Six films to make you count your blessings about lockdown, or whatever

LOCKDOWN 2 is here, promising to be as good as Ghostbusters 2. These six movies should make you realise being stuck at home again isn’t so bad. Or not:

A Quiet Place

A family have to live silently in a cellar or be torn limb-from-limb by alien monsters with sensitive hearing. Emily Blunt has to give birth without a sound. Working from home for months can grind you down, but it’s pretty chilled compared to this.

The Great Escape

Being incarcerated in the house can feel like Stalag Luft, with family members much less cool than Steve McQueen. But you can leave the front garden without being machine-gunned, and it won’t last six years. Unless the government still can’t sort test-and-trace which is a distinct possibility.

The Shawshank Redemption

There’s a curfew on pubs and you can’t meet friends, but Andy Dufresne is wrongly serving life for murder while stalked by rapists. Relatively speaking, being surrounded by idiots failing to socially distance in Asda is a joyful experience you should treasure forever.

Buried Alive

This horror film has a positive message in these turbulent times: even if lockdown is making you feel claustrophobic, it’s not as bad as waking up buried in a coffin. Guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

I Am Legend

At least you don’t have to live in a heavily fortified apartment to avoid mutants. Although after another six months of lockdown, solo flat-dwellers may feel like the last human alive and be craving death-by-poorly-animated-zombie.

1984

Whatever new restrictions come in, they won’t be as oppressive as Orwell’s no-sex surveillance dystopia. It’s also unlikely that Covid marshals will be allowed to put a cage of rats over your head, though it’s going through Michael Gove’s head every minute of every day.

Consider subscribing - so we can write more funny content. .js-article{ display:none;}

The things about Britain's shit trains that won't be changing, by Grant Shapps

RAIL franchises are being scrapped, but rest assured you’ll still be getting the shitehouse train service that is every Briton’s birthright. These things won’t change:

Standing up

Whether on a packed commuter train or your regular London to Doncaster, standing up for an entire journey you’ve paid the highest prices in Europe for is part of the Great British Railway Experience. Ideal for anyone suffering calf pain or frotterers.

Rip-off prices

I’ve pledged to make the ticket system less confusing by eliminating all those baffling lower prices and moving to a standard minimum fare of £40, whatever the journey. Peak-time singles will remain a jaw-dropping £279. I am cunning like a fox.

Feeble excuses

You’ll still be grinding your teeth in fury when you’re stuck for an hour in Birmingham because a driver hasn’t arrived, and you’ll still get laughable service announcements like ‘The train is delayed because earlier trains were delayed.’ Shortly followed by blanket cancellations.

Vile chicken sandwiches

The signature dish of the train journey is a disgusting chicken sandwich. Served cold and tasting largely of cold, the soggy bread is garnished with thin mayonnaise that resembles spunk, but with less flavour.

Bellend passengers

I give my word that there will be even fewer guards to deal with bellends playing music without headphones, letting some sort of pit bull wander around the carriage, or trying to chat up female passengers unfortunate enough to sit next to them.

Next story ›