Biden’ our time

The life of a vagrant continues. I’ve shifted from a little Airbnb at the bottom of someone’s garden, to the vacant flat of a colleague who isn’t going to be in Cambridge for a while. The taxi driver who ferried me across town was from Sri Lanka so we had a nice conversation about elephants and national parks on his home island. When he found out I usually work in Mozambique, he recounted a very bizarre coincidence of being given a piece of elephant artwork by a Canadian living in Cambridge who had worked on wildlife issues in Mozambique. How the world turns.

With regard to the torturous US election result, a friend said to me: ‘I’m wondering which will come in first - your visa or Nevada.’ Two extremely nail-biting events.

At around 5pm I heard some fireworks soon after the major media outlets starting declaring Biden had won the presidency. Regarding Trump, my mother summed it up by saying that ‘a stupid man like that shouldn’t be in charge of the world.’ I saw him described as a ‘bloviating’ narcissist, which was a new adjective for me but has a definition that fits perfectly.

Relieved that Trump has been deposed, I then went to buy some orange juice. It seems difficult to buy this product ‘with bits’, which is clearly the best way to drink it. The consumer mores of the human race have evolved for shops to display several brands of orange juice ‘without bits’, and almost none ‘with’. Whilst furtling in the chilled cabinet I was struck by the idea that consumers who can’t cope with pulp could also make poor voting choices. It’s a short logical leap to a ‘leader’ like Trump. We should not rest on our laurels that it couldn’t happen again. And we should drink more orange juice with pulp.

We’ve revived our fun quizzes now that we’re in a second lockdown and because it’s the week of my and Jenna’s birthday. Such great fun, some much-needed laughs and random old memories and photos surfacing.

The weather was gorgeous and mild for November and on a long walk I went past this BMX track on one of the recreation grounds. There are a lot of dodgy-looking wooden boards, and piles of rubble. BMXers seem relatively fearless.