Month: November 2020

I Went to the Chip Shop Last Night…

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in The C-Word

…and although it doesn’t bode well for spinning 700 words out of it, I have to report the trip was entirely uneventful.

Well, ‘the new uneventful’ at any rate. It was the first time I’ve been since they reopened, and they seem to have it down to a fine art – even details like a plastic tray for putting cash into/taking change out of, to avoid even the potential for hand to hand contact.

Naturally it’s ‘Takeaway Only’ at the moment. Having placed my order, I progressed from the ‘shop counter’ into what was previously the café, and is now a convenient space for people to wait. On the face of it six strangers standing around the periphery of a room wearing facemasks would have seemed at the very least odd, and probably downright sinister, just twelve months ago – now, though, it seems entirely natural.

The next customer in after me voiced the opinion that it was like a party – although, without wishing to in any way label myself an expert, it wasn’t like any party I’ve ever been to. It reminded me more of those films where a shadowy cabal, their faces hidden, gather to plot the downfall of civilisation or to sacrifice a goat or something. (There was, for some reason, an empty table in the middle of the room, but I can assure you that no goats were slain on it. At least not while I was there – although obviously once my order was ready I took it and ran and didn’t dare look back.)

As you’d expect, other than the party observation, we did the typically English thing of saying absolutely nothing. A couple of the younger customers were on their phones, and there was a gentleman who seemed to think that thirty inches was two metres (my wife said something similar to me just the other night, funnily enough) but all in all, we stood and waited and followed the rules – if not exactly to the letter, at least a lot closer than if we’d, say, taken a twenty mile drive to test our eyesight. (Ooh, feel that satirical burn.)

The mind wanders while doing nothing, doesn’t it. I coped with the initial sense of absurdity, and the moment of panic that I might have unwittingly gatecrashed the Star Chamber or the Antifa AGM, but I really struggled NOT to burst out laughing when I imagined one of us tapping a foot, another drumming their fingers, and then all of us spontaneously bursting into song in a way that (despite youthful hopes to the contrary) never ever happens in real life. I grinned like an idiot at the thought, but luckily it was all going on below the mask line, so just like when Bruce Forsyth tap-danced behind a desk on Have I Got News For You, nobody could see a thing.

And then the chips were ready, and I left.

The news on the vaccine front, somewhere between tentative and encouraging, is a welcome light at the end of the tunnel (which is just as well, otherwise at the moment it would be unrelentingly tunnel); but so too is seeing places open again. Granted it’s ‘the new open’ requiring lots more empty spaces for people to just stand around thinking stupid thoughts while they wait, and that comes at a cost, but I have to assume it’s better than nothing.

It’s still a very hard time for most businesses (although presumably the suppliers of yellow & black adhesive tape, and the owners of Perspex Screens R Us, will have had bumper years) but for those that manage to cling on, I think ‘on the other side’ they may reap the benefits – based on last night, people clearly want to be out (or at the very least, don’t want to cook on a Friday night). So in a bizarre way, despite the masks, and the lockdown, and the impending tiers, it gave me just a little bit of optimism.

And that’s all but 700 words, so time’s up – meaning, alas, I don’t have space left to mention this bloke down the chip shop.

Swears he’s Elvis…? * 

*             I can only apologise for what I know is a very weak ending.**

**           Although, on the other hand, it’s referencing a VERY good song.***

***        Alas, even those who subscribe to the ‘he didn’t really die in 1977’ theory as regards the King, would presumably concede that 43 years later, he’d be 85, so either way he most likely is by now. Sorry about that.

So Shines A Good Deed…

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Brexit, Little Bit Of Politics, Trump

…In A Weary World.

(I’ll be honest, I thought I was quoting Gene Wilder at the end of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory there. Turns out it’s actually from The Merchant of Venice. Who knew?)

But anyway, and leaving aside my cultural ignorance, and if you don’t want to know the results of the US Presidential election, look away now…

I went to bed Tuesday evening in the expectation that I would wake on Wednesday to a result, and to headlines which were either Mr Trump’s self-congratulation on his victory, or a furious rejection of his defeat.

As it happened, of course, I woke on Wednesday NOT to a result, but unexpectedly to Trump both congratulating himself on his victory AND also furiously rejecting his defeat; and that’s pretty much set the tone for the rest of the week. I mean, I get jittery when I don’t know who the new Doctor Who is, but this…

I feel, to be honest, a little bit sorry for Joe Biden. He first became a senator back in 1972. He was Vice-President for 8 years. He stood as a potential Democratic candidate twice before. No doubt over the decades he’s often thought about being President – sometimes simple daydreaming, but at other times in an actively seeking it, ‘I can almost touch it’, sort of way. Now he’s done it – yet somehow, now that his moment has come, the limelight is still firmly on Mr Trump.

At any other time Biden would have had the dignified concession speech from his opponent, and where he could normally expect a productive, civilised transfer of power, he’s surely in for a rough ride over the next couple of months. Even his inauguration is likely to be overshadowed either by a petulant Trump turning up, or by an even more petulant one deciding to host a different event elsewhere at the same time. Frankly I expect Biden won’t really feel ‘there’ until he’s actually sat in the Oval Office – and to be honest, if Trump hasn’t taken all the headed notepaper with him it’ll be a surprise.

In my opinion (though CNN didn’t ask) it was never going to be a landslide, and to be honest if anyone had pressed me on the issue (although Fox didn’t) this time last week I’d have guessed Mr Trump would just have squeezed back in. It looks like by the time it’s finished Biden will have a definite win, though not a huge one.

Even so, it shows that it is possible to step back from the brink, that the majority has turned away from the bitterly divisive stylings of a President who has been driven by ego and a need for praise, with a largely-misplaced certainty of his own genius, and who considers it acceptable to tell blatant lies, and to make wild and unsubstantiated claims.

In our own way, the UK has also been troubled by something bitterly divisive since 2016. Not an individual in our case, although various individuals have certainly been part of it, similarly driven by ego, and a certainty of their own genius, and the acceptability of telling huge lies. And likewise, at least in its current impending form, Brexit will be over in January. For us it isn’t something we can turn away from or change our minds on – but hopefully when the actual event has passed we can start to ‘get over it’.

In fact, for a brief shining moment earlier this year, in the midst of the growing pandemic, there was a sense that we genuinely were all in it together, and that we would come together, united in the face of this awful crisis. Alas, that good faith has been squandered. By individuals and ego and huge lies…

So, unquestionably, and as I’m sure President-Elect Biden is keenly aware now that he was won the vote, there is a lot of work to be done. But, with a swing away from division, discrimination and vanity, we’ve been shown it is possible.

For today at least, God bless America.