Back to Tier 4 lockdown.

 Back to Tier 4 lockdown. 

Just when you thought it was safe to come out of hiding it comes back again like the proverbial old penny. In fact to say that this is gradually turning into the worst of all dreams would be a gross understatment. Didn't we think for a moment or two that the definitive vaccine had been the answer to all of our prayers? What must we have been thinking of? This is real life and they're not joking. It is unspeakably unbelievable. Somebody, please pinch us because we are back to where we were at the beginning of April. Or so it would seem. 

We are now weeks away from the end of the year and Tier 1 is ancient history, Tier 2 is the Middle Ages,  Tier 3 a brief spell in the Tudor Stewart period and now Tier 4 seems like some ongoing melodrama that becomes more and more sombre every time you look at it. There was a remote possibility that we might have been edging towards dry land and finding our bearings yet again. But then we were dragged down unwillingly towards the deep end and that sea is decidedly choppy. There are no lifeboats and not a soul in sight. 

Last night the whole of Southern England, its many shires and counties were condemned to a life of no activity, no communication with each other and no physical contact between. It is quite the most astonishing year of all time and, quite definitely, not the one to be remembered with any pleasure at all. In fact it's been terrifyingly, agonisingly intolerable because Covid 19 has stripped bare our soul, cut deep into our psyche and ripped to shreds all of our carefully laid plans and honest ambitions. There may have been a similar calendar year to 2020 but surely none quite as historically awful and sickeningly painful.

In the leafy shires of Essex, the hop fields and orchards of Kent, the salubrious, seaside coast haven of Sussex and the stockbroker belt of Surrey they were wallowing in the most miserable black-hole. Tier 4 restrictions have now meant that any kind of leisurely pursuit would be rendered impossible yet again. It seems as if  Boris Johnson and his loyal scientific officers are deliberately tormenting us because we have clearly become too cocky and complacent. We've been taking everything for granted. But we've warmed to Sir Patrick Vallant and Chris Whitty and it isn't their fault. They're simply trying to keep us to date on the latest developments in the world of Covid 19 and they have our unqualified admiration. 

Last night at midnight the pubs, clubs, restaurants, leisure centres, gyms, nail bars, hairdressers and Pete's cafe at the end of your high street were politely told to shut up shop again. It wasn't their fault of course but you'd have thought they'd have given us prior warning before springing this one on us for the umpteenth time. But here we are back at square one and the ever-increasing circles are making us dizzy. There's something drastically wrong with this roller coaster because we just want to get off it. 

Even London has suffered a dramatic relapse. Lovely old London reminded you of an evacuation before the air raid sirens started wailing. At one of our major overhead London railway stations, there was almost a sense of panic and urgency as thousands of people swarmed out of the main concourse as if their lives depended on it. They were running away from something and we knew what it was. War thank goodness has not been declared but you'd have been forgiven for thinking in those terms. 

Oxford Street, Regent Street and the whole of West End seemed to be scurrying frantically from a bomb site when in fact all they were escaping from was themselves in case they just happened to bump into each other which would not be morally acceptable. In fact every single person who just happened to be wandering slowly back towards Oxford Circus tube station must have been trembling with an unspoken fear, gripped as they were by both anxiety and nerve-shredding trepidation. Tell us please that this will end one day. Covid 19 must never appear on our emotional radar ever again. 

On wet and rainy pavements they trudged, then broke into a trot, then rapidly jogged towards the Tube station before running through the labyrinthine subway, going underground before heading straight to their chosen platform. They'd have been confronted by those enormously talented buskers with their violins, rock guitars or keyboards and a dog curled up next to them for company. They'd have played their heart out, smiled at the passengers and then shown effusive gratitude for the ten and fifty pence pieces nestling in their caps.

But now the West End would be shut for the duration, a city now totally drained, disenchanted, bereft and beyond any kind of consolation. Their world may have felt as though it had come to an end and there was nothing to offer but vague re-assurances about the future. Boris Johnson had regretted to inform us that Christmas would have to be cancelled, shovelled into a dirty pit full of recycled rubbish and then said that he might let us off the hook on December 30. Too late mate, the damage has been done. 

You can now see the whole of urban and suburban England with its chocolate-box villages, once bustling market towns, its rural farmhouses, its terraced, back to back houses, its sloping, winding country roads and those green belt areas where high tech buildings merge pleasantly with the rest of a landscape that either Constable or Turner would have had so much fun in painting. This could have been the perfect opportunity to make a couple of florin or two just to make ends meet.

And yet London woke up this morning in a bewildered trance, a bleary-eyed funk and startled alarm. You found that your local gym was shut and you were devastated because that bike and rowing machine had been locked up and would not be re-appearing until the penultimate day of 2020. Oh no, this is just silly. You'd built up a momentum and worked up a decent and healthy sweat. You felt re-invigorated, full of beans, full of the joys of spring, dripping with sweat but just exhilarated and feeling good to be alive. 

So it's pretty much where we were a couple of weeks ago, struggling to find any more variations on a theme and searching for descriptions, metaphors, similes, anything to make sense of it all. This year Christmas Day and the ensuing days after Boxing Day will have to be put in mothballs rather like those baubles and fairies we always seem to bundle away in the attic after the festivities. 

What on earth to make of this morose Greek tragedy, this Chekhov play, this Dostoevsky novel, this dystopian Kafka epic where the world becomes strangled by red tape and everything is doomed? All around us the major financial powerhouses of the whole planet are sinking into a muddy quicksand and the shops who once buzzed with good fortune, are about to call out the metaphorical paramedics. The patient is breathing heavily and the vital signs don't look too good. It is essential that we head for the operating theatre because at this rate, London will resemble a First World War battlefield. 

Still we loiter around wearing those surgical masks with quirky and different designs, some drifting around listlessly as if they've just been hit by a meteorite. They pull their masks down just to make sure that fresh air can be allowed to be inhaled and then walk around with said masks under their neck. It reminds you of a long- forgotten and lost episode of Doctor Who without the Daleks but some threatening poison in the air and a couple of heavy cybermen for good measure. 

This could be regarded as a huge exaggeration but surely we must feel as though we've lost our own identity let alone figure out whether anybody else is feeling the same way. Surely we haven't forgotten our very important role within society. Looking around this deserted concrete bowl though with only pigeons to perhaps acknowledge, you may be feeling as the whole of humanity has been stolen and taken hostage in a dusty warehouse. 

More so than ever this is the time when most of the Christian population put down their tools for the year, kick off their shoes, fall back comfortingly on the sofa while parents tuck away their offspring to bed on Christmas Eve. In theory, this should be the most joyful period of the year for those who just love pulling crackers and eating large portions of turkey but it does seem as though Christmas Day will be very much like any other day during the year.

There will be no present giving, no soppy sentimentality, no nostalgia for Christmases from long ago, no uncle Tom thanking the family for yet another pipe or cardigan and children with just an orange or packet of chocolate Rolos as a reward for their academic endeavours. Then dad will put on Chris Rea's glorious 'Driving Home For Christmas' in the background, the kids will run up and downstairs again and again before Her Majesty the Queen makes her regal presence felt at 3pm.

This year the whole of the country will be systematically parcelled up into different tiers, sections, sub- sections, categories, danger zones, comfort zones and whatever constitutes safety. Sadly, some of us will not be seeing my wonderful brother and sister in law, their children, the rest of my precious family and this really is a source of deep frustration. Some of us though are looking forward to see our lovely  father -in- law because he just happens to be celebrating his birthday on Christmas Eve. Apparently he can visit yours truly, my lovely wife and our daughter because they're in the same support bubble. Whatever that means.

Anyway the fact is we've had it up to here with these glad and then bad tidings, these false dawns, these ill judged announcements and these preposterous, made-up phrases that bear no relation to nothing in particular. Since when did the country become a tier and what to make of a support bubble? We may never find out if only because the Oxford English Dictionary would tell us to kindly refrain from asking about their origins. At some point somebody will sit down with the whole of the world, take us into their confidence and give us a rational explanation for something that is beyond our knowledge and perhaps always will be. Still, if you've put a bow on that last Christmas present don't despair because by next Easter we'll all be back in the land of the normal. How comforting to know.