It has emerged that organisers of the 2020 Last Night of the Proms are considering ditching traditional songs like Land of Hope and Glory, Rule Britannia and Auld Lang Syne. Of course this year’s concert will be performed in an empty Royal Albert Hall (courtesy of corona) with a tiny orchestra and choir.

However the reasoning has to do with the Black Lives Matter movement, of which the guest Finnish conductor is a supporter.

Thank goodness I have recordings, both sound and video, of a Last Night to put on. The whole BLM debate is political correctness gone mad!

No information on the fate of Jerusalem (opposed by the PLF I suppose) or the National Anthem (deplored by republicans across the land).

If the Germans can have Germany, Germany above everything, what is wrong with Land of Hope and Glory? The Dutch in their national anthem still recall their German roots!

The decision to do a live concert on the Last Night during corona times was probably misplaced. To use that and the opinions of a foreign conductor to hijack the programme, making it more difficult to restore in the future, is cowardly.

A recording of a previous Last Night would have worked for most people – at least as far as the second half of the programme is concerned. I really think British conductors should be used too. If not, then the visitor should be made abundantly aware of the fact that they are a guest in a foreign country. It is not their place to meddle in those particular items of the programme.

As an organist, I sometimes have to play the national anthem of the (foreign) country I am living in. I have always felt it a great honour to do so – and nothing on this earth would persuade me to suggest that the congregation ‘sang it a little differently this time’!

The supposed glorification of a colonial past and its related slave trade is not what this is about. It is a cheap target for headline-seekers. I knew there were reasons why I decided never to live in the UK again – and this is yet another one.

The purpose of this blog is not to launch character assassinations. However, there is one figure here in the Netherlands who, in my opinion, is capitalising on his fame and expertise in one area in order to influence opinions in another.

We all have our beliefs about the transmission of the corona virus. In a free society, it is right that opinions can be expressed openly. However, this does open one up to the examination of credentials.

When you have a doctorate in one field, it does not make you an authority in other fields. The person in question has done no more than what I would term literature research on the subject of the transmission of the corona virus. His field of expertise is social geography and he has particularly made his name in the area of opinion polls. He is up in arms at the moment because a leading social media site for professionals has blocked his profile and thus his posts about the results of his literature research.

Since opinion polls can be regarded as a science in itself, simple literature research in another field threatens to undermine his credibility. When you collect information and publish the results of other people’s research, there is an inherent risk of bias. Not only have you selected which results to highlight, there is no litmus test as to when you have found sufficient evidence to support a particular point of view.

Scientists do research and publish peer-reviewed results. Similar studies might yield different results, but the devil will be in the detail. The parameters of the research have to be taken into account. Non-experts, be they government ministers or private individuals, have to judge for themselves which results support a particular strategy.

This man’s focus at the moment is on the lack of attention to ventilation and the role aerosols (tiny droplets in the air) play in the transmission of the corona virus. In my opinion, the greatest risk of becoming infected is indeed coming into contact with exhaled air from an infected person. Second to that is physical contact between people or surfaces where virus particles have been left behind.

A crowded pub or bar cannot be regarded as a ‘safe’ place to be. ‘Ventilation’ is not in itself the solution. For example, the wrong kind of airflow could end up blowing virus particles into other people’s faces, rather than letting them settle. Logic suggests that only ventilation from below would be safe, and then only if the upper layers of air can be evacuated efficiently. I really do not think it is possible to turn pubs and bars into wind tunnels!

Social distancing may be a pain, especially when not all those around us practise it. My guess is that traditional wisdom for avoiding cold and flu infections helps enormously. If you don’t want to catch the flu, you do not get up close and personal with someone who has the flu at that moment.

A flu sufferer is more easily identifiable. It has apparently been sufficiently demonstrated that you can have Covid-19 and be able to pass it on without yourself actually exhibiting any symptoms. With that in mind, we have little choice than to regard everybody we come into contact with as a potential carrier.

A full lockdown quickly cripples the economy; we have found that out already. A balance has to be struck between the freedom to move around and do our jobs, and the need to stop the spread of this virus in its tracks.

To my mind, any suggestion that social distancing is useless is ignoring plain common sense. Suggesting it is useless because other measures are not being implemented is an intellectual argument which does not address the basic benefits of social distancing in general.

‘Throwing the baby out with the bathwater’ comes to mind here.

In every time of crisis, opinions will be divided on the efficacy (and ethics) of the path chosen. Yesterday, the end of the second world war was commemorated, marking the end of a week where the two nuclear bombs used on Japan in August 1945 were remembered. Then, as now, you will find opposing opinions as to whether those bombs should have been used. Did they hasten the end of the war in the Far East? Yes. Was that the right way to go? That depends on who you ask. Did something need to be done to halt the advance of the Japanese? I think so – and I wasn’t even born until 10 years after the war ended.

Opinions in themselves do not kill. ‘Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war’ is a quote from Winston Churchill in 1954. Potentially misleading opinions, based on biased research, and capitalising on personal celebrity status is, however, non-helpful, to say the least.

Western governments in recent years have been increasing the pension age so that we will all have to work longer. Thousands around us are ignoring corona guidelines, effectively decreasing the life-expectancy of pensioners.

Let us reduce the pension age again, to 60 or even 55. At the rate we are going, many are not going to live much beyond that except in (not so) splendid isolation. Let us enjoy the decreasing number of senior years we have left; the desire to party and go on holiday is not limited to the young.

Naturally, once we are gone and forgotten, the younger generations now should have a similar time limit imposed on their senior years. Of course, the next pandemic might take care of that anyway.

The President of Russia has announced today that they have managed to produce a working vaccine for the corona virus. He says his own daughter has already had the vaccine administered to her. There are no side effects and the vaccine is effective.

Why shouldn’t we believe him?

Many will take this announcement with a pinch of salt. Although there is always a chance that the claims are true, the odds, I think, are against it.

Firstly, the scientific data is not available for verification. If I have learned one thing about the scientific community over the last 15 years, it is that data supporting claims like this should be capable of being replicated independently and verified. Until that happens, no self-respecting scientist would or could endorse such findings. That does not mean the findings are false, simply that we only have the word of a national leader.

If I were to claim I had won the lottery yesterday even though the winner had chosen for anonymity at the lottery company, you would only believe my claim if there was some evidence to back it up. Buying a luxury villa somewhere would increase the credibility of my claim; no change at all in my life-style would seriously discredit my story.

Secondly, the development cycle of a vaccine is normally much longer than would have been the case in Russia. There is a worldwide race to produce a vaccine in record time and testing programmes have been seriously reduced in length accordingly. Nonetheless, the WHO has guidelines on the third stage testing (= on human test subjects) which, it would appear, have not been followed in Russia. Without evidence to the contrary, I doubt if Russian scientists were able to perfect a vaccine any earlier than colleagues in other countries, where reliable third stage testing is not expected to provide conclusive results for several months yet. Even once testing has been successfully concluded, scaling up production sufficient for vaccination programmes will take another few months.

Thirdly, if Russians were vaccinated on a large scale, would we have access to the results in the long-term? Would the evidence that the vaccine works in practice be made available? I somehow doubt it.

Fourthly, does Russia have any other agenda here other than wiping out the corona virus? Do not forget, at the beginning of the crisis, Russia denied they had any corona infections at all, only to admit a short time later that they did in fact have similar infection patterns as in other countries. Russia does not always provide correct information through official channels. They would certainly revel in the achievement of a working vaccine ahead of other countries, as would, for example, the United States.

Is public health at the top of their agenda, or kudos? Worse still, would they initiate a new power-play with other countries with the inclusion of the vaccine in the mix?

Once Western European countries make a vaccine available to its citizens, I expect to read clear signals from the broader scientific community about the composition and efficacy of it. Make no mistake, there will be various vaccines on the market during the coming year. There will almost certainly be differences in the performance and behaviour of these vaccines. It is like that only one will be made available on the health service, while others may be available to be purchased online.

The evidence presented to us will be important, although most people will not research the background for themselves. They will rely on the media, social media and official announcements. It would be nice to think Russia’s claims today are correct, but forgive me if I prefer to reserve judgement for a while yet.

I do not use Twitter or Facebook myself so I only get to see the posts that catch the headlines on other forms of media.

Back in March and April, a columnist on a leading Dutch newspaper wrote about the high average age of corona victims: “The emotion should go from the corona debate. Dead wood is being felled, perhaps a few months earlier than without the virus. Should everyone still in the bloom of their lives sacrifice everything for that?”

Yesterday, an epidemiologist wrote in a letter a different national paper: “Do we want to continue to protect the weak until a vaccine is available, or are we willing to accept that weaker, older people die earlier?”

Not unsurprisingly, reactions have started coming in from people who take affront at being labelled ‘dead wood.’ After all, it is not just the elderly we are talking about, but also younger people with chronic health conditions, and even previously healthy people that react badly to Covid-19.

To be fair, the epidemiologist was posing the question, not stating an opinion. His point was that the official line on social distancing had little point if too many people just ignored it. The government needed to be clear on what is expected.

In my opinion, the government has been crystal clear. I understood the message, and the people I know personally understood the message too. Of course it relies on individual compliance. None of us really wants such a directive enshrined in law. The government has looked down that road but is hesitating – rightly – at the crossroads.

The problem is not the message. The problem is the large number of people that mistrust authority and experts. Healthy criticism and scrutiny is always good. The exact implementation of social distancing rules varies from country to country, but when you look at reports on the science from around the world, there is overwhelming evidence of the need to maintain a safe distance from each other and avoid unnecessary physical contact.

To use project-speak, the next Deliverable will be a vaccine, the next Milestone, a second wave. Increases in infections at the moment are well below the levels at the height of the crisis in the spring, and do not constitute a second wave. My guess is that we will see a new wave clearly in the autumn and winter, while the Deliverable will not become a fact until the spring.

That is quite a length of time we have to bridge, with the only real defence measures being social distancing. Will our respective societies be able to put the health of those who would suffer a bad outcome to Covid-19 ahead of the desire to be free to do what they want for the next six months or so at least?

One more point. In an age when western governments have encouraged more people into higher education, this hasn’t led to a corresponding increase in enlightenment. The arrogance of youth seems to have increased, along with the mistrust of science. Higher education at its best should lead to evidence-based opinions – which is what science is all about. Have we turned universities into diploma factories, focussing on the piece of paper (or parchment) at the end rather than the quest for new knowledge? This is so not my area of expertise since I never went to university myself and only have second-hand experience of academia. However, I am well able to absorb facts and data and draw conclusions.

Recent polls in different countries have revealed a latent mistrust of vaccination programmes. Whilst I do not want to get into that debate here, this doesn’t bode well for the moment a vaccine is made available to us. Such a vaccine may provide sufficient personal protection – that remains to be seen – but the corona virus will only really be driven back when sufficient numbers of people agree to be vaccinated.

I fear that will leave some parts of the world still unprotected since a world vaccination programme would not only be unprecedented, but almost certainly impossible. There are national leaders still unconvinced of the dangers of the pandemic, even after all these months, some of whom may not even be sorry that Covid-19 will dent their population figures.

We have a way to go yet. I fear the coming Milestone, and yearn for the next Deliverable.

There is a disturbing case emerging in the UK of a former government minister (junior or senior, we do not know) and sitting Conservative MP who was arrested at the weekend on suspicion of 4 counts of sexual assault.

Current guidelines and laws prohibit the public naming of the MP concerned, which is right and proper since the investigation is ongoing and he has not yet been charged.

Of course fellow MPs on both sides of the house are demanding that he be named, or at least have the whip removed (i.e. that his membership of the party be revoked, leaving him sitting as an independent MP, but also automatically exposing his identity).

Naturally, he should not be named at this stage. Aside from whether a trial will eventually return a guilty verdict or not, the investigation has to be concluded first. There is always the possibility that the allegations do not pan out. Once named, his reputation is gone forever. Should the allegations prove to be unsubstantiated, yet another innocent person will have had his life ruined for no reason.

There is a time and a place to name such a person, and that is when they are formally charged and have to appear in court.

Recent years have seen several prominent cases in the UK where unsubstantiated allegations of sexual impropriety were published too soon. Harvey Procter was one such innocent, publicly accused by what turned out to be a fantasist who also implicated other public figures like the late former prime minister Edward Heath. Cliff Richard was also named too early when the police were still only investigating allegations against him. His name was cleared too but it took its toll on him nonetheless.

Righteous indignation at not knowing the identity of the accused until charges have been brought is no argument. Years ago I was reminded that such stories entering the public domain was like a barrel of tar being knocked over: it is impossible to get all the tar back into the barrel afterwards.

Judicial procedures vary from country to country, but the civilised principle remains that a person is innocent until proven guilty. If we do not trust the police, the Prosecution Service and the courts to do their jobs, then we need to amend the laws governing their procedures. The answer is never to circumvent the rules and try a person in the newspapers, on Twitter or in any other public social forum. That is mob rule, a lynching. That might satisfy those who are baying for blood, but if you yourself are suddenly accused of something that serious, you would want the system to protect your identity until you have the opportunity in court to argue your innocence.

As an addendum to this discussion, I would personally like to see the rules on press coverage amended. All too often the press publish a story because it is sensational – only to drop it later because the interest disappears. I would like to see the press obliged to follow up stories later and – at least online – provide the information that was not available when the story broke.

Recently in the Netherlands a raid was carried out on a scrap metal business, with reports from the prosecutor’s office that large amounts of melted down gold had been found, although it had not yet been tested to see if it was actually gold. The suggestion was that money laundering was involved, although initial reports said that the supposed gold was in fact brass and couldn’t be linked to illegal transactions.

Personally, I am interested to know if indeed the metal tested positive for gold; I have my suspicions that it wasn’t. What I want to see is that the press reports quoting the suspicions of the police are followed up, so that we find out if, in fact, it was gold. If it wasn’t, then the grandstanding by the prosecutor’s office needs to be exposed for what it was.

Once information is in the public domain, then we also have the right to look back later and judge for ourselves if it was warranted or not. The internet allows for the creation of permalinks – maybe we should make publishers of such news make use of them.

It is probably the most damaging word in the English language: division. It heralds conflicts and brings uncertainty into our lives. Some of these conflicts are fought out at a distance, online even; others impact on our daily lives.

The corona crisis has seeded a new division between those who are doing their utmost to shield themselves and others from infection and those who feel it has all been exaggerated and who cannot wait to resume ‘normal’ life with all its excesses.

Some continents, like the Americas and Africa, are really struggling to reduce the spread of the corona virus. Europe has done comparatively well, mainly due to a well developed infrastructure, a reasonably sound economic foundation, and leaders who have generally managed to strike the right balance between restrictive measures and our cherished freedoms.

The problems arise when certain groups challenge that balance.

We probably still have the best part of a year to go before vaccination programmes are introduced. Even then, we will still all be guinea pigs since the long-term effectiveness of any vaccine will not yet have been demonstrated adequately. Although treatments are improving, I would still rather rely on vaccination than expose myself unduly to the risk of infection now.

It would seem that the majority of the doubters are the young. It would seem that they have not yet been adequately instilled with values of solidarity and patience, either from their parents or through their schooling. Those who are extra vulnerable to the consequences of infection were given instructions in the UK to shield themselves for 3 months. Help was available, for example, in the free delivery of medicines to the door. That is now ending. The ‘threat’, however, does not work to a timetable.

For myself, I have worked from home since lockdown in the Netherlands began. I have visited the office once in the intervening period. When I go out, I am able to use my car to get me to my destination. My travels have been limited to church, where I play the organ, and shops. I do my best to maintain social distancing when shopping, and my church has operated within the guidelines at every stage.

From my apartment in the centre of town I have observed how younger people have resumed nights out getting drunk. My fear is that the young person I meet serving me or filling the shelves in my local supermarket might have been one of those exposing themselves to infection in some bar or other the night before.

In the Netherlands, the ‘right’ to go on holiday is part of the unwritten constitution. Why that right never made it into the written constitution will remain a mystery to me. The suggestion that maybe one should skip this year and plan for next year is met by many with looks of incredulity. In their defence, there is evidence that some of the Dutch have adapted their holiday designs to reflect the current crisis. The hire and purchase of motorhomes is on the increase, as is the purchase of second homes.

In January I had booked a family room in Berlin for a week in September. Three of my travel companions are now unable to accompany me, although my permanent lodger is going to come with me. With 4 weeks still to go, I still have to wait and see if the situation in Germany, and Berlin in particular, will allow me to travel. If I am unable to travel, I will lose the paid booking, unless the hotel chain allows me to carry the booking over till next year.

The logistics of my trip to Berlin are also a challenge. You can eat out, but you have to book in advance. My hotel only provides breakfast, so I will have to plan ahead for the evening of our arrival. Berlin of course has had to face its share of protest demonstrations against the corona measures, which could well increase the risk that Berlin may shut its doors, so to speak, to visitors in the next month.

I wouldn’t mind skipping a year. I would mind losing the money I already paid for the room, but that is just money. I have been formulating a plan-B. There are day-trips in the Netherlands I can do which will furnish a holiday feeling, and there are still overnight stays possible in other places. Thank goodness I am not one of the beach holiday brigade! Nothing attracts me less than grilled lobster!

The divide? I take conscious decisions every day to limit as far as I can my exposure to the corona virus. The ‘opposition’ wants to challenge social distancing – mainly on the basis that they are either immune to or at limited risk to serious consequences from a corona infection. It is a difficult choice for some people; for others, far too easy.

Freedoms are always a compromise; they can never be absolute. Challenging the restrictions in the courts only muddies the waters. The ‘freedom’ to ignore social distancing challenges my ‘freedom’ or right to a safer environment while the threat of corona exists. Having to drive on the right hand side of the road is a restriction of freedom too, but I haven’t seen that challenged before a judge.

The restrictions at home will be lifted eventually once the medical defences are available. Then it will be up to me to make sure I get the necessary vaccination or risk becoming infected. It will take years for corona to be eradicated in less-developed parts of the world and the freedom to travel internationally should probably be balanced with the obligation to have the corona jab before travelling. Such obligations already exist for certain diseases in certain areas of the world.

Until then, we all need to bite the bullet and accept that close proximity poses a real threat to health and puts undue pressure on health care systems. We all need to drive on the correct side of the road!