I tempted fate – and got Covid

Well, I did warn you. As I typed my column last week on the imminent end of Covid I said I knew that I was tempting fate. The main fear I had in mind was that the moment the magazine hit the newsstands some wild new strain of the virus would break out, wipe out half of humanity and lead to quite a cross letters page the following week.

Fate had a more minimalist plan. Having dodged Covid for two years, it took me writing a column predicting the end of the virus for the fates to eye me up and snicker: ‘Now we’ve got him.’ The day after I filed, I developed a sore throat and a blocked nose. By the time the magazine was on the stands, I was wondering whether Betty White had chosen to strike me down from beyond the grave.

At the start of the Covid crisis there was a rush to be the first journalist to get the virus and write a world-exclusive survivor’s account of the experience. You need not fear. This is not going to be such a piece. Though if it was then — sticking to last week’s theme — I’d hope it would be the last of the genre.

For while having a sore throat and runny nose hasn’t made me think any more deeply about Covid, it has made me think about fate. The truth is that I am in fact slightly more superstitious than I like to think. As I mentioned to my editor ahead of last week’s column, I do slightly believe in the old gods — or at least I fear them. I’m still not clear whether this is superstition or common sense. But I regularly do things that are meant to appease forces I can’t possibly believe in.