The Old Abnormal

I'm planning to go into work next Friday. The second time since lockdown began. The first was a little over a month ago, partly because my manager was in and we hadn't seen each other for four months and partly because someone was leaving. This time the manager is in but, more importantly, I've yet to meet the member of staff who joined our small team in May and has met no-one in the flesh yet. 

No pressure, my manager says, aware I suppose that infection rates are creeping up nationally and in the borough we work for. A long way from local lockdown levels, but still higher than a month ago. The office has been made as covid-secure as is feasible. Half the desks and meeting rooms taped off and the touchdown areas and 'burger booths' too. Cutlery has been removed from the kitchen, as well as all but two of the chairs. Smaller meeting rooms can only have one person in, which makes them telephone booths, effectively, and even in the largest - where we have previously accommodated 45 people in comfort around small tables - we are now only allowed 6 at a time. 

These are the things that will stop people going 'back to work' in the way that has recently been encouraged by HMG, stressing about the financial impact on central London shops and, in the long term, the value of commercial property. But even they have only said employers should bring us back  if they can do so safely - apparently unaware that we live in an era of hot desks and open plan, without even those strange dividers covered in blue fabric that used to be ubiquitous in open plan offices (I miss those actually. They weren't so high that you couldn't talk if you stood up, and you could pin doodles to them). An era of shared printers, with one kitchen on each floor and three microwaves for a whole thousand person building. 

So I'm guessing most organisations will be be like mine - about a quarter to one fifth of people will be allowed in regularly, and those in customer (in our case resident) facing roles will be prioritised. 

London seems especially short of tourists at the moment too, and however much we like to whinge about having to wait for them to take photographs of their loved ones against the backdrop of the London eye when we just want to get across the bridge to Waterloo, there is a great financial and cultural gap when they're not here. It's good for a city to have people in it who are just there to look. 

Eventually, I suppose, property might stabilise. Those businesses who need people in will need more office space to distance, at the same time that those who realise pretty much all their staff can work from home give up their leases. Other buildings will be repurposed as housing. 

But shops are in for a hammering I'm afraid. 20% of the usual trade will not support them all, and coffee chains are already closing branches. Gift and card shops and coffee shops seem likely to take the worst hit - but sheer proximity drives clothes spending too, as does having to do the whole smart casual thing. And that's before you consider that people are bracing themselves and their finances for a second wave and possible recession, their confidence that tomorrow will be like today shaken by the fact it hasn't been. 

On the other hand 20% of office staff doesn't mean 20% of people. Even in Westminster and Kensington there is a resident population who need shops. Schools and museums are reopening and teachers will be in, builders barely stopped (and there will be more work for builders if offices need to be repurposed) shop workers must buy from each other occasionally, some cleaners and tube drivers worked right through and medical staff have been increased and are trying to get the business as usual stuff done before the winter and a potential second wave. 

If the second wave hasn't actually started. At the moment we're at the 'its probably increased testing that makes it look like that' stage but, realistically, France and Spain and Germany and Portugal have seen a second wave. We can mitigate it, flatten the curve, try to keep it from the most vulnerable, and those are all things well worth doing, but we are not really in control here. 

In a strange sort of way I think that's why there is so much blame going round. It's a stage of grief, to want it to be someone's fault, because otherwise the uncaring randomness of the universe and our own lack of agency is too upsetting. We're used to thinking of humanity as the masters of the universe - we've sent machines to Mars, we've eradicated smallpox. But here we're not in charge and it frightens us, and so we look for someone to blame, as if knowing who to blame (in medieval terms, which heretics to burn) will make the bad things will go away. 

At least these days we only roast people on twitter. 

I think there will be more bad things. If footfall in shops remains below even 60% of the usual I can't see central London retail coping. Rates will have to be dropped, or other less remunerative uses found for those units, and councils will suffer a loss of income just as local families need support because they've lost income too. Transport for London is already struggling, and the bailout offered by the government comes with strings attached, asking them to withdraw subsidies from the young and the old.

It seems to me people on benefits will likely be next in line, trapping the most impoverished in their local areas.  And there will be more people on benefits as the furlough scheme winds up and shops close. 

Gloom. Gloooooom. And yet it's not all bad. Local areas like mine could be the winners. I've not been spending nearly as much as usual (see clothes shops; proximity of, as mentioned above) but what I have spent has almost all gone into my local economy. I've bought clothes in Wimbledon and coffees in Sutton and extra groceries in Morden. All of which I'm not normally around to do. 

I've been litter picking too, and I truly cannot say I miss the commute. Nor do I want TfL to go bust though. It's a tricky one.  

I have been into town a few times at the weekend, visiting exhibitions as they reopen. Warhol, Kimono, Beardsley, Jewish Manuscripts. There's a clear shift now from quiet to 'quiet for Central London'. All the exhibitions were worth a look, although the Jewish Manuscripts one was smallish and, being at the BL, more scholarly. I used to love these exhibitions on their Tuesday late nights on the way home from work - they were just the right size and the right amount of quiet, and the building itself was buzzing with students and tourists. Now although the reading rooms are open it's all pre-book and the tiers of tables and cafes closed off.  

Pictures of a fairly empty city.