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.