Coronavirus: Wash your hands properly or you’ll be shunned! – Susan Morrison

Italy is shut. Just run that round your brain for a minute. And this isn’t in a 1950s “Highland village Wednesday half-closing/Sabbath Day” sort of shut, where the purchase of a pint of milk or a bottle of whisky was a task up there with milking unicorn tears, this is an entire country.

Strewth, mate, as our Australian cousins would say (another country shutting the doors), I do rather think we are looking at a fairly serious ­situation here. Well, we must be. Not only is almost every shop in Italy shut, panic buying has hit Tesco on Great Junction Street. Toilet rolls are as valuable as Tiffany diamonds and nary a packet of twirly pasta is to be had. On the other hand, you can hoover up as many clementines, lemons and limes as you want, since the fruit and veg aisles are still stuffed. Come the virus, it won’t be respiratory failure that gets us. It’ll be scurvy.

Why is it always toilet rolls? The minute the Grim Reaper looks to be putting in a bit of overtime, Scots stock up on the bog paper.

Survivalists in America, those gun-toting cabin dwellers who are constantly on the lookout for the end of the world, and danged ­disappointed when it doesn’t happen, have thought of this. My young friend once had the pleasure of being lectured by a group of them about surviving in a post-apocalyptic world.

One explained how to make toilet paper out of newspaper. It was quite a complex operation, involving mulching, soaking, spreading the result in the sun and cutting it into strips. Why don’t you just use the newspaper, my young pal asked? The survivalists looked aghast when she explained that’s what we used to do in Scotland with the Daily Record. They were stunned. As they rightly should be, since the Daily Record was a rubbish newspaper to use, I’m told. My family inclined towards Izal, the loo roll that rustled.

The handwashing I am completely cool with. I’ve washed my hands like that for yonks, and even got a ­commendation from an admiring nurse in the Western General who said she’d seen less rigorous ­surgeons. I’ve sung Happy Birthday twice to myself for donkey’s years. It’s a good way to remind me of my kids’ names. Presumably that’s what our Prime Minister does, but then, does he actually know them all? Tricky.

However, in Newcastle and Leeds last week – oh yes, I get around like a little virus all of my own, you know – I was pretty shocked by the number of women who simply shook their hands under the tap and waved them in the general direction of the hot hand drier. They tended to be younger, so perhaps they don’t have any kids yet to sing Happy Birthday to.

Can I suggest that we can help delay this nasty little horror by ­stationing toilet police in every public loo? We can call them Bog Bobbies. When you wash your hands to the required standard, you get a gold star. Places like John Lewis can give away a wee freebie perfume sample. Bingo. No gold star or wafting whiff of Eau l’Aire du Temps, and you’re shunned.

Global pandemic is no excuse for sloppy grammar

Someone I know called me to say that they had been “sent home to self-isolate”. Look, I don’t care if a plague of Black Death proportions is heading our way, standards must not slip.

Grammar, people, grammar. You cannot be sent into self-isolation. You can only self-isolate yourself, got it? Honestly. I’ve heard it on the BBC. Time for a letter.

His partner had obviously been in contact with our new viral friend. She called minutes later in a bit of a tizz. This raised the faintly worrying possibility of both of them being stuck in the same house for perhaps 14 days.

They are a lovely couple and under normal circumstances more than happy to share a dinner out, a quiet drink or even a lengthy walk, but the idea of being trapped in the house with only one telly to watch Netflix on was enough to send her into a tailspin.

The virus may have been bad new for humans, but I also worry about the attrition rate on our marriages and long-term relationships, although this might lead to an upswing in Scotland’s fairly miserable birth rate if we keep sealing in the breeding age ones. Every cloud...

What are we going to do with all these sealed-in families? Are we going to ping bog roll and tins of beans into front gardens?

Obviously, the idea of going full-on Mary King’s Close is thankfully out of the question. For one thing, these folk pay their council tax. Think of the loss of revenue.