o it’s been a bit of a
weird few months. I
know that because at
the last count, I have
had 12,037 emails that begin “Dear
[insert name] I hope you and your
loved ones are safe and well during
this crazy time.” Then, pleasantries
having been dispensed with, they
add: “We have a new phone charger
that would be great for you to write
about on techradar.com, [name]!”
In some ways, the Great
Lockdown of 2020 was a gift, to
those of us who remained healthy.
I’d also get emails from work
contacts I actually do know,
asking if I was going to write
something about those
headphones they sent me three
weeks ago. I would say, “Sorry, it’s
been a crazy time,” and they would
just say, “Yes, it is terrible, I hope
you and yours are well and safe, at
this crazy time.” Suckers.
Of course, this crisis will have a
terrible and long-lasting impact on
most parts of the tech world.
Product development has been
stalled, this year’s big launches will
be way less successful than they
would have been and certain
sectors – hi-fi, for instance – have
been put under awful pressure.
The ironic thing is, though, that
certain brands must have done
extremely well out of it all. At
T3.com we’ve seen record traffic,
as a captive audience of extremely
bored people desperately looked
for stuff to buy. It’s certainly not
only been makers of toilet roll who
have benefitted from the craziness.
With hindsight, loo roll was the
canary in the coal mine that warned
us all the world was about to go
mad. The sight of people wrestling
over Andrex is a disturbing one
that will linger long in the sharedmemory.
Personally,
I did not
stockpile that. In
fact the only thing
I stockpiled was
dishwasher tablets. I figure if
push comes to shove, I can wipe
my arse with anything, but I sure as
hell am not going back to doing the
dishes manually. No way.
As ‘full lockdown’ approached,
another thing I slightly panicked
about was record player styluses.
No, really. I bought a new turntable
just before it all kicked off, and it
did not come with a cartridge.
I ended up getting one just in
time, with the help of Audio-
Technica. I had to call up a woman
working from her kitchen and pay
for it over the phone, which isn’t
something I’ve done for a while.
Disaster averted, though.buying
home gym
equipment, and not drinking, so as
to avoid ‘lockdown weight gain’.
But in order to do that, I’ve had to
push aside vast swathes of empties
from my kitchen table, in order to
make space for both my laptop and
my now enormous gut.
Some of the sell-out items came
more out of left field. Have you
ever considered buying a hot tub
before? No, me neither. But a run
of hot days in early spring, coupled
with the stark realisation that the
garden was gonna get a lot of use
this year, sent them flying off
shelves. I did a roundup of where
you could buy hot tubs – the
Pulitzer Prize is nailed on, I’m sure- and it immediately started doing
a load of traffic that did not let up
until all of the hot tubs in Britain
had sold out.
There was a lot of talk of people
using bots to snap up sought-after
items, with a view to reselling them
at a fat profit. So maybe all the hot
tubs ended up in one guy’s garage,
just as the hot spell came to an end.
Watch out for them on eBay.
Hopefully by the time you read
this, the worst will be over and the
‘situation’ more stabilised. I’m
writing this one on the day we go to
press. Not because I’m lazy, you
understand. It’s just been a crazy
time. Stay safe.
“Loo roll was the canary
in the coal mine that
warned us all the world
was about to go mad”
S
While I was probably among a
small handful of people desperate
to buy a record player cartridge, I
know that lots of tech things
immediately began to sell out.
Certain products were as sought-
after as gold, or quilted bum wipes.
Some of these things made
perfect sense – hair clippers and
home gym equipment, for instance.
Another great irony of this period
has been that I’ve found myself
editing a lot of online stories aboutJUNE 2020 T3 27Opinion
Duncan Bell is
on lockdown
The great hot tub frenzy of 2020 and why you
should always stockpile dishwasher tablets