I was relieved when the tourists left my home town. But now it feels truly melancholy

There was a guilty pleasure, at first, in the Covid-enforced absence of hen and stag dos in York. But the streets have emptied at a time when the city badly needs money - as does so much of our beautiful island

It's very quiet!" says the supermarket delivery man, approvingly, scanning the empty street. Over a summer of Treasury-sponsored jollity, he has kept a censorious eye on the trattoria over the road, the brewery and tap room next to it and the many other bars and restaurants that flank our house, commenting disapprovingly on social distancing failures and general carousing as if he was Oliver Cromwell, while bearing crates of crisps and loo roll.

He's right: the street is quiet; York, my home town, is quiet. With curfew and tier 2 thrown over us like a deadening blanket, my sleep is only disturbed by the usual existential dread, instead of seven men singing Wonderwall and kicking a can, as previously.