Category: Health

  • Wait until tomorrow

    Some of my songs are about people who are struggling, either because of the situation they’re in or because of the chemistry in their heads. It’s a subject close to my heart because I struggle too, and some days are considerably harder than others. Our song A Moment of Clarity is about that. It clearly…

  • We live outdoors

    Jonn Elledge has just re-shared this excellent piece he wrote in April about lockdown and those of us who live in cities. He argues that it isn’t country folks who live outdoors; it’s city ones. it’s actually the urban residents who live their lives outside, for the obvious reason that their homes are so small…

  • Lockdown and mental health

    Like many people I’ve been struggling this year. Lockdown and COVID restrictions have been hellish for many people’s mental health. The promise of lockdown was that it was a necessary evil: we did it to save the NHS and to buy time to create an effective contact tracing system. That time was squandered, and England…

  • Tiers and clowns

    I live in Glasgow, which is currently in Level 3 coronavirus restrictions. I don’t think we’re likely to move to level 0, near-normality, this side of Spring. And that’s me being optimistic. Until then, we have to live under restrictions. And those restrictions often seem contradictory or based on very dubious assumptions. I’m going to…

  • One potato

    Because I live in the central belt of scotland, I’m not going out anywhere right now. The pubs and venues are all closed, so there are no gigs to go to, no open mics to play, no comedy shows to cackle at. I can’t meet my friends in restaurants and I can’t cook for them…

  • “And nothing feels right now”

    This, by Jared Misner for the NYT, is devastating. Now that I’m actually married (the legal kind), I can say I love my husband very much. He is pragmatic, kind and handsome. But he does not pull over for garage sales. He does not smuggle bags of dog costumes and treats out of press events…

  • “How have I been?”

    Are you feeling guilty about not maintaining all your friendships through COVID? Me too. Brandy Jensen takes the helm of Jezebel’s “Ask a fuck-up” and tries to explain. The problem, for me, is that it feels like there is simply nothing to catch these people up on anymore. Too many things are happening but also…

  • Weakness

    If you’ve been wondering why the far right is so keen on anti-masking and so against any measures to combat COVID other than letting the virus rip through the most vulnerable, the answer is simple: a core tenet of fascism is about casting out the weak. On the internet there’s a famous trope called Godwin’s…

  • Competence and cronyism

    The UK, which is very far away from China, has a population of around 66 million people and has officially recorded 635,000 cases of COVID-19 and 43,000 deaths. Vietnam, which has a long land border with China, has a population of 95 million people. It has recorded 1,113 cases and 35 deaths. The difference isn’t…

  • Tourism, large tables and Tinder dates

    Helen Rosner, the New Yorker’s roving food correspondent, is a great writer. And this is a great article: although it’s about New York I think it has resonance here too. It’s called The Uncertain Promises of Indoor Dining in New York City. This grinding moral calculus leaves us with a fallacious sense of personal responsibility…