I’m worried Super Saturday will lead to Terrible Thursday with a spike in coronavirus cases
EYES down! It’s time to play the fun new game of Lockdown Bingo.
What happens is this. Using your skill and ingenuity, you have to predict which town or city will be the next to be put on special measures (like one of those schools where the pupils can’t read or write at the age of 15).
Read our coronavirus live blog for the latest news & updates
Towns and cities where people haven’t been behaving themselves.
Right now, it’s Leicester in the sin bin. They are a very community-minded bunch and couldn’t resist going out to meet each other. So there’s a Covid spike.
Experts reckon the next place to cop it will be Doncaster. They’re a friendly bunch there, too.
But I reckon there’s a decent outside chance it will be Bournemouth or Brighton. Or maybe Cardiff is worth a flutter.
The people of Leicester are confused, as well they might be. They don’t know what they’re allowed to do any more. I don’t blame them.
But it will be as nothing to the confusion across the country which comes as a result of Super Saturday.
July 4 is the day the Government has said we can shake off our chains and go out and get wrecked. Or something.
NOT A GOOD IDEA
Have you got any plans for the weekend? Going to a rave? Or just down the pub to breathe over as many people as you possibly can.
Here’s my big worry. That Super Saturday will be followed, five days later, by Terrible Thursday.
Five days is the average time it takes for the Covid virus to make itself known to the person it has taken up home in. That slightly ticklish cough. Bit of a temperature. Uh-oh.
Restaurants, pubs, campsites and children’s playgrounds will all be open for business from Saturday. Oh, and hairdressers. Remember them?
Obviously, it is right that the UK must emerge from what the Prime Minister called its long hibernation.
But I think these things need to be done gradually, rather than all at once.
Frankly, I would have started with our schools.
Teachers have proved themselves to be just about the only people in the country who can’t work from home.
Most kids have enjoyed painfully few virtual lessons, and reopening schools first would have shown where our priorities lie.
But it’s not a good idea, in my book, to release the bats all in one go.
Many people will have taken from Boris’s announcement last week that, after July 4, lockdown is effectively over.
And some of the Government’s guidelines make it easy to be confused.
The two-metre social-distancing rule has been relaxed to something called “one metre-plus”. I haven’t a clue what difference that makes.
And the whole thing is very difficult to monitor. The police say they don’t know how they will deal with it.
The virus has been dying out because, by and large, we have been abiding by lockdown. The summer sun has helped, too.
The best thing we can do to keep that curve plummeting is to do much as we have been doing so far.
The last thing we need this summer is a sudden second spike.
Pasta problems
APPARENTLY, young people using the social media site TikTok signal their mental problems by posting: “I had pasta tonight.”
If you use that phrase you’re supposedly signalling you’re vulnerable. And need attention.
But what about the ones who really did have pasta and liked it?
And aren’t at all messed up but just want to share their evening meal experiences in a very real sense?
They are strange creatures, the young.
Get a grip on the economy
THE country is on course for a wonderful, “V-shaped economic recovery”, according to a bloke at the Bank of England.
I don’t know what that means.
A month or so back, the Bank of England was saying the economy was in ruins for ever, mass unemployment, bankruptcies – giant mutant crabs marching across the country eating our children. Or something.
Never believe an economist.
You’d be better off talking to Mystic Meg.
Time to lay off Dickens
THE latest historical figure to be attacked by people with no sense of history is Charles Dickens.
A former Green Party councillor, Ian Driver, sprayed graffiti on a museum to the author, with the inevitable word “racist”.
I suppose if we were to ban Dickens, it would bring cheer to millions of schoolkids.
Great Expectations can be a bit of a grind to get through when you are young.
But this tearing down of history has to stop.
Was Dickens racist? Yup. He lived in Victorian Britain. Almost everybody had views which wouldn’t go down very well today.
But he was also a brilliant writer and a philanthropist.
We are all better than our worst acts.
Silence on genocide
STILL nobody is taking much notice of the plight of the genocide carried out against the Uighur Muslims in China.
The Chinese authorities are reportedly sterilising these people now – taking a leaf out of Hitler’s book.
Yet this outrage raises barely a flicker of publicity.
Even other Muslim countries don’t complain too much.
That’s because they don’t want to upset the third worst country in the world (after North Korea and France, obvs).
And what does the United Nations say? Nothing.
Just like it says nothing about China’s occupation of Tibet, or its bullying of democracy campaigners in Hong Kong.
Good job BoJo
A GOOD plan from the Prime Minister.
Boris wants to turn the deserted shops in our high streets into homes for people.
If he did that, he’d cure half of our housing problem very quickly. Without paving over the entire country for new estates.
Many of our high streets are decaying. People now go to out-of-town shopping centres for an afternoon of misery with the missus.
But here’s another idea for BoJo. Offices.
Lockdown proved we don’t need offices like we used to.
They were invented because we needed places to shuffle paper around. But we don’t use paper any more.
Most read in News
And during lockdown people worked perfectly well from home.
Imagine how many homes we could create by changing offices into flats.
And how much rent businesses would save.
CORONAVIRUS CRISIS - STAY IN THE KNOW
Don't miss the latest news and figures - and essential advice for you and your family.
To receive The Sun’s Coronavirus newsletter in your inbox every tea time, sign up here.
To follow us on Facebook, simply ‘Like’ our Coronavirus page.
Get Britain’s best-selling newspaper delivered to your smartphone or tablet each day – find out more.
GOT a story? RING The Sun on 0207 782 4104 or WHATSAPP on 07423720250 or EMAIL exclusive@the-sun.co.uk