Andy Richardson: Be careful what you wish for
Ah, the weekend. An opportunity to do ... the same things that we’ve done throughout the week.
Home workers can stay in their pyjamas until it’s time to change into another pair of pyjamas for bed.
Sportsmen and women can ogle fixtures that won’t take place. Couples can window-shop goods too expensive under furloughed income. And optimists can look forward to a time when councils reopen municipal tips.
Ah, the joys. If we’re lucky, we can treat ourselves to a trip to B&Q.
The old normal is consigned to history and a brave new world has emerged.
We are dependent on technology like never before. Airlines are closed and roads are empty. Kitchens are classrooms and we speak to neighbours we’d never met. The earth has started to heal thanks to respite from the rush hour and society is on a more level playing field.
It is time for resilience and innovation, for hatching plans that remind us we are human. Theatres are planning movie screenings where people sit a-row-and-a-seat apart. It won’t be as much fun watching a stand-up comic, but it’ll be better than a 13th Netflix rerun.
Sports stars are honing skills by rigging up home gyms with bungee cords. When Saturday comes, and all that.
Entertainers are wondering whether they can stage pay per view shows from their front rooms and nature is in bloom.
The conspiracy theorists are having a field day as they ponder ‘the truth’. Covid-19 was made in a lab, vodka is an effective hand sanitiser, eating garlic is a vaccine, the disease is connected to 5G and the UK is baking a giant lasagne the size of Wembley Stadium.
All such theories have been posited by those whose outlook on life might be described as being a little bit woo-woo.
The thought of a giant lasagne in Wembley is worth considering. Apparently, drones have been lifting pasta sheets into the stadium and the sauce has been delivered by oil tankers, though no one seems to have worked out how it will be cooked. Mind you, it’s probably true and the garlic in the tomato sauce will inoculate us all. Great.
Those who were once bored and wished to live in more interesting times now realise the old life wasn’t that bad. We must be careful what we wish for.
