Ev On Everything

SpaceX's Starlink project may or may not be a bad thing, but it definitely resembles very closely the megalomaniacal plan of the bad guy in Kingsman: The Secret Service, which doesn't bode well. It is also polluting our sky with light, ruining astronomical observations, and barging other satellites out of its way. I suppose it's also delivering internet connectivity, maybe, at some point in the future, and probably money for Elon Musk and his investors. But mainly, it's delivering frowns for people who like the sky.

So, it's time for a culture episode! This one is about incredible, ridiculous early aircraft design, and it's about two exceptionally beautiful Studio Ghibli films that deal with those wondrous designs, The Wind Rises, and Porco Rosso. They're both set in the interwar period, and they're both about flying, but only one has a flying pig. I'll leave you to guess which. Oh, and this isn't a review, go ahead and listen whether you've seen the films or not!

It's the first episode of Ev On Everything, formerly Me And The Dog! Today we're on about panda sex lives, and Venetian fish lives under Covid-19 Lockdown, and river dolphins, right whales, and giant ships. And from there we end up with externalities and capitalism, how much companies just love them, and how they've so far killed over 120,000 people with SARS CoV2 alone. There are eagles, too, and diesel engines, and lots of silt. Enjoy!

There are quite a few terrible Covid-19 responses to choose from. Among the front runners has to be Boris Johnson, who gloried in unsafe behaviour before contracting the illness himself. Naturally Donald Trump, finding new ways to stay exactly the same in the face of a global catastrophe, too. But there candidates are out there. Royals, and not the one you might think. Dictators, naturally. And what's worse, ridiculous satire-proof word-sewage, or calculated denial of the figures and statistics we need to understand Coronavirus and beat it?

Britain is Locked Down, but pub chain Wetherspoons is displaying a monumentally foolhardy insistence on staying open. And on not paying its staff. Perhaps they are unfamiliar with public opinion. Or riots. People though, they're staying in, working together to keep us all safe. Staying at home can be bad for your mental health, but adversity can be a tonic. And we lost this week the indomitable Albert Uderzo, who shaped a great deal of my childhood, and to whom I owe as much of who I am today as I do to any writer or artist.

The reaction of recording artists and (some of) the companies that support their work has been inspiring, finding new ways to connect with audiences, and never letting the scarily heavy financial hit they're taking stop them from doing their work. Streaming gigs from empty rooms, making sure audiences still exist, even if only virtually. The response from some bosses in other companies, though, has been less inspiring. Unless you count rage-inspiring.

The markets are involved in a kind of crazy, voluntary Catch-22, and there are people actually buying £80 toilet paper on eBay. We let our airlines become paper thin financial shells, and we stopped valuing the workers who really contribute to our wellbeing and quality of life. And yes, Donald Trump managed to make it all even worse. Forgetting for a moment about the coronavirus itself, we talk a bit about the various economic ravages of the ongoing crisis and we wonder are we really at our best here? Some of us are. Some of us very much aren't.

The second Covid-19 show is here, because Covid-19 is still here. Coronavirus is far from the only thing in the news, and wouldn't it be nice to talk about literally anything else? But no, it demands attention. At this point, we have to remake society around the virus, because it's not going anywhere. But maybe we needed a mirror held up to us, and maybe some of the things we think of as immutable, normal parts of our everyday lives will cease to be so fixed. And maybe that's a good thing...

We do not have the right leadership to deal with the threat of Covid-19. That's obvious. After all, the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, doesn't even know how long it takes to sing the national anthem of the country he is a part of the supposed government of. The shambles staggers onward, with no end in sight, and the pandemic only gets worse in lockstep with the government response to it.

So, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is going to have a baby. And I'm sure there was something about Boris Johnson and children that I remember being important. Unfortunately for us all, what the government feels is important isn't necessarily what is in fact important, and sometimes it's hard to find anything at all that they place any importance on. Not Coronavirus, not flooding, not their own drugs policy... it seems like this government are intent on being seen to place as little importance on anything as they possibly can.