Greedy, nocturnal and irregular of habit

In a Bridgerton-esque Central European country where the correct form of address for a baron is "Baron", would it be okay for the characters to address him as such in the English translation or would that make them sound like Americans who don't understand English titles? And specifically in a sex scene, does "Oh, Baron!" sound all right? (It's a screenplay that will be read by London-based producers).

The Story of Yanxi Palace is that rare beast, a historical c-drama that puts women, their lives and their relationships with other women front and centre and expects you to be interested.
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Great Nirvana in Fire vid here on AO3: Secret

I've been having trouble going to sleep recently and had the suspicion that it might have to do with watching k-dramas on my laptop shortly before bedtime. In the hope that reading wouldn't have this effect, I downloaded The Book of Koli onto my Kindle and started that instead. With the result that I was still reading at 1am. It's great to have found a book I can't put down but it wasn't actually the effect I was aiming for! Possibly struggling with something in Swedish would have a more soporific effect. But anyway, The Book of Koli: right up my alley, so heartfelt thanks to the poster who recced it.

In my last post asking for k- and c-drama recs, I mentioned a Taiwanese series I'd enjoyed called One Day or Some Day. It turns out the title is actually Some Day or One Day and whimsyful has a good, not-really-spoilery review here that explains why it appealed to me in when I was unable to do so myself. She also kindly provides a link in the comments to a very thoughtful blog post about the show https://invisibledragon.home.blog/2020/02/22/the-past-is-another-country-someday-one-day-episode-13/, although this IS spoilery and therefore should be saved till after watching.

About 3 weeks ago, Austria and the UK had roughly the same number of confirmed cases of coronavirus. A few days later, Austria moved into very strict lockdown, while Boris Johnson blithely adopted Dominic Cummings' ideas about herd immunity and protecting the economy, went around shaking hands with everyone, and caught covid-19 himself. A bit less than 3 weeks later, the UK has had 3,605 coronavirus deaths and Austria has had 168.

Sweden will be the test case. They're following the herd immunity strategy and so far they've only had 333 deaths. Perhaps the Swedes are disciplined enough to keep 1 metre distance from everyone else, wash their hands properly, and not shake hands. Perhaps that will be enough. But it has to be said that the strategy has proved a disaster for the UK.

I see Mr Orban has finally nailed his true colours to the mast and made himself dictator-for-life. Perhaps the EU will now seize the chance to fill some of the financial hole left by Brexit by ceasing all payments to Hungary until actual democracy - as opposed to the "illiberal" pseudo-democracy that was in place before the coup - is restored.

On a wholly different note, I have finally found a way to give my life some structure and meaning (it turns out garden projects do not suffice for adding meaning to life) by making very short English videos for kindergarten kids and posting them on Facebook. I try to post them by 10am, and since I need to leave plenty of time for the inevitable struggle with technology, this gets me up and dressed with my hair brushed and my teeth clean at a sensible hour of the day. Then afterwards I can go out and bang a few clods of earth without feeling resentful that this is the most meaningful activity I'll be engaged in all day.

Tashi has been quarantined until the results of a coworker's test for coronavirus come through in 4-6 days. I'm trying not to worry because she's young and fit and the nature of her work means she will inevitably come down with it at some point, so better now when there are still ventilators available, but there are so many people in the world who don't have that reassurance and I swing between depression and raging fury when I think about how we've forced more and more people into conditions of appalling stress and poverty because it suits the rich.

I have some sympathy for the young people defying the lockdown regs - they've been marching for Fridays for Future of a couple of years now and not a bloody thing has been done because "the economy" comes first. The older generations don't care much about the planet because they calculate that they'll be dead by the time the shit really hits the fan. And now suddenly there's a threat to the old and not the young, and voila, it turns out you can in fact shut down practically the entire world economy to protect them. Young people are expected to sacrifice their jobs, their freedom, their friendships and almost all of the things that give pleasure, not for themselves, but to keep the very people alive who have given sod all about the future of the young.

To lose ONE health minister to coronavirus may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose TWO looks like carelessness.

Yesterday Hussein, who is a very sweet boy, announced that he would like to cook for us but that the only thing he knows how to cook is Afghan rice. I said in that case I'd make something to go on top, and so dinner was a team effort. It turns out Afghan rice is fantastic. It's longer and thinner than, say basmati rice, and Hussein cooks it with oil and lots of water and then drains it in a sieve, yet it's still light and fluffy. This may solve our cooking rice on Akka problem - so far we've had to use boil-in-a-bag rice, which of course involves unnecessary plastic waste, but the alternative has always been to have it burn at the bottom of the pan. Now all we have to do is lug 20kg of Afghan rice up to Sweden with us.

My mother has joined her street's What's App group and had her first delivery of food via a neighbour, so I am feeling much better about her. The group makes her feel less alone, and she's finally starting to take self-isolation seriously, although while we were on the phone, she said "Oh, I've got to go, one of my friends is at the door," leaving me screaming down the line "At least make sure you stand six feet away while you talk to her!" Then I sent her this compilation of Italian mayors yelling at people to obey lockdown (I have great sympathy for the person who wanted a mobile hairdresser to come round, next time I hear a global pandemic is on the cards, the very first thing I shall do is get my hair cut). Anyway, have some gloriously outraged (and one very calm) mayors: https://twitter.com/protectheflames/status/1241696164782669824?s=09

No one wants paid translation work right now, but the odd bit of stuff drifts in now and again from people who would like it done unpaid. I'm more than happy to help the refugee charities who are currently trying to put pressure on the EU to airlift out people from the hell that is Moria and the other Greek island "camps", but I am not yet sufficiently bored to take on 5 pages of PDF explaining how fungal spores can save the world from covid-19.