Dying of Boredom and the Misbehaviour

Sunday, 5^th April 2020

There’s, ‘How are you doing?’ And then there’s, ‘What are you doing?’ with the first question dependent in some ways on the second.

If you work for the NHS like my wife then the answer to the first is along the lines of: ‘Pretty stressed, but just about coping,’ (and she works in mental health, not physical care although she has been put on notice that if there are frontline staff shortages, she will be co-opted onto hospital wards) and she might answer the second with something along the lines of: ‘Making rapid adjustments to the way I do my job in a very short space of time. Trying to exercise and meditate and bake and read and do some gardening to stay sane.’

If you’re me (which you can’t be so it was an utterly stupid way to start a sentence), then I might say: ‘Well, I move between a kind of delirious joy at being alive in this world at this time with the sun shining but the end of the world silently and invisibly moving through the grass and a sudden dull gut-thump of despair because it’s the end of the world and the sun is shining to remind me how fragile and beautiful it is just to be alive on this earth in this century.’

To the second question, I can say plenty but this question is more loaded than normal, isn’t it? What we all should be doing is sitting on the naughty step at home because Boris said so and he’s the Blighty Boss. Unfortunately, lots of us aren’t sitting at home obediently, including me.

This weekend, I have mentally tut-tutted at the following activities: seeing a peloton of about seven cyclists ride past; watching a gathering of about nine thirteen-year-olds sitting on a skate ramp and just kind of hanging out; and watching two different families play tennis together despite the tennis courts being padlocked (they made their way in via a hole where the fence had been pulled apart in defiance, and, maybe, pure rage at this restriction on the fundamental right of every Englishman and woman to knock a fuzzy yellow ball over a net).

Now, this last one gets a bit tricky. I had turned up at the tennis court with both my sons for a game, our daily allotted exercise. We stood in front of the locked gates slightly perplexed until one of the dads already playing shouted over that there was a hole in the fence and then he indicated where. So, like any law-abiding, leading-by-example parent, I led my children to aforesaid hole and we sidled in between the two bits of the fence and in to the courts to exercise our God-given right to play tennis, which would be enshrined in our constitution if we had one.

Clearly, the council deemed it necessary to shut the courts and keep people off them and therefore away from each other. So why did I do this? Well, I wanted to play; I didn’t want to disappoint my two sons who were looking forward to playing; and I don’t like ‘No Entry/No Trespassing/Private Property’ signs very much, being, by nature, somewhat of a non-conformist. With the other two families on another court, I also felt like they had somehow given me permission. It felt a bit naughty but we stayed and played and had a good game.

In fact, Sol enjoyed it so much, not having played for about three years, he was really keen to go again the next day. So, like any law-abiding, lead-by-example, obey-the-Bozza citizen, I took them back. This time, no-one was on the courts so we had to steal in there in full view of the scattered family groups in the park. After a short while, two people turned up at the locked gates to play tennis and I shouted over, ‘There’s a hole in the fence over here.’ They looked at us for a few seconds then turned round, went back to their car and drove away. Like good, law-abiding citizens.

As we drove home, I thought that maybe we were pushing our luck and that we would knock it on the head.

3pm the next day and maybe you can guess where we are? That’s right: back on the tennis courts. This time, there is another family already in there and then soon after another couple turn up at the locked gates and we point out the hole in the fence which they sneak through. So that’s three of the four courts in use and a total of about 11 people playing and I look around and think, ‘Well, this doesn’t look too good, does it?’ 

And I’m not the only person who thinks so. A woman walks her dog past the court and speaks loudly and indignantly to the couple who sneaked in last, with our tacit encouragement and permission. She tells them, rather angrily, that the council locked the courts just three days ago to keep everyone off and for very good reason. The couple look a bit embarrassed. The woman walks off, round to the other side of the courts and starts remonstrating with the parents of the family, asking them why they are there when the courts are clearly locked. Then she stands there speaking loudly with another dog-walker, getting very cross at this flagrant tennis playing. Eventually, she storms across the grass, away from the courts.

After another half an hour, with her anger still hanging tangibly over the court, we finish a set of tennis. Although we haven’t discussed the angry woman, we decide by mutual agreement to cut things short and go home.

As we wriggle back out through the hole, I see a police car parked nearby on the road. I am a bad parent, I think. Also, I am a law-flouting, terrible-example-setting citizen of my local community. And my rebellious nature is usually expressed in word more than deed and does not extend to giving the rozzers a mouthful and legging it across the park.

And this is it, isn’t it? Everyone else (the peloton of cyclists etc) gets a tut-tut and a disapproving wag of the head because they are panic-buying and food-hoarding and driving into the countryside for a walk and sunbathing in the park but we…we are innocent victims of everyone else’s selfish behaviour.

It’s only Week 2 of lockdown and you can tell everyone has already had enough. The teenagers are re-gathering, like slime mould inexorably sliding back together again. The elderly are giving Covid-19 the finger because they’ve lived through worse (a Thatcher government, the Eurovision Song Contest, Noel’s House Party), but you and I, well, we’re eating quinoa instead of pasta as if it’s a sacrifice and complaining quietly about running out of ras-el-hanout and being a bit sad that we can’t get to the garden centre to buy some border plants. But being obedient is just fucking boring isn’t it?

And misbehaviour relieves the monotony.

During the Risk night, I drunkenly challenge Noah (my six-foot, black belt in Tae Kwon Do, rugby playing, fifteen-year-old) to a game of boxing chess which involves a round of boxing then 2 mins of chess and so on until someone is knocked out or checkmated. Of course, I have made all his dreams come true with this, even with the promise that he will only go 60% of his all-out-destruction potential.

Yesterday, it took precisely 1 minute for him to sit me on my arse with a left hook. In five rounds of boxing (and thank god I’m better at chess and can end it after five rounds with a checkmate), I might have landed three shots on his head. He picks me off with his jabs, lands a few tasty hooks to the head, and when I try and come inside to mix it up, in a vain attempt to combat the height (I’m 5’ 7”) and reach advantage he has, he cracks me in the ribs and slips a few uppercuts through my guard.

If the police had stopped me in the park today, I would have been sporting an absolute shiner of a black eye. It seems the Punk Krow doesn’t know his limits. When we have all been ‘Sent straight-to-bed-without-any-supper,’ which is surely Bozza’s next announcement, you can blame me and all the others out there for breaking the rules. For being bored. For going outside when we grounded. 

Unfortunately, the next directive will mean my opportunities for exercise are limited to what we can do at home and we own both a chess set and some boxing gloves…

Latest data for the UK (as of 10pm):

Infected: 47,806

Deaths: 4,934

Celebrity Deaths: 2 - Eddie Large & Alexander Thym - the 7^th Marquess of Bath

People I know who are infected: 3 (my boss, two teaching assistants)

Song of the Day: ‘Anyone for Tennis’ – Cream

PS I am now on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Punk_Krow 😊 If you follow me, then you can be follow the links to each new blog post.