Ok, NOW I’m confused…

Many, many moons ago I posted saying I thought the confusion over Covid 19 resrtictions was a bit overblown. Oh how things have changed.

With the average age of death of covid victims slightly higher than the general  average age of death and “covid related” death rates much much lower than during the inititial spike, we are now subject to tighter and quite oddly detailed but variable restrictions.

England is divided into tiers with different restrictions, only Cornwall and the Isle of Wight are in Tier 1, the least restrictive. In Tier 2, which I’m in, pubs can be open, but must not serve after 10 pm and you must be out by 11 pm, as opposed to last orders at 11 pm, out by 11.20 pm, which is usual. They can only serve you if you are having a “substantial” meal. You are meant to leave once you have finnished your meal, in other words, pubs can only open by doing an impression of a restaurant, a rather unwelcoming restaurant at that. More traditional pubs that don’t do food can’t open, the government has offered them a derisory £1,000 per month in compensation.

Of course, what constitutes a “substantial” meal is in dispute. It has been suggested that a scotch egg, an old pub snack staple, would suffice. The whole thing really points out the utter madness of trying to micro-manage the lives and interactions of 67 million people, but that’s not stopping this allegedly Conservative Governement trying to do just that.

The other night we went to my local pub, we had to book, starting an hour later than we wanted as the landlord didn’t feel he could “get away” with us being there more than three hours. The staff  did well, allowing us to ponder our menu choices for a good while, but it did rather feel like we were havung to game the system to have anything like a normal evening. Later, one of the barmen offered to clear my plate, on which I had carefully left a small portion of food, and not put my knife and fork together. I managed not to stab him in the back of the hand, but I may have growled a bit. He smiled and tapped his nose, saying he’d leave it a bit longer, bless him.

As for my group of friends, were we all of one household or members of the same social “bubble”? Well, we must have been, otherwise four blokes meeting in a pub for a few pints and a chat would’ve been illegal, and we don’t do illegal do we?* It all felt a bit like being a Resistance cell in a sympathetic French café in 1943, but on the whole I’d rather just have a relaxed night in an English pub.

*well, we didn’t used to.

The exact scientific connection between having a plate of sausage and mash in front of you and not catching the Coof Coof is unclear to me, but then I’m not a doctor. Someone who is, one of the government’s “scientific advisors” said this week that she thought people shouldn’t spend more than 15 minutes in a shop and that 15 minutes was plenty of time. She’s clearly never been in a bookshop with me.

In Wales, the “government” is having a good go at making the principality into some sort of cold, wet Prohibition era USA theme park. Pubs, hotels, bars and restaurants of any sort are banned from serving any alchohol at all and must close at 6pm anyway (no, really, 6pm). I can only assume that the ruling Welsh Labour Party has bought shares in English pubs within ten miles of the Anglo-Welsh border.

And north of the border in Albania, or as you may know it, Scotland? Well, who knows or cares what’s happening in the howling wastes of collectivist misery ruled by Chairperson Sturgeon and her Braveheart Bolsheviks? Old school Unionist of Scots ancestry I may be, but Scotland is feeling increasingly foreign and unpleasant.

Of course, local authorites and other control freaks are as happy as pigs in poo. The mutliplying rules, varying according to time and place, are just nuts to folk like that who can interpret them in various ways. Some councils have even sent out agents to catch out, or even entrap, pubs. No doubt I’m too sensitive to collectivist controls, but increasing numbers of folk are starting to resent this crap. Our humour is becoming eerily like the dry cold cynical humour of Communist period Eastern Europe. Someone on Twitter came up with a good send up of the new, ever changing rules. Here is my illustrated take on their idea of the new rules.