FURLOUGH, BABES?
It’s a strip of mink on a maxi dress!
As we’re all asked to write our lockdown memoirs, JAN MOIR dips her quill into a pot of fantasy ink to imagine what our favourite celebs might write...
WE ARE living through momentous times. That is why Britons are being asked by the Mass Observation Project — which was conceived in 1937 — to write diary entries to create a permanent record of life under lockdown for future generations. But will any celebrities and VIPs take part in the task? JAN MOIR speculates on what they would say . . .
VICTORIA BECKHAM
Dear Diary,
Dawn finally breaks at our beautiful tri-barn complex in the Cotswolds. ‘what’s wrong with her?’ asks David, walking into the kitchen where our housekeeper Dawn is sobbing.
I’m two raisins into my three-raisin breakfast and I really need to concentrate, but I put down my rose-gold Tiffany dried-fruit fork and look him square in the tattoos.
‘Husband,’ I say, ‘she is worried about losing her job.’ David looks shocked. who is going to steam press his own-label cotton rich Y-fronts now, available from H&M and garage forecourts everywhere? (Years ago, David told me he wanted to be big in underpants, and the dream came true many times over.)
I permit Dawn to speak, and she declares that she is sad because of the furlough imposed on all my fashion staff. ‘what does that word even mean?’ asks David, pouring Cocopops into his favourite Bunnykins bowl.
I put down my fruit fork. I haven’t worked as a fashion designer for ten years for nothing. (actually, given all the losses, I have.)
‘A furlough, babes,’ I tell him, ‘is a strip of mink sewn onto the bottom hem of a maxi skirt. Everybody knows that.’
Milk dribbles down David’s chin. He looks confused. But that happens every morning in the fabulous world of Brand Beckham.
MATT HANCOCK.
Weight: lost 10 lb. Alcohol units six. Corona virus tests: 100,000 per day. Calories: 800 (no time to eat). Cappuccinos: six.
AT 3PM my secretary appears with a cup of tea. ‘I suppose you’ll want a biscuit with that?’ she says.
Listen little lady, I DON’T LIKE YOUR TONE, I shout. why oh why am I surrounded with such insolence and subordination all the time? Hang on. Get a grip, Matty boy. I do my deep-breathing exercises and stick my head in a bucket of water every ten minutes, as ordered by my anger management consultant.
Is it working? why yes. I buzz my secretary in to backtrack, to ameliorate, to trace and test her response. I answer in the affirmative, the positive, not the negative. Yes please, I say, a biscuit would be nice. ‘Chocolate digestive or garibaldi?’ she wonders. ‘Or do you ’ LET ME, PLEASE LET ME FINISH THE ANSWER, I SHOUT.
‘I only wondered if you might want a Hobnob or a . . . ’
LISTEN TO ME. The clarity of my message, my core goal, I have explained it before. I want a snack. not 100,000 snacks, just one snack. Doesn’t have to be choccy. UNDERSTAND?
She throws a Jammie Dodger on my desk and slams the door. I plunge my head back into the bucket. God give me strength.
NIGELLA LAWSON
Journal Entry: Ode to an Onion
THESE days can seem threateningly amorphous and tinged with inevitable anxiety. I find shelter and comfort in slowly preparing vegetables to distract my fine mind.
On Monday, I peel an onion. On Tuesday I chop the onion, savouring the sensation of the waxy allium orb compliant under my palm. The following day I tumble the onion into hot oil, watching as it softens and begins to caramelise, for the onion must bend to my will, as I to it.
The ancient process of vegetal domination begins anew. I am she who makes the leek meek and gets the peas on their knees, supplicant and weeping tears of butter. Cooking in lockdown is about focus in the realm of the senses.
To listen to the sizzle of my onion is to escape from the unceasing rondeau of worry and to take comfort in ritual instead. The onion needs me, and I need the onion.
On Thursday I devour the onion greedily, desperately, exuberantly; enjoying the dollop and splosh of its husky onion-ness against my yielding tongue.
On Friday I put the onion peelings in the bin. I am uplifted, exultant. I look at a carrot, quaking in the salad drawer. You’re next, I say.
PROFESSOR NEIL FERGUSON
Captain’s Log; Stardate 1205.2020. Cruising at Warp Factor 7, unsure of what the future now holds.
LaTE at night the demons come, for this is when the loneliness of the long-distance epidemiologist is at its most contagious. Once again,
I find myself in the mood for a nonpharmaceutical intervention.
I set my treadmill desk to ‘sprint’ and simultaneously log onto VIR&US (Vixens Into Romance & Under Sixty) to collect data and see what is happening out there. The results are troubling.
Cherry has given herself a home pedicure, while Deep Sea Debbie (she can give any man the bends) is relaxing between appointments. I make a rapid analysis. Is my subscription to online dating site VIR&US really worth it? I am beginning to think not.
SIR KEIR STARMER
Court Bundle 457. Case Name: Keir for King. Please turn to Document three in your folders, entitled Morning Rituals.
THE first thing I do every morning is moisturise. I’m a nivea man, always have been, always will be. You can’t change me, you don’t have to question my loyalty, that is the kind of guy I am. next, I ask my wife if she wants to moisturise, too.
‘Sir Keir, I moisturised before I went to bed last night,’ she tells me. Oh really? I used to be a lawyer and still have a forensic attention to detail. nothing escapes me. ‘Lady Starmer, I know you moisturised last night,’ I say. ‘I was once a lawyer, as you know. But a post-somnus moisturise can also be very beneficial to the mature lady’s skin. now tarry not. Get your avon Dew Surge out and let’s moisturise together. You know the routine. pat, pat, smooth. pat, pat, smooth. Eye pop, eye pop, relax.’ Is m’lady gritting her teeth? Or is that a new brand of exfoliating toothpaste she is using? after showering I moisturise my calves, step into freshly starched undergarments and bow to my framed photograph of Colin Firth as Mark Darcy, another hero with a forensic attention to detail, inspired by me. Fully creamed and with my morning ritual complete, I am ready to engage with the government.
NORMAL PEOPLE’S MARIANNE
Dear Deep and Meaningful Diary
I DON’T know what’s wrong with me. why can’t I be like all the other girls? They would be thrilled to be starring in a hit BBC adaptation of a bestselling novel, especially if it involved having lots of sex with a really, really handsome Irish guy who actually looks 26 and not 16.
But Diary, I can only confess this to you — I am bored with sex. I’m happy on me tod.
There are lots of things I want to do in the bedroom. Iron my tights. Read a book. Stare out of the window and look winsome.
But no, here comes Connell acting the maggot with his big lad in his hand, and off we go again, until the watershed and beyond. I am exhausted.
NORMAL PEOPLE’S CONNELL
Dear Deeper and More Meaningful Diary
BEING alone with Marianne is like opening a door away from normal
life and then closing it behind me. I like her hair, the way she reads, her long fingers turning the pages, the way she can be naïve and worldly, young and old, all at the same time. But, if I am honest, what I like most is getting her bra off.
‘I wouldn’t ride you if you had pedals,’ one of the local girls once said to me. Marianne is not like that and bless her for this journey we have embarked upon together.
And I can promise you that wherever we go, the road isn’t the only thing that is going to rise up to meet her.
PRINCE HARRY
Instagram Story on private Archewell account. Followers only.
HERE I am, searching for meaning and finding freedom in the new world. So far, so bloody marvellous. California is super amazing and the rents here are like, nothing — literally!
It’s just like being back at home. The only bill I’ve seen in America was on a duck — lovely Aunty Oprah seems to take care of everything.
Queen Gan-Gan always said to me that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but Meghan says I have to grow a pair. I think she means avocados, which are delicious and nutritious for any meal. One big difference is that everyone here says have A Nice Day, and they really mean it. People are so friendly! especially the generous, millionaire landlord we’ve never met. We love his/our new home, which even has its own in-house, cold-pressed juicery plus a poolside beauty barn.
Meghan and I had turmeric enemas together this morning. No wonder I’m stoked!
NICOLA STURGEON
Midnight, Bute House. Top Secret Diary Entry No 498.
THIS is my new strategy. If Boris Johnson sets his alarm for 07.00 hours, I set mine for 06.59 hours. If Dominic Raab schedules a lockdown press conference for 08.00 hours, I schedule a lockdown press conference for 07.55 hours.
The early bird catches the Tory worm, eh? It seems to be working so far. If I say exactly what they are going to say five minutes before they say it, it makes me look totally in charge. Nicola Shows Westminster The Way Forward! That was the smashing headline in our in-house magazine, SNP Och Aye! yesterday. Most gratifying.
Boris is having his lunch at 1pm, so I have mine at 12.55. I give my hair a saucer of milk, knock back a wee voddy to keep me going and tuck into a nice boiled egg. Which reminds me. It won’t be long before Scotland is free forever from the english yoke. GEDDIT? Now that is a good joke, is it not?
Better than anything the so-called Prime Minister could dream up. ONWARDS.