Goodbye to Social Distancing

Is it safe to go back into the water? Apparently so, according to the Dancing Bear anyway. Boris gave his valedictory daily update a couple of days ago (boy, did he ever regret promising that the British government would give the press a daily update on its covidnovid failures), has since come up with the nonsensical 1m+ measurement for social distancing and has shuffled off into the sunset after basically re-opening anything that was shut during the Kerfuffle.

And why is this? Has the UK suddenly become a safe place in which the virus has been suppressed or contained? Did Boris overnight find and institute a proper, German-like track and test system? Did his ‘world-leading’ scientists (anything British can never merely be described as ‘good’; it has to be the best in the World, or at least much better than whatever Johnny Foreigner can come up with) create a vaccine that will ensure the health and safety of the citizens of his Disunited Kingdom? Calm yourself, Jacinta, of course not. So, how come Boris is announcing the end to lockdown?

I’m sorry to say that the answer is that he just doesn’t care. The narcissism of Mr Johnson (link here, Question Girl, so that you do not need to use a dictionary) cannot be overestimated. The facts will help to bear this out. He fumbled and blustered his way through a pandemic that could have been managed much more successfully – and was in many other countries – and with far fewer deaths. The total number of deaths in the UK will end up much more than twice the 20,000 that was quoted as a good outcome at the start of the outbreak. In the light of such demonstrable incompetence, any leader worth his salt would fall on his own sword, or, at least, resign. While Boris might be worth his not inconsiderable weight in gold due to his extra-curricular activities, there is more salt in a ninety-nine.

He doesn’t care how many citizens of the country he somehow ended up running have died. He also doesn’t care how many more of them will die due to his relaxing of lockdown rules. Because none of them will be him: he has already had covidnovid, and all indications are that, even should he catch it again, it will not be life-threatening for him. So what he wants – and remember, as a narcissist, what he wants is all that matters – is for the restaurants he frequents to be open again so that he can get on with his normal, PC life. The relative danger both to customers and staff in such establishments is irrelevant to him.

He has also declared that schoolchildren will be going back to school full-time in September. Again, the risk to teachers and children of this decision is immaterial to the Dancing Bear: what matters is that, for his clapped-out economy to splutter into some sort of life again just in time for Brexit to finish it off for good, children are in school so that parents can go back to work. Yes, some of the children and teachers might get infected and die, but what does that matter in the grand scheme of things? Sure they were going to die eventually anyway.

Enough about him; let’s talk about me. In cricket – a much-maligned but actually very admirable sport – reaching a century of runs is considered a good knock for any batsman. Either of the opening batsmen in a Test Match (which lasts five days, Jacinta: stick that in your pipe, rugby and soccer players!) would be more than pleased to have the 100 (n.o.) after his name at the end of the opening day, meaning he has scored 100 runs and is not out, ie he will bat again the next day.

And so with me. This is day 100 of my lockdown, and, fictitious events described in this blog notwithstanding, I have not been out of my isolation shed since Day 1.

So I am now, in my own way, 100 (n.o.). But that is about to change. I reckon it is about time the World saw a bit more of me, and my laptop a bit less. If it is good enough for Boris …

This is, therefore, the last post of the Kerfuffle era. SquareBracketsHead can go off and find himself another editing job somewhere, the Finance Director has two companies of her own to run and I have released the herd of PhD students back into captivity of the libraries which will soon re-open. My affairs are therefore in order, and I can venture out into this brave, new world with a clear conscience.

But what about youse, my 25 followers? [That sort of makes you a leader, you know? – Ed.] Well, my advice, for what it’s worth, is for you to go off and follow someone else, preferably someone going in the same direction as you. I am grateful for your interest in my ramblings, particularly to those of you who bothered to leave comments, but now I am, as the saying goes, outta here, I’m history, I’m yesterday’s Irish News.

Go dtaga bhur racht!