World Of Winfield

Lockdown life has become a bit of a struggle at times. I’m now back to my usual cheerful, jokey self and have been for 10 days or so, but I had a good couple of weeks before that where I was consistently really fucking miserable.

I didn’t understand at first why I’d become so unhappy the last few weeks. It would have made sense at the start of lockdown, but why late May/early June when freedoms were slowly being granted?

Normally in life I am happy most days, at least in the last few years since discovering purpose to life – London and coding. I may have a moan and an occasional rant but mostly life was enjoyable and I was happy. Maybe I’d have a couple of down days every couple of months, and a few meh days, but most days I was at least relatively happy.

Come lockdown initiation, I was certainly anxious and worried yet I was still able to crack jokes and find the bright side. Sure, I didn’t have many days where I’d be especially happy, but I was only unhappy for very brief periods – like the 30 minutes of being outside. The beginning of lockdown was probably the world’s greatest meme period.

Then by late May/early June I was mostly feeling unhappy most days. I had a few happy days mixed in, but I just wasn’t enjoying life any more. My smile had gone. My upbeat joviality had gone. The drudgery of doing the same thing every fucking single day and the monotony of life – the excluding of all hope – it had ground me down and I was defeated.

But why?

Has it just been grinding me down all this time? Was there an initial sense of “all in it togetherness” that was eroded by Dominic Cummings? The timeline matches! Maybe I am envious of those that have loved ones around them? Is the novelty of sitting in my pants at my desk 7 days a week wearing off?

Why was I so unhappy?

My conclusion was part loneliness but more pertinently was that my enjoyment of life was out of bounds.

Everything that I want to do for enjoyment was and mostly still is out of reach, probably for many more months to come. Holidays, visiting family, eating at restaurants, drinking at pubs, going out with friends, random drunken nights after work with colleagues, visits to art galleries, pretending that I’m going to the theatre, going to the cricket, hugs, randomly popping into the city I love for a wander around…everything.

My roast dinner blog which is a big part of my life is pointless. I’ve tried to keep it going but I’ve lost enthusiasm – every time I write I just feel heartbreak about not being able to go to a pub, walk around London a bit, visit new areas, see cute waitresses – eat food someone else has cooked and be able to share and recommend the experience (or not).

This unhappy period also coincided with a spell of loathing work, and was mutually reinforcing! Normally I enjoy coding, really enjoy it to the extent that it is something I choose to do on a weekend for fun, but I had ended up with a really difficult ticket to tackle – rewiring server side user authentication to client side, and I was massively struggling, which made me feel worse – and feeling worse probably made it more difficult to work out how to achieve this task.

It may well have been easier to tackle in an office with colleagues around me.

Also I think part of the reason why I emotionally struggled a few weeks ago was that I had hoped that we’d have this lockdown for 10-12 weeks then everything would just snap back to normal. Over the last month or so it had slowly dawned on me that this really isn’t going to be the case – the imposition of face masks in public transport was a big psychological punch in the mouth.

Re-imagining Life

So, where there are problems there must be solutions, and I have been working on re-imagining how to maximise my enjoyment of life over the next 6-12 months of not being able to do what I want to do.

I have come to accept that I simply won’t be going on holiday this year. I love going away, adventuring, creating memories, experiencing other cultures and foods – yet I can handle not going on holiday for a year, possibly two. It certainly won’t happen in 2020, and it may well not happen in 2021.

I probably won’t get on a tube train this year, which means I won’t be going to central London, and won’t have any roast dinners in pubs – except in Harrow or Pinner. Quite possibly very few meals out at all. I won’t be travelling to anywhere else in the UK, unless I can find someone to drive me. Thankfully my absolute sparkling diamond of a sister will always accept a petrol contribution to go to Hull.

I also won’t see other areas of London, go to theatre, art gallery, music events – I won’t experience any culture offline.

I have accepted all of this…well I think I have. There will definitely be times where this fucks me off, but mostly, I’ve resolved myself to this. And if my current expectations are wrong, then that would be wonderful news.

My thoughts now are on what I can do to put myself in a better position to maximise my enjoyment of life post-covid, whilst enjoying something different in the meantime.

Firstly I could write some bollocks about getting less unfit, but you’ve heard it before. I do have less excuses now though, I have more time, my bike might be returning in a month from its holiday in Luton and I have other ideas too which I might actually enjoy…but I won’t say because I don’t want it to be another thing that I said I would do that I don’t. There might even be more detoxes – I’m certainly eating much healthier since lockdown, though not quite fully there.

I’m also spending part of my weekends coding, or studying, to try to ensure that I learn more and it is easier for me to get a promotion in the future, internally next year I hope – or externally in a couple of years if not.

I am investing in the stock market – which may well not turn out to not look so wise in 6-12 months, but hopefully in 5-10 years it will have been a genius move. I am saving lots of money by not being able to do what I want to do so I may as well put it to good use. And I enjoy it…it gives me an interest to look into companies and try to work out where to invest a few hundred pounds every month.

And most excitedly I have a new blog in the works, which is about enjoying life indoors. Not too dissimilar to what I do with roast dinners, but something that will excite me and hopefully get an audience – and it has a new character too – I cannot wait to introduce you. I don’t want to say much until I have finished creating it, hopefully will be finished this weekend.

Lord Gravy has been retired – well, detained. The ability to go into London isn’t coming back any time soon so the blog is pointless, and just breaks my heart too much. I hope he survives his time in the gulag.

Finally I have about two dozen ideas for new websites, including the next Instagram, that I will never get around to doing…but maybe I might just get time, or at least I can learn how to do them in theory. If I ever bother taking any holiday this year, this is probably what I’ll do!

Roll on 2021…or maybe 2022

The theory being that come summer 2021, this virus shite will have gone, herd immunity will have finally been embraced, we can get on a tube train and go on an aeroplane without being suffocated.

Oh, and I will be fitter, less obese, richer, have a brand new popular blog, be even more employable than I am now, and ready to take on all the new opportunities of a post-Covid world.

That’s the theory. I see your eyes rolling. At least I have a plan. I’m quite excited anyway.

So what happened this week? Well the same as every week for the last forgettable amount of forgettable weeks with absolutely zero chance of doing anything different.

I just had to apologise to 3 of my dearest on a video call for thanking them for the highlight of my week – which was a beer-fueled Zoom call and the best Zoom call so far.

Yet the rest of the week was monotony.

Wake up. Before 6am. It won’t be long before 5am is a lie in…damn you sunniest spring ever.

Go for a walk. I walk through this little nature reserve with no nature inside bar an occasional cat – despite the local’s efforts in trying to attract rats but there are larger piles of litter elsewhere in the neighbourhood – and I do mean piles. It’s pleasant but nothing special. Here’s some photographs from my morning walk:

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Then I end up at Sainsburys, buy some bread or some Red Bull to wake me up seeing as I’ve normally had about 5-6 hours sleep. Occasionally buy some vegetables but they normally block off the vegetable aisle in the morning.

Followed by work. 9am to 5pm. Less meetings at the moment, possibly thanks to my complaining in a meeting about too many meetings. I used to sit at my desk all day and look at women in lingerie, or sequin dresses – we don’t sell sequin dresses any more, though I guess not many women wear sequin dresses to go buy a baton. Strange as I wear my best pants every day. Except when they really need washing.

Anyway, now I’m sat at my desk all day, looking at desks. As we are applying the pretty website revamp to the furniture section. I guess it matches these dull times. And I don’t even see any hot women now – I moved to London partly for all the attractive women, yet it is about 10 weeks since I’ve tried not to stare at someone’s breasts.

Sometimes after work I go for a walk. Other times I do my weather forecast or just catch up on reading 12 different articles on Motley Fool arguing whether to invest in BT shares or not to invest in them. Always I look at weather models every evening. Keep your expectations low for July – you know, the month when we might actually be allowed to go to a beer garden. Currently looks wet.

Though I’d quite happily swap doing the same thing every day for the opportunity to get soaking wet in a beer garden drinking warm beer. I really am fed up of lockdown. I’m fucking over it. Let us out – there are virtually no new cases in London and there are 9 million people.

I’ve been pretty cheerful throughout lockdown, bar the odd day – though definitely overall less happy than normal. Yet this week I’ve noted just a general downness – not like stabbing myself kinda down, but no longer talking to empty rooms, no longer having a little dance in my room – it was even picked up by a few people on my weather forecast, before I had actually realised! I’m definitely more chirpy now – yet there is no glow about me, bar a red wine glow.

I think I’m mostly frustrated by the imposed limits. It’s not really acceptable to go on a tube train anywhere and I don’t have a car. I feel constrained by my walking limit, which is dictated by my bladder – a 2 hour walk would risk a bush visit. I did walk to Pinner today which has a nice M&S, about 40 minutes walk away and very civilised – I bought a £10 ribeye steak – a whole 380g.

But I want to be in London. I moved to be in London – not stuck in fucking Harrow every day which is perfectly fine but utterly dull, even out of lockdown.

All the things I look forward to – being with friends, visiting my family, watching sport, pretending that I’m going to go to the theatre, having a roast dinner in a pub, being in a pub, being in a pub garden, walking through London, going on holiday – this is all out of bounds. All taken away from me. And you. I don’t blame the government for enforcing lockdown – but it really does need to be eased now it seems safe to do so, at least in London. I need a bit of hope – this is too much now.

Especially being single. My housemate is very nice, but I’m still alone. I imagine this is far easier if you have family…though maybe it is also more of a nightmare too. But at least you have loved ones around you.

Lockdown is definitely getting to me. It has slowly ground me down – or at least the things, and especially the people, are no longer there to lift me up.

Still I’ll live to fight another day. I’ll wake up tomorrow, probably around 5am, probably not go for a walk because I’ll have a hangover. I have promised myself a hangover-free day this weekend so I can code – I have been working on a revamp for this blog, it won’t need much to finish it and release it. I have a massive steak in the fridge to make up for having two vegetarian dinners this week.

It might even rain tomorrow – albeit only in shower format. That would be rather exciting.

And then I might watch a movie, hopefully less shit than what I watched last week – Shaun Of The Dead. Zombie movies are beneath my level of wannabe intellect.

Though I feel like a zombie now. I am a lockdown zombie. We are all lockdown zombies. Hope you are doing absolutely the same as every day too.

Roll on Christmas. That’s going to be stuck at home too, isn’t it?

Ahhh I should be sat in a beer garden right now, sun-kissed, slightly drunk, wondering if the Met line will develop a signal failure and a tinge of annoyance from yet another average roast dinner.

Yet my complaints are trivial. People have lost their lives. People have lost love ones. People have lost jobs. People will lose their jobs once furlough expires. And we will all have a host of problems from the upcoming economic crisis.

I could say that I am lucky – I am in some respects though with respects to my job, I chose my career change wisely and worked bloody hard. My current economic resilience was planned.

So I think the title of this post will be rather misleading. I like the name “Corona Moaner”, yet I don’t think moaning will be the main theme of this post – though I don’t especially have a plan…I just need to type. I also spent far too long deciding whether it should be “Corona Moaner” or “Coronamoaner”. Did I choose correctly?

Without doubt I’m enjoying life less than I was. I record my happiness score on a daily basis (I have waaaaaay too many spreadsheets) – my current average is around 4.5, whereas April/May last year it was close to 6. A score of 5 is absolutely fine, by the way – so anything above is good. This week last year averaged a 7 – though I guess that was when I got offered my new job…one of those days I was in Luton too…ahhh being able to visit Luton, those were the days.

Mostly I am just getting on with things – I was really quite anxious and perhaps a bit stressed at first, but that has all subsided. I’m often quite chirpy, I do a lot more talking to empty rooms than normal, and it is a pleasure to have my housemate around.

Yet I do have occasional moments of gloom – like the other day when I was working, and I realised that I was probably going to be stuck in Harrow for at least a couple more months without being able to go anywhere. It’s OK around here – I used to live in Bracknell so I’m always feeling blessed whenever I recall that year of my life. Yet I want to be in London. I miss the streets of central London and the warm concrete and glass hug that it gave me.

I feel rather wistful when I view even the most dismal and damp scenes of the city I love.

It’s also annoying timing. I’d just done my quiet months – weekends of staying in, defrosting the freezer, cleaning cupboards, tidying up my websites – I was ready to get out and enjoy my life once more. Though I’m thankful that I managed to see my parents in Hull on the last normal weekend. That really was quite good timing – often I would have waited until Easter to visit.

Yet despite the pause on my social life – and I did allow an early end to my detox to compensate, the situation isn’t too bad for me. Some things are actually better – namely work, and being able to work from home every day. Yeah, no signal failures.

I can wake up naturally. I eat much healthier, at least during the week – no recourse to bacon sandwiches having suffering from a painful commute. No chocolate bars after lunch to try to perk myself up from a post-lunch slumber in a stuffy office. I feel that I am more productive, and able to concentrate better – though that is no surprise to me. I haven’t lost weight since lockdown – but normally I lose weight during my detox then quickly put it back on. I haven’t put any back on – though I still need to get back to being more active to restart losing weight.

I’ve also taken the time to start investing in the stock market. The crash was the signal that I needed to invest, and so far I’m up around 10% – though I take nothing for granted and am not risking anything I cannot afford to.

So this whole situation looks like it will benefit my career, my finances and my health – assuming I don’t catch the damn virus, as I am obese and obese people seem to be more at risk.

I am also trying to do a bit of good in my own way. I’m not a clapper – you wouldn’t really imagine me joining in a mass-participation event would you? But I do try to put a smile on people’s faces where I can on social media, I try to check in with friends occasionally. I am trying to keep spending money, with small businesses where possible – I have had way too many veg boxes delivered. And I am trying to give more to charity – my goal is to give away 50% of my usual travel expenses, preferably to smaller charities whenever I hear about them.

End lockdown…ish

I am now at the stage where I am over lockdown. I feel the risk is now minimal for transmitting the virus, at least in London, and we should be allowed to go back to pubs and restaurants, for example, albeit booked in advance and with social distancing, plastic screens, no sharing toilet cubicles, etc.

I’m not Piers Corbyn level, but I am starting to get a bit agitated about how long this lockdown is going on for…I do feel from reading the available evidence that things can be relaxed more than they currently are. From walking around my local area in exactly the same route as I do every fucking day, I am clearly not the only one ready to relax.

Would be funny if Jeremy Corbyn was Prime Minister right now, enacting the lockdown, and his brother was campaigning against, wouldn’t it? Except for the bit about Jeremy Corbyn being Prime Minister.

Finally I do wonder whether I am taking full advantage of this period. I should be using this time better to study and improve my JavaScript – and also to get fit. Yet I am drinking too much on a weekend and not doing either. I do have a warm glow though.

That wasn’t too Corona Moany was it? I am certainly blessed to be in my position – yet I can and do still miss my old life, and being able to walk the streets of London, visit a pub for a beer and have a shoddy roast dinner.

And I miss humans. Friends, family and randoms.

You may remember that a couple of years I stuck my £5,000 savings into shares. They went up. Then shot down. I panicked and sold with a loss of £1,460.58.

I concluded that my biggest mistake was to ignore a good friend who told me to have a diversified portfolio. I had 80% of my money in one company, 20% in another.

My other mistake was investing at the top of a stock market rally – investing when they were overpriced as opposed to underpriced.

And perhaps another mistake was investing money I couldn’t afford to lose – this was my only savings.

Two Years Later…

That was in 2018. When I started at M&S in July 2019, I was finally in a position where I could save money on a regular basis. Yet I remained hesitant about investing – I was convinced that we were at the peak of the stock-market boom.

I dabbled a bit, mostly in M&S shares but also a handful of others, more or less broke even when I sold everything in January – around the time of Coronavirus. I am not going to claim this is why I sold my minimal holdings, however I was convinced that a fall in share prices was coming one way or another. And unlike in 2008, this time I had savings. This time I was ready.

My strategy

Only invest what I can afford to lose. I figured that my money for being on call is almost like free money – perfect example being this week where I had one call out on Sunday afternoon, and that was a false alarm. So I decided to invest this plus £100-200 a month. I save cash also, unless I spend a lot of money.

Don’t invest all at once. I calculated a sum of money to invest from when I started at M&S, yet I didn’t invest it all when the stock-market started falling. I invested a little when it dropped to 6,200. More at 5,500. More at 5,000. More now it is back up to 5,700.

I’ve invested less than half my original intended pot – my feeling was that the stock-market would fall further than 5,000, and even though it has rallied somewhat in the last 2-3 weeks, I remain concerned that it may fall further. If it falls further, then I have greater opportunities, if it stays around 5,700 or rises further, then I will hopefully still be investing in good companies.

Invest in a wide range of companies. One of my mistakes the first time was just to invest in technology-related companies. Especially given that I invested on a hunch having read about them in The Economist, thinking I was some kind of genius. I am not.

This time I have invested in a mixture, including retailers, oil companies, banks, pharmaceutical companies. I will go into more detail later.

Invest in different levels of risk. I’m not going to pretend that I fully understand the balance sheets of the companies I invest in, but I do know that airlines are high risk right now – and companies like pharmaceuticals and electricity providers are low risk.

I am investing in a mixture of both – the hope that the high risk ones will not go bankrupt and in years to come bring me huge profits, and also the expectation that more stable and necessary companies will maybe rise steadily, and also pay annual dividends. Again I go into more detail later.

Keep a watchlist. I have created a watchlist on Yahoo Finance – yes I have actually found a reason to use Yahoo – of companies that I would like to invest in and the price that I am willing to do so.

Importantly, I have also set a price at which I’d sell at, to remove myself from greed. As Warren Buffet said, we should be “fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful”.

My Investments

So starting with the riskiest ones. Cineworld and Carnival. Nobody is going to either a cinema or boarding a cruise any time soon. Highly risky and neither company is certain to exist at the end of this current crisis. But they have solid brands and if they do make it through, I should at a minimum double my money – given that I have bought at circa 20% of their value one year ago.

Then there are the somewhat risky ones, namely banks. My judgement is that this crisis will not sink any of the major banks as they are far more capitalised than they once were and the fear of a 2008-repeat has driven their prices down further than they should have. I’ve bought shares in Lloyds – down 21% since, and Barclays, up 2% since.

Oil. The major oil companies have taken a hammering as has the oil price. Yet companies like Shell and BP have their hands in much of the chain, BP also has a sizeable renewable energy component to it. They also pay dividends, and according to Yahoo Finance, this is slated to be around 10%. Like it or not, oil isn’t going anywhere yet and I want to have the money to buy a house before I retire. The BP share price hasn’t been this low since 1995.

Stable companies which are required – crisis or no crisis, such as Sage for accounting software, Unilever for things like cleaning products, Reckitt Benckiser so people can buy Dettol to inject, Hikma Pharmaceuticals and GSK – people still need drugs to keep them alive, Aviva for insurance. I’m not expecting to make huge sums out of these, but I am expecting them to be stable companies and hopefully pay dividends, though maybe not all will in 2020. So far, all up since I bought, some in the 20% range.

Then some vastly oversold companies which I really don’t understand why. Drax’s share price fell by around 70% at one point, yet people need electricity. ASOS similarly. Both up by 64% and 91% respectively since I bought them, and ASOS still seems way under-priced. Though I’m hedging my bets for now.

Finally, M&S. Yeah an emotional purchase and down 45% since I bought them.

Next?

I have plenty on my watchlist and am trying to research a few companies every week – not all I fancy, for example house builders I am just not interested in right now.

The super risky one I am considering is Capita. WH Smith and Halfords look very underpriced to me, but could also fall further – so I’m still considering them.

I’m considering more stable companies such as National Grid and Prudential, more for dividend potential than anything else.

I feel that I should also have some tech companies in my portfolio, especially given that we are now quickly moving to doing much more online – but haven’t worked out what yet.

If you are interested in investing, you can join up with Freetrade – they don’t take a commission so there is no cost other than the tiny amount of stamp duty you’ll need to pay on each investment – so no harm in buying just £10 of shares in a company. FYI I am an investor in Freetrade.

And if you are a friend of mine reading, a good friend (possibly your friend too) has started up a Facebook group to discuss investing – get in touch and I’ll invite you.

Oh back in the good old days when the worst of my problems was attempting to get to work and home from work.

Might be a while before I have cause to complain again. And maybe I will just be happy every time there is a signal failure in future because I am actually allowed to get a tube.

For old time’s sake…though it isn’t even funny so I don’t know why I’m posting it.

******

Dear Sir/Madam

I hope that you are getting as bored of my complaints as I am getting bored of Metropolitan line delays.

Every month there is a battle to get my due refunds due to the delays.

This e-mail is with regards to 6 delays where I applied for a refund using the online system, then on 14/11/2019 received 6 separate e-mails confirming, “Your refund request has been successful”.

However, I have not received any of these repayments into my bank account.

Please can you investigate and confirm.

Kind regards
James

******

Dear Mr Winfield

Thanks for your email of 1 December about several service delay refunds.

I apologise for you not receiving your service delay refunds. I’ve reviewed your journey and payment history and can confirm that you are yet to receive a refund for the six service delay refund requests.

I’ve looked into your journeys and the service reports for the corresponding dates, but do not find record of incidents relating to all of the delays.

So that I can refund all journeys at once, may I ask you to please reply with the confirmation emails attached. I am unable to trace the system processed refunds, but can refund you manually. In order to do so, I am required to link the refunds to these emails.

Thanks again for contacting us. If there is anything else we can help you with, please reply to this email. Alternatively, you can call us on 0343 222 1234 and we’ll be happy to help you.

Kind regards

Customer Service Adviser
Transport for London Customer Services

This is really quite a depressing situation, isn’t it? The Virus Taliban has taken control of our lives…yet somehow I remain cheerful.

I remember reading a story about this Coronavirus just after New Year – going back to work and people talking about the new year and how good it was going to be, but I jokingly mentioned this virus might wipe us all out. I wasn’t taking the threat too seriously, but I did have in the back of my mind all the warnings I had read in publications like The Economist for the last 15 years that one day there would be a global pandemic.

Then when China started imposing lockdowns, I reassured myself that wouldn’t happen here – couldn’t happen here because we are a liberal democracy.

Even when Italy started bringing in such measures, shocking as it was to go against my beloved liberal ideals, I still didn’t think it could or would happen here.

Barely 10 days ago I was only worrying about whether I’d still be able to go on holiday to Japan in May. Now I don’t know whether I will be able to go to Tesco in April.

I get the reasoning behind it. I am not arguing against it. No health system can cope – even if my immune system should be able to handle it…I say should as I was hospitalised twice as a child with severe pneumonia, it is fucking painful I can tell you, plus I am obese, male, on the verge of getting diabetes and have mild asthma. So whilst not bang in the middle of an “at risk” group, I cannot say I am assured that it would be just a “mild flu” for me.

Interestingly I wonder if it may end up leading to improved health outcomes in the long-run? People that normally eat McDonalds might actually discover a love for home-made salad?

Dystopia

I already knew I had to sort my shit out in terms of my weight and sugar consumption so this situation gives me extra focus. And I have lost weight, circa 4.5kg this year. I have massively cut out cake and chocolate, fruit yoghurts too which I didn’t realise had so much sugar in. Alas, I probably need to lose 25kg in total to be a healthy weight.

And now I cannot go for my two walks a day which is annoying. Again, I get it. I just need to work out what time of day is best for my walk. I quite like early mornings when I wake up but the local supermarket shelves are too empty then. I tried lunchtime today which didn’t especially work well, but at least there was a scattering of fresh vegetables in Sainsburys. Tip to stay sane – don’t try Tesco Express. That should go without saying in normal times but it was fucking dystopia in there.

Oh and my healthy diet cannot be that healthy when I am struggling to find healthy food to eat. I was having to ration vegetables – normally I have just vegetables for lunch, and meat and veg for dinner. Alas, there is not enough around for both. I had cheese and biscuits for lunch today though I’m not convinced that is the way forward.

I still have a month left to go for my 3 month detox but I really cannot keep going any longer. I read the news – and I really am trying not to read too much now, but it is all fucking miserable. I loathe having the Virus Taliban in charge, telling me what I cannot do, even though I was not doing much for the last two months anyway because I was on detox. Though it is probably the first time that I have ever been happy to have my birthday in January!

Cancelled

I did have good stuff planned. Needless to say that my holiday to Japan is cancelled – British Airways are giving us a voucher so that if they don’t go bankrupt we can exchange towards flights which will probably be far more expensive than the ones we booked. I had stuff planned with some good friends…including a very dear one exiled in Norwich. And Easter with my family…though I had never quite got around to booking train tickets.

The worst thing probably is a lack of roast dinner outings…my adventures across London were part of my soul and kept me going no matter what else was going on. Friends or no friends, detox or no detox, engineering works or the Metropolitan line actually running on time – I had a roast dinner somewhere. No I don’t miss the Metropolitan line. Yet. I will do at some point.

I never took life for granted, I never really took my freedom for granted and always argued the cause for others around the world who don’t enjoy the wonders of liberal democracy, as imperfect as it is. One of my main tenets of argument to staying in the EU was wanting myself and all other British people to keep Freedom Of Movement. For sure I am not the first to suggest that I miss Brexit, but despite my prisoner status I can still enjoy the irony of Nigel Farage complaining about him not having Freedom Of Movement.

One thing that I am trying to do is give more to charity – I am saving money by not commuting (the joy of working from home has not yet soured!) so trying to give at least a bit of that to charity. Not that I always find it easy to find charities that I want to support. Though I’m aware that my own job is perhaps not as secure as it was a couple of months ago.

Economics

How long will people’s patience last? Will people get used to the situation and not be bothered to come out? Will this change society forever? When it is relaxed, will everyone come out and have a great big party or will there still be a huge amount of nervousness? Will it affect people’s mental health? Will we actually get all of our freedom and liberty back?

My biggest worry is what it will do to the economy. You may roll your eyes in leftie displeasure, but health outcomes and GDP are interlinked. The richer a country, the longer people live. The richer a country, the healthier a life people lead. And, of course, the healthier the richer too – it works both ways.

I don’t argue against the measures in general, especially those supporting business and individuals. However this will leave us with much higher indebtedness as a country. I assume bond markets will still be willing to fund this, interest rates on bonds haven’t yet increased much from what I can see.

The main issue seems to me to be a supply issue – not a demand issue. There is very much the potential for there to be not enough supply of goods/services to meet demand, and we have seen what happens to house prices, for example, when there is not enough supply.

Could inflation start rising quite steeply? Especially with the further expansion of QE. If inflation rises then interest rates will have to rise – and then those who have bought unaffordable houses on the idea that interest rates will remain super low will struggle – then feeding again into deepening the recession? Far cleverer people than me will have worked on this policy so I’m not going to judge until I have spent more time researching the potential effects. Though I do know what we will be dealing with the economic effects of this for a long time – it may well make the alleged “austerity” of the last 10 years look like a joyous time.

For now, I shall just try to enjoy my one daily allotted escape from the clutches of the Virus Taliban. I await my delivery of both pies and beers. Maybe I’ll even finally get around to reading one of the 20 books I have bought over the last few years.

Stay sane.

Well it has been more or less 18 months since the night I co-run at the Purple Turtle was ended and I haven’t been behind a pair of decks since.

Not in a club and not even at home – my vinyl decks occasionally are used to play vinyl, but never to mix – the cramped bit of floor where I would stand has become my dumping ground for the things I intend on taking to charity shop but never do.

I’ve not asked anyone about the potential of playing out. I barely dust my CDJs and haven’t played them. I haven’t released a mix in two years. I never practise mixing. I have no intention of ever burning any more CDs!

Perhaps the real question is, “do I even want to DJ again?”

My life has moved on.

My priorities nowadays are becoming a really good JavaScript developer – which is something that the more I practice and the more time I spend on, the more successful I become. DJing is a lottery.

Other priorities are improving my health, eating lots of roast dinners and travelling the world. None of this is really compatible with trying to find the odd DJ set in London.

It isn’t like I can just go out and DJ – getting a set is far too much effort for my liking – generally involving licking the arse of promoters and I have no care for that. Or attending nights that I don’t want to attend because I’m old and quite happy to be in bed by 10pm on a weekend now.

The other alternative is having my own night, but that is so fraught with financial risk in London – not to mention the huge amount of work to promote it. And I certainly don’t have the time to do so.

The Purple Turtle gig was easy – we just needed to turn up and bring a few mates if we could. There is nothing like that for an unknown and not especially great DJ in London.

I also think that I don’t have an especially novel story to tell – I did in Reading, nobody really played what I did. But in London my music wouldn’t be anything unusual.

Plus I’m not exactly an amazing DJ and don’t have the time to put in to improve.

And fuck late nights nowadays!

That doesn’t stop me having moments where I’d love to be behind the decks in a bar, playing some of the disco I love, or playing little-known house tracks to people. I still have occasional such daydreams, especially when I’ve just discovered a new track I love and would love to see the reaction of others.

I have very fond memories of DJing, even if I wasn’t the best ever DJ.

Who knows, I may well DJ again – I’m only involuntarily semi-retired. I had so much fun that if the right opportunity came about, I’d probably jump at it.

Maybe I should tidy all the shit in my room so I can actually access my decks. Fuck, just realised it was 2017 that our night ended – nearly 2.5 years ago.

Is it just me or has February lasted much longer than normal this year?

At the beginning of the year I said that I’d try to do monthly updates on my blog, of who I am, where I’m going and what I’m up to.

Alas I have not done anything in February. On purpose – I’m on detox and spending my weekends sorting shit out, whether that be throwing away old clothes, cleaning rhe fridge, defrosting the freezer, doing my annual window cleaning – all that kind of really dull shit. Normally when I speak to people, say phone a friend for a catch up…or just write a blog, I have plenty to say.

Not at the moment. It does really feel like February is dragging – partly because of my detox, and partly because I have not really done anything. Not doing anything is by design, I’m very happy to have had a chilled month – but a lack of fun and excitement does mean that it feels like February is taking forever. Not to mention the weather – I’m at that point of year where I am really craving some warm sunshine (yes I’ll be moaning that it is too hot in a couple of months).

Possibly the most exciting thing I have done this month is eat pancakes – it was a pretty special pancake, I could have had 10. Alas I am trying to lose weight…and was succeeding…was…I’m a fucking moron sometimes.

I’m actually starting to think that my cake and chocolate intake is worse for my health than my alcohol intake. I’ve had lots of cake and chocolate this week – I have felt fairly crap and tired all week, plus I put on weight. The week before I had no cake or chocolate, felt good and lost weight. Co-incidence? Maybe I should really be giving up cake and chocolate for 3 months, instead of alcohol?

The other really big question on my mind, is what desk to buy? I’ve decided that my huge office desk takes up too much space – I cannot get behind it to clean it and there is a 3 year pile of dust and dirt. Yeah I’m still single. So, anyway, I’m trying to find a more compact and space-conscious desk. These are my two favourites at the moment:

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Desk one – or desk two? I think the corner one is my favourite. Any thoughts? Or any suggestion on other places to find a desk?

Yep – this is what my life is like at the moment, trying to decide on a new desk. Everything is just really ordinary at the moment. Work is fine, I’ve having fairly average roast dinners – even the Met line is mostly running, albeit a bit slow and is closed for engineering works AGAIN this weekend. Life is just fine.

Next month should be more exciting, assuming killer virus panic doesn’t close the whole country like it seems to have closed Japan – were I booked for Japan in March then I’d probably postpone the trip…not quite sure what the point of going across to the other side of the world is if everything is closed. Fingers crossed it resolves itself.

Anyway, in March I have a visit to Hull to see my mum to look forward to – my mum wants proper fish and chips, which is exactly what my diet needs too. Going to an exhibition on British surrealism in Dulwich and have a roast planned with relatively new London friends, who are all rather funny and on my wavelength.

Space in my calendar for more stuff – and I must remember to do something for National Pie Week.

I’m also watching my football team slowly slide into the relegation spots – 10 games, 2 draws, 8 defeats. Though I had a bet on them at 250-1 to get relegated a month ago. How weird would that be winning a fairly large sum from your football team being relegated?

Hopefully I’ll have something more fun to report next month. At least I didn’t mention Brexit. And it looks like spring will spring around 10th March…fingers crossed.