I want to listen to the experts, but which ones to choose?
Here’s the most unsettling thing about all this. It’s not the prospect of self-isolation. I’m fine with that. I’ve got my loo rolls, I’ve got my baked beans, and I’ve got my three-volume edition of the Miss Marple Omnibus. Lock me away for the rest of the year. I’m ready.
It’s not the constant frantic scrubbing of my hands, either. I’m happy to put up with that – even though it’s brought back my eczema with a furious vengeance. My hands are now red, scaly and oddly claw-like. I look like a sunburnt iguana.
No, I’ll tell you what gets me about this whole crisis. It’s the not knowing. The sheer uncertainty.
Normally I would tell myself just to trust in the experts. The trouble in this case is that the experts don’t agree. The British Government’s experts are arguing against drastic action – while lots of other countries’ experts are arguing for drastic action. And I’ve got absolutely no way of telling which experts are right. If any.
I just don’t know. I have no opinion. And that in itself, for me, is deeply unnerving. I’ve always had an opinion. Politics, books, football, music, restaurants, everything. But not this. I haven’t a clue who’s right and who’s wrong. Which feels not just weird, but worrying. Because there’s comfort in certitude. And that comfort has abruptly been snatched away.
Mass public gatherings, for example. Cancel them? Or go ahead? I haven’t the faintest idea. The organisers of Glastonbury have just announced that the festival is still on for June, and that the star headliner will be Sir Paul Mccartney. Which means that, at the projected peak of the virus, a 78-yearold man will be standing in a field surrounded by 200,000 people who haven’t washed in three days.
To me, it does sound a tiny bit risky. But again, I could be wrong. Maybe it’ll be fine. Maybe the organisers will take suitable precautions. Maybe each attendee will be presented on entry with a free basin, six bars of Imperial Leather and a one-size-fits-all hazmat suit. Who knows?
Definitely not me.
There’s only thing I am sure about: the Government is mad to insist that it won’t extend the Brexit transition period, even though next week’s talks have been cancelled because of the virus. At this rate we’ll have no chance of agreeing a trade deal.
Still, I suppose this year’s economic catastrophe will be useful preparation for next year’s.
To cheer myself up, I’ve just been reading a book about the deadliest pandemic of all time. Pale Rider, by Laura Spinney, covers the Spanish flu of 1918-20 – which infected a third of the global population, and may well have killed more people than the two world wars combined. It was of course a different disease, and a different time. But there may still be lessons to draw from what happened. For example: “Keep calm and carry on” isn’t always good advice.
On the one hand, of course, panic is dangerous. If people panic-buy certain items, other people may end up having to go without, and suffer as a result. On the other hand, though, complacency can be dangerous too.
Autumn 1918 saw the release of Shoulder Arms, a Charlie Chaplin film. The Spanish flu was already widespread. None the less, cinemas stayed open, and the film was a hit. Harold Edel, the manager of a cinema in New York, praised the public for overcoming their fears and turning out in such big numbers. Cheerfully he told a reporter: “We think it a most wonderful appreciation of Shoulder Arms that people should veritably take their lives in their hands to see it.”
Less than two weeks later, Mr Edel was dead. He’d caught the Spanish flu.
Anyway. That’s enough about the imminent collapse of civilisation for now. Shall we talk about something else?
Three years ago, I wrote a column about a young man from Northamptonshire called Dan Middleton. Mr Middleton, a 20-something former shelf-stacker at Tesco, had taken to recording videos of himself playing computer games, and then posting them on Youtube under the name “Dan TDM”. Soon, these videos had amassed so many subscribers that he was making more than £12million a year. Seriously: £12million a year. Just by playing computer games.
For parents, I wrote, the moral of the story was clear. Instead of ordering our children to stop playing computer games and do their homework, we should be ordering them to stop doing their homework and play computer games. Well, that was where the money was.
Personally, however, I had no interest in adding to Mr TDM’S fortune, and so forgot all about him.
Until, that is, two weeks ago, when my six-year-old son discovered his work. Inevitably, he was dazzled – and now refuses to watch anything else. No more Doctor Who, no more Star Wars, no more Blue Planet. Just Youtube videos of Dan TDM, endlessly playing computer games.
I wouldn’t mind, except that
Mr TDM insists on keeping up a continuous and highly excitable commentary on his gameplaying. And, gripping though this commentary may seem to a sixyear-old boy, it’s not necessarily so fascinating to his parents.
“Oh God,” sighed my wife the other morning, above the laddish babble from the next room. “It’s like having a really, really annoying lodger.”
Actually it’s even worse than that. It’s like having a really, really annoying lodger who doesn’t pay us any rent. Despite being one of the richest men in Britain.
Please, Prime Minister. Don’t order schools and businesses to close. Otherwise we’ll be stuck with the lodger all day long.
follow Michael Deacon on Twitter @Michaelpdeacon; read more at telegraph.co.uk/opinion