Isolation XVI:There Is A War?

"There is a war between the rich and poor, a war between the man and the woman. There is a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say there isn't. Why don't you come on back to the war? That's right, get in it. Why don't you come on back to the war? It's just beginning" - There is a War, Leonard Cohen

"When there is life, there is hope" - Cicero

Stephen Smith, the show's arts correspondent, quoted Cicero on Newsnight on Tuesday evening while presenting a piece about how various leaders, throughout history, have dealt with crises and wondering what Boris Johnson, nearly as famous for his boastful scholarship of antiquity as he is for his reckless inattention to detail, his vanity, and his selfishness, might do now to help us through this crisis.

Where there is life, indeed there is hope - but for over 26,000 people in the UK now there is no longer hope because there is no longer life. Many thousands, millions, more grieve their loss yet some still protect Johnson and his Brexit death cult. My dad, an otherwise wonderful man but a Brexit supporter, said "there's no point crying over spilt milk". Which is odd from a 79 year old man who has a meltdown if his VCR doesn't tape the Moto GP. Priorities.

The nurses, doctors, care home workers, and other frontline workers are now no longer people so much as they are soldiers, heroes, and, eventually, martyrs. As such, instead of being paid properly or given adequate PPE so they can 'fight' the 'war' against Covid-19 while the decision makers hide behind them, they are applauded, showered with platitudes, and felt sorry for. Heroes die heroically in wars and if the government can keep the war talk up then we can believe they've died 'fighting' an enemy rather than simply doing a job that has, for the last decade particularly, been undervalued and underappreciated. Smooth talking Tory bullshitter Tobias Ellwood suggested the Red Arrows can fly through the air as we all applaud their brave sacrifice before returning to our quizzes, box sets, and ordering things we don't need (or even really want) from Amazon.

A spectacular waste of money, an empty meaningless gesture, and, contravening the government's own guidelines, clearly not essential work. The Red Arrows can work from home for now. Let's, instead, just pay these people properly and provide them with the PPE they need to do the job. Johnson, Hancock, and Ellwood sending the frontline 'troops' out to do their job without it is the equivalent of Douglas Haig using soldiers, human beings, as cannon fodder in Passchendaele and the Somme during WWI.

Over two million died and Haig is now remembered as the Butcher of the Somme. Johnson and Hancock's negligence will, surely, to historians, look equally unwise and possibly, hopefully - if there's any justice, criminal. Panorama, this week, exposed just how deep government lying about the lack of PPE has gone. Out of date and next to useless consignments of PPE delivered with stickers on them saying they should not be used after 2019 (covering stickers that say their use by date was 2016 or even 2009), paper towels listed individually as PPE items, and pairs of gloves registered as two separate items.

Today's the last day of April and it's the day that Matt Hancock promised the government would be testing 100,000 people a day. We're not even halfway there and nobody's even surprised. Outraged sure, but surprised - no. A government built on lies will lie and lie some more when backed into a corner. Hancock's not even the worst of them. Boris Johnson, earlier and now mostly forgotten, had promised 250,000 tests are day - and he wasn't even talking about his own paternity tests.

Johnson's probably the most notorious liar in British history, certainly his lying has had the most lethal consequence seen during my life time. Maybe we should cut him some slack though. He's had a busy year. Who else can say that, in the last twelve months, they've become Prime Minister, won an election, got divorced, got engaged, had a baby (his 6th, 7th, 8th, maybe 9th, maybe more, who's counting?), and been partially responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people?

The reason lying, and Johnson's lying in particular, has not outraged and appalled everyone in the country is because, in recent years, lying has become more normalised and accepted in the UK than elsewhere (except in Trump's USA - one of only two countries with a higher death toll - it passed 60,000 yesterday - no biggie, some states are coming out of lockdown) is down to a class of politicians who have weaponised lying and used it as a tool to bully their opponents.

The public face of that type of politician is none other than Boris fucking Johnson. Criminally negligent, dog-whistle racist, serial adulterer, lying piece of shit Boris Johnson. His cabinet of toadies, yes men, incompetent buffoons, and downright nasty pieces of work are a cabinet built in his own image. Inspired by the man to serve the man and never the country. The minute's silence that took place for 'fallen' NHS workers on Tuesday morning should have, my friend Colin neatly pointed out, have been followed by a sustained ten minutes of booing and jeering for Johnson and his court of cronies, for those that have made a disaster exponentially worse than it should have been.

For those with so much blood on their hands they will never be able to wash it off. For those who should be ashamed to ever show their faces in public again without a huge public apology and a criminal trial. But the Panorama exposure, the astronomical death toll, and every other thing they've done that's absolutely stinking the place out right now. That can all be covered up by simply opening up another window in the culture war.

A culture war where, if you don't back the government - a terrible, lying, untrustworthy, and now deadly government, you're the traitor. You're the bad guy. Veganism, sexism, racism, and homophobia have all been weaponised by the far right but nothing has been weaponised as much, and to such tragic effect, as nationalism. It's unpatriotic to criticise your government at a time of crisis. Is it? Fuck off. It's unpatriotic to allow tens of thousands of people to die because your bellicose and jingoistic ideology can't adapt to the facts.

Soon after Panorama had been aired Twitter was taken over by the usual suspects accusing those that have been angered by Johnson's criminal negligence of being Leftist agitators happy to see the UK death toll rise to prove their point. Which, at least, admits their points have been proven. It's an odd take though, because Jeremy Corbyn's followers inability to do anything but argue among themselves and rage against the BBC would suggest that these 'Leftist agitators' would neither have watched the programme nor believed any of its findings to be true.

The culture war now is a pretty simple one. Your money or your life? Do we kill off thousands more, mostly elderly, people or do we get the economy up and running again? Is it really that important if your parents and grandparents live? What if they live but they live like poor people? Is that even life? What if they don't help Jeff Bezos to his next Space Invader score level of wealth? There are sufficient numbers of people so embedded in the capitalist system of aspirational living that these are questions we are actually asking. Do we let our family die or do we build that extension to the house?

It's a sad thought to think there may soon be extensions in houses around the country built for the owners' elderly parents to retire in that will sit eerily quiet because our greed for money was greater than our desire to keep people alive. Nobody wants their own family to die but many are willing to take a risk it won't happen to them. You'd think this would have taught them it can happen to them - and, if they continue as they are doing, it will.

I truly believe that Boris Johnson is the most dishonest, and dangerous, man that has lived in Britain during my life time. When this is all over he should be, along with his even bigger cunt of a mate Donald Trump, put in an international court (if they still exist) and tried for criminal negligence. Like a war trial.

We're not in a war but those who say we are, and use it to excuse their own culpability for this mess, should be treated as if we were. No-one asks for revenge or retribution. Simply truth. Those who can't give it now should prepare themselves for an eternity of shame. War, if you want it, is over - it has been for decades. If you continue to perpetrate the myth that it isn't then you are the war criminal and you should thank your lucky stars that we've moved on from treating criminals, war or otherwise, in the way you probably think we should.

Boris Johnson. Donald Trump. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect £200. Do not grab any pussy on your way and do not have a number of children that, like the death tolls of the nations you were supposed to look after, can no longer even be counted. In fact, just like the coronavirus you have so enabled, fuck off, fuck off, and fuck off again. And when you've done that. Fuck off a bit more.

Isolation XV:We Could Send Letters.

"Just close your eyes again until these things get better. You're never far away but we could send letters" - We Could Send Letters, Aztec Camera.

As the UK death toll for Covid-19 passes 20,000 and the global death toll passes 200,000 music, works of art, and literature begin to take on new meanings and reveal themselves in ways their creators never intended. Never could have imagined. We Could Send Letters, the last song on side one of Aztec Camera's debut album High Land, Hard Rain in 1983, is a partially abstracted paean to lost love and absence shot through with romance, regret, and, ultimately, redemption.

I'd liked it as an emotional and confused teenager before packing it away for years and rediscovering it in the last decade when I realised it was one of the greatest songs ever written. I've listened to it at home, alone, deep into the night and I've listened to it, with beer and wine on the go, on visits to my friends Darren and Cheryl and it's never failed me yet. I've never listened to it during a pandemic and I've certainly never listened to it, as I did this morning, forty-five days into an isolation in which I've not felt so much as one human touch on my skin.

It still got me though and, in fact, it sounded more resonant than ever. Because that's what great art does. It mutates to fit your circumstances, it matures as we age, and it acts as a comfort blanket at times of trouble to remind us that throughout history people have always felt lonely, confused, and fearful but that they've also always felt resilient, hopeful, and compassionate - and that redemption is always available for those that seek it.

Sadly, some don't. Of those 200,000 global Covid-19 deaths, over 56,000 thousand of them have taken place in the USA. Has Trump reacted with penitence, with clarity, and with a clear roadmap of what his administration intend to do to try to counter the spread? Has he fuck. He has, as ever, reacted with lies, scapegoating, blame shifting, and a suggestion that people in America may like to ingest disinfectant to rid themselves of coronavirus.

Donald Trump, the president of the world's most powerful nation, is calling for the mass suicide of the 300,000,000+ people he is responsible for looking after. A cursory look at Twitter the morning following a press briefing that was disastrous even by his calamitous standards saw Toilet Duck and Cillit Bang trending alongside Jim Jones, the American faith healer turned cult leader who, in 1978 in Guyana, brainwashed over 900 people (including 300 children) to drink Kool-Aid laced with cyanide resulting in their own deaths.

It gave the world the phrase 'Drinking the Kool-Aid' and, now, it's Trump's supporters who are the brainwashed ones carrying out actions that are dangerous, potentially deadly, not just to them but to everybody in their country and everyone in the world. As protestors arrived in New York City (the world's most affected city in the whole pandemic) to demand their right to attend proms and have their hair cut and gather in large numbers despite the certainty it would kill some of them and their families, cans rained out of windows of nearby flats down on them.

Throwing cans and bottles from great heights on to people could, obviously, potentially kill them but I can't say I wouldn't do the same and these people are protesting for their right to die in great pain anyway. At least a can smashed into their cranium would kill them quickly and prevent them from spreading any more lethal germs on to people more deserving of the gift of life.

As Dettol announced that people, under no circumstances whatsoever, should drink or ingest disinfectant, another topic that began trending on Twitter was '25th amendment'. Heated online debate raged about how it could be possible to remove Trump from office for being mentally unstable. Which he is. Lethally so. But he was before he got elected and he has been all throughout his tenure. I really hope it happens (and I also hope he is sent to prison for the rest of his life such is the danger of his being allowed liberty) but I don't think it will.

If it was going to it would have done by now. If 56,000 deaths aren't enough do you really think 100,000 deaths, half a million deaths, or even more will be enough to see him impeached? The world's best hope is he tries out one of his own crank cures and poisons himself but, of course, he doesn't want to die himself. He doesn't even want others to die. He's just completely indifferent to human suffering and even human life and all he cares about are his ratings, his popularity, and being re-elected later this year. Which he probably will be.

Those around him need to do much much more to stop him. Leading physician Deborah Birx can't just roll her eyes and look incredulous when he spouts complete and utter fucking bullshit out to the entire planet. She should stand up and say something or the increased death toll is on her too. The same for the rest of the cronies and yes men who surround the moron-in-chief. It's up to them to not let him lie, the day after, that the disinfectant stuff was a joke (as if it was time for gags) and to show deep fake videos of his presidential rival Joe Biden.

If just one of these people stood up at a press conference and called the lying piece of shit a lying piece of shit to his face we'd have some hope but bullies always surround themselves with cowards and Trump is the world's biggest bully. A thin skinned mess of insecurities who probably wouldn't rule out starting a nuclear war if it looked like he was going to be impeached or imprisoned. Trump, like Jim Jones, would be more than happy to take as many down with him when/if he goes.

Here, Number Ten (with Boris Johnson's return to 'work' apparently a boost to the country's morale) showed a complete lack of backbone by not refuting Trump's dangerous lies more robustly. Instead it was announced they wouldn't be looking into recommendations that UK citizens drink bleach. Well, that's good to know. One of Johnson's first acts following his recuperation was to ring Trump. That doesn't sound great but perhaps he just wanted to speak to one of the few people in the world that made him appear a moral and intellectual heavyweight.

He could, of course, have found others in his own cabinet. The likes of Priti Patel and Michael Gove where picked because, not despite, of their lack of moral fibre and attention to detail and the meeting of the SAGE team that advise the British government on coronavirus has, it's been revealed, been attended by Dominic Cummings who is, essentially, a spin doctor - and a bloody nasty one too. Suggesting that these meetings are as much about managing the image of the government and deciding who to throw under the bus (possibly Matt Hancock, more likely Chris Whitty) than trying to stop even more British people dying.

In the UK, instead of, like Trump, making up your own insane and lethal science as you go along we're merely being told at teatime briefings (brilliantly described by Marina Hyde as "magnetic fridge poetry rearranged each day") that we're being led by the science. Something many scientists both now refute as untrue and also fear because it suggests this means they're being lined up to be used as human shields to deflect criticism for the very real, and very deadly failings of the government and the PM, Johnson, himself.

A government that rode into power by lying, shifting blame, and victim blaming can hardly be expected to change its way in a crisis. You can hope it may do, as I did at the start of all this, but that hope was forlorn and those that voted them in must now ask themselves how much blame they should carry for the awful situation we find ourselves in. Johnson's tried to reframe his catastrophic handling of the crisis by speaking of Britain's "apparent success" in dealing with it when announcing likely lockdown extensions. If the fifth, and likely to rise, highest death toll in the world is a success I'm glad we didn't get to see what failure looks like.

It was always clear, from 2016 onwards when Americans and Brits insanely voted for Brexit and Trump, that we were heading for disaster. Only a few epidemiologists foresaw the nature of it but with Trump and a Brexit enabled Johnson in power we were left with power maddened fanatics at the wheel. Workshy power maddened fanatics. Workshy power maddened fanatics who are completely indifferent to human suffering.

This experiment of government by racist clowns is not going well and it's not going to get any better. Post Malone's online Nirvana tribute gig raised over $7,000,000 for the WHO just as Trump pulled funding and many of us have come to the conclusion that punks, rappers, and pop stars are doing far more to try and help people in this crisis than the likes of Trump, Johnson, and Bolsonaro. The fact that it doesn't even surprise us shows what a dreadful state we've got ourselves with this charlatan class of world leaders.

It feels to me like politics is lies and art, music, friendship, and family is truth. But politics doesn't have to be lies. We can remould it following this disaster and by asking important questions (why are BAME Covid-19 death tolls higher (as they seem to be)? Why are, on the whole, female leaders doing better in this crisis? Why do we pay key workers so abysmally? Why do we cheer the NHS from our gardens and balconies every Thursday night while continually voting in parties that seek to destroy the same institution) we may slowly work our way to answers that will improve society, our country, and our planet for the better.

If we don't, we'll be hit even harder by the next (and there will be one) crisis. One positive thing we can take from this is a sense of perspective and almost everyone I've spoken to agrees on that. At least now. The trick is to continue to think that as the world, very gradually, returns to either its usual unfair state or to a fairer, more just, more caring, place. Make no mistake those that have urged Brexit would be a success, that Trump would be a great leader, and that nobody would die from coronavirus will again be seeking to make you hate and other the poor, the disenfranchised, and those that simply look different to you. It's always been their way. It's served them well so why should they change?

Over the last few days I've chatted, daily, to Mum and Dad. I've had lovely phone calls with Shep and Vicki and I've had video calls with Daina (in Chicago, confirming as I knew that many Americans hate Trump), Sanda (who mentioned that in Croatia, where she grew up, the death toll is only 55), and Michelle. I did another fun Kahoot quiz. I had a video call with my parents, my cousin, my auntie Linda and (very briefly - he wanted to go for a run) my nephew Daniel, and I received, through the post, a lovely lovely postcard from Valia which reminded me of our trip to the RA to see the Gormley exhibition last year and touched my heart deeply. It's on my mantelpiece now alongside photos of me with Evie and a photo of my brother Steven.

I went for short walks around Peckham Rye Park, Dulwich Park, and Brenchley Gardens and, on Saturday, I felt a bit fed up as, if it wasn't for all this, I'd have been leading a London by Foot walk round Thamesmead, Woolwich, and Abbey Wood. I also got a sore wrist. Not what a single man wants during a lengthy lockdown period. But it wasn't 'wanker's cramp' as some of you wags out there would no doubt suggest. It was my left wrist. The right one's still good to go. It was quite sore though. Opening a bottle of vinegar, turning a tap on, or even typing these blogs became a little painful.

Other than that, and a cough, and a headache, I feel mostly okay and, of course, I realise there are thousands, millions, that have it much much worse. That's something I remember every time I start to feel a bit sorry for myself. At times I'm completely fine alone (I've written before how, over the years, I've got used to and adapted to it) but at other times I miss people almost exquisitely and the thing that hurts me the most, selfishly when I consider the death and the loneliness of so many, is that I may not be able to hold my loved ones physically close to me for weeks, months, or even years. There's even a real concern I might never be able to do so ever again. I have to hope with all my heart that that is not the case. In the meantime, I'll just close my eyes until things get better. We can send letters.

Isolation XIV:We Are Each Other

A killer, a virus, that preys on us in our tens of thousands is terrible and devastating enough but one that does so not despite, but because, of our social nature is worse. Sporting occasions, gigs, weddings, days in the park and even funerals are the events in which the human race shows itself at its finest and these, now, are the very things we cannot involve ourselves in.

Things we'd previously considered the height of rudeness (people crossing the road to avoid us or washing their hands if they accidentally touch us) are now signs of good citizenship. We're closing borders, we're cancelling holidays, we're not visiting our family or friends. There are no hugs, no pats on the back, and no comforting hand on the shoulder when we're down. As many of us are right now.

Worst of all there is no realistic plan, or even idea, of how we'll return to those things. There's a lot about what they call normality that I'm not missing at all but walks, restaurants, pubs, and, most of all, friends and family are not among them. At least there's no FOMO now though. There's no worry that everybody else is having fun and you're missing out. Because there's nothing going on and all the fun that does happen is happening either in our front rooms or in our own heads.

Now's not a good time for people who struggle to live within themselves. Today marks the 41st day of my isolation and after fifteen years of living on my own I am at least, to a degree, prepared for this. I love, and often crave, company but I spend a lot of time on my own and always have done. I've actually come to quite like myself over the years and, thankfully, I've got enough friends to suggest that other people might like me too. Or at least tolerate me.

I'm sure I annoy them at times (that's what friends are for) but, right now, I'm appreciating my friends and my parents more than ever (not really heard from the rest of the family). This week I've spoken, for nearly an hour each day to Mum and Dad (Mum talks about the news and we've been talking a lot about the loss of my brother Steven and my friend Bugsy recently, Dad sets me quizzes - horses for courses) and I've also chatted to Michelle, Adam, Darren and Cheryl, and Rob H up in Handsworth. 

On Wednesday night I enjoyed another great Kahoot/Zoom quiz hosted by Jo, set by Dylan, and won (again) by Tony and yesterday I had a lovely walk in the Horniman Gardens admiring the views, the beautiful spring flowers, and the blossoms of the trees. People were sunbathing but people were still social distancing sensibly and being respectful of each other. My heart felt full of warmth.

On a late night journey into yet another YouTube wormhole I found myself listening to The Fall performing Smile and 2x4 on The Tube in 1983. It was great (obviously) but, with time on my hands, it had me wondering what MES would have to say about all this. Which got me to wondering what others who have passed might make of it all. David Bowie, Christopher Hitchens, Aldous Huxley, Graham Greene, HG Wells, and George Orwell. I even started to wonder what the likes of Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle would have to say about such times. I started reading The Plague by Albert Camus (for a second time) precisely because it might give some idea about how the psychological aspects of all this may be played out in the longer term.

Camus, like Bowie, MES, and all those others, is of course no longer with us. But our desire for understanding, direction, and culture continues and the books they wrote, the music they made, and the ideas they gave us continue to inform us. We're moving in uncertain directions right now as the British government are being divided into doves (who want to extend the lockdown, their main concern being health) and hawks (who wish to relax the lockdown for the sake of the economy but, often, pretend they believe it's better for all our health in the long term).

For me, some hope was been restored that we can have a rational, reasonable political debate when Keir Starmer opted to be forensic rather than adversarial in his questioning in the first session of a gradually reopened parliament. During a session that saw some members socially distanced and others Zooming in from remote locations (which should have looked bizarre but now barely registers as unusual) Starmer made reasonable points and didn't call anybody a rude name or make anything up.

It was a refreshing change following the last few years in which we saw some (definitely not all) Corbyn supporters treating the Labour party as if it was a cult or a protest group rather than a serious political party with hopes and intentions of gaining power. That kind of behaviour allowed Johnson to build a government of toadies and arch-Brexiters consisting of people with neither the adequate skills, sufficient seriousness, or, in the cases of Patel and Rees-Mogg for example, the empathy and humanity required for such a huge crisis.

On the first day of the government's furlough scheme 140,000 business applied, the value of oil (after years of people actually fighting wars over it) dipped below zero (they, literally, can't give it away), and in the US, Trump supporters continued to wave guns around and accused medics of being 'fake' actors, in some cases actually physically attacking them. Even as the US death toll passes 50,000. Nearly double that of Italy. The second most seriously affected nation.

It's a complete shitshow (Trump's now suggesting people inject themselves with bleach) and no mistake but while we point at them aghast or even in laughter we should remember there are plenty of pretty nasty people, radicalised by the right wing press and Boris Johnson's dog whistle racism, here in the UK. In the early days of Facebook I added as a friend a kid (now a man) that I knew at school. I've not really paid much attention to his posts (they're mostly him gurning next to celebrities like Bruce Forsyth and Richard Osman) but I took the bait yesterday when he posted this:-

"Happy St Georges Day, a day that amazingly isnt celebrated in England.Every other Country and Religion we accept ant let them Celebrate but our day Might offend someone. When did it go so wrong !!"

Leaving aside his horrific spelling (if you love your country so much why not learn the language?), grammar, punctuation, and orthography (I counted nine mistakes in three sentences) you have to ask yourself if he's so keen on celebrating St George's Day why he didn't just do that instead of ranting about foreigners and snowflakes on the Internet? He could have supped a nice nut brown British ale at his local off-license, had fish and chips delivered, and listened to some stirring music by Edward Elgar but, for some reason, he thinks he's not allowed to. I replied in a fit of pique:-

"What a load jingoist, incorrectly spelled bullshit. You're free to celebrate St George's Day however you like and many are without to coat it with a thin veneer of xenophobia. Also, many of those people from other countries 'we' let in:- many of them work for the NHS and are the frontline of trying to save people's lives. I'm defriending all racists so bye"

Then I defriended him (and blocked him as I didn't want to get drawn any further into a pointless Internet shouting match). Reading my response back I wish I'd waited until I'd calmed down a bit because it's nearly as poorly constructed as his but the message still stands. The weeks, months, and years ahead could be very tough for a lot of us. Social media can be a useful tool for people like me, living on their own, to stay in touch with their friends. If people are going to use it to spout hatred and poison (now, of all times) it's best we remove those people from our lives. They can only damage us.

Let's hold our friends closer to our hearts than ever but with COVID-19 we've got a big enough problem. I've not got the time nor the inclination to put up with those who have been infected with the virus of stupidity and hatred.

A global pandemic has shone an unforgiving light into the nooks and crannies of our institutions, our relationships, and even our own inner psyches and we've all (me, you, your friends, your families, our enemies, complete strangers) been trying to rationalise it through the view of the world we already hold - and why not? What other tools do we have? Humans cling to their systems of belief like Linus hugs his security blanket.

Everbody knows that things must change but everyone thinks it's everyone else who should do the changing. If you felt disgusted and horrified by Chinese wet markets (as I did) or even eating meat full stop (as I do) this will further entrench your views, if you don't understand even basic science and think 5G is something to fear then 5G conspiracy theories will speak loudly to you, if you felt immigration is a positive thing (as I do) you'll look at the 100,000 immigrant NHS staff and feel emboldened in that view, if you felt immigration was a bad thing you'll somehow imagine this virus is down to immigration (makes no sense but you'll find some way), and if you thought the Johnson administration were a bunch of feckless cunts concerned only with covering their own arses and helping their rich mates out well, you'll have been proved to be right all along.

But if we can't change our views and our adversaries can't change theirs how can we change society when we ever so slowly start to tiptoe our way out of this. Make no mistake. The snake oil salesman that will arrive and offer us easy solutions rather than inconvenient truths will be, in many cases, the very same people that sleepwalked us into this tragedy. The very same people that exacerbated this crisis.

We must learn our lesson and not fall for them. If a death toll in the hundreds of thousands isn't enough for us nothing ever will be. Every now and then I think to myself, arrogantly, that, yeah, I'm tough enough to do this. To get through this. We're all tough enough to get through it, and we all are. At least until we're not. At least until the long lonely days of isolation start to wear away at our resolve, at least until one of our family members of friends gets ill and we can't visit them, at least until we cancel and postpone so many birthday celebrations and holidays that we break down in tears.

We're all individuals, nobody truly knows what happens in another person's mind, and our individuality and our ability to sustain ourselves is vital (now more than ever) but it was our sociability as a species that made us dominant. We are ourselves but, also, we are each other. We exist in the way our loved ones touch us, look into our eyes, and how they both listen to us and speak to us. Our sense of self is never more reinforced than when we are in the company of someone we truly love and care about.

It's humanity that makes humans great and right now I'm seeing more of that than I have for a very long time. 'Preppers' in the US (enabled by Trump and called protestors in the media instead of the correct word - terrorists) have boasted for years that they could survive a major existential crisis by stockpiling guns and food are out on the streets waving weapons about, and participating in major super spreading event that should see US death tolls go ever more stratospheric, because they can't get out for a burger.

They packed their cellars and they stocked up on ammo but one thing they completely forgot to do was to prepare their emotional toolkit for such an event. Now there's a huge likelihood that their toxic nature will result in the deaths of many of their own family members just to prop up a cruel capitalist system that literally couldn't give a fuck if they lived or died. A system, in fact, that if you're not buying into (being a useful member of society) would probably prefer you did die.

COVID-19 will continue to kill but one day, we hope, we'll find a cure for it. The even bigger question is can we find a cure for a capitalist system that is equally indifferent to the lives of the people who are forced to live with it?

Size of an Elephant:An Evening with Those Animal Men.

Just over a week ago I attended a London Fortean Society meeting that was like no other I had previously attended. Not because of its subject matter (shapeshifters fit in pretty well with aliens, conspiracy theories, killer clowns, and Satanic architects) but because of where I attended the talk.

It wasn't in The Miller, The Bell, or Conway Hall. The LFS's three usual venues. It was in my front room looking at my own computer screen. The words "Zoom webinar chat" would have seemed gobbledegook to me six weeks ago but we've all learnt lots of new phrases recently (furlough/social distancing/self-isolation) and, during lockdown, it's the only way. I could have sat in my pants throughout the entirety of the talk. But I didn't. I had no idea if it would work or not so I'm pleased to report that not only did it all come off but it was absolutely brilliant, a real tonic in trying times for many, and the virtual attendees easily outnumbered those we could have fitted in the pubs of Whitechapel and Borough. Two hundred registered and at least one hundred and forty of them logged on.

John B. Kachuba (pronounced, says the man himself, like the sound of a sneeze) is a Creative Writing instructor at Ohio University and has written the books Ghostbusters (2007) and Dark Entry (2018). He's an amiable, knowledgeable guy who pitched his talk, Shapeshifters, just right. Not too obscure for us hobbyists but interesting enough so that we could both learn and laugh along.

In a Zoom talk, that LFS head honcho Scott Wood hosted from his shed which following a few very minor teething problems soon ran incredibly smoothly, Kachuba told us how, over the last two decades, he'd been involved in paranormal research and his interest in ghosts had, over time, led to an interest in shapeshifters.

The most well known shapeshifters are probably werewolves but they're not the whole story. A shapeshifter is a person who can transform into an animal (or, less often, another person or even an inanimate object - there's apparently a Star Trek character who turns himself into a puddle and a Japanese animation shows someone transforming into what looks like a tea chest bass) and then back again (usually) under their own volition. You may remember the Arabian Knights cartoons where Bez (yes, that was the character's name) became a large and helpful pachyderm merely by shouting out "SIZE OF AN ELEPHANT".

That's shapeshifting. Kachuba's talk covered three different ways of viewing shapeshifting. First he looked at it through the prism of religion, mythology, and folklore (like they're three different things), then he focused on the cultural aspects of it, before finishing with a look at how psychologists have considered the human desire to believe in, and invent, shapeshifters throughout time.

An image of some neolithic cave drawings in France, Kachuba contested, seems likely to have been made during a shamanistic ritualistic gathering that had been fuelled by the use of magic mushrooms. Attendees at these events felt that in order to hunt and kill animals for food they needed to understand their prey better and what better way than to trip your nuts off so much that you imagine you are the animal. You are the quarry.

One cave drawing of a deer shows it with toes and bicameral vision neither of which are features of the Cervidae family but certainly are things that most humans have and Kachuba cites this as potential evidence of prehistoric shapeshifting. Elsewhere, he spoke about the nomadic Yukaghir tribe of Siberia hunting elk and the Berserkers, an Icelandic tribe of the 10-12c who, again on hard drugs - Julian Cope was on to something, adopted a ritualistic state before battles that involved wearing the hides of the animals, in their belief system becoming the animals, they were to wage war against.

Ancient Egyptian Gods often took therianthropic forms:- Anubis had the head of a jackal, Hathor that of a cow (or sometimes she simply was a cow, sorry Hathor love), and Tawaret had the back of a crocodile, other attributes more familiar to a hippopotamus, and large pendulous human breasts. You'd be alarmed to see her come up on Tinder.

In Greek and Roman mythology, Zeus/Jupiter was a supreme god that could transform himself into anything. In the case of Zeus, most famously into a swan who then seduces, or in some version of the story, rapes the Aetolian princess Leda. Greek mythology also tells of a blind prophet from Apollo in Thebes by the name of Tiresias who when out walking spotted two snakes in the act of copulation. Seemingly horrified by this serpentine sex show he, quite logically, beat them with his staff and for doing so he was instantly transformed into a woman.

Sounds legit. As a woman, Tiresias married and went on to have children until twenty years later out for another walk what do you know, she only came across another two snakes having a sexy time and, Tiresias hadn't learned her lesson, beat them again. Which, you guessed it, resulted in Tiresias being turned back into a man. You can only imagine the conversation with her kids when she got home:- "Mum/Dad, have you been beating copulating snakes with your staff again?".

Between making up stories about women being raped by swans and sexy snakes, the ancient Greeks also invented what is believed to be the world's first werewolf. Lycaon was so jealous of Zeus and his power that he hatched a plan to exact some vengeance upon the supreme god. Zeus was invited to dinner round at Lycaon's place and was served his own chopped up son for dinner as a test.

Even the worst Come Dine With Me contestants would turn their nose up at that and Zeus certainly did. It made him quite cross and Lycaon's punishment was to be turned into a wolf. And to have his entire civilisation destroyed as well. A nasty punishment for sure but what Lycaon had attempted can only be described as 'a cunt's trick'.

 

Greek mythology gave way, over time, to the Christian mythology (that is still practiced in many parts of the world now) and there's a theory that Jesus himself was a shapeshifter. Translation of an ancient Coptic script by the early Christian scholar Origen claims of Jesus that "to those that saw him he did not appear alike at all" and when two of his disciples were joined by the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus they didn't even recognise him.

Which would be odd considering they'd spent three years in the desert with him. The idea of transfiguration found in Christianity is echoed in the many different avatars of Vishnu in Hinduism but our journey took us away from religion and back to werewolves and various historical accounts of werewolf activity.

In 1760s France, the Beast of Gevaudan is believed to have killed as many as one hundred people. It was described as a very stinky werewolf that was at large for two years. Royal hunters who were sent to kill the beast failed in their mission and the deaths continued until a local man, supposedly, shot it dead with a silver bullet blessed by the local priest. When the beast's stomach was cut open the remains of its last victim were still inside.

Two hundred years later there were reports of a werewolf being killed in Burma and 1996, in Uttar Pradesh in northern India, thirty-three children were killed and eaten by wolves. Rumours spread about witchcraft being involved after a ten year old reported seeing a wolf that was also a man and, soon, over one hundred people/suspected witches had been killed by lynch mobs. 

Werewolves, of course, have been woven into popular entertainment in recent years and a photo of Lon Chaney Jr that Kachuba used to illustrate this was soon changed to one of Bela Lugosi and then one of Buffy. You can probably work out that the subject had changed to vampires.

Kachuba began his history of modern vampirism in 18c eastern Europe when it was not uncommon for people to die of wasting diseases. The belief was that vampires were 'draining' people and the reaction involved the desecration of cemeteries, the staking of the hearts of corpses, and the burning of internal organs.

The Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa sent her physician to investigate and he found that stories of vampires could mostly be proven to be absolutely untrue and a decree was passed stating there was no such thing as vampires and desecration of graveyards was enshrined in law as an offence punishable by death.

19c New England saw further vampire panic. When members of Mercy Brown's family began dying of consumption following her death of the disease Mercy's body was exhumed and her heart and liver were cut out, burnt, and poured into a potion which her brother Edwin, then suffering from the same complaint, drank in an attempt to cure him. Which it didn't. He died.

Consumption, of course, is now called tuberculosis but what makes this story really tragic is that when these events occurred (1892) tuberculosis was a recognised condition. But, as with the times we currently live in, some sought 'alternative' medicine and, as with the times we live in, that proved dangerous and often fatal.

Vampire communities still exist in New Orleans and Buffalo. On the whole they don't wear long capes, bite people's necks, or (getting back to the shapeshifting theme) transform into bats but there are still people in the states of Louisiana and New York who believe they need to consume human blood in order to survive. Luckily for all concerned there are people who are happy to donate that blood to them.

They'd be in a right pickle otherwise. Werewolves and vampires are probably the most well known 'cultural' shapeshifters but there are contemporary versions too. David Icke's alien reptilian shapeshifters arrived from space aeons ago, according to Icke - who'll believe and propagate any old bullshit, and have been influential in the fields of science, technology, sport, and entertainment. According to the former Coventry City goalkeeper and snooker commentator (and with that CV he'd know) they number among their ranks such luminaries as Queen Elizabeth II, George Bush I & II, Bob Hope, Barack Obama, the Rothschilds (natch), Bob Hope, Al Gore, and, er, Boxcar Willie.

These reptilians, according to Icke, have been with us for thousands of years and are bent on taking over the world which begs the question of why they're taking so long over it? Other mythical shapeshifters who almost definitely don't really exist are the Navajo skinwalkers. Often taking the form of wolves these skinwalkers exist purely to kill. It is their entire raison d'etre. You can summon a Navajo skinwalker to kill an enemy but the price you will pay is that once the task is completed they will also kill you.

It sounds a bad deal. Can't see that getting approved on Dragon's Den. Whilst Kachuba steered carefully in not upsetting those that are open to the possibility of the existence of shapeshifters he rounded up the evening by looking at the psychology that underpins shapeshifting. Why do people believe it and/or why do people want to believe it?

Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) saw Jekyll partake in an experiment in which he hoped to, and succeeded in, unshackling himself of a morality that often felt like a burden and John Kachuba thinks that's the key. We all wish to change ourselves, not necessarily into someone or something murderous and evil, and belief in shapeshifters allows us to do so vicariously and, mostly - the likes of Icke excepted, harmlessly.

It offers an excuse for bad behaviour but it also provides a mask for us to act out alternate personas and gives us perspective on our own fragile existence. If you indulge in cosplay or even simply don fancy dress for Hallowe'en you are, to a degree, doing much the same. Shapeshifting is, more or less, dress up but it's dress up writ large. It's dress up for method actors in life's rich story.

John Kachuba had provided an excellent talk for the first ever LFS online event and I hope I've managed to convey that here. Dog Faced Hermans, Pinnochio, kissing frogs to turn them into princes, manimals, the Book of Daniel, Carl Jung, Kate Bush's Hounds of Love, and Nebuchadnezzar were all mentioned in despatches and there was a polite, well managed, Q&A at the end of the event.

In fact, the whole evening was incredibly polite and orderly and if it felt a little weird not to applaud at the end (people typed 'clapping' and 'yay' into the group chat instead) that wasn't a big deal. The London Fortean Society is a home for the weird (and the wonderful) anyway. If that home has to move online for a while then that's no big deal. There's bigger stuff going on out there. I hope we meet in a pub again soon (whatever 'soon' means right now) but I'd be more than happy to continue with the online evenings even after lockdown ends. A triumph for all concerned.