It’s the government’s chosen Independence Day. Our government is all about the messaging, with its three word phrases and easily quotable lines that seem like common sense until you actually try to make sense of them. They really wanted this 4th of July to be our Independence from the virus day. Pubs open, shops open, spend, spend spend.
The virus had other ideas. It liked Leicester. It was almost enough to make it forget the horrible Dominic Cummings experience. It had Walkers crisps, Foxes glacier mints, Melton Mowbray pork pies and multi-generational households filled with love. Instead of going away it had found a reason to stay.
This was a bit of a problem for the government, who don’t like to back down, so they ploughed ahead to opening everything. Not everything if you like music, theatre, cricket, less bushy eyebrows, swimming or hugging your family but everything that matters like haircuts, holidays to Croatia and pubs.
Poor Chris Whitty looked like he was going to be sick again as Boris gave the impression he had been on the lash since early morning while announcing that pubs could open from 6am.
“Combined with contract taste..er..contact tasting..er..testing..tracing..forgive me contact..contract..contact tracing....”
I always thought that picking a Saturday to reopen pubs after such a long time was a silly idea. Exhausted A&E staff must be really looking forward to a ‘normal’ Saturday night shift. However, I’m not going to judge people who want to go to the pub.
My social media feed this morning was like a branch of the temperance society. People were rushing to outdo each other, supposedly taking the moral high ground over someone who had been fixing roads all night and wanted to pop to Spoons for a full English and a pint at 6am. Even Samuel Pepys was at it.
“The taverns are full of gadabouts making Merry this eve. And though I may press my face against the window like an Urchin at a confectioner’s. I am tempted not by the sweetmeats within. A dram in exchange for the pox is an ill bargain indeed. diary S. Pepys. Great Plague of 1665.”
Clearly, this is a fake because Pepys loved a good early morning drink at the sign of a woman with cakes in one hand and a pot of ale in the other (I like to think this Holloway pub was called The Bread n Bitter). 1665 also wasn’t a country-wide lockdown. The rich moved out of London, leaving the poor to die on the streets. People who stayed were confined to their homes to die or recover without help and a red cross was placed on the door once one person in the family had symptoms. There were 68596 officially recorded deaths from the Plague in London in 1665.
I know people are scared and time might tell us that this was a mistake (or it might not) but people who own these business and the people who frequent them are just doing their best to get back to a normal life.
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| Barge Tearooms getting Insta ready |
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