Oh, what a time to be alive!

From the demise of Fomo to not having to buy new clothes and — finally — proper appreciation for key workers, Lynn Barber finds the silver lining of living in lockdown

Iwas incredibly slow to get interested in coronavirus. Then in mid February some cases turned up in Brighton — that’s where my daughters and grandchildren live, so it suddenly felt very worrying. In the first days of March life seemed to tick along much as normal. I went to the RA for the wonderful Léon Spilliaert exhibition and to lunch with friends and to Brighton to see the grandchildren. But then on 12 March Boris Johnson announced that many more families will ‘ lose loved ones’ and it then seemed very serious indeed. On 14 March I wrote in my diary that I woke ‘worrying for the first time about coronavirus — what will I do if I get it? Die, basically, and hope it’s quick.’

But then I am 75 and feel I’ve already lived long enough. Most, but not all, of my septuagenarian friends feel the same — that we’d far rather die quickly of Covid-19 than any of the long-term horrors like Parkinson’s or motor neurone disease. And personally, I would have thought that a pandemic that quickly cleared out the old while not harming children was just what the country needed. But I seem to be an outlier on this.

London has been in lockdown for more than a week and shopping has become more like foraging. My first sight of Holloway Waitrose with empty shelves was a shock. I’d thought panic buying only happened in deprived areas. Fool. My sister-in-law rings to say that one of the chemists in Crouch End still has paracetamol, and I reward her with the news that the nearby garage has long-life milk. My iPlayer and Netflix don’t seem to work in the evenings. First-world problems, I know, but then I’ve spent 75 years in the first world and find it a bit late to adjust. Still, I have to say I am not entirely not enjoying lockdown. Here are some good things about our current situation, in no particular order.

It has completely abolished Brexit from the news. We no longer need to know, or care, what Canada Plus was supposed to mean.

It’s lovely to have all this new neighbourliness. Even before the Government said over-70s should stay indoors, I’d had a sweet email saying the younger women in my street had organised a WhatsApp group to do shopping for older residents. Two more neighbours knocked on my door to say the same, and one of them brought me flowers on Mother’s Day. (My daughters sent me paracetamol.) By chance there is a shortage of older residents

“I can tell you that Jon Snow’s bookshelf is infinitely more interesting than the usual bland Channel 4 News studio”

And not going out means I won’t have to buy any new clothes, not this season and possibly not ever. I need never puzzle my pretty little head over what constitutes an ‘essential handbag’. A truly essential handbag would be one that contained a personal protection suit.

Everyone is growing vegetables so with any luck there’ll be some spare beans and tomatoes for me.

With many broadcasters forced to work from home, we sometimes get glimpses of their houses and I can tell you that Jon Snow’s bookshelf is infinitely more interesting than the usual bland Channel 4 News studio. And on the radio we often hear background noise of children or dogs, which makes presenters seem more human and likeable.

Shutting bars and restaurants means young people will be forced to stay home doing what comes naturally; with any luck we’ll have a baby boom when the pandemic is over. It’s overdue: it’s not good to have a falling birth rate and ageing population.

Covid-19 seems to be doing the work of Extinction Rebellion. I rejoice at the news of flights being cancelled and airlines going bust. It’s good for the environment, good for the planet and with any luck we can forget Heathrow expansion. People fly far too much anyway. Think of the pure joy of never again having to trail through an airport with tired women squirting perfume in your face. Perhaps in 100 years’ time, airports will be like Inca ruins, half buried in undergrowth, and archaeologists will stare at them and wonder what they were ever used for.

This might be a bit far fetched, but there does seem a hope that we might decide to pay key workers — nurses, teachers, carers — properly. Covid-19 has taught us that these are the people we REALLY need, as opposed to all those layers of management, with their inflated salaries and daft bonuses. It would be a cheeky finance manager now who claimed he was worth the equivalent of 10 nurses. So three cheers for this unprecedented turn of events if it leads to a younger, fairer, more equitable society — even if I’m not alive to see it.