Intense

Ted is planning to overthrow the government. We spoke today and he’s livid. He’d just got used to seeing his family again and now he’s convinced he’ll be a hermit. I tried to explain that nothing too major has happened and that the only real change is that the ‘socialising with six’ guidance is becoming law, but he’s convinced there is a conspiracy to stop him enjoying his family. The fact that none of his children live in a group of more than four, so he will still be able to have a whole family unit round to visit him and Beryl each time, has been lost. So has the fact that he actually HATES having to have a gathering with more than 6 people anyway. He’s complained to me for years about ‘having the whole bloody brood around’ because there isn’t much space and he hates feeling crowded in his own home.

“Bastards want to cut us off completely,” he said. I told him (again) that none of this was aimed at him personally, that the legislation is aimed more at the people who have been having parties, rather than the likes of us who have just been bending the rules a little, and that – to be fair to Mr Johnson & his colleagues – we’re not supposed to have been getting together in groups of more than six anyway. All that changes tomorrow is that it’s now law, rather than guidance, and is therefore enforceable.

Ted was not impressed.

I’m not a huge fan of our current leaders, but it can’t be easy to make a long-term virus plan when a large proportion of Britons are either too thick to understand it, or too stubborn to go along with it. Even when you try to simplify things, people like Ted will be up in arms and planning a coup.

RC 13-9-20