Extracts from the plague diary of Mark ne-Francois-Pepys

May 12th

Up betimes, and that I may not see my family unless they be my cleaner and I may play rugby so long as not with my cleaner, I committed an act of thespionage with some oft-overlooked Shakespeare:

1/7

To meet, or not to meet, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in this bind to suffer
The spin and slogans of outrageous caution,
Or to take germs against a sea of boredom
And by visiting share them.

To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The Homes under the Hammer and Countdown
That flesh is heir to: ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To Bargain Hunt no more—ay, there's the rub:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there’s the respect
That makes calamity of social distance.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The tarmac hell of the M25,

Bread-making tedium, testing’s delay,
Hypocrisy of boffins, and the burns
A decent citizen of th’twitter trolls takes,
When he himself might his departure make
With a bare handshake? Who would key workers bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that dread of liberal elites after death,
The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn
No Brit abroad returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others where the French might be?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus good solid British common sense
Is confused o’er with a podcast of naught,
And Johnson’s mantras of great pitch and moment
With this regard messaging turns awry
And earn the name of: blunder.