Fran Macilvey's Blog, page 7
May 18, 2020
Doing everything they can
Doing everything they can
The standard accepted narrative in public is that the governments of the world are doing everything they can in the face of unprecedented threat, to tackle the Covid / economic emergency. And for those ahead of the curve China, South Korea, New Zealand, Iceland it does seem as if their quick and decisive action early on, their willingness to heed the signs and act on them fast, has helped these countries to get back to something like a new normal relatively soon....
April 30, 2020
A different world
A Different World
Lockdown has brought with it the realisation that, for all our privileged existence, there are aspects of the way we live that we must change, if we are to continue having any quality of life. Though they present major challenges, the current restrictions also offer un-looked for opportunities to consider that a different world is possible.
I dont find that the lockdown restrictions so far imposed have yet changed my daily routines or expectations radically; except perhaps...
April 14, 2020
Happy Easter
Happy Easter
Its been a long time since I posted a blog. Despite enjoying acres of unusually unstructured time, currently Im finding it hard to (a) find the level of privacy I usually enjoy and which allows me to work without the constant feeling that Im excluding the rest of my family. Is this a common experience? Im also finding it hard to (b) focus on writing about anything that is the usual subject matter for this blog, which frankly pales into stark insignificance in the face of our...
March 17, 2020
Self isolation or normal life
Self isolation or normal life
When I was young I would quite often fetch a chair, a book, a drink, a snack and some music on my trusty tape recorder. My Mum would glance wryly in my direction and say, Youre having a party, arent you? And I would agree, pleased with myself, and pleased also that I didnt have to excuse my seeming passivity. It was never part of my plan to examine why? Why was I having a party for one?
This pandemic will have far-reaching outcomes for many of us. There is...
March 13, 2020
To be happy
To be happy
It seems to be increasingly difficult to be happy or peaceful when, lately, lots of things seem to be happening to us, and out of the blue: at the end of a bruising and politically divisive three years, on 31st January, 2020, the UK finally left the EU. After the flags had finally been re-arranged following the end of the final final extension period, full-page adverts placed by the UK government appeared in newspapers to remind the few of us who might have forgotten, that,...
March 10, 2020
“The Charioteer” by Mary Renault
“The Charioteer” by Mary Renault
I finished reading “The Charioteer” by Mary Renault for the fourth time, with a view to, I suspect, deciding that I had passed beyond my juvenile crush for it. Instead, I find myself more in love with this novel than ever. I have read and re-read every word. But quite why it has such a profound effect on me is much harder to discern. Why does it make me feel achingly sad?
It’s the story of two men who fall in love; more specifically, of one man, Laurie,...
March 7, 2020
Cancellation of the London Book Fair 2020
Cancellation of the London Book Fair 2020
On Wednesday, I thought I would check the website again. So I looked, and only ten minutes earlier, the cancellation of the London Book Fair 2020 had been announced.
In what would have been its fiftieth anniversary, the news was all over Twitter and Facebook, yet I found myself compulsively checking and re-checking, making sure there wasn’t a mistaken double-negative tucked somewhere in the public statements.
So I’m not going to London next week....
March 4, 2020
To sum up
To sum up…
I said earlier that I would mention ten ways to make a difference, and I have now written ten posts – this is my eleventh and final post in this series – to sum up some of the things we can all do fairly easily, to make a difference.
There is a marvellous Grizelda cartoon in the latest edition of “Private Eye”, featuring a well-dressed shopper loaded down with bags and her “John the Baptist”-style husband, for which the caption is, “He’s saving the planet, I’m saving the economy”...
March 1, 2020
Live Local
Live local
If we want to live sustainably, we can increase our efforts to live local.
Wherever possible – in other words, without going fifty miles out of our way, spending a whole day driving around in the car trying to find something, or parting with an overdraft-crippling amount of cash – as a household we try to avoid air-miles and motorway-miles in the sourcing of our food. We also try to avoid and reduce our use of palm oil, refined goods, soft drinks and plastic-wrapped produce....
February 27, 2020
Find something you love
Find something you love and donate to it.
To find something you love, a cause we would enjoy supporting, is fun. And having done our research and made our choice, we can then donate time, energy, enthusiasm or funds to it: Children and adults in need, trees and forest conservation, all kinds of wild and wonderful creatures, the causes of free speech, our local library, local producers, volunteer centres, all of these benefit from our input, big or small.
We may say we “cannot afford it” –...
