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23 March 2020

The Age of Stupid

This was the scene in a London park yesterday, 22nd March.

Similar scenes could be seen on beaches and at popular tourist spots around the country.

For me, it's Day 1 of the new (non) working week, and I feel acutely aware that we are truly living in the Age of Stupid.

Thousands of people appear to think that they have some kind of superpower that protects them again Covid-19. Not only are they deluded, they are also ignorant and selfish, giving no thought to the part they a playing in spreading the disease and increasing the death rate.

Some people go in the opposite direction: a paramedic reported that he'd been slung out of his lodgings because his landlady regarded him as a health risk. Well, let's hope she doesn't need a paramedic any time soon.

Teenagers are having parties; some are standing around the streets in close-knit groups joking and laughing about ignoring all the current advice. Well, let's hope that when they are laying in a hospital bed they continue to appreciate the joke.

Pauline and I are not in self-isolation as we currently have no symptoms, but we are mainly confining ourselves to the house, and if we go out for exercise or essential shopping we think about where we are, and try to observe "Social Distancing".

It's a weird life we are all (apart from the idiots of course) having to endure, but there are ways to adapt, perhaps by taking Stephen Fry's advice: make yourself a schedule (either mentally or on paper); slow down time by doing everything at a relaxed pace, slowly and methodically, be it household tasks, or cooking. After all, we have all the time in the world right now. Nothing is happening. The country is closed. It's an opportunity to read stuff we've never read before, listen to music, appreciate the garden if you're lucky enough to have one. Re-evaluate what is and what is not important in life.

At first I was angry and depressed. For the first time in 58 years of marriage we will not be going away this year. I had made all the plans, paid all the deposits, happily basking in the anticipation of what was to come later in the year. Now it is all out of the window. There are only two choices: angrily fume about it, or just forget it and seek other kinds of pleasure.

To end on the subject with which I began this piece, it is now time for the Prime Minister and our Government to stop all the weasel words about ADVISING us to do this and ADVISING us not to do that. It is time for the French approach .. Compulsory Rules. You may think this is extradordinary coming from someone who values individual liberty and has never hidden his Liberal Democrat credentials, but these are extraordinary times.

It was announced on the News this morning that McDonalds had decided to close all their restaurants. Half an hour after hearing this announcement there was an advert on LBC encouraging us to enjoy breakfast at McDonalds. The Age of Stupid.

21 March 2020

"It's Life, Jim, but not as we know it."


It’s Saturday 21st March 2020 and Day 1 of being without my part-time job. All schools are closed until further notice. (Nobody worked out how a school transport driver could work from home!) My wife also lost her job as a Doctor’s Receptionist following reorganisation of the Practice surgeries to deal with Covid-19, resulting in our local surgery operating without a receptionist.

Now we have to learn to how fill our weekdays constructively, and live without the benefit of the wages that supplemented our Pensions. But we are fortunate. There are many who are much worse off, so to complain would be both unreasonable and churlish; and if we have to self-isolate we have the benefit of a garden. I feel sorry for the poor souls who live in apartment blocks.

So - schools closed, pubs, clubs, cafes, restaurants, gyms, theatres, and cinemas closed. Britain is closed. We have cancelled theatre trips and holidays. 2020 will be a year unlike any other we have experienced.

These are strange times. When did my wife ever go shopping at 7 a.m.? The answer is, today. She was entitled to take advantage of special opening hours for people who have the dubious privilege of being over 70. Yesterday I called at our local Pharmacy (no hand sanitizer and no thermometers by the way) and found a shivering queue of people outside the door on which there was a notice permitting only one person inside at any time. Outside, the queue was spaced out, not in the sense of being on magic mushrooms, but physically spaced out. Social Distancing. When I got inside to pick up my prescriptions, I found a shopping trolley and two chairs placed in front of the counter to prevent close contact with the pharmacist.

There have to be some positive aspects. Perhaps there are. We are having to re-evaluate what is important and what isn’t. People are learning (re-learning?) how to co-operate, how to help each other, how to be unselfish. Some people are not, however. There are those who still persist in trying to buy up the entire contents of supermarkets as if they are about to be consigned to a desert island, and the lady seen in our local supermarket this morning picking up a pack of “Wonky” Carrots at a discounted price and rejecting them in favour of a perfect cauliflower. If you need to eat, does it matter if your carrots aren’t straight? And why is there a kind of mass hysteria over toilet rolls?! Supermarkets really need to be more rigorous in their rationing system.

On the negative side, there the people who are totally amoral (one of them is running the USA), happy to operate scams, sell magic potions to ‘cure’ the virus infection, engage in blatant over-pricing, or steal food from food banks; and the young people who think they are immortal, joking about ignoring all the current advice concerning “social distancing”.

Party Politics is changing .. and it needs to! There are positive signs that parliamentarians who normally spend their time tearing lumps out of each other in our highly adversarial system are ‘morphing’ into beings prepared to countenance more reasonable discourse with each other, co-operating in the face of an invisible enemy. I strongly feel that if we can move to a position where we recognise there is more in life that unites us than divides us, then Covid-19 will have taught us something useful. Whether we are Socialist, Conservative, Liberal, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Atheist, ‘Brexiteer’ or ‘Remainer’ (sorry to bring that up again), or none of the above, we don’t exclusively hold all the keys to wisdom, knowledge, vision, or political ideas.

It’s going to be a weird 2020. Learn to appreciate new values. Stay strong. Stay well.