It is SO difficult to scratch out even 1,000 words a day. Thus: PANDIARY.
20 Mar
My bald mate brought his Xbox over to me today on a mercy mission. I pretended I was a secret agent in Cold War Berlin as he screeched into the street and jumped out of the car with a mask on. The fantasy lasted until he handed me a big blue IKEA bag. Bonus: Found out I suck at computer games now. Actually said the words “it’s just too fast” while shaking my head. Well done, Granddad.
21 Mar
Amazing how phone calls – the 21st century equivalent of getting a telegram – are a thing again. I didn’t even know what my ringtone sounded like until this started. My oldest friend video-called me for the first time since 2005, and he talked about his biggest fear in all of this: that the Premier League season might still get finished later this year. He’s a Spurs fan, so that’s understandable. “We were in a flat spin before fucking corona saved us” were his exact words.
22 Mar
The lockdown starts at midnight. With that weirdly normal threat in mind, I left the house with my camera and took some photos. Saw two women sitting by the kerb four metres apart with a bottle of prosecco between them. Reminded me of that film where two soldiers parachute into a minefield and can’t move so they shout at each other instead. One species that has done alright from all this is the cyclists. They were loving it, bombing down the middle of the road with no fear of a Karen in an SUV casually killing them as she turns without looking. We’re living in the age of Sick Wheelie, Bro.
23 Mar
Whoever invented the burpee was a sadistic bastard. In a hundred years’ time – if human beings are still around and we’ve managed to sidestep the whole death-by-climate thing – people will visit the Museum of Fitness and see a lifelike hologram doing a burpee and they’ll go, “wow, they really hated themselves back then.” And the hologram will look at them coldly and say, “Summer bodies are made in the winter”, and then do some more burpees while holo-muttering motivational phrases to itself.
24 Mar
This is mos def the longest I’ve gone without touching another human being. All I need now is a Nirvana hoodie, skin like the underside of a Ryvita and a shit haircut and I could be 16 again. I’m working on the latter: I chopped a lot of my fringe off with a pair of scissors. Then I had a go at the sides. Kind of look like a Benedictine monk now. Maybe I should start praying. Or making beer. I’m a little worried about the guy across the road from me. He’s moved into his living room and has been lying on his couch in a sleeping bag since Friday. Maybe he’s trying really hard to turn into a butterfly.
the bikes shall inherit the earth