Alien Invasions and The Covid Tapestry
Monday,
6th April 2020
In two weeks, I have done the following: cleaned both
cars inside and out; started building some garden furniture out of pallets;
moved some plants in the garden and re-potted some others; cleared the drain of
the winter’s black gooey smelly gunk; played Risk; moved all the furniture in
the front room to convert it into a gym; done lots of online yoga; practiced meditation;
went shopping for my parents; played garden cricket & tennis & a rugby
kicking game we invented; completed a screenplay challenge based on Tarot cards;
joined Twitter; mastered sandwich Sudoku; built a fire and cooked on it; cut
the grass; went cycling; attacked all the sneaky little shoots of bindweed
before they could get going; Zoom-ed my parents; and my family; helped my
youngest son with his homework; got punched in the face; removed the moss off the
roof of our extension; went paddle-boarding; cleaned and re-organised the
cupboard under the stairs; and now, for fuck’s sake, I’m doing a 1000 piece
puzzle of a Japanese geisha girl that was going to be delivered to my mother-in-law
but, well, you know…
And now what…? It seems everyone is desperate to hear
some kind of answer to when this thing will end, and not just because they have
put some shelves up and organised their DVD collection alphabetically and now aren’t
quite sure what to do.
All in all, China did a pretty good job of putting a
lid on the spread of Covid-19 in the most populated country in the world. I
guess, sometimes, it pays to be an authoritarian oligarchy with a populace who
know they don’t have access to the truth or freedom of information or religious
belief. And yet the democratic South Korea did even better, flattening the
curve by doing the unimaginable: following the WHO advice to the letter.
Clever, clever Koreans; I don’t know how they do it.
Then there’s the North Korea approach which is based on
a school playground game of ‘It’ (see below). They closed their borders early
and now, according to their government, they have a total of…wait for it…no
cases!
South Korea: I touched you.
North Korea: You didn’t.
South Korea: I did. I felt it.
North Korea: You didn’t touch me; you just missed.
China: He touched you. Just admit it. You’re ‘it.’
North Korea: Well, I’m not playing then.
That Kim Jong-Un – great guy! Saved his country from
the pandemic, invented the Rubik’s Cube, wrote, starred in, and directed Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, shot some rockets into the sea, killed his
uncle, ate some cheese. When this is over, I know where I’m heading…
But back to time. Is it possible to have too much of
it (like the truth)? If I’m doing a puzzle by the beginning of Week 3 of
lockdown, what will happen by Week 7, Week 19? I might be crocheting myself a
funeral shroud or colouring in a picture of some kittens that I’ve printed off
the CBeebies website. Maybe you really can die of boredom and there’ll be no
equivalent to VE Day at the end because I’ll be slumped inside over a half finished
40-foot long Covid Tapestry woven out of excess pubic hair, my malnutritioned
hands still clinging to some cut toenails that were going to be Bozza’s
eyebrows in his hospital death scene.
Get ready for Phase 56 (the end): your house will be
worth nothing and everyone has had to eat their least favourite or fattest child.
Joe Wicks is 58 and has had two hip replacements. Everybody will be divorced (via
Zoom family law courts) but still living together. There’ll be humpback whales
in the Manchester Ship Canal and we were invaded by sexually voracious
multi-orificed aliens which nobody even noticed and who only received a lonely
wave from a six year old girl in a Frozen onesie drinking a mug of her own
urine through a straw.
Ah, the future. I remember that…
Latest data for the UK (as of 10pm):
Infected: 51,608
Deaths: 5,373
Celebrity Deaths: 2 (And Bozza is unwell…)
People I know who are infected: 3 (my boss, two teaching assistants)
Song of the Day: ‘Time to Get Ill’ – The Beastie Boys
Comments
Post a Comment