This morning I decided that it might be prudent to follow government advice and take a test to see if I am carrying the Covid-19 virus. The experience was extremely strange and actually put me in mind of Samuel Beckett’s Godot. The test site was a small tent set up in the middle of Bradford’s Manningham Park. I arrived just as they were opening up for the day. Two elderly men (both making a little cash on the side to supplement their retirement earnings) and bearing no resemblance at all to “medical” personnel of any kind, were the staff. Together we went through the peculiar pantomime that constitutes the test …. putting a stick up your nose and then putting it into a small bottle …. in a patter of conversation that had little if anything to do with the supposed purpose of our activities. After having done nothing which could be described as having an intelligible purpose, and chatting for a while about no subject that had any conceivable relationship to what we were supposed to be doing, I left them in their small tent in the middle of the field …. presumably renewing their wait for the appearance of Godot.
I am sure that this must constitute a subject for a painting, but for the life of me I’m not sure about where to begin. Where is the artistic imagination when I need it?
It does sound quite surreal!