Sleeping Through the Crisis

Well, the news  on coronavirus isn't all bad.  For one thing, they've suspended the football season, which comes as a welcome relief to those of us cursed to support the Spurs.  With luck, they'll suspend it beyond this initial two week pause: if we can keep it going until May, Harry Kane and Son - apparently our only two players who can score - will be back from injury.  Following yesterday's government announcement I thought that I was going to have to put myself into self-isolation.  Fortunately, (or unfortunately, depending upon how you look at it), my cough didn't meet the criteria: it wasn't continuous, I had no difficulty breathing and no fever.  In fact, I had the opposite to a fever - I had the chills instead.  In fact, by today, it had nearly gone.  Which is just as well, as, right now, coughing in public can turn into a scene from Witchfinder General, with people pointing at you, shouting 'He is a witch!' before burning you at the stake.  There was a nasty moment when I was at the doctor's surgery today, putting in a repeat prescription request - I nearly coughed, but luckily stopped myself just in time.  If I hadn't, I'm sure that I would have found myself surrounded by a mob of people in hazmat suits before being dragged off to a secure medical facility.  So, no blessed self-isolation for me. Yet.  The pandemic is still young and there's plenty of time yet.  It's at times like this that being a miserable anti-social bastard becomes an asset: self-isolation is a breeze for the likes of us.

But, in the midst of this health crisis, we shouldn't lose track of the fact that today was World Sleep Day.  Which is why I didn't feel guilty about sleeping most of today away.  Not only did I need to sleep that cold off, but my four day working week had exhausted me - various undertakings from management about working patterns, designed to protect my health, were reneged upon. So I ended up chasing around trying to cover for other people - something I simply don't have the stamina or physical strength to do any more.  It is one of the great frustrations of my life that my recovery from illness has been so slow.  Something management seen unable to grasp - because my illness was two years ago and I look outwardly OK, they just assume that I must be fully fit. But the fact is that I still have diabetes, I still have to take a cocktail of pills everyday in order to manage the diabetes and my blood pressure.  Both of these things seriously sap my energy levels, meaning that I have to pace myself very carefully.  So the idea of putting my feet up and self-isolating seems a tempting prospect right now.  If nothing else, it would give me time to get on with writing up on the latest batch of Italian exploitation movies I've been watching.  These include Supermen Against the Orient, The Atlantis Interceptors and Yor, The Hunter From the Future.  All quality stuff and far more entertaining than most of the mainstream films I've seen of late.  So, roll on self-isolation.  Joking aside, though, I'm hoping that my employer will soon to the right thing and withdraw us from the streets where, not only are we exposed to the risk of contracting the virus, but also of unwittingly spreading it if we are carriers, but don't realise it.