Take a chair – or rather don’t ...

Enough of the naysaying. This week, I’m feeling helpful. Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma may want to pull up a chair – those aren’t banned yet, are they?

Actually, wasn’t it proven that sitting down is bad for the health, and that’s why “standing desks” became a thing?

And surely sharing seats could exacerbate the spread of Covid-19?

Also, people might use a chair to hit their partner, increasing the risk of domestic violence.

And what about all the accidents and deaths caused by people falling off chairs, or chairs collapsing beneath them?

I’m struggling to find the relevant stats but, in 2011, 52 people in the UK were killed falling off chairs and everyone knows there are more people in the world now, and more chairs, and some of those chairs are nine years older than they were when the stats came out. Therefore, by logical extension, nine years wobblier. Chairs must go.

Oh dear, beds too. People fall out of them all the time. They’re statistically worse than chairs: double the number of people were killed falling from beds.

And – yikes! – now that everybody is staying at home, they’re in their beds even more, and the children are bored, bouncing on the furniture, and whole families are going to be crushed as their beds cave in. I think we can agree beds and chairs must be verboten.

(You can keep your tables so long as you don’t sit on them.)

Instead, how about everyone pick a personal cushion and strap it to their backside?

You too, Mama Zuma. You’ve got a cushion? No, I’m not talking about your bank balance – no one’s questioning your motives. Relax!

So while we’re warmed by the mass burning of beds and chairs, let’s talk about nonessentials. Because nobody needs cake. Yes, I want cake, I love cake, I’d be sadder without cake – ditto wine, and the occasional G&T – but I do not need it. It is not essential to my bodily health.

Let them not eat cake. Nobody needs meat, either, or tea, coffee, cheese, butter, chocolate, sweets… Let’s ban it all.

Just tell them it was my idea, thus quashing nefarious rumours that anybody in power, or indeed their family or friends, may be benefitting from the flourishing black market in any way at all.