It’s 9am and Pete has spent the last three hours glued to the Today programme, most recently while standing around in the kitchen with a cup of coffee in lieu of commuting to the office.
He has torn himself away just once, to shower during Gary’s 7.30 round-up of cancelled sport. Other brief interludes in the Covid coverage have been useful for boiling the kettle, but between these Pete has been all ears while Nick Robinson has sounded knowing about the economic implications and Justin Webb has bemoaned the suspension of rugby. Pete is afraid that the fragrant Michal Husain is absent with symptoms, since her silken tones have not graced the Today programme for three whole days. Yesterday he found himself wishing it was Martha Kearney self-isolating instead, because of the profoundly irritating way her vocal pitch hops up like a surprised frog in the middle of sentences.
At the pips he switches off the radio and switches on his laptop. Time to start the working day. But first he has to find out how much the death toll in his area rose during the night. He also needs to check the situation in Italy because of his cousin in Siena, and Australia because of his old friend in Melbourne. Then there’s the question of how close they are to finding a vaccine – The Guardian, The Times and the BBC all differ on this. Finally, despising himself like all addicts, Pete opens the Mail Online. Here he learns that Britain is doomed.
After this he’s far too depressed to work so he has a quick peek at a couple of satirical websites to cheer himself up before forcing himself at long last to read his emails. This takes him to coffee-break time, which of course entails the latest headlines. Pete’s lunch hour is timed to coincide with The World at One, following which he falls asleep on his laptop, exhausted by news. Luckily he wakes up just in time for Evan Davis’s extended PM, towards the end of which he becomes increasingly itchy for the closing pips so that he can pour a much-needed glass of wine and thereby arm himself for the Six O’Clock News. After an evening spent scrolling through his Twitter feed, over-exposure to the blue glare deprives him of most of his sleep until his alarm goes off at 6am and a new Today starts.
© C P Jenkinson 05/04/2020
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