I haven’t kept up with the news since the pandemic – but I’ve never felt more liberated

After a heady newsfest, with notifications on my phone pinging at all hours during lockdown, I’ve been switched off for over a month now and it’s been bliss, writes Konnie Huq

Konnie Huq had an overdose of news during lockdown (Getty Images)

Every now and then I get an email from The Independent, often during holiday time. To be honest, since lockdown started I’ve lost track of holiday time, although I did manage to know when the Easter break was as it heralded a much-welcomed respite from homeschooling.

Back then, in late March/ early April (the Stone Ages), I was counting down the days ‘til it started. Homeschooling never ever made a full recovery thereafter. I’ve not only lost track of holiday time, I’ve lost track of work time, days of the week, weekends, evenings, mornings. I’ve lost track of time in general. Things aren’t helped by BST (being severely torpid or rather British Summer Time as some would call it), which incidentally began six days into lockdown.

It sometimes gets to 6pm and I think it’s still 3pm in the afternoon and the reverse. Curse those daylight hours. Lockdown time is really warped, it’s like being in an alternate universe. My friend likens it to having kids, it feels like you had them yesterday and time’s whizzed by so fast but when you think back to BC, or rather "before children", it seems like millennia ago.

Similarly, although the whole Covid thing is a relatively recent occurrence, when I reminisce about the heady days of sitting down in a seat next to someone, shaking hands with another living person, or crowdsurfing in the mosh pit of a really cool gig to a backdrop of pumping music, it feels like an eternity ago. Ok, so I’ve never done the latter, but you get my drift.

Another thing lockdown seems to have done is exacerbate my propensity to go off on tangents. So, anyway, every now and then I get an email from The Independent, informing me that Janet Street-Porter is going to be away, and asking if I can write a column in her absence. That’s what happened this week.

Usually, I’ll think yeah, OK, there was that funny thing in the news about Burger King introducing a plant-based burger unsuitable for vegans or ... oh good, Donald Trump said that dumb thing about such and such. I can give my piece of mind on that, have a rant, and get it out of my system in a therapeutic way with no right to reply. Not that Trump would ever reply to anything I have to say anyway. Having said that, in the Twittersphere, he has bots do that for him. The amount of trolling I got when I once commented that Trump’s hair moonlights as Dougal. Some people can’t take a joke. But this time, I read the name of the commissioning editor in my inbox and felt a mild sense of panic. “But I know nothing,” was the instant thought that came into my head, there’s no way I can do this, I’ll be found out instantly. The pressure. I immediately set about starting the wheels in motion to politely decline...

You see, another thing lockdown has done is dampen my thirst for keeping up with news and current affairs. In the early days, it was the total opposite. News was my staple diet. R number is this, China’s done that, Trump’s just said something silly, and so on. I would tune in to the daily briefings without fail as though it were an unmissable appointment to view TV or my latest compulsive box set series.

I’d have news notifications on my phone pinging up at all hours in real-time. I’d even click on links from bulletins to more lengthy articles, tracking news globally both corona and non-corona related. It was like it was my bid to keep integrated with the world outside, while living this new lockdown lifestyle barricaded up in between the four walls of my suburban dwelling under house arrest.

At least I knew I was still very much in touch, despite being housebound with two primary school children ricocheting off the walls with boundless energy and a nocturnal husband with a screen addiction.

Then there was the TV show we made in our front room. That definitely kept my 24-hour rolling news habit fed and sated. Antiviral Wipe (still on BBC iPlayer if you fancy a viewing, it’s quite good, even if I do say so myself!) was a blow-by-blow account of Covid-19 as it unfolded, and aired on BBC2 in early May (the Bronze Age). It was very much a "Basil Fawlty" television production in which we all pitched in. I did a bit of set dressing, hair and makeup and even autocue operating. Pouring over the script was a reminder of how much had happened fast and in a very short amount of time.

Since the debut appearance of the virus in late 2019 (the Ice Age) the government had asserted this and that, backtracked on that and this and been very unclear and not strategic in general on the other. The nature of the situation meant that everything had continually moved so quickly on a daily basis, it was hard to appreciate how haphazard their behaviour had been until collated and documented in a coherent fashion (Antiviral Wipe, do check it out on BBC iPlayer).

We had been blinded by shock and awe, giving them carte blanche to do whatever. This behaviour continued and then in late May (the Iron Age?) it came to light Dominic Cummings had flouted the rules and driven to Barnard Castle to check his eyesight. People had missed out on seeing loved ones before their passing, relationships had broken down, mental illness had gone up and this? Suffice to say the nation (me included) was utterly pissed off. How long would this thing last? How much more of R numbers, death rates, and daily briefings could one stomach?

Around the beginning of the school summer holidays (not that I was completely sure thanks to the death of homeschooling way back when and the ongoing, ever-shifting deadline of my upcoming children’s anthology Fearless Fairy Tales), Trump advocated drinking bleach (the book incidentally now features the tale of a dumb, clueless orange autocrat called Trumplestiltskin, no guesses where the inspiration for that came from). At the same time, lockdown eased. This meant that we could up sticks, break free from the shackles tying us down, and head to sunny Devon to a barn in a field with only horses for neighbours and a very limited Internet connection, much to my husband’s horror. The sight of him pacing up and down in long grass trying to eke out better phone reception, while on a call to Netflix USA, is a holiday memory that won’t be making it into the photo album.

It was also a life-changing moment, one that made me switch off the world outside. Suddenly no alerts, notifications, bulletins, only horses and grass. Since then I’ve had no idea of R, what Trump’s been up to, or Boris for that matter, who by all accounts has been AWOL anyway. The liberation! Ignorance is bliss.

Last year I presented a podcast series called Switch Off for the Beeb. The premise was people would come off news and social media for a week in a detox-style and then share their profound experiences and enlightenment on the show. It was great fun, but the downside was it was hard to find guests who could do this. Many people had projects to promote, shows to research, and livelihoods that depended on staying switched on. I’ve been switched off for over a month now. It has been bliss. But the downside is I have nothing to write a column about.

Konnie Huq is a broadcaster and author. Her books Fearless Fairy Tales and Trumplestiltskin are available for preorder now