“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.“
Apologies for the delay. I must admit that lockdown, childcare and WFH meant that I have dramatically changed the way I have interacted with media: sharing more than usual, to keep others in touch; buying more newspapers at the weekend (and spreading them over the week, letting them last longer) avoiding social media and TV where possible and then changing my background listening habits: no more Talk S***e, more classical music via Scala Radio and loads of Radio 6.
It’s mad that, with two young ‘uns, this past couple of months I have actually felt like I’ve had less time than before, what with doing my own work, then teaching the kids KS2 and Early Years curricula, then doing the jobs around the house & trying to keep in touch with far away family. Don’t get me wrong – we’ve been very lucky.
But I read about people being bored, struggling for motivation… back in March, the lockdown period apparently offered great opportunities for life changes: finally catching up on all those books gathering dust on the shelves and afternoons cosied up watching classic movies… but the reality was that I don’t think I’ve even scratched the surface.
However, whilst the workload hasn’t really changed that much, there’s been so much to celebrate given that mornings and evenings have been my own again, for the first time in a long time. Reconnecting with nature – birds singing in the skies, wild flowers growing in the pavement cracks, tadpoles and froglets in the park, insects buzzing around creating awe and wonder (I’ve been stung by a bee, we discovered an amazing paper wasp in the conservatory) and growing herbs, flowers, fruit and vegetables has been almost cathartic.
I even saved the life of a fledgling starling who had strayed from the family nest. It was hiding under a car, and as we passed by a neighbour acting strangely, she explained the situation and that a magpie was after said baby. I offered to help, got down on the ground and carefully reached for it but the first attempt was futile: it flapped its way out of my grasp, with its family squawking and shrieking away overhead. Thankfully, a second effort was more productive and I felt like Billy Casper whilst tentatively passing it over to the lady with the all important carrier to protect it. What was mad was that the very same day, our old mate Andre Gomes was himself rescuing birds and proudly showing off the fact:
What was not so mad, however, was that the very next evening, whilst in the front for our weekly applause for the wonderful NHS, B was very upset to discover a slightly younger – and decidedly dead – starling chick, dumped carelessly in one of our flower pots. We did the decent thing and offered it a nice burial in the back, but I was somewhat unsettled to see what must have been one of its parents the following morning desperately searching the vicinity for it, still with food in its mouth. It kept returning to the nest (in the eaves of the house opposite) in astonishment that its offspring had disappeared. Like I said, nature… awe-inspiring, but not necessarily beautiful.
Meanwhile, I’ve been baking loads and perfecting the art of the loaf; I even finally understood the difference between all the different types of flour not on the shelves; spent hours searching for the essentials like all the different types of flour, wipes, toilet rolls and everything else we all took for granted in the years BC; cooking more elaborately than ever; drinking gallons of homemade fruit juice and Earl Grey, even creating (and discovering) a love of Lego…. self-improvement.
It’s another of the myriad clichés of lockdown. The home made haircuts, the good intentions, the getting on better with your neighbours… running out of paint, having a new found admiration for those often overlooked… panic buying, the pub quiz, video chats… missing family like mad, wearing leisure wear out, avoiding the news… wondering if it’ll be this way forever.
The positives prevail, though. Some people have been incredibly kind and generous; we returned the favours in secret (in the caffe sospeso style, more of which later!). We’ve caught up on years of sleep. We have grown closer as a family unit. The kids are making huge strides in their learning, even learnt to ride bikes, skip, form letters, make play dough. Amazingly, I’ve sat down to paint and draw portraits for something every exciting that will be revealed soon enough… even life drawing along with the BBC programme.
And, as a couple, too, we’ve even had the time to sit down and do the quizzes, juggle the laptop to work as required and watch TV together most evenings (and not football, other than those excellent, nostalgic highlights packages at weekends which reminded me of a time when football was better… no, a time when football actually mattered) whilst at first, everyone raved over some American film website but I didn’t get a chance to watch anything on there before it was blocked.
However, I’ve really enjoyed the quality time without distraction going through the various streaming channels and the nearly full Sky planner. Anyone who, like me, was late to the party, we’re just finishing Ozark. Jason Bateman has been great ever since his reluctant father-to-be in Juno, and there’s the delectable Laura Linney, but the real star of the show was the quite brilliant Julia Garner. Bits of it were dark A F but a fascinating insight into the workings of drug cartels and middle America, nonetheless.
Meanwhile, with said children to entertain, I’ve spent a lot of time re-evaluating Disney films and series and would recommend hidden gems on there, such as ‘Adventures in Babysitting’, an under-rated Elisabeth Shue classic from my childhood about a nightmarish evening in charge of kids. I’ve also been re-watching, for comfort, La Haine, Anthony Bourdain’s travel series, Bizarre Foods America and V for real nostalgia.
Whilst painting various walls and ceilings, I listened to a plethora of podcasts too. Initially I was put off by the idea of Quickly Kevin, a 90s football show, but the more I’ve listened to it the better it’s got. It involves comedians – 90s football aficionados – interviewing figures including Pat Nevin, who has some fascinating stories to tell… there are also some incredible stories about the likes of Richard Keys and other seminal 90s football figures, and a series of film critiques in which they dissect football films such as When Saturday Comes and Hot Shot – which, having subsequently watched, is one of the worst films ever let alone football-themed films.
Another Podcast I have really enjoyed, which is admittedly a longer and very much more cerebral listen, is The Rewatchables in which film buffs discuss classic movies in real detail. My favourite, for pure nostalgia, was the one about The Karate Kid, although the best in terms of celebration was the one about Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as it forced me to re-evaluate it as potentially, one of the best movies ever made. Anyone into weird stuff might also like Frank Skinner’s poetry podcasts (especially the one on the beat poets, which made me finally pick up my copy of Kerouac’s On The Road years after picking it up in Blackpool Poundland) and Cillian Murphy’s weekly shows on R6 presenting some of his own eclectic music collection.
A final cultural gem has been some of the stuff Trickett have been offering. The editor of WSAG, fanzine I write for, got me into these guys and their quality of product, service and personalised communication is really top notch. Like me, they’re obsesses with Naples (dove il caffe e colto) and most recently I bought some incredible Passalacqua coffee from them for my morning espresso, and us all a Cornicella – a beautiful Neapolitan lucky charm, horn shaped and hand made in Naples – to ward off any evil spirits and bring us luck through these troubled times.
Trickett also do this amazing thing involving buying socks for homeless people, inspired by the Neapolitan tradition of ‘caffe sospeso’ (‘suspended’ or ‘pending’ coffee) which is basically a coffee paid for in advance, as an act of charity or good will. People who had themselves experienced good luck – perhaps as a result of a cornicello – would go and buy two to celebrate, but leave the second for someone less fortunate. Further research has led me to a fascinating movement spreading across the world, and documented in the Netflix documentary ‘Coffee For All’) and I think, links nicely to the great stories of humanity that have cut through the darkness of recent weeks.
Talk of Naples makes me pine for Italy (we should have been off to Palermo next week) and the natural next step, calcio. As for the return of football, life will eventually go on – although not for the forty thousand ish Britons (let that sink in for a minute, the capacity of the Old Lady) who will have succumbed to this terrible disease. Should the season be concluded, things won’t really change for me, apart from not being able to go the pub to watch any televised games, but it was only recently that I realised how much I will miss the match-going experience, even if I only go half a dozen times a season. God forbid how I’d be feeling if I still had my treasured season ticket… but it’s still only a game, of course, and life is more important.
It was only last weekend that its absence really got to me: an innocuous thread on Twitter by Andy Burnham, which led to me spending an hour in the kitchen whilst cooking tea listening to his Spotify ‘Everton 11’ and I was fine at first but when certain songs kicked in, I started to fill up and then had full on tears in my eyes (and it wasn’t just the onions) because I realised how much life overall has changed – football, politics, music – and how it might be this way for a long while yet.
Memories of yesteryear keep flooding back. A friend sent me some amazing photos for my uni days: I thought about how carefree we were. As Mel C sang with Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes around the same time: “It’s Just the beginning it’s not the end; things will never be the same again… “ They kind of had a point… but I’d like to think it can only be for the better.
Let’s, instead, end with two U2 songs: The End is the Beginning is the End / The Beginning is the End is the Beginning.