1610

 In 1610 James the first was on the throne, Shakespeare’s play Cymbeline was first performed, Monteverdi’s vespers were published, Galileo found Jupiter’s 4th moon and witch trials were happening. Sir Robert Rich was our town MP and the Moot Hall was already being used as the centre of government for the town.  There was no plague. Louis XIII was crowned in France and a man called Henry Hudson discovered a river in America (although I suspect the people who lived there knew about it before). It’s also the name of a steak restaurant in Pontefract.

At 16.10 I quite like to have a cup of tea. It’s the time when children, returning from school used to need a snack and a poo.

Supposedly 1610 is an Angel number; a message from your angels reminding you that your thoughts and beliefs create reality, or that you have the power to help others, or that you will be well rewarded if you work hard, depending on which witch you speak to.

1610 is an even number. It is not a palindrome, a triangle, a square or a cube number. It is MDCX in Roman numerals. The square root of 1610 is 40.124805295478. The binary version on 1610 is 11001001010. It is not a prime number or a perfect number. It’s not in the Fibonacci sequence or a partition prime, a Fermat prime or a Pell prime. It’s prime factors are 2 5 7 and 23.

1610 is roughly the seating capacity of the Prince Edward theatre, where I saw Miss Saigon and sobbed.

It’s also the number of people that were recorded as having died from Covid in the UK yesterday (in one day!), as Matt Hancock went on TV and talked about moving out of lockdown soon, as case numbers had started to fall. 

I’m a bit worried about thinking this because of the Angel number stuff but won’t they ever learn? It’s the uncertainty we can’t face; the can-we-can’t-we? confusion; the not being able to plan for anything; the knowledge that if we wait until we know that the vaccine is working then we don’t have to think about thousands of people suffering a new and sometimes unnecessary grief every day in the most terrible circumstances for dealing with grief.