To An Orchard of Cherry Trees
Twenty-four hours on and I’m not sure we’re any the wiser about this new Covid lineage, at least here in the cheap seats. I’m still wondering what, in practical terms, this seventy percent increase in transmissibility actually means in the real world (or even if it’s true). Seventy percent sounds big and makes us go woah! But devoid of context it is an abstract quantity. That bit about (or even if it’s true) isn’t me being cynical, by the way, just following the lead of a number of scientists who are saying it is still too early to be definitive and the data are messy. One German scientist says he thinks it could be as much to do with behaviour as the virus itself. Obviously I have no way of reaching a decision on that, but I do think it’s right to reflect the current uncertainty until brighter minds than mine figure it out.
This is very good on the complexity https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/12/mutant-coronavirus-united-kingdom-sets-alarms-its-importance-remains-unclear
Still, after I posted last night, France closed its borders to the UK for 48 hours and forty countries are currently not accepting travellers from the UK. Our government are resolute that they will not seek any extension to transition for Brexit, even though they’re manifestly unable to cope with one crisis, let alone two. Bullshitters, every last one of them.
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For a change of pace, and a different perspective on Christmas, can I recommend something written by my old friend Neil as a guest blogger, here: https://journeyofareformedman.net/2020/12/20/8-goodwill-to-all/ Neil is a prison chaplain.
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Mixed news from friends currently experiencing Covid-related difficulties in their lives; one tells me he thinks he’s coming out of a mild case, another is dealing with what seem to be hospital-induced problems with a family member. I’m still thinking of them both.
Not on anything like the same scale of worry, I still have a nagging sinusy cold that I would very much like to go away.
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Music: my favourite of all songs traditionally associated with Christmas is The Holly And The Ivy, with it’s afterglow of curious imagery. I grew up singing it in church to a tune collected by Cecil Sharp, but a variant tune was also recorded in the field in the 1950s, and that variant entered the folk tradition where it flourishes still, finding a place amongst other Christmas carols in the tradition that aren’t in Hymns Ancient and Modern or the English Hymnal. The words can possibly be traced back to an early eighteenth century broadside, though they have the feel of something much older.
The first time I heard the variant tune it was on a recording by Steeleye Span on Below The Salt in 1972, which appeared on the B-side of Gaudete. I have other renditions by The Young Tradition (recorded 1969 but not released until 1995) and Kate Rusby (2008), and I like them all. The first video is Heather Wood with the Young Tradition (The Holly Tree Bears the Crown).
From the same album, I’ve added Shirley and Dolly Collins and The Cherry Tree Carol, a song which may be from the early fifteenth century, tapping into the tradition of Jesus as the magic baby or, in this case, the magic foetus.
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