Have you ever met my dad? If you have he will have hugged you. We’ve never been a hand-shakey kind of family. We hug, we kiss, we molest, grope, fondle and stop just a tad short of sexual harassment. It’s our way. So to visit my dad, as I did yesterday, and not hug, kiss, etc, etc, is actually painful. A stark and horrible reminder of the current status quo. Not the ‘Rockin’ all over da World’ one, the other one. So although in this pic (which I love, my dad giving his ‘salute’, albeit with the wrong hand because of a recent dislocation to the shoulder of the correct one) it would appear that we have crossed the ‘2-metre line’, the arbitrary but legally enforceable regulated proximity rule, its all relative. He is my relative. But for us, this is social distancing. Mainly because sound, as all waves, works on the inverse square rule. So at 2 metres away, you get one quarter (inverse the square of 2, ya nob, where the fuck were you in physics???) of the sound you do at the source. And my hearing’s shit and his is way worse. So at 2 metres away he’d have to lip-read. But his sight is worse than his hearing, so it all becomes a matter of balance, of give and take, of win and lose, of cost/benefit.

And there’s the rub. Cost/benefit.

My dad’s been, basically, stuck in his flat for 8 weeks. He’s a very sociable 95 year-old. Normally he’d be out every single day. He has activities. He meets his mates for coffee (which takes approximately 4 hours, Tesco coffee shop just love them taking up 7 tables for that time, nursing one extra-shot soya latte mochachino between 3 of them), he goes to lots of things. He goes to synagogue. Not because he’s religious but because its sociable. Ok, and because he gets whisky too. A win-win. One day he goes over to my brother’s, another he comes over to us, sees the great-grand-kids, where he is in his element.

All reduced to zero by a fucking virus sent by a bat-eating Chinaman.

We all know that ‘the lockdown’ is all about keeping things manageable for the NHS. So illnesses don’t exceed bed/respirator availability. And the ‘cost’ of that is the economy. Which has now officially reached the status of ‘FUBAR’. But there’s other costs. Massive ones.

There’s liberty but only a total nob would raise that argument. Someone like Trump, perhaps, Nigel Farage or every gun-owner in Michigan. Even for those (like MEEEEE) who reckon we should have locked up the old and just adopt a ‘go-for-broke’ paradigm to reach ‘herd immunity’ because then everybody would be safe (well, those still alive) and would have to worry no more.

There’s also sanity. A massive consideration for now and for when we go back to work. And in particular those who don’t make it back to work because its no longer there. And with unemployment comes depression. Sanity.

So my dad decided that next week he’s coming over to the gang for dinner. It’s his choice. We’re all ‘isolating together’ because that’s our choice. And he’ll join us. Because when you’re 95 you’re kind’a not planning for 2021. Or even May the 17th. So why would you forsake a little happiness and enjoyment now for the promise of something ‘better’ when you might not even be here?

Hugging optional. From afar.

Happy… yeah, whatever

A xxxx