Itâs been five crazily difficult days and today my ambition to come bouncing back to my usual work fell a bit flat. Iâm just knackered and want to do something that helps me relax. I might draw a cartoon.
I also want to find the next fiction Iâll read, preferably sci-fi. Last night, I finished âReady Player Oneâ and came away grinning with pleasure. Sure, it was frothy and rather daft, but it had its heart in the right place and it really caught me at the time. What I usually find with sci-fi is that I often find myself wanting more of the same yet end up turning to somebody like Alastair Reynolds, a writer Iâve never been able to get into. Much as I love sci-fi, I find it hard when theyâre about anything other than human-shaped figures in a human-shaped world. Novels about sentient blobs of earwax on the planter Fhfhggerifif never appeal to me.
After reading last night, I became distracted with my newly returned Surface, which I tried to use only to find the wifi dropping out every 30 seconds⊠Worried theyâve sent me another lemon, I tried to sleep but I was too much awake with thoughts of getting Trading Standards involved. I ended up watching Donald Trumpâs townhall on ABC.
Sigh. What is the to say? Intelligent people probably knows he talks bollocks but, damn, he sure knows how to sell America to that portion of the population who are happy to believe in a fiction.
Perhaps Trump was the reason I woke up feeling oddly nervous about today. Or perhaps it was because, late last night, Iâd been sent a screenshot of a new testing station thatâs now just down the road in a local car park. Our town apparently is a âhot spotâ with 34 cases in recent days. That doesnât sound a lot, but the âtownâ is really two towns that have merged over the years. The other âtownâ also has 30+ cases meaning the actual âtownâ (as locals think of it) has had 70+ cases. St Helens (the larger area which includes other towns) is now 14th 10th in the national table which runs to cover 160 315 local authorities.
Itâs easy to panic slightly over these numbers, so itâs always good to have people like Ed Conway whose Twitter account is a must follow. Weâre nowhere near the place we were back in March and for that we have to be so grateful.
What puzzles me, however, is where this goes next. The local free newspaper has a website where the story is continually being reported. Every COVID-19 update has comments bemoaning the âglobalist scamâ and telling people that the virus âdoesnât existâ. Itâs all pretty shameful and makes me wonder why comments are allowed.
But then, Iâm finding the entire thing depressing. I had a delivery of groceries last night and the delivery guy wasnât wearing a mask despite, he once told me, having a medical degree. Then I read about Noel Gallagher, supposedly the âbrightâ Oasis brother, bemoaning the requirement to wear a mask on trains. âThereâs too many fucking liberties being taken away from us now ⊠I choose not to wear one. If I get the virus itâs on me, itâs not on anyone else ⊠itâs a piss-take. Thereâs no need for it ⊠Theyâre pointless.â
To speak Noelâs language: there are too many libertarian cretins who donât understand that one personâs freedom is the reason another person lies on a critical care ward with half a fucking metre of tubing down their throat.
Then my phone chirped with a random tweet alerting us all that Boris Johnson was about to call a national lockdown. I didnât believe it, so I checked all the newspaper websites (nothing) and then went to Twitter. There, sure enough, were lots of the same tweet claiming that a lockdown was imminent. There was even a link⊠which took the worried reader to a picture of a guy with an enormous dick.
Hilarious.
I donât know. Perhaps it was hilarious. Iâve probably had a few too many stressful days to appreciate being rick rolled or whatever this would be called â âcock crockedâ â but it sometimes feels like too few people are taking in seriously. Did I mention the local pub where the landlord canât stop the guys from standing at the bar?
But then⊠thereâs still Ed Conway, telling us that, for the moment, things are under control. Iâm taking him on his word today. Iâm going to draw and figure out if this tablet has to go backâŠ
Thanks for the Ed Conway tip. I’ll go follow him now. I agree that people aren’t taking it seriously anymore. Enormous penises aside I actually think another lockdown is likely but not for sometime. The only justification is if ICU beds start to fill rapidly. We’re still away from that.
Not read Ready Player One but did the movie and loved it but then I’m a big Spielberg fan.
Yes, I’m also a huge Spielberg fan but I’m never sure about those films of his where he gets a bit *too* nostalgic. Until I’d read it, I thought it would be more ‘Hook’ than, say, ‘Minority Report’. Now I’ve read it, I really want to see the movie.
Yes, definitely not taking it too serious but I feel all manner of caution about not becoming one of those other people who become paranoid. That’s why the Conway stuff feels grounded in good data. My worry, though, is that losing control means it escalates quickly. Headline today about Manchester deaths being the ‘canary in the coalmine’. I know too many people who are back to their old habits, busy marrket on a Friday or pubs at the weekend. Given the COVID skeptics out there, I can’t see how we avoid a second lockdown. Even Johnson hinted towards it. He said it would be a disaster but didn’t rule it out.