Reading the News

I have been floating through a sort of fever dream for the last 24 hours. Yesterday passed in a soft, unfocused blur as I mostly slept. I am not a late sleeper or a napper by nature, so spending so much time asleep is a very strange thing for me. My temperature in the afternoon climbed to 101.6º F (or 38.7º C).

Needless to say, I'm not going to Norfolk today to the christening of our co-worker's baby. I'm sending Dave along on his own. He has miraculously not come down with whatever this is. I feel bad for missing the christening; I was looking forward to going if only to experience something new. (I've never been to a christening before, but I've been to baptisms, which I suppose are basically the same thing.) Anyway, it is not meant to be.

I tried to read a novel yesterday but I couldn't even do that very well -- I just couldn't concentrate. The words swam about on the page. I caught up on the news instead, reading more about Boris Johnson's resignation. Somehow I don't think we're finished with him. I think he'll be a bit like Trump, pulling strings and making waves even when he's technically no longer in the top job. He's a big personality (i.e. loudmouth) and that's what they do. In my opinion, Boris did most of his damage before he even became prime minister, leading us down the rosy path of Brexit and paving it with empty lies and promises. Isn't our National Health Service supposed to be awash in money right now?

On another topic, a few days ago I read an article in the Daily Mail about the Chicago shootings, and it contained this astonishing sentence:

The US has now seen 309 mass shootings so far this year in which four or more people, excluding the shooter, were shot or killed. Eleven alone took place over the holiday weekend.

That sums up the crisis of gun proliferation in the United States more succinctly than I think I've ever seen anywhere else. And this is the Daily Mail! Hardly a bastion of liberalism.

Also, I read a curious column about the scourge of American candy shops that have been popping up on prime shopping streets in London. Yes, you read that right: Candy shops. They're all over Oxford Street and Covent Garden -- one even took over the former HMV music store and displaced its fabulous old neon sign. I've been wondering how much of a market there could possibly be for American candy, and it turns out that these shops may be more of a tax dodge or money laundering scheme than anything else.

So, as I said, today Olga and I will be lounging around the house while Dave boards a train for Norfolk. I do think I'm on the mend, though. I had a cup of coffee this morning, which I couldn't manage at all yesterday, and I feel much more normal overall. We'll see what my temperature does over the course of the day.

(Top photo: A shop window in Brussels, a few weeks ago.)