More than ever, the act of bending my knees, kneeling (obviously) and standing up is a source of pain. I’m thinking this is an inevitable consequence of A: ageing and B: chasing my daughter around. As I once said to my wife, I’m no spring onion anymore.

No, that isn’t a typo. Well it is, but a deliberate one. Is that a typo, or a bad pun? It’s a bad pun.

I also have a constant pain in the little finger of my right hand, which began after I crunched it during a sofa swap at my old job, several months ago. Why I haven’t got that seen to, I have no idea. Stubborn? Certainly. Stupid? Most likely. Will I motivate myself to go to the doctor’s surgery? Nope, least of all during this coronavirus pandemic.

Why do I tend to accept pain and discomfort as a normal, everyday part of life? I’m not sure. A weird sense of sadism? I haven’t really sought to psycho-analyse myself (because I probably won’t like the results). It’s why my dreams sometimes leave me a bit unsettled or confused. My subconscious is trying to process the confusion and ends up scrambled.

Boredom doesn’t help. The store, like many retailers, is quiet. Very few people will be hunting for bathrooms in the midst of all this. No one wants to take chances (quite rightly) with their health. The government, as useless as they are, has issued advice against social gatherings and asked people to work from home, but as of this post, hasn’t issued any actual orders, so if businesses like restaurants and retailers shut, they receive no backup from their insurance. Many people cannot survive on the risible statutory sick pay, and it’s taken the government too long to issue any kind of meaningful measures as it is. Here I am, talking about my knees, whilst a greater type of pain might be on the horizon.

There is going to be a huge strain on the economy for the short term, and probably the mid term too. Cinemas, clubs etc, are shutting, but staff still expect to be paid (as they should). Rents and rates are still going out, but no one is circulating, so there’s going to be a crunch. The needless decade of poor-punishing austerity and chronic, almost criminal underfunding of the NHS will have repurcussions for Boris Johnson and his cadre of arrogant cohorts. What’s worse is consequences it will have on the door and the helpless.