SO, SATURDAY is Independence Day, right? The pandemic’s over — let’s all go to the pub!

“Boris” says it’s OK, so it must be! No. His name’s Johnson, American slang for knob and it’s not OK. This government’s record is beyond abysmal and I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them. Which isn’t far at all right now: they’re greedy bastards and I’ve got a dodgy shoulder.

When I do go to the pub it won’t be indoors and it certainly won’t be today, National Get Paralytic And Throw Up All Over Yourself And The Person Next To You Cos The Tories Say You Can Day.

I’ll meet my friends and have a few drinks with them for sure— I really want to see them and I want to support my local pubs. But I’ll meet them one or two at a time, socially distanced, in the open air, in spaces not frequented by large crowds of lager lemmings.

So it’ll be Norwich v Brighton on TV at 12.30 today for me, then a few words at a small socially distanced Black Lives Matter rally in Shoreham, then two evening gigs in my office, where all my live shows happen these days.

Lager lemmings are the Covid-19 version of lager louts, by the way. They think the virus is “a cold,” don’t believe in face masks and think anyone who won’t shake their hand is a “snowflake,” despite the fact that snowflakes defeated Hitler on the Eastern Front and are as hard as nails.

Lager lemmings are more dangerous than lager louts because ending up on a ventilator is a billion times more dangerous than getting a black eye.

And, before anyone says I’m being lagerist, there will be real-ale lemmings too, although they will be quieter and think they’re being responsible: “The infection stats in this area are really low. I’ll just have a couple...”

Given what I have done for a living for the last four decades — stand on a stage, often in a tightly packed space, performing poems and songs — writing words like these is incredibly painful. Social interaction is not just a natural human activity for me, it’s my living, as it is for all of us performers.

And to accept that my own instincts tell me I may well not do another gig in front of an audience for the rest of the year is a hard thing to take.

The biggest gig of all went yesterday. This is my 40th anniversary year as Attila the Stockbroker and the culmination was supposed to be a celebration at London’s legendary Dingwall’s on September 10 with some of my closest cultural companions over the years.

It was inevitable that it would be cancelled, of course, but I am still very sad. It will be replaced by an epic night online on Tuesday September 8, 40 years to the day since my first gig. At least everyone from all over the world who wants to will be able to be there.

Yes, I’ve adapted, learned the tech, am doing a huge amount of writing on my website facebook.com/attilathestockbroker and, like so many of my contemporaries, have got used to online performance now.

There are some positive aspects of the new modus operandi — I can be in two places at once, for instance. At 7pm on Saturday I’m doing a show for our lovely local Ropetackle Arts Centre here in Shoreham: at 8.20pm I’m in Keynsham for K-Town Music Festival, raising funds for their local food bank and support group.

There is a gap of 35 minutes between the two shows and they’re a couple of hundred miles apart. I couldn’t have done that on the train. Look on the bright side, that’s what I always try and do.