As you know, I’ve been moaning for weeks about lockdown and being so lonely.
I lie in wait for the poor bin men, just for some human company.
“Come back soon,” I whimper as they run off looking disturbed.
Rude. I’ve missed friends, people, parties and the best of London life. Yet having been put under house arrest, I now have Stockholm syndrome.
I used to have FOMO (fear of missing out) all the time. Now I am gripped by FOGO (fear of going out).
I want to be free but I’m not ready to face my public and, to be honest, it’s probably not safe for them to see me right now.
I could probably knit my own face mask from all my chin hair. And I’m not the only one.
Admit it: we’ve all let ourselves go and need another lockdown (ideally in a grooming parlour) to prepare for polite society.
As offices slowly lure workers back, my social media feeds are full of men and women posing the big questions. “What are trousers without an elasticated waist again?”; “Can you wear slippers at work?”; “Does this mean I have to shower every day?”
Don’t pretend you’re better than that. We all went a bit feral. Maybe it was good to shrug off our vanity for a few months.
For me, it was my beloved eyelash extensions which fell out and left my poor peepers bald. So, I bought a pair of false lashes for broadcasting purposes.
They were a bit fiddly but felt fine until I was midway through interviewing Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman via Zoom with thousands of terribly serious people watching.
As I asked him to explain his theory on fiscal stimulus, disaster struck. The lashes on my left eye started slowly peeling off. Paging Bridget Jones... As he waxed lyrical about Fed intervention,
I discreetly ripped them off. I’m sure no one noticed. The right eye remained lush. The left was bare. And if that’s not a metaphor...
Broadcasting from home has been nice though, especially late at night — apart from the time I was on Sky papers and by accident I muted the sound on my computer so couldn’t hear the gallery and was busy reading Twitter.
I then got a text saying, “YOU’RE ON AIR, STOP PICKING YOUR NOSE.” Ironically, we had just been talking about No10’s “Pick for Britain” campaign.
I have missed my old life, but it also now scares me.
I’m super-anxious about being close to lots of other people on public transport, in a studio or bar or even leaving the mile radius around my home.
I’ve become slightly agoraphobic. And the last thing I want to do is to queue up to go clothes shopping, although thank God you can’t actually try anything on because in my case, nothing would fit.
This summer I am spared the brutality of the Zara changing room and for small mercies, I am grateful.
Rashford has made muggles of politicians
I'm not really into footballers but I’ve fallen head over heels for Marcus Rashford, who forced the Government to U-turn on providing free school meal vouchers this summer.
It’s a glorious example of a star using their platform for good.
Hats off to his mum for raising such a fine young man.
The Government hasn’t covered itself in glory, not helped by Matt Hancock calling Rashford Daniel, presumably thinking of the one who played Harry Potter.
An innocent mistake, but Rashford has made muggles of our political leaders.
