Tuesday 31^st March, 2020 1840

I am pulling my hair out.

My work is complicated enough as it is with three different disciplines to deal with and this is exacerbated by the fact I am working from home and don't even know most of the students. Combine that with some classes having to be set written work and the rest oral recordings and perhaps you can understand why at times I am frustrated.

So this morning I marked yesterday afternoon's class and after about ten students I suddenly started getting recordings on coronavirus. That was the topic for the written classes. What I should have been listening to were opinions on Extinction Rebellion! Two-thirds of that class received 0/10. blow me down, I thought I'd get ahead of the game and start on this afternoon's class and I only marked THREE before encountering the wrong homework!

I have relented and told their monitor that everyone who did the wrong work needs to redo it pronto and I expect a new file in my inbox by the time I wake up tomorrow morning, otherwise I shall mark what was sent originally.

Is it too much to expect the students to actually understand that when assignments are clearly labelled written and oral for them to understand the difference??

I am actually starting to worry about this virus thing. No, not about catching it but about the post-virus world. Take the UK as an example (and purely because I read the news about there more than anywhere else) – what will it look like?

How many pubs will still be in business? How many firms will have folded? How many airlines will still be flying? And how much will the basic rate of income tax be for years to come? The virus is not going to be the problem, the aftermath is. The effect here has been minimal as far as I can tell but that's because Beijing has deep pockets. Other countries not so. It may just be the reset button that was needed but life may be altered dramatically.

Anyway tonight I have no marking in the pipeline so I am just going to enjoy watching films I have downloaded and what I could get from the BBC that wasn't a repeat! Yesterday when I went to BHG I bought a cushion for my office chair for 20¥ - I needed it. After three months of sitting on it my bum was in danger of developing bed sores!

Sunday 29^th March, 2020 1315

So. Trump will have everyone in church for the 12^th and yet I read today the UK lockdown could last until June! It will be even longer if the covidiots don't stop congregating at seaside towns or having picnics! Their behaviour beggars belief and ultimately I feel will see the imposition of more draconian restrictions. Ah well.

But this made me think.

I believe some high schools in Guizhou opened a fortnight ago but have now had to close again because the students were getting ill. It is denied the virus is at fault but so far nobody has been able to tell me what, then, was to blame.

In the absence of any sign of our school reopening (office staff are to report for duty tomorrow but no news for teachers and students) I am wondering if we will be back at all this term.

I need to make contingency plans for the nightmare that examining and marking will present. The oral students present no problem but the newspaper reading classes who submit written essays pose a particular dilemma.

Many of them so far have been trying to cheat in their essays by finding something online, copying and pasting it and attempting to pass it off as their own work. When second year pupils submit flawless entries it is as plain as a pikestaff and accordingly they receive 0/10 – but they try the same again the following week! They will learn or find out the hard way.

So the challenge was to think of an almost foolproof test they can't cheat in. Nothing will be 100% but it is doubtful any of them live with a native speaker with exceptional ability in English but there's always the possibility they may Wechat with each other to compare but I can't stop that.

My genius idea? I will write my own newspaper article, into which I will insert numerous spelling, grammatical, contextual errors liberally sprinkled with inappropriate words or phrases. Their task will be to point out said errors and correct them. They will not know how many deliberate mistakes there are and each correctly identified and corrected one will earn points. If anyone can think of a better idea I am open to suggestions!

As predicted, I was slugged late in the week with bucketloads of homework and as a result I finally cleared the decks about an hour ago. Jody is on campus cleaning the office ready for tomorrow even though she's not supposed to be office staff this term and later we will meet downtown. There will ensue a trip to Metro (she goes through my teabags like a panda in a bamboo grove) for a few bits and she adores their freshly baked croissants. Then the treat of the week – a Whopper at BK!

Friday 27^th March, 2020 2330

Yes, it's late. I have just finished marking over a hundred essays today in an attempt to leave my weekend relatively clear. I say relatively because a few hours ago another classload plopped in my inbox and I think perhaps another may arrive in the morning. I do get it easier on Mondays and Tuesdays working from home but there is never a day off. Certainly I can take one but knowing there is work just waiting for me when I get back rather dampens the mood. I like to clear the decks, at least temporarily.

Now, it seems rather pointless talking about Covid now that the rest of the world has gone where we were two months ago but do you remember the guy that argued with me that China was unprepared for Covid, something the world had never seen? And how he said America was always prepared? And I mentioned their preparedness for Pearl Harbour, Wall Street and sub-prime? Well, he has gone strangely quiet! Can't imagine why..........

Anyway, by the time I post this it will be Saturday. And then no foreigners will be allowed to enter China for the foreseeable future. This is because all the new cases in China lately have been returnees bringing it back in! I rather hope the Chinese don't turn on me and call me a “virus” as some of my countrymen did to Asian people in the UK not so long ago. I doubt they will, I suspect certainly locally the people all know I never left – although there was the drunk at the restaurant the other night who said I should be in quarantine! Probably as well Jody left it a few minutes before translating, by which time his mates had huckled him away.

Anyway, people with valid visas will be turned away. People with residence permits (such as me) will also be refused entry. Only Chinese nationals will be allowed in. So, had I decided to take a weekend away somewhere I could still get a flight to (God knows where that might have been) then I would now find myself marooned.

It's a funny old world isn't it? Suddenly nobody is bickering about Brexit. The kicking of China when she was down seems to have abated. Amazing what happens when the critics walk in the same shoes and find themselves in lockdown!

That is not to detract from the fact that although “ordinary” flu does for 650.000 people annually and so far Covid has claimed a “mere” 25,000, it is nonetheless serious. It is also not only levelling the playing field but digging up the Wembley turf!

I read an article the other day saying that this was the end of China as the world's factory. That was written before everywhere else was hit. China is stirring again while everywhere else is closing down. Soon China's plants will be pretty much the only major factories running again.

And if ships and seafarers are allowed to do their jobs the world can be supplied again. This new practice of allowing ships to dock but prohibiting crew changes is, as an ex-mariner, utterly reprehensible. As a singleton it wouldn't have troubled me much but the married officers and crew? Maybe some with loved ones who are infected?

All very well clapping on your balconies for the NHS but there are others who are working to keep people safe and supplied, such as supermarket workers, food deliverymen, emergency services and of course sailors, without whom 95% of what you buy simply would not get there.

Dark days indeed for the planet but never forget what Eric Idle sang on the cross!

Wednesday 25^th March, 2020 1300

I still haven't made meatballs. There is a provincial inspection looming at the school and Jody is working late the rest of this week so I am just feeding myself. I remember when we had one in Chizhou, everyone panicking and even getting me to file paperwork I never used to do and was completely pointless. All BS.

So I had cheese and tomato sandwiches last night!

But I did buy a whole chicken for a roast today. She has now decided she can return at seven, doesn't want any chicken but wait for it – she is desperate for roast potatoes! I think the no chicken thing is because the new supermarket sold me some breasts that were like leather when cooked. This is a whole bird, probably with the head as well. Oh, I forgot to mention that Alice in Guangzhou has bought her own mini oven so she can learn western cooking. Now she can make her own lasagne.

Anyway, after the “army” and their field equipment spent all day here on Monday fixing my bathroom flooding problem, lo and behold yesterday afternoon when I showered it flooded again!

They came again this morning and fixed it, although for how long is anyone's guess. They also looked at the boiler and declared it perfect due to the fact it wasn't showing an error message. Some things, even with the best of translators, cannot be gotten across (and of course I couldn't ask Jody to explain or everyone would want to know how she knew so much). Their solution was to fit a new shower tap, which is fine but will not solve the problem. I will just have to wait until the boiler packs in!

While they were here I remembered to ask them to take a look at the broken hat stand I use to dry my laundry. They tried to fix it, triumphantly brought it back inside, only for it to promptly break again. They carted it back outside again and half an hour later when I was marking a class from yesterday, presented me with a hat stand that no longer falls over. I couldn't stop laughing. Their solution? They made it 18” shorter by removing the offending section! It worked to be fair but it means a different approach when washing bedding and the like, otherwise half of it will be sitting on the floor.

Oh! That hotpot round the corner? Not quite what I expected, you take a basket and select your items, then they cook it instead of you doing it at the table, then you are presented with a bowl of broth with your selection. Dips were unappetising (I only ever opt for the peanut sauce) but apparently once they are fully up and running that will change. However at £3.50 for two bowls it was damned cheap so on the occasions I can't be bothered I shall be using it. One drawback is they don't sell beer but that's minor seeing as it's directly opposite the jing jo shop! And they do the meatballs I like plus quail or partridge eggs (or whichever small bird lays them).

So now I am waiting for my morning class to submit their homework. The afternoon one will arrive too late so I predict at the end of the week once again there will be Saturday work.

Monday 23^rd March, 2020 1400

Once again plans have changed. No shopping today. After I called Brenda the mob arrived. I showed them the toilet was terrific and the only problem was the shower. They plugged an extension in and ran it outside for their portable pump and have done nothing in here, no sani-snake, nothing.

They went around all the manholes again and the one I believe to be the problem child was pumped out, with a hose relocating the contents to another sewer. After some time I heard the unmistakeable sound of the reversing beeper of a sixteen tonne truck, not something that comes up our narrow road often.

It was a dedicated drain clearing truck. The trouble I had caused!

However, the fact everything that was done was done outside must mean the fault cannot be laid at my door. They have all cluttered off now although they have left both the extension plugged in here and the manhole off the offending outside drain. That of course means I daren't take a shower because Sod's Law states that as soon as I shampoo my hair someone will knock on the door wanting their extension back. I've put some laundry on instead.

So this evening we are going for a hotpot around the corner. I've never been there, in fact I thought it was a cafe or club of some sort. It might be good, if so then at least it will be another place nearby where I can eat when I don't have the time or inclination to cook. Jody will be in clover, like many Chinese, a hotpot is her favouritest dish in the whole world. I hope they have the usual meatballs and fishballs. I am dreadful at hotpots, for me it is an almost exclusively carnivorous affair, the only nod I give to my “Five A Day” is chucking some mushrooms in!

Being Monday I have been twiddling my thumbs so far, waiting for some assignments to land in my inbox, hence the original plan to go shopping and make some meatballs tonight. I will do that tomorrow. It shouldn't create too much of a backlog as from now on I have asked them to shorten their essays and recordings, the workload was too onerous.

Anyway the good news is that for now the temperatures are good. Yesterday I went out sans jacket, coat or jumper, first time this year.

Sunday 22^nd March, 2020 1730

Well the meal on Friday was a welcome change (even though I was in the chair). The problems were that they were short-staffed and snowed under with delivery orders. I have nothing against deliveries but if I ran a restaurant I would prioritise the customers actually sitting in my restaurant.

They didn't, and as a result the first of three dishes (sweet pork) took over an hour to arrive. The second (more pork but with chilli – everything else I had tried to order such as beef or squid was off the damned menu) took another half an hour and Jody's choice, or rather her second choice, a further fifteen. Hers was an aubergine dish. Since being in China I have acquired a liking for this but I never even put a piece in my mouth. It smelt wrong, Deniro declined and even Jody who is keen on vegetables only picked at it. At least it only cost 130¥ including three warm beers. In Lanzhou many places won't refrigerate the beer until everyone is sweating. I wasn't impressed, so if we want something from there again before all this is over I will see if Jody can organise a home delivery. I can't, I don't even know my address!

And hey! What about Italy????

My old shipmate, an ex radio officer had been on holiday in Spain and was concerned at being trapped when they shut the country down. I am glad to say that he and his wife did get their flight and are now back in Scotland self-quarantining for two weeks! At least they can use Just Eat and Tesco online for now. Or is Asda still the pre-eminent go-to supermarket north of Hadrian's Wall?

I had a shower earlier. Since they came to unblock and shovel tonnes of debris out of the outside drains my toilet has flushed the fastest it ever has. I was over the moon. Until today. The toilet is still flushing like a good'un but the main drain is blocking again so the bathroom flooded! That means they will need to come yet again tomorrow. Well Jody is going to campus anyway so she won't be seen but I'm going to have to specify a “not before” time as I want to go to BHG first. It can't be anything from in here doing it, all that goes down that drain is shower water.

Then I went for my monthly drug run. 517¥!!!! Ok, that included another three month supply of fish oil capsules (they are at least having a slight effect on the creaky hip) and I am trying to build up a two month stock ready for August when I don't get paid. The plus is that I don't need a prescription, the minus is that being a diabetic in the UK it would all be free!

Jody is the most different guest I have ever had in China. She washes the dishes, cleans the floor and pays for some of the shopping. Also, she doesn't want me to cook every night. Today I was actually free and offered to do a Sunday roast. No. Ok what about leek and potato soup for dinner instead? Can't we just have sandwiches?!!! So sandwiches it will be, tuna and cucumber for her, cheese and onion toasties for me. The height of culinary excellence! To be honest, I am fine with that. I'll have marking tomorrow but I am looking at opening the pack of frozen meatballs I got in Metro. I have some cheat's Napoletana in a jar – bake the balls, cook some pasta (yes UK readers, we have plenty of that here in China!) and heat the sauce. Actually one of my favourite simple and cheap meals in the UK was a can of Campbell's meatballs in tomato sauce with pasta and a dollop of Linghams chilli to give it some bite.

Oh, and about an hour ago she was reading the local Chinese news. Middle schools will restart on 30^th March, high schools 6^th April and universities 13^th April. So indeed, another three weeks of marking from home.

Friday 20^th March, 2020 1340

I said Italy would top the charts in two days and so it proved to be. On the face of it, the situation is dire there but delving deeper, it seems the mortality rate is inordinately high for a few of reasons: One, they have the second oldest population in the world and the vast majority of fatalities have been the elderly, most of whom have one, two, three or more other conditions and the healthcare infrastructure is stretched and two, their classification of deaths differs from other countries. It doesn't however make it any less of a tragedy.

I have had to streamline my marking process, it was swamping me. My problem was that I was trying to be too diligent and was making considered remarks on each work. Now I am emending and highlighting and appending “good”, “VG” etc, sometimes with a brief comment. It works. I have cleared my desk this week so far, although I am expecting two more classes to submit their assignments later today. I can deal with those tomorrow morning/lunchtime and have a relatively easy weekend.

Jody returned from campus last night with the thrilling news that she has heard we will not reopen now until mid-April! Three or four days ago this revelation would have seen me going into core meltdown but now I have found a less time-consuming way, I actually don't mind. Of course, I would much prefer to be face to face in the classroom. I await official confirmation of this.

We are off out for dinner later. Deniro texted last night to ask if he could visit. I didn't want that happening. He is a teacher (I'm not sure whether our school or not) and with Jody living here we are not advertising the fact. So I suggested dinner at the restaurant I like around the corner. I haven't been for ages obviously but I don't go often because the portions are huge and I'm always on my own now all the students are on a different campus. With three of us we stand a chance of finishing! His wife and child are not coming, she's a nurse and will not let the toddler out at present.

Having read about UK supermarkets opening for an hour each morning to allow for fossils-only shopping, I saw the photos of enormous queues outside Aldi, Costco etc before they opened! It put me in mind of 1979 when we went to Novorossiysk in the USSR in the Black Sea. Huge queues of people waiting outside bakeries and the like because there was no food. Except this was the UK. When did people become so overwhelmingly selfish that they create a famine where there need not be one?

Thursday 19^th March, 2020 1930

Someone asked me earlier where my blog was today. Very flattering actually but I need everyone to know that time is a commodity I have little of right now.

Most days lately I'm not cooking (last night it was a supermarket pizza which was awful, I ate half of it and have had the shits most of today and today it looks like being biscuits).

Ok so maybe I could have cooked an omelette or something simple but I literally finished the backlog of marking five minutes ago. And yes, I “wasted” two and a half hours this afternoon going for smokes.

I arrived at China Tobacco and with melancholy and despair, plaintively said “Wang Guan?” knowing I would get the usual “mayo” response. They said “Doay! Doay!” What??? How many do you have? I will take three thousand!

They had fourteen hundred. They have none now. I had expected to spend 860¥ on cigars that make me cough dreadfully for a fortnight's supply and I was so happy to spend 1400¥ on my brand for three month's worth! AND, the boss gave me her card and said next month they should have more, text her – and she speaks a bit of English. The same again will see me set until September, if only I could get them to order in 6,000 once a year that would do me just dandy. Can't afford a full year just yet, months of buying inferior, more expensive lardies have dented my saving capacity.

But saving for what? Will anywhere be accessible? And hell, the last few days have seen the UK exchange rate in freefall. I think a week ago the pound against CNY was 9.2 and as of now it is 8.2. When I arrived in China it was just above ten. Great if I have loads of Chinese money going to the UK but as my savings are in a UK bank in sterling, what do you think?

And now I read the UK government is going to try to prevent people from touching their faces! I must have done that a dozen times typing this and I have no hand sanitiser, refuse to use it and I haven't washed my hands for three hours. And I haven't caught the virus in two months of being supposedly exposed. I knew the UK was being incompetent but this latest takes the biscuit!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51869634

I am tired. Tired of the horrendous extra work and tired of the precautions. China is virtually clear and other countries now have to deal with it. I just want to get back to doing what I do best.

And I still wonder if that holiday in August will happen

Tuesday 17^th March, 2020 2045

The fishcakes were pronounced good by Jody but awful by me. I am not sure if it was my fault for making the mash too creamy or the fact of the two slices of bread I had available to make breadcrumbs one of them was Chinese “cake” bread. Either way, doubtful I will try again.

She was really late home tonight. The reason was a last-moment meeting at which she was required to take the minutes.

During this virus nonsense, all students and staff have been required to signal their continuing health each day to some Wechat or QQ group by 1000 every day to the school leadership. Well, not me of course as I am not on Wechat or QQ and I think they know what the answer would have been anyway – I'll email you if I die! Anyway, how many uni students get up before 1000 on holiday? Or me sometimes.

The concern would perhaps be touching but for the reason for today's meeting. One of the Uzbekistani students (not one of mine) told them he was at home in Tashkent and was absolved of daily reporting. The school has just learnt that actually he has been in Guangzhou throughout, the guess is that Guangzhou contacted the school to say they had one of our students there.

They are going to expel him.

I took Jody to task because she told me he was an excellent student and I asked why didn't she raise her hand to defend the chap, who after all is probably of adult age. Apparently she tried to say something but was closed down with the injunction that she was only there to take minutes!

Well I think we can all see that would meet with resistance in western countries and to be honest, if it was one of mine and he was indeed a good student I would be demanding an audience. He's not and so I shan't. I did save a female Chinese student a couple of years ago and if she kept her nose clean hopefully she graduates in summer.

But to boot someone out for being anywhere they want to be in their holiday is to me a step too far. It's a bit like the “Travel Request” form they sent me to complete when I leave the city. A small thing maybe but what they actually get sent is “Travel Advice” because if I am on holiday I do not need their permission, certainly not when I am almost as old as the school I think! I go where I want.

I am getting rather tired of the school closure. Initially I was told we would reopen on 30^th March but I asked for confirmation and was told there is no definite news. I have already had enough of home marking, it is relentless.

Oh, and I heard that the head Dean thinks I am always complaining about my workload! Sadly, without dropping my source in it, I cannot confront her about it.

To be sure, I have squealed about sending me hither and thither in a 20 minute break which even for a student would be a push. Certainly I told Dean Delia I hated English corners, especially as it meant a taxi fare home, no time to cook dinner and an 0530 alarm the next day. And even the students think they are a waste of time. But have I complained about being given the maximum teaching workload this term because I am the one and only? No I bloody haven't and I would love her to say anything to me but she won't, it will all be behind my back. I have never complained about my workload and that is a slur.

The good thing is, the guy that actually wields the power, seems to have gone from not liking me to really caring! I don't think it's a bromance, more a case of “he's the only one who stayed”.

I am such a cynic.

Monday 16^th March, 2020 2045

I suppose I was a little lazy at the weekend. Apart from two loads of washing I only marked one of the two class submissions I had for Saturday and left one, ostensibly to do on Sunday.

But Sunday I said sod it. I don't mind work (well I do but in this case it is buttock-numbing) but it is getting me down and not what I do best, which is front of house. So I took the day off, watched downloads and then went downtown to meet Jody who had gone out for fresh air.

The gourmet delights of Burger King (after the convoluted in-out coronavirus temperature taking routes were negotiated) and I asked her to order me a Whopper with cheese but no bacon. I have no idea why Whoppers without bacon are not advertised with cheese. Anyway, it was “Oh my God! I am not programmed for this! I'll have to ask the chefs!”

Burger flippers are hardly accomplished cooks. They don't make them, they just need to not burn them. Like Dads at the barbecue! Anyway the answer came back that they would do it. Thanks for the huge favour. I'd have the bacon but it's soft fat, crispy I would eat in a trice and anyway a cheese slice is cheaper.

But then came the farce of her having to pay using her phone despite me saying last week they took cash from me because my phone can't pay. With only one option they will acquiesce. And then having to sit on different tables! They have removed half the chairs so nobody can sit together! I suppose there may be many husbands who welcome this initiative......

And this morning a monitor sent me an email to ask if I had received her classes homework because I hadn't marked it from Friday. This despite the fact I confirmed receipt upon getting it. They have no conception of the sheer time involvement in doing it properly. It is tempting to simply skim over it but that would be no better than the students plagiarism.

So I've just finished it and returned it (and I must say the standard has improved). But blow me, no sooner had I completed my task than another lot came in early. That can wait until tomorrow, I am punch-drunk.

Anyway, this morning the “army” arrived to unblock my loo and drain. They took away about a ton of crap from the sewer outside, deployed their revolving contraption again and so far, everything drains nicely. I think they were trying to blame me for using too much loo roll, which annoyed me. I am mindful that Chinese toilets are unsuitable and use minimal amounts. And no way, as Brenda suggested, will I keep a waste bin in the bathroom full of shitty toilet paper! Yuk!

Oh, and I forgot my mask when going to the shop tonight and Mr Jing Jo gave me a free one!

Hoping to have a first attempt at making fishcakes tomorrow.

Friday 13^th March, 2020 2150

Friday the 13^th eh?

Well the hotpot was a success. Not with me, the things on offer in the supermarket were not to my liking but someone else had it that night, last night and just declared she will have it again tomorrow! She was even bragging online yesterday to her friend that she has a British friend who can cook hotpot. I am being given credit for something that is not particularly hard to make – a bit or pork or chicken, chilli, garlic, onion etc for the soup and off you go, make it up as you go along! She thinks I am inventive....

Yesterday we did a big shop (well big in the sense of two cases of wine) at BHG and because I had Delhi belly, she had her hotpot and I had two fried egg sandwiches. Eggs always bind you up, yes? Well not this morning they didn't! The problem abated thankfully by noon.

Today she went to campus again to clear out the room where the magazines and newspapers are delivered as by all accounts it was chock-a-block. Don't cook she said, do you want me to bring you a McDonald's? Who wants a cold Big Mac? I asked for pork baozi thinking that not only are they cheap at 1½¥ each but also easy to find. Not so. She ended up bringing me prawn jaozi instead. Fifteen of them. I ate six so guess what's going in the steamer tomorrow for my dinner?

I started marking at 0900 today and finished half an hour ago. I managed to get three classes done. That leaves two for the week I think, which I will do tomorrow, giving me Sunday free. We will venture out for dinner somewhere where we can sit inside. At least, that's the plan.

I have been watching the situation in Italy with interest. With China having now gotten the virus under serious control and having lived with what they now have in Italy since 24^th January, it is easy for me to feel complacent but the death rate there is horrific compared to here.

And I know the British have a history of calm reserve but I can't help but wonder if Boris is being a bit too Keep Calm and Carry On about this. Once it takes hold, it goes for its life, as China found out.

Oh! I have some new classes this term, sophomores as well as my freshmen. Naturally they are flogging the only horse still here by giving me extra. Anyway, earlier the monitor of one of the new classes (Coco) emailed me to say that I didn't know her but we had met before. She and her boyfriend encountered me in the road that is now demolished and they gave way to me. Apparently I politely thanked them. I have no recollection, I meet hundreds of people every day in normal times. She said she always checked the time in my country when sending me the class homework emails in case she disturbed my sleep!

This is from a generation that have internet on their phones and sleep with them turned on by their heads when they are in bed. I have no internet on my phone and when I am in bed the phone is firmly switched off anyway. I never told her that, just that my country was China, I never left Lanzhou and emails will never wake me up. Isn't it odd, the things the young generation think will be a problem but will never be? At least not for me!

Wednesday 11^th March, 2020 1400

Apologies for the previous entry, it was a tad crude and I used the “a” word too many times! It was through a reaction to reading and seeing the antics of so-called developed countries that view China as a backward place.

Certainly there are aspects of it that date back many years but there are others that shame western countries. A high-speed rail system that runs like clockwork without the screeching that accompanies UK train journeys, only old farts like me use cash when shopping, everyone else zaps their phone and stuff like that.

And yet toilet roll is readily available here. Is that because the Chinese don't wipe their backsides? No, because they don't panic buy except immediately prior to their new year. No different to Christmas Eve in the west and I have long since learnt to make sure I never shop then!

So just now the other department (not the English Language Department) sent me an email urgently requesting the marks I gave their students. I finished testing them on 28^th December. The English dept demanded the marks the second I finished my last class. The other department had told me my classes did not count towards the degree course. Apparently now they do! If they are trying to lay a guilt blanket on me they are out of luck. I have the marks but I'm buggered if I know where they are! They're here somewhere but I'm not going to rush to find them even though they are shrieking for them urgently. This is Dean Liu's fault, I am sure of it. She can wait.

So, Kevin is going back to the Philippines in three weeks. His job has strung him along for months, kept him on a tourist visa (involving flights at his expense to Singapore to renew it every month) and a low wage. He has been subsidising the experience from his own savings. Nobody is going to work at a job that costs you money!

Ok, time to pop to the shops. I am going to attempt, for the first time ever (drum roll please!), making a Chinese hotpot! Not for me but Jody really misses them with most restaurants still closed. Might be a disaster. I can make Betty's Lancashire hotpot but a Chinese one?

Watch this space........

Tuesday 10^th March, 2020 2115

So this morning Italy closed. Suddenly the Chinese way may just be the right one.

Supermarket shelves are being stripped in countries relatively unaffected and where the people are allegedly more developed and more educated.

Don't make me laugh! I am not the only one guffawing at the panic in the “developed countries”, so are the Chinese people - and rightly so. No shortages here. I can wipe my arse.

Which country has been hardest hit? Which one has stamped on it? I am now wondering if it will be safe to go abroad in summer instead of staying here! Now there's a thing.

Some arseholes (to be honest they were all Americans of course) have opined that China wasn't prepared. Funny that, the country could expect something that had never happened before? Let's forget about the fact they have done something no country has ever done before in history and it is WORKING! And America is totally unprepared so......well

Meanwhile, I have great enjoyment seeing people in “developed” countries buying enough toilet rolls to wipe the arses of an army regiment for three months and enough pasta to choke Italy for a month.

40,000 Americans were killed by guns wielded by other Americans last year, 10% of that number have died of this virus worldwide. And there is panic?

Italy has done the right thing. The people need to follow orders. It has worked here at great cost. So the stock markets are crashing? How many of my readers are losing money on the Dow Jones or the FTSE? I'm not.

Are we going to see this with every pandemic? Because as sure as eggs are eggs it will happen again in ten or twenty years time. Might start in Paraguay or England or France or anywhere.

I am not Chinese and never will be but looking at the way the west is dealing with it, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else, which is why I never ran away.

Sunday 8^th March, 2020 1815

Today I went out. It was a refreshing change.

Mid-afternoon I finally finished the week's submissions, it would have been later if many students hadn't cheated by copying and pasting from the internet so I didn't even bother marking. They must have thought I was an idiot. They won't now! A couple of the “essays” were as good as I could have written. Not bad for a second language in your second year of university, eh???

Anyway, Jody had left plenty of her work to the last minute so didn't fancy the long trip I intended. Namely, China Tobacco ( I would have run out in about two hours time) and then Burger King. After all this time, it was like a new world!

The buses are still heavenly, or would be if the bloody windows weren't still taped open, because today it's back to freezing – no problems getting a seat. On the way I noticed many shops are now open. China Tobacco still hasn't got my brand and I just spent what I would normally pay for a month on my brand for ten days worth of another.

Almost all the shops in the Mall were open but I was only interested in Metro and Burger King. Metro now has more imported products but is not yet up to full strength. They did have pizzas though so tomorrow is sorted! Still the temperature rigmarole and route marches to exit then re-enter the mall to visit certain places, in fact in “Love Bread” on entry my hands had to be sprayed. Rather pointless as they had nothing I wanted and so I never did anything other than take a quick walk around and walk out again. Hands stayed firmly in pockets.

BK was open and you could sit inside. Lately the restaurants that had opened have made customers sit at separate tables. Sensible to an extent but I gather even families have had to have individual tables, so Dad is on one, Mum another, son another and daughter yet another – you get the point. They live together, arrived in the same car together but in a restaurant they might infect themselves! Had Jody and I gone out for dinner somewhere where this was the practice I would probably have sat as far away from her as possible and then held a very loud conversation with her. She'd have been mortified but the point would have been made. I understand the thinking, just not the execution. But it has to be said, by and large the measures have worked. However her two days here (for that read five weeks) have not seen either of us contaminate the other. We ain't going to do it in a restaurant.

I see Italy are following China's lead in containment. The Chinese abroad are being vilified by the less educated factions who believe false Facebook posts and their “knowledgeable” mates in the pub. The Chinese are all infected. China itself is being lambasted and yet although the virus was discovered here, some doubt has now been cast on where in fact it originated.

When H1N1 started in America, China never labelled Yanks as unclean and never apportioned blame. They never pointed the finger when the USA kept it quiet for six months before alerting the world and hundreds of Chinese died. The same cannot be said of the reverse in today's situation. Perhaps now that it truly is a global problem, not just China's when they could scoff comfortably at it, natural justice is being meted out. And there is no shortage of loo rolls, pasta or rice here!

I am not taking sides. Well I am, I am on the side of reason and humanity. There are countries I sometimes wish didn't exist because of the extremism. There are others that wage wars with no justification. But eventually I remember not everyone can be coloured with the same stroke of the brush.

Here the country is defeating the problem. I see panic elsewhere.

Loo roll, anyone?

Friday 6^th March, 2020 2230

I am drowning in marking.

Today I started working within an hour of getting up. I took one hour out to shower and pop to the jing jo shop and started again. I finished two classes finally at 1930. No time to cook or change my bed, nothing, and it looks as if I will be marking all weekend, still at least a whole day's worth sitting in my “To be done” Gmail folder. Bugger this, it's at least double the work of actually working!

Thankfully Jody (who returned really late from helping students with their theses on campus when she could have easily done it from here online) brought back some sushi. I eat little and she bought enough for four. Of all people, she knows only too well how little I actually eat, she has spent over a month here with me. She knows I don't have a secret stash in my office drawers so as to pretend a lack of appetite.

Anyway, she told me 28 Chinese nationals diagnosed with Covid-19 were flown here to Lanzhou from Iran in the last two days. Presumably to treat and quarantine and thankfully they have been billeted near the airport out in the desert. I didn't know we had a hospital out there. But maybe the really sick are now in hospitals near here.

But I had to laugh. We are one of the regions least affected so they decided to give us a couple of dozen more – cheers Beijing!

Earlier it looked like a couple more market stalls were open. I also forgot my mask again today but no shouting.

My main source (but not only) of news is the UK media and it seems to me that the tabloids in the UK are intent on creating panic and panic buying and they are succeeding in certain areas. All this to get a bloody story?

Ever watched the animation film “Ratatouille” when Anton Ego orders his meal to critique from Gusteau's restaurant after Linguine inherits it? “Very well, seeing as nobody else in this bloody town has it, you provide the food and I'll provide the perspective!”

Everyone needs perspective. I have two and a half toilet rolls between two people. I will buy more in three or four weeks. I have no supplies of potatoes, veg, rice etc, I will buy them as I need them. I do not use hand sanitiser, I use soap. The world isn't ending.

I just can't get my cigars. That IS a calamity.

Thursday 5^th March, 2020 2200

Is there anyone left out there in the international community??

Reading a cross-section of the UK and world press, they are reporting blind panic as a precursor to the coming Armageddon! Pictures of people wearing water cooler bottles, full gas masks, boxes for Christ's sake! States of emergency being declared and services put on a war footing.

Do you know, I have been trying to educate my students regarding the futility of wearing masks and they are simply pointing out that my own countrymen are doing likewise and hoovering everything up from supermarkets. Trying to tell them my people are often idiots too just makes me appear a lone crackpot voice. People are ignoring the science and medical opinions. I despair.

I do believe the measures taken here, whilst hellishly and ruinously expensive, are beating it. New cases and deaths are tailing off whilst elsewhere they do the opposite. The ends seem to be justifying the means. I forgot my mask today when I went out and wasn't shouted at. I also saw others with bare faces. The fruit stall nearest me reopened today as well. This country will bounce back again soon and hopefully they will in fact bar entry to citizens from infected countries – as they indeed did to the Chinese. China is paying its own price without having it brought back from elsewhere.

Meanwhile, I am reliably informed by Our Man In Shanghai that Beijing and Shanghai are rolling out a new thing. It's an application for smartphones that you have to show to get back to your housing estate, into malls etc. If you've been to infected areas (they track your phone location) then depending on the degree of infection in the zone, it changes to different colours.

If they do it here then I can never leave home! I and countless others with “old man” phones that don't do applications. And that includes the grandparents of many of my students. And when the tourists do eventually return, how do they go shopping outside their hotel? Personally I think it will die with the virus, it's impracticable. Going to force everyone to buy a smartphone for 5,000¥ and enter into an internet contract? Not me, that's for sure. I already inform the school every time I am leaving the city, where I am going and which hotel. I have no problem with that in case I am hospitalised for any reason. I don't ask permission, just tell them I am going. And what's to prevent people turning their phone off so it doesn't ping the masts?

Talking of going, I have now started wondering if there will be anywhere left for me to go outside China in the summer! They might all be under lockdown!

Mind you, I am slowly going boss-eyed here. It takes me all day to mark two classes of homework so I reckon I will be working weekends for the next few weeks. I could just read and comment but stupidly I edit and highlight every error – you know, properly.

I will be heartily glad to get back to the front of a classroom......

Wednesday 4^th March, 2020 1500

Last night the bathroom started to flood just as I was finishing my shower. A number of kettles of boiling water were poured down the drain (well it worked last time!) but this morning the overflow was almost immediate.

Nothing I could do about it, the plunger is useless, so it was time to call in DynoRod, or rather the four musketeers. They shoved a broom handle down to no effect, scratched their heads and left for an hour, presumably for a game of mahjong. One of them returned with a snake which also proved useless and the next I knew they were lifting all the manholes outside using a portable pump to drain water.

Ultimately they deployed a machine with a snake about three miles long which they threaded down my outlet and eventually they cleared the blockage. At least, I think they have but won't know for sure until I take a shower.

All this time I was busily marking essays submitted by one class. They were instructed they had to write three to five hundred words and more than half were less, most under two hundred. Very foolish indeed to think that I wouldn't notice they had simply rattled off any old rubbish in fifteen minutes because I wasn't serious. A collective rocket has been delivered to their monitor and I await eagerly to see if next week's recordings will be between three and five minutes. Anything under scores zero. They have been warned.

1840

And another class submitted even worse! It was like getting a Post-It note or a text message with some of them! I was missing being in the classroom but now I'm not so sure! I don't think they've twigged that with me being the only foreigner, suddenly my classes count and if they fail, no degree. I don't mind anyone being poor academically whatsoever, in fact I sympathise if they struggle but to pay lip service at best is thumbing their nose at not just me but the department. Time to break a few thumbs, methinks!

Wednesday 4^th March, 2020 0800

Yes, it is rather early but I was up at 0530. Done all my emails and checked all the news sites, would like to get cracking on the next batch of assignments but as they are aural I don't want to wake Jody, she has to go to campus a bit later. Quite what she is doing there I know not but she can't be live-streaming classes because she teaches oral, same as me but in Chinese.

So, seeing as for the next few weeks it may be difficult to find the time to blog, I thought while I can't do much else without making a noise, I would type merrily away now.

We went shopping to BHG late yesterday afternoon after she finished on campus. I had no intention of cooking and ended up with egg sandwiches whilst Jody fried some vegetables (with added soy, oyster and Thai sweet chilli sauce on my recommendation) to have with leftover rice from the other night. Her habit of eating old rice is one I have warned against but in the face of being told she has done it all her life with no harm, what can I say??

I had my heart set on buying a couple of one-pound lobsters for today's dinner but to my intense annoyance, although they had been in the freezer section for months unmolested at 150¥ a pop, some swine had recently bought them all! So instead, we have a fairly sizeable hunk of salmon which I shall bake and serve with mash, peas and a lemony white sauce. In itself the salmon was quite expensive, as indeed is cod here. If I knew what the various different types of loose whole frozen fish were I could buy much cheaper but I don't have the foggiest!

And when checking the news today I was rather amused to read an article on the BBC website stating that people returning to China from high risk areas abroad are to be made to self-isolate for fourteen days! It's like “we've exported it, keep it, we don't want it back”!!!

Thankfully, here at least, new cases and deaths seem to be decreasing. Elsewhere I am seeing newspaper reports from the UK - with a huge 51 cases and zero deaths in the country (Diamond Princess has been classified as its own mini-country so the poor chap who died doesn't count in national figures) – whipping up anxiety among the natives, causing areas of supermarket shelves equivalent to the size of Lichtenstein to be laid waste! Get a grip people, if you have to quarantine someone will bring you supplies – at least you speak the same language!

Worldwide shortage of masks (and a Thai factory raided and found to be laundering used ones, ironing them and re-selling as new!) despite many articles and official advice stating they are pointless. There is an excellent article here
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/can-face-masks-protect-against-coronavirus-watchdogs-crack-misleading/

which of course nobody will pay the slightest attention to.

I was listening to more aural submissions last night and one girl was relating how her Grandfather stubbornly resists and rebels against the family's entreaties to wear a mask when out. He rails against doing so, saying they are uncomfortable and don't work. I am definitely, firmly, in Camp Grandpa!

The one sentiment that is blaring forth from the homework so far is that far from being happy to be staying at home, my freshmen (for the PC Pillocks, freshpersons) are actually missing being back at school doing “proper” study and with their schoolmates. Not sure if they miss me though.......

Anyway, she has risen. I can now start some work.

Monday 2^nd March, 2020 2000

Ok no blog from me tonight, just two entries from two of my students submitting their oral assignments. My assignment was for them to tell me about their spring festival. It was perhaps rather naïve of me to think they would how say how homelife has been and how they are making the best of it. It will take ten minutes of your time to listen and I only wish the trolls would listen too. The second one really hit me.
Una-----http://xima.tv/1aKnzz

Yvonne-----http://xima.tv/MMdh8V

Sunday 1^st March, 2020 1140

Goodness me, yesterday I received a call from Mr Zhang (foreign affairs Director and ultimately the one who wields the axe on foreign teachers) telling me he had now got a couple more masks which he would bring to me. Given that I was told last year he wanted to fire me this was somewhat surprising – it now seems likely that was not the case and comments he made were misinterpreted before being passed on to me. That or the fact I am the only laowei left!! Anyway I thanked him and declined the kind offer, I now have four, the jing jo shop has supplies.

My minestrone was so good for Jody that she refused to allow me to cook dinner for her last night, she just wanted yet more of it! I contented myself with a jacket spud. Tonight I will throw together a ginger-soy pork & pepper stir-fry.

After all the vitriol I have been reading from Americans on Facebook about “disgusting Chinese” eating bats etc this morning Annie emailed me. They've just had their first fatality and she tells me TV reporters are actually advising people to stockpile food because an epidemic is coming! Telling people to empty supermarkets!?? And Jody showed me pictures from Kiwi showing supermarkets laid waste after they got their first and only diagnosed case. “I'm all right Jack” is not a nice trait.

And that leads me on to plagues of locusts.

I am sure many will have read there is a plan afoot for China to despatch 100,000 ducks to Pakistan to assist with their problem. It sounded bizarre to me but reading further I was surprised to learn that chickens also eat locusts but ducks eat many more per capita, per diem. I don't know why I never realised either fowl ate them before. Perhaps because I've only ever seen hens being thrown grain and ducks gobbling bread on the Thames! And do you know that a locust is not a species, it's the name given to any grasshoppers which swarm.

1740

Been out to get supplies and still none of the stalls are open but then today is Sunday. Tomorrow I am officially back at work (from home anyway) so just maybe.......