Remember at the very beginning of the pandemic, when global lockdowns were in force and with human activity (pollution and disruption) limited, nature began to “heal itself”. 

We had poems and videos and tweets telling us that this was a teaching moment. It was an opportunity to evaluate what was really important and after this we could never “return back to normal”. We had to work out what a new, healthier normal was for the sake of the climate and ourselves. 

Then the economy stalled and the back to work propaganda began with giant adverts reminding us all how much we loved office banter. Freelance journalists wrote op-eds on the joy of the commute, filing their articles from their coastal homes by email to London offices that, I would bet, they commuted to once a week, if that. And who could forget ‘Eat Out To Help Out’?