Melvyn Bragg

My lockdown achievement? Getting shingles

(Getty Images)

The choir of Notre Dame made a recording of Howard Goodall’s beautiful version of Psalm 23. Unlike cathedral choirs here they are wholly adult. It is so well done. The hands of the pianist in the middle of the screen are surrounded by the faces of the performers singing the incomparable King James text in impeccable English. The four-minute piece is intercut with shots of Notre Dame before the great fire. I found it tremendously moving — tears to the eyes. A gift to the British from Paris. Who says the Entente Cordiale is dead?

I’ve been in isolation and lockdown since the middle of March. I agree with Lord Sumption (about everything!) that this is an outrageous attack on our liberty. My dog has more liberty than I do. But as a law-abiding citizen I’m going along with it. I’m lucky. A roomy house, a modest garden in which if I walk round and round it for long enough I can do between two and three miles, and a wife who makes sure I don’t break any rules. Not a visitor into the house since mid-March. There seems to be a rather desperate need to do something memorable in this lockdown. I got shingles. I’ve never known pain like it. In my left inner ear for several days there was the sound of the screaming of a trapped fox. That took care of lockdown phase one. Then I joined the club and started on Women In Love, which I had not read for 40/50 years. Lawrence is a genius but this novel so glowingly remembered seemed turgid, pretentious, intellectually unacceptable, snobbish and verging on the fascistic. Perhaps it was a kickback from the shingles? And soon a reread of a mighty Dickens fell from my hands.

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