It's all we've got
Wednesday 8th April, 2020 – 5pm
That was close, Boris.
Had he copped it, (which he still may, although he is said to be 'improving') he would have died alone, that is, with no members of his family with him at the end, and no-one would have attended his funeral.
That has been the fate of at least 7,097 people in Britain so far. They have all been extinguished and expunged, and it has all happened in a trice, like a click of the fingers of some evil sprite. A Grim fairy tale indeed.
If that is how we feel, consider the good folk of Italy who have lost more than double that number, 17,669 to be precise. And Spain, where just over 14,555 have died. The losses are already biblical in scale. And yet we know for sure that it will not abate. It is difficult indeed to avoid the quite regular feeling that we are all in the firing line and God is taking aim.
As we hunker down behind our drawbridges, there is no peace to be found in either Netflix or hands of whist. The nearest to the desired anaesthesia is opening a bottle. Not semi-skimmed. This must have been what it was like to be in the trenches just over a hundred years ago. The certainty that in the next bombardment you would cop a packet. And if not the next one, then the one after. There is no avoiding it. The damage has been done, the virus is out of control in these islands and cannot be contained. The fact that is has been successfully managed elsewhere and that we decided not to do it their way, is disgusting. Human life? It doesn't matter. Politics? it does.
But we can still hope.
If every blessed person in the country keeps his or her head indoors until June it might yet repress the figures. But that's all that's left. Just maybe the Prime Minister's recent brush with death will so shock people who might be planning a nice sunny picnic in the park for the weekend, that the seriousness of the situation will at last penetrate their obdurate, dense and hitherto impenetrable gourds.
Maybe the penny will drop, and they will stay indoors. And just maybe, that will begin to repress the numbers of dead. It is probably a forlorn hope. But forlorn or not we should hope it.
It's all we've got.
That was close, Boris.
Had he copped it, (which he still may, although he is said to be 'improving') he would have died alone, that is, with no members of his family with him at the end, and no-one would have attended his funeral.
That has been the fate of at least 7,097 people in Britain so far. They have all been extinguished and expunged, and it has all happened in a trice, like a click of the fingers of some evil sprite. A Grim fairy tale indeed.
If that is how we feel, consider the good folk of Italy who have lost more than double that number, 17,669 to be precise. And Spain, where just over 14,555 have died. The losses are already biblical in scale. And yet we know for sure that it will not abate. It is difficult indeed to avoid the quite regular feeling that we are all in the firing line and God is taking aim.
As we hunker down behind our drawbridges, there is no peace to be found in either Netflix or hands of whist. The nearest to the desired anaesthesia is opening a bottle. Not semi-skimmed. This must have been what it was like to be in the trenches just over a hundred years ago. The certainty that in the next bombardment you would cop a packet. And if not the next one, then the one after. There is no avoiding it. The damage has been done, the virus is out of control in these islands and cannot be contained. The fact that is has been successfully managed elsewhere and that we decided not to do it their way, is disgusting. Human life? It doesn't matter. Politics? it does.
But we can still hope.
If every blessed person in the country keeps his or her head indoors until June it might yet repress the figures. But that's all that's left. Just maybe the Prime Minister's recent brush with death will so shock people who might be planning a nice sunny picnic in the park for the weekend, that the seriousness of the situation will at last penetrate their obdurate, dense and hitherto impenetrable gourds.
Maybe the penny will drop, and they will stay indoors. And just maybe, that will begin to repress the numbers of dead. It is probably a forlorn hope. But forlorn or not we should hope it.
It's all we've got.
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