A Vast Psychological Experiment

By Wm. Kurelek, Art Gallery of Ontario

Benedict Ambrose heard foxes barking and wailing in our garden during the night. He reflected upon waking that our hens would have been goners, had we panic-bought any. I read yesterday in the  Spectator that the chi-chi chicken coop company Omlet has had "a 66% rise in sales" and that breeders are "out of pullets."

"This pandemic is like a vast psychological experiment," I said--and by the way, how sad it is that the pandemic is the first thing I think about every morning.

Apparently vast numbers of  people are doing the same things: panic-buying toilet paper, tins and flour; then panic-buying all the rest of the food in supermarkets (and latterly in ethnic shops); then ceasing to panic-buy when "Take only 3" signs appear; and then having enormous clear-outs of closets and throwing the garbage in the streets and country lanes.

After reading about British fly-tipping last week, I went outside to garden and was greeted by the lady downstairs, who was having a clear-out. She offered me two chairs. I didn't want them, so she declared that she would put them in front of the building for anyone to take. My mother, chatting to me from Canada, mentioned that her neighbours across the street had had an enormous clear-out and had left a pile of things beside the street for anyone to take.

This is apparently what we do in the face of uncertainty and self-quarantine. Benedict Ambrose and I buy more groceries (although less often) than we usually do. Yesterday we waited for 20 minutes in a very long, but mercifully swiftly moving, queue around the Tesco carpark and bought a number of items not on our list, including maple syrup. I read earlier that vegetable seeds are selling briskly, and sure enough, almost all the vegetable seed packets in the produce section were gone. This suggests that my sudden transformation into a keen gardener is part of another group reaction to uncertainty.

I am curious about whether or not the rest of the world, or at least the rest of the north-western part, is doing this: overbuying food, planting gardens, stockpiling toilet paper, raising chickens, going for daily "exercise" walks, having clear-outs, ordering stationary bikes, and baking.

My sisters are baking, apparently. I'm baking. Baking is very comforting, as is eating the results.

Blaming the Communist Party of China for all of this is also comforting, although not as much as baking. I grew up thinking a "Reds under the bed" attitude was risible, and now I talk about "the Chicoms." I disliked them in a general way for their treatment of pregnant women, political prisoners and religious people, but now I loathe them. I loathe them in the visceral way I loathe Richard Reid, the Islamist who tried to set his shoe on fire on a plane, and the reason why we all have to take our boots off in the airport, revealing the state of our socks. That bastard. But I loathe the Chicoms even more than Richard Reid, and that is saying something.

I am distressed thinking about possible blowback on Canadians, Americans and Britons (et alia) of Chinese ancestry although not on the actual citizens of the PRC, particularly the ones who defend the Communist regime and are actually Party members. Distinctions must be made between Chicoms and the Chinese Diaspora. Although the chippy on our street is open, the Chinese takeaway is shut and shuttered. I uneasily wonder why. Are they ill?

In gardening news, I have bought a box of grass seed and a packet of sweet peas from Tesco. I skipped a session on the exercise bike yesterday, but I dug up dandelions for an hour.

Before that I listened to my homeschooled pupils read their assignments and made critiques which naturally they didn't like. On the one hand, I sympathise. On the other hand, I've written almost everyday since I was twelve, and I know my job. Meanwhile, I read their news reports with great interest as they manage to convey, in this strict and limited form, all the colour of their traditional Catholic lives. This week's headlines were, roughly, "Chaos as girl upsets sister's cup of tea" and "Mother disappointed by slow delivery." Do they grasp that these reports are the most important things they could be writing? I tell them, but I doubt they believe me.

They also laboured long and hard over their adventure stories.  The boy has an almost uncanny grasp of the form. The girl is rather brilliant at setting and characterisation. If only they could put that together--and if only I could figure out why my computer won't let me print their stories out or correct them.

One of their habitual family activities is baking, and their father says they have a lot of rye flour, so Easter żurek may be possible after all. All depends on the Royal Mail: I need four days for the fermentation. As a matter of spiritual fact, I actually prayed on behalf of my żurek, as it finally occurred to me that God is more powerful and more generous than Amazon and eBay.

Update: Please note that the figure in the painting--Kurelek's self-portrait, I believe--takes the Catholic Herald. His discarded boot is upon the front page. The Canadian Kurelek lived in London in the 1950s.