I never bought tickets for Lockdown 1, let alone ask for a sequel.

As I write, the Archbishop of Canterbury is talking of the UK as a nation suffering a form of prolonged PTSD.  According to the opinion Polls, despite economic carnage, the country still seems to have a lockdown fetish, despite COVID-19 deaths now making up less than 1% of all weekly deaths in the UK.  My employer has started making people redundant.  Phrases like “made redundant” doesn’t do the grim stark reality of it any justice. Meanwhile, Scotland has banned students from going to the pub, socialising, or thinking for themselves (surely the point of going to University?) and in England, the Health Secretary - who has a control freakery rating of 11 out of 10 - is talking of banning all students from coming home for Christmas. That said, Christmas itself is likely to banned anyway and all supplies of mistletoe are now being blockaded at the ports.  So far so, no ho ho. 

So, what do you do?  For me, music helps.  Future Islands, Doves, London Grammar, and Fleet Foxes have all shared new tunes this week to sooth the mood.  Future Islands’ latest has a lockdown lyric to match the mood; “So we just lay in bed all day” he croons. Fleets Foxes’ Robin Pecknold reaches out, like many of us, for nostalgia in heroes like Elliott Smith and Jeff Buckley, Otis and Jimi.  His escape plan in Sunblind is to “Swim for a week | In warm American waters with dear friends.” Well I’m in. Doves are more consistently doom-laded; in Prisoners; desperately wandering in “dusty halls and hollow shopping malls,” Jez Williams intones that at least it “won’t be for long”.  Great tune, but I am not so sure he sounds that convinced. 

Apparently Bake Off (a show about making cakes in a tent) is a panacea to the nation.  The makers of new shiny Xbox and PS4’s are gearing up soon to save the male world from implosion. Others have dived into books, with interest in fantasy and science-fiction now booming. Solace is being found in the cultural revolution tropes of Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem, or (in anticipation of new movie versions next year) of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation and Frank Herbert’s Dune.  To me it makes sense to explore tales of other planets and get lost in some post-apocalyptic visions of elsewhere, rather than here. Those familiar with Asimov’s masterpiece may well already feel that we are a planet and a species being controlled by The Mule.  Or perhaps, that’s just me?  The poet Larkin, on a keyside in Ireland, wrote of the Importance of Elsewhere; his comfort there that “strangeness made sense”.  We surely all now long for elsewhere, for unfamiliarity, for not here.  As of today, the newspaper reports that there are now just nine countries in the world into which you can fly back and forth without quarantine from the UK.  One is Italy, which surely proves, there is some hope left.  

I had a fun exchange this week with Greg Orme, who’s dead clever and writes books that are readable and smart.  We exchanged some thoughts on Ground Hog day.  I have written about the film before and Tim Minchin’s stage adaptation remains one of the best things I have ever seen.  According to some forensic analysis of the original screenplay, Phil Connors, played in the film by Bill Murray, lived through his Groundhog Day 12,403 times.  That is the same winter day for 34 years.  Asked by a child for a weather prediction, his cynicism cuts “It's gonna be cold, it's gonna be grey, and it's gonna last you for the rest of your life,” he said.  But, after suffering being “stabbed, shot, poisoned, frozen, hung, electrocuted, and burned”, Phil morphs, using his very many Gladwell “10,000 hour” slots, to change from curmudgeonly misanthrope into someone who transforms his own life and those around him. Greg shared the perfect quote that shows the way Phil now sees the world: “When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn't imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter”.  

Phil Connor’s transformation reminds me of Dicken’s Scrooge, dragged through the cold winter night to reflect on his past, present and future.  Which brings us back to that new Government idea of banning Christmas.  Like the White Witch in the Narnia stories, they seem to want it to be winter, but never Christmas. Unless something drastically changes, all public policy points towards the next six months being as dull and dreary as a coastal town weekend with Morrisey.  The idea is proposed by an unelected organisation called Sage.  Yes, sage, as in stuffing.