The Screaming Lurgy

Only 20 years in and the 21st century is the gift that just keeps on giving: 9/11, 7/7, Iraq, the financial crash, massive hurricanes and tsunamis, Arctic ice melting, droughts, wild fires, bees dying, bird flu, swine flu, and now COVID-19. I hate to be a Debbie Downer but I worry that this is the track we’re on now, just lurching from one crisis to the next. I guess you could have said the same thing 100 years ago after World War One and the Spanish Flu pandemic, but at least the planet wasn’t fucked up back then. Now the combination of a worldwide plague together with environmental disaster doesn’t seem like something out of a dystopian SF novel.

Being British of an older generation you’re raised to accept that life is often a bit crap and you have to make do and muddle through — I grew up in the 70s with the 3-day week, power cuts, inflation, and the Winter of Discontent — so I usually take things like this on the chin, but I’d be lying if I said that, as a 57-year-old former smoker, this virus doesn’t make me anxious.

At least one thing I don’t have to worry about is my job. I’m very lucky to have one I can do from home, but I know people who work in the restaurant business who aren’t so lucky and have been laid off. Who knows if they’ll ever get those old jobs back? When we all finally leave our houses again and go back to work I’m dreading how many businesses I used to frequent — restaurant, book shop, indie cinema, barbers, comic shop — won’t be there any more.

Still, though it doesn’t come naturally, I guess you have to stay positive and look forward to the day this is all over — and it will be, at least until the next disaster.

And on that happy note…

Download: Infected (12″ Mix) – The The (mp3)