The hypochondriac's guide to convincing yourself you've got COVID-19

BIT of a headache? Slight cough? Friend of a friend back from France? You might be able to convince yourself you’ve got the coronavirus. 

Washing your hands a lot

Are you soaping your hands for as long as it takes to sing the first verse of any Ramones song? Applying hand sanitiser so frequently your fingers are like mummy’s claws? Do these preventative measures somehow mean you might have COVID-19? Then you might.

You met some people recently

Met some people? Could those people have met other people? And could those other people be from or have visited China, France, the US or Bolton? You’ve got it for sure.

Keep blowing your nose

When you came back from lunch, after walking through five minutes of freezing wind, you blew your nose three times then treated your bin like it was a plutonium container and the geiger counters are going crazy.

A dry cough

It’s irrelevant that you scored weed and have been smoking heavily all week. This cough is seriously dry. Everyone knows what that means.

You’re a bit hot

Sweating in fact. It’s not the cardigan, it’s not the radiator, it’s not that you’ve just eaten a bag of sweet chilli and red pepper crisps. You’re part of the pandemic.

Man wearing same clothes since 2003 hailed as pioneer of sustainable fashion

A 35-YEAR-OLD man still wearing the same clothes he wore at university has been named as an icon of sustainable fashion. 

A backlash against fast fashion has seen Nathan Muir, whose newest item of clothing is a Christmas jumper bought eight years ago, recognised by style experts for his capsule wardrobe of just 21 items.

He said: “Apparently I’m at the forefront of ethical fashion because more than half my clothes came free as part of a sports team, business or stag do.

“I also have a fleece gifted me by a corporate sponsor at a work charity run ten years ago, which Stella McCartney complimented personally and which I wear most weekends, evenings and holidays.

“I’ve read that it’s best not to wash fleece fabrics very often as they shed microfibres into the water supply which is another win for me, since I operate a strict sauce-spills-only washing policy for my ‘top layers’.

“Mine isn’t a look you can just ‘get’. If you want to still be wearing T-shirts you were given on university sports tours in 2004, you have to start early.”

Muir’s partner Helen Archer said: “Nathan is the Greta Thunberg of men approaching middle age who can’t be bothered to make any effort.”