I’ve always wondered what people meant when they talked about a guilty pleasure. I’ve never understood what’s wrong with having two slices of cake, eating a whole packet of biscuits, buying yourself flowers, listening to Dolly Parton on repeat, binge watching Disney films, staying in your pyjamas all day or taking the little soaps from hotels. What’s wrong with a bit of self care? However, I’ve found mine.
All weekend I’ve been weirdly excited. I wasn’t quite sure why. The Sunday papers had been briefed with everything that was going to be said. We thought that the three tier system sounded complicated but were already resigned to it. It still didn’t seem fair that the economy of the ‘North’ was being hung out to dry. It didn’t seem as though local lockdowns work (Leicester - 106 days. Cases still rising). I knew what would be said but I was looking forward to the press conference.
I didn’t think it would bring any more clarity but as the time drew closer I said to one of my older flute pupils, “We’ve got a Boris in a moment.”
She looked at me oddly.
“I know, I’ll have to watch it on catch up but I just love a Boris, don’t you love a Boris?”
She was suddenly squinting at me as though I had grown an extra head. “Errm. Nope. No one watches those. You seem very happy about it.”
“I am. They’re funny. Really? No one watches them? No one at all?”
She thought that maybe some people did. Old grannies and the like but no one enjoyed them.
So, Boris is my guilty pleasure. Watching those press conferences is brilliant for metaphor collecting.
Yesterday he described the situation. “These figures are flashing at us like dashboard warnings in a passenger jet.”
Chris Whitty explained the figures. We now have as many people in hospital as we did at the beginning of lockdown with a doubling every seven days. In some areas the doubling is as fast as it was at the beginning of lockdown. Boris doesn’t feel comfortable in curtailing people’s freedom and Dishy Rishi was there to say how uncomfortable he was at spending all the money required to help us abide by the ‘common sense’ that even ministers and government advisers don’t have.
It was Chris Whitty’s face that made me realise that the reason they have taken such strong action on Liverpool and not Nottingham had to be to do with hospitals. I can’t remember exactly what Boris said but Chris winced as though he was trying not to break all social distancing rules and stamp on Boris’ foot.
Luckily, local news journalism is on hand to explain the problem.
In Liverpool the Covid admissions make up 15% of all hospitalisation. If a hospital gets to a point where 20% of all patients admitted are coronavirus patients then the hospital ceases to be able to run normal services. This is, and always has been, the problem. It’s not that COVID-19 is the worst disease ever, it’s just that it takes up a lot of hospital space and our already struggling hospitals can’t cope.
Overall, Chris Whitty was quite clear that it wouldn’t be enough. Boris wanted to promise a normal Christmas but couldn’t quite manage it. As Beth Rigby, from Sky news, said, “this is, yet again, rhetoric over action.” If the messages are confused and there is no clear direction then you can’t possibly hope to get people to follow the guidance. Unless you explain to people why it is safe in a restaurant but not in a gym or why my colleague couldn’t stay with her daughter in Nottingham but her daughter could stay with her then you will never get control.
In an attempt to explain things to people whose guilty pleasure isn’t watching Boris fluff and flaff his way through a press conference with metaphors about crashing jumbo jets, the BBC have tried to use the nation's most quoted guilty pleasure: cake. It’s very simplistic but at least it’s clear. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-54511965
I expect, however, most people will just watch Bake Off and actually eat cake. This week is chocolate week and I have already started my chocolate coconut cake for later. Who doesn’t love a bounty flavoured cake?
My cake only has two tiers, which is probably fine, as I live in a pretty cliquey town that people tend to stay in. It has six drama groups because social mixing has never been popular here.
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