Went to the garden centre this morning. I didn't want to, as they have allowed it to open fully. Previously they had kept the food shop open. This was ideal because of how empty it was. I'd hoped that on a Monday morning that might be the case again. While it wasn't heaving by any stretch, there were still plenty of people queuing to get in.
Social distancing seems to consist of other people just wandering around and interacting normally, despite the presence of managed floorplans, and me being the one that moves. I'm waiting in the queue to be served and people walk right past me just to skip the tills and leave. They aren't being nasty but they are completely disinterested in respecting my space. I'm wearing a mask and I feel like a tit for doing so. No one else is, other than the staff who, pleasantly, seem well equipped int hat department.
I don't really want to go back to an environment like that and had I any choice I wouldn't have gone at all. I don't see any reason a garden centre needs to be open at this time. Profit, yo.
And so it ends. What began as a novel well meaning exercise in mutual support, with people facing genuine uncertainty and the hope that this might well blow over quickly, has ended in farce. All dismantled by the hypocrisy and arrogance of a hopeless failed state. Parents, I hope you didn't send your kids to school today, and that you don't have to.
Where do we go from here?
After almost three months with still no sign of any real improvement in the situation - our death rate is three times that of Italy right now - people have given up. Who can blame them? They are following the example set by the Tories. The weather has exacerbated it; hot days, the beach beckons, tempers fray. One thing I've noticed is the increase in litter. I don't know who's doing it or why but there's a lot more rubbish ditched on the streets and in the hedges. I could grumble and say it's the kids I hear hanging around late at night, ignorant of the rules. Sadly their parents don't seem to care. Kids, yo.
almost three months ago, when this first started, things were different. While the pandemic was, and should still be, frightening (i say that advisedly), people found the situation novel. Mutual aid groups sprang up. A wonderful thing. But now, in this crazy heatwave, I think people are tired. The confusion boiling from the government has thrown salt into this wound and so people are resorting to normal behaviour, good and bad. For example, I'm seeing way more litter than usual. Perhaps I'm more aware because of the moment, I can't say for sure. But there are lots of kids hang around. They, and thus their parents, don't care for social distancing. They are hanging around as they are wont to do in the summer. It doesn't seem to bother them. Kids, yo. The immortality of youth.
But I fear there is a dangerous cocktail of malaise infecting us, overseen by no oversight. A government too arrogant to accept it's dreadful failings, and too Tory to care. I suspect no thought was given to the notion that a failed private provider like Serco should be put in charge of the track and trace programme (if it eventually works). Naturally they will profit from it in the same way that the government's bailout package is just a series of loans. Just another banking transaction; hardly befitting a national economic crisis of people left financially bereft.
But this is where we are, sweltering not social distancing. No one knows how to act, so do what you normally do. SNAFU.
So begins the new phase.
Class war.
PS: I mentioned the other day that Weston super Mare hospital had been closed due to a Corona outbreak. According to the BBC it was not being attributed to holidaymakers tripping out on the beach. So we can't assume that to be the cause, at least for now. I can't believe people piling onto Britain's beaches, like Covid Churchill, won't have an effect, but I endeavour to be accurate. Well, sometimes!
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