TELL you what: if there are any booths going, I’ll have one. As I reported exclusively in our Sunday sister paper recently, I might even be tempted back to an office if you got your own cubicle.

Now, the Mighty Virus is making such a set-up increasingly possible whereas, in pubs, restaurants and universities, they’re talking more about booths. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to your future: Boothworld

Actually, students will be lucky if they get a booth. They’re having Zoom lectures and even “virtual freshers’ weeks” where you go on a pub crawl round your own drinks cabinet, on your tod. Sounds marvellous.

I’m half-way through an Open University course, and it’s been brilliant never having to meet anyone. I only encountered my fellow students once at an exam and, as I shouted out across the room, they struck me as a bunch of nutters.

I wasn’t much better when I was at an actual college. In four years, though I went to lectures sometimes, I only ever attended one seminar. Folk spoke for weeks afterwards in glowing terms about my contribution. Unfortunately, I was so, er, sedated that I couldn’t remember anything about it.

I decided there and then that if I did that every week I’d be dead before I got my honours degree in sophistry, so I never returned for these events. I used to get whingeing letters from time to time and, once, when I went back after a long absence, I found the place was closed for a public holiday. Load of nonsense.

Of course, you cannot go to a restaurant virtually, so they’re talking about having perspex screens between tables. How marvellous. Could be the same in pubs too.

I get fed up of people listening into my scintillating conversations, bon-mots, epigrams and quips, particularly when I am on my own. To have a shield between us would be excellent.

I’m more terrified of someone introducing themselves than I am of any virus. At least the virus doesn’t have syphilis of the personality.

In the meantime, never mind a restaurant, I could murder a takeaway fish supper or curry. No deliveries where I am. Here’s something that’ll appal you. I’d trouble recently getting a dairy-free ice cream that I like, so I went on Amazon to see if they could post it out.

No kidding, the older I get, the more I think I’m turning into my dad, a man who’d have found conversation with Bertrand Russell a tad difficult. Once, we were watching a Disney cartoon, and he said he couldn’t follow it. Bless.

Actually, I’ve since discovered that you can order ice cream from a few specialised outlets though it requires complex packaging which, if not done properly, carries a risk of explosion. Just when I thought the world couldn’t get any odder.

Further on the food front, I regret to announce that, having eventually scored some self-raising flour, I embarked recently on a bit of baking. It didn’t go well.

I wanted a teacake but created a monster that would have made Dr Frankenstein run for the hills. It looked fine on the outside but needed a pickaxe to break it. Gamely, I shoved a lump into my mouth and chewed it for two and a half hours, but it wouldn’t go down.

Still, every cloud and all that. The Ministry of Defence has been in touch to investigate potential military applications. Not a good look for a pacifist, but the money and free rifle were too good to resist.

So the new abnormality continues. You just have to get your head down and get on with despairing. Folk tell me I should take a more optimistic attitude, so let’s give it a go.

One day, soon, folks, we’ll all have a booth of our own. Life will be better. Everyone will be happy. And ice cream won’t explode in the post.

Leith relief

ONCE more, my usual news aggregator website has put Scotland into perspective.

Under International News, we had the likes of “Flaws in Sweden’s coronavirus response”, “Slovenia sends 1,000 police to border”, and “Trump threatens to use troops”. Under “Scotland” we had: “Edinburgh resident’s fury over her Leith Street becoming a ‘public urinal’”.

I didn’t click on the other stories – boring! – but was discombobulated to read that the Leith lane under advisement was just across the Links from my first bedsit, and the next opening along from my first workplace, which exported beer and whisky (easiest interview I’ve ever had).

But, while frequently tipsy in that vicinity, I don’t recall ever micturating wildly. I have no wish to bring my private parts into this august magazine, but I can confirm that they have rarely seen the sun.

Other people – one must assume men – clearly have no such inhibitions. The poor lady in the headline said: “There was a point where I could look out the window every 15 minutes or so and I would see someone out there peeing each time.”

Crikey. That’s a pile of piddle, a Firth of Filth. Worse still, she reported: “[It] absolutely reeks, especially in the hot sun.”

I dare say it doesn’t help that public lavatories are currently closed. Thankfully, the local gendarmerie are on the case. Remember the old saying: “The Leith police dismisseth piss.”

Home rules

SUCH a lot of angst about having holidays abroad. Everyone coming from or going abroad should always be put in 14 days’ quarantine, so that they might contemplate their sins.

I’ve been abroad and didn’t like it. The people struck me as rude. Some of them walked funny. Louche, I’d say. They get a bit shirty, too, when you point this out to them.

That said, I’m worried about an increase in staycations reducing the availability of accommodation for decent people who’ve always holidayed at home.

For the last 12 years, I haven’t been anywhere other than the place where I now live (and, even then, working; always working) but have promised myself that, when the lockdown ends, I’ll probably have a weekend in Wick or Thurso.

I suppose the good thing about allowing holidays abroad is that it gets the worst elements out of the country for a bit.

Britain is the Yob Capital of the world, and one feels sorry for the citizens of Torremolinos, or wherever is trendy now, when our hooligans descend, with their tattooed foreheads and their beer bellies flopping over their shorts. It’s disgraceful.

Burger off

LIKE most decent ratepayers, I haven’t been in a McDonald’s for 25 years. Frankly, I found the waiter service poor. And I’m still waiting to see the wine list.

Why people are queuing up to get food from these establishments after some lockdown easing is beyond me. Luckily, they can’t get inside where, as I recall, the tables were frequently covered in detritus and the vomit of unhappy children.

I exaggerate to the point of lying, though I think it fair and accurate to describe such places as satanic.

People have been queuing up in their cars for the drive-through service. Are they addicted to such food? I’m no gourmet – I like sausage roll smoothies, and fish fingers mashed into vanilla ice cream with a soupçon of broon sauce – but I draw the line at these mass-produced burgers with cheese and, worse still, salad.

My researchers say the menu is more varied now, with dippers, nuggets and vegetarian options. Dippers? Nuggets? Unhand me, madam! I deplore dippers. As for nuggets, never will such alleged comestibles be seen in the Temple of Taste that is my mooth.

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