My coronavirus lockdown: It’s a war of the classes in London

Jacqui Venter, 46, is a South African digital product manager living in London. As the infection rate spirals in the UK, she's caught the flu and has been instructed by her doctor to self-isolate — in case she has Covid-19.

The only problem is that she lives in a tiny studio flat in Soho, a very vibrant part of town. Now she has #FOMO in Soho.

It’s a war of the classes. The borough of Westminster has overtaken Kensington & Chelsea in the number of coronavirus diagnoses, making it the highest in London at 58 cases.

Soho, where I live, is in Westminster.

This is a truly wretched and perilous situation but in some vile and twisted way, I’m glad that we have stuck it to the posh "twats". Take that, you cashmere-draped weirdos! May you smother in your own silk scarves as you protect your porcelain faces from the commoners ... I’m mortified though that they will continue to contribute to the gene pool.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t be a particularly good contributor to the gene pool myself. I’m convinced that I’m mutating and becoming feral. To hide my newfound hideousness, I turned off my video conferencing camera when talking to colleagues today as I worked from the confines of my cage. We’re stacked up like that in London - little flats teetering on top of each other. Rooms within rooms above rooms; what were once houses all sliced up for maximum profit over the years. And now we’re all feral. Feral in daylight, after a long winter of short days that start in darkness and end in darkness. When we tend not to see our reflections in natural light.

Now because it is light in the mornings - naturally light - and because I don’t have any make-up on, I’m finding facial blemishes and tiny abnormalities that I didn't know existed. It’s horrifying! I can also see my cellulite in a brave, new light, thanks to rare and occasional sunbeams that make it in through the bathroom window. My body is white, like the surface of the moon. 

But there is also shade. I’ve not been able to get to the lady who removes my facial hair. My short haircut, that has a fashionable but artificial hairline, is growing back as stubble. I have black neck stubble and no access to a barber to shave it off. And nobody to shave it off for me. 

I used to have the help of my ex to paint on my blue-black hair dye, but nowadays I do a botch job of it and end up with blue ears, looking like a Smurf. In isolation, I’m out of blue-black hair dye, so I have neck stubble and silver-grey roots. It’s not going to win me any suitors, no matter how desperate they have appeared to be. I’ve gone from vamp to tramp and not in a good way.

On the up side, I don’t have access to takeaways. I’m not OK with delivery companies dropping anything off that has been prepared by many hands and delivered by yet another hand. I’ve put my chef - my pressure cooker - to good use and he’s producing some excellent dishes. To offset my feeble decline, he made me chicken and noodle soup that I ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner. As I write this, he’s making me a mutton curry. And if I may, I’m nominating myself as “Priscilla Queen of the Dessert” for coming up with the miracle that is strawberries, Greek yoghurt and Xylotol.

A friend offered to send her husband out to pick me up something from the local Tesco Express. While I have been laughing far too much at asking a guy to buy me a pie, I politely declined. 

Apparently in Wimbledon, it’s WrestleMania in the aisles of Waitrose where people reach over and around each other for bags of dry pasta and sauces while the fresh fruit and veggies weep unwanted and unconsolable in the fresh food section. Armageddon is making people eat crap and, if you think about it, the immunity boost that we all need may just be in the fresh section. 

But you’ve got to be able to go out of the house to get it. And without Freddie Mercury's moustache and Borat’s unshaved neck.

Perhaps I will make it out of here, from caterpillar in my chrysalis to a butterfly. Or rather, my innards will be beautiful, while my cosmetic appearance gives way to a hairy lip and wobbly flesh strung across a Xylophone.

At least there will be a bright glint in my wild and undomesticated eyes.