Jon Stamford

For a long time, perhaps too long, we have regarded the earth, literally and figuratively, as a mother, a benign provider, supportive of our endeavours and blind to our faults. It has suited us to do so. We have treated natural resources as though they were infinite and our use of them justifiable. Our thinking has been limited to a timescale of years rather than decades, centuries and millenia. And we have been negligent of our impact on the planet’s resources, turning a blind eye to the earth’s fragile biosphere. Throughout we have assessed the extent of our damage through rose tinted spectacles, been selective with the evidence, dismissive even when uncomfortable. We have all allowed this to happen either by commission or omission.

Sure we have been vocal about the urgent need for change, with our fingers crossed behind our backs, endorsing toothless policies couched in empty language. We have made schoolkids into celebrities, patted them patronisingly on their backs whilst doing nothing. Taking a selfie of yourself with Greta Thunberg is not a commitment to meaningful action. But then it’s easier to applaud than it is to act.

How will we answer for ourselves in front of our children? How will we explain our wholly inadequate custody of the earth? How will we justify the systematic abuse of their planet on our watch? Can we really look our children in the eyes and tell them that we thought it was for the best?

We have changed the map of the world forever. All that Amazonian deforestation, who raised a hand? Islands the size of Spain made entirely of plastic. Who complained until our holiday beach snaps were littered with milk cartons, plastic toys and kinder eggs? And who, in the face of volatile petrol prices, was prepared to concede that our love affair with the internal combustion engine was an abusive relationship?

Before you bridle at my preaching, let me stand up and say Mea Culpa. I never made the connection between South American logging and climate change. I never worried about plastic mountains and valleys. I drove big gas guzzling sedans where I could have chosen differently. I admit it.

But that’s not enough. I do not absolve myself with the panacea of ignorance. The truth is, when we turn the spotlight upon ourselves, that we did make the connection between losing forests and gaining carbon dioxide. We did know that plastic would be in our environment forever. We did know that big thirsty engines polluted more. You see what I mean – we are even kind to ourselves when we know we are wrong.

I am 63. To quote Roy’s final speech in Blade Runner, I have seen things you people wouldn’t believe. I have lived through what you might consider to be the golden age of consumerism, an age of plenty. LPs and CDs reproducing music with infinite fidelity. Television and radio reaching all parts of the globe. Computers shrinking from the size of houses to the palm of your hand. The Internet and the democratisation of information. Hyperrealistic videogames. Virtual reality for those who can’t cope with real reality. I watched a man walk this on the moon. Supersonic airliners briefly shrinking the world. Cruise ships the size of cities wandering from sunspot to sunspot.

And now, in 2021, we find ourselves like acquaintances at the end of restaurant meal, our gaze downward to avoid eye contact, wondering who will pay. For pay we must. Because it’s time to realise the uncomfortable truth – that this was not our planet to abuse. We have ruined it for our children. How are we going to explain that? I didn’t know? I didn’t think it was important? I didn’t realise it was happening?

I don’t think it matters. That may seem a ridiculous position in the light of everything mentioned above so let me explain. I don’t think it matters because I feel we may already be beyond the tipping point. We have been consistently told that we have a decade to mend our ways or face catastrophic change. I don’t think that’s the case. I believe we have already done so much damage to the planet’s biosphere that we cannot reverse it. There is no consistent agreed and enforced global climate policy. Nor will there ever be one. Every climate accord has opponents. Trump (and I really hoped I would never have to write his name again) sacrificed the planet on an altar of consumerism. He had the opportunity and could just, only just, have made a difference. He chose not to, presumably secure in the knowledge that his kids would pick up the check.

Greta expressed it better than anybody when she said that our house is on fire, lending a sense of immediacy and urgency to our actions. Sadly, she, like Trump, seems no longer relevant. The prickle of conscience in 2019 was swept away in the viral terror of 2020. Greta’s message is as clear as ever. But nobody is listening. We have become obsessed with our own homes, our micro environment, that the world and its issues seem more remote.

In the 1970s, to initially only polite interest, James Lovelock began to expound his theory of Gaia. Named after the Greek goddess and conceptual embodiment of the earth, the Gaia hypothesis postulated that the entire planet’s biosphere was essentially a large symbiotic organism of infinite complexity, capable of autoregulating its own environment. In essence it responds to challenges to its own existence with appropriate correctional strategies. If a species brings value to the Gaia biosphere, conditions will provide succour. If on the other hand a species threatens the integrity of the whole, Gaia responds accordingly.

And how might Gaia respond to a species that has created all this damage? A virus perhaps that might endanger human life? Maybe coronavirus was merely Gaia’s warning. An indication of what mother Earth is capable of. Maybe explosive global warming will be her definitive response to man’s intervention. The notion of Gaia has no place, or at least no special place, for humanity. We are merely one of a great, but rapidly dwindling, number of species. It cannot have escaped Gaia’s notice that we are, in planetary terms, a bit of a problem. Maybe she’s decided to act.

Everywhere in the world, weather seems more extreme. The benign bountiful earth of Constable replaced by the violent elemental malevolence of Turner. The forests burn, the seas boil, the icecaps melt. This is not the future, this is now.

Gaia has had enough.

DBS Diary 03: more questions than answers. Fundamentally I had made my decision upon leaving the hospital after the meeting. I would go ahead with DBS. There really isn’t much else in the way of choice. Yes it could all go horribly wrong but the likelihood of that is very low. Yes it could abolish my tremor and help make me less stiff and more mobile. The likelihood of that, by comparison, is very high. And so on. In simple terms I’m balancing the high likelihood of major physiological improvement against the low probability that I could have a stroke or die on the operating table. It’s a numbers game, nothing more more nor less, with a very wide range of potential outcomes, mostly good. I don’t plan to dwell on the extremely bad outcome scenarios mainly because I have little to say of them. And in the case of the worst possible outcome, obviously I will have nothing to say. But I will be in the hands of men and women who do this every day. I am as comfortable with my decisions as I hope they are with their incisions.

Of course I should have done this first but, over the course of the last seven days, I have been speaking to many of those who have had DBS previously and their stories are illuminating. Not universal certainly, but personal and therefore all the more valid. Some have been reticent, others vocal and in the vast majority of cases, their information has been helpful in making my decision (neglecting for one moment that I had already made the decision). I tried as much as possible to get a random sample of the experience of DBS. I didn’t simply pick the zealots or doomsayers. In the end I think I got a good range of opinion from DAJ, DS, CHH, BC, BL, DP, VA, RB, BS, HK and BT. Among others. Apart from one or two who had a handful of what might best be described as cold feet or post-operative misgivings, the response was universally positive.

To be honest, I was a little sceptical initially. It felt as though they were all reading from the same script, all coerced into speaking the same lines. And were these people I did not know that view might have persisted. But these are all friends, fellow Samurai on the same path of enlightenment. Their views left me wondering what might have happened if I had summoned up the same courage say five years ago.

It’s academic of course. Five years ago I was at a different point on my Parkinson’s trajectory, a more positive point with sunlit scenery. Five years later, there are clouds in the sky and the feeling of rain on the horizon. So it’s impossible to compare directly. Five years ago I did not feel I needed DBS. I felt the drugs could manage the condition. Five years on, I don’t feel the drugs are doing the job. So it’s time for DBS.

When I say time, I do mean actual chronological time. DBS works best in patients who get a good response from the drugs. It is less successful later in the treatment sequence. Put simply, if the drugs aren’t working, don’t expect as much from DBS either. Five years ago I wasn’t ready for DBS. Now I am at that point of acceptance. The irony is that, had I been ready to accept it five years ago, I would have had a better response in all probability. Catch-22.

But what determines readiness? I’m ready, or at least I believe I’m ready now. And I base that on a number of factors. Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative disease. In other words I’m getting worse. Today was not as good a day as yesterday. Tomorrow will not be as good as today. And so on. Neurodegeneration focuses the mind somewhat. Rather like those people come to the door offering double glazing at a spectacular discount but only if you sign up on the spot. That’s neurodegeneration. So, in a manner of speaking, my brain is coercing me into reluctant surgery. But surely, it’s still the same ‘me’ making the decision whether it be today or five years ago. Well, actually no. It isn’t. Because today me is taking rather more in the way of mind altering drugs (prescription I mean) than five years ago. So now my decision is being forced by a drug crazed double glazing salesman of a brain. Not surprisingly, my mind is bullied into submission. I choose the DBS. What else can I do?

I often wonder what kind of person reads my blog. I can make guesses but generally I’m in the dark. I don’t keep metrics on my website, I don’t know how many people like, dislike, subscribe, click or whatever. I have no notion of what smileys they would use in their response or anything like that. There is no convenient little form on the website that people may complete out in order to ask me questions. My address is on the website and, with a little hunting, can be found. I don’t list the email address in the actual form it would be used – this is in an effort to minimise the number of robotic comments that would otherwise drown the website in a tsunami of spam, a deluge of defamation or an avalanche of antipathy. But if you want to send me a message, and please do, you can find the email address under the “Me” tab on the menu bar.

Why do people visit my website (if indeed they do)? Although some people may read posts and disagree profoundly, I guess that this is a minority. Very few of us will buy a newspaper with opinions diametrically opposed to our own. We might do it every once in a while to get something approaching balance on reporting but it’s unlikely that we will persist with this self-flagellation. On the whole, people buy newspapers that agree with their outlook on life. I think blogs are much the same. People do not generally continue to read a blog if its views are consistently different from one’s own. I certainly wouldn’t. Life is too short.

So this leads me to the obvious conclusion – that your public preferences, interests and private predilections are similar to mine. Perhaps not similar overall but close enough, some of the time, to find it worth returning. I only mention this because I would like to know something of your preferences. On the whole, you and I must have something in common or else you would not have read this piece or the many others on the website.

Eventually I begin to form a picture of you as you probably do of me. I think you probably have a dry sense of humour and a sceptical view of novelty. I guess you enjoy good food and can tell your foie gras from your liver and bacon. I’m suggesting you prefer French reds to Californian whites, British bitter to continental lager, Jags to Beemers. I think you would rather have a small dinner party than a huge disco, stimulating conversation to deafening shouts, malt whisky to Bailey’s, a weapons-grade espresso to a bland Americano. Perhaps you even like Wagner, although I struggle to believe that there is many more than one person out there who does, other than myself.

I would like to believe that you enjoy my writing, not just my opinions. I like word games, alliteration and hyperbole. Sometimes I choose words with studious care, like an engagement ring. At other times I grab a handful and throw them, Jackson Pollock style, onto the page. I like to keep dying words alive – like outwith, so rarely heard south of Kelso. I like making words sing and dance or stand, like a guard of honour, in unflexing line. Do you feel the same?

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you are nothing like me. Perhaps you prefer skeleton dry clarity to the well fleshed verbiage of circumlocution? Maybe you merely tolerate these lexicological longueurs in the vain hope that I will eventually get to the point.

Maybe you know me. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you have a picture of me in your mind, quill in hand, writing, after midnight, by flickering candlelight. Or perhaps you see me dictating into my computer in the bright morning sunshine, sips of coffee bringing words to mind, blinking in the light.

When you write a blog, or anything really, you invite opinion, agreement, disagreement, anger, laughter and a whole bundle of other stuff. On the rare occasions that I do receive direct feedback, it is usually pertinent, well-written and unambiguous. Mostly it is to agree, in general, with something I’ve written but to question detail. Sometimes it is to argue a counter position, forcibly and directly. Most people don’t write to me if their experience is neutral.

At the end of the day I can only guess why you read my blog. What do you get from it? Will you return? Did you return even? I would love to know your thoughts.

I’ll let you into a secret – I have been a follower, a fan even, of sumo for more than two decades. I even have my own black silk mawashi, the loincloth in which they wrestle, a gift from a sympathetic friend. Yes I appreciate the image of me in a mawashi is not for the faint-hearted and I apologise for that.

There is, of course, no sport quite like sumo and to the non-Japanese probably none more bewildering – two fat blokes trying to push each other over, yes? For the vast majority of casual observers these notions represent the limit of their understanding. Images of inflatable costumes at comedy events. The target of contemptuous laughter rather than reflection on a serious and treasured national sport with roots in Shinto and rituals over a thousand years old. Yet to disparage sumo is to deny oneself deep insight into the Japanese lifestyle and psyche. For sumo, with its infinite emphasis on belief, symbolism, ritual and meaning holds up a mirror to Japanese society.

Professional sumo in Japan is organised into six divisions but only the top two – juryo and makunouchi – need concern us. Juryo is like a giant railway station for wrestlers (rikishi) either slipping down the rankings towards retirement or stopping briefly on their road to the top. Everyone is going somewhere – acclamation or oblivion. The top division, makunouchi, consists of 36 wrestlers subdivided into a further five categories – you still paying attention? In ascending order these are maegashira, komosubi, sekiwake and ozeki.

But that’s only four categories I hear you say. Good, you have been paying attention. And yes, there is one further category, the very apex of sumo society – the grand champion or yokozuna. I’ll come to that.

In Japan, that most hierarchical of societies, the banzuke or table of rankings is everything. A measure of one’s worth against one’s fellow wrestler. Yokozunas, East and West, stand at the top of this ranking. Below them, their position determined by their performances on the dohyo, are the remaining wrestlers. The mere champions or ozeki can lose up to a third of their bouts without questions being asked. One of the privileges of achievement. There is a certain degree of fluidity in the ranks up to and including ozeki. It’s a bit like snakes and ladders. Throughout the lower ranks, a winning record or kache koshi (8-7 or better) takes the wrestler up the ranking ladder while a losing record or make koshi has him sliding down that snake. Ozeki are given a little more breathing space. A losing record in the tournament makes the offending champion kadoban (at risk of demotion). An ozeki needs to have a losing record in two successive basho to forego the rank.

Seated high above the everyday comings and goings of the banzuke, yet central to them, the yokozunas are under close scrutiny at all times. You might presume that, if an ozeki gets two shots at retaining their rank, a yokozuna might get three. Yes? Alas no. For a yokozuna there is no such leniency. A yokozuna simply cannot lose. Nor can the be demoted. The only out for yokozunas is retirement, sometimes after not-too-subtle prompting by the Sumo Association. A yokozuna who loses more than two bouts of the fifteen that compose a tournament or basho will often diplomatically acquire an injury mid-basho that necessitates his withdrawal from the tournament. Those that eschew withdrawal and fight on risk resignation. And heaven help the yokozuna who ends a tournament make koshi. It has only happened twice to my knowledge in over a thousand years. Despite these strictures, yokozuna remains the highest aspiration of any sumo wrestler, the definition of their careers.

In many ways, yokozuna is more than a mere ranking on the banzuke. Yokozunas stand apart from the rest of the classification. While the others are wrestlers representing their own stables or beya, yokozunas are essentially gods or kings with a spiritual commitment to the sport itself over their individual beya. Promotion to yokozuna is based not just on performance in the ring, or dohyo (which nonetheless needs to be exemplary), but on their dignity of character and embracing of their position in Japanese culture. Upon promotion, many new yokozunas often spend time at one of Japan’s many Shinto shrines to get them into the right frame of mind to assume the duties of a god. That’s why Japanese wrestlers have a head start. So few yokozunas are foreign but I’ll come to that later. Fewer than one in thousand wrestlers will make it to yokozuna.

Until Wednesday there had only been 72 yokozunas in the history of sumo, more than a millennium long. On Wednesday, the 73rd, Terunofuji, a Mongolian rikishi was chosen. Making a brief appearance for the media, Terunofuji thanked the authorities for their endorsement of him and promised to uphold the historic values of the yokozuna.

Terunofuji’s promotion marks the final step in what has been an unprecedented climb from the depths of the banzuke. But in reality his promotion masks flaws and inconsistencies in the appointment of yokozunas. Many overseas wrestlers feel they have to exceed higher qualifications than their Japanese equivalents in order to be found in possession of hinkaku, that elusive combination of power, skill and dignity upon which putative yokozunas are assessed. Often overseas wrestlers are found wanting in one or more of these nebulous criteria and fail to make yokozuna. Nowhere are the criteria written down. Typically at least two tournament victories without a lapse in performance in between are needed for consideration as yokozuna. Occasionally, for a Japanese wrestler such as Futahagaro, at a time when there were no other yokozunas, the bar was set as low as two runner-up tournaments. He never won a single basho as yokozuna. Or at all. Scalded this by the fallout from the premature promotions of Futahaguro, Onokuni and others, the board has tended to be reticent in its more recent dealings. Terunofuji was given the target of three successive tournament wins or equivalent, a breathtakingly tough and exacting requirement. Nevertheless he won in March and May. On Sunday he finished second only to Hakuho, fulfilling the criteria set out. And on Wednesday he became the 73rd yokozuna. Here’s how.

Banzai!

Okay, let’s start at the beginning. I have young onset Parkinson’s disease and was diagnosed with same 15 years ago, in late 2006. My symptoms, viewed with the benefit of hindsight, probably started a while earlier and rumbled along unnoticed for a couple of years.

Parkinson’s is notoriously unpredictable with some patients progressing very rapidly, others more slowly. On the whole I have not done too badly (touch wood). My neurologist is generally happy with me. My progression has been relatively slow compared with others I know who have deteriorated much more rapidly.

The drugs have helped, no doubt about that. But there comes a point when, almost unnoticed, they cease to have quite the same effect. It becomes difficult to obtain therapeutic benefit without almost equally disabling side-effects. Indeed some people with Parkinson’s find the dyskinesias worse than the tremor. And as one progresses with the condition, it becomes difficult to achieve a reduction in stiffness and tremor without experiencing dyskinesias. It’s a high price to pay and, eventually one begins to focus on alternatives.

I’ve been fortunate – I have been taking levodopa (the principal culprit when it comes to dyskinesias) for nearly 10 years now and have mostly been free of dyskinesias. This is relatively unusual. Most people experience the onset of dyskinesias after only five years of levodopa, give or take a little bit. Nonetheless, and despite the relative absence of dyskinesias, I do find that the medicines are less effective. Each tablet provides a little less benefit and does not seem to last as long. In essence, the drug wears off too quickly. This part at least is typical.

Recognising this watershed in my management of the condition, I have begun to look at alternative or adjunctive treatments. Many who experience such wearing off episodes resort to apomorphine to fill in the gap so to speak until the next dose of levodopa. This is unattractive to me for a number of reasons. Apomorphine is generally administered via a syringe into the belly fat. Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of belly fat into which to inject. My principal objection, leaving aside my dislike of needles generally, is the practical difficulty of making such an injection while experiencing involuntary movements. And yes, there are other solutions to that such as pumps. But these are cumbersome and, to my way of thinking, equally unattractive. In any case, let’s not forget that apomorphine was initially used and marketed as an emetic agent at a time when drug overdoses were common. And I’m not sure I consider that to be the ideal pharmacological pedigree for use in a condition like Parkinson’s.

There are course other drugs available which can be added to one’s smorgasbord of medication specifically to reduce dyskinesias. And for the most part they’re reasonably effective. But I can’t get away from the feeling that the general concept of adding one drug to treat the side-effects of another is somehow conceptually flawed. Okay it works but where will it end? If drug A causes side effects and drug B reduces the side-effects of drug A, how long before we need drug C to treat the side-effects of drug B? On the whole it seems to me a better strategy to try and keep the total drug payload to a minimum.

Until a decade or so ago these were more or less the entirety of your options. More drugs. More frequent drugs. Additional drugs. Higher doses of drugs. Not a desperately attractive proposition. But fortunately not the only avenue of treatment.

Over the last 10 to 20 years, as the circuitry of the basal ganglia has been more thoroughly elucidated, the focus has shifted away from the pharmacopoeia to the operating theatre. Neurosurgery is becoming (or has become, depending on your perspective) a viable alternative to the usual pharmacological rampage.

Deep Brain Stimulation, or DBS as it is more commonly written has moved from experimental technique via niche treatment to its current status as part of the treatment armametarium in Parkinson’s.

Fundamentally the procedure is simple. Electrodes are inserted into specific areas of the brain, fixed in place and connected via wires to a stimulator/battery pack implanted at the shoulder. A remote-controlled device allows one to program the stimulator and an induction collar charges the battery pack once a week.

Although at first sight rather complex and intimidating, the circuitry of the basal ganglia is now well-established. I’ll go into the wiring of the basal ganglia later in another post but rest assured that the various relay stations and points of intervention are well known. Two electrode implantation sites have proven popular – the internal globus pallidus and the subthalamic nucleus. There is not much to pick between the two implantation sites – both achieve similar effects on tremor, bradykinesia and rigidity after 12 months. STN stimulations appear better after six months. But overall there is little difference and presumably choice of location reflects no more than the preference of individual neurosurgeons.

But what does DBS do? In simple terms it replaces the levodopa or a proportion of it. And less levodopa means less dyskinesias and other side-effects. In essence, it turns back the clock. Many who have had DBS talk about going back five years in terms of symptomatology. Personally I’m a little wary of using those kinds of descriptors. DBS is still only symptomatic treatment. It does not slow or delay the process of neurodegeneration. It merely masks the underlying pathology. You are still losing brain cells at the same rate with or without DBS. But at least the journey should be more pleasant for longer.

Around 18 months ago, I had a good discussion with my neurologist and asked to be considered for DBS. Needless to say, volunteering is the easy bit. Not everybody is suitable for DBS and, like the labours of Hercules, there are many tests to pass. Okay I don’t have to clean the Augean stables or capture Cerberus but, in their own way, the pre-DBS trials are just as challenging. These involve a pretty detailed assessment of motor function All the usual stuff – finger to finger taps, touching one’s nose, repetitive stamping and clenching fists. Basically the behavioural repertoire of the average young toddler. Then there is an assessment of language and psychometric tests (is this a smiling or a frowning face?) Before the dreaded L-dopa challenge. For some reason this makes me think of the ice bucket challenge so popular a couple of years ago. But it’s nothing of the sort. In essence is a series of simple motor tests but with one uniquely horrible twist – the tests have to be completed without medication. Gruesome. Then you get your levodopa and, three-quarter of an hour later, you repeat the tests.

If all goes well and you pass with flying colours, you move onto the next stage – meeting the neurosurgical team. This includes neurosurgeons, neurologists, Parkinson’s nurses and so on. A multidisciplinary team designed to check you over once again and make a final go/no-go decision.

That should have been around August 2020 but, as you’ll recall, we had the tiny little matter of a global viral pandemic to occupy our minds and empty our operating theatres. My own choice of hospital ceased nearly all nonemergency neurosurgery for more than a year as, like many other hospitals, they struggled to maintain any kind of functionality.

So I’ve had a lot of time to think about this and whether it’s right for me. Certainly my symptoms would seem to justify DBS and the surgery is relatively routine. Bad or disastrous outcomes are relatively infrequent and, when all comorbidities are taken into account, the procedure is straightforward. But, balanced against that, it is still a throw of the dice, a leap into the unknown. I reassure myself with the thought that many have gone ahead of me and, on the whole, had good outcomes. Needless to say, being of an anxious mien, I still fret over possibilities.

I just hope that, having steeled myself to have DBS, the surgical team agrees with me on suitability. That meeting is next week. I’ll be in touch again. Bye for now. Let me know your thoughts.

DBS Diary 02: Rolling the dice.

I had a phone call yesterday afternoon. The usual thing – number withheld. Not normally the kind of phone call I would answer. Mostly nuisance calls, people trying to sell me insurance, invitations to timeshare evenings, free valuations of property and the usual get rich quick schemes. Experience has taught me not to answer these calls. The vast majority leave no message.

But for some reason I can’t put a finger on, I decided to answer this one. A soft-spoken Welsh voice asked for me by name, explained who he was in a manner credible to me and asked a couple of legitimate security questions.

He explained that they had received my letter of a few weeks ago outlining my concerns over their decision-making process, acknowledged the validity of my arguments and had chosen to reverse their original decision. A couple of letters would follow within a few days to confirm what he had said by phone. I thanked him politely and he reciprocated, thanking me for my understanding.

Who was it? The DVLA.

And the decision? To rescind their original revocation of my driving licence and to reinstate the aforementioned.

I have always felt that there is virtue in civility when writing letters of complaint. When the DVLA had originally revoked my driving licence I chose, rather than write a long tirade of angry impotent bluster, to present my arguments politely but firmly, inviting them to think again, to reflect upon what I felt was too hasty a decision.
In essence I asked them, in the general tenor if not explicitly the same language of Oliver Cromwell:-

“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken”.

I didn’t actually use Cromwell’s words but the sentiment was there.

And as I said, he thanked me for my understanding. “Most people just rant and rage at us” he said.

“I can imagine” I said.

Manners … Maketh … Man.

For months now we’ve been told that 19 August will be “Freedom Day”, the symbolic lifting of most if not all pandemic-induced restrictions. Indeed, so imprinted on the national psyche has this date become that its preeminence overcomes all reason. We will apparently reopen for business/leisure irrespective of any countermandering considerations. Apparently so strong is the government’s faith in vaccination that its collective myopia towards the more stark statistics holds sway.

Apparently the UK is now a safe place to visit and live. You need have no fear of coronavirus infection here. This is the message coming loud and clear from the Prime Minister and his apparatchiks. The link between infection and hospitalisation is broken. All is well.

If you’ll forgive me a brief profanity, that is – to use the correct scientific term – utter bollocks. The notion that one is protected completely, sealed into our own immunological bubble, by two jabs of a vaccine is a palpable nonsense. Let me give you an example – a good friend of mine held a dinner party outdoors three weeks ago for six people. All were double jabbed. All six caught Covid at that dinner party. At least one was hospitalised. So if you believe that two jabs is the route to immortality, think again.

Throughout the last several months of lockdown, the government has subtly shifted from its initial position that science was the sole determinant when lifting restrictions to its current cavalier approach in which good news trumps good science. So determined is Johnson to be able to put on his happy face that all reason has been scattered to the four winds.

Let’s examine some stark statistics. During the second wave of infection in the UK, cases peaked at around 75,000 per day. Current rate of infection is around 25,000 cases per day. If it follows the previous wave (and there is a evidence to support the view that it will be faster, being the Delta variant, then we will hit 75,000 cases a day around early September. And there is reasonable evidence that it will exceed 75,000 cases a day by significant margin shortly thereafter.

Now I’m just a jaded old scientist – I’ve seen it all before – but the disconnect between political pragmatism and pandemic proportions has never been more striking than at present. All the science tells us not to lift the lockdown. But the need for good news apparently trumps all reason.

But perhaps the most remarkable sight of all was the presence of Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance apparently toeing the political line. Shame on you, gentlemen. We were relying on you to drive a juggernaut of logic through the vanities of government policy. Sadly, you seem to put your duty to public health in the wrong hands.

So where do we stand? About 15 months ago I remember hearing Boris Johnson thinking aloud and, briefly flirting with the idea of a “take the hit” strategy. In essence herd immunity. It’s hard to believe that more than a year later he is in essence asking the same question again.

The idea of such a strategy being adopted in the presence of this new hyper- infective variant gives me chills. Yesterday there were 400 hospitalisations for Covid. If the government’s own projection is accurate, the health service will be swamped within a month. And probably worse than during the second wave. That’s the reality.

“Dictated by data not dates” said Boris. Yeah, whatever happened to that idea?

Since 15 February 1998, the skyline approaching Gateshead has been dominated by a gigantic semi-abstract sculpture, 20 m tall and 54 m wide, overlooking the A1 as you approach from the south. Like the Colossus of Rhodes, standing over the road. You can’t miss it.

I have always been impressed by The Angel of the North. It seems to me to be the kind of civic artistic/engineering project that rarely finds funding. We are, at civic level, a rather peevish nation disinclined to pump money into large public gestures. The French think nothing of placing glass pyramids outside the Louvre. The Germans are happy to see the Reichstag wrapped in fabric. But in Britain? Surely not. So it took some fairly visionary thinking (in UK terms anyway) to see this project through to completion. There were objections all the way with arguments ranging from the ideological – it looks like a Nazi sculpture to some – to woollier counters that it would cause car crashes on the A1 or even, most risible of all, interfere with TV reception. Even its creator, Antony Gormley, was disparaging, at one point dismissing it as “motorway art”. I’m surprised it hasn’t been called to account for the coronavirus outbreak.

Objections have largely faded away since the plans became architecture. What looks deceptively simple on paper, banal even, is lent an undoubted presence by its sheer scale. What seems enormous from the road is positively gigantic when approached on foot, its presence and dominance unquestionable. This is no “blight on the landscape”, no “carbuncle on the face of the earth”. This is a masterpiece, plain and simple.

But what does the Angel say? I have seen countless pictures of the Angel of the North, driven past it by car and train but, only last week, did I approach the statue on foot. And to do so is to be drawn in to another layer in the onion of its meaning.

I know what you’re thinking. “Jon’s lost it”.

I don’t think so, well not over this at least. Ask yourself this question – what is this statue saying? Personally I think the posture of the statue is ambiguous and deliberately so. It’s gesture, arms/wings outstretched can be interpreted many ways. Are the arms and wings a single structure – in other words does it have a pair of wing arms or are they separate, arms tightly by the sides, wings outstretched. Arms, even vestigial arms, held firmly to attention suggest a subservient response to authority. The wings then might be seen as in conflict, spread in silent opposition to that same authority.

Does the statue stand in defiance of the perfidious South? Are the outstretched arms blocking access to the North to the southerners? Do they speak loudly and say “you shall not pass” in recognition of centuries of economic exploitation by Westminster?

Are the outstretched wings a display, like those of tropical birds, a gesture of potential, inviting interest as potential suitor? An invitation rather than a repudiation?

Are the wings meant to symbolise some union between earth and sky? Gormley talks of connections with the ground and the mines in the region, perhaps alluding to the transmogrification of coal into air by burning.

Who knows? And ultimately, who cares?

For many locals, it still known as the Gateshead flasher.

First introduced by McVitie and Price in 1927, the Jaffa cake is nominally 54 mm in diameter and consists of a layer of sponge, then orange jelly, topped with plain chocolate. A beautiful marriage of three components into the very apotheosis of snack confectionery.

I don’t plan to become embroiled in the ‘is-it-a-biscuit-or-a-cake’ debate so let’s put that one to bed immediately. It’s simple really. Ask yourself this question: what happens to a biscuit when left out for a few days? Now what happens to a cake under the same unfortunate circumstances? And the final part of this baking invigilation – what happens to the Jaffa cake?

If you have answered those questions honestly you are led to a single inescapable conclusion. Biscuits become soggy, cakes dry out. And what does the Jaffa cake do? That’s right, it dries out. It is therefore a cake not a biscuit. Point proven. We’ll hear no more.

In any case there is a clue in the name.

And as if that wasn’t enough, the Jaffa cake is legally a cake not a biscuit. In 1991 a VAT tribunal ruled that it was a cake, vindicating McVities’s submission. Lest you think this to be frivolous legislation, be aware that biscuits and cakes are taxed differently in the UK. It was a matter of some financial import that the Jaffa cake be assigned correctly and could finally come out of the closet as a cake after years of living a lie.

Experts were called and duly gave evidence. McVities submitted that the product’s texture was that of a cake. The Crown countered that the Jaffa cake was the size of a biscuit and therefore conceptually one. McVities drew attention to the name of the product. Unbowed, the Crown contended that Jaffa cakes were typically sold alongside biscuits not among the cakes. McVities fought back, arguing that the product’s major constituent was sponge not biscuit. The Crown responded that they were eaten with fingers like a biscuit. A long and bloody legal tussle, taking the machinations of a fine legal mind in Mr Donald Potter QC to finally adjudicate in favour of McVities and their cake case and make his ruling accordingly.

The biscuit movement was trounced, sent packing to lick their wounds. Don’t get me wrong – biscuits are part of the cultural heritage of the UK. Who would wish to be without such delights as the jammy dodger, the chocolate hobnob, the ginger nut, even – dare I say it – the mighty custard cream. Fine products all, proud flagbearers of the biscuit tradition. One might even, to placate our colonial cousins, grudgingly concede a place to the Oreo cookie in the biscuit pantheon. All of which cookie controversy, bakery ballyhoo and general stuff and nonsense is irrelevant here. Because the Jaffa cake is a cake.

And a prize-winning cake at that. In 2012 the Jaffa cake was top of the pile, winner of that most coveted of crowns the “bestselling cake or biscuit in the UK”. As a long-term advocate of the little orangey blighters, it was like watching your own child’s graduation and acknowledging, with expanding midriff, one’s own role in that retail triumph.

The nation loves Jaffa cakes. In fact the scale of manufacture is breathtaking. A production line 1.6 km in length (that’s a mile to us old traditionalists) winds its way through a factory covering an acre round-the-clock to satisfy the country’s sweet tooth.

For such a magnificent exemplar of the baker’s art, it is astonishing that McVities never registered “Jaffa cakes” as a trademark. Leaving aside what must have been a serious financial miscalculation, one cannot ignore the extent to which cheaper supermarket imitations have besmirched this noble brand. Waitrose Jaffa cakes are one thing but can you imagine the Jaffa cake in the hands of Aldi? It’s like passing the port to the right at a regimental dinner. You just don’t do it.

I am ambivalent about Jaffa cake variants. On the one hand I’m a traditionalist but at the same time I like to reward endeavour. We should probably gloss over whether something flavoured with a fruit other than orange can truly bring honour to a product with the word Jaffa in its name. Nonetheless, the above nominal infelicities notwithstanding, McVities make limited editions from time to time with pineapple, lemon and lime, strawberry and blackcurrant flavours. I have seen generic Jaffa cakes with raspberry filling and even black cherry versions finished with white chocolate. This year McVities have even released passionfruit Jaffa cakes! The company seems determined to span the globe of flavours. Let’s hope they stop short of durian.

But of course it all bears witness to the enduring love affair between the British public and this ‘grand dame’ of teatime. To paraphrase Harold Macmillan, we’ve never had it so good. We live in a Jaffa cake golden age.