Welcome to Lockdown

Well, that all got pretty serious pretty quickly, didn't it?  Welcome to lockdown.  Actually, the people we ned to be thinking about right now are the gossip columnists.  With everyone, including celebrities of every grade, now confined to quarters and with all the restaurants, theatres and bars shut, how are they going to fill their columns?  Are they covered by any of those government schemes to prevent people losing their livelihood during the coronaviris crisis?  Will we, as taxpayers, have to pay 80% of their wages?  Perhaps they could keep their columns going by staging what ;might' have happened at nightclubs if they weren't locked down, using Barbie and Ken dolls to represent the various celebrities.  After all they've got huge experience in making this shit up - plus, as they are dolls they are using, they can get really raunchy photos of the 'celebs' going at it, hammer and tongs.  Of course, we could extend this idea to other forms of entertainment.  In their attempts to keep Match of the Day going, despite the suspension of the domestic football season, the BBC really have missed a trick by not recreating the postponed matches via Subuteo.  The various pundits could play on behalf of their former teams: Gary Lineker could br Spurs, Everton and Leicester, Ian Wright Arsenal and West Ham, Alan Shearer Newcastle, Blackburn and Southampton, while Danny Murphy has Liverpool, Fulham and even Spurs covered.

I'm hoping these new restrictions on leaving one' house might do something to curb the activities of those bands of brigands who have been targeting supermarkets, descending on the en masse and stripping the shelves bare, so that nobody else can buy even the most basic of foodstuffs.  My Aunt, who is in her eighties, lives in a remote Devon village, with next to no bus services, so most of the residents are reliant upon the local shop which has, so far, remained relatively well stocked.  She reports, however, that as the panic buying mania has tightened its grip, increasing numbers of complete strangers have been turning up at the shop, clearly seeking new targets for their brigandry.  I've told her that she and the other villagers need to hire a West Country version of the Magnificent Seven to protect the village shop from these bandits.  They'd doubtless be led, not by Yul Brynner, but by some fat bald bloke with a rusty shotgun, while 'Steve McQueen' would be a gap toothed yokel wielding a pitchfork and riding a sit-on lawn mower.  But they'd only have to pay then twenty dollars apiece for the whole job (and as most of them will die, they'll doubtless save some money that way).  But really, this panic buying nonsense is getting so out of hand that I fear we will all have to be hiring teams of elite mercenaries to act as shopping vigilantes - making sure that those most in need can get to the shelves and the panic buyers run off.  Perhaps the A-Tean are available?  (Although, thanks to social distancing measures, all four of them couldn't be in that van at the same time).