Friday the thirteenth - again

Today all my paid work for the foreseeable future has been cancelled. Ouch. I'm lucky. Very lucky. I have some savings and a generous (though far from wealthy) family. So, what do I do? Seek alternative employment? That may well come to pass - though I've been doing the same work for 25 years and there's none of that around right now. We've all been cancelled. We're all freelancers. We're all screwed. But we're not sick yet.

And so I have time.

For years I have wanted time. To think and to write. Now I have it.

I've always read a lot. I've never stopped reading. I read good literature (I would, I'm a literature snob) and philosophy, psychology and sociology, history and neuroscience... I love learning. But I never do anything with all those thoughts and theories. How about now?

First up, though, I'm not going to offer my wisdom on Covid-19. I don't have any. I'm not a doctor, an immunologist, an epidemiologist or a health adviser.

However, I would say, or SHOUT, avoid social media unless you're following credible, expert sources. There's already a Facebook post doing the rounds which alleges to come from Stanford Hospital. It doesn't. Try not to play a part in the fake news agenda.

Go to the World Health Organization https://www.who.int/

And there's interesting stuff here too https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/pandemic-genomics/

Personally, I prefer the material coming directly from the experts, those recently defiled beings who are now our best hope. Even excellent journalism - like the BBC, The Conversation, the UK's broadsheets, all of them still have headlines and are 'telling a story' rather than purely imparting facts.

But my main directive is - don't be further terrified by lies - and don't be made careless by false information.

Enough virus for now.

Friday 13th. It was on a Friday 13th eight years ago that I suffered a bad accident, ended up in a coma and couldn't work for six months. No coma this time - and fingers crossed it won't be as long as six months. But it could. And so, for my sanity, I'm going to write every day.

Unless I am on a ventilator. In a coma.

Oh no.....