On Becoming Four

‘I read the news today, oh boy.’

One million are dead from Covid related illness and we’re going after half a million sharks for their squalene.

‘And though the news was rather sad
Well, I just had to laugh.’

Death isn’t the end in Romania. A dead man was elected as mayor in a landslide victory. Is it a coincidence that this is the country of Dracula and Frankenstein?

‘A crowd of people stood and stared’

It seems that microbes are eating childrens’ brains in Texas. Officials in Lake Jackson reported how they were disinfecting the water supply but didn’t know how long it might take.

‘But I just had to look
Having read the book’

Then the UK and Canada imposed sanctions on Alexander Lukashenko and other Belarus officials. This after Cyprus blocked full European Union sanctions on Belarus because the EU won’t sanction Turkey in a dispute about maritime rights off Cyprus. What’s doubly weird for me is repeatedly seeing a geophysical recording vessel as part of the news coverage.

With thanks to The Beatles for the lyrics from A Day In The Life, a song that was commended in 2011 by Rolling Stone magazine as the group’s single finest song. It even includes an aleatoric sound, the alarm clock, predating John Cage whose uses aleatoric methods in place of musical structures that he believes are old news. Oh boy!

Meantime, these four news items notwithstanding, there was a day in the life of a four year that included a fourth birthday party. For the whole family. We Skyped to catch the excitement as several households ate dinner in a coordinated, socially distant family event. We even had one caller from a hospital ward though when her dinner arrived, she was forced to make a choice. She chose to eat rather than hold the camera phone.

Herons were easy to see this morning on another walk along Dún Laoghaire pier. The last of the fine weather, we are told.