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Image: Black and White by Malevich (@Pixels)

“March the sixteenth 2021!” announced George that morning, finding it rather ironic that, exactly one year since the lockdown began, Lecomte should send one of his percussive e-mails rattling off that ‘the team’ should “Come back into the office, for an ‘urgent meeting to discuss the next steps of the financial package to re-float the European economy.’

“Lecomte’s never really adjusted to teleworking” said George to Patricia, as he was preparing to leave the house. “He still likes ‘the let’s-get-everyone-round-the-campfire’ feel,” in a tone of undisguised irony. “It’s not hard to imagine him in his shorts running a scout camp. He’s like some sort of ERA-Akela whose biggest thrill in life is to order his pack to ‘Strike camp! Fetch that kindling! Skin that rabbit! Ging Gang Goolee Goolee Goolee Watcha!” Patricia stood quietly by, waiting for her peck on the cheek. “Any moment he’ll have us singing songs in a circle to help build back team spirit after lockdown!”

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“You know what’s going to happen next, don’t you” said George, in the middle of a news bulletin, at the start of the UK’s roll-out of the vaccination programme in early 2021, with the promise of a way out of the ‘greatest public health crisis for a century’. George could see a new problem coming: “Politics will walk all over biology. Another scrap between political egos will ensue. And the people will once again be scattered, like seed to the wind”.