Month: April 2020

Morning run: 8°, 10:04, legs heavy, knees stiff. We prayed Lauds with Fr Yaro Walker: Margaret set to work on a column that will appear in tomorrow’s ABC website while I read more Newman.

It’s Nate’s birthday. I looked for my archives to find the earliest time I mentioned this fact on my blog, but the early years are still sequestered (safely?) in the Wayback Machine and I haven’t come up with one of the first years due to scheduled maintenance on the Internet Archive.

So Margaret worked like a demon and got her article done (check here tomorrow for a link), I read more Newman till my concentration faded, we had a visit with Mel (who stood outside on the pavement), and then a potatoes and veg and pesto dinner. Spooks.

You wouldn’t have guessed by the way the day turned out, but this morning started at a nippy 3°, making the air less breathable (well, equally breathable, I suppose, but less agreeable to the lung) than I’d anticipated. My legs felt heavy, but I just forged ahead and come home in 10:04.

After breakfast (fruit breakfast, for an ascetical day) I spent most of the morning first editing and re-editing Sunday’s sermon, then locating all the equipment it might take to record it, then rehearsing it three or four times, then trying to get two good takes. We will see how it turns out, but I’m knackered with a capital Knack.

After lunch, I frittered away the afternoon while Margaret took a long walk and hunkered down to work on a newspaper column with David Clough. Dinner from Majliss, and more Spooks.

Rainy morning, so the decent temperature of 11° soaked into a chillier feeling. Warm-ups just barely limbered up my limbs, and ‘getting out of the drizzle’ didn’t provide enough motivation to speed me home. Still, the mile came in at 10:07, so that’s okay.

The news this morning is abuzz with Boris Johnson’s hospitalisation. I pray that he recovers soon, but also that this experience heightens his sense of responsible leadership in this crisis, not his sense of personal invincibility. In a related development, I cut up an old t-shirt into a face mask which I will use when going out for groceries, or if I take a walk with my sweetheart.

I finished a first draft of my Easter sermon, which is a huge relief. There’ll be time to run through it and edit for folly and imprecision. I also received the delivery of a pen storage/transport case, which means I’ll have to spend hours deliberating over exactly which fountain pens go in which case, then moving them about, and then changing my mind and doing the whole shebang over again — perhaps two or three times!

The afternoon I worked on more of my photos from the trip to Milan, and typed up my post/review on the Tribit XSound Go that I posted this afternoon. Then I drifted idly on the internet (though I did not miss noticing the frequent assertion that isolating at home during COVID World in itself makes concentration and productivity more difficult).

Rice, beans and broccoli for dinner, Spooks on iPlayer, and as a testimony to my determination and lack of fine motor skills, I sewed the handkerchief mask I mentioned above. So ends another day of isolation.

For a long time I had been putting off the purchase of a Bluetooth speaker, even though one would be very handy in this wireless world. I might sit in the garden, or the dining room, or even go upstairs, while still listening to music from our main digital repository. Still, the good ones seemed uncomfortably expensive, and the inexpensive ones seemed (as far as I could tell) cheap. Absent a convincing reason to select one rather than another, I simply put off deciding.

A couple of months ago, though, I set my hand to arrive at a the choice of a speaker; I was tired of not having access to digital music (played through a speaker better than the built-in laptop speakers) outwith the front room. I looked over several websites, read reviews on Amazon, made some relative weightings based on experience in evaluating reviews from various sources, and opted to try the Tribit XSound Go speaker for £28.99.

When it arrived, I noticed a card included with the packaging that promised Tribit would send $1 to UNICEF if I posted an online review. ‘Fine,’ I thought, ‘I’ll give it a while to listen carefully, and then I’ll post a review.’ This is that review, Tribit people, and bless you for your generosity. My assessment to follow is not at all biased by my appreciation of this way of soliciting feedback.

I noticed first, and most easily, that the high end was fine; the speaker could handle some very subtle treble sounds impressively. The midrange sounded clear and very good as well. The catch for small speakers, though, comes at the low end. The laws of physics militate against good low end reproduction for small (and inexpensive) speakers. I tried several cuts, adjusted the bass frequencies to pull them out a bit for extra attention, and listened carefully. The answer is positive, but with a caution. The XSound Go does very well at representing the bass end on recordings that have been mastered (or remastered) in the digital era. In fact, I have been astonished at the bass from the speaker on some recordings. On the other hand, older recordings (digitisations), perhaps 128kbps sampling, sound more like old 45s playing on your teenage portable record player. That’s 0% the Tribit’s fault — it’s the XSound Go revealing clearly a distinction that computer speakers don’t make as obvious.

So my conclusion is, The Tribit XSound Go is a very good speaker for the money. Indeed, the XSound Go is so good that I can’t understand wanting a more expensive Bluetooth speaker — I just can’t imagine an incremental benefit in sound reproduction that would be worth spending more for a device such as this. Top marks to the Tribit XSound Go.

Disclaimer: I paid for the speaker myself, and have had no contact from the company (though I will email them to nudge them to send the dollar to UNESCO).

I didn’t think to write during the day, so a quick overview. Ran my mile in 6°, no breeze, 10:14. Participated in Mass from St Benet’s, Kentish Town. Worked on the Easter Sermon that I (perhaps ill-advisedly) agreed to record. Fretted a bit about Josiah and the virus. We got news that one of Margaret’s unsles was taken ill (not the virus).

In the afternoon, Margaret took a walk. I worked on sorting and titling my photos of the Milan trip, and when Margaret got back, we had a chat with our dear friend Phil. Toward the end of the chat, we got a call from Indiana; thinking it might be a medical update on Si, we broke off with Phil. Laura was calling for a general talk, but it emerged that Si’s fever is down, thank heaven.

Boiled potatoes, beans, broccoli, and cheese for dinner, and more Spooks for evening amusement.

Chilly morning again, but my legs were more limber. No breeze, 3°, and a mile in 9:59. We’re having a simulated Saturday breakfast instead of going to our usual brunch at Queen’s Lane. Though hearty, my breakfast did not quell the grumblings of appetite; such is the nature of desire. Nonetheless, I resisted temptation, made another cup of coffee, and did a quick check of our finances.

Toward the end of the morning, I made a foray to Sainsbury’s, winding up sixth in the queue to get in. (Margaret and I have decided to stick exclusively with 7:00 grocery trips henceforward.) Although I forgot one or two items (curses, no Ritz crackers!) I was surprised at how complete a sweep I could make. I could even have bought a big package of loo roll if we had needed any. We’ll be set for meals with no trouble for the next few days.

We set out to watch what we anticipated would be a tour through the Andy Warhol exhibit at the Tate Modern, only to find out that — rather than being a virtual tour through the rooms, looking carefully at the exhibition — it was essentially just a publicity trailer. We watched for the four minutes or so of the clip, then Margaret opted for a tour of the Vatican; and after we had craned our virtual necks to examine the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, I showed her my photos of the Milan Cathedral, Santa Maria Nascente, from a day trip the Oxford New Testament staff and PG students made in 2017.

Then odds and ends, delicious dinner, and Spooks.

Morning continues less chilly, 6° with no noticeable wind. My legs were reluctant — again, the lifty-uppy bits that connect the thigh to the torso voted firmly against anything but the most cursory run — though the mile went by without stress. 10:15.

Breakfast, followed by morning prayer and blogging about the church and the pandemic, and working on an Easter sermon for a friend’s congregation — and not-going to a staff meeting. I read some Newman and leet my mind wander toward midday, and in the afternoon Margaret and I made a foray in Aston’s Eyot and the Kidneys, where we encountered three-quarters of the population of Oxford, especially the parents with children (children who moved alternately at a decrepit snail’s pace or in furiously rapid unpredictable zigzags, so that in either case it was impossible to get past them in an appropriately socially distant manner.

Oxford, its children, and one lonely muntjac who was just trying to keep out of sight till one of the youth, a budding naturalist, spotted it and shouted ‘Daddy! I told you we would see one!’ I am not at all put out that I had quietly and inconspicuously lined up a photo for where the muntjac would have been about one-half second after the cri de triomphe. I have seen and photographed muntjacs before and, God and coronavirus permitting, I will see them again.

Dinner delivered from Majliss, and one episode from Spooks in our evening. Our daughter-in-law called, with grandson, and we visited Thomas for a while. Our son has developed symptoms of COVID-19, so now our immediate family has been touched.

Not so cold this morning — 5°, light wind — and although I was generally limber, I felt some resistance from the lifter-upper muscles in my thighs. The morning run was 10:05.

I had some tidying up to do at the college, sorting out leftover marking and so on; that, and some reading, took up the morning. Over lunch, Margaret and I listened to a powerful lecture by Syl Ko on ‘Who is “the human” and who is “the animal”?’, which Margaret is using in a series of tutorials she’s teaching. Then she went on to teach the tutorial (online, of course) while I went back to reading Newman.

The college community has now been indirectly touched by the plague, as the chef’s father has died of COVID-19. That resonates with me especially since this is the twelfth anniversary of my own father’s death. That took a COVID day, already replete with its own minor-key poignancy, and boosted the intensity significantly. In the twelve years since Don died, we’ve become grandparents, we’ve moved to the UK, and we stand today under the threat of a possibly fatal illness. Even if COVID-19 weren’t a proximate danger, it reminds me that my father lived just nine years beyond the birthday I’ll celebrate in September. ‘Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.’ I remember, believe me.

Pizza for dinner, Spooks for diversion. And so to bed.

Just to perpetuate the unfunny joke, the temperature descended to 0° this morning (-1° when I woke up). The air was still, so the cold didn’t bite the way it has other mornings. I warmed up effectively, had a good run (insofar as that’s not oxymoronic), and got home in 9:53. Even more encouraging, my recovery time (getting breathing and perspiration back to normal) has been diminishing precipitously.

I celebrated this morning with a big hot breakfast: two eggs, two rashers of (faux) bacon, and two hash brown patties. Today warrants a degree of exuberance, cos as of last night at midnight I am on study leave! Some of the students joshed me about this before… everything ended, noting that I would be permitted to leave off working and stay at home, as distinct from everyone else who would be… leaving off work and staying at home. There’s an element of truth to that, but my leave does mean that I don’t have to reimagine my Trinity Term teaching to work in online formats. I have no liturgical responsibilities (other than those that are canonically binding, or are consonant with my own piety). Nobody has full use of the libraries, but I still have time to work on the structure of my monograph and to draft the articles that I’ve committed to writing. I won’t have the atmospheric support of working at Rick’s or at the Bod, as I noted a few days ago, but I’ll do what I can with the materials at hand. And hey, I’m on leave! Woohoo!

Today also marks Margaret’s and my fourteenth day of (mostly) isolation. She has taken walks alongside — but distant from — Mel, but it’s been fourteen days since we raised the drawbridge and lowered the portcullis. Her cold lingers (unless, as she hypothesises, it’s just a distinctly weak strain of the plague, in which case it would seem as though she had dodged the bullet, and presumably I also since we have not been observing any isolating distance from one another), but my health feels terrific. Honestly, I haven’t been this fit in ages. Curse you, running, and all your blasted benefits!

In the afternoon, I turned my brain off and revelled in my freedom from obligations. Since my most productive time of day is morning, this was as much an admission of futility as a celebration of completion. Tomorrow morning I’ll resume reading, and look toward framing up some writing pieces.

Margaret cooked her delicious broccoli and semi-tofu-balls with almond butter sauce, and we watched more episodes of Spooks. As I was getting ready to turn in, we got video calls from Si and Thomas, and then from Pippa and Christian, and it was a great joy to see them all.