So, from today (8 March), I am "allowed" to step outside my front door for purposes of "recreation and exercise", not just on my own or with other members of my household but now - praise the lord - I can do so with one other person who doesn't live with me. Whoopee-bloody-doo.
How the hell have we allowed our politicians to do this to us? I have to confess that I am bitterly disappointed with my fellow Brits. Not only have we as a population willingly bent over so far that we could probably now tickle our toes with our eyebrows, it seems there are many who would contort themselves still further preferring the security of captivity to actually living life on anything other than a risk-free basis. It is said that with age comes wisdom. Did anyone think to ask the elderly whether they thought their being isolated "for their own protection" was actually a good idea? It seems to me that the vulnerable in our society, the elderly, the infirm, the poor, the disabled, much of the private sector and a whole generation of kids are the ones who have really paid the price - and will continue to do so for many years to come - for protecting the comfortably-off public sector and middle classes.
Yesterday, in Scotland, Celtic's nil-nil draw with Dundee United meant that Rangers were crowned SPL Champions for the first time in ten years and the Rangers fans duly celebrated with hundreds out on the streets of Glasgow in contravention of current lockdown rules. Cue much condemnation and gnashing of teeth by politicians north of the border but what did they expect? Modest, family bubble celebratory teas? Sanitised hand shakes and virtual slaps on backs all round? Perhaps wait until next Monday when up to four Rangers fans from two households can meet outdoors (Scotland has a different "roadmap" to England for coming out of current restrictions)? Do me a favour, despite the apparent willingness (nay desire?) on the part of the population generally to bend over and accept what the government(s) is shoving, could it be that seasonality will now play its part in awakening the hibernation of the slumbering British populus? I'm not talking about the football season of course. I'm talking about Spring itself. The politicians conveniently forgot or ignored seasonality when it came to the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, certainly when it came to the models of doom upon which they locked us down in the first place and against which the roadmaps out of lockdown are based. It would be ironic if it turns out that they have similarly forgotten other more general aspects of seasonality too.
As footballing success brought the celebrating Rangers' fans out on to the streets yesterday, so too will the warmer weather and longer daylight hours of the approaching Spring bring the populus generally out from behind their front doors. We have been subjected to a communist playbook in pandemic control depriving us of our freedoms and liberties for too long, justified on the back of false positive testing and inflated virus-related death rates. It is one thing being "locked down" during the cold and wet of winter when we might typically not be that keen on venturing too far from the front door in the first place; quite another when the rain has stopped, temperatures start hitting double figures and the sun is peeking out from behind the clouds again.
As from today, we are being told we have another three weeks until we can meet outside with up to five others and another five weeks before we can sit in a pub car park and have a pint. In ten weeks time we'll actually be "allowed" to sit inside the pub and five weeks later they'll even let us stand up (may be easier said than done after all this bending over). For crying out loud. Are we sheep...........or men (and women of course)?
For me, the celebrations of the Rangers fans are a foretaste of what will come with the onset of Spring. Life is worth celebrating. The vulnerable have been vaccinated. Infections and death rates are plummeting. People will see no good reason why they should continue to have their rights and freedoms denied them and they will be outside in such numbers that there will be nothing the politicians can do about it. So, congratulations on your SPL title Rangers fans and well done on celebrating it appropriately. A light shone in the night some way ahead. Blue turned into green, then it was red. You have shown me the light. I'm off out now. And the Rangers fans know where I'm going.
