A return to March 2020: working from home resumes
POET LAUREATE TADHG EVANS HAS RETURNED TO WORKING FROM HOME, MEANING THE DIARY HAS RETURNED TO WHERE IT ALL STARTED. FANTASTIC.
The Diary returns to its roots: I’m working from home.
DEAR Diary – It’s Tuesday, January 5, and I’m at home, working. Working from home, as it were.
This is where The Diary began, back when it had a semblance of news value. It would serve for years to come as a fascinating insight into what life was like during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
That was why my editor, Kevin Hughes, allowed it and erroneously felt it was a good idea. Historians would one day extol its virtues, we thought. It would be looked at as an outstanding piece of reportage of its time.
And then lock-down ended, The Diary continued, and I spent most weeks talking about not having change for parking in the Brandon.
So it’s probably a good thing for the health of The Diary that I’ve returned to working from home. It can again be – or aim to be, at least – all of those things I’ve already mentioned.
But for everything else, my own well-being included, life facing into another lock-down is definitely not a good thing. I hated every second of that March-to-May stretch, or however many months the bloody thing went on for.
This time I have a corner-sofa, however. We got it just before Christmas, and it has changed my life.
For all that, though, I am tempted to set up an ‘office’ in my bedroom. I have a desk and a computer, and I’m not sure there’s anything else I need.
Just to give it an authentic office feel, I may keep a picture at my desk. I don’t have any children, so I may take a photo of our dogs, print it out, and frame it.
That could be nice. Maybe working from home won’t be as bad this time around.
Why High School Musical Three is a really terrible film.
DEAR Diary – It’s Wednesday, I’ve finished a long day’s work, and I still haven’t set up my home office. I’ve been on the new corner sofa all day, and when I clock out, I’m still on the corner sofa. I don’t like this.
I’m now paying attention, though, and I notice that the telly is on. Somebody has been watching it, unknown to me, such is the extent to which I absorb myself in my work.
Which is a good thing, because if I’d known that somebody was watching High School Musical, I’d have freaked.
High School Musical is something awful. This is the third instalment of the trilogy, and it’s set in ‘Senior Year’, or ‘ The Leaving’ as we’d call it.
It seems that the East High basketball team, the ‘Wildcats’, are in the ‘ championship game’, which is what Americans stupidly call a final.
Things aren’t going well, but the lead character, Troy Bolton, sings a song and now the Wildcats are flying. They’re scoring from all angles. But I’m not impressed.
The late Páidi Ó Sé inspired Westmeath by calling for them to put Laois ‘ back on their f **king arse for ten years’. They went on to win the Leinster Championship. It worked. He didn’t have to sing any songs, the players didn’t break into dance. It was far more straight-forward.
And the players were happier too. Troy is no sooner after leading his team to the championship when, instead of basking in the moment, he’s worried about asking Gabriella to the prom. He has to climb up a tree and sing badly at her to seal the deal.
I may have had nothing to do with the Pobalscoil team that got to the Corn Ui Mhuiri final the year I did my Leaving, but all I had to do was fire off a text to my neighbour and the debs was sorted.
Cold, clinical, effective.
Things are not going well in America. Are they ever?
HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL IS SOMETHING AWFUL. THIS IS THE THIRD INSTALMENT IN THE TRILOGY, AND IT’S SET IN ‘SENIOR YEAR’, OR ‘THE LEAVING’, AS WE’D CALL IT.
DEAR Diary – America is a seachrán. I’m not sure what that means in English, but I know it’s a bad thing.
A heap of morons are after storming Capitol Hill. One of them isn’t wearing a top and appears to have dressed up as the divil. The people around him are looking at him as some kind of leader, but I just don’t trust the guy. You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but this book’s an idiot and I don’t plan on reading it. I have enough books to be getting on with.
And the fella who caused all the agro tonight isn’t doing much by way of sorting it out. Trump was just on the telly, telling them to go home, but he also told the idiots that he loves them and knows how they feel. He also reminds them a couple of times that the election was stolen from him, which is why they’re lighting in the first place.
I should probably mention as well, for clarity, that he’s lying. He had no election stolen from him.
All the family is on our new corner-sofa, watching the action, but it seems to be dying down a bit. We plug out the Sky box, connect the cable to my laptop, and we decide to throw Fawlty Towers on instead.
I found out lately that it’s on Netflix, and we’re knocking fierce enjoyment from it.
After the episode ends, my father asks me to go on my phone to find out what age John Cleese (Basil Fawlty) is now. He’s 81. So now my father wants a picture of what he looks like today.
My father does this a lot. He really does seem to love seeing how old famous people have gotten since he last saw them. I don’t know why.