That escalated quickly, didn’t it?  I hope you are all cocooned in your basement / back bedroom / orangery (you know who you are) safely, with stocks of your favourite beverage and plenty of biscuits. It is at times like this that we can all appreciate the great genius that is the custard cream.

I read a great thing here about what astronauts do to prepare for isolation and quarantine. It’s all about routine and schedule-filling. Also important is having a bit of time apart (even if it’s just at the other end of a tin can) from the people you’re quarantined with. But the main thing is to be busy, even if what you’re doing feels like make-work. So keep The Mandalorian for after work time (it does look awesome tho) and fill your time.

That isn’t hard just now – most firms I’ve talked to in the last week are flat out with tax year end stuff and with making the transition to socially distant working. But in a week or three things will be quieter and you’ll have some decisions to make about how to allocate your time. It’s a good time to catch up on reading, or watching webinars, or podcasts. If there’s a business project that has been sat in the ‘too boring’ or ‘too difficult’ pile then that’s a good shout too.

HOLY BUSINESS INTERRUPTUS, BATMAN

It’s good, if unsurprising, to see markets coming back a bit on the news of various bits of central bank and government intervention. But the truth is that most companies, including advisers, need some kind of new business flow and that won’t be the priority for most for a little while. So it’s not a bad shout to familiarise yourself with the various forms of business and personal support that are out there for bridging the tough period. Phil Young of Zero Support refers to this as ‘QE for small businesses’, which sounds plausible although I don’t know what it means.

Anyway, to try and help with that we’ve created (with Phil’s help) this HANDY DOCUMENT which summarises what’s out there as best we can. It’s changing all the time, so don’t shout at us if it’s overtaken by events in the next week or so.

We’ll also put this document up in the Insights tab of Platform Analyser in the next day or so – if you’re a premium user then you can get it there along with loads of other good stuff.

PLENTY TO GO AROUND

We’ve been in touch with all the platforms to find out what their contingency responses are. These are changing on an almost daily basis too, but a bit over half have been kind enough to answer some questions on both the immediate practical implications of all this Unpleasantness and also their 10% drop protocols. You’ll find their information in Platform Analyser in a new section called ‘Macro Environment’. We’ve put that in the free section so everyone can access it.

KEEP YOUR LINKS 2m APART AT ALL TIMES

• Here’s a webinar with great insights from Pete Matthew and Chris Davies of Model Office, hosted by Will Robins of Citywire. Ignore the other bozo.
• We’ve got the first of our #HomeGames corona-free webinars coming up at 12.30 today – register here.
• And your music choice today is aimed at all you scamps who are walking the dog twice a day. It is harder to be unhappy, I have found, when listening to Judas Priest. Here’s Breaking The Law.

See you – from a safe distance – next week

Mark