Bank Holiday.
Today I flouted. I popped out of the house and flouted all down the street. Having been under voluntary house arrest for some weeks I have had limited opportunities to spend any money but it just flies out of my wallet on wings of gossamer anyway, so needed to bank a cheque. And for that I needed to go into town. I thought I could just get the cheque cancelled and maybe a bank transfer instead but apparently that was impossible for...reasons. So I had to break curfew. I felt like Steve McQueen riding a motorcycle over some wire in a bomber jacket, even if I looked like Stewart Lee with a stone in his shoe.
I live three and a half miles from the bank. Its not that far but its also not a very pretty walk. The Newtownards Road is a major arterial feed into the city centre and usually chokes pedestrians with bogie-blackening fumes. Even now, during lock-down, the flow of traffic is pretty constant. Essential work, no doubt. (Are window cleaners really essential during a pandemic? Susan says they are as we are all trapped in our houses and even goldfish have glass bowls. She's probably onto something.) Still, it will be interesting. I haven't even been as far as Ballyhackamore since self-isolating came in and I wanted that feeling of being the last, lonely man, touring abandoned streets full of shredded newspaper and burnt out cars. I was raised on Dystopian visions of the future: it feels like it is my birthright to drive around in a borrowed car, shooting at the "new people" and then back to the flat which is decorated like a post-bellum Swiss bank vault with a bar. My future pad should look like Liberace was the licensee of a Yates' Wine Lodge. We were all expecting that weren't we? We were promised we would be shooting people in cowls in the face and pouring Chateau Lafite on our cornflakes.
We didn't think it would be queuing to be let into a Lidl or clapping useful people from a safe distance or fighting over toilet roll and dried pasta. We didn't think the apocalypse would be about middle-aged men hanging around outside with the bins in preference to their families. I never anticipated receiving a letter from the Prime Minister telling you its "going to get worse". Not the veiled threats of martial law if we don't behave. Barely veiled threats at that - there's no way Boris would mistake one for a post-box. I hope he didn't personally lick the stamp.
Ballyhackamore was a bit disappointing. Now there's a line I never thought I'd write. It was quite quiet., mostly women with prams and joggers. The lines outside the supermarkets were calm and people were keeping a responsible distance. The traffic seemed to be mainly empty buses. I could have got a bus, of course, but then I wasn't absolutely certain I wanted get Covid19. If I decided to hazard all for fortune I could have got on one of those shuddering, Petrie dishes of contamination and strap hanged while licking the Kite Mark off the window, but I decided to slum it in the fresh air and the social distancing. And there's something romantic and rather sweet about the buses finally running on time now that there are no bothersome people tripping them up and ruining their day. It would be a pity to slow them down now.
In town I saw two ticket inspectors waiting to board a glider. No mask, no gloves, waiting to get on and check the tickets on non-existent passengers. I think I'd ask to start working from home if I were you, lads.
Town was quiet but busier than a normal Sunday morning (the shops don't open in Belfast until one on Sunday afternoons - how quaint) and hardly anyone seemed to be doing anything essential - I swear I saw some tourists. Still it was sad drifting through the streets of the Cathedral Quarter, now utterly dead.
The bank showed a few signs of life, however, which was good because I was fully prepared to find it closed. They weren't letting people in. A man behind the glass flicked me the Vs which I assumed mean't either "two at a time", or "in two minutes" or he had pre-knowledge of the state of my bank account and knew he could treat me like the scum I am. I hovered outside the shop. A young woman with a child appeared.
"Is it fuckin' open?" she said, pressing her face against the glass.
"Yes."
"What are you doing then?" She started knocking on the glass. "Fuck sake. Its s'posed to be fuckin' open. I looked it up on the website." She sees the man behind the glass. "Hey! Fuckin' let us in."
"They're staggering letting people in. Like supermarkets. I think."
She turns, give me a look of face-melting scorn and says "Oh aye, yeah?" and goes back to knocking on the glass. The man opens the door and she wanders in despite the fact that all three of us know I was here first. She winks at me. I stay outside in the street. People drift by. There is some shouting at the Tesco over the road, it may kick off. The man lets me in the bank and I grab a luxury dollop of hand sanitiser and set about the operation of paying the cheque into my account with precision and speed, touching nothing. I brought my own pen and when I have to prod the screen I do it through a cleansing wipe. It all works. I pick up my receipts and get out. The woman is still sat there in the corner of the room with her daughter. If she has an appointment she's not having it yet. She scrolls through her phone while her daughter rolls around in the floor of the bank.
I go home.
By the time I'm back at Ballyhack I am incensed. If you were a jogger who insisted on going out and huffing and puffing and sweating and stinking in the middle of a global pandemic because your health is far more important than everyone else's, where do you think a good place to run would be? A park, perhaps? By the side of a motorway? On the Comber Greenway with all the cyclists and the dog walkers? Yes, those are all reasonable places to run. But how about the narrow, tree-lined pavements of East Belfast's most popular shopping thoroughfare? Because that's where you're thundering along today, you beardy twat, with your puce cheeks and bandaged knees and sweat-patches that look Rorschach's mask. If I were the sort of man to punch people in the face for serious infractions of societal law I would spread the noses of these pavement cracking sports junkies. As it is I now swear freely after them safe in the knowledge they can never hear me over the deafening thud of their inspirational pop beats. One can only hope that they similarly can't hear the screeching of car brakes...
I'm nearly home and I run into a bit of trouble. A seven mile hike might have been a bit ambitious for a man who hasn't left the rut of his sofa for a fortnight. I had a birthday during that period and consumed intoxicating booze and giant celebratory meals. I'm impossibly unfit. Moreover I am scorched by the familiar flame of Plantar Fasciitus: also known as "Policeman's Heel" it is a burning sensation in the feet of portly people of a certain age. Its all very embarrassing. I normally wear a support in my shoes to more evenly distribute my weight. By the time I've passed the flyblown carcass of Horatio Todd's I'm in searing agony and there's another half a mile to go.
I know. I left the house. I flouted. I went out on inessential business (quite essential business, actually). I went on a seven mile hike and now I'm walking like a man who isn't sure what just happened in his underpants but is certain that something has gone badly wrong. I've learned my lesson. I'll be good. I'll stay in doors from here on in.
I live three and a half miles from the bank. Its not that far but its also not a very pretty walk. The Newtownards Road is a major arterial feed into the city centre and usually chokes pedestrians with bogie-blackening fumes. Even now, during lock-down, the flow of traffic is pretty constant. Essential work, no doubt. (Are window cleaners really essential during a pandemic? Susan says they are as we are all trapped in our houses and even goldfish have glass bowls. She's probably onto something.) Still, it will be interesting. I haven't even been as far as Ballyhackamore since self-isolating came in and I wanted that feeling of being the last, lonely man, touring abandoned streets full of shredded newspaper and burnt out cars. I was raised on Dystopian visions of the future: it feels like it is my birthright to drive around in a borrowed car, shooting at the "new people" and then back to the flat which is decorated like a post-bellum Swiss bank vault with a bar. My future pad should look like Liberace was the licensee of a Yates' Wine Lodge. We were all expecting that weren't we? We were promised we would be shooting people in cowls in the face and pouring Chateau Lafite on our cornflakes.
We didn't think it would be queuing to be let into a Lidl or clapping useful people from a safe distance or fighting over toilet roll and dried pasta. We didn't think the apocalypse would be about middle-aged men hanging around outside with the bins in preference to their families. I never anticipated receiving a letter from the Prime Minister telling you its "going to get worse". Not the veiled threats of martial law if we don't behave. Barely veiled threats at that - there's no way Boris would mistake one for a post-box. I hope he didn't personally lick the stamp.
Ballyhackamore was a bit disappointing. Now there's a line I never thought I'd write. It was quite quiet., mostly women with prams and joggers. The lines outside the supermarkets were calm and people were keeping a responsible distance. The traffic seemed to be mainly empty buses. I could have got a bus, of course, but then I wasn't absolutely certain I wanted get Covid19. If I decided to hazard all for fortune I could have got on one of those shuddering, Petrie dishes of contamination and strap hanged while licking the Kite Mark off the window, but I decided to slum it in the fresh air and the social distancing. And there's something romantic and rather sweet about the buses finally running on time now that there are no bothersome people tripping them up and ruining their day. It would be a pity to slow them down now.
In town I saw two ticket inspectors waiting to board a glider. No mask, no gloves, waiting to get on and check the tickets on non-existent passengers. I think I'd ask to start working from home if I were you, lads.
Town was quiet but busier than a normal Sunday morning (the shops don't open in Belfast until one on Sunday afternoons - how quaint) and hardly anyone seemed to be doing anything essential - I swear I saw some tourists. Still it was sad drifting through the streets of the Cathedral Quarter, now utterly dead.
The bank showed a few signs of life, however, which was good because I was fully prepared to find it closed. They weren't letting people in. A man behind the glass flicked me the Vs which I assumed mean't either "two at a time", or "in two minutes" or he had pre-knowledge of the state of my bank account and knew he could treat me like the scum I am. I hovered outside the shop. A young woman with a child appeared.
"Is it fuckin' open?" she said, pressing her face against the glass.
"Yes."
"What are you doing then?" She started knocking on the glass. "Fuck sake. Its s'posed to be fuckin' open. I looked it up on the website." She sees the man behind the glass. "Hey! Fuckin' let us in."
"They're staggering letting people in. Like supermarkets. I think."
She turns, give me a look of face-melting scorn and says "Oh aye, yeah?" and goes back to knocking on the glass. The man opens the door and she wanders in despite the fact that all three of us know I was here first. She winks at me. I stay outside in the street. People drift by. There is some shouting at the Tesco over the road, it may kick off. The man lets me in the bank and I grab a luxury dollop of hand sanitiser and set about the operation of paying the cheque into my account with precision and speed, touching nothing. I brought my own pen and when I have to prod the screen I do it through a cleansing wipe. It all works. I pick up my receipts and get out. The woman is still sat there in the corner of the room with her daughter. If she has an appointment she's not having it yet. She scrolls through her phone while her daughter rolls around in the floor of the bank.
I go home.
By the time I'm back at Ballyhack I am incensed. If you were a jogger who insisted on going out and huffing and puffing and sweating and stinking in the middle of a global pandemic because your health is far more important than everyone else's, where do you think a good place to run would be? A park, perhaps? By the side of a motorway? On the Comber Greenway with all the cyclists and the dog walkers? Yes, those are all reasonable places to run. But how about the narrow, tree-lined pavements of East Belfast's most popular shopping thoroughfare? Because that's where you're thundering along today, you beardy twat, with your puce cheeks and bandaged knees and sweat-patches that look Rorschach's mask. If I were the sort of man to punch people in the face for serious infractions of societal law I would spread the noses of these pavement cracking sports junkies. As it is I now swear freely after them safe in the knowledge they can never hear me over the deafening thud of their inspirational pop beats. One can only hope that they similarly can't hear the screeching of car brakes...
I'm nearly home and I run into a bit of trouble. A seven mile hike might have been a bit ambitious for a man who hasn't left the rut of his sofa for a fortnight. I had a birthday during that period and consumed intoxicating booze and giant celebratory meals. I'm impossibly unfit. Moreover I am scorched by the familiar flame of Plantar Fasciitus: also known as "Policeman's Heel" it is a burning sensation in the feet of portly people of a certain age. Its all very embarrassing. I normally wear a support in my shoes to more evenly distribute my weight. By the time I've passed the flyblown carcass of Horatio Todd's I'm in searing agony and there's another half a mile to go.
I know. I left the house. I flouted. I went out on inessential business (quite essential business, actually). I went on a seven mile hike and now I'm walking like a man who isn't sure what just happened in his underpants but is certain that something has gone badly wrong. I've learned my lesson. I'll be good. I'll stay in doors from here on in.
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