It wasn’t because they lacked information – they had access to the same information from other countries that other countries did. And I believe that was a choice the authorities here made. Apparently that would have saved over 10,000 lives if it’d have happened here. In Germany you locked down on the same day, I think, but you were about two weeks behind us in the progress of the virus, so effectively you locked down two weeks before us in epidemiological terms. And then it became clear that the UK government were getting it wrong and reacting too slowly. It was really around the second week of March, when I saw that over 800 people had died in one day in Italy. When did you realize that Corona would also affect you specifically, your life and the activities of ANAAL NATHRAKH? Good for inspiration for ANAAL NATHRAKH, perhaps, but that’s not a good thing for the world! These are not good times in global affairs. Plenty of other places are hardly any better, and many are worse. Britain, in particular England, is a fucking political cesspit.
But it’s got to the point where I can’t listen to the news without screaming at the radio and stabbing at the off button before the chest pains kick in. And I jokingly called debate programmes „shout at the radio“.
#WHEN YOU LIKE ABBA BUT YOU ALSO LIKE DEATHMETAL TV#
Ten years ago or so I was quite engaged, keeping abreast of what was happening, principally via radio coverage because in the UK it’s a bit more insightful than TV tends to be. I’ve had to step away from paying too much attention to news media and so on. If anything, it’s been reaching levels beyond my ability to cope.
I mean, I’m far from shocked that mendacity and malignant ignorance are everywhere.
You heard the album, right? Yeah, I’m very angry. And despite all this, there are people who do not believe in these problems or who take a stand against it. There is also much else that is in disorder: Britain is heading towards a no-deal Brexit, the climate crisis is manifesting itself in California burning, an all-decisive election is pending in the USA, and the refugee crisis is escalating in Lesbos. And I say that as someone who occasionally sounds like a conspiracy theorist himself, haha! But there’s a big difference between pointing to Tufton Street, or something like an actual book by William Rees-Mogg that you can go and buy, on the one hand, and on the other hand thinking that aliens want to put things up your arse because Hillary Clinton told them to. I don’t know what’s going on with all that, I’m not going to try to understand the thought processes of fuckwits. And also they’ve tried setting fire to mobile phone masts, because apparently they’re what’s making people sick or something. And they’ve all been from different countries! So no, it’s definitely not just a German thing, and yeah, here in Birmingham we’ve had protests, too. In the interviews I’ve been doing for the album recently, a few people have asked me that, and all of them have asked if it was the same here, or if it was a thing specific to their country. And it’s hard not to think that we’re about to experience a seasonal resurgence in the global North, which isn’t a pleasant prospect.Īt least in Germany there are more and more protests „against the virus“, people believe the most abstruse conspiracy theories – do you also have something like that with you, or is it „typically German“? But my parents are classed as particularly vulnerable, so they’ve been basically locked in at home since March, and I’ve got friends who’ve had colleagues die, so it’s hardly as if the virus seems remote and unthreatening from where I’m sitting. My girlfriend had a mysterious illness around late March which could have been the virus, but that’s all we’ve experienced of it directly. Without wanting to tempt fate, I’ve been ok so far. We talk to each other in strange times – the Corona pandemic still has a firm grip on the world – how are you doing with it? Hello and thanks for taking the time for this interview.
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