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The AIH Transcript for May 25, 2020

Hosts: Carol Off and Chris Howden

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello. I'm Carol Off.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening. I'm Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

CH: Tonight:

CO: A signing of things to come. Parliamentarians from around the world sign a joint statement criticizing Beijing's latest move to clamp down on Hong Kong. We reach one signee who says a reckoning is coming.

CO: Building castles in the sky. A long stay at a German castle may sound dreamy. But the director of a Bolivian orchestra that's been stuck there since March says they're still waiting for a fairytale ending.

CO: Fashionably late. Our guest thought it was a bit odd when some Brylcream he ordered online didn't show up. He thought it was even stranger when it did turn up — eight years later.

CH: As It Happens, the Monday edition. Radio that's merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

HK: Beijing security law

Guest: Bob Seely

CO: Mr. Seely, why have you signed on to this joint declaration?

BOB SEELY: I think because it's a very important time for Hong Kong, I really hope that Hong Kong keeps its freedom and its basic laws and as part of its constitution. But if the new regime that Beijing wants to see in Hong Kong starts to cause arbitrary arrest, sort of political detention, people fleeing for their safety and their lives, maybe, then I think not only the United Kingdom, but other countries need to be in a position to do something about it and to take in citizens from Hong Kong that are British national overseas passports.

CO: Now, you say that you hope it doesn't do this. Your concerns are based on what? What do you think this national security legislation might do?

BS: Well, my contacts in Hong Kong are very concerned about this legislation because they think it has the potential to be a fundamental threat to their freedoms. Now, I don't know what is going to happen, but I know that we don't want to be caught unawares. And we want to be caught reacting to a situation. So what I want us to have in this country is a discussion in the Home Office, in the Foreign Office, in government about BNO status, and whether that needs to be changed. Because the worst-case scenario is that you’re going to have a mass exodus of thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands of people from Hong Kong if there is a violent crackdown, if there are political arrests being made.

CO: You're concerned about the British nationals overseas, the people who are there.

BS: Yup.

CO: Canada's concerned about that, too. But there are, of course, hundreds of thousands of others who might have concerns about this. That we've spoken with people on this show who believe that within a matter of months they could be arrested or they could never be able to do the interviews they've done with us. And so if you believe this is the threat that we're faced, what action should be taken by Britain at this point?

BS: I think there are two things that we can do. Firstly, we have to discuss whether we need to loosen the arrangements on BNO passports. And indeed other people, maybe younger people who didn't get a BNO passport, but are part of the democracy movement and are activists in Hong Kong and are potentially vulnerable and would be if they were fleeing for their lives. Genuine political asylum seekers, no question about that. Secondly, it would be great if working with the United States, with Australia, with Canada, the United Kingdom, the European Union and other nations could try to pressure the Chinese communist regime and see if we can persuade them that it will be bad for their country and bad for Hong Kong. If the Chinese regime, the Communist Party regime, succeeds in clamping down on what it sees as dissent in Hong Kong. But for most of us, what we would consider to be freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and the rights that Canadians and Brits and other people throughout the world have.

CO: And what evidence are you saying that the political will is there to do something? What we've heard so far from Mike Pompeo in the United States is that he thinks this is bad. It's wrong to pass this law. It would violate the one country, two systems status. We haven't heard anything from President Trump, who doesn't seem terribly interested in this. Canada is concerned because we have Canadians who are in jail in China, and we haven't heard really much from the British government, except they're watching this cautiously. So. Is that really the kind of response that would make China climb down from what it's attempting to do?

BS: Well, no. That's why you make the point very eloquently. That's why I'm saying it would be great if there was a better response. And let's hope there's going to be. There was a joint statement of concern from Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. That's a good start. I mean, nobody's pretending that we have sovereign rights in Hong Kong. We have only the rights to suggest. But fundamentally, if China wants to crack down in Hong Kong, if China wants to tear up the basic laws it wants to tear at this time the British Acord, there isn't that much that we can do about it. I think there is a fundamental reassessment of our relationship with China, which is undergoing in the United Kingdom now, because I think we're probably a little bit behind Australia and the United States, certainly, and I think I suspect Canada might be undergoing that same reassessment of its relationship. We've just had, for example, just this weekend, we are now going to conduct a new review into Huawei — which is the major Chinese telecommunications giant, which was going to be allowed to be part of our 5G advanced communications network, but may not be in the coming months and may be actually forced out or certainly not allowed to participate in that 5G communications network. So it might be that Canada is going to be looking at these similar things that we are all in the free world looking at, which is how we treat a new, aggressively resurgent China, which is increasingly dictatorial at home in the way it treats its people, especially its Muslim minorities, people of Hong Kong, with threats made to Taiwan, but also how the range of issues that we have.

CO: Isn't China at the same time, isn’t Beijing watching really closely how these countries you've just listed are responding.? And if they hear a kind of tisk, tisk, we don't like you doing that. It doesn't go beyond that. What kind of a signal, what message will that send to China about what it can do?

BS: Well, it's quite a weak one. But I mean, I think we have to restructure.

CO: What messages does this send to China about what kind of scope it has to act as it would like to?

BS: I mean, I think we've got to be realistic here. We can't make China do what it doesn't want to do. We can't make China do anything. So it might be the only thing we can offer is words of concern at this stage. If the people start dying in Hong Kong, then I'm sure we can look at sanctions or we can look at there's a wider range of maybe things to do. But even then, you know, we're strictly limited what we can do. And I think we have to realize that. That's why in the letter that we wrote to the Home Office here in the United Kingdom, the critical point that we are making is that we can't make China respect the basic law and sign a British declaration if it doesn't want to. But what we can do is offer sanctuary to BNOs in their hour of need. And it may be that this is one of those very rare occasions where mass political asylum becomes a realistic outcome of this horrible tension, very bad situation. And we have to be ready for it. And that is something that we can do.

CO: Mr. Seely, we’ll leave it there. Thank you.

BS: Thanks so much.

CH: Bob Seely is a British Conservative MP and one of more than 200 signatories to a statement critical of Beijing's new national security legislation in Hong Kong. We reached him in Brighstone, England.

[Music: Folk guitar riff]

German castile Bolivians

Guest: Carlos Gutiérrez

CH: It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime… And in some ways it still sounds like it is. But the 25 members of the Bolivian orchestra stranded on the grounds of a German castle say they're more than ready to go home. The group arrived in Germany in March for a Berlin music festival. But then the coronavirus struck, and Bolivia closed its borders. So director Carlos Gutiérrez and his troupe of musicians have been stuck right where Covid-19 left them — at the Rheinsberg Palace, for much longer than they intended. That's where we reached Carlos Gutiérrez today.

CO: Carlos, how many days, how many weeks have you and the other members of your orchestra spent in the shadow of this castle?

CARLOS GUTIERREZ: We're nearly 76 days, here from March the 10th.

CO: Okay. Just maybe describe what you and the others, where you are, what are the grounds? What does it look like, this place where you are, where this palace is?

CG: I have to start telling you that it's pretty different from what we have in Bolivia. We came from La Paz, which is one of the highest city of the world. And here, we are now in the city of Rheinsberg. And we are in a complex where there is also a castle. Now, I can tell you that it's funny. But at the beginning, it was just this confusion from the press that they were keeping telling everybody that we are in the castle. You know, like living in the castle. [CO laughs] But [laughing] that's far from the truth, because we are living, in fact, in the Music Academy of Rheinsberg, which is kind of a building conditioned to be like a youth hostel.

CO: Right.

CG: And we are close by the castle, [chuckling] but we don’t live inside the castle.

CO: But are the grounds... Is what you see, is it quite beautiful?

CG: It is. Yes, it is. From my window, I have the lake and the woods. We saw some animals out there, not such animals in Bolivia , like a couple deers or even wolves! [chuckling]

CO: I heard about the wolves!

CG: That’s right. We think that we were just laughing about that because we saw this headline [chuckling] where they said that [said with chuckling throughout] we are living in a castle which is haunted by the ghost of Frederick the Great, and also surrounded by packs of wolves. [both laughing]

CO: Okay. Even the media is a bit bored these days, I guess. [both chuckling]

CG: Yes.

CO: But there are, I mean, there are known to be about, I think a couple of dozen wolf packs that live in those forests around that area. But you have encountered some of those wolves, have you?

CG: I mean, some of the girls from the orchestra, they saw like three wolves that also passed through the path. Of course, it was a shocking encounter. And a very interesting experience. But it was just a couple of seconds [both chuckling] and nothing more than that.

CO: So, okay. So you've seen the wolves, you've seen the squirrels, you’ve seen deer, have you seen the ghost? [both chuckling] Because you say you're being followed by Frederik the Great’s ghost. He lived in that castle, So he may be there.

CG: [chuckling] There is one thing. Once we arrived here, immediately the people from this little town in Germany. And most of us, we came from South America, and we are a very noisy group. And we used to joke about this idea of the ghost. You know, the ghost, because we are in this building, which is keeping the architecture style of the complex or the castle. So it looks like an old place. Yes, we used to joke like we are listening some piano in some of the rooms. And some of them tell, oh yeah, it's probably the ghost of Freddie.

CO: Because, apparently, he'd listen to lots of Bach and Mozart and everything else in that castle, so.

CG: [laughing] No, but it was one of us just playing the piano.

CO: [laughing] Oh, so you're teasing the local people. People are, I'm sure at this point wondering why you can't go home, why you're stuck there. I mean, now that Germany has loosened up some of its restrictions. Why can't you get back to La Paz?

CG: Because there are not flights. I mean, we are trying because we are working with a German production team that is also living with us. They are helping out in order to find some fundings. Talking with the Bolivian embassy. The thing is that thing is that our plane tickets, for example, they're not working for us because the company cancelled operations in Bolivia. So we're basically waiting for a flight that could take us to Bolivia, but they are not frequent.

CO: But you must be missing your families? I mean, there's some very young people in your orchestra. And I understand some people, a mother, her daughter had a birthday. And you must be missing your life back home?

CG: Oh, we are missing our families. Yeah, that's for sure. Even though we have this privilege that we are privileged in the sense that we have communal spaces we can play, we’re still making music. But of course, we are very worried about what is happening in Bolivia. And we have contact with parents. I had a meeting some days ago with them, and they're very worried. And of course, it's a strange feeling. We already had five of the people we spend their birthdays here. It's getting difficult and difficult because we miss our, of course, our home.

CO: Well, Carlos, I hope that you don't get eaten by wolves. [CG laughs] And I hope you don't encounter a ghost.

CG: Thank you!

CO: But mostly, I hope you get home soon. I hope that happens. And thanks for speaking with us.

CG: Thank you, Carol. Thank you for your interest.

CO: Take care. Bye-bye.

CH: Carlos Gutiérrez is the director of Bolivia's Experimental Orchestra of Indigenous Instruments — which has been stuck on the grounds of a German castle since March 10th. We reached him in Rheinsberg. For more on this story, visit our website, at: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music; instrumental]

British COVID-positive advisor’s wife

[sc]

LAURA KUENSSBERG: Do you regret what you did? Because many people in this country have made heartbreaking sacrifices in the last couple of months in order to stick to the rules that you were part of putting together, and many people may have listened to you and think you made your own interpretation. And do you understand, for some people, it seems as if there was one version of the rules for you and one version of the rules for everyone else?

DOMINIC CUMMINGS: Thank you, Laura. No, I don't regret what I did. As I said, I think reasonable people may well disagree about how I thought about what to do in these circumstances. But I think that what I did was actually reasonable in these circumstances. In terms of the rules, I think the rules made clear that if you're dealing with small children, then that can be exceptional circumstances. And I think that situation that I was in was exceptional circumstances. And I think that the way that I dealt with it was the least risk to everybody concerned if my wife and I had both been unable to look after our four-year-old.

[/sc]

CH: That was Dominic Cummings, the top advisor to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, answering questions from the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg in London today.

[Music: Hip-hop]

Magic CIrcle

CH: It was a major to-do about a major ta-dah. In 1991, The Magic Circle — the prestigious British organization of illusionists -- voted to allow women to become members. At which point one of its members — Raymond Lloyd — revealed he had something up his sleeve. A woman's arm. Raymond Lloyd was, in fact, Sophie Lloyd. For two years, she had pretended to be a young male magician. No one noticed. Unfortunately, illusionists apparently don't like to have their illusions shattered. So when Raymond announced he was actually Sophie, she was booted out of the Magic Circle — despite its new policy allowing women. Still, it was a triumph. Not just for Ms. Lloyd, who was just pretending to be a magician. But also for Jenny Winstanley, who actually was a magician. And had taught Sophie Lloyd everything she knew, so they could pull off the remarkable trick. In 1991, As It Happens reached the women at a party celebrating their magic moment. Here's Michael Enright, speaking, first, with Jenny Winstanley.

[sc]

Michael Enright: Hello, Ms. Winstanley?

JENNY WINSTANLEY: Oh, hello. Michael, hello.

ME: Hi, can you hear me all right?

JW: Just about. We're in the club where Ray, alias Sophie, took her test.

ME: And there's a party going on, obviously?

JW: There is, yeah. [both chuckling] There's a celebration going on, yes.

ME: Now, we're gonna talk to Sophie in a minute, but I want to get some information from you. Tell me about why she was thrown out of the Magic Circle?

JW: We don't really know. They say it's because she deceived them. But that's exactly what magicians do, isn't it?

ME: That's part of the job, yeah.

JW: Part of the job, that's right. It's all an illusion. So that seems to be their reason. But I think it is because they can't really laugh about it. You know, they take it very seriously.

ME: How angry are the male magicians?

JW: They’re mad indeed. We've had a letter from them. And, you know, a big warning [chuckling] when, you know, they’re very, very mad.

ME: Now, Sophie or Raymond was your creation, is that right?

JW: Well, I met Sophie about four years ago. And Sophie is an absolutely brilliant actress. I'm a lady magician, and I've directed Sophie, you know, I’m her magical director. And she acts the part of Raymond.

ME: So you taught her about magic?

JW: I did indeed, yes.

ME: Did anyone else know Raymond's real identity?

JW: Not a soul. We kept it totally secret, the two of us, for two years. We've worked very hard, in all seriousness.

ME: Now, did you originally do this to deceive the Magic Circle? That was your idea?

JW: Well, I always wanted to be first lady in the Magic Circle. And Sophie said she'd do it for me because she's such a good actress. Really wanted to prove that women are as good as men.

ME: And you carried it off for two years?

JW: For two whole years, we carried it off and not a soul knew — literally nobody.

ME: Yeah, how did the Magic Circle find out? Did you fess up, or did they discover it?

JW: No. A couple of months ago, women were actually let into the Magic Circle. And so Sophie confessed, as it were, you know, she thought, well, now it's fine, you know? But, in fact, they said, no, no, she couldn't be. Because she got in under deception as being Raymond Lloyd.

ME: Well, did she tell the press, or did she tell the head of the Magic Circle?

JW: What we did, we did tell the press. But when it came out in the papers, the Magic Circle was furious.

ME: Now, Raymond is there. Sophie is there with you?

JW: Sophie’s here as Sophie tonight. Would you like to speak to her?

ME: Yes, I would indeed. Thank you.

JW: Well, thank you very much. I'll pass you over.

ME: All right.

SOPHIE LLOYD: Hi, hi, Michael.

ME: Hello, Ms. Lloyd. How are you?

SL: [chuckle] I'm all right. Thank you.

ME: You are now Sophie and not Raymond anymore.

SL: Tonight, I'm Sophie. Yes.

ME: Why did you agree to become Raymond and disguise yourself?

SL: Well, I did it for Jenny. Well, you see, Jenny’s a magician. And She thought that it was so unfair that lady magicians couldn't get into The Circle.

ME: Did you have to pass a test or something?

SL: I had to pass a test, yes. I did a show for 20 minutes. And it had to have various magic in. And afterwards, I spoke to the examiner for one and a half hours, drinking a pint.

ME: [laughing] Drinking a pint.

SL: A pint of beer, yes. [laughing]

ME: And you were dressed as Raymond, as a man?

SL: I was dressed as Raymond, as a boy, actually. He's 18. He’s a very young-looking 18-year-old.

ME: And clean shaven, of course.

SL: Yes, yes. He has a bit of a mustache. just a little bit of, as we call, some fluff. [chuckling]

ME: What did you do about your voice? Did you have to drop your voice a bit, or?

SL: No, of course, I had a little croaky voice.

ME: What did you talk about over the pint for an hour and a half? I mean, weren’t you afraid he was going to find out that you weren't?

SL: Yes, absolutely. I was really, really worried. After the show, I was going to shoot off, and he wanted to talk to me. And I thought, get me out of here, Jenny, for God's sakes. And she said, no, can't, can’t, you got to do it. So I thought oh, hell. So I sat there, and we talked about how he was going to help me with my magic.

ME: Sophie, did you wear a baggy suit or something? I mean, you know, Raymond and Sophie don't exactly look alike. I'm wondering what you did about that.

SL: No. ah, that's the illusion. Well, I had to do a lot of different things. It wasn't just dawn a wig and spectacles. I mean, I had to do a lot of things. I didn't strap down my chest, no. I’m a bit cleverer than that. I obviously have a little boy's body, you know?

ME: Yes.

SL: So, you know, [comical laugh] without letting you know too much on those things. [ME laughs] So it wasn’t just literally putting on a wig, glasses and the baggy suit and going out and doing it. I had to study the character for two years and, you know, with Jenny. And I think I did it very well. I got in children's books as a little boy. I did quite a lot of things.

ME: Did you go to the club? Is it? I mean, did you fraternize with the other members and so on?

SL: Yes, I did. Yes, in a couple of cases, I did. Yes, it was very hairy. And, I have to confess, I didn't stay very long because I’m so short. I’m only five-foot-two, and these huge man, you know? But I don’t think they thought he was an oddity. I think they just thought he was terribly young.

ME: The people who run the Magic Circle, all those male magicians, are furious. They're having rabbits over all this!

SL: It's just such twists. I mean, honestly, I really, Michael, it is pathetic. I am actually, you know, to be honest, I'm not into magic. Really, I did it for Jenny. And this is, to me, it's really put me off, you know?

[crosstalk]

ME: So does Raymond now retire?

SL: [shouting] No, no, no, no. A lot of people want Raymond. A lot of people want to see this little chappie.

ME: Congratulations. It sounds terrific.

SL: Oh, thanks, Michael.

ME: Take care. Enjoy your party tonight.

SL: Okay. All right. Thank you very much.

ME: Goodbye now.

CH: From 1991, that was Michael Enright speaking with Sophie Lloyd — and before her, Jenny Winstanley. Ms. Winstanley taught Ms. Lloyd magic, so she could pretend to be a man and infiltrate the men-only magic club.

[Music: Jazz]

Part two: Oxford vaccine trial, late mail

Oxford vaccine trial

Guest: Adrian Hill

CH: Around the world, scientists are racing to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. And it looks like researchers from Oxford University are at the head of the pack. Last Friday, the school said it had completed more than one-thousand immunizations in adult volunteers. And now, the study is moving to the next phases — which will involve more than ten-thousand people in human trials. Adrian Hill is a principal investigator. He's the director of Oxford's Jenner Institute. We reached him in Oxford, England.

CO: Professor Hill went to this news that you're expanding your human trials, what should that signal to the public?

ADRIAN HILL: Well, this is good news. We are now moving from our Phase One trial, which was rather large into a new protocol, which is both Phase Two and Phase Three. The Phase Two trial is a small number of people. But then we move to ten-thousand vaccines over the next few weeks. And the aim, of course, is to see if the vaccine works, because we are in a place where incidence is dropping fairly rapidly.

CO: Okay. So you know that it's safe because you determined that with, first of all, trials with monkeys and then with people. And now you want to expand it to find out if it works. That's the most important part, isn't it?

AH: Absolutely. Well, actually, being safe as the most important.

CO: Yes, I suppose!

AH: Part of that comes with our work. And that is harder, of course. Now, when you say it's safe, it has been safe in 550, or so, vaccines, which is a reasonable number, but we'll be much happier after we've vaccinated another five-thousand, which is the plan for the Phase Three trial. Where, of course, as well as measuring cases of COVID, we look at safety as well.

CO: But in determining if it works, how do you do that? Will you expose those people who have had this test vaccine, will you expose them to the virus?

AH: No, there is an idea around that you might do that sort of study where you would deliberately infect people. No, nobody's doing that at the moment. But it is being discussed. No. Instead, we let people go back to their everyday life. And sadly, people do, of course, get exposed, which is why we need a lot of people in the trial. Five-thousand of those will get vaccinated with COVID vaccine. And five thousand with an irrelevant control vaccine. And of course, what we do is compare the number of cases of COVID in the people who got the irrelevant vaccine, which hopefully, would be higher than those who got the COVID vaccine.

CO: But in your experiments with monkeys, you did expose those animals to the virus, to doses of the virus, what did you find there?

AH: So what we were doing was a safety study in six monkeys before we started the clinical trial. And the reason for that timing was there is this unlikely possibility, but not impossible risk that giving the vaccine would actually make people more susceptible if they did get the COVID virus. So what we did was we set that up in animals where we vaccinated them and then, a month later, gave them a really high dose of the virus to check that there wasn't any evidence of any damage being done. And of course, that's what we found, which is why we were able to stop the trial. But there was a very, very high dose of virus in the challenge, which went into the nose and mouths as well as into the lungs. And what we found was that in the lungs, there was really almost complete protection, no evidence of disease. All the monkeys were fine. But in the nose, where again we gave a very high dose, we did not see sterile protection, at least not in the first week. After seven days, the virus had cleared. So some evidence there that it might be harder to clear the nose than to share the lungs. But of course, that's the right way round. It's pneumonia that kills people.

CO: Okay, yeah. So I want to get to that. In plain English, what does that mean for the efficacy of the vaccine? Does it mean that people will still be, if they are exposed to the virus, they could still get it, but it won't go to the pneumonia phase, which actually kills people?

AH: Certainly it should not go to the pneumonia phase. What we can't really interpret from this study is whether if you gave a normal dose of virus, the sort that you might get from sitting beside somebody on a bus, which would be a low dose in your upper respiratory tract, whether the vaccine would be able to cope with that. And, in fact, there is some work published just in the last week that shows if you reduce the amount of virus you give to animals by a hundredfold compared to what we gave, then you do see a efficacy in the nose. So I think it's really hard, all our guess is that it will work well for preventing nasal infection as well as more importantly, preventing pneumonia. But we will see, hopefully, in the upcoming trials.

CO: But it doesn't show that it will prevent the spread of the virus, does it?

AH: As I say, we don't know whether our vaccine will work really well against preventing the spread of virus. And we will be planning to do some further animal tests with a sort of physiological or normal challenge dose to assess that. But nobody knows yet.

CO: I don't need to tell you how much anticipation there is of having a vaccine for this virus. Have you ever been under this much pressure to perform?

AH: I don't think so. There's never been as much interest in what we're doing, I think that the pressure is attenuated a little bit by the fact that there are so many vaccine programs. I think there must be ten in the clinic now. And there are two others coming along that are the same type of vaccine that we're using, another adenoviral vector. And our guess is that if our vaccine works, and we will probably be the first to finish, then other vaccines will work too. And we may be able to help those out. Because the real challenge that's logistically very daunting is just making enough vaccine for everybody who will want it, particularly if we finish first. And we're not talking about millions of doses. We're talking about billions of doses. And very importantly, our new industrial partner, AstraZeneca, has committed to that sort of capacity. So they haven't made a billion doses yet. You can't do that in a month, but they have reserved manufacturing capacity that would allow you to go to that scale if the vaccine works, which is fantastic.

CO: And what's the earliest sort of launch date for this? How early do you think you might have this vaccine available?

AH: Well, the earliest conceivable date would be a result in August of the trial. Then you need some regulatory approval for emergency use, which is faster than the standard approval for commercial use. So there might be vaccine doses, not huge numbers, maybe a million, maybe more in September. People are aiming for more than that in September. But I would take that as the earliest possible time. And that won't be for global supply. Global supply will be soon afterwards, but it will be this year, I think.

CO: All right. We will, of course, be watching this very closely. And I appreciate speaking with you, Professor Hill. Thank you.

AH: Thank you.

CH: Adrian Hill is a professor of human genetics and the director of the Jenner Institute at Oxford University. We reached him in Oxford, England. And you can find more on our webpage, at: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Spanish guitar]

BC couple COVID deaths

CH: For 68 years they were practically never apart. And that lasted until the very end of Howard and Juanita Robinson's lives. Late last month, Juanita and Howard died side by side of COVID-19 at their retirement home — just five hours apart. They were 91 and 94 years old, respectively. So far, there have been 157 COVID-19 related deaths in British Columbia. But Diana Coleman doesn't want her parents to be a statistic. Here's what she told CBC's "The Early Edition" host Stephen Quinn today.

CO: Brylcreem! I'm old enough to remember when the ads for a little dab will do you.

EB: Yeah. I think I read somewhere on the internet, or a friend told me about it or something. And probably good it didn't show up though.

CO: I mean, did you open it to see what it was like?

EB: Yeah, I opened it. I opened it, and it was bright yellow. I was going to try it out. But I when I opened it, it was bright yellow. And when I Googled it, it was supposed to be pretty white. [CO chuckles] So I didn't try it out.

CO: So you were planning to do what with your hair if this had arrived eight years ago?

EB: Oh, I think I try to do like a comb-over type of thing. Like what they used to do. I think it was pretty popular around that time to have that kind of retro comb-over type of haircut.

CO: Right. And you don't sound old enough that you might have worded this in 1962 and you forgot?

EB: No, no, definitely not. I'm only 29.

CO: [laughing] Okay, so you posted this discovery of this. TAnd it was Canada Post, right, that this came through?

EB: Yeah, it was through Canada Post.

CO: What kind of reaction has there been since you put it on Reddit, this story?

EB: Yeah. So I've never really posted anything on Reddit. Maybe one or two stories before, but my friends convinced me to post it, and I did. And it's got a lot of upvotes. I think over 500 now. And I think the only other thing I posted got like ten of them or something. And there's been some really funny comments. One was a gif of just a box on a conveyor belt, just rolling in place over and over again. So I was laughing at that picture, and it happening for eight years straight. And someone from www.Well.ca actually commented as well and told me they remembered Jen. And because on the invoice, Jen wrote a note on it saying like, thanks for the order. So they commented on it and said, we remember Jen, and we're so sorry this happened. And they reached out and apologized that I never got the product.

CO: What! That's crazy [laughing].

EB: Yeah. That's probably my favourite message from them.

CO: Where do you think it has been these past eight years?

EB: [chuckling] Well, I'd like to know that, but I think it was just that in a corner somewhere and then someone just decided to mail it. I thought it's pretty funny that, you know, they didn't just throw it out or something. The tracking code, I looked up and it wasn't valid. So I wonder if, you know, it's just kind of sitting by the front door or something for eight years. Yeah. I wonder why now they sent it out since they're pretty far behind on all their other current packages and stuff [both laughing].

CO: I was going to say, it can't be because there's just nothing coming to the post these days and they were bored and they finally said, let’s just go through this pile here and see what might be there. I mean, [cuckling] they're overwhelmed. So maybe this just sort of got caught up in all the other stuff. And so you haven't heard anything from Canada Post then?

EB: No. I have a friend who works there and gave me an email address of someone to contact to see what they have to say. And I'm not really looking for like, you know, a refund or anything. The product was only five dollars, but, you know,it’d be funny to see what they have to say as well. I just sent that email today, so still waiting to hear back, but it’d pretty funny if they can respond.

CO: Now, have you passed that phase of wanting to look like Don Draper?

EB: [laughing] Yeah, I think so. Maybe for Halloween costume would be good. But I think on a day-to-day basis, I'm past that.

CO: You won't be using that stuff in the tube then?

EB: No, not this product. Maybe I'll get a new tube from www.Well.ca or something.

CO: [laughing] Well, given how people are desperate for doing something with their hair, which is a mess these days, maybe you can probably... There might be a taker on this one.

EB: [laughing] Yeah, I definitely need to do something. It's been a while since I've gotten a haircut, so maybe I have to try it out.

CO: All right. All right. Well, Elliot, [laughing] appreciate hearing the story. Thank you.

EB: Yeah, no problem. My pleasure.

CO: Bye.

EB: Bye.

CH: Elliot Berinstein ordered some Brylcreem online in 2012. It just showed up in the mail. We reached him in Toronto.

[Music: Folk]

CH: When people in Florida voted to strike down the law that barred former felons from the ballot box, Desmond Meade described it as an act of love. The former prisoner had spent years campaigning for the right to vote. But there was a catch. The state government required former inmates to pay court fines and fees before registering to vote. Now a U.S. federal judge has struck that requirement down. Judge Robert L. Hinkle described the fee payment as a poll tax by another name. Back in January 2019, after the Florida amendment allowing ex-felons to vote passed, Carol spoke with Desmond Meade — on the day he finally got to register to vote.

[sc]

CO: How are you feeling when you registered to vote?

DESMOND MEADE: Today when I registered to vote it was so many emotions that was going through me. I had tears of joy streaming down my face because it was a special moment -- and not just for me, but for my family that accompanied me into our local supervisor of elections office. You know as a matter of fact my daughter was the one who helped me fill out the voter registration forms. And so yeah it was a very joyful moment.

CO: And not just for you, right? I mean there was a lot of stories about just how emotional it was in the registration office today.

DM: Yes yes it was. You know even from there we hear stories throughout the state in various counties in Florida of people who were going there with their wives and their husbands and family members and then crying. Everybody was like so emotional. And I think it's -- part of that has to do with you know having such a newfound respect for the right to vote or what voting is all about.

CO: And Florida is one of the few states that does not allow any felons or did not formally allow felons to vote in elections. This has now been changed for well everyone except for those that have committed felons, sexual offenses or murder. So what does this day represent for people like yourself or people who've been in this movement of trying to get this changed?

DM: You know I think it's a couple of things that it represents. It represents that love can conquer all, right. And it also represents that what it means to expand our democracy. You know on November 6th when this amendment passed over 5.1 million voters voted for this. And you know in this environment that we find our country in where there's a lot of division and there is a lot of friction, to see that an issue as powerful as felon voting rights to be able to pass resoundingly with support from people from all walks of life, from all political persuasions, and it was able to pass because of votes of love -- for at least a moment the world was able to see that love could conquer all.

CO: Can I ask you your personal story and your own background and how you got involved in the voting rights movement?

DM: I got involved -- I guess I would like to say the old fashioned way -- that I'm a person that's directly impacted you know because of years of drug abuse, you know drug addiction, and homelessness. You know I was in and out of trouble. And eventually my drug addiction brought me in front of railroad tracks in 2005. August of 2005, I stood in front of railroad tracks waiting on the train to come so I can jump in front of it. You know that train didn't come that day. And I crossed those tracks and I checked myself in the drug treatment. And after treatment I went and I moved into a homeless shelter where while living there I decided to enroll in college. One thing led to another and eventually in May of 2014 I was able to graduate from Florida International University College of Law with a Juris doctorate degree.

CO: Wow! Congratulations.

DM: Thank you. [Chuckles] Thank you so much. But you know what I tell people that back then even though I overcame so many obstacles my story did not have a happy ending at that time because I couldn't practice law and I couldn't vote because of Florida's antiquated laws. But today I can tell you that there is somewhat of a happy ending because after all these trials and tribulations, today I was able to walk in to a supervisor of elections office and register to vote.

[/sc]

CH: That was ex-felon and Florida voting rights campaigner Desmond Meade speaking with Carol in January 2019.

[Music: Ambient]

Part three: Lichen winner, cicadas hatching, leatherback turtle tracking

Lichen winner

Guest: Troy McMullin

CH: Back in March, we asked you what turned out to be a divisive question: which of Canada's many, fascinating lichens should be Canada's national lichen? Troy McMullin, a research scientist with the Canadian Museum of Nature, was asking you, the public, to choose between seven. The choices in an online poll included the "elegant sunburst," the "boreal oakmoss" and the "star-tipped reindeer." A few weeks after that interview, a winner was announced. But we missed the results, and we never updated you, and we apologize for that. So, to declare the winner, and also to tell us about some more local initiatives to choose a lichen for provinces and territories, we reached Troy McMullin again. He's in Ottawa.

CO: Troy for those of us who are not up to date with the lichen news cycle, tell us what was chosen as Canada's national lichen?

TROY MCMULLIN: Well, Canadians have voted, over 18-thousand votes have come in for Canada's national lichen. And Canada has spoken, and the winner is star-tipped reindeer lichen.

CO: Oh, I like to name! What are its other special characteristics?

TM: Well, it's a great choice, largely because it's easy to identify. It's a spectacular species that grows mostly in the boreal and arctic regions that dominate our country. But this species can grow up to a foot thick and grow for hundreds of kilometres uninterrupted. It really has a lot of biomass in Canada. And it appears to have more biomass in Canada than anywhere else in the world. It's easy to identify. And it's also a very important food source for caribou in winter months.

CO: All these are commendable reasons why it should become Canada's lichen. But what does it look like, actually?

TM: I'm sure most Canadians have seen it when they get out of a canoe in the boreal forest and they step down on some rock outcrops and they hear a crunch beneath their feet. In many cases they are the reindeer lichens. So they're these spiky growths, they look like nets almost, growing on the ground. But this one's unique in that it creates these mounds that almost look like little mounds of cauliflower. And none of the other ones do that. So this one you can spot from far away, if you see these mounds of these little spiky, they look like little cushions. When they're wet, they're extremely soft. But when they're dry, they're crispy and they'll break. And that's actually how it reproduces. The little spikes that are formed on it, when a caribou let’s say steps on it, they'll break off as little fragments and they get stuck in the hair on the caribou and get carried to a new place And that's how it reproduces.

CO: Okay, so what percentage of Canadians, of those who voted, chose the star-tipped reindeer lichen?

TM: It was about five-thousand of the 18-thousand that voted for it. So, you know, quite a few. And, yeah, the next closest, for a second and third, there was virtually a tie. And they were a couple of thousand votes below that.

CO: the second was the elegant sunburst lichen?

TM: That's right. That's the bright orange one that grows on rocks.

CO: I would have thought that was going to win. And then there's the horsehair lichen.

TM: Right. That was third, but right there with the other one. But it's not as showy, but it has a great story behind it. It's also very common in the boreal forest. It drips off the trees all throughout the boreal forest. It's also a food for caribou. It's a real icon of the boreal forest that dominates our country. So that was a good choice as well.

CO: And it’s called horsehair because that’s what it looks like?

TM: That's right. It's not a particularly eye-catching species. You know, not compared to something that's bright orange on the rocks. But what it showed is that people were really reading about lichens and understanding them. And they're voting based on more than just that bright, showy colour, you know?

CO: Yeah. And very disappointing results for the common freckle pelt lichen. I thought that was a favourite.

TM: [chuckling] Yeah, It's a beautiful lichen.

CO: I mean, maybe it's the name? Maybe it needs, I don't know, better PR, branding, or something. I think it's suffered because of the name. I’m just guessing.

TM: [laughing] Yeah, that’s a good consideration.

CO: Now, does this mean that the star-tipped reindeer lichen actually now becomes Canada's national lichen?

TM: No, so the first step here was to come up with one. Then, now we have to see if we can get it officially listed as our national lichen. And we'll do that by proposing it to Heritage Canada. Or we can also go through a private member's bill and see if the policymakers will agree that it’s a good symbol for Canada.

CO: They should certainly clear the agenda and deal with this. This is very important.

TM: [laughing] I concur.

CO: [laughing] Now, included in the project is there for the provinces and territories are also picking their own provincial and territorial lichens. And so do we have results in those departments yet?

TM: We do. So over the last year, we've also been working on proposing a provincial and territorial lichen for each province and territory. As of just a couple of weeks ago, the last one was voted in in PEI. So we have proposals for all of those, and we're going to go through the same process. We will have them all forwarded to... Well, first, we were going to publish the results. We're going to submit it to the Canadian Field Naturalist and hopefully publish it there. And then we'll send a copy of our proposal, along with a letter, along with a poster that we've made of all the lichens to show the respective ministers to consider or take the legislator to consider as official emblems.

CO: Well, it would seem that by the numbers of people who voted for the national lichen, a lot of people share your passion.

TM: Yeah. It would seem so. Ever since we started this project, my inbox and my email has been overflowing with people reaching out with stories about their experience with lichens. And it's been wonderful to receive those.

CO: And we've had a lot of responses here to the first story, and I'm sure we'll hear it for this one as well. Troy, it's great to talk to you again. Thank you.

TM: Yeah. Thanks for following up with the story.

CO: Bye.

TM: Bye-bye.

CH: Troy McMullin is a research scientist specializing in lichenology at the Canadian Museum of Nature. We reached him in Ottawa.

[Music: Ambient]

COVID pianist

CH: Angela Hewitt isn't letting the lockdown get her down. In February we told you about the pianist's piano-moving problems — the problem being that piano movers dropped the 300,000-dollar Fazioli she'd been playing for 17 years, and damaged it beyond repair. Well today, the Ottawa-born Ms. Hewitt tweeted a tweeted a video from the UK, with the words, "Celebrating 10 weeks here in my 1-bedroom London flat without seeing friends (no family here). Here's #Bach jumping around with joy in his F+ two-part invention. A piece we all have tried to play. Even in a slower tempo, it should sound musical and not mechanical. Good luck!"

[sc]

[Music: An arrangement by Bach on the piano]

[/sc]

Ideas promo

CH: Hollywood studio executive Darryl Zanuck once said, "If you have something worthwhile to say, dress it in the glittering robes of entertainment, and you'll find a ready market. Without entertainment, no propaganda film is worth a dime." Which is why, for nearly a century, Hollywood war movies have often received help from the Pentagon — whether that included supplying military hardware or making script changes. On Ideas tonight, Matthew Alford, co-author of "National Security Cinema" explains why war and spy movies should be viewed as a serious political force.

CO: Debbe, when these insects are at their peak at their loudest, what does it sound like?

DEBBE NOONKESTER: Well, it's like a loud, loud humming noise, like millions of grasshoppers all at once. And then they've got this weird shriek every once in a while. [CO laughing] you hear them shrieking and it's just a really, really strange sound.

CO: We get them here, but we don't get the big swells that you get them in the south. But I understand it's raining today. So maybe if you were to help us hear what's outside your door? I don’t know if it’ll sound any good. Do you want to put your phone out there and see what it sounds like?

DN: I'm outside right now. The sound is really, really diminished right now. Because when it rains or when it's overcast, they're not nearly as noisy.

CO: But I guess it's not only the sound that is your pet peeve with these critters, is it?

DN: No, no. It's the destruction they do. And it's not the destruction of the fruit. I mean, I’d give them the fruit, but they destroy the trees.

CO: Just give us a sense of what the cicadas do to your orchard.

DN: Well, basically, they go after mostly pencil-sized limbs, but they don't care, they're not choosy. They'll go after pencil-size limbs, they’ll go after bigger limbs. They’ve even split the bark on the trunk. And what they do is they... Like, if you take a knife and you cut the peeling of let's say a grape, okay? And you know how the grape skin would kind of peel back a little bit?

CO: Uh-huh?

DN: Okay, well, imagine that all over the tree, the bark of the tree. The tree is no longer alive. It's dead.

CO: You were there farming with your orchard seventeen years ago when the last time there was this cycle of cicadas.

DN: Oh yes.

CO: What happened? What do you remember about the damage that they did then?

DN: The following year, see, we raized some of dwarf trees anyway, because this is a pick your own orchard, so we don't have real tall trees. And the way we had to cut them down, well, we probably lost about 500 trees last time. And then we went ahead and cut them so far back that they didn't do real good in bearing for the next year, or a year and a half, two years, you know. So like I said, I'd give them the fruit if they were after the fruit. But it's not the fruit they’re after. They’re after he bark, to lay their eggs. And then they go into the ground. Last time they were out, nobody could really tell us what to spray or what to use for the cicada. So they just told us to spray at will and do what you will, you know? Figure out what you can do the best with. I'm not going to get out here and spray every day. So I had to figure out what I could use in order to keep the cicadas down out of the trees. And my husband and I thought, well, why don't we try spraying the ground with some of this pesticide that we use in order to keep them from coming out of the ground before they even come out, and found that we don't have quite as many cicada coming out.

CO: But, of course, you want to be careful what you're spraying because there are lots of insects you don't want to kill when you have an orchard.

DN: Right. No, see, and that's just it. We don't use kell-em-all sprays because we like our meat eaters here in this orchard. [CO laughs] We keep our meat eaters like spiders. Yes, they love me because I'm thin-skinned and they love getting in there and biting, you know? But most of our customers don't get bit. I've found that if we keep like our praying mantis, our spiders, you know, the meateaters, and they would keep also the bad bugs down.

CO: And when you actually see them on the tree, when you see one of the little critters, how do you react?

DN: Well, right now, when I see one on the tree, I know it doesn't help a whole lot. I just pick them off and step on them, you know,, and say, take that, critter! [laughing]

[Music: Spanish guitar]

CH: The poems were a private part of a long love affair. And now, they're there for all the world to see. Every day for 25 years, British actor Peter Gordon wrote his wife, Alison King, a poem and slipped it under her pillow. And he continued to write them after her death in 2016. Now, with the help of his two daughters, hundreds of poems from that vast trove have been published online. Some of them have been read aloud by friends and actors. Like this one, recorded by former "Coronation Street" star Julie Hesmondhalgh. It's called, "The Last I Wrote While She Was Still Alive."

[/sc]

CH: That was actor Julie Hesmondhalgh reading a poem written by Peter Gordon for his wife Alison King called "The Last I Wrote While She Was Still Alive." And you can find more of Mr. Gordon's poems at aloveinverse.com.

[Music: Ambient]

Leatherback turtle tracking

Guest: Mike James

CH: When Mike James and his colleagues tagged a pair of leatherback turtles off the coast of Nova Scotia last summer, Mr. James didn't necessarily think he'd see the tags again. These kinds of devices go missing all the time. And scientists content themselves with what can be relayed by satellite. But now, less than a year later, Ruby and Isabel's tags have been recovered — after both turtles came ashore in Trinidad, just days apart. The recovery brings an unexpected windfall of data. And even though the pandemic prevented him from being there for their retrieval, Mr. James was able to stickhandle it all from home. He's a lead scientist with the sea turtle unit at Fisheries and Oceans Canada. We reached him in Halifax.

CO: Mike, can you just describe what you understand happened when these turtles landed and had these tags? I guess it was the middle of the night?

MIKE JAMES: Yeah, it was. So the animal's nest during the hours of darkness. So we were anticipating that they'd be up somewhere between sort of 9:00 at night and 6:00 in the morning. And we'd been in contact with our colleagues down there as we watched through the satellite data. The animals approached the coast, and then we were able to give them a sense of when we thought the turtles might come ashore.

CO: Okay, and what was the moment like?

MJ: Well, you know, I wish I was there for it. We'd miss the turtles on a couple other occasions, but we knew they were nesting in specific areas based on the satellite telemetry. So we were anticipating that they would return to the same beaches and we were lucky that they did. So a couple nights, there was a no-show, but fortunately, they did come to the same beaches in the end — one on the north coast and one on the east coast and people were there to find them.

CO: And you’re on the phone with them?

MJ: I was. There's a conversation that begins, you know, kind of before dusk in Trinidad, and then extends to whenever the animals are found — or not — and people head in for the night. So we were on the phone for most of the night.

CO: Were they pretty excited?

MJ: Super excited because we saw these animals. We've been tracking them for ten months, and we saw them approaching the coastline. And it was a great moment for all of us here. And also the fishermen that help us with the research program tagging the animals off our coast here in Nova Scotia. So all of us were pretty excited, too, to get the news.

CO: Okay, so now these I've seen pictures — people perhaps have as well — leatherback turtles, absolutely extraordinary creatures. Tell us. Just describe what they look like?

MJ: So Ruby is one of the two females, and she is a highly reproductive, huge leatherback. So that animal probably weighs in excess of twelve hundred pounds. She has a shell length that's almost one-point-eight metres long. And these are animals that feed exclusively on jellyfish and come up to our coasts in the summer and fall to feed here. But they nest in distant areas in South and Central America and also throughout the Caribbean and even in Florida. But these are big, big animals and they are reptiles. They are a marine reptile. And they can injure very cold, cold temperatures in order to forage on jellyfish. And then they return to the tropical climes to nest.

CO: I think there are cars that are bigger... or smaller than these than these turtle backs?

MJ: Well, people often refer to cars. It’d have to be a pretty lightweight vehicle. [both chuckling] But certainly, I like to group sometimes kids together and give them a sense of how many kids, you know, equals the weight of a leatherback. And when you're talking 10 or 15 kids, it tends to drive the message home.

CO: Now, the thing here is that you got the tags. What can you learn from them? What data is actually within those monitors?

MJ: So the tags actually are recording very, very fine scale behavioural data and environmental data. So the whole time that the tag is attached, the turtle it’s sampling, for example, the ocean temperature every ten seconds. And that information is relayed just in kind of a coarse format to us via a satellite. But if you can get it back in your hands, you get the entire data record. But even more importantly for us is the GPS record. And that's a really highly detailed reconstruction of its movements. So in both cases, we have these really large data sets that tell us really fine information about what the turtle was up to for over ten months.

CO: Wow! And over 12-thousand kilometres, right? From Canada to Trinidad.

MJ: That’s right. So they don't do a direct swim to Trinidad, but they take kind of a meandering route and then they do a second stop for a big feeding period and then head into the nesting beaches. And we've been able to follow these turtles since last July throughout that entire migration. And now to the beach.

CO: I Understand, it's pretty difficult and pretty rare to be able to retrieve these tags and get that data. So how important is this for conservation efforts with other back turtles that you're able to retrieve them?

MJ: Sure, So we have a hard time gathering detailed information on the movements of the turtles in the nesting areas because they're not spending much time at the surface. So we don't get many uplinks to the satellites from their tags and we don't have many satellite passes occurring as you approach the equator. So when you can get a suite of data that's been archived at high resolution back in your hands, you're getting a lot of very fine information about the turtle’s movements. And that helps us understand where they are hanging out and are multiple animals hanging out in the same area? We look at an enhanced sample size for that. But we can also understand, for example, if they are common places that are high use areas off the island of Trinidad. And we know that the animals are interacting regularly with artisanal fishing gear down there. And we think that might be one of the reasons why the population is declining so steeply right now.

CO: Now, were you able to get tags put back on these turtles before they headed back out to sea?

MJ: Well, that was the total bonus in all of it was we did not have tags down there for them to redeploy, but we scrambled here to facilitate some delivery of tags to them, one from a kind colleague in Florida. And then we sent two more tags down. But with all the delays associated with COVID, we weren't sure that we would actually get instrumentation to them in time. But miraculously, the tag arrived from Florida the very morning of the night it was deployed. And then the tags from Canada arrived at about 48 hours before the second turtle was tagged. So we did get instruments to the team just in time.

CO: Well, Mike, I'm sorry you couldn't have been there for that moment. But good work, and thanks for telling us about it.

MJ: Thanks very much. And I always want to give a shout out to all the people that work on this project and help us locally here and internationally.

CO: All right. Thank you. Take care.

MJ: Thank you very much.

CO: Bye-bye.

CH: Mike James is a lead scientist with the sea turtle unit at Fisheries and Oceans Canada. We reached him in Halifax — where he's celebrating his team's reunion with two leatherback turtles and their tracking tags.

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May 25, 2020 Episode Transcript

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