Fish and chips. Quarantine. Testing. Fans as face masks. Weather.

There is something wrong with the world when the deputy leader of a political party puts a post on Facebook wishing everyone a Happy National Fish and Chips Day. Really! I ask you, what are things coming to? I know I have ranted before now about these “days”, some of which I can almost understand, but this one really takes the biscuit. Some people will no doubt argue that our national dish is fish and chips but even so, does it really merit a “day”? I am flabbergasted!

Lots of other people are flabbergasted about what is going on with returning from Portugal. Do you or don’t you have to quarantine? England has wavered but come down on the side of no quarantine. Wales demands quarantine. Scotland brings in quarantine from midnight tonight. At least I think that’s what’s going on. Hardly a united kingdom. (By the way, as my fingers stumble and slide over the keyboard on my iPad, I realise that united is an anagram for untied. Are we becoming an Untied Kingdom?) If you arrive back to a English airport, eg Liverpool, and travel to Wales, do you still have to quarantine. Apparently, yes! But as there are no border controls between England and Wales, how is anybody going to know who has driven from Liverpool John Lennon airport as they return from Portugal? Are there even flights from Portugal to John Lennon airport?

All might be sorted if we had a proper system of Covid testing going on. The ideal would be to test before you go away on holiday, someone on radio has just said. However, Covid testing stations seem to be in short supply - news reports told me yesterday that some people have to drive 100 miles for a test!  It needs a rethink. And I swear I heard a government person, maybe even the Health Minister himself saying that now nobody will have to go more than 75 miles! I thought maybe this would be like our having to go to Leeds but in fact that’s only 25 miles. It would be like our having to go to Leicester! Supposing you need to go by public transport! Oh boy! Here’s an article about it. 

Thinking about testing and wearing masks and generally protecting ourselves from Covid, I read something by Adrian Chiles wrote about social norms which he has culled from an article in The Tatler. Hugging - out; air kissing, from a distance - in. Here's an extract:

“I have to report that the Tatler piece wasn’t without merit. I learned, for example, that the Queen’s favourite dining spot is a place called Bellamy’s, which is described as a “U-bolthole”. The proprietor is a man with the not-very-posh-sounding name of Gavin Rankin. He expects the new normal to herald “a resurgence of the fan as a sort of face mask”, complete with old-age flirting techniques. He also predicts “air-kissing, only from a greater distance”, but table-hopping “will be out, thank goodness”.

Adrian Chiles questions the use of fans as a face mask. He asks: “How can a fan be a “sort of face mask”? Apart from anything else, don’t fans, well, fan air, and so waft all manner of germs everywhere. And what are these “old-age flirting techniques”? He has clearly never seen old film of Spanish ladies, and Japanese ladies for that matter, using a fan to cover most of the face, effectively a face mask, leaving only the eyes to communicate flirtatiously with gentlemen across the room! Of course, a fan would really only work for ladies. You see few gentlemen with fans, even in the hottest of weather. Ladies, however, can have fans of different colours to match their outfits, as is becoming the case with face masks as well.

Yesterday reversed my theory that the morning is the best part of the day. My washing did dry successfully outdoors. In the late afternoon we decided to go oit and stretch our legs. It was still gloomy and grey when we set out but the cloud cover shifted as we walked and by the time we were almost home the sky was turning a nice sunny blue. 

And the evening was very pleasant. Today is grey again though. So it goes.

I have spent more time than I like today battling with the new blogger interface, intended to make things more straightforward, especially for people working from their mobile phones, apparently. That may be so but it has been driving me mad. Yes, I hold my hands up to the fact that I am not a great fan of change but I am fairly flexible. However, when a system works for me, especially if it involves IT, I really prefer not to have to unlearn it and acquaint myself with a new set of rules. But no doubt I’ll adapt to this as well. So it goes! 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.