Along with Adam, the Catholic Church by ancient tradition recognizes Eve as a saint, and the traditional liturgical feast of Saints Adam and Eve has been celebrated on 24 December since the Middle Ages in many European nations – including Blighty.
The highly salacious “you’re dead to me” podcast , explains that in the middle ages, priests and courtesans celebrated the couple’s nudity with live stage shows until these were banned for bringing sainthood into disrepute.
These nudey shows were known as paradise plays and they may also have given us the Christmas tree as they featured the tree in the garden bearing forbidden fruit. Early trees were decked with apples (think Story of O).
The sanitised tree of today
Advent, of which the 24th is the final day, was supposed to be a time of fasting but the number of saints days leading up to the big bash on the 25th means that this was more honoured in the breach than the observance.
Bringing home the bacon
I’d like to think that I’m doing my equivalent of fasting, staying at my (virtual) desk until the grim end, but Stella has plans for me and I will shortly be off to M&S who are doing a turkey sale (well a yellow labelling). I’ve been stocking up the larder a couple of weeks now , to the delight of our local shops which are all but empty of the usual office workers. One shop has even taken to offloading excess flowers on us!
Our normal practice is to go to the Smithfield Christmas Eve auction but this has been cancelled this year due to – you know what. So I”ve only got this video to watch.
Goodwill’s not the only thing that’s spreading
Covid has made little impression on Stella and my health in the last 12 months, I had my first touch with the virus at the end of 2020. However, most families I know are isolating and if you are among them , I wish you the happiness of your own company.
We appear to be doing the mass immunisation thing that the Government originally contemplated back in February of last year. Stuart McDonald, a friend to this blog through out the pandemic was on the TV this week giving us an update on the breach of the 100k daily infections target rubicon. We got there over a week ago.
I know y’all want to talk about the 100,000 reported cases milestone but I’m an actuary and a pedant and it’s all about specimen date for me! I expect @statsgeekclare would approve. pic.twitter.com/rqXSmQ1KGp
— stuart mcdonald (@ActuaryByDay) December 23, 2021
Lambeth has now claimed the Covid hotspot crown for the UK and will be Christmas #1
Where is the UK’s Covid hotspot?
The top 10 areas in the whole country, out of almost 9,000, are all in a narrow area from Brixton through Clapham to Tooting.
In west Brixton (Acre Lane) last week, roughly one in ten people got Covid. pic.twitter.com/A8trn9Wy53
— Rob Blackie (@robblackie_oo) December 23, 2021
My son, who lives on the Covid frontline in St Ockwell, is at 24 double vaxxed and boosted. I am proud of his conscientious mask-wearing while being aware that he and his friends are potential agents of Omicron.
Are LFTs the new toilet rolls?
Meanwhile, we are down to our last five LFTs and my lady of Boots (unfortunately not called Eve) is giving me the nod this morning as to whether this afternoon’s delivery will bring a few much needed boxes.
The panic over toilet rolls running out seems a distant memory but I suspect that somewhere in the City of London there are boxes selling for bitcoin. There is not a circle of hell yet devised for LFT hoarders, but the Inferno is due a re-write and I’d be happy to provide content.
So I’ve been running over to Basinghall for a daily PCR instead , the results of which are telling me how lergy-free I was two days ago. I’m keeping my LFTs back for the next live event where I’ll have to flash my “I’m clean Qcode”, not that anyone knows whose Qcode is whose.
Maybe some entrpreneur is already selling clean codes on the dark web. I’d Adam and Eve just about anything right now.
Henry, I love your kitchen! People have been telling me for years that you’re a marmite person. Happy Christmas, Adrian
Close scrutiny will show that the marmite bottles have Stella’a name on them – happy Christmas Adrian and thanks for all your comments this year!
LFD hoarding might be part of the problem but I suspect the system was simply overwhelmed by demand with a combination of increased infections => increased contacts => increased testing + the new rule that says you can avoid self-isolation if fully vaccinated by doing daily tests for 7 (or 10) days + Christmas => increased contacts desired so the prudent will be increasing optional testing + poor anticipation of demand / lack of notice of rule changes to supply chain
In my household due to a close contact getting positive we’ve gone from using ~ 3 / week (we don’t go out much!) to 3 / day. At a friend’s house they’ve gone from ~7 / week to 5 / day.
On a brighter note no-one I know is seriously ill which is a stark contrast to mid-2020 when I lost several friends to C19.
Merry Christmas all!
Hello Henry,
Your photos and comments above infer that you have Christmas well ‘sorted’. Perhaps an Actuary’s approach is the desirable system…!
Do have an enjoyable time and my best wishes to all your Family for both Christmas and the New Year
Tim Simpson
PS: The Story of O – I don’t recall anythng in the Bible of that title…! Nor do I readily recall in the ‘dodgy’ French/English journalist’s novel anything as innocent as Christmas trees with apples. A serpent was about the only thing that wasn’t involved…?