Autumn has so far proven hectic for hegemons; as the world, and Melania, watched the doors of Walter Reed with bated breath, I couldn’t help but wonder whether the U.S. President’s latest election campaign tactic is to actually kill off his almost octogenarian opponent. Russia has come out trumps in the global sprint for a vaccination, offering intrepid individuals a Covid-19 cocktail with a Novichok kick.
Back in the U.K., when BoJo hasn’t been preoccupied with reminding his father Stanley how to put on a mask, he’s been busy blasting the Brits with his science-bolstered theory that Coronavirus only comes out to play at 22:01. Following this week’s introduction of new Covid curbs, the imminent threat of top tier restrictions has triggered Durham’s discotheques to muddle together a mouth-watering menu of “substantial meals”. I’m all for supporting local businesses, but I fear that haunting memories of Jimmy Allen’s sticky dancefloor may well be enough to put me off my food.
Covid cruelly scuppered all holiday plans, and I was forced to come to terms with the fact that, at the age of 22, my greatest, and perhaps only, achievement over lockdown was growing two inches: a feat made ever so slightly less impressive when I consider the possibility that my best friend, against whom I was measured, may have just shrunk. Rather than feeling sorry for ourselves, my family can thank our lucky stars that we are not our cousins, whose summer of sunshine at their Provençal pad was utterly ruined by a two-week quarantine upon their return to the U.K. Commendations go to my aunty, who braved the boredom of the Borough of Merton for an entire 48 hours before resorting to browsing the internet for dachshund puppy litters. The source of my cousin’s head lice affliction, contracted during their ironclad quarantine tribulations, remains the Covid conundrum that stumps us all.
Following Matt Hancock’s damning denouncement last month of the nation’s notorious Granny Slayers, our already-anxious grandmother will now only converse with her grandchildren from the safety of a first-floor double-glazed window, whilst we shout back from our car parked at the far end of her drive.
Causing tremendous offence to my sister, Birmingham University students have now joined an ever-growing file of blacklisted barbarians my grandmother refuses to touch with a barge pole. The special exception she now makes for her weekly hairdresser’s appointment provides welcome reassurance, however, that the Queen of Hertfordshire is soon to be back on her throne.
Here’s hoping that our doting grandmother can breathe a sigh of relief now that I am at a safe distance of 250 miles away, having returned up North to embark upon my Pan(dem)ic Masters: the 2020 fad proving to be all the rage for jobless graduates. After six months accustomed to a lifestyle of luxury and the cuisine of the Chilterns, settling back into my dingy Durham digs has been quite the culture shock, and it’s safe to say I’m more at risk of being whisked away to A&E for hypothermia than I am for the formidable Covid temperature.
Online learning got off on the right foot, with the university’s intranet platform surviving three hours before collapsing under the strain, and my Politics professor postponing Monday’s 9 a.m. lecture, only to grace our screens at 10 o’clock still in his dressing gown. At least it’s been a better month for Gavin Williamson, whose A-level cock-ups seem to have been conveniently forgotten by the media, who are instead now pointing the pandemic finger at flagrant fresher festivities. First-years are already battling the bug, but we can rest assured that university authorities are quelling any risk of a city-wide outbreak with their foolproof method of employing second and third-year students to deliver food parcels directly to colleges’ contaminated zones.
Social distancing puts a downer on Durham students’ dreams of debauchery, as, for the first time in forever, rampant romantics may have to declare the university students’ age-old mantra of “Don’t shit where you eat” to be officially overturned. We can only imagine that this is the fate accepted by 2020’s freshers, as the rapid disappearance of all College Welfare’s Durex donations from Hatfield’s ladies’ lavatory points towards a suspiciously high frequency of household incest. In a three-bedroom student flat, my pickings seem somewhat slim, but I shall make sure to keep you updated on whether I’m ever wooed by my housemate’s so-called “Pants Down” Chicken Pasanda ...
County Durham’s rules barring social activities with anybody outside of your household have branded ‘housemate bonding’ with a brand new definition altogether, although we have so far avoided Covid claustrophobia by exploring the gems of the North East: the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, Bamburgh Beach, and the Arnison Retail Centre McDonald’s – the latter, a trip made worthwhile purely by the opportunity to commend staff for their admirable adaptation to table service: a tribulation undoubtedly far from their minds when, pre-pandemic, they sent in their CVs. I am pleased to report that the only disappointment so far has been our venture to Barnard Castle: a rather measly medieval fortress which is categorically not worth risking your entire political career.
September saw the wind-down of my brother’s entrepreneurial exploits: an executive business decision made much to the dismay of my dear mother, who withstood the presence of her son in the house again for an impressive 24 hours before the end of her tether came rather rapidly into view, and the brute, armed with only a sleeping bag, was banished to the garden to spend the night in the torrential rain.
I knew things were bad when my usually painfully cautious parents booked my brother’s one-way ticket to Kenya, only to consider two weeks down the line that travel insurance might be somewhat challenging to come about in the midst of a global pandemic. One slightly dubious deal later, I am pleased to report, however, that the teenage tearaway is now terrorising the residents of Nairobi instead.
My parents are evidently at a loss on how to entertain themselves in a suddenly empty house, choosing this week to relocate their domestics to the boxing ring of our family WhatsApp chat. The reason behind this move to communal squabbling remains unclear, although I can only imagine my mother is hoping my three siblings and I side with her in her autocratic crackdown on my father’s night-time snacking on Cadbury chocolate eclairs. To my father’s relief, the minstrel-muncher is now able to escape back to the office once a week. My mother’s suggestion that his bank’s Newbury branch coordinates its return to face-to-face business with her weekly housework routine raises the question, however, as to which of my parents has been looking forward to this gradual restoration of normality the most.
I must be off now, as I’ve solemnly sworn to my father that I’ll use my spare time sensibly this term, to ensure that I’m not still in the dark depths of unemployment this time next year. I have no idea why my father is so concerned; he should take comfort in the latest government-backed campaign, and the knowledge that, regardless of her degree in English Literature, his eldest daughter’s next job could be in absolutely anything (she just doesn’t know it yet). I’ll be back soon, but, in the meantime, remember, kids: Rethink. Reskill. Reboot.
Charlotte x
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