I’d planned a self-penned post for today, but as I was prepping it, an e-mail arrived from the Daily Maverick’s Rebecca Davis which quite too the wind out of my own sails.

So, my post follows at the end.

An immediate end to all unnecessary video calls. In the days following lockdown, many of us have leapt upon the technology of video calling in the manner of prehistoric humans experimenting with cooking meat for the first time. Video calls have been made with gay abandon. I myself have not been immune. How fun it is to see a friend, rather than merely hear their voice! How reassuring to know that others are still alive, and have clearly not washed their hair in days either!

But it’s enough now. From my experience, the initial giddiness of initiating or receiving a social video call dissipates within roughly one minute when everyone realises that nobody has anything to talk about other than coronavirus. 

What follows is an excruciating one-upmanship contest of traded coronavirus facts – “Did you see the first infant just died?” “Yes. Did you see a cat in Belgium contracted it from its owner?” – until all parties are too drained and weary to continue, and then someone pretends their battery is about to die. Let’s all stop it at once.

An immediate end to all non-humorous WhatsApp forwards about coronavirus. They are literally all lies. You will be standing in direct sunlight frantically gargling with salt water and bicarbonate while blasting a hairdryer at your nostrils and the coronavirus, should it so choose, will be partying all the way down to your lungs. Nothing prevents coronavirus except sitting frozen in your house not touching anything. Do that instead.

Allowing each person in your home to have a nervous breakdown in turn. When the Lockdown Slump happens – and it will – it’s not pretty. Mine occurred on Sunday, which is pitifully close to the beginning of the lockdown period. But, in fairness, it also coincided with finishing every episode of Breaking Bad and then being forced to contemplate the hollowness of my lockdown existence without it. 

My wife was kind enough to allow me to wallow in bed for a day and a half and listen with saintly patience as I enumerated my many imaginary symptoms which could add up to a Covid-19 diagnosis. You must find it in yourself to do the same for the members of your own household. But try to schedule your breakdowns consecutively rather than together, as misery is almost as infectious as… you know what.

Controlling your rage when you see other people breaking the (real) rules. Just today I was walking to the chemist down the road from my flat and I witnessed an old man unmistakably in the act of walking his dog! But to give a veneer of legitimacy to his illegal conduct, the old-timer was conspicuously clutching a bag from a pharmacy. Did it contain life-saving medication, or was it filled with faeces his dog had produced on the walk? I have my suspicions.

It is tempting to lash out at such folk, particularly those who fall within the groups most susceptible to the virus, and whose protection is basically the entire reason why society has shut down. But one must not because one never knows another human’s secret burdens, and also one can place an anonymous tip-off phone call to the police from the safety of one’s own home.

 

****************************************************************************

 

Released from the strictures of staying home, I think I will be past ready to take the family; Di, Laura, hubby Zach, daughter Elliot and no. 1 son Julian out for a Sunday pub lunch.

There are a number of suitable places pubs within a few minutes walk. The Hemingway – nearest, on the border of Victoria Park is always popular, but heaves. Getting a table is always a lottery.

Understandable, as the roasts are always top class.

Maybe the Empress in Victoria Village. Equally busy, great roasts, but a little less hectic. Laura’s oft favourite.

Yup. I think it’ll be the Emp. The beer’s fresh, the wine will flow and the bus back to the flat stops outside. I think we’ll need that, as wobbly walking won’t be an option.

Yup. That’s it. Now, we wait.