For We're All Jolly Good Fellows!

Monday, 27^th April 2020

Do you remember when shooting heroin directly into your own eyes was more dangerous than sitting in the park? Ah, those were the days…

My suspicion that I am (unknowingly) playing myself in a version of The Truman Show has not been helped by the wall to wall sunshine that greets me whenever I dare to step outside (or into the ‘death-zone’ as it is now called). Of course, this sunshine is easy to fake when the extent of my geographic explorations often ends at my back fence. I hope they hurry up and either, change all the batteries in the birds, or erect the mind-controlling 5G masts, because lockdown is getting on my tits now.

I have completed the seating area at the end of the garden just in time for it to rain for the next few days. Another 1,000 piece geisha puzzle is also nearly done. We have played Risk twice. And Monopoly. We have weeded and cleaned and done every possible walk that starts and ends at our front door. The dog is sick of us. We are sick of each other. I hate queueing outside the supermarket and I am still having nightmares which is obviously the way my brain is processing that lurking shadow, the death-whisper that is now so permanent I am no longer consciously hearing it. This is the week when I run out of things to do. And it will rain, reducing the possibilities.

Do you remember when you were happy? We were happy, once, weren’t we? We were just too busy to notice. And, of course, a bit naïve. Anyone with half an eye on the flu viruses of the last twenty years and a degree in epidemiology could have spotted this thing coming a mile off (I see you: you’re in a pre-prepared bunker, aren’t you? Smugly watching this unfold and eating astronaut food you ‘put down’ in advance).

This is the week I need someone to blame. As an armchair critic, I have always reined myself in with the thought that maybe it’s a lot more difficult than it looks, running a country and making big decisions. But it’s not, is it? During this unfolding crisis, I have, at every point, sat here and listened to the government’s decision making and thought: ‘Well, that doesn’t sound like a very good idea…’ Unfortunately, I had clung on to some ridiculous belief that Britain was still a country full of sensible people who ‘did the right thing’ and were excellent ‘when the chips were down’ and not a nation run by privately-educated wankers with no actual beliefs other than ‘I am a rum old chap and rum old chaps are just jolly brilliant.’

This is the week I am angry again. Usually, political decisions kill people slowly: Universal Credit, underfunding mental health services, closing Sure Start centres, returning people to the Caribbean who have lived and worked here for 3o, 4o years. But now, decisions are life and death and the results are immediate and inexcusable. To me, the obvious first action in all this was to close our borders to any foreign nationals not resident in the UK. Covid-19 was whizzing across the skies from country to country and we were like dinosaurs watching the very big asteroid coming and wondering how late we could leave it to duck.

Now?

No.

Now?

No.

What about now?

Thud!

Yep, now should do it.

Same with lockdown. For that, we were passengers on the Titanic.

Passenger 1: There’s a ruddy big hole in the ship’s stern.

Passenger 2: That doesn’t sound good, old chap.

Passenger 1: No, but I’m not going to evacuate until my feet are wet.

Passenger 1: Yes, I think I’ll wait until it’s up to my neck. That’s the most dangerous    moment. Don’t want to set orf too early, what what?

I didn’t want Boris to die. Not really. Not completely. But it would have been the most delicious irony… Now I hope he survives until the enquiry into all this reveals the scale of his ineptitude. I guffawed when he became the Foreign Secretary who seemed to hate foreigners. But I nearly cried when he became Prime Minister. It seemed like the death of something. Maybe hope…

This is the week when perhaps the jokes wear thin and the reality is all that’s left. Even Kim Jong-Un hasn’t hung around to see this shit go down.

Do you remember when we were governed by people who actually wanted to make the world a better place?

Or did I imagine it…?

Latest data for the UK (as of 11pm):

Infected: 157,159

Deaths: 21,092

Celebrity Deaths: 3

People I know who are infected: 0

Song of the Day: ‘Look Back In Anger’ – David Bowie