I miss my friends. The passing of time may have scattered my core group of childhood / young adulthood friends to the four corners of the planet (due to jobs and relationships), but over the past 25 or so years we always made time to meet up whenever possible and had more recently gotten into the habit of planning one annual trip away together. But COVID 19 and its related lockdowns has taken that away from us and now we are left with the occasional Zoom calls and our WhatsApp group.

As WhatsApp groups go, it is definitely one of the better ones (currently competing with my “dad, aunts and uncles” WhatsApp group for top content). First of all we have a broad geographic spread with residents in the US and Belgium and a bonus Asian living in Ireland to give us a global perspective on any hot topic. Although we probably could do with someone from the UK for full coverage given Brexit and all that. A full screening process will be required for new entrants, please see Ewan McGregor interviewing potential housemates in Shallow Grave “what on earth could make you think that we would want to share a WhatsApp group like this with someone like you?” I jest of course, we’re not interviewing at present!

We also have a broad range of professional backgrounds from law-talking guys, to pharmaceuticalists (I know this isn’t a word but feels most appropriate for people who know about pharmaceuticals but don’t work in a pharmacy), to civil servants, to law enforcement officers, to doctors and yours truly as financial services person and wild card! In truth everyone on the group thinks of him or herself as the the wild card. We have a female within the group which I find keeps things on the straight and narrow when they are threatening to get out of control, actually scrap that she is likely to be the one sharing the less than PC stuff. There is pretty much an interesting take on every subject from amorous snails to the best movies of Jack Black (High Fidelity for me). There are a few recurring themes, the top seven of which would probably be (i) bad jokes, you wouldn’t believe the amount of times I’ve checked my phone for something urgent to find a pun about Fergal Sharkey in a fireplace store looking for a good hearth or something similar, (ii) reciting our favourite lines from Modern Family, needs no explanation it’s just so goddam funny, (iii) decrying the high humidity levels which have made our alcohol disappear, seems to be especially a factor in Belgium and the US, (iv) nostalgia for TV programmes of our childhood, did you know Floella Benjamin was on Desert Island Discs last week? (v) anything which involves a poll particularly if it’s on the Guardian web-site, please see the greatest UK no.1s of all time which nearly tore the group apart! https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/apr/27/the-100-greatest-uk-no-1s (vi) Trump and anything Trump related, actually our US member tends to steer clear of this one probably because it’s too close to home but safe to say we normally have a good chuckle and eye-roll at his latest outburst (I have personally championed Sarah Cooper’s approach on a number of occasions) and last but not least (vii) COVID 19, enough said really, we used to talk about it a lot, particularly on our zoom calls, but now like everyone we try to avoid it because it’s just so damn depressing.

Then just when we think we have exhausted our stock of witty banter and repartee one member of the group will butt-dial us all for a group call (actually he clearly is the wild card) and then blame his young daughter. It’s like the moment when the bar staff would drop and smash a pint glass and everybody in the pub gives a cheer. We all smile and shake our heads and go back to our daily life.

Still much as the WhatsApp group provides a great source of amusement and I actually know far more about my friends’ daily lives than I ever did before (like they don’t spend as much time working as they should), it still doesn’t match the enjoyment of meeting face to face. In fact the last time a few of us got together was back in late January / early February in the excellent Boco pizzeria on Bolton Street and I can remember asking our resident doctor what he thought about this coronavirus emerging in China? He shrugged and said nobody knows but it doesn’t look good! Of course we did have an ad hoc Irish meet-up during the summer lull in COVID 19 cases but I chose not to go as cases had just spiked to 200 that day. The increases since then and subsequent lockdowns have shown that perhaps that was a bad call on my part!

Anyway we shall keep going on our WhatsApp group, who knows maybe this blog will generate some discussion. And perhaps next year we will meet up again to sing some songs, drink some beer and play Belgian charades!