Monday
Children in New York have been back at school for a single week without masks and already the old favourites are back. On Saturday, it’s a sore throat and a sniffle (two at-home tests, not Covid). On Sunday, the phlegmy cough sets in (another test, not Covid). On Monday, the vomiting starts, something we haven’t seen since 2019. Hello, old friend.
It’s been so long, I’ve forgotten the drill. At 3am, stumbling into the kitchen and throwing open the cupboards, I wonder which one is the vomit bowl and whether in the last two years I’ve used it for pasta. (I have.) The next morning, my children are white as ghosts on the sofa, shivering under a blanket. I’ve forgotten the day-after-a-night-of-vomiting drill, too. Everyone looks so sad and lethargic, I order Slurpees for delivery from the 7-Eleven. Life is short; let these people have their red and blue frozen drinks – a course of action to which, with a fraction more forethought, I might have predicted the outcome. On the other hand, purple vomit does, briefly, lift everyone’s spirits.
After a day of rest and some dry toast per the rules, I send one back into school, while the other remains home. Post-Covid, coughing in public is a nerve-wracking business, and 90 minutes after drop-off, the nurse rings for me to come fetch my child. Red-faced and exhausted, she has spent the morning trying to conceal her cough like Typhoid Mary and is in a dismal state. We do a fourth and final Covid test. It’s not Covid. Guiltily, I think this would be less hassle if it was.
Tuesday
The clocks went forward in New York on Sunday, ushering in that odd three-week stretch during which there is only a four-hour time difference with London. On Tuesday, the US Senate approved legislation to make daylight saving time permanent, starting in 2023, which would extend this period of time difference to half the year. This, it seems to me, is an instinctively good thing, although I confess I have only the sketchiest familiarity with the arguments: “more cheerful” versus “farmers”, right?
As with every seemingly marginal call, it turns out it’s more complicated than that, with heated interests on both sides. The only times that daylight saving was maintained year-round in the US were during the second world war and in 1973, during the oil crisis, as a measure to reduce energy consumption by keeping the lights off for longer. Over the last seven years, around 30 states have proposed ending the changing of the clocks. Proponents of the shift named the legislation the Sunshine Protection Act, which is one stop shy of calling it the Anyone Who Disagrees With Us Is a Bat In a Cave Act.
There is another side to the argument. Some Americans, including experts called to the House energy and commerce committee this week, argue we should preserve the clock change, or live permanently on standard time, including several sleep experts who voiced concern that for eight months of the year, long dark mornings interfere with sleep patterns. After reading accounts of the hearing, I discover the real reason for the proposed change, which is, of course, neither about good cheer nor better wellbeing but concerns longer days enabling “more economic activity”. (The Biden administration, busy with more pressing matters, declined to take a position on any of it.)
Wednesday
US stockbroker Peter Schiff, known only to the tax authorities and a few investigative journalists until recently, won worst take on Twitter this week with his observation “Doesn’t the president of Ukraine own a suit?”
President Zelenskiy appeared by video link before the US Congress on Wednesday, dressed in his customary army green T-shirt and looking much better than a man fighting for his country while dodging Russian death squads should look. Zelenskiy’s wardrobe and demeanour have already destabilised President Macron, who appeared at the weekend sporting, as the Wall Street Journal put it, “a conspicuous strip of stubble, beefy mutton-chop sideburns, jeans and a hoodie bearing the logo of CPA 10, a special forces unit of the French air force”. The paper and others surmised he was trying to look like Zelenskiy (either that or “a tech bro”), the general conclusion being: who can blame him?
Peter Schiff, is the answer to that. In 2010, Schiff ran for the Senate in his home state of Connecticut but didn’t make it past the primaries. He is an investor, primarily, whose company, Euro Pacific Bank, was the subject of a 2020 joint investigation by the New York Times and the Australian newspaper the Age, which alleged that the bank had been targeted by Operation Atlantis, a huge investigation by the tax authorities of the US, UK, Netherlands, Canada and Australia into tax evasion and organised crime. During a Zoom interview with an Australian journalist, Schiff (who denied any wrongdoing personally or by the bank) ripped off his mike, threatened to sue the Age and stormed out of his own living room. He was in a suit, but it was still not a good look.
Thursday
Anna Sorokin, aka Anna Delvey, aka the Fake Heiress, is due to be deported from the US to Germany this week, possibly even today, after a year in ICE custody and four years in prison for grand larceny. Sorokin, who was born in Russia and grew up partly in Germany, passed herself off as a German heiress for years in New York, during which time she conned hundreds of thousands of dollars out of her marks.
It’s hard to argue that Sorokin’s crime hasn’t paid, however: she sold her life rights to Netflix for $320,000 – even if most of it did go towards paying restitution and legal bills – and is back in business on social media. I’d no desire to watch Inventing Anna, written by Shonda Rhimes and starring Julia Garner, but with a limp child on the sofa and Sorokin back in the news, decided to give it a go. I don’t know if was the plodding writing, or Anna Chlumsky’s gurning journalist, or Garner turning in an accent that sounds Austrian by way of Texas; or maybe it’s just a post-Trump thing. But half an episode in, the invitation to spend another 10 hours with this hollow grifter seemed less appealing than knuckling down to deal with the faint purple stains in the bathroom.
Friday
On the phone to a kitchen appliance store, the automated message announces a 30-minute wait time for customer help with the line “During these extraordinary times, we are working to bring you the best service, but owing to safety considerations around Covid-19, we ask for your patience”. As the rules relax, these guys – and the hotels, and airlines, and contractors, and big box stores – are on extremely borrowed time with their bogus pretext for terrible service. Just as consumers, at the height of the pandemic, had to show Covid passports to access services, so retailers in these waning days should have to prove they’re genuinely Covid-compromised to access our patience.
