How to beat a virus.

Here’s a little update on Boris, who is still in Intensive Care at St. Thomas’ hospital in London. The latest update is that he is responding to treatment, clinically stable, and in good spirits – I know!

Personally, I could normally be described as being in good spirits for the time it takes to eat a large bag of pickled onion Monster Munch. He must be having a great time in there. I’d like to think that he’s drawn a face on his lonley respirator so he has a drinking companion, who will be at least in good spirits as neither of them have any work to do.

The problem is with good spirits is that anything below this level of general happiness will look bad. Just as bad is saying that day after day that he’s in good spirits. I know that I’m wearing out the words good spirits and I’m doing it on purpose, not only to boost my word count, but to point out the meaningless of repeating the same description of his mental state over and over again. But I’m sure he is – in good spirits.

I never knew that you could actually fight a virus. Something else I didn’t know was that being belligerent at tennis was a good defence against the disease. It’s good to know that Tennis will be the first sport to make it through to the other side, even if no-one will be able to watch the games. May be, Tim Henman, Andy Murray, Heather Watson, and the rest of Britain’s best tinnis players should train up to work in hospitals. Or maybe, all this talk about being a fighter and being a fighter is just a load of old hogswallop.

#clapforboris was trending on Twitter yesterday to happen at 2000. We don’t do clapping on Tuesdays. We clap on Thursdays! And I don’t think it really caught on. We’ve stopped being a nation famous for queuing, which must be a wartime and post-wartime refrence, to a country which copies planned spontaneous applause from other countries in to a social media led planned propaganda event.

I suppose it is important that he gets well soon. Having Dominic Raab in charge is like having a Raab-bit in the headlights. He’s in charge, but he’s not. So, I’ll have a drink to Boris – when I get some more drink in – and hope that one day, I’ll be able to pay £45,000 for a game of tennis and let him win.