FRIDAY 1 MAY
Almost balmy today. Waiting for the Dart in Sandycove, the sun warmed my face. The metal seat wasn’t wet for once! Simple pleasures. Too much media over the next few days. Will lay off for next week, apart from Newstalk of course. The media needs diversity when it comes to COVID-19, and indeed every topic. If I say no, it gives someone else a chance. And when I drone on, people stop listening, which defeats the whole purpose.
Every time I’m on TV I get negative comments thrown at me on Twitter. And occasionally an email. It doesn’t really bother me, but if I’m in the wrong kind of mood I can dwell a little. But it’s easy enough to think of something else and remind myself why I’m doing it. Saying we should wear masks really annoys some people, as does whenever I mention vaccines. Or anything to do with pharmaceutical companies. And, of course, there’s always general nastiness. I’m getting a real insight into what it must be like being a politician.
Lab meeting. The four of us in the lab and the rest by Zoom. I told them all to have a drink in their hands and to tell a joke. This fell flat. As Tommy Tiernan said, when asked if he would do a stand-up routine by Zoom, ‘I’d rather shout at fucking trucks!’ As ever, on the money is our Tommy.
A lovely thing happened. Got sent some great masks by 13-year-old Lauren from Barna, Co. Galway. She wrote a letter saying that she was inspired by my advice to wear masks and started making them. She goes to her local post office every day to post them to various well-known people. One of them has chemical symbols on it. She wrote: ‘I will keep making the masks as long as my sewing machine works and Mum keeps giving me money to buy the materials.’ This, I have to say, brought a genuine tear to my eye.
The Taoiseach yet again announced another extension of the restrictions, to 11 May. There’s also going to be a five-stage plan to allow for a staged loosening of restrictions. This could get complicated.
The FDA today granted emergency-use authorisation for remdesivir. We have the first antiviral drug approved for COVID-19. The data looks good, but not great. I can’t help but think of Tamiflu, the antiviral used against flu. That doesn’t really work great either… Remdesivir works by blocking the RNA polymerase in the virus, which is needed for the virus to make copies of itself. It’s been shown to decrease time in hospital, which is a good thing. But it doesn’t affect the death rate, presumably because it doesn’t work on severe disease. If the virus is replicating like mad and really irritating the lungs it looks like it’s too late for remdesivir. Therapies are of course the other option, especially if it’s going to take a while to get efficacious vaccines. But if the disease really gets a foothold, it’s a bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Vaccines are best because they prevent disease, and to use another well-worn phrase, prevention is always better than cure. Still, let’s see what other therapies are discovered. I’ll bet there will be a few.
SUNDAY 3 MAY
Another red-letter day! Why? Because it’s Desiree’s 90th birthday! We all love her so much. We all went to the nursing home and they let us put up bunting and balloons just outside the back patio. She was delighted to see the family: Johnny, Mary, Esme, Ciaran, Fiona, Orla, and us – Marg, me, Stevie and Sam. They wheeled her out and sat her in a comfy armchair. We could wave at her and talk to her over the low wall. They had her dressed up beautifully in a lovely purple dress and elegant grey cardigan, and her hair combed all nice. We raised glasses of champagne and the staff brought out a lovely big cake. None of us could go near her or give her a hug. We were all longing to do that. She smiled all the way through it. She has such a lovely smile and she’s such a lovely person. I couldn’t help wonder: what the hell has happened? COVID-19 is yet again a malign presence in our lives, stopping us from doing what we really want with our loved ones. We’re all wondering that all the time now. We had been planning a huge celebration for her 90th. She waved at us, still smiling, as they brought her back inside and we all went home.
Phoned Helen in Brighton. It’s also her birthday and she’s 64. We recorded ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ for her. Sent it to her by WhatsApp. Me on guitar. Sam on piano, Marg on clarinet and Stevie on percussion. I think we were all in different keys. She loved it! Vera, Chuck and Dave.
Stevie is studying for his exams. I helped him a bit with the ATP synthase. Strange to think he’s now 23, doing finals. I thought back to how I helped him when he was in school, with the hard sums. That seems like years ago now. I feel a pang of bittersweet memories. Why is that? Passing of time hangs heavy this evening, what with Desiree turning 90 and Helen 64. Time just keeps on slipping, slipping into the future. Played that song by Steve Miller on Spotify and, as ever, the magic of music lifts me up to the higher ground.
MONDAY 4 MAY
Bank Holiday Monday. Bit of a nothing day. Made me think of dimanchophobia, a psychological condition that means you hate Sundays. Mind you, today is Monday, but it’s like a Sunday. Every day is like Sunday now.
It turns out dimanchophobia is quite common. It strikes people in the afternoon. I remember Jimmy Porter, the lead character in John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger, as he watches his wife iron his shirts on a Sunday afternoon and says, ‘A few more hours and another week gone.’ Maybe if he ironed his own shirts he wouldn’t be bored.
It might happen because our brains ramp down at the weekend and then have to ramp up again for the working week ahead, and that gives a sense of dread. Funny how we respond to different days of the week. Monday blues, but then as the week progresses, Friday comes around and people’s moods pick up. The Cure got a song out of it. We are slaves to our moods. These days I hardly know what day of the week it is, but today I feel it.
Got some sad news today. Bruno Orsi has died. He was one of my lecturers when I was a student in Trinity in the ’80s. He was a tremendous teacher and superb enzymologist. I would count him as one of my key influences. He gave me great advice when I asked him about what I should do after I got finals. He said, ‘You’re a pretty easy-going guy, so make sure you choose who you work with carefully.’ He was warning me off working with some people in Biochemistry in Trinity who were perhaps too aggressive, and I took his advice. When I went for the interview in London, I hit it off with Graham Lewis, who would become my supervisor, and remembered what Bruno had said. Just shows you how a little conversation with a young person can go a long way. I try to remember that when a student comes to see me for advice.
Big lab meeting today on COVID-19, socially distanced as usual. One of the team, Sarah, measured the cytokine IL-18 in patient samples from St James’s hospital. This is an important immune protein that can help fight the virus, but if there’s too much it can drive harmful inflammation. She found it to be much higher in patients with severe disease. It might be an important marker that tells us about severe disease, or it might be worth blocking. It adds weight to our ideas on my favourite protein NLRP3 as being important in COVID-19, because NLRP3 drives IL-18. This could be a great target to fire our NLRP3 blockers at. It’s just exciting to be measuring things in patients, as it brings us closer to what’s going wrong in the disease.
Data from Tristram, another member of the team, could be very exciting. He is working on coagulation, and from what other scientists have shown, COVID-19 really affects the blood, causing it to clot in the lungs and other tissues. This seems to be a huge cause of illness and even death. On Newstalk I’d gone into how certain blood groups might somehow protect against COVID-19, although it’s not at all clear how that might work. People who are blood group A or B seem to have a slightly decreased risk of death from COVID-19. All this information points to COVID-19 as being in part a disease of the blood. Tristram has some initial data showing that itaconate can block tissue factor, which is a key driver of clotting. Woohoo!
Call with Inflazome this afternoon. Roche want a bit more on the strategy of our plans for treating patients with various inflammatory diseases, so we worked on that. The risk always is we are giving them free information. What if they turn us down? There has to be trust of course, and what we’re giving them is pretty obvious, but still I wonder sometimes.
Finished the day off with a live interview on Canadian TV with an Irish reporter called Redmond. Strange to think I was beamed into homes in Canada. No risk of haters coming at me, but then again you never know! He asked me to comment on the UK having the highest death toll in Europe, at over 30,000. A lot of lives lost to this virus.
Sam had his first online exam today. He said it went well. Yet again, extraordinary times with students everywhere doing online exams.
WEDNESDAY 6 MAY
Pat and I covered the symptoms of COVID-19. Barrage of texts came in. Such an appetite. Eimear, the producer, said she’s seen nothing like it. I also tweeted a picture of me wearing my mask on the Dart.
Read an interesting piece in Nature today on the history of coronaviruses. It said in 1912 a veterinarian spotted strange symptoms in a cat: fever and a huge swollen belly. Looks like this is the first report on what coronavirus infection can do. In the 1960s, scientists in the US and UK isolated a virus from people with the common cold, and they saw coronavirus for the first time – crown-like structures, hence the name. In the 1970s, lots of different ones were found in different animals; scientists realised that dog coronaviruses could infect cats, and cat coronaviruses could infect pigs. Sound familiar? Up until SARS, scientists thought coronaviruses only caused colds in humans. But then SARS came along and had a mortality rate of 10 per cent. And then MERS was discovered, with a mortality rate of 35 per cent. And now SARS-CoV2. A rogues’ gallery of coronaviruses. SARS-CoV2 is a big virus compared to others – 125 nanometres in diameter, which in the world of viruses is big. It has 30,000 nucleotides in its genome. Recipe of a killer. And it can correct mistakes as it replicates. This means that very dangerous variants might not emerge, but we don’t know. We are bound to see them if it runs riot, as every time it divides there is a chance of a new variant. But flu mutates at around four times the rate of SARS-CoV2, and HIV, 100 times. So it’s not a great mutator, which will hopefully be a good thing.
The report said that coronaviruses probably first arose at least 10,000 years ago, but possibly up to 300 million years ago. Some range! The four that cause the common cold are called OC43 and HKU1, which jumped from rodents into humans, and 229E and NL63, which jumped from bats into humans, just like MERS, SARS-CoV1 and SARS-CoV2. One study is concluding that SARS-CoV2 might have emerged 140 years ago, living in bats or maybe even pangolins before jumping into us late last year. What a journey. It changed in either the bat or the pangolin, making it infectious to us. That change is in 4 per cent of its genome, as it’s 96 per cent identical to the nearest bat relative. A closer relative may well be found, maybe in the pangolin. As ever, unknowns abound, as we wait for the research to be done to enlighten us.
What is clear is SARS-CoV2 has properties that can be seen in both the SARS/MERS branch of the family and in the other branch, the four coronaviruses that cause colds. And that, like SARS, it can infect epithelial cells in the lungs. But like the others it can also infect epithelial cells in the upper airways. This causes the trouble: if it stays in the upper airways it can spread. In the wrong person at the wrong time it can penetrate the lungs and cause severe disease. One estimate is that if the person beside you releases 100 viral particles, some might reach your lungs. If your immune system doesn’t stop them for whatever reason, it reaches the lungs, where it can be as deadly at SARS itself. Even worse, SARS-CoV2 has been shown to infect other cells too – in the heart, intestines, sperm, eyes and brain. This is why some have a whole range of symptoms.
One good thing I read today was that the related virus OC43, which causes a cold, was once more deadly. It mutated and became more benign. The same may happen with SARS-CoV2.
Friday … but you wouldn’t know it.
Jennifer O’Connell visited my lab for a piece she’s writing for The Irish Times. It was really great. One of the best interviews I’ve done, I think. Yet again, superb journalism in Ireland. I told her I’d written some of the book in south San Francisco and she told me all about her time there. She said she remembered going to a great food market in San Carlos (where I stayed). We had a really good discussion about COVID-19 and all the current issues. It was great meeting her, as I love her Saturday columns in The Irish Times. She told me to ignore all the haters on Twitter – she has plenty herself! She said how her mother was a big fan, which was nice. It was just lovely to spend a couple of hours with her.
After that, I gave a talk at a conference on immunometabolism – so strange, being able to jump from one thing to another in my office. Jeff Rathmell from Vanderbilt University in Nashville organised it. I really wanted to go, given all the musical associations of that city. All so different from doing it from a podium in front of a big audience. Wonder if the talk will have the same impact?
Got me thinking about how science has changed. No more face-to-face conferences. Hard to know if this will slow progress. It certainly makes it all less fun, and, for me, out of fun comes new ideas and insights. Talk went well though. Lots of questions. Maybe I’m getting used to it.
Zoom drink later with my old college friends John, Peadar and Bren. It was good, but jeez, no substitute for going to the pub and knocking back a few pints and slagging the holes off each other.
Really relaxed tonight. Giving the big talk was worthwhile. ‘Nights in White Satin’ just came on the radio, and it made my soul swoon. If your head is in the right place a piece of music can really register and transport you somewhere else. Truly makes us human.
SUNDAY 10 MAY
A stormy day. High winds whooshing through the leaves on all the trees. Love that. This morning Brendan O’Connor and I spoke about possible treatments, including remdesivir, and how children are largely being spared the virus, which is a huge relief. It’s still not fully clear what the death rate from the virus is. More than flu, which is around 0.1 per cent of cases. It might be as high as 2.5 per cent but this will depend on age. People who keep saying it’s just another flu are plain wrong. I told him about the frenzy of effort to find a vaccine, which will be the ultimate weapon, but tried to manage expectations. Really, we just don’t know if we’ll get a vaccine.
Went to Dunnes in Cornelscourt with Marg. Took half an hour to get in with the queueing but it was worth it. It’s a sad and sorry state of affairs when I get my kicks from queueing for the supermarket shop.
MONDAY 11 MAY
Sam’s birthday today, yay! Made him his favourite duck salad. His mates came over and they drank cans in the garden. We made the most of it for him.
I’m a bit sick of COVID-19, it has to be said, but took my mind off it all by watching a documentary about Dana. I’m old enough to remember her winning the Eurovision with ‘All Kinds of Everything’. I was five at the time and our teacher got us to learn the words. It still lifts me: ‘Sailors and fishermen, things of the sea …’ Good God, they were innocent times.
And for the first time in its history there will be no Eurovision song contest this year. It was to be the 65th contest. I can see in years to come when they look back on the Eurovision, this will be mentioned as the one and only time it wasn’t held – because of a virus.
TUESDAY 12 MAY
Had to sign lots of share certificates for the staff of Inflazome in my capacity as director. People are buying shares! They would be stupid not to.
Did my first set of exam-script corrections for the final exams in immunology. This was a new experience! Software revealed whether students had plagiarised, and we were instructed not to mark those parts. Impressively, not many had – they must have heeded the warning.
Slipped out to buy some presents for Marg’s birthday. Almost nowhere open. It’s just really weird to be walking up Pearse St with hardly any cars on the road. And then Grafton St with nobody about. Alex told me that Tesco in the Jervis Centre was open and had party stuff, so I headed over the Liffey. Got streamers and a banner. Then went to a Dealz that I noticed was open – essential retail, obviously. Jackpot! Got lots of stuff for the garden: flower seeds, a birdhouse, a face to stick on a tree and a hanging metal frog that clangs. I spent a total of €20, but hey, it’s the thought that counts. Wrapped it all up in ‘Happy Birthday’ paper – result! It’s the little things we can still do, like wrapping birthday presents, that still give us pleasure.
RTÉ came in to the lab and interviewed me about face masks. It was on the six o’clock and nine o’clock bulletins, just after Tony Connelly reporting on Europe. Surreal or what? When me and Tony were both broke and living in London in the 1980s, we never imagined in a million years that we’d be back-to-back on the news, now did we?
I noticed a slight increase in people wearing masks on the Dart, but still only 20 per cent or so. I obsessively counted people in the carriages in Pearse Street as I walked down the platform. We have to do much better.
THURSDAY 14 MAY
Marg’s birthday! A day filled with light, sunny, blue, white. Started with breakfast – made her eggs Benedict and brought her a tray in bed. Gave her the gifts. Think she liked them. Then I made a chocolate cake. Turned out good, and I covered it in icing. We had a wee party in the front garden. Sam cooked crab claws, and I cooked trout. We’d planned a big party, but that was yet another COVID casualty.
FRIDAY 15 MAY
Did a journal club with the lab. This is a standard thing in labs. Someone picks a recent scientific paper that they like and goes over it with their colleagues. We did three. Not much data at the moment because the lab is only getting going again. Z picked a famous paper from the annals – the discovery of how Toll-like receptor 4 senses bacteria. The foundation of what we work on, really. And because we’re obsessed with COVID-19, we discussed how Toll-like receptors 3 and 7 are sensing that virus. Toll-like receptors are front-line sensors of infection, and were a huge breakthrough 20 years ago when they were discovered. And like so many other parts of the immune system, they have relevance to COVID-19.
Tony Holohan announced tonight that seven children had presented complications from COVID-19. It looks a bit like Kawasaki Syndrome, a multi-organ inflammatory syndrome. Coincidentally, Moshe Arditi, in Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, contacted me. He is a collaborator of mine and a renowned paediatrician who works on Kawasaki Syndrome. This is a horrible disease which afflicts children under five. Their blood vessels become inflamed all over their bodies. It’s very painful but thankfully it can be treated with immunoglobulin. Its mercifully rare. Moshe is submitting a big paper on this aspect of COVID-19. He said it looks nasty – not quite like anything he’s seen before. Another worry for us all.
In better news, the government has announced that easing of restrictions will begin on 18 May with the reopening of tourist destinations such as the Botanic Gardens and Trim Castle. Seems sensible enough.
SUNDAY 17 MAY
Thinking about my Sunday Independent piece, entitled ‘A nation holds its breath’ (for once they went with my title!). Important to warn about how, with many countries (including Ireland) opening up again, we risk a second surge. And there is recent evidence of how the virus spreads in closed, crowded spaces. I wrote: ‘This is literally a matter of life and death for governments everywhere. Get it wrong, and people die. You can’t do much about the testing, but you can certainly play your part by following the rules. Wash your hands, maintain social distancing, keep surfaces clean, wear a mask in shops and on public transport. Be unrelenting, because you know what, SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19, certainly is.’
All we can do is hope Ireland, and indeed the rest of Europe, doesn’t go into a second surge. It has to be said the chances of that are high, because people are bound to get together in large numbers. We just have to hope it isn’t too big a surge.
Went to see Desiree in the nursing home. She was allowed outside so we sat in the sun, but it got too breezy for her. Walked home via the People’s Park in Dún Laoghaire and yet again, two people shouted at me – both in a good way!
MONDAY 18 MAY
The glorious weather continues. Lucky, I guess. Imagine COVID-19 in bad weather. What will the winter be like?
TUESDAY 19 MAY
Two calls today about Inflazome and questions about the diligence process. I handled the science ones, but there were loads on the safety studies and the Phase 1 data. That’s the phase that checks that the drugs are safe in people. Phase 2 then is the first clinical trial against a disease, usually involving fewer than one hundred people, and then Phase 3 is a much bigger trial. It’s all done step by step, to ensure safety and also to decrease the overall cost. No point in doing a huge Phase 3 trial unless the drug has proven itself in a smaller Phase 2 trail.
Also had a board call with Sitryx. They are doing great too. They are very interested in our itaconate work. I told them of the data we have of it blocking SARS-CoV2 growth. They said to keep them posted as they could really help us make it all real for patients.
Had lunch in St Stephen’s Green. A woman came over and said, ‘Thank you for keeping me sane.’ I wondered what my dad would make of all this. He spent years working in the Green with his deck-chair business, so I often think of him when I walk through it.
Rounded the day off recording three messages for schools. Sent them on WhatsApp. I’m getting lots of requests from teachers to record messages for the graduation ceremonies for sixth-years. It’s just so tough for them. They are missing out on a key rite of passage in their lives. This bloody miserable virus.
One of the requests was from Pat Gregory, principal of my old school, Pres Bray. He was my old geography teacher and it’s his last year there. He said if Matt Damon was good enough for Loreto Dalkey, then Luke O’Neill was good enough for Pres Bray. I was absolutely delighted to do it. I told them about the last day of the Leaving Cert way back in 1981. Me and my classmate Hugh Roche went down the seafront, and I said ‘Let’s jump in the sea!’ so we did. In our uniforms. It felt great and we never forgot it. I said, ‘Go for it, lads!’
WEDNESDAY 20 MAY
Recent evidence indicates that if you’ve had a cold, it might protect you a bit from COVID-19. The viruses are similar, so you might still have antibodies and T-cells knocking around your body that could afford some protection – almost like the cold is acting as a vaccine. Discussed this on Pat’s show, and he made the good point that this might protect teachers, who will have had more colds. Let’s see if it’s true. We also spoke about ‘biomarkers’, which can be used to predict if someone might be at risk of severe disease. A bit like the IL-18 we measured.
Had an important call with our Dutch collaborators. Experiments are running there. They also put us in touch with a lab in Belgium who can do in-vivo work on hamsters infected with SARS-CoV2. Hamsters are used because the features of the disease resemble that in humans, so important information can be obtained. Excited about this, as it will be the first time we test itaconate in infection.
Yet another interesting report today. Some people shed far more virus than others and so are super-spreaders. Some breathe out more viral particles just by talking. Singing definitely releases a lot more, hence the link to choirs. All the studies point to the same thing: enclosed spaces, poor ventilation, crowds, people shouting and singing. Add alcohol to the mix and you have an Irish pub. But also a meat-packing plant: the virus spreads there because of close contact between people, a lot of shouting (they are noisy places) and the fact that some of the workers live together in cramped accommodation. Even Zumba classes have been shown to be sources of infection, whereas Pilates classes haven’t. Zumba is a high-impact exercise, and must lead to lots of virus coming out of people. Such great science going on.
Got a paper to referee showing similar data to us – itaconate blocking SARS-CoV2. So we’ve been scooped already! Bah! Still, it shows what we have could be correct, and there’s always room for more research. Had to recuse myself from refereeing it because of the conflict of interest. The refereeing process is a very important part of science. Experts are asked to closely read another scientist’s work to make sure everything is in order, and that what they are concluding is backed up by their data. It’s an important task as it ensures that what is finally published is likely to be correct.
Attended an online ceremony to induct the new members of the Royal Irish Academy. This is normally a lovely day, as it’s an honour to be made a member. I’d nominated Kate Fitzgerald, former PhD student, now famous immunologist, and she was inducted. I joined the Zoom, but missed her induction by five minutes! We’ll mark it in some other way. Good on you, Kate, your home county of Waterford should be proud!
SUNDAY 24 MAY
Today we covered Stevie in eggs and flour. He told us that it is the tradition in Edinburgh when finals are over. Friends turn up outside the exam hall and pounce. So, we called him out into the garden and splat! Not quite the same as the real thing, but yet again, with COVID-19 we have to improvise.
Had a long chat with Paul Moynagh on the phone. He was in my lab years ago and now he’s head of the department of biology in NUI Maynooth. He’s pressing for much more frequent testing – and he’s right – so that we can hunt down the virus and stop it from spreading. He was one of the first people to be in my lab all those years ago. And now look at him! He’s a superb scientist, so why won’t people listen to him?
Watched two episodes of Better Call Saul with Sam. We love that show. The glacial pace of the drama seems all the more appropriate these days.
MONDAY 25 MAY
Covered super-spreaders with Pat this morning. More and more evidence that spreading is happening in enclosed spaces with poor ventilation, and it’s a single person infecting lots of people. Got to keep reminding people to watch out.
Today is the first day we’ve had zero deaths since the pandemic began. A moment to savour, yes, but we need to be vigilant.
Read an interesting piece today. A report has been released showing that traffic has increased by 30 per cent on the M50 motorway compared to the levels at the beginning of lockdown. The reopening continues. There was also a study by the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies showing that seismic activity had increased. No, not earthquakes; they can actually measure Ireland move, as people and cars move around. Brings whole new meaning to the phrase ‘Did the Earth move?’
Horrible pictures on CNN tonight: George Floyd being choked by a police officer who was kneeling on his neck. Life’s brutality goes on in spite of COVID-19.
TUESDAY 26 MAY
Prime Time came into the lab to film a piece about masks. The message is slowly getting through, I think. Even more people on the Dart wearing them. No one was wearing them in Tesco this morning, when I went in for my usual coffee. Not even the staff. FFS.
WEDNESDAY 27 MAY
I went around to Brian McManus’s garden for a drink. He still has a keg of Guinness. In answer to a question in a recent interview with the Irish Independent on when I’d last cried, I’d said it was when he’d handed me my first pint of Guinness in weeks. (The marketing manager of Diageo sent us an invite to come to the Guinness Storehouse after the restrictions are lifted!) It was a lovely summer’s evening. A warm stillness in the air. The three pints made the air shimmer even more.
FRIDAY 29 MAY
Spent the day correcting immunology and biochemistry finals. I was on the lookout for evidence of independent thinking. If we can lift students who might get a third-class degree to a 2:2, and also not let down the ones who are outstanding, then we’re doing a good job. It’s a tricky balancing act. The student who gets a 2:2 when they were expecting a third is as thrilled as the one who gets a first and wasn’t expecting it. This can carry them forward in their lives. But we can’t let down the truly remarkable students either. Press them. Challenge them. Set them loose on the world with pride too, because they’ve also been stretched.
For a break I went up to Dunnes to buy some T-shirts. Yet again, strange to be walking up an empty Grafton Street on a Friday afternoon. I went to the entrance of the St Stephen’s Green shopping centre and the security guard looked wryly at me and pointed to the long queue I had missed. I asked him if it was moving fast. And he said, ‘How the fuck would I know?’ Can’t beat the wit of Dublin security men. I chanced it and it took about 30 minutes to get in. This is where iPhones come in, as I could work away on mine. Once in, I made for the T-shirts. A woman came over to me and said, ‘You’re Luke O’Neill. I just want to say a big thank you. You’ve been keeping me going.’ So kind of her. I still can’t get used to being recognised in public.
Back to the lab for a bit, then drinks in Merrion Square with everyone. I had a couple of glasses sitting on the grass in the evening sun. God, the weather has been great. Relief for all the people in lockdown. I wonder what it will be like in the dark winter if the virus is still rampant? Cross that bridge when we come to it.
Went home and watched Chariots of Fire with Stevie and Marg. I wonder will Stevie get to run around a quad? Go on my son!
SATURDAY 30 MAY
And so May ends. The dullness of this pandemic only relieved by the good weather. We seem to have the virus under control. So much science now to draw on – avoid the three Cs (close contact, crowds and closed spaces) to stop spread. Dare we hope that there’s a way out?