As the government start to relax the social distancing laws, it looks like we might finally be coming out of this nightmare. The year 2020 will forever be known as the time when your wheelie bin went out more often than you did.

The same people who told us to stay inside are now telling us to go out again. It might be because the infection rate is going down or it could be to help get the economy moving again so that their rich mates can make a return on some of their investments. It’s hard to know the truth, isn’t it?

As I write this, the two metre rule has been reduced to one metre, except for people who you don’t like, and the pubs are about to re-open. If you listen carefully you can just make out the sound of thousands of webcams being slung back into desks.

So I thought this month I’d do a retrospective review of the whole lockdown experience and reflect on how it might’ve changed us and our society, what the future holds and ponder if this whole experience might’ve been the reset the world needed?

New Terminology

I’ve known people who have been social distancing long before it was trendy, I mean they called it divorce, but it was effectively the same thing. These are terms that are now part of our everyday vocabulary that we had never heard of before March this year.

My children, who are 10 and 4, were playing with their Barbie dolls the other day, I could over hear them talking, “are you coming to the party Chelsea?” “Yes, but we must keep two metres apart and don’t forget your face masks!”

It’s amazing, I’ve got so good at estimating what two metres is now, that I reckon I could plan out an extension without even using a tape measure.

We have had so many new words. “Furloughed” sounds like a medical emergency involving some farming machinery and scientists were constantly talking about how important it was to “flatten the curve” something which I used to do when we were allowed in the gym.

“Stay alert, we don’t want a second peak” I agreed with that, I put on so much weight during the first one, I don’t think my body could take anymore. I’ve already seen my second peak, although you’d probably call them “moobs”

Booze and Baking

It’s been a toxic combination of constant drinking and home baking that’s been my downfall. I went into this pandemic quite healthy, now I’m drinking at midday and my blood group is basically Banana Bread.

When I go for my next health check to the doctors he’s going to ask me how much alcohol I drink. I’ll say “BC or AC doctor, before Corona or After Corona, because those are two very different statistics. I barely drank before, now I’m putting away more units than a kitchen fitter.

We were in a Whatsapp group for our street, wasn’t everyone? You’d see messages at three in the morning, desperate people on the hunt for yeast. At any one time there would be at least five people walking up and down the road with little bags of white powder, leaving it in plant pots and behind gates, like a really middle class drug deal.

Motivational pressure

There were of course those people who said at the start of this, “I see this time as a gift, I’m going to write a novel, I’m going to paint, I’m going to learn a new musical instrument” No. To those people I say this, has any crisis in history, been improved with the addition of a Trumpet?

Time wasn’t the issue for me, I’m just lazy. If being productive was just down to time, then why hasn’t every serial killer doing a life sentence written a bestselling novel?

Keeping fit

Who would have thought that by only letting humans out for one walk a day, would be the key to solving Britain’s obesity crisis. We were up at nine, doing lunges in front of the fireplace with Joe Wicks, then we were out for our daily walk, like prisoners on death row wondering around the yard.

Poor old Joe Wicks. As the numbers dwindled he desperately tried to hold onto viewers. He wore fancy dress, had music playing, asked people to write in with shout outs. The only way he could have kept us Brits committed would have been to introduce exercises that involved using KFC bargain buckets as dumbbells. 

 

Zoom Quizzes

The family zoom quiz became a regular feature in everyone’s calendar. Our children haven’t been educated in months but luckily we have been filling their heads with pointless trivia. They’ll not get any GCSE’s but at least they’ll be able to tell you the depth of lake Tahoe to the nearest millimeter. If Oxford University do a degree in “Disney facts” my daughter will pass with flying colours.

You think you’re popular now, try and organize a Zoom quiz after this pandemic, see how many people are interested then. “No thanks Bryan, we only let you do it because you had the best broadband, we’re off out with our real friends tonight, this is one round you aren’t going to be involved in pal!”

Retail therapy

There are a few people who for them this pandemic has been a unparalleled success. Delivery drivers. I’m not saying I’ve ordered too much online, but the Amazon guy now has his own key.

There have been so many “essential” purchases haven’t there? New trainers. Gallons of fence preserver, Pizza ovens and Chimineas. Can you imagine the conversation I’ll have with my grandchildren in years to come? “Tell me about the great pandemic of 2020 Grandad” “Oh, it was awful son, six weeks we had to wait for that inflatable hot tub and don’t get me started on that rattan patio furniture!”

Homeschooling

People have had very different lockdowns. The people without kids have appreciated the downtime, whereas those with kids have appreciated the teachers.

A lot of things will bounce back after this pandemic, not teacher recruitment though. No-one is going to want to pick that profession, mainly because we have all realised what our own children are actually like.

I never wanted to be a teacher. Let me tell you that there is nothing more humiliating than having to google maths problems aimed at a nine year old. Some of the concepts were lost on me, what the hell are Phonics? I think I saw them support the Chemical Brothers at Rock City in the early Nineties!

The new normal

In my last stand up show, “Relax” I talked about how frenetic the world was and how, because of the pressures of life, humans have forgotten how to relax. Well I clearly had a direct line to God himself, because along came Corona, and we’ve had three months of sitting on our butts in our jogging bottoms watching boxsets.

In a recent survey only 10% of Brits were actually looking forward to going back to their old lives. It seems that this pandemic, although terrifying and unprecedented, is nothing compared to the fear of “normality”

This tells me one thing, we were living our lives all wrong. Working endless hours in jobs you could do from home, lives wasted sitting in tin boxes on the A52 listening to Sarah Cox. Meals missed with our children, no time for exercise and no time for each other.

The environment is better, the air is cleaner, the rivers are blue and the birds are singing. Maybe this is the only way we can save the planet? By stopping the human’s living on it.

This is what is leaving us all so confused. We are all less anxious now, yes we’ve all lost money, the more unfortunate ones amongst us may have even lost our loved ones, but we have all learnt a valuable lesson. We lost sight of what was important and we now need to start making time for ourselves.  

Let’s build a new normal, something that improves our quality of life. Although if that involves playing a trumpet, frankly I’d rather we didn’t bother.