DAVID BOWIE was ahead of his time. He knew when to go out. And when to stay in. Get things done. Probably steered clear of overcrowded places, too, and always washed his hands. A visionary in so many ways.

Unlike large swathes of the population who have burst out of their homes of late like ravenous dogs being let off the lead in a sausage factory, staying in continues to hold greater appeal than going out.

Admittedly, not so much the getting things done part, as a mounting list of DIY tasks and other domestic chores can confirm.

But a general contentment to potter about in and around the house continues to hold sway, a legacy from early lockdown that will hopefully endure moving forward.

In truth, as someone who was rarely in a pub prior to the pandemic, that isn’t a huge change of affairs. Organised social events tended to be restricted to attending music gigs. And so, alongside working commitments, those would make up the handful of entries on the kitchen planner.

Now all of those dates have gone too, the clutch of concerts booked up for this year all postponed and rescheduled for 2021. The next date in the diary is now a reminder that the car MOT is due next month. Which is an admittedly sad state of affairs.

What the SPFL, though, would give right now for a free weekend or two. This was always going to be a difficult season to administrate for so many reasons but a calendar already fit to bursting with fixtures has left little room for contingencies.

Just one week into the new campaign and league bosses have already been forced to reach for a hasty Plan B as a result of a group of Aberdeen players not having the savvy of knowing when to go out and when to stay in.

There are few more diligent than Iain Blair, the league’s operations director and company secretary and the man largely responsible for trying to slot all the pieces into this particular jigsaw.

During a brief spell working alongside the SPFL, I discovered first hand the magnitude of that task as Blair – a Morton fan, but we won’t hold it against him – laid it all out during one pre-season gathering with Premiership and Championship managers a few years back.

It was a presentation with more arrows than the opening credits of Dad’s Army. And highlighted with a greater array of colours than seen at a Pride march.

Blair dutifully explained why certain games had to be played on certain dates, why other weekends were out of bounds because of international or other commitments, and how a winter break would be squeezed into the mix. It was thorough as you would expect from someone who has been doing this for a living for 22 years.

Blair knows this stuff inside out. He is thoroughly meticulous, and always does his best to match the considerations of the clubs with the practicalities of the situation.

Perhaps on this occasion, however, he ought to have asked for a bit more assistance. The SPFL’s determination to ensure the new Premiership season started on time to comply with the new Sky Sports deal has left them with no wriggle room should the virus continue to spread. And they may come to regret that.

The postponement of yesterday’s match between St Johnstone and Aberdeen has already set the dominoes tumbling. That game has been slotted in for Thursday August 20, with the Dons’ home game against Livingston the following weekend also moved from the Saturday to the Sunday.

As things stand, Aberdeen’s matches against Hamilton and Celtic this week are set to go ahead but, should they too fall by the wayside, then it then starts to become a bit messy.

Neil Doncaster, the SPFL chief executive, admitted recently that they only have one spare fixture window to play with this season. The re-arranged Euro 2020 tournament also eliminates any possibility of letting the campaign run on beyond its scheduled end.

The SPFL can point towards clubs voting down their motion to be given greater powers to deal with coronavirus-related issues. That would have least given them more control to deal with the inevitable bumps in the road ahead.

But they could have done more themselves, too. The Betfred Cup group draw will be made tomorrow and perhaps that’s a tournament – all 95 fixtures of it – that could have been truncated or ditched altogether for one year. It might have been prudent to have also asked their Scottish FA counterparts if it was really necessary to finish last season’s Scottish Cup.

Most obviously, though, they could have followed their own blueprint by emulating the fixture plan for the three lower divisions and running the Premiership season over fewer matches. That would have bought them some breathing space. Pressure to provide four Old Firm derbies, however, meant that was realistically never going to happen.

The naive hope must be that the Aberdeen scenario was a one-off but further postponements seem inevitable to the point where it becomes physically impossible to reschedule them. And at that point the SPFL may come to wonder if they ought to have done more themselves to make Blair’s life just a wee bit easier.