Colm O'Regan: Busy trying to make a living out of laughter

I’ve never been asked the question before this year. There was something about the way a Dublin Nana asked me this week: “Are you working?” It had a 1980s feel to it. The old-style recession. A version of “How’s your Ma? Is your Da working?”

It was strange to hear it. So stark and simple a question. But weirdly it was a relief. An acknowledgment of everything. It gives me more ‘agency’, as the young people say, than “God you must be in an awful state with everything closed?”