I've been thinking a lot this week about normal accidents, the millennium bug, the respective roles of optimism and pessimism and the importance of place.

The last one in particular has been occupying me because apart from the odd visit to the inlaws (other side of Watford) and once to me mum's, none of the four of us have really left the house since March.

One of our kids has really struggled to get back into school this week - for various reasons it's just been too different, unexpected and socially overwhelming.

But I've been thinking about that debate involving "going to work" or WFH, being at home v being at school etc. For large parts of the population being a child involves being in a home or being in a school for most of the week, and being an adult being in a workplace or a home.

Now I know that some homes are impossibly tight, and some workplaces are proving to be dangerous. But for many both the home and the workplace take up most of the week, and are safe places involving controlled contact with others.

Student life for many is fascinating in this context because of the freedom. It also is fascinating because it involves spending time on campuses, in others' homes, in pubs and clubs, in PT jobs and in cities.

What becomes a worry I think is that my kids are either at school or home with some bits of other things. Similarly me and Lorna are at work or home with other bits.

Students get quite squeezed from multiple angles. They can't spend much time on campus. "Home" is often tiny with no communal space. PT jobs hard to come by now. Pubs, clubs all v difficult. And "meeting people" to create sustainable online rships quite tough.

I do think with the few days we have left we might usefully ask ourselves how students might be spending their week and see if there are ways we might be able to make that more bearable.

Will there be rapid, dangerous "wildfire" transmission? I hope not. But if there isn't, dodging that bullet may be because student life has been rendered not just a bit different but really genuinely hard to cope with.

Above all we need to remember I think that "space" really really matters. Where will people be all week if they can't visit others' houses, employers, cafes, or campuses? And can we contribute to giving them somewhere safe to be/go that isn't an open marquee in a British winter?

I don't know how accurate this Tab story is btw but I do think this sort of thing will prove to be a problem for three reasons: https://thetab.com/uk/sussex/2020/09/03/revealed-sussex-uni-library-introduces-new-maximum-capacity-of-50-people-in-term-one-42721

a) a major source of feeling of injustice (more than online teaching) b) photos of queues in the rain to get in will look awful c) the "somewhere to be" space issue I was talking about in this thread.