What happens when a film critic loses the will to watch movies? Our writer settles for cookery shows, half-hearted group-watches – and the knowledge that things could be much worse
What I’m really watching is nothing. What I’m really doing is nothing. I watch the clock, reply to messages, cook myself another meal and run to put the news on 12 minutes past the hour, to find it’s already on to The Archers. I go for the shortest run I’ve ever done, fretting and puffing. I head to another room to see if I will be able to write better there, and check Twitter instead of working. I apply for universal credit online, stumble at the first technological hurdle and give up. I spend some time thinking about a friend’s father who died last week, whom I never met. Someone from the dating apps asks me how I’m getting on; he’s been furloughed and is sitting in his mum’s garden, reading Jon McGregor’s novel Reservoir 13. I have a shower, have a cry. I watch a clip I have been sent, of a popular song whose words have been changed to coronavirus terminology. I write a pitch to an editor. I do 30 minutes of the cryptic crossword with my mother, who is putting on a brave face for me, four weeks into her own lockdown away from her home. I sit on my windowsill to catch the last of the sun with a bowl of tea or a glass of wine, then do the briefest lifting exercises I’ve ever done, fretting and wheezing. I wave to a neighbour. I soak some dried beans. By now it’s evening, and friends who have been – somehow, by character or obligation – working, message me to see if I want to group-watch a film. We WhatsApp our way through a rancid Keanu Reeves movie with a nu-metal aesthetic, and I make myself a tea infusion before bed.
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