Give me Liberty, or give me Covid
In shocking news this week, governments across the world have issued rubber suit mandates to protect their citizens against deaths by lightning. Studies have shown that lightning deaths amongst suit wearers are reduced by a massive 95% when compared to non-suit wearers.
This is currently only being mandated for adults, but one leading expert, Professor Sir Pillockly-Moron, commented that “this measure needs to be rolled out to kids as young as 5 as they are at risk too”.
Proponents of PIDDLE (Pervasive ID Database & Legal Enforcement) have been angered as there is no need to link suit-wearing to their visions of a global surveillance passport. “Asking to see someone’s suit passport would be, we feel, a somewhat superfluous action” said a spokesperson understood to be deep in PIDDLE.
The move has electrified the nation’s beleaguered rubber suit manufacturers who have seen sales slump over the last 20 months as consenting rubberized adults have been prevented from squeaking to one another by the covid restrictions.
Two years ago this would have been seen as over-satirical. Absurdly so. After 20 months of the most bizarre and absurd covid rules and pronouncements, I’m no longer sure what is satirical and what is not. I have begun to wonder whether there is a competition at Westminster to see who can get away with issuing the most ridiculous guideline of the week.
We’re approaching Christmas again - a time of celebration and joyous excess. Last Christmas we were told, in sonorous tones, that Christmas decorations posed a threat and that we should limit the playing of board games like Scrabble as they, too, constituted an immediate and deadly danger to ourselves and society.
Of course, organizing a snowball fight is perhaps the most dangerous thing one can possibly do - and fines of £10,000 have been issued for this utterly irresponsible and deadly activity.
We’ve been told who we can have in our houses, how many we can have in our houses, and even the best way to have sex with our visitors to keep us covid safe.
We have a virus that only kicks in after 10pm in pubs, is only deadly when you stand up to go for a pee and is utterly bewildered by one-way systems in supermarkets (as were most of us). Furious debates raged on whether scotch eggs constituted a meal or a starter, because if you had a starter you were a danger to yourselves and others, but completely safe if you ordered a full meal.
More seriously, we’ve been told to only shop for “essential” items because it is every government’s right to determine what is, and isn’t, essential in our lives. Whole aisles of frivolous non-essential items (like tampons) have been cordoned off in supermarkets in some hellish, despotic places in the UK (like Wales). Even more worryingly, jobs and businesses have been classed as essential or non-essential, and those deemed not worthy enough summarily furloughed or shut down.
Not content with all that, we’ve even been given advice on who to hug.
I know many of us have short memories, and the older I get the less reliable mine is getting. What I had for breakfast yesterday fades into the fog of the distant past. I have maps on the wall telling me where the bathroom is in case I get lost - and piles of masks everywhere because it’s really, really important to wear a mask when going to the bathroom.
But think back just 2 short years. If our government had issued guidelines on who to hug what would have been your reaction? I know mine would have been the same as it is now. I would have told them to find some other place to fornicate (there’s a really nice short way of saying this using only 2 words and 7 letters, but I forget what it is).
Who would have thought our government would ever believe it to be their job, their right, to intrude on our day-to-day lives like this? Yet intrude they have, and with seemingly barely a murmur from most of the population.
Under the pretence of a health emergency we have quietly slipped into a state where, instead of merely prohibiting bad stuff - like murder and burglary - governments have rigorously proscribed what we’re allowed to do. You are only allowed to go outside your house to buy those essential items or for a bit of stress-busting exercise (provided it’s within a mile or so of where you live) before you succumb to the lockdown-induced psychosis and paranoia and lock your loved ones in the shed to protect you and society from the devastation wreaked by covid. You are now allowed to hug granny, but only if you and she have been vaccinated, drenched in sanitizer, and wearing at least 14 masks between you - and it’s probably best to do it outside, as long as it’s not snowing, because the temptation to organize a snowball fight might just be too great.
If you’ve read this far and think any of these guidelines I mentioned are reasonable, I’m not sure what to say. If you think it’s right for your government to attempt to control your life to this extent, I might recommend one or two manufacturers of rubber suits to you.