Four years ago, towards the end of November 2020, I wrote this
" I always have a note in my diary for today to remind me to order the Turkey, think of a present for Clare, arrange an Xmas beer with a couple of friends that I've not seen through the year. It gives me a month to get myself in order. As I am sure you are aware, this year that note is largely redundant right now. I doubt those beers will be had. It seems likely that London will be in tier 2 or 3 of lockdown. It seems that we might see the family, but mass and a meal at Prezzo seems unlikely. In a normal year, I'd be in the middle of planning a few things right now. Since the Barnet Eye became established, we've always had the Barnet Eye community awards and The False Dots Xmas party in December. That isn't happening. There is the annoual Pogues/Pogue traders gig. That isn't happening. There is the Xmas trip to The Etihad for a match. There is my sister in laws Xmas party in Notting Hill. There is our post Xmas break with friends. You get the picture."
The Blog was titled "Don't feel guilty for being happy". What was interesting was how much things have returned to Normal. I will be seeing friends for Xmas drinks. The False Dots have their Xmas gig in the diary (please come along, it will be a blast - click on poster for tix).
We are booked to see The Pogue Traders at Dingwalls for the Xmas gig. On Wednesday, we go to the Etihad for our Xmas trip. My sister in law is having her party in Notting Hill and we have our trip away with friends. The only thing on that list that isn't happening is we won't be doing the Barnet Eye Community Awards. There are a couple of reasons for that, nothing really to do with the Pandemic. The first is the pubs we used to hold the awards at have either shut down or are under new management. The second is that I am really too busy with other things to do it properly. I may well next year, if we can get a decent venue.. I do feel that community hero's should be recognised, but getting nominations and putting an evening together is actually a lot of work. But in truth, the pandemic is the reason this stopped. When you do something every year and then you can't, you lose momentum and other things take priority. It got me thinking. What things in my life have changed because of the pandemic? I thought I'd make a list.
1. My finances. I was chatting yesterday with one of my customers. A nice chap, who was a candidate for the Conservatives in Mill Hill for many years, when the Lib Dems used to always win. He's also a musician. We always have a good chinwag about local issues etc. Before the pandemic, we were doing well financially. Don't get me wrong, we are not paupers now, but we are what you may describe as asset rich / cash poor. Keeping the business alive cleaned out our ready cash savings and the business turnover has not returned to pre pandemic levels. This means no expensive holidays, far fewer dinners out and cutting of other luxuries. Given that in 2020 I didn't think the business would survive and it has, I suppose I should be grateful. What upsets me is that it seems that at every budget in the last two years, both Tory and Labour governments have put the boot into small business. I discussed this with my friend yesterday. We are on opposite sides of the political divide, but he agreed with everything I said. If I wasn't so in love with music, I'd cash my chips in and put my feet up. Sadly, my life is music and without it, life wouldn't be worth living, so I am lumbered running my studio and my missus is lumbered putting up with it. Many people don't understand, but to me, what is the point of cash if you are not doing what you love? I could have all the money in the world and still be miserable, if I didn't have a band and my studios.
2. My sense of smell. This is an odd one. I have never tested positive for covid. I've never had the symptoms for the whole period of the pandemic. However, before the pandemic struck, over Xmas 2019, I had all of the symptoms. I lost my sense of taste. I thought I had lung cancer. I was waking up at night in a sweat. I was seriously thinking of going to the Doctor for a chest x-ray, but it abated after about two weeks and I forgot about it. I only realised when the government announced that loss of smell and taste was a symptom. We'd been having a curry on new years eve and my mates were saying it was lovely. I can recall thinking "They are mad, it tastes of nothing". I went to bed at five past midnight as I felt so ill. But.... and this is the really odd thing, now my sense of smell is 100 times better than it ever was. This is generally a bad thing. I have the sense of smell of a blood hound. Most smells are horrible. People on the tube, the smell when you have a pee (I can tell what my last meal was, be it fish, meat or veg). I can smell the pollen from Oak trees in the spring (never noticed it before). The list goes on. Anyone else noticed? Was it a long covid symptom? I am curious.
3. My musical taste. The pandemic made me listen to a hell of a lot more recorded music than I have for decades. I started making up Spotify playlists for fun. Lots of things that previously I dismissed as "unserious" I now love. A good example is the Mariachis cover of I love rock and roll, from the Mexican party album. This is now on my Cheer me up playlist!
4. My culinary ability. Mostly due to boredom, during covid, I did a lot of cooking. I had the time to experiment and I realised where I'd been going wrong previously. The down side of this is that I expect a far higher quality of food when I eat out. Summed up, I want restaurants to use good ingredients and prepare food properly. The best example is roast potatoes. Before the pandemic, I'd par boil for ten minutes, then put in the oven. Now, I par boil for twelve minutes, give them a quick fry, salt and pepper them and put them on a hot plate in the oven. They taste a million times better.
5. I am calmer. I did a lot of introspection during covid. I realised that I got riled far too easily. This has been an ongoing thing for me. In 1995, I actually had anger management sessions as Clare was pregnant and I realised that I needed to calm down. I am not a violent person, but I can be horrible when I am riled. During covid, I realised that I needed to do more work on this and actively practice the stratetgies. I realised this had worked on Wednesday. I was at the Virgin Gym in Mill Hill East, sitting in the sauna. A very arrogant and inconsiderate fellow member did did something that infuriated me (rightly). I was furious. Thirty years ago I'd have probably lost the plot and punched him. There was a big part of me that really wanted to but despite seething, I simply said in a very low, calm voice "what you just did was extremely inconsiderate and bad mannered" whilst glaring at him. To my amazement he backed down and apologised. It is the better way. Without the pause for lockdown, I doubt I'd have taken the time to understand my own weaknesses.
6. My time management has gone out of the window. I used to be extremely well disciplined and got things done. Now I don't.It infuriates me. Luckily Clare just about keeps things on track. Being lazy and having nothing to do for four months of total lockdown really messed me up.
7. I discovered my voice. When we first set up the band, Pete Conway was the singer. He left and for a while I'd sing a few songs. I hated it and always felt embarrassed. After a couple of years, we got a singer and I concentrated on guitar. During lockdown, our then singer Allen Ashley couldn't rehearse. I started singing out of necessity. I realised I actually enjoyed it, I'd just been singing the wrong sort of songs! This culminated with the band releasing an album with me singing all the songs last week. I am really pleased with it. I am very much in the Ian Dury/Suggs school of singing, but as that's the music I love most, that's fine! I now bitterly regret having waited 45 years to realise.
8. My relationship with social media. The pandemic and lockdown made Social Media toxic. As people had nothing else to do, they piled on to social media and got really cross about everything. I very quickly tired of it all.
9. My relationship with God. I don't particularly feel comfortable talking about my faith and my religion publicly, but I also believe in honesty. I don't think anyone could see what was happening without challenging their view of the Universe. As someone raised in the Roman Catholic tradition, having time on my hands to think about my religion and faith enabled me to get an adult perspective that I'd never had previously. I've always had a deep suspicion of the heriarchical nature of most religions and a dislike of rituals and ceremonies. Weighed against that I have huge appreciation of the fact that churches etc are community hubs, where people come together to mingle and mix and try and be better, more compassionate individuals. I think it is a very good thing to spend an hour in such an environment. Clearly during covid, there were no masses etc at the Church. I didn't miss it, but when the Church reopened, I found I was glad to be back. I respect everyone's views. If atheism or another religion works for you that is great. This works for me.
10. My songwriting skills. When lockdown hit, I thought "great, I'll have time to write some brilliant songs". What did I do? I lay on the lounger and drank beer. I realised that without inspiration, I had nothing to write about. I tried, but failed miserably, so I gave up. Then I was looking at some old pictures and videos. When the band started rehearsing, I had some ideas. We were still in a level of lockdown but as music is my job, we could rehearse, I started experimenting. Our drummer, Graham, started talking about how lockdown was like "Sunday in the 70's" where nothing was open and there was nothing to do. It inspired a song. The bits fell into place. It also gave me a template for how False Dots songs should work. It was the first video we released as part of the "New False Dots". Without lockdown, I'd never have written a song like this.
What did the pandemic/covid change in your life?
