Zoom

‘Are you seriously telling me you would rather meet up on Zoom than in reality?’ I asked a friend as we got stuck into an argument about the future of our existence. ‘Well, it’s all we’ve got,’ he argued. No, it really isn’t. But how to explain to people who refuse to stop being locked down that lockdown is, to all intents and purposes, over? I get the distinct impression that a lot of people have so thoroughly enjoyed sitting on their backsides doing nothing — sorry, I mean finding themselves and getting in touch with their inner child and being close to nature — that they don’t want it

To my surprise, what I miss most about life before the lockdown are parties. As others pine for restaurants and theatres, I am longing for sticky floors and 4 a.m. Ubers. Give me plastic cups and music so loud you feel it in your kidneys. Sylvia Plath wrote disparagingly of the ‘shrill tinsel gaiety of parties with no purpose’. It’s precisely that shrillness and pointlessness that I’m yearning for: drunk young bodies cramming together for no reason other than to be close to one another. At the weekend, my longing finally spilled over and I decided to make do online. I put on a nice top and loaded my lashes

Empathy and kindness in these difficult times come more easily to some than others, but I’m trying. I had heart surgery in November to repair a faulty mitral valve. Recovery has been terribly scientific. On my daily walk, a heart monitor is synched with an app on my phone so through earphones I can hear my heart rate as well as encouraging messages in a voice I find indistinguishable from the American cultural critic Bonnie Greer. Mainly, my walk is spent suppressing the inner Nazi who can’t believe the human race still refuses to be more like me. Particularly at a time when good manners and common sense are now

Q. Each day while working from home, I have at least one hour-long meeting via Zoom. One of my colleagues has a dodgy internet connection and has become a terrible menace as we all politely sit through minutes of unpleasant white noise while she tries to communicate her thoughts. The meeting chair never seems to take a hard line on this; do you have any advice? — M.C., Fosbury, Wilts A. You would do well to join the Zoom meeting via a computer rather than your phone. Zoom will highlight the person who is speaking at any one time, so when the offender’s name comes up on the screen, you

Next time there is a highly deserved round of public applause for NHS workers, do add one additional clap for the tele-communications industry for — so far — keeping the show on the road. High-speed broadband, for those lucky enough to have it, has made self-isolation more tolerable, and may have significantly reduced the impact of the disease in Britain. I say this because, for several weeks before it became mandatory to stay indoors, a large number of people did so voluntarily. That includes me. Ever since my grandfather contracted jaundice and so avoided landing at Suvla Bay in Gallipoli, there has been a proud family tradition of calling in