One glimmer of hope... Claire has left her shed
Over the past few weeks, pretty much only one subject has been discussed on current affairs programmes and that subject is the virus. Whether on radio or television, the now minor distraction of government formation has been a distant second, though it suddenly is coming up on the rails. Channel 4’s Dispatches special, How Britain
Is Changing, reused footage shot before the lockdown in the UK, and it’s weird how, already, the sight of people in clusters incites surprise and panic in equal measure. Astonishingly, after we closed the pubs, they still were open across the water, even though their first case was confirmed weeks before ours. When the call eventually came to shut them, one landlady in north London held a closing party, and even though we knew then of the dangers of proximity – it’s only a few weeks ago, though it might as well be months – her daughter and one of the patrons ended the night dancing closely together on the bar counter.
It was staggeringly irresponsible and I just hope, for all their sakes, none of them contracted the Covid19 illness.
The programme itself concentrated on the social changes this might bring – ever more of us working from home, now it has been proven to be effective; a possible shift in political discourse, with cooperation the way forward rather than division; and greater emphasis on public health now that we all have seen what a pandemic truly looks like.
It all was a bit trite, nonetheless, and while I know programme making poses particular difficulties in the age of social distancing, it didn’t really have a lot to say beyond ‘aren’t people great all the same’. That’s one thing we don’t need television to tell us because, in the main, we’re seeing it with our own eyes every day.
Much better was BBC1’s Horizon special, which also had little new to say but proved a very useful reminder of the timeline of the entire crisis, from its origin in
Wuhan, it’s arrival in Europe through Italy, and the spread from there across the globe. The science of modelling (anticipating how the curve would go based on varying levels of restrictions) and virology itself were explained very well in layman’s terms, and the overriding conclusion was that this is a very clever virus indeed.
That didn’t bring much comfort to those of us self-isolating for weeks already or, I have no doubt, to those who have been bereaved or suffered the illness themselves, but this is no time for sticking our heads in the sand, and there never has been a time when information left me feeling quite as powerful.
Presenters Dr Michael Mosley, Hannah Fry, Guddi Singh and Chris Van Tulleken were very measured in their assessments of where we go from here, and I ended up finding it all a lot more on the optimistic than pessimistic side.
In these times, I’ll take comfort where I get it.
I also laughed when, perhaps over-enthusiastically abandoning jargon, Van Tulleken administered his own nasal swab with the immortal line: ‘I just need to collect some snot.’
I never thought I’d hear the like of that from Auntie BBC!
On The Tonight Show on Virgin
One, Ivan Yates and his guest Professor Michael O’Keeffe were talking on Wednesday about the new Garda powers to stop people travelling to holiday homes or beauty hotspots this weekend. Prof. O’Keeffe, an ophthalmologist who nonetheless seemed unable to see the big picture, airily declared that we were becoming a police state.
What a load of nonsense. In a police state, the press is muzzled, people are surveilled even inside their own homes, and often arrested and detained without charge. Stopping idiots getting in their cars to drive to Wexford or West Cork or Clare is not the action of a police state, but a responsible one. Since so many idiots have proved they simply cannot be trusted to do what is asked of them, it is unfortunate, yes, but understandable that new powers had to be granted.
I double checked afterwards and learned Prof. O’Keeffe is 68. Perhaps the next law should be to lower the age for cocooning.
Finally, in one of the best moments of the week, the campaign to Free The Shed One came to a successful conclusion when Claire Byrne finally escaped the Barna in her back garden and was back in studio to present her self-titled show on Monday night on RTÉ One.
One of her guests was a hairdresser who, via Skype, was instructing Jake Carter on how to cut his brother Nathan’s hair. The main point of this, it seemed, was to add another RTÉ show to Nathan’s already impressive Montrose CV; he pops up more often than Bosco.
Now that he’s added Claire’s show to his Tasks Completed list, what’s left for him? Having a pint in the background in McCoy’s in Fair City? Presenting Six-One alongside Caitríona Perry? How long before he ends up banging out the Angelus with a wooden spoon on a saucepan?