View From The Bunker

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

It was a nice day today…..so I sat inside and watched it! That’s a line from a comic named Ollie Joe Prater, who was known for his excesses of all vices, adding obesity to his mix. When he died aged 43 in 1991, he weighed over 500 pounds (about 35 stone for the Brit readers). Also, other comics that remember Ollie would probably remark that giving him credit for a funny line is being very gracious, as he was pretty well renowned as a joke thief. Still, as I sat down to write this, I looked out the window, and couldn’t help but notice what a beautiful springlike day it was in London today, and how sad it is that the health risks are too great to take advantage of it. Ollie’s line seems apropos.

This is the situation we’re in, sadly. Probably little difference from what people in California are dealing with, and not as bad as Italy, but potentially could be if we’re not careful. I live in a three story house with a couple who live on the middle floor, and another woman who is away in Wales, and was initially supposed to be back this coming Tuesday, but that seems highly unlikely. How do we live in the same building then? For starters, we see as little of each other as possible. We have separate bathrooms, kitchens, and living rooms, so the only potential encounters are around the laundry and utility rooms. I wouldn’t classify my situation as a safe one, but it’s the one I live in, and so far my physical health has remained the same all week.

And what a downer of a week. A week ago today, Maggie and I left London for two days for a very brief holiday in the southern coastal town of Rye. We used to go at least once a year to that area, but hadn’t been out of London since last November, so it was good that we had that window of opportunity, as short as it was. We experienced the best weather we had ever seen there, because all the other times it was either cold, wet, or windy, and sometimes all three. This time, the skies were totally clear, and the wind calm. It was still mid-March in England, so it was still going to be cold, but warmer than we would have normally expected. Literally, it was the calm before the storm.

We thought by stopping at a supermarket in a nearby village of Tenterdon, where presumably fewer people would be, on the way back to London would be a better move than trying to get stuff at any London shops. Not really. There were as many empty shelves as you would find anywhere else. We spent over £150 between the two of us, but still couldn’t get things like eggs, bread, pasta, and any paper products. I thought I would economise by getting a large box of wine (claiming to be equivalent in volume to three bottles, but no!) for £12, a good idea at the time, but here it’s Sunday, and I had already polished it off by last night!

Since Maggie and I don’t live together, and we are all expected to isolate, our goodbye on Tuesday when we got back could be our last physical contact with each other for a while. However, if things look too close of quarters when the other housemate gets back, the idea of staying at Maggie’s has been floated as a possibility. That all depends on how we physically get along over the coming weeks. So far, neither of us have had any of the symptoms that we have been told to look out for. Knock on freaking wood!

I’ve been reading a lot of comments from different comics on how they are coping, quite a few trying various online forums. I was fortunate, if that word could apply, that that aspect of my career had taken a back seat a while ago. However, last Saturday, the day before we left for our holiday, I actually had a comedy spot at Downstairs at The King’s Head in North London, only a 15 minute walk from my house, thankfully. It went really well considering I hadn’t done a paying spot for a couple months, and I also was trying out some new material, which for the most part worked. Nice that I was able to get that in, plus the night before, I DJed upstairs at the same club, and got the best response I’d had for my choice of tunes in several months, enough to do an extra hour. So just a big whew that I was able to have final moments of glory before going into forced retirement.

So yeah, no DJing, no pub quizzing, virtually no socialising of any kind until the all clear is given, which some say could be a year from now. A whole year of hoping I can get to grocery stores before the greedy have plundered their shelves. A whole year of covering up my entire body to go out to do errands of that nature. A whole year of keeping myself medicated and hope that my simple medications can keep the virus at bay. A whole year of going virtually nowhere outside my post code. A whole year of hoping that I don’t run into someone who’s infected. The only consolation is I’m far from the only one dealing with this situation. We’ve never dealt with anything this potentially catastrophic, and what’s worse is there’s so much we don’t know. For all of Boris Johnson’s shortcomings, I feel better off being in a country run by this blond buffoon as opposed to the blond buffoon in the US, whose incompetence continues to reach new lows.

March 22nd, 2020



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