Having to stay at home is doing strange things to people.
Take my neighbour… odd bloke at the best of times. (I’m safe writing this because in the last, brief, conversation we had he told me he never reads newspapers. Cheers for that.)
Anyway, I’m not entirely sure what he does for a living but he’s taken to leaving the house every day at 9am, in a full suit and tie, and going to sit in his car at the back where the garages are.
Doesn’t drive anywhere. Just sits there on with a laptop and notepad, making phone calls.
I can’t hear what he’s up to because he keeps the windows wound up. Has about half-an-hour for lunch, where he goes into his house, then it’s back in the car. Knocks off about 5pm.
And it just gets stranger. I saw him walking down there this morning with a kettle. I’m not sure how that’s going to work but obviously I can’t ask him. This is London.
It’s incredible the ways people are finding to get through this. And as it drags on it’s going to get weirder.
A friend of mine said he “virtually went out” last weekend. He met up with some virtual friends, went to a virtual pub quiz, had some virtual drinks then went to a virtual concert.
He reckoned he nearly got into a virtual fight on the way out but again, I’m not sure how that works.
It’s fascinating to think about what we might be like when this is all over.
I was talking on the phone to a celebrity PR man the other day who told me, with dismay, that this could be the end of programmes like Love Island, The Only Way is Essex and The X Factor.
“I mean,” he told me sadly: “This could be curtains for the whole industry. Are people going to really want to hear what Gemma Collins is moaning about at the end of all this?”
Probably not, I said, but I doubt we are all going to suddenly start watching Blue Planet reruns.
“David Attenborough,” the PR said, excitedly. “Great idea. People will always love him.”
Then he hung up – presumably to go and try to persuade the 93-year-old national treasure to swap dead-end wildlife documentaries for getting beach body ready in time for Marbella.
Maybe this is the end of that strange cult we’ve seen grow up over the first part of the century. The end of people famous for being famous.
Perhaps it’s a sea change. Footballers, for example, are not going to get judged by how well they play but on how much charity work they do.
And business. Maybe ethical capitalism, where firms are judged not on their profits but the way they treat their workers will come to the fore. No more big bonuses for bankers or hedge fund managers, chief execs or that type of thing.
Not unless they are making sure everyone else is looked after.
Ah well. All that is for another day, when these strange times finally end.
And these are strange times.
As I write this, the sun is setting and a baffled-looking delivery man has just slid a pizza through the window of a Toyota Yaris.
My neighbour getting his tea. Must be doing some overtime.
