Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Let’s all go down pub for a virus smoothie
£30m is not a small matter THEATRE CROWD MUSTN’T BE BITTER
Now the lockdown is easing, it’s fair to say some people never quite grasped why we bothered with it in the first place. These are the ones who can’t ever see why they should alter their behaviour for anything.
There could be a warning that an escaped Tyrannosaurus Rex was in Wetherspoons, attracted by scampi and chips night, so we were all advised to stay in.
And they would say: “But I meet my mate Terry every Tuesday in Wetherspoons, I’m not cancelling that, it’s the highlight of my week. Anyway, if we all stay indoors the dinosaurs have won.”
It was always tricky to convince these people to stick to lockdown rules. So, as the lockdown is softened, we need careful guidance on how to behave, to make sure the virus doesn’t spread again.
Luckily Boris Johnson told us we would be fine as long as we used our “common sense”.
Because “use your common sense” is the advice you give when you haven’t got a clue what to do.
This is why you don’t go to a car mechanic who looks at oil pouring from your engine and says: “It might be about to explode, I have no idea. So I suggest you start driving about on July 4 and see what happens, just use your common sense. That’s your service, that will be £285 plus VAT.”
With medical advice it’s even worse. Very few remedies for disease
The entertainment industry seems upset that pubs are to be opened before any theatres or music venues.
But you can understand why the pubs have priority – it’s a matter of safety.
Theatres are wild places where you can’t control the public.
So often, during a show by a comic, the audience spreads viruses by forgetting they have a ticket for come about common sense.
For example, Shark Liver Oil is a known substance for boosting the immune system. I wonder if that became known through scientific study or common sense.
It’s possible that one day, 100 years ago, someone had a weak immune system. So they thought: “I know what I’ll try, I’ll sail to the Gulf of Mexico, capture a shark, rip its liver out and eat tiny chunks of it three times a day after meals. I mean, it’s just common sense isn’t it?”
And if you were going to deal with a pandemic by common sense, I wonder if Boris Johnson’s is the best sort.
Because he told us he was happy to shake hands with patients who’d been infected with the virus, as you seat 19b and moving across to seat 23f and sitting on someone else’s lap. Once they’ve got over-excited by reading the programme, they’re back and forth to the toilet, spreading germs around. And sometimes when violinist Nicola Benedetti is playing, a member of the audience will listen to too many notes and end up being
SICK NOTE by couldn’t possibly catch it by touching people who had it. That’s plain common sense.
And certain scientists suggested if the lockdown had started one week earlier, as they advised, we’d have thousands fewer deaths and could have eased the restriction long ago, as they have in Europe.
Luckily the Prime Minister has learned much from that experience.
So now he tells us: “I’ve looked at all the graphs and have no idea what they mean, so LET’S ALL GO DOWN THE PUB.”
Next week he’ll tell us: “The best remedy is a virus smoothie. Just pop an egg cup full of coronavirus into a blender with a banana and yoghurt, drink a pint a day and you’ll be as right as rain.”
So you can’t blame people for thinking, as it’s hot and they fancy a swim, that the entire country might as well sit next to each other on the same beach, as it’s just common sense. sick in the car park outside. But in a pub, everyone sits quietly gazing at the beauty of the beer pumps and admiring the peanuts.
No one ever moves anywhere and no one projects little spores of virus because no one says a word.
If only people could behave as well in theatres as they do in pubs, the entertainment venues could be opened up next week as well. They have only themselves to blame.
Ian McKellen, who is brilliant and 81, is going to play Hamlet again. He shouldn’t try to hide his age, adding lines like ‘Hello, ghost of my dad, I’ll be with you in just a minute but I must have another wee’. But the main concern is the audience lose control, put their arms round each other and sing ‘To be or not to be’, as they always do with Hamlet, which is why we need to keep theatres closed.