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There has been a lot of writing, during lockdown, about whether our habits may change, whether we may not go back to shops and bars. Online shopping, family walking and eBeers may replace high street shopping and bars for good. This speculation is justified but I think will be proven to be just that, speculation. Miles long queues outside the B&Qs which opened a few days ago give us an idea of what will happen with shopping. As for bars, I’ve been thinking about it. I am meeting my friends for ebeers because of lockdown. But many of my friends live in other countries, and we never did this before. Why not? Because we rather wait until we can meet at a good bar, for some beers and tapas, than have an ebeer. We rather build the anticipation of a superior experience, than tone it down by indulging in occasional inferior proxies. My rugby friends are planning 6 different food related events after lockdown, compared to our average 2 a year. Bars and restaurants are going to be just fin...

Few things entice more conflicting feelings in me that this new coronavirus concept of the ebeer. For those of you who have been under a rock for the last 3 months, this is a coronavirus lockdown activity consisting in meeting your friends for a drink over a web meeting platform, sharing video and catching up as a group. It is critically important and a great device to keep social ties and stay in touch with your social circle, and it makes you realise how much harder this lockdown would have been before we developed these technologies (at which point there would be no lockdown, just many more deaths, but that’s for another post). So why the conflicting feelings? The ebeer is great in lockdown, but it would be terrible if abused in normality. What if, after lockdown is lifted, we all decide to stay at home on grounds of safety, and stop going to bars, restaurants and pubs? I will certainly keep the ebeer to engage more with geographically remote friends, but will we return to the bars...