Lola Seaton’s piece on Mark Fisher (The Critics, 22 January) was wonderfully thorough and moving. It managed to articulate, much like Fisher did, the ineffable sense of loss that typifies this late strain of capitalism. This was heightened by Seaton’s poignant references to the human loss that Fisher’s friends expressed at his memorial. With such glowing appraisals of his affecting work and deep sense of purpose, it is little wonder that there is clamour for more of his writing among such a lost generation. I can’t help but feel galvanised when I read Fisher’s work – Seaton’s piece evoked similar feelings, and not merely through association. I hope that in the aftermath of this collective crisis we can mobilise some of the consciousness we’ve lost and so desperately need. The alternative – a return to an acquiescent “normality” – risks setting us back yet another generation, and yet another crisis.
At 79, I calculate I was the 7,600,001st person in the vaccine queue after NHS staff, care workers and the more than 3 million over-eighties. However, having shared Peter Wilby’s view (First Thoughts, 8 January) that it would be astonishing, given its record of failure, were the government to get its act together on administering the vaccine, I have to warn him: he could be shocked. I nearly had a heart attack on Saturday 2 January on being told over an actual phone by a real person to report at 1.40pm on Thursday for the inoculation at a surgery within walking distance of my home! Now I just have to wait for the follow-up.