When I was a wee lad up in the Northeast of Scotland, we lived across the road from the local fire station. It is remarkable looking back to think that, with almost universal open fires in houses, the widespread nature of smoking and the use of matches and the regular disposal of your rubbish at the back of the house by means of a bonfire that this was only a part-time fire service, with a single fire engine. They operated out of an old Nissen hut which, between fires, was completely deserted. I bet that has changed. There will now be a flotilla of fire engines and more pen-pushers than hose unwinders housed in a swanky modern building and the fire officers (taking account of all genders) will be more concerned with fire prevention than fire extinguishing. The occasional cat owner will be grateful although, in my experience of rescuing a cat from a tree, I am not sure if the cats share their gratitude.
The local firemen (and they were all men) were summoned from the fields or their beds by the old air raid siren situated in the centre of the town. This was also tested each week at 11am on a Tuesday which was not the best time to set your house on fire as nobody would come, ‘it’s just the weekly test’. When the siren went off, I would rush to our first-floor front room where the window overlooked the fire station. Without regard for personal safety the brave men of Kincardineshire would arrive on their bikes at breakneck speed and assemble. A few minutes later the sound of the fire engine bell would be audible and off they’d go to save life, limb and property. There was more than a slightly comedic aspect to this as there would often be a straggler who arrived late, had to find out the location of the fire and set off in pursuit of the fire engine on his bike.
It took me years to realise what firemen really did. As a toddler I lived under the delusion that they were responsible for starting the fires they then put out. This seemed counterproductive to me but in those days of being ‘seen and not heard’ I didn’t question it. Only later, probably after a well-deserved clip on the ear for being a ‘daft laddie’ did it dawn on me that their job was merely to put fires out. I slept much more easily in my bed as up to that point I was worried that, with our proximity to the fire station they would pay us a visit and set our house on fire. I mean, who on earth could believe that an organisation would exist to create the very conditions that ensured its existence? It would be like doctors creating illness, something unimaginable…until.
When I started working as an academic, I was a very early adopter of the ‘word processor’ which then evolved into the desktop computer and eventually became hooked up to the Internet. It was not long before I suffered my first attack from a ‘virus’. My computer froze, I froze, and a truck load of data and writing was lost or corrupted. Backup copies…nope; 3.5-inch floppy discs were expensive. But not to worry, it would never happen again. Mr Norton came to the rescue with his ridiculously expensive anti-viral package that always promised full protection…until it required to be updated. Like a veritable computerised condom and remarkably like a vaccine! But it was not long before someone planted in my head the idea that perhaps Mr Norton was also the inventor of the very viruses he purported to hunt down and destroy. And it has always been a possibility that Messrs McAfee, Malwarebytes and Avast are at the same game. In my mind, the jury remains out on the verdict. You can probably see where I am going here.
And so, we’ve arrived at the present day. Much older and much wiser I now look around me at a sea of face masks, and not all of them on faces. They are strewn on pavements, floating water-logged in puddles and some are, literally, in the sea. The monotony of face mask debris is relieved occasionally by blue surgical gloves which add some colour to the autumn leaves while simultaneously choking dolphins. Then there is the ever-pervasive smell of alcohol-based hand gels. This is everywhere, in shops, at work, in churches and some folk even offer you a squirt when you arrive at their houses. You catch the occasional whiff when you walk down the street as someone detoxifies their digits prior to engaging in some hard-core masked up shopping.
Until last year who, apart from those in the most rarefied heights of public health and epidemiology, had ever heard of ‘test and trace’. Now we’re all at it and a regular supply of tests at considerable cost arrives on our doormat so that my wife can be declared fit to go and watch students sitting examinations at the university. The astronomical amounts of money being made through all this by the major contractors has been reported previously in this column. But that iceberg has several tips. One local company in my town turned over its first million pounds by the end of 2020 providing test and trace services. This is replicated across the country and that is easy to verify if, like me, you have had to purchase a kit to stab up your nose two days after an overseas trip. You are spoiled for choice there with literally hundreds of firms to choose from. Some are familiar such as Boots and others with clearly made-up names such as TestyTrace Ltd (OK I made that one up, but you get the idea) have clearly been created opportunistically to provide and service Covid testing kits. Finally, there are the inordinately long queues for booster vaccines which—harmful effects aside—are all but useless against something that is virtually harmless.
We are in the midst of a fourth (or is it fifth?) wave of panic. The omicron variant is amongst us. Reported infection rates range from a few hundred to tens of thousands. And people clearly fall—as intended—for the larger figures, even if they are unverifiable. The damage is done, and they must be right; the government and its trustworthy medical and scientific advisers say so. Hospitalisations figures for those ‘with’ Covid had to be dramatically scaled back after Dominic Raab dropped a Covid clanger and wildly overestimated them. But I’ll bet the man on the Clapham omnibus has the larger figure in his head. And the death rate? Is it in the hundreds or even the thousands? No, it is allegedly one person, and we know nothing about the circumstances of this death. Vaccine passports—sorry ‘Covid passes’—have been unleashed within our shores in addition to masks and other mandates and we are, almost undoubtedly, heading for another lockdown with a rumour that it is pencilled in for 5 January 2022. Witless (and remarkably humourless) Chris Whitty* has announced that he will curtail his Christmas activities. I am guessing, from his Scrooge-like demeanour, that he was not planning many in the first place. Don’t worry Chris old boy, I intend to party like it’s the end of the world (which you seem to think it may be) and I urge my friends and fellow citizens to do likewise. You really could not make up this pandemic, but—and I am not alone—I am strongly beginning to suspect that someone has.
*check out the Daily Mash’s spoof ‘How to prioritise which social interactions really matter to you, by Chris Whitty’.
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