‘My concentration seems to be shot this year for anything except work. I have entirely failed to learn a new language, finish a novel, or watch anything more demanding than repeats of Morse’
‘I have barely worn trousers for five months now. In the Zoom era no-one sees below the fifth button of your shirt. You could get away with wearing nothing at all’
‘The illusion of control that dictatorships offer is just that. They promise their acolytes eternal life in exchange for silence. But silence is expensive’
‘I’m not sure that “gender studies” are having a terribly good war. A professor tweeted—Pat Robertson style—that Covid-19 “took its revenge” on men after the domestic abuse they inflicted on women’
‘Many of those who usually insist ministers must “listen to the experts” are among those who now say Boris should ignore them. Armchair generals and football managershave become armchair virologists and epidemiologists’
‘I am an instinctive, conventional, tribal Conservative voter. But now I just can’t bear even to listen to the shenanigans in Parliament a moment longer’
