Michael Deacon creates ‘glittering grotto of Champagne’ for lockdown 2.0

Parliamentary sketch writer Michael Deacon published a piece in yesterday’s Telegraph newspaper on how best to get through the latest lockdown – and it doesn’t involve stockpiling loo roll.

In his amusing piece, which Telegraph subscribers can read here, he begins by imploring people not to stockpile loo roll, which happened ahead of the springtime lockdown in the UK.

Commenting on the irrational nature of this uniquely British response to the pandemic, bearing in mind the fact that the main sign of Covid-19 is a dry cough, he writes, “At no point has Professor Chris Whitty stood at a Downing Street lectern…. and said, ‘The key symptom of Covid-19 is unmistakable. You feel as if you’ve eaten six vindaloos and a dodgy prawn sandwich.’”

As for what Deacon will be amassing, both to “lift” himself during lockdown 2.0, and also for his 40th birthday “in a few days”, is a “stockpile of Champagne, wine, rum, gin, single malt and any number of fancy foreign beers I’d never heard of before.”

Describing himself as a “dipsomaniac squirrel”, he says that the eclectic hoard of drinks makes him “feel like Winnie the Pooh, lovingly counting his pots of honey”.

Bearing in mind too that this lockdown is coming during much colder weeks of the year, he comments on a need to make our homes feel “like burrows or badger sets”… with “self-indulgences we can stretch to. Like my glittering grotto of ale and Champagne.”

You can read his tongue-in-cheek piece on how to get through Lockdown 2 here.