HARRY talks about people who are, to use a fire service term, socially non-ambulant: “It’s not just firefighters – single parents, older people, disabled people and people without transport can all end up a bit trapped. I fell into a few of those categories myself over the years.”

The future is here. I had an incredible Zoom meeting last night with some brothers and sisters in California. The 24/7 on call roster of the fire brigade had dropped an atom bomb on the remnants of my social life, but Covid has resurrected it and more.

Everything is online now. In a short while, I’ll be taking part in a writing class with a collective down in Shannon and, later on in the week, a poetry class I’ve been wanting to take part in for months, up in Galway.

‘The boy’ has his guitar lessons on Zoom, which means I no longer have to pick him up from his mother’s if I don’t want to. My ‘big boy’ has completed his college semester via the web. “I didn’t think it would work but, once I got used to it, it’s cool,” he said.

I’m not surprised – he no longer has to take two buses into one of our big cities for college. I never understood why colleges didn’t lead the way in using technology. I always thought they were pro- inclusion?

I borrowed a phrase from the fire service to describe people like me: ‘socially non-ambulant’. It’s not just firefighters – single parents, older people, disabled people and people without transport can all end up a bit trapped. I fell into a few of those categories myself over the years.

I wonder how many intelligent non-ambulants see their potential overlooked as a result?

Surely, it’s what we invented the internet for? By the time we are back to full working order the 5g network will be up and running and Elon Musk’s SpaceX network will have blocked out the heavens.

Personally, I would be very sad if this new online way of working was suddenly closed off, disconnecting me from the classes I’m undertaking. It feels like being back at college only I can smoke and drink coffee as I listen.

What of climate change? The necessity for car journeys has plummeted. Oil is now worthless, the papers say. If environmentalists don’t seize on this to lead the way in a new way of operating, well, it’s now or never really. I don’t think anyone died yet from not catching that flight?

We are stuck with galactic communications now, so we had better bloody use it!

Anyway! Here is a little poem I was prompted to write at this morning’s class. I know they say poems don’t have to rhyme, but I’m far too influenced by rap music… I’m sure my teachers hate me.

There are crumbs on the glass table by the couch and more of them over the floor.

It’s driving me mad as I try to type, I ought to be doing the chores.

My mind is as messy as the clothes in my room that the sunshine is begging to dry.

The shit on the bowl of the toilet upstairs is a nice little meal for a fly.

The dust on the blinds is almost alive – its been with me through all four seasons.

Though lockdown is long – I’m struggling to find justification for cleaning reasons

I always have so much to do, like sitting and planning my day.

Like a general I plot my assault with a cloth until the time slips away.

What’s within is without the shrinks tell us, so I’d hate what to see is within.

My toenails are mouldy, my lungs full of phlegm, I wonder what’s under the skin?

The good people are shining the laminate cleansed, the dust all wiped from the shelves

I should have got married when I had the chance, I really can’t live by myself.