More shabby than chic as I wait for a jab

LONG ago when the world was normal, people occasionally used the phrase “shabby chic”, referring to a style of interior design that was both scruffy and trendy all at the same time.

I wonder if the concept could now be applied to humans? And I ask, because there must be a lot of shabby chic people out there, hanging on for their double Covid jab and thinking thoughts like… “If I can get the missus to cut my hair one last time I’ll be able to make it through - albeit looking rough around the edges - until I can visit the barber’s safely.”

Or: “Just one more pair of cheap discount store reading spectacles - then, after I’ve had the vaccine, I’ll go to get an eye-test and buy a proper pair from the optician.”

Or even: “Okay, I’ve got enough special dental plastic granules left to make one final temporary replacement tooth. But apart from sticking it in for Zoom meetings, I’m just going to carry on looking like the Gap Toothed Yokel from the Simpsons until the jab – then I’ll spend a fortune on a dental implant.”

The Jab. The Freedom Jab. The

Magic Vaccine that unlocks the cell door.

If, just a year ago, someone had told me I’d be writing such weird things in this column, I’d have phoned an emergency mentalhealth line. But these are authentic narratives from late 2020.

A great many folk are caught in limbo: “Let’s hang-on. There is light at the end of the tunnel, so why risk it now?”

The personal details above apply to me. The hair, the specs and the wretched tooth. But there’ll be millions of other shabby chic tales of “hang-on-woe” across the nation.

Of course there’ll be younger people who’ll think: “Why doesn’t he just go to the bloomin’ barber, or optician, or dentist? They’re all open.”

But I bet there are plenty of folk of a certain age and over – or with underlying health problems – who think: “I’ve avoided the wretched pandemic all this time; I’m not going to blow it now by doing anything risky.”

I have even heard it called “Wilfred Owen syndrome” on BBC Radio. The poet died just a few days before the World War One armistice was declared. Poor blighter. To go through all that living hell, only to take a machine-gun bullet just hours from the end…

But it will happen to some unfortunate victim in this Great War against the microbe. Someday history books will say something like: “Joseph Luckless of Hazard Street, Unlucky-Ville, was the last person to die of Covid 19 in Britain.”

There’ll be those who take to their knees every night before bed, praying: “Please God, don’t let it be me!”

But of course very few go that far, not even the most fearful or worried among us. I am certain, though, that there’ll be plenty who think: “I’ve never been overly afraid of Covid, but now there’s light at the end of the tunnel I’m going to stay in the trench and keep my head down. Just for the next couple of months before my own personal Armistice Day arrives and I get a double hit of sharp steel shoved into my arm.”

And, because humans are what they are, many will think it – then go straight out to a busy town centre to spend several hours within breathing distance of enough folk to fill Wembley Stadium.

If there is one hugely fascinating thing that will come out of this pandemic, it is the variable way in which people regard the concept of risk. Everyone I know is somewhere different on the Richter scale of Covidfear.

But is ‘fear’ the right word? Do I really mean ‘awareness’? I ask, because a great many folk seem think along the lines of: “We must take this pandemic very seriously. I certainly don’t want to get it and we must protect others. Abso-bloominlutely!”

Then they’ll whisper, with a slightly sheepish, guilty, look: “But now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m popping across the Cornish border for a Tier One pint.” There’s a collective surge of self-denial going on. One that says: “Everything the experts say – all the warnings – I agree with it all… But it doesn’t actually apply to me, because I’m a bit more sensible and careful than most.”

Well, maybe. But then there’s a great host of Covid-wimps like me who’ll one day emerge blinking into the light apologising for our shabby personal appearance as we head for the hairdresser’s. “See me…!” is how scruffy, string-vest-wearing, Scottish comedian Rab C Nesbitt used to begin many of his TV utterances.

And that’ll be me, heading to town after my Covid jab one day next year. Tottering along in a ragged old suit and filthy vest, with wired-up spec’s, some teeth missing, and a few tufts of hair tied back in a head-band…

“See me! I’m the old geezer from the Brendon Hills who survived nine months of hermit life during the pandemic.” Who knows? In this increasingly weird world someone might say: “Wow! Love the shabby chic look, Hespie. Hundreds of thousands are wearing it – it’s obviously some new fashion.”

I’m going to stay in the trenches and keep my head down... until I am vaccinated