In recent weeks we have been subjected to a torrent of words and images suggesting that we have to adapt to a "new normal". Jools Holland's weekly music program is no longer a sequence of live bands playing to a live audience all crammed together in a studio resembling a live venue. This format has been replaced by Skype/Zoom links between him and his guests, and the transmission of archive performances. Which of these is normal, and which is abnormal? Judging by the fact that virtually every other program (and advert) on TV is currently resorting to internet links and grainy Skype footage, is this constant barrage of people talking from home into phones/laptops to be accepted as the new normal? TV studio discussions can only occur when participants are "socially distanced" at least 2 metres apart (a distance which varies from country to country and for which there is no logical scientific rationale. It was a number plucked out of thin air). Meeting friends and walking together at this 2 metre distance apart is now being programmed into us as normal. This is how people in New York City are being monitored: "Don't worry", people say, "this is just temporary". "Things will go back to how they were as soon as "it is safe", or "we find a vaccine" etc. " Really? These kind of measures, once in place, are never lifted completely, and at the first sign of a "spike in cases" (easily created/justified by false statisitics), are clamped back down again. So what is normal?
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Crossroads blogThe random thoughts of 99th Monkey . . . an occasional rant and other reflections in the hall of mirrors. Archives
October 2023
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