Isolation Blog – Car crash in slo-mo

The seventh of April. Day 29. I’m an early self-isolator living in a shielded household just a few miles from where HRH Charlie Corona helicoptered covid into Birkhall, aka Berk Hall, near Ballater. If the virus visits me at least I’ll know it’s By Appointment. 

Isolation holds no fears for writers – we’re made of Sterne(r) stuff. I won’t apologise for making you cringe just then – it took your mind off the plague for an instant. When I’m not pretending to write, I’m hooked on New York’s Governor Cuomo’s and immunologist Anthony Fauci’s nightly appearances on American TV, trying to counteract all the sewage emanating from Trump’s malodorous orifice. White House. Whitehall. Whitewash. It’s like watching the world’s biggest and longest car crash happening in slo-mo. We’re all in the middle of it and nobody’s got a safety belt.

I’ll now grab the baton from Owen O’Neill and run with another Dylan parody. Proof, if needed, that isolation drives you bonkers.

SAD-EYED LADY OF THE LOCKDOWN

With your bursary spent in the pre-corona times
When you smoked your fags, drank lager and lime
With your One O’Clock Gun, chanting heretic rhymes
Who among them do you think would neglect you?
With the streetcars stopped, all gathering grass
With delusional morons torching 5G masts
And your face well hid behind a home-made mask
Who among them do you think could infect you?

Sad-eyed lady of the lockdown
Where the sad-eyed postman says that no mail comes
My Waitrose pies, my Morrisons buns
Should I leave them by your gate?
No, sad-eyed lady, I won’t wait

With your Fauci graphs showing flattening curves
While the Fake Tan Git does his body swerves
And Bojo urges you to catch it for the herd
Who among them do you think most distresses you?
The throngs in Aldi with their hoarding lists
The bogroll bandits are the nation’s Greatest Shits
Just behind Branson and that Wetherspoons git.
Who among them most depresses you?

Sad-eyed lady of the lockdown
Where the sad-eyed milkman says that no milk comes
My Waitrose pies, my Morrisons buns
Should I leave them by your gate?
No, sad-eyed lady, I won’t wait

The bankers and the businessmen, they’re sure to be saved
When the NHS workers are lying in their graves
Due to lack of ventilators, PPE and autoclaves
Who will be left to carry you?
Politicians brief us in the nightly rigmarole
Spouting slogans while the horror unfolds
None will save your body - none will save your soul
Who could they get to bury you?

Sad-eyed lady of the lockdown
Where the sad-eyed preacher says that no god comes
My hollowed eyes, my cup of crumbs
Should I bring them past your gate?
Oh, sad-eyed lady, it’s too late.

Eddie Gibbons