Self-isolation: Day 55

Up until yesterday I had nothing to write about and  was quite looking forward to the challenge of writing a blog about absolutely nothing (so what’s new? I can hear you ask).  But then we had an  outbreak of Events (it’s all relative, but the capital E is deliberate).

My hybrid car, the one I’ve mentioned before that hasn’t got a  starting handle or a handbrake, has become a victim of the lockdown.  The battery is flat and the car will not start.   Furthermore, the doors that normally lock remotely, wont lock.  No reassuring clunk, no flashing lights to tell me all is secure.  At first I thought this was a major snag but then realised that even if someone (who? – the underground car park is deserted) discovered that the doors weren’t locked, they wouldn’t be able to nick the car since it wont start.  All they could do is pretend to drive it, presumably making brroom, brroom noises like Mr Toad (completely overlooking the fact that the car is a hybrid and pulls away without making a sound).

I’ve decided to leave the car comatose until the lockdown is lifted and I can get the AA to come and resuscitate it.  But when might that be?  Perhaps the tyres, not just the battery,  will be flat by then and maybe the AA will have ceased  to exist.

Pigeons next.  They have found their way into a fenced space that houses some air conditioning units.  There is a net stretched over the whole area but somehow three pigeons have found their way in and seem incapable of remembering how they did it. There is nothing to eat or drink and they spend  all day standing on top of the units looking puzzled.  I’ve told them that I was once involved in an experiment to train pigeons to peck circles and ignore squares by using a combination of positive and negative reinforcement: a food pellet when they pecked a circle and a small electric shock when they pecked a square.  They got the hang of it remarkably quickly.  However, the pigeons trapped in the netted area next to us seem unmoved (literally) by tales of my previous encounters with their forebears. They don’t even flinch at the mention of electric  shocks.

In the evening after, as you have gathered, an exhausting day, an email arrived from a  friend  saying, ‘wondering…….where are you?  Just tried to look at your blog’.  Since the friend in question knew perfectly well where I was (trapped in Windsor) I didn’t answer straight away and resumed my pondering about pigeons. After a while it dawned on me that she was probably wondering, not where I was, but where my blog was.  It was then that I made a dramatic discovery: my website had been suspended!  In large letters it said ‘THIS WEBSITE HAS BEEN SUSPENDED’.   No reason was given, no apology, just the bald announcement.

I was nonplussed.  My innocent little website is 10 years old and nothing like this has happened before.  I assumed my website must have fallen foul of whoever police websites.  Perhaps the workaholic in the office opposite that I mentioned in my last blog had taken umbrage?  Perhaps the government had objected to me taking the mickey out of their daily briefings?  Perhaps an unknown visitor had posted a comment that had caused my website to fall foul of obscenity laws?

I sent an urgent message to the people who host my website (once I had remembered my password, in the circumstances a major achievement). A prompt reply said my website had been restored but that, ‘the malware system had detected infected files hosted under you hosting space’ and added, presumably  wishing to be helpful, ‘you do have a virus scanner in your cPanel to rescan your hosting space’.  Unfortunately I haven’t a clue what this means.

So, while the pigeons sit there wondering how to get out of the space containing the air conditioning units, I sit here wondering how to rescan my hosting space.

Quite a lot to think about.  Thank goodness I, unlike the pigeons, have nothing more pressing to do.