What to put in our Covid-19 time capsules
Banana bread: you'll be hard-pressed to down another slice of this after lockdown 1!
There are things we did, used and loved this year that we hope never to see again and now, as it’s almost time to say goodbye to our global pandemic lives, we should put them into a time capsule to be found by future generations. Here’s what we think would be the perfect inclusions in a Covid Capsule and no, despite lots of suggestions on social media, we can’t put your children in there, we know it’s been a long year, but that’s just cruel!
It goes without saying that the first thing to go in should be a face mask. They’ve come a long way since the blue disposable ones we all wore at the beginning and most of us have a mask wardrobe now with fancy ones for meeting people and drab ones for solo supermarket runs. We know that we’ll be using them for a long time to come but they still take pride of place in our capsule.
This has become such a part of our lives that you can now buy fancy hand sani holders to clip onto your handbag. We all have one with our shopping bags, one in the car, one in the schoolbags and a half-used one in every drawer in the house. And one thing we don't want to know now is just how dirty were everyone’s hands in 2019. Ugh.
Quizzes, cocktails, brunches, meetings, school, Santa — was there anything we didn’t do on Zoom last year? Being the holder of a pro account so that family chats could last longer than 40 minutes quickly elevated you to 'favourite child' status. We’ll all be booking in for Zoom counselling as soon as we realise just what we’ve been through.
Oh leggings, you beautiful, comfortable, balding, balling saviours of lockdown. While we can’t wait to peel you off and fling you into the Covid Capsule we’re absolutely terrified about having to live a life that includes waistbands again.
Every kitchen has The Drawer, you know the one that’s full of stuff — takeaway menus, odd screws, some tiny packets of ketchup and four old passports? This year HSE booklets outlining how to wash our hands and not hug our grannies became the drawer’s latest addition. Into the capsule you go!
If you had to do the walk of shame on May 10 don’t worry, you weren’t alone. Get your mind out of the gutter, we’re talking of course about that first salon appointment where you had to admit to caving and lashing on a box of 'so you think you’re a hairdresser' in a shade of 'just cover my roots please'. Even if you didn’t succumb, you probably spent at least one visit to the chemist standing in front of Holly Willoughby’s face on a box of dye thinking 'how hard can a few highlights be?'
One of the first things to go into short supply early in 2020 were packets of yeast — who knew that we were such a nation of bakers. What started out as a basic bread recipe has evolved into full on artisanal sourdough for some (thanks to the tutorials posted by Colm O’Gorman) and pizza dough for many. Are you even allowed to live in Summer 2021 if you don’t have an outdoor pizza oven?
At this point, everyone has a family photo taken in front of the bright yellow ‘This Is 2 Metres’ signs that popped up around the country last year. Now as ubiquitous as a baby in the bath with bubble hair photo every 18th birthday party in the future will have blown up Covid memory photos on the wall.
It turns out that it wasn’t enough to have to live, work and educate from home over the last year, we also had to turn our houses into mini versions of the Botanic Gardens. You would think that we all had enough things to try and keep alive during a pandemic but many of us also decided now was the time to cultivate rare and demanding house plants.
Having watched every single programme in English that Netflix had to offer we all moved on to Scandi Noir, French comedy, Israeli drama and whatever language it is that speaks.
Literally every conversation that anyone had over the last year included the phrases 'make anything nice for dinner?' and 'watching anything good?' Thank you, Netflix for keeping us sane.
Day in day out for 14 long months the super trio of Virgin Media News kept us informed and up to speed on the TV and online. Gavan Reilly’s meticulous spreadsheets, Richard Chambers’ calm and straightforward reporting and Zara King’s commitment to asking the questions that everyone really wanted to know made them the real breakout stars of the pandemic. We won’t actually put them into the capsule, we need them around for a little while longer, so a photo will have to do.
Can we all agree not to eat another single slice of banana bread until at least 2024?
Sales of padded coats went through the roof from Autumn 2020. If the only way we could see a familiar face during all this was to walk with them in zero temperature conditions by God were we going to be wrapped up warm.
Aladdin logins, SeeSaw messages and endless worksheets are a reminder of a time most parents definitely don’t want to return to. Teaching has absolutely been confirmed as a vocation and homeschooling must be included in the Covid Capsule as a warning to future generations to protect the schools at all costs — no one wants a generation of adults that grew up being taught by multitasking, unqualified parents!
In April last year there wasn’t a hair clippers to be found online. Men all over the country were suddenly trusting their friends and families with their hair and my goodness weren’t they brave? A lot of men were suddenly sporting a tighter haircut than normal but at least they hadn’t turned into feral badgers like some of the women in their lives — we are not as trusting a sex!
Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the Wee Donkey wasn’t a triumph? Look, we won’t speak of the final episode, but no one got us through six long weeks of winter lockdown like Steve, Kate and the wonderful Ted.
The nation stood still last April as we witnessed two young Irish people have stunted conversations and the ride on national television. Sales for O’Neills shorts went through the roof and suddenly we were all looking at the lads on the local teams we used to fancy in a completely different way. If goes in the Covid Capsule so too must the Joe Duffy shows where week in week out people complained about the amount of sex and nudity they were being ‘forced’ to watch. It got to the point that one evening as aired on RTÉ, Joe tweeted to say he was ‘calling in sick’.
Turns out living on an island that’s covered in a damp cloud for 76% of the year isn’t great for our health. There were a few weeks last month where Vitamin D was scarcer than hen’s teeth and more valuable than gold! If we can get our hands on a tub, we’re popping it into the Covid Capsule for sure.
Panel:
There were some words and phrases that became part of our everyday language this year that we had never even heard of before 2020. Here are the ones we want stricken from our memories as soon as possible.
Never in the history of language have two words turned us off a night out like wet pubs. Back to just beloved pubs in 2021 please.
Two metres apart, outside and no hugging. Good rules for a first Tinder date, bad rules for life.
What in the name of all that is holy was that show even about?
Grand in theory, not so great if you were also home schooling, changing nappies or hosting conference calls in the box room of a shared house.
A word we never want to see again. Let’s get everyone safely back to their jobs this summer.
The pandemics most over used word and still not dramatic enough to describe what was going on.
Flicking your way through 14 months of the most depressing year in social media.
Is it Tuesday? Is It Wednesday? Who cares? Every day was Blursday in lockdown.
From meetings to birthdays to quizzes and even team building (shudder) — let’s do absolutely everything in person for the rest of the year!
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