I don't propose to write too much more about the current pandemic plotline which is so gripping our national soap opera, three in a row seems quite enough to be going on with, but it does seem a bit daft to ignore it after last night's exciting total lockdown plot twist.
So here we all are then, stuck at home on lockdown (bar daily exercise or essential shopping, and I wonder how far those fig-leaves will be stretched over the coming weeks) and the talk is of little else. I made a fairly weak gag yesterday about it being good news for introverts (carefully made on fb, rather than twitter, where I would have instantly had five people accusing me shrilly of not taking it seriously and, by extension, murdering their Nan) but in truth, from where I'm sat, it all feels as yet distant, somewhat other, ever so vaguely surreal. So forgive me if you find the tone too light, I certainly don't mean to downplay the seriousness of a disease which has proven to be lethal. Indeed, I'd argue that Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson's announcement yesterday (and how it cost him, he's aged decades in two weeks; unfortunately, at the time when we needed a prime minister, we elected a salesman) was two weeks too late, and that his populist instincts to keep everything open will cost thousands of lives.
Anyone who's read Camus' The Plague will have found a fair few echoes in the last few days, a town in denial, people going about their daily lives even as the evidence mounts up around them (if you haven't read it, do, it's excellent, I've got a spare copy if you want). I'll confess that I was getting a bit tense going into work. Infuriatingly, when the pub shut-down was announced on Friday night we had an insanely busy evening as people rushed out for "one last night out". With this, panic-buying and widespread defiance of social distancing advice, elements of the public haven't exactly covered themselves with glory these past weeks (though conversely, the tales of people helping each other out, organising shopping for the vulnerable and the inspiring dedication of our public servants provide a stirring counter-narrative), but in an environment of mixed messages, presided over by a shifty and ambiguous PM, it's hard to blame them too much.
Well, there's no ambiguity to it any more, and, whilst he's had the decision forced on him by a combination of an absolutely furious Emmanuel Macron and equally seething cabinet ministers, he's finally taken what the vast majority of scientists consider the best course of action, and now we are where we are, as running coastalblog joke Harry Kane might put it.
There is much to fear from lockdown, not least the hordes of insufferable Instagram accounts which will now be detailing their home improvements in excruciating detail, but even Amanda from Abingdon sticking a heart-eyes emoji next to the perfect shade of duck egg blue that she's just done Sebastian's nursery inn is less annoying than the right wing commentariat instantly leaping to type their piss-poor contrarian takes.
You know the ones, all the men (and it is nearly always men) bubbling with dottle at their pitiful lives, the Brendan O'Neills and Peter Hitchenses, and their confreres in the business world, the fat Mike Ashleys and that Wetherspoons twat, you know, the one that looks like Worzel Gummidge on the verge of a heart attack. That these half-wits still have a space in public life does, I suppose, at least highlight a healthy diversity of opinion, but that their lunacy has an audience is, at a time like this, probably not the best.
(This is not to say that I wish them to be censored, far from it, I jut wish they'd shut the fuck up, or, for preference, didn't exist)
The problem is that they've been enabled by having one of their own at the heart of government. The boy Cummings, with his edgelord disdain for actual humans, has encouraged people to think the unthinkable, which is how Downing St came to hire a eugenicist and how it came to alight upon its clearly disastrous herd immunity idea. But if anything good is to come from this, it's that fewer and fewer people are taking him seriously now, that was a bit of blue sky thinking tool far.
Indeed, if you look carefully, there's a spot of good news to be found in the unlikeliest of places. Indeed, Tory MPs were queuing up in the Commons yesterday to say hey, as it turns out, we were wrong about what counts as an essential worker; as it turns out, it's supermarket shelf-stackers and not investment bankers. Who knew? To which the answer is, everyone, lads, but well done for getting there in the end, shame it took you a global pandemic to realise. This made for an awkward few minutes for Priti Patel, as it was pointed out that the vast majority of the people now regarded as vital to the continued existence of the country are ones she considers "unskilled", slightly awks times at the Home Office, that grinding sound you hear is previously unassailable positions being massively rowed back on, as HMG responds to the crisis by going (whisper it) a bit socialist.
Yep, that's the love that dare not speak its name all right. What COVID-19 has done is lay bare the lies of the last thirty years. We do need each other, and we do need the state to function. The progressive shrinking of the state and its institutions has ground to a halt as we realise, belatedly, that we need them after all. Maybe that's why the likes of O'Neill et al are shitting the bed quite so publicly, they and everyone across the individualist, contrarian end of the spectrum have been found out. No man is an island, and all that, and no island is truly an island, either. So is it too much to hope that we emerge from this a little kinder, a little calmer, a little more aware of the needs of those around us? Have we finally worked out that Hedge Funds are less important than Health workers?
It's not much, I know, but it's a little something to hold on to. Good luck everyone.
So here we all are then, stuck at home on lockdown (bar daily exercise or essential shopping, and I wonder how far those fig-leaves will be stretched over the coming weeks) and the talk is of little else. I made a fairly weak gag yesterday about it being good news for introverts (carefully made on fb, rather than twitter, where I would have instantly had five people accusing me shrilly of not taking it seriously and, by extension, murdering their Nan) but in truth, from where I'm sat, it all feels as yet distant, somewhat other, ever so vaguely surreal. So forgive me if you find the tone too light, I certainly don't mean to downplay the seriousness of a disease which has proven to be lethal. Indeed, I'd argue that Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson's announcement yesterday (and how it cost him, he's aged decades in two weeks; unfortunately, at the time when we needed a prime minister, we elected a salesman) was two weeks too late, and that his populist instincts to keep everything open will cost thousands of lives.
Anyone who's read Camus' The Plague will have found a fair few echoes in the last few days, a town in denial, people going about their daily lives even as the evidence mounts up around them (if you haven't read it, do, it's excellent, I've got a spare copy if you want). I'll confess that I was getting a bit tense going into work. Infuriatingly, when the pub shut-down was announced on Friday night we had an insanely busy evening as people rushed out for "one last night out". With this, panic-buying and widespread defiance of social distancing advice, elements of the public haven't exactly covered themselves with glory these past weeks (though conversely, the tales of people helping each other out, organising shopping for the vulnerable and the inspiring dedication of our public servants provide a stirring counter-narrative), but in an environment of mixed messages, presided over by a shifty and ambiguous PM, it's hard to blame them too much.
Well, there's no ambiguity to it any more, and, whilst he's had the decision forced on him by a combination of an absolutely furious Emmanuel Macron and equally seething cabinet ministers, he's finally taken what the vast majority of scientists consider the best course of action, and now we are where we are, as running coastalblog joke Harry Kane might put it.
There is much to fear from lockdown, not least the hordes of insufferable Instagram accounts which will now be detailing their home improvements in excruciating detail, but even Amanda from Abingdon sticking a heart-eyes emoji next to the perfect shade of duck egg blue that she's just done Sebastian's nursery inn is less annoying than the right wing commentariat instantly leaping to type their piss-poor contrarian takes.
You know the ones, all the men (and it is nearly always men) bubbling with dottle at their pitiful lives, the Brendan O'Neills and Peter Hitchenses, and their confreres in the business world, the fat Mike Ashleys and that Wetherspoons twat, you know, the one that looks like Worzel Gummidge on the verge of a heart attack. That these half-wits still have a space in public life does, I suppose, at least highlight a healthy diversity of opinion, but that their lunacy has an audience is, at a time like this, probably not the best.
(This is not to say that I wish them to be censored, far from it, I jut wish they'd shut the fuck up, or, for preference, didn't exist)
The problem is that they've been enabled by having one of their own at the heart of government. The boy Cummings, with his edgelord disdain for actual humans, has encouraged people to think the unthinkable, which is how Downing St came to hire a eugenicist and how it came to alight upon its clearly disastrous herd immunity idea. But if anything good is to come from this, it's that fewer and fewer people are taking him seriously now, that was a bit of blue sky thinking tool far.
Indeed, if you look carefully, there's a spot of good news to be found in the unlikeliest of places. Indeed, Tory MPs were queuing up in the Commons yesterday to say hey, as it turns out, we were wrong about what counts as an essential worker; as it turns out, it's supermarket shelf-stackers and not investment bankers. Who knew? To which the answer is, everyone, lads, but well done for getting there in the end, shame it took you a global pandemic to realise. This made for an awkward few minutes for Priti Patel, as it was pointed out that the vast majority of the people now regarded as vital to the continued existence of the country are ones she considers "unskilled", slightly awks times at the Home Office, that grinding sound you hear is previously unassailable positions being massively rowed back on, as HMG responds to the crisis by going (whisper it) a bit socialist.
Yep, that's the love that dare not speak its name all right. What COVID-19 has done is lay bare the lies of the last thirty years. We do need each other, and we do need the state to function. The progressive shrinking of the state and its institutions has ground to a halt as we realise, belatedly, that we need them after all. Maybe that's why the likes of O'Neill et al are shitting the bed quite so publicly, they and everyone across the individualist, contrarian end of the spectrum have been found out. No man is an island, and all that, and no island is truly an island, either. So is it too much to hope that we emerge from this a little kinder, a little calmer, a little more aware of the needs of those around us? Have we finally worked out that Hedge Funds are less important than Health workers?
It's not much, I know, but it's a little something to hold on to. Good luck everyone.
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