DID you hear the one about the academic, the music industry manager, the PR guy, and the sports journalist?
Well, not unless you were extremely bored on Saturday night and hacked into our Zoom chat.
As some drinks were consumed, there were a few jokes told, or at least attempted, but there were also the hard truths admitted that we were, for various reasons, finding the work aspect of our lives difficult in these trying times. Apart from the PR guy, obviously.
The music industry is completely closed, and planning gigs even for late in this year is an act of faith and optimism.
Online learning means lecturing into a void, with most students (struggling themselves, clearly) logging on with only blank screens, perhaps not even staying in front of their computer, meaning vocal interaction over the several hours of a seminar is largely limited to the man himself and a very small percentage of the purported participants.
Over the years, those who have enviously told me what a glamorous job I have received the reply that ‘it’s mostly office-based’ – with the added admission that ‘the best part of the job is going to matches’.
Those matches are mostly off at the moment, of course, certainly our bread and butter, icing, and cherry on the top which are Gaelic games.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of whether or not the GAA should have ‘elite’ status, it’s beyond dispute that most sporting participation isn’t about elite level, though.
Most people just want to be able to do their thing, keep fit and gain enjoyment, so the denial of that is difficult for many.
The fight to allow structured sporting opportunities for young people is an admirable one, but any relaxation in those restrictions won’t come for weeks, possibly months.
In the meantime, all we can do is make the most of it, make the best of it.
Yep, it’s come to this: an arch-pessimist and cynic preaching positivity.
These are tough times for many, with so much uncertainty in almost every sphere of life.
For those of a sporting nature, sport doesn’t just have to mean spectating, despite all the hours broadcast on TV.
There’s too much staring at screens and scrolling on mobile phones during this ongoing pandemic, but technology can still play its part, at least in the form of a weather app.
Although it may have felt like it for a while, it doesn’t always rain heavily here.
Seize the moment. Get out and about.
As one door slams shut, another one blows open.
Back garden trampolining has been in its closed season due to high winds. Instead, last Thursday afternoon meant kite-flying in the local park; who knows, kite-flying may well be part of the Olympics by the time my kids are the right age to participate.
Saturday brought sledging. Not the cricket version – my children learned enough of that sort of thing with my attempts to get that kite up into the air and keep it there for more than a few seconds.
Timing was of the essence for the winter sports at the weekend, and not just with warning the kids that they had to get out of the house and into the snow before it started to rain.
There was also the serendipity of going against my ‘Just say no’ parenting tendencies, turning back as my son gazed wistfully at the other children sliding down the slopes, and being fortunate enough to get the last of the plastic sleds being sold out of the back of a van before some other kinder-hearted dad beat me to it. A bargain at a tenner.
It’s not generally been in my nature to acknowledge good luck, but it definitely helps to do so – and we have had some more good luck recently.
Almost every winter-related children’s book (and there are hundreds of that genre, with copies of most of them in our house) promises snow, nay, absolutely guarantees it in this season.
That’s not always the case, of course. Up until this year the biggest snowman my seven-year-old first-born had been able to build was about two feet tall.
The snow that fell in Belfast several Sundays ago was perfect: perfect for making snowmen and snowballs.
Saturday’s wasn’t as good, or as plentiful, but it was still sufficient to turn the slopes around Belfast Castle into mini Cresta Runs.
Although my kids on the sled together were generally just the right combined weight to bullet straight down the hill almost killing several distracted adults, the part they enjoyed most were the occasions when they crashed off spectacularly, into heaps of laughter.
The only complaint came when toes got too cold, but by then the drips were starting to fall anyway and it was time to do the regular things – get back home for lunch and watch Liverpool lose.
It’s a good life lesson that ‘the Mighty Reds’ I’ve talked and sung to my children about do actually lose. And lose. And lose. And…
As Oasis might have sung, if the Gallaghers’ own beloved Manchester City weren’t so blooming brilliant (and if they didn’t care about rhyming): ‘Please don’t put your life in the hands of a professional sporting team…’
Bless their hopeful little hearts, my kids were still singing the Bobby Firmino song after a back garden kick-around/ ‘match’, perhaps helped by their victory after fatherly goalkeeping of a standard deliberately as bad as Alisson Becker’s has been recently.
The seasons roll on, even as lockdown remains. The trick is to match your sporting activity to the prevailing weather conditions.
Amid all the stultifying boredom of past and current months, the better memories will still stand out. All you have to do is make them.
