The Upside

A few quick facts to make you feel happier and more optimistic.

• Bluebells still look gorgeous in the woods.

• More than half a million people have recovered.

• Unexpected blessing: clean air.

• Record collapse in carbon emissions.

• Nobody objects if 'drinks time' starts a bit earlier.

• In almost all the worst affected countries, the number of new cases reported each day is falling.

• Over £20m. The amount you can raise by walking around your garden.

• Letterbox-shaped products come into their own.

• Pop-up bike lanes – a coronavirus innovation.

• Having a good crisis: the bidet.

• Online courses booming as people expand their minds.

• UK furlough scheme will now run until the end of June.

• Amsterdam becomes first city in the world to adopt a new model for changing economic strategy from growth to thriving, and connecting bodily health to planetary health.

• Free night time entertainment: the Lyrid meteor shower will peak late on 21 April and early the following morning. 

• Maybe, just maybe, remdesivir is the drug that can kill the coronavirus.

• Panic averted in Canada, where national pot smoking day on 20 April, called 420, looked like being, well, rather short of weed, man.

• The stuck-at-home are keen to improve themselves. Kettlebells and yoga mats are selling like toilet paper.

• Boom in online videos, like How to Explain Today to Your Past Self

You may also like:

• Just in Case... You have not yet heard / seen Andrea Bocelli: Music For Hope, at Duomo di Milano. Put aside 20 minutes, brew yourself a coffee or pour a glass of wine, put your feet up, and enjoy this magnificent concert from a deserted cathedral.

• Struggling to decide where to go on your next holiday when this is all over? This simple formula will help you decide.

• Nordic Happiness: It's long been recognised that the lucky people of the Nordic countries are much happier (on most indicators) than the rest of the western world. But why?

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