The shots this week were all taken of people waiting for a procession in Lisbon. Already seeing pictures of people congregating is starting to look really strange. It is insane how quickly what was once usual becomes utterly unusual. And how the abnormal becomes normal. Our worlds have shrunk considerably but we adapt.
I have never been indoors this much in my entire life but I accept this is how it must be. Having been sick with the virus (still untested but not possible its anything else) for last 10 days has actually helped me not climb the walls as have been wiped out and my worry is actually when I start to feel better and have normal energy levels. My other medical condition is I have ‘ants in my pants’ so having to deal with continued confinement might exacerbate this insect ridden underwear syndrome but I will endure as we all must. Like everybody, am already adjusting to this highly bizarre and surreal existence and memories of my former life are already fading.
Hope you are all coping okay. Even though we are all going through the same thing it doesn’t always feel like it as we are all in isolation and living it separately. It wasn’t untill last night when so many of us on our street came out to applaud the NHS did I physically see my neighbours who are all going through the same thing. To hear the cheers and the applause was so uplifting and connected us all. We are all in this together and we mustn’t ever forget it. It is our sense of togetherness that will help us get through it.
This is now a waiting game and we have to accept it might be a long one at that. This is no sprint, its a marathon race and we need to settle in to this new and very surreal existence. Patience and calm, not panic and worry are the order of the day. They will get us through this. And as a return to ‘nomality’ is potentially a long way away we have to prepare to be in this for the long haul. Don’t fight it. Get used to it. Appreciate what you have, not focus on what you don’t. ‘Survival is Victory’ and all that . Survival was, in fact, all that ever mattered but we had forgotten this. Maybe now, when everything has been stripped away from us, all the bullshit, all the nonsense, we will realise this again.
If you know anyone who is quarantining on their own, give em a shout, make sure they ok. A lil chat goes a long way. I have to say that one of the positives of this increasingly surreal situation is that if you phone someone they actually take the call. Everyone’s available. Everyone wants to chat. The ratio of answering machines to pick ups has drastically reversed. Could this be the thing that sees the return of phone conversations, the once dominant form of communication now deposed and replaced with text based interaction? Who knows but ‘it’s good to talk’ as an old BT campaign used to say back in the 80s, which was probably the last time someone took my call.
So lets keep the airwaves open, and as my friend Grant said, “we might as well because nothing else is”. Ironically it might be this enforced isolation that makes us realise how important it is to stay connected and to feel part of a community. It is, in fact, more than important. It is essential to our well being.
This is a time for social distancing not emotional distancing. If you are self-isolating together be kind to one another. Important to understand that we are all going to react to this in different ways. And just because someone ain’t saying anything don’t mean they ain’t feeling it. So share your concerns, don’t hold them in..and listen to each other. And give each other massive amounts of leeway. Like beyond stacks. When this is all over, then you can witter on incessantly about that utterly inconsequential thing that is bugging you. Just let everything go. This ain’t no-one’s fault and this definitely ain’t the time to be falling out. This is the time for staying tight.
As you may or may not have guessed, I am not actually out on the streets of Lisbon currently. I am stuck at home like most others. Me & Mrs B have been self-isolating all week as sick with poss/poss not Covid-19. ( mebbe 17 or 18 ;) If we do have it, luckily it is mild version & similar symptoms to Tom Hanks, no joke but the joke is that’s about all we can go on as can’t get tested. So these shots were taken on a trip last year and haven’t had a chance to go through them till now. I am also posting these in the midst of all this madness because its a way of travelling without moving.
With the current global lockdown and everyone isolated indoors it feels like virtual travel is definitely the order of the day. It feels like this is what the internet was designed for. To keep us connected when we can’t do so in the real world. And to keep us distracted. We need diversions during this indefinite period. You cannot pay attention to this shit storm all the time. It will drive you bat shit crazy. So maybe ease up on the constant drip feed of round the clock bulletins and let your mind wander elsewhere from time to time.
For what its worth I am doing daytime corona, nighttime escapism. I saw on Netflix that all the movies that were trending were virus related which to me seems crazy. That’s like watching airplane disaster movies on a plane. You need to stay informed and keep abreast of the latest developments but you also need to stay sane so make sure you give your brain a rest.
Wall to wall worry is not going to help get you through this. You need time outs so am providing shots of elsewhere in the hope that helps. Obvs if you live in Lisbon (hello Paddy, dermot, fernanda!) this might be less of an escape but at least it might let you mentally meander to a time when Corona was just a beer.
Some of my aforementioned mates were part of the Brexodus that moved to Lisbon after the referendum (remember those happy times when we just spoke about the EU) and after visiting them last year I realised it pretty much ticks every box of what I want a city to be. The vibe, the people, the architecture, the way of life, the food, the nightlife..its all top draw. And from a photographic point of view, it is superb. So many incredible faces, you can barely turn without seeing a magnificently character on ever corner. The light is stunning, noticeably so, I don’t know why, but its truly breathtaking as it makes all the colours of all the buildings and the crystal blue sky pop like HDTV. (yes, fraid these shots are in bnw as still on my colour strike as I was depressed about the world before the film Contagion became a reality show!)
I have a feeling CoronaWorld ain’t going anywhere anytime soon so we might have to get used to not going anywhere for a while which is why digi-travel is the solution. This virus has brought the globe to a standstill and maybe that is not such a terrible thing. We go round and round and we never stop for long enough to work out what the fuck we are doing or where we are going. Both as individuals and as a species.
I feel life is relentless and I always wished that it would be possible for everything to just stop. To freeze everything. Just to get a time out. Just to have a breather. Just long enough to stop chasing your tail. They say be careful what you wish for…
I hope this enforced time out will give us time to reflect and realise that what we need to as a species is put the brakes on everything we were doing anyway. I hope we will learn from this and not just go back to normal after this has blown over and not learn from the experience and just return to the round and round…maybe the positive is that Corona will show us how we can live without relentless consumption & travel and put us on a regenerative path towards sustainable living. We must not let this opportunity go to waste.
I will be posting more shots of Lisbon up next week as I want to continue to ride the magic carpet of virtual travel…because I am housebound but also because once again I dream of Europe where they are doing whatever is necessary to put the safety of their people first which involves a total lockdown. Why aren’t we? No-one fucking knows. We are currently run by an arrogant, uncaring imbecile – a terrible combo at the best of times.
Stay safe out there people…and stay strong. Stubborn optimism is the order of the day. Don’t let this shit get you down. It shall pass. And meantime…all aboard the pixel plane!
This week’s shots have revolved around the ousting of May, the paralysed state of Britain, and the divisive and currently destructive nature of our national identity. And I won’t mention the ‘B’ word as I don’t want to give our new political party any free press. Basically, we are up to our ears in shit and the more we try to dig ourselves out the deeper we sink. And it now feels that this process will eventually dismantle, from the inside out, the very flimsy structure that is already barely holding  this very confused country and its people together. But we are anything but together. And we are  definitely more against than together. We are officially in conflict. A ruptured society now at odds with each other. And it is getting odder and odder by the minute.
And what is much worse than all of this is that all the while we all focus on this shit, our government (if you can even call them that because they are absolutely not governing) is not dealing with all the services and industries that are going down the swanny (which is Brit for ‘its all fucked’).
May exclaimed (as shown on front page of newspaper in tuesday’s shot) “I did all I can”. Which was what exactly?
You did all you can to neglect those in need and to make things infinitely worse for those who were already struggling.
You did all you can to dismantle all the services and support systems that stopped people falling through the cracks.
You did all you can to ignore the most pressing problems in our society and allowed policies that clearly don’t work to continue to destroy people’s lives regardless.
The worst thing is you did all of this just to bring in the ‘B’ word and you even failed to do that..
The homeless guy laid out next to the discarded remains of her bullshit statement summed it all up for me. Hollow words, no action, fuck all concern. Just pointless platitudes surrounded by genuine misery. We ignored the suffering of millions in our own country as their opportunities and incomes decreased through the heartless implementation of austerity policies and have watched as so many slip into poverty and destitution now we wonder why they are angry. Who can fucking blame em? Their response to indifference and inaction was to vote with their anger and until we acknowledge their grievances and attempt to solve them we will never be free of this. Calling them idiots and racists clearly isn’t working. Racism is the act of generalising the motives and actions of entire demographics of people with the same derogatory characteristics and that is exactly what is being done to the Leavers by the Remainers. Just sayin’…and even if you hate the haters, you are still a hater. Only understanding will lead to a solution.
And more than being  a divided state we are a limbo state. Nothing more than a question mark. I have stated this before but when I passed this doorway the other day it felt like the sign that our temporary status is going to become  a permanent one. We are going to remain (no pun intended) a question mark. Uncertainty creates anxiety, fear and friction. Welcome to the (Un)united Kingdom, we hope you enjoy your stay…unless you aren’t from here, in which case, we will try to make you feel as uncomfortable as possible about being here…
p.s sorry for firing off yesterday’s post early, scheduling error, I did amend the post & added an alternate shot as some way of compensation. which I thought would then arrive again in your inboxes the next morning but it didn’t..but you can view here if you so desire: https://babycakesromero.com/myldn-1287/
Dublin was my last stop on my whistlestop tour or Europe before the portcullis came down. And now it looks like it might not. It appears the lever is stuck. And the guy pulling the lever has gone on his lunch break. And all the Maybot’s horses and all the Maybot’s men can’t seem to get their shit together to work out how to make it work, mainly because it shouldn’t be coming down in the first place. We might officially be in the midst of the greatest period of ‘fannying about’ in world politics in the history of mankind. And most of us here can’t bear to watch or listen anymore. We are the dying animal, shot by the hunter, just praying we will be put out of our misery sooner rather than later. But the hunter’s having  a fag and doesn’t give a shit what pain he is causing to his wounded victim. And…and that’s probably enough metaphors to be going on with in one post..basically, we’re still fucked and looks like we will remain so for the foreseeable future, not that it looks like we really have one anymore.
We are teetering on the brink and after all the nonsense of the last two years its difficult to believe that this  god almighty shit show need never have happened. And despite all  the appalling mismanagement of Maybot and the MPs to resolve this it is not really their fault as Brexit was an impossible puzzle, ‘ a fucking riddle that can’t be solved’ as Danny Dyer so eloquently put it. There is still really only one person to blame for all of this and that is Cameron who called the referendum on the biggest and most incorrect assumption of all time. Namely that no-one would want to rock the boat and would play safe. And this is because he was basically relying on people following the old maxim: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But what he didn’t realise was that Britain was in fact broken. And he had personally broken it. His (and Osborne’s) destructive policy of austerity had ripped out the framework of our society in the decade leading up to this idiotic decision and he was painfully unaware of the misery he had caused. Not that its about blame at this stage. We are way past that but we should all at least agree that Brexit was a symptom of the problems present in the country, not the cause but it was very much like bringing a match to a paraffin party.
Tip-toeing back from the abyss of Brexit despair, I found myself in a very cool buzzing city. Dublin has a great vibe and there is a lot to love about it and not much at all to dislike. It feels like a city on the up and up. Had a great time although I did spend most of my time there begging people to marry me and Mrs. Romero so we can get a European passport. Some interest but no firm commitment, much like Labour’s response to the People’s vote. Bada bing!
I will be back in London next week to document the continued crumbling of our country…anarchy in the u.k might soon not just be a song title. Altogether now..I am an anti-christ!
Stockholm is a great city. Its beautiful, the people are friendly and courteous, transport is excellent, food is good. Apart from it being at the expensive end can’t really fault it. And you can help but feel as you walk around (and I walked around a lot) that this is a city that is concerned for the welfare of its citizens and want them to have a good life. It feels like they genuinely give a shit about their wellbeing. Sweden has over the last few decades been a poster child for equality and how it drastically reduces most of the problems in societies. It has sadly had a bit of a lurch to the right of late and the market forces that has changed so many other places are now closing in here but hopefully they will be able to keep them at bay and remain a true example of how positive countries can be. They just need care and to have respect for everyone, no matter what they do..oh and they need to tax the shit out of those that can afford it so that everything can be provided for. There is no real other way round it.
Below are a very random collection of observations from my time there with the occasional explanation…
It was just a wee bit colder (-15) there than in U.K but all the more beautiful for it.
This was taken at the Fotografiska  museum (as was wednesday’s post) and it is the best venue dedicated to photography that I have ever been to. Great curation, stunning building, killer view. If you are ever there go. There is one coming to Whitechapel in London soon and I can’t wait to see it.
Museum of Modern Art
From Gilbert AND George’s Fuckosophy
Don’t stare, he’s got a complex about his height as it is…and if you don’t quit gawping I’ll do the same to you..
Tiny people watching normal telly or giant telly with normal sized people?
This seems like a normal scenario but I found this highly disturbing. That man is actually feeding a very realistic but very fake baby. He was engaged in this act for a long time and he looked normal and no-one approached him but it kinda freaked me out.
