Picking up litter on a bright sunny day

The weather this past weekend has been glorious. I got roasted watching a football match on Saturday and on Sunday joined the Keep Grangetown Tidy monthly litter pick. As ever, I am going to blog about some of the more interesting stuff I found. I started out well with a shiny £1 coin!

Then I got a jolt of nostalgia. Remember when bands used to issue CD singles with bonus tracks like live recordings? Well, this is unplayable now, but it's a throwback to life before streaming.

We had a visitor from Wales Online for the litter pick. I don't know if this photo that I grabbed off the Keep Grangetown Tidy socials will be on the website or not.

One other person came prepared for sunshine and wore sunglasses. The journalist disappeared before I could offer some opinions and observations on litter picking. 

One of the main things I've noticed has changed since I first went on a litter-pick is the amount of pandemic-related litter. I picked up eight facemasks, two empty hand santiser bottles, two disposable gloves (in different streets - not a pair together), and one of the solution dropper things from a lateral flow kit. This is all garbage that wouldn't have been part of a litter pick three years ago!

Another observation is that smokers who switch to vaping are still inclined to discard items relating to their addiction in the street. I lost track of how many empty boxes of vape juice I picked up. This observation has informed my opinion that smokers are inherently dirty people. Because even if they switch to a less damaging means of self-poisoning, they still don't clear up their smoker's trash. 

Anyway, on with the "finds".

I do have some "found Lego" in my Lego stash. However, this Duplo went in the bin bag.

It amused me that this glass still had a straw in it. Were they really drinking Carling through a straw?

Someone had decided to start an impromptu street library. Unfortunately the books in the plastic bag had got wet and ruined. Charlie and Lola ended up in the bin bag too.

And this also got chucked. I have no idea what it is. 

Another weird thing was a frying pan in a carrier bag. I found a security tag like the kind you get on clothing. There was McDonald's trash with the Deliveroo stickers stuck on the hamburger boxes. I also found evidence that people buy and consume those awful-looking Weetabix drinks because I picked up an empty bottle that someone had chucked over a gate when they had finished chugging it. 

All that trash ended up in the pile of rubbish at the end. This picture wasn't the final heap of stuff but it gives an idea of how discarded items and rubbish mounts up when it's gathered altogether. 

Lots of people said thank you as I was walking around collecting rubbish. More people say thank you than actually pick up a grabber and join in. But at least they see people taking action to tackle the problem and maybe that will encourage more people to act that way. 

(And I kept the £1 coin!) 

Reflecting on 2021 – the second year of the pandemic

As we prepare for our second pandemic Christmas, some thoughts on what a year this has been...

Weirdly, C doesn't stand for Covid...

In headline terms the second year of the pandemic was better than the first. Restrictions were lifted. There was the hope of the world being freer from fear because we would be vaccinated against the disease. Back in March, I blogged about getting jabbed. I remember feeling a bit emotional after I walked out of the vaccination centre, knowing that the antibodies were multiplying in my system. I felt poorly for about 24 hours and then felt absolutely tip-top.

The availability of vaccines meant the world started to open up again We managed to go on two holidays – one in Wales (see all 4 blogposts) and one in Shropshire. We were able to see family. Going to football matches was an option again, and we were even able to go and see films at the cinema. Of course, opening up meant the virus could still circulate, and people kept dying from it.

There should probably be more debate over what is an acceptable or tolerable level of deaths. Since mid-July when many restrictions were abolished, the number of covid deaths in the UK has risen from less than 150 a week to around about 1,000 a week from October onwards. [Source] 

Most of these deaths have been in England rather than the other countries in the UK, mainly because restrictions were lifted more quickly and totally in England than, for example, in Wales. There seems to be an official line that ‘we need to learn to live with this virus’, but, obviously, for about 1,000 people a week recently, 'living with it' hasn’t been an option.

And then, just when it felt like the world was getting back to a tolerable level of normal, the rise of another new variant threw everything back into chaos in time for Christmas. Added to this, the revelations that the UK Prime Minister and most of his staff flouted restrictions to have office parties at Christmas 2020 and drink wine together on the Downing Street patio later in the year really soured the mood.

Just before Christmas there was a midnight announcement by the Welsh Government of a blanket ban on attending any sporting events from Boxing Day onwards to mitigate the impact of the omicron variant. I was annoyed by that as most sport in Wales operates with very small numbers of spectators. The average attendance at a Cymru Premier League match, for example, is 321, which is probably as many people browse the shelves of John Lewis in Cardiff on a given afternoon. I speak from chilled-bone experience when I say that lower league football in Wales is well-ventilated. Particularly compared to the canned air in retail environments. The response from the FAW was to suspend all football in the top three tiers of the game in Wales until January.

Although I don’t agree with the restrictions on attending sporting events, I won’t be joining any antivax crusades any time soon.  I find the reality-denying attitudes of antivaxxers scary. This year I discovered the Herman Cain Awards on Reddit, which records the deaths of people who had believed and spread misinformation about covid, then died from it. It’s an incredibly sad record of people losing their lives after believing lies.

Most of the Herman Cain Award recipients are American. Almost all are staunchly Republican in their politics and staunchly evangelical Christian in their religion. As someone with an interest in religion, there are two things about almost all the award-winners that stands out. Firstly, the ferocity and sheer nastiness in the content they post about their perceived tribal enemies – Democrats, gay people, anyone suggesting there is a racism problem in the USA, “leftists”, “wokeists”, and so on. Secondly, the fervent appeals for “prayer warriors” to intercede for them or their loved ones when they fall ill, usually followed by GoFundMe appeals for money to pay for medical bills and funeral expenses.

There is no doubt to me that many of these people are sincere Christians. When the prayer fails, the dead person is usually described as being safe with their Saviour, for eternity. There are statements that the deceased is now “truly healed” and up in Heaven, usually reunited with other family members who have passed away. Often there are requests to pray for the ones left behind.

Reading the various entries on Reddit reminds me of the gulf between highly politicised American Christianity and the UK version. I know of some disagreements in some churches in the UK over the vaccine and complying with public health restrictions. But not to the extent that belligerent denialism and antivax propaganda has become a tribal identifier in the USA. I’m grateful for that.

Over here, the emphasis among people who are anti-lockdown focuses more on “personal freedom”, which would be fine if everyone was sensible and took reasonable precautions. However, almost two years into a pandemic, any trip to the supermarket will reveal that many people haven’t mastered the art of wearing a face mask properly. Relying on the public to get things right still feels like a really risky strategy.

So, looking ahead to 2022, here’s hoping the omicron wave will crest soon and things will settle down. Bring on year 3!

Mundane markers of pandemic life

Mundane marker 1. I emptied the car of rubbish a short while back. It's amazing what accumulates. I chucked four empty bottles of hand sanitizer in the recycling.

Mundane marker 2. Anyone who knew my Dad well knew that he loved camels. Several years back Cathy and I bought a giant brass camel for him. This huge humpbacked critter lived in the big window of the front room of their house for several years, and has now moved with my Mum to her new house. You can always find room for a large decorative camel!

On a recent flying visit to see family I had to pop indoors to use the loo. On my way through the hall I saw the camel was no longer just for decoration. He's got a job guarding my Mum's face masks by the front door!

These are the artifacts of living through a global pandemic. My car detritus is now empty santizer bottles. Camels are now convenient places to hang face masks. These are silly ways that life has changed.