Trapped in a never-ending quest for that ‘e-loo-sive’ roll | Matt Mohan-Hickson

Now since these items are rare, they require much time and effort to hunt down – you often have to find specific slightly less rare parts or jump over other hurdles. Personally I’ve always loathed these kinds of quests and have swerved well clear of them.

So I never expected to find myself involved in a real-life version of one. Let alone that the rare item I would be searching high and low for would turn out to be... loo roll.

Yet here I am, going to increasingly desperate lengths to find this precious and valuable item.

When the images of the barren shelves first appeared online, I found myself chuckling away.

‘Bunch of idiots’” I thought to myself, never expecting the shortages would last more than a day – oh how I have had to eat humble pie.

My quest started at my local shop, the Asda at Fratton and has since spread out across the city.

I’ve gone all the way to Southsea to try my luck at Waitrose, thinking perhaps the bourgeois might not have indulged in the collective mass hoarding that has suddenly swept the city.

But alas, no luck. The white gold – as I have come to name it – continues to evade me.

And I’m not alone in being set on this quest to hunt down loo roll by the game of life, in fact one of my housemate’s boyfriends ventured all the way from London to Manchester so he could stock up.

Somehow we’ve all become trapped in the same gameplay loop, rushing out to the nearest shop to try to grab as much loo roll as we can and if there is none we just move on to the next store. With seemingly no end.

Hopefully, by the time you read this I will have finally finished the quest and levelled up to one of those smug people sitting on mountains of loo roll.

Nostalgia is proving the ideal way to deal with CV anxiety

Coronavirus has been like a tidal wave heading to us for weeks now. You could see it in the distance looming large but it was far enough away that it didn’t feel real.

That wave has arrived. We’ve had the first deaths in Portsmouth, cinemas and theatres shut and schools closed. I've been feeling terrified on more occasions than I would care to admit. So I’ve been diving into nostalgia to calm my anxious mind.

Sticking on Johnny Cash Live at Folsom Prison, the first album I remember listening to with my dad – flashbacks to singing A Boy Named Sue in the car on the way to rugby. In coming weeks, I’ll return to it – to find some normality in unprecedented times.

It’s not all bad, I’ve got 600 episodes of The Simpsons to watch

In the Godfather Part III, Michael Corleone says: ‘Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.’

This springs to mind each time I see one of the Disney Plus adverts, the new streaming service from the House of Mouse offering, among other things, The Simpsons as well as Marvel and Pixar films.

After I was lured into subscribing to Apple TV +, I swore I wouldn’t subscribe to another streaming service. I already have Netflix, Amazon Prime and NowTV burning a hole in my wallet on top of BBC iPlayer.

At least I have the excuse of coronavirus to cover my shame of forking out for Disney Plus. What else is there to do except watch 600 episodes of The Simpsons?