Stop pressuring people to transform themselves during lockdown | Annie Lewis

Each day in lockdown is a new opportunity to learn a new skill, hobby, get fitter, get fatter or whatever else you fancy doing.

Even my own mum has realised there are only so many times you can clean the kitchen and has taken up yoga – the lounge is now a very zen place to be.

However, what is really starting to bug me is how some people are turning this pandemic into a productivity contest.

I saw a tweet last week which read: ‘If you don’t come out of isolation with a new skill, job or hobby, then you’ve wasted your time.’

Maybe it’s just social media – Instagram and Twitter especially – which is pressurising people to become super-bendy, banana-bread-baking, toned, marathon-running, glowing individuals who have several strings to their bow.

I, for one, wouldn’t blame anyone for sleeping through the entire thing. If you have washed your hair in the past week, I applaud you.

The situation we are in is strange – and, for many, terrifying – and people pretending that it isn’t don’t help. Of course, this is an opportunity to better yourself. In fact, it could be a welcome distraction from the shocking reality outside.

But the saying ‘you do you’ has never been more apt.

If all you fancy doing is reading books, binge watching a TV series, ordering a takeaway and talking on the phone for hours while not giving into the hype of learning something new or changing yourself in some way, I say crack on.

Everyone should be focusing on getting through lockdown, one way or another, and if your way of doing that isn’t trendy then it really doesn’t matter.

So if you’re one of many shovelling it down people’s throats that they need to have accomplished something by the time we’re out of this, mind your own business and eat your banana bread.

Why should the government bail out Richard Branson?

As Virgin Australia goes into administration, its multi-billionaire part-owner is quaking in his boots.

Sir Richard Branson – the man who sued the NHS in 2016 – has begged for a government bailout to save his suffering airline, Virgin Atlantic.

It also transpires that he has offered up his Caribbean island, which he moved to 14 years ago, as collateral. The business mogul claims he’s asking for a £500m commercial loan, not a hand out, however it really does sound like the latter.

Easy research shows Branson’s annual salary stands at a cushty $6m. Perhaps he should dig a little deeper into his own pocket and save his own business? It seems like he has the money to. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Tabloids get bitter now they are cut off from Sussexes

I’m sure as you’re reading this, someone is tapping out a horrible comment about Meghan and Harry. But that’s alright, isn’t it? It’s free speech, after all.

The latest hate storm whirling around the Duke and Duchess of Sussex emerged on Monday after they claimed they were going to have ‘zero engagement’ with the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, The Sun and Daily Express.

It was funny to see Daily Mirror associate editor, Kevin Maguire, react to the story and write a tweet suggesting his paper was too busy to cover the Sussexes at the moment anyway – despite them publishing seven stories about the couple in the space of 48 hours before.

They sound a little bitter to me.