Any moment now, the end credits will surely begin to roll and we will have that moment of realisation where we simultaneously understand not only the script but the subliminal meaning behind it.

An advert proclaiming the powers of Veet EasyWax will appear and bring you crashing back to a sense of normality after an hour transfixed to your screen, and your partner or friend or whomsoever is with you at the time will alight from the sofa, picking up the bowl of Dorito crumbs for washing, and say:

“That was pretty realistic wasn’t it?  I’m going to have bad dreams tonight.  It’s crazy what technology and special effects can do these days”

You’ll have been watching a programme – of the Black Mirror ilk – in which an invisible virus that takes days to manifest, originates from a seafood market in a distant land and then – within a matter of days – brings an entire planet to its knees.  Thousands of lives will be lost.  Business will stop.  Economies across the world will crash.  Everybody, everywhere will be barely able to leave their homes.    Even world leaders will not be spared, our Prime Minister tested positive today.

All the things we normally take for granted will suddenly be the things we dream of once again.  Automated, annual social media memories will fill us with an envy for the past, and the times we could meet a friend for a drink, or ramble among the countryside for hours on end only to finish up with a pint and Sunday roast.

I even find myself missing being sat stuck in rush-hour traffic on the A249, thinking about the leftover stir-fry I plan to re-heat for dinner when I eventually get home.  It did have a nice sauce, afterall.

There will be a great number of lessons from all of this, surely, and we are only starting to learn them.  I would hesitate to think whether we have graduated beyond the Beginner stage yet.  I hope so, but looking at the news, I’m not so sure.

Either way this is still just feeling very, very strange.

Hey – you – can you do me a favour, and try pressing the “TV Guide” button on your remote, so that we can see what else is on?

I fancy something a bit more upbeat.  Those endless repeats of Only Fools & Horses I normally avoid or something.  Paris Hilton’s maudlin search for a new best friend. Or anything whatsoever on the Smithsonian Channel.