Rab McNeil

OUR rulers (the Westminster ones) are advising us to prepare for summer. Not a Summer of Love exactly. More a Summer of Normal, a state to which we now aspire. Matt Hancock told Britishers they can look forward to a “happy and free summer”. Who, me? Happy? Free? That’d be a first. Actually, I must stop being such a Dismal Derek. Must make an effort to wear the mask, in point of which I will admit that even I have felt free and happy, though only when on holiday. The rest of our lives are hell.

I recall – not having had a proper holiday for 13 years – thinking the purpose of work was to earn money to have breaks, where you’d live in a pretty cottage in an idyllic place. In other words, for a fortnight you lived the life to which you aspired. Perhaps, during your time in the cottage, you would work on the novel that would earn you enough money to buy such a place and live happily ever after.

Alas, there turned out to be two problems with that cunning plan:

(1) novels have to be interesting and exciting, and that is not my style; (2) all the prettiest cottages are holiday rental cottages; there are no pretty cottages for sale in the entire country; not one.

So, for most of us, holidays have traditionally been the only time we live the life to which ideally we’d be accustomed. That partly explains why I never holidayed abroad. Nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.

Back here in Blighty, the aforementioned Hancock, Heath Secretary at yonder Westminster, has expressed hopes for a “Great British summer”, once everybody has been vaccinated against The Virus. But the key word here is neither “Great” nor “summer”. It is “British”.

I know some of you are “Scottish” and that, technically, Mr Hancock’s briefs only come up to Hadrian’s

Wall. It’s all so complicated now – the devolution is in the detail – but he appears to have been speaking for all in these septic or infected isles.

At any rate, Scottish or English, it looks like you’re going to have to holiday “at home”, in Blighty, instead of swanning around under sweltering suns and eating imaginative cuisine. Mr Hancock himself plans to holiday in Cornwall, as decent English people (and even this upstanding Scotsman) did in the past.

One Conservative-supporting newspaper described the Health Secretary’s message as “unusually upbeat”, while the influential Daily Star advised its readers to “break out their budgie smugglers”. It quoted Prime Minister Boris Johnson as being “optimistic” about summer.

These are stirring times. We’d forgotten to be optimistic and to anticipate happiness. It sounds surreal. Humanity’s great strength is that it can adapt to anything. You just get used to the new abnormal. The abnormal becomes the norm.

These days, I just no longer think of the gym or evening classes or concerts. Lockdown affected my life far less than it did regular citizens, with their offices, parties and their fancy wotsnames. Friends. Tales of alleged loneliness made me laugh scornfully, and I was delighted to hear that people were unable to go skiing.

On the downside, cycling and jogging reached new levels of madness, and I do miss my weekly sauna and the occasional pint poured from a tap (though these days, absolutely counter to the past, bottled beer is probably better; I was so disappointed during breaks in lockdown to be presented with rotten, headless pints).

All comedy misery apart, I do look forward to a Summer of Normal. I shall miss some aspects of lockdown, such as the lack of social obligations, the camaraderie and Blitz spirit (not over-egging this, am I?).

Once again, wicked Mother Earth has tried to kill us and, once again, we have seen her off.

She’ll probably rain on us all summer, if she isn’t burning us from time to time too. She’ll harass us with midges and ticks, and probably summer colds, but she shall never defeat us. We saw off Arthur Hitler, if that was the name. We can see off old Ma Earth too. We shall grind her face into the dust this summer. We shall have our revenge – by being happy.

Leith for love

WHEN I say “City of Love” doubtless your thoughts turn to Dundee or Glasgow. However, among more cosmopolitan people, it means Paris.

The French capital’s reputation took a hit this week, though, when a reputable academic study by radiator firm Stelrad found it was the worst place to pop the question, as it resulted in more subsequent divorces than anywhere else.

Reykjavik and New York came second and third respectively. Thankfully, I have never popped the question in any of these places. Indeed, I’ve only been to one of the three – New York – and that only because I was forced to go by my work. I hated it. Only one place to pop the question in my view: my native Leith. You’ll get slapped in the face for your trouble, but think of all the hassle that saves of a messy divorce later.