Buzzwords

By Stuart Walton.   There is a great deal to be said in a crisis for the attitude of pretending it isn’t happening. Adopting that attitude in the preamble to it is generally disastrous, and has resulted in the worldwide climate emergency, and will doubtless issue eventually in the next economic meltdown. Once it’s happening, though, and if the shadow of death has politely passed you by, it’s hard to see how adopting the spiritual Brace position can help. Having been on immunosuppressant therapy for the past eighteen months, I have received the NHS curfew letter — not once, but

The President’s Bucket By Matthew Jakubowski.     This isn’t really the kind of story I want to tell. But it happened. It’s still happening. So it must be told. A small part of it grew from the extra time I’ve been spending with my son since the lockdown began. He’s eight years old, really likes to build. The other day he built an obstacle course in our tiny backyard. He set a few bricks on the ground far apart to leap from one to another without falling. He, his mother, and I cheered each other on leaping from brick

What Will Last Longer? By Anna Aslanyan.     Today I went on a date. I had a feeling it would be special, and so it was. For the first time ever, we found ourselves completely alone. There was no one within sight or earshot to disturb the intimacy of the moment. This relationship has now lasted a few months. There is still some novelty to it, I’m happy to report, as well as some mystery. Under lockdown, people turn to things that have always been there but only just acquired a special meaning. For most of us it’s books,

The Contemptus Mundi Beat By Wendy Erskine.     Many years ago, back when smoking was allowed on public transport, I got on a particular bus. From the back, as if through a cloud of grey dry ice, came the voices of three teenage girls, singing over and over again the words, ‘Life is just a piss in the air, Life is just a piss in the air! ‘ as the bus made its way along the Antrim Road. I watched them when they eventually got off, laughing and pushing each other, making faces at the dreary passengers who had

Notes Towards a Virtual Lockdown By Susana Medina. Pictures: Derek Ogbourne.   Looking at exponential graphs, at data, numbers, statistics, every day. First Italy. Then, Spain. Thinking about my friends, old neighbours in Spain, and that Italy has warned us what to expect: I’m filled with sorrow for you, Italy, a country I lived in for a year. Spain, the country where I grew up. Daily, the numbers are horrific, and sorrow cannot be exponential. Knowing that in two or three weeks, Corona will reach the UK. Then checking on Germany, where the death toll is unusually low: mass testing

The Animal Drums By Joshua Alexander ansd Steven J. Fowler. @stevenjfowler

Launching in Lockdown By Anna Vaught. Who would be compliant except the person who gave up? Who could accept? – Saving Lucia (Chapter Two)   I love a chat. I am shy and introverted, but I love a chat. I’ve found that all this chatting — a lot of it about books and ideas and what everyone is up to — has come in useful, too, during the present crisis, because during lockdown with a cancelled launch, and independent presses worried about their future, things have come up and opportunities emerged from all these chats. Why don’t we…things. During a

Something London: Two Weeks in London By Joanna Pocock. Last night I dreamt that my daughter, who will be turning 13 in three days, was doing an online search. She wanted to share a fact with me that she had just learned. This fact was recited to me solemnly: “Mummy, the number one killer among women and girls is not Coronavirus but murder at the hands of the men they are in lockdown with.” Read Joanna’s lockdown diary HERE. @joannaofottawa

Four Types of Fear By Brian Thill. Three types of fear were already so familiar before all of this that you might almost forget they’re very different from one another. The first kind of fear is the feeling some of us have when we consider the immense void of time and space, the staggering immensity and cold indifference of the universe outside ourselves, the abyss of meaning, the existential dread that suffuses us when we recognize that we are less than specks in the cosmic scale of things, the fact that before we are dust once more we are already

I Capture the Castle // The Castle Captures Me By Rachael de Moravia. I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea cosy… I’m sorting out boxes of books in the garage in preparation for moving house. I find my old copy of I Capture the Castle and slip inside to leave it at the foot of my daughter’s bed. It’ll be a surprise for her when she next goes upstairs: she’s currently riding

Some Day this War’s Gonna End By Rob Doyle.   What we’re all supposed to be taking from this, I hear, is how interconnected we are and how dependent on one another. I get that, I really do, but if I’m honest what I’m really taking from it is how much better off I am without the lot of you — how pleased it makes me when you all back off, clear out, keep away, keep your distance, at least two metres but preferably two hundred miles. What I mean is, I’ve never felt more harmonious in my social relations,

Two Kinds of Islands By Steve Finbow.     My eyes have opened and my mouth is dry. Not a good sign. I get out of bed and naked walk to the kitchen. Not a good sight. I cough. Using the dwindling Yorkshire teabags my mother sent me from London before all of this started, I make a cup of tea. It is eight o’clock; my girlfriend will not be awake for a few more hours, so I have time to do whatever I please. I rinse my mouth with water, spit into the sink, try not to pick my