I think I have the coronavirus but I’m not sure. It would make sense.My significant other has it. We spent the week together. She is not here at the moment, so I am alone, self-isolating. I am lucky. I am strong with no underlying medical issues. I have not stocked up on food, so I will have to either pop out or get someone to drop stuff outside my door. I fancy some fish and, fortunately, I managed to pick up a last tin of mushy peas from a supermarket on Sunday. As you see, not easy to think ahead when you are used to thinking in small steps. A number of people I have spoken to are not sure whether they have had the coronavirus or not. As basic healthy people, was it just a bit of under-the-weatherness? And, by the way, how is the common cold dealing with sudden coronavirus celebrity? And the basic common-or-garden flu? I imagine the two of them furious with recent developments.

If working from home beckons (could be on the cards) a number of issues emerge. The main one is how I present my domestic context. What will be the backdrop to my happy talking face? The classic one is a wallfull of shelves filled with learned tomes, leather bound, oeuvres completes, an index to the seriousness of the skyper, but maybe a little pompous. How then do I present myself? Playfully, I think. I have a little wooden horse ornament on the mantlepiece. Perhaps I could shift the angle of my computer to catch fleeting and enigmatic clues to my normally occluded personality: the horse; the corner of a wine rack; the edge of a chess board; the artfully angled Persian rug. What I will not be exposing is the Game of Thrones box set, my empty packet of chocolate biscuits, my various dirty underwares, the sink of unwashed dishes.

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