100+ days in lockdown. A world we have lost & a world we must gain
Three months and a bit ago on Monday 16th March, I entered the lockdown I’m still in.
The first week of course was voluntary but otherwise not. I travelled from Tottenham to Cardiff on that Monday with my partner Megan because we had a short break planned in Bristol later that week around the Bristol beer festival.
My working life as a union officer in the telecoms area always consists mainly of virtual meetings (currently entirely of them)and whatever Johnson and Cummings were thinking in that week physical meetings had already gone. I myself pulled an academic seminar I was chairing on the Monday and a London union reps meeting on the Wednesday (which was held virtually).
As the week went on the beer festival (at the same time as the Cheltenham races)was pulled and we didn’t travel to Bristol.
On the 23rd March as Johnson announced lockdown I was planning to return to London for the week and then see where matters were. Obviously I didn’t. It wasn’t necessary travel and my partners central Cardiff house is a lot more spacious than my Tottenham flat and I’ve been living across the two locations for 25 years (see my Twitter avatar)
So what is missing?
The Pub
The beer up to a point but given the very quick shift of many craft brewers to canning and on-line/delivery options that isn’t really an issue. In fact there is a stockpile in the house. Its social interaction that is missed. Society is social and while I like to be alone sometimes, I also enjoy informal chat. Some pubs are re-opening in England on 4th July but I’m not ready to return yet.
The British Library
As with the pub one can research on-line and you’re not meant to be chatting in the library. But it’s still constrained and the library is not only a great place to research but to think too. Unlike the pubs which will mostly re-open again in some form before too long the Library will be more complex in terms of social distancing I suspect. I don’t really expect to back in the reading rooms this year at the moment but we’ll see
London buses
I don’t own a car or ride a bike. I walk and get the bus. At the moment safety of workers is key there but just moving around London, seeing what’s going on, getting off here and there, is part of life in a great city like London. I sense it’ll still be a while.
The new normal. A world we must gain
It’s a world we have lost (for the moment) but the new normal must mean gains too:
Less traffic on the roads and less pollution
More space for cycling and, separately, for pedestrians. In short making London a more people friendly city with less privatised space.
More emphasis and much better pay for the really essential workers, Health and care workers, transport workers, supermarket workers. There are lots more but it’s time to turn the world upside down.
A serious focus on housing and making sure its genuinely affordable and liveable in for those who really keep London going.
And of course many less public memorials of past racists and imperialists
It’s be nice to think Labour will press for at least some of this and I hope it will but a better new normal won’t be achieved without organisation and a fight from below.
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