Category Archives: COVID-19

Groundhog Day

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Yesterday evening many of us living in England sat down for the nth time to watch a live Press Conference from Number 10 about the latest COVID restrictions, with a sense of déjà vu rather than dread. We had heard it all before last and earlier this year; only this time, instead of the Delta variant being the cause, we were introduced to the weirdly sounding Omicron. A bit like coming up with names for hurricanes. We were then told about Plan B (no fancy name) and what it meant for us. I wondered what had happened to Plan A and what might Plan C be? Was there a Plan D if all went belly-up? Different letters of the alphabet for Plans and Greek letters (omicron is 15th) for variants. All very confusing.

Many of us had already been contacted by our places of work telling us ‘Omi’ was on its way and to cancel our planned Xmas parties. Rather than do this we decided on our own Plan B which was postpone it until the New Year. This way of managing meant it felt less like disappointment and more like a waiting game.  New government Plan B rules are like the ones we had in place earlier this year: Work from home if you can. Take PCR tests if you travel abroad. Wear masks in public places.

But there is a new twist to Plan B. You can still party in the pub. Round and round we go.

I looked back at my last blog entry from two months ago, where I was extolling the joys of being on a business trip again for the first time in 18 months. Such a stark contrast in emotions. I was mighty glad I had managed to get away while Delta was stabilizing and before Omicron had raised its ugly head. I even squeezed in one more trip to Finland in November to give a keynote at a workshop aimed at Gen Z. Turns out I was one of the few attendees to make it in person. Many decided not to show up to the event for fear of catching COVID, having watched on the news how the level was rising in that part of Finland.

It was a foreboding of what was to come. But during my brief visit to this neck of the woods in Finland I managed to make the most of being in a completely different place, that was remote, sparse and felt like a million miles away. I enjoyed witnessing for the first time in ages crazy minus something temperatures that made my cheeks glow and lips sting; I loved the feel of crunchy, icy snow underfoot, and the sharp contrast of warmth blasting through my lungs when entering indoors after being outside. I learnt a lot about what it was like to be part of the rise and fall of Nokia – the Finnish mobile company. I also heard about how the Finns keep themselves sane during the many dark months of winter – skiing, shooting and sitting in saunas. And I discovered a sense of humour I did not know existed. The seminar room where one of our meetings was held was called Mr Frost! One wall was completely covered in plastic ice shards! And to top it off, on my last morning, I spotted Santa on his sleigh coming from the North Pole. All very strange and delightful.

Sadly, those delights seem like a distant dream now. My planned conference talk this week – in the lovely city of Leuven, Belgium, booked months and months ago, was cancelled at the last minute. Instead, I was asked to give my talk online – again.  So I set up my imaginary row of teddy bears on a shelf just behind my laptop and gave them names as if they were my audience. Another Groundhog Day moment. At 8.30 a.m. I started talking to my laptop and zoomed into Zoom. The remote audience ‘listened’ and ‘chatted’ in Discord (the online social platform often used these days).  At 9.30 I stopped talking, pressed the leave button, walked into my kitchen and filled the kettle. Job done but no joy. Such a disconnect.  If only there had been a roomful of attentive faces smiling and laughing.

Meanwhile, many migrating wild birds returning to the UK from Russia and Europe have got Avian flu. Worryingly, it has begun to spread to other wild birds like falcons, curlews, swans, geese and gulls. You can’t tell those birds to switch to Plan B and work from home or wear masks. Instead, there is much fear about how and when the avian flu will spread from wild to ‘kept’ birds. Already, there are isolated cases being reported of farmed chickens, turkeys and ducks starting to catch it. Instead of increasing the number of vet hospitals or oxygen ventilators to help cure the poor birds they are instead brutally ‘culled’. It must be soul-destroying for the poultry farmers who discover their birds have caught it. Then it is Plan K for them: Kill all their birds. Luckily, the risk of avian flu to human health is low – but who wants to eat sneezing turkey meat?  Nut roast for Christmas dinner, anyone?

Funny Money

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One of my friends told me he still had cash in his wallet that he had withdrawn from an ATM a year ago! He works in the city and usually spends it on coffee, snacks, drinks, etc., when out and about. But since the pandemic he has been working from home and only shops online using his debit/credit cards. Many of us have followed suit, resulting in a dramatic reduction in cash withdrawals. Quite a few shops also started refusing to take cash – for fear of spreading COVID-19 on the banknotes – although this has since scientically been proven to have a very minimal risk.

Meanwhile, in the digital transactional world, we have seen the meteoric rise of bitcoins. Images of bitcoins depict them as being shiny but do they actually exist as physical coins? Yes they do, like those in the image, but they are not worth anything unless they have a private key that is hidden under a hologram on the back of the coin. Without that number it is worthless. And if tampered with bitcoins becomes invalid. 

The real deal is stored as bits on computer servers. You never really get your hands on them. Instead they are stored on a ledger and metaphorically in a wallet which has its own unique password. And if you lose your password, you are doomed  – as Stefan Thomas discovered after he could not remember his one to unlock his stash of bitcoins he got for doing some work for someone. Once he realised how much they were worth  – something in the order of $200 million (at the time he received them they were worth very little) – he decided it was time to act. The mind boggles at how absurd life has become when it comes to making money in this way and losing it again so easily.

The password that was too cryptic for its own good.

I had to read several articles to understand how bitcoins work and how they differ from pound coins. To help the uninitiated like me, there is now a proliferation of beginner’s guides available, such as ‘Bitcoins for Dummies’, cartoons and online tutorials. I get it now, but it seems a strange way to make money by solving hard mathematical problems using masses of computer power and that the money is just bits on a computer.

And then came along ‘non-fungible tokens’ to add further bafflement.  When I first heard the term, images of mushrooms going mouldy entered my mind. It turns out that fungibility refers to “an asset’s ability to be exchanged with a similar asset without sacrificing its value”. Or put another way: when you borrow a £20 note from someone and  pay them them back with two £10 notes it is the same value but through using a different entity. That is it is fungible. Non-fungible, on the other hand, means the entity has to be the same – in this case the digital token. Just like a Van Gough, it is unique. If I was able to borrow a Van Gough painting I could not give back a copy of it. It would have to be the one I borrowed.

It is not surprising, therefore, to see the rich and the rash start to cash in on a new craze; to be the first to buy something that is valued in non-fungible tokens or NFTs. (To make it sound more credible the funny term has now been replaced by  the acronym NFT). Headlines were made when some artist sold a digital artwork they had made (no one had heard of before) for $6 million worth of NFTs. That is up their for a first with a very physical graffiti Banksy number. Desirable to own, and then highly profitable to resell. It reeks of hubris. Perhaps the most preposterous of all was Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, selling his first ever tweet for $2.9 million in NFTs. The mind boggles even more! But Jack’s conscience is clear because he said he will convert the NFTs he got into Bitcoins which he will then donate to charity.

Maybe I could sell my first ever blog  this way? We could all get in on the act. Part of the lure of NFTs is the uniqueness of the ‘asset’ or artwork they are exchanged for. Once bought in NFTs, it becomes a collector’s item that can’t be duplicated. That makes it one of a kind and by default, rare, and what investors are drawn to. They can then sell it on later for many more NFTs and make a huge profit. The catch is they can’t just put the money in the bank. They have to first convert the NFTs into Bitcoins, and then work out how and who will convert those into real money. But that, it seems, is part of the fun of rollercoaster funny money.

Managing Uncertainty

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 Last week I went to my local swimming baths for my pre-booked slot alongside about 25 others. On the stroke of 12.00 p.m. we walked at a distance from each other to the poolside already in our swimming togs. We stripped off our outerwear clothing at the poolside down to our swimwear – each at a physically distanced plastic chair. We then showered at alternative showers before slipping into one of the demarcated lanes.

It was strange to see strangers stripped down to their bathers with no masks on. After a couple of lengths, I rediscovered the small pleasure of smiling at one or two of them in that old-fashioned way of acknowledging each other, having seen each other before at the same end. One spoke a few words to me which I replied to about how warm the water was, while facing me bearing their face, lips, mouth, cheeks and eyes. It felt so natural to have our smiles reciprocated followed by making an inane comment or two. Even the over-powering garlic breath, emanating from another chap reminded me of how deprived we have been of ordinariness. To be made aware again of each other while stood in chlorinated Hockney-esque water felt strangely liberating. Almost in touch. But sadly, my newly discovered pool times came to an abrupt halt. With the COVID virus starting to mutate and now spreading like wildfire through the UK, the government has decided to close down all leisure facilities in our neck of the woods.

It also put an end to millions of people’s much looked-forward-to plans for the Christmas Period. In their place, a cocktail of anxiety, confusion and uncertainty had returned. Can we, should we, is it OK if we… bend the rules a little? What if and when will it end? When will we be able to meet up again normally with family, friends and strangers? When will be able to book a holiday, a cruise, hold a big birthday party, a large wedding or other social gathering, that is not restricted by numbers, wearing masks and social distancing? And so on and so on. Everything is up in the air once more; some people resigned and other’s pulling their hair out with worry, wasted effort and disappointment.

Many of us like to be in control of our lives, planning weeks, months and even years ahead, whether it is the next career move, a personal life choice, e.g., getting married, having a family, taking a gap year, what university to go to, when to retire and what to do afterwards. We often spend hours researching, reading up and asking others for advice to help us make the right decision. And then bang! Along came COVID early this year that threw a mighty spanner in the works, for us all. A big effect has been massive uncertainty worldwide – even with the vaccine in our midst now being offered to the first lucky ones.

New uncertainties have come forth. When will I get the vaccine? Is it safe? Will it work? When can I travel unmasked, shake someone’s hand, and hug a colleague again? When will we be able to experience being in a crowd again, like attending a live concert, wandering through a packed shopping mall, or feeling crushed on a university campus during a normal termtime where there are tens of thousands of students and staff thronging through a labyrinth of corridors and courtyards? We simply don’t know….and for many managing this level of uncertainty can be all too much.

To help we can take recourse to the numerous self-help books and blogs around about dealing with uncertainty – including Christine Carter’s (2020) seven tips. Many of these seem sensible and common-sense, such as accepting the situation rather than fighting it, looking after yourself (e.g. getting enough sleep, eating healthy), and giving yourself the odd treat when feeling down. One that struck me, however, as being out of the ordinary was her advice to switch perspective at various times throughout the day. Instead of imagining a frightening and unknown future that we cannot fix or even predict the likely outcomes, she suggests we should “bring our attention to our breath”.

That phrase took me by surprise. What I think she means is: we should try to increase our self-awareness at inconsequential moments, such as asking ourselves, “how are you doing right now?” every time we wash our hands or wait for the kettle to boil. But supposing the answer turns out to be bored, tired, frustrated, listless, etc., then what? Her follow through is: “attending to what is happening within us at any given moment keeps a crappy external reality from determining our inner truth”. That sounds intriguing: turning in on ourselves to block out the depressing news around us. However, I am not sure such a strategy will enable us to feel better about ourselves. Will it make us calmer, more open-minded and less reactive? It might make us worse. I’ll give it a go but, personally, a walk by the sea or laughing my head off listening to a good podcast on my iPhone keeps the bogeymen away.

The other thing I have learned during COVID, is not to get my hopes up any more about us going back to normal any time soon – meaning not to plan anything ambitious in the foreseeable future. A weekly visit to the supermarket is the limit now. I’ll only allow myself to dream again once I know I am definitely booked in for a jab. That seems like it will be a while. Then I will plan a holiday, a work trip and even a city weekend break, reimagining the familiarity of strangers, from bustling queues and being squeezed into planes, trains, pubs, bars, shopping malls, hotel foyers, waiting rooms, reception areas, etc. and being able to smile and sometimes laugh at the person/s next to me without a mask on. In the meantime, it is back to a life of endless zoom meetings among familiar faces. Speaking of which…

Dancing Queen

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Since the pandemic turned our world inside out most of us have been sat for hours on end each day in front of a display (phone, tablet, laptop or PC) interacting with all manner of virtual talking heads. We have gotten used to this way of connecting with our colleagues as the new normal – even joking about still wearing our pyjamas as no-one can see our lower half while on screen. We have also developed a new norm – turning our cameras and mikes on and off when coming in and out of focus during meetings. We don’t do this in the real world but we all do it now in the digital world. It is easier and less stressful to not be visibly present when not talking. Then there is the abrupt ending to our meetings, clicking on the ‘leave meeting’ button transports us back to our home life in an instant.
Today, I gave a keynote at a virtual conference called ISMAR20 that is about mixed and augmented reality. I have given a few invited talks now during lockdown. They are quite different in the extent to which I feel connected with the audience. Some totally detached and others more engaged. Today’s talk was more the latter. The organizers had asked me to record my talk beforehand so that I could be more relaxed during the session and also to reduce the risk of too many technical hiccups overshadowing the talk. The conference setting was a 3D virtual world; that was designed to be like a futuristic virtual campus, comprising lifelike campus buildings and luscious outdoor spaces (the actual conference was meant to have been held in Recife, Brazil).

It has been a long time since I have properly set foot in a 3D world. It required me becoming an avatar and controlling it with my keyboard as if just behind. I had a few attempts to get used to using my keyboard to move around. It is easy to move too fast and walk into or through a wall. A nice touch they had added was ‘clippy-cloppy’ noises as I walked. It almost made it feel I was walking in stilettos. For my appearance, I selected some clothing from a virtual wardrobe, dressing myself up for the occasion. I donned a blouse, skirt and jacket in contrasting colours. Instead of wearing a badge, my name appeared automatically above my head in a halo cloud that followed me around, making it easy for others to see who I was at a distance. Then I was ready to enter centre stage.


There was a lot of tech involved to switch between and to turn on and off at the right time – that needed practice. It seems virtual A/V is just as tricky to get right life as is physical A/V – if not more so. But we got there. Then when it was time for my talk I stood by the virtual podium facing the audience and my pre-recorded talk appeared on a large display behind me. It meant I could not see my slides as I ‘talked’. So, I popped up my slides on my laptop back home and listened to myself rabbiting on in the virtual space. All very strange. Sometimes I had an out of body experience.

 After my video ended, I ‘walked’ my avatar to stand besides another screen, clicked on it and there I was again, only this time, as a larger than life video feed fielding the audience questions, which the chair asked me via his avatar. At that point, there were too many of ‘me’. It made almost for an existential crisis, especially when the audio started reverberating. But I managed to cope – as you do – and answered the questions without too much waffling.

Then as I walked off the stage, I was not sure what to do with myself (there was no-one to go for coffee with) so I tried out some of the other avatar actions (like dancing, waving, clapping). Doing the samba was fun and reminded me of Theresa May’s entrance when she danced to Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’ at the Tory party conference in 2018.  But mine was as an exit to an empty space rather than as an entrance to a rousing crowd. Given the world is so topsy turvey right now  it seems apt to dance off stage than on to it. And then in a flash it was all over; I clicked the ‘quit menu option and walked to Tescos down the road to get a sandwich.