Are we all OK?

Are we all OK?

So how are we out there everybody? Are we bearing up under the strain of it all? This could be a very long and drawn out ordeal and the sooner we get used to it the better it's likely to be for us all. Yes folks. We're all in this together. This maybe the ideal time for global solidarity, worldwide composure and just a thought for the cats and dogs out there who probably haven't got a clue what's going on in the human world.

It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry, mope or sulk, fret or worry, thinking too deeply on what might have been had the coronavirus remained just a temporary news story that simply vanished as soon as it had arrived. But now this is getting too serious for words and we've certainly read, seen or heard plenty about COVID 19, the virus that has tragically killed hundreds and thousands in Italy, ripped the heart out of most of Europe and left most of us clinging on desperately for any hint of good news. The world is now confronting perhaps one of the most deadly diseases in recent history.

But we're not going to be downhearted or are we? After all, we fought two world wars, the English civil war, the Wars of the Roses, overcome the evil of tinpot dictators and then emerged with a relieved smile when the IRA reached a Good Friday agreement. Sadly though, we are now faced with a viral war which isn't our fault but is altogether more insidious, a disease that is much more than infectious in as much as most of us wake up now every day hoping that the coronavirus will simply pass us by.

Still though we remain in a parlous state of lockdown. Now we have yet another topical viral word to add to our medical dictionary. Did anybody see that one coming? How to explain a lockdown? This one sounds too threatening and frightening for anybody's imagination to handle. You're reminded of that notorious radio broadcast made by actor Orson Welles on American radio that was so terrifying that the whole of America hid behind the sofa, teeth chattering, sweat pouring off their foreheads and then quaking at the awful realisation that the world was about to end.

And yet here we are stranded, stuck, playing the waiting game, biting our fingernails and not at all sure whether to go out for some fresh air or just vegetate indoors while privately wishing that it is indeed a bad dream. We spend most of our days hanging on to the every word of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and 5 or Sky news agenda before just accepting what will be will be.

The official Government line and Boris Johnson take on matters is, it has to be said, inexplicably patronising and pathetically incomprehensible. For a man with a huge intellect and academic brilliance, Johnson reminds you of a man who doesn't quite know what to do when something which should have been explained to him over and over again is just lost in the translation.

The Johnson podium tells us that the NHS is still protecting us but for all the world, Johnson is none the wiser as to what plan of action he should resort to when the NHS might be having difficulties in protecting themselves. Doctors, surgeons and all of those admirably qualified medical experts are frantically rushing around hospital wards, scampering and scurrying around laboratories, Accident and Emergency before a mad, chaotic bedlam ensues that sadly looks as though it may get worse before it gets better.

It's very much a case of all hands to the pump. Of course there is the spirit of wartime defiance and a relentless insistence that eventually the coronavirus will disappear as soon as the first summer breeze drifts languidly over Britain's bracing seaside resorts. We are stuck and we are trapped. Then Boris orders us to stay at home in case we're all struck with a sudden thunderbolt. If you don't stay at home then Boris may feel compelled to lock you inside your humble dwelling and not let you out until you behave yourself at either the supermarkets or any place where the presence of humanity is still among us.

It's time for lockdown, social distancing, and self isolation. These are the three voguish expressions that have captured the imagination of every person who takes a careful, mental note of this constantly evolving English language. Every evening now Boris Johnson is joined by a distinguished professor or medical genius with words that sound so much more constructive than Johnson's mealy mouthed words of comfort.

Every day now Johnson continues to rattle off a whole artillery of bullet points and clarifications of Press releases that he may have been required to remember in a matter of seconds. He eventually runs out of pertinent advice, bumbling, tripping over his sentences and grasping at something profoundly moving before just ending his speeches with three quick soundbites if only to remind the nation that he has got a handle on this seemingly interminable crisis. Regrettably though, it all peters out into verbal anti climax.

We know what he's trying to say but for the life of us there is nothing joined up or coherent about him. The Old Etonian cadences are still smooth and roll off the tongue quite neatly but there are moments through the daily updates when he needs somebody to prompt him or keep up his spirits. He jabs his fingers at TV crews, health editors on the national newspapers and then wipes away beads of sweat once again. He stares intently at any friendly face in the Press audience prepared to listen to him and understand his thinking. He looks as though he may be fighting a losing battle.

The Johnson eyes are forever swivelling from side to side, darting across the room in the hope that something of a radical breakthrough might come to his rescue. But woe betide anybody with the revolutionary vaccine that will stop this coronavirus in its tracks permanently. He continues to address members of the Press with that chummy first name reference but never knows whether anything is hitting the mark or indeed reaching out to his British public.

The thought occurs to you that Johnson could reasonably be compared to his wartime hero and fellow Tory Winston Churchill. At the end of the Second World War, Churchill was rightly claimed to be the hero of all time and the ultimate saviour of the British people. The truth of the matter though was that for all his bravura and derring do Churchill was still regarded as a middle class toff who spent most of his time smoking expensive cigars at posh dinner parties. And this is the point where Johnson finds himself completely misunderstood.

Johnson, for all of his bright and shiny positivity and sunny optimism, is now surrounded by much darker clouds. He promised Britain that once the country had achieved Brexit and the withdrawal from the European Union then we'd all be jolly for the rest of our lives.  That was all well and good. That one has been ticked off. Now though he will gaze out of his Downing Street window with a gloom and foreboding that even he couldn't have expected. A worldwide disease is wrecking his image and only he can fix this one.

Still, Britain we may trust that we'll all get through this one as we always have throughout the dusty archives of history. We'll close our doors on the outside world, becoming stiflingly claustrophobic into the bargain and afraid to venture out for so much as a pint of milk. We'll queue patiently outside chemists because only one individual may be allowed across the threshold. We'll talk to people with a sympathetic smile, wonder at the sheer variety of masks on show and then walk onwards and upwards, rationalising all the time something that is beyond our comprehension while also twiddling our thumbs. Hold on though Britain. We've done this before and we'll do it again. Keep smiling everybody.