting up their home schools and home offices and sharing pictures of them, and doing PE with Joe Wicks (a man who is proving incredibly popular at the moment, one of the good guys). There's still laughter too. Another salve to go along with music. This week William Roache, who plays Ken Barlow on Coronation Street, appeared on This Morning and Meditating with Ken Barlow took on a Twitter life of its own. An #accidentalpartridge we could all enjoy.

If Monkey Tennis is on by the end of the week I'll probably tune in. The best thing my friends are doing though, for me, is staying in touch. Since I wrote last I've had calls from Shep, Simon, Mum and Dad, and video calls with Valia and Michelle. We all talk about our concerns but we also talk about other stuff, as well. After each of these calls I feel a bit better about things. I can only hope it's working both ways.

As the lockdown bites harder I'm planning to keep those calls going, intending to carry on writing these (and other) blogs, and I'm going to continue drinking lots of tea and listening to lots of music. While outdoor exercise is allowed I will try to get out for a run. But I will keep checking the news as well.

Fearing the worst but hoping for little crumbs of comfort. The death rates in both the UK and Italy didn't rise quite as steeply as they have been doing yesterday and in China people are starting to go outside again. It's way way too early to be anything other than cautiously optimistic, and it would be homicidal to suggest we just carry on as normal, but we need to cling on to hope during what seem like hopeless times more than ever.

That's one thing I've learned from listening to all that reggae, jazz, soul, and blues. I think I'll call it morning. The morning of a very very long and challenging day, a day that may last months, but a morning nonetheless. I've woken up in the morning before and barely been able to face the day yet have found myself later that evening sat with friends laughing and joking. To get through this I have to view this as one ridiculously long and extended day. This bit now? I think I'll call it morning.