Monday
Data, not dates! Except, after all – dates. The government (are we still using that word? It feels like such a misnomer at this stage. The gafferment? The gufferment, farting into its empty hands) announces that the country will lay aside virtually all Covid-19 restrictions on 19 July – “Covid Freedom Day” as our genuinely pathetic prime minister terms it – as planned.
Yes, despite rising infections. Yes, despite only half of us being fully vaccinated. Yes, despite this rendering us literally the most perfectly primed national petri dish for the breeding of virus strains vibrantly resistant to said vaccinations.
Britain, or at least the portion of it that is on social media, has duly divided into two camps: those who now interpret 19 July is Freedom From Covid Day and will be gaily chucking away their masks and pouring their hand sanitiser away; and those who consider it to be Freedom to Catch Covid Day and will be doubling down on their own preventive measures in order to make up for the lack elsewhere.
Will it become Freedom for Each Individual to Cope with Transitional Times as They See Fit Without Hostility or the Pent-up Aggression of the Last 18 Months Being Expressed in Unhealthy Ways Day? Or will it be Freedom to Punch Your Opponent in the Masked/Maskless Face and Ask Questions Later Day? Or do we call it just another Freedom from Government Competence and Responsibility Day? We’ll find out soon!
Tuesday
Richard Donner has died. If the name is not instantly familiar to you, his legacy almost certainly is. He directed, among others, The Omen, Superman (by which I mean the Superman – Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, wit, charm, respect, love, technical virtuosity, and Gene Hackman as the Lex Luthor cherry on the glorious icing of the most perfect cake), The Goonies, the Lethal Weapon series, Scrooged and Maverick, and counted among his executive production credits The Lost Boys, Free Willy, Any Given Sunday and X-Men.
For those of us of a certain age, he was the cinema, he was the reason for spending hours in front of the VCR, he was the deliverer of stories that never let you down. He kept working until 10 years or so ago (his last outing was as the executive producer of 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and died at the age of 91. That counts as a win. Between 2016 and 2021 I think we’ve all learned to take them where we can.
Wednesday
I spent the evening of the England-Denmark match encouraging a roomful of women to shout “vulva!” at the tops of their voices. It’s the way life happens sometimes.
To explain. I was interviewing the estimable Caitlin Moran on stage as part of her book tour for the paperback release of the equally estimable More Than a Woman, which suggests in passing that in order to try to catch up with the ease and profligacy with which terms for male genitalia have always been deployed, we should try at every juncture to enable ours to make up ground. So, in the pursuit of pudenda parity – and as a way of overcoming the oddity of social distancing within the audience – we got them on their feet and shouting the ladyword as the kickoff to our own 90 minutes of entertainment.
The evening was bookended nicely by a question from a teacher in the audience whose headmaster had forbidden use of the word during sex education classes for the younger years. What should she do about that? We rose as one.
Thursday
Today I made my third failed attempt to allow a corporation to take my money in exchange for the provision of a basic service. I don’t know why they make it so hard. Maybe there are other countries in which capitalism actually works, but I don’t have time to test this theory because I’m too busy sitting in Vodafone for no reason.
It goes roughly like this.
Me: “Hello, I would like a new phone because this one, like me, is 400 years old and doesn’t really know what it’s doing any more.”
Unfailingly polite and helpful 12-year-old Vodafone employee: “Of course. Let me give you a variety of options and you pick the one with the highest proportion of recognisable nouns.”
I do so, and then we embark on the security questions, applicable discounts, contract terms, blood tests, tarot readings and everything else necessary before they can click on the button that sends everything through to Mr Vodafone at headquarters for approval. This is when the computer – thrice so far and showing no signs of altering its behaviour any time soon – says no. The UPAH12YOVE tries to talk to someone senior on the phone who can resolve this issue. This creature, of myth and legend I now conclude, has not yet been reached.
Why? Why should this be so? Why is everything bad and stupid? The UPAH12YOVEs are so young that they keep telling me to come back and it will be sorted next time. The sweet children. They will learn.
Friday
While we wait in hope and possibly vain for the reverse ferret on Freedom Day, let us at least enjoy two more frivolous versions of the phenomenon that have taken place. First, there is Most Divorced Man in the World Laurence Fox (to give him his full online title), who after England’s semi-final win apologised for calling the team “virtue-signalling babies” for taking the knee and now reckons he can support them while still objecting to the whole signifying-solidarity-with-the-oppressed thing.
Second, there is the Ashfield MP, Lee Anderson, who announced – also, by some strange coincidence, in the wake of the semi-final win – that he would be continuing his boycott of the tournament (the knee thing again) BUT he will be “checking my phone for updates to see if they’ve scored and cheer if they have”.
Such men of principle against the virtue-signalling babies. If not quite the way round some envisage.
