By and large, I like to give pornography a miss.
Back in those top-shelf of WH Smith teenage years, or in the testosterone-fuelled police stations of 1980s Belfast, I’m not saying. But for a third of a century, porn has pointed its damp, arthritic fingers in other directions, until here, in Upperton, and now, in 2020, it’s back again.
According to research done at Cambridge, it’s all about releasing dopamine which is what is freed in what passes as my lockdown brain in pint-loads every time I see certain pictures. Bizarrely, though, these are not pictures that I then have to rush to delete from my search history. They are pictures of food.
Put simply, four weeks of lockdown have created in me a slavish interest in, and longing for, food that defies anything that has gone before. Food of just about any shape or colour. I start thinking about tonight’s supper before my morning coffee; by lunch time, I can think of little else. Indeed, I keep crossing the corridor to the kitchen to see if it is still where it should be, like gorgeous miniatures on at art gallery wall. If it is, then all is well in the world. By six o’clock, I am a man possessed.
Tonight, for example, we will tuck into Chicken Kievs, rice and asparagus. The Kievs are from Tesco, and I don’t even care. The rice is from some field in Bangladesh, and I don’t even care. The asparagus is from our friends down the road, and the first of the season. I am so excited that, by mid afternoon, I can scarcely think straight. After the Kievs, we will eat banana bread that Alex baked two nights ago. The thought of that banana loaf is doing my head in, even now. I find myself wanting to bring dinner forward by a couple of hours.
Tomorrow is pizzas; Saturday is home-made curry; Sunday is paella. These are not so much vague menu plans, as days of religious observance.
I need to go for a walk, and clear my search history.
Comments