Each diner, worker, and loiterer is representative of everyone else and is yet still wonderfully distinctive. Even as O’Sullivan’s characters lament a lost Hong Kong, he reminds us “how individual one’s view of the future is” and that “we don’t all view it in a single, collective way”. It does mean that there is this kind of closeness that I think I haven’t had in previous relationships. More than a third of people newly living with a partner believed that two months of lockdown felt like the equivalent of two years of commitment.

The Cork setting may seem convenient only because it’s O’Sullivan’s own home town, but, as it turns out, he adds a fascinating Hong Kong connection to this part of the story.

It’s that kind of need that you have when you feel under a lot of cortisol stress, and you want to feel as safe as possible next to somebody. Most of the story consists of these ruminations, and they are interesting because we’ve all had them.

In this pandemic-ridden world, this novel reminds us how human contact will never cease to be mankind’s saving grace through the darkest times. Since the start of the pandemic, thousands of people have found themselves in turbo relationships, forced by lockdown measures to speed up the conventional rhythms of commitment. For anyone who has ever spent time in Wan Chai or Causeway Bay, it’s almost impossible to miss Hennessy Road. We also get regular updates and reflections on the time of lockdown from Phoebe Ho, Kwok-ying and a pangolin.There is also an appearance by a pangolin, which at first could seem a bit incongruous, but it works and is important in showing how the virus might have started and our role as humans in disrupting the environment. Written by Brit Danny Spring ( Hunter Street, World’s End) and directed by Ric Forster ( Flunk, Neighbours), the two-hour film was shot in-studio and on location in Victoria’s Yarra Valley. Their reaction is almost comical because we have all probably been in this place sometime during the last year and a half. In Part I, set in Hong Kong and China, forty-something academic John Ryan goes to the local 24/7 McDonalds every day to record events around him. He spends the early days of the pandemic in a 24-hour McDonald’s in Sai Kung while his wife Sue is home with their sickly baby son, Sam.

We see academics and tutors navigating the liminal space of online teaching, some forming new connections and others, cameras off, hiding inside “black boxes”. as a lover of heady scents think oud, jasmines etc this ticks the box of an almost incense ( without all the chemicals) well it does to me anyway. I think it takes a year or two, and in lockdown you don’t really know that person in multiple contexts: what they’re like their friends; when they are working in the office; when they are being sociable. This Hong Kong McDonald’s, then, is the epitome of “glocal”: a faceless, global corporation and yet undeniably Hong Kong.This is a party selection for the more discerning nutter, featuring huge drums, stomping bass, catchy riffs and a fair measure of barefaced cheek. Kristal meets Lisette on the last night of her trip to Australia, and the pair share a one-night stand. Lockdown Lovers sheds light on the lockdowns that many of us we were already living, not just in Hong Kong but globally: the academics, scurrying between offices, avoiding social interaction; spouses uprooted hundreds and thousands of miles from home to raise a family and endure “long silent years of isolation”. I had to chuckle when I came across this part because thirty years ago I, too, spent my lunch hours in the same spot, pouring through back issues of the Far Eastern Economic Review to see if Jiang Qing and Pol Pot were still alive.

Lockdown Lovers is a five-part love story set in lockdown conditions in two regions, Asia and Europe. I would not usually make that much of a rash decision on something as big as moving in with someone, but it felt like the right thing to do, and to be honest we didn’t know how long we would have to isolate together,” says Catharine. They had met on the dating app Hinge and were meeting up a couple of times a week before coronavirus hit, going on dates and slowly starting to meet each other’s friends. O’Sullivan penetrates deep, lending an emotional and socio-historical richness to his characters that elevates the story from a character drama to a uniquely moving social critique. The novel alternates between the perspectives of John, John's wife Sue, his son Sam, Phoebe, Kwok-ying, a Government Health official, Princess Selina, a millionaire's heiress, and the pangolin, as they all find their own way to deal with the dramatic changes in their lives environments.It is not the harrowing news reports and images that define the novel but his characters’ response to them. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Years from now, perhaps someone will study the psychology of living through a pandemic and the various coping mechanisms we turn to. For now, I'm singling out the Kinks one because it's such an original song choice but ask me tomorrow and it'll be a different one! For James and Sarah, this relationship crash-course simply sped up the process of realising their incompatibility, something that in normal circumstances might have taken them years rather than months.