Oh wow. What a feeling. A week to go before global freedom.

 Oh wow. What a feeling. A week to go before global freedom.

Today it felt as if the world had been given all its birthdays on one day. Goodness gracious me! Whoopee, what jubilation unconfined. Finally, after what seemed like several centuries and decades of hardship, struggle, death, privation, pain, heartache, torment, universal bewilderment, delaying tactics and procrastination, we can all finally breathe out deep from the diaphragm and blow out the most exultant sigh of relief of all time. This global pandemic is drawing to a close and next week we can all hug. Yes folks we can all hug.

Hold the front page. It's the most sensational news story, an eye-popping revelation, a scientific breakthrough on a monumental scale. You'll never see its like again because this is just biologically exciting and we'll have to brace ourselves for its significant impact on the world. The BBC proudly announced this afternoon that hugging will be allowed next week in a major medical development unlike any we've ever known. 

From May 17 Britain and presumably the rest of the world physical affection will be permitted with all the enthusiasm that any of us can offer. There will be worldwide intimacy on an unparalleled scale and hugging will be top of the news agenda for at least the rest of the year. Now the cynics out there may well think that those of who believe in soppy sentimentality are just over reacting and should just calm down. We can hardly believe that this welcome opportunity to embrace after absence making the heart grow fonder has finally come to pass and we can finally grab hold each other with the most affectionate squeeze that any of us have ever known in our times. 

For those of us though that social interaction has been a bit on the thin ground in the last year but hugging does sound rather appealing. The fact is though, the act of hugging is just a simple acknowledgement of the depth of our innermost feelings or are we just expressing something that should come naturally? The point is that hugging will suddenly become completely fashionable as from next week. We've spent a whole lifetime hugging and holding our nearest and dearest in both crisis and celebration so how have the cultural and biological goal posts moved so dramatically or maybe we've missed something?

Still, as long as we can reach out for each other and wrap our collective arms around each other in some euphoric outburst of joy then the world will seem a much better place than it might have been before. But hold on, why has it taken a year long deadly virus to reinforce our mutual respect for and approval of family, friends and trustworthy people. But hey who cares it'll be a brilliant day and the best is yet to come. 

And yet we will be allowed to be as tactile and demonstrative as we possibly like since the law insists that on May 17 2021 we can re-enact that emotionally moving moment when we're together again and not prevented from hugging. But seriously folks what we have is a very seminal moment, a turning point in recent history when everything that looked so desperately bad has now come good and we can hug, hug again, devoting every day to the lost art of hugging. It'll be a day when we can finally re-discover the social cues and discussions, delighted to be in the same company as parents, grandparents, friends and colleagues, confiding in each other, unburdening ourselves quite freely without feeling self conscious. 

So it was that the BBC, with those admirable medical and scientific officers Chris Witty and Patrick Vallance, showed us what we hope will become the last of those very detailed graphs. It is hard to know what exactly both men have gone through for the last year, being the central figureheads and spokesmen during this whole calamity. But we thank them enormously for the wealth of their extensive knowledge, sharing their Covid 19 data and never flinching from this thankless task. 

It has undoubtedly one of the more forgettable episodes in our lives since none of us can barely remember what it was like not to be in the same room as our loved ones or munch popcorn in our local cinema. The roar of the theatrical grease paint and the rapturous applause from a night out in the West End is very much the missing link, the natural stimulus to everyday conversation and comment with people of like minds. But next Monday it'll be one giant step back on the road to recovery. And how we'll hug that day. Let the countdown begin.