Day 48
Thursday April 30
I had a few extra thoughts on what I wrote on Saturday about bars and entertainment places opening, as and when – or maybe even if, sorry – we get to that. Apart from people maybe not wanting to go to them, the first phase of opening, as I said, will probably still involve social distancing. But if that’s done properly, how many people can you get into one of these venues? Looking at this from the point of view of living in England with our own experience of this period, we could have the dubious advantage of seeing how things unfold in other countries as they try to break out of this During. As a possibly early example at what the After has waiting for us, Spain has announced that when their bars and venues open, they will be most likely be permitted to operate at a maximum of a third capacity. I’m not saying at all that bars should be able to open at a hundred per cent capacity, or even at all, and maybe I’m missing something here, but I really don’t see how any business deliberately operating at a third capacity is going to be viable. All I can see here is either businesses not being able to survive or open in the first place – submit your business plan for a loan or investment, declaring your intention to cap all income – not even profit – at a third and see how far you get – or massive underemployment with bars and venues simply not having the revenue or need for the full complement of their staff from the Before. This will lead to either huge layoffs or hours spread thinly between everyone, as a result, not being enough for anyone.
And quiet days. Even if this third of capacity thing flies, quiet days at most places often have less than that anyway. In the new proposed model, busy weekend nights to subsidise these quiet weekday nights are out. Which means venues will probably find it very difficult, if not impossible, to turn a profit. But they’ll still have staff to pay, and staff that won’t be in receipt of furlough pay anymore because governments will probably say, sorry, but your places of work are open for business now. But really, what business?
And gigging venues and professional gigs happening under these circumstances? I really don’t see it. In all feasibility, are people really going to spread themselves two metres apart across a venue? Could a venue afford or be willing to pay performers while running at a third capacity anyway? At smaller cover gigs – my kind of territory – are people really not going to walk up to the band, get into the face of one of the performers and request their favourite song? And the very act of dancing, an almost inevitable result of listening to music if that isn’t one of the most redundant phrases I’ve ever written in here. Are people not going to dance? I can’t see how that won’t inevitably fracture the distancing. OK. Supply venues with chairs bolted to the floor two metres apart and people have to sit down on them and just watch the show. Can’t see that being a thing anyone would want to go to. And that’s before we cover all the other bar stuff associated with gigs. I think a few well meaning, highly optimistic people or organisations could attempt some kind of entertainment before quickly realising it doesn’t work in the new normal, or it just won’t be attempted at all.
Or maybe I’m just being uncharacteristically pessimistic. Like some general I can’t remember said, if your enemy only has two options, you can be sure he’ll take the third.
But imagine a pub or venue practicing social distancing, or trying to. Forget the fact that the bar staff won’t have any such luxury, but first of all, you’re going to have different types of customers with different opinions, or at least ways they want to ‘interpret’ the rules, or maybe disagree with them altogether. And then what happens after everyone’s had a few drinks? Or someone wanders into someone’s space and that person gets offended and the person who wandered into their space did so by accident but is drunk and now takes offence at that offence. Add underlying tensions into that mix. And while you’re at it, add any extra number of scenarios and variables you want, along with a sprinkle of drunkenness. Yeah. I can’t imagine what could possibly go wrong.
And on top of all that, I’m sure that society has already changed in ways we don’t even know yet. And day by day it will continue to change, possibly exponentially the more the current situation is maintained. And I don’t think we’ll really know how much until a green light is given and we’re all told, ‘OK, as you were. Go about life as you see fit.’ We used to know what that meant. We really haven’t got a clue now.
Day 49
Friday May 1
A large delay since my last post, mostly due to that continuing thing regarding the technique changes in my bass playing; my hands, arms and other parts of the bass playing mechanics in my upper body have been having quite a problem adapting. This has led to a major reduction in my practice regime and, by extension as it uses most of the same muscles, my writing regime. Fortunately, relative to this, once again the past week hasn’t been massively eventful so I’m not as far behind as I would normally be after neglecting this thing for a week or more.
I’ve managed to not be bored which I think is something in itself, but really not much to talk about beyond that. Although there is this.
I have some communication with Rick, my friend in Madrid who owns a chain of restaurants, and he says he’s been considering some of the same points I raised in my last entry about the feasibility of opening bars under new restrictions possibly coming into force in Spain, including the suggested limit of them running at a third capacity to facilitate social distancing. He says he sees a lot of bars and restaurants in Spain not reopening this year. At the very least, he says that he doesn’t think he’ll open any of his premises. Basically he believes that such businesses wouldn’t be able to survive if they followed the law and operated within the rules and regulations he sees the government being compelled to put in place. At the moment, this is a limit of 50 per cent capacity on terraces, a third capacity inside, and a ban on customers actually approaching the bar. ‘It doesn’t work,’ he says. ‘You can’t do it.’ He pauses to think, then says again, ‘You can’t do it.’ He also talks about the economics of keeping the staff on, although I’ll keep his details private. His conclusion, once again, the new business model just doesn’t work.
Day 53
Wednesday May 6
There’s talk of furlough payments starting to be phased out which is a bit worrying as I don’t see any of my things opening up for a while yet. But, like so much of this, a lot of what we’re hearing is speculation based on speculation. Sometimes, given the lack of actual concrete information on what’s going on, all this debating and theorising flying around the place – including bits and pieces coming from myself of course – I feel it’s like we’re quoting and debating an enormous work of literature in a world where no-one has ever even learned to read yet.
That said, we do get some kind of news today about what could happen to the furlough scheme; the next phase could see the current 80 per cent of salaries dropping to 60 per cent. I could deal with that. So immediate causes for concern are paused, at least at my own Ground Zero.
marks diaries 