So what am I supposed to do with my mask collection from July 19??? I’ve spent the last 16 months building up a collection unrivalled on any western face, plus boxes and boxes of the shitty blue and pink ones. Which fill every pocket on every jacket, trouser and other suitable item of clothing I possess. (Yet I still arrive at a shop at least 3 times a week to find myself maskless; how the fuck does that happen???) So I’m refusing to ditch the mask on CGFI day, in 2 weeks time. CGFI? Covid Go Fuck Itself. And here’s our new mantra, which, due to our forthcoming masklessness, people will actually be able to hear repeated: ‘IT HASN’T GONE AWAY, WE’RE JUST LIVING WITH IT’.

We’ve all become a little too numerate in the last year or so. We’re obsessed about the numbers of positive tests, the number of vaccinations, the number of deaths, hospitalisation, first doses, both doses, anything countable. We’ve never done this before. But those numbers rule our life. Yet we’ve never before counted up those getting and dying of ‘normal’ flu, which always kills at least 15,000 every year. We don’t count up ‘new cases of hay fever’, nor colds, athletes foot, Irritable bowel or chlamydia. Because ‘wot don’t kill you makes you stronger’ and none of those kill you. So why count them? Which is pretty much where we are with our pet virus. Loads of people get it, but very few need hospitalisation and a minuscule number die. Ok, not good if you’re that number, but we all play the odds every day in a million ways. Ever crossed a road with me?

I hate wearing a mask. Don’t do it other than on the tube or in certain shops that give me dirty looks if I don’t. I just hate being muffled (my words are just too important to miss) and I hate being faceless. You smile at someone for helping you and think ‘why bother?’ But I’ll probably still choose to wear one on the tube. No idea why, I just will. Maybe because social interaction is completely banned on the tube so the mask won’t impede. Or maybe because that’s my one little bit of ‘Covid paranoia’, the rest of which I managed to overcome by April 2020 when I was bored with it.

Crowds are back. We can fly to Germany. This week. The laws governing our Coronavirus lifestyle end on CGFI day. It all becomes ‘voluntary’. Or, ‘ignored’ as we call it. We’re getting there. Oh the wonder of those vaccinations.

Happy nearly free Tuesday

A xxxx