IVAN YATES

Ivan Yates continued to present ‘The Hard Shoulder’ on Newstalk and ‘The Tonight Show’ on Virgin Media One. He spent lockdown at home in Dublin with his wife, Deirdre

PRACTICAL

All my MC and moderating and speaking work came to a standstill in lockdown, but I still went into Newstalk in the day and out to Ballymount for the television on my designated nights.

Outside of that, what I used to do was go to Leinster rugby, watch Man City and watch 24/7 all the recorded sporting events. Then, suddenly, the pubs were closed, the betting shops were closed and there was no sport. I was quickly ready to jump off a cliff. There were a lot of long walks in every direction and slowly, but for three or four hours. And I lived with my sorrow.

My wife Deirdre took up bloody Bridge on her iPad and started learning French, but the thing we have started doing together is we save up all The Irish Times Simplex crosswords and do them at the weekend.

Before lockdown, I’d never seen one episode of Game of Thrones, but I’m up to season four, knee-deep in the fornication. Almost in one night I watched season five of Peaky Blinders .I watched no TV before because I was watching sport, but now, with a copious amount of home-drinking, I could watch a season of Game of Thrones in a weekend.

This is not a hobby for life, it’s extremis of boredom.

PERSONAL

I’ve always known that my boredom threshold is low and this has only emphasised that. I’d be in a home for the insane without work. I’m very fortunate that I have some normality to my life, and all my family are well and my extended family, too.

I’m not doing anything to improve on the boredom threshold, I’m too old for that.

All these people say it’s for our own good, but that’s all total bullshit of the highest order and I can’t wait for it to be over.