The Economist February 13th 2021 Business 63
I
t has beena year since the pandemic
started to affect Western societies.
Here is how one columnist coped as the
months unfolded.
February/March: In the beginning,
all was confusion. In the early stages a
“last days of Saigon” feel pervaded the
city centre. The trains and offices became
steadily less crowded; more and more
shops closed for lack of staff. Parents
turned into hunter-gatherers, desperate-
ly foraging in the supermarket aisles for
the last supplies of pasta. Successful
scavengers’ trolleys overflowed with
rolls of toilet paper. People were braced
for dystopia.
Office workers hastily caught up on
the disaster-recovery plans they had
previously ignored and were grateful if
they were able to get a good broadband
connection. Bartleby remembered that
he had left all his research back at the
office and made a sheepish return to a
near-empty building. Heading back out
with a rucksack of books and papers, he
felt like a very nerdish barbarian partici-
pating in the sack of Rome.
April: Some individuals were still
struggling to master Zoom etiquette.
Faced with an editorial meeting on a
bank holiday, Bartleby combined it with
a soothing river walk. At some point, his
phone (while still in his pocket) became
unmuted, meaning that his heavy trudge,
and heavy breathing, was audible to
every other participant on the call. In
blissful ignorance, he returned home to a
blizzard of emails, tweets and WhatsApp
messages telling him to shut up. Sure
enough, “you’re on mute” and “please
mute yourself” became the breakout
phrases of 2020.
May: Perhaps the best month of the
lockdown. The British weather was good,
with the sunniest spring on record,
making it possible to work in the garden.
The novelty of working from home had yet
to wear off, and the absence of the daily
commute was still a blessing.
June: A “Groundhog Day” syndrome
had set in. Every day seemed the same;
weekends lost their meaning. The main
dilemma for the month was whether to
cancel the summer holiday, or to hold on
in the hope that the decline in covid-19
cases was permanent. The prospect of any
break in routine seemed absurdly alluring.
July: Foreign holiday cancelled. Start to
fantasise about ways of shortening Zoom
meetings. How about a countdown clock,
like the ones on television game shows, as
speakers approach the one-minute mark,
with a loud buzzer at the end? Hint to all
participants: when the person chairing the
meeting asks, “Does anyone else have any
comments?”, the correct answer is invar-
iably “No”.
August: Rain ruins short domestic
holiday. Restaurants reopen and Britons
recreate the feasts of Bacchanalia. “Eat,
drink and be merry for tomorrow we get
locked down” seems to be the (prescient)
motto. Meetings no shorter on return to
work. More extreme measures clearly
required: a mild electric shock for those
who speak for more than two minutes?
Or the “raise hand” button could be
converted into a “thumbs down” func-
tion. If more than half the participants
press it, the speaker is cut off.
September: Just as The Economist
organises weekly in-person gatherings
so staff can start the process of returning
to work, cases begin to rise. Tip for read-
ers: if Bartleby is invited to a summer
party in 2021, it is a sign of the impend-
ing apocalypse.
October: Head back to now-empty
office to pick up more books. Feel like
archaeologist analysing ancient civ-
ilisation. In this era, humans sat in glass
booths so they could be observed at all
times. They also gathered in “meeting
rooms” to take part in religious ceremonies
conducted by a priest known as the “man-
ager”, who recited a long list of meaningless
tasks penitents must undertake.
November: British government im-
poses new national lockdown on No-
vember 5th. From this year on, the date
will no longer be commemorated as “Guy
Fawkes night” but as “Boris Johnson
day”. All citizens will celebrate by wear-
ing masks, washing their hands obses-
sively and avoiding their neighbours.
December: The house has lights, and
a tree. But the real meaning of Christmas
now becomes clear: no more Zoom meet-
ings for at least a week. Not just silent
nights, but silent days as well.
January: The vaccines are on their
way to save us. Perhaps at some point in
2021 Bartleby will be back on the London
underground, crammed in like a sardine
while waiting for the platform to clear at
Earl’s Court. Suddenly, social isolation
doesn’t seem so bad after all.
A columnist confronts the pandemic
BartlebyDiary of a plague year
the buyers, the bankers and officials in-
volved were hauled before the authorities
and grilled about selling too cheaply. Ms
Sitharaman’s announcement has already
led to an outcry from Mr Modi’s political
opponents, for whom state ownership of
the economy’s commanding heights is a
point of pride—never mind that those
heights look distinctly unHimalayan.
Government officials have been meet-
ing business groups to say this time is dif-
ferent. People close to those encounters
say the effort could be charitably described
as sloppy. But that it is being done at all
suggests a degree of sincerity on the part of
Mr Modi’s administration that previous ef-
forts lacked. The reason is India’s covid-
battered finances. Without the $24bn Ms
Sitharaman hopes to raise from the asset
sales, the central government’s fiscal gap
would expand from about 9.5% to 12% of
gdp, putting India’s sovereign rating at
greater risk of a downgrade.
Between lic and Bharat Petroleum,
which has a market capitalisation of $12bn
and is half-owned by the state, the govern-
ment could be two-thirds of the way to-
wards its goal, bankers in Mumbai report.
An accounting firm has been engaged to
prepare lic’s books, a necessary first step
for a planned initial public offering. Tata
Sons, a big conglomerate, is said to be in-
terested in Air India, which it used to own
before nationalisation in the 1950s. Three
bidders have their eyes on Bharat, includ-
ing two global private-equity funds.
The first buyer in the new era of privati-
sation could be inadvertent. There is some
speculation that the cash-strapped govern-
ment may grant Cairn Energy, a British
firm, a state-owned oilfield as part of a set-
tlement over retroactive taxes.