Masking

[poliphilo]

 The government has decided we must all wear masks when we go to the shops- and it's so very important we'll have to start doing it in a fortnight's time. As usual, the message that comes across is that they don't really know what they're doing- but here's a gesture to make it seem otherwise.

Matt Hancock has added that we may have to keep on wearing masks until a vaccine is available- which could of course be never.

Office workers will, however, be exempt from wearing masks because Heaven forbid that Matt Hancock should have to wear one as he goes about his daily business.

When we went out yesterday there were no more masks on display than there ever have been. I wore one myself to go into the Post Office and was the only person doing so. I felt like a twit.

The girl on the door at the farm shop- who was regulating numbers and inviting us to use the hand sanitizer- went "O dear, yes," when we talked about the incoming rules. I got the impression she wasn't keen. Or maybe she'd read our mood and was humoring us. 

A Tory backbencher- of the red-faced, squirearchical variety- was laying into Matt Hancock in the Commons yesterday, saying he and his friends wouldn't be wearing masks because it was an unconscionable infringement of the rights of all free-born Englishmen- and any village policeman who tried to levy an instant fine on him would risk being horsewhipped and torn apart by the hounds. (Not his words exactly but their tenor and atmosphere.)

(You do wonder how these rules are going to be enforced- especially in the  countryside- where you never see a policeman from one month's end to the next.) 

Wearing a mask is unpleasant- hot and humid- but I suppose you get used to it. If I'm going to have to wear one to do the shopping I'll be doing  as little shopping as I possibly can.

Are shops now a thing of the past? One has to wonder...

Comments

[cmcmck]

They're not daring to come out with it but it;s clear that they think this psychological crutch will encourage people back onto the shops.

It'll do the opposite for me and quite a few others I've spoken to.

And latest ICL research shows that the 'r' number was 0.57 just before ease up not the 1.0+ the 'experts' were suggesting.

So we've been lied to about that as well.

[poliphilo]

If the government had deliberately set out to demonstrate its irrelevance it could hardly have done a better job.

[qatsi]

Yes, this is how I feel, as well. I'll wear a mask when I have to, because it is required and (may) make sense, but it will emphasise the un-normality rather than instil a desire for retail therapy.

[steepholm]

On getting used to it - I gave a mask of Japanese manufacture to my friend Ayako the other day, and she exclaimed as she put it on that the smell of it was 'natsukashii' - i.e. pleasantly nostalgic. She has missed them, she told me.

[poliphilo]

Well, well, well...