Going stir crazy? Have some porridge
WHAT are the distractions from the stresses of living on Planet Corona?
Let me recommend ironing, whose calming influence I have already praised in this column. Making porridge is good for the soul, heated gently (half milk, half water). Savour the experience as the porridge slowly comes to the boil and you scan the surface for the first plopping bubbles. Once in the bowl, take a large spoon of honey then tilt it to allow a slow graceful descent.
What has sustained me most during the virus is radio. With the onslaught of five million TV channels, plus Netflix, Amazon Prime, smart phones, YouTube, Instagram, Whatsap, Catch Up and the rest, old-fashioned radio has little right to survive. Yet it does.
Just as traditional books have survived e-books, cinemas (when they re-open) have survived DVD and video, and the High Street (I hope) will survive the online blitzkrieg.
I listen to Radio 4 for the drama, books, art and the breakfast time Today Programme which knocks spots off breakfast telly.
Radio 3’s eclectic range of classical music fearlessly resists easy populism and is unparalleled. Radio 6’s rock music is the antidote to any playlist and Radio 4 Extra feeds the hunger for nostalgia with the likes of Round the Horne or Hancock’s Half Hour.
Saturday afternoon belongs to Radio Five Live; more nostalgia with live footie commentary and the 5pm Sports Report, whose theme tune is unchanged since I was in short trousers and firing catapults.
I have four radios. Often all four are on as I move round the house. Digital and analogue radios are not in synch, so there is a short delay between the two systems. I can walk from one room to another and hear Melvyn Bragg speak the same sentence twice.
If I do this a lot, I become disorientated and find myself asking which one is real.
With radio, you can concentrate and simultaneously shave, stir custard, beat the carpet or memorise logarithmic tables. Radio voices can soothe our pandemic anxiety in an unrivalled fashion.
Consider the de-stressing qualities of one particular short programme with no logical relevance to most of our lives. I refer of course to the legendary Shipping Forecast.
■ Planet Corona, The First One Hundred Columns, £8.00, IRON Press.
■ peterjohngmortimer@xlnmail.com