URSABLOG: Apprehending The Present
The other evening, I took a walk around the centre of Athens having duly texted ‘6’, with my name and address to the authorities. Those outside Greece will have no idea what I am talking about, but those who live here know all too well that when we step outside of our homes, we need to text, or take a piece of paper with our details on it, explaining why we are escaping the confines of our four walls of isolated safety. 2 is to go shopping, 6 is for exercise, 4 is to go to the aid of someone else; I haven’t explored the others in greater detail. We need a separate piece of paper to go to work. If we are stopped by the police without having texted before we left home, or are not carrying the appropriate piece of paper, then we can be fined on the spot. Other countries have greater or fewer restrictions, but this is how it is here.
Anyway, I was walking around the centre of Athens and started along Aiolou, and crossed Ermou to come back to Plaka, and I stopped. The place was empty, apart from the odd pedestrian here and there. Normally, day and night, the place is buzzing, being the main shopping centre and the interface between Greek Athens and tourist Athens, but there was an eerie silence. And it was only then, after the initial excitement of the shutdown, the irritation of making sure that everything is disinfected, and clean, wearing gloves and masks, only then it struck me that this is really serious and the world had changed.
Most of my generation are lucky enough never to have experienced war, but it feels like we are under attack, but from an unseen, stealthy enemy, no less cunning for not having a brain. We are confined to our homes, cannot mingle with each other, the authorities have assumed the right, mostly without parliament’s, let alone the electorate’s, consent, to restrict our movements and we are, for now at least, obeying them, because after all it is a matter of life and death. Some countries are having more success than others, and Greece is doing better than most; the total number of deaths due to the coronavirus reached 101 yesterday.
I sit in front of my computer most of the day, dealing with emails, taking or making calls, and trying to pretend that this is better than going to the office. It is not, and the novelty has worn thin, but I know I am not alone. We are all in this together, even though we are apart. It is a comfort of sorts.
It does not help that there is no real news. Of course there is lots of reporting, positive and negative, far and wide, and lots of opinionated people telling us what should have been done, what people should be doing, and what should happen in the future to make sure it never happens again, or how now we have the opportunity to make the world a better place, or how this is the end of the world as we know it. There are also many things to read about how we are coping, and how we can’t cope, and how, well, whatever it is it isn’t news. There is so much of this that I delete my email alert feed if the headlines don’t offer anything except facts, and funnily enough, there are very few facts on the ground.
“In war, truth is the first casualty.” How true I thought, until I tried to find out who actually said it. I was hoping it was Ancient Greek, and there are many attributions, but no proof, that it was Aeschylus that originally coined the phrase. It turns out that it is one of those sayings that has been around for a while in one form or another, but never actually written down until recently, but even so it has a ring of truth about it. Consider our war against the Covid: there are still conflicting ideas on how it came about, how it is transmitted, how long it survives and under what conditions, let alone how many people have it, have had it, will get it, will survive, will not, and whether all of this is recorded accurately and consistently. This is before we consider the politicians weighing what information they should share with us, or with each other, and what decisions to make. We, the people, in these strange times, bow to their greater judgement. We have little choice.
So despairing of finding enlightenment, or real news, from my usual sources, I have spent a happy hour or two every day reading The Decameron by Boccaccio. Written around 1351, in the wake of the Black Death which engulfed Florence in 1348, I enjoyed it hugely. The introduction is enough to make it immediately relevant:
In the face of its onrush, all the wisdom and ingenuity of man was unavailing. Large quantities of refuse were cleared out of the city by officials specially appointed for the purpose, all sick persons were forbidden entry, and numerous instructions were issued for safeguarding the people’s health, but all to no avail. Nor were the countless petitions humbly directed to God by the pious, whether by means of formal processions or in any other guise, any less ineffectual. For in the early spring of the year we have mentioned, the plague began, in a terrifying and extraordinary manner, to make its disastrous effects felt.
Boccaccio goes on:
Against these maladies, it seemed that all the advice of physicians and the power of medicine were profitless and unavailing… in most cases death occurred within three days from the appearance of the symptoms we have described…
In response to this, ten young Florentines, seven women and three men, decide to exit the city, with a few servants to assist them, and camp out in a palazzo or two in the countryside surrounding Florence. To pass the time over the next two weeks, they tell each stories, one each per day, so after ten days (taking the Fridays and Saturdays off) they have altogether shared one hundred tales with each other, whilst wandering around the gardens, eating and drinking in fine style, singing and dancing, but otherwise behaving themselves. But it is the stories that are focus: funny, erotic, romantic, rude, poignant and did I mention funny. And let me tell you, you who think that our modern times are depraved and morality is fading: there is nothing new under the sun, especially nothing concerning sex, greed, love, corruption, stupidity and wit, whether high or low born. And the stories are told humanely, and brilliantly.
After my walk around central Athens, considering the seriousness of our predicament, I went back home in the fading light, to escape again I opened a bottle of wine, and settled down to read the last few stories. And reaching the conclusion, I read as one of the young gentlemen, drawing the proceedings to an end before they all go back to Florence, says:
…the wisdom of mortals exists, as I think you know, not only in remembering the past and apprehending the present, but in being able, through a knowledge of each, to anticipate the future, which grave men regard as the acme of human intelligence.
Despite my daily dip into the delightful world of Boccaccio being a welcome escape from the tedium of our own quarantine (an Italian word invented to describe the restrictive measures put in place in medieval Venice), I was once again faced with our next challenge: the return to the world.
So here is the shipping news: capesize rates are gradually climbing reflecting the desire for Chinese industry to restock their declining stockpiles. There is not much more of a positive note to bring you at present, without delving into the realms of fantasy and speculation, but as this is where sale and purchase brokers tend to spend most of their time, you can call one of us any time and we will be happy to provide.
When we return to the real world however, I hope it retains the risk and danger, fun and rejoicing, wit and stupidity, greed and cupidity, love and lust, cunning and chivalry, in fact I hope all of the things that Boccaccio described with such relish, and what makes life, when we are with each other, such a joy to experience, will still be ours to share together. I am sure it will. And I also wish you a happy Easter, full of the promise of new life and renewal it brings. We need as much of it as we can get.
Simon Ward
www.ursashipbrokers.com