Lockdown Dog Days
‘Well it’s debts and taxes, and pains and woes
Aches and miseries, that’s how it goes
And now I’m getting a cold in the nose
Life gets tedious, don’t it?’
So sang Tex Williams back in the 40s, but as legendary radio show host Seamus Android (of ‘Round the Horne’ fame) would have put it, ‘how true those words are, even today’.
I don’t know about you guys out in IsACland, but it’s getting so that I can barely contain my apathy in these lockdown dog days, listening to the clock ticking and dreading the moment when the lurgy might strike. It’s a bit like the old adage about war, I suppose; it’s long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of terror.
I lounged in bed this morning, letting my anticipation build to fever pitch at the prospect of a shave. When I was seeing how long I could make my breakfast coffee last, the phone rang. Oh the buzz, but it was just some old dear who’d dialled the wrong number. That could well have been my excitement quota for the day, but then the postman arrived. What had he brought us to lighten the spirits? Why, a letter from the building society telling us that they’ve slashed the interest rates on our ISAs, the cunts.
But there was always the prospect of some stimulating conversation from ‘Er Indoors; I could easily stand to hear again about how my little princess can’t get out to the hairdressers. Of course she needs to go shopping for new shoes, but tragically that’s out too. She’ll just have to make do with one of the thirty-odd pairs that are stacked up in the bedroom cupboard. We’ve all got to make sacrifices in these trying times.
Naturally enough, she’s busy finding things to occupy me. Apparently ‘the Devil makes work for idle hands’, so I could do some of the things I’m always talking about doing, by which she means some of the things SHE’S always talking about me doing. Clean out the loft, dear? I’ll think about making a start…
Tell you what my little flower, why don’t YOU make yourself useful? You could get in the kitchen and make some lasagne for tea, and dig out a bottle of Pinot. While you’re at it, you can be thinking about providing some soldier’s comforts later, to bolster flagging morale about the place. Meanwhile, I’ll have a walk down the front garden and watch the sagebrush blowing down the street. I might even spot a curfew breaker that could be grassed up to the rozzers for the guilty pleasure that would offer. Then I’ll come back and dig out a film. ‘The Longest Day’ might be appropriate, or perhaps ‘The Great Escape’ could give us a few ideas.
Oh for fuck’s sake, an e-mail’s arrived from our daughter. ‘Dad, I’m not feeling well; dry cough and breathlessness, and feeling exhausted. I think I’ve got it. Kids missing you and mum terribly’. Christ on a bike, where’s my Glenfiddich? Lockdown dog days, let the good times roll.
Nominated by Ron Knee




