Nuts

I’m pretty sick and tired of wearing face masks, following vinyl arrows, washing my hands every time I touch a banknote, having to book most things days in advance, all the perspective screens. Aren’t we all? It’s driving me nuts. But I put up with it, on the basis that it helps ease our way to the other side of a vaccine (hopefully) with minimal deaths.

I’m pretty sick and tired of the Herd Immunity gang, who have reared their heads again in the guise of the Great Barrington Declaration. It’s a political document, disguised as a medical one. It is far from certain – indeed, unlikely – that herd immunity is even achievable. And they want to kill people on a massive scale to avoid personal inconvenience and promote their own social visibility. They’re nuts.

I’m pretty sick and tired of our current government and their continually changing local lockdowns, travel restrictions and other diktats, many of which make little sense and some of which seem likely to make the spread of the virus worse. I’m all for sensible risk reduction. But policies of risk elimination are at least nine months too late. They’re nuts. And corrupt. And utterly incapable of providing leadership.

I’m pretty sick and tired of a fairly substantial chunk of the population. The ability to digest information and then articulate a sensible idea based on evidence and reason seems to be an increasingly lost art. And then there’s the conspiracy theorists who are actively promoting increasingly bizarre ideas and nonsense. Trump supporters are now, for all intent and purposes, conspiracy theorists. They’re fucking nuts.

At the end of a good rant, one should always find a means of adding some perspective, sanity or moral to the story. I’m sat at my desk in a ticket office looking out at the booking hall as I write today. Whilst I finished the last paragraph, a young boy of about ten had an absolute episode at the ticket barriers. Total mental breakdown.

I’m guessing he is autistic. Two ladies with him attempted to calm him down. But for a good ten minutes he screamed, writhed on the ground, punched them, beat himself, head butted anything within range. People trying to get past had to either step round him or step over him. It was quite a scene. You had to feel for them all. I’ll wager those two ladies have forgotten more about sick and tired than most of us will ever know. And there’s the perspective to the story for you.

I’ve taken to carrying a few snacks with me on my morning walks. The local squirrels are quite bold. They’ll take food from betwixt your fingers with little fear. And while their conversational skills are a bit lax, they’re good listeners. And they’re kind enough to agree with me. It’s all nuts. Nuts, nuts, nuts.