Leaving Lockdown

Time to Shave, Time to Venture Forth From The Home, Time to Dine

Pyrrhic "Victory"?
The streets are no longer unpeopled. The air is no longer unpetrolled. Most shops are no longer shuttered. The UK is becoming unlockdowned, unfurloughed, unshielded. We’re meant to continue to stay alert; alert like Mr Dominic Cummings, the eyes-fully-tested, rule-following, model citizen. Alert like Prime Minister Boris Johnson who said in parliament on 23rd June that the government’s strategies represent a “victory over the virus”, so today’s figures of 44,650 Covid-19 deaths in the UK (as of 11th July 2020) should somehow be seen as better than they might have been, as long as we don’t mention the Office for National Statistics figure of 65,000 excess deaths in 2020. And so we are encouraged to return to Normal – or a New Normal which

• may or may not involve wearing masks (clarity coming very very soon, we’re told)
• may or may not involve a Test, Track and Trace system (a working app coming in the Autumn, we’re told)
• may or may not involve cooperating with other countries on developing a vaccine (unless we decide to be World Beating by ourselves.)

I’ve not yet been in a shop other than a food shop but, as the images above and below show, Sally and I went for our 34th anniversary meal in a tried and trusted local restaurant, Shipley’s Waterside. The meal was delicious, the arrangements safe and clear, the atmosphere quiet but perfectly suited to an anniversary chat. Bookshop next? Then cinema? Then theatre, eventually? Hello, New Normal.

Anniversary treats, including scones with friends and in spite of a Stye in the Eye, symbolic of something I suppose....