We can do it

26 March 2020 (Day 7) - One week to go! Then we can at least get out in the fresh air to walk and run, and bike when the better weather comes.

In the meantime, our days are settling into something like routine. Karen sews, reads her newspapers, magazines and novels – all delivered online, of course – and gets in her Fitbit-mandated 250 steps every hour. I read, puzzle, run around the apartment, blog, tinker with photographs. We text and email with friends and family. In the evening, we watch Netflix, though no more than usual.

We can do this, folks. It’s not so terrible. Besides, the alternatives are worse.

Every other day or so we get on Portal with Caitlin, Louis and Bob. I’m not a huge fan of Facebook, but I have to admit that Portal, Facebook’s videophone platform, has been a huge help in bridging the distances in our family. We had always used Skype before, but this is a significant improvement.

You can find out more about Portal at this website, but in brief, it’s a $200 video camera with built-in computer smarts that you connect to your TV. It connects to the Net over Wi-Fi and presents an interface on the TV screen that lets you place and end Facebook Messenger video calls. It does a bunch of other extraneous stuff too.

So now, instead of a tablet or 11-inch laptop screen – or, in Caitlin’s case, often, an iPhone screen – we’re looking at an image that fills our TV screens. What I found astonishing when we started using Portal was how good the video was. Other than the rare time the connection goes a little sideways, it’s way better than we ever had with Skype. There is no or little pixilation. The audio and video are more or less synchronized – often not the case in our experience with Skype. The video quality, at its best, is better than pre-HD broadcast. I have no idea how they do it.

The camera will also automatically zoom and pan, following people around a room. Karen and I typically sit side by side on the couch so what Caitlin sees is us filling most of the frame. But Caitlin and Louis, especially Louis, are in constant motion. The camera follows them and zooms in and out to include everybody it can. It’s a bit gimicky, but it means we can talk to Caitlin and Bob while also watching Louis as he trundles around their sitting room.

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Desert Island: I’ve been listening to Franz Schubert’s “Trout Quintet” for almost as long as I can remember. It never disappoints.

This version, with the French brothers Capuçon – violinist Renaud and cellist Gautier – and pianist Frank Braley, is one of a gazillion. I’ve never heard one I really hated, but this one is particularly pleasing. It’s the kind of music that can make converts to classical – very accessible, very tuneful, and cheerful.

Dirty Hippy: Seminal early work from the 2017 Nobel Laureate in Literature.

This was actually my brother Steve’s album when we were growing up. I hated Dylan back then – I was a Beatles/S&G kind of guy and thought Bob flat-out couldn’t sing. I came around to him years later. This one is raw, funny, simple. “Talkin’ World War III Blues” seems particularly appropriate for the times. By the way, if you want to read what Bob had to say when he won his Nobel prize, it’s here.

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Photos of the Day

Getting to know our neighbours across the street - cool home office!

Running for her life

The building site across the street - this is not social distancing

Hello neighbour!

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The Cryptic Corner

Gosh, I’m surprised that none of my legion of followers could solve the cryptic crossword clues I’ve been posting.

The last one was “Order a car (4).” It’s a double-meaning clue. “Fiat” is an admittedly little used English word meaning a decree or arbitrary order. Fiat is also, of course, an Italian brand of automobile.

So there ya go: double-meaning clues.

Another type, I think of as hiding in plain sight – the answer, that is – or the anti-anagram. Here’s an example: “Craft in which wives seldom excel (6).”

The cue here is the phrase “in which.” Sometimes setters use “some of” or variations. You find the answer in the letters of the words in the cryptic part of the clue, in the order they appear but spread over two or more words.

In this case, the non-cryptic clue is “craft” – but “craft” as in “water craft,” not “craft” as in macrame, as the setter wants you to think. The answer is VESSEL, made up from the last three letters of “wives” and the first three of “seldom.”  The word “excel” is pure diversion.

Here’s another one to chew on: “Heroic tale in The Pickwick Papers (4).”