Gooooood morning cool cats and kittens. Come on, I was allowed to do that once. Take me to the final episode this Sunday. What a series. FREE JOE EXOTIC.

Today is going to be rough, the sun is shining, the weather is going to be a firm 17 degrees, and all I want to do is go out and mingle in the park with hip young people with no underlying health issues.

… but I can’t. I have to sit in the house, read a book about the British trying to quash ‘Jonathan’ dissent in the late 1700s. I don’t even think we win. It’s like tuning into a Sky Sports Gold classic and forgetting that you lose in the 91st minute.

Anyway, football news is sparse at the moment. So sparse I’ve added alerts for ‘ANIMAL CROSSING HINTS AND TIPS’ to my google.

Kia J has spoken to people in the press and said that, yes, he is a Gooner, but that doesn’t affect who he sends our way.

How can you call yourself a fan and not send us your best? This can’t be true.

Give us the prime meat. Who is on the books that fits a younger profile? I don’t want Willian filling up a space at 32 years old this summer. Go tie down Jadon Sancho or Lautaro. That’s what a proper fan should be doing. Wheeling in Cedric Soares is totally unacceptable.

Coutinho? Now I could be persuaded. He’s 27, has played in a high press system, has it all to prove after being booted out of Barcelona. Dreamworld though, unless we swapped him out for Auba at the end of the season.

Also, this is all fantasy. How can you know what the summer holds until you’ve seen how the Premier League season is going to end.

The bulk of agent chat at the moment is going to be around players taking pay cuts, which they still haven’t. I totally understand how shitty it must be to lose 30% of your salary, but when you read around about it, the complaining really does smell like that of folk who have never had a financial issue in their life.

‘We have mortgages’

‘We worry about the business spending money elsewhere’

‘It’s all so uncertain’

I agree with all of the above, the main difference in the real world, for the real workers, is that we don’t get a choice. Your boss wants to furlough you? No choice. Your boss wants to cut your pay 5%? 15%? 50%? No choice. Promotion? Raise? That fancy laptop with ‘T’ key that actually works? Fuck off. That’s your lot. Part-time? Man, just hope it’s 4 days and not 2. Footballers are going through all the same uncertainties as us mere mortals, except they have a say on it, and we don’t. Also, I can tell you one thing for absolute certain. 98% of footballers will still have a job when this all comes back online. For the rest of us, the jury is still making a decision. We’re heading into a depression. Will pay go back up? Will everyone find themselves brought back in from the cold? It’s a big fat ‘I have no idea’ that we’re all living with.

Football will return. So will the eyeballs. So will the money. They should feel blessed that they have a certainty more assured than most of us.

Other businesses that are facing uncertain times are the newspapers. I’ve seen major name journos from non-paywalled publications tweet about getting laid off and it’s very sad. Now would be a very good time to take up some subscriptions if you can afford to do so. The Athletic must feel pretty chipper at the moment, they already established their pay to play model, unique in the world of sport. Wired magazine reckons subs have gone through the roof, something I’d imagine has happened across many of the other big boys. The redtops might be struggling though. I’d also imagine mega free pubs are going to see huge cuts. Their model of ads for eyeballs in tatters at the moment. Most can’t switch to a paid model because the work isn’t elevated enough to merit premium money. Sad times. You don’t want to see anyone dumped into an uncertain market.

In better news, the UK is starting to flatten the curve, which is super exciting, but that doesn’t mean it’s ‘go back to your normal lives’ vibes. In New York, where we’ve let the virus run rampant, we’re deep into a very well respected lockdown and the numbers are coming down aggressively… but they’re still warning us about a return to work and they just locked schools down until September. I was speaking with a senior HR professional yesterday and was told they are planning for shiftwork when the green light comes on, and a ‘you don’t have to if you don’t want to’ policy for attendance. Who the fuck is going to want to get on a subway right now? Getting sneezed on was a right of passage 6 weeks ago, now it’s GBH. Would you sit in a cramped meeting room? Are you even going to high five and lick a colleagues face as a ‘GOOD MORNING’ gesture? Unlikely.

Bringing the football season back would be great for spirits, it could be a national event, but it’d have to be so well regulated. You’d need testing, you’d have to limit the amount of people in and around the stadiums, and you’d have to be sure the message to the public wasn’t ‘IT’S OK FOR PREMIER LEAGUE FOOTBALLERS SO IT’S OK FOR YOU’, because you don’t want a restart of the virus.

Life will have to go on at some point. You’re not going to be able to lock down the world forever, the main concern is to what length we go to ensure safety? Phone apps that record your movement and body temp? Temp wardens at your office? It’s the dystopian ideas that are the most realistic. DON’T GIVE UP YOUR FREEDOM PEOPLE.

What a weird post that was? All over the place. But fuck you, it was for free. So share it, tell your elite friends about it, and stay safe today because I love you all very much. xx