Full make-up, a posh top and my dangly earrings... it felt good, I felt like me again

I DON’T want to seem like I’m moaning at a time when everyone out there is doing their bit but I’ve noticed an insidious sense of authoritarianism creeping into daily life. I’m talking about people who already had a bit of authority before this crisis and those who’ve been afforded it since.

So, there was the police sergeant on Twitter who was filmed giving a woman shop owner a fine because she’d drawn chalk lines outside her shop to keep her customers a safe six feet apart.Along comes Plod and says it’s against the law. She explains it’s not paint, just chalk and she’ll wash it off at the end of the day. She says she just did it to keep everyone safe. But Matey Boy’s having none of it: “The law’s the law,” he says officiously. “We’ve got to follow it otherwise there’d be anarchy.”

So there was a woman, under incredible stress at having to come into contact with the public every day, who is trying to keep everyone safe – and she gets a fine and is accused of creating anarchy.

A bit closer to home I was in a queue outside my local Sainsbury’s on Saturday.We were all more than six feet apart.We were all wearing gloves, masks or both.There was no argy bargy. Everyone was waiting patiently to be let into the shop (only 70 were allowed in at any one time). Suddenly a woman in a high-vis jacket starts bellowing that any of us there as a couple (miraculously The Husband was with me) must decide who goes into the shop because only one person from one family can be let in at a time.Any more would take up a valuable space. I got that. It made sense.

So,The Husband starts walking back to the car – as did a few other husbands. But that wasn’t enough for this woman who clearly liked the sound of her own voice (what is it about high-vis jackets that turn people into little dictators?). She then started shouting that currently these were only instructions and that if people didn’t follow the instructions things would get tougher.

Now, she didn’t need to do that.The bloke in front of me turned round laughing: “The power’s gone to her head,” he said.The woman behind me said: “She’s loving this.” And she was.

I know these guys have a job to do but in situations where everyone is doing exactly what they’re being told to do, we don’t need to be treated like naughty children. High-vis clobber doesn’t give anyone the right to treat us like criminals.We’re not.We’re just trying to do what needs to be done to stop the spread of this virus. By all means get heavy-handed with those blatantly flouting the rules. Get heavy with those not keeping the required distance apart, those walking around in big groups. But don’t go all Stasi-like with two people walking their dog in the country miles from anyone and anywhere. Or, like Saturday, people waiting patiently outside a supermarket.

Great news this week: one of my best friends in the world, Charles Knight (he’s actually Professor Charles Knight) has been made CEO of the new Nightingale Hospital.And they couldn’t have put a better man in charge. Charlie is the current boss of London’s St Bart’s Hospital, where he has made a rip-roaring success of things.And I have absolutely no doubt he will do the same at the Nightingale.We really couldn’t be in better hands.

OK, so I put full make-up on today because, via Skype, I was doing an interview on Charles and Camilla for a Channel 5 documentary. I didn’t recognise myself. I know at the start of all this self-isolating I promised I wouldn’t let standards drop – but I have. Drastically.Anyway, there I was in the make-up, a posh top and dangly earrings – and it felt good. I felt like Me again…