It’s an ‘Oh no’ for BoJo, as his latest lockdown advice of “Go to work, but don’t go to work. Go outside, but don’t go outside” has been met with national ridicule. Dominic Cummings has hit the headlines hard after making the 520-mile round trip to my university town in order to test his eyesight, although the more interesting revelation of the week was perhaps that the Prime Minister’s Chief Adviser owns the controlling stake in Europe’s Worst Nightclub, my favourite Durham haunt. Labour Whip Rosie Duffield couldn’t resist a little bit of nookie with her boyfriend, and thus becomes the latest politician to preposterously flout lockdown rules. Donald Trump has trumped them all, however, with last month’s sommelier suggestion of a Flash Old Fashioned with a dash of Dettol: the President’s signature cocktail prescribed to cure all Coronavirus qualms. 2 for 1 on Death by Detergent is the season’s tempting Happy Hour deal. I think I’ll pass.
As for me, MIA is an understatement when it comes to my complete exodus from the blogging scene for the past month and a half or more. I unfortunately came to the sobering realisation that I couldn’t use Coronavirus as an excuse on my CV for eternity, and that my finals should really be prioritised. This, however, will come as news to my dear mother, who left me dumbfounded the other evening when she came into my bedroom, asked what on God’s earth I was doing, and then proceeded to outrageously reveal that she hadn’t realised I had been revising for the past 62 days. Apparently she had been under the impression (the cheek of it!) that, confirming all 2020 graduates’ fear of a devalued degree, online exams required absolutely no preparation at all and you could just sit them blind on the day. I’m not sure what is more concerning: my mother’s evident lack of investment in her eldest daughter’s undergraduate degree or the fact that she thought I had, for no apparent reason, voluntarily confined myself to my bedroom to stare blankly at my computer screen for the last eight weeks of my life?
Either way, praise the Lord, those dreaded exams are now a thing of the past, and, keeping with true Durham tradition, I celebrated my long-awaited entry into unemployment on Thursday with the cathartic release every finalist deserves: a confetti cannon, silly-string shower, and prosecco bottle blast. Grand Prix-style spraying session over, the ease with which I went on to drink straight from said bottle was enough to give Mrs. Epitome of Class, my camera-wielding mother, a coronary. Let’s call that one-all.
In other news, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (cf. my last blog post) found himself on dangerous turf after he confessed just five minutes before our weekly Netflix Party rendezvous to having watched not just one episode of Friday Night Dinner without me, but somehow all remaining twelve. Note to self: the man has no self-restraint. He’s since been warned that if he’s not careful, I’ll be on the lookout for my own Connell Waldron replacement; like 95% of the UK’s female student population, the BBC’s steamy adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People swept me away into a dreamlike state and I’ve fallen completely head over heels for the undeniably seductive Irish accent: a national love affair predominantly reflective of what I’d describe as the university student’s 10-week starvation from any form of debauchery, thanks to the Covid lurgy’s loveless lockdown. It’ll be the luck of the Irish once we’re finally set free.
For all those concerned for my increasingly volatile levels of sanity, I can conclusively report that my breaking point was breached during supper last Saturday night, when I burst into tears after my 18-year-old brother deliberately belched in my face. Unsurprisingly, virtual schooling for the barbarian in question lasted a grand total of 23 hours from the moment the term’s fees left my father’s account; in the democratic nation we live in, a grammatically incorrect petition pioneered and signed by a year group of illiterate teenage tearaways is apparently all that’s needed these days to waive an entire 12 weeks’ worth of education.
To my father’s relief, the online classroom malarkey seems to be going marginally better for my 16-year-old brother, whose continuation of choir rehearsals, Saturday school, and 7:20 a.m. saxophone lessons has provided me with the exact sense of routine and structure I was craving. The same unfortunately cannot be said for his teachers, whose technological naiveté means that they are muted by the mischievous boys themselves each time that they open their mouths to speak. Let’s hold a minute’s silence for whichever brave member of staff has taken it upon himself to lead Virtual CCF; I’d hazard a guess and say that the rewards reaped from the development of his schoolboys’ shooting skills are not quite worth the stress of watching across a computer screen as his pupils point a loaded rifle at their parents’ properties. Shoot me if I’m wrong.
In the absence of education, I had hoped that the elder brother might embark on a Captain Tom Moore-inspired expedition and disappear off into the horizon on a 100-day trek. Beggars can’t be choosers, however, and I’ve had to make do with him becoming Buckinghamshire’s up-and-coming Odd-Job Man instead. After he posted leaflets through every front door in the county, I had secretly assumed he’d receive no response, but it just so happens that lockdown has been the dandelion’s heaven, and, to my annoyance, he’s made more money in a month from weeding than I did working at my University College Bar for the entire academic year. His latest day’s work involved digging a four-feet-deep hole in an old woman’s back garden. The thought did cross my mind that perhaps lockdown had placed too great a strain on the client’s relationship with her husband, and my brother might suddenly unwittingly find himself accessory to murder.
Speaking of my brother’s newfound horticultural prowess, BoJo’s recent reopening of UK garden centres came as a middle-aged woman’s early Christmas present; I can report that my mother has successfully spent the weekend supervising my father from over his shoulder as he plants all 150 of her purchases before they shrivel in this English heatwave and die. I’m off to observe them from a distance with my sister, who, having substituted her horizontal position on her duvet for her horizontal position on the garden picnic rug two weeks ago, now looks like the human equivalent of a Drumstick sweet. You’ll be pleased to know she proudly announced to me yesterday that she’s made full use of lockdown by watching all 121 episodes of Gossip Girl. The scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite are clearly more engrossing than I thought. I’ll be back soon, I promise. In the meantime, Stay Alert.
Charlotte x
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