‘Go home and die proles!’ seems to be the government’s message with regard to coronavirus. If you start to cough then just self-isolate at home and, with luck, you’ll die quietly and not bother anyone. Because, let’s face it, there’s no point in going to hospital because, thanks to a decade of Tory cuts, there’s no way that the NHS will be able to cope if this turns into a large scale outbreak. As for seeing your GP, well, if you turn up at the surgery with so much as a cough or a sniffle these days, they end up shutting the whole place down, quarantining all the staff and other patients present and call in those guys in white hazmat suits to deep clean the entire premises. But as everyone panic buys hand sanitiser – because that’s the best advice the authorities can give us: ‘wash your hands’ – it’s worth putting everything in perspective. While Covid-19 shouldn’t be underestimated – it proves fatal for 3%-4% of its victims – for most people who contract the virus, it will be an unpleasant, but temporary phenomena. Panic is the wrong reaction. Complacency, however, is just as wrong – without proper contingency planning, chaos could ensue if there are large numbers of people simultaneously infected: health services could be overwhelmed and the country grind to a halt for several weeks. So, those trying to downplay the threat of coronavirus are as irresponsible as those whipping up panic.

Then there are those who seem to want to deny that coronavirus is actually happening – those who seem to believe that it is fake news, all some kind of conspiracy. A conspiracy by who and against who is unclear: maybe it is all a Chinese conspiracy to panic the west into quarantining itself and thereby destroying their economies, or perhaps it is something cooked up by those evil Democrats to somehow discredit Trump, (just like climate change). But then these are professional contrarians we are talking about here – logic doesn’t come into it, they just want to run against the crowd and prove that they are ‘different’ and therefore superior. In reality, it just makes them stupid – they have to embrace ignorance in order to try and justify their positions. Take climate change – surely, in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence, no intelligent person could deny its reality. I mean, it isn’t a question of the scientific community being ‘divided’ over the issue: one one side you have pretty much every scientist saying it exists, on the other you have a bunch of cranks on right-wing disinformation sites, with either no scientific qualifications at all, or highly dubious ones obtained from online universities. But beyond that – it’s fucking happening. Didn’t you notice Australia catching fire? The disrupted weather conditions? The melting icecaps? Yeah, I know, it’s all a conspiracy. It’s the same with coronavirus: it’s happening. People are dying. OK, I know, I know, it’s all a conspiracy, it’s all fake news. You just can’t argue with that sort of unreason.

But here in the UK we don’t have to worry about either coronavirus or global warming because we’ve got Boris Johnson in charge. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with him in Number Ten? Someone as virile as him will surely pull us through, won’t they? His potency can’t be in doubt, can it, with yet another woman pregnant? Actually, the announcement that Johnson is to be a father again – is this child number eight, or nine, even he doesn’t seem to know – is one of the most depressing things I’ve heard this year. If nothing else, it seems to imply that there are a surprising number of women in the UK with self-esteem low enough to let a horrible bigot and wobbling tub of lard like Johnson sleep with them. Damn it, surely most women wouldn’t go near that morally degenerate pile of offal, let alone let him touch them or have sex with them. That last point, of course, is what upsets me most – the fact that we now know that Johnson has had sex with a living woman conjures up the most horrendous mental images. Jesus, can you picture it – all those wobbling buttocks and that grunting and wheezing as the fat bastard runs out of breath as he reaches a climax. At the very least, you’d think that the effort might have caused him to have a massive stroke, thereby sparing us his premiership.

The mental image of Boris Johnson shagging some poor unfortunate woman is just so obnoxious, not to mention distressing, that surely the Labour Party has to make it the centre of their next election campaign. Whoever the next Labour leader is – probably Kier Starmer, as anyone else would be political suicide – needs to commission a party political broadcast which recreates the shagging session which conceived Boris’ latest child. Graphic scenes of some sweaty fat gorilla-like brute relentlessly pounding some poor woman – all those rolls of fat threatening to engulf her as he desperately tries to penetrate her with a half mast erection, (I’m sure someone that obese couldn’t get it fully up, not only that, but he probably hasn’t seen his own penis in twenty years at least, he’s so fat). Viewers at home would undoubtedly be throwing up, those that weren’t hiding behind their sofas, that is. Just as the faux Boris Johnson reaches the vinegar stroke, they can cut to some Labour luvvie – David Tennant or Eddie Izzard – asking the audience ‘Really, is this what you voted for? Do really want this sort of thing going on in Number Ten? Stop enabling this sort of horrible sex and cruelty to women by voting Labour’. At which point they cut to some soft-focus footage of silver smoothy Kier Starmer turning on the charm, whispering sweet nothings to potential voters, reassuring them that if they vote for him, then he’ll treat them gently and use protection. Trust me, it’s a winner.

But hey, all that’s for the future. Right now we’re still facing the prospect of a coronavirus epidemic. I’m actually quite looking forward to coronavirus hitting Crapchester. Not because I think that it might wipe out large parts of the tedious local population, but because quarantine might be imposed. Right now, a few weeks of splendid self-isolation in my house, without having to get up and go to work, (which involves me spending quite a bit of time out on the road, making home visits – something that surely would be curbed if the virus hits because of the risk of spreading it), seems a welcome prospect. No having to deal with tiresome people, no silly office politics, no pointless meetings and emails. It would give me time to get on with my many projects – or just crash out on my sofa and watch those TV channels full of schlock I can now stream via my Roku box. If I planned ahead and actually ordered those new cabinet doors and drawer unit, I might even be able to complete most of my kitchen refurbishment while in quarantine. Hell, even if I actually contracted the virus it probably wouldn’t be that bad – for most people it is apparently no worse than a bad cold. I’d happily suffer through that for the sake of some quiet time away from work. But before we go, a word of advice: remember to always wash your hands after washing your hands.

Doc Sleaze