May 11th Co-ordinating your Conjunctions

Zoom home schooling for 8 year old Mollie today was learning to recognise subordinate and co-ordinating conjunctions. This requires an 8 year old to understand the relative relationship between two types of clause. With the co-ordinating conjunction (eg ‘and’) it pre-supposes that two main ideas can be seen as working together. “The Prime Minister urged people to return to work and employers had guidelines in place.” With the subordinate conjunction (eg because) it pre-supposes an understanding of effects and causes: “The infection spread rapidly because the lockdown was delayed.”, with the second idea resulting from the main idea. My reaction was to wonder what sort of government-imposed curriculum demanded an understanding of such things from an 8 year old and whether that government itself understood about coordinated action and cause and effect. Mollie’s homework was then to examine Boris’s statement to the nation last night and look for evidence of joined up thinking and some comprehension of what effects might result from certain actions or inactions. Governments in liberal democracies never quite realise how they shoot themselves in the foot when children are taught conjunctions, because the kids then start looking for connected thinking.

I have never known uncertainty so palpable as it was this morning, so thick in the air on social media, in conversation and on the mainstream media. How far can I travel to play golf with my second cousin? How many times a day can I play beach volleyball with a step sister who lives down the road, do I have to play in a mask and latex gloves and is it illegal to go to smash the same ball at the net? Is my boss expecting me in work today and what happens if I don’t feel it’s safe to go? Why is there a higher death rate amongst security guards than anyone else?

Some of us don’t mind living with big questions they can’t answer: the nature of God; the existence of the soul; is there an afterlife; are there ghosts; what is love; how do swallows navigate? What causes spontaneous combustion? I have read that being comfortable in uncertainty characterises creative and empathic people. Great scientists and engineers feel challenged by such a dilemma; great artists enter into it to describe it. Certain sorts of people are very uncomfortable with uncertainty; rather than mystery they want explanation and to have the unknown codified in clear sentences and commandments. These people very rarely produce great imaginative art, incidentally.

But last night Boris inaugurated a period when I and most others would like some clear sentences and commandments. A Spanish person we know who lives in Derbyshire, moved back to Spain at the beginning of the crisis just so she could be properly locked down and know exactly where she stood! I can carry on with my uncertainty about what the Book of Revelation represents, but I would like to know if can go to B&Q, masked or not. Being ‘Alert’ puts responsibility onto us, but it’s not just our own destiny that is dependent upon our choices and there is the possibility that we start judging other people because of their choices if there is no objective benchmark. Uncertainty and lack of clarity breeds fear. We oldies don’t know if we should be joining the spaced-out (in more than one sense of the word) queue outside Sainsbury's, so this household will play it safe (so = subordinating conjunction). We’re genuinely afraid of this illness. In fact the uncertainty is less for us because little is going to change for the 70+ cohort. Boris did seem, kind of, sort of, vaguely clear on that by not mentioning us at all... I think, probably. But word outside our bubble envisages mayhem and we continue to worry for our loved ones, those working with vulnerable groups, our grandchildren who might, or might not, be going to school.

Next Zoom homework was ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ with 11 year old Sammie. Shakespeare I explained to him, often wrote about mistaking fantasy for reality, self-aggrandisement, self-delusion, the abandonment of logical thinking, the slippery nature of words and the seriousness of misjudgements. ( He had the good grace to look interested) Homework: Examine Government policy over the last two months in the light of the above. Because Matt Lucas has gone viral this morning with his rendering of Boris's speech last night - here he is playing Bottom in the BBC production.

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!” Midsummer Night’s Dream (3.2.117)

And apropos nothing I’m going to post this poem by Laurie Lee to remind us of the lovely April weather we are now missing and of a world innocent of Covid-19.

April Rise

If ever I saw blessing in the air I see it now in this still early day Where lemon-green the vaporous morning drips Wet sunlight on the powder of my eye. Blown bubble-film of blue, the sky wraps round Weeds of warm light whose every root and rod Splutters with soapy green, and all the world Sweats with the bead of summer in its bud. If ever I heard blessing it is there Where birds in trees that shoals and shadows are Splash with their hidden wings and drops of sound Break on my ears their crests of throbbing air. Pure in the haze the emerald sun dilates, The lips of sparrows milk the mossy stones, While white as water by the lake a girl Swims her green hand among the gathered swans. Now, as the almond burns its smoking wick, Dropping small flames to light the candled grass; Now, as my low blood scales its second chance, If ever world were blessed, now it is.

Laurie Lee