Trump rambling like Tony Soprano’s mum
Oh, thank God that’s over. Feels so good to be out and about again, meeting people, hugging the grandchildren. And wow! We’re on a giant waterslide in the jungle too! Wait, there’s Iain Duncan-Smith in a smoking jacket, giving me notes on my 100-stanza poem about a magic breakfast. Luckily, I can shoot him dead and – oh, I see brain, thanks a lot. Just another dream, shattered before I could even pull the trigger.
Cheers. Now I’m awake, pursued by news. I abseil quickly past the mass graves, past Trump’s latest mad ramblings in the style of Tony Soprano’s mum, past The Collapse of Everything. I reach the bottom of the Guardian homepage and stay there for a while, staring gratefully at the image of a harmless toasted cheese sandwich. It’s just an article about making the perfect sandwich. I want to burst into song, or tears.
Remember happier times, when there was only full-spectrum eco-cide to fear? Update: once you’ve pushed through the novel-virus-sphere, all the Old Testament bangers are still there. War. Famine. Noah-level maxi-floods. Forests of pure fire. Religious poison sprayed into the air from the Midwest to the Middle East. ALSO, melting Arctic ice is about to release a whole new toxic anthology of ancient pandem classics: rare Mesolithic deep cuts, some real body-slamming hard-plague ward-fillers.
Kindness is everywhere. This will pass
Perhaps as a nod to this larger narrative, the weather here in Lancaster has been full-on sarcastic. Really sunny, but with crazy gusting wind. A bit like being on holiday in Spain except, instead of that chilled feeling of waiting for an enormous seafood lunch and another cold bottle, there’s a very different chilled feeling, like the dread of waiting day after day for test results.
Meanwhile, normal chit-chat with Harry Next Door about mice and meds has hit full cosmic implosion. Some of the morning tablets he laid out last thing at night have been eaten by a mouse. Apparently, it found the Gabapentin capsules delicious. I like to think it had a fearless life, and a neuropathically painless death.
We must seek the light in the gloom, the toasted cheese sandwich in the newsfeed. Kindness is everywhere. People, demonstrably, are mostly brilliant. This will pass. My grandsons, who live in Seoul, went back to nursery school last week – in masks, but still. Our little pond’s alive with tadpoles. The vapour trails that once hatched our bit of sky all the way from the Irish Sea to the Pennines are now as rare as woodpeckers. Ironically, we’ve had a woodpecker in the garden for the first time.
I’m arresting you on suspicion of yoga
This’ll make you laugh. “Amid the coronavirus crisis, police and pranksters around the world are helping to spread good cheer.” Not joking, that’s what it says: “Police and pranksters.” OK, for a start, Google “pranksters” and tell me which one of them you wouldn’t want to see inflated with helium until they fucking burst.
And police? Good cheer? We’re taking that with a spoonful of sugar, yeah? For anyone who loves wearing a hi-vis and bossing people about like Mary Poppins with a taser, lockdown has been truly bumptious. Community policing now apparently includes deciding whether yoga’s proper exercise in a park, whether gin or pencils are essential items, and bellowing “People are DYING!” when challenged. (Sidenote: I am now ending every argument with this line.)
Last week, HM Government’s mysterious Orwellian nudgethink (“You Are Safer Indoors”, “Watch Television and Carry On” “You Could … Bake Something?”) took a sinister turn with: “BREAKING THE RULES IS BREAKING THE LAW.” What bloody rules? Finders keepers? Fight Club? Do not ask for credit as a refusal often offends?
The creatures outside looked from the executive to the legislative and from legislative to executive, and from executive to legislative again – but already it was impossible to say whether the Magnum, which had been on the ground for more than five seconds, should be eaten.
My lungs could be carpet-bombed
People say: “You’re a writer, I bet you haven’t noticed any difference. You just stay indoors and type anyway. Wanker.” Fair enough and, yeah, I count my blessings. As it stands, I’m Extremely Vulnerable and Shielded. Things could be worse. Obviously, I could “get it” and my lungs, already hollow cathedrals of Gothic tracery, would be carpet-bombed, Dresdened. Or I could be one of Toby Young’s Old Expendables, shuffling off to the local fentanyl pod for the glory of the herd.
We all dream our weird dreams alone. In mine, I’m always in the old world, before the Invisible Flood – with people, going somewhere. Everything’s weird but normal again. Then we wake and everything’s normal but weird. Hold tight, everyone. Love, love will stick us back together again.
