Daily Archives: November 29, 2020

Thanksgiving in Texas

Re: Thanksgiving feast revised for balance Teachers serving students a more fact-filled menu this year, Tuesday news story.

I read in this story about a teacher in Massachusetts who is now teaching the story of the Thanksgiving feast revised for balance. She is including the Wampanoags, the tribe sharing in the first big dinner with the Pilgrims in 1621. But, even with revision, that story is incorrect.

The first Thanksgiving feast was in Texas. Gen. Juan de Oate gained permission from the king of Spain in 1597 to lead 500 people colonists, soldiers, priests, wives, children with 7,000 head of livestock northward through the Chihuahuan desert to the Rio Grande. They made it!

Oate ordered a day of Thanksgiving. Joining the Spanish folk were the native Comanches of the region. They ate veggies that did not grow in Europe corn, chiles, tomatoes and potatoes. They also enjoyed barbecued goat. So the real Thanksgiving dinner is a cabrito burrito!

Rose-Mary Rumbley, Dallas/M Streets

Re: 2020 revealed our true character Our current social failure is the result of a hedonism that eclipses the sense of obligation to others, by Joshua J. Whitfield, Monday Opinion.

Whitfield makes excellent points about aspects of the American character and its origins. Yet our peculiar ritual: repeatedly to judge others and yet absolve ourselves and others like us, and to change nothing. Which allows us to feel atoned for sins we refuse to quit while still enjoying the judgment of others could as easily describe Christian churches on a Sunday morning.

We derive our national character, not least its thrall to hucksters and celebrities, as much from Christians peddling miracles and pie-in-the-sky while bishops deign to let their flocks kiss their rings as from cynical advertisers and attention-seeking celebrities. How much, for those of us who are Christians, does the shame sting? The answer has not been much. We might attend to that instead of the mote in our neighbors eye.

Robert Hunt, Dallas/Lake Highlands

Joshua Whitfield imputes guilt to the good citizens of Dallas and this country. He echoes the hyperbolic claim that no one is listening to medical professionals. He decries the small risks we take, the little things we do in our attempt to flourish amid social upheaval. In his judgment, we consciously commit the sin of irresponsibility towards the collective. He quotes Camus, our shame stings hardly at all. He wishes we had more.

He paints with the broad brushstroke of condemnation, masking the sacrifices and adaptations made by the citizenry. Weve endured a shutdown. Some of us have lost jobs while others work from home. Mental health is suffering. Relationships are strained. Suicides abound.

Yet Whitfield tells us of Camus Clamence, an attorney known for serving noble causes, like aiding the blind. But when Clamence was actually faced with an opportunity to genuinely care for another, he lacked compassion.

I ask Whitfield: As the prophet Nathan told King David, you are that man, I challenge you to provide a single example of a thriving collective motivated by guilt and shame.

Martyn Evans, Dallas

Re: Listen to one another, not to the pundits Many small town Trump backers want the same things from democracy as city residents, by David Thomason, Sunday Opinion.

Thomasons column on why rural Texans support President Donald Trump was chilling. He says they believe Trump is on a crusade to affirm were a nation that will do Gods will. Often when someone says they want others to do Gods will it means they think they know what God wants and are eager to force everyone else to obey. Which God are we talking about? The God who supported slavery, segregation and white supremacy? The God who condemns homosexuals? The God who says women are inferior to men and must obey them?

That God has loomed large in our nations past and is still trotted out today. Is this the God who says Muslims and Jews are going to hell, or the God who says Christians are infidels? Our founding fathers made sure we were not a nation based on doing Gods will. They knew there were many conflicting ideas of what that would be.

Instead, the Founding Fathers set us up as a secular nation which values equality, justice and individual freedoms rather than religious dogma and servitude. We dont need a crusade. We need to reinforce the wall between church and state.

Joel Hale, Dallas

David Thomason suggests that we need to listen to one another. He notes that rural Texans his group interviewed believe President Donald Trump is on a crusade to re-establish a democracy built on the will of the people (except for voters, I guess), civic virtues and doing Gods will. Yes, he has moral flaws, they allow, but so did Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison and Ben Franklin. Yes, these four had flaws, but morally bankrupt, no.

I would like to know on what basis I might have a conversation with people who plainly do not deal in reality. The Trump I have watched cares nothing about the truth, our democracy or the health and well-being of the American people. In fact, he has shown time and again that he will tear down the whole house if it serves him personally. His divisive rhetoric on COVID-19 resulted in half the people not taking it seriously, leading to the overwhelming crisis we are now facing.

If these people cannot discern his blatant dishonesty and are willing to accept his conspiracy theories without a shred of evidence, what can I talk with them about? Nice weather were having?

Donna S. Gregory, Dallas

Re: Encouraged by also discouraged, by Fred. R. Neary, Nov. 18 Letters.

This letter expresses dismay that 73 million Trump voters did not believe that character, decency, empathy and compassion are important qualities in our president. Were those the only issues we were considering with our votes? Perhaps many of those 73 million Trump voters voted against defunding the police, stacking the Supreme Court, giving Medicare to all, etc.

Tom Hopkins, Garland

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Letters to the Editor - The first Thanksgiving, column by Joshua Whitfield on our American character, column - The Dallas Morning News

By the end of 1349 most people in England assumed that their year of suffering had finished. The terrible plague they called the Pestilence, the Blue Sickness or the Great Mortality and which we call the Black Death seemed to be over. They were wrong. It was only the first wave. The plague was to return in a second wave and then a third, fourth and fifth recurrence.

It had all begun six years earlier in the Crimea, when, in 1343, a Mongol army led by the fearsome Tatar king Khan Djanibeg besieged a trading colony in Caffa. The siege lasted almost three years and it only ended when, in the words of one Italian notary, Gabriele de Mussis, the hordes of Tartars were struck by disease characterised by swellings in the armpit or groin caused by coagulating humours, followed by a putrid fever. Thousands died every day. But before the remnant of the army withdrew the Tatar general ordered that the stinking cadavers of his dead troops should be catapulted into the city in the hope that the intolerable stench would kill everyone inside. It is said to be the first recorded use of biological warfare in world history.

Large numbers inside the city perished but a few Italian merchants escaped in an armed ship in the hope of returning to Genoa. They did not make it. They landed at Messina in Sicily where they died. They had brought the Black Death to Europe.

In 1348 the great plague swept across the entire continent. Modern scholars suggest that just under half the population was wiped out in a matter of months. And the speed with which it spread is now seen as far faster than could have been possible with a plague caused by fleas leaping to humans from dead rats the method traditionally given by historians for the method of transmission of the pestilence. The latest archaeological and epidemiological research suggests that the disease may have been a virus as deadly as Ebola but as infectious as Covid-19. No human epidemic has ever covered so much geographical territory so swiftly until Covid-19 struck in 2020.

The 1348 plague spread swiftly from place to place, following no obvious pattern. Everywhere it killed with devastating suddenness, usually within a few days. The first sign of illness was a sudden coldness or prickling sensation like pins and needles. The victim became extremely fatigued and depressed. Then there soon appeared painful swellings in the groin or armpit, and sometimes on the neck. They were known as buboes hence the name bubonic plague. Little blisters or discoloured blotches, caused by internal bleeding, appeared on the skin elsewhere. High fever, with severe headaches, followed. Some victims fell into a stupor. The body effluvia, as Rosemary Horrox delicately puts it, were particularly noisome.

Death could take several days, though some people actually recovered. A second form of the epidemic was more fatal. It attacked the lungs, producing chest pains, difficulty in breathing and coughing up blood. This form was invariably fatal.

The epidemic first took hold in Europe in Italy, as did Covid-19, and spread rapidly. No one, rich or poor, was safe anywhere near the sick or the dead. In Venice three-quarters of the population died. Padua was so devastated that its chroniclers deemed the plague more destructive than Noahs Flood following which God had, after all, left a few people alive. The city was so badly hit that its elders granted an amnesty to robbers and criminals if they would resettle in the deserted town. In Florence, the pestilence was so potent that it was said by Giovanni Boccaccio, writing some time between 1348 and 1353, that gallant men and fair ladies and handsome youths who appeared in perfect health at noon dined with their relatives and friends, and at night supped with their ancestors in the next world.Some people tried to protect themselves, wearing waxed gowns, goggles and masks with beaks filled with herbs to purify the air. They carried floral nosegays to combat the stench of the rotting bodies. All to no avail.

The suddenness and scale of the catastrophe shattered both social conventions and bonds of kinship. Boccaccio recorded that almost everyone adopted the same cruel policy, which was entirely to avoid the sick and everything belonging to them. In Siena a tax collector, Agnolo di Tura, who lost his wife and five children, recorded: Father abandoned child, wife, husband, one brother another None could be found to bury the dead for money or friendship Members of a household brought their dead to a ditch as best they could, without priest, without divine offices great pits were dug and piled deep with the multitude of dead No bells tolled and nobody wept no matter what his loss because almost everyone expected death And people said and believed, This is the end of the world.

By the summer the terrible disease had spread to France, and by the autumn to Germany and then to England.The epidemic crossed the Channel in June 1348. The dreadful pestilence made its wayalong the coast by Southampton and reached Bristol, where almost the whole strength ofthe town perished, as it was surprised by sudden death; for few kept their beds more thantwo or three days, or even half a day, wrote the chronicler Henry Knighton later that same century. In Bristol nine out of ten inhabitants died. The epidemic reached London at the Feast of All Saints, on the first day of November. Then it spread north to St Albans in April 1349, York by late May despite the prophylactic processions ordered by the Archbishop there the Lincolnshire Wolds by July, and Meaux Abbey in the East Riding of Yorkshire in August where the Cistercian Abbot was among those who perished, leaving only 10 monks alive.The plague hit capriciously; some places were hardly touched while elsewhere whole villages and hamlets ceased to exist with their entire populations totally wiped out.

That was just the first surge of the infection. The plague returned not once but in four later waves before the end of the century. Thomas of Walsingham, a Benedictine monk of St Albans Abbey who died around 1422, referred to the first wave as The Great Mortality in England, Now Called the First Pestilence.

Each time the virus reappeared it seems to have mutated, for it targeted different groups. In 1361 another ten per cent of the population died in an outbreak which lasted four monthsand killed many men but few women, according to the contemporary writer Ranulf Higden. So imbalanced did the population become that widows as if degenerate and not restrained by any shame, took as their husbands foreigners and other imbeciles or madmen, he wrote. Worse still some women forgetful of their honour began to couple with their inferiors.

The 1361 outbreak particularly impacted children, especially males, other chroniclers record. This pestilence of boys was seen as the death of the innocent in divine retribution for the sins of their parents, though it may have had more to do with the fact that the young had not acquired the immunity secured by the surviving adult population.

But it also went on to kill the elderly. Then a third pestilence came in 1369 again particularly fatal to children, but also to larger animals. The fourth wave in 1374 lasted five years and wiped out whole towns and villages. All in all, King Edward III saw his subjects reduced from some four million to perhaps two and a half million souls. A fifth wave from 1390 to 1393, during the reign of Richard II, suddenly attacked healthy men, who then died raving, out of their minds, according to Thomas Walsingham.

The aftermath of the plague saw the population continue to decline until the second decade of the 1400s and then only very slowly began to recover. It was a human disaster of almost unimaginable proportion.

The meaning attributed to the pestilence by the medieval mind has echoes today. Writing in the mid-1360s, John of Reading, a monk at Westminster Abbey, suggested that the plague was a punishment from God. Today Covid-19 has been seen by some as the revenge the planet is taking upon humankind for the prolonged despoilation of the environment in the decades since the Industrial Revolution began the process of anthropogenic global warming. With the Black Death the people of the 14th century felt that the Last Judgement had arrived. Todays may be a judgement of a different kind.

The return of the plague in those second, third, fourth and fifth waves was because, suggested John of Reading, the population had returned to their sinful ways after the first wave and their greed, scorn and malice were asking to be punished. In 2020 a parallel verdict might be reached on the hubris of both politicians and people after the first wave of Covid-19 was brought to an end by the first great national lockdown only to have that lockdown eased in a precipitate and uncontrolled fashion by over-optimistic governments like that of Boris Johnson. A valuable breathing space in which to prepare for the inevitable second wave was wasted.

William Langland, the author of the great medieval epic poem, Piers Plowman, concluded, as many politicians have in 2020, that those who fell victim to the plague were victims of their own irresponsible conduct. Twenty-first century politicians pointed fingers at drunken young revellers in the streets in Liverpool and London even as Langland, writing between 1370 and 1390, named gaiety and gluttony as the cause of the affliction:

Prayers have no power to prevent these plagues

God is deaf nowadays and deigns not to hear us.

But grinds the guilty into the ground.

And yet the worldly wretches are not warned by one another

Nor portion their plenty with the poor, as pure charity prefers,

But in gaiety and in gluttony guzzle their good things

And break not their bread with the beggar, as the Book beseeches

The human response of hedonism and abandon in the face of a pandemic is something which we have learned is not confined to the so-called Dark Ages.

In the religious societies of the 14th century, strange practices of contrition arose to placate divine anger. Barefoot penitents travelled from town to town, arriving in procession, two abreast, chanting and publicly whipping themselves with three-tailed knotted scourges until the flagellants backs were covered in blood. In places where there were no priests left to perform the last rites some plague victims attempted to bury themselves alive in holy ground. The end of time seemed near.

If it was not the end of the world it was certainly the end of life as the feudal system had known it something that was to change the relationship between the rich and the poor irrevocably. In fact, key changes had already begun within the medieval social economy. Increases in agricultural productivity in the 11th and 12th centuries had created surpluses of food and wool for trading. The rise of the merchant classes had seen the growth of towns. The economy became monetised. A new middle-class had begun to form which would break apart the tripartite system of nobility, clergy and serf.

Wealthier villeins, as serfs with greater freedoms, had already, even before the Black Death, persuaded lords of the manor to release them from their feudal obligation to labour on the lords land, in return for cash. The systems of surplus production, trade, capital investment, credit and rent which were the foundations of entrepreneurial capitalism had begun to coalesce. New forms of philanthropy began to emerge, with control passing from the clergy to the laity. What the 20th century historian of medieval charity Brian Tierney calls the fortuitous calamity of the Black Death accelerated this process.

With almost half the population dead, there was an acute shortage of labour. Fields went unattended, harvests rotted, ground went untilled, weeds and bushes overgrew the manorial strips of land, and the thatch fell from abandoned peasant hovels. In some districts, famine followed plague as crops were not sown or harvested. Lords and bailiffs were deprived of their rents or had to lower them.

More radically those labourers who had survived the plague found themselves with a new bargaining power and rose in open mutiny against the old feudal law and customs. Many simply deserted the lands to which they were feudally-tied and travelled to find landlords who were prepared to hire them at higher wages. In a society where previously change had occurred at a glacial pace, the market value of labour had been doubled almost overnight.

Feudal society saw the emergence of a new social category landless migrants, with no firm roots and no fixed prospects masterless men, to borrow A L Beiers striking designation. Villeins, scenting freedom from the old serfdom, aspired to a better life with better conditions, and better food. As Piers Plowman records:

Labourers who have no land, but live by their own hands,

Deign not to dine these days on leftover cabbage.

No penny-ale may please them, nor no piece of bacon.

Only fresh flesh, or fish, fried or baked.

Feudalism became untenable as the manorial system began to break up. The nobility did their best to resist the changing economic climate, persuading the King to outlaw the new liberated behaviour of the serf classes.

In 1349 Edward III issued the Ordinance of Labourers which tried to outlaw these new higher wages. It required all the able-bodied under the age of 60 to work and forbade lords of the manor from enticing away the servants of their peers. It prohibited, under pain of imprisonment, the giving of alms to able-bodied beggars. The Ordinance failed and higher wages continued to be paid. In 1351 the English parliament passed the Statute of Labourers, which sought to enact similar measures, with a similar lack of success. Similar measures to freeze wages and inhibit the movement of labourers were enacted in France and Aragon.

Feudal nobles tried to enforce the new laws, instructing local justices to track down absconding villeins and drag them back to servitude. Magistrates were also told to exact the ancient dues from those who remained on the land. Fugitive labourers when caught could, under a 1361 statute of the English parliament, be branded on the forehead with an F for Falsity.

But many labourers simply migrated to more distant estates where they were employed by other landlords with no questions asked. Others fled to the woods and became Robin Hood-style bandits; it was in this historical period that the legend of the man who robbed the rich and defended the poor has its roots.

It seemed to the feudal nobility that the pandemic had turned world topsy-turvy. The lower orders were getting out of hand and all-important social distinctions were becoming blurred. So threatened did the nobility feel that sumptuary laws were introduced to regulate the clothes which different classes of society could wear, and the food they could eat. In 1363 the same parliament passed A Statute Concerning Diet and Apparel to curb the alarming tendency of prosperous merchants to flaunt their growing wealth with conspicuous consumption daring to wear the same fashions, and eat the same food, as the noble elite. The law dictated what colour and type of apparel were allowed to persons of various ranks down to the detail of furs, fabrics and trims to outlaw the outrageous and excessive apparel of divers people against their estate and degree, to the great destruction and impoverishment of all the land.

This measure did not work either. At the end of the 14th century Henry Knighton was still lamenting in his Chronicle that the lesser people were so puffed up in their dress and their belongings that one might scarcely distinguish one from another not a humble man from a great man, not a needy from a rich man, not a servant from his master, not a priest from another man.

But there was no holding back the tide of change. As the great Whig historian GM Trevelyan concludes: No statute could make two loaves or two labourers where there was only one. No Act of Parliament could repeal the Black Death or abolish the spirit of the age. The statutory curbs on wages, the pursuit of fleeing serfs, the sumptuary laws, the imposition of a poll tax to fight anachronistic foreign wars, and the general refusal to complete the emancipation of the villeins, all created discontent. So did the huge rise in taxes which followed the plague, exacerbated by the cost of the Hundred Years War.

By the end of the century there were feudal rebellions in Italy and France and, perhaps most famously, in England, the great Peasants Revolt of 1381. The old order was in decline. Plague and pandemic had changed the world for ever.

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If Europe's leaders had read the history of the Black Death, they might have been prepared for this pandemic - TheArticle

This will be an unforgettable holiday season for all of us, starting with Thanksgiving.

Unfortunately, Northwest wineries, retailers, restaurants and others in the hospitality industry are suffering as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Each year, these businesses bank on October, November and December which they often refer to as O-N-D as their most critical time because of the celebrations and gift giving that we all enjoy as part of tradition.

Thats changed for many of us.

As the virus has spiked throughout the Northwest this fall, tasting rooms and restaurants across the region are dealing with a return of restrictions. Some will continue to offer outdoor tastings in chilly yet festive surroundings, but many have closed for the next several weeks.

Meanwhile, look to see if your favorite wineries are offering cyber week specials. In some cases, these might be deals on shipping, particularly for wine club members. Buying a few bottles and having them shipped to loved ones or friends is a delicious holiday greeting and helps the Northwest economy.

Heres something else to consider this season, particularly for those whose personal incomes and budgets havent been damaged support one of your favorite independently owned restaurants. Order at least one of these three holiday meals for takeout and/or delivery.

Regardless of your direction, here are several ideas for Northwest wines that will complement those special meals, whether they center around turkey, ham, prime rib or even barbecue fare. And when setting the table, place a pitcher of water within arms reach of anyone and make room for two wine glasses per person. One for white, another for red as well as a filled water glass.

Underwood Nouveau Pinot Noir, Oregon, $14: Ryan Harms of Union Wine Co., one of Oregons largest producers, uses pinot noir rather than Gamay to toast the annual November hootenanny in France and beyond that is Beaujolais Nouveau. Union harvested the grapes for this wine just a few weeks ago and rushed it to bottle in the spirit of the Beaujolais celebration that surrounds the first wine of each vintage. What began as an informal tradition prior to World War II was officially established in 1951 and famously promoted worldwide by the late Georges Duboeuf. Unions expression fits the nature of the wine, a fun profile of strawberry taffy, bubble gum, cherry punch and plum juice that will be ideal with turkey. Union makes it available by the bottle or in a four-pack of 375-milliliter aluminum cans, and its Nouveau Pinot Noir is only sold online for a limited time, as these wines are very much meant to be enjoyed in their youth.

Domaine Ste. Michelle NV Brut, Columbia Valley $14: The largest production sparkling wine in the Northwest also ranks among the best. Floral notes of orange peel and lime zest come with a sense of toastiness as the creamy mousse leads out with a touch of tropical fruit. Its an expertly crafted wine that checks in with 1.5% residual sugar and wont cost much at checkout. Its a perfect wine to launch the holiday season.

Mercer Bros. 2018 Chardonnay, Horse Heaven Hills, $17: Prosser native Jeremy Santo, a product of Washington State University, creates for Rob and Will Mercer a chardonnay with integrated oak that creates harmony alongside the touches of orange, apricot and pear. Its laid back in its structure with a medium-bodied sweet cream core, yet it finishes brightly with a hint of river pebble. This earned a gold medal at the 2020 Cascadia International Wine Competition.

Cave B Estate Winery 2019 Roussanne, Ancient Lakes of Columbia Valley, $27: Chef-turned-winemaker Freddy Arredondo uses this often-overlooked Rhone white grape to create a wine for the chardonnay lover looking for something new and special. Its a fruit cocktail in a glass, and the flavors show off with creamy spun sugar, white peach and pear. The brightness to the finish brings a bit of fresh spritz and pushes honey-lemon preserves out to the last drop.

Mt. Hood Winery 2019 Gewrztraminer, Columbia Gorge, $24: Drawing on vines from near the Bickford familys bucolic tasting room, Hood River, Oregon, native Rich Cushman crafted a wine with the bouquet of wild roses, spice and tropical fruit that resolves in the mouth into an appealing sipper with flavors of pink grapefruit, more spice and just-right acidity perfect to accompany a green salad, Asian fare or a turkey leg. This earned a gold medal at the 2020 Cascadia International Wine Competition.

Yakima Valley Vintners 2017 Coyote Canyon Vineyard Primitivo, Columbia Valley, $18: Trent Ball, Brad Smith and their students at Yakima Valley College collaborate on the wines under the Yakima Valley Vintners label, which are poured and sold at the tasting room on their Grandview campus, and this Primitivo is grown at Coyote Canyon Vineyard in the Horse Heaven Hills. Dusty black cherry and strawberry jam aromas come with a slice of peach. On the palate, its all about vine-ripened strawberry and cherry-skin tannins, along with the hedonism thats closely associated with this sibling of zinfandel. The school has earned a number of gold medals in 2020; this is one of them.

Claar Cellars NV Estate Fouled Anchor Port, Columbia Valley: $30: This three-generation vineyard-winery in the Columbia Basins proposed White Bluffs American Viticultural Area near Pasco, produces this delicious fortified bottling thanks to winemaker Israel Zenteno, who blends four Bordeaux red varieties with syrah. Its port-like from start to finish, beginning with a brickish brown appearance and just the right amount of age with Tootsie Pop, black currant, coconut, plum skin and leather. A structure thats rich and juicy with frontal tannins adds complexity. The long finish of plum, sarsaparilla, caramel and nuttiness will play well with pecan pie or chocolate cake.

Eric Degerman operates Great Northwest Wine, an award-winning media company. Learn more about wine at http://www.greatnorthwestwine.com.

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Add these Northwest wines to your holiday dinner table | HeraldNet.com - The Daily Herald

A short, distanced wait at the door while the booking was checked, escorted in by a masked waiter, sat at a table big enough for King Arthurs knights, menus accessed by QR Code, and we were good to go. The nearest customer was about ten yards away and the hush was more like Morningside Library on Tuesday afternoon than Friday night in a big boozer.

A couple of beers, and a bottle of wine with dinner, and before you could say Shall we have a nightcap at the Cannys it was after 9.30 and with it the polite warning we would have to be out by 10pm.

Now, with Edinburgh firmly clamped down in Tier 3, booze is banned, everywhere shuts at 6pm and our one night out in nine months now feels like unbridled hedonism. But while it might be irritating not being able to meet friends for a pint, the hospitality sector and its suppliers face catastrophe at the prospect of the new Prohibition lasting until Easter.

Hundreds of premises across Scotland are on the brink of permanent closure, taking thousands of jobs with them, and all Nicola Sturgeon can say is she is scunnered at having to maintain restrictions.

Unfortunately, scunnered doesnt pay the bills or explain why good businesses which invested in improved facilities and staff training have to bear the brunt of the Scottish governments tactics. Nor does scunnered gloss over the absence of data to prove that well-run pubs and restaurants contributed significantly to the second infection wave.

At least now the prospect of vaccines lifting the siege is real, but like the families of soldiers killed on November 10, 1918, it will be no comfort to those who lose their livelihoods. And scunnered wont begin to describe the feeling of those who see their once-profitable premises snapped up by opportunists in the inevitable fire-sale of distressed assets which the end of lockdown will surely herald.

McLarens is part of the Signature Pubs chain run by Nic Wood, who with other members of the Scottish Hospitality group has launched a petition to persuade the Scottish government to agree a six-point survival plan, including longer hours. Significantly, theyre not seeking to sell alcohol, even though the drinks mark-up makes the difference between a thriving business and a charity.

Just to break even is all Mr Wood is asking. "We spent so much money before the July reopening trying to be as safe as possible, he told Edinburgh Live. We moved to restrict gatherings to six people from two households, then complied with the music ban, then finally they just told people not to go back to bars any more it's like the government have a basic inability to understand us as an industry.

Hes hardly alone, and across Edinburgh businesses large and small are wondering if national and local administrations truly understand and value what they do. As Mr Wood said, We need to be left with an economy and industry at the end of all this."

John McLellan is a Conservative councillor for Craigentinny/Duddingston

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Covid lockdown: Nicola Sturgeon needs to realise the damage being caused to hospitality industry John McLellan - Edinburgh News