My Fictional Isolation Diary

This is my obviously fake isolation diary. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

The audio version can be found here.

Day 1: This seems easy enough. Watched The Crown, and wrote a blog about a virus I know nothing about. Considered cleaning the oven.

Day 2: Work in pyjamas all day. Catch up on Better Call Saul and Ozark. Devise an exercise regime for period of isolation. Get back into Red Dead Redemption 2 on my PS4. I could get used to this life.

Day 3: Crisp supply has gone. Truth is, it went yesterday. Spend three hours flicking through the menu on Netflix. Watch nothing. Order a yoga DVD on eBay.

Day 4: Do an online shop. The only delivery slot is 77 days away. That will have to do.

Day 4. Jog to the kitchen.  Get in panic over a high temperature and sweating, then realise I left the heating on overnight.  Realise I have bought in a lot of mince. Make a 3ft long cottage pie. Novelty has well and truly worn off now.

Day 5: Load up Football Manager. All the numbers confuse me, so go for a lie down. Am craving Monster Munch.

Day 6. Yoga DVD arrives, but I decide to open it tomorrow. Hear the front door of my neighbour in my block of flats slam three times in one day. What is he doing?

Day 7: Fitful sleep.  Bored of watching TV.  Noticed there seems to be a lot more wildlife going on outside. Left some milk out for a hedgehog I spotted yesterday.

Day 8: Cough once and immediately draw up a will. Watch 4 hours of Cash In The Attic.

Day 9: Nothing happens. Literally nothing.

Day 10: See a squirrel fall out of a tree. Trip to recycling bins is the clear highlight of the day.

Day 11: Take a look at oven, and devise a 3-part strategy for cleaning it. Reminisce about the days I used to go to Asda and buy onion rings in bulk.

Day 12: Rearrange my spice rack. Roll my socks up into balls. Discover a new Sky channel that is showing highlights of Kabaddi. Watch it for seven hours. Am now officially a supporter of the Bengal Warriors. Kabaddi.

Day 13: Consider buying a dog so that I can go out more.

Day 14: See my neighbour return home twice in the same day. This is not acceptable.

Day 15: Almost out of food.  Milk is on the turn.  Vivid dream that I am attacked by an army of Pringles. Am saved by a family of chocolate digestives.

Day 16: Have started singing along to the music I play. On a separate note, can hear a dog that’s been barking for hours.  Haven’t spoken to another human being for four days. Tut really loudly as five people in close proximity walk past house.

Day 17. Open yoga DVD. Realise I probably need a mat though, so order a mat on Amazon. Important that I do this properly, and take it seriously. Shake head at neighbour as I observe him walking down street at ungodly hour.

Day 18: Dream that I am swinging from a tree trunk, whilst sat in a huge onion ring, which I nibble on occasionally, whilst laughing manically.

Day 19: Pitch an article to football365 on the history of corner flags. Receive no reply. Up to date with episodes of Better Call Saul, The Crown, Ozark, Brooklyn Nine Nine, Taskmaster, Would I Lie To You, Billions, Succession and Killing Eve. Now what?

Day 20: Go for a walk. Get extremely angry at other people who are also out for a walk, as they keep getting in my way. Why are people so selfish?

Day 21: Wave at a passing car. Kept awake wondering who would win in a fight between Sean Dyche and Mark Hughes. My money is on Dyche, as he’d play dirty.

Day 22 – Google methods on cleaning ovens. Also look up prices of new ovens.  Shout at some birds. They just don’t let up do they? Some of us are trying to get some sleep.

Day 23. A bit of sauce from my baked beans trickles over the edge of my plate and onto the table. I burst into tears and wonder why the world is constantly against me. This feeling is only exacerbated after I later discover I am almost out of coffee.

Day 24: Write a film script that will shake up Hollywood, then eat the script as have no food in.

Day 25. Yoga mat arrives. I decide I will open it tomorrow. Dream that City scored a penalty.

Day 26: Discover a Sky channel dedicated to gospel singers in Nigeria. Watch it for seven hours.

Day 27 – given a name and started a dialogue with a potted plant in the living room. Decided to call him Derek. He looks like a Derek. Neighbour not at home again. Fuming.

Day 28 – have a vivid dream that I become a medical marvel after it is discovered I am immune to the coronavirus due to the high levels of Vimto in my bloodstream. Go on good morning Britain and call Piers Morgan a dick. He says nasty things about me on twitter, then I wake up.

Day 29: Fear i have got jaundice, then realise my fingers are orange from eating too many Wotsits.

Day 30: Consider calling police after I see child doing wheelies as he cycles past. Tracking my neighbour on Instagram.

Day 31: Give a TED talk in my living room stood in front of a mirror – the topic is exponential growth curves in graphs displaying disease transmissions. Have a full PowerPoint presentation, and use a pool cue as a pointer. Get a standing ovation that lasts for over 10 minutes.

Day 32. Unwrap yoga mat. Ready to try some yoga tomorrow.  Dream that I have a romantic meal with Sergio Aguero, David Silva and Bernardo too. Brian Kidd is the waiter.

Day 33. I read a Mike Keegan piece in the Mail about how clubs are having to re-arrange plans to re-lay pitches, and I read it in full. Twice.

Day 34: Throw all my pots and pans away as am sick of endlessly washing up. My sole contact now is with Alexa and Twitter bots.

Day 35: Dream that I found a delivery slot on Tesco’s website, and they delivered everything without any substitutions. Worryingly, I also high-five and then twerk the delivery driver. He moon walks back to his van.

Day 36: Put yoga DVD on, then realise I do not have suitable clothing, so order some yoga appropriate pants off the Next website. Whilst I’m at it, also order a box of monster munch off amazon.

Day 37: Have started to miss Soccer AM. Doctor’s receptionist informs me that it is not an issue they can advise on. Kept awake wondering who would win in a fight between 50 crows and one alpaca. My money’s on the crows. The sheer weight of numbers plus their sharp beaks would surely overwhelm the poor alpaca.

Day 38: Join a Daniel O Donnell fan forum and spread a rumour that he’s been arrested for slaughtering a herd of geese in Galway. Have my account suspended.

Day 39: Spend all day writing lame Christmas cracker jokes.

Day 40: Strike up a conversation with a spider. He seems nice. Turns out he’s a web designer.

Day 41. Get some work done. Honestly. Discover a switch in the kitchen that I have never noticed before, and seems to serve no purpose. Highlight of week as I say thank you, from a distance, to an Uber Eats driver. I stand in porch for a good few minutes watching him drive away.

Day 42: Craving a McDonalds. Stare at the oven for two hours. Write a ballad about a boy who can never go outside in summer because he is made entirely of highly meltable cheese.

Day 43: Try to cut own hair. It does not go well. Now resemble Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber. Decide on a whim to paint the living room purple. Roberto Mancini would not be happy, but thankfully he lives in Italy.

Day 44 – Scratch my beard and a tea towel and 3 Rolos fall out. Begin to wonder if the coronavirus is caused by 5g.

Day 45. Decide that jet fuel can’t melt steel beams. Call my ballad the boy who could never go outside in summer because he was made entirely of highly meltable cheese.

Day 46 – Make a montage video of City’s worst corners. Get 400,000 views on Youtube within 2 days. My yoga pants turn up. Decide I will open the package tomorrow.

Day 47: Have a vivid dream about me accidentally discovering a cure for coronavirus when my fever clears up after eating 10 packets of pickled onion monster munch. Walkers have to make over 20 billion packets to meet demand. Gary Lineker interviews me on Match Of The Day.

Day 48  –  Subscribe to the Anfield Wrap. Have a stare-off with a pigeon for over 20 minutes. It was clearly eyeing up my sandwich through the window.

Day 49: Phone interview with Jaap Stam, who controversially claims that peaches are nicer than plums. All the major media outlets pick up on his opinion and run pieces.

Day 50: Raise a fork to a photo of a pavilion. Prod my carpet with said fork. Spray some Mr Muscle into the oven, then close the door. Eat a raw carrot to pass the time.

Day 51. Get deliriously happy when I discover a mini magnum at the back of the freezer. Open yoga pants package. Decide I will start my yoga regime tomorrow.

Day 52: Pitch an article to goal.com on my favourite football socks. Receive no reply. Desperate to spend some money, I treat myself to a new pillow, a pepper mill and a case of sriracha sauce on Amazon.

Day 53: Stay in bed. Slag off neighbour on Facebook. Someone called Karen calls him a disgrace, and says I should call the police.

Day 54. Listen to an entire Rush album. By the time it finishes, it is dark, so I return to bed.

Day 55: Put yoga DVD on, whilst dressed in yoga attire, and sat on new mat. Menu on DVD player is cumbersome, so decide to order a new DVD player. Need to do this properly.

Day 56: Open windows in living room as it is yet another warm summer-like day. Find myself nodding to an opinion piece in the Daily Mail. Have forgotten my PIN number.

Day 57: Spend morning removing a selection of wasps, bees and ladybirds from my living room.  Eat a block of cheddar straight from the packet.

Day 58: Pitch to Goal an article suggesting the Premier League create a new dimension, in which the season can be completed. Receive no reply.

Day 59: Finally change my underpants. Watch a whole series of Mrs Brown’s Boys. No idea what day or month it is, nor care. Clean the tiles in the kitchen. Turns out they’re not yellow after all. Who knew?

Day 60: Twirl nasal hair into braids. Pleased with what has been a constructive day. Leave note under door of neighbour, warning him that I am onto him.

Day 61: Have a bath. I am clearly cracking up.

Day 62: Clean handle on oven.

Day 63: Consider writing a thesis on the history of green kits in football. Am distracted however by a cat video on YouTube.

Day 64: Install TikTok. Try to steam some broccoli using an iron.

Day 65: DVD player arrives. Decide I will open it tomorrow. Look out the window for a while. Arrange my books in order of page numbers.

Day 66: Do a podcast on the merits of frozen peas over fresh peas. Have oven on full heat all day to see if the grime melts itself away. It does not.

Day 67: Craving being squashed onto a rush-hour Metrolink tram. Mistake the international space station for a UFO. Drink half a bottle of wine and end up on the roof, topless, singing Rule Britannia.

Day 68: At 8pm, stand outside clapping, for my own reasons. Spot neighbour returning with shopping, including ice cream which is clearly a non-essential item. Add observations to my substantial file on him.

Day 69: Struggling, to be honest. So I watch naked gun and airplane, and I feel a lot better.

Day 70: Join a flat-earther forum. Breakfast consists of coco pops, milk with crumbled Cheshire cheese on top. It’s delicious.

Day 71: Open DVD player. Comes with standard HDMI cable. Decide I need a gold HDMI cable, for optimal performance. Need to do this properly.

Day 72: Order gold HDMI cable. Hair so matted, there’s a bird nesting in there. Wake up at 3am delirious at realisation that the N in PIN stands for number, so you really shouldn’t say number after saying PIN, because then you’re effectively saying number twice. Fail to get back to sleep.

Day 73: Passing pedestrian spots me talking to a hedgehog. Go to the post office in my slippers and some shorts that I later realise are on backwards. Nod along to a DavidIicke video on Youtube.

Day 74: After seeing my neighbour go out, I run after him, rugby tackling him as he tries to flee. A small scuffle ensues. Turns out he is a doctor. Receive a police caution.

Day 75: Do some grouting in the bathroom. Gold HDMI cable arrives. Will open package tomorrow. Make charitable donation to NHS.

Day 76: An old friend who I have lost touch with sends me a message on Facebook out of the blue. We exchange texts for hours.  I feel good. I send messages to 10 other friends. And spend the evening chatting.

Day 77: Pitch an article to The Blizzard on the links between the French Revolution and Jimmy Glass’s last-gasp goal for Carlisle United in 1999. Receive no reply.
76^th consecutive day of sun in Manchester.

Day 78. Give myself a complete manicure. Look forward to feeling some summer sun on my skin.

Day 79: Wake up suddenly at 4am, reasoning that we cannot achieve a notion of empty space simply by removing its contents one at a time, for space (the void) would still exist. Decide that we need not analogize nothing in terms of empty space, and even if we do, we surely can conceive of removing space. If we think of space as a particular type of relation between objects, the removal of all objects (everything) would leave nothing, including relations. The key point is that “leaving nothing” is not to be understood in the sense that nothing is or has existence. We can easily be misled by the language of there being nothing at all, leading to the notion that nothing has being or existence. I suggest to myself that nothing might be a precursor to the Big Bang. But this too is a misconception I decide, though one widely held by those who think that the universe arose out of nothing, e.g., a vacuum fluctuation. A vacuum fluctuation is itself not nothing “but is a sea of fluctuating energy endowed with a rich structure and subject to physical laws”. Later in the day eat some baked beans cold out of the tin.

Day 80: Pitch an article to espn suggesting that the football season should be completed on FIFA 20 (PS4), using trained monkeys to represent each team, streamed live on Sky Sports.  They reply with a rejection, pointing out that’s what is actually already happening.

Day 81: Man knocks on the front door with loads of groceries – I’ve no idea why.

Day 82: Clean the oven. Do some yoga. And as the lockdown actually ended on day 78, I finally go out. I go in a pub, and I drink a pint. Find out my doctor neighbour of three years is called Kevin. Leave a bottle of wine outside his door. Touch another human being.
I can begin to think about light at the end of the tunnel. Today was a good day.

One of the best.