Up early in the morning, so I had less than zero excuse to not take my run. 6° and overcast, but pleasant enough for running. As it turned out, I had neglected to hit the right button at the right point, so there’s no time to report. Once I noticed this halfway through, though, I eased off on my pace, so it would have been somewhat longer than ten minutes.
Then a full breakfast, and my mentor and friend Rowan Greer’s Anglican Approaches to Scripture, which I’ll be using next year for the ‘Bible and Christian Faith’ module, and some editing of Jowett.
I asked Margaret out for a cinema date (and she accepted), so I printed out some tickets, we mimed punching the buttons at the ticket machine at the Odeon, the tickets fell to the floor as they always do, Margaret looked for someone to show her ticket and there was nobody around — all just as if we were out at George Street. We hadn’t seen ‘Rise of the Skywalker”, and although that was decidedly different on a home video screen (a relatively small, low-resolution screen by contemporary standards), we had a lovely time. No one was talking behind us, we didn’t have to watch the hectoring announcements about turning off our mobiles nor the annoying flash adverts — but we did watch three trailers before the feature. We found the film satisfactory — not great, but it did what would have been promised on the tin, if it came in a tin.
We had pizza for dinner, and as the day was getting late, we watched Have I Got News For You, the locked-down from-home version with Ian and Paul, Stephen Mangan as host, Zoe Lyons and the Revd Richard Coles each Zooming or Skyping or connecting in some other way from remote locations. Ian Hislop looked much different; does the BBC make-up staff account for that great a difference? The show lacked some of the crackling wit of the live in studio version, owing no doubt to the absence of an audience to play to, and to the obligation to wait for each speaker to take their turn on air. Still, it was a good reminder of what daily life used to be like, and a pleasant interval of levity and candour about the absurdities committed against good sense and the body politic by political leaders and other public figures.
And so to bed.