Sixth sense over gift of Christmas
JHAVE you been invited to join your local Neighbourhood Snitch Society yet? What would you say if you were? Would you, like Home Secretary Priti Patel, happily snitch on the folk next door if you saw them “mingling” in the back garden in a group that consisted of, say, six adults and two or three toddlers?
Or, let’s go for bust – a “mingle” of eight or ten? Even if you knew they were all members of the same family?
I wouldn’t. I suppose I might be concerned if I saw a crowd of young ravers gathering on the heath opposite out house, but I’d feel pretty bad about snitching if they weren’t doing anything more antisocial than drinking and kissing goodbye to their mates before dispersing to unis facing dismally restricted fresher weeks with no parties, 10pm curfews, and boring lectures via Zoom.
Mingling is a fabulous word, isn’t it? Destined to be the 2020 description of choice for furtive family gatherings trying to avoid the censorious eyes of the Priti Snitcher’s Charter.
The “rule of six”, enforced by wombling marshalls, is ripe for comedy, but it’s another example of how Boris, Hancock and Whitty are determined to treat us all like children. Hancock in particular has proved adept at switching the blame for his failed Covid measures onto us, the hapless citizens relying on him to deal efficiently with this plague.
Six months after lockdown, we’re faced with a complete breakdown of the testing system. But does Hancock say sorry, after his previous boasts?
No, he insists, chest puffed out, that he will not “shirk from prioritising”... in other words, rationing.
Even Boris bleatingly admits that they’ve failed.
But d’you know what? I have a feeling that come Christmas the rule of six will be miraculously magicked into a rule of eight... or ten. And it won’t include children. “They” will tell us
( as if we’re kids at a panto) that we can have our family Christmas after all!
Mark my words – that’s why they’re playing the big bad villains now. In December, ugly sisters Boris and Matt will morph into a fairy godmother and with a stroke of their magic wand, proclaim: “Happy Christmas, boys and girls: look what we’ve done for you!” Will I thank them?
The last six months have made me grumpier than Scrooge. Bah, humbug.
I LOVE the idea that Vikings were actually popular. A study of ancient bones reveals they weren’t just the marauding hordes of our imagination.
They were nice, too: we Brits liked them so much we wanted to become them. Long before identity culture began, we identified as Vikings.
Sadly, though I’ve long thought my son- in- law, rugby star James Haskell, right, has Viking blood, they were not huge and blond like him. Many were small and dark... more like Ronnie Corbett.