Corona Diaries

Remi

“As if it wasn’t already crazy, I’ve just seen a video of a man calling the police because an Off-Licence was

selling toilet roll for £10. TEN WHOPPING POUNDS STERLING TO WIPE YOUR ARSE!”

Background Information

Female, aged 18-24, University Student, Indian, Single, living with family during lockdown.

March 2020

Wednesday 18th March 2020

DAY 1- QUARANTINE (UK)

1950 infected.

71 dead.

Good morning/afternoon/evening/ whenever you’re reading this.

No, I don’t have coronavirus (yet), but I’ve decided to write this diary as I am experiencing the effects of a

global pandemic which will go down in history and no doubt be referred to in films, books, tv series and all

sorts. You could say that Spanish Flu episode of Downton Abbey inspired me Anyway, here is my

experience of day 1 of quarantine, because even though the incompetent government (if you’re still voting

Tory whenever you’re reading this- shame on you), are hardly taking any measures to contain this virus,

most of us are staying indoors to avoid COVID-19.

When we first learnt of the virus that originated in Wuhan in November, a few were scared (and right to be),

but most people just ignored or made memes about it. Here we are 3 months later, and Europe is now the

epicentre of virus, and things are being cancelled left right and centre. No sport, no theatre, no conventions,

but most importantly, NO TOILET ROLL!! I went to Tesco yesterday and the whole toilet roll aisle was

empty, bags of flour were ripped open and not a single jar of pasta sauce was left. Almost everyone alive

on this planet has never experienced such panic and chaos, the world has truly gone mad. What would’ve

happened if the virus had been one that actually gave you the shits?!

I have also recently learnt that my university (The University of Warwick) is essentially not going to have a

term 3 as all face to face teaching and examinations have been cancelled, and I am currently awaiting

news from my department on how I will be assessed. My life for the next few months is now uncertain as

whether the Queen killed Princess Diana and I am NOT living for this. Also, Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson and

Idris Elba have coronavirus and I would be scared for them, if they didn’t have billions of pounds/dollars for

treatment, so they gon pull thru.

Not to mention I’ve been in constant contact with our tour company, with which we had booked to go to

Paris from 16th-19th March, trying to get our refund, because we obviously could not have gone to Paris in

this chaos. After days of trying to get it into their thick heads that it is dangerous to travel, we think they

have finally budged after Macron closed the French borders, because let’s be honest Boris ain’t doing jack.

Even Broadway, in the US, where possibly the most idiotic person in the world is the president, has gone

dark, and allowed actors to receive insurance, but the West End has left actors unpaid because Boris has

just ADVISED people not to go to theatre and not actually shut them down. Yes, I’m listening to WICKED

as I’m writing this.

Anyway, I’m upset that I couldn’t go to Paris (and possibly lost the money), that I won’t be able to go to the

theatre for a good 4 months (maybe more who knows), that I can’t see my friends or grandparents in case I

have COVID-19 and that I’m stuck inside but still have to do work . But they say when life gives you

lemons, make lemonade, so essay-writing, diary-writing, pretending I’m Idina Menzel, and watching all 12

seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race is what I shall do for the foreseeable future. Let’s see what tomorrow

brings.

Remz ☺

Thursday 19th March 2020

DAY 2-QUARANTINE (UK)

2626 infected.

104 dead.

Bonjour tout le monde, it’s my 2nd day of quarantine and the death toll has gone up significantly in the UK

, not to mention Italy’s has just gone and surpassed China’s!! Boris has now finally discovered some

sense, granted it’s probably been donated to him by someone else, and is shutting schools from tomorrow.

There are also rumours of a London Lockdown in a couple of days because the capital is getting so bad, I

was better off staying at uni… I’m seeing the pictures of the military on the news and people are telling me

massive tanks are coming down the motorway!!

As if it wasn’t already crazy, I’ve just seen a video of a man calling the police because an Off-Licence was

selling toilet roll for £10. TEN WHOPPING POUNDS STERLING TO WIPE YOUR ARSE! I wouldn’t be as

shocked if this was coming from a Waitrose or M&S, but a bloody Off-Licence, come on! Of course, they

were Indian as well, (don’t worry I’m not being racist I’m Indian myself ). Also, my dad braved it and went

to the shops to get flour for my grandparents, and he came back looking like Baymax from ‘Big Hero 6’.

Y’all already know how crazy women get when they want something in the shop- we’ve all seen Hannah

Montana and Tyra Banks fight over that shoe- BUT OLD INDIAN WOMEN IN A PANDEMIC. Tis a different

story my friend.

Half my stuff is still up in Warwickshire and I’m really regretting leaving my Nintendo Wii up there. You

know ‘Just Dance’ could have ensured some degree of exercise during my quarantine, and since my dad

hasn’t paid for my car insurance (because I clearly I am not going anywhere), ‘Mario Kart’ would have at

least made me FEEL like I’m driving around (meh emoji).

In other news Eurovision has been cancelled (sad times) but when I heard the Friends Reunion was

postponed, I lost it. DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS!!??? And I’m

YOUNGER than the show. What about those who’ve watched it since it aired!!?? I guess we can’t risk

Jen, Courteney, Matt, Lisa, David or Matthew getting Corona. Yeaa I’m on a first-name basis with

them…I’m so bored these days that I’ve finished one my 4500-word essays a month before the due date,

probably because it was about women and madness and I have a lot to say on that subject right now…

So, there is the low-down peeps, life is scary, weird, erratic and crazy in 2020. Lin-Manuel Miranda

predicted this in Hamilton guys I’m telling you. The world has truly turned upside-down.

À demain! – yea I’m listening to French music this time.

Remz

Friday 20th March 2020 DAY 3- QUARANTINE (UK) 3269 infected. 144 dead. If you’re still reading my ‘diary’, you’re bloody resilient! So my life has pretty much stayed the same in the last 24 hours- reading, telly, food, sleep etc… but the world is worsening by the minute. I’ve just seen a video (yes I have nothing better to do) of a nurse crying because she can’t get basic fruit and veg at the shops. Panic buying has just fully escalated, and people just have no concern about others, we might as well be living through WW3! I’m thinking about handwriting these out, dabbing them with tea bags and ripping the paper here and there. Then I’ll just leave them in some abandoned house for someone to find in a couple of decades. That way it will look authentic, and I can be one of those pioneer women that schools use to name classes after. It was my brother’s last day at school today and now he’s complaining that he’ll never see his friends again

when 2 days ago he was cussing Boris down for not closing schools . In a way he’s lucky to have moved

down to year 10 (it was a choice, don’t ask, his school is weird) so he can actually take the exams. It’s really unfortunate for those doing GCSE’s and A-levels just to get their predicted grades. Like if that were

me I wouldn’t have got that A* in French GCSE which I OBVIOUSLY deserved . For real I worked my

arse off in A-levels and would have been sooooo annoyed if I couldn’t take the actual exams!! Bloody Corona is just ruining everything! When these kids hand their CV in and show off their 8/9s or whatever, the employer is gonna take one look at the year and go “Keith, look at year, these qualifications are as fake as Kim Kardashian’s arse, we can’t give ‘em the job”. I still have no clue what Warwick are doing about our exams, I assume they will be online but then you have the problem of how immoral people are- most will cheat, others won’t. But I sure hope they don’t get delayed to January or something because I’m supposed to be in France on my year abroad. I swear the primary reason I went to uni was to go on my year abroad, if this gets taken away from me I will sue someone (like I know how to do that…)- granted no one will come to the court case BECAUSE WE’RE ALL

SELF-EFFING-ISOLATING

On the bright side some places are giving free food and drink to NHS workers because they seem to be the only people actually doing anything in this pandemic. Government=useless. Kinda worried for my madre

though since she has asthma but has to go into work because they need caterers in the hospital My

dad’s written a letter to them so let’s see what happens… Stay safe,

Remz

Saturday 21st March 2020 DAY 4-QUARANTINE (UK) 4072 infected. 177 dead.

Is it Saturday? I’ve started to lose track of days now, the weekend really means nothing anymore. Today

boredom took over so much that my dad resulted to doing an extra 2 hours of work (from home obviously)

and clearing u-bends around the house. More crap came out of those pipes than out of Boris Johnson’s

mouth. Ok I’ll stop with the government jokes now…

He has now ordered pubs, clubs, bars and cinemas to shut now, but there is still no sign of a lockdown…

wonder if it will happen. Italy’s lockdown doesn’t actually seem to be working, they’ve had almost 800

deaths in one day and that’s pretty scary

Since Sky Sports basically has no content my dad’s put sky movies back on yasssss, so obviously since I

actually have 3 hours now I watched Titanic again. It really puts our situation into perspective right now- the

rich can live off their money while everyone else goes down with this sinking ship… It’s ridiculous that

they’re asking people to take unpaid leave and that they’ll only pay 80% of their wages if the employer

wants to. It shouldn’t be up to the employer, they should just pay people, it’s common sense. Some people

are actually prevented from doing their job like my cousin who isn’t getting paid. He is a salesperson- how

is he supposed to knock on people’s doors?!?

Anyway I’ve racked up some films in my planner including some classics, we all love a bit of Gone With the

Wind and Barbra in Hello Dolly! I also have been incessantly singing, which is normal, but now my whole

family are stuck listening to me belting out Defying Gravity and Don’t Rain on my Parade all day. Well at

least it’s better entertainment than this diary hAhAHAHaHa. I’m convinced I’m gonna come out of this a

recording artist I have that much time to perfect my voice.

I’m acting like I have nothing to do when actually I have another 4500 word essay to write and I can’t find

the books at a decent price, one because they’re French, two because they written like 700 years ago!! I

can’t get them from the library now either because they’re all shut so I’m kinda screwed Both my oral

exams are scheduled for like 6/7 weeks time but I don’t even know if/how they are happening now so I

don’t know what to do revision wise. You’d think having all this time to lounge about is amazing, but all this

uncertainty is awful, I never knew how much we needed structure in our lives.

WARNING: these are gonna get increasingly less entertaining because nothing is going on in my life

anymore

Remz

Sunday 22nd March 2020

DAY 5- QUARANTINE (UK) Just realised I was a day behind lol so big jump:

5683 infected.

281 dead.

Buenas tardes peeps! ¿Qué tal? It’s MOTHER’S DAY!!!

So I kinda just broke my quarantine because we went out to get Nando’s since we can’t eat out on madre’s

day  And we got 50% off because my mother works for the NHS yassss Don’t worry, man

used gloves, and like strategically placed myself away from people when I was waiting for the food, the bag

went straight into recycling, I even quarantined the change in a little box, and of course I washed my hands

for that oh so precious 20 seconds singing ‘happy mother’s day’ to my mum instead of ‘happy birthday’

ayyyyyy. See what I did there #Remziscreative

Town was seriously deserted though it was scary, even at 7pm on a Sunday there is usually a decent

amount of people roaming about and eating out.

But in the morning, it was the usual, I did a fair bit of work today on both my oral exams so let’s hope they

actually go ahead on Skype or something Meanwhile my dad got his old cassettes out from the loft of

70s/80s music, no doubt he’s gonna blast Earth, Wind and Fire on the stereo from dawn till dusk tomorrow.

No word of a lie he also actually began ironing our underwear he’s got that much free time right now

Our boiler has also started playing up which is great because FAT CHANCE anyone is gonna come round

to fix it so we have to use this immersion heater thingy and get the mini radiators out of the loft because

despite being the end of March it’s still bleeding cold! The weather fools you these days, you wake up to

the bright sun and walk out into the garden thinking it’s gonna be like 15 degrees when the remnants of

storm Ciara and Dennis are there just hanging about making it feel like an ice box. Now that I think about it,

storm Dennis most likely brought coronavirus over to the UK… JUST KIDDING!! Or am I…?

Also I watched last night’s Ant and Dec Saturday Night Takeaway today and it was soo weird, for the first

time ever they had to do it without a live audience and without going outside to surprise random people and

that’s what half the show’s bits are based off of! But they still did a good job and that Bradley Walsh

undercover was jokess. It’s crazy how much Corona is affecting everything and everyone!

P.S: Shout out to my uncle aka Jason Statham- a happy BELATED birthday He was salty that he

didn’t get a birthday mention on Friday in my diary, must mean I’m actually entertaining people with these…

right…? Don’t answer that.

Stay safe lads, Remz

Sunday 29th March 2020

DAY 12 QUARANTINE (UK)

19,522 infected.

1228 dead.

Hi guys JE SUIS RETOURNÉE!!! I wasn’t going to continue this because of the sheer lack of content to

write about but everyone keeps asking me what happened to my diaries! Basically I’ve reached celeb

status So my daily diaries will now turn into weekly ones

So what’s happened in the last week let’s see… oh right LOCKDOWN!! On Tu- actually I honestly don’t

remember WHAT day it was I just know it was at 8:30 because the whole country sat down glued to the TV

as if their lives depended on it. And actually, they kinda do, so STAY AT HOME PEEPS. Honestly though

just looked it up and BJ’s statement on COVID-19 is in the Top 10 most watched broadcasts in the UK

ever! Number 1 was when we won the World Cup which is good because that’s never gonna happen

again…

Also Boris has Corona now…but like why you shaking hands with everybody and acting like it’s parents

evening or something, like dude??? And Prince Charles has it! Megan and Harry skedaddled a couple of

days ago and the Queen and Prince Philip have probably been locked in some palace in the middle of

nowhere like Rapunzel. They’re basically experiencing the high life version of prison- wouldn’t that be

interesting So basically Kate and Will are left alone on the frontlines and probably shitting it. I heard

Megan’s voicing a character in a Disney film. Like DAYUM she didn’t waste NO time getting out of there

#megxit. Went from Princess to Elephant real fast, I mean she should have done a Disney princess, that

would have been ironic.

Also, HOW CUTE WAS THAT CLAP ?!?!? Really did not expect my whole street to come out

at 8pm for the NHS on Thursday and was pleasantly surprised!! My friend was so confused she just

thought her street was randomly clapping I was like dude for someone who is on twitter all the time HOW

did you miss that?!

There is still no real update on my exams I just know all of our coursework has been pushed back by 2

weeks but my oral exams are supposed to be pretty soon and have not done any revision for them. Instead

I’ve been freaking out about my other essay and it doesn’t help that I can’t access half the books because

there is no e-book Kind of wish I was in 1st year now so I wouldn’t have anything to do…

Another reason why I haven’t been doing these is because my parents are ill and 99.9% chance it is indeed

Corona so my brother and I been like living downstairs, cleaning the door handles and wait for it…

COOKING. REMI IS COOKING. REMI IS A CHEF. And I don’t mean oven food, man’s cooking fajitas and

attempting to cook my best friend’s signature burrito bowl Frozen crap today tho, I can’t cook

again It’s actually crazy, I wake up to their coughs and them coughs are UGLY man- for people who are

saying Corona is like flu- it is NOT. It’s the weirdest infection ever, some people will just get headaches,

some just a cough, some won’t show symptoms at all and some people can get really ill. They are bored

out of their minds stuck in that room but what can you do? This is why I didn’t want her to go to work. My

brother and I are fine at the moment but let’s see what happens…

P.S: I also have been recording myself singing and pretending I’m on broadway- I told you I would. I

kinda wanna post them to entertain people because I’m hilarious and clearly modest, but like I’m

trying to figure out if I care about my dignity that much or not…

Until next time,

Remz

May 2020

Wednesday 13th May 2020

DAY 183638282736 OF QUARANTINE (UK)

TOO MANY PEOPLE HAVE DIED.

Hello, I decided to write another one because well, I feel like it. Remember how I said I haven’t got

coronavirus yet? Yeah well I think I had it. That’s why I stopped doing the diaries because my family and I

were ill. As I mentioned, my mum works in a hospital so no wonder she caught it but she was fine after a

week as was I. My dad however was a different story… He was so ill he could barely brush his teeth and

one night he couldn’t breathe and we had to ring 111. Luckily, slowly but surely he turned the corner

without having to go in, with tons of paracetamol and a string of various Indian remedies and is ok now. He

still does not feel 100% so this covid thing really damages your immune system. Amongst all this, there

were 2 deaths in my family, unrelated to corona, but obviously really upsetting for us as we could not even

go to funerals and get together.

On top of all this I had to write my essays and revise for exams which I am currently in the process of

doing. I was really stressed but I’m good now and hopefully can get through these exams and then just chill

until I can actually go out. I never thought I would long for the day for a Starbucks worker to spell my name

wrong on a cup. Anyways enough of me lamenting, I’m lucky as far as it goes. More than 30,000 people

have lost their lives to this in the UK and the world has just really gone to shit.

You would think after having coronavirus and being put in intensive care that Boris would offer a bit more

clarity on lockdown rules but he really just spent 12 minutes chatting shit in my opinion. I mean what is the

point of meeting 1 person in the park if you have to keep your distance? If I meet up with my best friend

who I haven’t seen for 2 months I’m not gonna wanna keep my bloody distance. And unlimited exercise?

Like people haven’t been doing that already Also, I really do not agree with opening primary schools,

kids are the ones who projectile sneeze and cough over each other and even if they’re safe, they are gonna

go back home to their families and pass it on. What about teachers ?

And what the hell is going on with the premier league ? All people care about is money, footballers have

enough goddamn money to find a bloody vaccine, don’t go playing a contact sport and spreading the virus

around. And now they’re complaining about a recession. NO ONE CARES. It’s not always about economic

growth man, when will people understand that money is NOT everything.

I just do not get it.

One thing that is funny is seeing how far Trump’s IQ can drop. I really thought the guy had reached his

limits but now he is in minus figures. Clearly bleach didn’t work wonders for his hair so why he thought it

would cure corona I do not know. If he still wins the election I give up.

This was kinda bleak rather than funny but we are living in bleak times now If I write another one I’ll try

to make it more entertaining

Remi