Something like normality by November or possibly December.

Something like normality by November or possibly December.

So let's see. Where are we?  We are dipping our waters into the deepest of pools and although the water is lukewarm and inviting you wouldn't trust your instincts if the temperature dropped like a stone.  We are on the verge of  a major turning point in the progress of the coronavirus lockdown and it looks, for all the world, as if we could be approaching the end of the road, a fork in the road perhaps but then a clear motorway where the sun shines constantly and the world smiles almost permanently. It could be a lovely Nirvana where the people of the world link arms with a stirring rendition of 'Auld Lang Syne'

This could be the time for the most lavish party of all time and can we now safely celebrate what should be called Liberation Day in a matter of weeks or days? It's hard one to call suffice to say that the party poppers are ready to be released,  whistles prepared and the balloons look suitably ready for a rip roaring knees up with the champagne on ice.

Across the streets, roads, towns and cities of both Britain and the rest of the world there is something in the air and it just feels very good and auspicious. Perhaps we should feel like this more often since the moon could be in the right position, the omens are encouraging and the blond one from Uxbridge is looking far happier and chipper than he has been for months.

When Boris Johnson, the UK Prime Minister was struck low by the very disease he'd done his utmost to warn people about, the nation sighed and scowled, fretted and feared if only because none of us could believe that any Prime Minister of any time could possibly become very ill in office and leave most of us wondering whether the worst case scenario might materialise in front of our very eyes. But dear Boris roared back into life and denied there was anything seriously wrong with him although he did admit that it was touch and go and the nurses had worked miracles to keep him alive.

And today the man with the most distinctive blond locks gave us the news we'd all been waiting for. At long last  the hair looked as if it had obeyed his orders at breakfast time. Johnson was smart, respectable looking and standing to attention. For the best part of four months, Britain has experienced one of the ropiest periods in its long and illustrious history. For a while now it didn't look as though we'd conquered the odds and while Boris and his people have gnashed our collective teeth, March is now July and we're still improvising, adapting, making it up as we go along, just mixing and matching.

Today's momentous announcement sounded almost too good to be true. In fact some of us thought we were heading for the knackers yard but now, or so it would seem, we've definitely turned a corner. The Prime Minister has settled us all down by the fireside, confiding with us quite honestly and telling us clearly that, by November, the good people of Great Britain can swing open its doors and abandon ourselves to a world that we used to know without any feeling of guilt or compunction.

This could be a brave new world, a brand new start, the perfect resurrection, a decisive way forward into a future that had once looked so bleak that some of us were the opinion that there was no way back and the end of the world had indeed parked itself next to us. But the world's strength of character, once so severely tested, has come through its darkest months like a stately galleon sailing magnificently through tempestuous seas.

November does seem like an age away at the moment but you wait and see. We can work through this dreadful, medical fiasco, this truly abhorrent worldwide virus that has taken the life of so many lives. We've done it once before and we'll do it again. We know that the millions have died throughout these long, wearisome months but by November and almost certainly Christmas we'll all be getting swamped by festive tinsel, the shops will be ding dong merrily on high flush with wealth and the kids will sit excitedly around the Christmas trees with the latest gadgets and toys. Who would ever have thought it possible but it could be one of the finest Yuletides of all time if all goes the way we'd like it to.

By November all of those commercial operations will be up and running, the cinemas will be packed to capacity with people who just thrive on their normal diet of horror, romance and science fiction and office parties will be planned like a military manoeuvre. There can be no room for confident, long range forecasts but at this rate we could all be doing the Lambeth Walk by the late autumn. We've stacked up on the bottles of wine and beer, spilling huge packets of crisps and nuts onto plates full of goodies. The band will strike up triumphantly and the Dame Vera Lynn prophecy will never seem so fitting.

Still, there are one or two things missing that may have upset the apple cart. The multifarious eateries and restaurants may well be seething with rushing waiters and waitresses anxious to please their customers with their efficiency and grace under pressure. But the West End theatres, at times the lifeblood of Central London, have been shut for some time and it may be some time before they can break open the bubbly.

As Britain and the rest of the world does its best to catch up and make the best with what's it got, this time may be as good as any to think ahead although perhaps we should think of the here and now. When November comes we could be looking at a very different kind of world, a world now fragmented, divided up into small bite size pieces, afraid of a dramatic relapse, looking nervously over its shoulders, keeping a respectful distance and not daring to go anywhere near each other.

In November the temperature will have dropped markedly, thick fur collars on our coats will be pulled up quite significantly while commuters and people coming home from work may just sprint home for fear of spreading something or catching something. This is a world with a completely different mentality, a world that is now on its guard, vigilant, watching, suspicious naturally and maybe for a while at least a pale imitation of its former self.

It is hard to imagine large groups of office workers shivering on a railway platform on a cold November evening and standing next to another bunch of high tech wizards. And then there's that crucial moment when the train doors shut conclusively, the late arrivals hop and skip into a carriage and then a hundred people, cramped once again into a confined space, start coughing and spluttering, sneezing and then squeezing up close to each other rather like those proverbial sardines.

Then they'll get very irritable, tetchy, grumpy and quarrelsome. Suddenly a forest of arms, elbows and shoulders will push and barge their way impatiently into a space that has already been taken. Tempers will fray, red mists will fall and there could be the biggest slanging match since at least yesterday. Bags and briefcases will be lifted almost despairingly over each other, evening newspapers discarded like oily cloths at a mechanics yard and it'll all get just a bit unseemly and unwatchable.

However this is not the time for painting ugly pictures of what might happen come the end of the year because quite frankly who can look any further than the next day? By the reckoning of some and in retrospect 2020 has now flown past and the world is still in a state of shock. When everything stopped quite suddenly in March it might have felt that one incident in China would simply disappear into a small hiding place in history never to surface again. Of course it didn't and we underestimated everything at our peril.

And yet today felt moderately inspiring if a day could be described as such. The coronavirus related deaths have declined to one of their lowest points and as if by magic, everything looks as if it could be going our way. Boris Johnson is now advising us to push ourselves into the bigger world and much further than we'd have thought possible in, say, April and May. This is manageable and we can almost reach out for a rosy complexioned future where every day is your birthday and the morning birdsong sounds like another version of the National Anthem.

Ladies and gentlemen. It gives me great pleasure that you can dig out those Union Jack embroidered waistcoats, spin your umbrellas over and over again and everything in the world is healthy. We can never be sure when the coronavirus will end because although a vast majority of the world is open for financial transaction, the trumpet of jubilation has yet to be sounded and people are still wearing masks. The queues are still stretching into postal districts miles away from us and a full recovery is still half baked. The worst is though way behind us and optimism is still the song on our lips. Onwards and upwards everybody. Better times lie ahead. Mark my words.