Movies to self-isolate by

Actually, that should be: 'movies to watch while self-isolating'. Ne'er mind.

I saw yesterday that the Guardian had compiled a list of movies that people self-isolating from the Coronavirus could watch to while away some of the time.

That list was strange, very strange — to say the least of it.

I’d not heard of at least half of them, and they were supposed to be ‘comfort films’.

Even those that I had heard of, wouldn’t have brought any comfort to me.

So instead of the utter trash that the Guardian suggested, here’s my suggested list of films.

Airplane (you can't beat a spoof)

Airplane II (you really can't beat a spoof)

The Big Bus (spoofs are the best, you know)

North Sea Hijack (also knows as ffolkes)

Jurassic Park, I, II, and III (my wife’s suggestions, seconded by me)

The Core (it’s surprisingly watchable)

The Mummy, I, II, and III (or whatever their correct titles are)

Die Hard (I, II, and, at a push, III)

Airport (the 1970 original)

Airport 1975 (in some ways better than the original - watch out for the singing nun that inspired the corresponding scene in Airplane)

Airport 1977 (this was a corker)

Airport 1979 (turns out there was nothing you couldn't do with a Concorde)

Speed (but not Speed II)

The Shining (Stanley Kubrick's obviously, not the Stephen King's mini-series abomination)

Jaws, I, II, III (and the revenge if you get really desperate)

Piranha (the 1970s version)

The Final Destination movies (cos we're probably all doomed anyway)

The Bond movies — any until Pierce Brosnan’s rather lame attempts in the 1990s, and absolutely none since)

Journey to the centre of the earth (my wife's choice, not mine)

Fire, Ice and Dynamite (Roger Moore and Simon Shepherd and a complete lack of meaningful plot or acting). Actually, don’t watch this: it’s atrocious.

You'll be pleased to know that I might update this list over time.

The world is falling down around us

I just can’t COPE with this Coronavirus business. It feels like the world as we know it is disappearing in front of us, and it’s far from clear whether it will ever be the same again.

Schools are closed in Ireland.

Tom Hanks has been bitten by the bug and is mopping his fevered brow as I type.

McLaren have withdrawn from the Australian grand prix.

My work meeting next week has been cancelled and replaced with a call, but I’ve already bought an advance train ticket in the GWR sale to travel to London. Bum! Do I go into the office and do the call from there, or write off the cost of the ticket (it was cheap, stupidly cheap, compared with the standard price), or do I try to exchange it for £10 and use the ticket at a later date. I like to show my face in the office occasionally, as it helps to underline the fact to my colleagues that I’m still alive and I still do work.

My wife and I want to stick our fricking house on the mother fricking market, having been focusing for the past 8-9 months on getting it up to scratch. It’s an absolute outrage. First Brexit, now Corona. 

Still, you kind of feel that humanity has brought it on itself. We’ve long been due a plague: just think about what Stephen King prophesied in The Stand — not that we can rely on him as being an authority on anything, save perhaps for writing (too) many verbose books.

And now there’s a dirty great big bluebottle crawling on the outside of my office window — a bad omen, if ever there was one.

To paraphrase the great Murray Walker: if we didn’t have bad luck, we’d have no luck at all.