OPINION – No booze and no live sport, no problem!
If you'd told me at the start of this year that alcohol and live sport were two elements of life I would have to do without for large parts of 2020, I may have well have told you to get your head read, before disowning you as a friend for having the temerity to suggest such an apocalyptic notion in my presence.
The Olympic flame sits on display after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) officially decided to postpone the Tokyo Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, 25 March 2020. The Olympic Games was originally scheduled to open on 24 July 2020 but has been postpone due to the risk posed by the coronavirus outbreak. EPA/KIMIMASA MAYAMA
Fast forward to April and here we are, in a world devoid of sport, deprived of the ultimate distraction from life’s general monotony and despair, at a time when the world, frankly, needs some distracting, with a contagious pandemic sweeping the globe.
Alcohol, too, is off the books in South Africa, unless you hoarded up before the lockdown commenced. I, like a fool, decided that this would be an opportune time to drop my alcohol intake, and deliberately only bought two bottles of wine on my way home from work on the last day before the shutters came down.
At least, I thought it made me a fool about a week into lockdown, when with no alcohol left, I began to contemplate necking the bottle of hand-sanitiser loitering in my entrance hall. And yet, not drinking as much as I used to is actually beginning to grow on me. Maybe this dry-spell (well, semi-dry, like my wine), will ultimately lead to a better me (though I hope it doesn’t turn me into some holier-than-thou wanker).
Talking of holier-than-thou wankers, I see a lot of people preaching about how alcohol should now be banned beyond the lockdown. I mean, yeah, ban something completely that we’ve basically encouraged people to do forever and a day, before a virus came a long to put everyone in panic mode. If South Africa is a nation of alcoholics, the government has plenty to do with it, allowing the aggressive advertising of liquor for decades.
As for live sport, the weird psychology for me right now is that I don’t miss it at all. I mean, it would be nice to watch an English Premier League game (more specifically, a Chelsea game) or a bit of cricket, and the US Masters Sunday this weekend would have been good to catch. But I don’t miss it. There are, literally, a million other things to do. I’ve been watching more series on Netflix and other platforms. I’ve been washing the dishes, running in the back garden, hugging my dog, loving my husband, playing a silly golf game on my mobile phone. Not bored at all, not in the slightest.
There is the added incentive, that when sport does return, we may well appreciate it more than ever. Absence, they say, makes the heart grow fonder, after all. Maybe mine will grow fonder too, for now it isn’t really bothered.
For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.
For more news your way
Download our app and read this and other great stories on the move. Available for Android and iOS.
