Cast your mind back, if you can, to the wild, lazy days of lockdown. No, not the bits where you could go to the pub in groups of no more than six, sat two metres from each other and all holding a substantial Scotch eggs, but to the actual lockdown bit of lockdown where nobody could go to work. Netflix became lifeblood and leaving the house for an hour’s ‘exercise’ each day was like being released from solitary confinement.
I had two very different experiences of lockdown. During Lockdown I, I was working on a print magazine, so I had to, initially, oversee production using email, the phone and WhatsApp. Of course, this also meant that nobody ever saw me, so I used the opportunity to grow a magnificent bouffant of hair, a beard you could lose a badger in as well as fat on fakeaways, cheap supermarket knock off-label beer and inactivity. However, as things inevitably shifted ready for Lockdown II, I suddenly found myself staring down the barrel of Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet where, I admit, the image of myself suddenly rearing-up on screen like a manic hobo from a dumpster-fire not only did little to boost confidence in me as a responsible, employable freelancer, but also terrified both online onlookers and myself alike.
