Quiz Night Kindness

All of us have had a lot of up and downs as a result of the self-imposed imprisonment that we have been suffering from for the last 12 weeks.

 I remember the government announcing the fact it would be 12 weeks for most people to have to stay indoors and thinking what an incomparably long amount of time that was. Yet in many ways it seems to have flown by and become our accepted way of life. It has brought many changes and made many things harder for many of us.

I find the hardest point of any day is the moment my head lifts from the pillow and I slowly gain full consciousness of the world I am about to enter. I want to stay out of it all. Getting up in the morning has not been this hard since the fourth form. I've had a few blowouts of the "I'm just not going to take it any more" variety, more often than not provoked by having to watch the imbecilic behaviour of various politicians on the 5 o'clock government comedy show.

I fully understand that nobody has found themselves in this situation before. Nobody was prepared to deal with it. So we cannot expect people to have got everything right. And yet, one thing we can expect is for people to acknowledge that fact. We did this, we didn't get it right, and for that we are sorry, and now we're going to do this. But that's far too much to expect from this government of self-serving tossers who were put in position by Boris in order to "get Brexit done". In other words, to do what Boris said.

None of us could have foreseen that they would be in charge of the country during such an national disaster. But by goodness have they managed to make it harder than it need be. A late lockdown which now scientists are openly saying probably doubled the death toll during March and April. A PM who seems absent most of the time (Has he been furloughed and nobody told us?) and yet who is prepared to break down the trust established with the whole country in favour of one man who obviously knows enough to bring him down.  

To witness the appalling spectacle of cabinet minister after Cabinet minister telling us that "it's time to move on now" and not realise how they were betraying the people who had so willingly and wholeheartedly locked themselves down to prevent the disease spreading was heartbreaking.

It seems that over the last ten years governments have been increasingly out of step with the public but never more so than the last 12 weeks. I have a particular penchant for the spectacular fucksplat that is Matt Hancock. Inept, insensitive, ill-equipped, ill informed, incompetent, (insert your own adjectives here) and 100% useless. He's laughed on news broadcasts as statistics of deaths were read out. He has blatantly lied during government briefings. He's done more U-turns than a teenage joyrider on a council estate, and he has  an incomparably bad choice in neckwear. There can't be a pink tie left in TM Lewin unless, perish the thought, he's been wearing the same one every day. Let's just hope he's not been doing that with his underpants. Although that would give everyone, as if they need an excuse, the right to avoid him like the plague.

 One can only hope that these people will be brought to some form of justice after all this is over. These unapologetic arrogant arse holes must be made to answer.

But the thing that will stand out to me most at this time is the kindness of people. I don't like being asked to be kind. I'm not kind to everybody. I'm kind to people by choice. To people I love, to people who smile at me on the tube, to people who make me feel wanted in whatever way however small.

In the first week of lockdown Richard and I set up an online quiz. We sent out arbitrary invitations to a whole group of people on WhatsApp and were very surprised when on the Thursday night at 7:30pm we had quite a lot of people join us. The following week we did it again, albeit a little later to accommodate the clap for the NHS. We opened the room half-an-hour before quiz was due to start so that people could chat to each other and the quiz would last for ninety minutes. This group of people didn't know each other, they only shared Richard or I in common as contacts, but over the weeks this group has grown into a fantastic social support group for a couple of hours on a Thursday night.

We've promoted each other's work, we've shared each other's ups and downs, we've handed out prizes, we've disappointed people in bingo, we've surprised people withe their position on the leaderboard and every week we've laughed. We have laughed so long some weeks that it was hard to rememberit was a quiz.

Yesterday Richard and I had a day at the seaside. At the moment we should have been enjoying the second of two weeks in Turkey. I've already missed a week's writing retreat in France, and we missed 10 days in Orlando in April. To cancel one holiday may be regarded as a misfortune; to cancel three looks like a global pandemic. Our day at the seaside involved coffee in the garden of the lovely Jane Wenham Jones, meeting her fantastic son Tom for the first time after having seen him in a little zoom box for quiz night every week, and we had a walk to the lighthouse on research for my next novel and a picnic in a car park. How very British.

On our return home another quiz team member called round. She muttered something about bringing vegetables from her allotment, but instead she arrived with two beautiful hampers. One stashed full of beauty products from the fantastic Dr Boo in East Dulwich whose owner is another of our quiz night regulars, and the other rammed full of delicious cheeses, chutneys, crackers, and wine from one of those lovely Deli's that only East Dulwich can really provide.

With an organisational finesse equal to the D-Day landings, our quiz regulars had organised the fabulous presents as a way of saying thank you for the Thursday nights over the last three months. Richard and I were deeply touched and momentarily speechless. For us it's been a joy and no chore. it's been like having a house full of people every Thursday evening. I wander past the diffuser on the hall table, making a mental note to myself to change it as we have people coming round and then remember that they will only be appearing in little boxes on my laptop in the study.

They are the most fabulous group of people, actors, authors, PR specialists, teachers, offspring, and lockdown partners. Many of them have never met each other in the flesh, but there is a real sense of community and I know that once we are allowed to, we will meet up and show the kindness in person that has been so beautifully exhibited in little boxes on zoom every Thursday evening.

Time to go. Questions to prepare for this evening, and by God we've got a lot of cheese to get through.