Quarantine Blog - Day 6

“Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Insane, idiotic and incompetent UK Traveller with a receding hairline gets a write up about how insane, idiotic, incompetent and slowly balding he is.” 

I’m clearly joking, my hairline isn’t receding…don’t look at me like that, it isn’t. 

So yesterday, the very considerate Matthew Leach got in touch with me about my blogs. Matt is a Senior Reporter from the Baliwick Express, a local news media outlet for local people(slightly obscure League of Gentlemen reference). Matt asked if I would like to be interviewed for a feature on the website about Self-Isolation from the victim’s (is that what I call myself?) point of view. Being the attention seeking and verification craving individual I am, I jumped at the chance. We arranged an interview for the afternoon, which gave me chance to finally be able to book one of our household meeting rooms, I felt all fancy. So I booked Meeting Room 3, affectionately known as the Laundry Room outside of office hours. 

Now, when you are from Guernsey living in the UK either permanently, as a student or just as a social butterfly passing through Gatwick to go somewhere actually nice. You get asked all sorts of questions about life in this otherworldly place. From questions like: Do you all speak French? Which I invariably say I do, which I definitely don’t. Usually followed by my GCSE French acumen to bullshit my way through the proof. 

“le bateau est vert, mais la tortue est à la doite” 

UK residents are now reading that thinking, he’s sounds so unconventionally mysterious, a man of the world. Guerns are asking what the turtle being on the right has got to do with a green boat. But I digress. One of the usual questions thrown your way will be: Do you all know each other? Sigh. The population of Guernsey is 67’000ish, The population of the district of Horsham (where I live and encompasses various towns and villages) is around 120’000. When they ask me this, I ask them whether they know over half of the district of Horsham. They will normally answer with a name of somebody from Guernsey they once met. Then to both your surprise and disappointment, you usually do know them either directly or through a friend of a friend. 

My point being I already knew Matt the Senior Reporter, he went to school with my brother. I’m sure he also also used to come round our childhood house for sleep overs and the such. I’m sure he had an embarrassing thing or two to say about me in his article, but his professionalism steered him clear of it. I’m so grateful for that. Moreover it was genuinely nice to speak to him again, even though we didn’t directly acknowledge the elephant of existing acquaintances listening in to our telephone conversation. He asked me various questions about why I was writing it, the response it was getting, my flourishing friendship with Gavin St Pier. Matt published the article this morning and is a fantastic read, he’s clearly got a greater grasp ofeducation in English literature than I. Mine doesn’t go beyond being able to use commas and fullstops really, hang on I’ll through in a hyphen…-…nice. You can read his article here. (If that link doesn’t work, #sorrynotsorry, my IT skills are little to be desired. If it did work, then in my best impression of every IT Department.."have you tried turning it off and on again") 

Matt used the term excerpt to quote my blog, so I’m now going to excerpt him. Excerption.

“Chris continues to update his blog daily, sometimes with philosophical musings, updates on the tedium of isolation and thoughts about his late grandfather.

“It gives you a lot of time to be reflective about the situation.”

It’s often laced with profanity – you’ve been warned! – and always written with a sharp, humorous take on his current situation - you can keep updated on his life in ‘Quarantine’ here.” 

Matthew Leach - Senior Reporter and all around top guy (Yes I'm keeping his link which links it back to me too)

I wish I could have thought of words like ‘tedium’, ‘profanity’ and  ‘a’. Matt if you are reading this, its definitely self-deprecation towards me and not an abasement of your fine self, p.s. it took me 30 minutes to find those big words, and I used them in the hope that I’ve use them correctly. I just wanted to also use this platform to thank you for the kind words you wrote about myself and the acknowledgment of my grandfather. I didn’t ask Matt to include the photo of my grandfather, he asked if he could use it. Which I, and I’m sure my family, truly appreciate and also goes to show how he is a genuinely considerate person he is. I simply asked Matt to make me look handsome, hilarious and humble…He also did a hell of a job editing my photo onto the background of the Guernsey harbour to make it look like I was actually there with the island of Herm behind me. Kudos to you, if you want to see my editing skills, I once put my face onto Pierce Brosnan for an online zoom quiz:  

Again if you’re from the UK, you’re probably looking at this thinking, he’s literally in the film ‘Hot Fuzz’. Me, Peter Ian Staker, being interviewed by Matthew Leach, Tim Messenger, from the Baliwick Express, Sandford Citizen, about my blog, missing Swan.

“No luck writing those Blogs then.

It’s just the one blog actually.”

I remember being at university trying to argue the case against my housemates, that Guernsey isn’t anything like Hot Fuzz. I tried, notice the use of tried, to prove this by going on the Guernsey Press website. Do you want to know what the headline for the day was….do you…: 

“Vandals attack Gnome Rock”

The headline, the god damn headline. I'm not trying to belittle the crime but...come on...Gnome Rock. It’s safe to say I wouldn’t be living that down. Because, as most Guernsey expats (fancy word for immigrants) would attest to, we are the Envoys of the Island when we are in the UK. We speak for it, we defend it, we fight for its rights to exist. But when you see those kind of headlines, it really does put you at a disadvantage. There were days when we would speak of Middle Earth being a much more believable territory than the Island. Can you believe I was arguing the existence of Deputy John Gollop over Gandalf the Grey.

Once again the rest of my day was spent by playing civilisation.

“What are we going to do today Brain?

The same thing we do every day Pinky. Try to take over the world”

At dinner, we ate and put the world to rights. And might I add, I have never eaten more exceptionally than I have while in this household. We each make a signature dish every night and have entered some form of Masterchef competition without realising it. Last night’s risotto was apparently winged by my Sister in Law, Sarah. If that’s winging it, then our expectations of food quality are starkly different. Our Aunty brought us round Cheesecake with our food delivery, and our Mother delivered Brownies to our doorstep. This is great. Some greedy, gluttonous part of me likes this part quarantine. Luckily I managed to get to sleep last night, not because of a few less cups of tea, but probably the 6 cans of Brewdog helped. I’m starting a 1 on 1 online personal trainer next week, so Ben if you’re reading this. I aint touched any of it man.