John’s UK Coronavirus Diary – No 1 – Panic buying, leeches and facemasks

SATURDAY 14th MARCH

I thought stockpiling toilet rolls was bizarre enough… But now my local Lidl supermarket has had an outbreak of what appears to be panic buying of bread and eggs… I can only assume this is caused by people who were unable to join in the earlier mass panic buying of toilet rolls trying to bring on constipation by over-eating bread and eggs, thus negating the short-term requirement for the toilet rolls they do not have.

SUNDAY 15th MARCH

Someone has shared a story about a Hindu cow urine drinking party – “Dozens of Hindu activists in India hosted a cow urine-drinking party. Some members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party have claimed that cow urine and dung can prevent and cure COVID-19”.

This is a new twist on an old story.

Moraji Desai, the Indian Prime Minister 1977-1979 used to drink his own urine. He said ‘urine therapy’ was the perfect medical solution for the millions of Indians who could not afford medical treatment. He also attributed his longevity to drinking his own urine – which he called “the water of life”.

I remember English actress Sarah Miles, who was on The Last Resort With Jonathan Ross TV chat show when I was a researcher, likewise drank her own urine, though thankfully or sadly (depending on your viewpoint) not on the show. She seemed a lovely, gentle, very vulnerable person. From memory, I think she used to drink a pint of urine every morning.

MONDAY 16th MARCH

What is it with the lack of eggs in Lidl? Is there panic buying of eggs or have the hens gone into self-isolation?

Is a plague of frogs next? (Photo by Gary Tresize via UnSplash)

The coronavirus is killing off the oldest people… in other words, the first-born… On past documented evidence, I suspect self-isolation may trigger an outbreak of boils, then there will be a plague of frogs and then the locusts will arrive…

In the US, President Trump urges Americans to avoid gatherings of more than 10 people… Is it merely coincidence that this is less than the number required to form a jury…?

TUESDAY 17th MARCH

I have had a dry, irritating-to-others, cough throughout my life. My father had a similar cough throughout his life and he died at 82 (not from the cough). The benefit of this now is that, if I clear my throat in a supermarket aisle, people part before me like the Red Sea before the Israelites. 

Facebook has gone mad. I posted a jokey post from the New Yorker about wrestling without an audience being like avant-garde theatre. This apparently breaches Facebook’s community standards and, as such, it has been removed and flagged as fraud… The explanation, apparently is that this is a result of the coronavirus because Facebook is starting to rely on machines, not humans, to check posts.

Not even a single grain of sugar was left in Lidl

WEDNESDAY 18th MARCH

Mystifyingly, there has now been panic buying in the Lidl sugar section in Borehamwood. The Lidl middle aisle still has plenty of grass seed, children’s socks and post-war Russian rocket launchers, but there is not a grain of sugar anywhere…

Sugar??? Why???

McDonald’s at Highbury Corner in London is serving only take-aways, no eat-in meals; and my local Costa, from tomorrow, is not accepting their plastic loyalty cards – only via the app – because staff are not allowed to touch strangers’ plastic cards.

Last night, I saw what may have been one of the last comedy shows in London – performed flawlessly by the staggeringly-multi-talented Dragos Mostenescu. I would not normally quote from shows directly, but he started with… “I used to cover the sound of my farts by coughing, but now I am covering the sound of my coughs with farts…”

“Not the arse!” (Photo by Erik Mclean via UnSplash)

THURSDAY 19th MARCH

I have just come back from the local shopping centre where a little old lady was tottering along. As she passed, she glared at me and said unnecessarily loudly in a voice straight out of the EastEnders TV soap: “It’s the face that matters, not the arse! Why are they buying toilet rolls?” 

I had not bought and was not going to buy toilet rolls, but I had to admit she had a point…

It turns out that, nowadays, Lincolnshire is the new Wild West even though it is in East England – Mad inventor John Ward told me that thieves had broken into Gosberton Baptist Church, Spalding, and succeeded in stealing toilet rolls.

FRIDAY 20th MARCH

Normally a very rare sight (Photograph by Alex Nevin-Tylee)

In good news, Thameslink are running regular trains. This is odd as they were not doing that before the coronavirus outbreak…

A friend explains the strange lack of sugar on the shelves in Lidl and elsewhere. She says there is also a shortage of flour. Presumably people, she says, are doing home baking. There is not, of course, an ACTUAL shortage of sugar and flour… people are just buying it faster than the supermarkets can re-stock and re-fill the shelves.

An arts journalist (not a news journalist) emailed me: “Well, I still think that it is all being blown out of all proportion, I DO NOT trust anyone in power anywhere to do stuff that is not VERY BAD while we are all locked in our houses quivering. This IS political. Make no mistake. It is political.”

SATURDAY 21st MARCH

Someone told me I am old fashioned… but I think all avenues should be explored in this crisis.

Leeches have long been used (Photo by GlebK via Wikipedia)

I already have paracetamol tablets but, for safety, I looked for leeches in Lidl today. Nothing. Panic buying has emptied random shelves. No bread, eggs or leeches. The world has gone mad. I have had to go online where, it transpires, medical leeches are available.

The John Lewis department stores are temporarily closing from Monday. We are entering a new Dark Ages. John Lewis closing? This is like the fall of Constantinople…

SUNDAY 22nd MARCH

My English friend Sandy, who lives in Milan with her husband, has had some admirable lateral coronavirus thinking…

“My job today,” she says, “is to try and make some face-masks using filter material meant for vacuum cleaners (same principle and we have a box of them). Ready for next time we have to go out.”

Unfortunately, a Facebook Friend then told me: “Some vacuum cleaners’ filters contain fibreglass… something you do not want in your lungs, especially now.”

I had tiny, almost imperceptible headaches in the afternoon. I was not sure if I might be imagining them. In the evening, I had a very slightly hard-edged cough but it was, again, difficult to know if this was real or only a slight variation on my normal lifelong dry cough…

… CONTINUED HERE …

A weird cock tale for Valentine’s Day (beware explicit material)

A couple of days ago, an ex-girlfriend asked me:

“Have you ever tasted your own sperm?”

“Errr…” I replied. “… No.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Errr… I”m not really interested.”

“That’s weird,” she said.

“Is it?”

“If I have a baby,” she persisted, “I would want to drink some of my own breast milk just to know what it tastes like.”

“It’s not quite the same,” I suggested.

“Yes it is,” she insisted. “Have you never wondered what it tastes like?”

“Breast milk, yes. My own sperm, no. Slightly salty, I think… I’ve read that somewhere. I’ve never asked anyone. It might seem indelicate. In Beyond The Valley of The Dolls, I think someone says something like Prepare to taste the black sperm of my vengeance!. I think it’s a threat.”

“You’ve expected women to put it in their mouth. Have you no interest in knowing what it tastes like?”

“That might have been a line in it, too,” I said.

“Be serious,” she said.

“Errr… No. I’ve got no interest at all in sucking cock. Nothing I can do about that. It’s not in the genes. I can’t do anything about it. I have no interest in eating my own shit either. People have fed me shit in the past – I’ve worked for the BBC. But I don’t want to eat real shit. Call me conservative.”

“Eating your own shit is completely different,” she said. “It’s medically unhealthy.”

“Well, then,” I said, “drinking your own urine. That’s not unhealthy. People say it’s positively healthy. People do drink their own urine. It’s just not for me. Sarah Miles the actress does it. And some bloke called Desai who was the Prime Minister of India. I think Mahatma Gandhi may have drunk his own urine. But I’ve got no interest in drinking my own urine or my own sperm. Trust me on this one.”

“But you expect other people to do it,” she said.

“I’ve never pissed in anyone’s mouth in my life,” I said, “It’s not my thing. Some people get off on it, though. Maybe we should start bottling pee. There’s obviously a proven demand for it: actresses and politicians. And then there’s probably a big un-tapped market in some parts of Soho. There might be a big demand for sperm drinks in the gay community. I think I’ve read sperm is full of goodness. We could have discovered a gap in the market here. Bottled sperm and bottled pee. We could sell them both in health shops as a food supplement.”

She stopped and thought about this for a moment.

We are still in discussions.

In the current recession, Prime Minister David Cameron says he wants to encourage enterprise and small businesses as part of his Big Society. We think we may be able to get some government seed money. Or we might try to submit it as an idea on Dragons’ Den.

All we have to do is think of a catchy brand name… and iced lollies are not out of the question.

No shit.