So here was the deal. Coronavirus arrived, we retreated. To our homes. Locked down. Shops closed. Everything closed. Work from home. Unless you can’t. Then don’t work. Only at home. Or from work. If you have to. But mustn’t. Not really. Wash hands. All the time. Wash your shopping. Don’t touch anything. Or anyone. Avoid like the plague (hah), 2 metre distance. Masks? Don’t be stupid, we’re British, we don’t wear masks, they’re useless in the face of a PAN-DEM-IC!! and only for delusional Orientals. Don’t meet anyone, don’t see anyone, don’t… don’t… don’t… JUST DON’T ANYTHING!!!! Except allow plane loads of foreigners into the country every day. Unchecked, untested, unbelievable.

And the odd thing was; we complied. Scared shitless by the power of the government rhetoric, we hid from the virus, we locked down completely, we did as we were told. All 60 million of us. Except for a few ‘raves’ which still went on and in the confines of extremist ends of religion where the the ‘God’s will’ brigades of all flavours continued to join in prayer. And in the wholesale spread of contagion. Personally I’d have put those priests and rabbis and imams and bishops in a garage and let God sort them out, rather than waste valuable NHS resources on them, but they were taken into hospitals just like ‘normal people’.

And then gradually, it started to lift. Just a bit. Then a bit more. Then… football came back! But no crowds. People could meet up, in limited numbers and wrapped in cling-film. Liverpool fans were exempt from the bans because they hadn’t won the league in 30 years. Which is fair.

But as the ‘gradual’ becomes the new normal and the general feeling of ‘I’m so over this’ pervades, boundaries get pushed and guess what? The virus is returning in numbers. Not the same, over-exaggerated heaps of statistical dung that they were using in the first instance. It’s been refined and remodelled. And as people come into more and more contact, so the virus ups its game. Or plays the same game but with more people once more. Because it never ‘went away’. It took a holiday. But unlike the rest of us, it was allowed back.

So the second wave is coming in isolated regions. Generally up north where its just not so important but return it will. Because it never went anywhere whilst we were hiding from it. Thus, as we peek out from our hidey-holes, it grabs us once more. Which is inevitable.

I would despair but having been in pretty much that very state for the last 6 months, I wouldn’t be able to feel it. And its not really the virus I despair about. It’s more the endless statistics. Where’s that whisky bottle gone…

Happy Days

A xxxx