Testing return but still a great escape
ASALL motorists know, the M25 is bad enough without having an Extinction Rebellion splinter group calling itself Insulate Britain blocking a slip road.this caused horrendous traffic jams last week.
Insulate Britain wants the Government to “take responsibility for the insulation of all social housing in Britain”. So they’re a bit like an extreme version of cold callers who want to fix up your loft and lag your pipes.
Like many anxious middle-class people I sort of feel environmental protest groups are on the side of the angels while deploring their methods.
But that bloke with the banner which said “Sorry to stop you”... now that did make me see red. No, chum, you’re not sorry at all and sorry is never the hardest word. You’re absolutely cock-a-hoop about holding up a million motorists for hours so don’t pretend otherwise.you just love it. You’ll be hyperventilating with excitement when you tell all your friends.
Honestly I’d have been one of those tempted to get out of my car and give him a good smack. Just for that banner and the expression of fake regret.
HARRISON Ford is filming another Indiana Jones movie, below, with Fleabag’s Phoebewaller-bridge also starring and tipped as his replacement. Must PW-B get every role going?will men soon be banned from acting altogether? If – after Daniel Craig’s departure – the next 007 turns out to be a man it will be nothing short of miraculous.
You know what? I’m far too old to need female role models and I kind of like men on screen now and then. Manly men at that. Big fanciable men, with testosterone and stubble. Is that too much to ask?
But accepting that Harrison Ford is getting on a bit, why don’t we just call it a day and knock Indy on the head once and for all? Just don’t give the part to another blooming woman.
SOME old girl was questioned in her car about the wisdom of Covid jabs for adolescents during ATV news vox pop. “Well, we don’t know what’s in it, do we?”, she complained peevishly. No madam, you don’t, any more than you knew what was in all the life-saving vaccines you received as a child without any fuss. And if you did know, would it make the slightest difference?
A NURSERY called Bundles Of Joy was right to tell off one of its staff who showed too much cleavage, ruled a tribunal. There’s a surprise. The idea women must conform to some sort of dress code at work is usually considered very old hat. The truth is, most of us know without being told when dress is appropriate. And we’d know that a nursery is really no place to display your own bundles of joy, no matter how shapely.
WHEN you come back from foreign hols people now say: “What was it like?” But do not mistake this for an invitation to whip out your phone and show off pictures of sunsets and moussaka. No, all they want to know is: “How did you manage to navigate the travel-in-atime-of-covid hassle and is it worth the bother?”
I came back from Spain last Sunday quite smug at how I’d coped with the various hurdles including the all-important PLF. Not the Palestinian Liberation Front but the Passenger Locater Form which will be blighting tourists’ lives until the end of time.
Apart from the PLF I’d organised my Day 2 test to be taken on my return to the UK. So... good to go. All that was needed was to pack the bikini and a spare pair of earrings.
There was a big hold-up at Malaga airport when I flew in.
Nothing to do with Covid. Everything to do with the security staff going on strike leaving a mutinous rabble pressed up against each other in the arrival hall for a couple of sweaty hours breathing viruses on each other.
But the return home was easy-peasy and I felt pretty smug. Then on Day 2 after arrival I did my mandatory PCR test and realised with a sick lurch that in the pretravel frenzy the pre-paid envelope in which it must be sent to the laboratory... had been thrown away.
GULP. I went to the post office to explain my plight and the cashier looked at me as though I’d strolled in waving a snotencrusted swab. No, she had no idea what I could do and if she had, she certainly wasn’t going to share the information with me.
Drive the sample to the lab? No hope as there was no way of contacting it. Finally I found somewhere near Southampton where one could book a walk-in PCR test. For the princely sum of... £125.
The address was a hotel and, expecting some seedy B&B (a low-rent outpost of the grasping Covid-test industry), I set off. After a drive through narrow lanes I arrived at a sumptuous country house hotel. It was hushed and expensive – the sort of place where Mrs Peel and Steed would rock up in The Avengers and find that a group of mad, posh scientists was playing croquet and building a death ray.
There was no queue. The lady running the tests said: “Are you Jennifer?” when I arrived, expressed dismay at my having to pay for another test and gently inserted a swab down my throat and up my nose. She was very nice and I drove away feeling more or less at peace with the world (though minus £125).
Obviously I’m never, never throwing anything away ever again.