The last six months…

They’ve been interesting, haven’t they?

Thankfully, I wasn’t furloughed, unlike many of my colleagues, and work for me has stayed pretty buoyant throughout (apparently commercial deals are still being done, generating a need for contract negotiation and drafting — and us commercial contracts lawyers haven’t been (totally) replaced by AI just yet).

2020 was meant to be the year we finally moved house. We thought COVID had put paid to that, but when the property sector reopened with gusto in the early summer, we decided to give it a go. We’re glad we did: our house is sold (STC) and our offer to purchase has been accepted. We’re hoping to move pre-Christmas… provided the moving gods are still smiling on us.

So the summer was largely a blur of estate agent viewings and that sort of stuff. All pretty tedious — and it wasn’t helped by two of our neighbours also listing their houses within a fortnight of us going on the market. Bastards.

I worked from home even before COVID hit — save for two or three trips to the office per month — so there wasn’t a great deal of adjustment needed for me on that front. The daily firm-wide webcam calls have been a bit of a drag, but it’s been a small price to pay in exchange for avoiding all commuting.

I’ve also had no issues adjusting to wearing a face mask — provided I use my ‘ear saver’ (a rubber strap with notches onto which the mask’s ear loops can grip*). Fun fact: I’ve sensitive ears and I don’t like things pulling on them. One of my hobbies (nothing kinky) requires me to wear a respirator for lengthy periods of time, so popping on a surgical mask whenever I womble around Sainsbury’s isn’t much hardship.

* For the benefit of the uninitiated, this is the type of thing I'm talking about:

I suspect the next few weeks and months will be a continuing ball ache of conveyancing nonsense, mortgage applications and quotes for removals. Actually, we’re quite a way down some of those roads already — and I even had to dust off (electronically) my property law and practice materials from the LPC to remind myself of certain points in the conveyancing process. 

The law firm we’ve instructed in connection with our sale and purchase are all right, but that’s about as much as I can say for them. I’m sure my numerous emails, letters and phone calls to them have been getting on their ‘thruppney bits’ (to quote Sharon and Tracy from Birds of a Feather that my wife and I are currently re-watching, episode by episode**). Having a client who’s both a lawyer and a bit of a control freak must be a bit trying. Still, I have to bear it as part of my day job, so why shouldn’t they?

** That’s the original nine series that ran from 1989 to 1998 on the BBC, not the subsequent ‘comeback’ drivel that aired on ITV more recently.

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.