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The top 10 best places to get pinged

PINGING is Britain’s new craze, with the country going wild for getting an alert on the NHS app and having to self-isolate. But where’s the coolest place for it to happen? 

In the club

Nightclubs open Monday, and there’s no cooler sound when you’re lighting up the dancefloor than the ping of Covid contact from your phone. ‘All back to mine for the next 10 days!’ you roar, to cheers.

On the beach

Our summer this year will be spent domestically, to the gentle sound of waves on the shore, cawing gulls and a chorus of pings from phones. Ensure you’ve not been buried up to the neck in the sand when everyone else gets theirs.

In the cinema

Has Black Widow just got a text? Nope, it’s you and by extension everyone watching the movie. You may as well stay for the post-credits scene now, you won’t be going anywhere else anytime soon.

In the bedroom

‘Did you..?’ ‘Have you just..?’ Yeah baby, you heard it. We just got pinged and now we’re locked in for a 10-day sex session. Brace yourself.

At work

Everyone’s back in the office because the boss doesn’t trust you to work from home because you’ve only been doing it for 18 months. At 9.08am you get pinged, and pinball around the desks making sure to get within 2m of everyone, to their delight.

On a train

To celebrate once you receive your ping, ask fellow passengers to line each side of the carriage and run down it high-fiving everyone on board. No more f**king commuting for you.

While already self-isolating

Got pinged already? Get pinged again? You’ve just lengthened your period of blissful solitude at home. And if someone walks past your house with Covid on the 10th day and it gets picked up on your Bluetooth? Pinged again, and it still counts.

The six most nightmarish weirdos in Tesco after 9pm

IF you’ve ever found yourself in a 24-hour Tesco, you may have been spooked by encountering the late-night shoppers that haunt the aisles. Here they are:

The single item customer

Contraceptives, alcohol, lifesaving medication: these are the only excusable items to be purchasing in isolation. Otherwise, there is no late-night sight that chills the blood colder than a grown man watching the conveyor belt carry his singular Müller corner.

The family

A family in a supermarket is not ordinarily an unsettling sight. But at midnight? This leaves more questions than answers, and answers you don’t necessarily want to hear.

The whistler

The post-apocalyptic mood of a supermarket during the early hours is bad enough. Nobody needs a melancholic old man whistling a tune from days gone by. Especially not next to the butchered meat.

The big shopper

Many will try to defend the idea of doing a Big Shop at night, with all sorts of lines about how much less crowded and stressful it is. However, there’s a reason Tesco isn’t rammed with people doing their Big Shops in the middle of the night. And it’s because it’s f**king bizarre.

The connoisseur

Cool, calm and collected, this cultured customer is in no rush to get home before sunrise. Weighing up the pros and cons of various sun-dried tomato brands is annoying at the best of times, but doing so in the path of the staff member trying to mop the floors is downright psychotic.

 You

Yes, you. What makes you the most nightmarish of all the weirdos is that you think you’re the normal one. Whatever your excuse, if you find yourself in the fruit and veg aisle between the hours of 9pm and 6am, you’re just as bad as the rest of them.

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