I have been wondering how much longer I would keep doing these ten-day updates. I had hoped to round them off with the abolition of all restrictions a la Denmark and Sweden, but the Belgian numbers are surging a bit at the moment so it seems unlikely. (And we have lost Colin Powell to COVID now.)

But we’re a lot closer to normal than before. Masks in some circumstances, but shops and bars are all open again, and we have bought a new sofa; I had work lunches every day last week and today (though nothing in the calendar for tomorrow or Wednesday); and the USA is finally opening up to Europeans, so I should be OK for Gallifrey One in February.

Brexit has continued to be a complete shitshow. I did not mention it in my last post, but I was invited earlier that day to a briefing by British officials on the next steps to be taken, in effect soft-sounding me and some more important people from the Brussels bubble four days in advance of Lord Frost’s speech last Tuesday to see how we would react to the likely lines he would take. It’s safe to say that we were none of us convinced by the diplomats’ line that the UK was trying really hard to reach a deal but was being blocked by the pesky Europeans. In the event, the speech was even worse than I had anticipated from the briefings, and I amplified my statements in an interview with Al-Jazeera on Wednesday:

On a more positive note, here in Dutch is a presentation of the place where our daughters live – in fact featuring both of their living units, though neither seems to have been caught by the camera (they can move fast when they want to). It’s actually a recruitment video – I hope it works.

In science fiction news, the faltering bid to host the 2023 Worldcon in Memphis officially folded this morning. This means that it will be either in Canada (Winnipeg) or China (Chengdu). My money is on Winnipeg; I don’t think this is China’s year.

That’s it for now. I think I’ll do two more of these, taking me up to 600 days (though there was a big gap last year), and then call it a day, unless things get bad again.