Last night I dreamed I went to Minty again. Minty from EastEnders circa 2002-10, that is. He was dressed like a 1940s spiv, leaning against a boarded-up Spice Girls memorabilia shop and selling contraband cigs from his inside coat pocket. This segued into a hopelessly out-of-tune pub sing-along to Vera Lynn’s We’ll Meet Again, but I’ll spare you any further details. Vivid dreams seem to be a fairly common lockdown side-effect. Although, as with the Victorian myth about cheese before bed (was it the dairy that gave ’em nightmares, or the port they drank along with it?) perhaps our now-nightly “quarantinis” have something to do with it.
I’ve previously attempted to institute a ban on “last night’s dream” chat on the grounds that nothing is more boring. Other people’s dreams have derivative plots, no logical structure, narcissistic casting and are full of obscure in-jokes; it’s the very opposite of quality entertainment: 1 star.
Sadly, this ban was routinely flouted. One ex-flatmate now lives in New York, but still finds time to message me with the morning-after details of any particularly dull ones. She had one recently about finding an old pencil. That’s it. That’s the dream. And yet, now that we awake from our fever dreams into an even madder reality, I’m grateful for the tedium. Hearing about how someone else had to resit their exams and — would you believe it! — they were entirely naked, is a comparative comfort.
In general, though, lockdown has only made considerate conversation more vital. If you’re home alone, every communication with the outside world has the potential to become a soul-bearing heart-to-heart. Even with the delivery guy. Especially with the delivery guy. If you’re sharing space, you’ve likely scraped the chat barrel several times over already and come up with nothing more lively than, “Glad we’ve got some loo roll in …”
Some of us stave off anxiety by seeking out as much information as possible and spreading it as widely as possible. Others protect their mental health by skipping the hourly updates.
This is a sensitivity that’s implicitly recognised by WhatsApp’s move to limit message forwarding. Under new rules intended to slow the dissemination of fake news and other Covidiocy, users will find they’re only able to send on frequently forwarded messages to one chat at a time.
We should apply the same principle in our face-to-face (or face-to-screen-to-face) interactions. Before passing on “information”, first consider: Is it from a reliable source? Will it comfort your audience to hear it as much as it comforts you to offload it? Does Minty from EastEnders circa 2002-10 feature in a cameo role? If the answer to any of these questions is “no”, please, I urge you: reconsider.
The only number that can be trusted
Some wild figures are flying about in relation to Adele’s divorce settlement. Could her soon-to-be ex-husband Simon Konecki really get £140 million? Or is £70 million more likely? Or perhaps just royalties from any future ballads b earing his likeness? Since a Los Angeles court has ruled that financial details will remain confidential, we’re free to speculate.
In the meantime, there’s only one number that can be trusted: 30, the presumed title of Adele’s next album.
