A shock on the doormat

+I’m so pleased we’re getting the clarity we need on how to proceed. A household of two or more people will be allowed to meet with a single member of another household (observing social distancing). But a household of one person can only meet a single member of another household (observing social distancing). So who gets to talk to the police? Whose meeting was it? The same three people will be meeting legally in one instance and illegally in the other. I’m happy that’s been clarified. My advice to single people is to stay schtum if the plods feel inclined to start asking questions.
 
UPDATE! CLARIFICATION! I wrote the above yesterday evening, and have since learnt that only one person from one household can meet only one person from another household. I’m still not quite sure how this will work—should it be the same person from each household every time, or can they swap places? It’s good news for Prof. Ferguson though, and anybody else who has a lover who lives somewhere else. But might this lead to suspicions for the one left at home? Given the increased levels of domestic strife brought on by the lockdown, I can see a nice little line of business here for private detectives. So if you see two people out in the park, socially distancing, keep an eye out for a third person furtively taking pictures from behind a tree.
 
+One feature of this lockdown which will surely provide material for a PhD thesis is how the world’s art galleries have been reduced to uniform, digital appeals to their audiences. Sat here in Scarborough I can now have exactly the same access to Tate Modern in London as I have to MOMA in New York as anyone else anywhere on the globe. Being hooked into receiving emails from quite a few galleries—and other art sources—I’m beginning to find it a bit overwhelming. Like most cultural institutions, they’re doing their online thing when their income has been decimated. I hope that our British institutions will fare comparatively well given their generally free admission funding model, but without mega blockbuster exhibitions and shop sales and over-priced cups of coffee, all will struggle. I hope, as an afterthought, that this virus thingy puts an end to ‘blockbuster’ exhibitions. Even before the pandemic started I vowed I would never go to another one, since it seems anything with e.g. Van Gogh in the title means that people pack 20 to the dozen in front of a picture pushing and shoving so they may get a fleeting chance of taking a selfie of themselves with it. But if they’ve paid £18 or £20 for the privilege, who can blame them? Gallery directors take note.
 
+My Guardian didn’t arrive this morning since none were sent to the newsagent. Instead, I was sent a copy of The Times. It had landed upside down on the doormat so the first I knew about it was when I picked it up and discovered it was twice as thick as the Guardian. Since my trust in the Guardian has been somewhat diminished by its skewered reporting of Corbyn, who might I be to take issue with the bold claim The Times carries above its masthead ’Britain’s most trusted national newspaper?’ Anyway, there was more content, and perhaps unlike the Guardian, which carries three columnists I’ll never read again, today in The Times there was only one who merits the toilet paper treatment, one Melanie Phillips. Despite it all, I shall continue to read the Guardian since I can’t bear the thought of contributing to Murdoch’s coffers. I did buy The Times once—but that was back in the early 1960s when it still carried advertisements on its front page.