Post 350. NOW IT'S COMPULSORY.

WE'RE UNDER HOUSE ARREST. 

Or solitary confinement for those who are living alone. Why? Well, last weekend thousands of numbskulls gathered on beaches and at beauty spots around the country, presumably to prove that irresponsibility is not confined to the few. 

Whether or not that really is the answer, it certainly didn't help. We're facing a pandemic here, folks, not a small town outbreak of the flu.

I suppose the next thing will be policemen who haven't walked a beat for years out on the streets accompanied (in view of the way austerity has cut back the force) by the SAS, whose departure from the Brecon Beacons will leave Talybont Reservoir entirely unguarded: a prospect only slightly less concerning than that of coppers being instructed to implement a zero tolerance policy. 

For those of us who have no intention of going out (nowadays I seldom do anyway), it's going to be months of the book, the radio, the phone, and no matter how irksome it may frequently be...

TELEVISION.

Where, midst the constant mix of reality rubbish, ceaseless cookery, and cheaply produced quiz shows, we have a couple of defiant dramas in the shape of The Walking Dead (picture refers) and War of the Worlds. The former is a tsunami of living dead and dead dead bodies (you'll understand if you watch it) and the latter is abundant with very dead corpses played by very still extras together with distance shots of motorways that look like the M25 ten minutes after a lorry has jackknifed. Neither series is particularly reassuring in today's climate.

Then we have the films. According to this week's TV watch list in my i weekend, if you were desperate enough to look in on ITV2 for a film this week you could have seen Contagion, Steven Soderbergh's drama about a virus outbreak. Yeah. Really.
Never mind, as an antidote to constantly contrary and openly propagandist COVID-19 briefings, we now have chat shows where the main studio participants are kept two metres apart and subsidiaries are drafted in on screen from their homes.

 Ah, the joy of technology.

I follow only three chat shows: prudently.

On BBC One I look in at The One Show every now and then. Less now that Matt Baker has left it. I liked him in partnership with Alex Jones; they were a good tele twosome. Last I heard he was thought to have coronavirus symptoms and was self-isolating. 

Well he's a fit forty-something with a wife and family so he should make a swift recovery. Good luck to him. I have swiftly dismissed most of the males brought in to replace him.

On Channel 5 weekday mornings I sometimes watch Jeremy Vine. Depends who is on his two-metres-apart panel and how attractive Storm Huntley looks in her studio dress of the day. Mr. Vine has currently adopted the mannerisms of a demented schoolmaster, bouncing to a blackboard every few minutes to scribble an instantly forgettable list for viewers to instantly forget. He is clearly missing his 'wandered in off the Thames Embankment' audience. But, to be fair, he and Storm are managing quite well with the help of a solitary 'medical' panellist and a couple of those magic screens for additional input. 

The panel, since Mr. Vine took over, invariably consisted of one reality show celebrity (what?), one newspaper journalist (I bothered to watch only if it was Yasmin Alibhai Brown or Owen Jones), and one fat failed hack now described as a 'broadcaster.' The replacement of the reality celeb with a clinician has been one small seat change for man. If they now get rid of anybody described as a broadcaster or any former MEP they will have made one giant seat change for mankind.

I also watch The Talking Dead which is broadcast directly after The Walking... and is fronted by a little guy called Chris Hardwick. 

I watch it, in common with most Walking viewers, because actors and directors from the popular show appear on the studio settee to discuss the comings and goings and making of it.

Mr. Hardwick has now joined the band of chat show hosts whose studio audience cannot be in attendance and who is interviewing from home to the homes of interviewees. There's a lot of big screen stuff about. Learned this week that Michonne (Danai Gurira) is leaving the show. Well, actors have to move on. Shame though. 

She'll be mightily missed.

That's more than enough for now.

Mind how you go.