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These coronavirus memes will make life feel a little bit better

From Runner's World

Weird as everything is at the moment, not all parts of life have stopped functioning completely.

For one thing, sports commentators are still commentating, albeit on races across zebra crossings and bathroom plughole unblockings rather than actual sport. And, for another, everyone being stuck at home means the coronavirus memes are coming thick and fast.

Let's start with the best thing to come of a family being forced to reckon with isolation together, and spending the time introducing an older family member to whatever it is the kids are doing these days.

Last summer's three-quarter cargo shorts were the first symptoms of Covid-19, it turns out.

At least it's good to know that faceless multinational corporations have our back, and want to let us know that they've got exactly the product to make all this bearable.

Everyone's got extremely into Zoom and Houseparty lately – and doing relentless quizzes on it – despite some murmurings about security and privacy. But where did those murmurs burble from? Only one person can crack a case this big.

Meanwhile, it's not just mere mortals who are having to adapt to the Friday night Zoom pub experience.

Now that the sheer novelty of being able to swap your Zoom background's fading, it's an arms race to get the best one.

Then again, this one's a strong contender.

In fact, there's a whole thread full of them here. Have a dig for yourself, obviously, but for us the standouts have to be the "This is fine" dog's flame-filled room and the final room in the spaceship from the finale of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Or you could make an absolutely excellent gif.

Meanwhile, British celeb Twitter and Instagram has been more than keeping its end up.

Rita mate, do you want to just back up a couple of ste–

Imagine popping to the shop to do your once-weekly shop and find that your local Spar's being managed by Matt Damon.

Maybe Damon could spend some time getting to know his white goods.

Some communities are taking this enforced isolation quite well.

Others less so.

Just as fish have returned to the canals of Venice, so the goats of the Great Orme, a country park on a headland that juts out from Llandudno on the North Wales coast, have returned to take back what's rightfully theirs. They want Llandudno, and they're taking it one delicious privet hedge at a time.

The goats arrived on Friday, and immediately set about destroying human civilisation.

So the police came around and broke it up, and the goats went back up the Great Orme. BUT THEN.

Emboldened by their success and showing complete disrespect to the North Wales constabulary, the goats returned. They started roaming the streets in gangs, as if daring the people of Llandudno to step outside their homes and defend their shrubbery.

That was on Saturday. Sunday was quiet in Llandudno. Maybe the goats had had their fun. Maybe Llandudno was coming out of the other end of its goat ordeal – a little bruised, a little shaken, but stronger for it. But then came Monday.

They're controlling the hedge racket in this town now. Capiche?

And Tuesday.

It's over now. The Goats are running things in Llandudno. They will likely have taken much of North Wales by the end of the week. After that? Who knows. Presumably they'll start to subvert political processes at a grassroots level next, gain control of a few councils, and aim to get their first MPs in place by 2030. We could be looking at a goat Prime Minister by the mid-2040s.

Dear God. At least people in other areas of the country are taking the proper precautions.

Perhaps too proper, in some cases.

There will only be two types of man after this is all over: very hairy men, and very badly home-shaved men.

Now we turn, as we must, with the government's latest announcement of the extreme measures it's going to take to try and keep the country fed during this time of panic-buying and pasta-hoarding.

Number 10 has launched an all-out media bombardment to get the message out there.

If you missed the origins of The Great Wembley Lasagne Saga, catch up here.

(Some bonus content: the man behind the WhatsApp voice note that went mad is 29-year-old Londoner Billy McLean, who works in software sales. He chucked it into a group of 30 of his mates from football on Thursday last week, and it went off its head.

"It was just a one take. I sent it to the football group, my mum and the girl that I’m trying to date," he told the Guardian. "It went around the football group. Then I got people that I know forwarding it to me, not knowing it was me, or forwarding it to me asking if I’d heard it. Ex-girlfriends were coming out of the woodwork asking was it me."

The FA told the Guardian that it's aware of the WhatsApp message, and that it doesn't have any plans to turn Wembley into a giant lasagne pan at the moment.)

Elsewhere, conscientious citizens are taking their duties seriously.

And the lockdown enforcement got an appropriately nu-metal soundtrack.

Without any of the usual architecture of the week, things are going a bit sideways.

Though some habits die hard.

Ken Barlow is the superhero we all need right now.

Liam Gallagher's done his own singalong hand-washing vids, and grown a gigantic Gimli beard in the process.

If you won't listen to Liam, listen to several very demonstrative Italian mayors.

Peter Serafinowicz's doddery businessman Brian Butterfield has some tech advice too.

As that tweet said, Shakespeare wrote King Lear during a quarantine. We may have already seen our own equivalent.

The self-isolation madness comes for us all, whatever your species.

We always knew Partick Thistle's David Shrigley-designed mascot was an omen of something.

After the fish in Venice and deer in Japan's cities, London's ecosystem is rebalancing too.

This is a journey we can all sympathise with.

Like aural butter.

Because it's not drinking alone if you're not drinking alone.

Harsh, but fair.

You already know how much we love Bob Mortimer's train guy.

Next, angling the mirror in the bathroom.

Still not as bad as 'Imagine'.

BUT CAN YOU SUB WALNUTS IN FOR PINE NUTS!?

"Don't come the fuck in, fuck the fuck off"

Courtesy of the Compuglobalhypermeganet Simpsons Facebook fan page:

Deliveroo?

Jonesing for a bowl of ram-don about now.

While singing 'Happy Birthday', of course.

Even an Off-White face mask?

And, courtesy of the Do You Not Know Who Eric Hitchmough Is? Facebook group:

As David Brent once said: "It's been a washout, hasn't it."


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