SWEDEN SCHMEDEN

Remember back in February, when we were all going around claiming we voted Sinn Fein, because no one wanted to look off-trend? An entire era has passed since then. But we’re still a shower of mad nationalists. Lockdown kept us on the island, it made us wonder, “Where is Ireland on the curve, and are we doing better than the Brits?” And then there was waking up every morning, secretly hoping that half of Sweden was in hospital. The Swedes barely had a lockdown at all, something they rubbed in our faces by taking photos of themselves in the pub. If they were right, we were very, very wrong. It just added to that nagging voice in every Irish head telling us that things would be better if we were just more like the Swedes, with their cool furniture and fit-for-purpose childcare. It’s starting to look now as if the Swedes got it wrong with their light-touch lockdown. Their lead scientist went on the radio recently to say, “It’s too early to tell if we got it right”, which is lead-scientist-speak for I’m changing my name and moving to Australia, because people are going to be really pissed off.

So from now on, we can stop feeling bad about ourselves compared to Sweden.

Except for their cool furniture.