It’s runners versus everyone else out there, so keep your distance and we can all get on

Bread-making, head-shaving and one precious piece of exercise per day. Funny how we all landed on the same lockdown stress-relievers eventually.

Everyone and his aged aunt is currently grateful to “the nation’s PE teacher” Joe Wicks for his daily YouTube workouts. That includes many exercise sceptics who, under normal circumstances, would never stoop to take the mick out of Wicks for fear of pulling a muscle.

I prefer running. You need no special equipment, no expensive gym membership and no certificate of permission (not yet, anyway). The talk test, an informal way of measuring optimum exercise intensity, suggests one should be able to carry on a conversation while running. But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Real runners go it alone.

This rugged individualist self-image swiftly crumbles once you hit the canal path or park trail, however. That’s when it becomes clear that you’re one of approximately 10 billion other humans who’ve all had exactly the same idea, at exactly the same time. Wicks himself couldn’t have organised a more co-ordinated group exercise session.

So half the population is a runner now, and the other half hates us for it. Runners have acquired a reputation for thoughtless incursions into the invisible, two-metre quarantine zones of other pedestrians and are blamed for public park closures. Those parks that do remain open now have pass-agg signs taped to the trees, such as the one in Queen’s Park which reads “be like Harry Styles, jog in One Direction”.

If you want to provoke a glare that could burn a hole through Lycra, dare to increase your pace above a gentle stroll.

This isn’t entirely fair. Serious joggers don’t want social contact either; it ruins the reverie of the run. Plus, immunity-boosting exercise is a socially responsible act, more so now than ever.

It would just be nice if there was some way of making this minor, individual contribution to public health more collectively impactful. Like, say, having a network of treadmills hooked up to a giant power generator at the new Nightingale Hospital.

Until such time as my designs are approved by government, only considerate jogging can ease the outdoor tension. That might mean changing your regular route to a less busy one, or crossing the road to avoid oncoming pedestrians.

Most of all, remember that in these days of heightened mutual monitoring, pantomiming precaution is almost as important as the precaution itself. You don’t just step out of the old couples’ way, you need to leap out of it, like Rudolf Nureyev in the final act of Swan Lake.

And if that extra exertion works a few more muscles into the bargain, so much the better.

Be like Britney

The celeb response to this crisis has been as patchy as my homemade surgical mask, with the honourable exception of comrade Britney.

She’s been pioneering the “let it all go” lockdown look on her Insta, by werking last night’s eye make-up with visible roots. Some of you are still faffing around with doomed DIY versions of your usual beauty treatments. Give it up. Britney was shaving her head before it was cool.