AS THE country continues to be in lockdown the Chronicle’s regular columnist, former TV anchorman and communications skills coach Khalid Aziz has given an insight into his isolation

In the early 1900s “Typhoid Mary” Mallon, a cook, managed to infect more than fifty people in New York, three of whom died. She herself was asymptomatic and in denial. She had to be imprisoned before she would submit to testing.

Fast forward a hundred years and now we have Corona Kevin and his legginged and oft tattooed, peripatetic partner Corona Kayleigh. Not satisfied with having conducted their own version of supermarket sweep they’re the idiots who have chosen to ignore the strictures of Corona positive Prime Minister Boris Johnson, happily drive to beauty spots, arrange barbecues with their mates and continue to congregate around bus shelters and spit on police officers.

Good to hear straight talking from my old friend Lord (Stuart) Rose (Ocado, M&S) who told hoarders to calm down, pointing out that a billion pounds worth of excess groceries were bought two weeks ago which should keep people going (particularly the loo rolls?).

Contrast that with the vast majority who clearly “get it” and are doing their best.

A clarion call for volunteers to help out with NHS chores, food deliveries etc. was oversubscribed threefold. That’s more like it. Individual acts of kindness abound. Like that of my dear brother-in-law, Bill. Having been forced to close his Cornish holiday park just as their season was getting underway, he left his family in Hampshire to open his luxury lodges, free of charge, to emergency doctors and nurses drafted in to Treliske Hospital from up country.

Last week I said the devil would be in the detail of Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s emergency business support measures. And so it was.

Employers are subsidised 80 per cent of staff wages but only if employees do absolutely no work for the business. This is bonkers and smacks of the dead hand of Treasury officialdom. For some businesses - retail, hospitality - it clearly works but service businesses such as ours need to keep some kind of marketing activity going. And what about when we start to come out of this? All businesses will need to ramp up. It would be good if they could do this while sacrificing as little of their cash as possible.

Meanwhile, Spring is sprung. The trees are in bud, ready to burst. The ducks and geese on St Mary Bourne lake have been at it for weeks with ducklings already putting in an appearance.

My new hens, hatched by my good friend Anna, are laying well and omelettes are very much the order of the day. We thought we had five hens but one of them turned out to be a boy and very splendid he is too. They’re Buff Orpingtons so look just as hens should.

We’re getting used to Zoom. I have chaired several meetings remotely; for Aziz Corporate, and for Enham Trust - still business as usual and thankfully our hundreds of adults with disabilities are so far free of Corona, our fantastic staff Keeping Calm and Carrying On.

We’ve had to close Gilbert White Museum in Selborne but the café is doing sterling work providing ready meals and daily essentials to locked down locals.

It’s been really windy and cold which should curb more expansive outings. That didn’t stop one clown from inflating his paragliding wing on St Mary Bourne rec. Thank goodness he didn’t get airborne. He’d have been straight into the trees.

The village shop is still playing a blinder and Mrs A was thrilled to find quail’s eggs on offer, but then realised we couldn’t invite anyone over for drinks. Hampshire habits die hard.