“It feels quite naughty being here, doesn’t it?” is how Lana summed up, quite accurately, our first visit to the pub in almost four months yesterday. Hatton Sports & Social Club isn’t quite where I imagined I’d be drinking my first pint after the easing of lockdown restrictions yet I couldn’t really imagine myself anywhere else. There was a weird vibe to the whole day as we all attempted to accustom ourselves to the “new normal” – one way systems for entering & exiting, a seemingly never ending amount of hand sanitizer, sitting one metre apart from each other (which admittedly became much trickier to remember as the double gins kept flowing). I know it has become a cliche to say in the current climate, but it was so surreal that it sometimes felt like I was dreaming, although that was probably just the alcohol taking effect. Imagine, though, trying to convince yourself at the start of 2020 that in a few months time you’d be living through a plague of the kind you’d read about in history books and you were going to get through it by ordering your drinks at the table instead of the bar. Regardless, it was a real relief to finally be allowed back out into the big wide world and surround myself with familiar faces and absorb an atmosphere that I had no idea how much I’d missed until I was back in it. I’ve spent the entire day paying for it and I can’t wait to climb back into bed later, but my god it was worth it. Up the pubs.

Earlier this evening I finished watching the final season of Bojack Horseman, the Netflix original series about an overweight alcoholic who spends his life wallowing in existential dread because he knows his best years are behind him – sound familiar? The premise of the show seems strange at first and there are a lot of unexplained quirks, such as half the characters being animals instead of humans, but once you get past these it is a surprisingly thought provoking production that uses dark humour to address the aspects of life that many of us are reluctant to think about or discuss. Personally, I find that most TV shows begin to decline in quality after their second season, but Bojack Horseman seems to do the opposite and the character development is deployed effectively in order to persuade you to continue watching. I almost found myself becoming personally implicated in the plot as I considered the intricacies of the dilemmas Bojack and his friends had to navigate. I’m not really sure what I’m trying to get across here, other than the fact that it is an unbelievably well written bit of television and I implore you to watch it if you haven’t already. 

I have decided to stop doing a weekly blog. When I embarked on this endeavour, it was new, fun and exciting – lockdown was something nobody had ever experienced before and I found it rewarding to scribble down my thoughts on what was going on and how I felt about it. However, as restrictions are lifted and we slowly return to “normal”, I have realised that writing to a deadline every week has become a chore instead of something I look forward to. As I slip back into some sort of routine – working & lunching in the week, drinking & arguing with Sam Morris at the weekend – there will be very little I can write about that I haven’t covered previously. This is not to say I shall stop writing all together as I will continue to write other pieces and I will also continue to write my blogs when I feel like I have something worthwhile to say, I have just decided that a weekly blog is no longer something I wish to produce. I am sorry to disappoint you all but I am hoping the result will be quality instead of quantity (don’t hold your breath). 

Let me know what you think when you watch Bojack Horseman. Stay safe.