31.03.2020

Yesterday I packed up my troubles, and waterproofs, in my old kit bag and headed back to the front. There were a few people on the train, which smelled of disinfectant, but far fewer than a week before. Maybe ten people or so. One was an old-ish guy with a terrible cough. I don’t get why people like that don’t stay at home, maybe they just don’t know what’s going on? Or more likely, they're on zero hours contracts like me, and if they don't go in they won''t get paid, and fuck it, it's just a cough, right?

Shadwell station was deserted. No other passengers, no staff.

At the shop I grabbed the key of the scooter I wanted to use and walked over the road to get it. That puncture I mentioned a week ago, that the other guy rode anyway, still hasn’t been fixed and the other decent scoot was missing for some reason, so I had to ride a double box. You know the boxes made out of the same stuff as estate agent signs on pizza bikes, a double box has one on top of the other. Nightmare to ride, less stable because they get buffeted around by the wind, and the effect is amplified by the geometry, the second box is further from the centre of gravity so it acts like lever. On top of that it’s harder to look over your shoulder to check your blind spots, which is a matter of life and death on a bike. This one had a wobbly mirror too so I wasn’t happy.

The boss showed up about 6 to put in this hand sanitizer dispenser filled with gloopy, yeasty smelling gel then left to do the same in the other shops. No one uses it because it leaves a weird smelly residue on your hands. Don’t know why it took so long. In fact, the shop was a total pigsty. I know they were short staffed over the last week, but the place was gross. Shit all over the floor and this out the back…

According to the other rider on that day, there had been another walk about while I was away. He came back after the walk out when the dopy rider came in coughing (him and his mate who live together haven’t been back, I think they’re still sick, hope they’re getting sick pay, but I doubt it somehow). Apparently they’d hired a new chef who was coughing all over the pizzas she made, a few people complained to the boss, nothing was done, so he walked out for another two days. Yesterday he asked me if I knew what universal credit was, these guys are going to have a hard time.

I learned quite a lot of interesting stuff listening to him chat up girls on the phone. Apparently one of his boys “got shanked and now his dick don’t work no more.” I like this kid a lot, he’s got a good heart, and he gave me half a hash cookie once that knocked me out, but he’s got a bit of a troubled background. I knew he struggled at school and used to knock about with the wrong crowd, gangs and stuff, seems like a typical case of ADHD to me, not bad just not good. Anyway, turns out he got nicked for possession of a firearm but the judge let him off because he’s white and he said sorry. 20 police kicked the door of his mum’s house down at 7 in the morning, cuffed him and took him away. One of the guys he used to run around selling drugs with grassed him up. Another mate tazered someone in the face because they had beef with him “he’s a G, but no one likes him, including me.”

From 6:30 – about 8 was fairly busy. There were runners out like I’ve never seen, so many people! In fact, around Islington, it just seems like a bank holiday. Shadwell is completely quiet, but there I think people don’t really understand that bad things can happen to them. My feeling is tougher lockdown measures will be brought in because there are still people all over the place, I mean, I shouldn’t be at work. I’m getting in the habit of leaving the pizzas on peoples’ front doors, but a couple of people gave me tips, not sure what to do, because obviously money is one of the biggest transmitters of infection, but then, it’s a quid. The consensus among the pizza shop employees of north London is that Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson want people to die, and will only bring in tougher lockdown when 60% of us are infected, that their plan hasn’t changed, just what they’re saying.

I only saw about eight or nine ambulances, and only a few more police than that, yesterday but then I spent about half the night in my office reading Conan the Barbarian stories.

My office

One thing I’ve noticed is the ambulances don’t use their sirens so much now because the streets are empty, just the blue lights instead. You still hear sirens off in the distance, but not nearly as many. It feels like you’re right out in the suburbs even though it’s central London.

I've seen quite a lot of these Community is Kindness billboards go up. These are at the Hackney Road end of Old Street, but they're up round Shadwell too. I don't really know what I think of them, apart from that they're a bit smug, air max wearing, bearded wanker creative director, who believes their irrelevant job is much more important than it is and this idea that "British Spirit" or 'kindness' or 'blitz spirit' some other noospheric nonsense will get us through this, will only serve to let the people who are responsible for the mess we're in off the hook. I suppose if your job is creating meaningless fluffy inanities to cover up for the worst people in the world, eventually you will only ever be able to think in platitudes. Keep calm and fuck off. 

As it got dark the streets completely emptied. That’s when it got really spooky, and cold, and I forgot my scarf. The quiet roads, which, had the opposite effect than you’d think and made me want to drive slower than normal, are unusual, but not that odd, but when you ride from the Bethnal Green end of Hackney Road, through Shoreditch, Hoxton and into Islington and don’t see a single soul, it’s unnerving.

After a half arsed sweep of the basement I noticed these paint bucket sized tins of pineapples and it suddenly hit me how much I’ve been craving fresh fruit. There’s been none in my area for about two weeks. So I nabbed one. And so begins the thin veneer of civilisation to crack.

The train ride home was nerve wracking, Highbury and Islington Station was deserted. It's a big busy station, usually anyway, but there was no sign of staff or other passengers, and the shutters were half closed. There was only one other person on the train. Every station we passed was empty.  

I got home and had the best night sleep in a long time. The other night I dreamt a ghost was sitting on my chest and I felt it pulling me down and work up screaming. This morning my dad dropped round some of this home made hand sanitiser made from alcohol he brewed and distilled in his garage and mixed with aloe vera gel. I'm going to slather myself in it.