Sunday 5 April 2020

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.

9 comments:

  1. I'm glad you're getting exercise and feeling productive digging up dandelions, but, but--here in Rome dandelions are very precious! Now that all the flowere shops and parks are closed, I take immense comfort in picking them from where they grow out of the cracks in the street.
    The picture is so wonderfully human. I can't decide if I think the chap's married or not. For a minute I thought he must be, because of the sock-darning preparations, but after all, bachelors can darn. And somehow I feel the kitchen is in a sort of bachelor state. Not messy, but -- well, it just doesn't seem to have a woman's mark on it.

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    1. Oh, yes, he was certainly a bachelor at the time. And he was from the Canadian Prairies, so I bet he could darn!

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  2. I nearly bought chickens in mid-March, but the shelter-in-place order came down in my state before I could complete the transaction (I was in the process of making sure I could acquire the right sorts of shelter and feed, but alas). It's something I've always wanted to do, so a combination of bucket-list-mentality and a newfound commitment to homesteading motivated me.
    About the toilet paper: I'm sure there is some hoarding, but I read an article pointing out that people are also relying fully on their "home supply" of toilet paper, rather than using the bathroom at their workplace, schools, etc. So there is a lot of unused toilet paper out there -- it's just mostly in the places that we aren't visiting anymore.

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    1. I am absolutely entranced by the idea of homesteading right now, and there are so many interesting homesteading blogs I don't know which ones to follow. As for the toilet paper, I now look at the family pack I presciently bought in February and feel a bit sad. There's plenty of t.p. in Tesco now, and thus my stash is merely a reminder of human folly. That said, I won't have to buy any more for months.

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  3. We had an unofficial lockdown for about a week to 10 days when folk increasingly stocked up and there were big queues in supermarkets the lockdown weekend and loo roll and flour and porridge and pasta went on the missing list.

    Local shops staffed not owned by locals pushed up their prices of loo rolls as has been happening in the UK. I'll remember that. Local shops staffed by locals offered deliveries and backroom stock for locals the blessings of God be upon them. Then all was restocked and shelves half emptied again. Then all was restocked again and folk calmed down. The queues on the weekend at the supermarkets continue but bar dettol wipes and flour and yeast all is well.

    The Guards are sound, where are ye off to, ok off you go, chatty chatty, getting meds and walking dogs for elderly, keeping it jolly and non armylike. My sister was stopped driving by a new Guard about 12 years old who reminded her re social isolation, necessary trips etc and she tried really hard to keep a straight face and agreed and drove on when he was finished. Put the word Gardaí in Twitter search and you'll see how things are going in Ireland. One lad who works in the local shop told me that Musgraves had stocked up 2 years worth of non perishables to prepare for Brexit so we should be ok if we calm down. I have to say I think he and they are right.

    Sinéad.

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    1. Sinéad! I'm very glad to hear from you, and I've been praying for you! How are you doing? Do you have proper protective equipment?

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  4. There's definitely been a lot of panic buying here where I am in SW Ontario. There was a huge run on toilet paper (why??) and, after that, people started buying up all of the baby wipes as an alternative. This was especially annoying since we have an actual baby and need those for their intended purposes. Stores are enforcing limits on items now, which is helpful and keeps things *mostly* stocked. We do have to be adaptable with our grocery list as you never can know what exactly the store will have when you get there.

    I have been baking, but I was baking before anyway. And I have been gardening, but not putting in vegetables (it's still more than a month before last frost anyway) but clearing out the garden beds and enjoying the daffodils planted by the previous owner of our house. The reactions here seem pretty similar to how it's been for you, though. One difference is that instead of ostracizing the asian community, people are ostracizing medical professionals who cross into the States for work (since Michigan currently has more cases than all of Canada and people are afraid that the doctors and nurses will inadvertently bring it back with them).

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    1. That's interesting about the doctors. I'm not sure how many anti-Chinese attacks there have actually been in the UK, by the way. An British South Asian woman was beaten up by British South Asian men for defending her Chinese friend, who was being verbally abused by the British South Asian men. In February the newspapers reported that people were moving away from Chinese people on busses and playgrounds, and this was reported as racism. Children being children, I'm sure unkind things were said to Chinese British kids by other kinds of British kids. I've read more incidents in Australia. However one "racist" incident wasn't anti-Chinese as it was anti-Communist Chinese.

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  5. Thank you kindly for the prayers Seraphic! Much appreciated and all is grand here, not a bother. Another friend sent me a text last night that only 14 out of 31 beds are in use on that baseline chaotic ward. We're getting the PPE that we're requesting however a lot of swip-swapping going on due to gown sleeves just delivered being halfway up our arms as we have Pokemon arms. I was very grateful for your list of local clothes manufacturers as it's something I'll be doing with intent when the plague rules lift. I don't drive my car, too nervous but this is something I will have to start doing or bike it around as self sufficiency is the name of the game. The driving part will be the most terrifying part for me.

    Sinéad.

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